Hallowed Nebula

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Miles’ shield shattered and he fell over backward. Tachyons normally vaporized unshielded targets. Foster assumed the blast hit him directly as his shields were shattering. Meaning he could be dead, just not vaporized dead.

  Chevallier joined Miles half a minute later, and the act forced Tolukei to lose focus and retry the teleport. Maxwell kept his eyes on the situation, using his psionic powers to protect his body from the attacks. When LeBoeuf’s teleport completed, he jump ported out of range.

  Foster brought her wrist terminal to her face. “Foster to Kepler,” she said.

  “Go ahead, Captain,” Williams’ voice replied.

  “We’re finished here . . .” she said, looking down at Saressea’s body. “Get ready to receive the survivors.”

  Karklosea, LeBoeuf, and downed Chevallier made it back to the Kepler. Maxwell sacrificed his ride back to defend Tolukei with his powers. The human ravager psionic refused to move and refused to end his barrier. Blood dripped from Maxwell’s nose, he was about to have an aneurysm from overusing his powers. He stood his ground, and when his body finally shut down, Tolukei covered them with the grace of blue light, and they dematerialized.

  Foster was back aboard the Kepler, standing on the bridge, still carrying the rifle. She looked down and saw Miles, Chevallier, and Maxwell with Odelea refusing to give up on Saressea. She frantically called for someone to take the downed personnel to sickbay. Kostelecky was going to have her hands full, she hoped Bailey and Eicelea would work out well as the untrained nurses they got suckered into being.

  “All aboard?” Foster asked.

  “Yes, Captain,” Odelea said, returning to her station, her hands covered in Saressea’s blood and dirt.

  “Get us out of here, Chang!” Foster said, taking her chair back from Williams.

  The Johannes Kepler’s thrusters fired, and its landing gear demagnetized and retracted. It lifted off, pushing past the next wave of wyverns that were eying them. Once clear, the ship returned back to the battle above Kur in the nebula. The SOM failed to resurrect Marduk. Alisha and Jainuzei failed to resurrect her daughter. The Draconians, however, now had free reign over Kur.

  “Penelope?” Foster said, spinning in her chair to face her.

  “Activating my virus now,” Penelope said as she attended to one of the bridge’s rear computer workstations. “We got five minutes to get clear of Kur.”

  “Tell the Rezeki’s Rage and the Prometheus to form up with us, now!” Foster ordered.

  “Contacting them now,” Odelea said.

  Everyone had their jobs. Once the Rezeki’s Rage and the Prometheus broke away from the battle, entering a formation with the Kepler, Foster and Nereid ran to engineering. Nereid stripped naked and entered the aquarium, Rivera, standing at its side, powered it on filling it with the goo. Foster touched the vortex key, felt her mind leave her body, and then sliced open a hole in space ahead of the escaping Kepler, Rezeki’s Rage, and Prometheus.

  The three ships plugged through into the maelstrom at sub light speeds, leaving the remains of the Terran alliance to deal with the Draconians, and then later Kur as it was expected to explode within the next minute with enough force to destroy all ships near it. Foster was disappointed to learn that the vortex had shut twelve seconds before Kur exploded, blocking out all sensor and ESP scans. She was looking forward to seeing the fleets that remained get their comeuppance, and at twelve seconds, it was unlikely they would have cleared Kur fast enough to escape the blast.

  C'est la vie, as Chevallier would say.

  Epilogue

  XSV Johannes Kepler

  Riylor Orbit, Devaguai System

  August 8, 2119, 19:30 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Karklosea sat down wearing a robe having finished a relaxing shower in the quarters she was assigned on the Kepler. She was about to sleep, with every intention of sleeping in the morning, when EVE informed her she had a high priority message come in from Aervounis, via QEC. She took the message at her computer, and the holo screen displayed the faces of the Radiance council, sitting at their table within the newly restored delegation chamber.

  “Lord Commander, it is good to see your face after so long,” Ienthei greeted.

  “I was not expecting a call from you so late,” Karklosea said to the projection. “Have you read my report on this matter already?”

