With a blink he continued. “I may not possess the authority to fire you, but I plan to do everything in my power to ensure you soon find yourself out on your ass. No rank, no title, no power.”
The corners of her mouth curled up in a cold, malicious smile. “We’ll see, won’t we?” She turned to go, not waiting or wanting to be excused. When she reached the door she paused to look back at him.
“Oh, and Liam? Thank you for the warning.”
73
GAIAE
INDEPENDENT COLONY
* * *
SERAPHINA BREATHED IN THE cool morning air, drawing it deep into her lungs as her diaphragm expanded. And hold…hold. With a slow, steady exhale she opened her eyes.
She floated a meter above the water, suspended by the resistance of the magnetic field generated by Gaiae’s waters against the fibers woven into her stockings. Indigenous fish danced in the waters beneath her, their iridescent scales reflecting brilliantly in the dawn light. They were poisonous to humans, but it was no matter; neither she nor any of the other residents would have stooped so low as to impinge upon Gaiae’s precious ecosystem.
The glowing pastels of the nearby fauna lingered in her vision when she closed her eyes and inhaled once more. Her ocular implant was enhanced to expand the spectrum of her sight beyond visible light into the ultraviolet range. The effect was spiritual in its beauty, but the odd hues tended to leave halos in their wake.
And hold…hold.
She opened her eyes to a shadow.
It broke her meditation, and she suppressed a frown as she twisted around—careful to engage her core—and looked up.
The shadow slithered across the landscape until it reached the water’s edge. Her frown deepened. Gaiae had no moons; there could be no eclipse.
What appeared next was of a nightmare. An impossibility. An evil blackness—harsh, bleak, cold metal surely made of the void itself.
It continued to grow in the sky, and soon veins of blood slashed the blackness like the war paint of ancient primitives.
Even as the breadth and length of the blooded darkness grew ever greater, another materialized alongside it. Then another. Soon a dozen phantasms—devils of Hades come to life—blanketed the sky, blotting out the sun and turning morning to dusk.
Seraphina stood to balance unsteadily atop the magnetic resistance. What horror might this be? She only rarely accessed the so-called ‘exanet,’ but she did not believe even the most powerful governments possessed ships such as these.
Gaiae was a peaceful planet. Its residents strived ever to be in harmony with all living creatures, with the land and the air and the stars. What sin against nature could possibly have brought such devils down upon them?
Then the bellies of the beasts wrent apart, and all legions spewed forth. Creatures born of the bowels of Tartarus, their arms counted greater than those of Mahākālī and writhed madly around blazing crimson eyes—a cyclopean blood-gorged eye for each creature in the legion army.
Their multitudes descended from the sky, and at last she screamed.
74
SIYANE
METIS NEBULA
* * *
THEY APPROACHED METIS AS QUIETLY and furtively as the Siyane permitted. Their route was circuitous, winding around the Nebula until their trajectory was nearly opposite of before.
All her instincts screamed at her to hurry, to get there faster and to generally get on with it. Yet along about the time her fingers stretched out to hover above the controls, Caleb’s hand found its way to her shoulder or the curve of her jaw. She wouldn’t have expected him to be the calm one…though if she pondered it she had to concede he had often been the patient one.
When the golden-blue wisps of Metis’ outer bands at last surrounded them, she initiated the sLume drive a final time. One final run for the core at maximum speed, as swift as any human could travel across the stars.
They would drop out of superluminal 0.1 AU from the portal’s location but still within the thickest of the towering pillars of gas and dust. The instant the sLume drive idled the dampener field would kick in. She had paid a princely sum for a barely legal power allocation optimizer, and now the dampener field could operate at full strength without them being forced to freeze.
Still the trip took hours upon hours. As many hours as it had taken when they had previously made the journey, in fact. Unlike the prior journey, however, this night they spent together.
They passed the hours as couples facing the unknown yet temporarily powerless to influence their fate do: they made love as if it were the first time, murmured secrets to one another in the darkness, slept for a bit, and made love as if it were the last time.
Then there was no space left to travel and their fate returned to their hands.
They returned to the cockpit as the sLume drive idled and the scene beyond the viewport sharpened into clarity. The ship hovered in luminous, dense fog; as it did not actually travel forward under separate propulsion while inside the superluminal bubble, on exiting it the ship was already at rest.
Instantly she was a flurry of activity, confirming the dampener field had engaged, beginning scans for threats or any movement whatsoever in the area and attuning the spectrum analyzer across all bands.
The flare from the pulsar leapt to life on the spectrum display. The gamma beam pulsed in a regular, rapid spin. She filtered it out—and immediately frowned. “It’s gone.”
“Everything?”
Her head shook minutely. “The gamma radiation, the local one whose source we weren’t able to pinpoint. The terahertz radiation, too.”
He leaned closer to stare at the spectrum display with her. “But not the TLF.”
“But not the TLF.” She blew out a long, slow breath. “Okay. Nothing to do but find out why.” She started the impulse engine.
