Eaters of the Light

by J. Edward Neill

  “Say it.” I tried not to sound threatening.

  “Fine.” He clucked his tongue. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Everyone on Hermes will be two generations dead by the time we get back. They won’t remember to be angry at me for telling you.”

  “Then tell,” I said.

  And he did.

  The Hades Galaxy, he called it. I’d only ever heard rumors, but Strope talked about Hades as if it were divine truth. He spoke of a galaxy beyond Andromeda, a great darkness unknown to humanity’s eyes. He spoke of countless dead worlds, their stars snuffed, their gravity rendered forever inert. My skeptical mind wanted to disbelieve in such mythical-sounding places, but I saw only truth in him.

  “We’ve looked for Hades,” he explained. “Sufi knows, we’ve tried. But the trouble is—the Vark killed all its stars. All of them. It’s like their utopia. No light. No stars. All its dust and gas put to sleep by Coffin Engines. It’s a paradise for the dead.”

  I’d promised no questions.

  But I couldn’t help myself.

  “And?”

  “And…” He looked out the Sabre’s cockpit window. “We think if we catch a Vark, plunge it into a special kind of hypo-sleep, and bring it home, we can—”

  “Interrogate it,” I interrupted. “Use it to locate the Hades Galaxy. And then…attack.”

  “I don’t know the science.” He shrugged. “But yeah. That.”

  Bring the fight to them. I retreated into thought.

  Make them remember the light.

  Find their true home. End it.

  This is a plan I can get behind.

  I wanted to know more.

  But it was then the fleet arrived.

  * * *

  In a storage pod aboard the Ring, Strope and I stood side-by-side. Sealed crates of food towered over us. Stars wheeled beyond the great window, interrupted by glimpses of the seven Rings and thirty Xiphos warships from Hermes.

  Strope had stopped.

  He didn’t want to move.

  I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t every day someone looked at three of the same person. The two extra Callistas, floating inert in their glass cylinders, might’ve been asleep for all he knew.

  “So…if the body you’re in now dies…” He glanced between me and my sleeping twins. “You just—?”

  “Exit my cortical plug, glide into one of the tanks, and insert myself into a new body,” I answered.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “It’s not a feeling I can describe,” I said. “Try to imagine being born, but as a fully-aware adult.”

  His eyes lit up. “Sorry. Can’t imagine it. Don’t want to.”

  His eyes were wide, but he still wore his familiar smile. I’d met men like him before, men who used their humor to shield themselves from the tragedy of war or the erosion of the human experience.

  But none as tireless as Strope.

  “You’re staring,” I said after another moment. “We need to get to a console. Your fleet is trying to contact us.”

  He gazed at the cylinders for a moment longer before breaking away.

  “Sorry,” he said again. “It’s just…your two back-up bodies…they’re naked.”

  With a last smirk, he marched away and into the next pod.

  Strange… I thought.

  …the type of man Hermes sends to lead its wars.

  We arrived in the kitchen pod. The low lights and still air caught me in a memory of things that once had been. I let Strope wander ahead, while I stopped in the pod’s entryway. I gazed at the chrome walls, the table, and the stars spinning through the window.

  How many hours have I lingered here?

  How long has it been?

  Alone, Strope walked right up to the console. He tried to activate it, but the interface – floating blue symbols in a language he didn’t know – confounded him.

  “What’s this one do?” He pointed to a random symbol.

  I ushered him aside and tapped a few symbols in the air. I didn’t feel like myself. My fingers moved slower than usual, my mind fractured by a feeling I’d ignored. My time on Hermes felt as though it had happened centuries ago.

  “Everything ok?” Strope leaned in to look at my face.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

  I recaptured my calm. My fingers sped up, and in the next instant I connected to the communications web humming between the Hermes attack fleet and my Ring. Seven Rings and thirty Xiphos’ attack ships snared my Ring’s frequency. The largest of the Hermes Rings, a goliath ship with thirty-six pods and eight docks, recognized my signal and pinged me back.

