by Matt Larkin
She jerked a hand through her hair and continued her pacing. “Wisdom. Arrogance, pride, vanity. Self-aggrandizing secrecy and manipulation! There is nothing divine about the angels, Miah. There never was.”
“You’re wrong, sis. To understand the divine is to be one step closer to it.”
She snorted. “You think they understand God?”
“I think anyone who lived that long would have to be closer to understanding than I am.”
“I …” Well, shit. Since when did her sycophantic zealot brother make well-reasoned arguments? And when did he stop judging her? Could a person really change so completely?
But then, she already knew the answer to that. All she had to do was look at Knight.
“Rachel,” Jeremiah said. “I hope one day I see the Eden you were fighting for.”
She paused in her pacing and shut her eyes. The New Eden Republic could still be that Eden. Mankind could still build a luminous future for themselves, free of outside oppression. But only if they could survive this war.
“I have to go,” she said.
“I know. But you’ll be back. When it’s done. I was wrong, Rachel. You weren’t khapiru. You were navi, and I was too blind to see it.”
Navi. A messiah?
It had worked out so well for Knight …
She raised her hand to wave it off. “I’m not. I’m not anything, Miah. I’m just a person. We’re all just people. Even Raziel.”
With that she left him. He was off rotation to call her navi, but his faith in her meant something.
Maybe … it meant everything.
34
“Angels. Adversary. For centuries, these were words most often heard in abstract terms. Now, with the Apocalypse playing out in the nightly news broadcasts, it’s time to ask the real question: Whose side are we on? With rampant destruction at the hands of the angels, should the Mizraim Empire seek to ally itself with this supposed Adversary? The MNN Viewer Poll wants to know.”
MNN promotional broadcast
MAY 18, 3097 EY — EKRON SYSTEM, MILKY WAY
Another angel ship imploded a few thousand kilometers from Ekron, consumed by its singularity drive. Rachel had no sympathy. She’d given them the chance to back down or join her. Instead, the angels had tried to reclaim Ekron. And enough was enough.
Rachel was through playing with these people.
Because that’s all they were—people, grown arrogant over countless ages of immortality. Maybe her brother was right—maybe they had something to teach. But thus far, the lessons had come at too high a price.
She’d lost David. And he’d been the best of all the Sentinels. The best man she’d ever known.
“The Redeemer ship is trying to evacuate with its people,” Phoebe said.
“Shoot them down.” Officially, Phoebe was back in command here. For the most part, though, the hori seemed to defer to Rachel. Maybe it was kismet that drove Rachel to this position. Her brother would claim so. Or maybe everyone could just see how damned pissed she was.
“Yup, yup. Fried Redeemer turned into spaghetti, coming up.” A few blasts from the pulse cannons tore through the Redeemers’ kinetic shields. Another hit detonated the ship, and it too imploded.
Hands behind her back, Rachel watched the carnage. Tried not to feel anything.
David would never feel again.
And the time for coddling those who sided with the angels had long passed.
“Captain,” Ensign Barry said. “There’s an incoming transmission from the NER. Ambassador O’Malley for Lt. Jordan.”
Phoebe glanced at Rachel.
Degana. Rachel prayed for some good news for once. “I’ll take it in the war room.” She strode across the bridge and into the war room, then accessed her personal Mazzaroth.
The hori Ambassador appeared on screen, though at first she was looking away. She mopped sweat from her forehead with one arm, then turned to Rachel, eyes wide. “Yo-you’ve seen it?”
“Seen what?”
“The Fornax Dwarf, Rachel. They … our colonies …”
Were they under attack now? The NER had a couple hundred systems aligned with them in the Fornax. It made a convenient buffer between the Milky Way and Triangulum, making it more important than its sparse population would normally be. Unfortunately, it was far enough away it would take days to get there. Meaning any NER ships under attack were likely on their own.
“What happened?”
Degana shook her head. “I’m sending you the report from the Absolution of Night. You …”
The transmission shifted, showing a record of a Sentinel cruiser stationed in the Fornax. It appeared to be making standard patrols when the Conduit gate opened. An angel ship shot out from it.
At least, at first it looked like an angel ship. But it was covered with eyes, and they looked at her. They looked at her, as if seeing her through the record itself.
Impossible, of course.
Another ship came and another. Dozens. Hundreds. Asheran cruisers and destroyers and leviathans. Those had to be Adversary ships descending on the handful of Sentinels protecting this system. The Asherans opened fire on the Absolution, but the Adversary ship just kept going. Right past the protectors. They began firing some kind of pulse into the star. The sun shimmered, turning blue.
“Angels above,” the Absolution’s captain said. “They’re going to collapse the star. Get us—”
Static began to fill the record. The Absolution rocked under heavy fire.
And then the sun detonated. A nova fled outward, almost instantly sucked back in by a gravitational well. Tidal forces began to form around the nascent black hole. Rachel’s mouth hung open. The planets in the system went dark and began to spiral inward, sucked toward dissolution. Sucked into hell.
Which seemed to defy the laws of physics as Rachel understood them.
