by J. N. Chaney
“Look,” Sootriman said, pointing to the right side of the hall. Rubble poured from the collapsed wall like a cold lava flow, black and scabbed. Two of the pillars lay toppled, and sections of the windows had blown out. “That was the doorway to the ramp.”
Awen felt a shiver go up her spine. They’d almost died down there in the rotunda. Even after surviving the explosions, it had almost been their tomb. Were it not for TO-96 digging a way out of the rotunda and into an adjacent building, they would have been trapped forever.
The seven doors, which Awen remembered seeing before, had led to dead ends. TO-96 said they terminated in small foyers. The rooms boasted massive doors, but each set was sealed even beyond Ninety-Six’s ability to punch through. His sensors could not read past them either. Whatever knowledge the Novia had stored behind those doors, they wanted it locked there forever.
“Let’s just keep going.” Awen suppressed a desire to run, and instead, she led the team to the left, picking her way through the debris. Once past the largest fragments left over from the explosion, she noticed a set of doors at the end of the hall. “Look, up ahead,” she said, pointing.
The four explorers arrived at a large set of doors nearly ten meters tall. Splotchy ghosts of their former selves, they were made from silver that had tarnished over the centuries. As with the building’s entrance, another inscription was carved, this time toward the top of the doors themselves.
“‘Ninety-Six?”
“At your service, Awen,” the bot said, projecting the translated text onto the surface.
Awen read it allowed: “When we are one, we are whole. At the center, we find the fish.” She winced. “Fish?”
“Oh, I am sorry,” TO-96 said, the holo-display flickering. “My apologies. I am still learning their language. There.”
“We find the beginning.”
“That’s better,” Sootriman said.
“I don’t know. I could go for some fish right about now,” Ezo replied.
“Would you do the honors?” Awen asked TO-96, indicating the doors.
“My pleasure, Awen.” The bot strode forward, examined the doors, and pushed. At first, the doors resisted the bot, protesting with a groan. TO-96’s servos whined a bit louder. All at once, the sound of a latch coming undone gave way to a sliver of space appearing between the silver doors. The bot took a step forward and spread the doors farther.
Awen followed the bot as he stepped onto a balcony that looked over a room so wide and so deep that the ends of it faded into blackness. Light poured down from a vast array of inverted pyramids built from some sort of glowing glass, their windowed shapes stacked upon one another, moving higher and higher toward the room’s many-storied apex.
Awen thought of the expression, “It takes your breath away.” This sight truly did just that. For as far as she could see, tall double-sided shelves spread from the room’s center, each made of dark wood and translucent windowplex, and trimmed with gold. The effect was dizzying as her intellect tried to rationalize just how many shelves there were. They emanated away from the room’s center, much as a star radiated rays of light away from its core. More and more shelves filled in the ever-expanding space between the rays as the lines moved on.
As far as she could tell, the center of the room was open. The floor contained a beautiful golden shape against a black background. It looked like a ring whose outside edges danced with floral patterns like flares on the surface of a sun. And within the ring stood a lone pedestal of black marble.
“There,” Awen said, pointing to it. “Let’s go.”
The four of them descended either side of the wide double staircases then turned up the aisles, which acted like rays leading from the pedestal. Awen figured each massive shelving case was at least three meters high and contained a myriad of things. The most common item looked to Awen like a data drive, its slender body edged in some sort of gray composite with walls that glowed light blue like the stardrive. Alien text etched in gold ran along each drive’s spine. Occasionally, however, the hundreds of editions on each shelf case were interrupted by a windowed box containing something far more archaic: books and scrolls. She’d only ever read about such items, which dated to antiquity—long before the quantum age. Perhaps she would have time to open one of these boxes and touch the artifacts for herself.
The explorers passed rows and rows of cases, their footfalls on the black marble floor lost in the cavernous room. On and on the shelves went, stretching down either side of their path, broken only by gaps that allowed perusers to access cases farther in. The distance to the next radial lessened as Awen and the others neared the epicenter. Finally, they all arrived at the open space.
