by Joshua James
They found weak minds, and with the help of the ancient texts, they learned to invade, overpower, and turn to their own needs.
Through them, they scoured the old universe for all the T’ket’ka they could find and brought them together at the Great Corridor.
They found the ores the ancients used to build their great passage ships and built more of their own. They used the humans to make crude replicas of the ancient corridors.
But try as they might, they could not pass through the Great Corridor.
The T’ket’ka opened the corridors, but inside were all the pathways in all the galaxies in all the universes in all the dimensions that had ever existed or ever would. Those who entered never returned.
They could not decipher how the ancients had used the T’ket’ka. The fables called it the gift, and it was worshiped by the ancients as proof of their divinity.
Even the later Da’hune saw it as more art than science, a melding of technology and intelligence.
And so the Do’ock set about using their human puppets to try to give the gift to humans themselves. They tried experiment after experiment, inserting the gift according to any and every ancient text they could find.
But no matter what they did, the weak-minded humans always rejected the gift.
It was hopeless.
They had all but given up until one surrogate—this one you see before you—learned of a human who had inexplicably survived one of their earliest experiments. There had been a fire. All had perished, or so they thought. This human had somehow managed to escape. He was very lucky indeed.
For five decades, the human was marooned in an escape pod, in hypersleep, alone with the gift.
And then something amazing happened.
The pattern-controlling skills that had killed and maimed and tortured so many other humans took root and blossomed.
That human could read the pathways. He had the gift.
He used the gift carelessly and recklessly in the mundane wars of the humans. But this was understandable, and we have forgiven him. For he did not know, could not know, that the Da’hune had blessed him.
He had been chosen.
He was the vessel.
Vlad’s shoulders sagged. Her eyes were bloodshot. A line of blood trickled from her forehead.
Lucky understood now. He had been maneuvered like a piece on a chess board.
The unexplained transfer. The sabotage that isolated them on the planet. The puppets that seemed to miss or hesitate when they had him cornered. The nukes that drove them to the ship.
All to get him to the corridor.
Lucky spat at her feet. “Congratulations for getting me to pass your little test,” said Lucky. He pushed his chin up, the pain in his neck blinding as the sharp barbs tore at his flesh. “But I’m sure as fuck not driving your ship.”
For a long moment, Vlad said nothing. Then she looked at Nico.
“He still doesn’t get it.”
“I told you.”
Nico mashed his foot into Lucky’s back, shoving him forward. His face slammed into the ground. He felt his neck tremble as Nico grabbed a handful of the umbilical cord.
Vlad leaned over until her face was right next to his.
“You were the vessel, asshole. We have what we need.”
She stood up and left Lucky reeling.
But he had just flown the ship through the fold, hadn’t he?
Hadn’t he?
No, he realized. He hadn’t. The ship never spoke with him directly.
It always spoke with Rocky. Through Rocky.
And then he heard Vlad’s words again: “The gift is a melding of technology and intelligence.”
Intelligence. Artificial intelligence.
They didn’t want him. They wanted Rocky.
45
Helpless
Nico laughed and yanked the umbilical cord.
Lucky’s neck snapped back. Pain screamed into his mind.
For a moment, he thought he’d blacked out.
“Rocky?” he echoed frantically. “Rocky?”
Nothing. Nothing at all. The silence frightened him more than anything he had ever felt in his entire life.
Then an explosion rattled his teeth and lifted him into the air.
He watched as the ground and sky flipped around and around.
He landed like a rag doll, facedown and legs folding backward over his head.
Then his weight shifted as he tumbled, and he found himself face-up on his back, staring upward at the cavernous, hollowed-out hangar.
Without Rocky and—he realized now—her gift from the Da’hune, he would soon be dead. His luck had truly run out.
Why had it never occurred to him that he was way too good at reading patterns? That it wasn’t normal to be able to space jump directly at an energy cannon and never get scratched? Or run through a debris field flanked by enemy fire and expect to never take a hit?
But of course it had occurred to him. He had just assumed that Rocky was that good. He just assumed his luck was in having an AI copilot as amazing as Rocky. She was his secret.
And in that sense, he was right.
It was comforting to know. He truly wasn’t special. He never had been. Rocky was special. His sister had been special, one of the best pilots in the fleet. His father had been special, the youngest admiral in the fleet.
But he had always just been lucky. And now, he wasn’t even that.
Lucky still couldn’t move. Whatever they had done to his nervous system to yank Rocky out of him, it had royally screwed him up. And without any biobots to put him back together again, there was nothing he could do but lay there and die.
His head lolled to one side, his neck muscles torn to shreds. He doubted he could raise his head.
He spotted Nico kneeling behind a portion of the ore tower at the far end of the platform. He was firing his pulse punch rifle with perfect technique, keeping his shoulders relaxed and taking short, controlled pulls on the trigger. He rotated on one knee in and out of position behind the edge of the doorway. Swing, aim, squeeze, swing back. Repeat.
