Odyssey (The Spiral Slayers Book 3)

by Rusty Williamson

  ---

  Adamarus was shattered. He understood why Nero had done it, but Nero had been all he had left. Now he felt he had no one. His wife and daughter had been crushed before his eyes. His crew had been killed. And now his son, already brain damaged from the battle with the Blackship had jumped out a third story window.

  Adamarus Maximus was known to all, so he rarely went out. That’s why tonight he didn’t want to be recognized by anyone.

  He put on civilian clothes with a windbreaker, pulling the hood over his head, he added sunglasses and left.

  He took the shuttle keeping his head down… just another traveler… just another person.

  He didn’t know what he wanted… he told himself that he was going to New Axis City to walk around and be with people without having to interact.

  So, he walked by cafes and shops, dentist offices and pawn shops.

  The pain within him was so much he didn’t know how he could continue carrying it. The hollowness inside him was unbearable before, now…

  “Hi there.”

  Adamarus looked up. It was a very pretty lady with a short skirt and a dazzling smile. He looked around and realized he’d wandered into the red-light district. Embarrassed, he nodded at her and turned and walked away.

  ---

  Six months later a larger enclosure was built around Nemesis’ existing one. Then, the existing one was dismantled. Eight months later the process was repeated. Six months after that the adolescent Whiteship was released to the vacuum of space where she belonged.

  Put in orbit around Amular she was happy for a while. However, Nemesis only stayed a week before, on her own, she broke orbit and departed on a two-year voyage to the gas giant Farnom.

  Many ships followed her but no one tried to stop her. She had just become too large to argue with.

  Chapter Two – Childhood

  “Loud are about 20 feet wide, 30 feet long and 20 feet high. Their height expands up to 100-feet when they speak. They glide on a layer of dark red flesh that the creature’s massive body rests on. Six 20-foot tentacles emerge from the lower part of the body, three on each side. The Loud body is a fleshy wrinkled gray color with long sharp spines which are dark gray and about four feet long. A large muscle extends from the rear bottom to the back its head. It has no neck. The head has a crest that runs along the top from the front to the back. At the front of the head is a hole which never closes. It has two eyes that look like green translucent sacks.”

  Floyd Woodworth

  The Advancement of Our Species,

  A Historical Perspective Volume 11

  Source: The Archive

  Location: Farnom Station

  Two years later…

  Half a billion miles away, Iceis was just another star though it was the largest and the brightest and, set apart by its orange color.

  So little light reflected off the huge gas giant Farnom that there was almost no day/night crescent and the enormous dim sphere looked unworldly. What defined the giant planet most was the background stars it blocked out.

  Nemesis had arrived then immediately lowered herself into the gas giant. She now hovered in the upper atmosphere of Farnom feeding on the gases. The Whiteship’s central sphere now measured about 88 miles in diameter and was a solid dull white color. Its tentacles were roughly 1,800 miles in length. The Whiteship was roughly half the size of the Blackship it had been cloned from. It was still growing.

  Farnom Station had been deserted and shutdown for hundreds of years but when Nemesis dove into the gas giant’s atmosphere that quickly changed.

  The station was a hundred years old but, except for outdated technology, everything still looked new. She looked like a gyroscope and had older spin gravity.

  Repeated visits by Loud Umbrella ships ferrying equipment, supplies and human crew had brought the station online in eight months. Admittedly, it was not one hundred percent functional, so when the ‘radical development’ happened, no one was prepared.

  Only half the crew was on board--42 of 80--and all were involved with upgrading the station.

  When the two people tasked with monitoring Nemesis noticed the change, things happened and then returned to normal so fast, they thought they’d imagined it. Except nothing was normal any longer.

  Tiny, barely visible black dots appeared on the dull white surface of the Nemesis sphere then, within a second vanished. But suddenly sensors were tracking hundreds of tiny objects flying away from Nemesis.

