Jill hated being right. If the Remolans had retreated of their own accord, the navy had nothing to fight them for. And even if the Grangar had done the trick, how would they apply the same logic to thousands of small openings? Belinda was celebrated for pushing back the Remola. Jill tried to ask carefully, ‘So, what’s your gut feeling about all of this?’
Belinda pulled a wicked smile. ‘It’s all under control.’
Chapter Twenty
Berossus stared at the distant blanket of stars as the Abyss screamed on full propulsion under his father’s control. They had pinched once from Tabou and were now preparing for the next pinch that would take them to Dawn Central, between the stars Liger and YX-2. Efia had been with them in the cockpit during the pinch, but had gone back to one of the cabins.
He had always thought that his father had died, that he had been an engineer like him, but in the past few days he had learned he was alive, a monster-hunter, and now was on a spaceship with him to stop the most powerful monster ever, the rogue Shade goddess Nenetl.
Oberen Dengo was almost exactly like he had imagined, albeit older and scruffier, perhaps. Staring into space as he thought, he also reminded Berossus of himself in the way that he didn’t talk much.
Berossus said, ‘Why did you leave us?’
Oberen grunted, seemingly reluctant to talk about it. ‘OK, but you must understand that if there had been any other way, I would’ve taken it. There wasn’t, and I loved you too much. So, I had to leave you and your mother for good.’
‘I don’t understand. Why?’
‘I made a deal with the Thaqaran. I paid a price, and they kept their side of the bargain. You were safe.’
‘Who are the Thaqaran?’
‘They’re nasty creatures that move freely across the multiverse. My friend, Jilius, took another route. He wasn’t going to bargain with the beasts, as he called them, but instead he waged war—which he had no way of winning.’
There was a moment of silence between them, as Oberen stopped to stare into space, and Berossus recalled things he had heard from Henning about Jilius Dal.
‘Whoa!’ Oberen shouted, making Berossus jump. ‘What just happened?’
It was on the view in front of them. Black spots covered the starscape in blotches, and from those spots emerged a group of glistening spaceships.
‘The Remola,’ Efia said behind them, as if she had always been there. ‘But these look different.’
Berossus had only seen the Remolan ships in the newsfeed. Whereas those had been humongous, these were smaller, and seemed nimbler. Beside him, as far as Berossus could understand from the dashboard, Oberen raised the power level to maximum, slowed the ship down, and directed more power to the shields and the weapons.
One bigger ship hung in the centre, with four others around it. They moved forward so slowly they were practically at a standstill. And in a moment, the Abyss was, too.
‘They’re scanning us,’ Oberen said. ‘And I’m scanning them… look at these readings! As if they have no power, but yet somehow they do.’
Efia said, ‘The previous ships showed no crew, but these have crew.’
Berossus read the scanner’s data on the screen, and it was baffling. ‘They’re humans?’
‘That’s what it seems,’ Oberen said. Then the main monitor blinked. ‘The big one is hailing us.’
‘We should welcome the opportunity to converse,’ Efia said.
‘What if—’ Berossus said, but Oberen had already opened the line. On the comms screen was the helmeted face of a human cyborg.
‘Come with us and we will do you no harm,’ the cyborg said.
‘Come with you to where?’
‘We will return to New Citadel.’
Oberen turned to Berossus. He shrugged. He had no knowledge of the place.
‘You may return in peace,’ Oberen said, clicking feverishly on the targeting system, ‘but without us. The Abyss can blow you out of space faster than you can say chuckamuckachoochaka.’
The cyborg seemed confused. ‘Chuckamuck—’
Oberen fired five missiles. As they swirled towards their targets, he pulled up and pushed the thrust to the max. The alien ships vanished from the frontal view, but remained on the tactical screens. ‘The Abyss is a tough slate. Those pirates won’t know what hit them.’ Oberen turned the ship fast, making the stars twirl in the view.
The missiles hit their targets. The screens that focused on the enemy ships showed that three of the smaller ones exploded, one went dark, but the big one remained.
