by D. M. Pruden
Holding Stella, he pulled his way back through the hatchway to return to his docked vessel.
As he passed the passage leading to the engineering section, he thought he heard voices shouting. He called out repeatedly, but nobody responded.
Realizing Stella needed oxygen, he decided to get her to his ship before he returned to search for more survivors.
Once aboard, he settled her into a seat and applied the emergency O2 mask. Her ragged breathing eased. Despite his gentle effort to rouse her, she would not respond. Inspecting her for injuries, he found none, not even a mark on her head that would explain her unconsciousness.
Hayden was a loss as to what to do for her.
As he considered leaving her to go search for other survivors, an alarm sounded on the pilot’s console. The confusing readout showed elevated neutrino and graviton particle densities.
Only when the ship lurched and metal screeched in complaint did he realize what was happening. They were being pulled into the gravity well of the black hole.
Settling into the pilot seat, he thought he might be able to stabilize their position with his ship’s engines. The computer, however, quickly persuaded him of the futility of his plan. The power necessary to pull them back out to a safe distance was beyond his small vessel’s rating.
With no real choice available, he released the docking clamps and fired his main thrusters at full burn. He prayed he wasn’t too late to escape the same fate as Scimitar.
The overtaxed engines screamed. The tiny vessel fought to overcome the deadly grip of gravity. Perspiration dripped from Hayden’s brow as the temperature in the cabin rose. The whine of the straining power plant was deafening.
Little by little, his ship increased the distance between the vessels. His engines complained loudly, and he was worried the stresses would rip the vessel apart.
Finally, the emergency alarm stopped, indicating he had escaped danger. He shut down everything to to let it all cool and checked the rear-view screen.
Inexorably, Scimitar fell toward the event horizon. Within a few seconds it would pass into a place from which even light couldn’t escape. If anyone remained alive, they wouldn’t realize what happened to them as time slowed to a crawl under the tremendous gravitational distortion of space and time.
With a sudden brilliant blue-green flash, Scimitar vanished. Hayden had never witnessed anything plunge into a black hole before. Perhaps the flare was a response of the ship’s jump engine core as it crossed the event horizon.
He wiped a tear from his cheek as he took a moment to remember the gallant crew of the Scimitar. No monuments would ever be built for them, because the story of their sacrifice would never be heard. Only Hayden knew, but now, trapped across the galaxy, he couldn’t tell anyone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Explanations
A COUGH FROM the rear of the ship roused him from his musing, and he hurried to Stella’s side. She struggled to remove the oxygen mask. Her eyelids fluttered as she fought to awaken.
“Easy there,” said Hayden as he replaced the breathing apparatus. “Let’s keep that on for a few more minutes.”
She calmed at the sound of his voice and relaxed back into the pillow. Slowly, she forced her eyes open and tried to focus on him. With a joyful gasp, she wrapped her arms about his neck, burying her face in his shoulder.
After a long moment, he gently broke the embrace to look at her tear-streaked face.
“Where are we?” Her voice was muffled by the mask.
“We’re on your ship,” he said.
“The others?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t find anyone else alive.”
“I thought I would never see you again.” Her tears began anew.
“I thought the same,” he said, going on to explain how he found her. “What happened aboard Scimitar?”
She removed the respirator and closed her eyes. Wiping the wetness from her cheeks, she sat up and looked into Hayden’s eyes. “The battle was not going well. Captain Pavlovich and Gunney managed to damage or destroy a number of their ships, but there were too many of them...I’m sorry, so much happened...it all blurs together...”
“Take your time.” He tried to reassure her with his smile.
“What I vividly remember is, one moment the captain was cursing, and the next the bridge was filled with shouting, flames, and smoke. Hayden, it was horrifying! All I could sense, see, or hear was chaos. Everyone’s panic seemed to crash down on top of me. And there was the other presence that rose above it all.”
“The Malliac.”
She nodded. “They hung over everything. The malice—the pure hatred—it tightened about me. I thought it would overwhelm me.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks. “It was the crew who saved me. I clung to every dying echo of human emotion from them. They were my only anchor. No matter how terrifying, sharing their experiences was infinitely more bearable than facing the Malliac.”
“I don’t understand—”
“They enveloped me like a toxic cloud, until they were the only thing that seemed to exist. Imagine being smothered by something so totally alien that there is no human experience to describe it. I couldn’t tell if I still breathed or if my heart was beating. All I knew was that they fed off me; feasted on all the fear and terror from every crew member that flowed into me. I sensed more and more of them join in their violation of me in a perverse feeding frenzy.”
