‘Wait,’ Jessika said, and her hand rose in an involuntary reflex. ‘A neutron star. That’s weird.’
It was all Kandara could do not to scream at her. ‘What’s weird?’
‘The rotation speed changed.’
‘You can’t change a neutron star’s rotation speed,’ Callum protested.
‘It’s changed,’ Jessika insisted. ‘The Olyix sensor outpost made careful observations. Something is out there at that neutron star. Something powerful. The fullmind knows the plan is for humans to assemble at the nearest neutron star once the Signal has been received. It’s dispatching a harmony fleet.’ Her eyes opened, showing puzzlement. ‘But we’re too far away. Our Signal couldn’t possibly have gone that far yet.’
‘We need to be ready,’ Yuri snapped. ‘Callum, get that last transmitter drone finished. Kandara, we might have to deal with Odd Quint.’
‘I am so ready for that!’
‘Come on, man,’ Alik said, ‘they’re forty thousand lightyears away. Even if these neutron star people crush the harmony fleet, it’ll be forever until they get here.’
‘Twenty-five years – their ship time – if they travel at point nine C,’ Callum said. ‘For us, that’s probably six months to a year. But it gives the Olyix outside the enclave forty thousand years to build up their defences.’
‘And the same time to track their progress,’ Yuri said. ‘And intercept them.’
‘They changed a neutron star’s rotation,’ Jessika said with a lot of emphasis. ‘That’s Kardashev Type Two right there – probably the high end of it, too.’
‘And the Olyix aren’t?’ Alik asked. ‘Do you even remember what’s powering this enclave? Generator rings around a fucking star.’
‘I’m just saying it won’t be that easy to intercept them.’
‘If you ask me,’ Callum said, ‘this is the first piece of good news we’ve had since Feriton called us together for the assessment mission to Nkya. I’m with Yuri; we need to be ready.’
Kandara grinned softly at that miracle. She and Callum finished running diagnostics on the transmitter drone components and instigated the casing knit. They usually ran more tests, but decided there was no point. If the tests showed a problem, there wasn’t time to correct it. So just finish up and hope it worked.
‘This is what you call a real all-up test,’ Callum muttered as the upper casing segments closed up and fused together along the drone’s dorsal spine.
Kandara was about to reply when she felt a frisson of surprise within the Salvation of Life’s onemind. When she tried to read it raw from the thoughtstream, instead of clarity, she felt a backwash of alarm.
Jessika looked around with an incredulous smile on her face. ‘They’re here.’
FinalStrike
Dellian knew there was no way he could tell he was in a slow time flow, yet some annoying little instinct kept telling him there was something subtly wrong with his universe. The armada’s journey down the wormhole would take four years, real time – depending on how you define real. But for the Morgan, it would only be four days. His brain kept searching for signs that something was wrong.
‘More like portents than signs,’ Yirella said with cheerful mockery on the first night. ‘Portents are imaginary, after all. Time is always constant to the observer, Del. Forget about it.’
He couldn’t, of course. Every paranoiac little sense he had, the hair-trigger responses he’d developed in combat training, were constantly alert. Being vigilant for so long was draining. He also stubbornly refused to use any of his glands to clear the nonsense away chemically, earning another eye roll from Yirella.
And now here they were, only a couple of hours out. His anxiety had made him rise early, needing to be ready. Because if their artificial time had been misjudged somehow . . .
Yi’s right, I am an idiot.
With its long storage racks stretching away under gloomy lighting, the cohort hiatus facility on deck seven put Dellian in mind of a warehouse. As he walked down one of the aisles he could feel the resonance in the floor from all the support machinery.
After the last training simulation, his cohort had been resting up for two days. He almost wished he’d been doing the same as they travelled to the enclave star system, but then he knew almost everybody on board was in an equally hyped-up state. All those final update briefings provided by corpus humans, data stripped directly from captured quint brains – and between those meetings, lots of frantic, needy sex.
