Sonata in Orionis (Earth Song Cycle Book 2)

by Mark Wandrey

  “What is a dream?” asked a familiar voice in her head.

  “You are a dream,” she replied.

  “I simply am.”

  “Glad to see you agree with me,” she said and chuckled at her own joke.

  “Danger comes,” the mysterious voice said. Minu could just see the spider-like apparition floating toward her. Like before, its circle of almost-human eyes sent a shiver up her spine.

  Why is this so familiar? she asked herself. “Okay, I’ll bite. What sort of danger?”

  “Rasa.”

  The one-word answer jolted her with fear, then resolve. “How many, how soon, where?”

  “Your kind are made of questions.” It sounded like an accusation. She saw the creature more clearly than ever. For the first time, Minu could make out waving sensory organs around the eyes. Like a spider it had eight limbs. Four looked like legs, but the other four were different. They were shorter, like a crab’s claws, though they didn’t end in pincers. When she tried to focus on the claws they got smaller, and smaller, until her brain began to itch, trying to focus on the tip. What the hell?

  “We are an inquisitive people,” she said, trying to shake off her feeling of unease. “What are you called?” She was afraid another question would anger it. It didn’t.

  “You named us Weavers.”

  “I named you? Until a year ago, I’d never seen you.”

  “Months, weeks, days, minutes, seconds, years, eons, eternity, these are concepts that do not affect us.”

  “Still, you know of them.”

  “We know them from you.”

  Minu snapped her mouth shut. Was it reading her mind?

  “I hear your thoughts,” came the reply, and she tried not to scream. The eyes regarded her curiously, one or two occasionally blinking. “Made of questions and fear, so unlike before. The winds of fate have treated you poorly.”

  “Can you answer my questions about the Rasa?”

  “‘How many’ is four thousand that have come, and more that are preparing. “‘How soon’ is a question we cannot answer. Time is a construct to us, not a moving thing. ‘Where’ is your location, the portal you rest on and speak with us through, and two other portals.”

  Minu tried to jump away from the portal, but her body seemed to spin around in the void. A tiny tendril of awareness told her that her body had not moved at all. She concentrated as hard as she could and managed to see through her real eyes for a moment. Aaron was a few meters away, seemingly running toward her, frozen in mid-stride with a look of terror on his face. I’m somehow frozen in time, she realized.

  “Do not fear; they cannot harm you.”

  “You’re doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Stopping time?”

  “Time does not work for us the way it does for you. It is necessary to alter your perceptions for us to speak with you. It has always been such with your kind. Unlike others, you can speak with us. Some hear, but they do not really understand.”

  The longer they interacted, the more understandable the Weaver became. From reading my mind, she thought, and shivered. “You’re saying you changed my perception of time so you can speak to me? Why can’t you talk through the portal somehow? Are you alive inside it?”

  “We are not a living being as you understand it; we are not from your universe.”

  “What?”

  “We are not from your universe. I can see from your mind that this is not something you can yet understand. We would like to converse with the being known as Pip.” Minu felt snubbed. “You needn’t feel the way you do; he is of a different order of intelligence. Does a comet envy a star? They both shine brightly, but differently.”

  The sensation of being flattered and insulted at the same time was very strange. Which was she, comet or star? “How do you know Pip?”

  “First from your mind. Then as he travels through the portals. We try to speak to him, but he does not make himself available like you and a few others of your kind.”

  “The meditation,” Minu whispered.

  “This incident has nearly passed. The Rasa will arrive.”

  “Can’t you do something to help us?”

  “The Rasa are coming; you are on the portal they are coming through. You exist in time, we do not. We have made it possible to speak to you, even as you are still moving temporally. Though we changed your perception, we cannot stop your natural temporal movement. We cannot speak to you outside of your universe’s restraints.”

