Hallowed Nebula

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Alisha disappeared with Jainuzei for a moment, browsing through the hundreds if not thousands of white orbs like they were in a library, looking for a specific book. The doors behind shut, protecting them from the radiation and other threats, while Byikanea’s psionic barrier faded.

  Saressea readied her HNI bombshell files.

  As they loaded, Alisha returned carrying one of the orbs, then nodded to Jainuzei. He grabbed Lisette by the arm, pulling her by force to Alisha.

  “Come with me, Nephilim,” Jainuzei said. “It is time.”

  “You make it sound like I have a fucking choice,” Lisette snorted.

  Saressea’s HNI video player opened. She blinked her eyes, forcing the imagery that had been superimposed over her eyes to enlarge into a life-sized hologram for all to see.

  “So, hate to break it to you guys, but,” Saressea said, then hit play. The videos Penelope sent took center stage. “Jainuzei and Alisha are full of shit—”

  Lisette screamed, holding her head and went limp. Jainuzei stepped away with an I-didn’t-do-it look on his shocked face. Something wasn’t going according to plan, because even Byikanea started screaming, as did the SOM bodyguards, all holding their heads and passing out from the pain.

  Saressea did as well. She felt pain in her head, horrible pain, worse than someone drilling a hole through your head when you were also suffering from a powerful migraine. The video she had loaded vanished, as did all of her HNI’s functions.

  Before Saressea lost consciousness a blue light flashed. A psionic teleportation had completed.

  The Dragon Knight and Maiden emerged from the burst of blue light when it faded. They laughed at everyone in the chamber that had HNI, then faced Jainuzei and Alisha, the two that didn’t.

  70 Rivera

  XSV Johannes Kepler

  Kur Exterior, Hallowed Nebula Core

  July 30, 2119, 09:44 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Rivera put her hands to her lips when the connection lost error message flashed on one of the bridge’s computer terminals. She felt the sudden surge of worry hit everyone on the bridge.

  “Commander,” Rivera said to Williams. “I’ve lost Saressea’s signal.”

  “The Whisper reports the same,” Pierce said, after glancing at the communication station.

  Everyone feared the worst as a comm link was established with Foster. They waited for three seconds, which felt like three years, until Foster’s face flashed on the view screen, she was speaking into her wrist terminal. Hearing Foster’s voice was a relief. The team was still alive, just something was wrong with Saressea. They gave her the rundown on their discovery.

  “The HNI’s we were tracking just went dark too,” Foster’s projection replied.

  Williams grimaced. “Are they?—”

  “We don’t know that,” Foster said. “We’s almost to their last known location, gonna check it out.”

  “Don’t forget the radiation—”

  The Kepler’s proximity alarms started to roar. Its loud sounds startled Rivera, nearly throwing her off her chair. Her fingers danced on the keyboard, and she brought up a holo screen displaying the external cameras of the Kepler. Draconian pods from above were landing around Kepler as it remained idle sitting on top of Kur. The dragons hadn’t given up yet.

  “Kepler?” Foster’s projection said with concern in her voice and face. “Y’all okay up there?”

  Rivera pushed the holo screen to Williams, his relaxed composure crumbled slightly when he saw the video. “We got incoming, standby,” Williams said.

  Foster’s hologram vanished, and the view screen’s contents switched to the threat growing outside. Multiple Draconian drop pods were crashing into Kur, with their armored humanoid dragon fighters floating out from them with tachyon rifles in hand. The leader of the group pointed at the Kepler and, soon after, two wyverns dived breathing hot waves of plasma onto the Kepler.

  The overshield rate lowered and then continued to do so when the soldiers outside began shooting their white beams of FTL energy, adding it to the mix of new attacks the Kepler received. Nereid stood at the psionic work station, using her mind to keep the overshields up, clenching her Voelika staff within her hands, allowing the Sirius crafted weapon to enhance her psionic powers.