‘You know this isn’t goodbye-blues sex, don’t you?’ Yirella had said last night as they clung to each other in bed. ‘I mean, we’re both nervous about FinalStrike; that’s natural. But it’s not the ultimate battle.’
‘Huh?’ was all he could manage in a twilight created by the textured cabin in the Immerle estate woodland – the same one he’d been assigned in their senior year.
‘There is so much we have to do after we liberate the Salvation of Life and all the other humans in the enclave,’ she told him earnestly.
‘Yeah. We’ve got to get them home for a start.’
‘Maybe. But the corpus humans don’t need us for that. If we’re going to end this threat, we have to take down the God at the End of Time itself.’
He rolled around on the bed to stare at her in surprise. Does she ever inspire anything else? ‘Saints! What?’
‘It’s still out there, Del, lurking up in the future. There’s nothing to stop it sending messages to all the surviving Olyix, restarting the crusade all over again. Apart from us, of course. We can stop it.’
‘Us?’
‘Somebody has to. I don’t see the Neána stepping up, do you?’
‘But . . . how?’
Which was when she told him about the tachyon detector that the corpus humans had built for her. When she’d finished, he didn’t know if he was going to laugh or cry. ‘But if we kill the god’s home star now,’ he said slowly, his brain as always lightyears behind her, ‘that means it won’t be around to send the message back to the Olyix. So Earth won’t be invaded, the exodus will never happen. We won’t be born.’
‘Paradox. I know. It’s fascinating how many theories there are about this, isn’t it? But don’t worry. If it is a temporal loop spun off by a time machine creating an alternative universe, us breaking that cycle will stabilize our timeline. We just carry on, but in this reality the God at the End of Time doesn’t send a message back to the Olyix, so there’s no further split, no new alternative Earth that suffers the same fate yet again. At least, that’s what Immanueel and the other corpus humans postulate.’
He was horrified by how eager she sounded. Horrified that they would begin their own monomaniacal crusade. He’d committed his entire life to FinalStrike knowing that afterwards – if he survived – he and Yi could go and live an ordinary life on a new world, or maybe even on Earth itself. Now this.
FinalStrike isn’t going to be the end for Yirella. Saints, she’s never going to stop, not until she’s seen the last Olyix in the galaxy dead, and their god exterminated.
He’d sat up in bed and rested his head in his hands, feeling the same numbness and despair he’d known when he’d heard of Rello’s death.
Yirella’s arm went around his shoulders, and she hugged him. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Wrong?’ he barked. ‘Fuck the Saints, Yi, don’t you ever just stop? Don’t you ever think about what anyone else might want?’
‘But killing the god-entity before it’s born will make us safe, Del.’
‘You sure about that? Because I don’t know, Yi. I’m too dumb to figure out quantum timelines and which reality is real. And don’t try explaining, not tonight, okay?’
‘I just wanted you to know tomorrow that I’m always going to be there, trying to think up answers,’ she said meekly.
He nodded, not trusting himself to look directly at her. ‘Sure. Hey, I knew that anyway. You’re the one stable thing in my world.’
‘That’s my line, Del, I’m the one
who relies on you.’
After that, of course, he hadn’t slept well. In the morning he did his best to make it up to her, eating a nice eggs Benedict breakfast together before leaving with plenty of hugs and kisses and a good show of reluctant yet glad to be finishing this. Except he wasn’t. Being scared shitless about the fight was one thing; despair at what came after was something else again.
Saints, but I am one screwed-up mess.
He came to a halt at the section of the racks that held his cohort. They were in new casings now, designed by the corpus humans. Still being stubborn about not using his neural interface – this morning of all mornings – he used his databud to activate the cohort. They were like flattened black eggs the same length as his own body, but made out of porcelain and inlaid with slim silver hieroglyphs. Smaller than before, then, yet managing to look even more efficiently deadly.
With drive systems powered up, they rose out of their cradles and eased forwards. Dellian reached out and gently ran an appreciative finger over the curving nose of the closest. They were all abruptly circling around him, nuzzling affectionately like metallic puppies. He was reliving the easier times when they were just muncs, sleeping with him in the estate dormitory, comforting and warm and adoring. Understanding him as he understood them, when knowledge was pure instinct.
