Worlds Away (The Interstellar Age Book 3)

by Daniels, Valmore

  A moment later, he continued, his voice taking on a hard edge. “Red Spot, I expect you to hold up your end of the bargain.”

  A mechanical voice came through the bridge speakers. “I do not practice deception,” Red Spot said. “Expect several waves of Kulsat. The Sentinels will meet their initial defense patrol, but they will not provide much resistance—they will alert our home planet, and then they will exit the system to call for reinforcements.

  “The largest force will come from within the system. The Sentinels must hold them off for as long as possible to allow those who are outside the system to return.” According to consensus, that would take anywhere up to a quarter of an hour.

  The problem would come when the off-system Kulsat ships returned. The Sentinels would be trapped between two armadas.

  The general asked, “And how long will it take Alex to … do whatever it is you want him to do?”

  “It will not take long,” Red Spot’s translated voice said through the speakers. “Before Alex saves us, you must ensure you have released our shuttle, and all non-Kulsat have exited the system. Only then will I share the knowledge with you.”

  Alex could hear a very low growl come from the general, and though he could sympathize with the sentiment, he trusted in Justine’s judgment. Red Spot had risked everything to save her—an alien—and had given no indication that she would betray them.

  “How long until the operation begins, General?” Alex asked, more to distract the officer than anything else.

  The general was in constant contact with the Sentinel squadron commanders through his upgraded communications console. There were five-hundred squadrons in total. From the instant the first wave of Sentinel ships went through to the last wave, it would take nearly a quarter of an hour. The Liberty, with Alex as the quantum pilot, would launch a minute later. The entire time, the Sentinels would be under heavy fire. Alex didn’t want to think about the potential casualties.

  “If I read these monitors correctly,” the general said, scanning the screens, “the first wave will quantize in thirty minutes.”

  “Which squadron is Justine in?”

  “The last,” the general said. “She told me she plans on joining the Sentinels once this is all over. For some reason, flying billions of kilometers through the vast blankness of space is more appealing to her than a cushy political assignment.”

  A moment later, he said, “I’m getting an alert on the screens.”

  “What is it?”

  The general raised his head and gave Alex a hard look. “The Sentinels have a tracking sensor aimed at Sol System’s star beacon. They say it’s activating. The Kulsat are invading us right now.”

  A cold bead of sweat rolled down Alex’s spine. “How many of them?”

  “No idea. Could be hundreds, for all I know. The Sentinel commander is giving the word to launch against Kulsat now. He hopes the Kulsat patrol will send out the alert to their armada to return before they get too far into our system to turn back in time.”

  The general asked, “Are you ready for this? The first wave is engaging … now. We’re up in about fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s too long,” Alex said.

  “What?”

  “We need to get to Sol System right now.” Alex wasn’t about to stand around and wait while an armada of genocidal Kulsat Risen were on their way to Earth. He knew, even if their leaders sent a messenger to recall them, they would be too far into the system to turn around. Earth was wide open to their attack.

  Before the general could say another word of protest, Alex quantized all the passengers on the Liberty, and all the Kulsat on the mining shuttle.

  A moment later, he quantized the ship itself, and headed for the Gliesan star beacon, setting a course for Dis Pater.

  The instant before he reached the star beacon, he was still in photonic space—an elemental being within the physical universe.

  The next instant…

  46

  Unknown :

  Welcome home, Alex.

  It was the haunting voice that had been calling to him for nearly two decades, and he struggled to understand it.

  Though he’d been in a photonic state a number of times, before the tragic experiment on Qin Station that had completed his transformation, he’d never been ‘aware’ while quantized.

  Since Qin Station, he’d initiated the change in himself several times—and marveled in the awareness he had while in that state of being.

  He’d never traveled using the star beacons as the quantum pilot, however. Both times, from Sol to Centauri, and then from Centauri to Gliese, Ah Tabai had been in control. When another Kinemat quantized someone, it was the only time that being would not retain awareness in the photonic state.

  Alex wasn’t sure what he had expected. Indeed, his thoughts had been so preoccupied with getting to Sol System that he hadn’t fully anticipated what would happen. After all, everything the other Kinemats had told him was that, once they reached the star beacon, there was no consciousness during transit to the destination until after they arrived in the new system.

  As far as anyone knew, the journey between beacons was instantaneous.

  Now, Alex knew different.

  For him, the journey was simultaneously immediate, and of an infinite duration.

  Though the physical universe contained vast stretches of emptiness, there was always a faint signature of electromagnetic radiation in all parts of space, however immeasurable it was to technological sensors.

  The star beacons were not portals to another dimension, as Alice Yin had theorized.

  Alex recalled the description Ah Tabai had given him before: “Outside light, the star beacons occupy the same space.” Without proper perspective, that was the only rational explanation for how the star beacons existed.

  His mind struggled to understand the reality, and it seemed to take eons for him to realize the truth.

  The star beacons did not occupy the same space, because the place it touched did not have light, or space, or time.

