Dimension

by Shay Zana

  That is our purpose. The duty of the strong is to protect the weak. We are guardians to those who need protection. And if we fail in our duty, as we at times will, our memories will live on to keep the lost alive.

  We must find a balance between interference and protection.

  We must compromise.

  We must unite.

  EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT

  After the docking sequence is complete with the Marauding Exile successfully pinned to the exterior of the Oceanus, Rockland is able to pressurize the airlock and proceed. Upon his entrance into the Titan warship, he is surrounded by an escort of armed guards, all faceless with black visors and slim fitting armour. Unnecessary, he thinks, but understandable.

  They take him through the vast domains of the Oceanus, past armouries, clinics, labs, all while ascending many platforms and staircases. The commander watches as soldiers and operatives scurry about on warfare duties, a flurry of activity assailing him and the sheer size of the Oceanus overwhelming him.

  A phalanx of operatives rushes past, jabbering away in their technical language, but one particular sentence catches in his ears. “...Penetrating straight through the station’s hull...” the sentence trails off as the operatives leave earshot and disappear around the corner of the corridor.

  Rockland frowns and watches after them, only to be directed onward again by one of his guards. “What’s that all about?” he asks the guard, but the faceless man remains silent, goading the commander onward with subtle nudges of his rifle butt.

  They proceed down a wide and open lobby where an immense view screen opens up to show an interior docking bay, housing many vessels such as Olympians, Spartans, and rows upon rows of stationary Gladiator fighters. Converted light energy electrifies throughout the bay, flashing glinting black energy along the inner hull like an encroaching darkness. The commander watches absently as an Olympian parts from its kinetic restraints and carefully angles itself to exit the Titan, gliding out into the void to join the battle of Kronos.

  “Please step on the platform, sir,” comes the patient instruction from one of his escorting guards, making Rockland realise he had been staring.

  “Of course.” Hurrying onto the kinetic platform, Rockland finds that only one of the guards is accompanying him up to the next deck. For a moment, while the platform ascends, he wonders if these guards are here for his protection, or for the protection of others from him. After all, he did commit mutiny and order the attack on UEU forces. The nudges issued with their rifle stocks were clear indication.

  As they appear through the floor of the next deck, Rockland is graced by the expansive view of the bridge. He had been expecting another ten minutes of menial travel throughout the massive warship. The guard gestures for him to move forward, and he does so obediently, eyes peeled for any sighting of Admiral Coleman, the man with the most military power in the known universe.

  “Ah, Commander Rockland, first time aboard a Titan?”

  Rockland pivots around to find the owner of this gritty Eden accent, a North American tone wrapped with slight Russian edges, just like his own accent. Rockland now finds himself face to face with Coleman. He has not aged well, judging by the last time Rockland had seen him on a view screen. But despite his dulling features, the admiral still owns a glint in his dark eyes. He is a tall, impervious man with pale skin and balding hair, the curving wrinkles on his face so deep that even Rockland feels youthful. But last he had heard, Coleman was only in his sixties, and still fit enough to handle a rifle and know his way around a battlefield. He is dressed in formal UEU attire, a black dress uniform with impeccable crispness. Those dark eyes do their work at intimidating Rockland, though he does not show it.

  “Admiral Coleman,” he regards him with a quick salute. “Indeed, this is my first time aboard a Titan, sir, but to tell you the truth, I was expecting it to be larger.”

  At the humour, Coleman offers a sly smile and a twinkle appears in his hooded eyes. “At ease.” After shaking the commander’s hand in equal greeting, he turns on his heel and waves for Rockland to follow. “She’s a beautiful Titan. Solid enough to withstand anything Serenity can throw at her, and powerful enough to dish it back with almost twice the force of any other Titan roaming the universe. The Oceanus has never turned her back on a battle yet.”

  Rockland follows at Coleman’s side, matching his stride, noting his pride in his ship. “I wasn’t expecting the fleet to be this prepared in advancing on Kronos. But even still, things look messy out there, Admiral. I heard something about the guardian’s station’s hull being compromised,” Rockland begins, taking a shot in the dark.

