Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  “Hey now, we did the heavy work, old man.” Salax’s voice boomed through the headsets. “You mostly floated around complaining about how difficult it was for an old man to breathe in the EVA suits.”

  “We made.” Tomas dipped his head in recognition of the slip of the tongue. “As I was saying. Since we couldn’t find a concave surface, we … shrank the Tunnel’s aperture. It’s rough and ready and ideally we’d need another week …”

  “Can’t spend another week.” Ute cut in quickly. The mere thought of spending more time, time Fenris and the others could spend hunting them down, filled him with dread. Moreover, if one of the original Harmony soldiers found them, they’d see immediately what they were trying to do, and would seize on the method without hesitation.

  With proper funding and the resources of the entire solar system at their beck and call, Ute held no doubt in his ancient soul that Fenris and his friends would devise a method to exit whenever they wanted.

  And that was something that couldn’t happen. Not ever. The thought of them loose in the Universe while Garth was off trying to resolve those issues that were keeping him from signaling the Falling of the Dark … it was too much to bear.

  Tomas rest an armored hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I know, sa, I know all too well. Do not forget, I have pressing matters outside as well. Even this amount of time has been a burden. If there had been any other way, I assure you, I would’ve found it.”

  Ute gestured, taking in the haphazard, skeletal framework that stretched from four corners of the Tunnel for many thousands of feet until they formed a much smaller, far too rickety looking second hole. “So this here thing is going to channel the Quantum Tunnel’s … tunnel into a smaller aperture, yes?”

  Tomas wished his EVA suit allowed for pipe smoking; he hadn’t had a good puff since before leaving Hospitalis, and the few times he’d tried lighting up aboard the ship had thrown Ute into a long discussion about how easy it was for oxygen scrubbers to fail, especially when gummed up with the kinds of things that you found in your average tobacco product. “Yes. It …”

  Ute harrumphed. “Looks rickety.”

  The God soldier had seen a lot of last minute things built by people who were in a hurry, and they rarely worked as intended. He wasn’t even talking about Goddie deployment across The Cordon, here; in his time as a forgotten soldier wandering from world to world just one step ahead of being discovered, he'd been on more than one construction crew. The number of times architects and planners and the actual people doing the construction realized that what they were doing was going to fail –halfway through, mind, not near the beginning-, neatly bringing about a ‘well, let’s try this approach’ only to see it fail catastrophically was too damn high.

  “It is.” Of course Ute wouldn’t let it go. The man was a rigorous perfectionist. “I could only convince the AI minds running the Tunnel of so much. They currently believe we’re running some very basic, low-level fire ups to test for a much smaller aperture. We could only to scavenge so much of the exterior framework for this ‘emergency test’. It’s a damn good thing they can’t detect the shield they’re butting up against.”

  “What happens if one of those AI things gets it into their heads to react poorly?”

  “We’ll all die. Fenris and friends will arrive on the scene, locate a few smoldering atoms that were once us, note the wreckage of the Quantum Tunnel, the assorted black hole engine ships, and from that, they might very well figure out what we were trying to do here, sa, and replicate our efforts for their own ends. After that, they, and your brethren, will surely fall against the stars, doing who knows what to prepare for Antal's arrival. I shudder to think what they might do."

  “Suddenly being the wealthiest God soldier in the solar system seems like a much better idea than I initially imagined.” Ute mused. “How bad could it be? Invent a few weapons, go to a few parties, dodge Fenris and gang until the Dark Falls and the Light Rises. I could become like this Batman fellow Garth kept talking about.”

  “Is he the red cape or the black cape?” Tomas watched Ute’s umpty-great grandchildren goof around. At this particular moment, they were actually throwing Shoonty around and through the skeletal aperture, much to the Onesie’s vast amusement.

  The old man shuddered. God soldiers were lunatics, right down to the very last one.

  “The one with the black cape. The rich one. The one in the red cape is an Offworlder with far too many powers.”