“We’re caught …” The Absolution’s captain’s voice wavered off for a moment. Static filled the recording. “… the event horizon …”
The transmission cut off.
Rachel tried to speak, but it came out as a croak. The angels had wiped out entire planets. Now the Adversary was obliterating stars? It was simply impossible. God would not allow wholesale destruction on such a scale.
“We, uh …” Degana said. “There are other reports from Fornax. A small number of ships made it out of the galaxy.”
“Made it … out?” What the void did that mean?
“Mazzaroth access has become increasingly spotty there. Our best estimates are that more than twenty thousand ships descended on the galaxy. We think they’ve taken out over a thousand star systems in the same way, heading toward the galactic core. The last transmission we got came from the Hand of Radiance. They said … I, uh, I’ll play it for you.”
Rachel’s screen filled with static. The transmission was audio only, and bits of static broke up every few words. “This is Captain Conway … my final transmission … the Adversary has been bombarding … the galactic core appears to be undergoing … exponential expansion … Current estimates indicate the black hole will consume the …” The transmission cut off.
“What the void was that?” Rachel asked.
“We think the core expanded to swallow the Hand.”
“It did what?” Black holes expanded but slowly. Not at the speed of ships.
“We believe the Adversary has found a way to cause a galactic core to repeatedly double in size, swallowing the galaxy. Our scientists are piecing together the data, Rachel, but I …” Degana swallowed, then rubbed her face. Was she crying? “Our estimate is the entire galaxy will be swallowed in a year.”
Rachel took a step backward, stumbled, and fell on her ass. That was impossible. It was … it couldn’t happen.
Twenty thousand enemy ships. Whole galaxies becoming gateways to hell.
It was a nightmare.
And would the black hole just keep growing after that?
She couldn’t breathe. She tried to suck air do
wn, but her chest closed off. Nothing was getting to her lungs.
“Rachel!” Degana shouted. “Rachel!”
She gasped, trying to swallow. They had done this. They had released the Adversary. They had … she had thought … it was their chance at freedom.
Hands clutched over her chest, she curled into a ball. Air. Breath. She needed …
“Rachel!”
The edge of her vision began to fade.
35
“In a crushing blow to the fledgling NER, the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy has been destroyed. The black hole at its core is said to be expanding in violation of all known laws of physics. Can the NER survive if aligned galaxies are going to be devoured whole? Only time will tell.”
Levi Meir, MNN field correspondent
EKRON SYSTEM, MILKY WAY
Though Rachel heard the war room door open, she couldn’t look up. Everything was going dark. Her heart pounded so fast she knew it would explode. She’d die. She’d die and go to hell for all her sins. For damning the whole human race. And they would all join her there.
An iron grip hefted her off the ground by her shoulders.
Be calm.
The voice echoed in her mind.
Be still.
Slowly, agonizingly, her heart and breath slowed, and her vision began to return. Raziel held her aloft, looking into her eyes. He drew her close to his face. “Behold the price of freedom.” He dropped her, and she fell to her knees, the impact stinging her.
Pain. Pain was good. Something to focus on. To fill her mind and keep her from reaching out to oblivion again.
She grit her teeth and shut her eyes as a shudder took her again. Get up. She had to fix this. She pushed herself up to face the angel. “Help us.”
Raziel shook his head. “It’s too late. The angels are going to withdraw.”
“What do you mean withdraw?”
“They’re leaving the Local Group—giving humanity up for lost. They plan to consolidate their forces beyond known space. Perhaps start anew in a different universe.”
They were going? The angels were going to leave mankind to its fate. God—not long ago that was exactly what Rachel wanted. But that fate was all too apparent now. “No! Raziel, we can’t let them do that.”
“What would you have me do?” The angel shook his head, locking her with his narrowed gaze.
The angels would never listen now. And she couldn’t blame them—in their eyes mankind had betrayed them. Maybe part of them thought this was a just punishment for the sins of humanity. But angels were human, too, and they had their fair share of sins.
“The Ark,” she said. “It’s the only thing powerful enough to stand up against the Adversary ships.”
“Not by itself. They will not agree to risk it.”
“Then we have to take the Ark.” If the angels wouldn’t use their flagship against the Adversary, she would. She’d flown it before. She could do it again.
The angel blew out a long breath, then shut his eyes.
“Raziel. Please. We have to do this, and you know it. It’s the only hope for mankind. If what you said is true, if you are the same as us, then help us.”
“I …”
She grabbed his hands and held them. They were warm and a little rough but the same as any man’s. Despite living for billions of years, he was just a man. Confusion and fear seeped through his mental shields, tingling her mind. It was his fear, not her own. She had to keep it in perspective. She had more than enough fear for herself.
“Please.”
“If you could get aboard, make it to the bridge, I could give you a transceiver implant. It would let you wrest control from Muriel—assuming you can incapacitate him first. Even with the implant, you are not a strong enough psych to overpower him mentally.”
“An implant? You told me to never use cybernetics.”