  Rivera doubted she’d be able to last long enough for Foster’s and Chevallier’s teams to finish up and get back. Nereid’s head was put through a lot since the aquarium trance to protect the ship from the maelstrom, only to run back to the bridge to relieve Tolukei so that he could rest from the deep ESP trance.

  “Rivera,” Williams said to her. “I want to cut the overshields in five. It’s draining Nereid’s power, I’d rather she save what she has left for combat.”

  “Understood,” Rivera said and went for the bridge’s exit. “I’ll get to engineering; I might be able to give the onboard shields a bit of an extra kick, more so than they already have.”

  “Nice, that should buy us a few more minutes.”

  Rivera powered her computer workstation when she arrived in engineering, working its controls to cut more nonessential power from the ship. EVE manned another station helping her out as they coordinated their efforts. Weapons were useless, they weren’t flying, so those went first. A few lights on the top deck went dark, as with various other rooms that didn’t need to have power.

  She punched in a new command and a holo screen appeared, giving her a report of ship’s status. The overshield was at 0, Nereid had officially been pulled off psionic duties, and the primary shield rating bumped to 120 percent, but was dropping 5 percent with each hit. The only thing left was to improve the reactor’s performance, but she doubted there’d be time for that.

  “Rivera, are you going to be fine if I borrow EVE for a bit?” Williams’ voice spoke over the intercom.

  She sighed looking at the android, realizing she’d have to do everything in engineering alone. “Taking her into combat, Commander?” Rivera asked.

  “We need to deal with this threat one way or another.”

  Rivera nodded to EVE. “Do it.”

  EVE left engineering and left Rivera’s mind racing for a new plan. The Draconians could afford to throw wave after wave of dragons and soldiers at the Kepler, they couldn’t, there were a limited number of personnel that could go outside and fight. If they were killed or injured, then they’d have even less. Shield strength, as long as it continued to take hits, was limited as well. Unless Foster finished up now, they were only delaying the end of their journey. They needed another option before it was too late. Rivera had to find it. Nobody else was going to as far as she was concerned.

  Improving the reactor’s efficiency came to mind, the more power she could squeeze out of it, the longer the Kepler could hold out, and, Williams wouldn’t order people into senseless violence. But with EVE gone, it was unlikely she’d get much out of that. She searched engineering for another solution, something, anything. She had the tools, equipment, spare parts, there had to be something she could do.

  She found the discarded attack drone that boarded the Kepler, back at the Eiri spaceport, tossed in the corner gathering dust. With tools in hand, she pried off its top and examined the parts within it. They were of a simple design, and the best part, they were originally Earth developed. She brought up files about the drones from a computer, then dropped and dragged the holographic file icons into her HNI.

  “Commander, may I make a suggestion?” she said, speaking into the intercom.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Let them board.”

  “What?”

  “No time to explain, but you got to trust me on this!”

  Rivera ran to the cargo bay and nearly fell to her face having skipped a few steps on the ladder going down from the catwalk. She had to work fast with the tools she had in hand.

  When the time was right, Rivera gave Williams the okay. The Kepler’s shields lowered. It made the heads of a dozen Draconian soldiers tilt, as they knew it was d
ropped intentionally rather than shattered by their force. The entry ramp lowered next giving them access while what was left of the shields power kept a barrier next to the entrance, preventing the atmosphere from leaking away. Rivera watched the holo screen’s display the external camera footage, and hoped their gamble wasn’t for nothing. The Draconians had two options at that point, continue the assault and destroy the ship, or board it and capture it. A dive and a breath assault from the wyverns above suggested they choose the first option melting the top aft section of the ship. She pulled at her hair leaping up and down and was ready to tell Williams to get the shields up.

  She caught a glimpse of one of the soldiers lead his men up to the entry ramp. The act made the wyverns above stop and remain idle above the Kepler, like circling vultures waiting. It was working, the Draconians saw value in the ship that looked like it surrendered. The wyverns weren’t going to destroy it while the half-dragons boarded it searching for prisoners.

