Defending the Galaxy: The Sentinels of the Galaxy

by Maria V. Snyder

  A spark of delight flares in Niall’s eyes. “Now that’s a great promise.”

  Once I claim his lips, he doesn’t say anything more as I’m true to my word.

  After Niall returns to his unit, I lie in bed, thinking about our conversation. He’s right that all my new abilities arrived after a trauma. Yes, I’m better at worming, but I’m also able to use the Q-net without tangs or a terminal. My link to it is never severed. It’s always in the back of my mind. I just need to turn my full attention to the Q-net and I’m there. It gives me an advantage, which we desperately need.

  The other unique thing that happens to me, and no one else, is that I can fly with the Q-net. So far, it's only happened while I was asleep or unconscious. If Niall's right, and my improved skills with the Q-net are due to my injuries, then I shouldn't be able to fly with it while awake. Right? That would be another improvement and I haven't been injured. Well, not lately.

  In order to test the theory, I decide to try to fly while awake. I close my eyes and imagine lifting my arms up. Let’s fly.

  A strange floating sensation rushes through me. It’s as if my consciousness has been yanked from my physical body and I’m suddenly untethered. Then the entire Milky Way Galaxy spreads out before me. My fear soon turns to joy as I fly, looping and twirling and spinning and dipping and soaring. There are no barriers. No limitations. No need for permission. No need to worm. There’s nothing to prevent me from going anywhere. It’s a feeling like no other.

  A feeling I can access at any time. Does that mean Niall’s theory of my injuries enhancing my worming abilities is wrong? Or perhaps it means my enhanced abilities include unlimited flying.

  IT MEANS YOU ASKED. I COMPLIED.

  And Niall’s theory of my injuries causing my amplified abilities?

  I CHOSE YOU. NO OTHER REASON.

  And you’re the Milky Way Galaxy and also the Q-net?

  I AM.

  And you have the ability to connect with a human being?

  OBVIOUSLY.

  Along with the ability to be sarcastic. Lovely. So now I’m convinced, but will anyone else believe it? Is this a secret?

  YOUR CHOICE.

  Why is it my choice? Do you want others to know or not?

  YOU WILL KNOW IF IT BECOMES NECESSARY.

  Great, just great. I consider. No one is going to believe me. Well, maybe eventually. They’ve believed me before. But would they accept yet another wild theory from me? Or have I reached my limit? At this point I’ve no idea. So I decide to trust the Q-net and wait until it becomes necessary. After all, nothing’s going to change. Right?

  Two

  2522:248

  I report to Beau’s office at oh-eight-hundred. My partner is blowing on a steaming mug of coffee. His short brown hair is freshly spiked. The blond dyed tips give him the appearance of a hedgehog, which is his nickname. His sharp gaze snags on the extra large cup of coffee in my hands.

  “Rough night?” he asks in a neutral tone.

  Beau was part of the team that rescued me from Jarren. No doubt he’s worried that my recent adventures are causing me to lose sleep. I’m not only the youngest officer in security, but I have the least experience.

  “Yeah,” I say. It’s the truth. Nightmares have been haunting my sleep.

  Beau grunts. “I told Radcliff it was too soon.”

  “So did my mother.” We share a smile. “This is too important.” I sit next to him.

  His office has dual Q-net terminals, which allows us to entangle with the Q-net together and work in tandem. With my new…skills, I don’t need to be here, but everyone’s really uneasy about them, especially Beau. I can’t imagine what he’ll do if I confide in him about the Q-net. Actually, I can. He’ll be majorly freaked out and never want to worm with me again.

  “What happened to our escape tunnel to DES?” I ask. We managed to get through the looters’ blockade and create a hidden link to DES before Jarren discovered it and installed a redirect worm, so our messages went to him instead of DES.

  “They collapsed it. And I can’t find another way out.” A scowl creases his handsome face and there’s no sign of the cocky confidence he usually wears.

  “Let’s start there.”