The nebular clouds soon began to thin, then abruptly evaporate as before. Yet in stark and rather disturbing contrast to before, the clouds evaporated to reveal only the void.
The ships were gone. And so was the portal.
Neither of them spoke. They simply regarded the empty blackness in stunned disbelief. She had prepared herself for a number of scenarios. None of those scenarios involved the portal being gone.
Because that was impossible.
He dropped his elbows to his knees with a heavy sigh. “So, new plan then.”
“No. The portal is there.”
His attention shifted from the viewport to her. His voice held calm conviction—and trust, she thought. “Okay. Why?”
“The same reason we’re here.”
“The TLF signal is still being generated from somewhere.”
“Correct. Now the question is….” With her left hand she strafed until the ship was positioned exactly perpendicular to the direction the wave propagated. She focused the spectrum analyzer sensors in on a point in space and took two snapshots. Then she threw both measurements to a waveform screen.
A wondrous breath fell from her lips as she sank into the chair. She was looking at a phase shift across the portal.
When measured given the precise point where the portal had floated as the origin, the TLF wave exhibited a 4.65° phase difference in each direction. On its own it didn’t tell her anything about the nature or breadth of the realm within the portal, as any number of cycles could have occurred inside—but it did tell her there existed a realm within the portal.
Caleb’s eyes narrowed at the screen for a moment before he shook his head and chuckled wryly. “And space falls back into alignment with the rules of the universe. The portal is there.”
“Told you.” She gave him a teasing if weighty smirk. “Now we just need to trigger it.”
“Which you’ve already determined how to do.”
The smirk softened to a smile. “Harmonics.”
He glanced at the row of screens and back to her. “The gamma radiation was a harmonic of the TLF, wasn’t it?”
“It was, though the frequency disparity was tremend
ous. I think the gamma frequency was an activation code. It kept the portal open while our alien friends traversed it and shut off once they no longer needed it. But I can mimic it.”
His gaze met hers, and the look in his eyes sent her stomach into somersaults and a delightful tingle rushing along her skin. She wanted nothing more in the world than to wind her fingers in his hair and pull him close and ask him if he might tell her what the look in his eyes meant.
Instead she swallowed and focused on the HUD. Her fingertips danced on a holographic panel to her left as she built the gamma wave. Once it was prepped she maneuvered the ship so it lined up directly on the invisible point which represented the center of the former portal.
“Here goes nothing….” She sucked in a deep breath and turned on the signal.
From nothingness burst forth a perfect circle of obsidian metal. Luminescent pale gold plasma filled the ring as it expanded in diameter. In two seconds it had attained its previous size and a halo of roiling clouds had billowed over its edges.
“Well that’s not something you see every day.” She nodded mutely in agreement.
After the explosion of energy which had propelled the ring outward vanished, a stilled silence seemed to engulf the landscape. The vertical pool of plasma undulated as peacefully as the surface of a pond on a quiet spring dawn. Even the churning clouds appeared to settle into a soothing rhythm. Other than the portal itself, there was no evidence of technology, of an alien force or any force at all.
The TLF wave continued to pulse—steady, deliberate and strong, as though it were the very heartbeat of the universe—from the exact center of the ring.
Like the dulcet tones of a siren it called to her, singing a promise of answers beneath the tranquil waters. Waters which happened to be composed of an unknown breed of plasma and ‘lapped’ vertically while suspended within a ring of unknown material and origin in the void of space.
Caleb’s presence beside her during the trip had been a comfort and a wonderful indulgence. But now it wasn’t close enough, for him or her. He pushed out of his chair to kneel in front of her and draw her into a slow, languorous kiss.
He drew back a mere centimeter, his voice a whisper upon her lips. “You realize we could die, simply by going through.”
She closed the centimeter to claim another kiss, lingering an eternal second beyond when it might have ended. She breathed in…breathed him in. “I do. But if we don’t go, maybe everyone dies. And even if I don’t particularly like most of everyone, I find I don’t want that on my conscience.”
He nodded against her. “Nor do I. So we go together—but only if you’re sure.”
She smiled—a tiny little smile—and bravely rolled her eyes as she straightened up and settled into the chair. “I’m sure. It’ll be an adventure. New sights, new wonders, new discoveries. It’s what I live for. You too, right?”
“Absolutely.” He returned to his chair, kicked his feet up on the dash and crossed his ankles. “Lead on. Show me this supposed ‘adventure.’”
“You got it.”
His hand reached over and wrapped around hers as she gunned the impulse engine to full power and accelerated into the portal.
VERTIGO
AURORA RISING BOOK TWO
* * *
BACK COVER BLURB
Where do you run when there is no escape? Where do you turn when the enemy within is as dangerous as the enemy unknown?
The year is 2322 and humanity is under attack.
An engineered war between rival superpowers escalates even as the shadowy Metigen armada begins attacking colonies on the frontiers of settled space.
Individuals from across the galaxy fight for their own survival and to protect those they hold dear, while a group of unlikely allies race to expose a secret cabal. As the aliens draw ever closer, leaving utter destruction and death in their wake, the strongest defenders of Earth and Seneca fall to one another in a war of lies and misdirection.
