Alliance

by Bruce S Larson

  The silken complexity might be mistaken for chaos. Each strand was a straight line, but countless were crossed and connected at every angle and vertex possible. The network stretched for a distance immeasurable in four-dimensional perception. The farther the web reached, the more indistinct its lines became. The farthest silk still visible appeared as a whitish haze drifting into black that extended in all directions and seemingly to infinity.

  The Great Widow would not need to travel far along her creation. She knew what strands held secrets, and a few physical objects. She hid those prizes carefully, even in this dimension deep within Hell. She protected them from the being that now lay still on her back. The silk cocoon was to keep eyes and other senses blind. Nevertheless, she would avoid those strands.

  As she evolved and the Forge transformed into Hell, the web became not only her ultimate home but also a means to survive in Hell. Silk from her spinnerets could bind things to the web through a quantum snare. This had pleased the Dark Urge as a means to track her Generals. Circuits laced with silk also bound the hellships to certain commands of the Great Widow. She wove her silk in the genes of some demons and their Generals. It linked them all to the web, the Great Widow, and thus Hell.

  Most of the Generals resented the intrusion of her communiqués. Their suspicions became valid when the Great Widow plucked strands for devastating effect on one General. She did so to protect her dark mistress from possible rebellion when General Tanuhr learned the secrets of Anguhr’s origin from a wrecked Khan ship. He had attempted secret communiqué with Anguhr. The spider stopped that by causing a ripple in reality that destroyed Tanuhr’s ship, his horde, and the General. Rebellion came to pass, nonetheless. Yet the Great Widow endured.

  Only Anguhr could block the Great Widow. She had needed to weave his strand into his infant body before his insertion for rebirth. The other Generals were linked to the web before their bodies formed. Through their experience, she could see all the worlds they encountered and enjoy distinct, distant environments. It was a voyeuristic existence that ended with visions of annihilation. Yet each new world was not Hell and afforded a brief sensation of liberty.

  On her web, The Great Widow sensed the resonance of the intruder. A spider’s face showed no shock, yet her mind reeled from the revelations vibrating across her infinite lattice. She found a strand with the same resonance as the intruder. The time of the intrusion was after Anguhr’s victory over Hell. Yet the intruder matched a frequency shared by a strand created near Azuhr’s last contact. That frequency was from the spider’s own silk. It was how the intruder found and accessed the web. It possessed either a piece of the Great Widow’s silk, or had it bound within its being. The strand’s frequency the same as silk impregnated into—

  No!

  The strands created for the seventh General were already bound to his ship and alloy for his weapon. She wove it again to combine with Azuhr’s infant before he was inserted into the womb-machine and remade as Anguhr. Originally, those strands were meant for another. The Great Widow shuddered. The motion rippled long through her web.

  The spider recalled how, long ago, she detected an arrival on Hell’s forbidding surface. Then, she needed to appear completely subservient to the Dark Urge. Yet she hid this fact. For, if something could arrive on Hell, perhaps it could leave it. She kept this bound tightly in her web and in her mind. If she ever detected transit to and from the surface, she could seek it as an escape.

  No additional arrivals or egress ever occurred. The war went on and the anomaly was another lump along a lost intersection of silk. Those responsible for the anomaly might have found what the Great Widow had left on the wastes to prepare for Anguhr’s rebirth. Perhaps they tore the strand from a long-exposed corpse or pile of dust. She had thought no life could endure Hell’s surface for long. But perhaps long enough. Life found ways to survive on stars. She was life that survived in Hell. Perhaps something had lived long enough to claim a piece of Hell’s forgotten legacy. She began to consider how that might change her life, and began to weave a new piece of her web.

  Buran looked at the image on his forward screen. It was an arboreal graphic image, not the forward view of space. There was no need to show what lay out before the accelerating ship. It was infinite and near absolute darkness that extended in all directions. A sense of forward momentum was lost in a field of perpetual black. Passing time allowed transit in real space, and velocity mitigated time. A clock became the psychological measure of progress in interstellar void.