  “I find it odd, sa, that you are ignoring some very real facts about your personal condition. You’re closer to the one with the red cape.” Tomas winced as the Shoonty-ball careened into Agrimal and the two of them started falling further afield.

  “That’s racist.” Ute countered blandly. “I’m a Latelian in Latelyspace. That makes me practically normal, which makes me Batman. If I was on Old Earth and I started doing things, perhaps then I’d be Supraman. I find it highly unlikely I’d be doing anything of the sort, though.”

  “Superman.” Tomas corrected.

  “Hm?” Ute chuckled as Agrimal took hold of Shoonty by the EVA’s ringed collar and flung him back towards the others. He vaguely sensed Tomas’ discomfort at the soldiers’ antics, only he wasn’t about to stop them unless they started hucking plasma grenades all over the place.

  They all of them understood the risks of what they were doing. From the moment the Quantum Tunnel was activated and they started pouring their personal ship’s black hole engine thrust into the center of the maelstrom, they were putting their lives directly and squarely on the line.

  No matter how hard Tomas insisted that the math, science and construction work was solid and workable, there were too many unaccounted for variables, any one of which could take their lives.

  Their deaths wouldn’t be quick or clean, either; the forces they were about to invoke played with the very fabric of the Universe. That sort of power, that level of manipulation … Ute doubted even he could survive something so … intense, so if his children wanted to goof around and be idiots for a while before they started this suicide mission properly, that was just fine by him.

  “Superman. You said Supraman.”

  “Some people say tomaytoe, Tomas.” Ute put a grin into his voice, then changed the subject. “So, when we start, this Tunnel is going to explode anyways, yes?”

  “Almost certainly.” Tomas had been hoping Ute would avoid the topic altogether. “The stresses from channeling the actual Tunnel from the main ring into the smaller aperture alone will be more than enough to shudder the entire thing apart. Add the confluence of energies playing across the skin of the shield and there’s literally no way of knowing how bad the explosion will be, just that there will be one."

  “And my children?”

  “They’ll be ranged around the outside of the opening, thrusters angled inwards, driving their efforts into the smallest possible area inside the Tunnel. We, of course, will be on just this side of the works, our engines driving into the Tunnel, waiting for the moment when we launch our escape pod into the vortex.” Tomas sketched what he was saying with a gauntleted hand, indicating where each of the soldiers would be placed. “When we reach maximum disturbance, several things will happen automatically; the moment our pod is launched inward, each of your children’s ships will launch as well, only away from the penultimate explosion.”

  “You guarantee that?” Though his children were prepared to sacrifice their lives for his mission, the concept didn't sit well with Ute.

  They’d only just become themselves properly, and after such great turmoil. It seemed dreadfully unfair that they pass with the End looming over their heads. To ask or even expect such willingness made his heart ache.

  “Next to my daughter, sa, I am the greatest programmer in the Universe. If I say I can program it, I mean it.” Tomas put a hand back on his friend’s shoulder. “That being said, I cannot guarantee they won’t fall afoul of your commanding officers.”

  “True, true.” Th
at was the other side of the coin. They might all survive this insane experiment, they might all wind up on the other side of Latelyspace unscathed in every way, but sooner or later, Fenris or Nalanata would learn the identities of the soldiers present and then the questioning would begin.

  All of them –Salax, Agrimal, Trista, Gorak and Shoonty- claimed they’d be able to hold off the worst of Fenris’ interrogation techniques long enough for two brave adventurers to be long gone, but Ute knew better, knew the darker sides that lurked beneath the already very dark personas each of the original Harmony soldiers owned. There were hints in Harmony, whispers rolling soft and quiet, of the dreadful things Fenris could do with the power he gripped.

  Their interrogations would be over well before they began, and unless his children proved it was better for them to remain alive and in service to the God Army, it wasn’t inconceivable that they’d all suffer their very own, tailor-made ‘training accidents’.

  “How long before they’d be able to reconstruct this insanity?”