Even now they could read his unhappiness; he could tell from the subtle angles they hovered at, the gentle pressure applied as they rubbed playfully against him, their little shakes of contentment as he stroked their cool casings while his hands felt only their short grey-and-chestnut pelt. His mind could hear the familiar soft hooting sounds they used to make.
‘Thanks, guys,’ he said. ‘We’ll get through this, okay?’ He stood up straighter and gave them one last pat each. ‘Okay then, let’s –’ he grinned – ‘lock and load.’
Further down the rack, the cohort’s exoarmour came alive. Another innovation courtesy of Immanueel and their friends. The corpus all swore they didn’t model the exoarmour suits on hellhounds, but Dellian was pretty sure they were just covering their embarrassment at going full-on-nerd battle-gaming. After all, it wasn’t as if the Olyix were going to be intimidated by cybernetic beasts from human mythology. But, Saints, surely any living creature would find them menacing.
Twice the size of a human, massing a good quarter of a tonne, with four standard terrestrial limbs and two prehensile tails – which in just about any combination could claw their way along a narrow arkship tunnel if they didn’t have a clear flight path. They even had a wedge-shaped head on a stocky neck, containing sensors and weapons, while the shell was woven through with energy deflector fibres and atomic bond enhancers, leaving them capable of surviving a tactical nuke at close quarters.
The cohort settled their ovoid casings into the exoarmour’s shaped recesses, and the petal lids snapped shut over them. Limbs flexed, running through test procedures; a multitude of weapon nozzles telescoped out, then back again. The cybernetic hellhounds landed and formed up in an eager pack, their adaptive feet making clacking sounds on the smooth floor.
‘Nice.’ Dellian smiled down at them. His own hulking armour suit was further along the rack. He walked towards it, just as Janc and Xante appeared at the end of the aisle.
‘Saints, I thought we were early,’ Janc exclaimed.
‘And that’s why some of us are mere squad members, while I’m squad leader,’ Dellian told them.
They jeered him loudly before the three of them hugged. It meant so much more today. He’d always thought leading the squad on their Vayan ambush mission was as intense as life got. But this . . . the Olyix enclave!
Uret was next, followed by Falar and Mallot. More squads were turning up in the hiatus facility, activating their cohorts. The noise level built steadily. Dellian was glad of the activity; he could concentrate on routine, making sure everyone had run their equipment tests. His own armour suit needed a replacement rear left visual sensor – the ultraviolet receptors were below optimal – while Xante’s needed a new magpulse rifle projectile feed tube. All their equipment was designed with multiple redundancy modes, ready for whatever damage they were punished with in combat, but he wasn’t going to allow anyone to move out at anything less than full operational capacity.
Just before they got into their suits he made them gather in a circle, arms around one another’s shoulders. We need to be this close. It might be the last time we ever see each other in the flesh.
‘We left pep talks behind on Juloss,’ he said. ‘And face it, I’m crap at speeches anyway. But we’ve trained for this our whole lives. Saints, this is what we were born for! So I know we’re going to watch each other’s backs and do the best we can – especially for the poor bastards we’re here to liberate. All I want to say is that I’m glad it’s you guys that I’m facing this with.’
The group hug tightened – almost as much as Dellian’s throat. He wiped away some tears from his eyes, not trying to disguise it. He wanted them to see how much they meant to him. Looking around, he wasn’t the only one overtaken by the moment. That felt good, too.
His suit was standing in front of its storage and maintenance alcove in the rack, chest segments open. Intellectually, he still wasn’t comfortable with the arms and legs. This brute was so big that his own limbs wouldn’t be long enough, so the corpus humans who designed it had provided its legs and arms with three joints apiece, giving him extra knees and elbows. The extremities were governed by his own physical kinesis – walking, running, reaching, lifting – as extrapolated by an integral genten to provide perfectly coordinated movements.
