Athena disengaged her escape pod and allowed it to sink into the Atlantic as she swam the rest of the short way toward the cliff face. Gripping the rock, she willed her body forward. She fought the fatigue and added weight from her soaking clothes. Slowly, but skillfully, she began her ascent. She needed to distract her mind from her sore limbs and growling stomach. Focus on the Aesir—why are they here? What else has been suspicious about them recently? Their engineers have been making mistakes on Olympian ships—intentional mistakes? Their economy has finally stabilized—was it only faltering because of their preparation for this attack? What would I want if I were them?
More than anything, I’d want independence. And given their flippant applications of biological augmentations, I wouldn’t grasp the idea that technology outstripping evolution has dire consequences. They don’t understand that technology doesn’t supplant evolution. It can mimic it to an extent, but true evolution will prevent societies from imploding. Olympia is partly to blame for this shortcoming, though. We left behind technology and experimental results on Asgard during the Fracturing. We underestimated the Aesir. I can’t do that now.
Athena reached the top of the cliff and collapsed on the ground. She looked up at the stars, six thousand of them poking holes in the black tarp enclosing the sky. Maybe they just want chaos? They can use the experiments on Earth as leverage against the Council—threaten to inform broader Olympia that the Council has broken their own laws and are still secretly experimenting on sentient beings, but to what end? Force the Council to put some of their leaders in positions of real power—possibly on the Council itself—or recognize their sovereignty?
There was some vegetation growing near Athena; she reached out, tore it from the ground, sniffed it, and ate some.
She closed her eyes, ready to rest for a few hours before she moved on. I’ll find food tomorrow, and then what? If nothing else, I should act against what the Aesir are doing with humans—I can send broadcasts to contradict what they said. But to what effect? Panic? It would at least give Atlas a clue I’m still alive… Athena didn’t want to admit to herself that she wished she was still in contact with Atlas, but it was true nonetheless.
Panic…that could be why the Aesir didn’t pursue me into Earth’s atmosphere. Alien ships in the skies might induce panic and chaos on Earth. Maybe their plan is deeper than mere leverage against the Council—they are guiding the humans to something. They want Earth to trust them. If they know about our experiments here and they’re guiding humans then…
Her eyes opened and she sat up on her elbows. I need to cause panic. They likely know I’m still alive—my crash will be reported all over this planet. I can force them to come find me on my terms, my terrain.
Athena looked over her shoulder to the northeast. Egypt. I know Egypt well. I led the assaults against the facilities there at the start of the Fracturing. I can set a trap for them…
A smile crossed Athena’s face, she finally felt in control of the situation. The key to unraveling whatever they’re doing is to spark chaos on Earth and then, when they try to stop me, I can kill them in Egypt.
Act II, Chapter 11
Dionysus
Location: Bellum System
Zetes was back at the aion monitoring station with Notus. A reticent malaise had permeated his psyche. He spent the last couple of days reflecting on Dionysus’ eccentric nature, trying to decipher everything he said and asked. Zetes felt that even the mundane questions about his life had some deeper meaning. ‘Any romantic partners? Ever fly close enough to a star to damage your ship? Do you view Olympia as an economy or a nation?’ Dionysus was a quick-witted enigma, Zetes was sure some of his comments went over his head.
“I can’t believe it!” Notus exclaimed, smiling ear-to-ear. “Another message!” He again removed the physical file containing the encrypted message, secured it in its carrying case, and handed it to Zetes. “I’ll alert central command on Bellum.”
Zetes was startled out of contemplation and grabbed the package from Notus. “Oh, yeah, thanks.” He again used the private elevator to move to the top of the building where two of the Council’s Cerberus guards were waiting. This time, the wordless, identical guards in white armor didn’t make him nervous. Zetes was focused on something else; he was hoping the new message would allow him to spend more time with Dionysus. Another opportunity to learn from the man that out-smarted the Anunnaki…
After arriving at the Central Office of Military Command for the second time that week, he was again escorted to Poseidon’s office where both Poseidon and Dionysus were meeting.
“The message sent over the aion network, sir,” Zetes said as he saluted.
“Bring it here,” Poseidon replied, his jaw and cheeks slightly sagging as he slowly exhaled.
“Zetes! What are the chances?” Dionysus said as he got up to greet him.
Zetes handed Poseidon the package containing the file and turned to Dionysus. Unsure of what to say, he saluted. “Well I’m still on the monitoring shift for a few days, sir.”
“Ahh—we’re way past salutes!” Dionysus said as he grabbed Zetes’ elbow and forearm and gave it a vigorous shake. It was a less formal, but more intimate way to greet friends and family. “Take a seat.”
Zetes’ looked at Poseidon for confirmation. “Sir?”
Poseidon sighed and shook his head in affirmation. “Dionysus is going to…run an errand and he has chosen you to be his pilot.”
Zetes gasped, excited, but turned it into an inhale leading to “Yes, sir!” He briskly took a few steps to an empty chair across from Dionysus, on the other side of Poseidon’s desk.
