Survive

by Vera Nazarian

  About half an hour later—or what feels like hours—we indeed emerge on the other side of the light column, into perfectly soothing darkness.

  We carefully open our eyes, and discover that we’ve been partially blinded, and there are aftereffects of the infernal brightness obscuring our fields of vision.

  It takes at least another half an hour of darkness to wear off and both Erita and I begin to see again. The debris of War-2 are thicker here, so it’s a good thing we can see now, because we need to pay attention to our surroundings.

  Just as we maneuver around a once elegant and now badly broken hull of what must be the remains of a sebasaret, in search of anything useful that might help us, we hear Hasmik’s voice rise in excitement. Erita picks up the tablet and we pause to watch.

  The view from Hasmik’s helmet shows us a feed of a similar floating “shipyard” of vessels and ship parts and bodies of the crew.

  A transport looms ahead of her, an oval, pill-shaped vessel with some hull damage. And yet, there is a faint violet glow of plasma coming from its hull, which tells us the force field is engaged, and someone could be inside.

  “Is this them?” Erita says. “Hasmik! That depet looks viable!”

  “How can I tell?” Hasmik’s gloved hands appear before us as she is propelling herself faster to approach.

  “Shamash, this is Tefnut. If you are able, pulse the security force shield on your depet off and on. I believe Hasmik has found you.”

  “This is Shamash, stand by. Engaging pulse code now.”

  The next moment, the purple-violet plasma glow around the hull of the ship on the tablet screen begins to blink. Three, then six times.

  “Yes!” Hasmik exclaims. “I can see your plasma blinking!”

  “Good, now let her in,” Erita says.

  “Stand by,” Xelio’s voice says. “Hasmik, move to the long side of the hull and find the smaller hatch of three in a row. As soon as you do, I’ll lower the shield and you will be able to access the airlock. The other hatches open directly on deck, and we cannot open those safely.”

  Hasmik does as instructed, and we watch her progress along the side of the transport’s hull.

  She pauses before several hatches, and finds the smallest one. The force field goes off. She tries the hatch, but it remains closed.

  “Hello! Xelio, I cannot open the door!”

  Xel’s voice comes in after a small pause. “Hang in, let me go over there and manually unlock it for you. Stand by.”

  Moments go by.

  “Hello?” Hasmik says with a new tone of alarm, and her palms are now flat on the hatch as she tries to push it or move it somehow. “Are you there?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” Xel replies. “I’m working on it.”

  And then, long moments later, he says. “There is some kind of locking damage. I’m sorry, Hasmik, I cannot get the door open. Let me find some micro-cutting tools that will not damage the hatch. Meanwhile, stand back, because the force shield must be turned back on, or we’ll lose environmental controls and pressure.”

  “Okay, Xelio,” she says. “I’ll be right outside.”

  “Yes! Don’t go anywhere, stay close to this hatch,” he replies immediately.

  And so, Hasmik waits.

  Over on our side of things, the tablet beeps with a call from Nefir. His face appears drawn and exhausted on the screen, and I’m guessing Nefir hadn’t slept in a bed either.

  “My Sovereign Lady, how are you?” he asks.

  “Still here, still breathing. How is the asteroid?”

  “The same. There are now six Earth hours remaining until impact. We are still following alongside it, with no successful solutions. Would you like to see it?” Nefir shakes his head with tired hopelessness.

  “Yes, please,” I say.

  Suddenly, our tablet view shows us a large, generally rounded, dark rock hurtling in space. It’s brightly lit on one side with the distant Sol’s light, revealing a white albedo, with some crags and cliff-like surface features showing in the light. Plumes of white ice particles stream from it in places.

  “As you can see, it is considerable in size. We’ve sent shuttles to land on it, and it has some gravity due to its dense core. It is also moving extremely fast, having been artificially accelerated along its natural course.”

  I stare and stare at the asteroid.

  Here it is, Earth killer.

  They never gave it a proper designation, if I remember correctly, only referred to it by a number, as if to minimize its threat for the public.