Then a chunk of the ore ripped away with a shot, forcing Nico to dive back farther into the structure.
What the hell? No way an Empire pulse rifle could do that to this ore.
And then he saw Jiang. She weaved through equipment scattered on the platform, then dove behind a support column.
She wasn’t holding a pulse rifle. She had one of those badass modified energy weapons.
As he watched, she executed a perfect maneuver, firing on two Union combat troopers running along the top of the tower adjacent to the platform. The energy beam split both in half, their mutilated bodies falling silently, in pieces, off the tower.
Lucky could hardly believe it.
These goddamned Marines, he thought. They came back for me.
How they had managed to fight their way out of that ship with a thousand Union soldiers bearing down on them he couldn’t imagine.
Actually, he could. They were Marines.
Jiang looked over at Lucky, and they made eye contact.
“Lucky!” she yelled with a crooked smile. “We couldn’t have a party without you. So we brought it with us.”
As she said it, Lucky saw movement out of the bottom of his vision, back by the nose of the ship that still sat awkwardly at an angle at the far end of the platform, less than a quarter-klick from the corridor arches. The platform swarmed with Union soldiers pouring from the alien ship.
Now he understood what she meant.
They were outgunned, but they weren’t outmaneuvered. They just left those Union dirt eaters in their dust.
The ploy worked wonders tactically, but the number of soldiers was overwhelming.
He tried to call up a drone view out of habit.
A set of black combat boots stepped into his field of view.
Then two more.
Dawson was standing over him, blond hair still showing under the edges of his faceplate, a big
smile curling his lips.
“Well, what have we here,” he said in his drawl. “I think I recognize this guy.”
Next to him, Malby was scowling. “Can he walk?” he asked Dawson, like Lucky wasn’t there.
In fact, Lucky barely was there. He was useless as a wet rag.
Malby looked down at him. “Can you walk?”
Lucky wanted to tell him to go to hell.
But he couldn’t walk. Or talk. Or even blink.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Dawson said, bending over him.
Then a pulse hit him in the back, just below his shoulder. He flew over Lucky’s head.
“Dammit!” yelled Malby as he dove over Lucky.
A volley of pulses flew over his head while he stared helplessly forward.
And then he saw Dawson, crawling, pulling himself over Lucky.
They locked eyes. Blood seeped out the front of his combat shell. The pulse had gone completely through and burned a hole in his chest.
And then someone jerked Dawson up.
Nico looked down at him with that professional killer expression.
He smiled and stared into Lucky’s eyes, and without removing his glare he set the muzzle of his pulse rifle against Dawson’s faceplate.
He pulled the trigger, and Dawson’s head recoiled, his faceplate absorbing the blow and dissipating energy around the edges.
Nico pulled the trigger again, and Dawson’s head bounced and recoiled once more.
He fired again. Dawson’s faceplate engineering finally gave up, and a crack appeared.
He fired again, and the crack spidered as more energy couldn’t be displaced.
He fired again. Again. Again. Again. Dawson’s head kept bouncing back and forth.
The faceplate finally exploded, and metal splayed outward.
Blood splattered down at Lucky’s face, and he tasted it on his lips.
Nico’s lips curled back in a bigger smile.
Then a pinpoint of light erupted from his shoulder blade, and he howled with pain, spinning away as a blue energy beam sliced horizontally across his arm, nearly severing it. A thick strip of sinew was all that kept it dangling there, combat metal clanking against his side.
He rolled away, stumbling and cursing.
On the catwalk above the platform, Jiang was still firing, teeth gritted, her energy stream following Nico as he scampered away, firing wildly over his shoulder with his good arm.
Then a blast hit the catwalk, and it cracked, threatening to fall backward, then tumbling forward. Jiang was dumped down, flailing as she fell, gun flying. The steel girder collapsed over her.
The impact shook the ground around Lucky, and he slumped again, his weight shifted, and his head flopped over to the other side.
He found himself face to face with Dawson.
Blood oozed from his mouth. One eye was completely red. His blond hair hung out of the broken faceplate, speckled with red spots.
Lucky understood now. All hope was lost.
These Marines had come back for him, and he could only sit, paralyzed, and watch them die right before his eyes.
Dawson had a child somewhere who would only be able to guess at what happened to her father.
Jiang’s honor-bound, well-informed family would know how their daughter died, at least, even if it brought them no peace.
Malby was probably hiding somewhere, wondering why the hell he came back. It wasn’t because he gave a damn about Lucky.
That made him laugh.
“Who does give a damn about Lucky?” he echoed.
But no one heard him. His mind was empty.
Goddammit, he hated himself. He hated feeling sorry for himself. Hated himself for wanting to give up. Pathetic.
Red clouds began to ring the edges of his vision.
Union soldiers were casually sauntering across the platform now. Mopping up.
He grew more and more angry.
The red clouds in his vision billowed thicker. The world turned a dark, blood-soaked red.
He felt The Hate pulsing inside him.
There was no Rocky in his mind to check it, no way to slow it.
