“They should already be back,” Wheeler replied.
“Great,” Garek put in from the gunnery control station.
Tyra glanced at him, then back to Wheeler, and the admiral nodded to her. “You’re sure we can’t establish a comms connection through the wormhole? Try again to get a ping from one of the probes.”
Tyra checked the comms panel once more and shook her head. “Nothing.”
Wheeler sighed. “It’s no wonder no one tried to contact us after we left the Etherian Empire. They couldn’t get a signal out. What I don’t get, though, is how we were able to leave in the first place. We didn’t have to cross a wormhole.”
“No, we didn’t,” Tyra replied.
“I’ve got something on sensors!” Colonel Drask said.
“Is it the probe?” Wheeler asked.
All eyes turned to him, and he nodded. “Yes, ma’am. One of them. Receiving scan data now...”
“So where are the other nine?” Wheeler asked, while checking the ship’s sensors for herself. “We sent them all out together. Why did only one of them return?”
“You think something destroyed them?” Tyra asked.
“Like what?” Wheeler countered.
“Like the wormhole,” Drask replied. “The log data from the probe that made it shows the other ones being ripped apart by tidal forces. The traversable throat is very narrow... just two kilometers by the looks of it.”
“How wide is the Gideon?” Tyra asked.
“One point nine kilometers,” Addy replied from the helm. “We should make it, but just barely.”
“Interesting that our largest ship has almost the same width as the wormhole,” Wheeler mused. “I wonder if that’s by design or coincidence?”
“My money’s on design,” Drask said.
“I agree,” Wheeler replied. “Colonel—send the Councilor the scan data from the probe.”
“Aye, transmitting to your station, Councilor.”
“Got it,” Tyra replied.
“Good,” Wheeler said. “Councilor, please send the data to the rest of the fleet and tell them to follow the probe’s path through the wormhole exactly. We don’t want any of our ships getting ripped apart the way that those other probes did. We’ll lead the way. Everyone else needs to fly through single file behind us.”
“I’ll let them know,” Tyra said.
“Lieutenant Gallia—”
“Ma’am?” Addy replied.
“Take us through, and try not to scratch the paint.”
“Copy that, Admiral.”
* * *
The Lost Etherian Fleet
—ONE HOUR LATER—
“We’re passing through the throat of the wormhole now...” Addy said.
The Gideon groaned ominously as tidal forces gripped it, with gravity attracting the bow more powerfully than the stern, and trying to rip the ship in half. It didn’t help at all that the Gideon was fourteen kilometers long.
Tyra’s eyes flicked up to the unobstructed view from the holo dome that crowned the bridge. Stars and space warped strangely around them, twisting in surreal ways. Then came a blinding flash of light.
“We’re through!” Addy called out.
“Comms! Sensors! Report,” Wheeler said.
“One second...” Tyra replied, blinking quickly to clear her eyes. “Outbound comms are working again,” she said. “We should be able to contact New Earth now.”
“Good, send them a message to let them know we’ve arrived. Warn them to expect an Etherian fleet rather than Astralis.”
Before Tyra could acknowledge that command, an incoming comm call began trilling in her ears, and the comms icon began to flash on her ARCs. It was from Brak. Tyra frowned, wondering what that was about. Brak almost never called her. If he had something to say he usually said it through Lucien.
“Councilor?” Wheeler prompted.
“Hang on.” Trya replied. Her heart pounded in her chest as she remembered the riots. Surely Lucien had had the sense to lock the door to their quarters when he heard the commotion outside. She answered the comms and said, “Brak, is something wrong?”
The Gor sitting stolidly on the bridge at the ship’s engineering station turned to look over his shoulder at the sound of his name, but she was talking to his clone—not him.
“It is Lucien. And Atara,” Brak replied. People attack them when riots break out.”
Tyra’s breath froze in her lungs, her worst fears suddenly coming true. “Are they okay?” Her brain buzzed with terror. There were no backups of anyone’s consciousness anymore. If something had happened to either Atara or Lucien, there’d be no way to bring them back.
“They are alive,” Brak said.
Tyra’s heart leapt in her chest, but she didn’t allow herself to feel relief just yet. If Lucien was okay, then he would have been the one calling her. “But?” she pressed.
“Lucien is in a coma. He is badly beaten. Atara is also hurt and she loses consciousness, too, but she is waking up now. The doctors think she is to be fine. They are lucky. Many others are dead.”
“What about Lucien? Are there medics attending him? Have they tried to wake him?”
“Let me ask...” A moment later, Brak replied, “They cannot wake him until the swelling subsides. They are downloading his consciousness to a portable device in case he does not recover.”
Tyra couldn’t believe it. “How did this happen? You were supposed to stay with them in our quarters!”
“Lucien tells me to watch Theola while he goes to the restroom with Atara. Riots start soon after he leaves,” Brak replied.
Tyra cursed under her breath. “Where are you?”
“The end of the corridor outside your quarters.”
“I’ll be right there,” Tyra said. She ended the call and turned to explain the situation to Admiral Wheeler.