Poseidon read the message and looked at Dionysus. “It’s an incomplete message from Athena. All we got was ‘Sen.’ Is it possible this is an error in our instruments?”
Dionysus shoulders dropped, suddenly deflated. “No, it means she was stopped mid-transmission and, given that her ship is outfitted with the best defense equipment Olympia can offer and these messages transmit in full once they are written, I think…her ship was destroyed while she was sending it, or at least disabled.”
Poseidon’s eyes reflected sorrow, but the rest of his countenance was unchanged.
“It doesn’t mean she’s dead! Athena is hard to kill—I’ve seen many Primordials try first hand. We both have,” Dionysus said, more to himself than anyone else in the room.
Poseidon relaxed a little. “Well, this doesn’t change your…errand either way. You should leave immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” Dionysus saluted and waved for Zetes to follow him. “We’ll talk once we get to my ship.”
They walked in silence until they reached Dionysus’ ship.
* * *
Zetes gazed at Dionysus’ ship—the Thyrsus—in awe and confusion. It was a unique vessel. It consisted of three sharp, curved prongs emanating from a central cockpit. A dense metal rod covered in tiny bumps ran parallel to the prongs, positioned in the center between all three. The prongs had the cross-section of a tear drop. The pointed end faced out from the center, but its exact angle from the center changed with the built-in twisting of each prong. The prongs stretched twice the length of the cockpit and curved out enough to be the widest point of the Thyrsus by multiple meters. The cockpit itself was an uninspiring, thick, oblong fuselage with a long retractable stand to keep it level with the prongs when docked.
“What…why are the—”
“—wings in the front?” Dionysus interrupted him. “Those, and the cylinder in the middle, are the majority of the defensive and offensive weapons I have onboard. The wings rapidly rotate one-way to produce a minor curving of space. The cylinder acts as a counterweight to prevent the Thyrsus from being torn apart and to cancel out the curving of space within the fuselage.
“I’ve built the wings in a way to bend space around the ship, mimicking the airflow around craft flying through an atmosphere. It actually wasn’t terribly difficult to solve—space itself can be modeled similar to a
fluid. Anyway, the curving space will deflect incoming projectiles and radiation. It’s not enough curvature to prevent anything from hitting the ship, but it will deflect slower and weaker projectiles. That’s not the main defensive benefit, though; it’s the bending of time that helps the most.
“Time itself slows down around the ship—at least from the pilot’s perspective. But due to the counter-acting rotating cylinder the space-time within the ship remains untouched, meaning that I can dodge the slowed down incoming offensive projectiles.”
“Wait, that doesn’t make sense, uh, I mean I have a question, sir,” Zetes replied.
“I told you before: drop the ‘sir’ crap. Speak to me normally. It’s one of the reasons I pushed to have you join me on this errand.”
“Yeah, sure. If you are moving your ship out of the way of a projectile, won’t it enter the curved space and render your advantage meaningless?”
“Ahh, ok. No. For two reasons. First, the significant part of the curved space is actually a wide cocoon—maybe around a couple of kilometers—from the ship, giving me wiggle room within that area. Second, and more importantly, the counter-acting cylinder works to mend space-time as I approach the end of that cocoon. Sort of like two waves in a fluid canceling each other out. It gives me a huge time advantage.
“The Thyrsus is not unstoppable, though. If an enemy knew I was curving space they could send automated probes out to cancel the bending and leave me totally vulnerable.”
“Ok. I still don’t fully understand, but I’m not sure I could. You mentioned it’s also your offensive capability?”
“Yes, and well, it sort of has to be. Anything launched from my ship has to pass the curved space-time cocoon I generated, so any traditional offensive weapons aren’t useful. My only option is to use warped space-time as my weapon.
“In theory, I could get close to a craft and alter the spin of my ship. If I quickly distorted the space-time gradient at the edge of the cocoon generated I could use that to tear most vessels apart.”
“’In theory?’ You’ve never tried it? So it might not work?”
“It should, in theory. Anyway, the ship you’re flying will have weapons, so no need to worry about mine.”
“And which ship will I be flying?” I hope my craft has at least been tested…
“A new craft the military has yet to officially announce to the Navy at large. I was given the honor of naming the first functional model—Helios—which is what you’ll be piloting. It’s essentially a smaller Storskip, able to carry up to 20 smaller fighters and travel at superluminal speeds, but with more space dedicated to long-range weaponry. It also has a number of defensive upgrades, including the ability to withstand extremely high temperatures, allowing the craft to fly next to or within many stars. The controls are fundamentally the same as a Storskip—it’s actually being brought to us now. They’ll load my ship into it and we can get out of here.”
“And where are we going exactly?”
“Let’s wait to discuss that until we are exiting the Bellum system,” Dionysus said with a hint of annoyance.
