Dials turned just as he grabbed the piece of metal and pulled it out. “Shit!” She lost her balance and fell.
Adamarus looked at the piece of metal. From the line of blood on it, it had penetrated a good two inches. He felt his head and found where it had gone in.
Dials got up from the floor, watching in morbid fascination.
After a few minutes of exploring and feeling his skull, which seemed intact, he said, “I think it’s okay. It just skidded along my skull under the skin.”
Dials examined Adamarus’ head and confirmed that, as horrible as it had looked, it was just a flesh wound.
“Check the others,” he said.
Dials went to check on the other crew members while he initiated calls to the rest of the fighter group.
Sphere Bots helped Dials place bodies into body bags, collect debris and, where possible, put things back together.
On the com, there was nothing, in fact, no com traffic of any kind, which was strange. He tried to contact Battle Group One, but again, nothing. Then he saw the problem, the com unit had suffered damage.
Next Adamarus checked for other damage to the ship. There was not much—really only the com and weapon’s panels, which was bad enough.
A few minutes later, Dials came back up. “Van is out cold—hit his head, but I think he’s okay.”
Adamarus turned and asked, “And the rest?”
As she released Jag’s body from his seat, she turned and just shook her head. “How are the other fighters?” she asked as she began placing Jag into the body bag.
Adamarus shook his head, “I can’t locate anyone—something’s wrong with the com system.” He helped Dials get Jag the rest of the way into the body bag.
“How much damage to the ship?”
“Outside of coms and,” he tilted his head toward the charred weapons console, “losing all of our weapons? The rest seems okay.”
“Where’s the black hole?”
“It looks like it just vanished.”
She paused from zipping up the body bag and looked up at him. Her eyes were large—dazed. He realized that she was in shock…and so was he.
Adamarus looked away and out the view port. “We knew that the alien would somehow get rid of the black hole. According to the Loud, they hold it in some kind of alternate dimension or something. Now, instead of a black hole with an event horizon the size of a planet, there will be a ship. You need to get back to your sensors and see where it is.”
Dials pulled the body bag back to where the rest of them were being stowed. She checked on Van who was still out cold and then she went to her station. She wondered why she seemed to feel so little for their dead crew members, then realized, as Adamarus had, that they were in shock—the deaths hadn’t sunk in yet.
She quickly studied her long-range sensors, but nothing jumped out at her. She played back the sensor history. The event horizon had swelled and overtaken them, and then, a few seconds later, it as well as its gravitational pull had vanished. She checked the long-range sensors again…nothing. She switched the sensors to short range and was dumbfounded at what she saw. Her head spun as fear squeezed the breath out of her. She tried to call out to Adamarus, but her throat closed. Finally she literally screamed out, “Reverse engines! Reverse engines now!”
Adamarus heard the fear in her voice and slammed his hand down on the emergency reverse thrusters as he called back, “What the hell. What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Faster,” she screamed. “It’s huge. It’s right on top of us.”
Adamarus automatically increased speed, but looked out the windows and saw…nothing. “Goddamn it, Dials. There’s nothing out there.” He heard a commotion and suddenly Dials was beside him looking wildly out the windows. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asked.
Dials kept looking out the windows. She was panting, her face filled with confusion. “It’s huge…right next to us. We were falling into it…” she caught her breath, “I don’t understand…”
Adamarus looked forward again and shook his head—there was nothing there. He tried to imagine what would cause such a thing to show up on the ship’s sensors. As he thought about this, something started tugging at the back of his mind—something he’d heard or read. His eyes lost their focus as he was thinking…and that’s when he saw it.
Dials ran a hand through her hair as she continued searching the stars in front of them. “Maybe a malfunction of some kind…I don’t know.” She lost her balance as the ship lurched. She looked over at Adamarus. He was applying more reverse thrust and staring out the window with a haunted look. “What is it?” she asked.
“Look,” he nodded forward out the window, “do you see it?”
She turned again to the window, nothing had changed, just stars. “I don’t…”
“Don’t look at the stars…focus in front of them and…look between them.” Suddenly it came to him, “I remember reading a theory on this…if something could survive within an event horizon and somehow get out, it might be rendered temporarily invisible because it would have lost its ability to stop and reflect light. Photon saturation I think…”
She saw it then. Between the stars should be fainter stars, but there was something else there. As their ship pulled away, it became clearer. Now it was visible though still transparent. “Oh my God” she whispered. She looked off to the sides—it stretched off in all directions. Slowly, as they pulled back, the structure solidified. It seemed to creep from the blackness between the stars and materialize from nothing until it finally blocked the star field and became a solid object.
There before them was a wall that seemed to stretch off in all directions for as far as they could see. Moreover, all of it looked like a corroded ruin. The outline of what had been complex structures could just be made out under the corrosion. It was as if a complex machine had been allowed to rust for many years until the rust had completely eaten the original machine leaving only an outline.
There were more than just layers of rust. Here and there were deformed regions of dull purple and green that looked like a corrosive acid had caused areas to bubble up and melt.