For once, he was glad.
He welcomed it.
46
Give Up
Hello, Hate.
Hello, Lucky, said The Hate.
He was back in his nightmare.
He was under the tank, where he had crawled as the fire and smoke all around began to choke him.
He felt the pocket of air beneath the tub thinning out.
If the flames didn’t kill him, the smoke would.
He tried to reach his AI again, but there was so much static and noise in his head. He could hear a far away voice shouting at him, but strain as he might, he couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t hear the words.
He tried to give up, but something inside wouldn’t let him.
It laughed at him. Mocked him.
It willed him forward in a red cloud of anger and disgust. He saw blood in his mind, felt savage power.
He gave up, and let the seething hatred take over.
It wasn’t laughing at him anymore. Now he was laughing. And rising, throwing the tank off.
The Hate jolted him, and he started crawling.
It kicked him and screamed at him with fury.
It directed him.
The Hate knew this place, knew where it was going.
Now he was in front of an airlock. Where did it come from? He didn’t know.
Now he was inside a ship. He had never seen it before. But he knew how to operate it.
Now he heard an automated voice, and he fell back.
Now he was speeding away, the symphony of static and noise receding.
Hell was back there, and he didn’t even know how he left it behind.
“I have more to cleanse!” screamed a voice in red-hot fury.
He felt his head explode in rage.
Get. Up. Now.
47
The Hate
A demon tore at his flesh, ripping at him from the inside. It was screaming and shaking with rage.
And then he realized it wasn’t something the scientists put in him. This wasn’t what the experiments of the Da’hune were trying to put in him.
This was what caused the fire and destruction in the lab.
This was what led him out.
He was a chosen one after all. Not chosen by the Queen Mother.
Chosen by The Hate.
Chosen by the cleansing scourge of the ancient Da’hune. The power that they worshipped as divine.
This was The Hate. And it was not a god. It was a demon.
Lucky didn’t understand how or why he knew this, but he did.
It survived with the ancient ship. It survived inside the T’ket’ka.
And now it survived inside Lucky.
This was the thing that cleansed the universe of all other life to preserve itself and its own.
This was the essence of the ancient Da’hune.
This killer was inside his head.
He let it out.
48
Too Late
A Union soldier leaned over Lucky, staring into his face.
Lucky felt his fingers move, causing his breath to catch.
He didn’t have his bots or his AI, but whatever had shocked his system was wearing off.
The Hate had chewed right through it.
The Union soldier sensed the change, and tensed.
The Hate slammed Lucky’s face forward into the soldier and swung his hand upward, slapping the muzzle of the rifle into the side of the soldier’s head. A beam of bright blue light burned the Union soldier’s face away, eating his helmet.
Blood dripped onto Lucky’s chest plate.
He laughed in a high, angry pitch, howling with delight.
He pulled the body close, using it as a shield.
He grabbed up the energy blaster and began gleefully spewing a single stream of blue energy at the dozens of sold
iers on the platform who had foolishly lowered their weapons.
They thought the battle was won.
It wasn’t.
Soldier after soldier was sliced in half, folding over in mutilated heaps.
The few who could fire back splattered energy pulses into the heavily armored back of the trooper Lucky held aloft.
He turned as another soldier tried to come from behind him.
He slammed his rifle across his face, then leapt on him.
It was Nico.
A deranged smile crossed Lucky’s face.
Nico’s eyes grew wide.
Lucky slammed his rifle butt into Nico’s faceplate. Again. Again. Again. Again.
It cracked and caved in. Again. Again. Again.
His face was a red pool of bubbling blood, yet still he lashed out.
Again. Again. Again.
The rifle butt was hitting the platform now, nothing solid enough left to slow its momentum.
There were many ways you could wound a Frontier Marine and he would regenerate, but pummeling the organic matter in his brain to mush was not one of them.
He reached down and threw Nico over his shoulder, using him as his new shield as he ran across the platform.
He reached the ore wall and rammed into a soldier coming down the stairs there, grabbing him and twisting and pulling and jerking until his arm came loose from its socket and spun freely from his body.
He swung him over the edge of the stairwell and barreled up into another soldier who was too slow to raise his gun.
He smashed his own gun into his face, using it like a club.
But it wasn’t his gun. It was the arm from the other soldier.
He chortled—a deep, mirthful, evil laugh as the blood splattered the walls of the stairwell.
And then he was inside the control tower. And there weren’t soldiers here, only people in jumpsuits.
There were screams, and some ran for the door.
Oh no you don’t, said The Hate, and it grabbed all that it could reach, clawing at eyes and battering bodies over control panels. He tasted something wet and salty in his mouth.
And then he had his rifle in his hand, and he was beating on something. Screens exploded below his onslaught. Energy seared across the room, bouncing off the walls. He was screaming and smashing and screaming and smashing.
And then he was floating and spinning.
The gravity inside the room was gone.
Bewildered, he didn’t know where he was or how he got there.