  Within hours the objects had divided into groups: larger groups headed towards larger moons, smaller groups headed towards smaller moons. They targeted nine of Farnom’s 72 natural moons plus its one artificial moon named Farnom Station.

  ---

  Captain Mary Truman had just fallen into a well-earned sleep when…

  “Captain? Mam, please wake up, we have an urgent situation.”

  Truman awoke in a sleep-deprived daze, “What? Status?”

  Before an answer could come, loud beeping, strobing lights, and a booming “All hands report to stations” assaulted her senses. She slid out of bed and raced to the station’s command center.

  ---

  In the command center, lights were dim and red lights lit the floor and ceiling. The mood was tense.

  “There are three of the objects headed our way. They’re only eight-feet in length.” Patterson the XO pointed at the holograph showing indicators of all the nine groups heading towards nine of Farnom’s moons and one group, the smallest group made up of only three objects, heading right for them. He pointed to a side screen showing the best magnified view they had. They looked like black teardrops kind of bent along their length. There was perhaps some texture, but it was hard to tell.

  “Shit,” Captain Truman said. “ETA?” On the tactical screen, she could easily see the groups of objects curving towards Farnom’s various moons as well as the group coming at them.

  “One hour, twelve minutes and...”

  “How fast are they coming…” Truman interrupted. But she could see the numbers. “Shit,” she said for the second time—her station could not outrun the damn things. But she couldn’t just sit there. “Patterson…” she drummed her fingers, “Get going. Fire up the engines, emergency egress. Set a course to maximize the time to impact.”

  “Right away,” Patterson said and began issuing orders.

  That would delay the inevitable, give them time to think.

  Truman looked around the control center at her crew, asked, “Any ideas on what they are?”

  No response.

  “Any ideas on their purpose?”

  No response.

  The six newly installed engines roared to life. They were meant for repositioning, not outrunning or evading.

  Truman rubbed her temple, “Which moon will they reach first and when?”

  Finally, a response.

  “Farnom Three. A hundred and twenty-two objects will impact Farnom Three in one minute, fourteen seconds.”

  “On screen, magnify to view,” Truman ordered. A black disk against dark blue. “Enhance.” Not much better. The moon was almost between Farnom Station and the planet. They could only see its backside and not the side where the objects would impact. The seconds crept by…

  “Impact.”

  There was no change. They could see nothing.

  The third “Shit,” escaped Truman as a whisper. She turned to her XO, “Patterson, what moon… preferably one that we can see… will be hit before us and when…if you please.” She crossed her arms and looked away as her second checked the display.

  By accelerating directly away, they had bought the large and lubing station an additional hour of time.

  “Only one. Farnom Twenty-Two. A large group will hit that moon twelve minutes and fifteen seconds before the three objects intercept us.”

  “Great.” Truman bit her lip.

  ---

  News of the event reached New Axis Base instantly. President Wicker and the entire special team
met, discussed and watched the unfolding drama.

  The closest Umbrella Ship was dispatched but Farnom was on the other side of Iceis, and even the Loud interstellar ship with its speed stepping technology and near light speed capabilities could not get there in time.

  There was nothing they could do to intervene. They could only watch the drama play out.

  ---

  It was eight minutes until the objects would hit the moon Farnom Twenty-two and twenty minutes until the object would hit the station when answers came from the backside of the moon Farnom Three.

  “On screen, magnification one thousand, enhance.”

  The objects had seemingly drilled into the moon and were now coming out the sides, but they were bloated and elongated, their exterior stretched thin.

  “They’re now a quarter-mile in length.”

  The objects broke free from their holes and lifted off then headed back towards Nemesis.

  The objects were about to hit Farnom Twenty-two so they switched over and zoomed in on the moon even though they all knew what they’d see. The objects hit and seemed to drill right into the moon’s surface.

  “Okay, that’s not good,” the Captain said.

  Twelve minutes to impact.

  Truman looked a question at Patterson.

