by Paul Anlee
Greg silently fumed. Yes, the utility of this new “tool” as he’d called it was undeniable. But it was still primarily a weapon being sold as a tool.
I’m not happy to see RAF technology being used to develop weapons but, realistically, what else could I expect? I value the Reverend’s support of Project Vesta. Can I trust his motives?
Kathy broke the silence. “So does this mean we can immediately expand Project Vesta to include Ceres and Pallas? They’d be the next two most obvious target colonies.”
Neither man responded, and she interpreted their hesitation as uncertainty about her proposal. “Oh, come on! This means we can save almost a hundred million people. Not to mention tens of millions more minds that we can instantiate inside Cybrids. It’s perfect!”
“In theory, I would agree,” Greg offered reluctantly.
“Fantastic!” Kathy clasped her hands together and spun around, ecstatic.
Greg quickly added, “But let’s not publicly announce any of these new developments until we’ve discussed them with the PM. People can have a hard time adjusting to new technologies, especially when they’re as radical as these. I mean this is big, maybe even bigger than limitless energy or Cybrids.”
Kathy and the Reverend agreed. Private discussions before public disclosure.
Regardless, she was elated. She wasn’t going to let her joy be diminished by Greg’s caution.
More colony space and better transportation!
Today was a good day.
41
“Well, that’s not what I expected to see.”
Were these words uttered by anyone other than the man-demon-angel Darak, Brother Stralasi might have found it amusing. Coming from his traveling companion, the words filled Brother Stralasi with dread.
He was becoming used to his own state of surprise, confusion, awe, and/or terror every time Darak “shifted” him somewhere new. But throughout their trials and travels, his abductor had remained confident.
Annoyingly, arrogantly, supremely confident.
Stralasi fought the temptation to respond with an uncharitable comment about Darak’s much-touted superiority of knowledge and experience. If something about their surroundings caught Darak off guard, now might not be the best time to speak. He held his tongue and studied their new location.
They’d materialized inside a clean, well-lit, nondescript facility. It looked harmless enough. No Angels, Securitors, people, plants, animals or Cybrids were visible. About one-third of the room was occupied by a black metal cage. He peered inside and beamed with pride on recognizing the silver reflective sphere. Another Soltron Detector!—Stralasi announced quietly to himself.
He could see no immediate danger. Maybe something outside.
He looked for a portal or window. There was a huge one dominating the rock wall behind them. Three distant, yellow suns were visible in it; the window reduced their brilliance so he could look directly at them. Their blazing disks circled one another close enough to rip matter from each others’ surfaces and fling bright coronas outward. The graceful streamers of incandescent gasses mesmerized him.
Three evenly offset ringworlds circled outside the orbital dance of the three suns. Each ring was striped at intervals along the inside edge where sunlight was absorbed by panels that cast night-time shadows on the land far below. “Exquisite!”
It was magnificent, and made even more so because the remainder of the sky was the deepest black Stralasi had ever seen, even deeper than the space near Eso-La. Only the dim twinkle of a few distant lights gave any hint of the remaining universe.
“Where are we?” Stralasi reverent voice echoed in the vast chamber.
“We are as far away from where we were as you can possibly go and still be in Alum’s Realm.”
Sensing Stralasi’s dwindling patience, Darak elaborated. “The area is a large void off the main axis of the Realm that runs between the Virgo Cluster and the Fornax Cluster. The nearest neighboring galaxies are fifteen million light years away. We’re about as far from any part of the Realm as one can be in explored space.”
“Then perhaps that explains why I’ve never heard of three suns in one system. I’m sure the Alumita would have mentioned such a thing in my astronomy courses.”
“No, this is unique,” Darak answered. “Even in my extensive travels, I’ve never encountered such an astronomical oddity anywhere else, a trio of same-sized stars in stable orbit around each other. I’m not at all sure how the physics of the arrangement works; I suspect it might not be completely natural.”
“Not completely natural?”
Darak smiled. “We might be looking at one of Alum’s greatest works…before his current planned destruction of everything, that is.”
He walked up to the window. “This is a rogue system, the single solar system equivalent to the ESO galaxy. Even I couldn’t figure out a reasonable explanation for how the system formed or how it came to be here. These are the only stars in this section of the void. The few lights you see are not individual stars; there are none bright enough within viewing range. Those are other galaxies.”
“I’ve viewed images of every one of the thirty-four ringworlds in Alum’s Realm, including the two double ones. I’ve never seen anything like this. Why would Alum construct such a place here on the edge of civilization?”
“I would think that’s obvious, in retrospect.”
Stralasi sighed. He hated having information meted out in dribs and drabs, having to wheedle and cajole everything important out of the man-demon that had tricked him away from his Founding work.
He thought about how far away from most of the Realm he was at the moment. He remembered Darak’s surprise when they first materialized in the chamber. Apparently, he wasn’t all-knowing. “You didn’t expect the ringworlds to be here?” he said, a hint of triumph in his voice.
