Dark Rivals

by Amy DuBoff

  Luke and Jack each grabbed test tubes with the tongs and gingerly transplanted them to the bottom of the glove box. Tess closed the plexiglass hatch over the four glove openings as an extra precaution.

  “Was this stuff alive the whole time?” she murmured.

  “Depends on your definition of life,” Luke replied while transporting another vial.

  “Crawly, glowy things certainly seem to fit the definition,” Jack said. “Not that I’m crazy about the idea of a bunch of rock that had been exposed to the vacuum of space suddenly being able to spring into action like this.”

  “Is it too far a leap to hypothesize that it’s connected to whatever is going on with the lights on the station?” Tess ventured.

  “With this timing, no,” Luke replied. He placed another test tube in the glove box; only three more to go.

  Tess wilted. “That means it’s…”

  “Fucking Dyons,” Jack completed for her.

  “But computers!” Tess objected.

  “They got one of the external processors,” Jack reminded the two scientists. “If they’re as good at reverse engineering as it seems like they are, then it’s no surprise they figured out a hack.”

  “But where are they? Is this telepathic?” Tess’ eyes were wide with worry and wonder.

  Luke placed the final sample vial in the glove box, then swung the top lid closed and latched it. “I have a feeling we’re about to find out.”

  * * *

  “Fuckity fuck,” Ava said under her breath.

  “Theory, Lieutenant?” Widmore asked as he shielded his eyes from the overly bright lights.

  “Weird happenings on both starships and in headquarters? Someone or something has hacked into our central control systems,” Ava replied.

  “I figured as much. Care to hazard a guess at whom?”

  “I really want to be wrong, but I’d put money on the Dyons taking advantage of the tech we inadvertently left them.”

  >>I hate to concur, but I do,<< Ruby said in her mind. >>This is bad.<<

  “Fucking fantastic,” Widmore said in a low voice, shaking his head. “We need to get to central command. If it is them, you’re our best chance at opening a dialogue.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They set off at a fast jog from the office, following the main corridors on a direct route to the control center at the heart of the star-shaped station. Other warriors in the halls quickly moved out of their way. A few tried to ask questions, but Widmore ignored them all. Ava followed his lead.

  A dozen meters from the control center entrance, Ava spotted Colonel Kurtz approaching from the opposite direction.

  “Sir,” Ava acknowledged.

  “Lieutenant, Major,” Kurtz greeted with a curt nod. “It would seem we were due for another crisis.”

  “All to keep us on our toes, sir,” Ava replied. She forced a smile, but on the inside she was terrified to find out what they were up against.

  Kurtz was the first through the entry door, followed by Widmore. Ava reluctantly followed.

  The round room was abuzz with activity. Communications techs were yelling at each other across their consoles, arranged in two concentric circles around the room, and officers were barking orders. Ava tuned out the din in an attempt to identify any information about what was going on. Nothing stood out, aside from a list of errors flashing in red on the broad screen mounted to the back wall.

  Ruby, you have anything? she asked.

  >>Systems are down. We’re locked out.<<

  Can you get in?

  >>Not alone,<< Ruby replied.

  Ava stepped up next to Widmore, while Kurtz ran over to talk with the other senior officers gathered in the center of the room.

  “Sir, Ruby said the controls are locked.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Widmore murmured. “I thought we were dealing with a telepathic enemy, but this…”

  “They don’t just manipulate biology. Technology, too,” she replied. “But I didn’t see a computer hack coming, either. Fuck, I’d really hoped they were all dead.”

  “Me too.”

  Ava looked around the room. “Until we can put a face to these things, I can’t do anything here. But I do happen to know two of the best hackers around.”

  Widmore looked at her under his brow. “Hack our own computer network?”

  “If we’re locked out, what other choice do we have?”

  “All right, get them up here,” Widmore agreed.

  Ruby, do you have access to communications? Ava asked in her mind.

  >>No, everything is locked. It’s a small miracle we still have life support.<<

  “I’ll need to find them in person,” Ava told Widmore. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He nodded. “I’ll relay your recommendation to the other officers. If it’s a go, we’ll be ready for you when you return with Nick and Samantha.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ava raced from the control room toward the corridor leading to the residential arm housing her team. She’d normally hop on the maglev, but with the power fluctuations, getting trapped in a transport car was too great a risk. Besides, with her new abilities, running was a breeze.

  She tore past the confused warriors traversing the halls in an attempt to find answers, deftly navigating the corridors until she reached the part of her trek where she needed to go vertically.

  I’m going to guess that taking the lift is a bad idea.

  >>If you thought being trapped in a maglev car was bad, pretty sure an elevator is on a whole other level… literally.<<

  Ava rolled her eyes. Ruby, that was a terrible pun.

  She reached the ladder access shaft, which was two meters from the main elevator bank. Twisting the lever to the side, she swung the hatch door open. She peeked inside. It was a long way up—nine stories to her destination.

  Keep my palms from sweating, will you?

  >>With your new grip strength, it won’t matter.<<

  All the same, falling to our death would be a lame way to go.

