by Nick Webb
Trusting Rice to maintain some modicum of professionalism among his bridge crew, he leaned back, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. The reason Oppenheimer had chosen him to go out, really, wasn’t because he wanted a detailed scientific analysis of the downfall of an alien civilization. It was because he thought maybe Granger would remember something. He’d never been to any of these sectors around the Penumbra system before. At least not in his regular human lifetime before the war.
But maybe he’d been here in his other life. His thirteen-billion-year-long life that only ended a few months ago. Had he been there before? Did he witness these events? Did he influence them? Did he . . . cause them? The flashing image of an exploding ISS Chesapeake made him shudder—it had been so long since he’d been human that he hadn’t even realized what he was doing. He was heading toward Earth, in his bodiless state, controlling the ship that used to be the ISS Victory from deep within its memory bank, struggling to remember what it was like to be human, when he encountered the Chesapeake.
And he destroyed it.
It was opposing his triumphal return to save Earth, so he destroyed it. He was just neutralizing a threat. An obstacle to overcome in his salvation of humanity. What were a few broken eggs?
Eggs again. For some reason, the image conjured vague, misty memories. Eggs? Why eggs? Chicken eggs? But it was uncanny—he felt something . . . familiar. About this region of space. Something happened here. Long ago.
And it involved eggs. Good Lord this memory thing’s a bitch.
He opened his eyes. “Ensign, what’s our exact position in space?”
Nagin glanced down at his console, searching again. This time, thankfully, it didn’t take long. “Uh, with Earth as the origin, we’re seven hundred eighty-two point six lightyears away at an angle with respect to the galactic center of—”
“No, no, no, not like that.” He thumped his armrest.
“Sir? I— I thought I did that right. Finally.”
“No, Ensign, you did fine. What I meant was . . . I need to know where we are, but in a way that I’ll recognize from before. Hold on, let me think.”
He closed his eyes again, trying, struggling, to remember how it was that he even came here in the first place. It was a long time ago, he felt that in his bones. But he came from . . . very far away. Millions of lightyears away. From several galaxies over. Andromeda? Large Magellanic Cloud? No. Farther. Wherever he’d been, he came here from far outside the galaxy. He remembered entering it. Passing the wispy clouds of stars at the outer fringes of the galactic halo, and traveling inward. Toward the Perseus arm. From . . . galactic north—yes, he remembered looking down on the plane of the Milky Way. His human eyes would have seen only a nondescript fuzzy cloud in the utter blackness of intergalactic space, but his modified, non-human eyes saw a brilliant rainbow of colors, bold hydrogen-alpha reds and oxygen-three greens and helium-one oranges and lustrous blue Rayleigh scattering from the seas of interstellar dust. It would have been beautiful. If he could only remember.
“Repeat the coordinates, but this time reference them from a frame where the origin is a point directly north of the galactic center, about a hundred thousand lightyears. Put Earth at zero degrees angle from the center.”
Ensign Nagin looked highly confused—he had difficulty masking his facial expressions, it seemed. One eye opened wide, the other squinted, his eyebrows mirrored the effect. “. . . Yes sir. I’ll see what I can do.” He jabbed at a few buttons on the console, and nearly a minute later did a small fist pump of victory in the air in front of him where he probably thought Granger wouldn’t see. “Done, sir.”
“Show me. On screen.”
Nagin motioned the image on his console up to the viewscreen and transferred control over to Granger.
“Still not quite the same. But it’ll do.” Captain Granger motioned with both hands, rotating the galaxy, shifting it closer, zooming them in on the Perseus arm. Closer and closer to the region of space they were in. Earth and the rest of UE space fell out of the frame on the left, and soon all they could see on the screen was a smattering of stars in no recognizable pattern. “Hmm . . .” Nothing stood out to him. It was a cloud of stars like any other.
“Sir?”
“Ensign, show me all blue hyper-giant stars. Highlight them in blue.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” A few taps on the console, and a dozen or so stars shifted from white to blue.
