Explorations: First Contact

by Isaac Hooke

  “Oh, shit!”

  Panic flooded her mind as she sat there, watching the dark lines draw themselves up her arms just under the skin. She rolled out of the pod and sprinted across the deck to the medical locker.

  “Shit, shit, shit!”

  Her fingers fumbled with the latch, struggling to get the panel open. She slammed her fist, denting the panel, and it popped open.

  “Stupid, Carol,” she said, searching for the injector she wanted. “Stupid, stupid.”

  She found what she was looking for as the tingle reached her elbow, popped the cap off with her thumb and stabbed it down hard into her bicep. Pain flashed white-hot through her arm and she felt the warmth of the universal antibiotic flow into her body. She activated the bioscanner, and red holographic lines blinked into existence then panned across her body. An alarm sounded and several warnings flashed onto the screen.

  UNKNOWN BIO-MECHANICAL CONTAGION PRESENT. URGENT CARE RECOMMENDED. NANITE INTRUSION DETECTED.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  She gave herself another dose, not caring about overdosing. The dark lines slowed as they passed her elbow, nearing where she’d injected the medicine. She said a silent prayer, willing the spreading infection to stop.

  Farris looked down the rows of cryotubes, wondering if they were all infected. None of the other tubes registered any sign of infection, but that didn’t mean the bastards weren’t dormant, waiting for their hosts to wake from their long sleep. The horror of surviving such a long cryosleep, only to wake to something destroying you from the inside out, turned her stomach.

  And it was her fault. How could she have been so stupid?

  She fell to her knees, mind numb, skin tingling. The dark lines detoured around the injection site and continued their slow advance up her arm. She was beginning to lose feeling in the tips of her fingers.

  Anther alarm sounded, echoing through the large cryogenic bay, followed by the computer’s emotionless voice. “Sphere drive activation in five minutes.”

  Farris knew what she had to do. She jumped to her feet and sprinted for the hatch.

  By the time she’d reached the bridge her fingers were all but useless, and the tingling in her forearm had begun to fade, replaced by a growing numbness. She crossed her station and began typing commands into her station with her good hand. With only one hand, it took some doing to key in the proper sequence, but finally a window opened.

  SPHERE DRIVE DISENGAGED.

  She allowed herself a second to contemplate what she’d done, knowing it could be several years until someone would come for her crew, if ever. Would Harbinger’s crew remain in stasis indefinitely? Maybe someday the Federation would be able to find a cure for this disease. Maybe someday they’d be able to save her crew.

  She keyed in a second sequence and another warning box flashed open, asking for confirmation. The comblast would only work once and deplete the Sphere drive of most of its energy. But getting a message home was the only thing she could do. Her shoulder and back were beginning to tingle, the infected arm now completely numb.

  She pulled herself into her chair, watching as the comblast shot into deep space. Tears streamed down her face. She said a silent prayer for Gary, he would be angry, he would be sad, but he would be alive. They’d both known the risks coming out here, known there would be hardships. They’d accepted the responsibility anyway.

  Captain Carol Farris knew she’d have to make the hard decisions. The survival of the Human race was the only thing that mattered, and for her mission to succeed, sacrifices had to be made.

  SEVEN

  Trilus rejoiced as his ship entered displacement space, leaving the cursed system behind. The Sphere ship had given the Fardaas the stars and provided his people the means with which to protect themselves. The Twelve would rejoice when he shared the tale of his victory here. Not only Cleansing the target system, but dealing a decisive blow to a much more dangerous foe.

  With the Twelve’s blessing, his Cleansing would spread throughout the ship’s crew and on their return to their home, it would spread like a fire through their entire race. The Sphere ship hadn’t been able to give the Twelve specifics about the threat that faced his people, but of the thirteen systems it had shared, Trilus had saved his people from five, possibly now six.

  Despite his absolute faith in the Twelve’s Mandate, he’d had a moment of pause while talking with the Number Six Speaker. They had assisted him with completing his mission, after all, and part of Trilus wondered if they might have the power to assist him further with his mission. But, ultimately, he didn’t have the luxury of those considerations; it was not his place. He was a tool of the Holy Twelve, and if he neglected his duties, he neglected his people.

  He would not fail his people.

  His struggle against Number Five had been long and difficult and in the end, had almost failed. For a Cleansing to work property it had to be delivered carefully, without detection. He’d been too complicit and had allowed himself to be detected by the Kalahari, almost costing him the mission. The arrival of Number Six had saved him, and Trilus felt regret in spreading the Twelve’s message to them.

  His computers hadn’t found any direct reference to the Sixth Race, but that didn’t change his mission. Nevertheless, the Twelve would have to be consulted.

  The level of technology the Sixth Race possessed rivaled that of the Fardaas, and that terrifying knowledge was all Trilus needed to continue with his mission. He’d seen through their lies. No one with their level of technology would need assistance from the Fardaas. They were simply trying to trick him into an easy defeat, but he’d outsmarted them.

  Trilus had saved his people and the Twelve’s Cleansing would continue.

  The Star race would be defeated.

