Enemy tst-1

by Paul Evan Hughes

  There were other signs of Enemy activity.

  Flattened cities. Scorched earth. Abandoned upload generators. The veil of the web still in place above some areas of the planet.

  The dead Earth.

  A newfound rage surged through Sapphire as she looked at the viewscreens. The Enemy had killed her world, consumed its energy, left it a husk floating in space.

  In some deep, hidden part of her mind, she had hoped that this was all a nightmare, that her parents were still alive, that these people from the future, these Judas, would take her home to safety, to a world unscathed by this war out of time. She had hoped for so long.

  These hopes died.

  And from around the moon of Earth, the Enemy armada that had lain in wait, watching, struck down upon the Judas.

  (sapphire?)

  “What is it?” Exhaustion.

  (we’ll be emerging into the stream soon.)

  “Mara?”

  (yes, sapphire?)

  “Are you scared? I mean, are you—”

  (yes, ’phire. i’m scared.)

  Something was different. Something was wrong.

  The twins stood shocked before the viewscreen watching the Enemy horde race toward the Judas when the battle klaxon sounded its despairing wail. They snapped into action, running to their assigned droptroop deployment zone. While they stood in place, bulky combat armor sealed itself around their bodies.

  They felt the shift of the deck below them.

  Evasive maneuvers.

  Anticipation.

  And then the floor was gone, and they were thrust into a hostile world of brilliant arcs of light in the terrifying black of space. Down, down into the void, plunging at the spidery forms below them, preparing to board.

  The orders came swiftly, a deluge of barked commands as flocks of droptroops swarmed the Enemy.

  Hundreds. Thousands. Millions.

  Sapphire felt them, the warriors of the Judas, their blind faith, their determination. She felt many cease to exist in the wake of the hellish lights. She hesitated, looked up once more at the Golgotha Mara falling away above her, that island of hope in this blackness. A droptroop’s mission was simple: Maneuver to the surface of an Enemy vessel without getting killed and attempt viral insertion without getting uploaded.

  And suddenly all was light and Sapphire was blinded by the purest white brilliance sun hell LIGHT she had ever seen.

  Disoriented, she floated helplessly.

  “Sapphire to Mara!!”

  silence.

  “Sapphire to anyone!!”

  silence.

  ((“JADE!!”))

  She called out with her mind, but only silence greeted her.

  She panicked in the furious whiteness, struggling with the jets on the dropsuit upward to the shadow above her, hoping against hope that it was a Judas, not an Enemy.

  An open airlock door, so like a gaping mouth, hung above her. She clambered inside the hatch.

  Mara.

  She knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

  She closed the airlock and the suit faded from her. She entered Mara’s main corridor and ran toward the hub.

  “MARA!”

  a sound…

  (…static?…)

  Sapphire stood under the battle chamber elevator, entered the emergency override control code, and waited for the elevator to descend.

  The body of the captain descended from the battle chamber, neural interface webs still encompassing his body. Blood was everywhere, pouring from his burst eyes.

  “Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh Shit!”

  She wrestled the body from the elevator.

  She stepped on.

  It ascended.

  (float-placement dock achieved. we’ve arrived.)

  “Good. Let’s get this over with.”

  the battle chamber.

  Sapphire grimaced at the grisly scene before her and sobbed with desperation. In some part of her mind, she knew that time was running out for the warriors blinded outside, and that she was their only hope.

  (…static?…)

  Mara.

  She had never been in an actual battle chamber, only simulators, but she knew what to expect. The interface webs…

  The gauntlets.

  With a deep breath, she thrust her hands into the interface gauntlets, and she plunged into an unknown world of the purest light, disorienting.

  Voices. Faint voices.

  The Judas.

  She understood now.

  The pilots of the Judas had been flashblinded by the sudden explosion of light, and the phase energy burst had been powerful enough to knock them temporarily from the tethers that bound them to the primary pattern of the Stream. Lost in the innate rapture that was the kill mode of the battle chamber, the pilots had been mentally torn apart by an unknown force. They were all incapacitated, most dead already.

