by Celeste Raye
Talon’s eyes scanned across his face. Drake kept his expression open and relaxed. Talon nodded. “Then I shall fly beside you.”
Drake said, “I would appreciate that.”
They headed back toward the other side of the bridge, toward the actual flight deck. Talon stepped into his usual place and Drake stepped in beside him, settling into the co-captain spot with real ease. Even that rankled. He should not be so comfortable being second-in-command. But he was. His early life and predisposed him to that, and that too irritated Drake.
They had breached the inner ring of the planet’s atmosphere now. The fire belched consistently from the surface, igniting the gaseous ring. Solar flares struck the planet, chipping away more and more of it with each strike.
They passed that planet and found themselves facing seven more. The planets ranged in size from what had once been the large first planet to the tiniest planet at the back end of the galaxy. The system had always reminded him of the galaxy that Old Earth had once sat in. Not that Old Earth still existed. It had been bombed into nothingness and not so long ago.
The memory of all of the people that he loved there on the planet he had spent so much time on made his shoulders tightened. He knew that the Federation was capricious and that at any moment they could do the same thing to his home planet: Newport.
The igniting atmosphere was not the least of their worries. They had barely passed the fire with the next stage began. Ice. So much of it that if they did not fly fast and true, the ship would be mired down and become frozen. Everything within it would also freeze solid, including them. Drake’s hands were steady on the control, but his thoughts were chaotic.
What lay behind that door?
Chapter 4:
Lornia woke again some hours later. Restlessness had followed her into sleep, and as she sat up again her limbs twitched and her eyes sought out the familiar shape of the walls and the damaged ceiling. That sense of foreboding, of something coming toward her, filled her. She felt that way before, not so long ago. She’d run through the fortress, her hopes dashed when she reached the ends and found the door still closed tightly and herself still a prisoner behind it.
She knew, because she had seen it with her own eyes, behind that door was only space. That space somehow twisted there and formed a sort of rough knot that held the door and place and the fortress as well.
Once upon a time, that door had been breached, opened by them. Those who had fled their own universe and the thing they had created within it. They had called themselves the founders of the Federation. They had been peacemakers, and they had known how to open the door. They had been allowed to stay and that had been the first mistake that she and her kind had made.
Those humans, they had been made in the very likeness of the race that she was from. The humans called them the Speakers simply because there was no word for their language for what her tribe really was. And of course, humans could not be bothered to learn the language that she had grown up with, and so they had had to learn the humans’ language instead.
These humans that claimed to want only peace had sought much more than that. She should know that as well. Franchine had been human, and his being human had been what he hated most about himself.
The things he had done to her race as they slept in their cryo- chambers…
A slow shudder worked its way through her body. He had lived long, that mad and arrogant human, because he had found some way of taking her blood and the blood of the others of her race and transforming it into something that would give him life. But he had done more than that. He had implanted parts of the machine within her and so ensured that the machine would live forever.
Or as long as she could bear to live.
That feeling came back, making her nipples stiffened and her stomach go both loose and hot. Her mouth went dry. When the humans had first come behind the door, she had felt the same urgent and slightly sick feeling, and she felt it again not long ago. It had felt as if someone were pushing toward the door and unable to open it. As if they were unable to untangle the web of space and time that held the door fast and closed.
Could someone have been trying then to enter? Could they have failed and gone away? Could they have been returning?
“I have to stop hoping. I do myself only harm. The days will be lonelier than ever once I realize that there is nobody coming.”
But she had realized that long ago, hadn’t she?
“I have never reconciled myself to it perhaps. Perhaps if I did, perhaps if I finally set myself down and said to myself that there is no hope left and that if I choose to continue to live, that this shall be my life, maybe then I shall be able to allow myself to die.”
There was truth in that. But there was more to it. She’d seen too many of her race die, and she’d sworn to hold the secrets of the weapon away from other humans. If any ever came. If that meant living for an eternity in order to protect life, that was what she would do.
If only it weren’t so lonely! If only there were even one other person there to stay with her, to speak to her and to help her rebuild the fortress into something beautiful and sustaining.
The gardens were still there, of course. Despite her immortality, she had basic needs to be met. Food being one of them. The gardens still bloomed as if there were an entire colony needing to eat when there was only her. She’d learned very clever ways of keeping that garden alive over the centuries. These gardens had nearly given out once; after the beast wars there had been precious little left. That was part of the reason why they had gone into their chambers to slumber. To give the garden lands time to heal from being scorched into nearly nothingness by weapon fire.
What had not been scorched and charred had been devastated by the beasts. Since she had been able to slumber for a century or more without food, as had the others, they had decided that length of time would be appropriate. That the fertile land could come back on its own if left undisturbed and implanted.