  The screen showed a series of ship systems represented as branches on a three-dimensional, umbrella-like tree graphic. Buran was concerned over the number of branches that still flashed data pending. A rotating sphere with an icon of the Sword Wing at its center hovered directly below it. A chronograph rolled inside the ship icon that counted down to the estimated arrival back at Tectus.

  Buran looked at the roll of time in the graphical Sword Wing. The sphere around it represented space. He mused on energy vibrating within the vacuum expanding the universe farther and farther and in some region space folding in on itself to form pockets that—a red dot flashed on the edge of the sphere. The system tree graphic vanished as the sphere and ship icon expanded with the elapsing time. The Sword Wing icon shrank inside the expanded sphere as the red dot rotated relative to the ship.

  “Contact!” Chelnar announced as all eyes locked on the sphere projection. “Canosphere three. Limb-sec, thirty-two. Seven-thousand rings. Speed—their speed increasing.”

  “It’s a fleet ship, Admiral.” Roelar reported. “Gedan, Hurkoor class, mark twelve. Specific ship—unknown. No beacon transmission, sir.”

  “Out here?” an officer beyond Chelnar voiced disbelief.

  “The warship’s vector has just altered,” Chelnar said. “Its current course will intercept ours.”

  Roelar scrutinized images on his screens from the fleet registry to identify what sailed at them. “I can make visual confirmation, sir. It’s the Keeorr.”

  “They followed us.” Buran said with admiration. “Or matched our flight. Impressive.”

  “Followed? How could any ship know our sling terminus?” Chelnar questioned, and then quickly dropped his head back to his station.

  “We are not the only ship with fast computers, lieutenant.” Buran answered. “They saw our vector as we fled Tectus, and anticipated our drop into temporal space. Remarkable. As is their survival.”

  “That will not last, sir.” Roelar said as he read from his own screen. His data appeared on the sphere projection. An image of the damaged Keeorr replaced the red dot. “Their hull integrity is deteriorating. A radiation field extends from their main drive through their aft bulkheads. Their internal shielding is lost.”

  “Or the energy sacrificed for one last mission.” Buran sighed. “They are a fierce and committed species. Hail the captain.”

  “Their speed is increasing,” Roelar said as he transmitted an automated reply summons. “Their vector still intercepts our course.”

  “Engine fault?” Chelnar asked Roelar.

  “Possible,” Roelar replied. “But they certainly must detect the Sword Wing.”

  “Alter course to avoid collision,” Buran ordered. “The hail?”

  “No reply. Perhaps ignored, sir.” Roelar answered. “Or their ship’s communication—”

  “Incoming fire!” Chelnar bleated.

  The frontal battery of the Keeorr fired twin, white rays from leagues away, but the particle beam cut the distance between the two ships for a nearly instantaneous strike. Domes of heat flashed where the beams struck the deflection fields near the Sword Wing’s expansive bow.

  “Damage?” Buran demanded.

  “Doubtful, sir.” Roelar said as all his eyes blinked. “But as yet—”

  Buran and his crew jerked to their collective left as an apparent flank attack came within the bridge as the projectors showed a Gedan face in three dimensions. The reaction was instinctual to the massive, bared
teeth suddenly floating at their right. The Keeorr’s captain had replied.

  Scarred, slate skin constricted around solid, black eyes that glared accusation at the sides of an oval slope descending from the top of the skull and ending above nostril slits over the thick, curled-back upper lip. They might be intimidating on their own. However, the jaws demanded more attention. They bore the fully revealed, thick and slightly recurved teeth meant to hew thick flesh and cut bone. The captain’s tightly clenched jaws ground the fearsome teeth together as tightly as continental plates compressed solid rock.

  Buran knew that his kind were no physical match for the Gedan. Yet the Keeorr was a minor challenge, dwarfed in size, technology and firepower by the Sword Wing. He was familiar with all the worlds that committed ships to the fleet he commanded and just sacrificed for his own planet’s goals. The most distant Gedan ancestor evolved on land as predators and eventually returned to the sea where they coordinated attacks through sound. The oval mass on their head was their acoustic communication membrane.