  Minu concentrated on her body again and got another view of Aaron. He was no longer floating between strides. One foot had now reached the ground. From her memory of the previous view and her perception of how much closer he was, she guessed a tenth of a second had passed while she and the Weaver spoke. She did the math in her head and guessed the time ratio was six hundred to one. She almost asked how much time she had left, then cursed when she realized it was a waste of time. Time, damn it! “I’m trapped,” she realized with a sinking sensation. The Rasa were about to come through the portal. Aaron was running because the portal was active and, like an idiot, she was sitting on it meditating with spider-crabs from another universe.

  “Weavers,” it corrected her, “I am.”

  “I know you are. How do I get out of this alive?”

  “You live, you are yet to be born, you are gone; it is all the same.”

  “Maybe to you, but I wish to stay alive for the next few moments in my real time!”

  “It is all the same to us.” Minu’s mind suddenly reeled from a tiny blast of data. It felt like a physical blow between her eyes. She saw calculations with figures, diagrams, and thought forms that seemed to take a year to go by. When the Weavers spoke again, she was still in a haze. “That is how we see you, in your time.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled, uncertain if the words were more than a thought. Not that it mattered to the Weavers. “That doesn’t mean a thing to me. Let’s see if I can get you to understand. The second you revert my perceptions to normal, things speed up for me. A thousand Rasa will come through the portal and kill me in some gruesome way.”

  “That is a correct perception.”

  “Fantastic. So I’m going to die.”

  “You already have, as has everyone in your universe. And you have just been born—”

  “And you could care less?”

  “Beings such as yourselves are inexplicably linked to a time continuum, and thus, mortality. From the moment you enter existence, your lives’ ends are predetermined. We see your birth, your death, and all in between. Such as now.”

  “Heartless bastard.”

  “Our incident is coming to an end.”

  “Is there nothing you can do?”

  “What would you have us do?”

  Minu felt herself beginning to slip from the void, dragged back to her body. Everything was speeding up, the Weaver a crazy blur of motion. She resisted with all her will. “Save me! Help me!”

  “You are already dead.”

  She thought desperately, trying to work within the being’s convoluted logic and perception of her world. “I do not wish to perish in this moment. Do you control the portal?” There was no answer. She took that for a ‘yes.’ “Stop the Rasa from coming through.”

  “They have already come through.”

  “No, not in the moment I exist in, the incident I exist in. Remember, time is linear for me.”

  It was the first time she’d given the being a moment of pause, albeit a brief one. “This is not how we agreed to do our task.”

  “What is your task?”

  “It is as we agreed, and if you do not remember, this incident is ending too quickly to explain it.”

  “I’m asking you, I’m begging you, break the rules! Stop the Rasa, even if only for a few seconds—”

  “We do not understand seconds.”

  “Okay, stop them until I have moved safely away from the fucking portal!”

  Again, it paused before it r
eplied. “Your new instruction is accepted.” She felt herself sweep back to her body, faster and faster. The Weaver’s final words echoed in her head, “Remember, Sapphire.” Then, with a brain-rending snap, she returned to her body. Aaron slammed into her, the impact knocking both of them off the portal dais and onto the ground. Energy weapons fire tore through the portal where she’d sat only an instant before.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 4

  Julast 13th, 518 AE

  Portal Quad, Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass

  The portal quad exploded with deadly fire. Beamcaster energy bolts cracked back and forth with lethal intensity. As Minu rolled further away, Rasa began pouring through, trying to spread out and be less of a bunched-up target. Aaron pulled out a pair of old-style ballistic handguns and started blazing away, the reports painfully loud. The front-line Rasa soldiers had weapons and armor like the scout team she’d battled on GBX2334. The light arms the Chosen scouts usually carried were no match. The guns Aaron used were huge slug-throwing hand cannons. One soldier went down immediately, an entire arm blown off at the elbow. Two more staggered and fell with breaches in their torso plates. They became impediments to those following them, and the advance began to slow.