As the fighter slowly moved away, what had looked like a flat ruined wall became rounded and its spherical form slowly became visible. Finally, its overall form took shape—they faced a vast sphere the size of a moon. As more of it came into view, they could see that colossal appendages protruded from the sphere and bent both upward and downward. Their diameter slowly tapered and they continued away from the ruined sphere seemingly to forever.
---
Radin frowned and stood as the image of the Blackship appeared on the main viewer. The raw image was too small to see. “Magnification to full,” Radin ordered. It was still very far away, but what appeared on the main view port was a sphere with eight incredibly long thin arms extending from its mid-section.
Radin’s first officer was consulting with the science officer and sensor specialist. She turned to Radin, “We have initial measurements. They match the image captured earlier when the event horizon vanished.”
Radin nodded. The viewer was at full optical zoom, but the computer could take that and enlarge it further. “Enlarge the sphere.”
What appeared stunned everyone on the bridge. After 15 seconds of staring at the ruined sphere in complete silence, pandemonium broke out across the three-level bridge, cheering, whooping and hollering. In fact, this scene was repeated on the bridges of hundreds of battleships and support ships. It seemed obvious that the Dawn Jumpers had done the job after all; the alien ship was a total wreck—destroyed.
However, the sensor specialists did not join in with the cheering for they knew something was not right.
Radin walked forward to the sensor station. “Power readings?” he asked in a quiet voice. Lt. Sue Rinker’s face told the story. She just pointed at the reading on her console. Radin closed his eyes. The alien ship was generating enormous levels of power.
Radin returned to the
captain’s seat and keyed the intercom, then keyed the communications to all 500 plus ships. “Attention. This is Fleet Admiral Radin.” The cheering went down somewhat on Radin’s bridge. “I’m afraid the celebrating is premature.” His bridge went silent. “The alien ship seems damaged, but at the same time, it is generating an enormous amount of energy. I’m initializing a fleet wide red alert.” The bridge’s lighting was replaced by red lighting and the red alert siren sounded. “All ships, all hands to battle stations.”
His first officer had approached. Radin tilted his head.
“We’ve found Adamarus’ ship,” she said. “They’re not responding to our hails, but the Loud think their com may be damaged and are trying another way to contact them. They’re very close to the alien ship, but seem to be pulling away under power.”
---
Adamarus stared at Battle Group One. Although still hidden behind the gas giant, they were barely visible at normal magnification on the tactical holograph.
Dials handed him a cup of coffee. “Thank you.” He sipped at the hot brew and thought he’d never tasted anything as good.
On the tactical holograph, the Umbrella ship began to move forward. It continued until it peaked from the edge of the gas giant—enough for Jumper One to see it, but not enough for the Blackship to observe. A flicker of light appeared from the Umbrella ship. “Dials…do you see that?”
“Yes, I do.” Dials made her way quickly to her sensor console. Adamarus followed her. “That looks like an optical transmission to me.” She worked quickly at her console, then got up and hurried to Van’s communication station.
Adamarus followed her, “An optical transmission?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, working around Van's unconscious form at his console, “which is an awesome idea considering we don’t seem to be receiving any tach-com or radio yet.” Dials thought she could repair the com system, but it would take some time.
Dials channeled the light source through a working section of the com unit. Both Adamarus and Dials jumped as static came over the com speakers. The translated voice of Bugs came through the static, “…come in. Admiral Adamarus Maximus, please come in.”
“Maximus here,” Adamarus acknowledged.
There was a pause, then the translator voice returned. “I am glad to discover that you are alive, Adamarus. How is your crew and ship?”
“Three people survived though one is unconscious with a head injury. The ship held up better, but as you seem to know, our com unit is out and a short caused the weapons console to burn up so…we have no teeth.”
There was another pause, then, “What you see before you is the Blackship of the Slayers. It looks like it is burned up and dead, but even now it holds its large black hole in trans-dimensional stasis. It looks like it has sustained significant damage, but it is functioning at some level for it is generating a large amount of energy. You need to shut down your engines and go silent as soon as possible. Also, after this transmission ends, maintain com silence.”
“We will send you a burst transmission optically when we sign off to update you on many things, including your new orders. Your ship damage puts you out of the fight, but you can still perform a valuable task.”
“We believe that the Blackship is still transitioning back into normal space and that it is not aware of its surroundings yet. Drift away silently and stay silent and it may not notice you. Review the burst transmission. I am signing off now. Probability fold in your favor.”
Adamarus acknowledged and signed off. The burst transmission took two seconds. Then they cut their engines, running lights and all equipment and sensors that produced emissions that could give them away. They went silent.
The burst transmission contained their new orders: They were to observe and record what transpired using passive sensors. When they deemed it safe, they were to report in then make it back to the nearest facility or Amular.
The burst transmission also contained the visuals and sensor readings from Battle Group One. They were taken by sensors in orbit around Serena whose position gave a different perspective on what had happened to the black hole. The event horizon had suddenly started expanding outward until it simply vanished. As they watched, the huge Blackship slowly materialized out of nothing right in front of Adamarus’ ship.
