by A. G. Riddle
He activated the link, but the screen read:
Portal Lockdown Protocol in Effect
The fleet had sealed itself off. Smart. But he was trapped.
He raced down the hallway to the shuttle bay doors. They opened, revealing a wide, deep hangar where half of the ten small crafts were overturned and some had been smashed against the bay wall. There was a lander still upright and intact. Ares boarded it and entered the launch sequence.
He donned one of the three EVA suits, hoping to save a little time. Seconds could count. As he waded back into the cockpit, he got his first view through the opening shuttle bay doors.
The creaking doors slowly revealed the horror and scale of the massacre. The entire Atlantean first and second fleets lay broken, disintegrating, floating into the debris field, joining the millions of ships that had fallen before them.
Pieces of Ares’ own fleet, newly arrived to the battle, rolled by the shuttle bay, collapsing into the tempest. There was fire and light coming from the remnants of his own ship and those in its fleet, but they would grow dark soon, just like the first and second fleet. Ares watched listless ships collide, explode in flashes, then grow dark, drifting as compartments along their jagged edges decompressed, puffing air, objects, and his comrades into space.
But the spectacle of the annihilated Atlantean fleets paled in comparison to the battle that raged just above the debris field. On the far side, just before the sun, a ring of Serpentine ships rotated, a giant artificial wormhole of blue and white light stood open in the center—a feat that required unimaginable amounts of energy. A new Serpentine fleet seemed to emerge every second. The ships were all uniform in size, and at the center of the portal, a single giant column of linked ships flowed out, an enormous metallic snake emerging from a rip in space.
Pops of light flashed all around the oscillating snake. Ares enhanced the view. He could see the insignia on the side of the ships. A serpent eating itself. And he realized what was fighting it. Sentinels spheres. Thousands of them, pouring through individual wormholes that disappeared the second they dropped into the battle zone. In formation, the spheres ripped through the serpent, like buckshot into its side, ripping layer after layer of ships away, the rope of the serpent fleet unraveling, but the core never breaking. The gnawed-away sections were instantly reinforced as other Serpentine ships fell in, filling the destroyed links.
The spheres’ rate of arrival was increasing; they were gaining on the Serpentine fleet, pushing the great column back. Ares saw their goal: the ring before the sun that powered the wormhole.
The scene gave him a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the winner would spare whatever was left of the Atlantean fleet. He panned the lander’s viewscreen to show the fighting at the periphery. His hope slipped away. Spheres ripped into the remnants of the Atlantean ships drifting into the breach, opening any inhabited sections to space. He worked the controls, focusing the image. Serpentine ships were firing on life rafts, killing any surviving officers. The two great armies were fighting each other—and each were fighting the Atlanteans.
There was no ally to rally around here. No hope. The full truth, the weight of his hopelessness suffocated him in the EVA suit.
32
The blast that ripped the shuttle bay open jolted Ares back to the present. His lander was away, floating into space, into the wreckage of the fleet and the Serpentine battlefield that stretched to the sun.
Slowly, his mind took stock of his situation. There was no escape. No hope. Yet, a single desire consumed his mind. Myra. I will see her. We will be buried here together.
He keyed the controls. It was only a matter of time before his tiny ship would be ripped apart, becoming another grain of sand in the beach of debris that stretched to the sun.
Ares stayed focused, maneuvering the small lander, weaving through the drifting hulks, slowly making his way to the Pylos. It lay in three large pieces and no doubt thousands of smaller ones. Ares debated about where to look. Communications, her duty station? Or her quarters? The wreckage made the decision for him: the communications bay was gone.
He docked the lander at a section of wreckage that contained half the residential floors. He was vaguely aware of how irrational he was being as he cleared the airlock. His logical mind had shut down; it stood aside, watching, pitying Ares as he sailed through the dark corridors, the lights from his helmet illuminating the floating objects that drifted past him. The ship’s power was completely gone; not even the emergency lights or artificial gravity was working. Life support would be off. Even if he found her in her quarters…
He decided he would stay there for the duration, floating with her, surrounded by her things, and the blank screens that would have shown their pictures.
The door to her quarters opened. A single EVA suit rotated in the air, listless. It turned, and Ares saw the face inside. Her face. He pushed through the door, colliding with his wife, hugging her.
Her voice whispered in his helmet. It was faint but controlled. “Ares…”
He hugged her tight. “You were smart. You put your suit on.” She didn’t hug him back. Was she almost out of air? Semi-conscious? “We’re getting out of here.”
Her hands clamped around his arms, her strength shocking him. “We must stay.”
He dragged her out of the room, and then pushed her through the corridor. She was in shock. She fought him as they flew through, dodging bodies, boxes, and items that crossed their path. At the airlock, he pushed her through first. She lay on her side in the lander’s decompression chamber. She was completely exhausted, spent.
Ares rushed to her and began trying to pull her suit off.
The lander’s decon alarm went off, and the door began closing.