  “Commander Strope?” I heard a woman’s voice. I recognized it at once.

  The big woman from the mess room.

  The one who doesn’t like me.

  “Actually, this is—” I began.

  Strope cut in.

  “Strope reporting.” He sounded almost serious. “This is Lightbringer One. Please connect visuals. I want to see your faces.”

  Lightbringer One?

  He made the name up just now.

  I could’ve been angry at his interruption. But my heart wasn’t in it. After centuries of making war, I didn’t care about minutiae. I only wanted to fight. Obliterating Strigoi was the one thing that made me feel valuable.

  The one thing that makes me feel alive.

  An image flickered to life in the air above the console. I recognized Big Woman, and behind her, Rami and several other pilots from Strope’s mountain garrison. The insides of their Ring looked far different than mine.

  Bright.

  Clean.

  Tiny windows.

  Filled with people.

  How strange it is their commander chose to come aboard my Ring. Alone.

  “Commander, are you well?” Big Woman shot a dark look in my direction. “Is the Lightbringer’s ship…adequate?”

  “Better than adequate,” he answered. “I’d have ordered more of you to join me, but there’s only two hypo-sleep chambers.”

  His crew looked skeptical, all of them save Rami. The boy sidled up to Big Woman and gazed at us with the same smile as his brother.

  “I’ve got coordinates.” Rami’s excitement twinkled in his eyes. “I’ll send them over. We’re taking four jumps to reach Grave B-7 Black, and three more to surprise Grave DD-9 Ebon.”

  Big Woman looked down at little Rami. She stood a full head taller than the young man, and her shoulders were twice as wide.

  “You assume we’re surviving B-7 Black,” she rumbled. “You think too far ahead, young one.”

  “Be gentle, Kira.” Strope laced his interruption with a smile for his little brother. “We are surviving this. We’re not making this sacrifice just to finish half the job. This is everything. Not only will we win, but we’ll not lose a single ship doing it.”

  Bold words, I thought in silence.

  Big Woman Kira’s face softened.

  “And what’s Lightbringer’s role, Commander?” she said. “We all have our assignments, our attack patterns. She hasn’t trained with us. She doesn’t know—”

  “While you sleep, I’ll train,” I said. “Stream your tactical plans to me. I’ll make an exception to my learning inhibitors. In ten minutes, I’ll know everything.”

  She made a face, grappling with my meaning.

  “Is this acceptable, Commander?” She looked at Strope.

  “It is,” he said.

  Big Kira lifted her chin and backed away. She’d acted as though she were the captain of the giant Ring, but I’d seen through it. She was only a pilot.

  One of Strope’s favorites.

  Angry, but not in command.

  Kira left our field of view, shaking her head as she vanished. Replacing her was a tall, narrow man I’d never seen before. I knew he hadn’t been in Strope’s garrison. He looked out of place, not only for his advanced age.

  …but there’s something else.

  “Captain Mahtim.” Strope gree
ted the man’s floating image. “What’s it look like? Are we ready?”

  I looked sideways at Strope. I’d yet to see him uncomfortable in any situation.

  Until now.

  “I’ve reviewed Rami’s flight path.” Mahtim’s voice boomed across the console. “We’ll move into formation in a quarter-cycle. Two cycles from now, we’ll go quantum. I’ve already ordered our fleet to synchronize. As for your Ring, you’ll match the program we’re sending. Make no errors, Commander. Else you might miss the war.”

  Mahtim’s sharp, condescending tone felt at odds with Strope. I sensed the two disliked one another, and had for some time been forced to be allies.

  In Mahtim’s voice, I heard echoes of Maliah.

  He’s aristocratic.

  He’s old, which is rare on Hermes.

  And—

  I remembered then how little I cared about the politics of men and the endless collision of their egos. I heard them talking and I tuned them out, purposely un-listening to Mahtim instructing Strope about his questionable choice to fly with me instead of his fleet.

  They bicker like enemies.

  As if they’ve forgotten who the real enemy is.

  …and what they’re capable of.

