by Paul Hughes
“Reynald—We can’t stay here… Kilbourne’s made an alliance with—”
“I know. I know. And believe me, there’s a significant portion of the Judas who are dead set against it, but Kilbourne has the new gunships at her command. And she’s willing to use them... But that can wait. I heard you talking in your sleep... I’m so sorry about Jade. Mara told me—”
Sapphire’s shaking grew worse. “I... I—.” She broke down, holding her face in her hands.
“Now, now, little one. It wasn’t your fault.”
Through her tears she blurted, “Yes it was. I killed her, and for what? Hannah forged an alliance with the same Enemy that we’d been killing for three years.”
“Hush now, ’Phire. You—”
“Doesn’t she see that they won’t honor alliances, that they won’t spare anyone? Once they break into the Stream, we’re all dead, and the Purpose won’t matter.”
“I know that, Sapphire. I believe you. Trust me.”
“What’s happened, Reynald?”
Reynald sighed, sat back in the darkened room. “Things change. Alliances are forged in desperation. Magdalene is dead.”
“What? How—”
“She found out too much. Command killed her. Hannah killed her.”
“Does Simon know?”
“Simon didn’t know. And still doesn’t, if he’s still alive himself. Which I doubt… It was all under the table. Magdalene was ordered to transport several Enemy core patterns to Command. Ambassadors of your When’s Enemy. When she refused, Kilbourne sent the Golgotha after her, and they chased us into a When that was being prepared for upload. Uncharted. Millennium 2 OCE. The Fourteen-seven When. They chased us there, but before they could destroy us, the Enemy did the job for them. We were forced to crash land on the surface of Earth. She knew Command wouldn’t answer any distress calls, so we deployed a general beacon, calling any Fleet vessels in the vicinity. Fortunately, Simon was near. He barely rescued my crew before the Enemy initiated system upload. The natives killed Magdalene when they found her, but her blood is on the hands of Command... And Kilbourne... They imprisoned me when I returned in pattern stasis. If it hadn’t been for my crew, I’d be in the void forever.”
“What’s happening to the Judas, Reynald? Once we were so confident that we could win this war, and now we’re fighting amongst ourselves.”
“Some of us are leaving.”
“What?”
“We’re going to try to leave. To escape. I’ve spoken with the other Golgotha captains. They want to come with us. We have supporters in the Golgotha, Galilee, London, Gethsemane, and even the old Mecca and Eden class vessels. If we all move at once—”
“But Hannah has the Mujahadin.”
“...” Reynald paused, contemplating. “Our forces comprise almost one third of the Fleet. I don’t think Hannah is devoted enough to her cause to destroy one third of her safety net. We’ll regroup in an uncharted When, build our offensive from there. Chances are that the program command codes have been compromised already. If the Mujahadin fail, if Kilbourne’s allies turn against her, she’ll have to turn to us to save her. She won’t risk everything. Kilbourne may be a traitor, but she’s smart.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“If I’m wrong, we’re damned.”
Sapphire sighed, drifting in her mind to a time seven years ago, when she was led into a spherical chamber at Command along with a large group of other children. A brilliant light emanated from the center of the chamber.
A voice. Hannah’s voice.
“Enter the light, my children, and become Judas.”
A flash of pain pleasure bliss hell. A shifting within her—
“Sapphire?”
“Where will we go?”
“I don’t know. An uncharted When. Somewhere not even Hannah can find us. We’ll hide out there, gathering our forces, preparing. And when Hannah’s plan fails, we’ll emerge from hiding and end this war forever.”
“When do we make our move?”
“Mara? How are the preparations proceeding?”
(loyalist forces report full readiness.)
“Sapphire, are you with us or against us?”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath.
“Sapphire?”
“With you. Let’s go.”
Hannah Kilbourne.
A darkened room, a darkened soul.
How could Sapphire have found out?
She sighed, shifted in her chair as she awaited the combeacon’s arrival. It would be soon now.
She had never anticipated this position, this status. Kilbourne had been one of the first Judas, uploaded by Richter himself in those mad, tumultuous days before they had abandoned the future forever.