One of the first things she had done when she had reawakened to find herself so changed, was to re-instate the gardens.
Her feet hit the floor in an eerie repeat of her earlier rising. She stood there, her hands tucked under her armpits and her golden eyes fastened on the wall. She strained to hear any sound out of the ordinary, but of course, there was nothing out of the ordinary. The desolation there was complete. Everything was gone. What would it matter if it all fell to rubble? The humans didn’t even remember that the weapon was there, or that the place that ever existed.
She was sure of that. She was sure that if she simply moved into the machine room and placed her hands on the beating heart of that machine and then tore it out, it would not matter at all. That she could die. That this world they had created could die and it would make no difference.
Nothing would change, and no human would ever again be able to use her race and their knowledge.
Oh, but what if they found the way to the door opening and then their way into the other world? The one that had finally bloomed and blossomed and became just as terrible in its new life as it had been in its old life?
Then universes would be at war and all because she had been unable to hold onto her vows, the vows that they had all made when the door had been created originally.
If peace could not reign over the universe, then they would make sure that war capable of destroying an entire universe would also not come.
A sharp cramp hit her brain. The machine let off a low whine that set her teeth on edge.
That vow had been made, and she’d meant it. She’d made the vow to nobody but herself in the end. She’d stood over Franchine, who she’d killed with her bare hands, and sworn no human would ever again possess such power.
Humans were too weak to know how to handle that power. She had seen humans who had fled from the power they had created, and other beings as well, in the forms of those who had sought to hide themselves within the door so they could remain alive long enough to formulate some plan
that would allow them to return to their universe one day and put right what had gone wrong.
The same thing her own race had done, and she’d tried to tell those fools from the Federation that then, but they’d been afraid. Afraid of their mortality, afraid of their creation. Afraid of war.
She blew out a breath. That low, persistent thrum stayed within her mind. Fire and ice, water and blackness. Those were the things any who came had to cross, and none had since the Federation, who had somehow stumbled into the key that had been given out as a signal when she and the other members of her race had retreated behind the door that they’d discovered.
Behind that door, time did not move the way it did elsewhere. Franchine had not been content with being able to live there for an eternity or until he tired and chose to go to that long and unending slumber. He had wanted to take the weapon back into his universe and start a war that would see him as ruler of all.
Lornia walked through Tralam. The sky, a strange rusty-hued thing, peered in through the broken rooftops. Once upon a time, the idea of breathing air that came from outside that fortress had terrified her. Franchine’s experiments upon her body had ensured that no atmosphere would harm her lungs or heart.
That crippled her with sorrow every time she thought about it, so she shoved it aside and kept moving. The old cryo chambers hung in a haunted silence. The hallways were narrow and winding. The old bulkhead doors had long since stopped working, and many had been closed to prevent the beasts from being able to chase them down. They’d never been opened since.
Sometimes she heard a dim or wounded roar from behind those walls. There were still beasts within the closed-off sections of the fortress, she was sure of it, but the doors that penned them in still held, and while she was lonely and often frightened of how silent it usually was, she was not willing to open those doors to see if any beasts remained.
The beasts were deadly before. If any truly lived, if she were really hearing their faint voices and not just her own imagination, they would be far more vicious now.
The doors that had simply stopped functioning led to bedchambers. That bothered her. That the hallways that had once led to the rooms where so many that she had known and loved lay empty and feathered with centuries-thick dust made her heart sore, so she never went through the half-opened doors and never looked at the ones that were completely shut.
Lornia went straight to the gardens. The roof there was intact; the giant dome that created sun and shade had always held a testament to the design of it. The gardens were lush and rich and in the very center stood the well springs, warm, bubbling waters fringed with greenery. Lornia stepped into those waters, her eyes closing as she submerged herself.
The water was warmer below. The springs bubbled and spilled from pipes cleverly concealed along little panels that ran around the perimeter of the pool. The water stayed fresh because of the plants, which oxygenated the water and cleaned it as well.
She swam hard, her body flexing and straining as she went.
That feeling, that someone was nearing, persisted despite the strenuous exercise, and when she broke the surface again, her mood had gone from grim and frightened to curious and hopeful.
Could it be possible?
Drake said, “And you thought the ice was bad.”
Talon groaned. “You know, I really thought that planet your crazy brother lived on was a bitch to get in and out of. I was wrong. This one’s worse.”
Blade spoke up from behind them. “I can aid in the flight.”
Drake wanted to say no. The last thing he wanted was for Blade to step in and assist. But the truth was the watery world that was their next opponent was dangerous as hell. He’d only ever made it through it before because of dumb luck and because, on the way back, a strong grav pull had sucked his ship right through there and practically hurtled it past the fire- and ice-laden planets beyond.
