by Skyler Grant
The realities around Nova were unlike anything he'd ever seen before though. Nova didn't exist anywhere else. Everybody Quinn had met since gaining his powers had might-have-beens, lives that had turned out differently. Others they might have become. Nova had nothing. So far as he could tell she was utterly unique and in this universe.
"We're not doing this," Quinn said.
"Quinn, I know you're worried about me, but don't worry. I'll find a way, I always do," Tourmaline said.
"No, Tourmaline, you won't. Your friend here, I don't know why, but she is something unique. Special," Quinn said.
"Less flirting. More fighting and dying," Nova said with a strained smile.
"You know I'm right. I don't know what you are, but no bioweapon made you. Maybe you are death incarnate, maybe you're something else, but whatever you are, Tourmaline can't stop you however much you wish she could," Quinn said with his gaze fixed on Nova.
Nova took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I'm so damned tired. Don't worry, Tourmaline would never let herself be killed. If anyone can kill me, she can."
"No," Quinn said, with every bit of authority he had.
"I hate to interrupt whatever weirdness this is, but we've got a situation," Bravo said. "Imperium is under attack. It isn't the clans, it's something else."
"Stay and kill something that isn't one of my wives if you want, but my ship, my rules. This isn't happening," Quinn said. While he knew he was powerless to stop them, sometimes it was enough to say the words. In this case he had to hope so.
"Tourmaline, with me," Quinn said as he headed towards the cockpit. If Imperius was under attack, they needed to know what was happening.
"Aye, Captain," Tourmaline said after a long moment, stepping into place behind him.
42
Quinn settled in behind the controls and Tourmaline sat beside him.
"This is one of those moments where I say I'm sorry and don't mean it," Quinn said.
"Then I'll say you'll forgiven and not mean it," Tourmaline said. "I could have done it. I could have."
Confidence was one of the things Quinn loved most about her, but sometimes it just got in the way.
"Bravo. I need whatever you have on the current defensive network around Imperius to plot us a jump," Quinn said.
Data began to come into the console. Kadello really had been upping the defenses, so much so that Quinn had to plot something at the most remote edges of the system on the other side of the Runestone to make it all.
Once Quinn had a destination he relayed the figures to Jinx. Space warped and twisted. Quinn was some sort of engineer in an underwater colony focused on kelp farming, and he hated it less than he'd thought he would.
Space reformed around them.
At this range they were pushing the limits of the sensors on the Centauri Bliss, but they could pick up a lot just from visuals.
There was an invasion going on, although one unlike anything Quinn had seen before.
Quinn lacked any words to describe what he was seeing except as tears in space, massive jagged things with ships coming through them. Imperium vessels had already formed a defensive line and were firing on the breaches.
The rift ships were also unlike anything Quinn had ever seen.
"You've been around. You seen anything like this?" Quinn asked.
"Sort of," Tourmaline said. "Runestones are all tied up in magic, but there are other ways. I don't recognize the ships though."
"They're called the Artexi," said a voice behind Quinn he didn't recognize.
Tourmaline had a gun out and leveled within seconds. Quinn thought, where had she even found a gun?
The figure standing behind them in the cockpit was an elegantly dressed woman. She was surrounded by a faint golden glow and somewhat translucent. Quinn would guess she was some sort of hologram, although that didn't make much sense without a projector.
"And you are?" Quinn asked.
"God Empress Vixana, ruler of all you survey. Ruler of you, if you had any sense. My husband thought you might show," Vixana said with a grimace. "You really need better uniforms, Captain Jade."
Tourmaline shot her, or at least she tried. The energy blast left a scorch mark on the far wall as it passed right through Vixana's head.
"Will you stop just shooting at every Emperor or Empress that passes our path?" Quinn said.
"Worked out for us so far," Tourmaline said.
Vixana sniffed and stomped one foot. "Pay attention to me. Not in the shooting me way, better ways. You may worship if you choose, although we probably don't have time. Well, maybe a quick grovel."
"We'll pass. What do you want?" Quinn asked.
"I bet she's got some sort of magical protection. If we figured out how to hurt it, we probably could hurt her," Tourmaline suggested hopefully.
"I'm a Goddess," Vixana said with another sniff. "This isn't about your terrible fashion sense or lack of proper groveling etiquette. The Imperium formally requests your aid against the Atrexi."
"Kadello can't handle a few aliens himself?" Quinn asked.
"My husband has been preparing for an assault like this for some time. We have reinforcements coming from all over the Imperium, but he feels this will be ... difficult. Difficult enough we can forgive your past and current indiscretions," Vixana said.
"Lady, I'm not even our negotiator and I'm going to tell you that if an alien fleet is about to raze your world and your kingdom, and all you're offering is a pardon, you aren't offering enough," Quinn said.
"What do you want?" Vixana asked.
Tourmaline shifted posture. Tamara was taking over.
"I am our negotiator. We'll bring war to the Atrexi fleet, enough to guarantee their destruction, but we want the Rim in return," Tamara said.
Vixana arched a brow. Even as a hologram the expression was dismissive. "Oh, is that all? A significant portion of what I hold."