  If you don’t name it, it doesn’t exist.

  But some people, especially toward the last days, just before Qualification began, started calling it that.

  Earth killer.

  A weird idea comes to me.

  “Nefir,” I say. “Can you put things in orbit around it? Does it have enough gravity to do that? In other words, does it even have an orbit?”

  Nefir thinks. “Theoretically, yes, but with its present velocity, it would be hard for it to retain anything. What do you have in mind?”

  “Well,” I say. “You know about the astroctadra alignment voice sequences which we just used successfully to remove large planetary objects from other dimensions into our own space-time—or push them back in there. I wonder if we can send this Earth killer to another dimension the same way. We would need six orichalcum objects to be placed around it in an astroctadra formation, and I can try singing—”

  Half an hour later, six panels are launched from Ark-Ship AS-1999. Tractor technology is used to position them at six precise coordinates of a four-point star in three dimensions. Unfortunately, there is insufficient gravity to keep them in the asteroid’s high orbit without being ripped off and flung into space at the present velocity, and too much gravity to maintain a low orbit. And a tractor field cannot maintain all of them in place since it requires line of sight and has a limited range. If only there was more than one ship with tractor capability!

  And so, I watch in despair as the panels are blown off or crash onto the asteroid’s craggy surface.

  “I am so sorry,” Nefir says, returning.

  “Can you send small shuttles or velo-cruisers to position them around the coordinates?”

  “A fine idea!” Nefir hurries to execute this plan.

  Another half an hour later, six shuttles are in place, forming a perfect astroctadra around the asteroid.

  I focus on them and sing the now familiar sequence. My voice is strong and clear despite me being confined inside the space suit.

  And nothing happens.

  “I believe you need a Resonance Chamber, My Sovereign Lady,” Nefir suggests.

  “Then take me to the AS-1999 Resonance Chamber, please!”

  Nefir transfers our interstellar linkup connection to his tablet and walks me over to the heart of the ark-ship. After some prep work, the chamber is readied, and there I am, ready to try again.

  Four and a half hours until impact.

  I sing, and my rich mezzo voice, piped remotely from the tablet, still manages to fill the airy expanse of the spherical interior with Logos-level power, despite my own space suit confinement and its inherent limitations. When I’m done, Nefir tells me that there is some strange quantum instability being picked up around the asteroid by the ship’s sensors, but the huge rock itself is still physically tangible and fully present in our space-time.

  “So, in other words, it didn’t work,” I say, exhaling with tension. “I realize we need six Logos voices at each of the coordinates, and probably six Resonance Chambers. Do the shuttles have Resonance Chambers?”

  “They are resonant along the hull for basic flight, but no, not a true Resonance Chamber as in an interstellar class vessel such as this.”

  “Oh, lord!” I exclaim in angry frustration. “Do you have portable Resonance Chambers? Little ones? Anything?”

  Nefir appears grave and thoughtful. “Let me investigate and get back to you. Although, I must state the sad
reality, My Sovereign Lady, that even with such smaller Resonance Chambers in place at every location, there is only one of you.”

  “I know,” I whisper with despair. “I know.”

  Three hours and a half until impact, and Nefir is still working on an alternative solution to the Resonance Chambers problem. He comes back to me saying that the only other full Resonance Chambers at their disposal on AS-1999, ironically, are available in nano-cameras.

  “Say what?” I say. “You mean, those teeny tiny things that look like dust motes or snow?”

  “The problem with the nano-cams is that their micro chambers don’t have sufficient range and output for such a monumental resonance task.”

  “What if you took a bunch of them and linked them up in a crazy little network? Put them inside the shuttles?”

  Okay, I know, now I’m being crazy.

  “The problem again is range and output,” Nefir says. “They would have to be rather close to each other and there will have to be many of them. Basically, you would need to blanket the area.”

  “So, do it! Fill the shuttles and—”

  “No, that will not suffice, because they still will not have the range to transmit between the shuttles themselves. The nano-cams would need to be placed directly around the asteroid’s orbit.”

