by Vowron Prime
“Do you wish you could go back?”
“I…” She fell silent. “I really don’t know. I had a career back there. I wanted to make a difference, but now… I want to say I had a life, but we both know that wasn’t true, not outside of my job. And I had you. But you’re here now. That honestly makes this a helluva lot easier to deal with. So, I guess, I don’t know? Is there even a place for me here?” She looked up at Magnus with gleaming eyes.
He wiped her tears away.
“Nina, you will always have a place by my side. Especially here. But I’m not gonna lie to you. Shit’s pretty fucked up. We’re fugitives from some seriously powerful aliens, and that’s only going to get worse from here on out. I’m guessing Sanctuary’s going to become a warzone soon, and to be entirely honest, a part of me was happy when I learned that this was another world.”
“Why?”
He stepped back to give her some room. “Because it meant that you weren’t here, in this hellhole. Kelruhn is so much more dangerous than Earth, Nina, as hard as that is to believe. If anything happened to you, if Nova’s people did anything to you…”
Seeing his clenched fists, Nina reached out and squeezed his arm. “Magnus, you’ve always tried to do everything by yourself. I’m gonna shoot your own words back at you: it’s okay to rely on me—on us, you know? Don’t shut me out.”
He averted his eyes. “I—”
“And if you’re worried about keeping Nova and me safe, just give us the tools we need to protect ourselves. We’re not as helpless as you think.”
“I never—”
“I know, Magnus. You mean well. Let’s help each other out, okay? Just, don’t get hurt. I’ll kill you if you get hurt.”
He laughed. “Well, we wouldn’t want that now, would we? Come on, let’s go get some rest. I don’t know about you, but I’m dead tired.”
“Sounds like a plan!” she responded, punching him playfully on the shoulder.
Together, they walked back up to the habitation deck.
“And Magnus? Thanks… for bringing me here. I really don’t know what I’d have done if I’d lost you, too.”
“The feeling’s mutual, princess.”
He retired to his own room after bidding her goodnight. Formerly the commander’s quarters, he’d renovated it to be a bit more opulent. Soft silk rugs peppered the floor, bookshelves lined the walls, and memorabilia from his various contract missions sat on nearly every surface. Crashing on his own bed after what truly felt like eons sounded pretty good right now. Sanctuary was the only place in the world where he felt safe, the only place where he could get a good night’s rest.
He showered—another luxury he’d sorely missed—and by the time his head hit the fluffy down pillows, he was out like a dead man.
Seventeen
The base’s lights slowly brightened, heralding the dawn of a new day. Nova had already reprogrammed them to adjust to Kelruhn’s planetary cycle, which he’d recently learned was twenty-six hours long. In almost all other aspects, the planet was straight up Earth-like, if slightly smaller.
Jumping out of bed, MC found his legs carrying him to the hangar for his usual morning jog. The vast asphalt made for an ideal route, and he couldn’t help but grin as he fell into a rhythm.
It’s good to be back.
Maybe it was just an abandoned military bunker, but to him, it was so much more. Home. There was something almost spiritually fulfilling about the place, and not only on account of the arsenal it housed.
Returning refreshed to his room, he followed up with a quick shower before donning some light armor. Still felt awfully naked without some offensive implements strapped to it.
An easily solved problem. The concealed walk-in weapons closet attached to his bedroom had a small selection of his finest weapons. Taking a few moments to admire the works of lethal art hanging from the blue-lit closet walls, he made his decision. Today felt like a rail pistol day. He plucked his favorite Smith & Wesson from the wall, snapping it to his magnetic drop-leg holster with a satisfying thunk.
Next up was the knife. In keeping with the old-school theme, it’d have to be a full-tang titanium blade, nanomachine-enhanced of course. Every object within Sanctuary was a precious commodity—literally irreplaceable now that they were cut off from Earth. At least until they secured one of those matter fabricators Nova had mentioned.
