by Barry Kirwan
She crouched down towards Sandy’s face. “Your suicide plan won’t work. You’re right, we don’t know all the variables, but we’ll have enough genetic material from your limp flesh for it to begin to work. We live long lives, so even with a small number of fertile men and women we can replenish our society.”
Louise stood up. “Think about what I said. You can live relatively content lives here, or I can put you all back in stasis and you’ll never wake up, never see Ramires, or watch Micah’s son – it’s going to be a boy, by the way – grow up.” She paused, as if deciding whether to say something or not, then she stared at them both, her remaining human hand on her hip.
“How long do you honestly think Esperia will survive? It won’t see out the next month. Qorall has already dispatched resources to take it down. The only relics of humanity will be here on Savange. I’ve studied galactic history and trust me, every single time a race evolves its predecessor disappears. It’s the natural order of things. Do you give a shit what happened to the generations that preceded Homo sapiens? Didn’t think so. The other Grid races, all they’ll see is that humanity shifted from Level Three to Level Five, which is no mean feat. And you two – you three – will be part of that evolutionary process.”
Sandy tried to get up but it wasn’t happening. She said nothing. At least her breathing had recovered. Antonia also kept quiet.
Louise turned and passed through the glass.
Sandy struggled to her knees, and managed to lever herself up onto the bench. She checked her cheek and shoulder; no breaks, but she was going to be bruised for a while. Antonia had her head down on folded arms atop her knees. Sandy could think of nothing to say. She shuffled along the bench until she was next to Antonia’s trembling frame. Sandy decided it was time to break a lifelong habit, and put her arm around Antonia.
She wondered if Ramires and Micah were already on their way. For the first time she truly hoped they were not. All would be killed except Ramires, the last living Sentinel, and he would be trapped into aiding his sworn enemy. But memories of Gabriel flooded into her mind, his entire life from an infant to a child to an adolescent to a man. Such promise, erased out of life so early. She realised he’d died at the same age as her brother. A single tear spilled. Then another. She couldn’t stop them. Antonia clasped her hand, and Sandy clung to it, squeezing hard. The full sting of Gabriel’s death – that he was really gone – washed over her. Antonia manoeuvred herself so that she held Sandy, uttering soothing noises. Sandy’s rage fell away, a gaping hollowness replacing it, a vacuum inside her belly, as if her womb remembered what it had given up to the world for safe keeping, and was now forever lost.
“Is she right about us, Antonia? Love makes us pathetic, weak?”
“No, she’s all wrong. And I know you, Sandy, you’re hurting now, but you are the strongest woman I’ve ever met, besides Kat. I know that right now you want to kill Louise despite everything.”
Sandy sat up, wiping her sleeve across her eyes and face. “If I do, we’ll all end up vegetables, barely-alive cadavers in an Alician lab.”
Antonia leaned close, whispering into Sandy’s ear. “At least I won’t have to go back to my previous job.”
Sandy frowned. Antonia had been a Council member on Esperia. What did that have to do with anything? But then she remembered: before that, back on Earth, Antonia had been a comms expert for the Eden Mission, working with carrier waves slip-streaming from Blake’s ship, the Ulysses, all the way back to Earth. She thought about it. The signal preventing the neurotoxin being released would be a carrier wave. It was a long shot, but if Antonia could gain access, maybe she could disrupt it…
And there it was, the alternative path born from a dead-end. Sandy sniffed once, wiped her face again, and sat up as straight as she could.
The two women sat side by side on the uncomfortable, too-narrow bench, backs against an unyielding wall. Neither of them spoke. The only connection between them was Sandy’s left hand, pressed onto the cool marble of the bench, and Antonia’s right hand, covering Sandy’s.
Seven minutes to intercept.
Cocooned in the cockpit of a Scintarelli Dart, Blake acknowledged the automated message, and watched the asteroid-sized ochre sphere enter the local solar system at a leisurely pace. It was the first time he’d seen one of Qorall’s Orbs. It didn’t look like a horseman of the apocalypse, but for the inhabitants on the planet he and twenty-seven other captains were trying to protect, Armageddon had arrived.