  The Draconians had fanned out in the cargo bay first as they arrived. One soldier stood next to the transport and tried to look through its windshield. The crew aboard were inside the transport, hunkered down, staying out of sight, keeping its lights off. Only Rivera was able to see what was going on, as she had the camera feed its images into her HNI. And she saw the Draconian soldier take continued interest in the transport. It walked circles around it. It touched it, searching for its entrance. It called out to its partners when it couldn’t find it, most likely asking for help, or worse, it knew everyone was inside.

  Sounds of human chatter drew its attention away, making it hold its rifle steady. The other soldiers did the same and followed the sounds, pre-recorded sounds of course. She watched the security camera’s feed, play over her eyes as the soldiers climbed deeper into the Kepler following the chatter.

  The first group entered the bridge, saw holograms of Foster and the crew diligently working. They failed to see the newly reprogrammed drones Rivera had placed in the corners. Bubbling and steaming blood and body parts made a mess of the floor near the entrance to the bridge. A similar grisly image played out on the camera overhanging in engineering when the drones shot the soldiers that arrived, hoping to figure out how to operate the ship. The remaining soldiers fled in a panic, running into the final drone trap that sprung loose from empty cargo crates.

  Only the wyverns flying above the Kepler remained while the crew aboard the Kepler exited the transport, looking at the carnage.

  “All right,” Chang said and whistled. “That was slick.”

  “Entry ramp was a choke point,” Rivera said. “You guys would have had a hard time getting down there to face them head-on—”

  The Kepler rumbled. Whatever it was the Draconians used to communicate with the wyverns, had let them know the boarding party had failed. The raging winged dragons resumed their assault, diving with searing breaths of plasma upon the Kepler with its shields down.

  “Got a plan for the wyverns?” Williams asked.

  Rivera brought up a holo display screen listing the status of the drones and various commands that could be issued to them. She flicked through the options and selected they enter sentry mode, taking watch outside the Kepler.

  When the display vanished, the drones transformed from their bipedal walker mode and began to hover and fly. They gathered in the cargo bay and then exited via the opened entry ramp. With no soldiers to shoot them down, the drones went to swarm and harass the circling dragons with unrestricted high-velocity rail gun rounds.

  Williams laughed. “Aren’t you all about no violence, Rivera?”

  “All I did was ask the drones to protect the ship,” she said, shrugging. “How they do it is out of my hands, just like what you guys do with the weapons I repair and maintain.”

  Rivera might have been a pacifist, but she knew she couldn’t stop others from fighting. As long as she wasn’t the one pulling the trigger, she was fine with it.

  “All right, everyone, let’s get back to it,” Williams said. “Rivera, how soon can we get the shields back up?”

  She waved her hand, forcing her HNI to link with the status of the Kepler. The damage to the hull wasn’t something she could ignore. “That’s not good . . .” she said grimly.

  “Talk to me, Rivera,” Williams said.

  “Plasma from the wyverns did a number to the hull,” Rivera said, grabbing her toolbox. “Got a ruptured plasma conduit just above where engineering is and we’re leaking air in another part. I gotta patch it up or we’re not leaving, ever.”

  “Yeah, so,” Williams said with a touch of snark. “How long for the shields?”

  Rivera grabbed an EVA suit from the lockup. “I can’t fix it from inside, I gotta go out, that means we got to keep the shields down so I can work on it.” She dove into the EVA suit quickly, while her head looked about for a helmet.

  “Rivera, it’s still a gong show out there.”

  “It shouldn’t take me long, Commander.” With a smile pointed at his direction she added. “Feel free to cover me.”

  I must be out of my mind, Rivera thought when her magnetic boots took her to the damaged top aft end of the Kepler.

  Behind her was Williams, Vynei, Chang, EVE, and Nereid, all with EVA suits on, except Nereid and EVE. Nereid, like most psionics, floated with a protective barrier and EVE, she was a machine, and she didn’t need a suit. Rivera was the only one that didn’t have a weapon in her hands unless a toolbox counted as one. She kneeled next to the sparking and half-melted hull, her hands shifting back and forth, from the toolbox to the burning plasma conduit that was minutes away from exploding and doing further damage to the Kepler.