  Coleman does not reply at once, continuing to pace through the bridge where he eventually stops behind a navigational officer seated in front of an array of holographic control panels and screens spanning the width of his operating cubicle. “An Olympian class warship lost control and was locked on a collision course with the station.”

  Rockland removes his judgemental eyes from Coleman and stares at the displays before them, tracking many vessels amidst the space warfare. “Ours or theirs?”

  “Theirs,” Coleman replies quickly. “The Ottawa, named after the capital city of Canada, and I’m glad to say that the Ottawa is now deep in the oceans of Kronos. Things may be messy out there, Commander, but not for us.”

  “But Admiral, we had men aboard the station.”

  “Necessary casualties.”

  Rockland catches a quick glance at the admiral before going back to the battle feeds.

  “Though there was an anomaly right before the Ottawa hit...” the admiral continues slowly, causing Rockland to break out in a light sweat at the man’s audible suspicion.

  “Oh?”

  “Mhm. We had visuals of some sort of supernova alongside the Ottawa. Big, blue, and rendering our feeds blind for a few seconds with a burst of static. No heavy infantry shard can emit anything like that.”

  Damn, Rockland thinks to himself. That ikamanu must have caused the Ottawa to collide with the guardian station, but then why would it attack Serenity forces? Perhaps the Ottawa was already on a collision course with the station and the ikamanu had tried to push it aside just like it had with the Marauding Exile? Though it did not seem to work. The Ottawa still made impact, and now the tag of the ikamanu is offline, meaning it probably killed itself in the process.

  “Would you know anything about that, Rockland?” Coleman’s patronising voice pulls him back to the present. Should he reveal to the admiral that he had travelled with Paragons and a Cipher, and then briefly worked with them to attempt to cease this battle? Would the admiral even believe that, let alone accept it as sufficient evidence to put a hold on this battle?

  “No, sir.”

  Coleman just hums curiously before turning back to the battle feeds, his thoughts opaque to Rockland. “Now,” he continues. “I assume you were a little surprised to see the fleet get the green light on Kronos without your evidence, correct?”

  The commander’s eyebrows soar and he gives a nod to show his agreement. “You could say that.” He refrains from mentioning that he knows the reason. If he confides in Coleman that a Cipher had told him about Eden’s disappearance, Coleman would surely think he had a screw loose and was therefore untrustworthy and would definitely not listen to his advice about ceasing the battle. No. He needs to hold off on the truth for a while. Get to know the admiral a little more. Play to his strengths, then ease him into it.

  “You might wanna sit down for this one, Rocky.”

  Not in favour of his new nickname, Rockland does as he is told and finds a nearby seat, preparing himself to act shocked and distraught at the news he already knows.

  “Approximately 72 hours ago, various cataclysmic distortion events occurred throughout the Sol Nova System. Reports were coming in steadily of minor anomalies at first, inconsistent solar flares from Sol Nova itself, fluctuating gravity levels on several of the outer planets, fault lines acting up all over Eden, an
d super storms that could be handled by simply altering a few settings in the core plug, but then it got worse.” Coleman pauses to let all of this sink into Rockland’s mind, and now accesses a small panel on the screens before them and shows footage of certain events captured. “Anomalies throughout the system were becoming more frequent. Planets were deviating from their gravitational orbits, cores appeared to cease generating gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric pressures were corrupted and some were stripped completely, entire oceans froze over or dried up within seconds, land masses altered within minutes in ways that should have taken millions of years, skies even caught fire. Molecules were manipulated by subatomic particles evolving and reacting to elemental effects, ultimately creating radiation and disruptions of antimatter.

