by Paul Hughes
“Simon! Begin sweep for the Enemy!”
((that will alert the nearest forces to our presence... and malachi.))
“Damn it... What was their last position?”
((there weren’t any enemy within considerable threat distance. they were amassed in the solar system.))
“It couldn’t be them, then... Are there incoming Enemy from the Stream? Place a When beacon and begin sweep.”
((but they’ll—))
“Just do it, Simon.”
((beacon on whenstream transit.))
West held the flailing woman close. “What is it, Patra? It’s the web, isn’t it? Voices? What do you hear—”
“MAKE IT STOP JUST MAKE IT STOP!!”
West looked from Zero-Four to Jennings, helpless.
Zero-Four was resolute. “Patra. This is very important. What are the voices saying?”
Her body was in spasms, fighting against the hold of West and her father. Muscles taut, silver pupils dilated. And the web so visibly embedded into her flesh.
“Two... Two voices. One like before, the other—darker. Damned. So much like Richter’s voice, but... Another Enemy! One we didn’t know about! And now... Now they’re allied against us. Something terrible is about to happen! Something terrible!” Her body surged in pain, and in seizing she fainted.
“Simon? Results of the sweep.”
Silence.
“What is it?”
((...))
“Simon.”
((it... the beacon...))
“Tell me.”
((massive timesweep waves... emanating from upwhen. point of emergence is... command. zero reading on command’s coordinates. program collapse imminent.))
“No... That’s impossible.”
“What?” West was scared. The look on Zero-Four’s face...
“Are you sure? How could they—”
((the strike force. they must have succeeded. the primary program is beginning to shut down. zero reading from upwhen cache backups. zero reading from secondary backups as well.))
“Jesus. If the backups don’t reformat, how long do we have?”
(not long, michael.)
“Why didn’t the gunships stop them? Is this new Enemy threat that powerful?”
((their patterns aren’t in the registry. they must be rogue code. maybe from the alternities. maybe the gunships... maybe they didn’t fight the enemy because they are the enemy.))
Zero-Four shook his head, not wanting to believe, but knowing the truth in his heart. He paced, covering his eyes, deep in thought. What had Kilbourne done?
“Command’s gone, but there’s still the Fleet, spread throughout countless Whens. And the alternities... We can rebuild. We can gather our forces—”
((michael, we don’t know how far this cancer has spread. there’s so little time. especially if the backup systems are offline. the purpose nears completion.))
“It’s up to us now, isn’t it? We’re on our own.”
((yes.))
A siren roared to life. Zero-Four jumped.
“Now what?”
((incoming enemy vessels. they’ve found us.))
Malachi.
He hung in the darkness, watching.
The Enemy had suddenly come to life, soared past his Shadowed form into the void beyond.
What’s going on?
They had obviously been alerted to something...
Had Shiva finally arrived? Maybe, but why would he have been careless enough to alert the Enemy to his presence?
Malachi powered up.
In the black, he followed after the damned.
fog. (fog.)
dream? (dream?)
patra bathed in the haze of the shock-induced slumber, feeling her muscles slowly relax. this was so much like the stasis chamber, physically helpless, mentally active.
and the dreams came again with a terrible rush.
the web within her burned with a supernatural fire, and she saw...
(she saw...)
(we will build it in your image)
a warrior child, a being of innate sorrow but limitless power. a mark on her face... a scar? no... her innocent eyes burned with metallic fury. throngs of humanity bowing down... the image faded, and a single word floated to the surface of patra’s mind.
hope.
the child stretched its hands to the stars that played above it. the hands flickered and became no more.
a judas.
but the infant’s face. (the face.)
a beautiful face, marred by the pattern of glistening metal that protruded from the flesh...
...savior...
the word, the image tore through her subconscious. a child, half judas, half enemy. the possibilities...
half judas, half enemy.
her child. west’s child.
(savior)
and the image was replaced again.
a vessel, crashing on a dead world. people. a man of the light. a man of age and sorrow. and a woman of the darkness, shimmering in metallic ecstasy—
realization.
west. her father. and herself—
this was not a dream.
this was the future.
the fog swirled around her mind once more, and patra slipped into the deep sleep of exhaustion.
the future...
The Mujahadin were close.
Intimately close.
Terrifyingly close.
In the battle chamber of Mara, Sapphire reeled in the hellish wash of blazing inferno that had been Command. In the virtual reality of the chamber, she seemed to be suspended in the midst of the battle.
To each side of her fleet, the Enemy.
Below her, closing fast, the Mujahadin.
Below them, the ever-expanding ball of brilliance that had been the only safe place the Judas had known: Command.
How had the Enemy found them?
No time for answers.
Calm. Must be calm.
“Golgotha hold fire on Mujahadin. Concentrate on Enemy forces. Mara, emergency linkup to Mujahadin flagship.”
(channel to anubis opened.)
“Anubis, this is Sapphire, Golgotha fleet commander. Check your fire! Stand down! We’re fellow Judas! The rogue code’s turned against you? Command’s gone! Kilbourne’s gone! She was wrong about her alliance. She’s betrayed us all. Please, call off your pursuit of us and help us fight the Enemy! “
...