Awen realized it was much wider than it had looked from the balcony, and the ceiling with the glowing pyramids was even higher. She moved to the edge of the ring, where the floral designs touched her boots. Then she looked up at the pedestal and hesitated.
“What are you waiting for?” Ezo asked.
“I’m not sure,” Awen replied. “I just feel like this is sacred space somehow.”
“My sensors are not—”
“You’re not going to pick it up with sensors,” Sootriman said. “It’s something she feels.”
“Ah, very well,” the bot replied.
“You want to do your Unity thing?” Ezo asked Awen.
Awen shook her head. “No. Not yet.” Surely, there was much to see. The whole city, as she recalled, had been alive somehow. Of course, that could have been the jungle life clinging to it. But she suspected it was actually energy pulsing through the buildings themselves. And if any buildings were to have energy flowing through them, wouldn’t these be the most likely? Seeing it in the Unity would no doubt yield innumerable discoveries.
However, the truth remained that she was afraid. She was afraid of it not working, afraid she might get stuck in the cosmos. Oh, who are you kidding? You’re just afraid of seeing… him. The image of the ghost within Kane was a nightmare that floated at the edges of her mind between sleep and wakefulness. She saw him hanging on the rope in the shaft, glaring at her, then leaping to devour her.
Awen took a deep breath and turned to the others. “Remain outside the ring.” They nodded, then she stepped through the floral patterns and over the edge of the ring. Something shuddered in her soul, a ripple that raced up from her feet and fluttered in her chest. She felt dizzy but not enough that she feared vertigo. She’d crossed some sort of meridian, some sort of line. She knew she should step into the Unity but still felt afraid of what she’d find—if she could enter at all.
“Your heart rate and blood pressure have increased by thirty-one and twenty-six percent, respectively, Awen,” the bot said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she replied without turning around. “Just a little nervous, that’s all.”
TO-96 turned to Sootriman and then Ezo. “Sir, I don’t see any reason for Awen to be nervous.”
“Something she feels, ’Six. We already told you that.”
“Something she feels. Logged, sir.”
Awen moved one foot in front of the next, moving closer and closer to the pedestal. TO-96 was right, she realized—her pulse was increasing. She took short, quick breaths. Pressure mounted in her chest and her head. It wasn’t painful as much as it was powerful. Each step made the sensations more apparent. This was more than just excitement—this was otherworldly.
Awen willed herself to slow down her breathing. The pedestal was less than a meter away and held a rectangular black box made of intricately carved marble. The shapes were floral again. No, not floral. More like flickering flames or water in a spout.
Whatever the design, it was beautifully constructed. It was about the size of… well, large enough to hold one of the countless books along the shelves. She reached a hand toward the box, and her fingertips instantly tingled like she was immersing her arm into a bath of warm water. But this bath was deep, the water pressure bearing down on her from hundreds
of meters above.
She noticed the box had a lid. On its surface was the same ring that was on the floor, inlaid with gold, its edges radiating with undulating wisps. When Awen’s fingers connected with its edge, a shock went down her arm. She yelped.
“Awen!” Ezo cried and stepped into the ring. “Whoa.” One hand grabbed his stomach, and the other went over his mouth.
“Stay back,” Awen scolded him.
Ezo wasted no time in retreating to Sootriman and TO-96’s waiting hands. He staggered but eventually regained his balance. “What was that?”
“I’m not sure,” Awen replied. She’d never encountered such a strong manifestation of what she could only guess was the Unity’s physical dimension. The veil between paradigms was thin here. “I don’t think it will hurt you, Ezo. But you won’t function well inside of it.”
“Just be careful,” he called.
“I will.” Awen returned her attention to the box and touched the lid again. The sudden power surge didn’t startle her this time. She placed her thumb under the lip and lifted. The cover was heavy but moved easily. Awen opened it wide enough for the light far above her to shine into the black space.