The Zlarasi were Level Six: their role in Grid Society was that of aqua-farmers, providing a vast range of seafood, essential oils and underwater tech prized throughout the galaxy. Their world, Alagara, was nine-tenths water, with most of its civilization covered by oceans, the three bare land-based continents reserved for air-breathing traders. Blake had seen a Zlarasi via holo-conference – the creature resembled one of Earth’s defunct sea-based dinosaurs, the plesiosaur. At one point during talks over defense strategies they all knew to be futile, the Zlarasi had fixed Blake with stark, unblinking purple eyes. These locals understood perfectly well that their forty-thousand years of peaceful existence was at an end. Blake found he had to turn away. When he looked back, the delegate no longer met his gaze. For the first time in many years Blake experienced a sense of shame.
Six minutes to intercept.
He focused back on the current task. Zooming in via the Dart’s visuals, he noticed the Orb’s surface ripple. Lines like writing floated to its surface, only to submerge moments later. No one knew what it meant, except perhaps the Kalarash, and they wouldn’t say. If it was language, it was presumably in Qorall’s tongue. Perhaps it was better not to know.
They’d been losing the war against Qorall ever since he’d unleashed these genetic Recoders, asteroid-sized balls that entered a system, spilling golden rain onto the planets they targeted, rewriting organic ‘software’ at the chromosome level, turning every sentient being into Qorall’s minions. The defensive armada’s mission parameters were to defend the planet and evacuate as many as possible before the Orb unleashed its contents onto the doomed world. They would of course attempt to destroy the Orb, but similar engagements were ongoing at fifty locations across the front line, with aliens far more advanced than humanity in charge, and so far all attacks on the Orbs had failed, with heavy casualties.
Blake had received special instructions from Kalaran: to capture some part of an Orb so they could study it and develop counter-measures. He hadn’t told Kilaney about this, for two reasons. First, Kalaran had imparted it to him and him alone, and that had to be for a reason. Second, Kilaney would intervene if he knew, and broaden the strategy, pouring more resources into it, which would make it more visible to Qorall. Blake understood Kalaran’s tactic, he’d used it himself on more than one occasion during the Third World War: sometimes you send one man alone behind enemy lines to get a particular task done – like the assassination of a local enemy leader – while the battle raged on all around.
Kilaney would recognize the strategy, too. When Blake and Kilaney had worked together back on Earth they’d nicknamed it ‘one-shot’. However, Blake had no idea how to achieve this particular mission. Any sentient being touched by Qorall’s liquid virus was turned within seconds. The few robot ships and drones that had managed to scoop up some of the golden rain and escape with it, found that the substance degraded into raw elements moments after seizure.
Five minutes to intercept.
Blake checked the other screens, and frowned. Few worlds could evacuate fast enough. Blake tuned in to the elevated chatter from the planet, translated automatically for him by the Dart, but he hardly needed to understand the words: the general cacophony screaming through surface comms told him it was panic beneath the smooth ocean waves. If he’d been down there, he’d be sitting with a pulse pistol in one hand, a whiskey in the other, ready to make sure Qorall didn’t add him to his army.
Staring at the pristine Zlarasi world, its turquoise oceans shimmerin
g in the sunlight, knowing it would soon be gone, his mind drifted back to Earth’s own demise. He’d managed to help twelve thousand souls escape, but seven billion had been slaughtered. Kilaney had kept the Q’Roth occupied long enough for the transports to escape, only to be captured and turned into a Q’Roth warrior. Luckily, though it had taken many years, they’d gotten Kilaney back. With his Q’Roth battle experience, Kilaney was now more valuable than ever.
Something snagged in Blake’s head. What if…?
Four minutes to intercept.
The fledgling idea dangled on the edge of his mind. Rather than chase it, which in his experience only pushed it away, he concentrated on something else. Whenever Qorall took over a race, the virus brewing inside the Orb adapted to the intelligence level of the indigenous species. When the Orbs had first appeared a month earlier, they targeted any species in their path, no matter what level. Now Qorall was being more strategic, sending them to worlds inhabited by higher-level races, such as the Level Six world below. Blake also knew that was why he and Kilaney’s small human contingent had been sent here; higher-level allies had been sent to attack the Orbs bearing down on Level Nine, Ten and Eleven worlds.