"The scruffy portion. The portion you never much liked. The portion with clan fleets rampaging through it and that you are in little shape to defend. Better the crown jewels of the Imperium remain yours than none at all," Tamara said.
"If you can destroy the Atrexi," Vixana said.
"Our pardons as well, of course. I'll have a contract sent to you in several minutes. I want it authenticated with your seal before we do anything," Tamara said.
"I don't like you. But fine. Solve my problems," Vixana said, making a curt gesture with one hand and the golden glow vanished.
"Did you just strike a deal for a quarter of the Imperium? Jinx is going to hate this," Quinn said.
"We have peace treaties with most of the major clan factions. We may have just saved the Rim from extermination," Tamara said. "If Jinx doesn't want to be queen we'll work something else out."
"Provided we have the forces to stop an Atrexi battle fleet," Quinn said.
"Plot us some coordinates close to one of those rifts. They're two-way and we need to get to the other side. The ones Tourmaline saw were a bit like Runestones, a generator on each side. We need to steal one," Tamara said.
Quinn suddenly understood what she had planned.
"You never said we'd take out the fleet ourselves," Quinn said.
"Of course not. What are we going to do against a massive invasion force? The clans want to come to Imperius. Let's find a way to give them exactly what they're looking for," Tamara said.
This was a terrible idea, a truly, amazingly, terrible idea. Quinn loved it, of course. How could he not?
"Plotting coordinates now," Quinn said.
43
Quinn fed the coordinates for a jump through to Jinx, plotting them a location near one of the rifts. Reality twisted itself a moment later.
Almost at once Quinn could feel that something was wrong. Ever since he'd acquired all of his runes most of his glimpses of might-have-beens had been very realistic alterations of his own life. Quinn, in this brief burst of one, spent his life as a singing toad in a brilliantly red river that sang
back.
When they reappeared they weren't where they were supposed to be. They'd gotten closer to the rift, but not nearly as close as he'd hoped for.
Atrexi ships were everywhere around them. All were smaller than Imperium warships, connected by bands of glowing energy that formed complex patterns as they moved.
Quinn activated shields and executed evasive maneuvers with a hard burn of the thrusters. A dozen beams of energy converged where the ship had just been.
"They've got some sort of distortion field that prevented a full jump," Quinn said.
"We'll do this the hard way then," Tourmaline said, her hands flying over the copilot controls as she engaged the weapons. Tourmaline was a halfway decent pilot and a hell of a shot, not that their weapons seemed to do much against the Atrexi ships. Energy shields flickered when hit.
Quinn hit the comm as he pushed the engines to their limits. "When we cross over to the other side of the rift we're going to grab the device on the other side creating it and get some range. Dela, I want you on targeting. Sand, on grapple control," Quinn said.
Dela was a natural choice to operate the sensors and Sand was essentially a super-computer. When it came to doing calculations in a hurry she was their best.
Space was lit brilliantly with beams of light, an alarming number of them seeking them out. It made the battlefield a vast three-dimensional maze, the beams connecting the ships and the ones being used as weapons all needing to be avoided.
Quinn was now very, very good at mazes. His awareness seemed to fill more than just his body. He really was more than just one Quinn now. He could be, when needed, a network of them. They were all piloting this maze together, all seeing it from different angles, all synthesizing that awareness.
"I don't say this lightly. I think you're the best pilot I've ever seen," Tourmaline said.
"I'm the best there has ever been," Quinn said, and he knew it in that moment to be true. This was who he was—this was the sort of thing that he was meant to do.
Dozens of ships tried to get a firing position on him, but he wasn't reacting in the now. Other realities and things that might be gave him just enough of an edge to be ahead of them all. This entire battle seemed to almost play out in slow motion.
It wasn't easy, it was the most difficult thing he'd ever done, but the impossible was possible.
"We bring the clan ships into this, they're going to get torn to shreds. I guess that isn't really our problem," Tourmaline said.
"They might not. Mahara can destroy energy, neutralize it in transit. She might be able to take out a big chunk of these beams single-handedly," Quinn said.
Ahead of them a rift was growing larger. Space on the other side seemed strange, cloudy, with some sort of nebula on the other end. A lot more ships were visible drifting through it.
Whoever these Artexi were, this wasn't some casual invasion. This was something they'd planned, something for which they'd stockpiled forces.
"Everyone brace. I don't know what is about to happen," Quinn said.
The offensive beams seeking them pulled away as they neared the rift and with a last hard burn of the thrusters Quinn sent them hurtling into one of the tears in space.
A normal jump felt like reality was twisting. Space folding and twisting like cloth crumpled in hand so you could skip the bits in the middle. This wasn't a crumble, this was like a shattering. A thousand shards of frozen glass hammering itself through the skin. Moments of excruciating agony. Then they were on the other side.
Quinn was stunned for a moment, more than a moment. They were far from where they had been, but his spatial awareness was already kicking in. Far from the Imperium, if he had to he could identify their location on a star map.
"Snap out of it. Coordinates plotted for the projector," Tourmaline said.
Right. Quinn brought himself back into the moment and kicked in the engines.
