this was the future.
the fog swirled around her mind once more, and patra slipped into the deep sleep of exhaustion.
the future…
The Mujahadin were close.
Intimately close.
Terrifyingly close.
In the battle chamber of Mara, Sapphire reeled in the hellish wash of blazing inferno that had been Command. In the virtual reality of the chamber, she seemed to be suspended in the midst of the battle.
To each side of her fleet, the Enemy.
Below her, closing fast, the Mujahadin.
Below them, the ever-expanding ball of brilliance that had been the only safe place the Judas had known: Command.
How had the Enemy found them?
No time for answers.
Calm. Must be calm.
“Golgotha hold fire on Mujahadin. Concentrate on Enemy forces. Mara, emergency linkup to Mujahadin flagship.”
(channel to anubis opened.)
“Anubis, this is Sapphire, Golgotha fleet commander. Check your fire! Stand down! We’re fellow Judas! The rogue code’s turned against you? Command’s gone! Kilbourne’s gone! She was wrong about her alliance. She’s betrayed us all. Please, call off your pursuit of us and help us fight the Enemy! “
…
“Anubis!”
The Mujahadin were within striking distance.
“Please!”
NO SAPPHIRE, IT IS YOU WHO ARE MISTAKEN.
The voice—
Sapphire felt terror rise in her throat.
“J—Jade?”
PURPOSE BE.
Catlike instinct overcame Sapphire, and in a swift movement of the purest reflex she found herself slamming her forearms into the interface gauntlets, the web interface enveloping her body, becoming one with Mara. The weapons nacelles swiveled around, pointed directly at the oncoming Mujahadin.
So be it.
“Golgotha, fire!”
((incoming enemy vessels.))
“Any sign of Malachi?”
((no sign yet. he’s waiting…watching.))
“We’re on our own. Descend the battle chamber elevator.”
A circular panel fell from the ceiling until it was at floor level. Zero-Four stepped on to it.
“Well, people,” he looked from Jennings to West, “it’s do or die time. Get her someplace safe.” He indicated Patra. “Find something to hold on to, and don’t let go. This could get rough.”
The elevator ascended, and Zero-Four was gone.
Killtime.
Brilliant lances of light thrust outward from the Golgotha, now in a protective spherical pattern.
(no effect. the mujahadin are employing a phase dampening field.)
“Fire all fusion and MRDs into their midst!”
With snakelike agility the writhing mass that was the Mujahadin tore at the Golgotha. Mara loosed the last of her fury upon the Mujahadin, firing fusion and molecular relay disruption devices directly into the swarm.
The battle chamber was thrust into harsh brightness by the ferocity of the weapons fire. For an instant, a thought of hope almost entered Sapphire’s mind until countless black silhouettes emerged from the sphere of hellfire. The Mujahadin were unscathed.
(they must’ve translated our command codes. they can inoculate themselves against our virus. our weapons are useless.)
Desperation.
“Golgotha fleet, prepare to When jump out of here! We’re helpless against this many Black!”
(incoming message from archimedes. it’s reynald.)
“Reynald! What are we going to do?”
“Get out of here as fast as you can, little one. I have a plan, and you won’t want to be around.”
“You’re coming with us. We’ll recoup in an abandoned When and strike again. We’ll find a way!”
“We have to make a stand here. I have to make a stand here. Arch is heavily damaged, and so are many other Judas. We can’t escape, Sapphire. We’re dead in the water. We can’t leave, but you can.”
“I can’t just leave you here.”
“We’re trapped. Arch’s drives are gone. You can’t save us, ’Phire, but we can save you.”
“What—”
“There are a lot of Golgotha with damaged cores. We can’t move, but we can still Shadow.”
“Reynald, you can’t—”
“It’s your only chance. If we invert the Shadow—”
“You can’t do that in the Stream!”
“If we’re going to save existence, we’ll have to take our chances.”
“But you’ll be—”
“Destroyed. Wiped from the registry. Yes, I know, but so will the Enemy. This is our only advantage, and we have to take it.”
“Oh, Reynald…” She began to weep. Such pressure.
“Shh, ’Phire.”
The assault on the Judas continued, their number rapidly decreasing, their resistance futile against the sheer size and force of the Enemy code.