  Damn Ute and his insightful questions!

  Given that the original Harmony soldiers were capable of constructing hy-tech equipment similar to Garth’s devices, there was really no way to answer that properly.

  Tomas said as much to Ute, who’s body language suggested he’d already came to the same conclusion, then finished with, “Making matters worse, because one or more of them are skilled engineers, there’s a very real possibility that whatever they build will be more compact, powerful, and more readily able to do what we’re attempting.”

  “Accomplish.” Ute grumbled. “We will accomplish this feat, Tomas. No room for failure, no options for second guessing. It’s too late in the day. So what you’re saying is, Fenris could –theoretically- have a burrowing tool in as little time as a month? Give or take?”

  Tomas –who knew next to nothing about the kind of tech the Harmony soldiers actually employed- shrugged hopelessly. “For all we know, sa, they’ve got something like this in the wings already, and are merely waiting for the appropriate time to test it out. It’s just one of those things.”

  “Damnit.” Ute shook his head.

  Leaving the system so completely at Fenris' mercy and with so many things left unaccounted for, Ute wished he had more time to ensure Herrig was protected. With Huey long out of the picture and with him about to abandon Latelyspace as well, their Chairman's level of protection dwindled to a single, semi-sentient machine. If Herrig were to fall on Fenris' sword, more than ninety percent of the men and women under Trinity Itself’s banner would be dead before sunrise, a direct violation of The Engineer's own wishes.

  If –when- the God Army made it’s way through the shield, it wouldn’t matter how powerful Trinity’s assembled forces were. Harmonized Goddies were unlike anything anyone had ever seen. The soldiers on the other side of the shield would be decimated and that would be that. From there, the Harmonized God Army would do as Ute feared most.

  No one knew the real reasons why Garth insisted the death toll of the Universe to a dull roar until Darkness Fell, but it was a demand everyone save Fenris and crew toiled diligently to achieve.

  The massive Fivesie shook his head clear of his concerns. There were so many things to worry about, there was no point in worrying about any one thing save the most pressing: getting out of Latelyspace.

  “One last question if you please, sa.”

  “Are you certain you’re a God soldier, Ute?” Tomas asked, irritated and craving a pull on his pipe more than ever. “You’re asking enough questions to qualify as a Latelian geek at this point.”

  “Indulge me, sa.” Through Harmony, Ute signaled that it was time for Shoonty-ball to come to an end. When Tomas rolled his hand mock-graciously, the Goddie asked the last question on his plate. “The ships my children pilot. You’re certain that when they’re discovered, their flight logs will tell a different story?”

  Tomas commanded his EVA suit to turn towards their own vessel, lack of skill having him wiggle and wobble this way and that for a few seconds before straightening out.

  “Of all the things I’ve done in the last few days, Sa Ute, that is the one thing I am most certain of. The moment your children stop moving, my carefully crafted avatars will reprogram everything aboard each vessel. Not only will their logs show they were nowhere near here, if they have enough time between that moment and being discovered by someone on Fenris’ direct payroll, their engine logs will support the fact that they’ve not used their black hole drives in a very long time. I suggest we get a move on, old friend. The AI minds aboard the Tunnel …”

  “I know, I know.” Ute turned an eye to the crowning apex of the Quantum Tunnel. Somewhere up there, in a heavily fortified, heavily armed bunker of sorts, dozens of AI spheres were clustered together, thinking thoughts so strange and weird that they could burrow holes in the skin of the Universe.

  Hopefully they’d be able to dig through something stronger than that.

  Ute waited until his brood were safely aboard their ships before maneuvering his way onto his.

  This was it.

  Do or die time.

  ***

  “Igniting Quantum Tunnel.” Tomas’ words fled into the silence of the ship. Ute was a stone-cold monolith just beside him, staring thoughtfully at the monitors. The old man entered a long string of commands into the synced machinery, then held his breath pensively.