“I admit that was a surprise,” admitted Darak. “They weren’t here when I constructed this research station some twenty-five million years ago. The rogue trinity of suns was interesting enough to justify building this place. I simply tagged along with my detector. It seemed like a good place for a measurement, being above the plane of the Local Sheet. Plus, it was a quiet place to go when I wanted seclusion.
“I would’ve predicted the ringworlds had I’d given it a moment’s thought back then. At the time, it wasn’t a certainty Alum would prevail in the war against the Aelu. One can only surmise He thought it best to create a safe haven in case the battles turned against Him. It’s far enough away from the Virgo cluster to make an excellent retreat. Yes, in hindsight, it’s an obvious location for constructing a system of ringworlds. The system was full of convenient-sized planetoids for readily available building material.”
“Do you think there are people living there?”
“Likely a few hundred billion. Enough to provide basic caretaker functions and keep the ecosystem functioning. There’s probably enough room to house everyone living in the entire Virgo Cluster if needed, though I suspect a much smaller, select group would have been invited in the case of defeat by the Aelu.”
“Mmm.” Stralasi nodded as if he understood; he was not going to rise to the bait.
“At any rate, when I referred to the unexpected, I was talking about that,” he said, pointing to the silvery sphere of the Soltron Detector. “When I left here, I’d hoped to get, at most, a few million years of data from it. I built multiple redundancies and self-repair mechanisms into the system, but nothing lasts forever, right? What surprised me and, quite frankly, is causing me some trepidation...”
Stralasi gulped. After all the hair-raising experiences they’d barely survived, what could possibly cause Darak unease?
“...is to find it sitting here in this chamber, perfectly intact and functional after twenty-five million years.”
The Good Brother was confused. “Maybe your repair mechanisms worked better than you thought they would.”
“Ha! I’m a good engineer but I’m not that good.
And that wouldn’t explain why the chamber is pressurized with a breathable atmosphere. Nor why the lights are on.”
“What? I thought you did that.” Stralasi noticed for the first time the absence of their protective bubble.
“No, it wasn’t me,” Darak replied, his voice trailing off.
Stralasi followed his gaze to the clean, shiny surfaces. Everything looked perfectly pristine. Not a thing out of place. No alarms or alerts. He stared quizzically at Trillian.
“In this atmosphere, everything should have corroded long ago. Someone has been looking after this installation.”
“Ah, yes,” the monk agreed.
Darak cocked his head as if listening to some secret whisper. “Probably the same someone who just surrounded us with a Wing of Angels.”
“What?!!” Stralasi’s panicked eyes searched every corner of the room and then the visible space outside the huge window.
“Hmm. Yes, it seems we’ve been discovered. Careless of me,” he added, in an oddly nonchalant tone.
Darak showed no sign of being overly concerned. He wasn’t shifting them away or hustling them for cover. That really worried the Good Brother.
“Well then, why don’t we go somewhere else? Quickly.”
“We can’t, at least not easily.”
“Since when does ‘not easily’ stop you? You’ve done hundreds of things I would have considered impossible for anyone except the Living God.”
“Perhaps I’ve understated our predicament,” Darak responded.
“Understated?” the Good Brother choked out.
“Yes, my analysis indicates that Alum has detected the presence of unauthorized persons here. Given this far-flung and secluded location, He knows we used starstep technology to get here, technology He believes to be exclusive to him.
“Normally, that would point to the Aelu, but this observation lab is clear across the Realm from their home worlds. He would have been alerted if Aelu were on the move.
“The most likely scenario would be that the builder of this facility—which would be me—left some entangled particles here when it was constructed those many millions of years ago. And that would imply that someone besides Himself might have knowledge of starstep technology and could live for tens of millions of years. Clearly, that concerns Him enough to send a Wing. I’m a little surprised He didn’t come in person.”
“So why can’t we just leave? And why are we standing here talking about all this so calmly?”
“Ah, that is the question, indeed. The Angels have surrounded this planetoid with quantum decoherence generators, shift blockers. They make it impossible to navigate in the dematerialized state, even for me. We are trapped in their cage. We can leave but, if we do, we run a significant risk of not finding our way back to the Real Universe. At least, not where we left it. Navigating back to the Realm could prove difficult.”
Stralasi couldn’t understand why Darak was discussing this so calmly. Trapped! We’re trapped, and Alum’s might is about to fall down upon us!
Instinctively, he looked to see if he could find somewhere to hide. He realized how futile that would be; there was no way to hide from Angels, especially not here. He could feel the terror rising in his throat. “Well, what can we do?” he squawked.
“There are several options. I’m modeling multiple scenarios for the best course of action,” replied Darak. “There are a number of ways to hide, for example, by shrinking down to atomic size or integrating into the walls of the chamber. That would only buy us a few minutes. I suspect the Angels have orders to destroy the entire station if they don’t find the intruder. That’s what I would do.
“I could alter a number of physical laws to unleash destructive forces on the Wing. Doing so would hint at my full capabilities a little prematurely for my purposes. I’d like to have all my preparations completed before I’m forced to confront Alum. Otherwise, there will only be a limited number of outcomes possible, most of which would be rather unpleasant.
