by Rob Dearsley
Off to one side, were the hunched, predatory forms of SDF dropships. Something moved in the shadows and she whipped around firing her rifle on instinct. The ship safe rounds shattered against an equipment cart, spilling tools across the rubberised decking in a wash of clattering that echoed around the darkened compartment.
Footsteps behind her. Arland spun, firing, the ship-safe rounds shattering against the armour without even leaving a scratch.
The armoured glove ripped her rifle from her grip to send it clattering across the deck. The other hand clamped around her throat. The same burning cold as before seared her neck.
Frantic, she scrabbled at the armour's arm. The fingers squeezed tighter. Her lungs burned, her vision fading. Stars it hurt. She couldn’t get out of this through sheer force. She had to think, but her thoughts were becoming as fuzzy as her vision.
Her limbs became leaden, unable to move. Like being in the armour without the power assist. The power assists had quick release units. She just had to remember how. She just had to think. One moment of clear thought. Damn it. Stars, please.
Her fingers found the textured nubs of the captive bolts. She pulled with the last of her strength. Please let it be right.
The exoskeleton came away with a pop and a metallic crash, and the arm dropped, the hand jolting loose.
Drawing in a pained gasp that burned all the way down, Arland stumbled away, still breathing hard.
The armour loomed over her, the faceplate splintering. Wisps of darkness seeping out, reaching for her.
◊◊
Dannage paused at airlock doors into the Terran ship, hesitant to take that final step. It was silly really. If the ship wanted to do something to him, it could do it just as easily here as if he took that final step. But still, it had some meaning. He was entering its domain.
Luc stepped past him into the airlock. “You coming, cap’?”
Taking a breath, Dannage walked over to join his friend. Vaughn followed them through into the airlock. There was a hiss of air, audible even through the suit, as the airlock cycled. Terran-scale space suits lined one of the walls.
The hissing stopped and the inner door popped open. The equalisation of pressure sent a waft of dust down the vaulted corridor as lights blinked to life.
Luc pulled out a pair of air testers. He snapped the plastic cylinders between his hands and waved them in the air in front of him. They both turned bright green. “Air’s safe.”
A moment later, Luc has his visor up. Dannage cracked his own helmet, the faceplate’s display winking out as he lifted it.
The corridor stretched out ahead of them, bathed in an ethereal blue light. Heavy doors closed, cutting off their route of escape.
Behind him, Luc pulled a demolition charge from his pack and set it on the door. An insurance policy to make sure they could still get out if they had to.
None of this really mattered
Dannage started deeper into the ship.
The corridor had the same high ceilings he’d come to expect of Terran scale ships and was bathed in similar blue light to the rest of the facility. All the blue and lighter colours seemed odd to Dannage. All the other Terran ships he’d been on had taken more of a rusty red-brown hue.
Perhaps this wasn’t a Terran ship? The mind didn’t feel like one of the Terran Core-Minds. It felt bigger, older.
“Where are we going?” Luc asked coming alongside him, his gun held ready.
Dannage turned one-hundred and eighty degrees. He had come out of the airlock and instinctively turned left. It felt right. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but it felt right.
“This way.” He led off along the corridor.
After they’d been walking in silence for a few minutes, Luc asked, “What do you think this… this whatever it is wants with you?”
Dannage shrugged. “It says it wants to help us.”
Ahead of them, a pair of doors opened. Luc’s weapon snapped to attention, watching, waiting. Movement flashed beyond the doors. Dannage could practically taste his pulse. Sweat beaded on his forehead beneath the helmet.
They edged forward. Memories of other Terran ships flashed through Dannage’s mind. Sandstone claws, blood, the Turned attacking.
Hurry. Your friends fall into Darkness.
The words didn’t comfort Dannage in the slightest. He would struggle to trust this voice, even if it wasn’t a Terran ship.
I am not like the others. You must hurry.