Apparently a Level Twelve fleet had managed to stop an Orb, by working with the Shrell to cause it to founder in Transpace, costing the lives of a thousand Shrell in the process. But the Orb had exploded, emitting a burst of epsilon radiation over a twenty light year radius, annihilating three species inhabiting unshielded planets, including those on transports fleeing the system.
He imagined the near future as the inhabitants below were killed or turned. All the indigenous species’ ships, and the planet itself, had self-destruct systems; no one wanted to be corrupted. Of course, it didn’t matter to Qorall. Blake had always loathed terrorists, whom he unequivocally branded cowards, as they targeted civilians. But Qorall had taken it one step further, turning those civilians into his army. Blake squeezed his fist hard inside his palm, then changed hands, repeating the move. Soldiers like him were supposed to be able to protect civilian populations. He took three deep breaths to calm himself down. It didn’t work.
Three minutes to intercept.
Movement on the central display came as a welcome distraction. At least the local inhabitants had impressive ships – half of them upgraded with Level Nine tech – skeletal green diamond shapes with a burning white anti-matter core at their centre, held in check by a magnetic brace. Ten of the ships engaged the Orb at the outer edge of the system. Their particle beams and missiles had no effect. Atomics were used next, then anti-matter cluster-bombs. The view screen on Blake’s Dart automatically dampened visuals so the blast flashes didn’t blind him. He tapped a pad on the console to contact Kilaney, once again his Commander-in-Chief, housed in the Q’Roth Destroyer hanging above the planet.
“The Orb’s trajectory hasn’t been deflected or even slowed down. How is that possible?” Blake asked.
Kilaney’s voice was gravelly, serious in a pissed-off way. “We think they use some kind of contained micro-black hole to power the shields and resist gravimetric attacks.”
Blake watched as new Zlarasi ships – massive affairs shaped like conch sea-shells – spewed megatons of rock at the Orb. Mass drivers were crude, but it made sense to try, since shields were usually designed to resist high-energy beam attacks rather than those from kinetic energy. But again, there was no deflection of the Orb’s trajectory. Instead the avalanche of rock was parried around the Orb and then compacted, making it glow under heat stress. It briefly gave the Orb a comet-like tail.
Two minutes to intercept.
“They should retreat,” Blake said, knowing they wouldn’t. He wouldn’t if he were there. “Maybe they can salvage more people from below.”
“We need to fall back, Blake. I don’t see what else we can do here.”
Blake made a steeple with his fingers and stared at the ochre sphere. The diamond ships were still firing, when an alarm signified an intense gravimetric shock wave. All of the Zlarasi vessels were sucked violently towards the Orb’s surface. Their commanders’ shouts and screams tore at him, but he didn’t shut them off; that was part of his code, to stay with soldiers when they died. He watched as the ships were engulfed, disappearing without a trace. Sonofabitch. He’d commanded troops plenty of times before, but never seen such wasteful deaths.
Kilaney came online again, his voice scratchy. “We have to leave now while we still can, take the intel we’ve gathered back to base.”
“How many, Bill?”
There was a pause before Kilaney answered. “I don’t count them anymore, Blake, not since –”
“How many?”
“Dammit Blake… fourteen hundred and fifty-seven souls. But that’s a piss in the ocean compared to the billions still on the planet.”
Blake closed his eyes as if in silent prayer, then opened them again. “But they were soldiers. Their death has to mean something.” As does mine. The idea crystallized in his mind, and as soon as it had formed, it made obvious sense. His mind made up, his anger congealed into purpose. “We’re not leaving empty-handed, Bill. This can’t all be for nothing.” He touched a panel, and his ship pitched forward, then accelerated towards the Orb.
One minute to intercept.
“Blake, what the hell are you doing? That Dart won’t even get its attention!”