  “Yes,” Ienthei said. “We have.”

  “And? There hasn’t been anything on the knowledge network news about it,” Karklosea said.

  “While we appreciate what you have done,” Ienthei said. “We cannot praise you when your actions led to the death of Marrea.”

  “She attacked me, and I have HNI proof of it and her involvement with the SOM.”

  “Yes, and you stabbed her first,” Iey’liwea chimed in. “You could have knocked her out with psionic thrusts.”

  “Furthermore, her computer was damaged beyond repair,” Ienthei added. “We have no way of knowing that the recordings you saw were real or not.”

  “And so,” Zealoei said, following a deep sigh. “We regret to inform you that we will be stripping you of your Lord Commander title, discharging you from the Templars, and ask that you turn yourself in and face judgment at a tribunal.”

  A surge of anger made Karklosea slap her hands against the desk. “I saved the Union! And this is the thanks I get?”

  “You—”

  Before Hanei spoke Karklosea cut the communication. She knew she did nothing wrong, this was just Ienthei pushing the matter since Marrea was his mother, and now his father Jainuzei was also dead, again. Even though the two were evil, Ienthei, and no doubt his sister, who was probably using her influence, wanted to see both Marrea and Jainuzei, their genetic birth parents arrested, not dead.

  Ienthei’s abuse of power and his twin sister, Queenea’s, reach into Radiance politics was reaching a boiling point.

  They had to be removed.

  Rivera put her tools away for the day. Repairs to the Kepler had finished at last . . . again. The Rezeki’s Rage’s repairs were completed the other day, while the Prometheus was next up. Though it being a captured Terran made ship, Radiance was more interested in learning how its technology worked. A lot of human technology was reverse engineered from Lyonria ruins, and much of that tech was never shared with the rest of the galaxy. This was Radiance’s chance to get ahead.

  Foster approached Rivera as she turned to leave engineering for the day and hit the bong. It’d been a while since she got a good medication session.

  “Hey, Rivera,” Foster said to her.

  “Captain,” Rivera said, smiling. “You’ll be happy to know the reactor is operating at 95 percent efficiency, and I’m about to install a vital monitor into the aquarium for Nereid, this way we can keep track of her stress levels.”

  “That’s awesome—”

  “Also, let Chevallier know I’ll fix the rattling noise the air vents in her room are making, and I’ve drawn up plans to finally make that pool in Nereid’s quarters so she can feel right at home. Oh, and Miles will be happy to know I’m almost finished with the exosuit he was shot in, should be good to go in the—”

  “Jasmine!”

  “Yes?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that HNI in your head.”

  “Captain, I know the Dragon Knights are still a threat that can show up at any time but—”

  “I ain’t’ kicking you off the ship, girl, relax!” Foster said, holding her hands up in defense. “I wanted to know about the data Sarpanit left in it.”

  “It’s still there, most of it locked, but there . . .” Rivera ran her hand across the side of her head. “Except for.” She waved and created a small holo screen. In it was a single file pulled out from Rivera’s HNI, left behind by Sarpanit. “Penelope managed to decrypt this file.”

  Rivera tapped the file’s icon, opening it, and pushing it to Foster. “Looks like a star map,” Foster said, glancing at the image.

  “It was made by the Carl
Sagan during our blackout years,” Rivera said. “You see the distances between those star systems?”

  “That’s . . . pretty damn small.”

  “Average distance is zero point four light-years,” Rivera said. “Only place you’ll find star systems that close together, is Omega Centauri. When the Draconians took us and the Abyssal Sword from Sirius, they hauled us there.”

  “Hmm, we kinda suspected that,” Foster said. “But with this . . . well hell, this is solid proof we were already there.”

  “I was going to pass it on to Pierce but.”

  “Got sidetracked by all these projects?”

  “That and Maxwell keeps tricking me into playing videogames with him and Chevallier. Sorry about that.”

  Foster smiled, patting Rivera on her shoulder. “It’s all good.”