  He sets his coffee down and inserts his entanglers in his ears. The small round devices link with the sensors implanted into his brain and allow him to access the Q-net through the terminal. There are screens as well, but they’re not really needed, unless another person who is not in the Q-net is watching. The connection in our brains allows us to see, unless we’re worming, and then it’s more like feeling your way through the layers of the Q-net, finding gaps. The best wormers can wriggle through without creating ripples that will alert the security programs to an unauthorized person.

  In this case, Jarren and his evil minions created a blockade around Yulin, stopping all messages from reaching DES. They set up a vast web of alarms so one wrong tug and they’ll know we’re searching for a way out. Not that they don’t expect us to try. The best-case scenario is that we get through to DES without them knowing. Hard to do since they also have their claws in DES, which isn’t as secure as it should be considering they guard the gateway to the star roads.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  “Tangs?” Beau glances at me expectantly.

  I shake my head. “They make me too heavy.” Sounds strange, but it’s true. I no longer need tangs at all, but when I use them, I’m grounded. Not that I’m going to fly when I’m with Beau, but without my tangs, I’ll be able to slip through the gaps easier.

  He presses his lips together, but turns his attention to entangling. I close my eyes. We enter the Q-net. I follow Beau as we worm to the ruined escape tunnel. It’s been flattened as if stitched closed by security programs. Jarren’s fingerprints are all over it. He must have cut us off from DES before invading the base.

  I wonder who is monitoring the security now. We know he wasn’t working alone. If we trip an alarm, who would respond?

  What’s wrong? Beau asks.

  Nothing, just thinking.

  Should I be worried?

  Probably.

  Not funny.

  Did you set off any alarms when you were trying to find a way to reach DES after Jarren’s attack? I ask.

  No. Why?

  Should we make our attempts to breach the blockade obvious and see who comes to investigate?

  Would we be able to tell who it is from this side?

  Maybe. If I were flying, I’d have a better chance of learning their identity, but I hesitate to suggest it.

  We should discuss it with Radcliff first, Beau says.

  All right. I turn my attention to the problem at hand. Last time I used Jarren’s hole to escape the blockade. Theoretically it could still be there. Then I remember that Jarren was on Yulin. His base is located on the opposite side of the planet. He needed to be able to send messages to his associates throughout the Galaxy. There has to be an access point through the blockade for his people still left on the base to use.

  Too risky, Beau says after I explain. We’ll be too close. And remember we tried to find information about that base before? We couldn’t get near them.

  You’re right. But that was before the Q-net revealed itself to me. Yes, I’m finding lots of things I can now do, but can’t because I’m a chicken. I suspect I will have to fess up sooner rather than later.

  That was too easy. What are you thinking now? Beau asks.

  Instead of confiding in Beau, I refocus on our current challenge. The logical thing to do would be to find a different location for our new escape tunnel. But what if we used the same one? Or, even better, what if we create three more of them. They wouldn’t expect either move. I tell Beau my ideas.

  Four tunnels? You can do that? His wary tone is mixed with disbelief.

  We won’t know until we try. I concentrate on the intricate weave of the complex program that created the blockade. There’s another almost-invisible thread through it as
well. I wish I could highlight each one with a color to really see—

  What the hell! Beau cries out in surprise as a green line snakes through the program followed by a thin purple one.

  And I have to admit to being very concerned about the Q-net reading my mind. Yes, I know it’s in my mind all the time, but I wasn’t thinking at it at that time. Green is for the main program and purple is the hidden one, I explain. There has to be a way through.

  Where? It’s a tangled mess.

  It’s just like worming, Beau. Look for the gaps. Another idea occurs to me. Our tunnel doesn’t have to be straight. It could be serpentine and still work.

  We labor to insert a long, thin, and flexible tube that’s going to be our tunnel between the green and purple lines. I make it orange so it stands out. It’s a hard and grueling and delicate task and I’m reminded of people who defuse bombs—one wrong move and boom!

