by A. G. Riddle
He donned his standard service uniform and rushed into the hall, where people from all service branches swarmed around him. He tried to ask several people what was happening, but everyone threw off his grasp and continued past him.
Ares snaked his way through the crowd, fighting to get to the lift.
At the bridge, he stopped dead when he saw the screen.
The massive battlefield that stretched to the star… it was the same scene Myra had shown him, but it wasn’t dormant; it was alive with activity. The Atlantean first and second expeditionary fleets lay at the far end of it—seventy-three ships in total. But a far larger fleet loomed just above the black plane of debris. Massive ships, some the size of the entire Atlantean fleet hovered, blocking out massive swabs of the sun, throwing long shadows on the relatively small Atlantean vessels—all of which were ships of exploration.
When the Atlanteans had launched their first deep space exploration ships, they had armed them. But as the decades and centuries slipped by and no enemies had presented themselves, it grew harder and harder to justify the cost and space of arming their ships. Their primitive period of weapons-enabled ships was seen as comical to some and embarrassing to others. They had come to believe that any race sufficiently advanced to reach deep into space must be civilized.
Standing on the bridge, staring at the massive fleet that loomed above the Atlantean ships, Ares knew how wrong and foolish they had been. These were ships of war, of destruction, just as the sentinel spheres were.
“Play it again,” the ship’s captain called from his standing position at the high-top table in the center of the bridge. Around the bridge, officers and technicians focused on the screen. Ares stepped forward, stopping just behind the captain, his focus squarely on the viewscreen. He watched the scene reset, the timestamp in the top right reverting to an earlier time. They were watching a recording, telemetry from the fleets at the Serpentine battlefield. We must still be en route, Ares thought.
The First Fleet Admiral’s voice played over the speaker.
“Fleet, be advised, we’ve received a signal from the Serpentine Army. We’re working to decode it now, but we’ve re-transmitted the message to confirm our receipt in what we hope will be interpreted as a sign of friendship.”
The screen tracked forward in time. Behind the Serpentine fleet, a wormhole opened and more ships began pouring in. They were all the same shape and size. For a moment, they paused just before the portal, then began circling, linking end-on-end with each other, forming a ring. Or a serpent? A second ring formed, just inside the other, and another until there were seven rings, all fit together, like a donut blocking out the sun. Ares saw a glimmer and realized that they were collecting sunlight. A massive solar cell, trapping energy.
The admiral’s recorded voice played again. “Fleet, be advised, the first part of the signal is binary. This location in space and another region, currently uncharted. Could be the Serpentine homeworld. Second part is believed to be a DNA sequence, possibly a virus. It’s not long enough to be a complete human genome.”
On the screen, several small ships disembarked from a large ship deep in the Serpentine fleet and moved slowly toward the First Fleet flagship.
“Fleet, we’ve got incoming. Scans are negative on content. Repeat, they’re either blocking our scans or there’s nothing inside the vessels. Stand by. All ships hold your position.”
Fools, Ares thought. The admiral was playing it safe, reasoning that they couldn’t fight, so why run? Ares didn’t see it that way. His wife was on the Pylos, an explorer class ship in the second fleet. He waited, hoping to hear the admiral give the order to evacuate the fleet.
The small black ships stopped halfway between the Serpentine and Atlantean fleets.
“Fleet, we’re sending tugs to bring the first few ships in. This could be a peace offering or a communication of some kind. Stand by.”
The tugs pulled a few of the vessels into the closest explorer class ship, and then the video log spun forward with nothing happening until it ended in a freeze frame.
Ares looked around the bridge. Everyone was tapping notes and working at their stations, some people conversing.
“Keep playing it,” the captain said. “Pay attention, everyone. Any detail could be important.”
“What’s happened?” Ares asked him.
“We’ve lost contact with the first and second fleets—right after they made contact with the Serpentine ships.”
“It’s an attack,” Ares said firmly.
“We don’t know that. It could be a systems malfunction related to the communication. It could be the sentinels cutting off communication. A stellar anomaly. Anything. We’re advancing all our ships to the Serpentine battlefield.”
“Have you apprised the council?”
“Yes.”
“Are they evacuating?”
“No. They’ve decided there will be no announcements until we know for sure what’s happening.”
“Fools. This could be the start of an invasion. We should divide our fleet, call in all the mining and freighting vessels, and evacuate as many as we can.”
“And if this is simply a misunderstanding? An evacuation will cost lives too. The panic would cripple us—at the very worst time. This has been decided.”
“Give me a ship,” Ares said.
“Relieve a commanding officer without cause during a crisis to give you a ship? I didn’t believe the psych report I read, Ares. But it’s looking more accurate by the second. We’ll reach the Serpentine battlefield in minutes—”
Ares stormed off the bridge, into the lift. Scenarios, options, coursed through his mind. He had to get to the Pylos, to his wife, and get out.
The corridors were still filled, but not as jam-packed as they had been.