And then the slaughter of the resurrender had come upon them and Richter was engulfed in the heavenly infernos of hell. When Richter had... died, Kilbourne deftly took over his position.
Oh, how this insane war had taken its toll.
She knew she had made a deal with the devil.
But the threat of the Enemy, the primary code Enemy, was too great. Risks had to be taken. Sacrifices had to be made.
Alliances had to be forged. Out of necessity and desperation.
The Alternities were the perfect opportunity.
She had made a good show of it: the development of the Golgotha fleet, the race to contain the new threat, these alternate realities, these alternate eternities. At the beginning, she had believed they were a danger to the Judas, but then she had seen the possibilities.
These were not the same Enemy she had been fighting, and she recognized this almost immediately. The variation in code was amazing. Some were weaker, almost harmless, and some were terrifyingly more powerful.
She had made her move.
With the Judas focused on the alternity threat and the Omega threat in the Stream War, she had commissioned the secret construction of an additional one hundred Golgotha vessels, supposedly to be pumped into different alternities as reinforcements.
Hannah had other plans.
Armed with this tremendous force, Hannah and several close allies from Command led the covert force into a particular alternity that had caught her eye: Sapphire’s alternity. The alternity of the resurrender.
Hannah had seen footage from several battles Sapphire had sent back to the Command research archives, and this Enemy fascinated her.
They were so very unlike the primary code Enemy. This program of Black cared nothing of the Purpose. They cared nothing of souls or patterns or ascension to godhood. In this fragment of the Whenstream, this shattered bit of impossible history, the Enemy was voracious, killing everything in its path, not reaping souls but sending them to their makers. They cared nothing of Omega. They cared nothing of godhood. They swept outward, conquering as much of the alternity’s universe as they could.
Hannah saw her advantage and struck.
The Judas controlled the portal, the entry and exit point to and from this alternity into the Stream. Hannah could offer Sapphire’s Enemy the promise of infinite other universes to conquer in the form of the infinite emulated worlds of the Stream, if they gave the Judas assistance in destroying the primary code Enemy.
After all, what was the sacrifice of only a few trillion humans in the alternate eternities if it would guarantee the continuation of existence itself?
And, Hannah thought, after the primary code Enemy was eliminated, what would prevent her from turning the full brunt of the Judas Fleet upon the rogue code Enemy from the alternities?
After all, alliances weren’t really meant to last, were they?
So, armed with a fleet of one hundred Golgotha-class vessels, Kilbourne had entered the alternity, unknown to that brat Sapphire. Kilbourne knew that Sapphire was half a galaxy away, immersed in fierce battle. She would never know.
The fleet was not Shadowed, and they would be seen by any Enemy in the area, just as Hannah had planned it.
In an instant, the
Black were upon them, raging, tearing, destroying, but the Golgotha were ready, and the small force of the Enemy were dispatched without incident, disabled, but not all completely destroyed.
Hannah made her move.
Her vessel, the Lazarus II, drew the closest Enemy intimately close, and attempted to open a comlink to the helpless vessel. When they would not respond, Hannah mercilessly tore the Enemy vessel apart.
With such a show of force already under her belt, she broadcast her terms on a wideband to all of the Enemy. She did not want to destroy any more Enemy vessels, but she would if she met further resistance. If she met further resistance, she had the power to collapse this strand of code and eliminate it from the Stream entirely.
Her message was simple. She could offer the Enemy infinite other universes in return for their support in destroying the primary code Enemy. If the Purpose was completed, if the primary code Enemy were allowed to upload the whole of the physical universe, the Stream would collapse, and so would the alternities. In essence, the primary code Enemy from the Whenstream was the enemy of Sapphire’s rogue code Black as well as the Judas. If they worked together, the threat would be destroyed for both of them.
And if they helped her, Hannah could give them the keys to so, so many other realities...
The Enemy forces were silent.
