by Kal Spriggs
She couldn't see, couldn't hear, and as she panted for breath, she realized that soon she wouldn't be able to breathe. No power means no environmental system, she realized with horror. She might well suffocate in minutes.
She had a hibernation injector built into the suit, which would shoot her up with a cocktail of drugs designed to limit her oxygen use and allow her body to survive extreme cold... but that too was tied into the suit's power systems.
Yet before panic could get the best of her, she felt her suit shift and then she heard power tools on the outside. Cutting open the mechanical locks, she realized. A moment later, someone lifted off her helmet and stared into the face of her rescuer.
"Hello Alannis," Reese said.
***
"You son of a bitch," Alannis growled at him.
Reese just shook his head, "You've met my mother," he replied, "she wasn't that bad of a person." It was odd how at this point he felt he was past his anger with her. She just didn't understand... she couldn't understand, because she didn't have all the information.
He nodded at his people and they sat her up and moved on to the next armored figure. "And really? That's all you can say? Do you have any idea how hard it is to trigger an EMP burst across a specific spectrum and intensity that can overwhelm you powered armor's systems without compromising the antimatter containment fail-safes?"
She pointed her chin at where his people had set up others, helmets removed so they could breathe. "I'm surprised you didn't just leave them to die.
Reese sighed, "Alannis, I'm not a monster." Besides, he thought, I had to open them anyway to find her, at this point it costs me nothing but time. He glanced at his datapad. The preparations were still in progress, so he still had time for this.
He squatted in front of her, "Look, I know you don't understand. I'm not angry about what you and Lucius did to me, not anymore." Reese gave her a gentle smile, "I still love you, Alannis. Everything I'm doing today, it's for you and our son."
"Good people are dying," Alannis snarled, "up there, in space."
Reese shrugged, "People die. If you'd listened to me, they wouldn't be here... you wouldn't be here. You don't know the stakes. But don't worry, I'll make sure everything is made clear... soon enough." He nodded at the guards, "Get her and Princess Lizmadie both loaded up on my shuttle."
Reese didn't wait for a response, he turned and walked back to the antechamber. Until now, he had dreaded this next part. It had been so hard to tell himself that he needed to do this and that he had no other choice... yet now, Reese felt at peace with his decision.
"Power is at optimal levels, sir," the engineer reported as Reese came to stand at the control station. "We've brought all the auxiliaries online and we think we've attuned it."
"Good," Reese nodded. He looked at the two volunteers who stood by, "You two are ready?"
They both gave him solid nods. The process of the Temple of Light was supposed to be both extremely painful and odds of survival were only around fifty percent, based upon the locals’ experience. Both volunteers had been selected for their intelligence, their knowledge of Illuari technology and artifacts, and their total dedication to the cause. And they're only the back-ups, he thought.
"Alright," Reese smiled, "wish me luck."
He turned and walked through the doorway and into the Temple of Communion.
The vast chamber beyond was filled with light, a harsh, white that seemed to cast sharp, angular shadows. The massive column of energy rose above him, punching through a narrow opening in the domed ceiling. The thin span crossed the vast chasm below and Reese felt a moment of vertigo as he realized just how tiny he was. The power these beings once had, he thought, to build monuments such as this...
Yet this wasn't just a monument. Reese had learned that the Temple of Light had a purpose, just as the alien station above the planet served a purpose. The column of energy that connected the two also served a purpose, though Reese's mind shied away from that for the moment.
He crossed the span far faster than he would have thought possible. Then again, time passed strangely here, from what he'd read. Those who lingered here days or even weeks would find only seconds or minutes passed in the outside world. Reese still wasn't certain if that was a part of the healing process or if it was a byproduct of the Temple's other purposes.
Reese reached the construct that hung in the middle of the huge chamber, supported by three massive buttresses. The narrow bridge, without handrails and less than a meter wide, led to the structure's only entrance. The structure was the size of a cruiser, three hundred meters across and vaguely saucer-shaped, with a flowing, graceful design that suggested it was designed to fly, rather than being anchored. It was the source of the column of energy, Reese knew.