Ares was twenty feet from the portal bay when the first blast rocked the ship, throwing him into the wall of the corridor. The side of his face swelled, and he thought he would lose consciousness. His ribs and wrist throbbed. He rolled onto his back and lay on the floor as the ship bounced, stabilized, and shook as the motion canceling systems recovered and failed. When the quakes subsided, he staggered to the portal bay and quickly worked the controls. If he could port to the Pylos, he could reach her.
He activated the link, but the screen read:
Portal Lockdown Protocol in Effect
The fleet had sealed itself off. Smart. But he was trapped.
He raced down the hallway to the shuttle bay doors. They opened, revealing a wide, deep hangar where half of the ten small crafts were overturned and some had been smashed against the bay wall. There was a lander still upright and intact. Ares boarded it and entered the launch sequence.
He donned one of the three EVA suits, hoping to save a little time. Seconds could count. As he waded back into the cockpit, he got his first view through the opening shuttle bay doors.
The creaking doors slowly revealed the horror and scale of the massacre. The entire Atlantean first and second fleets lay broken, disintegrating, floating into the debris field, joining the millions of ships that had fallen before them.
Pieces of Ares’ own fleet, newly arrived to the battle, rolled by the shuttle bay, collapsing into the tempest. There was fire and light coming from the remnants of his own ship and those in its fleet, but they would grow dark soon, just like the first and second fleet. Ares watched listless ships collide, explode in flashes, then grow dark, drifting as compartments along their jagged edges decompressed, puffing air, objects, and his comrades into space.
But the spectacle of the annihilated Atlantean fleets paled in comparison to the battle that raged just above the debris field. On the far side, just before the sun, a ring of Serpentine ships rotated, a giant artificial wormhole of blue and white light stood open in the center—a feat that required unimaginable amounts of energy. A new Serpentine fleet seemed to emerge every second. The ships were all uniform in size, and at the center of the portal, a single giant column of linked s
hips flowed out, an enormous metallic snake emerging from a rip in space.
Pops of light flashed all around the oscillating snake. Ares enhanced the view. He could see the insignia on the side of the ships. A serpent eating itself. And he realized what was fighting it. Sentinels spheres. Thousands of them, pouring through individual wormholes that disappeared the second they dropped into the battle zone. In formation, the spheres ripped through the serpent, like buckshot into its side, ripping layer after layer of ships away, the rope of the serpent fleet unraveling, but the core never breaking. The gnawed-away sections were instantly reinforced as other Serpentine ships fell in, filling the destroyed links.
The spheres’ rate of arrival was increasing; they were gaining on the Serpentine fleet, pushing the great column back. Ares saw their goal: the ring before the sun that powered the wormhole.
The scene gave him a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the winner would spare whatever was left of the Atlantean fleet. He panned the lander’s viewscreen to show the fighting at the periphery. His hope slipped away. Spheres ripped into the remnants of the Atlantean ships drifting into the breach, opening any inhabited sections to space. He worked the controls, focusing the image. Serpentine ships were firing on life rafts, killing any surviving officers. The two great armies were fighting each other—and each were fighting the Atlanteans.
There was no ally to rally around here. No hope. The full truth, the weight of his hopelessness suffocated him in the EVA suit.
CHAPTER 32
The blast that ripped the shuttle bay open jolted Ares back to the present. His lander was away, floating into space, into the wreckage of the fleet and the Serpentine battlefield that stretched to the sun.
Slowly, his mind took stock of his situation. There was no escape. No hope. Yet, a single desire consumed his mind. Myra. I will see her. We will be buried here together.
He keyed the controls. It was only a matter of time before his tiny ship would be ripped apart, becoming another grain of sand in the beach of debris that stretched to the sun.
Ares stayed focused, maneuvering the small lander, weaving through the drifting hulks, slowly making his way to the Pylos. It lay in three large pieces and no doubt thousands of smaller ones. Ares debated about where to look. Communications, her duty station? Or her quarters? The wreckage made the decision for him: the communications bay was gone.
He docked the lander at a section of wreckage that contained half the residential floors. He was vaguely aware of how irrational he was being as he cleared the airlock. His logical mind had shut down; it stood aside, watching, pitying Ares as he sailed through the dark corridors, the lights from his helmet illuminating the floating objects that drifted past him. The ship’s power was completely gone; not even the emergency lights or artificial gravity was working. Life support would be off. Even if he found her in her quarters…
He decided he would stay there for the duration, floating with her, surrounded by her things, and the blank screens that would have shown their pictures.
The door to her quarters opened. A single EVA suit rotated in the air, listless. It turned, and Ares saw the face inside. Her face. He pushed through the door, colliding with his wife, hugging her.
Her voice whispered in his helmet. It was faint but controlled. “Ares…”
He hugged her tight. “You were smart. You put your suit on.” She didn’t hug him back. Was she almost out of air? Semi-conscious? “We’re getting out of here.”
Her hands clamped around his arms, her strength shocking him. “We must stay.”
He dragged her out of the room, and then pushed her through the corridor. She was in shock. She fought him as they flew through, dodging bodies, boxes, and items that crossed their path. At the airlock, he pushed her through first. She lay on her side in the lander’s decompression chamber. She was completely exhausted, spent.