Zetes recoiled at the notion of irritating Dionysus and wanted to change the topic. The silence is deafening—say something! “It’s odd how much chance plays a role in our lives. It could easily have been any other pilot who was monitoring the aion network during the communication…”
Dionysus smiled. “Randomness is what squeezes drops of beauty from the arid predictability of the universe, but it’s also what Olympian society fears the most. Our rules are suitable for implementing a general civil structure with smooth governance, but don’t work well in the face of rare events. Those events—such as a war—are what ultimately shapes and drives our existence.
“I was serious in what I said when we first met: some rules need to be broken. There are times—especially during violent conflict—when following neat and logical instructions are merely a blueprint for a slow death. There will come a time for all of us when the rules no longer make sense and we need to act on instinct.”
Zetes was relieved Dionysus was in different spirits and posed a question back to him. “How do you know when those moments are?”
“You feel it. It’s not something Olympians are good at either, but a knot in your stomach or a sudden dry throat. You feel something wrong with the situation. It’s not logic that drives you to the conclusion to act, but an urge.”
Zetes nodded his head, but didn’t fully grasp what Dionysus said.
They spoke little until their ships were ready.
* * *
The Thyrsus was loaded into Helios and Dionysus sat in the cockpit with Zetes as he piloted the new starship. After moving sufficiently distant from the gravity well produced by the Bellum system to engage their superluminal engines, Zetes looked over at Dionysus; his curious countenance asking the wordless question of their destination.
“We are going to the Earth system. We’ll need to decelerate one light year outside from the host star—at these exact coordinates,” Dionysus said as he handed Zetes a paper.
Zetes started setting the coordinates. “That’s not what I was expecting.”
“I know. There is a lot happening on Earth that the general military—let alone the public—doesn’t know about.” Dionysus took a deep breath. “For starters, experiments never stopped on Earth. They are more observationally-based now, but they’ve continued nonetheless. I will explain the nature of the experiments later, but the Council views them as essential for the long-term survival of Olympia.
“The first message we received over the aion network was from Athena. She was instructing us to stay away from Earth. We sent probes to check on the Chronos Passages in that system and elsewhere. They’ve all collapsed.” Dionysus saw the perplexed look on Zetes’ face. “Ahh yes, you don’t know what a Chronos Passage is.
“Essentially, it’s a wormhole with one end aging slower than the other; thereby, connecting not just two distant points in space, but two points in time. The fact that all of them have collapsed leads me to believe that one or more of them was sabotaged.”
Zetes put his hand up. “Sir—uhh Dionysus, I’m sorry, are you saying we have time machines?”
“Not in the way you might think. Chronos Passages aren’t so much time machines as they are a backup for the state of the universe. Once they’re used, all slices of space-time—within the region of space that could possibly be affected by the Passage’s use—are reconfigured to reflect a previous state of the cosmos, with the only alterations being related to the person that used the Passage.
“Mechanisms to explain the Passages effects are still occasionally debated behind closed-doors—theories such as ‘parallel universes’ have been tossed around—but most don’t make sense to me. I think the solution is more akin to how the quantum world functions: particles are considered to be in a superposition until they are “observed” and “collapse” to a specific location or region. The same likely happens with Chronos Passages. The universe, on some level, is in—or has the ability to be in—a superposition of all potential configurations of space and time. Somehow, the Chronos Passage is able to “save” a version of that superposition, and traveling through one collapses the universe back to that state. Of course, a few mathematicians have argued that both my explanation and the parallel realities one are the same, but I have yet to be convinced.” Dionysus saw the confusion on Zetes’ face wasn’t dissipating. Stick to the basics—he isn’t following. “Apologies for the tangent—that wasn’t helpful, but I don’t get to openly discuss this too often.”
Zetes smiled and shook his head. “No, no, that’s okay, but could you slow down? I’m not even sure how wormholes are created.”
“Of course—let’s start there. All wormholes are generated by ripping space, not folding, but ripping. The same technology that allows for superluminal flight can be used to tear apart two portions of space. Once the universe is torn, the opening created is immediately filled in with expanding
space from all other directions. Think of it like how water acts when you put both your hands into a basin and then slowly move them apart—water rushes in to fill the void.
“Now, the two torn sections—your hands in the analogy—still have to stay connected with zero distance within our three macro spatial dimensions. In the case of your hands, they are still connected to your body and in the case of space a new dimension is opened. Maybe a better way to think about it is sticking a pen through a sheet of paper with one fold. As you move the paper back into a creaseless sheet you see that the pen is still providing a connection between the two tears. From a certain perspective it creates its own primitive dimension.
“All this isn’t without cost, though. By ripping open space we expose ourselves to what sits outside of it, which is a separate topic entirely.
“But that’s still only half the picture. If any of these wormholes were to collapse it would affect all others. Not instantaneously, but eventually. The shock to the fabric of space would travel faster than light throughout the galaxy. It would act as a sort of vibration on the exterior of space. Not a literal ‘exterior’ like on the hull of a ship, but the boundary separating our space-time from what’s outside it.
The Gods Who Chose Us Page 23