  Ready prey for the Enemy.

  Sapphire sifted her memory for those vital emergency command codes…

  She found them.

  “Judas Golgotha Mara emergency command structure reweb!”

  It began.

  pain ecstasy bliss hell

  She became one with the sentience that was the Mara and in the rapture she saw the lives of millions flow through her. Sapphire’s body became the physical flux through which the mind and power of Mara was expressed in human form.

  She became Judas, and in her terror, she found solace.

  The interface webs engulfed her, and she…

  (sapphire.)

  …she was…

  (begin.)

  …she was…

  MARA SHE WAS MARA SHE SHE SAW THROUGH THE LIGHT AT THE SKULKING FORMS SHAPES SHADOWS FLYING HUNTING KILLING THE JUDAS AND HER ARMS BECAME THE WEAPONS NACELLES AND SHE BEGAN THE SOMEHOW BEAUTIFUL KILLING SEARCH FOR THE THE LIGHT KILL ENEMY UNSUSPECTING ENEMY FELL FELL FELL IN HER TERRIBLE WAKE AND THE LIGHT FADED AND BLACK FORMS STRUGGLED TO RETREAT AND SHE STRUCK STRUCK THEM DOWN AND SHE WAS DRAINED EXHAUSTED EMPTY AND SHE FADED TO BLACK—

  She slumped back into the webs, beyond exhausted, agony in her mind, and heard a voice, hers yet not hers, giving orders to the able-bodied droptroops floating outside to return to their vessels and assess the situation before another wave came. Others were dispatched to capture the numerous disabled Enemy.

  She fell into the blackness.

  (longboat away. we’ll reach command momentarily.)

  “Let’s do this.”

  When she arose from the coma that was interface shock, Jade stood over her, smiling. She had a scar across her chin that hadn’t been there before.

  Sapphire tried to speak but was unable.

  “Shh, ’Phire. You shouldn’t try talking yet. Your body’s still too wasted from your interface with Mara. You really showed some balls out there, kid.”

  Sapphire smiled weakly.

  “They’re making you Mara’s captain.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed in disbelief.

  “Yeah, I guess Command was pretty impressed with what you did, taking charge of the situation and all. Plus, why waste a good Reweb, huh?”

  Sapphire laughed weakly.

  “You saved millions of lives out there, ’Phire. Even mine. But I can’t let you have all the spotlight. They promoted me to commander of Mara’s droptroops. We seized an Enemy vessel. We attempted viral upload, but the bastards had already severed the link-up.”

  Sapphire’s eyes widened. Jade saw the unspoken question within them.

  “Yeah. It was intact. There was an entire hive of Enemy inside, and we had to fight the bastards for every last inch, but in the end, we won. We’ve sent the vessel back to the Stream so they can take it apart and find out what that phase weapon was. We sure as hell haven’t seen anything like that in the Stream yet. Hopefully, we won’t. We’re staying here to make sure these Enemy don’t break into the Whenstream.

  “You’re the new fleet commander, Sapphire.”

  The twins embraced, each terrified of the futu
re.

  This memory faded from her mind as Sapphire disembarked her longboat with her fellow Golgotha captains. She wiped a tear from her eye.

  Oh, Jade, forgive me. Please, please, forgive me.

  An unspoken communication flickered between the Golgotha captains. So this was it. Command.

  They would find the truth.

  They were escorted to the First Circle Chamber to be briefed. Sapphire led the procession, a mere child, a young woman among so many adults. Yet she was more, her years of combat giving her a presence that transcended her age. As the Chamber doors opened, countless delegates turned, shocked to find the famed child warrior before them.

  The pain in her eyes. The loss she had seen.

  “Kilbourne.”

  The First Circle Judas Commander gazed down upon her.