  “Then do it, please!”

  Two hours and forty-five minutes until impact. A roiling sea of nano-cams is ejected by AS-1999 and they fill the asteroid’s orbital area. With me, hooked up to the nano-cam network through the AS-1999 Resonance Chamber, I prepare to sing. . . .

  And that’s when Nefir is informed by the crew that the majority of the nano-cams are already gone from the asteroid’s orbit—basically blown off by its high velocity—and of the remaining ones, there are just not enough in the micro-network to create a viable linkup.

  “I am so terribly sorry,” Nefir says tiredly.

  Locked inside a space suit, on the other side of the universe, I begin to cry.

  But then, I stop.

  I cannot waste tears like this, not now.

  Besides, I have an idea.

  “Nefir,” I ask. “Do you have a 3D printer on board? And can it print nano-cams?”

  Nefir frowns. “Yes, we have several 3D printer units. And yes, we certainly can print nano-cams. We do need the basic materials, which is mostly orichalcum. But we can always utilize the ship’s interior wall panels for raw materials. What did you have in mind?”

  I take a shuddering breath. This is crazy . . . this is very, very crazy.

  It’s the craziest idea you’ve had yet, Gwen nutcase Lark who is Imperatris and Kassiopei.

  “Nefir,” I say slowly. “I want you to print as many nano-cams as it takes to create a really, really big network. A gazillion billion of them. Not around the asteroid. Forget the dratted asteroid. We’re going to launch the nano-cams in orbit around Earth.”

  Chapter 99

  “What?” Nefir frowns, and his expression is utter confusion.

  “Yes,” I say, starting to chortle with wild, absurd hope. “I’m going to place Earth inside a quantum trans-dimensional force field. Temporarily!”

  “But—that’s an immense undertaking!” he says, shaking his head. “I really don’t think—”

  “Nefir! Listen to me: Earth is so crazy-huge, compared to the asteroid, yes—but it is stable. It has a stable, dense atmosphere and so many placement options for a network of satellites! Not to mention, it’s travelling through space at a leisurely speed, in comparison. So, run your numbers quickly to figure out the optimum orbital placement so that the little nano-cams don’t burn up on entry and don’t get sucked out into the outer space vacuum, and let’s just do it!”

  “Very well.” Nefir nods. “I’ll start the process at once. I don’t know how many nano-units we can print in the short time we have, considering we have to seed the orbit with them and that alone will take an hour at least—”

  “Go! Just go do it!”

  And Nefir disconnects the call.

  While I wait, I let the others know what is happening. Erita who has been a witness to my interactions with Nefir, looks at me with an intensely curious expression. “My Imperial Lady—I mean, my Sovereign Lady—this is so unbelievable, and not sure if it’s even possible, but—I believe in you . . . Shoelace Girl.”

  “Thank you,” I say in a calm tone, trying not to feel anything just yet, because I have to keep up my strength for this upcoming voice command sequence that I have to perform all alone, the solitary Logos voice.

  But, does it have to be me, alone?

  When George, Manala, Xelio, and the others respond to my explanation of what’s happening on Earth, and what I plan to do, there are many exclamations and discussion.

  “This is definitely nuts, insanity taken to the next level, but it’s better than doing nothing,” George says with enthusiasm.

  “Assuming they get all the network connections and nano-cam placement in time,” Xelio says. “Really cutting it close. How much time until impact?”

  “A little over two hours,” Erita says, checking her suit chronometer.

  Xelio whistles.

  “You can do it, Gwen-jan!” Hasmik’s voice comes in.

  “Hasmik!” I say. “So sorry I’ve been dealing with this, what is happening with you?”

  “I’m okay, still waiting here,” she says in a resigned voice.

  Xelio replies simultaneously, “I’m still working on the airlock hatch lock.”

  “Oh no,” I say, “I thought Hasmik might be inside your ship by now!”