  “The most tragic event recorded was the colony world, Obsidian. It actually fell from its orbit of Sol Nova and ventured out toward the Red River Cluster at speeds only witnessed of asteroids. We lost contact with Obsidian and have since never heard from the colony again, nor been able to locate it. It’s presumed one hundred percent casualties. The planet would have frozen out that far beyond Sol Nova’s radius, unless the distortion was kind enough to generate another parent star for the planet and lock it into its gravitational field...”

  Not acting anymore, Rockland really is shocked and distraught. He is familiar with tragic and cruel distortions like these happening throughout Scattered Planet over the months, but for so much of it to be centred in one system is unheard of, especially a system as important and populated as Sol Nova. He had just been expecting Coleman to tell him about Eden, not a full blown story of the entire Sol Nova System being terrorised and annihilated. A system-wide extinction level event.

  “The outermost planets from Sol Nova, Pluto II and Garland, ended up colliding as their orbits meant they were overlapping each other at the wrong place and time. This sent meteor showers across the system, hindering many civilian extraction rounds and causing a few losses, but nothing above the thousands.”

  A thousand civilians is still too many, thinks Rockland as he stares at the floor, unable to look at the footage anymore, letting Coleman’s voice hover through his mind.

  “Not before long, a singularity took its place right where the collision occurred, and this actually did us a favour as it consumed most of the planetary debris. As far as our intel goes, there were no casualties caused by this black hole as it seemed to be somewhat contained in the outer sectors of the Edgeworth-Bravo Belt.

  “Solar flares from Sol Nova increased, causing network failures and sparking fears that Eden’s magnetic field would distort and be unable to withstand the flares, but before anything more drastic like that could even happen, Eden just disappeared. Poof.” The admiral expresses this with a gesture of his hand. “It’s gone, Rockland. We lost Eden.”

  Rockland takes a moment to let all of the other information sink in to his brain, and this does a good job of outwardly displaying his stress and shock. “How many casualties?” he asks after swallowing through a dry throat.

  “They’re still compiling the death-toll, but last I checked, it was cutting it close to one hundred million. As for the death-toll on Eden... we’re not sure. The entire population may have been wiped out when the planet disappeared, or they could all be alive somewhere. Though many were killed in the minor distortions before Eden disappeared. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, super storms and hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires. Maybe a few million were killed... Serenity has a lot to answer for.”

  “So you attacked Kronos for revenge.”

  Giving no verbal answer, Coleman just nods glacially, his stare icy. Rockland is still staring at the floor, unable to meet the admiral’s gaze, but a chill runs across his skin at the feel of it.

  “What if I told you that Serenity wasn’t responsible for the distortions?”

  At this, Coleman’s malice turns to hardened confusion. “Operation: Ghost Tempest?”

  This time, it is Rockland’s turn to nod without a verbal reply, and his gaze slowly lifts from the floor up into the admiral’s black eyes.

  “You have evidence of this from Olympus? I read in your report that you lost all of the data due to some super virus.”

  “Not exactly, Admiral. We still managed to extract some data before we were forced to flee the planet. Olympus was hit by the distortions pretty severely, and the entire planet is now nothing but a smoking fireball.”

  “Then where is the data?”

  Rockland rubs at his chin, which is now flecked with stubble. He has not even thought about shaving over the past day. “We lost that too...”

  Coleman’s stare intensifies and an eyebrow lifts. “How?”

  Now or never, Rockland thinks to himself. “In my report, I mentioned a possible Paragon threat.”

  Coleman murmurs in remembrance, his eyes still burning at him.

  “Turns out, my hunch was right. We were attacked by four Paragons, the best killers I’ve ever seen. They broke through all of our defences and managed to board the Exile as we lifted off.”

  “You’re telling me that four Paragons, mortal soldiers, bested a crew of hundreds of highly trained soldiers with the best weaponry and equipment, the best aerial vehicles, and boarded one of the most advanced Spartan warships in my fleet?” Coleman is slightly fuming.

  “In our defence, sir, there were 10 pointer earthquakes and an erupting volcano behind us, not to mention the colliding moons in the sky and a singularity in the core...”