Reese stepped inside, working his way down the broad, arched corridor until he finally stepped inside the heart of it. At the center of the room was a platform with a large, light-filled crystal suspended above it. The white material of the floor and walls, almost opalescent, glowed under the harsh light from the crystal.
A door closed silently behind him, with a smooth, swift movement that made him prisoner to the chamber. He felt an odd sense of being watched. It was as if the room itself watched him. Or its creators, he thought with a shiver.
All of his fears, all of his worries came back in a rush and almost overwhelmed him. He remembered the screams of the "volunteers" for Admiral Mannetti's experiments, remembered how their agony had gone on for ten minutes or more. In this chamber, he knew, if the structure didn't find him suitable, his agony could last decades, trapped in this place where time didn't flow quite the same.
Reese pushed his misgivings aside. He thought of Alannis. He thought of his son. I do this for them, he told himself. Reese walked forward and stepped onto the platform. The light above him pulsed and he stared up at the crystal, feeling sweat break out on his brow. For just a moment, he wondered how the structure saw him, how its creators would have seen him. I'm just a primitive to them, he thought, terrified of the unknown.
Then a column of light, an echo of the greater power above, swept down and transfixed him. For just a fraction of a second he had a glimpse of how the creators of this thing really did see him. He was tiny, insignificant... he was an ant, a mote... he was nothing.
And then a wash of terrible, horrible pain drove all thoughts aside as the skin of his face and the bones of his skull were ripped apart. As the horrible, burning light drove into his exposed brain, Reese began to scream
***
"How long do we wait?" Lieutenant Mayfair asked. He looked over at Lieutenant Angarra. The female officer, her skin almost as dark as her black uniform, looked more confident than he felt. Then again, he thought, she's number three... odds are that she either won't have to go or she'd be the lucky one.
Lieutenant Mayfair was totally dedicated. He wanted this to succeed... but that didn't mean that he wasn't terrified of the potential cost. The process of the Temple of Light had killed people in a most horrible fashion. It had also driven survivors mad... and those who weren't catatonic afterward from the pain were often obsessed to an alarming degree. They were playing with the toys of a civilization that had sculpted star systems for their own pleasure.
"It's done," a hoarse voice spoke from the archway.
Lieutenant Mayfair looked up and he flinched away from Captain Leone's face. Like the locals, his skin was scarred, he saw... but these scars went all the way down to his neck. He looked as if something had peeled his entire head open... which is exactly what had happened. "Pack it up, load the shuttle," Captain Leone said.
"What about the prisoners?" one of his guards asked.
Captain Leone stalked past him, "Leave them. They don't matter."
Lieutenant Mayfair swallowed, but he knew his task, "Sir, I have to ask..."
Captain Leone turned. There was an odd light to his blue eyes, almost as if they glowed from within. "I have the knowledge we came here for, I know how
to do what must be done. Now, load the shuttle, make the preparations."
"Sir," Lieutenant Mayfair saluted sharply. Internally he felt a sense of relief. Captain Leone had succeeded... that meant that he wouldn't have to make the effort.
***
"Skipper," Petty Officer Godbey snapped, "I mark one shuttle taking off, it's not one of ours!"
Lieutenant Commander Forrest Perkins scowled, "Destination?"
"Headed right for the station," Petty Officer Godbey said.
"Lieutenant Medica," Forrest spoke, "If we hail them, will we give away our position?"
"Uh..." Elvis Medica considered that for a moment, "Negative, sir, I think we'll be alright."
"Contact them," Forrest snapped. A moment later a light on his console went green to indicate he had an open channel with the shuttle. "Attention inbound shuttle. Turn aside from your course and power down." Forrest's attention snapped to the nearby alien ship, it hadn't reached engagement range yet, but it would be soon.
