Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Pieter deploying the various signals they had pre-agreed on. Nothing changed on any of the screens in front of her that Brock was monitoring.
After several minutes she shifted her weight finally and dropped her arms. “Emma? Are we getting any change?”
“No, nothing,” Emma reported over the audio. “No response. No change.”
Molly felt her heart sink. “Well, at least they’re not opening fire.”
Maybe they’re not reading the signals, Oz suggested silently in her mind.
Well, what? We need to get closer?
And perhaps drop our own shields. Take out some of the noise, so they can see the signal more clearly.
Like GI Joel and Sean are going to go for that!
I don’t know what else to suggest.
Molly thought for a moment. “Brock, let the Admiral know that he needs to fall back 50 km from us. We’re going to head in a little closer.”
Brock started to protest.
“Look, if anything goes wrong we can gate. They can’t.”
Brock nodded solemnly and opened a channel to the Admiral’s ship to explain the situation.
“Hi, Trev’or… are you reading me? Yeah. We’re getting instructions from Molly. Could you guys move the fleet back by fifty klicks? Yeah? Good. Thanks, man.”
A moment later he turned back to her. “Ok. It’s done. They’re falling back.”
Joel eyed him suspiciously. “That’s how we’re communicating with the other ships?”
Brock smirked and shrugged. “They’re friends now. No point in being all formal for no reason.”
Joel bobbed his head once, still skeptical.
Molly ignored the exchange and continued with her plan. “When they’re done, we’re going to drop our shields and move in another fifty km closer.”
Brock’s eyes flew open. “You’re kidding me?”
Molly sighed. “No. No, I’m not. What you must have already realized Brock… and everyone else,” she said, spinning around to eyeball Joel and Sean to include them in her explanation, “is that before we even got here we were vulnerable to them. Whether we have our shield or not is obviously not going to protect us from them one iota if they wanted to open fire on us. But with our shields up we may well be masking the signals we are trying to send. So… If we have any hope of making this work then we’re going to need to drop our silly illusions and just trust.”
“Anyone got a problem with that?” she added, almost as an afterthought.
There was silence in the cockpit.
“Good. Brock, make it so… just as soon as the Admiral and the others are back at their holding position.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Brock muttered, his fear subsiding, and his courage returning to him under her explanation. He turned back to his console to carry out the instructions.
Sean and Karina quietly slipped out of the cockpit door to confer. Molly stood back against the back wall, watching everything that was going on, marveling quietly at the ships that still filled their screen.
Joel sidled up next to her. “Hey, look… I’m sorry I er…”
“It’s fine,” she muttered absently.
“No. It’s not,” he countered. He moved closer. “Look, I think you’ve got this. And I’m behind you 100%. More than 100%. But just in case anything goes wrong, I just want you to know… I wouldn’t have changed this for the world.”
Molly snapped her gaze to him. “You mean…?”
“All of it. Even if I could have had a longer life. Even if this is it. I’m glad I followed you. I’m glad I’ve been a part of this team, and I couldn’t think of anyone I would have rather followed to the ends of the galaxy… or into a powerful alien trap.”
His gaze was steady.
Molly felt the emotions welling uncomfortably in her chest. She wasn’t ready for this. She opened her mouth, but words didn’t come out. She tried to speak, but her voice caught in her throat.
Joel nodded as if he understood. Then he hugged her. “It’s ok,” he whispered. “It’s all ok. No matter what.”
Molly felt herself slipping into brain fog. It had been a while since she had felt her emotions overwhelm that part of her brain. She had thought she had this emotional, interpersonal relationship thing covered. She thought she had evolved, but at that moment, knowing that they all might die any second, she realized that actually she had just mastered it by avoiding it at a completely different level. She avoided getting close to Joel, then Sean, and actually she was secretly relieved when Sean ended up getting married. Giles… when Giles shut down, it also took the pressure off her.
“We’re getting incoming,” Brock called, his voice breaking through the emotional fog and distraction.
Joel released her, and Molly moved away quickly, swiping at her eyes.
“It’s just a signal?” she asked, glancing at the readings on his screen.
Pieter interjected. “Yep. Interpreting it now, using Arlene’s talismans program.”
“What’s it saying?”
“Give me a minute. It’s going to take a few seconds to get a large enough sample and decipher it.”
Molly glanced across at Joel, suddenly aware of the gravity in the immediate situation.
* * *
Sean and Karina stood close together in the corridor just outside the cockpit. Sean could see the tension on Karina’s face. He wanted to alleviate it. To tell her it was all going to be ok. But he couldn’t. There was far more going on than she knew.
“Look,” he said in his serious, hushed operational voice, “I don’t know how this is going to go down, but I don’t like it.”
She shook her head, glancing nervously at the cockpit door. “Me neither,” she revealed. “This is all feeling very reckless. We should be getting out of here. A long way from here.”
Sean paused for a moment. “Yes…” he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. “But not for the reason you think. Remember I told you I’d overheard Molly and Giles talking last night?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I didn’t tell you everything. It wasn’t just that they were worried. They were concerned that the aliens are tracking Anne.”