  “You were supposed to be prepared for this, Commander. The admiralty panel chose you specifically for Ghost Tempest because of your level-headedness and ability to perform under pressure.”

  “With all due respect, sir, how can anyone be prepared for events such as these?”

  With a deep sigh, the admiral falls silent for a moment, ceasing the footage of Sol Nova’s destruction. “Go on.”

  “They had an ikamanu with them, and it managed to hack into the Marauding Exile’s systems and control the virus, but not before taking all of our extracted data from us before we even finished decrypting it. You’re not gonna believe this, Admiral, but the Paragons also had a Cipher with them. The fifth crew member.”

  “Impossible, nobody sees the Ciphers, not even the Paragons.”

  “I didn’t believe it at first either, but when I saw her with my own eyes, sir, there was just something different about her. She appeared human, but she was strange... I can’t even explain what it was like to be in her presence... Her eyes were... glowing, silver... almost fluid, and at first I thought it was some type of new optic iris, but then she started to say things she couldn’t possibly have known from Serenity intelligence alone. She knew about Operation: Ghost Tempest, she knew my name and rank, and she knew the location of Eden. She claimed that the Zodiacs and Serenity were not responsible for the distortions, and that she and her Paragons were assigned to stop them.”

  Admiral Coleman shifts his weight and scrutinizes Rockland more closely, sceptical and judgemental, wondering if Rockland had taken a hit to the head in the heat of the moment of escaping Olympus, and now, as he studies the commander more closely, he can see a slight bruise forming on his forehead! The admiral lets his hate for Serenity and the pain of losing Eden override any possibilities that Rockland is telling the truth, his mind settling on the fact that he is suffering from a concussion and may be delirious from a concoction of this and the shock and stress of recent events. And so for this woman knowing so much, there could be a simple explanation to that, such as Serenity intelligence being far more clued in about the UEU than they had expected, or she is some sort of agent for the Ciphers, a different brand from the Paragons. They knew the location of Eden, so called upon their gods to attack it with these godly distortions.

  He had always wondered why the Zodiacs never informed the Ciphers of Eden’s location, but now it seems they were just waiting for the right time. Still, he decides to humour Rockland a little more, partly to see the
extent of his fantasies about this Cipher woman, but mostly just for his amusement. He never approved of confirming Rockland for Operation: Ghost Tempest, and cannot wait to rub it in the other admirals’ faces that the commander has lost it and believes he spoke with a Cipher and saw her before his own eyes, and that Serenity is not responsible for the distortions because she told him so. Lunacy.

  Coleman hums with artificial understanding. “I see. So if this Cipher says Serenity is not responsible, then who is, Rockland?”

  “Her name was Katana, or something like it, her accent was strange. She said that there are other realities, dimensions, where other gods are guardians of nature. She called one specific allegiance, Demons, and explained that they were fanatical about protecting nature from species such as ourselves. These Demons want to wipe life clean of all sapient lifeforms, in every dimension, to rewrite nature and restart everything so that life like us can never exist again. She said that it was the Demons causing the distortions. The Zodiacs are defending us, but the two dimensions are colliding in their war... She explained it much better than I can right now. I know it sounds crazy, sir, I feel bat-shit just listening to myself, but if the Zodiacs exist, then why not other gods, too? Transcendent aliens, ethereal beings, whatever you want to call them. And other dimensions? We all know that there is more to life than just science and atoms.”

  Coleman’s features remain expressionless as he continues to examine Rockland. The more Rockland opens his mouth, the more he sounds like a Serenity fanatic, an overexcited child who has just discovered the use of his penis. Yes, gods exist, and although science has been unable to prove that there is life after death or some form of transcendence, it is still possible for life to advance on a level such as the Zodiacs. They are not gods as such, like Serenity likes to think, they are just pure energy able to engineer and manipulate things on an atomic level. One day, technology will be able to detect the existence of the Zodiacs in a scientific explanation, and therefore obliterate Serenity and their pathetic spiritual beliefs.