The room was a massive circular space. Easily big enough to fit the Folly in. But it was the structure in the centre of the room that drew his attention. Facetted glass refracted the light in odd directions around the room. Orange liquid flowed through the glass tube. Small bubbles the only indication of movement.
As he got closer, Dannage could make out something floating in the liquid. He moved around the tube, trying to get a good look at it.
Oh Stars. Dannage stumbled back in shock. Any lingering doubts that this was a Terran ship were gone. Now he just felt sick. He didn’t want to look back at that thing. Didn’t want to, but knew he had to.
He approached the glass again, this time more timid. There, in the fluid, was a brain, or brain-like construct. Flesh peaked out between plates of the same shimmering material as the outer hull. Flickering lines of light traced over its surface. The whole thing connected to the bottom of the tube with a series of cables. Was this what the Core-Minds were supposed to look like? It was a far cry from the rampant, uncontrolled growth of biological material he’d seen in the X-Mind.
He tapped on the glass, disturbing the flow of the liquid. “I’m here now. What do you want?”
Twenty-Four
(SDF Feynman)
Starless night flowed over Arland like a burning cold. It was more than normal dark, it was like a void in the universe. She fell through nothingness. All sense of time and place lost.
For all she could remember, she’d been falling forever.
I will return and your existence will end.
“What are you?” she tried to ask. Her voice evaporated even before she spoke.
I am immortal, everlasting. I existed before your universe came into being and I will be there after it returns to the nothing of The Before.
Light blasted through the darkness, pain stabbing through her head, blinding her. Stars. She recoiled, pushing away from the roaring light.
“Arland?” Lloyd’s voice boomed through the compartment.
Arland rolled away, squinting against the piercing beams of spotlights. The roaring of the Hounds engines ripped at her hair and clothes.
◊◊
Lloyd slewed the Hound through the darkened flight deck, keeping Arland and the armoured figure painted with his spotlights.
“Get off her,” he shouted, his voice echoing from the Hound’s external speakers a beat behind him.
The figure didn’t move. The heads-up callout said it was Grayson, but why would he be attacking Arland?
He tried again. “Back up or I swear I will mist you!”
Damn-it, he couldn’t let it hurt Arland. He had to protect her. He’d already failed Slater, he wouldn’t fail Arland.
“Please, don’t make me do this, man.” His hands hovered over the weapons controls. A single shot from the coil-guns would take out the armour and save Arland.
Arland twisted frantically beneath the inert armour, heads-up enhancements let Lloyd see the fear, the naked terror in her face.
“Last chance. Move!” he bellowed, hands tight on the controls, half an eye on the rising thermals. The Hound wasn’t designed to maintain an extended hover like this.
Something inside the armour moved, its arms raised over Arland. She met Lloyd’s eyes, her lips moving, begging him. He saw the words ‘do it’.
He fired.
The slug hit the armour in the chest vaporising it from the waist up.
Movement rolled through the flight deck and the emergency lights went out until there wasn’t anything beyo
nd him and Arland, crouching in the diminutive pool of light from the spots. Even the Stars were gone.
A scream of static filled the com channel and the heads-up flashed impact warnings. The spotlights dimmed further as a physical presence seemed to gather in the unending void around them. Arland was out there with it. He still had a job to do. Lloyd popped the cupola and vaulted out onto the wing.
Searing cold bit into his arms, he ignored it. “Arland, move.”
She stumbled toward the hound. Wisps of shadow flowed across his vision and he blinked them away reaching for Arland.
The cold dark closed in around them.
You will all return to the nothing of the Before! The voice boomed through Lloyd’s head with enough force to send him stumbling. His groping hand caught on the edge of the open cockpit. The light from the cockpit felt like the summer sun.
“Light,” Arland screamed. “Use light against it.”
He pulled his upper body into the cockpit and groped under the flight seat for an emergency flare as the cold burned through him, emptiness filling him. From somewhere in the dark, Arland whimpered. He pushed away from the light of the cockpit, slithering down the wing and striking the flare as he went.
