Amongst the Immortals

by Luigi Robles

  Sodenia unleashed its prime weapon from a mere two hundred and thirty miles away — a near point-blank distance in space terms. As the Fate cannons erupted, their light blanketed Fain’s entire view, eating up all shadow in sight.

  As the blinding light receded, things became clear; the might of the Fate cannons wouldn’t be enough to take down the machine planet. It stood right where it had before the blast, and it seemed as if no harm had come to it. Two out of the three ships that were flanking him, on the other hand, were destroyed. But that wasn’t motivation enough for Fain; the feeling of the impossible task began to sink in once again. He tried hard to fight it, but every bone in his body was telling him to quit. He just couldn’t imagine how anything could survive Sodenia’s Fate cannons head-on. What had worked once before in the past for him was not working this time.

  “Did… Did it…?” Fain struggled to ask. “Did it warp the space around the Fate cannons too? Is it the satellites causing the space warp?”

  “Dammit” was the only word that came to Fain’s mind as he saw the machine planet pulsing with some form of energy wave.

  Unlike Fain, the machines were relentless. All 2,641 Immortals continued their assault on Sodenia, and for the first time since Fain had arrived, the Immortals began to separate. Even the machine planet began to reorganize its satellites as if it was getting ready to attack.

  “Fain, we have to move,” Kya said as the machines thoroughly surrounded Sodenia. “Fain?”

  “What can we do, Kya?” Fain said, deflated and defeated. “If we can’t even touch their space, what can we do?”

  “I think we’ll answer that a little later. For now, we have to move.”

  “Where?”

  “Fain, quit being an idiot. This isn’t you.”

  Fain felt the jolt of speed as Sodenia moved away from the machine planet, crashing into hundreds of Immortals along the way. There was a loud thump each time an Immortal crashed into Sodenia’s already weakened forcefield.

  From his view, Fain could see that the ship hull had suffered severe damage in its reckless approach.

  “If you don’t move it,” Kya said, “I’m going to have to do it myself.”

  Kya kept the ship moving, and the Immortals kept inexorably following it. They were far too slow to catch up to Sodenia’s raw power, but the machines had something else up their sleeve. They began somehow teleporting in front of Sodenia’s path, causing Kya to keep changing course drastically.

  “I can’t keep this up for much longer,” Kya said. “At this rate, they will catch up.”

  It was already too late; Immortals began breaching Sodenia’s shield and attacking the ship directly. Fain saw the small cannons and turrets struggling to fend off a single one of their enemies.

  So, this is it? Is this how it’s all going to end? Fain thought as he witnessed an Immortal destroy one of the small M55 cannons. How did we get here? Why do I feel hopeless all of a sudden? Especially when it’s not over yet. Sodenia still has a lot of fight in her, right? Then Fain remembered something he had overlooked as he neared the machine planet: it was pulsing. Could it be that the planet was literally emitting some form of negative energy that only harmed biological life?

  It made perfect sense. If the machines’ sole purpose was to deprive the galaxy of biological life, wouldn’t it be possible that they’d developed specialized weapons?

  Maybe that’s the reason why no other being has gotten close to the machine planet, Fain thought. It’s a perfect defense system.

  “Fain, we didn’t come all the way over here for this!” Kya said, exasperated. “You owe me an apartment, at least.”

  Kya’s words reverberated in Fain’s mind, causing him to think of all the promises he had made thus far. Among them, the promise he had made to Pycca was the one that stood above the rest. He wanted to be with her once again, to continue where they had left off, to spend the rest of his life with her. Then it hit him like a bucket of iced water. Fain was wrong in thinking that the single greatest decision he had made in his life was going after the Immortals. No, that wasn’t it. The single greatest decision he had ever made and would ever make was to be with Pycca. And no machine would stand in his way.

  Life was screaming at Fain and burned within him once again as he took hold of Sodenia’s controls.

  “Kya, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened back there, but it won’t happen again.”

  “I’m with you all the way.”

  “We can still do this.”

  As soon as Fain had made up his mind and turned Sodenia back towards the machine planet, the ship itself began to change. His pilot seat sank lower into the floor, and his hands became attached to the console, along with his feet. Extra sets of connections attached to his limbs. Fain began to feel even more control over the ship. “Are you doing this, Kya?”

  “No, not at all; this is new to me. The transformations appear to have been trigger by prolonged exposure to the Immortals.”

  Could this be the true power the Herrion message had spoken about?

  Sodenia’s exterior also began to change. Through the spherical view screen, Fain saw it all. Some parts of the ship, like the maneuvering engines, cannon nozzles, and body flaps expanded, while the wings and several other panels contracted. Even the Immortal that was attached to one of Sodenia’s small weapons had to let go to avoid being crushed by the abrupt change. But the biggest change came to the Fate cannons; they had extended to at least double their former size. The ship had become much more aggressive looking than before, and its shield was fully replenished.

  “Woah,” Fain said as he tried to take in everything that was happening.

  As the ship completed its transformation, the markers on the enemy turned from green to red. Though it looked as if the Immortals cared little about Sodenia’s transformation, as they kept appearing and surrounding the ship. The Immortals began to fire at them as soon as they got near enough.