Alex Solovy and Caleb Marano stand accused of terrorism and murder. In a desperate gambit to clear their names and find a way to defeat the invaders, they breach the dimensional portal at the heart of the Metis Nebula. In a strange, mystical realm where nothing is what it seems, they will uncover secrets about humanity’s past and future—and one revelation which will change everything.
CONTENTS
PART I
DESCENT
PART II
REQUITAL
PART III
MAELSTROM
PART IV
PARALLAX
PART I:
DESCENT
“For each one of us stands alone in the midst of a universe.”
— John Buchanan Robinson
1
SIYANE
BEYOND THE PORTAL
* * *
THEY WERE FALLING into a black hole.
People referred to regions of space where the distance between stars stretched to kiloparsecs as ‘the void.’ But even the void retained a murmur of light in the pale glint of distant stars and infinite galaxies.
This darkness was boundless and unbroken.
Dizziness clawed at the corners of Alex Solovy’s vision, brought on by the absence of a fixed point, of any spatial reference whatsoever to lock onto as a lodestar.
In a fit of what could be mistaken for panic she cut propulsion and sought the rearcam visual—and found golden plasma rippling placidly inside the ring sustaining it. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and the dizziness receded upon the knowledge they were not after all in a black hole.
The hand wrapped over hers squeezed with reassuring strength. She looked over to find Caleb wearing an air of easy confidence.
“Not dead.”
She knew the calm aura he projected was for her benefit, to give her comfort. And it worked. Her pulse slowed and the pounding receded from her ears. A laugh bubbled forth, only to morph into a mild protest halfway through. “Not dead. Excellent point. But what is this place?”
She returned the squeeze, then let go of his hand and directed her attention to the HUD as readings began coming in. Sensor sweeps were picking up no transmissions save the tremendously low frequency wave from the portal, which continued unabated for as far as her instruments reached. Analysis of the surroundings reported…nothing out of the ordinary.
“The immediate area has the same fundamental characteristics as our galaxy. According to these readings, the laws of physics are alive and well and functioning correctly. The impulse engine is able to operate within parameters. If the portal is a Brane intersection…” she glanced over with a frown “…the dimensions of this place are identical to ours. So why is it a portal?”
She checked the visual overlay. “We are definitely not anywhere in the Milky Way, though. It’ll take the system time to analyze all the possibilities, assuming it can with no locus…but I don’t believe we’re anywhere in mapped space.”
“Maybe the portal merely sent us a long way.” He shrugged. “Like ‘the other side of the universe’ long way?”
“Well the other side of the universe is a damn boring place. There’s nothing here.”
“But there was something here. There were ships here, a lot of them, and they had an origin point.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose in a futile attempt to ease the dull throbbing behind her forehead then rested her elbows on her knees.
This wasn’t what she had expected.
She hadn’t known what to expect. Perhaps a fresh armada of alien superdreadnoughts eager to return humanity to the stardust whence they came? Or more preferably, a dazzling civilization of exotic space stations, Dyson rings and planets subsumed beneath cities? She had idly entertained the notion of a mind-exploding dimensional shift to a gestalt of reality she hadn’t the acumen to comprehend.
But she hadn’t expected this.
She stared at the varied screens intended to display a plethora of information. One by one they updated.
Nothing. Nothing save the portal and the Siyane. Yet somewhere beyond this barren expanse lived the aliens who dispatched an armada of warships through the Metis Nebula.
“I think…I think we follow the TLF wave for now. It’s still being generated by something farther in. We can use the portal as a heading reference so we don’t go in circles. I’ll keep scanning on wideband, and eventually that ‘something’ will show up. It has to.”
Hearing no agreement or any response at all, she toed the chair around to face Caleb. He was peering out the viewport, shoulders taut in a suggestion of unease. “What’s wrong?”
He blinked and straightened up in his chair. “Sorry. That sounds fine.” A corner of his mouth tweaked up in a hint of a smile. “I wouldn’t dream of arguing with you on the best way to navigate uncharted space. This is your show. But I was wondering…the portal had vanished until we reactivated it, which means they never expected anyone to come through it. So why are they hiding?”
“Maybe they’re not hiding. Maybe they’re simply…farther. Let’s find out.” She reengaged propulsion and accelerated until they attained a steady eighty-five percent cruising speed. No reason to overtax the impulse engine on the off chance the laws of physics weren’t exactly the same here.
In the pervasive darkness there was no visual perception of movement, and only the subtle purr of the engine argued otherwise. It was rather disconcerting, so she sought solace in monitoring the portal in the rearcam. For the time being the sight of it shrinking in the distance did at least convey a sense of motion.
Then it vanished, and the void truly was absolute.
“Dammit!” She killed the thrusters entirely before confirming the gamma wave was still transmitting. It took considerable effort to resist the powerful urge to whirl the ship around and bolt for where the portal had been. To flee this suffocating emptiness.
Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection Page 50