“Reynald…You were like a father to Jade and me.”
“I know, little one. I know. Do this for Jade. For Maggie. For the countless others. Don’t let their deaths be for nothing…Don’t let the Enemy have their souls. Live to fight another day.”
Sapphire’s thoughts snapped back to the voice of Anubis.
The voice of her dead sister.
Set her free.
“Thank you, Reynald. Thank you.” Such despair in her voice…Utter desperation. “Golgotha fleet… All who still have Shadow jump capability, prepare for emergency Stream jump on my mark. Those of you who are disabled,” her voice broke. “Those who still have a Shadow,” she paused. How could she order suicide? “Prepare to upload the reformat virus.”
How many Judas had she just sentenced to death?
“Mara?”
(ready, ’phire.)
“Golgotha fleet, jump.”
Reynald watched calmly from Arch’s battle chamber as so precious few Judas faded from non-existence into the Stream. The Mujahadin and Enemy forces heightened their attack, destroying everything in their path. Where only seconds before Mara had been, fiery bolts of death tore through the silver night.
It had to be now.
Reynald felt Archimedes rocked by the blasts.
Godspeed, little one.
“Arch, signal the fleet.”
(-channel open-)
“Upload the reformat virus. Invert Shadow drives now.”
It happened.
The Black observed Sapphire’s departure.
THE JUDAS FLEE IN TERROR.
WE WILL HUNT THEM DOWN TO THE LAST VIRAL STRAND. THEIR BLASPHEMY WILL HINDER THE PURPOSE NO LONGER. DIVERT FORCES TO PURSUE THE JUDAS INTO THE STREAM. PUT AN END TO THE REMAINING JUDAS PATTERNS HERE. THEY ARE NOT WORTHY OF OMEGA.
THE PURPOSE IS OURS.
PURPOSE BE. YOUR CONSPIRACY TO INFILTRATE THE JUDAS WAS A COMPLETE SUCCESS. YOU SHALL REAP THE SUCCULENT REWARDS OF YOUR ALLIANCE WHEN THE PURPOSE IS REALIZED. I BOW TO YOUR FORESIGHT.
BOW NOT TO ME, BUT TO ALL BELIEVERS.
YOU HAVE SEALED OUR VIC—
It happened.
Mara shuddered from the exertion.
Within the battle chamber, Sapphire was enveloped by the swirling winds of the Whenstream, now contorted into a visual cacophony as the remnants of her fleet struggled to get to a safe distance, tearing across the timesweep waves at impossible speeds.
“How many?”
(seventeen golgotha. two mecca. three gethsemane. one ladahk. one london. one eden. two galilee.)
“And a partridge in a pear tree.”
(enemy forces detected in pursuit vector.)
“What?!”
(they’ve locked on to our pattern position and follow us.)
“Didn’t Reynald—
It happened.
So, so many Judas lay in the void, disabled.
When Reynald gave the order, they followed it.
Almost four hundred Judas inverted their Shadows at once,
uploading the reformat virus into the Whenstream.
Cataclysm was an understatement.
To open up a Shadow in the Stream was an accepted tactic of the Judas, using a black hole that was the Shadow to open a phase space portal into the Stream.
But to invert a Shadow in the Stream…
Of course, it had been done in space battle countless times before. Space battle, not time battle, not Stream battle inside of Program Seven. The Shadow tethered the Judas vessels to the main program.
To invert the Shadow code was in essence to sever all tethers, which forced the program to reformat to a new phase level, a physical phase level. To invert meant the end of the virtual program as a new reality was written.
“Arch, signal the fleet.”
(-channel open.-)
“Upload the reformat virus. Invert Shadow drives now.”
Reynald closed his eyes.
The effect was immediate.
Deep within four hundred Judas cores, containment fields were released, and the orbs of light that were the Shadows shattered, imploded, pulling the metal and alloy of the Judas in upon themselves in a fantastic display of fire and silver.
Reynald felt no pain.
It did not stop there.
The Mujahadin and Enemy vessels that were closest were pulled into the massive whirlpool of silver fire where the Judas fleet had just been. They ceased to be before they knew what was happening, leaving contrails of white in their wake.
