Point of Light

by Kelly Gay

  I enjoy it immensely.

  Odd.

  I am pulled out of my reverie.

  There is a gap in the time line. This is… unheard of. It simply should not exist. An entire event has been erased. “A record is missing,” I tell the monitor.

  “Yes. A singular event, I assure you,” she says, affronted, though not by my statement, but by the act itself.

  “Who erased it?”

  “Unknown. It is a deep record, very old, and a black smudge on our perfect log.”

  Perplexing, indeed. Certainly not an accident, which makes it even more intriguing, as does the necessary level of knowledge and clearance needed to commit an act of erasure. What would require such a drastic measure? What could be so important, dangerous, or secret that the Forerunners needed to erase it from Zeta Halo’s history?

  This intrigue, however captivating, must be put aside for later analysis. For now, I must move on. I gesture for the Librarian’s key. Rion retrieves it from the safety of her utility vest and hands it over. As I bring it close to the terminal, a key port automatically extends itself from the terminal’s console. I slide the key inside, and the port reshapes itself around the key’s perimeter.

  I am uncertain what to expect, but a bio pad rising from the terminal is not one of them.

  This is meant for a Forerunner—or, as their inheritors, a human.

  Rion gives me a quick look. We have done this before.

  She places her hand on the pad.

  The Halo map rearranges itself. The galaxy bursts into life, filling the chamber. I hear the monitor gasp in awe. It is beautiful to witness, and I am momentarily stunned as well.

  To my surprise, a golden point appears in a far-off sector. The sector enlarges, revealing systems, nebulae, asteroid fields, and finally a particular star system, and its planets.

  “It’s another coordinate,” Rion says, somewhat disappointed.

  As several data packs download directly into my core for later study, the map fades and the key is ejected. Rion removes it as another port extends with a smaller key. Curious, she takes the second key and then inspects them both. “I think they fit together.”

  “The smaller inside the impression on the original, it appears.”

  With a shrug, she quips, “Here goes.” And places them together.

  Hard light fuses around the two pieces, making their connection permanent, transforming two keys into one.

  There is a sudden charge in the air.

  A prick begins in my core, a sense of unease as Rion smiles and lifts the new key. My sensors are firing, collecting, calculating.

  Dread grips hold of me.

  A portal splits the air behind Rion. And I know immediately what I must do.

  When her slower human senses realize what has happened, her eyes widen with horror. She reaches out to me for help as the portal begins to swallow her. I extend my hand and pluck the key from her fist.

  Just the barest, briefest glimpse of shock dawns in her eyes.

  And then she is gone.

  And I have the key.

  CHAPTER 17

  Ace of Spades / Zeta Halo

  As Niko and Lessa recuperated in the lounge, Ram cycled through systems on the bridge, noting damage reports and keeping a watchful eye on the small fleet of insect-like repair drones that had invaded the ship to assist with repairs, apparently under Spark’s command. He would’ve said now he’d seen it all, but… he knew better.

  He certainly didn’t want to stay here any longer than necessary and the swarm of little helpers were unbelievably fast and efficient.

  Most of Ace’s damage was limited to thrusters and exterior undercarriage, ablative plating, shorn and burned sensors and landing gear, some severed and loose circuitry, and minor breakages in the cargo hold, engine room, and bridge. All told, if Lessa hadn’t engaged the thrusters, it could’ve been much worse.

  As he removed the clear panel over Niko’s damaged console, Ram smiled. He sure was proud of that bruised and banged-up young woman.

  Spark’s audio link to the ship had gone silent, which was beginning to worry him.

  They’d been gone for hours.

  Finally, camera feeds picked up a light emerging from the obsidian cluster, an elongated slice of silver and blue reflected in crystal preceding Spark’s appearance.

  As the armiger cleared the city and moved down the pathway to the ship, Ram frowned. Rion was a no-show. He waited, giving it time, adjusting the camera, looking for her to follow. Spark disappeared beneath the hull, and the orb-y streaks and insects leaving the ship told Ram the whirlwind of major repairs were either completed or halted.