“That leaves me with one choice. I will have to fight the Wing on Angel terms, as the Fallen Commander. That will raise a lot of questions, no doubt: Where have I been? What have I been doing? How have I upgraded my capabilities? But those can all be answered without recourse to my true nature.”
Darak hung his head. “I hate to kill in such numbers, even Angels, but I think it may be our only way out.”
In an instant, Darak the man was gone and Gabriel the Angel, the Fallen Commander of the Virgo Central Wing, stood majestically in front of Stralasi. He looked down on the trembling Brother and asked, “Now what shall I do with you?”
“You could leave me here,” suggested the monk.
“I don’t think that will work. Perhaps I should shrink you and stick you in my pocket along with the camping set.”
“No! You can’t just carry me around like some trinket while you fight for our survival. I won’t be able to see what’s going on.”
“I can’t have the Angels be aware of you, either. That would reveal too much to Alum too soon. There is one other alternative. You might not like it.”
“What is it?”
“I can mostly remove you from this universe but keep you tethered to reality, literally, by your eyeballs.”
“You’re right. That doesn’t appeal at all.”
“Don’t worry. It’s better than it sounds. If I remove electromagnetic interactions from all the matter of your body except your retina, you will be able to watch the battle without being noticed. I can put a conversion filter between your eyes and your brain so you can see what’s happening. No one would expect to find a pair of eyes floating independently in space. I’ll just have to be sure to position you away from the action.”
“That’s all you can think of?” Stralasi asked, hoping it wasn’t.
When Darak added nothing, the Brother began to fret. Tethered in space? By my eyes? My eyes?
“The Angels are narrowing their confinement to this base. They are working in layers of spheres, like an onion. Each layer is another level of shift blocker we need to penetrate to escape. I should be able to take out two or three shells before they adapt to my first attack. If we’re lucky, maybe I can kill a few hundred of the Angels. That’ll give me a window to place you in space somewhere well away from the main action. Are you ready?”
“Wait! What if you’re defeated? What’ll happen to me?”
Darak looked at Stralasi. The cocky smirk on the Angel’s face spoke volumes. “That outcome is not possible,” he added, redundantly.
“Are you enjoying this? I can’t even begin to think about the blasphemy of killing thousands of Angels. I’m sure my eternity in Hell will be longer than anyone’s.”
Before Darak could answer, a shushing noise on the other side of the detector alerted them to Cybrids arriving in the facility. Darak raised one mercury eyebrow at Stralasi. “Well?”
The Brother sighed, nodded, and was abruptly situated in the blackness of space with all Hell breaking loose around him.
42
Lord Mika was patiently making the rounds, checking on his troops at the stations around Rafael, when he and his entire Wing were ripped across the Realm to an unfamiliar triple star system.
The shift came in three stages, only milliseconds apart. He’d had no knowledge or warning. This was not part of their planning or practice.
Angels were shifted from their assigned solar systems all over the Rafael galaxy into a central location. From the little Mika could see in his brief glimpse, it looked like the Home World system. The perpendicular double ringworlds were recognizable throughout the Realm.
A heads up might have been nice!—Mika grumbled.
Before he could take stock, they were pushed through another starstep onto the dark side of an unidentified ringworld.
As fast as they arrived, they were shifted into battle positions around a nearby asteroid. Their shift blockers and swords were activated automatically.
In less than a dozen millis
econds the entire Wing had traveled over one-hundred and fifty million light years through three star systems, assumed battle formation, and was ready to fight. It took them a further three milliseconds to register they’d been moved.
Mika had a slight advantage, having received a Divine Inspiration directly from Alum while everyone was in transit. He arrived in position with his lattice processor fully up to speed, imprinted with knowledge of their location near this isolated retreat, and of the intruder alert that had brought them here.
He did not recognize or know the purpose of this isolated trinary ringworld around three stars. He didn’t need to know the history of the scientific observation station, nor of the machinery inside it. He needed only to be battle ready, to command the Wing, and to carry out Alum’s orders.
The Wing began closing in on the asteroid. They moved systematically and precisely, as practiced, ensuring each new layer of imprisoning shift blocker was secure before moving inward to form the next.
Lord Mika sent a priority command to the station’s Cybrids to search the asteroid for anyone or anything unexpected. Maintenance, repair, and construction area reports came back clear.
“Concentrate your search in the observation chamber housing the exotic matter detector,” he instructed. He had no idea what an exotic matter detector was. Alum had provided him with a detailed map of the asteroid station, and that’s what the label read. That was enough for his purposes.
The Cybrids came back with a preliminary report: One or more unauthorized intruders have been detected. We are moving closer for identification.
They transmitted an image of an Angel and a Brother standing by a window in a hollowed-out chamber of the asteroid. Then, nothing.
Mika was about to check on the Cybrids himself when the two innermost shells of shift-blocking Angels erupted in action. Within a second after the initial report, over five hundred of his Wing were killed.
“Shields and sinks to maximum!” he commanded. Another hundred Angels were gone before his troops could comply. Because of me. I underestimated the threat—he chastised himself.