  She made quick time up the ladder and unbolted the access hatch on the destination level.

  Her team’s quarters were forty meters down the main corridor and off a short side passageway.

  Please be here, Ava wished silently to herself. She knocked on the door.

  To her relief, the bolt unlocked after five seconds, and the door opened a crack. Nick peered back at her.

  “Ava?” He swung the door open fully.

  “Hey.” She spotted Samantha and Edwin seated at the table. “Thank the stars you’re here! We need you.”

  The warriors came to attention.

  “What’s going on?” Samantha asked.

  “Pretty sure the Dyons hacked into our central network,” Ava stated.

  “Fucking external processor,” Nick swore.

  “Yeah, I knew that was going to come back to bite our asses in a bad way,” Ava said. “But beating ourselves up again won’t help. Our immediate concern is we’re locked out of our own systems.”

  “Shit, really?” Samantha stood up.

  “My crazy suggestion was for you two to try to hack in,” Ava continued. “They’re waiting for us back at the command hub.”

  Samantha cast Nick a look bordering on pure glee. “It’s what we always dreamed of doing.”

  Nick’s eyes were bright with equal wonder. “The ultimate test of skill.”

  “Yeah, happy for you, and all, but this isn’t for bragging rights,” Ava stated.

  “Oh, but there’s going to be so much bragging,” Nick replied with a grin. He ran to the locker at the foot of his bunk to retrieve his equipment kit. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  “What should I do?” Edwin asked from the table.

  “Wait here. We don’t need the muscle right now,” Ava told him. “I’ll be in touch as soon as we get the comms working again.”

  “Good luck,” he replied.

  Ava led Nick a
nd Samantha back to the ladder she’d ascended.

  “Ugh, I hate ladders,” Samantha commented as soon as she saw the narrow chute.

  “We use ladders all the time,” Nick said with an eyeroll as he climbed inside.

  “That doesn’t make me detest them any less!” she shot back while following him.

  Ava groaned and waited for Samantha to descend enough so she could enter. Sometimes, those two… she commented to Ruby.

  >>Geniuses always have their quirks.<<

  Yet another thing to be careful saying around them. I made the mistake of calling Nick ‘brilliant’ once. He spent the next week referring to himself as a ‘demigod’. Ava began descending the ladder.

  >>That seems like a bit of a leap.<<

  If there is a leap to be made, they’ll find a way.

  >>Your team is very strange, Ava.<<

  Not like I’m the image of normalcy myself.

  Ruby paused. >>That’s a good point.<<

  At the bottom of the ladder, Ava took the lead for the run back to the command hub. To her surprise, Nick and Samantha were more winded than her when they arrived.

  “Wait here for a moment,” she told them, both to give them an opportunity to catch their breath and so she could get final clearance on her hacking plan.

  Ava entered the command room to find that the shouting had stopped. Now, it was almost silent. Somehow, that made it much worse.

  She spotted Kurtz and Widmore standing at the center of the room with the other senior officers, including Marcie Walton.

  If this suggestion is going to get shot down, it will be in spectacular fashion, Ava said to Ruby.

  >>Even the highest commanders are still people,<< Ruby pointed out.

  People or not, it was still intimidating.

  Ava gathered her courage and approached the group. “Sirs.” She gave a differential nod.

  Colonel Walton evaluated her. “I heard you want to try hacking our own computer network.”

  Ava met the colonel’s level gaze. “Yes, ma’am. If the techs are unable to gain access through other means, maybe Nick and Sam can help.”

  “So much for keeping those two out of trouble.” She sighed. “I didn’t think it’d come to it, but our other efforts have yet to yield results. Have them proceed. Just… try not to break anything.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ava acknowledged. She saluted, then ran back to the hall to retrieve her team members.

  “We’re a go,” she told them. “Colonel Walton said not to break anything.”

  “Psh, Kurtz was on Marcie’s tac team when we were still on Earth, and she knows what we can do,” Samantha replied. “We always leave things more organized than we found them.”

  “Except when we really fuck something up,” Nick whispered.

  “Shh!” Ava lowered her voice. “Don’t do that.”

  Nick waved his hand. “I’m ninety-nine point seven percent sure we won’t cause irreparable damage.”

  “It’s that point three percent that worries me,” Ava muttered. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  She stood at a distance with her arms crossed while the two tech specialists got settled at adjacent workstations along the curved outer wall.

  “Wow, they really did a number on the system,” Samantha muttered while she tried to gain access to the locked directories.

  “This encryption pattern is familiar,” Nick mused. “Definitely resembles what we encountered in Gidyon.”

  Ava’s heart sank. As if we didn’t have enough evidence already that the Dyons were back.

  Well, shit, she said to Ruby.

  >>You always suspected there were more of them. This isn’t a complete surprise.<< The AI caught herself. >>Well, the computer system hack is, but not the return of the Dyons.<<

  I can’t help but feel like this is my fault, Ava groaned in her mind.

  >>You have such a savior complex.<<

  Yeah, well, I defeated them once and I can only imagine I’ll be expected to do it again.