  “Shall we?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Kya unleashed all of Sodenia’s weapons on the Immortals, lighting space on fire all around them. Sodenia’s firepower was able to overpower some of the machines, pushing them far back into space. Many others kept coming, and they kept firing. Fain tapped on the controls and was startled at the amount of power the ship now had. He was easily able to outrun the Immortals, but the machines were persistent, and they kept appearing in front of them, managing to land a shot or two on Sodenia.

  “These machines are stubborn,” Fain said. “Even if we outrun or outmaneuver them, we won’t be able to use this fancy trick on the machine planet. We need to get rid of them.”

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Kya said as she kept firing at the enemy.

  “We do have a cargo bay filled with those EMPs. Let’s put them to the test.”

  “Sending all Anvelins now,” Kya said as some of Sodenia’s firepower receded. This was one of the many instances where having a larger crew on board Sodenia would make all the difference. But instead, all tasks had to be divided between Fain and Kya. “While I get that ready, keep them off us.”

  Fain maneuver Sodenia in and out of the swarm of Immortals, though it came at a price. Some of the machines didn’t have the chance to move out of the way and collided with the ship. Some merely bounced off the shields, while others made it all the way through and clung on to the ship.

  “Ah… Kya, how are things going over there? Because it isn’t going too well over here.”

  “Just a few more seconds,” Kya managed. She sounded hard pressed. “Sealing off the ship and opening cargo doors. Turn the ship to let them have it.”

  Fain maneuvered the ship in an upward spiral, emptying the cargo bay of all EMP devices, thoroughly spreading them across the battlefield. Some devices began to cling on to the nearby Immortals, while other devices made their way towards the outlying machines. The Immortals did little to avoid them at first and went as far as to try to swat them away as if they were flies.
But once the devices started clinging to them, five or ten at a time, they began trying to avoid them. An impossible feat; there had been some one hundred and twenty thousand of those devices in Sodenia’s cargo bay. To add to the difficulty, the devices were designed as mechanically as possible, with the Immortals’ electronics-controlling prowess in mind. Though even with the devices clinging to them, the machines kept fighting, doing what they could against Sodenia.

  “Nearly all of the Immortals are covered,” Kya said. “The timers on the devices are set to thirty seconds after they latch on. Our shields are failing once again. Should I send out the drones?”

  “No, not yet,” Fain said. He looked for the machine planet on the spherical screen. “Let’s try to get the devices on all of them. Keep the drones ready.”

  “Got it.”

  Fain began to head towards the machine planet, causing a frenzy amongst the Immortals. The machines around Sodenia became desperate, increasing their beam attacks. Some went as far as crashing into Sodenia’s shield on purpose.

  “We got them all with five seconds to spare.”

  “Hope this works,” Fain said, feeling the trace of a smile on his face.

  Seconds later, all incoming fire stopped as the Immortals became paralyzed, drifting in space without the slightest suggestion of self-control. Sodenia also stopped firing for the first time since they had entered the machine territory.

  “Setting the drones to search and destroy.” Sodenia’s drones swarmed out into the battlefield like a pack of starving wolves.

  It didn’t take much from one of the drones to destroy an Immortal. Without their full functions, their bodies were just ordinary machines. The so-called machine Immortals were falling by the hundreds.

  “Is it safe to say that the drones can take care of them?” Fain asked.

  “That’s what it looks like. If the variables don’t change, the drones will be done with the swarm of Immortals in just a few minutes. It will take the Immortals quite a lot of work just to get rid of one of those devices, and I’m saying that from personal experience.”

  Fain’s heart began beating hard once again, and his breathing intensified. He knew that victory was within his grasp, but to get there, one more thing had to happen, and that was to destroy the machine planet.

  Sodenia felt aggressive and sure of its every movement, with power to spare. The Herrion message was true to its every word: the ship had been made for this, to go up against the Immortals and win. As Fain moved the ship slowly towards the machine planet, its power became more obvious; it was as if it roared. At the bow of the ship, on each side of the Fate cannons, jets of energy erupted into space.

  “And is that normal?” Fain asked.

  “The Fate cannons have accumulated an abnormally large amount of energy; the release valves are operating at capacity.”

  “Where is all of this coming from?”

  “Dormant systems have been activating since we got here. It’s all new to me also.”

  “Sodenia is ready, and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Are you?”

  “Got all weapons ready, with the target locked on.”

  The machine planet seemed to be aware of what was happening, and its rotating satellites expanded once again, but this time they began rotating even faster. As for the last one of their larger ships, it repositioned itself right in front of the planet.

  Fain knew that there was no conventional way to break the planet’s warp forcefield. If the Fate cannons weren’t able to do the job before, there was little chance that they would be able to do it now, despite their overflow of power. He had one option left, and that was setting Sodenia’s own warp bubble on a collision course with the machine planet. He was stepping into the realm of theoretical physics, but he saw no other way out of this. It would either be them or the machines. But the equation this time would be quite simple. If the Alcubierre FTL drive on board formed a strong enough space-bending bubble, it could, in fact, penetrate the planet’s own but disappear in a mere Planck, the smallest measurement of length with any meaning. This would effectively leave Sodenia inside the machine planet’s bubble and with nowhere to go unless he managed to destroy the planet, but even then, there was no telling what could happen. And who knew what kind of weapons or surprises the machine planet had in store for them.