"Ah," Forrest recognized Reese Leone's voice, "Lieutenant Commander Perkins. I see you managed to escape. That's a bit unfortunate. No, I will not turn aside. You will not fire on my vessel as I have United Colonies prisoners aboard. In fact..."
"Lieutenant Commander Perkins, this is Princess Alannis Giovanni," a woman's voice spoke.
Forrest's stomach dropped. "Ally?" he asked, his voice breaking.
"I am currently a prisoner of Reese Leone," she went on, ignoring his response, "as is Princess Lizmadie Doko. For the safety of everyone involved... I order you to fire on this shuttle and destroy it before--"
Her voice cut off before she could finish. "That's enough of that, thank you, dear," Reese said a moment later. "So. I have two very high ranking hostages. You have orders, no doubt, to prevent me from docking at all costs. But you also know the importance of my hostages. So, Forrest, what's going to win out, which duty is paramount?"
Forrest sagged back in his command chair, feeling sick to his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to murder Reese with his bare hands... but he didn't have that option. Forrest couldn't believe that Reese would kill Alannis, but he could kill Lizmadie Doko if they tried to board. For that matter, that shuttle could carry a hundred troops or more, they'd be more than a match for the ragged prisoners and handful of weapons they had aboard the stolen destroyer.
My only option, Forrest thought with horror, is to either let them dock or destroy them.
***
Sidewinder examined the intercepted communications. Where is this other vessel, he demanded.
We cannot sense it, it is shielded somehow, his subordinate’s reply was hesitant... as it should be. It would take either a powerful psychic or extremely advanced technology to screen anything from their senses.
Yet that concern was secondary. Not just one but both of his targets were aboard the shuttle. His ship could intercept in less than a minute... yet the shuttle was dangerously close to the station, in his push to drive the humans out of the system, he'd moved out of position and the humans on the planet had used that effort.
But I'm close enough, he thought. Full acceleration, he sent, engage the shuttle and destroy it.
***
Forrest bit his lip as he watched the shuttle, his vessel, and the alien ship draw closer. The shuttle had nearly reached the station. He had to act.
His fingers went to the weapons console. Forgive me, he thought.
The alien ship fired.
The shuttle, going at full acceleration, had no chance to dodge. It vanished, blotted out by a powerful beam that could have killed or cripple a cruiser.
"No!" Forrest howled. He brought up the weapons and fired on the enemy cruiser. The Widowmaker's powerful primary beam lashed out, two hell-spawned beams of grav-focused energy that smashed into the alien ship's shields with no warning.
Those shields shuddered and died and debris and gas exploded away from the vessel.
"Launch missiles," Forrest snapped. "Kill that bastard!"
They'd figured out the Widowmaker's missile system, the external doors opened, exposing the missile rack and the destroyer's sixteen missiles launched. Forrest directed their attack parameters and then flipped back to the main battery. The ship's automation allowed him to handle both systems and he grinned as his brackets centered on the enemy ship once more.
"I've got you bastards!" He shouted as he fired again.
***
Sidewinder felt shock as his ship lurched again, damage alerts coming to him from throughout as the enemy vessel hit them once more. He didn't know what kind of ship had hit them, but as he watched missiles scything in, he realized that he faced a very real threat... and he still couldn't see them.
Yet he didn't need to see them. His task here was done. The human forces were attrited and Reese Leone and Alannis Giovanni were both dead. His force had taken far more casualties than he had expected. The humans had fought far harder, with a desperation that he didn't understand. How could they throw their lives away in such a fight, when he wasn't even here to fight them? He hated them, hated them for the cost in ships and crew; hated them for the fact that even if he stayed to fight them, he would lose more resources than it was worth... which meant that he had only one choice left.
Withdraw, he sent to his ships.
They'd already prepared jump coordinates and his damaged vessels all leapt away to shadow space before the enemy could do any further damage.
***
"Sir," Lieutenant Commander Perkins saluted sharply as he came to a stop in front of Captain Daniel Beeson. "Lieutenant Commander Perkins reporting."