  Hours later, we’re rewarded with an escape tunnel through the barricade.

  I didn’t think that was going to work, Beau says. Then he groans. And you want to make three more of them?

  Yes I do.

  And just like that three more orange tubes snake through the barricade in different places. There’s a very long moment of silence. And it becomes very clear to me that it’s necessary to divulge my latest discovery.

  Beau asks, Ara, is there something you want to tell me?

  You’re not going to believe me.

  Let’s just say after what I’ve just seen, I’m more inclined to believe you.

  Not now, I say. We need to create a secure connection to DES first. One that the looters can’t access.

  He huffs. You mean you need to.

  Not this again. It’s times like these where I wish the alien Q-net picked Beau to be its voice. I’d like to think I’d be happy for him and not bristling with jealousy. I stifle a sigh. Even with my limited interactions with the alien Q-net—I need a shorter and better name for it—I suspect that it won’t do anything that I can’t do myself. Meaning that I have to prove I can break through the barricade once and Q will do the rest if I ask.

  CORRECT.

  I startle with a small cry. Stop doing that!

  Stop doing what? Did we trigger an alarm?

  Beau can’t hear Q. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.

  No. Once we’ve established a secure connection, the Q-net can repeat the action if we need to create a second one.

  It can? In that case, we had a secure connection to DES before the last attack.

  We did! See? I need you. I direct a query toward Q. Can you reach DES security, please? The officer who liaised with Radcliff before? I envision a link to DES that is unbreakable…or rather, unwormable. Our orange escape tunnel pulses. And a dozen messages pour out. All from DES, with increasing priority levels. Guess they’ve been trying to contact us since Jarren cut us off nine days ago.

  Stars, Beau says.

  Do you want to send her a reply or should we wait for Radcliff? I ask, hoping to get him back on track.

  We need to talk to Radcliff. Now. Beau disentangles.

  Since I’m not flying, I need to extricate my mind from the Q-net. By the time I’m done, Beau is already out the door.

  Radcliff is working at his desk. He glances up as soon as Beau bursts into his office. “What’s wrong?”

  Beau jabs a finger at the chair in front of Radcliff’s desk. “Sit,” he orders me.

  The dangerous expression on his face stops my sarcastic comment. Instead, I perch on the edge and Radcliff stiffens. No doubt bracing for the bad news. This isn’t going to be pretty.

  “What’s going on, Dorey?” he asks.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” He glares at me. “Care to explain what the hell you were doing in the Q-net?”

  I’ve never seen him so angry. If I say no, would he grab my shoulders and try to shake it from me? Both men are staring at me. How do I explain? “Working with you, creating escape tunnels and a secure connection to DES.”

  “Not that. When you requested the Q-net to make more tunnels and it obeyed.” Beau’s lips move, but his teeth remained clamped.

  “At ease, Dorey,” Radcliff orders, picking up on the man’s fury. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Beau rounds on him. “She’s interacting with the Q-net as if it’s…” His hands go up as if he’s trying to pull the right word from the air.

  “Sentient,” I say. Might as well.

  Both men turn their attention on me.

  “It is. Sentient. The Q-net is an alien consciousness that encompasses the Milky Way Galaxy. Humans did not invent it, they discovered it. The Q-net has allowed us to use it in order to advance our tech enough to travel throughout the Galaxy. It’s directive is to protect us from the HoLFs, but since Jarren allowed the HoLFs to enter our dimension, the Q-net now needs our help to protect us.” I take a shaky breath. They’re staring at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language. “For various reasons, the Q-net has chosen me. That’s why I can connect to it without tangs or a terminal.”

  They continue to stare at me. And I experience what it must be like to be Medusa—the mythical goddess who turned people to stone. I rake my fingers through my long black hair. No snakes, just frizz.

  The silence becomes awkward. “I warned you that you wouldn’t believe me,” I say to Beau.

  “Why…When…How…” Radcliff tries.