  The monumental artifact they called Dis Pater was nothing more than a physical construct, built with altered Kinemet, surrounding the star beacon.

  The star beacon was an anomaly—something of a fracture in the fabric of the universe. It was the absence of the universe.

  Somehow, Alex guessed, the Xtôti had not been content to travel throughout the galaxy at the speed of light. After all, it would take over fifty-thousand years to get from one edge of the Milky Way to the other. The physicists at Quantum Resources had theorized that there were countless ways to prime Kinemet, and create powerful results from the alteration.

  The Grace had experimented with this a million years ago. Instinctively, he realized that one of these experiments had caused their sun to supernova. Dimly, he wondered if that reaction had caused their metamorphosis from Kinemats to the Grace…

  Was it possible the Xtôti, like Alex, had no idea how they’d evolved past Kinemats and become the Grace? If they had, they would have created more Grace and not have died out. They would have continued expanding throughout the Milky Way and, possibly, ventured to neighboring galaxies.

  Was Alex, truly, the last of the Grace?

  If so, it was up to him to rediscover the process and repopulate the galaxy with more Grace. But how? Was there some kind of similarity between that and what had happened to Alex on Macklin’s Rock?

  He recalled that the first readout from the security receptacle had indicated something was coming at them at light speeds. Could that cosmic event have, indeed, happened at the same time his parents had drilled into the asteroid and exposed the deposit of raw Kinemet? Whatever had happened, it must have had something to do with the Sun itself, Alex guessed. Perhaps it had been the same kind of unexpected solar event during an experiment that had inadvertently caused the supernova of Xtôti’s sun.

  If the Grace had never figured it out, then how was Alex going to?

  The thought came to him the
n: even if he could figure out how to raise someone to the state of Grace, should he? Perhaps the galaxy wasn’t ready for that. Maybe there were some secrets that should be kept a mystery.

  But he would have to think about it another time. After all, according to what Justine had told him, he might have an abundance of that commodity to meditate on the topic.

  Right now, he needed to understand the nature of that null-space between star beacons.

  The story Justine had related to him on the history of the Grace indicated that it was after the Xtôti sun’s supernova that they’d begun their outward expansion through the galaxy, creating the system of star beacons to connect individual solar systems.

  As Grace, they’d figured out how to tear holes in the universe, and ‘sew’ the tears back together with ‘threads’ of altered Kinemet—which were metaphysically connected to each other, as if in a state of quantum superposition.

  Traveling through the star beacons was, in actuality, traveling through rips in the universe.

  The monuments themselves were incredible feats of advanced technology designed to monitor and house the ‘threads’. They also had the power to shield the location of the star beacons for populated solar systems.

  Kinemet was a quantum element. Using it and entering the photonic state, Alex was aware of others who were also in that state, and could sense the Kinemet in quantum drives.

  He imagined, if he tried, he could also sense raw deposits of Kinemet. In a way, all Kinemet throughout the universe was connected, entangled on a metaphysical level. And the hub of those connections was in that tear in the universe; it was the center of everything.

  At the same time, that existence between star beacons was the purest state of Kinemet. Alex, and all those who had achieved the state of Grace, was a creature of that element. It was fundamental to their DNA. It was such a powerful concentration of pure Kinemet, it was the closest thing to ‘home’ there could be for someone like Alex.

  Aside from those who’d died by mishap, this is where the majority of the Grace had gone. A million years of life was more than enough time for any sentient being to exist. Alex couldn’t imagine it. One-by-one, they must have made a decision to take that final voyage to the null-space outside the universe, and remain there.

  Instinctively, Alex knew he could stay in that place between star beacons for eternity, and be perfectly content for the rest of his metaphysical existence. It was home.

  But … there was something more important for him to do than remaining there, and his conscience would not let him stay.

  Sol System was in danger.

  He was the only one who could save it.

  47

  USSF Warship Liberty :

  Sol System :

  …he was back in a physical state, on the Liberty.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, young man?” General Gates asked in a growl, though he was quickly distracted when the connection to the Sentinel fleet was lost. His communications array went silent. His second-in-command tapped a few haptic symbols on his own console, and the main casement on the bridge lit up with their current coordinates: they were in orbit around Pluto.

  Ignoring the general’s question, Alex quantized himself, though not to avoid reprimand from the officers. Instead, he used his photonic senses to cast out through the solar system, looking for signatures of the Kulsat Risen.

  When he found them, a wave of trepidation coursed through him.

  During the planning phase of their military action, the Sentinels speculated that the Kulsat would send anywhere between a dozen and a few hundred of their warships to Sol System.

  Alex detected well over ten-thousand Risen, all in a photonic state racing at near-light speeds toward Neptune.

  A moment later, his astonishment at the sheer number of them passed when he wondered why they would be heading to Sol System’s outermost major planet. There wasn’t an occupied outpost there, only a few monitoring stations orbiting the ice giant.