  Several minutes later, after retreating into memories of things I wished I could’ve forgotten, I returned to the moment.

  And interrupted the men’s conversation.

  “Excuse me, Captain Mahtim,” I said. “I’m wondering if you have something of mine. It’s a powered black battle-suit. Big round shoulders, dark visor, only fits me. I’m sure it couldn’t be on my ship, and Commander Strope hasn’t mentioned it. I’m hoping you have it.”

  Twisting his lips, the Captain glanced at me.

  “Yes. We have your toy, Lightbringer.” He chuffed. “Very interesting device. Not that you’ll need it for the coming battle. Our attack will be strictly aerial.”

  “All the same, I’d like to have it.” I felt my blue eyes darken. “It makes me feel…safe.”

  “We loaded it into one of the Xiphos ships.” Strope cut the tension. “The Xiphos’ can’t dock with your Ring. I’ll have them free-float your suit into your airlock.”

  Free-floating. I hid my frown.

  How fun.

  The two men discussed more. Their conversation was charged with their mutual dislike of one another. Again, I tuned them out. Alone at the kitchen pod’s table, I closed my eyes and plummeted into thought.

  Two worlds.

  Billions of Strigoi.

  Hades Galaxy.

  Trillions more.

  When the time comes, the Hermes fleet will do as I say.

  Or it’ll be them free-floating.

  * * *

  Many hours later, after I’d eaten, exercised, and given Strope a halfhearted tour of the Ring, I made my retreat to the most sacred of places – the observation pod. Two chairs and one tiny table awaited me, just as they had for so many centuries. I sat in one chair, my eyes glittering with starlight, and I gazed at the emptiness before me.

  “Where am I, Joff?” I whispered in the dark.

  Sitting on my Ring, positioned in battle formation, mere hours from beginning a voyage into the Strigoi-occupied heart of Andromeda, I was exactly where I’d set out to be.

  And yet…

  “This won’t end, will it?” I asked the emptiness. “We’ll destroy their planets, invade their mythical galaxy, and cripple them for a hundred-thousand years…but it still won’t end. Will it?

  “I know it now. I’ve seen it,” I said to the nothingness. “The Strigoi can’t be stopped, only slowed. Even if we clear Andromeda, even if we find Hades and turn every black bone to ash, how can we know? How can we sleep at night knowing that one day, long from now, they’ll come back?

  And…

  “What if I live forever? What if I’m still here eons from now, still waiting, still looking skyward?

  “…still waiting for you?”

  I knew he couldn’t answer. Joff was as dead as any human could be, incinerated at the edge of a newly-born star. He’d died destroying the grandest of the Strigoi death-spheres. And he’d done so mere moments before perishing of his wounds.

  My makers created me to be capable of many things.

  To think. To laugh. To cry. To know suffering and joy.

  But…

  Not to love another. I can only love Joff, because I was made for him.

  They thought we’d die together.

  They couldn’t have known.

  The door slid open, and Strope wandered into the shadows. Pools of starlight illuminated his face as he crossed the room and sat in the chair opposite me.

  Joff’s chair.

  No one but Joff had ever sat there. I felt a moment’s rage well up inside me, but let it pass with my very next breath.

  He’s doesn’t know.

  Joff’s a thousand years dead.

  This feeling must pass.

  “I’ve never known computers to savor their alone time.” Strope tried one of his smiles. “But you…it feels like you’re avoiding me.”

  “I’m not a computer,” I said.

  “I know.” He shrugged. “It’s a joke. Aren’t you laughing? No? Don’t feel bad. Most people on Hermes can’t appreciate humor, either. If the Calipha had it her way, we’d be sent to prison for something as small as a smile.”

  I looked past him, through him. The room’s darkness had been peaceful in his absence.

  But now…

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “We’ve downloaded the tactical data you wanted. Mahtim and Kira are sure you’ll ignore it, but I thought—”

  “No. I mean why are you here…on my ship?”

  He feigned a look of surprise. He must’ve known I’d ask sooner or later.