“Why Anne? What do you mean?”
“Well, you know she has those special abilities and stuff?”
Karina nodded.
“Well,” he continued in a hushed, hurried tone, “it turns out that Arlene has long had a theory that she is some kind of antenna. She practically broadcasts a signal.”
“How?”
A shuffle down the corridor momentarily pulled his attention. He glanced behind her, making sure no one was coming in from the lounge. “I’m not sure. It’s a part Estarian thing. But I saw some stuff when I was in the Federation. Spooky shit. And I think Arlene might be right.”
“So you think the ARs are following Anne?”
“Maybe. In which case, we need to get her well away from this ship, and the Zhyn fleet, and in fact the rest of civilization.”
Karina’s face set in determination. “What do you need me to do?”
“Go get Anne,” he decided. “Bring her down to the cargo bay. We’ll take The Little Empress.”
“Is that going to be fast enough?”
“No. But it will give us a fighting chance. And may save hundreds if not millions of lives in the process.”
“Ok.” She hesitated. “If you’re sure this is the right thing to do?”
“I am.” She had never seen this kind of seriousness in his eyes before. Normally he was calm, collected and confident. But there was always a humor behind his gaze. A self-satisfied sense that everything was going to be fine and his cockiness wasn’t completely unfounded. But right now, all that was gone. It sent a cold chill down her spine.
She nodded, using her shiver to zip up her own feelings and anxiety about the situation. Then she echoed it by zipping her atmosuit up to th
e neck. “I’ll see you back there in a few,” she said decisively.
Then she headed back into the lounge quickly and quietly. Sean waited a moment then turned on his heels and pushed through the narrow door that would take him down the stairs to the downstairs passage as a different route into the cargo hold.
He knew what needed to be done.
* * *
Karina glided through to the cockpit, moving as quickly as she dared without alerting the others to the fact that something was afoot.
She casually stopped a few seats further down the lounge from where Anne was sitting. “Hey Anne,” she called over. Anne looked up from the holo game she was playing on Jack’s holo.
Karina smiled. “You wanna come see the hot chocolate this ship can make?”
Anne glanced up at Jack. Jack gave her a nod, so Anne slipped out of her seat and handed the holoscreen back to her.
Anne quietly followed Karina.
“Hey, young lady!” Arlene called wearily after her.
Anne stopped and doubled back. “Yes?”
“Wanna bring one for me and Ben’or?”
Anne smiled. “Sure,” she agreed then trotted after Karina.
* * *
Giles sat quietly on the other side of the lounge, the talismans out in front of him. He could see one of the enormous AR ships from the side window and as they approached he had felt the talismans in his case vibrating strangely.
Now with them out in front of him he started to feel a little heady and spacey. He glanced back and saw Anne disappearing into the back of the ship. She seemed to glow in a strange blue light.
He took his glasses off and looked out of the window again. The ships had the same glow around them. He squinted then pinched his eyes as if he could massage the weirdness out of them.
He looked again. There was definitely something going on. And Anne was definitely related to it. He checked the other people in the lounge for a glow. Arlene was glowing a little, but not as brightly. Jack was normal. So was Ben’or.
He shook his head and gathered the talismans up from the table in front of him. He needed to talk to Molly.
Moments later he was striding through the lounge to the cockpit.
Arlene noticed him hustling his way through. She’s known him long enough to sense from his demeanor when he was onto something. Quickly she slipped out from her seat and followed him up to the cockpit too.
Chapter 14
Aboard The Empress, Outer Sark System
Giles entered the cockpit, talismans held in his hands, struggling not to drop them.
“I say, there’s something—”
Joel turned to look at him. “Not now, Giles. We’re in the middle of making contact.”
“But… I think this is an important piece of the puzzle” he said, carefully setting the talismans down on the empty console to the left of the cockpit.
Pieter turned his attention pulled. “Are they—”
“Vibrating. Yes.”
Molly glanced over at them. “Well, that’s not surprising given they’re made of ether and programmed by the ARs.”
“Hang on,” Pieter called over, his attention back on his screen. “Something’s happening. The signals coming from them have suddenly increased…”
His eyes widened, and panic rose in his voice. “Shit. It’s like they’re broadcasting and heating up our sensors… I think they’re going to overload us…”
Joel was by Pieter’s console like a shot, watching. “Molly, Molly? Should we withdraw?”
There was no answer.
He turned to see Molly standing straight upright and stiff, her eyes fixed on a point in space as if she wasn’t even there in her body.
“Molly?” Joel rushed to her and was about to grab her by the shoulders.
“No!” Giles called out. “Don’t. Don’t touch her!”
Joel felt his hackles go up. He was about to lash out and tell Giles exactly where to go, but Giles talked fast. “She’s in a trance. Probably some kind of psychic lock with our friends out there. The talismans, the shields, the frequencies they’re communicating on… it’s all related.”
His speech fell away as he turned to see that Arlene had come through the door and was in a similar state, her body rigid and eyes fixed off in the distance.