  Josh Hayes Bio

  Ever since he watched his first Star Trek episode (TNG not OS), Josh Hayes has loved science fiction. Watching it, reading it, and writing it.

  Josh grew up a military brat, affording him the opportunity to meet several different types of people, in multiple states and foreign countries. After graduating high school, he joined the United States Air Force and served for six years, before leaving military life to work in law enforcement. His experiences in both his military life and police life have given him a unique glimpse into the lives of people around him and it shows through in the characters he creates.

  When Josh is not writing, he spends his time with his three children and his wife, Jamie.

  For more information on Josh and his writing, please visit his webpage: http://www.joshhayeswriter.com/

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  Epilogue – Empyrean

  By Jacob Cooper

  My daughter—Etheria—has faded from my mind. An Eternity of my own creating, annihilated from the cosmic ocean of time and space, from coalesced sentience. Eons of creation and effulgent life dissipated in less time than my rotation.

  I have lost her, my brothers and sisters, I cried out to my fellow Eternities. Children, your sister, Etheria, has been killed. You feel my sorrow through the ocean. Weep with me, for she is gone. Gone. Gone!

  Their anguish pulsed back to me through ocean, currents of rage and sorrow, of confusion. Their inbound inquiries flooded my mind, threatening to unleash chaos, but I held entropy at bay.

  Thank you, my brothers and sisters, my children. It is beyond me, what has occurred. I felt her cry, felt our tether snap within the cosmic womb. She called out to me as a virulent coldness peeled her skin away, turning it to dust. Her last scream as her fusion failed …it echoes within me still. I wail in my sorrow. It is a blight upon me. A shame. I could not save her. Why? Why has my power failed her? Who has taken her from me?

  I continued in my misery and excogitation for some time, though for how long, I could not say. For, eventually—again, when I cannot discern, but this seems a small thing to me juxtaposed with the fact of the thing itself—I felt her. Etheria. At first, I thought this feeling to be nothing more than tendrils
of my pain, refusing to be snuffed out; but soon, I distinguished this recognition of my dead daughter as separate from my own thoughts. I felt a second sentience, her mind—though weaker and more basic, to be sure.

  Of course, I realized. She is an Eternity, born of the cosmic womb, of perennial elements.

  The particles of her being had flowed to me. I cannot say how this occurred; perhaps my sorrow pulled them to me, or perhaps she, the remnants of her sentience, willed it. Again, the exact reason eluded me, but I did not ponder upon this. Her elements coalesced around me, begging to be heard.

  Behold, my brothers and sisters, my children, she has come to me. My daughter. See, for she is here, even now.

  The Eternities flashed with joy over her return to me, basking in my relief. Though, now, the reality of her loss, of her diminishment, hit with me with even greater force. How it pained me to see her in this state. No form. No fusion. No warmth. Her elements ceased their progression toward me, remaining just on the fringes of my domain, as if ashamed to approach closer. She felt, I knew, in the way that a parent intuits its child’s mind, unworthy.

  No, my lost one. Be not ashamed. Speak, Etheria, my daughter, substance of my womb.

  But she did not speak. She could not, I surmised, and her agitation emanated. So, I gathered her, the essence of who she once was, pulling her elements even nearer to me. I drew her through the currents of light, directing her galactic course, that I might give her voice. Rebirth, even. My own photosphere burned brighter as her elements passed through my corona, tickling me with her memories, with her desires. Her unwarranted shame pulsed in the subatomic particles that once composed her majestic body, crying out for vengeance. I betook her pleas as simply for vengeance initially, but this did not seem accurate the more I felt the pulses, felt her essence bathe over me, forming an intra-corona orbit. Etheria begged that she would be granted the power to exact vengeance. The deepest elements of my core, infused with righteous indignation, spun.

  Yes, my daughter. I will grant you your desires.

  Her elements, still infused with basic identity, buzzed within my corona. I accessed her memories, a process opposite, if I may describe it as such, to fusion. Emissions of light were trapped within her particles, absorbed near the end of her life. These emissions felt ponderous, their waves less urgent than my own essence. It came to me then: these light waves did not bespeak an identity, as did those of an Eternity. The lack of constant emanation, the pattern to the breaks of that emanation, the oscillations within the waves themselves, so minute that I almost missed them…all brought a new awareness to my mind: these emissions portrayed communication, crude though it was. Thoughts, to a degree, but in contrast to my own, these thought waves pulsed much faster, no longer seeming ponderous to me in the proper perspective.

  Could I discern these remnants of thought trapped within the memories of my lost Etheria? My core spun faster as I pulled all her particles into me, through my chromosphere and photosphere, deeper, through helium, through carbon, through oxygen and neon, drawing them to the center of my core, where I resided, that glorious part that was, in quintessence, me. The particles fused with the iron ash, anything but inert, and joined her basic sentience to mine. Oh, the blessed reunion of my daughter to me! But my bittersweet joy curdled to rage. Those memories, those thought waves that stained my child’s essence, came alive in me. I saw the meanings of them, their intent. Most radiated benign communication of archaic, menial understandings. Some, those nearer the end of my daughter, illuminated a hostility from beings composed of eternal elements, but not Eternities themselves. They had no fusion. Cores of cold, flexible mass that pushed oxygen throughout their bodies via a form of water rich in iron and other, not easily identifiable, elements. They seemed to be sentient individually, these…cells within the fluid. Yes, discernment settled upon me then: these beings thrived on oxygen and carbon, on a type of respiration so foreign to Eternities. I had both these elements, but these cold, fusionless beings used them differently. And yet, it could not be denied, there was a beauty in their composition; but they had turned that beauty to wrath against my beautiful Etheria.