“What’s in it?” Ezo called.
“What do you see?” Sootriman asked.
“It’s—” Awen swallowed, unsure of what to make of everything that had just happened. “It’s empty.”
3
Major Nos Kil, his promotion insignia still fresh on his chest armor, stood beside the Valkyrie’s captain, helmet hanging on the end of his fist. It sounded like Commander Forsyth was finishing some sort of preflight systems check with his executive officer. Nos Kil waited, having nothing to add to the conversation. Instead, he stared out the bridge window for what would most likely be his last look at the fleet for a very long time.
Outside, the remainder of Third Fleet sat atop Oorajee like children’s toys, so minuscule in comparison to the enormous desert planet. Farther out, he saw Second Fleet and, past that, the newly arrived First Fleet, all engaged in intermittent volleys with Jujari fleets. The blaster exchange was not meant to inflict damage. Rather, it was standard chest puffing as each side let the other know where it stood. Everything was going according to plan. Never before had so much lethal firepower gathered over one system, at least not in Nos Kil’s day. He was sorry to leave it. But he had a job to do, and he would not let Admiral Kane down—or rather, he wouldn’t let Moldark down.
Nos Kil’s thoughts turned toward the admiral’s transformation—his dilated black eyes, his altered voice. It was otherworldly but, in a strange way, not completely unexpected. Sure, the physical manifestations of whatever was happening were more than odd—they were startling. But rumors that the admiral had been talking to himself had been growing for a while now. Nos Kil had even overheard the man on several occasions. Still, the leader’s command decisions were decisive, his timing impeccable, and he continued to emit the confidence that had drawn people to him in the first place. That, and everyone was terrified of him and in awe of his power. Moldark was the leader people longed to follow and feared to leave.
Nos Kil blinked and refocused on the ship that extended from beneath his feet and into the void. This particular Raider-class destroyer, the Valkyrie, had been a gift. It was Moldark’s way of thanking Nos Kil for stepping into the shadows with him. In truth, Nos Kil didn’t know what to do with a ship. He was a Marine after all—a former Republic Marine but a Marine nonetheless. Ships were only good at getting the warriors to the battle, but Marines brought the fight. Secondly, he knew nothing about running a navy ship. He supposed that was precisely why Moldark had assigned Commander Forsyth to the Valkyrie. Even though the commander outranked him, Nos Kil was still “in charge,” though that didn’t make giving orders any easier.
“How soon until departure, Commander Forsyth?” Nos Kil asked when the XO stepped away.
“Fifteen minutes, Major. The supplies are almost done being loaded, and the science team is on board. They’re being shown their quarters as we speak.”
“Very good.”
Forsyth looked at Nos Kil as if something else remained to be said. The pause made Nos Kil uncomfortable. He noted for at least the second time in ten minutes how much he’d rather be on the ground with the enemy, outnumbered ten to one, than have to learn the rules and regulations of a navy ship.
This Raider-class destroyer had plenty of power and lots of fight, despite its many moving parts. If he got this ship close enough to planetary emplacements, she’d put on one hell of a pyrotechnic display. He’d seen it before. It was nothing like commanding troops on the ground, however, and that was where he longed to be. The sooner they left, the sooner he could be planet-side again and leave the ship tending to Forsyth.
Forsyth raised a fist to his mouth and coughed. “Major Nos Kil, would you like me to double-check our destination coordinates with navigation?”
“Yes, very good.”
“After that, I’ll just check on engineering to make sure the modulators and drive cores are stable.”
“Absolutely,” Nos Kil replied. He sensed the commander was just as uncomfortable as he was. But neither of them complained, just as neither of them offered to approach Moldark about it.
“Estimated time to the quantum tunnel?” Nos Kil asked.
“Three days, sixteen hours,” Forsyth replied, double-checking a data pad.
“Very well. Carry on.”
