by Richard Fox
+A Xaros destroyed by a vermin,+ a Master said. +Never, not even in the early days of our righteous annexation of our galaxy, did one of our own fall to our inferiors. We chose this galaxy because there was no threat to ourselves. A galaxy of fertile worlds for us to take, a laboratory for us to find the ultimate answer at our leisure. Now Keeper tells us that a credible threat exists to us…to our goal.+
+The risk is unacceptable,+ said another Master on the other side of the circle. +Let us carry on to another galaxy. Another may carry the dishonorable mantle of General, one more competent.+
+Impossible,+ said the High King as he dropped Keeper to the ground. +The star at the core of the Apex is failing. It cannot carry us any farther than this galaxy. Where is the Engineer? He will answer for this.+
+The Engineer…+ Keeper lowered his head. +The Engineer was also destroyed by the humans.+
The High King raised a fist and slammed it against his throne, shattering an armrest into a million splinters. The other Masters remained silent. The High King flicked a fingertip at Keeper and his memories raced through his mind, from the moment the General awakened him until now.
+What was your remit, Keeper?” the High King asked.
+To safeguard the Apex during our passage through the long night. To ensure the galaxy was ready for our glorious arrival. But this is not my fault! The General was weak…foolish! The Engineer knew his creation was flawed. Together, he and I sought out a—”
The High King flashed a palm at Keeper, silencing him.
+You conspired with the General and the Engineer to hide their failure. Then you used forbidden technology—wormholes!—to carry out your remit,+ the High King said.
The Masters hissed at Keeper. Some twisted their hands into arcane symbols to ward off the shame of Keeper’s actions.
+The wormholes destroyed our home,+ said the High King, settling back into his throne. +They set off the annihilation wave that drove us to the void and interrupted our great works. Then you risked their use in our new home…knowing full well that our Apex could not survive another journey if another such disaster occurred.+
His eyes blazed brighter.
+You risked my existence to cover for your failure.+ The High King lifted a finger slightly.
A plinth rose in front of Keeper. A small shard of midnight-colored glass floated on top. Keeper saw his reflection in the glass…and his impending doom.
+The possibility of such a disaster was miniscule.+ Keeper looked to one of the Masters, his old patron, and kneeled at his feet. +The vermin were using such devices, crude tools with a much higher risk. We had to act quickly before they created an annihilation wave.+
+We were not consulted.+ His old patron kicked Keeper away.
+Keeper thinks himself wiser than us,+ another Master said. +Now the vermin are at our doorstep. Give him the blade!+
+The blade!+ sounded from the circle.
+No! Wait!+ Keeper gripped the floor as an invisible force dragged him by the feet toward the plinth and the instrument of his destruction. +The vermin are weak. We destroyed their only source of unity and now they war amongst themselves. Our victory is within reach. I haven’t failed. I haven’t failed!+
+Yes, you have.+ The High King glanced up. There, high over the council, the Breitenfeld emerged from a Crucible ring.
Keeper ceased his struggle. He grabbed the blade out of the air and held the tip to his breast. The blade burned like acid, eroding his hand away.
+May my memory survive.+ Keeper thrust the blade into his chest. He screamed as the weapon broke down his photonic matrix, tearing his soul into worthless scrap that dissipated into nothing. A small pile of dust from Keeper’s shell remained.
The High King scattered the remnants with a thought.
+Such is the price of failure.+ One hand dug into his remaining armrest, cracking the wrought crystal as his gaze bore into the distant Breitenfeld.
+I will put an end to this myself.+
****
Valdar stared out from his bridge, his mouth slightly agape at the impossible sight beyond. A blue-white spike stretched out beneath his ship and ran to a pale star in the distance. Jade-green mountains covered the interior of the Apex. Valdar squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to comprehend the scale of what he saw.
“Wow,” Ensign Geller said, gripping the side of his chair as if afraid of falling off.
“Am I the only one that thought we’d show up outside this thing?” Ericson asked.