  Patterson raised his hand’s palms up, “They’re collecting resources… getting mass from the moons and returning it to Nemesis.”

  “Like gatherers of some sort,” Captain Truman said absently though the name would stick. “We just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Ten minutes to impact.”

  Truman walked quickly to a side console and replayed the deployment of the ‘gatherers.’ She watched them launch from Nemesis then forge upward out of Farnom’s gravity well. Then they maneuvered into groups heading towards nine of Farnom’s moons. She studied each group and each Gatherer in each group, particularly the size of the Gatherers. They ranged in size from 20 to 60 feet in length. The latter were the ones that needed to maneuver further.

  Eight minutes to impact.

  “What are you doing Captain?” Patterson had walked up behind her. His voice seemed calm, but Truman knew better.

  She didn’t answer right away. Now that the groups were headed towards their targets all the Gatherers measured eight feet in length. On the screen, the groups seemed to curve as they closed on their assigned moons. However, she knew that the Gatherers we actually traveling in straight lines—it was the station that was curving. Also, all the Gatherers were now traveling at constant speeds to reach their targets.

  Six minutes to impact.

  “Captain…”

  “Fuel, XO. Fuel. The Gatherers are out of it…or at least no longer have enough to maneuver. We just need to move out of the God damn way. So…”

  Patterson didn’t hesitate, “Hard to port!”

  It was still a close thing. The large and lumbering station took forever to change course and was a large target. Also, the Gatherers actually did manage a slight change of course but not enough. They flew right by missing by only half a mile.

  The station continued to track the three Gatherers as they withdrew Farnom Station to a distant orbit well beyond any of Farnom’s 72 moons. Two of the Gatherers fell into the gas giant…one escaped orbit and fell in the system towards Iceis.

  ---

  The future captain of Nemesis, Admiral Adamarus Maximus was brought into the loop when the first Whiteship reached eighty percent its expected diameter. He and his first officer Captain Radin plus Leewood and Harrington were rounded up and headed for Farnom.

  Leewood and Harrington were the intended captain and first officer of the second Whiteship, Redemption but they were also serving as backups for Adamarus and Radin.

  The four boarded the shuttle which attached itself to the Loud Umbrella Ship which immediately departed on the eighteen-month voyage to Farnom.

  Training would begin in route and Bugs chaired the first briefing.

  The first thing the Loud avatar hit them with was the Basin, “The Basin is where the black hole was temporarily placed allowing the Blackship to escape the event horizon and appear in normal space. The Basin is something of a mathematical fluke allowing a path to a seemingly infinite dimension where energy can be temporarily held. It would be too advanced for any human to understand or manage. Therefore, at least one Loud will need to be on board each Whiteship to handle singularity interchanges and manipulations. We are currently preparing tests and simulations of the process, a process already built into the Whiteship.”

  So much for that topic.

  They learned that humans and Loud avatars had been aboard Nemesis studying it and building interfaces to it for half a year now and they had learned many things. Like how the Whiteship would acquire a black hole, how it would bleed energy off it and how the human’s bridge would interface to the recently discovered nerve bundles within the Whiteship.

  Adamarus was about to ask how far the ship could go on a black hole when Bugs summed up by saying, “A black hole has infinite energy.”

  And that seemed to settle that.

  They learned that the tentacles tapered off into the sub-atomic realm and perhaps the s-string or even the super speck level. The tentacles might not really ever end.

  They were shown how the front half of Nemesis’ sphere was covered with what looked like a thin extra shell. It might be an error in the ship’s DNA, or it might have some unknown purpose. No one knew.

  The briefings made them painfully aware that Nemesis was alive and knew how to do certain things. Neither the Loud or the humans knew all it could do however, the nerve bundles discovered by the Loud provided most basic functions. Interfaces to the bridge were being connected now.