A maintenance remote brought a small set of mounting stairs out for him, and he climbed up, twisting awkwardly to get inside. He slipped his legs down the tunnels of spongy padding that felt like oiled leather until he was sitting on the haunches’ cushioning. Then there came the bad bit, fitting the waste extraction tubes – as usual accompanied by some serious grimacing. Finally he was able to push his arms into the suit’s sleeves. The suit went to active level one, and the loose padding in the arms and legs contracted around his skin, gripping firmly. There was no separate helmet. Instead his neck and head were completely enclosed by the top of the torso, reducing vulnerability. Its upper section hinged down and locked, triggering a long moment when he felt as if he’d been imprisoned in a medieval iron maiden.
Graphics and camera feeds swarmed across his optik, and his databud confirmed full integration. Systems data swirled green. A quick double-check on the ultraviolet receptors, and he initiated full-motion possession, which allowed his physicality to puppet the suit’s movements. So . . . a shadow-box review for the arms, run on the spot, twist and sway and crouch in a seriously naff dance routine. From the claustrophobia of a second ago, he was now liberated, weighing nothing as he floated gracefully along the aisle.
Every display remained green.
He kept an eye on the rest of the squad, confirming their telemetry as they finished their screwy assessment calisthenics, half smiling at the way everyone’s cohort kept their distance, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing.
He opened the mission comms icon. ‘Ellici, Tilliana, comms check, please. Switching to multiple redundant linkage.’
‘We got you, Del,’ Ellici answered. ‘Hardened em encryption, omni and directional, plus multiple entanglement rotation. Stand by. One hour to wormhole exodus.’
If everything goes okay, he added silently. ‘Thank you, tactical.’ He raised his arms as if he were performing a blessing. ‘Okay, squad, let’s get down to the armoury and load up. Embarking in twenty minutes.’ He started walking towards the portal at the far end of the aisle, secretly rather pleased at looking like a full-on badass demon, his hellhound pack following eagerly.
*
Yirella found the Morgan distinctly unsettling that morning. The ship’s quarters were big – deliberately so – giving people space. You normally couldn’t tell if there were a hundred people in the chambers ar
ound you, or none. But now, walking along the curving corridor, she knew she was alone. If you were part of the Morgan’s crew you had one of two jobs: you were either a squad member, or you were in one of the tactical command cabins. No exceptions – apart from her. Even Alexandre was with Ellici and Tilliana as they approached the end of the wormhole.
Parting with Del wasn’t helping her mood, either. She thought she’d done the right thing telling him all about the tachyon detector, the prospect of eliminating the God at the End of Time in this era, of the intriguing complexity of quantum temporal theory. But it hadn’t gone down the way it had played in her mind: his fascination, enthusiasm. And certainly no admiration for her enterprise and determination, which she’d privately looked forward to. You selfish idiot, she cursed herself.
He was going out to face a physical fight far worse than last time – and that’s if they even got through the gateway and into the enclave. The last thing he needed was uncertainty and complexity.
But that was my goodbye gift. Fool!
He’d smiled and been affectionate this morning during a breakfast he’d barely picked over. At least she’d recognized the anxiety shadowing his thoughts. It had taken all of her self-control, but she hadn’t pressed him about it – What do you think, what are you feeling? He didn’t need that, didn’t deserve more of her wild ambitions. So maybe she had helped.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ she shouted down the deserted corridor. ‘This is not about you!’
I should be in tactical. I should be capable of being in tactical. I should have made a lot of different choices.
But my choices brought us here.
The strength drained out of her as she went into the deck thirty-three canteen. It was pleasantly warm, the air scented with coffee and cinnamon. On the other side of the windows, the Boulevard Saint-Germain was waking up to a spring morning. Vibrant flowers in baskets decorated the facades of the other bars and cafes, the road was slick with water from a cleansing night rain, and cyclists were pedalling along with cheery smiles on their faces.
The Saints of Salvation [British Ed.] Page 38