Blake had wondered why Kalaran had suggested he take a Scintarelli Dart, while Kilaney commanded a Destroyer. Now he understood. Probably Kalaran had planted the idea in his head. It didn’t matter. Time to play the wild card.
“We need a sample to study, Bill. A live one. In ten seconds I’m passing command override to you. The Dart has antigrav, remember? If the Scintarelli are as good as their word, this little ship can slipstream out of a black hole’s event horizon, so it should be able to escape the Orb’s local gravity.”
There was a pause. “Wait a goddammed minute, Blake. Are you suggesting what I think you are? Hell, you’re asking me to watch my best friend get turned into one of Qorall’s soldiers. I won’t do it, Blake. There has to be another way. We could come back later and capture one of the others who’ve been turned.”
“Later isn’t now. So far none of those turned have been captured alive, and the code unravels after death. Bill, in war, intelligence is paramount.”
“Blake, dammit, I –”
“One shot, Bill. I can do this. We can do this. That’s why Kalaran sent us. That’s why he sent you and me.”
Kilaney remained silent. Blake continued, committing his friend to the plan.
“Once I’ve been infected, take me back to Esperia, to Kalaran, or to the Spiders if he’s not there.”
Kilaney’s voice lost its edge. “You think they’ll be able to fix you?”
The Orb occupied a third of Blake’s view screen. The writing began to look tantalizingly familiar, but he still couldn’t make sense of it. Blake wanted to spit, but his mouth was dry. Could he be turned back later, become himself again? He pushed the idea away; he’d never indulged in wanton optimism.
“Both Kalaran and the Spiders have scanned me physiologically and cognitively; they know me well. They can work out how the pathogen functions, maybe derive a defence.” He doubted there would be an antidote, not for him at any rate.
Blake’s aft screens told him the last transports of local inhabitants had jumped out of the system. They carried only fifteen per cent of the population, but it was better than nothing. They were headed to a water-based planet at the edge of the galaxy, where they would try to start afresh. He programmed a fly-by loop towards the Orb, then sat back.
Ten seconds till intercept.
“Bill, get out of here, recover me from long range. Don’t let me die for nothing. No words, either, we’ve said them all before.”
Kilaney stayed silent. Blake was relieved to see the General’s ship wink out and then reappear at the far edge of the system, outside the known range of the Orb.
Finish th
is one without me, Bill.
The Orb filled his screen. Blake watched the writing appear and disappear, wondering again what it meant, and who would read it. Eventually he was so close its surface appeared flat. A fissure opened up beneath his Dart, a golden flare lashing out at his ship.
“Now, Bill!”
The normally-silent Dart engines whined, then roared. Deafening klaxons barked in the cockpit as the pathogen breached the hull, the air around him taking on a golden hue. The ship shook violently as it strained to pull away, and Blake had to clamp his jaw to protect his teeth. The engine pitch rose to a screech, then descended as the Dart catapulted away from the Orb. Blake raised his hand to salute his commander, but halfway his hand stopped. It was golden.
He turned it around to see his palm, the cracks and lines appearing in sharper relief against its golden sheen. It spread beyond his wrist, crawled up his forearm, icy veins sketching a web at first, the area between the veins quickly filling in. It was almost beautiful, save for the ice-burn sensation that had now reached his throat. He thought of Glenda, while he still could. Pray for my soul, my love.
His vision blurred as the freezing wave reached his scalp and lanced behind his eyes, which he squeezed shut. Nausea gripped him and he dry-retched, then it passed. His mind felt like it was being squeezed through a sieve. He found it difficult to focus, impossible to think in anything except loose fragments. Through an effort of will, he remembered Glenda, long gone, their wedding, a younger Bill Kilaney with a full head of jet black hair congratulating him, but then the image lost cohesion. Bill who? He struggled to recall the name, knowing it was important, something was really important, he mustn’t let it go. But what was it? His whole body, from skin to core, felt like it was made of ice. Yet it no longer felt cold, it felt… pure. It had been so dirty before, so confused, all that detritus in his head, floating like scum on the surface of his mind. Impure thoughts drained out of him until his mind was clear as water.