They also learned the fate of their two remaining fighters: One had exploded as soon as the gravity from the black hole had vanished; the other was still racing away at full power. All efforts to contact it so far had failed.
---
At President Wicker’s request, a virtual conference was set up through the Tachyon narrow beam switches orbiting Serena. It included General Burnwall (Planet Side Defenses), Admiral Leewood (Orbital Defenses), Fleet Admiral Radin (Space Based Defenses), Dr. Harrington (Alien Communications), Dr. Woodworth (Historical Records) and Bugs. Due to the radio silence imposed on Adamarus’ fighter, Admiral Maximus could not be included.
In front of each attendee was a large screen broken into eight sections—one for each person, excluding themselves, and two showing two different real time images of the Blackship.
President Wicker opened, “Hopefully this will be a very short meeting. As I understand it, observation and scans of the Blackship indicate that it may have been severely damaged by the Jumpers. Visual inspection shows that the ship’s entire exterior has been destroyed and possibly melted and fused so that anything that survived inside the ship may be trapped within.”
The president paused briefly before continuing. “However, the ship is still capable of controlling its course and deceleration profile and obviously capable of placing and holding its black hole outside normal space. The ship is generating a huge amount of energy. Does this reflect all that we know about the alien ship?”
“Yes,” answered Bugs.
The President continued, “Our objective has always been to inflict enough damage on the alien ship to drive it away, but not so much damage that it lost control of its black hole. Given the current situation, how can we know if we have achieved this goal? What if we’ve damaged it so bad it can’t leave? I need suggestions on…”
The president was cut short by the sudden and startling events on the real-time video feed for they changed everything.
---
Van had regained consciousness and Adamarus and Dials had brought him up to date. Therefore, it happened that the three of them were staring out the front view port at what appeared to be the ruined hulk of the Spiral Slayer’s Blackship when everything changed.
One moment the ruined ship was there, and in the next moment, the ship was replaced by an expanding rust colored cloud. At first, all of them thought that the alien ship had exploded. Then, as the rust colored cloud continued to expand, a dark shape began to show through.
Adamarus tried to make out what was mostly hidden within the expanding debris. He turned back to the sensor station, “Dials, quickly, play that back in slow motion.”
On the smaller screen, Dials backed the sensor recording up to the point just before the explosion, then replayed it in slow motion.
“Slower,” Adamarus said.
Only when the event was replayed in extreme slow motion was the truth revealed. As the corrosion burst apart, barely visible was something underneath moving so fast that it was just a blur.
“Freeze that,” Adamarus ordered. He studied the still image, then said, “Scrub back several frames...there…”
Within the long corroded arms, which were now bursting apart, glimpses of something black could be seen, and in that particular frame, a short section emerged from the exploding plume revealing itself. Though blurred, it was obvious that it was a smooth black tentacle. It was further obvious that the ship had moved its arms with incredible speed to a new configuration and that the sphere had probably rotated. The movement had shattered the corroded shell that had encased the ship.
In awe, Dials said, “The arms were moving at relativistic speeds.”
The deb
ris continued to expand. Where the moon-sized sphere had been, the debris was still too thick to see much of anything. Adamarus longed to use the ship’s sensors to reveal what was within the cloud, but dared not, lest he give their position away.
Minutes passed. The debris cloud expanded until finally the black form of the apparently undamaged Blackship was easy to make out. The eight arms had combined into only four arms and had risen level with the sphere. They were loosely coiled around it in a shape resembling that of a spiral galaxy.
“Shit,” Van exclaimed summing up the situation succinctly.
---
At that same moment, back at Dark Mountain, the president shouted “Fuck!” He turned to face the room. “It looks like our alien friend has some tricks we aren’t aware of. Okay, gentlemen, it’s back to Plan A—questions, comments, concerns?” No one had anything. “Then let’s get to work. Meeting adjourned.”
---
As each of the meeting’s attendees signed off and vanished from his teleconference screen, Fleet Admiral Radin Talvin sat and stared at the image of the Blackship emerging from the expanding cloud of rust colored debris. Of course—it had been too good to be true, he thought.
The monstrosity emerging from the cloud looked evil and was like no space ship he’d ever seen or imagined. It was a uniform dull black color. It was huge…but why did it look evil? Finally, it came to him—it looked like a spider with too little complexity. The three holes in the lower hemisphere that now faced him looked like two eyes and a mouth and the four arms looked just...too thin and too long.
Radin looked around. The five officers in the conference room with him were all looking at him. He stood and pointed at the hatch leading to the bridge, “Okay, let’s get the diplomatic effort going.”
All of them filed back onto the bridge.
---
The Blackship was still traveling much faster than the top speed of any Amular war ship. This was why, for the better part of a decade, Battle Group Three had been using their sun and all two of their star system’s gas giants as slingshots to boost their speed to the level needed to keep up with the Blackship.
Countdown Amageddon (The Spiral Slayers Book 2) Page 31
