by Jason Letts
This left the remaining ten drones content to chase at a distance, giving Loris time to calculate how long it would take the dark matter ship to reach the area near the Magellan. Staying nestled in the folds, he started to think he could hold out long enough for the Cortes to get to him and clean out the pests.
“Panic, I’ve made it back, but I’ve got trouble on my six. Get Lopez to meet me at these coordinates, and tell him to watch out for the massive invisible ship,” Loris said.
“Invisible ship?” Panic replied.
“If you hurry, I’ll be able to tell you. If not, it’ll be left to your imagination.”
Peeking above the side of the ship, Loris saw it was a flat plateau. He’d already discovered that it was beginning to accelerate, making an attempt at crossing its front perfectly disastrous. Instead, he’d need to dip around the bottom again and lead the drones along the other end.
But as soon as he’d ducked underneath, the dark matter ship’s velocity began to increase rapidly, possibly because it had so many tagalongs. Loris wondered if it was going to break into light speed. Either way, it traveled much faster than the shuttle could follow, dashing Loris’s hopes for a protected trip. It also made getting hit by something a greater concern, forcing Loris to use the screen to watch out for anything sticking out from the passing ship.
The rear of the ship and its engines were approaching rapidly as the rest passed overhead. What powered a dark matter ship was beyond anyone’s comprehension, but through the panel it looked like it spewed billowing clouds of green dust into space. It wasn’t something Loris wanted to get close enough to experience.
Making the hard decision to get some distance from ship, he followed the fin down and hoped the drones wouldn’t even know that his cover had vanished. After a few minutes, something must’ve tipped them off, because they resumed firing and took a more direct approach. Loris continued to twist and turn, taking a forlorn look at the floating monstrosity passing on.
The chase wasn’t the only thing the large vessel left behind. Before looking away, Loris spotted a half dozen small specks trailing the big ship as well. Locked in a tight formation, they took a course to intercept the shuttle.
“Wait, over here,” Loris said to the boy, jerking the panel to get a better look at them. He began to make out the ship’s angular shapes and sleek designs. They moved incredibly fast. The closer they got, the more confident Loris was that they were fighters.
“Watch the drones,” the boy said, admonishing Loris for being distracted. A second later a plasma shot landed, striking a rear corner of the shuttle, hobbling one of its thrusters.
Loris slammed his fist against the unresponsive console and glanced to the back of the shuttle where sparks began to appear through a vent. The shuttle’s speed was dropping. One more shot could breach the hull.
Instead of reaching for the emergency override, he went for one of the panels. He had trouble spotting the dark matter fighters, but that was because they’d already arrived. The drones imploded one after another. Loris saw that one of the fighters had even passed close behind in order to absorb an incoming shot of plasma fire.
Within moments the drone squadron was reduced to a mass of shrapnel.
The six fighters then turned their sights on the shuttle, which had cut its thrusters to conserve energy and was now coasting on momentum. They were close enough to throw a baseball to, and the moment had a feeling similar to the one in the docking bay.
Other than the black space and the greenness of the fighters, Loris looked closely through the probe screen to see if he could learn anything else. It was only when he happened to look around it that he saw a white speck in the area where the fighters were, like a star but not quite.
It was the tablet.
A message came through on his console.
“They think we are crazy for wanting to contact you. What is it like in the light?”
Loris stared at the letters on his console, in disbelief about where they were coming from, and perplexed about how to respond. He wanted to know what they were. They deserved thanks for bailing him out as well. The boy, for his part, had fallen into another trance. Not wanting to waste more time, Loris typed his response.
“It is warm. What are the probes for?”
Loris glared anxiously at the screen, hungry for the answer and unsure if he would get it. The lights in the shuttle were going dark. Everything was quiet. During his wait, he fit the panel against the windshield so he could continue to look at them.
“To bring you here.”
Loris sat in silent contemplation about what to say or ask next. Bring them there for what? What were they made out of? What did they know about the composition of the universe? Were they aware of what the Detonans were doing with their probes?
Before he could so much as hit a single key on the console, the group of fighters accelerated toward him, crossing overhead in a flash. He snatched another panel to look behind at where they were going and caught a glimpse of them just before they vanished among other hints of glowing, ephemeral green.
Loris slumped back in his seat to wait for the Cortes. He spent much of the time wondering if the dark matter beings had spent eons to bring him here simply to ask what it was like in the light. Had he done that and finally gotten the chance to ask, he would’ve been more than a little disappointed to hear simply that it was warm.
CHAPTER 9
When Loris returned to the Magellan, Panic confronted him in the docking bay with an alarming bit of news.
“The defense team on the Incubator is over an hour late communicating their reports. All attempts to get in touch with them have failed. Everyone over there is completely unresponsive,” she said.
Loris cast a sidelong glance at the boy, wishing in this instance that his prediction hadn’t been so accurate.
“It sounds like Quade is seizing the ship. It could be bedlam over there. We’re going to have to do something about it,” he said, drawing a sharp look from Panic.