MC strode through the autodoors that whooshed aside, entering the converted mess hall. Unsurprisingly, he found it empty. Nina was never an early riser, and from what he’d seen of Nova, she enjoyed her sleep, too.
Opening the massive fridge, he was pleased to see that Nina had sagely kept it well-stocked. After some deliberation, he flipped on the industrial-grade electric burners and started whipping up breakfast—good old-fashioned omelets.
Soon enough, two bleary-eyed girls stumbled through the door in their pajamas, rubbing sleep away.
“Mmm, I smell something good…” Nina said.
“Magnus is cooking for us? How considerate of him!”
Nova’s wings thwacked Nina in the face as they made their way through the door, but neither girl seemed to care. Though, was it really accurate to call Nova a girl? “Ancient grandma” might be more applica—better not go there. Nova’s stare gave him the shivers.
How could she possibly know what he was thinking? Alien telepathy?
“A woman’s intuition, brother.”
“The hell? Not you, too!”
Giggling, the two sat down at one of the table benches, where Nina promptly reached out to touch one of Nova’s wings, eliciting a startled yelp from the winged alien.
“Damn. Still ridiculously soft. You sure you can’t fly with these?” she asked, pulling on them as if to confirm their authenticity.
“I admit I have not yet tried, though I am not able to flutter them like a bird. I imagine it would end tragically. And, er, they are quite ticklish, so…”
“Oh? Oh?” Nina’s face warped into an evil grin.
“Bad move, Nova. Nina can be relentless.”
Nova edged away from his sister, eliciting a fit of raucous laughter from the latter.
“Magnus, why are you dressed in armor? And why are you carrying a weapon?” Nova asked, pointing to his sidearm.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“My bro’s got more than a couple of screws loose. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed that by now.”
“Screws?”
“It’s a saying, Nova. It means he’s a little crazy.”
“Ah! I did notice, I just hoped he would be less formal here in his home.”
“Yeah… no. Better get used to it. The three things you can rely on,” Nina said as she held up three fingers. “Death, taxes, and Magnus’s paranoia.”
They both giggled at that.
“So it sounds like the two of you don’t want breakfast. Pity.” MC made a show of walking the eggs over to the trash can, prompting Nova’s eyes to bulge.
“No! Please! I apologize! I got carried away.” She realized his trap far too late, when he turned around with an impish grin.
Nina facepalmed. “That’s the oldest trick in the book!”
Smiling, MC laid the simmering hot veggie-and-ham omelets down in front of them, along with tall glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice. “Breakfast is served.”
“I suppose I deserved that,” Nova moped, blushing furiously.
As usual, Nina happily gobbled up anything he made and, much to MC’s delight, Nova relished his cooking, polishing off her plate in no time. The angel was especially impressed, having never eaten an omelet before. It would seem that he hadn’t lost his touch after all, and it felt good to be doing something familiar again. Fulfilling.
“So, what do you say we get down to business?”
After polishing off their breakfast, the girls followed him out of the dining hall’s double blast doors into a long hallway. A few turns later put them at the Combat Information Center, or CIC.
> As the beating heart and brains of the base, it was used for coordinating and commanding any ongoing missions. Every surveillance system fed back to this room and its vast array of monitors, somewhat reminiscent of a space program’s mission control. An enormous holoprojector sat in the center of a raised platform, where various maps and strategic interfaces could be displayed.
Nova went over to the console and powered it on, bringing up a translucent globe several feet in diameter. “I took the liberty of interfacing your systems with Dyn technology, at least enough to download basic information. It can be improved, but there will be time for that later.”
“You did all of that last night?” Nina exclaimed.
“She’s a wizard,” MC said.
Nova cleared her throat. “This is the planet my people, the Dyn, refer to as IV-3259. The Zevan know it as Kelruhn, ‘The Provider of Life.’”
The blue-and-green image zoomed out to show hundreds of tiny orbiting objects.