“What’s happening to them?” Joel’s voice rose an octave, the color gone from his face.
“I believe they’re communicating,” Giles said, suddenly fiddling with his glasses as a crutch to deal with his own processing of the situation.
An eeriness descended in the cockpit as the rest of the crew turned and saw what was going on. Seeing their leader and friend somehow taken with the ARs made them feel instantly powerless.
What if they were being harmed?
What if they were being controlled?
Thoughts raced through each individual’s head, each person looking to Joel to make the next decision.
But all Joel could do was stand and watch Molly in horror, her absence distracting him from any sense of rational thought.
Cargo Bay, Aboard The Empress, Outer Sark System
Sean appeared from the weapons room. He was geared up, carrying spares for Karina. He threw her a rifle as he approached, which she caught effortlessly with one hand.
Anne looked at them both. “What’s happening?” she asked, her face suddenly tense.
Karina could see the panic in her eyes. She clocked the tension in her legs as she readied herself to run.
“It’s ok,” Karina cooed in her most casual, calming voice. “We just wanted to have a look at The Little Empress. Giles let slip they have the best hot chocolate pods on there.”
Anne eyed her suspiciously.
Sean cocked his head to the ship, and the two started to move, ushering Anne along with them.
Suddenly Anne froze and turned to face the front of the ship.
Sean grunted, grabbing at her. “Come on. We haven’t got time for this, girlie…”
Karina put a hand on his arm. “Hang on,” she warned, looking more closely at Anne’s expression. She waved a hand in front of her eyes. She didn’t react.
“She’s not reacting,” Karina reported.
Sean huffed impatiently. “Let’s get her on board, then we can deal with her.”
Karina stopped him. “No, we can’t. What if she’s having a seizure? She may need medical help. We need to stay here.”
Sean looked around anxiously. “Dammit.” He exhaled heavily and shifted the rifle onto his hip. “Ok. Let me tell Emma,” he muttered, pulling up his holo. “Emma - this is important. Something is wrong with Anne. She seems to be in a trance.”
“It’s not just Anne,” Emma returned through his audio implant. “Molly and Arlene are in a trance too. Just make sure you don’t wake her. There’s no telling what might happen.”
Sean took his hands off her gingerly. “We’re not to wake her, apparently.”
Karina sighed her arms folded. “Well there goes that idea then,” she said, glancing back at The Little Empress that was powered up ready for them to board.
Sean set his jaw. “We’re stuck. At least until she wakes up.” He explained that the same thing was happening to Arlene and Molly.
Karina looked at him, her eyes wide now, tinted with a deep, knowing sadness. “We’re too late. It’s begun.”
* * *
Molly felt her consciousness again as if waking from a sleep, but she was waking up into a dream. It felt familiar for a moment. Like she’d been here before.
And she had, she remembered vaguely: in a dream, not long ago.
Or was it when she was a child?
She couldn’t quite recall the details. The feeling had no information attached to it. It was just a sensation that ebbed through her being, like a memory becoming more and more distant.
Then she remembered something else. She was about to face The Ascension Race: the crea
tures she had wondered about for so long. The ones she had connected with months ago on Giles’s harebrained adventure. She remembered that now she stood in front of them… on her ship—in real life. Which wasn’t where she was now.
They were huge. She knew that much, even if she couldn’t see them. Her mind kept catching glimpses of what they might look like. But she wasn’t sure. They had a nebulous, etheric quality and she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or not.
After all, this was a dream. Or a realm jump? Or something. It felt like a realm jump.
Then there was a voice in her head: uncharacteristic, like it was her own thoughts wrapping themselves around concepts and ideas in order to communicate with them.
She couldn’t feel her body. She thought she had hands. She could move them… just with the thought of it. She pulled them up to her face… and tried to touch her face. Her head. But they didn’t connect with anything.
Bewildered, she started to settle, aware that not only was she without Oz, but she was probably in some altered state. Like a dream, but not.
Her thoughts spiraled. One thing moving her to the next, linking her to another realization or an idea. It was like dreaming when she had been studying hard for an exam when her mind would dance through concepts in only a semi-lucid state, an equation leading to something seemingly unrelated at first but then morphing into a realization that in the waking world would only be classified as genius.
Time had no meaning here. There were no thoughts of others. Just concepts. Ideas. And nebulous realizations.
First she sensed technology. Technology beyond what she could feel her mind could grasp. Abstract ideas which she could understand the fringes of, but not the whole. She thought of harnessing zero-point energy from space itself to deliver free, clean power to their civilization. She saw devices that could teleport matter. She sensed she knew many things. Things that had previously been beyond her grasp because her brain lacked the capacity needed to hold and comprehend the complex ideas. But to try and memorize them all now seemed trivial.
All of it streamed quickly through her mind at once, like a fully sensory movie of what it would feel like to live in a world where all this was known and understood.
It slowed as her attention was directed toward something else. To the beings themselves. She felt like she was in a chamber, speaking with them, only without words.
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