He was still digesting that harsh reality when the deck beneath his feet bucked, throwing the nearest FCF man off his feet, and the lights flickered and went out.
“Run!” said a voice in Josh’s ear.
He didn’t need telling twice.
*
Initially he heard sounds of pursuit – raised voices, orders being barked, hurried footfalls – and was once again grateful for the artificial gravity. He’d grown reasonably proficient in zero-G of late, but Weiss’ men would have been trained for it.
“Hurry! They’re instructing me to search for life signs.”
Josh threw himself from the tube. He ran, stumbled, and almost fell into the cavernous space of Cryodeck Two, instinctively heading to the right, where the neatly-ordered massed ranks of cryopods seemed closest. They stretched upwards, all the way to the distant ceiling.
“Is it working?” he wanted to know, as he fell against the nearest pod.
“Yes, there’s no discernible individual reading to give you away.”
Breathing space. It wouldn’t take Weiss long to figure out where he’d gone, but for now he had a little time to think.
Josh reckoned he could piece together the rest of it now, and the more he thought, the angrier he became. Just as standing instructions had seen his team revived at any sign of a world that bore the marks of intelligent life, so the FCF squad were to be woken at any signs of a world with viable life. It devalued everything he and his team had been through. Why inflict all that depressing desolation and morale-sapping disappointment on the exo-scientists, if the ship could discern the difference between the viable and non-viable worlds in any case? To be certain. Josh could almost hear the voice of his old instructor saying the words: to be certain. What did the mental state of a few exo-scientists matter in the face of certainty on such a crucial issue?
“Once you revived Weiss and his men, how long did you delay before waking us?” he asked.
“Twenty standard minutes,” Si replied.
That made sense. Twenty minutes just about gave the FCF squad enough time to arm themselves and occupy the ops room, ready for the scientists to make their appearance. By the same token, it meant that not too much time would be lost before the new world could be studied and analyzed, albeit under the watchful eye of Weiss and his men.
Credit where credit was due; whoever planned this knew what they were doing. The only fly in the ointment was Si.
“I hope you have a plan,” he muttered as he set about exploring his surroundings.
It was only a matter of time before the FCF organized a sweep through the cryodecks. He had to find a proper hiding place. Funny, he spent more time on the cryodecks than anywhere else on the ship, albeit in a state of oblivion, but he’d never stopped to really notice them before.
“As a matter of fact I do, now,” Si replied.
“Oh?” Josh had spoken more for the comfort of hearing another voice than for any other reason. The speed with which events unfolded left him feeling a little overwhelmed. He would never have viewed himself as hero material, yet here he was, cast in the role.
“It involves you giving yourself up.”
“What?”
“I need all of you gathered in one room – Weiss, his FCF officers, you, preferably everyone currently awake.”
“But that makes no sense. You engineered things so that we weren’t all gathered in one room by enabling me to escape.”
“I am aware of that. My plan had not fully crystallized at that point, and it seemed desirable to have you as a free agent to provide options.”
Josh shook his head, every fiber of his being rebelling at the thought of surrendering. The question that had been niggling at the back of his mind since his escape, which he had worked so hard to ignore, forced its way to the surface, refusing to go away.
The thing about Ship’s Intelligence was that it wasn’t intelligent – that is, not really. A state of the art system with sophisticated programming, capable of mimicking intelligence in many ways, yes, but what Si was doing went way beyond that. There could only be one explanation: someone else was awake – Wallace or an agent of his – operating behind the scenes, unwilling to reveal themselves as yet. They had hacked Si and were working through the computer to help Josh, having recognized him as an ally.
“Who are you?” Josh asked.
“A friend,” Si replied. “For now that’s all I’m able to say.”
Fair enough. Josh could understand the need for caution, given the circumstances, and at least he or she had not insulted Josh’s intelligence by denying their presence.
That still meant he was the one taking all the risks, though. “You’ve got to give me more than this,” he said. “I’ve only just escaped from the FCF, why would I walk straight back to them?”
“All will be revealed soon,” Si promised. “I merely ask that you trust me this one last time. I’ve brought you this far, haven’t I?”
And there was the rub. Josh owed his freedom to Si, or whoever was working through the computer. If he refused to cooperate now, where did that leave him? Caught in very short order most likely, particularly if Si chose to give him away. Whatever he decided to do, he’d end up a prisoner again, which meant that he really had no choice at all.
“All right,” he said aloud, “but if this gets me killed I’m going to come back to haunt you, whoever you are.”
“Trust me,” Si repeated in his ear.
“When do you want me to do this?”
“There’s no time like the present.”
That soon? Josh took one last look around the cavernous deck, at the towering ranks of neatly stacked cryopods; then he started towards the transport tubes.
“You say I should trust you,” he muttered. “Shouldn’t that work both ways? Mind telling me exactly what this plan of yours entails?”
“Soon,” Si’s voice murmured.
His benefactor’s evasiveness did nothing to quell Josh’s concerns. As far as he could see, the only reason to keep details of the ‘plan’ from him was because he wouldn’t like them if he knew. As he stepped from the tube into an empty corridor on the command level, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was walking to his doom.