  Wow. I’ve rattled the Chief of Security. Go me. “It just revealed itself to me yesterday. I couldn’t decide if anyone would believe me or not. Hell, I’m still in shock. But working with Beau made me realize I can’t keep this to myself.”

  Beau glances at Radcliff. “I told you it was too soon for her—”

  “Oh, for stars’ sake! It’s not PTSD. Unless you have it, too?” I ask Beau. “You saw what happened.” I gesture to Radcliff’s terminal.

  “I did,” Beau says, but his pained expression say he’s not happy admitting it.

  “What happened?” Radcliff asks.

  “Once we pierced the blockade, it created another three escape tunnels. We have to prove that we can do something first, then it will copy the action,” I say. “Since we already created a secure channel to DES, I just had to ask Q to do another one, which it did in a fraction of the time. There are messages from DES security for you.”

  Radcliff looks at his screen. But he’s clearly distracted.

  I connect with Q. Can you prove your existence to Officer Radcliff? I ask.

  NO.

  Not the answer I expected. Why not?

  I CHOSE YOU.

  I understand that, but you chose a person who has no authority to do anything! I need him to believe me.

  I CHOSE YOU.

  In other words, make them believe you. Wonderful. Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

  “What are you doing?” Radcliff asks me.

  “Trying to get Q to back me up. But it’d rather not.”

  Beau and Radcliff exchange one of those how-do-we-humor-the-crazy-person glances.

  “Guess you need to either trust me or not.” I stand. “Just remember what happened in the Q-net, Beau. You know I never could have done all that so fast. And for your information, Officer Radcliff, Q healed Niall. Without its help, he’d still be in a coma. That’s why his sensors are fried.” With that, I head for the door that connects Radcliff and Beau’s offices. There’s really nothing else left for me to say about Q.

  “Where are you going?” Radcliff asks.

  “Back to work.”

  “Doing what?”

  I turn. “Now that we can communicate with DES again, we need to ensure that no one can worm into our messages. Otherwise our escape tunnels will be shut down.” Another idea occurs to me. “And we should dig out the looters from DES’s organization. Jarren said they’re in deep.”

  “We? As in you and the Q-net?”

  “No. We as in Beau and me. Unless you’d rather stand there all day?” I ask Beau. When he hesit
ates, I shake my head and leave.

  I sit at Beau’s dual Q-net terminals. The temptation to fly with the Q-net is strong, but, while that way is easier, I don’t get the same…touch. Instead, I return to the escape tunnel and consider how to protect our outgoing messages. It’s tricky, but I weave a web inside the tunnel. As messages travel through, they will be coated with strands of security programming so they will have an extra layer of protection. And now Q can coat all the rest. Right, Q?

  CORRECT.

  May I call you Q? Do you have another name?

  CALL ME Q.

  Beau arrives in the Q-net. I brace for him to yell at me, or humor me, which would be worse.

  There you are, he says in an even tone.

  I decide to pretend I haven’t just flipped his world upside down. Without missing a beat, I ask, What’s next?

  I thought we should clean up the worm holes in DES. You said that Jarren’s organization was in deep.

  That might tip them off. How about we take a look and see how bad it is and where they are concentrated?

  All right.

  We escape through one of the tunnels and worm to DES’s central cluster. DES is spread throughout the Q-net and I imagine their connections are like roots, spreading out and digging deep. They guard and control the star roads, which are vital for us to travel the vast distances across the Galaxy. Once I thought Jarren and his thugs had gained access to the star roads, and were using them to travel to the different Warrior planets, but now I have a different theory. If they’re using the Warrior portals in the pits, there’s no need for them to worm into the star roads. I believe that each Warrior pit guards a portal to another Warrior planet and this is why, when Jarren and his looters attacked us, they only stole certain key Warriors.

  A chill rips through my body. Being able to travel to the different planets without invoking the time dilation is a huge deal. It’s basically instant travel. And being the person or organization to control that ability would be enormous. Big enough to kill for.