Hayden wrapped his arms around her. She sobbed into his shoulder and her words poured forth. “I was an exposed nerve. The slightest emotion from anyone around me who was still alive stung like a thousand whips. I couldn’t do anything to make it stop; I tried to recall a happy memory—something that might anchor me to my humanity. I fought to remember Papa’s stories about my mother.”
Her eyes were wide as she relived her violation. “It wasn’t fear or terror or anger or agony they wanted. Hayden, I was so wrong!”
She clung to him and shivered as she agonizingly relived her experience.
“It was me. I was like an addictive drug to them, and they couldn’t get enough. They would drain me of my experiences and abilities until nothing remained, and still hunger for more.
“I knew in that moment that if they ever gained access to the greater part of humanity, there would be no stopping them. They had learned what was possible because of their connection to me. Next time, I knew they wouldn’t need an empath to satisfy their addiction. Every living person would become prey, and humankind would be hunted into extinction, ripped apart from the inside, with no defence.”
Her breathing slowed, and with it her shaking. She looked up at him with an unfamiliar, frightening expression. Inconsolable grief and guilt battled with a triumph and satisfaction. Gazing at her, he realized what had happened to the Malliac.
“You told them, ‘no’ again,” he said softly.
Her eyes widened in recollection. She shook her head sadly. “It wasn’t like the last time. That time I wanted to protect you more than anything else. Then all I could think of then was my love for you. I thought it was the strength of that emotion that countered and overcame my fear and destroyed them. I was so wrong.”
“Then what was it?”
She broke from his embrace and moved away from Hayden, as if repelled by his touch.
“Everyone around me was dead. I was alone. Pavlovich thought you failed your mission, and I allowed myself to be convinced there was no way you survived. I believed him because I couldn’t sense you.”
“Stella, that is an easy enough thing to believe, given the distance—”
“You don’t understand. I can always feel you. Even when you docked with the station and went inside, I felt your fear; your anger and regret.”
“Then, wha—?”
“When the Malliac overwhelmed me, I lost that connection. It was easy to succumb to the notion you had died, and I despaired. The only thing I wanted was to strike back in revenge, and that is what I did. I g
ave them access to everything. I held nothing of me back, including my will for them to pay for taking your life.”
Silence fell between them. He tried to digest the magnitude of what she had said.
“It’s my fault,” she said between sobs.
“You can’t take responsibility for what those aliens wanted.”
“Yes, I can. I must accept the truth.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I lied to you. I’ve been able to control my power since I was a little girl. How do you think we survived all these years?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid of losing you if you found out about me.”
He thought she exaggerated, still emotionally drained from her experience. “What are you talking about?”
“We didn’t spend our lives cowering from the Malliac,” she said. “Once Father learned what I could do, he turned the tables on them. We began to hunt them, using the singularities we recovered as bait to draw them in. Then it was my job to destroy them. It was so easy. It was like simply being near me was fatal to them.”
“I...” Hayden searched for words.
She said, “You don’t know what it’s like to touch them. In the early days, they had no first-hand experience with humans. When they encountered me, an empath, a door opened for them that they couldn’t resist entering. I was a highly addictive drug for them, and it was easy for me to give them a fatal dose of what they craved.”
“What changed?”
“They grew more resistant. What once satisfied them was no longer enough, and I had to allow them to access deeper emotions and experiences to achieve the same effect. After each incident, I required more time to recover and to regain my familiarity with my humanity. I changed, and as time progressed, through every encounter, those Malliac who didn’t die gained some of my knowledge.
“Through me they came to understand my father’s research to break into the jump-gate station. Eventually, Papa realized the danger I was. He broke off the hunt, and we went into hiding. He kept me sedated so they couldn’t find me, but the damage was already done. They had everything they needed to hack the jump-gate.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Father wanted it to remain a secret, and after I got to know you, I was too ashamed to mention it. I didn’t think they were able to use the information they took from me.”
“It was you who tipped off the Glenatat?”
She nodded. “They learned about it when they first scanned me. They analyzed the data and determined that the Malliac were capable of accessing jump space.”
He wandered back to the pilot’s station. The monitor still displayed the dead armada.
Stella joined him and stood just out of arm’s reach. She looked at him with heartbreak in her eyes, began to speak but stifled herself.
He turned and embraced her. Pulling her close, he kissed the top of her head. They stared at where Scimitar had once been. Part of him hoped if he waited long enough, the ship would pop back into existence.