“And this is Insights, our Global Satellite Network. It is what enabled the Dyn to track us during our escape, and while Sanctuary is well-hidden, the instant we use any of your vehicles to leave, they will know, and the base’s location will be compromised.”
“Well, I can cover any craft we take out with my stealth field, and my gunship does have active camo, but this still feels risky. Reaver’s also the only vehicle with those capabilities. Not to mention the sats are preventing us from eradicating that horde of monsters outside.”
“It must be disabled,” Nova agreed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Agreed,” MC echoed, casually ignoring Nina’s shock.
“Whoa, whoa, hold up—destroy an advanced alien satellite system? Are you two out of your minds? Even if you could get to space, there are hundreds of those things up there. Howdo you plan to take them out? Or can you magic those out of existence, too?”
MC shook his head. “Negative. My pickup range is extremely limited. I’d need to be right next to the satellites to do that, and I’d have to do it hundreds of times, which isn’t really an option.”
“Do you have any long-range explosives delivery mechanisms on this base?” Nova asked.
He paused. “Sadly no. I destroyed all of those a long time back to make the UFN happy. But they wouldn’t have helped us, anyway. Those were all just intercontinental missiles. Nothing that could go to space.”
“And even if you had such weapons, the central satellite is of course protected against such primitive weaponry.”
She zoomed in on one satellite that was far larger than the others. In fact, it wasn’t a satellite at all; it was a full-blown space station.
“The Insights system was designed using a hub-and-spoke model—with this station being the nerve center of the operation. If we disable it, the entire network will shut down.”
MC frowned. “Why would they make it with such an obvious flaw? Even humans know that distributed systems are far less prone to failure.”
“Not necessarily; there are advantages to building it this way. This planet is a research outpost where the most advanced creatures are merely in the Iron Age. Even accounting for Zevan magic, there is not a single threat to my people on the entire planet. It is far more economical to build it like this when anything else would have been a waste. Additionally, it doubles as the docking station for any inbound interstellar vessels, serving as the spatial anchor. The Dyn’s greatest foe has always been the vastness of space itself, and the formidable resources required to conquer it.”
Well, that does make some kind of sense, MC thought. Labor and materials spent building a better sat system could’ve been utilized for their war effort instead.
“Downing the anchor would be a huge win,” MC explained for Nina’s benefit. “Right now, Kelruhn can’t teleport out, but there’s nothing stopping Dyn reinforcements from teleporting here. With the anchor down, the planet would be completely isolated, but that still leaves the issue of how we get there. I can teleport to space, but I’d have no way of getting back. Not safely, anyway, with my accuracy being what it is at those distances.”
“Do you have any ideas—”
Blazing sirens wailed.
“That’s the perimeter detection system,” MC explained, walking over to the monitors. “Looks like passive sensors are picking up a radar signature. A big one, and technological. Looks like a chariot, by its size.”
“But how? They should not be able to find us here!”
MC studied the data. “No, doesn’t look like they’ve found us yet. It might just be a coincidence.”
He flipped a few switches and entered some commands. The base’s main lighting shut off, replaced by flashing red strobes.
“I’ve put the compound into emergency power mode. Most of the electronics are offline, which should reduce our own radar signature. I’m going to head over to the reactor and cover it with a stealth field just in case. Can’t exactly turn that thing off, so that’s about the best we can do.”
Nova nodded. “With the reactor’s emissions hidden, I am doubtful that they would be able to find us under all this rock, even with their scanners.”
“I’ll come with,” Nina said.
The pair made their way out of the CIC and over to the control room that towered over the massive reactor below, manually opening the doors along the way. MC took a long flight of stairs down to the fusion reactor itself, then expanded the stealth field bubble to its absolute maximum—just enough to cover most of the power plant.
With only the humming of the ancillary systems to keep them company, a tense silence descended upon brother and sister as they awaited word from Nova.
“It is getting closer,” came Nova’s voice.
“What do we do?”
Shit.
