There was a massive explosion, taking out several surrounding ships. The blast was so intense; it washed the entire battlefield in a blinding flash of light. Grex shielded his eyes from the glare.
When he looked again, he let out a gasp – more than half of the fleet was gone. In its place was a massive glowing blob of light. It was floating high above Axaria, with the remaining half of the fleet still firing on it. For Grex, it was a beautiful, but disconcerting sight.
“Cease fire! Cease fire! Retreat! Get as much distance between yourself and the light!” the Admiral yelled. Grex watched as the remainder of the fleet obeyed, stopped firing and began reversing away from the light.
It was seemingly not content with letting them go, because suddenly, arcs of what appeared to be electricity reached out from the main body of light, like glowing tendrils of lightning, and struck several of the nearby retreating vessels, causing them to glow bright white and stop dead in their tracks.
Shortly afterward, several fighters emerged from the bright haze of the blob and headed straight towards more of the retreating vessels, only to smash into them as soon as they were in range, leaving rapidly growing blobs of light on their hulls.
Now the blob expanded, swallowing the recently zapped vessels. Shockingly, it had managed to consume over eighty-five percent of the fleet so far in the brief time since the battle had started. Some vessels were still retreating, led by the Dawn, in an attempt to put as much distance between themselves and the light. More fighters emerged and were streaking towards what was left of the fleet.
For Grex, the retreat was excruciatingly slow; he watched helplessly, as another vessel, then another and another, succumbed to a fighter kamikaze attack. The blob expanded again and swallowed another two ships.
He looked at the Admiral, who was visibly worried. Things were not looking good. There were now only about seven real vessels left – with more fighters on the way to intercept them
The Admiral appeared to be in thought for a few seconds, his feelings of revenge long since made irrelevant; then he gave an order to the comms officer: “Send a message to Navy Command immediately; tell them that we’re under attack by a powerful unknown enemy. Warn them.”
“All long-range comms are being jammed. We can’t get through... They’re aggressively attempting to block short-range as well. We still have it, but probably not for long,” said the comms officer.
“Instruct the Daunting to break formation immediately and race home at high warp and notify Command as soon she’s in range.”
“Aye sir,” replied the comms officer.
A brief moment passed, then: “Sir, the Daunting is reporting that she’s unable to establish a stable warp field due to massive localized interference in subspace.”
The Admiral looked at Braxa, who quickly asked Engineering to confirm – same problem. They were trapped.
For the first time in his long career, the Admiral was at a loss. They had thrown almost everything they had at this thing but nothing they did was effective; it only served to make it stronger and stronger.
He felt a sinking, sickening feeling come over him. It was fear. He could feel the net closing in. What the hell was this thing?
Out of desperation he asked Grex if it had any weaknesses. After all, this man came to warn them, maybe he knew of something. The Admiral felt a tinge of regret for not asking earlier.
Grex was about to say that he had no idea, when a memory came into his mind. It was of the scene with the jerbex crickets where he first saw the wisps in action. He recalled the interference to the wisps’ corporeal facade, likely caused by a blast from the mining operation underground.
Out of options, Grex tried a wild guess and suggested that maybe a very strong EMP weapon could do it. It was more of a long-shot than anything else.
“Prepare the highest-yield EMP warheads and target the incoming fighters, full spread. Fire at will!” the Admiral ordered.
Grex watched as the Dawn fired several missiles towards the incoming fighters. He quickly instructed the computer to look for the creature’s signature and overlay it on the display. The fighters lit up red.
There was a massive red blob nearby on the screen, with tendrils extending to the fighters and others extending to Kryxo, beyond. The missiles cruised towards the first wave of fighters, then each met its target with a big, bright silent explosion. The red dots of the fighters disappeared. Grex was ecstatic. It worked. More waves of fighters were en route.
“Braxa, tell the fleet to arm EMPs and target and destroy each wave of fighters. Coordinate them and let each vessel fire in quick succession,” the Admiral ordered.
Suddenly, lines of interference began appearing on their video link.
“Admiral...” Braxa said.
“I see it, Braxa,” said the Admiral.
Grex saw it too. Thousands of glowing balls of light were emerging out of the blob, from as many different locations. They were swarming towards the fleet. Another volley of EMP missiles made light work of the remaining waves of fighters. Grex wondered how the fleet could possibly survive the wave of incoming balls of light.
The fleet was grossly outnumbered. The Admiral knew the answer to that question. EMPs were tactical, not combat weapons. They simply didn’t have enough of them to fend off the next attack.
The interference to the comms was getting much more intense now. Grex could hardly make out the Admiral on the screen.
“You’re quite a distance away from us, Grex, maybe out of range of the interference; can you create a stable warp field?” the Admiral asked. Grex checked with the computer. Yes, the shuttle could.