‘That’s got to be some heavy shielding,’ Oberen said, and looked at the analysis screen for the missile. ‘The Fulcrum-missiles rip through everything with shields below level six. OK, I get it. They destroyed the missile, which is also a pretty darn difficult thing to do!’
Berossus held on tight as Oberen turned the ship to face the cyborgs’ alien ships.
The cyborg on the screen said, ‘I warned you.’
Berossus wondered what he had meant, but understood it as a green beam shot forth from the biggest ship, and every screen aboard the Abyss went dark. Only the dark amber emergency lights remained. ‘What was that?’
‘Don’t know,’ Oberen said, pulling levers and flipping switches. ‘Some kind of disabling beam, for all I know.’
Berossus stood up. ‘I’ll run to the engine room. Perhaps I can do an override.’
‘It’s not a simple thing to do.’
‘I’m a spaceship mechanic by trade.’.
Efia smiled, but Oberen stared at him wide-eyed. ‘That’s great, kid. That’s great.’
Berossus wanted to show his father that he wasn’t just some little mommy’s boy. He had been in tight spots before, and he could do this.
The ship was small, and the engine room was more of a closet under the main corridor. Even in the low amber lighting, Berossus found the hatch under his feet, and climbed down the tight shaft. Luckily the engine room was wider than the shaft. The floor clanked as Berossus touched down.
The engine itself was behind a transparent wall, its core shining through the black protection layer and indicating that it was fully functional. Everyone still called them engines, even though they were more like congregators of energy—making a needle hole in the fabric of space and pulling another edge close by and then expanding it long enough for a ship to pass through. Even so, a modern engine core was an impressive demonstration of engineering and physics beyond Berossus’s capabilities.
He pulled open the control unit on the wall beside the view to the core.
It seemed as though the core systems were off-line: they weren’t requesting any power from the engine, so it didn’t give them any. But on the diagnostic panel everything was on-line. Berossus rebooted one of the systems, the drive, and waited for the cycle to finish.
The diagnostic panel showed the engine off-line, then powering, and… it got stuck.
‘They’re pulling us in,’ Oberen said through the intercom. ‘If there’s something you can do, do it fast.’
The life support got its power thorough a backup energy network—the diagnostics confirmed this. So, the blast had probably only damaged the main network, though Berossus couldn’t see anything wrong with it. It puzzled him, but he needed a solution and quick.
Perhaps the diagnostic itself was faulty; to test it, he tried routing the main system’s energy to the backup network. The only challenge was that it wasn’t built for the propulsion thrusters, weapons and shields; he would risk breaking the power line. This was a conflict situation, however, and he wanted to prove himself to his father.
So, he made the new energy routing through the control panel and engaged the energy through to the backup network.
The lights flickered on and the core systems came online with a rumble.
His father’s voice came through the intercom. ‘I don’t know what you did, son, but it’s working!’
That he had called him son, made Berossus turn the sides of his
mouth into a smile.
But his joy was short-lived. The lights flickered, the rumbling died down, and then it was all quiet and dim again. The control panel showed the emergency cut-off had engaged and shut off the energy.
‘I’m sorry,’ Berossus said into the intercom.
His father didn’t reply.
Berossus clambered back to the cockpit, only to see the alien ship fill the front view, a dark hole in the middle, into which they were drawn. Close by, the ship’s surface was glistening with a number of smaller sinews coalescing with bigger ones, like the knit of a rope. From what he had heard, this was what the Remolan ships had looked like.
‘We’re not going down without a fight,’ Oberen said, unbuckling himself from the seat.
Berossus took a deep breath. ‘The Remolans are tough.’
‘Believe me, I’ve fought worse. Besides, unless you can engineer us out of here, there’s only one way to go. We’re not going to wait here for them to open this can and eat us. So, can you get us moving?’