The Enemy vessels on the periphery of the battle writhed, struggled to escape the relentless, unremitting pull of the ever-growing sphere of rewritten reality, now a great black globe from which snakes and rivulets of energy pirouetted. Their fate was inevitable. The Enemy forces were dragged in.
The bubble within the Stream that had been Judas Command began to dissemble, to collapse inward upon itself, upon the Shadow. All of existence began to rewrite itself as the Judas program reformatted to physical space.
Matter and anti-matter. Existence and non-existence.
Indeed, cataclysm was an understatement.
The bubble of nothingness shrunk, fell upon the Shadow at an maniacal speed.
The explosion was beyond painfully bright, beyond even the human visual range, as time shattered, as the Stream itself was splintered into infinite shards of phase space that ceased to exist.
This rabid wave of destruction swept outward, outward, consuming all of phase space in its path, tearing the Stream apart in its wake, in its sheer, innate, unimaginable force.
An eternity of futures were no more. There was only one: a black, blank, empty world of void.
And still the Stream collapsed further, further.
Time was falling apart. The Judas program was rewriting existence.
Time was dying.
“Didn’t Reynald—
And the Stream behind them became light like none before seen as the bubble collapsed, exploded outward in a fury that simply had never known existence.
The Enemy fleet following them was torn apart.
“Mara, max speed! Ignore safety parameters, just get us out of here!”
The remnants of the Judas fleet, ignoring the dangers of their actions, went to maximum speed, feeling the agony of the burn, trying to distance themselves from the death that swept down upon them. Several of the slower, older vessels were torn to detritus as they fell behind. The forms of the Judas seemed to stretch, stretch as their speed overcame that of light.
The fleet vanished, travelling too fast to see.
They had outrun the wave of reality, but still it swept along its relentless course.
It would inevitably outpace them.
They raced into the past.
“Ready, Simon?”
((always, michael.))
“Then let the sons of bitches bring it on.”
The damned drew closer.
Malachi.
He followed the Enemy, cruising directly behind the fleet. They were eager, whatever they were doing.
Then…
A noise, faint. A rhythmic tone. He struggled to hear.
It was a Judas frequency. A beacon. A homing beacon.
Shiva?
He listened closer. The beacon was so faint…Had it been damaged somehow? Was Shiva somewhere out there, floating helplessly?
Realization.
Like vultures to a corpse, the Enemy flew…
Malachi made his presence known.
Zero-Four calmly studied the Black forms racing at him, and he thrust his arms into the interface gauntlets. He became one with Simon.
Before he could fire, his world became light.
From behind the nightmare armada, a brilliant wall of luminescence appeared, ripping apart the Enemy in its path, thrusting the remaining Black into stark contrast before dispatching them to the unknown. The wall of light cut through the Enemy ranks cleanly, efficiently, leaving large pieces of the flaming vessels to spiral into the void.
Malachi.
Zero-Four tensed his grip on the gauntlets.
ANOTHER JUDAS HAS APPEARED.
WHAT POWERS OF OBSERVATION YOU HAVE.
OUR FORCES HAVE BEEN NEUTRALIZED. SHALL WE SEND FOR A LARGER STRIKE TEAM((?))
AGAINST THAT JUDAS IT WOULD BE FUTILE.
WE CANNOT LET IT INTERFERE.
SOON IT WILL NOT MATTER. SOON THEIR HIVE PATTERN WILL BE CONSUMED IN OUR HOLY FIRE AND THE PURPOSE WILL BE OURS.
INDEED. OUR VICTORY—
…—-…
agony. innate agony.
WHAT WAS THAT((??))
FROM UPWHEN—OUR FORCES…
NO THAT CANNOT BE. VICTORY—
THEY DID NOT SUCCEED IF WE HEAR THEIR DEATH WAILS FROM THE STREAM.
WE DO NOT KNOW.
SILENCE((!)) THE STRIKE FORCE WAS SOMEHOW DISPATCHED. NOW WE MUST ACT BEFORE WE SUFFER THE FULL BRUNT OF THE JUDAS FORCE.
WHAT…WHAT DO YOU MEAN((?))