Forsyth stepped away, and Nos Kil moved toward a holo-display of the ship above the bridge’s center console. He’d always thought the Raider-class destroyers looked like blunt-tipped arrowheads. Their command bridges were in the bow and, as luck would have it, functioned according to the Marines motto: First in, last out. But were the ships ever to collide with an enemy target, they would be first in, never out, Nos Kil noted.
The aft of the ship bore twin stabilizers on the topside and belly, just in front of the main thrusters. These, along with the independently vectored thrust engines to port and starboard, made the ships incredibly maneuverable. The vectored engines had additional cowlings that made them look like concealed talons when not in use.
He’d paid a high price to stand here on this bridge. He’d severed family ties and friendships. He’d even terminated his career—at least, his public one. Of course, no one knew it yet—not his family or the Corps—but soon enough, they all would.
Nos Kil’s family had been guaranteed safety, as had his fiancée. The senators had given him assurances. He doubted he’d ever marry Klara, but at least she’d be safe in whatever future she chose for herself. He’d also tried to convince his closest friends in the Corps to come with him, knowing they’d be safer following him. Five had agreed. But for every Marine he spoke to, there was an inherent risk—not for him but for them.
Nos Kil shuddered when he thought of the two Marines who hadn’t agreed. The mere fact that he’d broached the subject with them in private meant he’d signed their death warrants. After hearing him out, they’d refused the invitation, saying he was psychotic and delusional. He’d tried to convince them to reconsider, but they’d made up their minds. So Nos Kil had done what needed doing. After that, he told the admiral he had no more friends to headhunt. He’d lied. But he’d rather they died defending what they believed was right than at the end of his MZ25.
Nos Kil looked over the Valkyrie from stem to stern again, the holo-projection spinning slowly over a rendering of Oorajee. The destination icon displayed coordinates on the outer reaches of the Troja system, where the quantum tunnel awaited. He was going back because, as he’d decided a long time ago, he’d follow the admiral anywhere. Even to hell.
The admiral had seen what Nos Kil was capable of. Whereas the Republic had placed limitations on the Marine, especially after everything that had happened on Caledonia, the admiral—Moldark—had not. Nos Kil had hit the windowplex ceiling years before. He’d grown tired of being told what to do with his gifts by COs who were less qualified than h
e was. It had worn on him and diminished his faith in what the Republic could do. Where the Republic had betrayed him—when his own brothers in arms had turned him in—Moldark had been faithful. The magnanimous leader had come to set him free and give him a place in the new order of the galaxy. Sure, Moldark seemed crazy, but weren’t all leaders—at least a little? Wasn’t he himself a bit mad? To make things right in the galaxy, one had to be willing to do wrong. The trick was to find safe people to do wrong with together.
Moldark would do in the shadows what the Republic could not do in the light. Nos Kil was even told that Moldark’s activities had been sanctioned by elite senators. This wasn’t some rogue mission—this was the will of those who cared most about the Republic’s enduring legacy. This wasn’t about agenda. This was about survival. And he and Moldark would be the hammer that beat out the impurities of the Republic. The metal would be heated, and they—the Paragon—would deliver cleansing blows. Where others had been weak, Moldark was strong. That meant that only the strongest warriors would follow him, and Nos Kil would be chief among them.
There was only one way forward. Nos Kil had made his decision. The only thing left was to do what he was best at—to do what the Republic would not let him—and he would continue with it until he died on the battlefield with an MX40 locked in his hand. The admiral would have his revolution, and Nos Kil would deliver it to him in blood.
* * *
Moldark enjoyed being back aboard the Peregrine again. He liked the Stiletto-class warship far more than the superdreadnoughts. If the latter was more like a floating metroplex, the former was like a dune skiff without a governor—fast and maneuverable. It let him feel the void and, for the briefest of moments, set him free of his responsibilities as fleet admiral. He’d even take the conn from time to time and give the captain a break. Of course, he wasn’t really free of anything with this particular plan. His presence on the Peregrine was just for show. And what a good show it would be.