“Helm,” said Valdar. When Geller didn’t answer, Valdar slapped his palm against the side of his chair.
“Sir?” Geller snapped out of his shock.
“Attitude control. Radiation. What’s going on out there?”
Geller spun his chair around and looked over his station. “No gravity pulling on us, not even from that star. Hull temperature is near absolute zero…which doesn’t make any sense as we’re in direct starlight. But we’re inside something the size of…that can’t be right.”
“Spit it out.”
“We’re as far from that star as Mars is from the sun. That spike running beneath us is…as wide as Jupiter? No. Can’t be.”
“Fly your instruments, not what you can see. How far are we from the spike?”
“Laser sounding puts us at a little over four hundred kilometers,” Utrecht answered.
“Captain, engine room,” Commander Levin said through the IR, “the jump engine is acting a mite peculiar. She’s showing an open wormhole, but there’s no power going through the batteries.”
“Yes, about that,” Ibarra said as he joined the conversation, “Ben’s got the door to the Key Hole jammed open just enough for us to get back. If we could hurry up and get that bomb set before we become permanent residents…that would be great.”
“Torni?”
“I’m on my way back to the flight deck,” Torni said, “again. Our jump engine is not—I repeat not—ready to blow up. Malal had almost finished. He vanished when we came through. Do you know where he went?”
“Ibarra?”
“I guess Malal opted out of a one-way trip. I can’t reach Stacey. She must be with him.”
“I don’t need him to finish the bomb on the flight deck or to rig our jump engine, but I can’t be in two places at once,” Torni said.
“What do you need to set off the bomb? I don’t see any giant piles of omnium lying around.”
“We were going to attach it to the outer hull. Get me down to that spike. It should do the trick.”
“XO, send a shore party down via drop pods. Torni will catch up once the area’s secure.”
“Aye aye.” Ericson put a hand to her earpiece and began issuing orders.
Valdar looked out to the star, and the sense of just how small and insignificant he and his ship were compared to the Apex finally hit home. They were a speck, a mote of dust against an elephant’s hide, yet he had a very distinct feeling that their arrival had been noticed.
Chapter 17
Hale readied his rifle as the drop pod door raised up. The blue-white spike spread like an infinite plain, the edge lost to a distant haze.
Standish leaned out the door beside Hale. He reached a toe toward the surface, like he was testing the water of a pool.
“Really?” Hale asked.
“Just because the drop pods are stable doesn’t mean—hey!” Standish lurched out the door, propelled by a solid kick from Bailey. Ripples of golden light spread from each of the Marine’s footfalls. Standish stopped, then jumped up and down slightly. He gave a thumbs-up to Hale and ran to the side of another drop pod and took cover against a landing strut.
Hale jumped out and swept around the drop pod. There was nothing but the spike and a pale blue haze clinging to the surface. He made out the star at the center of the Apex. Above, the jade-green interior twinkled with golden stars.
The drop pods formed a rough circle on the spike. Heat seeped through Hale’s leg from the retro-thrusters on a pod. Looking
at the ground beneath the pod, he saw it was as pristine as the rest of the spike floor. The thrusters were known to ignite forest fires and boil soil into glass during landings. For there to be no effect on the spike…
Thumps rippled through the ground as Elias hurried over.
“Hell of a place to set down,” the armor said. “No cover. No concealment. Everything with eyes saw our pods burn in.”
“Those green mountains on the shell? It would take the Breitenfeld days to get there. Maybe it’ll take the Xaros that long to get out here,” Hale said.
A horn blared in the distance. A wave of silver light broke from the base of the spike and slowly rippled through the jade mountains, leaving a dense pattern of light in its wake. Hale watched the wave propagate outward…until it collided with an identical wave coming from the opposite direction.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” Hale tightened his hold on his rifle.
“You shouldn’t have said that.” Elias tapped a heel against the spike. “I can’t get my anchor through this. Our rail guns will have only one shot a piece.”
“Wait…without your anchor, the recoil will send you flying.”
“Like I said. One shot.”