  Then he realized the Kulsat wouldn’t know which of the planets were populated with Solans, and which were barren of life. They would have to fly from planet to planet until they found Earth, where they would begin to look for the final component, wreaking destruction on any humans who got in their way.

  Elated, Alex returned to his physical form on the bridge of the Liberty, and informed the general that there were over ten-thousand Kulsat ships heading for Neptune.

  “Its orbit is very close to Pluto’s right now,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s only about two-hundred million kilometers away. The quantum drive can get us there in about twelve minutes.”

  “What?” the general asked. “The ten-thousand Kulsat are heading for Neptune?” He seemed to realize he was just repeating Alex. “What does that mean?”

  “They don’t know Earth is our primary world. They need to drop out of photonic space to check each planet on their way in. I would imagine they’d take a bit of time to scan each one before heading for the next. We need to follow after them.”

  “And just what do you imagine we can do if we get there before they leave? One ship against ten thousand?” He spoke the number in a hoarse voice.

  “We’re going to send them a warning.”

  “A warning?” the general asked, obviously not understanding Alex’s intent.

  “Not from us,” he said, “from Red Spot. We’ll get her to alert them that the Sentinels have taken advantage of the situation and are attacking their home world.”

  “Ah,” the general said with a light nod.

  Alex opened a communications line with Red Spot and outlined his plan. The Kulsat agreed to help.

  She added, “Once we have delivered the message, we must leave before they scan your ship and decide that we practice a deception.”

  “Understood,” Alex said. “The moment we arrive in Neptunian space, you must be ready to broadcast the warning.”

  Red Spot replied. “Understood, Your Grace.”

  Alex gave General Gates a questioning look, and when he got a nod of assent, he immediately quantized the crew and ship, and flew toward the Kulsat armada.

  48

  Patrol Ship :

  Gliese System :

  Justine couldn’t believe what had happened. No one expected Alex to take off to Sol System like that. The entire communications network of Sentinels was swarmed with everyone trying to figure out what was going on and what to do.

  Without Alex, there was no point going to Kulsat System. They would be outnumbered five to one, and each of the Kulsat warships was heavily armed, whereas the majority of the Sentinel ships were two-person scout ships. It would be a slaughter.

  Justine sat in the pilot’s chair of the small vessel the Gliesan Councilor had loaned her. Though it was not designed to Sentinel standards, it had enough Kinemetic armor to absorb one or two mining laser shots. She knew her role in the invasion wasn’t so much for direct combat, but to monitor Alex on the Liberty.

  She had failed that mission even before she started.

  A communications alert came through her console, and she recognized the caller’s identification. It was Councilor Ijallanna. When she opened the channel, she saw Yoatl and Michael in the casement frame.

  “Envoy Turner,” the councilor said. “What happened?”

  “I’m sorry, Councilor. When Alex heard that the Kulsat had invaded Sol System, he went after them.”

  “By himself? What does he hope to accomplish?”

  “I’m not certain, Sir.” Justine addressed Michael. “Do you think he’ll try to take them all on himself? That would be suicide.”

  In the background, Michael looked gravely concerned. “There’s only one way to find out. Someone has to go there and see what’s happening.”

  Yoatl said, “Sol System has not been ratified as Emerged. No one is officially permitted to travel there.”

  Ah Tabai and Aliah had gone against protocol to take Michael, Alex, Kenny and Yaxche back there. T
hey had only done so because they did not believe they would be detected by the Solans. Justine had learned that the Committee of Sentinels were going to launch an investigation into their actions, and they could possible expel the two from the organization for what they’d done.

  Now, with practically every Sentinel in the galaxy gathered in one place, none of them would break protocol without explicit orders from their leaders. That kind of political decision would not be made unilaterally.

  It was up to Justine. She wasn’t a Sentinel, and the only thing stopping her was her parole to the Gliesan government.

  “Councilor Ijallanna…” she said.

  “Of course,” he replied. “You are released from your bond. Go. Find out what’s happening and return here immediately. We need to know.”

  Before the councilor had finished speaking, Justine quantized herself and her vessel, focusing her consciousness on the star beacon, and initiating a connection directly to Sol System.

  ∞

  The journey from Gliese to Sol System was instantaneous, and when Justine materialized in her home system after months of being away, she felt a kind of elation in returning.

  Just as quickly, the feeling left her. The space around Pluto was barren of any ships, conventional or quantum. In physical form, she could only push her sight out a hundred-and-fifty kilometers, but in a photonic state, she could extend her senses to detect other Kinemetic signatures throughout the solar system, provided they weren’t hiding themselves.

  When she quantized herself and sent her senses out, she gasped when she detected a mass of Kinemetic beings—the Kulsat!—heading directly for her.

  They were coming from the direction of Neptune.

  Swallowing her panic, she realized that Alex must have managed to get their attention somehow. Focusing, she saw that there was one signature ahead of the pack by a narrow margin. It had to be Alex.