  Their seamless communication to hunt evolved into integration of thoughts. The pods could form a single mind. More recent ancestors kept this adaptation as they rose back from the sea to exploit niches in wet jungles. The ability to form one mind to attack prey also worked well for sharing personal and communal solutions. Pods linked to form a greater gestalt that became a civilization that eventually rose into space. It was all an interesting history, but Buran’s thoughts again focused on the sharp, grinding teeth. More of them pressed into the image as the command pod’s officers linked with their captain and shared her thoughts and searing rage.

  The Keeorr captain’s head vibrated as she projected her crew’s collective rant through her acoustic membrane.

  “Betrayers! We would rend you all, alive! Your blood is a pool compared to the ocean of the slain you left to die. We now hunt you! The legacy of conquests is lost! We annul our alliance! Your death will be our last hunt! But this is our act of revenge for—”

  Buran cut the audio from his chair console as issued an order as the Keeorr neared: “Evasive maneuvers.”

  The Sword Wing crew felt a pull to the deck floor as the vast ship again moved more like a raptor.

  “Sir, the Keeorr is also altering course and increasing speed.” Chelnar noted as he pulled himself closer to his console.

  “Readings show their beam weapons are depolarizing.” Roelar reported. “They register only heat, not building energy. He has burned out his weapons, sir.”

  “Then let him ram us,” Buran spoke with calm. “His ship will shatter against our force shields.”

  “Sir,” Roelar’s voice held doubt as he watched the Keeorr alter course. “Her maneuvers make no sense, if she intends to ram us. The ship is not attempting to strike our main drive, bridge, or any power junctions. Their navigation must be compromised, but they close the distance rapidly.”

  “End evasions.” Buran ordered as he stared at the sphere projection and the arcing Keeorr. “Match his course and corrections so that our bow and hers are constantly facing each other. Then close the distance. There is no risk to us if he strikes our shield's strong point.”

  “Battle damage!” Chelnar shouted.

  “What?” Roelar glared at his subordinate.

  “Sir! The reporting circuits were damaged, themselves.” Chelnar explained as he calmed himself to report. “They’re regained full function and report the hellship's missiles damaged the ventral field generators.”

  “They have detected the weakened area.” Buran watched the Keeorr’s image expand and then shrink on the projection as the actual warship came closer and then cameras refocused.

  “The weak point matches the terminus of his previous vector.” Roelar said reading his screen and turned to Buran.

  “Their fusillade was a ruse,” Buran nodded in admiration for his new foe. “She intends to ram us, and knows right where to strike.”

  “Worse, sir.” Roelar looked back at his screen. “Their engines are building to overload. She intends to increase her ship’s destructive power by detonating at the weak point.”

  “A fusion detonation there could—” Chelnar began as Buran issued his order.

  “Reverse course. Open fire.” Buran inhaled, deeply, and watched the sphere projection of the hurtling Keeorr.

  The crew felt a lurch as the Sword Wing backed away with speed from the nearing Gedan ship. Several forward batteries slid open on the hull. In space, several hundred blue energy lances as wide as the Gedan ship struck its exact center. It vanished in an instant. The radiant explosion came more from the extreme concentration of firepower intersecting at one narrow point than the detonating warship. At the convergence, a large plasma ball drifted away from the Sword Wing and lingered as a ghostly mass of energy rolling through space.

  On the bridge, Buran widened all four of his eyelids and looked over at an equally surprised and blinking Roelar.

  “Ah, sir, our forward weapons array was still calibrated to fire on the hellship. The fire controls had not been reset since arrival at this coordinate. Thus, the, ah, overkill, sir.”

  Buran drew a deep breath. “Repair any damage, and reestablish course to Tectus.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Gin walked along a beach. He first took physical form to help Zaria when she ventured to the Iron Work to retrieve objects for a weapon that could destroy the Dark Urge. The plan did not go well. The Dark Urge had anticipated the creation of the same weapon. She sent General Xuxuhr to capture the components to prevent it. Zaria led her newly created warriors to victory on the strangest site a battle ever occurred, the solar-system scale machine. Then, General Anguhr arrived in shocking defiance of his dread sovereign. Anguhr captured them. Zaria convinced him to continue her mission. He and Zaria completed the weapon, but it remained in his control. However, Zaria did not fail to exploit the chance to reveal the rebel demon’s true origin and complete his break with the Dark Urge. Soon after, the threat to all life ended. At least for now.