  The four beamcaster turrets fired as fast as they could cycle. The weapons’ reports were nearly deafening in the enclosed space despite the open sky above. The beamcasters could fire automatically or manually. Aaron reloaded his guns with amazing speed and tossed one to her. Minu caught it and fired into the face of a Rasa soldier just as he turned toward her, the muzzle blast assaulting her hearing like a sledgehammer. She noticed her team only manned three of the beamcasters. Aaron should be manning the fourth, but he’d abandoned his post and come to her rescue.

  The face shield of the soldier she’d shot exploded, causing him to hiss and drop to the ground. The recoil nearly broke her wrist. Minu switched the gun to her right hand and fired twice more as Aaron dragged her toward the unmanned turret. The intense fire from the three manned turrets covered them until she felt the tingle indicating they’d passed through the defensive shield. Particle beams splashed harmlessly behind them in rainbow bursts of light that bespoke little of their true power.

  “Are you insane!?” Aaron yelled at her, dropping his handgun into her lap and spinning to man the turret.

  “I am,” she replied then shook her head to clear it. “They’re real! I can’t believe it, they’re real!”

  “You went over and plopped down on the portal dais like it’s a picnic table.” He took control of the beamcaster and started firing on a group of Rasa soldiers who were using their fallen comrades as shields. Under the particle accelerator beams entire bodies exploded in red balls of burning gore.

  Minu swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “What’s real?” She shook her head and pretended she’d never said a thing. “What happened? I think I blacked out.”

  He looked at her, snarling and sputtering as he continued to fire, then finally spoke. “You strolled up there and sat down, pretty as can be. We all looked at each other, wondering if you’d lost it. Pip suggested you were goading them into attacking, and we all laughed. Then the damn portal activated, and we stopped laughing. I ran for you even though I figured you were dead. We could see the portal open onto grassy plains, and there were hundreds of soldiers waiting. I hadn’t taken two steps when they fired. Then the weirdest thing happened.”

  “Tell me,” she begged breathlessly. The two huge handguns felt heavy in her lap as she half sat, half leaned against the beamcaster mounting.

  “Their shots hit the portal but didn’t go through.”

  “Maybe they missed the actual portal.”

  “No, they didn’t miss. I’ve seen enough weapons fire pass through those portals to know better. Somehow they were stopped.” He leaned over the weapon’s simple sighting mechanism and triggered a shot that blew through two soldiers, just as they stepped clear. “It was almost like the portal decided to stop them for a couple seconds at least. As soon as I knocked you clear, all hell started to break loose.”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  “Reload those guns,” he said and dropped a belt with dozens of thick magazines next to her. “And put on a set of those ear protectors before you lose an ear drum.”

  “Where did these guns come from?”

  “Gregg and I designed them in our free time using salvaged junk. I think they started out as signal flare launchers or something.”

  “You guys should be in Science.’

  Aaron made a rude noise and fired again. “Just doing our job.” Another shot. “I think we’re holding them.”

  “They’ll change tactics any time now,” she said, fumbling a bit with the mechanisms until she figured it out. What she’d thought of as a magazine was really more of a speed loader. The guns were massive revolvers that held five shots each. Considering the slugs were at least twenty millimeters, it was no wonder the Rasa armor wasn’t holding up against them. They’d even added rudimentary recoil suppression to the bulky grips.

  “How do you know they’ll change tactics?”

  “Because I would.” When Aaron fired again, a plume of steam shot from one of the weapon’s intercoolers. “How bad?”

  “Close to the red line.” If the beamcasters had a weakness beyond size and energy consumption, it was heat dissipation. Normally it wasn’t an issue, because the guns ran out of ammo long before heat became a problem. These guns had unlimited power because they’d linked them to Steven’s Pass’s massive EPC stores. Heat was the only issue. They could fire for days on end—or until they exploded.

  “Work together,” she told him, “volley fire. Try to cool the beamcasters down a little.” Once she’d reloaded the big handguns, she stuck one in her belt with half the ammo. She slipped the hearing protectors on and went behind Aaron to stuff the other gun in his belt. She smelled scorched material, then spotted a burn on his back. “When were you hit?”

  “Just before we got through the damn shield,” he said with no hint of the pain he was feeling. “Bad timing.”