Silence reigned in the wake of the news about Lucien and the many dead that Brak had mentioned. That drove home just how serious the riots had been. Sitting up here on the bridge under heavy guard by several squads of Marines, they’d been insulated from the chaos.
“You’d better make another announcement,” Wheeler said quietly. “Tell people that we’re safely across the Red Line and we’re on our way to New Earth.”
Tyra nodded stiffly and told everyone exactly that in a ship-wide announcement. When she finished, she rose from her control station and said, “I need to go see my family.”
“Of course,” Wheeler replied. “Drask, you have the comms while the councilor is gone—and send a squad of marines with her. We don’t want any more incidents.”
“Aye, ma’am. Sergeant Kilian—” Drask nodded to the Marine Sergeant guarding the flight of stairs leading down to the entrance of the bridge. “Take your squad and escort the Councilor,” Colonel Drask said.
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied.
As Tyra started for the doors of the bridge, another flash of light blinded her and stopped her in her tracks.
“What the frek?” Colonel Drask said.
“Welcome back,” a new voice added.
Tyra knew that voice. She spun around to face the speaker and saw a tall, familiar being standing at the front of the bridge. He had pale, luminous skin and long white hair framing an elongated face. His eyes blazed and danced like twin suns as they swept from one person to the next, forcing them to avert their eyes from the sheer intensity of his gaze. There was no mistaking this being’s identity—it was Etherus. But how did he get here?
Tyra’s logical mind took hold, and she reasoned that he must have used a quantum junction to jump aboard their ship. Maybe they’d forgotten to engage the Gideon’s jamming field, or maybe Etherus had ways of jumping through the jamming fields of his own ships.
“You betrayed me,” Etherus said.
Tyra forced herself to stare into his blinding eyes. “We had no choice.” There was no point in denying it, but Tyra couldn’t help but wonder how Etherus knew what they’d done. Had
someone found a way to warn him already, or had the Faros already begun their attack?
There was also the dubious third option that the faithful were right when they claimed that Etherus knows people’s innermost thoughts.
“There is always a choice,” Etherus replied. “Unfortunately, you only thought you were betraying me, when in reality you were betraying yourselves. You didn’t pave the way for the Faros to conquer Etheria; you’ve paved the way for them to conquer humanity.”
Chapter 10
The Lost Etherian Fleet
“What do you mean we’ve paved the way for the Faros to conquer humanity? We’re at peace with them,” Tyra said.
“You won’t be for long,” Etherus replied. “Even if you could trust Abaddon, he will turn on you out of spite when he realizes that he still can’t reach Etheria.”
“Why can’t he?” Admiral Wheeler asked. “Is it because of the barrier we encountered when we tried to cross the Red Line?”
“You found a way to cross it, did you not?” Etherus replied.
“We had to go through a wormhole to get here,” Wheeler replied. “And according to the nav systems on your ships, that wormhole is the only way in.”
“If you found the way by accessing the fleet’s navigation systems, then the Faros will find it, too.”
“How do you know about our negotiations with the Faros? Who’s been in contact with you?” Wheeler asked.
“What makes you think I need someone to tell me?” Etherus replied, turning to Wheeler and forcing her to squint against the brightness of his gaze. “The barrier you encountered is a jump interdiction field. I deactivated the interdiction field when Astralis left and reactivated it in your wake, but as you have found, there is a way through that cannot be blocked.”
Tyra shook her head. “So why is Etheria safe? We located it with your ships’ nav systems. It lies through the center of the torus, and at the center of Laniakea. It’s in the universe on the other side of this one, and clearly there’s a way to get to it, or else we’d have no contact with Etheria.”
Etherus inclined his head to that. “Your assumptions seem reasonable, but there are things you still don’t know. The universe on the other side, as you call it, is fundamentally unreachable, because it is made out of antimatter.”
Tyra gasped. “Anti... how is that possible?”
“When the universe began, matter spewed from one end of a white hole, while antimatter streamed out from the other. Both universes quickly spread and developed into what you know now. This has been going on since the dawn of time, and the two sides of the universes are expanding and accelerating toward each other, drawn across the great divide by the mutual pull of each other’s gravity. You refer to the phenomena behind this effect of accelerated expansion as Dark Energy.
“Eventually the two universes will meet at the rim of the torus where they will obliterate one another and start all over again in a new cycle, but that is still a long time from happening. Not even light has reached from one side of the universe to the other yet, and the rim of the torus is still dominated by a vast band of emptiness.”
Tyra’s mind spun. “If that’s true, it solves the parity problem...” she said slowly.
“The what?” Admiral Wheeler asked.
“We’ve always known that antimatter and matter should have been created in equal quantities,” Tyra explained. “But we’ve never been able to find the missing antimatter.”
“Isn’t antimatter supposed to be extremely volatile?” Colonel Drask asked. “How can there be an entire universe made of the stuff without it self-destructing?”
Tyra shook her head. “It’s only volatile if it comes into contact with matter. By itself it’s exactly the same as regular matter, with all the same properties. The only real difference is that the charges of all of the sub-atomic particles in antimatter are reversed.”
Etherus nodded along with that explanation, but Colonel Drask still looked confused.
“Does antimatter have anti-gravity?” Wheeler asked.