  And still no captain.

  Damn it.

  Bad vibes stuck with him as he hurried from the bridge. Niko called his name as he passed the lounge, but Ram didn’t stop until he crossed the catwalk over the cargo hold. Spark was already on board, making his way to one of the worktables near the cargo bins where he stored his armiger. At the echo of Ram’s footsteps, Spark came to a halt in the center of the hold and then turned that sleek alloy head Ram’s way. Blue eyes stared obliquely up at him.

  Yeah, bad vibes all the way.

  Ram rubbed a hand down his beard, using the moment to remind himself to err on the side of optimism until he had more information. He jogged down the stairs, asking, “Hey. Where’s Rion?” But when the bay doors began to close and the sound of the ramp lifting filled the hold, he knew things had taken a dark turn. “Spark…,” he said calmly, wondering if he could make it to the armory before the armiger, should the need arise. “What are you doing?”

  “Leaving.”

  Steps rang above them. Niko leaned over the railing with a smile; the pain patch and nano-meds were obviously working their magic. “So, you guys use the key?”

  Lessa wasn’t far behind, the bruises over her nose and beneath her eyes still visible. “Don’t keep us in suspense. What’d you get?”

  It took them a few seconds to notice that the ship was closing up and Rion hadn’t made an appearance.

  “Where’s Cap?” Lessa was the first to ask.

  That final, awful click of the doors sealing reverberated through the hold. Ram had been through thousands of different scenarios in his time captaining his own salvage vessel, but this was way different. He’d never had to deal with or face off against a Forerunner AI that had full control of the ship.

  The thrusters suddenly began spooling up. Jesus, they hadn’t even been through test runs. Ace of Spades shuddered.

  The siblings rushed the stairs. “Wait.” Reserved panic stirred in Niko’s eyes. “Why are we leaving?”

  Spark didn’t answer. He simply continued toward the worktable.

  No one seemed to know what to do next. Ram hurried to the closest datapanel and entered a code to abort takeoff. Locked out. He spun around, warning, “Don’t pull this crap on me, armiger. Unlock this. Now.”

  “Spark, what’s going on?” Lessa’s movement down the stairs became slow and fearful. “We can’t leave without Rion.”

  The ship began to lift off the platform as Ram strode to the worktable and put his hand on Spark’s forearm. “This isn’t how we do things. You know this. We don’t leave without our captain.”

  After a long pause, Spark turned his head in Ram’s direction. “She is not out there. She is gone.”

  “What?” Lessa swayed and held the railing tight.

  Ram put his hand out. Just wait, the motion indicated. Wait until we have all the information. He turned back to the armiger. “Okay. Why don’t we start at the beginning.”

  “Captain Forge is no longer on Zeta Halo. She was pulled into a portal when we activated the key.”

  Well, hell. That was… Ram scratched his head and let out a measured exhale. Certainly not what he expected to hear. “Pulled where, exactly?”

  Spark’s hesitation told Ram that whatever answer came next, it wasn’t going to be a simple fix. “I believe to our next location.”
>
  The crew gathered around the table and Ram had to give credit: Niko and Lessa were trying hard to stay calm.

  “You’re gonna have to be square with us, right now,” Niko said. “The plan was to use the key at the Cartographer’s location and get whatever thing the Librarian left for you. Right…?”

  “That is correct.” Spark opened his hand and dropped the key on the table. One side was now smooth, and the other held a small circular inlay. “Once I inserted the key into Zeta Halo’s Cartographer, a second key appeared. The captain realized this second smaller piece fit precisely into the Gyre symbol depression that Lessa uncovered on the main key. I know not which of our actions triggered the portal event. As a result, we are now left with a revised key and a new location. I believe the portal’s purpose was to take the captain directly to this new location.”