He couldn’t. Escape was no option, but from what he knew of the Remola, he wasn’t comfortable with facing them, either. His father was right, though—they couldn’t just wait for them to crack their ship. He felt a blush on his cheeks.
‘So, we agree, then?’ Oberen said. ‘Let’s get down to the hold; there’s everything we need in those crates.’
Berossus nodded, but Efia looked concerned. ‘Getting yourself killed now won’t help our cause.’
Oberen stopped and seemed to consider what she’d said. ‘Yes, I agree. Son, let’s be sure not to get killed.’ He headed out.
Efia sighed. As Berossus was walking past her, she grabbed him by the shoulders, and said, ‘Look at me.’
He stopped and looked into her green eyes, into the irises that seemed to move like the storm clouds over Heeg. ‘Remember earlier,’ she said, ‘when I said that I fixed you, made you able to set your foot on a planet?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Know that I didn’t do it.’
‘Huh?’
‘You believed you wouldn’t change, so you didn’t.’
Berossus gave a dry laugh. ‘I’m sure you did something. I’ve always changed.’
‘What I did,’ she said, ‘was to change your mind about who you are.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
She tilted her head forward and smiled. ‘Quite the contrary; you did believe and that’s why you didn’t change.’ Her expression turned serious. ‘Now you know I mediate, but sometimes you need to set the scene before any mediation can happen. You know what I mean?’
‘Maybe … no … not really.’
‘What I’m trying to say is, if you run into people you cannot talk with, or run from, and facing them is the only option, you can call upon your power and change at will.’
Berossus took a deep breath. It sounded great, but he felt like nothing had changed. ‘How can I—’
‘Come on!’ his father shouted.
‘You go now,’ Efia said, and patted his back, the warmth of her hand radiating through his jacket.
Berossus ran through the small corridor and down into the garage space where his father had opened one of the crates. Inside were all kinds of devices: small ones, big ones, sharp ones, and… weird ones. ‘Monster hunting stuff?’
‘Yeah,’ he said with a grin. ‘What do you know of the enemy?’
Berossus realised he didn’t know too much. One thing he did know: ‘I hear plasma bolts only give them more energy.’
‘Confirms my suspicion. We’ll go with silver-bulleted guns, then,’ he said, taking two guns from a crate and tossing one to Berossus. He pointed to another crate. ‘Also take an electro-sword—keep it unpowered—and a shield—’
The ship shook with a heavy metal clank.
‘We’ve docked,’ he said. ‘We have to be fast—grab what you can and take up station behind the crates.’
Berossus did as his father said. He also grabbed a bunch of ball bombs, though he had no idea what they did. Carrying everything, he took a position behind the third crate, and checked his weapon. Silver bullets for Remolan creatures… let’s see.
A sudden explosion flashed and shook the cargo space floor.
Berossus peeked around the corner of the crate. The platform door was blasted open, and through the vanishing smoke, troops stomped in. He got a glimpse of them: something black and glistening with gleaming metal parts, like alien cyborgs, carrying heavy weaponry.
Efia stayed back, and Berossus agreed: the only form of mediation they would engage in was guns and bombs.
His father mimicked a throwing motion, and Berossus understood. He grabbed one of the ball bombs, activated it in his palm, and hurled it over the crate towards the aliens.
There was a muffled puff, unlike the explosion he had expected.
He peeked around the corner to find the mob was covered in a mass of sticky white spiderwebs. His father jumped out from behind the crate and shot at the aliens.
The metal plates of the cyborgs deflected the silver bullets, but the ones that hit the alien flesh went through, maiming the cyborgs tangled in the spiderwebs, screeching.
Berossus was amazed. The silver bullets worked!
He stepped out from behind the crate, gun at the ready, and shot a few rounds at the aliens. In a moment, their movement ceased in a heap of glistening black metal and dirty synthetic spiderweb.
‘Let’s move,’ Oberen said, pointing to the door.
From outside came a green glow.
It was a soothing colour.