  “You could’ve sent anyone to watch me,” I said. “If you were worried about my obedience, you could’ve sent one of your big, scary soldiers. I’m smart enough to know many things, but this one choice of you eludes me.”

  I stared hard at him. The stars winked in his deep golden eyes. I swore he looked almost sad.

  “Because I believe,” he said.

  “Because you believe?”

  He let out a vast sigh. I admitted I hadn’t thought him capable of such a noise.

  “Did you know, Callista, I grew up hearing stories about you?”

  I stared at him, saying nothing.

  “It’s true,” he said. “My grandfather’s father, Castian Strope Dakash, Seventh of Dakash, Son of the Sixth, he met a man who came to Hermes from your galaxy. And the man knew you. Not knew you, but knew all the things you’d done. It became a family story, this conversation between Old Castian and a strange little man from a faraway world. And I remembered what the old man said. In the deepest of winters, as we huddled in the equatorial halls, he’d gather us kids and talk about you. How you hunted the Vark from world to world. How you traveled the stars, seeking the bravest soldiers to leave everything behind and follow you into war.”

  I said nothing, but I couldn’t conceal the fact

  I felt something.

  Strope looked to the vast window, beyond which the Hermes fleet waited in the dark. I wasn’t sure he’d ever really been human before that moment.

  “Old Castian was sure you’d come here one day.” He nodded at the stars. “And I dreamed it was true. And now…here you are. Blue eyes. Blue hair. Immortal. All the things he said were true.”

  “How could this be?” I asked. “The old man left Hermes more than a century ago. You’d be dead if you’d met him.”

  Strope looked almost wounded.

  “You think you’re the only one who’s spent most of their life in hypo-sleep?” he said. “Nope. I have. Twenty-six years awake—one-hundred forty stuck in a glass cylinder.”

  I felt foolish.

  I should’ve known.

  “No one believed me.” He shook his head. “They didn’t think you were real. But I
did. I knew it. I knew you’d come. I guess maybe it’d be fair to say I’ve been waiting to meet you my entire life. Hermes needs you, but I needed you more.”

  In the shadows, he couldn’t see my face.

  Or the tear sliding down my cheek.

  The Thirty-One Year Dream

  Thirty-one years.

  I’m doing it again.

  Everyone I’ve ever known.

  …gone.

  In the Sabre’s cockpit, I lingered before the hypo-chamber. We’d fired the quantum engines two cycles ago, and the time for sleep had arrived.

  Strope began peeling off his white robes and undergarments.

  “You don’t mind?” He smiled up at me. He stripped himself fully naked, and wasn’t even slightly concerned with modesty.

  “I don’t.” I looked him in his eyes. “I’ll seal you in, and then I’ll put myself to sleep in the Ring’s chamber. It’s the way it’s always been – I go to sleep last.”

  He shrugged and backed into the tiny room housing the Sabre’s hypo-sleep cylinder. “Not what I meant,” he said. “I meant—you don’t mind seeing me naked?”

  “No.” I shook my head. It was true. Despite his pleasing body, my mind was far removed from thoughts of attraction, embarrassment, or sex. “You’re nice to look at,” I conceded. “I wonder if the Strigoi will care.”

  With a roll of his eyes, he fitted himself into the hypo-chamber’s open glass cylinder. I found myself bothered that he fit into the machine as if it’d been made for him.

  Same height as Joff.

  Same body type.

  I wish he’d sent his little brother instead.

  “You keep saying ‘Strigoi,’” he said as he settled into position. “You don’t like our word for it— ‘Varkolak?’”

  “They mean the same thing.” I put my hand on the glass door. I was ready to shut him in…and everything else out. “Someone once told me about the word ‘Strigoi.’ It means a sort of spirit, an afterlife wanderer. Varkolak means the same thing. Something neither alive nor dead. A monster.”

  “Oh.” He relaxed in the hypo-chamber. If the idea of sleeping for thirty-one years and waking near a sunless, lifeless alien world bothered him, he didn’t show it.