  Niko’s face screwed into a deep scowl. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I believe her status as Reclaimer initiated the portal, or at the very least allowed her to pass through. The Librarian believed humans were meant to hold the Mantle of Responsibility. As such, they have been given access to Forerunner technology in a way others are not.”

  “And that’s why you weren’t pulled in,” Ram reasoned.

  “Perhaps. And why I obtained the key from her before she disappeared. If she had taken it, we might have no way to gain access to her current location. I must admit that I underestimated the importance of the key. Whatever it unlocks prompted a high level of complexity and preparedness.”

  Overwhelmed by emotion and pain meds, Lessa stormed away and then came back again. “How do you know she didn’t just pop out at some other location on Zeta Halo? Isn’t that what the Cartographer does? Pick a place on its map and it takes you there or something? Shouldn’t we start a search, to make sure? She might be able to signal us—”

  “No, Lessa,” Spark interrupted, his tone gentler. “Rion is no longer on Zeta Halo. She is no longer in this star system.”

  “No. No way. No portal can pull a human being through space!”

  “Shit,” Niko murmured softly. Because he knew, just like Ram, that it was possible. And Lessa knew it too. They’d already seen the wonders of a Forerunner planet and were right now standing inside a Halo itself. If the Forerunners could build all of this, if they could send something this big through slipspace, could create entire worlds… then sending one human across space seemed trivial.

  Lessa’s ire deflated. “Fine. Then we’ll use the portal to go after her. Easy.”

  “There is no cross-space portal technology in the Cartographer. It was initiated from the destination side. We have no way to access it, and it has completed its function,” Spark replied.

  “This is insane,” Niko said. “Keys are supposed to open things, not send you all over the damn galaxy.…”

  Lessa whirled on her brother, tears in her eyes. “Yeah, and maybe we wouldn’t even be in this situation if it wasn’t for you.”

  The kid paled. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “That launching Michelle brought those things upon us. If they hadn’t had to come racing back to save our asses, they might’ve never found this stupid place or they could have found a working terminal elsewhere to use the key. Instead we ended up down here… so you tell me where the fault lies.”

  Ram stayed quiet. Her logic was somewhat flawed, but she was running on pure emotion and he wasn’t about to step in her path. Young people—especially those coming off a traumatic event and under the influence—were not his specialty, but he did want to know exactly what happened while he and Rion and Spark were away.

  “Anyone care to enlighten me?”

  Lessa rolled her eyes and marched halfway up the stairs before settling down on a rung. Ram’s heart went out to both of them. Misery had settled over Niko, but he kept his lips sealed.

  Ram folded his arms over his chest and waited.

  Finally Niko answered. “I sent Michelle out to nose around. I guess she stirred them up…”

  “Bullshit!” Lessa shot back. “You sent her out looking for wreckage; I saw the search parameters on your screen. So why don’t you tell us all what exactly you needed so badly that you decided, on your own, to deploy a drone inside a Halo.”

  Ram inwardly cringed. Yeah. Not a great decision. First things first, though. “One issue at a time,” he said. “First priority is finding Rion. She has a bio tag like we all do. We’ll do a hard sweep of her signature. If we don’t find anything, we’ll head to the new location on the key and hope like hell she’s there, waiting for us.” Ram faced Spark. “You have a location yet?”

  “Kaphus.”

  Ram prided himself on his knowledge of known planets and systems, and this one wasn’t ringing any bells.

  “You call it New Carthage,” Spark amended.

  And that was a place Ram knew intimately.

  “So that’s it, then?” Lessa got up. “We’re just going to leave. Without her. What if her tag isn’t working or there’s interference or… She could still be here.” Lessa turned a suspicious eye toward Spark. “And how do we even know you’re telling the truth?”

  “I have no reason to lie.”

  Ram had enough of the back-and-forth. “Spark, please create scan parameters using Rion’s bio-tag. It’s in her file. Lessa, I know you’re worried. We all are. We’ll scan the ring as thoroughly as we can. But then we have to move on. If Rion is somewhere out there, dumped into some abandoned Forerunner facility alone with no backup and no provisions, we’ll need to get to her as quickly as possible.”