“Hmm. Still not quite.” He closed his eyes, struggling to remember. Desperate. It was like a phrase was on the tip of his tongue. Or like he’d seen a vaguely familiar face in a large crowd and was on the verge of remembering a name he’d learned decades ago. “Okay. Highlight all natural meta-space sources.”
More taps on the console. Soon three stars shifted from white to bright pink. One of them, the Penumbra black hole, was the largest. The other two . . .
“What are those, Ensign?”
Nagin ran through a few menus and read them off. “The one on the left is a three-solar-mass black hole—a trinary system in the Poincaré sector. It’s companions are two white dwarfs. The one down below is a fifty-five-solar-mass black hole in the Blanchard Sigma Delta system. A binary with a white dwarf.”
Suddenly the image set off a flurry of memories. He’d seen this before. Nearly this exact same representation of the starfield. On his own ship. The remains of the ISS Victory fused with various heavy-metal asteroids and upgraded with technology he’d developed over millions of years, with help from the Valarisi.
“Okay. Okay. Set t-jump coordinates to the three-solar-mass black hole. The trinary system.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Nagin entered the coordinates, and a few minutes later, they were there.
“On screen.”
An image of the white star popped up.
It was an egg.
Or rather, its shape was distorted along one axis, producing an uncanny egg-like shape. “It’s locked in a close orbit with the black hole, sir. Must be what’s producing that shape. And this pair is in an orbit with the third companion, about five billion kilometers away.”
His eyes strained to see any indication of the black hole, but at this distance a three-solar-mass black hole would only produce a light shadow far too small to see. “Planets? Anything habitable?”
“Yes, sir. Second planet. M-class. Oceans, oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, and significant biomass, sir.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Take us there, Ensign. Q-jump to high orbit.”
Another minute and they were orbiting slowly, high over the green, blue, and brown planet below. Ice tinged the poles. White clouds swirled over the tropics. It looked strikingly Earth-like.
And that continent. My god. “Zoom in on that southern continent, Ensign.”
The image shifted to reveal a large island, about the size of Borneo on Earth.
But it was an almost perfectly formed “X.” “Well ain’t that damn peculiar,” said Granger. “X marks the spot?”
Lieutenant Commander Rice had approached him from behind. “Do you think it’s unnatural, sir?”
“I don’t know what can shape continents other than tectonic plate movement. But damn if that doesn’t look a tad unnatural, son.” He stepped closer to the screen. “Ensign, zoom in. Do a topographical analysis of the coastline. Tell me just how straight and precise that thing is.”
Nagin looked like a deer in the headlights.
“My apologies, Mr. Nagin. That would be a task better suited to the science officer.” He turned to the ensign near the rear wall at the science station. “Ensign . . . Platt?”
“Yes, sir!” she replied, a little too enthusiastically.
“What I told him. Do that.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Still too enthusiastic. He’d have to have a word with Rice about it. That would get annoying fast.
A minute later she made her report. “Topographic analysis reveals that the elevation within five kilometers of the coast around the entire continent only
varies by a meter or less, at a maximum height of fifty-two meters. The variation in the linearity of the coast only varies by half a kilometer or so, and those variations line up with what look like the main continental shelf plates below.”
“Continental plates? Are you saying the core is active? Volcanism?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yet, with active continental plates, we still have this island. An island that, even if it were formed into the shape of an X eons ago, would surely have contorted and drifted into some other shape by now.”
“Unless it was some random shape to begin with millions of years ago and the plate tectonics pushed it into this configuration?” Commander Rice offered. “On its own? And we’re just lucky enough to see it like this?”
Granger eyed him skeptically. “So what I’m hearing is that continent is not natural. Do you concur, Ensign Platt?” he said.
“Yes, sir! I concur, sir!”
Oh my god. He’d have to have that chat with Rice sooner rather than later.
“And sir?” said Ensign Nagin. “I’m seeing some ruins. Right in the center of that continent. They look to be quite old—lots of it is buried.”
That planet. Those stars. This continent. So familiar. And the ruins. He was beginning to feel he’d spent a fair amount of time here. Hundreds—no, thousands of years. Studying, calculating, planning, shaping . . .
