Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star

by Gregory Faccone

  A human genome assembled then expanded into the controversial world of proto-genetics. Lines and circles linked numerous areas to quantum fields generated by the brain. Jordahk didn't understand it, but somehow knew what it was.

  "The son of a Sojourner will not automatically have the strength of his father. He may not even be a Sojourner. Some are content to let the next generation find their own way. They are not. We are too disparate now. Gaining knowledge by leapfrogging off compatriots is rare. So I have endeavored to collect as much as possible."

  Three new proto-genetic representations formed.

  "My strength in mystic is overshadowed by my father's. But I have mastered and applied certain techniques to my wife's stored ovum. With luck I will reawaken the strength of my father for a mankind in desperate need of it."

  The image faded, replaced by a new one. The room was smaller, but similar. Jordahk sensed unmistakably that time had passed.

  "My son is strong, but not like my father," Aristahl's voice said. It sounded closer to what Jordahk was used to. "There was a certain incompatibility within my dear wife. Perhaps it is for the best. Inhabited space is still bitter from the war. The Perigeum so maligned Sojourners that even the Asterfraeo is not ready for their return, not that they would. So my son will go the scientum path to protect our line from discovery." He sounded resolved but disappointed.

  A new proto-genetic display built. It was the most detailed yet.

  "With wisdom I do not believe he inherited from me," Aristahl continued, "my son chose a wife of impeccable character and surprising proto-genetics. Though she is not even an imprimatur, her compatibility to adjustments I have made augur well for a grandson. He may be the true inheritor of Thule-Riss's mantle."

  The vision faded. "Ohrias" moved back within the numenium coupling, taking his strange method of imparting knowledge with him.

  Jordahk floated, body still, mind whirring with shock and questions. Through the discipline of many repetitions, he closed his eyes, concentrating on his forehead. He succeeded in taking a step back from roiling emotions. Opening his eyes, the two worlds below shone with stark clarity. The enormous First Cruiser was nearly at the event horizon.

  Concentrating, Jordahk moved his focus into the legacy shell. It was like pressing against a giant boulder. The first hurdle would be getting it active. He passed mentally from one end of the shell to the other. Doing so straightened out enough "dead ends" that the autobuss recognized it as barely legitimate ammunition. Although an achievement, it was now only one step up from being a useless ingot of bismuth. It still wouldn't fire with significant result.

  "How is your remote firing, Max?"

  The AI displayed the autobuss's gun-eye view on Jordahk's crystal panes. "An autobuss is a unique and old weapon."

  "Can you do it?"

  "We'll have to jump through numerous ward interlocks," the AI said, "but yes. However, that's only standard cartridges and shells. I might be able to fire that mystic stuff, but only if it's primed."

  Jordahk let go of the autobuss. It floated a few inches away.

  "It's dead again," Max said.

  Grasping hold, he sensed the shell had reverted back to useless.

  "Smelting ingots." He was so close. The door was open before him, yet he couldn't go through. "The door? Oh God. Max, what did my mother say about that dream?"

  Max played back Vittora's synthesized voice as it sounded that night months ago in a clearing almost directly below. "You will pass through a door that cannot be crossed."

  "God of my Mystic moth—" Jordahk stopped himself. In the current light, the expression felt inappropriate. "She did it again. But how will I pass through? Why do her dreams leave out the details?"

  The trembling increased in his chest as the massive cruiser approached. The Prime Orator's ship was unique. Two cruiser-sized outriggers boomed off a gracefully curved fuselage with sweeping, overly dramatic vertical wings. The extra-long bow pierced space like a stiletto blade, the tremendous scale masking even its frigate-sized thickness. It was an impractical dreadnought-sized flagship whose style hearkened to a bygone era.

  Jordahk searched for something, anything, or anyone. Of Glick no sign was visible, nor of any salvation. The outgunned Adams Rush Navy was barely maintaining a tactical retreat, the aegis continually thwarting a chunk of their already underpowered offense.

  Max highlighted a red circle around a growing white speck. "A shuttle is closing."