  “Saressea.”

  “Look, the whole prison break thing wasn’t my idea.”

  Saressea was back on her feet having spent the last days since the Kepler’s escape from the nebula in sickbay. Her bones and joints were sore, and the horns on her head had been chipped. Don’t get her started on her tail or the bandages on it.

  Ienthei was on her computer screen in her quarters, connected via QEC. She was surprised to see all her belongings were still in place, it was like Foster and the crew expected her to come back.

  “That’s not why I’m here,” Ienthei’s projection said.

  “Oh? Then what?”

  “Effectively immediately, you will be reinstated as the liaison officer of the Johannes Kepler.”

  “But . . . I was convicted,” Saressea said. “Why the sudden change in heart?”

  “Records here show that wasn’t the case,” Ienthei said. “There are even eyewitnesses to your tribunal that report you were acquitted.”

  “But the prison ferry.”

  “Moving on,” he said. “We’d like you, when you have the chance, to place Karklosea under arrest, and deliver her back to Aervounis.”

  “The Lord Commander of the Templars? What the fuck? Why?”

  “She’s been relieved of her duties and will stand and face her crimes. She took a number of poor steps in her investigation that must be answered for—”

  “Oops, my finger slipped,” Saressea said to no one in particular as she ‘accidently’ cut the communication.

  Too much wasn’t adding up. Yes, she heard about the death of Marrea, which would explain why Ienthei wanted Karklosea’s head. She also fought with Jainuzei who also ended up dead minutes later. But Karklosea wasn’t in the wrong, and as far as Saressea was concerned none of them would be alive if it wasn’t for Karklosea. She was the one that grabbed that data crystal, and saved Foster’s life, twice.

  Saressea stood from her chair at her computer desk and went to crawl into bed. The lights were out, and she didn’t want to risk tripping and falling with her weakened body. When she turned them on, she saw Michei sitting on her couch with his hands folded together, it was like he had been sitting there in the dark the whole time.

  “Vindaul carlo sagganuga!” Holy fucking shit!

  Michei pointed a finger at the Whisper memory crystal on the coffee table.

  “When I was younger,” Michei said. “I was given fake memories of a liaison officer working aboard an Earth battleship. I wanted a transfer and was denied it, couldn’t figure it out, until I got my real memories back, and realized I was a Whisper operative, working undercover.”

  “Cool story,” she said sarcastically. “Now what the fuck are you doing here?”

  “You probably have a lot of questions,” Michei said.

  “Tell me about it,” she said. “Was it you guys that got me off the hook with my tribunal?”

  Michei didn’t reply, just pointed at the memory crystal. Saressea went to pick it up, and a flash of blue light briefly lit up her quarters. Michei was gone by the time she held the crystal in her hands and looked ahead to find him.

  If she were to guess, Michei teleported back to the Prometheus which was in orbit along with the Kepler and Rezeki’s Rage. A frighteningly cold shiver traveled up her spine. The Whisper was so advanced they could bypass the Kepler’s mind shield.

  She stood holding the crystal a while longer, looking at its large design, and the prongs at the end of it that were designed to bore holes into your brain, and transfer fake or backup real memories into a user. It made her wonder if she was a member of the Whisper, and everything in her life had been fake, a cover she didn’t know about. And within the palm of her hands, were her real memories and mission.

  If that were the case, what was her mission? Was she there to secretly watch the personnel from the Carl Sagan? Pierce drew the conclusion that the Whisper might have been behind their missing memories. And if she were to remember correctly, Whisper agents with fake memories had hidden triggers that would make them spring to action when an objective was near. Was she going to get triggered if the crew made it to Omega Centaur and retraced their steps? The crystal could reveal that.

  Fear made her stuff it in her drawer, and she walked away from it, hoping to forget about it in the morning. Saressea knew her past, she knew her parents, and the memories on that crystal were either fake or someone else’s, not hers.

  She told herself that over and over until she fell asleep.