  “Parameters are set,” Spark announced. “We have cleared the substructure. Bafflers at seventy percent and engaged.”

  “Run her around the ring,” Ram ordered. “If you don’t get a hit, we’re at full speed away, set the jump point to New Carthage, and then we go.” He looked at each of the crew. “Agreed?”

  “Who the hell made you boss?” Niko piped up, but with no real fire behind his words.

  “Two decades in the captain’s chair, kid.”

  No one responded.

  “Good. Once we’re in slipspace, meeting in the lounge.”

  With that, Ram walked away, a headache already brewing. He’d grown too old or too tired of being in charge—maybe both—to deal with ship drama. Truth be told, he had no desire to captain this vessel or any other, which came as a surprise; he’d always assumed the urge would come back.

  For now, he’d do what had to be done, and he’d do it to the best of his ability. Rion had offered him a place when he was at the lowest point in his life, when he’d lost everything—his ship, his crew, his livelihood. She’d taken him in when he was a grieving, damaged drunk and gave him back the stars. And he’d do everything in his power to repay the favor.

  On the bridge, he deliberately avoided her chair and monitored Ace’s path over the Halo from his usual spot. Niko and Lessa filed in quietly after him and took their respective seats, even though they should have been resting as ordered.

  Spark’s avatar blinked into life over the tactical table. “Scans are complete. No returns. We are ready to jump.”

  One sweep over the Halo’s curve and then Ram punched the engines full ahead to the jump point.

  CHAPTER 18

  Rion

  Black dots appear behind her eyelids. Any sensation of up, down, left, right, disappears abruptly, and swells of vertigo turn her stomach inside out. A cold sweat breaks through her skin.

  Can’t. Move.

  Panic pulses through her eardrums, loud and unrelenting. Her chest rises and falls in rapid flutters, quicker and quicker, shallower and shallower. Oxygen isn’t flowing through her lungs fast enough.

  She can’t keep up.

  The body isn’t designed for this.

  Can’t keep up. Can’t cope.

  What a sickening way to die.

  “Fear is like a weed.” A calming voice settles over the panic like a warm blanket. “Ignore it
and it spreads. But pluck it out by the roots and plant something stronger in its place, and you have made a force bigger than your fear.

  “So pick your ground, human. Plant something stronger.

  “Grow roots. Anchor down deep. Find your bearings. Find your core. Hold on to it. And breathe.

  “That’s it. Breathe.

  “Good.

  “Now walk with me. The garden is pretty this time of year.…”

  Blackness gives way to light. The ground rises up to catch her in midstride, first one step, then another, and just like that she is walking, barefoot on sun-warmed ground.

  Two shadows stretch before her. One is her own. The other belongs to the Librarian, who has shed her armor and removed her ancilla. A white dress clings to her lithe body. Hair the same color lies in a braid down her back. Her feet are also bare.

  Ahead is a lovely ridge with an equally lovely view. Birds flit from branch to branch, singing and screeching. Monkeys too. A few animals linger warily in the shadows behind them, too hidden to identify, but Rion knows they are there. She doesn’t look back. They pose no threat.

  They reach the ridge. Sweat dampens the Librarian’s smooth bluish skin and weariness appears to sink well into her being. Rion, though, feels nothing, no exertion from the walk, no pain, only the strange physical and emotional connection to the being beside her.

  The rock on which they choose to rest is smooth, a good place to sit and stretch their legs, wiggle their toes, and admire the stunning view. It is primal and peaceful and right. Far in the distance, a cloud of dust holds fast over the site where a portal will one day rise.

  “I planted something beautiful,” the Librarian says. “Do you remember?”

  Rion isn’t sure. “I don’t know.…”

  The vaguest of smiles crosses the Librarian’s face. “Though he is bound by his rate to obtain my testimony, Catalog will never hear the words I am about to say. No official record will exist. Only the view and the animals around me will bear witness to this, my final confession.”