  Ruby laughed. >>You could desert—go find a tropical beach and hang out until this blows over.<<

  And miss all the action? No way.

  >>Yep, thought so. Save the day once and it goes to your head.<<

  Doesn’t help that you’re in my head, egging me on.

  >>And you love it.<<

  “Damn it!” Samantha exclaimed, returning Ava’s attention to the events in front of her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Our normal tricks aren’t working,” the warrior replied. “Just need to beat it into submission, nothing to worry about.”

  “Maybe we should have brought Edwin after all,” Ava said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  Samantha chuckled. “When in doubt, hit it with a hammer, right?”

  “Or shoot it with a plasma rifle,” Nick countered. “The glow of melting computer innards is rather beautiful.”

  Ava snickered to herself. She was always impressed by how the two could maintain witty banter while typing. Sometimes she thought it even made them work better.

  After several seconds of silence, Nick sighed. “Remember when we were joking back in the Protheon facility about getting a real challenge? Well, we got it.”

  “But you can get in, right?” Ava asked cautiously. She’d never doubted her team’s abilities in all their years working together. Five minutes tops, they could get into anything. The fact that they’d passed the seven minute mark was a testament to the severity of their present situation.

  “Yeah, of co—” Nick cleared his throat. “I think so.”

  Fuck, he has never not had a firm ‘yes’ answer before, Ava said to Ruby.

  >>I’ve been trying to help out, and it’s a mess in there,<< the AI replied. >>We’re making progress, but the encryption keeps morphing. Two steps forward, one step back kind of thing.<<

  But you’ll be able to get ahead of it?

  >>Well, we have to before it gains complete control of the life support systems, don’t we?<<

  Ava gulped. Sorry, I’ll leave you to it.

  Her concern deepened as the minutes passed. Even Nick and Samantha were relatively quiet, aside from the occasional comment or profane outburst.

  Ava glanced over every so often at the officers in the center of the room, but their frowns prompted her to turn away. Nick and Sam will get this. They’re the best.

  >>All right, we’re close,<< Ruby said in Ava’s mind, breaking the relative silence. >>A dozen EIs have been working with us to isolate the malicious code.<<

  Don’t just isolate it—destroy it!

  >>We will,<< Ruby assured her, >>but we’re running a trace first to find out where it came from.<<

  As much as Ava didn’t want bad news, they needed that information. The Dyons had launched an assault on her home. That meant war.

  “Communications are back online!” a comm tech announced from a workstation near the center of the room.

  “So are environmental controls!” another tech called out.

  A moment later, the lights returned to normal illumination levels, and the flickering on the control panels subsided.

  “Status!” Colonel Walton demanded.

  “No reports of damage to the station or personnel injuries,” the comm tech continued. “All mechanical systems check out.”

  “Then what the hell happened?” Kurtz asked.

  “It’s a signal,” Nick chimed in. “Remote interference.”

  “One source broadcasting to FDG assets in this quadrant of the galaxy,” Samantha added. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  Colonel Walton frowned. “What’s the source?”

  “It’s beyond the border of Federation territory. The Alaxar Trinary is the closest named system,” Nick replied.

  Fuck me, Ava swore in her mind.

  >>It’ll be okay,<< Ruby tried to soothe her. >>We’ll stop them, just like last time.<<

  “There’s a scouting sensor array in the vicinity,” N
ick continued.

  “I can try to patch in a visual feed,” the comm tech said. “Resolution won’t be good at that range, though.”

  “Do it,” Kurtz instructed.

  A minute passed while Nick, Samantha, and the comm tech tried to resolve the sensor data. Finally, the holographic display at the center of the room illuminated with the pixelated image of a sphere.

  “What is it?” Ava asked no one in particular. “A probe?”

  Nick shook his head slowly. “No, a ship?”

  Kurtz paled. “What’s the scale of this?”

  “The diameter is seven thousand kilometers,” the comm tech reported.

  Ava nearly choked on her own breath. “That’s the size of a planet!”

  “Where the fuck did it come from?” Kurtz questioned. “How did we miss its approach? The gravity signature alone of something that size would have an effect on the surrounding systems.”

  “How in holy hell does something that large move?” Colonel Walton added.

  The comm tech worked her mouth. “There’s no record of the object before fifteen minutes ago. I don’t have an explanation. And… the space around it isn’t reacting like it should around an object that size.”

  “Shit.” Kurtz turned away from the group of officers for a moment. He took a deep breath, then pivoted toward Colonel Walton. “How would you like to proceed, ma’am?”

  “Send a scout ship on a recon mission. Let’s get some intel on this beast.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Of all the fucking things that could happen… Kurtz jogged back to his office.

  A reconnaissance ship had been deployed on an intercept course with the Dyon planet-ship. They’d have more information soon, but in the meantime, Kurtz’s mind ran wild with the awful possibilities for what the Dyons could do with a vessel that size.

  He’d thought they were done with that particular race of foes—he’d needed them to be. The invasion of his mind was the most personal battle he’d ever had to fight, and knowing that there were more of the beings still out there, stronger than ever, resurfaced those terrible memories he’d tried to forget.