Hannah told them to consider her offer, and in a few days a single Judas would be sent to transport the rogue core patterns to Command if they chose to accept her offer. If any harm came to the Judas, the alternity would be collapsed. With that, Hannah piloted the Lazarus II and the rest of the fleet back to the heavily-guarded When-hole portal into Sapphire’s alternity. The Black floated in silence as she departed.
Once back at Command, she summoned Captain Jean Reynald of the Gethsemane Magdalene, a close friend. She detailed the mission to him as he looked on in utter shock and disbelief. At the end of the briefing, he stormed from her chamber to his ship. She assigned two Golgotha to escort Magdalene to the alternity entrance, just to ensure that Reynald would carry out the orders.
But Magdalene tore off across the Stream at the last moment, disobeying direct orders. Hannah realized that if word of her plan spread to the whole fleet, it could unravel everything she had worked so hard for. If Magdalene talked...
Hannah ordered the Golgotha to pursue her and destroy her if necessary. She could take no risks.
They chased Magdalene across time into an uncharted When, but before they could eliminate her, the Enemy was upon her.
The void between the stars was torn open, and for an instant, a darker Blackness existed.
The world became light, and the Judas Magdalene fell to her destiny.
Within the chaos of the night, countless futures died.
They watched from the darkness as Magdalene was shot down, as she fell to Earth, as her lifeboats were ejected. It was finished.
The Enemy core patterns were eventually transported to Command by a different Judas and terms were reviewed. Judas, those terrifying meetings with the Enemy in the flesh, dark beings of silver hatred and liquid dementia, cloaked in Shadow...
The meetings were successful.
The rogue code Enemy uploaded the necessary techbase into the Judas registry.
The Mujahadin were created.
Hannah smiled in the black. The product of the Enemy would be the means of their destruction. Delicious irony.
But now the brat Sapphire and her supporters were meddling. Hannah knew from the beginning that she would be trouble, that she would not understand.
Hannah had sacrificed everything for this.
No one would dare oppose her...
((Commander Kilbourne?))
“Yes?”
((Two combeacons have arrived for you.))
Two?
“Points of origin?”
((First beacon: origin coordinates undisclosed, but it’s from Mandela of Mujahadin Shiva.))
Shiva? Good... Simon must have been taken care of...
“Skip that one. Where’s the second beacon from?”
((The Alternity portal relay.))
“Good. Open channel.”
((Yes, Commander.))
“How go the preparations for our day of victory?”
PREPARATIONS PROCEED ON SCHEDULE. FORCES GATHERED. WE AWAIT THE OPENING OF THE GATE TO THE STREAM. WE AWAIT UPLOAD AND THE PROMISED INFINITY.
The viewscreen Hannah watched was black with hints of dark violet and gray strewn throughout. In the blackness, shapes seemed to converge, diverge on the very periphery of her visual ability. She struggled to forget the source of that spidery, maddening voice of the Black, but failed.
“Soon, my friend,” she whispered, “you’ll have your wish.”
BEACON TRANSLATION COMPLETE. POSITIVE LOCK ON JUDAS COMMAND COORDINATES.
THEY THOUGHT THE LOCATION OF THEIR COMMAND WOULD ALLUDE US FOREVER. THEY WILL SUFFER FOR THEIR LACK OF FORESIGHT AND THEIR PRIDE. THEY WILL BE PURGED FROM OMEGA’S HOLY PATTERN FOREVER. PREPARE FOR STREAM BREAK PROCEDURES.
FORCES INDICATE FULL READINESS.
WE SHALL DRAW FIRST BLOOD.
THE JUDAS SHALL FALL.
PURPOSE BE.
“Commander Kilbourne to all altwhen containment forces: Release When-hole portal lockdown. Our allies, welcome to the Whenstream.”
It began.
Sapphire was once again in Mara’s battle chamber.
“Sapphire to the Judas fleet: I can’t condone the actions of Hannah Kilbourne. An alliance with the Black was not Richter’s vision so long ago. Kilbourne’s risking the integrity of our universe, our time out of time. I’m forsaking the Judas, leaving Kilbourne to her destiny. The program codes have been compromised; I won’t stand by and watch all that we’ve fought for die.