“There you go again, immediately rushing in. Your trip to Detonus was a terrible idea that nearly got you killed, and now you’re ready to turn right around and throw yourself into another potentially life-threatening situation. Sooner or later it’s not going to pan out,” she said.
Feeling like Quade was unraveling all of the stability and safety they worked for, Loris didn’t have the patience to tolerate her critique.
“As you can tell by the trouble Quade is giving us, I didn’t have time to plan out the retrieval of the probe panels and coordinate it with everyone. Waiting would mean we didn’t have them.”
Panic only became more aggravated.
“And what would be so bad about that? Whether or not you can see these ships in the area doesn’t help us. They don’t seem to care one way or another that we’re here,” she said.
Loris shook his head, giving up on making her understand. The stress was setting in for both of them, and they needed to be on the same page if they were going to confront this new threat.
“Tell me how you want to go about taking care of the situation on the Incubator.”
Panic shook her head and ran a hand through her red hair.
“It’s not going to just be a couple of us going over there. We’ll get a team together that’s prepared to address the possible threats and defuse them quickly. It’s possible the defense team is being held captive. Quade may have let the conditions among the refugees further deteriorate.”
It was likely he had, but that wasn’t the sort of betrayal Loris imagined that Quade had perpetrated.
“When I was on the Incubator last, I saw someone there that seemed out of place, almost inhuman. And his age was off between those who were born on Nova and those who traveled over from Earth. I think Quade has been using the Detonan technology to manufacture human beings.”
“You’re kidding,” Panic gasped, her eyes wide.
“We’ll need armed soldiers with us, as you suggested, but we’re
also going to need Brina. She knows that system better than any of us and can tell us what he’s been doing.”
It looked like Panic was going to argue, but at the last second she relented.
“Fine. But we also need to bring Riki with us.”
Loris agreed. And if they took the Cortes over, it’d be a given that Lopez and Redhook would be part of the crew as well.
“Let’s not waste any time. Get your team together, we’ll get over there, and then we’ll neutralize Quade.”
With a nod, Panic set off to perform her duties. Loris couldn’t believe they needed to put together a raiding party to take back a ship under their own control. If Quade wouldn’t communicate over the channel, another face-to-face meeting was coming.
Loris tracked down Brina in the library, unsure if she’d be willing to venture over to the Incubator again, especially if there was risk of a confrontation. But when he told her that Quade was attempting to make people, he could see the fire in her eyes.
“There’s no way he’s using that equipment properly,” she said, bolting from her seat. Loris had trouble keeping up with her as she cruised into the hallway. “I didn’t tell him half of what I’d learned about how it works.”
It was surprising to see her take such a sense of ownership over this alien technology, but after spending months on it, clearly she’d developed an attachment. Even while pregnant, she was ready in no time flat to do whatever it took to help.
Arriving at the docking bay, they found the rest of the group waiting by the airlock to board the Cortes. While Brina was gung-ho and even excited to go, Riki had an air of nervousness about her. She looked concerned and immediately approached Loris.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “There are even more windows around than I originally thought, but I’ve been able to locate our position. It turns out we’re not in some far-flung corner of space. We’re in the next quadrant over from Detonus, little more than a week’s travel time.”
Loris’s eyes widened. Somehow after leaving Detonus and escaping from Nova they were almost right back where they started.
“Come on, let’s load up,” he said. “From what I could tell, the Detonans don’t have too much in the way of handheld weaponry that could help Quade’s men. There shouldn’t be much resistance.”
His optimism seemed to relieve Riki a little. Loris figured she and Brina could stay on the Cortes until any conflict ended. Once they’d climbed aboard, Loris took a long look at the immense vessel floating nearby. All they had to do was find one man bottled up inside.
Detaching from the Magellan, the ship flew directly to the Incubator. But Loris took the opportunity to show off the panels he’d had brought over from the shuttle. Everyone was taken aback by the advanced, intricate civilization that existed around them, which seemed to have no interest whatsoever in how their struggles played out.
“It reminds me of Plato’s Cave,” Riki said. “Once you get a glimpse of the universe as it truly is you can never go back.”
It was satisfying for Loris to see others feel the impact of the monumental discovery. Whatever the beings in those fighters did to bridge the divide between the visible light spectrum and the dark matter spectrum, it changed humanity’s perspective permanently.
The only thing that could draw their attention back was the Incubator that loomed ever larger in their vision. Lopez positioned the Cortes next to the makeshift airlock and successfully latched on. As one of the officers pried it open, Loris, Panic, and a few of the others prepared for anything they might find on the other side. In addition to torches, they had Tasers in hand. The last thing that Loris wanted was for the conflict to result in any casualties.
Once the airlock door slid open, they found nothing but empty hallway on the other side to greet them. Not even the garbage and alien bodies were still around. They couldn’t hear a thing.
“A few will stay behind to guard the ship and the non-military personnel,” Panic said. “The rest of us can head to the control room in search of Quade and the defense team.”