  “How bad is it?” She moved some of the burned jumpsuit out of the way to reveal charred flesh and sickening white fat. “Oh, God.”

  “Didn’t get the bone.” He pointed to the ground beside him, and she saw an empty quick injector lying there. It had contained a mixture of boost and pain killer which the scouts called buzz.

  “That’s dangerous stuff,” she warned.

  “So they tell us.” Minu reached into the field kit on her hip and pulled out a sterilizer pack and bandage. In less than a minute, she’d sterilized the wound, applied metabolism boosting heal gel, and secured the flexible field bandage in place. “Thank you,” he said. She patted his shoulder and looked past him. There were at least fifty dead Rasa, none more than a few meters past the portal. There was a massive pile on the portal dais where very red blood mingled with gore and dripped down the stairs or over the side. This wasn’t warfare, it was slaughter. As if on cue, they stopped coming through. “Do you think that’s it?”

  Minu snatched her field glasses, computer enhanced descendants of binoculars, and looked through the portal. The image magnification apparatus cleaned up the view and showed her the plain where the Rasa milled. They were carrying containers. “No, it isn’t. Second wave coming. Bots!”

  “Oh crap,” Aaron cursed. He yelled a warning to the others just as Pip came running up.

  “Bots!” he warned.

  “We know,” Minu and Aaron said in unison.

  Pip was working on a tablet with a network power booster attached. “I don’t think this is the time for research,” Aaron snapped. “Grab a gun, damn it.” Pip spat something about working, and the second wave hit.

  Minu saw a pair of Rasa soldiers hurl a crate through the portal. “Shoot it!” she screamed, too late. Aaron fired as the case struck the ground and burst open. Hundreds of bots of all types exploded out of the broken case, and all Aaron�
�s shot did was burn a couple. Slow and sturdy crab-bots skittered, quicker centipede-bots scurried, seldom seen turtle-bots with armored head-like sensors sprouted legs and advanced, and a squadron of dizzyingly fast dragonfly-bots took to the air.

  Minu slapped her hand on the beamcaster turret’s shield control just in time for a dragonfly-bot to smash into it with a flash of light.

  “Burn the turtles first!” Pip yelled.

  “Why?” Aaron asked as he fired at a wildly darting dragonfly-bot. The shield shimmered as his blast passed through. Nothing could walk through the shield, but it came at a cost. Now the dual system consumed energy as you fired, too. Minu fired a handgun round at the nearest turtle-bot as Pip instructed, but during Aaron’s hesitation, its shell opened, showing a series of energy antennas. Her shot flashed, but the turtle-bot’s shield deflected it.

  “Next time, do what I say!” Pip almost screamed. Aaron turned his beamcaster on the turtle-bot that plodded toward them. He fired over and over, the bot’s shield glowing red, then orange, then blue. It was only a meter away when another section of its shell split, revealing a pair of the Rasa’s signature flechette machine guns.

  “Aaron!” Minu yelled. In an instant the bot’s shield would contact theirs. The nature of the shields meant they’d harmlessly merge, leaving nothing between Minu, Aaron and the automated killing machine. A pair of beamcaster bolts converged on the turtle-bot. Its shield turned brilliant white, then shorted out with a thunderous explosion, taking the bot with it. Flaming debris splashed against their shield like a meteor storm.

  “We’ll take the bots!” a familiar, deep voice boomed.

  “Dram!” Minu cried, somewhat relieved. Dram had arrived with twenty Chosen, all carrying beamcasters and heavy projectile rifles. Beams cracked and crisscrossed the courtyard, and the guns boomed. Bots exploded and careened around, constantly testing and attacking the shields. The newly arrived Chosen reinforcements all carried personal shields, one per two-man fire team, and they used them to good effect as they advanced toward the portal. The Rasa were active during the first chaotic moments of the bot attack. Two full squads of Rasa soldiers carefully maneuvered through the portal under cover of the bots and deployed around the dais. They launched another case of bots, and the scene became total pandemonium.