  "This just keeps getting better."

  Wixom stirred.

  Jordahk sensed it. "You have something to say? Why not join the party? Everyone else is."

  Wixom didn't rush his response. "Send the autobuss through."

  Jordahk's eyes scrunched with incredulity, and a retort formed.

  "Thule-Riss Quext could do it," the mystic AI continued. "If you have truly inherited the mantle of The Will..."

  Jordahk did not trust Wixom. He didn't even like Wixom. And now he felt like the secretive AI was baiting him. "Your master feared Thule-Riss."

  "He also grew to respect him."

  The shaking in Jordahk's chest changed, replaced by a wave of nausea. Next to him, a line of white vapor emanated off the stiletto bow of the leviathan.

  "Set the remote protocols, Max."

  He felt stirrings within the autobuss. The ward interlocks for remote fire were difficult by design. Jordahk ran through security confirmations with Max as three successive interlocks were opened. Just meters away, the glowing panel mocked him.

  "This is never going to work. How can I even steer it?"

  What was the point of being negative? It was all or nothing. Jordahk held out his arm, eyeballing the orientation of the autobuss.

  "Max, you know where this needs to go. Give it your best shot."

  Jordahk released his grip, and Max flexed the enhancement servos in the elbow ever so slightly. The autobuss drifted forward, becoming awash in white vapor as it passed light years through to Earth space. He liked that old pistol and hoped it served him well in its last action. It continued on slowly toward the panel. Max was displaying the gun-eye VAD, but Jordahk closed his eyes.

  He lifted his hand, reaching out with his mind, and found the autobuss with surprising quickness. The shell within was like an inert boulder. He couldn't budge it as the ground shifted slowly underneath. Jordahk grasped at air. The connection between him and the autobuss was little more than an ethereal thread. It wasn't like when he shot the legacy shells or restored Max. Then he had a physical connection. Here, he couldn't move through the gossamer strand.

  Jordahk felt removed from his no-suit's cooling systems as they kicked into high gear. The infra-capable ethereal connection was too narrow. So much had to pass through just to bring the shell to life. He "pushed" his end of the thread. It ballooned.

  Move. Move forward. You will move forward.

  The ballooning grew to the point of bursting before easing forward. The surprise of it almost brought the entire process to a halt. He regained his mental footing and stretched all the way through, expanding the thread to a path. He could sense the legacy shell fully and passed through it from end to end. The autobuss recognized it again, acknowledging with an upbeat signal.

  Still, a near-dud was insufficient. The legacy shell needed to be as energetic as one of its anti-ship-sized cousins used by Ek-Hein. Otherwise it would only disrupt a few local systems and not go upstream enough to trigger a shutdown. Jordahk knew where he needed to go. Despite the heat, a shiver ran down his spine. It was fear.

  He wasn't ready for the world of quantics, for the circus.

  Aristahl believed it possible to pass on the mantle of The Will. What would he think of Jordahk's doubt? Trepidation? Dread? He didn't want to lose his mind, but was this not one of those situations where people risked it all? He knew the answer. Suddenly, being ashamed of this moment was worse than failing in the attempt.

  With renewed purpose, he plowed through the connection. It widened as he
passed, growing brighter. He struck the legacy shell, vibrating it like a bell. Power resonated across it, bouncing back like a wave. He concentrated on the wave then jumped into it, riding back-and-forth. With each lap, the energetic froth grew. The great boulder Jordahk had envisioned rocked with each wave bounce.

  It was in a rut, though, and it needed to get rolling. He concentrated harder on pushing off the back and slamming the wave into the front. Push off. Slam. Push off. Slam. The last slam freed the boulder. It jerked out of the rut, its potential energy turning into kinetic.

  He heard distant alarms. Something was breaking. The frothy wave he was riding grew hot. It sent feedback across the path back to his no-suit. The energy spillover couldn't be contained. It was all he could do to keep the resonance wave growing larger with each slam. Someone spoke from far away.