They set off down the hall, but before they’d gone far Loris cast a look back at Brina, who was hanging around the airlock. Redhook was with her, so he knew she’d be all right. If all ten thousand Novans came rushing in, he’d be able to shut the airlock and detach the ship.
Loris thought he knew which way he was going, but the byzantine pathways and ramps threw him for a loop. It took them fifteen minutes to even stumble upon someone they could ask for help, and the advice they got was extremely vague. They marched through populated residential corridors and storage spaces on their way. The lack of windows, dim lights, and awful smell made it seem like a hopeless journey.
As they turned a corner, Loris spotted someone ducking down an adjacent hallway. It was a member of the programming team that had taken off running. Loris raised an eyebrow at Panic.
“OK, you can go get him,” she said.
He burst forward and sprinted down the hallway, taking the corner and hurtling after the programmer, whose pace was flagging against a long incline. By the time Loris got to him, he’d come to a halt and crossed his arms in a defiant pose. When told to take them to the control room, he set off walking without argument or utterance of any kind.
By the time they’d made it to their destination, they already felt like they’d been on a lengthy hike. Quade looked up from one of the consoles and turned to face Loris’s group. A half dozen of his men were in the room, but there was no sign of the defense team stationed here.
“I thought you’d get here sooner,” Quade said, the fingers of his right hand still resting on the keypad. At the sight of him, Loris clenched his teeth. Instead of being a great asset, Quade had decided to be a thorn in his side.
“We’ve got a problem, Chief,” he said. Quade didn’t flinch.
“I know we do, Commander.”
It didn’t take long for Loris to grow tired of his arrogant, insolent manner.
“The com channel has been cut. What have you done with the local defense team?”
Quade scratched his chin and looked toward the ceiling.
“I sent some of them to try to disable a communications dampener near the apex of the ship that was unexpectedly activated. I believe it was an unfortunate byproduct of some of the diagnostics we were running, and as best I can tell it can be only disabled on site, but judging by the force you’ve brought here, that’s not what you think has happened. Why don’t you tell us what you imagined was going on.”
Loris glared hard at him, trying to calculate what percentage of his charges might’ve been swept away if a dampener did in fact exist. But he remembered what he saw in the strong young man’s eyes, and Quade couldn’t have any excuse for that.
“Chief Trynton Quade, you’ve intentionally been subverting my authority by treating this ship and those on board as your own personal property. You’ve put its residents in jeopardy and hindered us in our fight against the enemy,” Loris said, not backing down.
Quade rested his chin on his knuckles.
“And why shouldn’t this ship be my property? After all, you told me I’d be left for dead if I couldn’t get it going. The residents here are perfectly fine. I will say that the only reason we still have an enemy to fight against is because of reckless provocations like your joyride through the window.”
Loris shook his head, appalled at Quade’s smirk. He thought he had an answer for everything.
“Let me remind you that this ship isn’t your property and your whims and opinions aren’t the final arbiter because of the Unified power structure. If you find yourself unable to fulfill your duties and instead want to play at human creation with alien technology, I’ll be forced to remove you from your position and confine you from doing so.”
A harder, angrier look came to Quade’s eyes, telling Loris he’d hit closer to the mark.
“The trials I’ve been running have been perfectly in line with your own thinking on the matter, and they f
aithfully used the work performed by your special personal assistant. Since I’m the only one who could operate this machinery, only I could inform you that it’s ready to use. We’ve already got twenty-five new residents, and with your order that could just be the beginning.”
Loris shuttered to think that there were twenty-five people like the one he’d seen on his last visit. Were they all mute? He couldn’t help but think that something had gone wrong and they weren’t exactly human.
“Those people shouldn’t have ever been created and we don’t need to make more under any circumstances. I think we’re on the verge of getting some outside help that could turn the tide against the Detonans,” he said.
Quade tossed up his hands and pointed at Loris.
“There you go again about the Detonans. Here’s a crazy idea. Maybe we shouldn’t be fighting them. Maybe we don’t want them to be destroyed. Look around here at the things they’ve done—it’s amazing. Their biological manufacturing technology has unlocked the secrets of life. We could clone anyone in a matter of days. And that’s probably just the beginning of what they’ve discovered.
“Before you say it, I haven’t forgotten that they destroyed Earth and killed billions of people. You know what? We killed billions of Detonans and made their planet inhospitable to them. Maybe there’s a pragmatic way to look at it where we’re even,” he argued.
“I’ve heard them and I’ve seen them,” Loris said in a low voice. “They believe we should all be killed as closure to their experiment.”
An awkward silence ensued in which Loris hoped the thin man with the long face in the center of the room would come around. He wouldn’t budge an inch, and Loris began to consider how the Detonans’ impressive technology had seduced him. But he didn’t understand how they viewed their creations as inferior and thought nothing of wiping them out.
It would’ve been nice to strip him of his position right then and there, but Loris couldn’t deny the truth that Quade needed to pilot the ship at least a little while longer. If they could straighten out this situation, a little more time would allow them to decide on a new home planet to deposit the refugees.