Berossus looked at the gun in his hands: a killing machine. He was better off without such a thing. His father stepped into the doorway and down the ramp. His weapon clanked on the metal as it fell from his hands.
Berossus also dropped his weapon and followed his father towards the green.
The light felt so good, but deep in his mind he knew something was wrong. He stepped slowly towards the slithering black creatures as his mind faded away. The light was enticing, and resisting its call was arduous, but also pointless. Giving in had never felt so good.
Chapter Twenty-One
Evie opened her eyes to a dim room. Naido and Wolfe—the ‘hunter’ who had saved them—sat around a small round table. She yawned and rubbed her eyes.
‘You slept for a full six hours,’ Naido said.
Evie remembered getting some recovery pills from him, but had no recollection after that. They must have done the trick, because her exhaustion was gone. They had come a long way from Runcor without sleep. She had found Gus—
‘Where’s the chip?’ she said, patting down her pockets.
Gus said it was important, and now it’s gone!
‘I believe you had it in your jacket,’ Wolfe said, pointing at a small clothes hanger.
She jumped up, grabbed her jacket, and pushed her hand into the pocket. There it was. She pulled it out: a small matte-grey piece of metal with sharp edges.
‘Sit down, have some tea,’ Wolfe said.
After the craziness in the massage parlour, Wolfe had led them somewhere deep on a low level of a massive monolithic building in the former Sweeps area of the city. Evie was still perplexed about the whole ordeal. She took a teacup. ‘Thanks, Wolfe.’
‘I’m Reina.’
‘Cool. I’m Evie.’
Reina smiled. ‘I know. Naido told me all about how you helped him and Daler Tait.’
‘I wouldn’t be here without her,’ Naido said.
‘Is that supposed to be a good thing?’ Evie said.
Naido winced. ‘And did I mention she’s droll, too?’
Reina’s lips remained tight. The wrinkles on her forehead and the diagonal scar across her face accentuated her hard expression, which the freckles on her cheeks were unable to soften. ‘The Vereen are on the move with the Remola, and it’s happening faster than I imagined. The chip you have is the Starbearer.’
‘You know about it?’ Evie asked.
‘The small thing in your hands has stored within it the blueprint—like DNA is the blueprint of all living creatures—of our universe, its laws and its direction. It’s the work of no other than August Tierna.’
‘You know Gus?’
For the first time, her expression softened. ‘We did a fair amount of data harvesting together, back in the day.’
‘Everyone seems to know him.’
‘But he never took disciples,’ Naido said. ‘That’s what makes you special.’
‘I guess. He’s never talked about other students of his, but he’s been the best teacher ever, ever since he…’
‘He’s all right,’ Reina said. ‘He looks like a frail old man, well, he is old, but not frail— you’d be surprised. In fact, his position within Marc’s compound is perfect. But he needs your help—he asked you to do something inside Momentum 6, didn’t he?’
‘How do you know?’ Evie asked.
‘I followed you, and when you spoke with Fuu, I had the connection tapped. But it was askew, and I couldn’t see everything.’
Evie nodded, wondering if she could trust her. Why was she following me? The holographic image of Gus had asked her to enter Momentum 6 and gather some of the friends in their League group to visit a far-off spot.
‘Do you know of a safe place for me to enter Momentum 6?’
‘I do. Right here.’ Reina pointed to the chair at the side of the room. While most people these days preferred presence rooms—if they had the means—the ‘Chair’, like the one Reina had, was perhaps the most popular way to connect.
‘You mind if I…?’
‘No, knock yourself out.’
Evie stepped over to the chair and sat down. She placed her feet on the footrests and picked up the helmet from the side. It covered her ears and eyes, and she adjusted the brain-connecting taps on her temples. Happy with the fit, she placed her arms on the armrests and pressed the button under her thumb.
Her body went numb.
The identity check flashed before her eyes and she found herself floating in the middle of her interface—a massive three-dimensional space she had created with help from Gus. The only thing she had to do was to launch Momentum 6, which she did by the power of thought.
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