“Sir, we’ve got atmo,” Yarrow said from the other side of the drop pod. “Composition matches what we’ve found inside the Crucible. Permission to crack?” The corpsman gripped the bottom of his visor at Hale’s nod. He lifted it briefly and let the air flow over his face. He took a shallow breath, then lifted his visor all the way and breathed normally.
“It’s like…fresh mountain air. Bit thin.” Yarrow’s breath steamed out of his mouth.
Video feeds from each drop pod fed into Hale’s helmet, each showing a nearly identical picture of the landscape around them. His Marines and six other armor soldiers clustered around the drop pods for cover.
Colonel Carius strode into the center of the loose perimeter and held up an IR beacon. The low roar of a Mule’s engines broke through the air. Hale caught sight of the ship’s thruster flames in the haze, between him and the barely visible Breitenfeld high above.
Bailey rapped her knuckles against Bodel’s leg.
“Help me up, mate,” she said, gesturing with her chin to the top of a drop pod. Bodel bent his hand into a scoop for Bailey to sit in and set her onto the higher vantage point. She assembled her rail rifle and wiggled into a prone firing position, spare battery packs set to her side.
“Any better up there?” Egan asked.
Bailey pressed her eye against her scope.
“I can see exactly two things up here—jack and shit. Least I can cover the whole perimeter from up here,” she said.
Hale tapped his fingertips against his rifle.
“Elias, guess you don’t have an issue with tight spaces. What about…really god damn wide spaces?” Hale asked.
“I once spent three weeks on an asteroid over-watch position waiting for a Chinese military intelligence ship to come through. Lot of time looking out into the void. Knowing you’re at the center of the infinite makes it easier. Here…this is wrong. We see the wall and we think we’re in a covered stadium. Your mind is trying to rationalize the impossible. Stop it.”
Hale’s mouth went dry. “How the hell could they even build this thing? I mean—I mean…”
Elias reached down and gently set his armored hand against Hale’s shoulder.
“Your crunchies are going through the same thing. Why don’t you and Cortaro go check the perimeter? Get your mind on something else.”
“Right…good thinking.” Hale stepped away from the drop pod and jogged over to Cortaro two pods away.
The Mule made a wobbly approach toward the center of the circle, the bulk of Ar’ri and Caas mag-locked to the ship’s roof upsetting the pilot’s careful landing. The armor siblings slid off the top and landed hard on the spike, their double-barreled gauss cannons charged and ready.
“No enemy contact,” Caas said. “I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a good sign or a bad sign.”
The Mule set down and lowered its ramp. Torni and Ibarra pushed the bulky jump engine out and stopped a few yards from the ship. Stalks rose from Torni’s back, serving as additional hands as she ran a power coupling the size of her forearm off the bomb’s rig. She jabbed the coupling against the spike, then tapped it several more times.
“Anything I can do to help?” Ibarra asked.
One of Torni’s stalks poked him in the chest and pushed him away, then a pair of stalks rose from her leg and back. Their tips glowed red and touched the ground in the same place. A scarlet glow spread through the ground, dissipating to nothing a few yards away.
Hale stopped next to Ibarra and looked him up and down.
“Where’s your weapon?” Hale asked.
“Son, if I came down here with one of your boom sticks, it would be more dangerous for you than whatever’s in this damn place. I’m a weasel, a manipulator, not a fighter.”
“You came down here just to get in the way?”
“This getup is a hell of a lot stronger than you, even with your armor. You want to try moving that damn thing?”
Hale reached for the bomb.
“Don’t touch!” Torni snapped. “Sir.”
Carius came over, his helm scanning the sky. “Valdar wants an update. They’ve got activity on their scopes. No more information than that.”
“The bomb is ready,” Torni said, “but it needs a power source. There’s a current of omnium just beneath the surface. I can feel it.” Her stalks sank several inches into the spike. Torni’s teeth chattered and her head jerked to the side with an uncontrollable tick.
“I-I-I need to get deeper. Time. Something’s coming.” Her shell lost color and reverted to the swirling fractals of her natural drone exterior. “Something’s coming!”