  Gin looked out at abundant life as sand and tide washed over his feet. He enjoyed the sensation. He enjoyed seeing the ocean stretch out to the horizon as it did on countless sunny days on the Earth-like world of Asherah. This was his world. He was created to maintain it. Now he also enjoyed walking among its many environments as a living creature. Gin’s first physical experiences were inside a suit of armor. Here, he had no need for steel over his skin, so he exposed his body to the ocean mist and sunlight. Yet the sunlight was more demure, and wished Gin to be likewise.

  Zaria had come to Asherah ages ago after the schism that made her and the Dark Urge. She took a form suited for a world that once orbited a sun made yellow in blue skies. Her name ultimately meant sunlight. It was her warmth Gin felt on his giant, wiry, and human-like body. He turned to what appeared as a single, large star above wispy clouds to feel more warmth over his naked form.

  “You could put on some clothes,” Zaria’s voice came down with her rays. “Perhaps a completely covering robe.”

  “Clothes? They wear no clothes.” Gin pointed to birds overhead. “In fact, you are quite naked if we are to compare chosen and natural forms.”

  There was a blinding flash. Gin blinked. Zaria now stood next to him in her own human-like form. Gin had copied it before they left for the Iron Work, and they appear as male and female twins. Now, instead of emerald armor, Zaria wore a flowing, pale green robe. Gin was surprised to see his own form now clothed. He stood draped in two items he had never seen, nor had they been seen for countless millennia. The lower garb was a light, earthy tone ending at his knees. Cloth with a colorful floral pattern covered his torso and abdomen. Gin had no reference for his new look, but eyes from the distant past would recognize the khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirt.

  Gin was more astonished by how Zaria caused his change, and tugged at his bright shirt. “How did you do that? You must have accessed the deep code of my personal protocols!”

  “I was once part
of the main systems that controlled the Forge. Your very being is based on the same codes I was made to control. I can understand the coding of life, and can alter it. I can make you appear clothed, old friend.”

  “That is fairly disconcerting for us who value free will!” Gin said over a crash of waves.

  “Never has that been said because of a flamboyant shirt. How shocked would have been if I recast you wearing sandals?”

  “Sandals?”

  “Try not to overreact,” Zaria sighed and looked across the ocean. “There are serious issues we face.”

  “Is there a time not so?” Gin asked, calmly. “Are we ever to be like them?”

  Gin pointed to what seemed a large fish leaping from the waves colored in chaotic bands of reds, yellows, and black that glinted in the projected sun in the false, blue sky. Asherah was a bastion of life, but a world hidden from real space. However, the ocean was real, as was the abundant life within it.

  Where the apparent fish leapt, the lighter-blue ocean was almost clear. Its body seemed to lose ribbons from itself where a tail was expected. Zaria and Gin knew it was a group of large eels forming a shoal beneath the waves. As the tide came in, they leapt as a group in the shallows. The act had no other purpose but communal joy.

  “Perhaps. One day.” Zaria said watching the playful eels.

  “You have a vested interest in Anguhr’s actions.” Gin said. “Yet, so far, he has not behaved as his mother did at first. Nor is he seeking annihilation as his dread grandmother.”

  “Anguhr has his uses. As yet, I do not seek to contest his chosen path. Not directly. But there is something new shaping lives out in space. It may be more important than Anguhr’s desire for empire.”

  “I’m shocked to hear that.” Gin looked at Zaria with widened eyes. “Is there a force more powerful that the last ship from Hell?”

  “I’m not sure. But there is another presence. I can’t account for it. It is strong enough to hide from me, but I felt it when I touched Azuhr’s sword. I felt its resonance. It was oddly familiar, yet I know I have never felt it before.”