Ares got out just before it slammed shut. He rushed to the door and peered through the small window that looked into the chamber. The screen beside it flashed the words: Biohazard Quarantine Initiated
He activated the comm.
“Myra.”
She rose slowly and turned to him. In the bright white light of the chamber, he could see her face clearly for the first time. Her skin was ashen, almost gray. Tiny blue blood vessels snaked across her skin, and Ares thought he saw something crawling underneath it.
On the screen a full body scan appeared.
Xenobiological pathogen identified. Classification unknown.
Two buttons appeared below it: Disable Quarantine and Sterilize Chamber.
Ares felt himself take a step back.
“Open the chamber, Ares. It’s okay. It’s not what you think it is. The ring will save us.”
Ares’ eyes drifted to the scan. She’s not pregnant anymore.
“They removed the growth, Ares. Open the door. You’ll see. They’re doing this to save us.”
Ares took a step away, then another. He was numb. The ship shook. Why would it shake?
He was on the floor, looking up. Quarantine. Ship under fire.
He staggered to the cockpit and saw three sentinel ships targeting his lander. They were firing on the aft compartment.
Where Myra was.
He had to save her. He—
The next wave of blasts sliced the ship in half. The screens scrolled emergency procedures, listing bulkheads that were closed, systems that were offline. As the front of the lander spun around, he saw the sentinels tearing apart the severed tail section, including the decontamination chamber that held the only thing he loved in the universe.
The sentinels ignored him. They destroyed her mercilessly.
He slumped into the chair, not able to tear his eyes away. And then he waited, ready for it all to end.
33
To Dorian, the bright light of the conference booth was a scorching sun, boring into him, never relenting. It seemed to seep straight through his eye lids, pounding into his head. The memory of Ares’ loss at the Serpentine battlefield had left a deep well in him, and Dorian felt lost at the bottom.
He rolled onto his belly and push
ed up, staring at the growing pool of blood that dripped onto the glowing white floor. The memories were poisoning him. Or was he already dying?
Dorian had felt the slow creep of disease grabbing hold of him weeks ago, but now the danger was more urgent.
He tried to focus. Again, Ares’ memory had raised more questions than answers. The Serpentine Army had clearly infected Ares’ wife with something, and the sentinels had been attacking the Serpentine Army—and the infected Atlanteans.
Was one side—either the Serpents or the Sentinels—the great enemy that had finally sacked the Atlantean homeworld? Dorian was about to activate the next memory, but he hesitated. Was there a better way to find out? Perhaps a way that didn’t kill him a little bit every time he peeked? That would be ideal. He didn’t know how many more trips into Ares’ past he could survive. And he had a place to start now.
He exited into the communications bay and accessed the computer, requesting information about the Serpentine battlefield. At every query, the screen flashed a red warning message:
Information classified by The Citizen Security Act
The Atlanteans had been careful to erase all information related to both the Sentinels and the Serpentine Army.
In fact, even all the telemetry and data from deep space survey probes passing by that area had been erased. But… there was a beacon orbiting the battlefield. Dorian’s mouth almost dropped open when the entry appeared. Kate had connected the portal here to that beacon twenty hours ago. It had been one of a thousand beacons in Kate’s frantic rotation, but… it was quite a coincidence.
Dorian paced the room, his mind rifling through the facts. Kate and David knew about the signal to Earth—the transmission Ares was terrified of. And they had come here to the beacon to respond to it or even to disable the beacon, allowing the sender to find Earth.
But something here had given them pause, caused them to reassess. They had sent no transmissions nor disabled the beacon. Had they learned of the enemy? Had they gone to the beacon at the Serpentine battlefield to learn more, or possibly try to conference with an ally away from Earth, where a wrong guess would have less consequences?
The carnage of Ares’ memory had been real to Dorian. The Atlantean was justified in fearing either the Serpentine Army or the Sentinels.
He selected the entry for the beacon at the Serpentine battlefield. The log contained only two entries: a portal connection yesterday, and a data transmission approximately thirteen thousand years ago.
Interesting. What was significant about that date? Janus. He had been trapped around that time—during Ares’ attack on the scientists’ lander off the coast of Gibraltar. Had Janus sent a message to a potential ally? A call for help? It was possible.
Dorian queried the date. There had been three transmissions from this beacon on that date. Was Janus increasing his chances of reaching help?
Kate had come here, seen something that scared her, and then had the courage to step through the portal—to a beacon anywhere in the universe, which could be in any condition imaginable. The payoff on the other side had to be huge. And she had to be somewhat certain there wasn’t an immediate danger waiting there.
Janus’ breadcrumbs. Dorian realized what they were: memories. Kate was playing the same game he was: trying to unravel the past of the Atlanteans and learn the truth about their enemies and allies. Her team had gone to one of the three beacons. And they were likely still there. Dorian burned the beacon addresses into his mind. It was only a matter of time now.
“Slow down,” David said. He looked around the communications bay at everyone assembled. He was right: Kate was laying down the revelations too fast for everyone, except maybe for Mary, who looked almost hypnotized.