  “The problem here is that our main hatch seal is damaged also,” Xelio replies, and there’s a hard edge to his voice. “When we first took this vessel, we had to seal ourselves in manually with some non-standard, permanent welding methods. And now, if I cut us out again and force the hatch open, we won’t be able to seal the ship back up again and will lose all life support it provides. It wouldn’t help Hasmik. But it would force all the rest of us to switch back to suit support packs for primary life support while we hang out in this no-longer-pressurized, useless hull space.”

  “At least you’d all be together,” Erita says with sarcasm.

  “Yes,” Xelio replies, at face value. “It would give me much joy to hold Hasmik’s hand right now, if only to make her feel less alone. In fact, the tradeoff might be worth it—”

  “No, don’t say that,” Hasmik cuts in. “I can wait. I’m okay.”

  “Yes, you are,” Xel replies. There’s a pause and I can hear his breath come roughly over the audio. “I wish—Hasmik—that you . . . danced with me.”

  A pause.

  “I wish I danced with you, too,” Hasmik says softly.

  “So why didn’t you?” Xel’s raw voice continues.

  Silence.

  “Maybe if you ask me again, I will . . . next time.”

  Another, longer pause.

  “Okay, we seriously need to get rescued pronto, folks,” George says.

  “Agreed,” I say. “And we will.”

  And then I decide to bring up another oddball idea in regard to saving Earth. “Manala,” I say, when the time comes for me to sing the voice sequence, will you join me? Your Logos voice would really help!”

  “Oh, but how?” Manala says. “How will I sing from here inside this suit?”

  “The same way you are speaking to me now,” I reply. “The same way I’ll be singing! Just sing the best you can and I will transmit us to Nefir, who will be in the AS-1999 Resonance Chamber. And the Chamber will send out our voices to the network of nano-cams.”

  “But won’t we need to be at those specific coordinates on Earth?” Manala asks.

  “Probably.” I laugh bitterly. “But we’re doing this crazy thing anyway, right? No one knows if it will work, but we have to try!”

  “Okay,” Manala says with a hint of hope in her voice.

  “In fact,” I add, “I think everyone should sing too! Whether or not you have a Logo
s voice doesn’t matter, just sing, all of you, and focus on Earth—on saving lives, on saving its wonders!”

  “My dearest Sovereign Lady Gwen,” Consul Denu’s voice comes on unexpectedly. “I will be deeply honored to sing with you in this important endeavor, despite all my humble vocal limitations. And I believe everyone here will strive to do the same, to the best of our abilities.”

  My heart feels a profound surge of emotion.

  Thank you, dear Consul Denu. . . .

  I hold myself steady and breathe evenly with a rising inner ocean that must be held in check, even as I hear the others speak their agreement in turn.

  One hour until asteroid impact.

  Nefir calls to let me know they are making good progress on printing the nano-cams and the orbital seeding process will begin shortly, as they return even now to Earth, well ahead of the asteroid.

  “Nefir,” I say. “There’s one more thing I want you to do. I want you to contact Earth—the United Nations, all the governments, the public. Let them know we’re here and what we’re doing. Yes, I know it’s stupid and ridiculous and probably useless. But these people are all about to die. It’s bad enough we—the Imperator, Imperial Atlantida—lied to them about everything, including their elites getting rescued at the last minute. At least here is something they can do to help themselves.”

  “My Sovereign Lady, what do you mean?”

  I take a deep breath, forgetting again to conserve my air, like the numbskull that I am.

  But this is just too important.

  “I want everyone on Earth to sing with us, Nefir. I don’t know how, or if it’s even possible, to hook up so many audio transmissions together and to funnel all of it into your ark-ship Resonance Chamber. Maybe just get a few key connections, all the best professional and amateur singers to do it, hook them in somehow, send them the musical notes of the sequence to learn in a hurry, send them sheet music, whatever!—maybe use their phones—in short, I want Earth to try to do something about this situation and just maybe help me help them. I mean—I’m so far away from them while they—they’re right there, on Earth! At worst—they will die singing.”