“Then leave for Praxima immediately and warn them as soon as you are in comms range...” the Admiral said something else as well, but the interference became severe, and the comm link cut.
So that was that, Grex thought in stunned shock. He saw the ships destroy the first wave of blobs with their missiles, but knew that they’d be powerless to stop the approaching swarm.
He still couldn’t believe what his eyes were seeing. The most powerful fleet in Imperial history, with one of its most decorated Admirals, had just been defeated.
Reluctantly, but with urgency, Grex instructed the computer to take them home to Praxima as fast as they could go – which was warp three, a far cry from the military-class warp drives that could reach Praxima in only four hours; it would take Grex a day to cover the same distance.
Three weeks ago he could not have imagined that he’d be going home alone, let alone the sudden rise of a dangerous new threat and the complete destruction of the fleet.
But at least he was going home with the knowledge that it could be defeated. And with a lightning-fast flash, the shuttle entered warp.
The shuttle traversed the multi-colored blur of warp space for what seemed like an eternity.
Grex tried to keep himself busy by alternating between trying to hail Navy Command and reviewing the shuttle’s automatic recordings of the fleet’s final battle.
There was still too much interference on the long-range comm bands to home. The computer determined that the cause was probably military jamming. Still, he had it check the comms continuously in case of an opening.
Viewing the recordings, Grex was deeply disturbed at what had occurred and what it was telling him about the creature. It was evident that it was rapidly evolving and was now completely adept at copying anything. The mining shuttles and the fighters proved as much.
How it managed to copy an entire vessel, Grex had no idea. It could consume or eat anything rapidly. The fact that it had consumed Kryxo in such a short time proved it.
He had little doubt that it swept over the mining colony as well and had fed on and incorporated the resources it had found there. One fact was pretty obvious: the creature fed on energy and the more you fed it, the more it grew, and the stronger it became.
He had watched the massive explosions during the battle flash and quickly disappear when near a blob of ligh
t, and the blob increasing in size exponentially shortly after.
It was as if the thing had consumed the energy of the blast – which, Grex was sure, was exactly what had happened. The energy-based weapons of the fleet were perfect fodder for it and explained how it managed to overpower the fleet so easily.
At least now he had evidence to persuade even the most stubborn of skeptics, so convincing Navy Command shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, their prized fleet was no longer there…
After a while, the solitude and loneliness of the situation and the empty shuttle crept in. He was alone, and craved a sense of normalcy; some time with his wife, Darra and their little girl, Zia, time in the city, going to work, watching his favorite vid series, following news feeds, hearing the Emperor talk about the Navy and the greatness of the Imperium and her people... Somehow those things had always acted as an anchor to reality for Grex.
They were safe, normal and eternal. And no matter how far he went, he could always return home to them. He tried to ignore a new realization that everything was ultimately thin, vulnerable and fragile.
Time passed slowly, but eventually the moment arrived. The shuttle was nearing Praxima space and in an attempt to not sound like a raving lunatic again, he quickly rehearsed what he was going to say to Command.
His shuttle dropped out of warp. And Grex got the fright of his life.
Right nearby was the Dawn, her hull glistening undamaged in all its magnificent glory with the reflection of the sun.
He was hailed, and the Dawn’s pristine bridge appeared on his screen.
There stood Jera, Brem, Fresi and the Admiral together, all smiling.
“We’ve been expecting you, Grex”, they said in creepy unison.
His heart racing, he frantically tried typing in commands to enter warp and escape, but nothing would respond.
“Not so fast”, they said.
And then there was a bright light.
Chapter 14: The President
President David Anderson was sitting at the antique and storied Resolute desk in the Oval office, with the flags of the seal of the United States of America and the Stars and Stripes on either side behind him.
The curtains were open, revealing the late-fall garden beyond. A ray of golden sunshine cast a wide beam on classified papers with technical data and photos of deep space on his desk.
The office was quiet, save for the gentle tick-tock of a clock, creating a fleeting, but peaceful moment. In reality, things were anything but peaceful, but he held onto the illusion nonetheless.
For a brief moment, he had wondered what problems his predecessors had contemplated and dealt with in this office. He had inherited the same messed-up world as they had.
The world was as far away from world peace and any notion of utopia as it had been in the time of Cain and Abel.
Nothing had really changed. When you put it to the test and lifted the thin veil on the most civilized society filled with its enlightened viewpoints and institutions of law and order, the ugly side was quickly revealed: greed, jealousy, hate, anger, illogical intolerance, ignorance, superiority complexes, megalomania, and propensity for violence – the nasty traits were all still there.
It was clear humanity was still the same old bloodthirsty murderous animals they’d always been.
And probably always would be. The flaws in humanity’s nature ran deep and would undoubtedly never be entirely purged or corrected, no matter how pious, evolved or enlightened people pretended to be.