“It’s a transmission—coming from the battlefield,” Kate said.
“How?” David asked.
“It must be from the wreckage.” Kate activated the screen, scrolling the message quickly, as if anyone could actually read it. “It’s just like the one Mary received on Earth—a binary number sequence at the start and a body with four base codes.”
“Is it the same message?” Mary asked quickly.
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “It’s the same format though.”
“So at the very least, the sender could be the same,” Paul said.
Kate nodded.
“What do we know?” David asked. “I mean, you said information about this place is classified.”
“Yes,” Kate said, focusing on David. “And I checked: the scientist, Janus’ partner, never visited this place. In fact, she has no recollection of the Serpentine Army at all.”
“Yet Janus sent a transmission to someone in his final seconds, and then sends his partner’s memories here—to a battlefield she never visited, where a signal strangely like the response to his message has been transmitted on repeat for thousands of years.” David scratched his head. It didn’t add up to him. What was he missing? There was something wrong here. “They put these beacons in places they didn’t want anyone to find, right?”
“Right,” Kate confirmed. “Or to keep what’s inside from seeing out.”
Yes, that was it. David was sure of it.
A mechanical sound on the top floor, just above them broke the silence.
David’s eyes snapped to Kate. “The portal.”
“It’s not me,” she shot back.
“Keep this door locked,” David said, as he ran out of the communications bay, Sonja close on his heels.
A single stairwell led from the bottom floor to the top floor, which held the portal, large storage bays, and the residential pods. The bottom floor housed the communications bay and a series of small storage rooms.
David’s options were bad and worse: climb the stairwell and face Dorian and whatever men he had left on the second floor or wait here, hoping to ambush them when they descended.
He quickly decided on the ambush. He motioned for Sonja to take up position inside one small storage room; he moved quickly to another. They would fire on Dorian from those two positions, waiting until he reached the bottom of the stairway to open fire.
David heard a metallic clang coming down the stairway, like tin cans rolling. Surely Sloane wasn’t stupid enough to… Across the way, David saw Sonja peek out from her doorway. Three black round cylinders bounced from the stairs into the narrow corridor. Flash grenades.
David spun, hiding behind the door frame, covering his ears, closing his eyes tightly. A split second later, the flash and boom consumed his sight and hearing. Everything moved in slow motion. David pushed against the wall, opened his jaw, and blinked, trying to regain his senses.
He glanced out. Sonja. The blast had caught her full on. She staggered forward, into the corridor.
A figure barreled down the stairwell, taking the stairs three at a time. He began firing at Sonja before he reached the bottom.
David raised his rifle, firing on the man, but it was too late.
Sonja fell, blood pouring out of her. The man rolled on the floor across from her, convulsing, still pulling the trigger, spraying bullets in every direction, including back into the stair well.
A small object ricocheted off the stairwell wall, then another. They bounced and rolled. David’s eyes grew wide. Grenades.
He stepped back and tripped over a crate. He sat up just enough to see out of the narrow doorway, into the blood-filled corridor, where Sonja and Dorian’s soldier lay lifeless. For a moment, there was no sound. Then… an orange wall of light formed, crackling, glistening, containing the grenade blast. A forcefield.
The small door of the storage room closed, and the force of motion threw David against the back wall. The artificial gravity in the room released its grip, and he slowly floated upward, joining the silver boxes.
It was all like a bizarre dream with no sound. David rotated, staring out the window at the military beacon. The room wasn’t for storage. They had just used it for storage. It was an emergency escape pod. And it was floatin
g into the vast debris field, joining the millions of other pieces of wreckage from battles fought and lost. He simply stared out the window, the view and silence feeling bizarre and unsettling. Sadness. Sloane would reach Kate and the others. He had failed. His final defeat. And he would never see Kate again.
34
Kate waited in the communications bay with Milo, Paul, and Mary, listening as the gunfire gave way to explosions. The wall screen erupted, a red dialog covering it.
Decompression Imminent
Containment Protocols Initiated
A single word blinked.
Evacuate
Kate surveyed the state of the beacon. It had been ripped in half. Forcefields were holding the vacuum of space at bay, but the beacon couldn’t power them much longer. All the escape pods had been on the other side of the forcefield, and the beacon had deployed them.
She had no choice. She quickly keyed the portal to the next beacon location Janus had sent memories to. She downloaded the memories from the current beacon onto a portable memory core and moved to the door.
“Come on,” she said, trying to fake as much bravery as she could. “Stay behind me.”
The doors slid open. Sonja and another soldier lay dead on the black floor. Sorrow and joy filled Kate. David wasn’t there. Still a chance.
A glowing orange forcefield obscured the view of space and the debris field beyond.
Kate glanced around. One way out. The stairwell. She stepped through the blood, over the bodies, and onto the first stair. She hesitated, wondering if she should grab a gun. Paul’s eyes lingered on the fallen soldier’s rifle a second before he tore it free from the man, and then moved forward, taking position in front of Kate.