  The eyes. Sapphire’s silver eyes, the faint glittery lines of web that emerged from them in almost a spider’s web across her skin…

  “Nice of you to join us, Judas Sapphire.”

  “Get on with it, Hannah.”

  Sapphire was swept once again into the eternal war.

  And in those the end times, Judas Simon raced toward an uncertain end.

  The present was a blur, the past was agony, the future was terror.

  They chased.

  He had placed the refugees into hibernatory stasis, not knowing the duration of this particular jump. Michael had chosen to join them. Something had happened down there when Zero-Four and Jennings took the longboat to investigate the Shadow…Michael’s eyes…He had looked like he had just seen a ghost. Simon would ask him what had happened when the jump was over.

  So now Simon was alone.

  What hell was he falling to?

  Simon’s thoughts drifted to…

  Magdalene.

  no.

  He forced the image, the memory, from his mind.

  She was dead

  ((that’s not true. they don’t kill you, they upload you into the pattern.))

  and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing at all.

  ((except—))

  Stop it. Maggie’s gone. Forever. Let her rest.

  I’ll find her again someday.

  He wished he had something to believe in. He wished he was not alone.

  He wished time would end.

  black

  in the pure hell, something took pleasure in the opportunity of the kill

  plans were being set into motion

  final plans

  laughter

  Simon performed a systems analysis.

  The abnormal stress of the unusually-long Shadow jump did not yet exceed reasonable safety parameters. There had not been any significant signal degradation in the tether, but he would have to closely monitor the forces acting upon him.

  He activated the external visual systems and watched the intricate patterns of nothingness swirl around him and the smaller vessel flying slightly ahead of him.

  Shiva.

  Simon studied the sleek features of his gunship counterpart, so unlike any other Judas in capability.

  Where had Command gotten that level of wartech? In proportion to their size, the new gunships surpassed even the mighty Golgotha in firepower. Simon had been horrified when he viewed the fury of Shiva and Malachi unleashed for the first time upon the Enemy. That impossible explosion of light. How could they—

  Simon knew he should feel more confident with these new Judas, but why was he so uneasy?

  He did not trust them. He did not trust Command.

  He fell backward through time.

  Michael Zero-Four.

  He spun in his sleep, troubled by the faces of the future.

  His mind raced with forgotten memories, painful visages of pasts long dead, images he had struggled to bury deep within him. He cried out.

  How could it be?

  In what tragic cycle was he ensnared? Would he ever be free of the Judas stigma? Would his pattern ever dissolve into the black between the stars and times and let him cease?

  So many thoughts. Past future became present.

  He slept but did not sleep.

  His unconscious leapt from him, sought release. Lines of zeros and ones filtered through Simon’s pattern.

  She sent the signal into the past.

  They would eliminate the final weak link.

  West.

  An icy presence crawled over his sleeping mind. He became aware of it, and the dreams ((visions)) began.

  Terror.

  Blind terror.

  There was no other word to express the emotion West experienced as the dreams flowed through him, tearing at his physical body and mentality as they seared their images upon him.

  Another soul touched his, and he saw

  the black between the stars, an infinity of light, an impossible cold. the convergence of machines, the flickering of life held for so long in the vital metallic minds.

  a journey of aeons, the inception of life anew. the mind of machines struggling to find its lost children. the taste of blood and the beginning of the search.

  a populace enslaved, an insane few holding a reign of dementia. an insatiable greed, a society grasping for things best left hidden. a world grossly overpopulated, masses suffocating from centuries of forced supplication.

  a light from beyond eternity and reason, a light ancient yet temporal. a new realm of possibility.

  and from the light came a man like the void between the stars, a man of darkness. a man of reason.

  a division formed. delusions of godhood. some turned to the light, some to the darkness. unrest utter unrest. brother killed brother.

  a planet forsaken, a planet abandoned. a war across time and space. endless vicious shouting killing swarms clawed at each other in the mad conflict. humanity was split and fell to the darkness of jihad.

  they clung to their saviors still, the incomprehensible forces from beyond time that forced humanity apart.

  mad insane delirious HORDES of men and women taking to the space between times, taking to the stars and beyond in a blood frenzy killing all in their path, leaving a scarlet swathe in their wake.

  billions billions billions bowing down to a new god.

  a purpose. a betrayal. a chase.

  an eternal war.

  swarms hordes throngs multitudes masses, screaming, chanting…something…((?))

  and, in the end, a seemingly out-of-place memory:

  a man, jumping into an orb of stars…

  RICHTER.