“Okay. And to tell you all the truth, I think I knew that already. I think, well, how to put this . . .” He stroked his chin stubble. “Aw hell. I think I helped make this damn thing.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Savannah Sector
Nova Nairobi, High Orbit
ISS Independence
Bridge
Proctor didn’t even wait for him to speak when his face appeared in front of her.
“Christian Xavier Fucking Oppenheimer, you have some explaining to do. When I was head of IDF, I promoted you, I trusted you, I looked past your failings and gave you second and third chances. And now this? Going behind my back and sending your goons to extract Decker’s Valarisi companion out of him? Let me tell you, Christian, I may never have had children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren for that matter, but if my nephew or his kids had ever treated me with such disrespect? Let’s just say you’re not too old to spank, Admiral.”
Oppenheimer’s CGI face performed something between a frown and a smirk, and it was so uncanny and off-putting she waved the projection off, preferring only to hear his contemptible voice.
“Oh that’s rich, Shelby. Look past my failings? Going behind your back? Who the hell do you think you are? I’m your commanding officer, and I go around whatever back I please, especially the back of some washed-up former IDF brass who thinks she still runs things.”
She wanted to wave the CGI image back on and punch her fist through its holographic face. Instead she steeled her jaw and stared straight ahead, knowing full well he could still see her CGI image. She’d give him no raw emotion to twist to his advantage.
“I’ll remind you that you came to me, practically begging me to come back. I don’t need to be here, Christian. I was very happily retired. My old classroom is currently a floating molten cloud, but I’m sure I could get into any university on Earth I wanted to. If you want me here, you treat me with the respect I deserve. I will not ask you again.”
“To tell the truth, Shelby, I don’t want you here. I tried to let you go. But the Chiefs of Staff overrode me—can’t afford to lose any experienced commanders, they said. I tried to appeal. Went straight to Sepulveda. He overrode me too, but for entirely different reasons. Seems he wants to be seen on the side of the Companion to the Hero of Earth. Doesn’t want to piss off the Grangerites and lose the election. So apparently, I’m stuck with you. But don’t forget, Shelby: I’m in charge, and I call the shots. Period. If you have a problem with that then I have no problem assigning an entire detail of IDF security to the Independence to watch your every move and require signatures by me in triplicate if you so much as want to chew gum.”
Contempt was dripping from his voice. Especially when he referred to her nickname.
She breathed deep, forcing calm over herself.
“Christian. Listen to me. We have the same goals. The same ideals. We’re on the same side, goddammit. Just keep me in the loop.”
“Fair. And I’ll say the same. Keep me in the loop.” He paused, and she wondered if he was being sincere or not. “For God’s sake, Shelby, keeping a Valarisi on board?”
She let a few moments of silence fall before she spoke. “Decker is in a coma.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Sorry to hear it. But maybe next time don’t go behind my back.”
“Fine.” Apparently, he wasn’t too concerned about Ensign Decker. Par for the course for Oppenheimer. One thing he was good at was compartmentalizing his human feelings of compassion and concern for individual people, separating them from his duties as an IDF officer and whatever he considered the mission. She knew he wasn’t a cold-hearted bastard, not deep down. But he could sure come off that way.
She needed to change the subject. Neither of them were going to make much headway talking about who was more stubborn.
“Christian, I need Tim. The Eru won’t stop asking for him.”
“Well that’s their problem, isn’t it?”
He apparently wasn’t going to take the belligerence down a notch.
“We may need them in the days ahead. They’re formidable, Christian. At least as formidable as the Dolmasi. If we can get them on our side? That’s one more tool in our arsenal to defend against the Findiri. Zion’s Haven, Christian. Don’t forget about Zion’s Haven. The Findiri are here. It’s only a matter of time before they home in on the right system. Maybe they don’t know where Earth is yet, but our time is short. We need allies.”
“Aliens. As allies? Seriously, Shelby. Trusting aliens to help us against aliens? Don’t you see how ludicrous that is?”
“It didn’t seem so ludicrous at Penumbra,” she replied cooly. “Human, Dolmasi, Skiorha, and Valarisi all united—that’s what it took to destroy the Swarm.”