  These first few seconds would be the most harrowing, that was for certain; the energy, the power, they were diverting down along the rickety-seeming scaffolding was immense, strong enough to essentially fold two points in space together until they were as one.

  This was the first of the fail points. It was also the most critical of all.

  If they didn't pass this marker, they wouldn't even have time to scream. They’d be dead in a flash.

  Both Tomas and Ute held their breaths as the world around them erupted into a powerful frenzy of noise, a clamorous confusion that sounded too much like growls and shrieks for their own comfort. The displacement scaffolding held. Somehow, it held, though it moaned like a wounded animal.

  Tomas, eyes on the progress meters, whispered. “Energy has reached the focal point. The eye is filling.”

  Ute absorbed the sight of Universal-ripping energy inching from the radius of their new eye towards it’s center, mystified. Colors he’d never seen and never imagined rippled and lapped back and forth, almost as if the insane power they were commanding was afraid to make it to the central point.

  His children –Shoonty in particular, who was at that very moment waxing so prosaic that if he ever graduated to Twoesie status, he’d likely be one of the most garrulous soldiers alive- whispered to themselves across Harmony of the glory they were witness to in such tones that it bordered on the religious.

  “How’s the framework?” Ute asked softly, choosing not to admonish his children for their awe. What they were doing … it was dangerous as anything ever attempted, but at the same time, it was breathtaking. Even as he waited for Tomas to answer, the eye filled with a bruised storm of colors that snapped and snarled now, replacing the weird cries and screams of the scaffolding holding the power with long, arduous cracks of noise that sounding like entire continents were being slowly sheared to pieces.

  “Holding.” Tomas tapped a few keys, unashamed to see his fingers trembling with nervous energy. “Holding well, in fact. Time for the next phase.” The old man pressed a key. “Soldiers, please run the avatars now.”

  “Copy.”

  “Copy.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Okay.”

  Ute switched his attention from the monitors showing him what was happening to the struts and moved on to watching the ships his children flew organize themselves in a spatial ballet that was quite impressive; there was only so much staring into the heart of energy so powerful and deadly that one man could take.

  Once again, Tomas’ presence here, in thi
s moment, to ensure that they got out of Latelyspace and into the greater Universe to achieve their goals proved to be more beneficial than Ute could’ve possibly believed; he hoped Tomas never truly got around to asking after his plans to get through the shield, because it’d essentially been ‘punch stuff until something happens’.

  As much as his balls were sweating and his nerves were frayed thin as dreams, Ute was monumentally pleased Tomas was with him.

  On-screen, the five ships darted this way and that as their respective avatars started jostling the war vessels for prime position, moving them about in a manner more graceful than some Goddies could ever hope to achieve on their own.

  A few moments of backing and forthing, the avatars decided they were organized the best they’d get and the five ships began backing up –in perfect, unshakeable synchronicity- into their respective corrals arranged around the heart of their insane project.

  “Whichever one of you is broadcasting immense levels of boredom across Harmony, you aren’t fooling anyone except yourselves. I’m nearly five thousand years old and I’m close to shitting myself.” Ute’s voice rumbled through the small escape pod.

  “Oh, come now, greatest grandfather, isn’t there some kind of story you could bring up?” Salax’s dry voice was full of humor. Speaking several octaves lower, she continued, “I remember this one time I was on the bridge of the Tomfoolery Sixteen out in the deepest parts of The Cordon, staring down the eye of a talking black hole when all of the sudden…”

  Tomas snickered. “They have your ticket, old friend, yes indeed.”

  “It’s wearisome, is what it is. I can’t wait to be either splashed flat as atoms against this shield wall or through to the other side where I’ll never hear their voices again.” Ute signaled this was only partially true through Harmony, one of those rare moments since … since he’d been brought back that he truly felt comfortable doing so. He could tell by the way his brood was quick to respond that they, too, felt the same way. Curling underneath the rapidfire sentiment, though, were eddies of interest in just what’d happened to the oldest God soldier in the solar system.