In the distance space stations could be seen, mammoth structures several times the size of Imperium stations—and the fighters all queued up for passage through the rifts.
A hard burn and he stopped as they came in range of one of the projectors. It was an angular mass of spiraled green glass and copper-colored metal.
Quinn watched on a screen as the grapple erupted from the hold, hooks grasping the projector and pulling it in.
Agonizing seconds passed as fighters closed, but he had to hold. Until it was secure he couldn't move.
The panel lit green and Quinn kicked in the engines once more. Away from the stations, the course would take them past several more projectors.
"Target the projectors as we move. Every one of those we take out bottlenecks their forces," Quinn said.
"On it," Tourmaline said. Missiles fired out. The Centauri Bliss didn't have many, but they were fast and accurate.
The Artexi weren't expecting an attack on this end. Why would they? Two missiles found projectors and were destroyed, and the rifts they powered closed.
Quinn sent coordinates to Jinx.
It took forty-three seconds for them to get clear. Time enough for space to warp and twist as Jinx activated the runic sphere.
44
"I don't like renegotiating our deal," Mahara said, pacing back and forth.
After escaping from the Artexi fleet they'd headed straight back for the one clan fleet they knew about and requested a meeting with the leader.
This Mahara wasn't quite like the last one they'd seen. One of her runes was even an inch lower, which was a fact Quinn found curiously and specifically strange. It was also a sign he really did have the hots a bit too much for a woman he'd once helped to kill—a version of her at least—and he should probably focus on her face.
Jinx, Tamara, Kalisa, and Quinn had gone aboard to make their pitch.
"We didn't have this to offer you before. If we had, we'd have charged you for it then," Quinn said.
Mahara shot him a dark look. The aura of danger she had was almost palpable, and there was a constant slight crackle of power from her many runes.
"Fighting your way through the Core was going to be bloody business, but the Imperium is the heart of everything. Every world is well-defended, every world has a private navy," Jinx said.
"And if I skip them all in the Core on the way in, will I not simply have to fight them on the way out?" Mahara asked.
"Perhaps, but without the fear of the Imperium fleet flanking you when you are most vulnerable," Jinx said.
Mahara paused in her pacing, turning to face them. "I have wished to face this Kadello. The Emperor may be gone, but his fist remains."
"You can fight him today, if you wish it. Or save him, if you prefer," Quinn said.
They'd decided not to lie about the alien invasion fleet. They didn't need Mahara as an enemy. It really hadn't worked out last time.
"These Atrexi that you stole this technology from. Formidable?" Mahara asked.
"Over a thousand ships using some sort of beam weapon and energy shielding technology. Complex formations," Quinn said.
"I've not encountered them in my travels. I can hardly fault them for wishing to destroy the Imperium. They may be friends, they may be enemies. I think I will, at least, give them the opportunity to decide," Mahara said.
"You'll agree to our terms then?" Tamara asked.
"I cannot speak for all the clans, but those that have yielded their rights to me to enter this war band will acknowledge your claims to the Rim territories. Those already conquered shall be granted to you, provided free passage is given," Mahara said.
"And?" Tamara asked.
"When Imperius falls you shall have five percent," Mahara said.
"Deal," Jinx said. Blue and red sparks flew violently as the two shook hands. It made Quinn's body ache just to look at the display.
They made quick progress back to the Centauri Bliss. Their negotiating had already taken them over two hours.
Space battles were usually slow affairs, punctuated by dramatic episodes of violence.
Still, if there was going to be anything less of Imperius, it might be best they not wait too long.
Soon Quinn was back in the cockpit, with Kalisa this time.
"You sure this thing is going to work?" Quinn asked.
"You gave me a few hours to study a completely alien piece of technology unlike anything I've seen before. Of course I'm not sure it is going to work. I'm not sure it isn't going to kill anyone who passes through it after experiencing how it worked correctly," Kalisa said. "With us operating it ..."
"Any idea how it does what it does?"
"Did you hear the few hours? No, not in the slightest. Well, maybe the slightest. There is some sort of energy compression involved which, I know, means even less to you than it does me," Kalisa said.
Right. Quinn really needed to stop asking questions.
"Let's just get this over with," Quinn said.
Kalisa nodded and her fingers tapped over the keys. "I'm going to bring the power up slowly to it until I am certain I have it stable."
Space outside the viewscreen began to distort. At first it simply looked wavy, almost as if a layer of water were being poured along a window. Then a slow tear opened and Kalisa gradually increased the size.
Space could be glimpsed through it, with Imperius visible in the distance along with a great many Artexi ships still involved in battle.
The clans sent a scout probe through. The rift allowed for more than just matter to go back and forth. Soon it was sending back telemetry.
Mahara must have liked what she saw, or at least the sight of the battle didn't deter her from ordering her fleet forward.
Unlike the Artexi there was no orderly queue to go through the portal—these were Chaosians after all. Instead, there was a mad rush for the portal, a frenzy of those seeking the honor and the glory of being the first into the fray.
Shields flared as ships bumped each other, but the first made it through and shortly thereafter more followed.