“Anubis!”
The Mujahadin were within striking distance.
“Please!”
NO SAPPHIRE, IT IS YOU WHO ARE MISTAKEN.
The voice—
Sapphire felt terror rise in her throat.
“J—Jade?”
PURPOSE BE.
Catlike instinct overcame Sapphire, and in a swift movement of the purest reflex she found herself slamming her forearms into the interface gauntlets, the web interface enveloping her body, becoming one with Mara. The weapons nacelles swiveled around, pointed directly at the oncoming Mujahadin.
So be it.
“Golgotha, fire!”
((incoming enemy vessels.))
“Any sign of Malachi?”
((no sign yet. he’s waiting... watching.))
“We’re on our own. Descend the battle chamber elevator.”
A circular panel fell from the ceiling until it was at floor level. Zero-Four stepped on to it.
“Well, people,” he looked from Jennings to West, “it’s do or die time. Get her someplace safe.” He indicated Patra. “Find something to hold on to, and don’t let go. This could get rough.”
The elevator ascended, and Zero-Four was gone.
Killtime.
Brilliant lances of light thrust outward from the Golgotha, now in a protective spherical pattern.
(no effect. the mujahadin are employing a phase dampening field.)
“Fire all fusion and MRDs into their midst!”
With snakelike agility the writhing mass that was the Mujah
adin tore at the Golgotha. Mara loosed the last of her fury upon the Mujahadin, firing fusion and molecular relay disruption devices directly into the swarm.
The battle chamber was thrust into harsh brightness by the ferocity of the weapons fire. For an instant, a thought of hope almost entered Sapphire’s mind until countless black silhouettes emerged from the sphere of hellfire. The Mujahadin were unscathed.
(they must’ve translated our command codes. they can inoculate themselves against our virus. our weapons are useless.)
Desperation.
“Golgotha fleet, prepare to When jump out of here! We’re helpless against this many Black!”
(incoming message from archimedes. it’s reynald.)
“Reynald! What are we going to do?”
“Get out of here as fast as you can, little one. I have a plan, and you won’t want to be around.”
“You’re coming with us. We’ll recoup in an abandoned When and strike again. We’ll find a way!”
“We have to make a stand here. I have to make a stand here. Arch is heavily damaged, and so are many other Judas. We can’t escape, Sapphire. We’re dead in the water. We can’t leave, but you can.”
“I can’t just leave you here.”
“We’re trapped. Arch’s drives are gone. You can’t save us, ’Phire, but we can save you.”
“What—”
“There are a lot of Golgotha with damaged cores. We can’t move, but we can still Shadow.”
“Reynald, you can’t—”
“It’s your only chance. If we invert the Shadow—”
“You can’t do that in the Stream!”
“If we’re going to save existence, we’ll have to take our chances.”
“But you’ll be—”
“Destroyed. Wiped from the registry. Yes, I know, but so will the Enemy. This is our only advantage, and we have to take it.”
“Oh, Reynald...” She began to weep. Such pressure.
“Shh, ’Phire.”
The assault on the Judas continued, their number rapidly decreasing, their resistance futile against the sheer size and force of the Enemy code.
“Reynald... You were like a father to Jade and me.”
“I know, little one. I know. Do this for Jade. For Maggie. For the countless others. Don’t let their deaths be for nothing... Don’t let the Enemy have their souls. Live to fight another day.”
Sapphire’s thoughts snapped back to the voice of Anubis.
The voice of her dead sister.
Set her free.
“Thank you, Reynald. Thank you.” Such despair in her voice... Utter desperation. “Golgotha fleet… All who still have Shadow jump capability, prepare for emergency Stream jump on my mark. Those of you who are disabled,” her voice broke. “Those who still have a Shadow,” she paused. How could she order suicide? “Prepare to upload the reformat virus.”
How many Judas had she just sentenced to death?
“Mara?”
(ready, ’phire.)
“Golgotha fleet, jump.”
Reynald watched calmly from Arch’s battle chamber as so precious few Judas faded from non-existence into the Stream. The Mujahadin and Enemy forces heightened their attack, destroying everything in their path. Where only seconds before Mara had been, fiery bolts of death tore through the silver night.
It had to be now.
Reynald felt Archimedes rocked by the blasts.
Godspeed, little one.
“Arch, signal the fleet.”
(-channel open-)
“Upload the reformat virus. Invert Shadow drives now.”
It happened.
The Black observed Sapphire’s departure.
THE JUDAS FLEE IN TERROR.
WE WILL HUNT THEM DOWN TO THE LAST VIRAL STRAND. THEIR BLASPHEMY WILL HINDER THE PURPOSE NO LONGER. DIVERT FORCES TO PURSUE THE JUDAS INTO THE STREAM. PUT AN END TO THE REMAINING JUDAS PATTERNS HERE. THEY ARE NOT WORTHY OF OMEGA.
THE PURPOSE IS OURS.