“We stopped them. There was an enormous price for that victory, but at least humanity can go on to rebuild.”
“But it cost you everything.”
He smiled, marvelling at his reaction to her words. “It just doesn’t seem all that important any more.”
He didn’t know how many of the aggressive alien race still existed, but they were still a threat. Thankfully, they, like everyone else now, was relegated to slower-than-light travel. With luck, the messengers the Glenatat had returned home got the word out to enough of the colony worlds about the danger. It would be more than a decade before the Malliac expansion reached the nearest human populated planet. Perhaps, forewarned, humanity would be able to defend itself from the inevitable arrival.
As far as he was concerned, his part in the fight was over. His life was now predetermined in an entirely different way. Now he was marooned in an inaccessible star system, with no chance of ever getting back to his old life. He’d gotten his wish and broken free of his father’s control.
He hugged her tightly. What he gained was nothing he ever expected possible. He hoped he deserved this new life.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
A New Dawn
HAYDEN OPENED THE blinds and blinked at the bright dawn.
“Mmm, is it morning so soon?” Stella rolled over and covered her head with the covers.
Smiling, he returned to the bed and tickled her exposed neck with soft kisses.
“Time to get up, sleepy-head.”
She threw the pillow playfully at him.
He embraced her, both laughing as they wrestled until they fell to the floor.
Lying in each other’s arms, they basked in Mu Arae’s warmth.
“What is Earth like?” she asked.
He paused, a smile on his lips. Not long ago, mention of his now lost home would have dredged up sadness and regret.
“It is a beautiful world—but crowded. Not like here.”
They and a small group of survivors of the Malliac scourge had settled on Ricote, the largest moon orbiting the fourth planet in the system. It was the only body with a breathable atmosphere and near Earth-normal gravity.
“Do you miss it?”
He looked down on her sleepy face and considered the question. “Sometimes.” There was no point in lying to her. “I occasionally wonder about my life that might have been.”
“And?”
He sighed. “I realize how shallow my existence was.”
“So you’re telling me that you are happier being a salvager here with me than you would be ruling an empire?”
He leaned over and kissed her. “I can’t think of any place I would rather find myself.”
She hugged him then got up to go to the toilet.
Hayden rose and made them both some tea.
Steaming cup in hand, he sat down at the terminal. It was his morning ritual to review the sensor record of Scimitar’s final moments. He was determined their sacrifice would never be forgotten, and he made it his mission to purposefully remember every crew member on a regular basis.
Someday their story would be known to the outside world. Whenever a long-distance courier drone was dispatched from Ricote, he ensured that an account of the events was included. It would be decades before anyone read them, but it was all he could do.
Something caught his eye that he hadn’t noticed before. He reran playback to convince himself he hadn’t imagined it.
Slowing the record, he studied every image until the anomaly appeared. Freezing the vid, he examined it using some of the other EM bands.
“What are you doing, Hayden?”
“Stella,” he said excitedly, “look at this.”
He played the enhanced recording for her.
“There. Did you see that? Five milliseconds before Scimitar should have crossed the event horizon, there was a flash in the engine section, and she vanished.”
“What could it mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but they didn’t drop into that black hole.”
“Is it possible the ship survived? That someone was still alive?”
“I really don’t know,” said Hayden, “but it is a hopeful idea, isn’t it?”
OTHER BOOKS BY D.M. PRUDEN
Kaine’s Retribution (Shattered Empire Book 2)
Trapped at the edge of human occupied space, Hayden Kaine languishes in guilt and regret over his role in ending Earth’s interstellar dominance.
When his old ship, the Scimitar, suddenly reappears after being missing for ten years, he seizes the opportunity to rejoin his old companions in the hope of repairing the damage he is responsible for.
Soon, he discovers how much the former Empire is fragmented, as he and his shipmates step into a military conflict in a once peaceful star system.
Facing retribution for what he has done, Kaine and the crew of the Scimitar have one chance to find the only technology that can restore the Emp
ire and save its isolated worlds from tearing themselves apart in civil chaos. If they fail, humanity is doomed to extinction by its own hand.
The Mars Ascendant Series:
The Ares Weapon
Mother of Mars
Child of Mars
Legacy of Mars
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
D.M.(Doug) Pruden worked for 35 years in the petroleum industry as a geophysicist. For most of his life he has been plagued with stories banging around inside his head that demanded to be let out into the world. He currently spends his time as an empty nester in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his long suffering wife of 36 years. When he isn’t writing science fiction stories, he likes to spend his time playing with his granddaughters and working on improving his golf handicap.
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