  Above, the remaining drones battled with the wyverns, their numbers were getting fewer and fewer. Sadly, the wyverns had more flying in from their bio-ships above, still engaged with the Terran alliance ships, the Prometheus, and Rezeki’s Rage. She tried not to think of the battle damage those two ships had. The Kepler was in this state just by the attacks of wyverns and soldiers, the Prometheus and Rezeki’s Rage had to face attacks from the Draconian bio-ships, Terran, and Taxah Hashmedai warships. The race to Kur became the race to finish the job and escape.

  If sound had existed in space, she would have heard the rifles of Williams, Vynei, Chang, and EVE blaze, as Williams yelled over the comm line. “Incoming!”

  Rivera looked up and saw a wyvern had broken through. It was diving toward them.

  “Where’s the rest of the drones?” Chang asked.

  “They can only do so much,” Rivera said, returning to her work, weightless sparks flared from her torch’s touch. “All the more reason to fix this now, this is as safe as its going to get.”

  Rivera worked, not just on the repairs, but keeping the pain and anxiety at bay, placing all faith that those behind her would keep the dragons off her. Every sense in her body told her to run, every sense told her to brace for death when a wyvern neared, every sense told her to tense up when the flashes of light from weapons fire, or Nereid’s supportive psionic powers flashed. It was no surprise to anyone that Nereid avoided harming the wyverns. Her devotion to Tiamat was strong. The thought made the back of Rivera’s neck feel like insects were crawling up it.

  She was finished with the conduit and moved slowly with her magnetic boots to patch up the next wound on the hull.

  “Rivera?” Williams’ intense voice played on the comm.

  “Almost done,” she said, and reached for a pair of pliers that floated out from her toolbox.

  When Rivera was done, she put her floating arsenal of tools back into her toolbox and stood to grin when her HNI’s scan showed that the Kepler’s atmosphere wasn’t bleeding away. The repairs were finished, she did it. They could get back inside.

  Rivera turned and gave everyone the good news, and slowly made her trek across the hull of the Kepler back to the entry ramp. Williams, Vynei, Chang, EVE, and Nereid were on the surface of Kur below the Kepler taking aim at the wyverns that broke past the failing defense
of drones above, moving underneath the Kepler for cover. Ahead of Rivera, EVE quickly floated down. It didn’t make sense. EVE was with the group under the Kepler. How did she also float down from above?

  The second EVE stood, blocking Rivera’s path. It smiled at her. “Jasmine . . .” it said, having hijacked the comm line. “It’s been brought to my attention you and the crew of this ship are working against the resurrection of Marduk.”

  “Sarpanit . . .” Rivera said.

  Sarpanit, in the body of the Gerard Kuiper’s EVE, nodded. Rivera suspected she left the Gerard Kuiper, which wasn’t far away from Kur as it had to deploy the transports Alisha, Jainuzei, and their company brought.

  “Who the fuck are you talking to, Rivera?” Chang asked.

  “Uh, little help here!” Rivera said in a panic.

  Sarpanit stomped to Rivera. She backtracked and was happy the limitation of the magnetic boots and no gravity made the two move at the same speed. Still, the feeling of trying to escape from a pursuer that walked after you did nothing to keep Rivera calm and focused, nor the fact she couldn’t run, no matter how hard she tried.

  She looked back and didn’t see anything else, but bullets spray about and psionic barriers flash. The wyverns must have gotten close, Rivera was on her own. She continued to not run but walk away.

  “Force this crew to assist the SOM members inside Kur,” Sarpanit said. “Slay the dragons and Jainuzei and Alisha.”

  “Go to hell!”

  “Hell?” Sarpanit laughed. “This is Kur, it is heaven and hell!”

  Rivera made it to the edge of the Kepler, shut off her magnetic boots and floated away, pulling herself down, past its aft engines.

  “Williams?” she asked.