Ares rushed to her and began trying to pull her suit off.
The lander’s decon alarm went off, and the door began closing.
Ares got out just before it slammed shut. He rushed to the door and peered through the small window that looked into the chamber. The screen beside it flashed the words:
Biohazard Quarantine Initiated
He activated the comm.
“Myra.”
She rose slowly and turned to him. In the bright white light of the chamber, he could see her face clearly for the first time. Her skin was ashen, almost gray. Tiny blue blood vessels snaked across her skin, and Ares thought he saw something crawling underneath it.
On the screen a full body scan appeared.
Xenobiological pathogen identified. Classification unknown.
Two buttons appeared below it: Disable Quarantine and Sterilize Chamber.
Ares felt himself take a step back.
“Open the chamber, Ares. It’s okay. It’s not what you think it is. The ring will save us.”
Ares’ eyes drifted to the scan. She’s not pregnant anymore.
“They removed the growth, Ares. Open the door. You’ll see. They’re doing this to save us.”
Ares took a step away, then another. He was numb. The ship shook. Why would it shake?
He was on the floor, looking up. Quarantine. Ship under fire.
He staggered to the cockpit and saw three sentinel ships targeting his lander. They were firing on the aft compartment.
Where Myra was.
He had to save her. He—
The next wave of blasts sliced the ship in half. The screens scrolled emergency procedures, listing bulkheads that were closed, systems that were offline. As the front of the lander spun around, he saw the sentinels tearing apart the severed tail section, including the decontamination chamber that held the only thing he loved in the universe.
The sentinels ignored him. They destroyed her mercilessly.
He slumped into the chair, not able to tear his eyes away. And then he waited, ready for it all to end.
CHAPTER 33
To Dorian, the bright light of the conference booth was a scorching sun, boring into him, never relenting. It seemed to seep straight through his eye lids, pounding into his head. The memory of Ares’ loss at the Serpentine battlefield had left a deep well in him, and Dorian felt lost at the bottom.
He rolled onto his belly and pushed up, staring at the growing pool of blood that dripped onto the glowing white floor. The memories were poisoning him. Or was he already dying?
Dorian had felt the slow creep of disease grabbing hold of him weeks ago, but now the danger was more urgent.
He tried to focus. Again, Ares’ memory had raised more questions than answers. The Serpentine Army had clearly infected Ares’ wife with something, and the sentinels had been attacking the Serpentine Army—and the infected Atlanteans.
Was one side—either the Serpents or the Sentinels—the great enemy that had finally sacked the Atlantean homeworld? Dorian was about to activate the next memory, but he hesitated. Was there a better way to find out? Perhaps a way that didn’t kill him a little bit every time he peeked? That would be ideal. He didn’t know how many more trips into Ares’ past he could survive. And he had a place to start now.
He exited into the communications bay and accessed the computer, requesting information about the Serpentine battlefield. At every query, the screen flashed a red warning message:
Information classified by The Citizen Security Act
The Atlanteans had been careful to erase all information related to both the Sentinels and the Serpentine Army.
In fact, even all the telemetry and data from deep space survey probes passing by that area had been erased. But… there was a beacon orbiting the battlefield. Dorian’s mouth almost dropped open when the entry appeared. Kate had connected the portal here to that beacon twenty hours ago. It had been one of a thousand beacons in Kate’s frantic rotation, but… it was quite a coincidence.
Dorian paced the room, his mind rifling through the facts. Kate and David knew about the signal to Earth—the transm
ission Ares was terrified of. And they had come here to the beacon to respond to it or even to disable the beacon, allowing the sender to find Earth.
But something here had given them pause, caused them to reassess. They had sent no transmissions nor disabled the beacon. Had they learned of the enemy? Had they gone to the beacon at the Serpentine battlefield to learn more, or possibly try to conference with an ally away from Earth, where a wrong guess would have less consequences?
The carnage of Ares’ memory had been real to Dorian. The Atlantean was justified in fearing either the Serpentine Army or the Sentinels.
He selected the entry for the beacon at the Serpentine battlefield. The log contained only two entries: a portal connection yesterday, and a data transmission approximately thirteen thousand years ago.
Interesting. What was significant about that date? Janus. He had been trapped around that time—during Ares’ attack on the scientists’ lander off the coast of Gibraltar. Had Janus sent a message to a potential ally? A call for help? It was possible.
Dorian queried the date. There had been three transmissions from this beacon on that date. Was Janus increasing his chances of reaching help?
Kate had come here, seen something that scared her, and then had the courage to step through the portal—to a beacon anywhere in the universe, which could be in any condition imaginable. The payoff on the other side had to be huge. And she had to be somewhat certain there wasn’t an immediate danger waiting there.
Janus’ breadcrumbs. Dorian realized what they were: memories. Kate was playing the same game he was: trying to unravel the past of the Atlanteans and learn the truth about their enemies and allies. Her team had gone to one of the three beacons. And they were likely still there. Dorian burned the beacon addresses into his mind. It was only a matter of time now.