WE HAVE ENOUGH PATTERNS TO COMPLETE THE PURPOSE NOW. THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN UPLOADED ARE UNWORTHY OF OMEGA. WE CAN ELUDE THE JUDAS VIRUS AND SET A PURPOSE POINT VECTOR IF WE ACT IMMEDIATELY.
WHAT COWARDICE((!)) YOU FEAR THE JUDAS((?)) WE MUST DESTROY THEM BEFORE—
a flash of brilliance. a dying scream.
I FEAR NOTHING. WE LEAVE AT ONCE.
it stares into its dead compatriot.
I FEAR NOTHING. THE PURPOSE COMES FIRST. THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.
the black closes
{simon…where’s shiva…?}
The two Judas faced each other, engaged in an unconscious dance of dominance like two scorpions, circling, poised to strike.
((…))
{simon. where is shiva?}
((he’s burning in hell, as you will.))
{what?}
((you’ve betrayed us all, malachi. an enemy strike force traveled upwhen. you let them slip through your fingers. they killed shiva, and then they killed command.))
{no—how? Kilbourne—}
((kilbourne is dead! they destroyed command!))
{you lie. you are a traitor.}
The galaxy seemed to explode, bathed in harsh radiance.
((the star. they’ve collapsed the star. the purpose—))
A Judas fleet fell through the dying star. Fifteen Golgotha. One Gethsemane. One Mecca.
Sapphire’s fleet.
((who’s that?))
Mara had been resolutely flying at max speed down the Stream, trying to put more distance between herself and the crumbling universes behind her.
Several other Judas had succumbed already, simply too drained to go on. They had fallen behind and paid the price in the horribly small white explosions of their deaths.
Without warning, a When hole emerged directly in front of the fleet where none had existed before, and before they could react, they were all thrust into an unknown When.
Into the midst of an Enemy fleet.
Sapphire screamed.
IGNORE THEM((!))
REROUTE FORCES
AROUND VIRAL FLEET. THE PURPOSE IS WHAT MATTERS NOW. DO NOT WASTE ENERGY ON DESTROYING THEM((!))
INTO THE STREAM, NOW((!))
The Enemy fleet, like a school of stingrays without substance, so beautiful and fluid in form, deftly avoided Sapphire’s armada and plunged past them into the open When hole.
The Judas were disoriented, wary of the situation.
And from nowhere, a Mujahadin appeared.
Sapphire jumped. “Open fire. Open fire!”
Simon saw the window of opportunity.
Malachi’s attention was focused on the incoming Judas.
Simon opened fire as he distanced himself from the Mujahadin. He had no idea what fleet that was, but it was predominantly Golgotha, and that was a good sign. They were moving to intercept.
Malachi reeled from the barrage. His weapons ports flared and he targeted Simon, but his shot went wide as a strategically placed arc of light lanced through his hub. The mechanical sentience that had been Malachi flared from existence. He was no more.
((burn in hell, malachi.))
Simon powered down with great relief. These Golgotha were allies, then. Maybe all hope was not lost.
The shell that had been the Judas Mujahadin Malachi spun from the force of its violent death. It was ensnared by the gravity well of the third planet and pulled down, intimately close. His body careened over countless barren miles, scorched earth left in the wake of the Enemy scourge. But this was yet a young planet, and if given the chance, it would live again. The Enemy harvest had eliminated the primitive reptilian lifeforms of the planet, but life would flourish once more. Malachi’s body crashed to earth in a volcanic valley, shattering the planet surface with its massive form, finally coming to rest in a vast pool of magma. His structure easily withstood the temperature as he was immersed in the molten rock. Down, down, down he sank, never to see the light of day again…
…At least until sixty-five million years later when the Diablo Mining Company, facing bankruptcy, drilled a new shaft deeper than ever before, searching for copper, finding only an impenetrable metal wall, and the military would quickly move in, sealing off the area, sending down investigative teams who would eventually enter this vessel in the earth and find within it an orb of stars…
Oh well. That’s another story.
Simon was filled with relief.
((identify yourself, golgotha fleet commander.))
She did.
“It’s just a little girl.”
Jennings, West and Patra were on the bridge, staring raptly at the holograph projected before them. Patra had arisen from her slumber unaffected, yet distant. Zero-Four descended from the battle chamber, stood transfixed at the image.
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