The magnesium fuse flared into life, pushing back the dark and letting him see Arland as red smoke belched from the emergency flare. Lloyd reached down and hauled Arland up onto the wing and pushed her ahead of him into the co-pilot’s seat, jumping in behind her.
The cupola dropped down, sealing them off from the cold darkness.
“What in the hells is going on?” he asked, lifting off.
“Not now,” Arland replied, her voice still shaken. “Get us out of here.”
Lloyd could still hear her whimpering in the back of his mind. He whipped the Hound around, the spots playing off the near constant flickering of the static field.
They weren’t going to get through with the static field glitching out like that.
“What's causing that?” Arland asked from behind him.
Damned if he knew. Temp warnings flashed on his console. If they didn’t get out soon, they were screwed anyway.
Work the damn problem. He could almost hear his old flight instructor’s voice. He had to think, be rational. There'd be time for recriminations later. Or there wouldn't, but then he'd be too dead to care.
“Could be that… That whatever it is, impacting the field enough to stop it cycling.” To be fair, a lot of the static field tech was way over his head. It was enough for him to know it kept the air – and the people – in while letting ships pass through.
He panned the fighter’s spots across the crackling field, hoping the static would dissipate. No joy. Damn.
“At least we’re safe in here. Right?” The trembling edge of fear was there in Arland’s voice.
He caught her eye in the reflection on the instruments. “We're okay for now.” He glanced down at warnings on his console. With the cooling intakes closed it was only a matter of minutes before the lift thrusters cut out.
“What do we do?” Arland asked.
“Only one thing for it.” He thumbed the com-link full open. “This is Captain Lloyd to any crew in section beta-five. Explosive decompression of Hanger Five imminent. Evacuate the area. Repeat, evacuate Hanger Five.”
“You have a way to cut the field?”
He couldn't help a grim smile. “After a fashion.” He hit the fire control and the ship vibrated as a burst of tracers slammed into the frame. The static field flickered but didn’t go down.
He tried again, a longer burst this time. Still nothing, and thermal cut-out warnings sprang up on the console, less than ten seconds before the lift thrusters shut down.
“Lloyd?” Arland’s voice slipped over the edge into panic.
Damn it. He fired again, raking tracer fire across the field emitters. The static field flickered, stuttered, then died.
Warning lights flashed as explosive decompression sent the Hound tumbling from the bay in a rush of wind. Lloyd managed to brace himself, but behind him, Arland was tossed from her seat by the conflicting gravity.
He cut the lift thrusters, and turned into the blast, bringing the craft to a relative stop.
“Lloyd?”
He twisted in the seat to face her, as she pulled herself upright. “We’re safe, for now.”
The com cracked and Hale’s static-filled voice filtered through the cockpit speakers. “Arland? Do you copy?”
Lloyd hit the com control. “Lloyd here. Arland's with me. We’re just off Hull Three in my Hound.”
“Say, again. Did you say you were outside?”
Lloyd moved the fighter closer into the Feynman’s hull. “Yes-”
“Not important,” Arland interrupted. “The Darkness is free. It escaped the suit.”
The armour? No, he’d let it out. It was his fault. He’d shot the armour. And now more people were in danger. Another mistake.
Hale cursed on the other end of the com. “We need to contain it.”
Lloyd reached down into the footwell and picked up the flex. Maybe he could still make this right. “I’ve got a way to stop the virus attack. To fix the ship’s systems.”
“Virus?” Arland asked.
Lloyd glanced at his hands. “The Nowhere scout launched a cyber-attack against the Feynman. I’ve got the shutdown codes here.” He waved the flex.
“If we could regain control of the ship’s systems, we’d stand a chance,” Arland said. “We need to dock and get this to the bridge.”
“Copy that,” Hale said.
Mumbling came over the com, Hale must have been talking to someone else.
After a moment, Niels' voice came on. “Captain, come around and dock in hanger Four Alpha. We can move to the bridge from there.”