Not even one day had passed. He’d honestly been hoping for a respite from this bullshit. “Worst case, I’ll have to go outside and draw them away.”
Several minutes later, the lights returned to normal, startling them.
Nova’s voice sparked through the intercom. “The chariot has left the vicinity; we are safe. Feel free to come back now.”
The siblings let out a collective breath.
“That was a bit too close for comfort,” he said after they’d regrouped at the CIC. “We need a better solution. Sanctuary’s location absolutely cannot be discovered; we’re far too vulnerable right now.”
“I shall see what I can do to improve your passive sensors,” Nova replied. “Beyond that, active sensors are of course not an option for the near future, but more importantly, we need to find a way to disable Insights.”
“About that, I’ve got a few ideas. Gimme a day or two; I think I might be close to something.” MC replied. “In the meantime, Nova—can you fill Nina in on the full story? How I came to be here, how we ended up where we’re at? I’m sure she has a million questions.”
“Hell, yeah I do!”
Nova nodded. “I would be happy to. Should I…”
“Yeah, tell her the truth. Everything,” he called back as he walked out.
“Ah, Magnus, wait! We need to begin your first surgical treatment. Please meet me in the medical bay in three hours.”
Shit.
“Okay, doc.”
As uncomfortable as it was going to be, dying was just a bit worse.
“Surgery? Why, what’s wrong with him?” he heard Nina ask as he left. He just couldn’t bring himself to tell Nina about the parasite and what it was doing to him. Maybe it was the coward’s way out, but it was either asking Nova to fill her in, or not telling her at all, and she really did deserve to know.
The wide-open space of the hangar beckoned him. Dozens of massive LED lights hung from the bare cavern roof. It seemed like the best place to practice and experiment, where he’d be less likely to break anything if shit went sideways.
“Here goes nothing.”
Eighteen
Sitting cross-legged upon the asphalt floor, MC rum
inated on his upcoming experiment.
Nova mentioned that the parasite would respond to his thoughts, and he'd already guessed as much. She’d confirmed his hunch about the relocator, that it created a wormhole to fold space to bring two locations closer together.
The phenomenon clearly consumed an enormous amount of energy, as evidenced by the transit gateway’s enormous power cells. Her hypothesis was that he was pulling energy from the very fabric of space-time itself—something humans theorized to exist but had never proven.
Regardless, he now understood that when he relocated objects, the ability was somehow ripping open a wormhole to suck the object into, then physically moving the object to deposit it on the other side. His own body served as a kind of spatial anchor, which was why teleporting himself had taken so much effort; he’d been trying to move that very coordinate anchor through the tunnel.
So if he created these tunnels to move objects, why couldn’t he then keep the tunnels open, linking two locations indefinitely? A teleportal.
MC concentrated on activating the relocator, but this time attempted to restrain the object—a bucket he’d brought over from the maintenance closet—once the relocation tunnel had opened. Like a floating buoy being sucked into an underwater stream, it resisted him.
All right, so what will happen if I plug the stream?
Nothing, as it turned out. The yellow bucket remained where it was, but for the first time ever, he felt a continuous mental fatigue similar to when he kept the energy dampener active for extended periods of time. As slight as it was, the burn rate was still far higher than anything the relocator had used in the past. Pretty wasteful, given that wasn’t even moving the bucket.
Yet it was also true that the relocation tunnel sustained itself exactly as he’d envisioned. He let go of his ‘drain plug’ and the bucket reappeared several feet away, the tunnel closing right behind it.
He stood up and paced around the area, threading his way between the many vehicles that sat under matte-black covers emblazoned with the UFN trident.
What he really needed was a way to keep the relocation tunnel open without plugging it. Acting on a hunch, he ambled over to the hangar’s rocky cavern wall with the yellow bucket in hand, then relocated two boulders out onto the floor. Initiating a relocation and keeping it sustained like last time, he then willed the wormhole’s opening to wrap itself around the rock.