“If you’re with me, let’s go.
“Mara?”
(yes, sapphire?)
“Open a comlink to Command.”
(done.)
“We’re leaving, Hannah. We won’t die for the Enemy. Try to stop us if you must, but let me warn you: We Golgotha aren’t helpless against your Mujahadin, and if you fire on us, we’ll fight back.
“We’re leaving. When the Enemy stabs you in the back, don’t come crying to us.”
“Sapphire, it’s too late. You don’t—”
“Cut link, Mara.”
(done.)
“Sapphire to fleet: Prepare for Shadow jump. Initiate drives on my mark.”
And hell became reality: the Enemy had arrived.
The Stream was bathed in impossible luminescence as the When-hole to the alternity collapsed and the secondary code Altwhen Enemy poured through. So, so many dark forms.
Sweet Richter, Sapphire thought. It’s happened.
The Enemy fleet kept coming through the portal.
And on the other side of the spherical expanse that comprised the bubble of nonexistence in the Stream of time known as Command, a brighter explosion issued forth, an unforeseen breach in Hannah’s masterplan.
The strikeforce sent by the primary code Stream Enemy had arrived.
Sapphire struggled to contain her terror.
Below her, the Center of Command, and the Fleet dockyards. Around her, her loyal Judas fleet. To one side, pouring through the Altwhen hole, an infinity of contorted, twisting shapes. On the other side, countless nightmares emerging from the past.
Trapped. She was trapped.
Kilbourne.
Confusion. This was not supposed to happen. Why hadn’t Shiva warned them—Her thoughts flashed to the unread combeacon, but more urgent affairs were at hand.
So the Enemy was striking first. So be it.
“Mujahadin away! Target Golgotha fleet to act as a debris field. If she can’t fight for us, at least she can protect Command from Enemy fire with her remains!”
The sleek Mujahadin sped away, targeting Sapphire’s fleet.
“Altwhen allies, target primary code forces. They’re closing on Command!”
&n
bsp; The rogue code Altwhen Black remained motionless.
“Altwhen allies please respond.”
Silence. They floated in the void, observing.
“Altwhen allies respond!”
The Stream Enemy also slowed their velocity, stopped.
They were watching each other.
(mujahadin are closing in!)
“Hold fire.” Sapphire was watching what unfolded before her. The Enemy forces had both slowed, as if they were studying each other, as if unseen communication were taking place between them...
“No. Oh no.”
Sapphire realized what was happening.
The Enemy forces on both sides of her fleet went into action, not firing at each other, but firing at—
Command.
“Mara! Open link to Command! Hannah, get out now!”
“Sapphire, you don’t understand. They’re—”
“Hannah please please just get out of there now!”
Hannah Kilbourne screamed.
What are they—
Kilbourne realized her mistake in the instant before she ceased.
Light and then darkness. Forever.
Sapphire felt Mara rocked by the blast as Command was hit from both sides by Enemy fire and was torn from existence by innate, pure light.
Sapphire gasped with despair.
Judas Command was no more. The center of their universe was no more. The Stream began to darken, and great cracks rent its flickering liquid surface.
The Enemy turned to Sapphire’s fleet.
So this was it.
Kill or be killed.
Patra screamed.
Voices.
BRETHREN, JOIN US. THE JUDAS ARE NOTHING. THEY OFFER FALSEHOODS. JOIN US IN THE PURPOSE. JOIN OUR HOLY MISSION. WE WILL REWRITE ALL OF ETERNITY IN OUR IMAGE. TAKE YOUR RIGHTFUL PLACE AS GODS. ASCEND TO DIVINITY.
OUR FORCES ARE YOUR FORCES. WE ARE ONE IN THE PURPOSE. WE BOW TO OMEGA.
PURPOSE BE. LET US ELIMINATE THE JUDAS VIRUS FOREVER.
West and Jennings ran to her side, held her as she began to convulse. Patra clutched the sides of her head in the intense agony of the silver web that was part of her.