He made his jaw loosen even though it wanted to clench. “That’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. Blade’s name was already one for the books. So was Talon’s, and so was the name of every one of Talon’s siblings. They would go down in history as powerful beings who had done something great and perhaps terrible, but that thing would change forever the shape of the universe.
It was his turn to be noted in history!
Drake’s common sense stepped in. He chided himself for those thoughts. They were childish almost, and that bothered him. He’d never known how strong his ambitions were until he had set out to find Tralam the first time and now that he did know in which direction his ambitions lay, he was not always comfortable with his reasons for this journey.
What makes a man one whose name is heard through the ages?
That had been the question posed to him most often by his father and Drake had known, as he had watched Blade wreak a trail of destruction against the Federation and commit crime after crime, all of them directed toward that same Federation, that Blade’s name would be remembered for centuries, and maybe beyond because his exploits were so much larger than life.
And he had also felt the pressure to be just as important to both his time and the times beyond it. General Bates had been a demanding father, but his biggest demand was that his second and mostly unwanted son bring great glory to the family name.
Oh sure, Blade had already brought a lot of fame to himself, but since nobody knew he was a Bates back then, and what he’d been doing hadn’t been something the general could be proud of, at least not until Bates had decided to revolt against the Federation too, it had been up to Drake to balance out those deeds and to become the man his father would brag about and be proud of.
Blade looked over at him, and a sickle-shaped smile played out on Blade’s lips. Drake had the uneasy feeling that Blade had just read his mind, and was amused by how churlish he was feeling—and the reasons for that churlishness too.
Drake shut off his thought. The world made of water loomed up, and Talon muttered, “What in the name of all the old gods is this?”
“Death,” Drake said in as calm a tone as he could manage. “If we aren’t careful.”
Talon said, “I can’t swim, so I’d advise us all to be very careful.”
The tension broke in a wave of laughter from all three of their mouths. The ship sailed onward, right into the grav pull that threatened to hurtle them down and onto the roiling surface of the watery world below.
Blade asked, “I wonder what sorts of beasts dwell in those depths?”
Drake said, “I would much rather not find out.”
The waves rose hundreds of feet from the surface. The gravity intensified, sucking at the bucking ship. Drake felt the ship straining, and he held his breath. “The wormhole is not far. Just this planet and three more and none of the others have quite the same pull.”
“Maybe it is the tide that makes it so strong,” Blade said as he peered down at the pulsing liquid fanning upward toward the ship. “Maybe if we waited?”
Talon said, “There’s no waiting for the tides to lessen. For all we know, they will just get stronger and this is the weakest that they ever are.”
Drake said, “They were stronger before. We need the thrusters.”
Talon considered that. “We may need them more later. We may need to use them for weapon fire if we find ourselves fighting.”
Drake wanted to shout to use the goddamn thrusters. He didn’t. Talon had a point. He had no idea what was behind that door; none of them did. If they had to use the thrusters to escape, it was far better to actually have them on hand.
They flew onward, past the grav pull, the ship trying its best to turn toward the planet, and all three of them fighting to keep it in line. Sweat broke out over Drake’s body and face. His breath got faster as they went sidling to the far right, nearly colliding with a flaming asteroid that hit the waters below and sent steam billowing up in a thick veiling curtain.
Then the gravity lessened. The sucking sensation slowed and then dropped away. Talon to
ok a long breath and looked at Drake. “You did this twice? You must be out of your mind.”
Drake found he could breathe again, but Talon’s words gave him pause. Was this insanity brought on by his father’s insistence that Drake be a man whose name would be remembered?
Probably, but the door was real, and it was not far now.
Not far at all.
Chapter 5:
Lornia’s pulse quickened. The machine flared into life, its lights winking and then beginning to burn steadily.
It was real!
The machine was waking, and that could mean only one thing: that a ship had crossed through the first knot of the wormhole and was now making its way toward Tralam.
It was true. The machine was coming back to life, resetting its systems and humming with an energy that she had not seen from it in centuries. Whoever was nearing the door, they’d come past most of the obstacles that the machine had set up to protect itself.
That ancient machine that was older even than she was.
Lornia swallowed hard as she realized, fully and completely realized, that she was about to come face-to-face with other beings for the first time in so very long.
Fear made her entire body tremble. The docking stations! They were above the fortress and the tubes that led from the docking station to the machine’s control room and the rooms and corridors in which she passed her time were now cut off from the fortress itself.
The beasts!
Did they still roam? Had she spent all these years believing she heard noise where there was none simply because she was so lonely and perhaps growing a little insane from that loneliness?