“Copy,” Lloyd said, taking the controls and firing up the main engines. The com-link cut off.
“What happened to Slater?” Arland asked.
“She’s gone.” He scrubbed his sleeve over his eyes. “Shot down by the Nowhere Scout, trying to stop them.”
Arland leaned forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Wasn’t your fault.” It was his. He’d ordered her to attack.
He gritted his teeth and focused on the flying. It was a shame, circumnavigating the massive SDF super cruiser was a fairly simple task.
Above them, the husks of Terran ships tumbled through their own orbital paths. It must have been quite the battle. How long did they hold out at the end? Sure, Nowhere had been ‘in conflict’ with the SDF since its creation, but that was all ‘cold’.
He’d be glad enough for all the politics to be over, one way or the other. At least in a shooting war, you knew where you stood and everything was out in the open.
“There it is.” Arland pointed. “Bay Four Alpha.” She tapped at her console for a moment and a waypoint reticule popped up on the heads-up, marking one of the super-carrier’s landing bays.
◊◊
Hale kept the gun loose at her side as she scanned the flight bay, her senses keyed for action, every ding and scuff on the bulkheads standing out in stark relief.
Four Combined Air-Space Fighters hung from clamps overhead, grounding cables ran from their engines and up into the scaffold. Hutch and the others fanned out, tossing glow-sticks ahead of them to fill the bay with a dull green light. The marines moved to keep Niels and Valentine toward the middle of their little group. The static field flickered as Captain Lloyd’s fighter slid inside in a wash of warm, acrylic smelling thrust.
The fighter dropped down onto its landing gear and the cockpit opened. Arland climbed out and slid down the stubby wing onto the rubberised deck.
She started toward them waving the flex. “I’ve got the shutdown codes here.”
“Good,” Valentine said, moving to meet her. “We’ll need to verify this before we download it. No offence, but trust is in short supply right now.”
Movement flicked in Hale’s peripheral
vision beyond the pool of light formed by the Marines’ glow-sticks. Hale spun, scanning the darkness. A couple of equipment carts and the snaking form of a fuelling line, otherwise the flight deck was empty.
There it was again, something shifting in the gloom. Figures, humanoid silhouettes.
“Contact right.” Hale raised her gun, moving alongside Hutch. Their flashlights played through the gloom. The light beams faded into the shadows, devoured by the dark.
“Identify yourselves,” Hutch shouted.
The outlines of the equipment carts faded from Hale’s vision. Oh no. The Darkness had found them. It was here.
Hale sighted on one of the silhouettes. “Open fire.”
Before anyone could react, almost before the words were out of her mouth, shadows crashed around them. At first there was a swirling almost fog-like sense to the black before it solidified into a deep dark emptiness, the night before the first stars.
They called it simply ‘The Before’, and I am its vanguard.
Hale spun through the ice-cold inky black searching for the source of the voice. “Who are you?”
One of the silhouettes crashed into her, its touch burning cold. Just like the shadow-forms on Terra Prime.
Hutch’s voice pierced the gloom. “Fire in the hole!”
Light exploded around her ripping the shadow apart and sending the figure tumbling. Her head ringing, Hale scrambled back into the circle of light.
The shadow-forms pushed toward the knot of marines, darkness cascading from them like smoke, and cutting Hale and her companions off from Arland and Lloyd. Arland’s pistol barked.
“Lloyd, Arland, get clear,” Niels ordered.
Lloyd scrambled up into the hound, Arland a beat behind him. “I’ll cover you. Get those bloody shutdown codes to the bridge.”
The fighter lifted with a roar of engines and panned its spotlights across the gathering dark, giving them a momentary reprieve.
“Go!” Lloyd shouted as the cockpit closed. A second later, glowing tracer fire ripped into the shadow-forms.
They ran from the flight deck, Hutch taking point, Hale and Fyffe bringing up the rear with Valentine and Niels protected in the centre of their formation.