“We wouldn’t have had the Swarm to deal with if it hadn’t been for the Valarisi,” he replied, just as cooly.
“That’s not true and you kn—”
“Oh no? Let me tell you, Shelby, if by some wild twist of fate it had turned out that the Swarm was just humans in disguise, and the Findiri were breathing down our necks, I’d side with the Swarm in a heartbeat to take those blasted aliens out. We may bicker among ourselves, Shelby, but ultimately all humans are family. Aliens? We can’t just blindly put our faith in them and expect them to have our interests at heart. The Eru? What motivates them? What’s their mission? What are their fears? What are their weaknesses? Do they even value the things we value? Peace? Prosperity? Kin? Clearly the Dolmasi don’t, which is why we keep them at arm’s length.”
She knew, since her days as captain, that he felt this way about aliens, but it was still striking to hear him say it out loud.
And unfortunately, he was not alone. Billions felt the same as him. Billions were motivated by fear, rather than hope and trust and peace.
“Fine, Christian, I’m not going to argue xeno-sociology with you. But I need Tim. If talking to the Eru will jog his memory, and let him remember something more about how to stop the Findiri, then we need him here.”
“Well that’s going to be difficult, Shelby.”
“Why?”
A sigh. “Because the whereabouts of Captain Granger are currently . . . unclear.”
“What?”
“I sent him out on that mission to investigate the alien ruins in the Kiev Sector, but he didn’t go there. He went somewhere else, and he’s been radio-silent since.”
She held her head in her hands.
“Shelby?”
“Christian, you know how I could have found him? It would have been easy. Decker could have located him, had you not barbarically—”
“And you see that as good thing?” he interrupted. “These amazing abilities the Valarisi have, sure, they’re great, they’re useful, they’re very helpful to us. But what happens when the day comes that those abilities are used against us? You know why I pulled the trigger and had the Valarisi stripped from Decker? Because of that tactile ability he said they’ve restored. I’d hoped that keeping them all contained in that vat on Kyoto Three would perhaps stifle or slow their ability to progress and relearn all they once knew, but apparently not. What happens when they relearn how to spread from person to person through touch alone, Shelby? Like a virus. They could spread throughout IDF and United Earth in a matter of weeks, and bam! Just like that, we’re no better off than if the Swarm had won.”
She was done. He wouldn’t see reason. And what irked her the most was that, yes, from his point of view, he was right.
But she felt them. When she had it with her, she knew her companion intimately. Nothing was hidden, nothing held back. It was a being of light, with no guile, no hidden ulterior motives. Oppenheimer never experienced that. So it made sense he was so suspect.
Nothing was hidden—except for the fact that her companion had simply disappeared before Oppenheimer’s goons could suck it out of her. That was worrying.
“Very well, Christian. We’ll resume our translation and diplomacy mission with the Eru. Please step on the gas a little with assembling that translation team—there’s only so much we can do on our own. Proctor out.”
She waved the transmission off before he could respond.
They needed to understand the Eru, fast. Time was running out.
There was only one Hail Mary that had any chance of working. She waved the privacy screen off that was shimmering around her, and the bridge snapped back into place from the fuzzy shadows it had been.
“Ensign Sampono, send a message to Captain Whitehorse on the Volz. I need Commander Qwerty here, immediately. I understand she can’t just hop on over here, so . . .”
She glanced at her tactical readout for IDF as a whole, zooming in on the Savannah sector, the adjacent Britannia Sector, the nearby Veracruz Sector where the Volz was working with the Itharans— ah, that would do nicely. “Tell her the ISS Dirac will stop by shortly to pick him up and deliver him to us. Also, tell her the Crimson Phoenix will also be arriving shortly to pick up her fiancé. I think my nephew and Ms. Liu should be able to track down our missing captain, and I want Zivic and his squad with them when they do in case there’s trouble.” She drummed her fingers a bit. “And then get me on meta-space with the Dirac. I’ll need to ask Rayna face-to-face if she can interrupt her mission for a few hours and be my taxi driver. One thing I’ve learned—you don’t get in between that lady and her pet science project.”