She fell to a knee and pressed her head into her hands. Her fingers melded to her skull…but her stalks kept cutting.
“Incoming,” said Hale as he whirled around, his rifle ready…but there was nothing new in the endless haze.
“Up there!” Steuben shouted, pointing into the sky.
A patch of smoky darkness grew in the air. Hale raised his weapon, but a gesture from Carius stopped him from shooting.
“There’s nothing there,” Carius said. “No heat, nothing else on my optic suite.”
“Then why can see I see it?” Ibarra asked.
The smoke descended, flowing into a humanoid shape in a dark cloak, a cowl hiding the face. Its semiopaque form dipped just beneath the surface of the spike between the bomb and the ring of drop pods. Marines and armor leveled their weapons, but none fired.
The cloak resolved into an inky darkness slightly taller than Elias. A star field appeared within it, like Hale was looking into a portal to deep space.
Ibarra stepped in front of Hale’s line of fire and walked toward the void figure. Clasping his hands behind his back, he stopped a few yards away.
“Marc Ibarra, official representative of Earth, the Atlantic Union, Karigole People, Dotok Ranked Assembly, Ruhaald Queendoms and…” Ibarra’s head canted to the side, then he snapped his fingers. “The Qa’Resh! Don’t think I forgot anyone else.”
An arm flowed up and a distended skeletal hand made of total darkness pointed at Torni.
+Stop.+
The word hit Hale’s mind like a thunderclap, harder than the General’s words back on Phoenix.
“Now, now, let’s tone down the volume,” Ibarra said. “Not everyone’s suited for whatever telepathic headache you’re trying to use. If you want to parlay, then you do it without trying to bust their skulls.”
The figure shrank, whirls of smoke twisting tighter and tighter. A perfect mirror copy of Ibarra stepped out of the smoke, its surface gleaming black like it had been carved from obsidian.
“You will stop,” the Xaros Ibarra said, mimicking his accent but adding a deep resonance to the words. “The device will consume your galaxy just as our home was destroy
ed. You will stop.”
“That’s…interesting. Maybe you didn’t hear me earlier. I’m kind of a big deal back where I come from. I’m going to need to talk to someone a little higher on the Xaros totem pole. You strike me as a…what did you call it, Torni? A Minder. How about you get Keeper down here. I’d love to finally get to talk to him.”
The face of Ibarra’s dark mirror contorted in rage. “They will not speak with you! The Xaros are pure. I will suffer your corruption.”
“Well, this corruption’s got a gun to their head and if your boss wants to work something out…he’d better do it in person.” Ibarra crossed his arms and the two stared each other down. Ibarra’s foot tapped against the spike.
“Have it your way.” Ibarra raised a hand. “Set the timer, my girl. This is starting to bore—”
The Xaros snarled. Its form grew taller as tendrils of dark steam rose from its limbs and it morphed into an armored form like the General…but its plates were of the darkest night. A crown of stars circled its head. The High King’s three eyes bore down on Ibarra.
“That’s more like it,” Ibarra said. “I spent a long time wondering what you were really like, where you came from.” He raised his arms to the Apex. “It’s not bad.”
The High King bent down, his arms touching the floor, elbows out like a bat, face level with Ibarra.
“Leave. Take your weapon and leave. My servants are within reach of your world. Leave and I will spare your planet.” The High King’s voice rumbled like boulders down an avalanche.
“You want a lot of trust,” Ibarra said.
“Accept my offer and take my protection. My servants will flood the galaxy and eradicate every last vestige of life if I do not stop them. Destroy the Apex and the drones will finish what they started. Destroy the Apex and the nothing will wash over every star in the galaxy. All that you are, all that you could ever be, will be rendered down to ash and swept away if you do not leave.”
“You could have come in peace.” Hale lowered his rifle and approached the High King. “Instead, you sent your drones to destroy everything they found. How many races, how many countless billions, cried out for mercy? Now you want to compromise?”