“Yes, I did. The moment you implant it, you will be at risk to the Beast, Rachel. Use it to access the ship, then remove it the moment you’ve secured it. I won’t lie to you—the temptation, the horrors it will show you … they will haunt you for the rest of your life. If you do this … but I don’t even have a way to get you on board the Ark. The Sephirot would not likely survive a full-on assault.”
Cybernetics. She’d have to plug herself in to the same monstrous technology that angels now needed to live. At least it seemed to be temporary in her case. After all she had done, paying that price was the least she could do to atone. If there was any way to save the universe from hell, she had to take it.
“I’ll find a way onto the ship. Just get me the implant.”
36
“What is the difference between khapiru and pariah? One is worth saving, whether by fire or the washing of sins. The other is to be left for the Adversary to drag down to hell. A pariah is one shunned by all, body and soul, abandoned even by God’s grace.”
The Codex, Book of Phanuel
EKRON SYSTEM, MILKY WAY
The Mazzaroth screen was filled with darkness. Knight sat in front of it, staring, waiting, as it chimed on the channel the Lotan had given him. Phoebe and Rachel sat around the war room table, but it fell to him to make this call. He had become the ambassador to the Lotan—God knew how that happened—and he could only be sure the creature would speak to him.
Still, the minutes he waited seemed like hours.
“Maybe they’re busy,” Phoebe said. “Could be we called during dinner time. Or maybe they were having a good bunk romp. I wonder how that works with multiple heads. Or, you know, do they even have genders? Can you even imagine life without sex?”
“Probably more easily than you could,” Rachel said. “Now please shut up.”
Knight folded his hands in his lap. Rachel had shown him the reports from the Fornax. Phoebe seemed to refuse to even acknowledge it. As if it was all a dream. But Knight knew. He and the Lotan had done this.
They’d warned him there was danger, but he didn’t understand. They were hard to communicate with. Maybe the same misunderstanding had led to their war with the angels in the first place. If so, that had, in turn, led to the creation of the Adversary.
He had to try to avoid repeating the angels’ mistakes. He had to learn to listen to what these aliens were saying.
At last, the darkness on his screen became the amorphous fluid he associated with the Lotan. This time, it took much less time for the serpentine heads to appear onscreen.
“Greetings. Human.”
Knight rose, dropping his hands to his side, and took a step toward the screen.
“Lotan. Do you have a name?”
The creature was quiet for a moment. Then at last the heads spoke. “Not in the. Sense you could. Understand. You may call me. Lotan.”
“I fear we made a mistake in destroying the seal.”
“There is. Danger.”
No shit. A little elaboration on the point before he acted might have helped. “Do you know the angels’ Ark?”
“I know.”
“We want to take control of the ship. Can your people help us do that?”
Again, the creature grew quiet. Knight could have sworn he saw one head look at another. Was it having some kind of debate with itself? Did it have multiple brains? A chair shifted behind him. Probably Rachel squirming to ask all the questions he left unvoiced. Girl wanted answers to every mystery in the universe.
Knight had begun to think some things were better left unknown to mankind.
“The angels are not. Our friends. They do not. Listen.”
“We want to be your friends, Lotan.”
“If we help you. You. Will. Listen.”
What was the creature saying? That it wanted to be understood? Or maybe it wanted to rule? “What do you mean, ‘listen’?”
“We are older. Humans are young. You will accept. Guidance.”
Guidance. What a friendly euphemism for control.
“No,” Rachel said. “No. We let the angels guide us, and it led to three thousand years of�
��”
Knight cut her off with a glare. She wanted him to do this. Well, he would do it. Maybe she was right. Maybe the Lotan would turn out to be as domineering as the angels had. But right now, the choice was between accepting guidance and accepting oblivion. In truth, it was the very same choice his ancestors must have made, back when Eden was under attack. To welcome foreign saviors, because, almost anything was better than extinction.
“We will … listen.”
“Good. Prepare. Yourself.”
The transmission cut off. Right. Well, Knight was always prepared for a fight. It was the reason he’d been born. Raziel had groomed him as a warrior from before he was even conceived. He’d manipulated Knight’s parents into breeding and now …
“Are you all right?” Phoebe asked.
Knight shook himself. “Yeah, love. I’m fine. But I need to see Raziel.”
“Knight,” Rachel said, “are you sure about the Lotan?”
“We don’t have any other choice.” He left the room and took a lift to Raziel’s suite.
The angel opened the door before he even got there. Raziel’s wings were hidden, and he sat at his desk, looking worn and ragged. Beaten down by a crusade that had spanned the life of the universe.
“I wish I had not done it,” he said, at last.
Raziel snorted. “Yes, Pariah. I imagine everyone wishes that.”
Arrogant son of a bitch. “If you had told us the truth in the first place—”
The angel raised a hand. “Yes. There is more than enough blame to go around. In ignorance and pride you committed sins not so unlike our own and perhaps with greater reason.”
“Why? Why not just tell us everything from the beginning, Raziel? All of this could have been avoided.”
“I already told you … our greatest sin. Pride. Do not follow so closely in our footsteps. You will not like where the path takes you.”