  Max was trying to stay ahead of cascading malfunctions. What was breaking? Jordahk saw, sensed, outlines of his suit systems going from functional blue to malfunctioning red. He couldn't make out Max's words as silhouettes of his no-suit rifle and thruster pack went red. The heat was unbearable, and he wondered why Max was unable to keep him cool.

  He could only afford to pay it peripheral attention, digging hard into the froth. It was getting harder to swim. With each slam, the boulder gained energy, but the ground paid no attention, drifting by slowly at the same speed it had from the start. A glowing white stream edged into view, and he knew it was the target. He had to slam his boulder into it powerfully enough to send a wall of water upstream, against the flow.

  But he kept moving past the stream at the same inexorable pace. He needed to stop. Reaching out of the wave, he dug his hands into the ground. His fingers made furrows in the dirt. Max was surprised, and said something about an on the fly grav weave effect. Jordahk didn't know anything about grav weaves. Why was Max talking about that right now? The ground slowed its relentless slide and finally came to a halt with the coruscating stream centered below the boulder.

  It was tiring. He kept pushing off, adding a little more energy to the wave each time. He wanted to rest, but he knew he had to hit that stream first. It was vitally important. Yes, more important than anything. But why? The details were fading.

  The autobuss came to mind. Its shape changed. He felt the wave being concentrated, shunted into a long pipe. The old pistol was transforming. It was more than a reconfig. He sensed its component elements. Numenium was coming to the surface in striations. It contained numenium? His autobuss was becoming more than what it was, and would never be the same.

  That news should have pleased him. Instead, he felt a sense of loss. He couldn't remember exactly why.

  Jordahk wiggled in the wave to line up the pipe with the precise center of the stream. He felt as though he was coaxing a ball after release in some sport. Unlike those times, it was actually working.

  He spotted the lever to the gate that would unleash this torrent. He wanted to pull it, but something told him the wave could still be bigger. It was hard to breathe. He was suffocating in the boiling froth. His ears rung. He felt sharp pricks of pain on his body and face. Something was burning, and Max said his suit was through. What suit?

  As his vision darkened, he knew some limit had been reached. Just one more push. He put everything into it because he had to, even if he didn't remember why. The strain broke something within him, but the push was mighty. Buoyed by the knowledge that it was over and that rest was just seconds away, he reached out and pulled the lever with the last of his strength.

  An indomitable force surged down the pipe to strike the stream dead center. Its flow leaped off the ground from the impact and a tremendous shock wave traveled upstream.

  All of a sudden Jordahk was looking through his crystal panes at the rapidly retreating surface of the egress. In his peripheral vision, something mirrored his trajectory on the other side of the centerline. The suit wouldn't move with him, but he was able to turn his head enough to see it was his autobuss. Both he and the pistol were being propelled by recoil.

  "How?" It came out a croak.

  "Shared dimensional momentum," Wixom intoned like a curious scientist.

  The autobuss was different. Its barrel was long and fat, and spars extended from it. New striations of purple glinted across its surface. It returned slowly to its default shape as it mirrored his path in Earth space.

  On the egress, next to the tertiary line into which Jordahk had shot, panels burst open jetting plasma. Breakers. Tremendous, growing energies must be bouncing within the plasma conduits. A second later, more breakers above and below blew up. After that, breakers around the entire Earth-side circumference blew. The hexagonal window blinked white for an instant.

  Jordahk fast approached something large, the First Cruiser. He saw it partially out of the corner of his eye, but couldn't turn around. His suit was unresponsive.

  "All systems dead," Max said.

  Earth's blue crescent still shone through the donut hole when, for the first time, breakers on the Adams Rush egress blew. First those near Cranium's still-open panel, then all of the breakers around the circumference.

  The egress blinked again, its window warped crazily, then it filled with solar brightness. His last glimpse of the Earth side showed its egress breaking apart.

  "Bracer and pane control systems are gone," Max said. "Turn your head if you can. Sorry I can't do more."

  The interior hexagonal shape burned like a sun. Jordahk closed his eyes and turned his head, but the brilliance and the burning blasted his face. It ripped through his eyes into his brain. When he slammed into the First Cruiser, the darkness was a relief.