At least, that was the President’s opinion. And as the world’s most powerful man at the time, it was the only opinion that ultimately mattered. He had given a silent smile at the thought.
He first saw a photo of this magnificent desk and office, with a renowned president sitting right here, when he was still a young boy. Ever since then, he had wanted to be the person at this desk, calling the shots, being the boss.
It drove him to pursue a career in politics, to work harder, to climb the highest mountain, to strive further. It helped that he had a naturally trustworthy demeanor and features, almost like a priest, that made some people trust him instinctively, and that disarmed or blindsided others easily.
His illustrious political career had sharpened his teeth, and he had masterfully manipulated, lied, backstabbed and clawed his way through it all. He was the apex predator, honed to perfection through experience.
And after a long, long time, he had finally made it to the top.
Back to the matter at hand, he thought.
This particular problem first arrived on his desk several months ago, when the Air Force’s Space Command detected a strange anomaly, using their classified deep space sensor network, heading towards Earth’s general direction from a nearby star system.
Photos revealed what looked like a streak of light, like a comet, moving across the starry sky. It was a great distance away, but seemed to be moving at incredible speed, which, according to the best estimations, would put it in the solar system within the year.
Additional State resources were immediately dedicated to further analysis and scrutiny, which quickly yielded a shocking result – the alien object was surrounded by what looked like a warp field.
Scientist already knew that it was theoretically possible to create such a field, but no one had as yet been able to create one in practice. The power requirements were simply too large for current technology, even for the new secret reactors in development.
Freshly intrigued with the possibility of a real warp drive, management – the individuals who collectively controlled the decision making of government – reached out to different knowledge-gathering departments to get an update on the state of research on power technology in the world, both in civilian as well as other nation states’ clandestine projects.
Interestingly, there was a very small project in play at a tiny university which had just reached viable proof of concept demonstration. It had almost no funding, and had zero media coverage and only a handful of people knew about it.
But, due to its potential for far-reaching implications – if successful – especially to the trillion-dollar global oil economy, a complete report on the project, compiled by the nation’s spies, was coincidentally already on its way to the President himself.
The project was the brainchild and life’s work of a young professor genius named Mark Elonsworth.
The President knew that, as much as the world’s governments were ostensibly moving towards green technology, the world was just too addicted to and invested in oil money to give it up willingly.
A viable and realistic rival technology would simply not be permitted to flourish, unless those who pulled the strings were ready and were the ones to introduce it. The President knew how this would end for the professor. That’s why he had invited him over here to discuss a compromise.
The professor would be persuaded that the world was simply not ready for a true green energy revolution, and he’d be offered a few generous millions to donate his technology to the government of the good ol’ U.S of A, and would be permitted to head a team of world-class scientists and continue his work by adapting it to work on Space Command’s new secret warp drive project and new reactors.
The professor would be educated that he had just found himself at a crossroads. End of the line for him on the one hand, or the beginning of a bright new career in government on the other.
He was married and had two children – the President was sure that the professor would make the sensible choice.
The government teams had continued analyzing and studying the approaching object; the distance was still far too great to get any visual detail about the object itself, but other scientific data was at least forthcoming, such as information on the warp field, size and velocity.
However, it wasn’t long before another startling discovery was made – there were two warp fields, not just one.
It wasn’t immediately apparent, because the first field didn’t look like a comet, an
d was in fact invisible to the naked eye. But it was there.
It was slightly ahead of the other and it appeared that it was being chased or followed by the now second field. It wasn’t just one alien object traveling at warp and heading towards Earth, but two. The scientists were still trying to determine why the one field was visible and the other was not.
After an intense debate on whether to share the information about the objects with other states, it was decided that Earth probably stood a far better chance at fending off a possible alien attack if its most powerful nations stood united in its defense.
It took some doing, but the world’s most powerful countries finally pledged to work together on this issue, and a new top-secret organization, the United Earth Defense Force was hastily formed to present a coordinated and united response to a possible First Contact event with alien life forms.
All this was highly classified of course, and to prevent chaos breaking out, the world’s civilians were deliberately kept in the dark.
The day finally came.
Latest projections estimated that the first object was due to arrive at the solar system in the next few hours.
The silence in the Oval Office was interrupted by the door opening. A Secret Service agent presented himself.
“It’s time, sir,” the nondescript agent said.
“Ok. I’ll be right there”, said the President.
Ah well, the professor will have to wait until next time, the President thought as he grabbed his jacket, his glasses and his mobile phone and headed out the door.
He was hurried out the West Wing and taken down a secret elevator to the top-secret presidential bunker several miles below the White House, where he met the rest of his senior staff, advisors, admirals and generals in the situation room.
The tension was palpable.
A large screen on the wall at the end of the room displayed a live feed of UEDF Central Command, deep under the Swiss mountains.
The Light Page 9