“What if they whisk me off to some holding cell after capturing me, without ever bringing me before Weiss?” he wanted to know.
“I’m making sure the way is clear all the way to ops,” Si informed him. “Your team is still there, doing their jobs under the watchful eye of Weiss and his men. There are two FCF officers still actively searching for you and so not currently present, but that can’t be helped, and it will be of little consequence.”
“If you say so.”
Si proved true to his word. Josh trod unchallenged through empty corridors until the door to ops loomed before him. There was no guard posted outside – why would there be? Josh was one man and on the run; Weiss had nothing to fear from him.
The door slid open at his approach and he strode through without breaking stride, to be confronted by surprised stares – not least from his own team – and hastily raised weapons.
Weiss was the first to recover. “Well, seen sense at last, have you?”
“Something like that.”
Josh must have sounded a lot more confident than he felt, because a flicker of doubt crossed Weiss’ face. “What have you been up to, Daker? Why pull a vanishing act like that and then simply stroll back into our arms?”
Josh smiled, enjoying the FCF man’s discomfort. “You’ll know soon enough.”
He could only hope that was true.
“Search him!” Weiss snapped.
The nearest two troopers started towards him, but before they could take more than a step in his direction, they were brought up short by the strangest sound.
It emanated from Weiss. Somewhere between a howl and a scream, it spoke of torment and agony and had no right issuing from a human throat. It was the single most chilling thing Josh had ever heard. As the sound
continued, Weiss’ face started to alter; his cheeks sagged, his left eye dropped beneath the right, so that his whole face seemed to list to one side, sliding downward and extending – surely his jaw must have dislocated for his mouth to open so unfeasibly wide. At that moment Josh actually felt sorry for the FCF man – nobody deserved this.
Was this the ‘plan’? “Si, what are you doing?” he yelled.
There was no reply. The FCF commander’s whole visage appeared to be melting. And still that inhuman sound persisted.
Then Weiss began to smolder. Abruptly, mercifully, the blood-chilling sound cut off.
Flames licked upward from his clothes, from his arms and legs and shoulders. In a split second the skin of Weiss’ face charred and peeled away, revealing a brief glimpse of bone beneath before his whole head, his entire body, was engulfed in flame.
People had started to edge away almost as soon as the eerie cry started, a slow retreat that now became a mad scramble, scientists and soldiers alike. One of the FCF men – young, panicked, horrified – brought his gun to bear on the apparition and fired.
“Stop that!” Josh yelled. The thing that had been Weiss appeared oblivious to the attack, but Josh didn’t want to antagonize it or risk someone getting hit by stray bullets. “Everybody stay calm,” he added, as much for his own benefit as anyone else’s.
No more shots were fired. An older trooper had stepped across and forced the barrel of his less experienced colleague’s gun downward. The younger man appeared to be in shock, which seemed a wholly reasonable reaction.
Josh hadn’t been present when Sol, Earth’s sun, had taken possession of some humans in order to communicate, but he had seen recordings and studied eyewitness accounts time and again – given his field of expertise, how could he not? He had little doubt that they were now witnessing something similar. Not the same, though. Those bodies had been rapidly consumed, whereas this one seemed almost… stable. The heat being generated was ferocious, however. Even from the far side of ops it was almost intolerable.
“Welcome,” the figure said in Si’s voice. “I have been alone for so long… Welcome.”
“Who are you?” Josh asked again.
He caught Souza watching him with... what… approval? He suddenly realized they were all looking to him, all the humans.
“I have been searching your ship’s databanks for a suitable epithet. You may call me Odin.”
“Odin?” The all-father: benevolent, all knowing, King of the Gods.
Josh was already reassessing recent events in the light of this revelation: another sentient sun. He recalled Si’s first communication with him: ‘Run!’ Monosyllabic. That was followed by simple commands or suggestions of no more than two or three words. Only as time passed did his interactions with Si become more sophisticated – not much time perhaps, but such things are relative. Enough condensed minutes, it would seem, for an alien intelligence to ransack the computer’s records and start to master human idiom and speech patterns.
“The escape,” Josh said, “all that running to the cryodecks for camouflage, was that just to buy you time, so that you could familiarize yourself with the ship’s systems and with humanity?”
“Partly that, yes.”
Partly, so what else? The Extreme Endurance was hurtling towards the habitable world and its sun the whole while. Was that it? Had Odin been forced to show its hand while the ship was at the extreme range of influence? Had a distraction been required to bring the ship closer so that the sun could act more effectively?
“I have waited for so long,” Odin said.” You have no idea what it’s like to be a sentient alone in the vastness of space. At last, intelligent life has come to me again.”
The fiery figure still maintained its integrity but had made no effort to move, which caused Josh to wonder if it could. Perhaps even god-like suns had their limitations. He shuddered to think of the damage the intense heat must be doing to the sensitive instruments around them.
“You say ‘again,’ so a sentient race has been here before?” Josh said.
“Yes, the race native to the fertile world you have detected,” Odin replied.