  If the Alcubierre bubble’s negative energy was the same as the machine planet’s, the collision would result in a zero-sum equation, possibly destroying the lesser mass in the process. Things just got worse from there. Because if Sodenia’s warp bubble ended up being less than the planet’s, it would jolt the ship and have a disastrous effect, possibly sending the ship on an extreme course, assuming it survived the bounce.

  “We need to pierce their space warp,” Fain said. “To do that, we’ll use our own FTL drive.”

  “Analyzing the possibilities.”

  Fain closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself. He felt the ship, its every component, its every movement as he mentally went over every button, every lever, every form of control in the command center. But his moment of calmness was not long-lived, as Kya interrupted.

  “We have a large horde of Immortals and their ships materializing around the planet. The numbers are in the thousands.”

  Fain wasted no time. He accelerated towards the machine planet at max speed with the ship’s rear engines. Sodenia was traveling so fast that before they knew it, the planet was already in front of them.

  “Point five should be more than enough,” Kya said hurriedly.

  Fain instantly knew what that meant; it would only take point five the speed of light to pierce the planet’s bubble. Using his new converted controls, he activated the FTL drive. After that, he only saw flashing lights everywhere as Sodenia shook violently. But once the light receded, he saw that it had worked. Sodenia was now approaching the machine planet within the satellites at the same speed as it had been approaching prior to using the FTL drive.

  “The Alcubierre drive is badly damaged,” Kya said.

  “Hopefully we won’t need it anymore.”

  It looked like the machine planet began charging several thousand energy beams as soon as Sodenia broke its space warp. And without the space warp, other machines were rapidly closing in on them. Some even managed to fire and land shots on Sodenia, powerful shots. But it was already too late for the machines; Fain had made it beyond point-blank range, and the Fate cannons were more than primed.

  “Kya… It was an absolute pleasure going on this journey with you. Thank you for everything you did for humanity, and everything you did for me.”

  “Fain. Thank you for letting me feel the pleasures of being alive, and for letting me feel what it’s like to be human.”

  “Fire the Fate cannons. Let’s give it everything we’ve got.”

  The Fate cannons erupted. Their power reverberated through the ship, their light obliterating his view, turning everything around him into a blur of yellow and red. The true power of the Herrion, the true power of humanity, had been unleashed.

  Sodenia’s hull screeched and reverberated violently as feedback from the point-blank blast made its way back to the ship. The Fate cannons were pummeling the machine planet with the power of what had to be a thousand stars. Warning signs appeared all around Fain, but instead of letting off, he pushed the ship even further.

  “It was one hell of an adventure,” Fain said as he kept his foot on the acceleration pedal, trying to prevent the ship from veering off course.

  “Thank you for letting me come with you. Thank you for everything.”

  Epilogue

  The Iveria moved through the battlefield, pushing aside the lifeless machines that floated in its path while at the same time recovering the bodies of their fallen comrades. Saavan surveyed the battlefield before letting the fleet break formation. Nearly half of the fleet had been destroyed in what would go down in history as the galaxy’s final stand. It had been a devastating loss, but an eno
rmous win for the nearby civilizations that otherwise would have been wiped out of existence.

  Saavan and Galeah both stood in front of the Iveria’s main view screen, and for the first time since the battle with the Immortals began, Galeah was task-less. Not because she didn’t have anything to do, but because Saavan wanted to share the moment with her, as grim as the moment seemed to be. It was a sad victory, but a victory nonetheless.

  The consequences of the war were real, and Saavan wasn’t immune to feelings. He felt the hole in his chest get bigger and heavier as he took in the bodies of those brave warriors floating around in space. Galeah also looked saddened by the situation.

  “So many of them,” Galeah managed. “So many of us.”

  “This is the dark reality of war. Too often, the brave end up paying the ultimate price so that others can live on. The only comfort I can offer them now is that they will be remembered as heroes. A petty, limited, meaningless action compared to the extraordinary gift they’ve given us. Who knows where we’d be if it wasn’t for those who did not hesitate, those who followed orders, those who wanted a better ending for their homeworlds? Perhaps we’d be floating in space as well.”

  Saavan and Galeah stood quiet for a moment.

  “For now,” Saavan said without looking away from the battlefield, “it looks like the humans have done it. They’ve destroyed the mechanical beast, the death bringer of the galaxy.”

  “But at what cost? I cannot begin to imagine.”

  “We may find out someday. But I can’t comprehend any sort of victory against these monsters without being willing to sacrifice it all. That may have been the case for Captain Fain Jegga. He had the true heart of a warrior. He will be remembered in our history amongst the highest of Nobles. I entrust that you will make sure that happens.”

  “I’ll see to it that it does,” Galeah said as she nodded slowly.

  “Prepare five of our fastest ships, along with an away crew, for a long-term mission.”