“No,” Tyra replied. “If it did, the other universe would not form stars and planets. The antimatter side would be sterile and effectively invisible.” She turned back to Etherus. “But it’s not—the antimatter universe is just like ours, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Etherus replied.
“So Etheria is... fundamentally unreachable,” Wheeler said, shaking her head.
Tyra nodded. “Matter beings and ships can’t cross from one universe to the other...” She trailed off as she realized that couldn’t be true. She’d been to Etheria herself, as had billions of other humans. There had to be a safe way to travel there. Etherian ships always ferried them back and forth—maybe they had some kind of defensive shields? But if the Etherians themselves and even the atmosphere they breathed were made of antimatter, then breathing that air with them or even shaking hands with one of them would be enough to cause a massive explosion. Something wasn’t adding up.
“The Etherians started out in our universe, in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way,” Admiral Wheeler said. “If no one can travel safely from one universe to the other, then how did you take them to a new galaxy in the antimatter universe after the Great War left their original galaxy uninhabitable? And how are we able to visit Etheria?”
Etherus replied, “Matter or antimatter cannot be transmitted from one side to the other without catastrophic results, but data can travel freely from one side to another in the form of quantum signals or electro-magnetic radiation. There is no such thing as an anti-photon.
“When I took the Etherians to their new galaxy, they left their bodies behind in this side of the universe for them to use when they return. They also left all of their ships and belongings behind, though there weren’t many ships left after the war.
“I transmitted their consciousness to the other side, and the data was received, downloaded, and subsequently transferred to cloned bodies made of antimatter that were prepared for them by sentient beings in the antimatter side of the universe. The Since then, Etherians have made the same provisions for humans who wish to visit Etheria. Your minds are transferred to identical bodies waiting for you on the other side.”
“So why bother sending ships for us and pretending to physically transport us to Etheria?” Wheeler asked.
“Because protecting your physical bodies becomes our responsibility while your conscious minds are away in Etheria, and we need to ensure your safe return. The only way we can do that is to keep you on board our ships while you’re away.”
“And because you wanted to keep all of this a mystery,” Tyra said. “You’re only telling us now because you want us to understand that we actually frekked ourselves over when we betrayed you and the Etherians. You’re just rubbing the irony in our faces. This is one big, fat I told you so.”
Etherus turned to her with a disappointed look, and the blinding light radiating from his eyes dimmed slightly. “Do you think so little of me, Tyra?”
She decided not to reply to that.
“I’m telling you all of this now, because you need to understand what is at stake. You need to take the Faro threat seriously and take appropriate action now, before all of humanity is enslaved.”
“What action?” Admiral Wheeler asked. “You know how badly the Faros outnumber us. This is not a battle that we can win.”
“The wormhole gives you an advantage. Ships can only fly through one at a time, which will allow you to surround and overwhelm them as they come through, but you’re right: the Faros have trillions of warships, and you cannot stop them all.”
Tyra’s blood turned to ice. “Trillions?” she echoed quietly.
“Yes,” Etherus replied. “Eventually you won’t be able to stop the flood. All you can hope to do is buy time.”
“Time for what?” Colonel Drask growled. “It sounds like the only reasonable course of action is to surrender and hope that the Faros don’t break our treaty.”
“There is another o
ption,” Etherus replied. “Abaddon has cloned himself billions of times, giving each of them his memories and personality. He maintains a cohesive sense of self by synchronizing his clones through the Forge, and that is also how the original Abaddon keeps all of the others under control. He can kill any of his clones from there if they get out of line.”
“The Forge... we heard about that at Freedom Station,” Garek said, joining the conversation for the first time.
“Yes, from Oorgurak, the runaway slave that you rescued,” Etherus said.
Again, Tyra found herself wondering how Etherus knew so much about everything that had happened. Perhaps the faithful were right, and he really could read everyone’s thoughts. Still, that didn’t necessarily make him a god. All kinds of technology could read a person’s mind, and some aliens were natural telepaths.
“What is the Forge?” Admiral Wheeler asked.
“It is the source of all consciousness, the Tree of Life—or it was, until Abaddon stole it during the Great War. He used it to create all of the species beyond the Red Line and to give them life, but he failed to create true consciousness, and he had to settle for creating endless copies of the Faros.
“He copied their minds, wiped their memories, and put them in the bodies of new alien species; then he enslaved those aliens to the original Faros, whose minds they were created from. All he has done is to enslave the Faros to themselves, but not even that, because all of the beings Abaddon created with the Forge are nothing but life-like drones. They lack the subjective experience of consciousness and the crucial element of free will provided by souls. The same holds true for all of Abaddon’s clones, so they are right to say that they are helpless to do otherwise than the evil that they do. Only the original Abaddon is free to change his path, and he does not wish to do so.”
Tyra’s eyes narrowed. As a scientist, she considered free will to be a fiction, but here Etherus was claiming that some missing piece of the puzzle allowed people to have such a thing.
“You allow the Faros to enslave everyone beyond the Red Line because they’re doing it to themselves?” Addy asked.
Dark Space Universe (Book 3): The Last Stand Page 7