  Two and a half weeks out, news from Farnom Station took the Umbrella Ship by surprise. Except for the three that had targeted the station and been lost, all of the Gatherers had returned to and entered Nemesis. Then the Whiteship had risen out of Farnom’s atmosphere and gone into orbit around the gas giant.

  They were told that all of the human and Loud avatar workers aboard Nemesis had stopped what they were doing and enjoyed the ride.

  Nemesis was now about ninety percent the size of the Blackship.

  ---

  The Farnom system was a dark place. The Umbrella Ship rippled into existence a half mile from Nemesis. From a distance, the seven-mile alien ship looked like a flea next to the moon size Whiteship with its 156-mile diameter.

  Up close, Nemesis was a good size moon.

  The shuttle departed from the Loud ship and crossed to the Whiteship. Making the crossing was Nemesis’ new captain, Adamarus, Radin who would be his first officer and their backups Leewood and Harrington. All four wore vacuum suits as the vast majority of Nemesis was still in a vacuum.

  Adamarus looked out the viewer. Nemesis looked like a planet made of dull white dough. At first, the only feature on the surface were lights where a makeshift dock had been set up. However, as they neared hills and valleys could be made out in Nemesis’ surface.

  The ship set down, the ramp lowered and they walked down it and on to the surface of Nemesis. Gravity was one third that of Amular; just enough to firmly hold you down.

  A welcoming party was assembled and tradition was followed… “Permission to come aboard,” “Admiral on deck!” then salutes and handshakes all around.

  Now that they were on the surface, they could see that the landscape was dotted with random hills, some no more than small bumps, others were tall with sheer sides.

  “This way,” and the new arrivals were led by the previous commanding officer, a Lt. Situs, to one of the hills with a steep side. Seemingly engraved into this was an eight-feet circle.

  Situs made a show of touching the circle, and it somehow opened from the center but too rapidly to see what was actually happening. “All the doors are like this… you’ll get used to it.” He spoke with an abrupt no-nonsense voice.

 
They entered and found themselves in a tunnel spiraling downward. The walls were dark gray with light colored vein-like lines protruding and running through it. The lighting was comfortable and seemed to come from everywhere.

  After a couple of turns then entered a large room with the same kind of walls. They crossed and came to a place where the floor just ended.

  Adamarus carefully moved closer and looked over the edge. The vastness shocked him. The other side was lost in the haze.

  Situs pulled what looked like a small gun from his belt, pointed it down and pushed a button. “Still a hundred and forty-eight miles. The thing stopped growing when she lifted from Farnom.”

  “What could this enormous empty space be for?” Adamarus asked.

  A Loud avatar had walked up behind them. Bugs spoke, “This area is for the Whiteship’s symbiotic bio-sphere which it cannot get here. Welcome to Nemesis Adamarus, Leewood, Radin and Harrington. We need to move the Whiteship to Amular immediately. With luck, we have saved enough of your biosphere there to make things work.”

  Harrington turned to Bugs, “I thought it got its power from a black hole?”

  “Look at Nemesis as being like any living creature, it converts mass to energy. It doesn’t need a black hole to function. It has more than enough spare mass to make the trip. Let’s go to the bridge.” Bugs said and led the four of them to another chamber where a small shuttle hovered. They boarded, and the shuttle sped down a side tunnel.

  They traveled at high speed passing through large chambers of various sizes though none came close to that first vast chamber. After 20 minutes the shuttle came to a stop outside of a large tunnel.

  They disembarked, and Bugs’ avatar led the way down the passage to a dual door system that served as an airlock. Beyond this point was pressurized and, blessedly, they were able to get out of their vacuum suits.

  The air seemed thick and had a strange organic smell to it, but it wasn’t overpowering. It was warm.

  The tunnel continued and led to a round chamber which must have been 500-feet in diameter. Here the walls were different—they were covered with holes.

  Built into the side of the chamber was almost an exact replica of a standard three-level battleship bridge. The entire area was bathed in harsh lights.