  The fairy sparkles were fading. The last intact combat bot, just a couple of meters away, twitched. Immobilizing the Archiver required every ounce of Kord's dwindling strength. He couldn't hold the pin much longer against his opponent's endless supply of inhuman strength.

  Despite the exertion, the Archiver could still taunt. "Getting tired, Mark One?"

  Kord saw no way out. His grister was useless until the sparkles disappeared. But when the sparkles disappeared, the combat bot would come online. He could not draw anyway without the Archiver pounding him.

  The hemisphere of sparkles shrank. The sky beyond was becoming visible, a horizon of deep reds and purple, the last gasp of the day. Above, the darkening sky was filling with points of light. The most unwelcome of those stars flashed abruptly. Both combatants craned upward to confirm the fleeting phenomenon. The heavens paused, and then another brief flash preceded a nova blossom.

  The clearing turned white as if struck by lightning. Kord squinted as everything cast sharp, black shadows. Then it was over. A red aurora ring expanded above them. Atmospheric curtains of color filled the sky. The red cooled to purple and blue, tinting everything.

  "No!" the Archiver blurted.

  Kord knew in his heart what had just happened. He would have smiled proudly, but the strain of immobilizing his opponent was too great. The display did drain the Archiver's arrogance, though.

  "Kord!" It was Vittora's synthesized and amplified voice, still distant.

  The sphere of sparkles shrunk to well within the clearing, and the combat bot jerked regularly. It was a race between whose backup would arrive first. Apparently the Archiver was unwilling to leave it to chance. With blood vessels bursting in his eyes, he strained more than even his enhancements could handle. Kord poured everything into the leverage afforded by the metal piece. It was impossible for the Archiver to bring the fullness of his strength to bear, and yet he tried.

  "Don't do it." Kord strained. "Vittora!" It felt as though the metal piece was bending. "That's crazy!" The bar threatened to rip through his flesh. His vision reddened.

  The Archiver roared, his complexion turning purple in the blue light. The exposed skin of his pinned upper arm bulged grotesquely. Abruptly, his broken humorous burst through. The image of it seared into Kord's mind. The whitish bone was laced with metal, and the brownish marrow sparkled unnaturally
.

  With his new macabre flexibility, the Archiver freed himself with a blow from his good arm. His eyes gleamed crazily as he sprang to his feet holding the compound fracture.

  Kord fumbled uncharacteristically while drawing his grister. He leveled it at his opponent. Nothing happened. The arrogant smirk returned to the Archiver's face. The combat bot stood slowly. The Archiver saw it, laughed, and dashed into the woods, holding his arm.

  Struggling to his feet, Kord searched for something, anything, to use against the reviving combat bot. Its rifle was as useless as his grister, but it didn't need a weapon to finish him. Across the clearing, he saw another bot rifle. If it came back online, at least he would have a chance. He hobbled toward it but was stopped when something clamped onto his pack. Kord lurched forward, bringing both himself and the clutching combat bot to the ground. The machine wasn't at full power yet.

  With the last of his strength, Kord clawed for the rifle. His ankle exploded in pain as the machine clasped it. He kicked its head ineffectually, then dragged it along the ground. The rifle taunted him just out of reach. He stretched in desperation.

  Staccato thumps sounded, followed by bursts behind him. The lower half of the bot was pelted with foamer shells. The machine fought the hardening foam, sacrificing its pulling efforts.

  Kord lunged and grabbed the still inert rifle. A familiar presence rekindled in his link. Highearn was back. The last of the sparkles were gone, and the clearing was awash in fresh energy beneath the blue aurora.

  The bot was bringing its re-powered rifle to bear, slowed by the foam it cracked away with mechanical strength. Highearn interrupted the reboot sequence of Kord's rifle, trying to unlock it.

  "Drak! Hurry!"

  Abruptly, the rifle came to life. Kord took rough aim, and it bucked once. The bot's dented head exploded spectacularly from the point blank shot. Its torso slumped, unmoving.