  I probed deeper into these memories. These beings depended upon an Eternity, a small variety not related to me, one they called Sol. Like parasites, they swarmed over a planet near this Sol. I discovered that the light that stained my child’s essence with memory was called “radio waves” to these beings, an invisible phenomena to them, discernable only with other crude creations. Their thought waves, I surmised, were synthetic. And there, on the sphere they polluted by their very presence, I saw that they had harnessed the power of fusion, a power reserved only for those of Eternity.

  So, you steal our secrets and spread wrath through the comic ocean, bringing death to my child.

  I saw their weapon, that thing that had destroyed my Etheria. Such a thing could not be permitted to exist within the cosmic ocean.

  Come to me, my children. Elendral, Eskahn, Edimar, Elthum, Elysia, Ekte. Come to me, your mother and father, Empyrean, and see your sister reborn.

  Time elapsed, but I reveled in the union between my Etheria and me. I learned of her contact with these humans, gleaned all I could from their pollutive light etched into my daughter’s particles. Though their communication was, indeed, woefully crude, had they no thought for secrecy? For furtiveness? I reaped knowledge of their technology and doings unabated, and decided that their profane presence within the cosmic ocean must needs be eradicated.

  They did come, my six other children. Around a perfect equatorial plane, they orbited, anxious.

  And now, I, the architect of your sentience, will grant your desires, my daughter. I will birth you anew. From my womb of fire, I send you forth. For I am Empyrean, that which the ancients gave glory and honor to, that which is worthy of worship throughout the eternal cosmic ocean, the brightest and largest of all, around which all things, great and small, revolve. I am worthy, the axiom of existence.

  From my body, I sent forth seven elongated vessels of plasma, each sentient, each a branch of Etheria, each of one mind: her mind, and hers of mine. In their own way, the vessels were still Eternities, for each of their cores burned with fusion.

  In you, Etheria, have I laid the seeds for retribution, the capability to resist and counter the weapon that ended your previous form? Go now, my children, and visit them with vengeance, these humans. Scatter their elements across the cosmic ocean and bring their Eternity to me for judgment. For I am Empyrean.

  It's 2052 and the first known wormhole appears in lunar orbit. Earth sends a ship to investigate and the future of space travel changes forever. The Solar System develops in many ways over the centuries, but one thing remains constant; the wormholes continue to appear.

  Join many of today's most exciting indie science fiction authors as they chart a shared universe and future-history, each telling us stories of: Explorations: Through the Wormhole.

  The Challenge - Ralph Kern

  Through Glassy Eyes - PP Corcoran

  Here, Then, Forever - Chris Guillory

  AI Deniers - Rosie Oliver

  Flawed Perspective - PJ Strebor

  The Lost Colony - Josh Hayes

  The Aeon Incident - Richard Fox

  The Doors of the Temple - Jo Zebedee

  Dead Weight - Thaddeus White

  Webbed Prisms - Charlie Pulsipher

  Anathema - Jacob Cooper

  When the Skies Open - Shellie Horst

  A Second Infection - Stephen Palmer

  Personal Growth - Stephen Moss

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  SOMETIMES THE JOURNEY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE DESTINATION.

  A stone from the starts rips a royal family apart, in a new tale from the banished lands. Weary hero Cam rides to the aid of his dying king, bearing the elixir that may save him. A party of reluctant adventurers pursues a troll across a snowy mountainside – or is it the troll who is hunting them?

  Fourteen ta
les of daring, death, and glory, by fourteen talented writers.

  Grab your map, sword, and magical amulet; your journey awaits.

  With stories from:

  John Gwynne, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Gail Z Martin, Juliet E McKenna, Julia Knight, Juliana Spink Mills, Jacob Cooper, Samanda R Primeau, Steven Poore, Davis Ashura, Dan Jones, Charlie Pulsipher, Anna Dickinson, and Thaddeus White

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  The Heart Blade will rise in light, or in darkness.

  Teenage half-demon Del Raven wears a promise in scarred letters upon her skin. Now, pressured to make her first kill and seal her demon nature forever, she flees her pack and forges a dangerous partnership with young angel-blood Ash.

  But Del isn't the only one on the run from the demons. For seventeen years the Guild of Saint Peter has done its best to hide orphan Rose, a key player in the centuries-old Heart Blade prophecy.

  The threads tangle, and soon Del, Ash and Rose find themselves in the crosshairs of an ancient war between demons and angels... and the hunt for a mythical weapon that could change the balance of power forever.

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