PURPOSE BE. YOUR CONSPIRACY TO INFILTRATE THE JUDAS WAS A COMPLETE SUCCESS. YOU SHALL REAP THE SUCCULENT REWARDS OF YOUR ALLIANCE WHEN THE PURPOSE IS REALIZED. I BOW TO YOUR FORESIGHT.
BOW NOT TO ME, BUT TO ALL BELIEVERS.
YOU HAVE SEALED OUR VIC—
It happened.
Mara shuddered from the exertion.
Within the battle chamber, Sapphire was enveloped by the swirling winds of the Whenstream, now contorted into a visual cacophony as the remnants of her fleet struggled to get to a safe distance, tearing across the timesweep waves at impossible speeds.
“How many?”
(seventeen golgotha. two mecca. three gethsemane. one ladahk. one london. one eden. two galilee.)
“And a partridge in a pear tree.”
(enemy forces detected in pursuit vector.)
“What?!”
(they’ve locked on to our pattern position and follow us.)
“Didn’t Reynald—
It happened.
So, so many Judas lay in the void, disabled.
When Reynald gave the order, they followed it.
Almost four hundred Judas inverted their Shadows at once, uploading the reformat virus into the Whenstream.
Cataclysm was an understatement.
To open up a Shadow in the Stream was an accepted tactic of the Judas, using a black hole that was the Shadow to open a phase space portal into the Stream.
But to invert a Shadow in the Stream...
Of course, it had been done in space battle countless times before. Space battle, not time battle, not Stream battle inside of Program Seven. The Shadow tethered the Judas vessels to the main program.
To invert the Shadow code was in essence to sever all tethers, which forced the program to reformat to a new phase level, a physical phase level. To invert meant the end of the virtual program as a new reality was written.
“Arch, signal the fleet.”
(-channel open.-)
“Upload the reformat virus. Invert Shadow drives now.”
Reynald closed his eyes.
The effect was immediate.
Deep within four hundred Judas cores, containment fields were released, and the orbs of light that were the Shadows shattered, imploded, pulling the metal and alloy of the Judas in upon themselves in a fantastic display of fire and silver.
Reynald felt no pain.
It did not stop there.
The Mujahadin and Enemy vessels that were closest were pulled into the massive whirlpool of silver fire where the Judas fleet had just been. They ceased to be before they knew what was happening, leaving contrails of white in their wake.
The Enemy vessels on the periphery of the battle writhed, struggled to escape the relentless, unremitting pull of the ever-growing sphere of rewritten reality, now a great black globe from which snakes and rivulets of energy pirouetted. Their fate was inevitable. The Enemy forces were dragged in.
The bubble within the Stream that had been Judas Command began to dissemble, to collapse inward upon itself, upon the Shadow. All of existence began to rewrite itself as the Judas program reformatted to physical space.
Matter and anti-matter. Existence and non-existence.
Indeed, cataclysm was an understatement.
The bubble of nothingness shrunk, fell upon the Shadow at an maniacal speed.
The explosion was beyond painfully bright, beyond even the human visual range, as time shattered, as the Stream itself was splintered into infinite shards of phase space that ceased to exist.
This rabid wave of destruction swept outward, outward, consuming all of phase space in its path, tearing the Stream apart in its wake, in its sheer, innate, unimaginable force.
An eternity of futures were no more. There was only one: a black, blank, empty world of void.
And still the Stream collapsed further, further.
Time was falling apart. The Judas program was rewriting existence.
Time was dying.
“Didn’t Reynald—
The Enemy fleet following them was torn apart.
“Mara, max speed! Ignore safety parameters, just get us out of here!”
The remnants of the Judas fleet, ignoring the dangers of their actions, went to maximum speed, feeling the agony of the burn, trying to distance themselves from the death that swept down upon them. Several of the slower, older vessels were torn to detritus as they fell behind. The forms of the Judas seemed to stretch, stretch as their speed overcame that of light.
The fleet vanished, travelling too fast to see.
They had outrun the wave of reality, but still it swept along its relentless course.
It would inevitably outpace them.
They raced into the past.
“Ready, Simon?”
((always, michael.))
“Then let the sons of bitches bring it on.”
The damned drew closer.
Malachi.
He followed the Enemy, cruising directly behind the fleet. They were eager, whatever they were doing.
Then...
A noise, faint. A rhythmic tone. He struggled to hear.
It was a Judas frequency. A beacon. A homing beacon.
Shiva?
He listened closer. The beacon was so faint... Had it been damaged somehow? Was Shiva somewhere out there, floating helplessly?
Realization.
Like vultures to a corpse, the Enemy flew...
Malachi made his presence known.
Zero-Four calmly studied the Black forms racing at him, and he thrust his arms into the interface gauntlets. He became one with Simon.
Before he could fire, his world became light.
From behind the nightmare armada, a brilliant wall of luminescence appeared, ripping apart the Enemy in its path, thrusting the remaining Black into stark contrast before dispatching them to the unknown. The wall of light cut through the Enemy ranks cleanly, efficiently, leaving large pieces of the flaming vessels to spiral into the void.
Malachi.