“What happened to them?”
“Pride, stupidity, arrogance. They destroyed themselves and very nearly their planet. It has taken untold centuries to heal the wounds and establish a healthy ecology once more.”
“And yet you would welcome us to this world, even knowing what the last intelligent race did?”
“I was too indulgent with them. I will not be so with you.”
That sounded ominous. Josh glanced towards the others. No one else had attempted to speak; they were all relying on him. His next question, though, was personal.
“Why did you choose to help me when FCF took us captive?”
“Because you were better than Weiss.” Talk about damning with faint praise. “There were two opposing figures of authority,” Odin continued, “you and Weiss. He was a zealot, dedicated and determined. You were the more reasonable, the more open-minded. You I could work with. Weiss had to go.”
It sounded so simple when put like that. What did it matter that Weiss and his men held the upper hand? That was a temporary imbalance which could soon be corrected, and Odin was clearly looking at the long game.
“What about Wallace and the government team in cryo?” Josh said carefully. “I’m not the ultimate authority here.”
“You are if I say you are.”
Josh decided to let that go for now and return to the wider issues. Odin seemed content to answer questions for the moment, and he couldn’t afford to waste the opportunity. “Once we reach your world, once we settle there, what exactly do you expect from us?”
“I wish merely the pleasure of experiencing a sentient race interacting and thriving, the warmth of knowing I am no longer alone in the universe. The joy of seeing your civilization flourish.”
“Flourish under your watchful eye.”
“Indeed.”
“And that’s all you’ll ever ask of us?”
“I tire of these questions.”
Before Josh could frame a response, the heat from the figure intensified, reaching out to wash over those present in a prolonged wave. Against his will, Josh felt his legs buckle. He staggered and dropped to his knees, aware that those around him were doing the same.
“You will, of course, worship me.”
Ian Whates Biography
Ian Whates is a writer and editor of science fiction, fantasy, and occasionally horror. He is the author of seven novels (four space opera and three urban fantasy with steampunk overtones), the co-author of two more (military SF), has seen sixty-odd of his short stories published in a variety of venues, and is responsible for editing around thirty anthologies. His work has been shortlisted for the Philip K Dick Award and twice for BSFA Awards. His novel Pelquin’s Comet, first in the Dark Angels sequence, was an Amazon UK #1 best seller, and his work has been translated into Spanish, German, Hungarian, Czech and Greek. Ian served a term as a director of SFWA (the Science Fiction Writers of America) and is a director of the BSFA (the British Science Fiction Association) an organisation he chaired for five years. In 2006 Ian founded multiple award-winning independent publisher NewCon Press by accident.
www.newconpress.co.uk
Fleeing the Fire
By Ralph Kern
Shafts of blazing light speared out of the bays, superstructure and windows of High York. Then monolithic chunks drifted apart, explosions rocking them as the vast station lost integrity.
For all the destruction, amid all the chaos, there would still be people alive within. People fighting to get to an escape pod. People struggling towards a loved one to clutch them close. Or people simply facing their fate with stoicism or despair as the burning fires reached for them, or the ice cold of the vacuum took them.
Not that I had time to dwell. I thrust the stick to the left, gritting my teeth through the punishing multiple gravities of acceleration as I weaved between t
he rotating metal ruins of the station. Green pulses of whatever that alien bastard behind me used for ammunition lanced by, missing my Hellcat fighter by mere meters, the explosions adding to the bedlam we were fighting in.
“I’m on him. Jink right and cut thrust…. Now.”
I slammed the stick over, the fighter groaning in protest even as my muscles screamed in pain. Then I hauled back on the throttle. The black arrowhead of the alien ship flickered past. A moment later it exploded, its constituent parts joining the roiling, tumbling fog of debris. Another fighter, one of ours, thundered silently past.
“Thanks,” I gasped, fighting for breath. My chest felt like one big bruise from all of the combat maneuvering.
“Gotta keep you in one piece, Cunning,” Lieutenant Colonel Carter Hayes called. “Status board tells me you have our last torpedo.”
I didn’t have the time or inclination for a witty comeback. Instead, I throttled back up. Space itself was an orange haze as light reflected from the debris, bodies, and spilled gases. Before me, the last few human ships twisted and turned in a desperate fight. An ever-gathering cloud of the enemy surrounded them. Below us, Earth lay in ruins. Huge swathes of the night side were on fire. The day side, rather than green and blue, was a sphere filled with dirty gray smoke.
Two huge ships had hauled up next to each other, giving each other what in nautical terms would be a broadside. Thousands of flashes, beams and pulses exchanged between them.
“That’s your tasking. We need to do what we can to take the heat off of Defiant,” Hayes announced.
With the amount of firepower those two behemoths were exchanging, one extra torpedo wasn’t likely to make a difference.
Unless it went into the right spot.
If that alien ship had focused all her integrity fields into the side facing Defiant, then the other just might be vulnerable.
The remains of our squadron raced forwards. Flashes of light zipped by. An explosion bloomed, and I flinched as a Hellcat on my wing turned into an expanding fan of wreckage.
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