  Ienthei’s Apartment

  Veromacon, Aervounis, Luminous System

  August 8, 2119, 22:56 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Night had fallen on Veromacon. Ienthei stood on the balcony to his high-end and expensive high-rise suite with his twin sister, Queenea, staring at the big, brightly lit city in the clouds. A city he and his dear sister Queenea’s parents would never be able to see again. And the person responsible for it all? Karklosea, and there was nothing else they could do but bring her in and make her pay.

  It was clear Saressea wasn’t going to, and the Whisper refused to share the location of the Kepler. Rumor had it they made it to Riylor, but every ship and base contacted said otherwise. They were either not there, or Whisper worked fast to convince the population in that system to lie.

  “Whisper’s actions are treason,” Ienthei said.

  Queenea nodded and said. “But at the same time . . .”

  “Whisper works for the Union, and our actions were personal,” Ienthei finished.

  Behind the two were the first and last gifts their father Jainuzei gave them. It was a flickering holographic projection he made during the days he had the Kepler under his control. Queenea held the hologram to her face, the light from it made the glitter she covered her shoulder scales with shine.

  “What are you thinking, dear sister?” Ienthei said.

  “The dragon eggs Foster had,” Queenea said. “What was she thinking of entering our space with them?”

  Jainuzei found dragon eggs aboard the Kepler’s labs. The projection showed him placing them in small portable cryo containers and had them shipped to Aervounis on a secret courier ship.

  “The Terrans had eggs,” Queenea said.

  “The Taxah Hashmedai do,” Ienthei said.

  “It’s time Radiance did. Both said factions were the corrupted halves of the UNE and Empire.”

  “Radiance will be the righteous faction that will have an army of dragons bred to serve them and fight off whatever new tricks the Draconians or Terran Taxah alliance will have.”

  “And if things go really well.”

  “We wipe out the Hashmedai and force humans to join the Union?”

  “Yes, something that should have happened years ago.”

  “What shall we do in the meantime, while we wait for our gifts?”

  “I am too tired to think about it, and too tired to go back to Iey’liwea’s place,” Queenea said. “Would it be okay if I stay the night?”

  Ienthei nodded. “Of course.”

  Queenea went inside, leaving Ienthei alone on the balcony as he returned to gazing at the city.

  “Can you fuck me as well before we head to sleep?
” Queenea called out to him.

  “I suppose I can fit time in for that,” he said after a minute of thought.

  “Thank you, dear brother.”

  Before Ienthei went to indulge on the dark secret he and his sister shared since they were younger, he went to make an HNI call to the Vorcambreum representative on the council. He didn’t pick up, understandable given the time. Ienthei opted to leave a voice message.

  “I will make this quick. Do something stupid like feeding the SOM intel again, and I’ll fucking kill you. Not by my hands, of course, we haven’t forgotten your little secret. But, in case you did, just remember, you’re alive because I and my dear sister allow it, and you will die if we tell people the truth about you.”

  XSV Johannes Kepler

  Riylor Orbit, Devaguai System

  August 9, 2119, 09:30 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Foster stared blankly when she pulled open the cryo storage drawer in the Kepler’s lab. Doctor Pierce did too when he went to stand next to her. His lips twisted at the sight.

  “Pierce . . .” Foster said. “Where did the dragon eggs go?”

  A lengthy check of the security cameras unveiled the truth. Jainuzei broke into the lab when he had the crew captured and forced into cryo. When the Kepler had linked with the Gerard Kuiper briefly, Jainuzei, in a rush, grabbed as many eggs as he could, leaving one behind. The way he frantically moved on the video feed suggested he was on the clock. It would explain why he didn’t bother to come back for the last.

  “Well so much for that plan . . .” Foster said, facepalming. “Any idea where they might have ended up?”

  Pierce shrugged. “If he brought them to the nebula battle, then they’re gone, and we don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “And if he shipped them off-world?”

  Pierce faced the small observation window in the lab looking out into the stars beyond the orbit of Riylor and its parent gas giant. He grimaced. “Then, somewhere out there is a ship with potentially dangerous items in its cryostorage.”