Daniel saw tears in Forrest Perkin's bloodshot eyes. He saw a raw agony that he understood all too well. Daniel cursed himself for that pain. It was his orders that had sent Lieutenant Giovanni and far too many others to their deaths.
"At ease, Lieutenant," Daniel said, his voice hoarse and ragged. He'd been up for the past twenty hours since the battle. There'd been far too much information to sift through, too many pieces to try to pick up.
The mutineers had withdrawn not long after the aliens. Daniel had let them go, too tired and sick of the bloodshed to keep fighting them. A half-dozen ships had escaped, to include Commodore Caras's battlecruiser.
Admiral Collae and Kaigun Motogami had landed troops to support Daniel's Marines. Together, they'd managed to extract their surviving Marines and to seize most of Reese's equipment. Daniel was certain that the engineers and scientists would take months or years to figure it all out... but he couldn't help wonder if it was moot now.
"I've read through your preliminary report," Daniel said. The news that Marius Giovanni... or at least another clone of Marius Giovanni, was behind Reese's efforts was something of a shock, but Daniel would trust in the Emperor to deal with him. "I just want to tell you, Forrest, that you did a damned fine job. No one could have asked for more from you."
"Sir," Forrest protested, "I failed. Those bastards killed..."
"It's not your fault!" Daniel snapped. "Do you understand? I am the commanding officer. If you hadn't been there, then we wouldn't have even known her fate. At least this way..." Daniel cleared his throat, "at least this way we have something. At least this way I can tell the Emperor how his sister died."
Daniel dreaded sending that message. He'd sent a preliminary report of his own... but that had been nothing more than an initial combat report. The full lists of casualties would follow... and that would be a very long list. The loss of the Gallant with all hands and the crippling of the Lancer and the Spathae was the bulk of those casualties, but he'd also lost almost a hundred and fifty Marines fighting at the Temple of Light, and another thirty crew aboard the Constellation.
Over half of his command had been destroyed or rendered combat ineffective. The casualties that the Shogunate forces had taken were even worse. Only one of their new Katana-class frigates had escaped damage. They'd lost all of their Forerunner-class destroyers and two of the new frigates.
; Admiral Collae had taken grievous casualties as well, with the loss of three of his cruisers and five destroyers. Yet the gruff-faced Admiral had seemed to take those losses in stride. Whatever information that Reese possessed about him, Daniel thought, he must consider it worthwhile to take such casualties to kill one man.
Admiral Collae had already withdrawn, staking claim to a number of Reese's transport ships and shuttles, which his people had seized on their landing. Daniel didn't begrudge them that. Nor did he discount Admiral Collae's grudging statement of respect for the hard-fought battle.
Forrest had a mulish look on his face. "Look. We did the best we could. Sometimes that's all you can take from a fight." Daniel thought about the sense of dread he'd felt aboard the Warshike as they'd been forced to withdraw from Faraday. "Some days, that's all that you can go on."
"Yes, sir," Forrest seemed to sag on himself.
Daniel sighed, "You're dismissed."
***
Epilogue
Yaitsik Station
Alpha Canis Majoris System
April 1, 2410
Junior Lieutenant Pornik held his hand over his nose. The past month had been one onerous detail after another as the Centauri Confederation Fleet tried to clean up the mess here at Yaitsik Station. Normally that would have meant that a well-connected officer like Pornik would have supervised from the rear.
Unfortunately, the media seemed to be all over the station and with such high levels of corruption exposed, that meant that senior officers wanted to make sure things were actually being taken care of… and that meant personal oversight over every little detail.
Like finding out what’s clogged up the waste tank for this entire section, he thought with resignation. Not that he would venture into the tank himself.
He just stood by and waited while the group of conscripts waded through the effluent. He wasn’t about to let any of them leave the tank, either, not until the command section reported the tank was no longer obstructed. He’d turned off the radio so he wouldn’t have to hear any more of the cleaning detail’s complaints.