  West shook with the force of his silent scream.

  Richter.

  The signal was received.

  Shiva woke from his slumber.

  It was time.

  He slowed his pace.

  black

  IT IS READY((?))

  YES. STRIKE FORCE AWAITS DEPARTURE. OUR PATIENCE NOW BEARS OUR REWARD.

  PURPOSE BE. PROCEED.

  the Enemy once more set about the hunt.

  Patra.

  She was torn.

  Even floating in this foggy state of uncertainty and unreality, Patra could feel the division within her. She could feel the struggle between the remnants of her humanity and the foreign, incomprehensible force of the Enemy threatening to shred her very soul apart.

  She could do nothing in this dream state.

  What had she become?

  More Enemy than human, more web than flesh, could she honestly trust herself to fight for these people, these Judas? What if the Black within her became overpowering, forced her to succumb to its force?

  She would die before that happened. She pledged.

  And suddenly—

  —READY((?))

  YES. STRIKE FORCE AWAITS DEPARTURE. OUR PATIENCE NOW BEARS OUR REWARD.

  PURPOSE BE—

  —whispers forced their way into her mind. She gasped in the darkness, helpless against the agonizingly intrusive, violating voices.

  The Enemy.

  Patra’s mind raced. It had to be the
web within her that allowed her to witness that terrible Voice.

  The Enemy was near.

  Patra tore at the mental bonds that held her motionless body in hibernatory stasis. She had to warn the Judas. Something disastrous was about to happen.

  The Enemy was coming.

  Simon was watching his passengers with mild interest.

  He wished he could dream. Sometimes.

  Simon read the patterns of his four passengers. Strange, he thought… Within the last decem the patterns of the two refugees he had rescued from the Fourteen-seven When had experienced a dramatic increase in emulated heartbeat and respiratory rates and adrenaline levels. Nightmares.

  Can lines of code have nightmares?

  So they were having a touch of stasis shock, maybe a rough transition to their new lives. Worse things than nightmares had happened in this war. Worse things had happened to newly-coded Judas. Simon dismissed the issue and went back to waiting.

  Not long now…Soon, they would emerge from the Stream into a When where chaos held sway.

  External monitors opened, Simon pondered the Stream, the swirls of non-existence, the gunship Shiva—

  ((shiva, what is it?))

  No answer. The gunship had slowed his pace, dropped below Simon. His weapons nacelles began to shimmer as they charged with the power of the Shadow.

  ((shiva—))

  [she was a traitor, simon. that’s why she had to be eliminated. that’s why we killed her.]

  ((what do you—))

  [she was a weak link, simon. just like you.]

  Shiva began to channel the Shadow’s fury.

  [the purpose will be prevented.]

  He fired.

  Hell became reality.

  The Enemy tore into the Stream.

  so slow

  a swirl of events

  so this is how it will end for me

  a reflex

  fading

  Patra felt the Enemy rip into the Stream, heard infinite voices screaming, commanding, weeping. She sensed the bliss of impending bloodshed.

  Helpless, she cried out in horror as the Enemy killed Shiva in a fit of ecstasy.

  Helpless.

  Simon.

  Time became fluid.

  Shiva fired.

  So this is how it will end for me, Simon thought.

  He braced himself for the end and

  —BLACK BLACK BLACK IMPOSSIBLE BLACK SO SO MANY—

  suddenly the Enemy strike force was upon them, emerging from the past, killing, thrashing, diving.