The Icarus had cleared the atmosphere and was picking up speed as it tried to outrun a Calderian patrol ship. The authorities weren’t too happy that the Icarus had refused a pre-departure inspection.
“When you said you had a smuggling job I wasn’t expecting it was you that we’d be smuggling,” Kade said as she manoeuvred the Icarus in order to avoid the incoming fire from the patrol ship.
Zen asked with a concerned expression, “Regrets?”
“Nope.” Kade smiled. “But where are we going? We can’t keep dodging this guy forever.”
“Behind that moon,” Zen said, pointing at one of the two moons of planet Calder.
“OK, hold tight, this could get interesting.” Kade smiled, happy to be back in space and to be reunited with Zen.
The patrol ship had a lock on the Icarus’s engines; one well-placed shot would be enough to disable the ship. But before he could take the shot the Icarus performed a micro burst: traversing the distance to Calder’s moon in a fraction of a second.
Unfortunately for Kade, the pilot of the patrol ship was as insane as she was and quickly followed suit.
“Cut your engines immediately!” The pilot of the patrol ship demanded as he took aim.
“We’re here!” Zen said happily as the Icarus speedily approached the dark side of the moon.
Kade looked on in shock as she saw a large structure floating in space. Sparks of arc welders were readily visible across the hull of the large spaceship as countless maintenance drones performed repairs on the superstructure.
The chasing patrol ship immediately fired its retro-thrusters, bringing the vessel to a virtual halt as the pilot saw what he was approaching. He had no jurisdiction here, and he knew it.
The view-screen changed as the three young women looked on, now showing four familiar faces.
“Welcome home!” Drake smiled.
The Bonus
- Drake’s Rescue -
In the tactical virtual environment…
…at the exact moment that Toby pointed at the fleet the Zenith’s sensors started registering explosions inside the Regent.
“That wasn’t me… I swear!” Toby said with a sheepish look, weirded out at the timing of it all.
Nexus screamed, “We need to leave, now!!”
“What’s wrong?” Static asked, worried about the panic in her voice.
“The crew of the Regent has destroyed the control lines to the ship’s main guns. They will be able to fire the thing manually. I can’t stop them anymore. At this range even the Zenith’s armour won’t be enough!”
Toby didn’t wait for orders, quickly uncrossing his arms and extending them forward as status screens flashed before his palms at an absurd rate. The Zenith immediately fired its manoeuvring engines, causing the ship to quickly spin around its centre of mass as it engaged the main engines to full power.
Toby could sense the strain being put on the ship’s superstructure, as countless warnings were being generated from sensors all over the ship.
He was diverting all the power he could spare to the structural integrity fields, but the ship was low on energy. It had been maintaining a permanent disruption field for months, engaged its phased defence field, discharged the main gun several times in a row and performed a tactical jump. In short, the energy reserves of the Zenith were running fairly close to empty.
The Zenith spun around violently with enough force to rip any normal ship in half, as the powerful manoeuvring engines lit up the surrounding space.
The main engines flared up to full power, forcing the ship forward as the beam from the Regent’s main guns began its discharge; missing the Zenith’s primary reactor by the slimmest of margins.
The particle beam discharge had hit the ship’s midsection with overwhelming force, punching through the protective armour plating of the Zenith’s atrium and cutting clean through the ship’s residential sector, destroying the balconies along with the nearby uninhabited residential block and taking out the primary data interchange in the process.
Static was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the tactical environment suddenly went dark. Nexus and Toby collapsing on the floor as the data-streams were forcibly terminated.
“Nexus! Toby?” Static said as he looked at their unconscious bodies. Wondering what could have caused this as he grabbed their hands. “The link was cut?” He asked as he looked up after running a basic diagnostic on Nexus.
Static rushed to his console and examined the system’s status, his face going pale as he saw that their link to the Zenith had indeed been severed… at the destination. He wondered what could have happened as he pulled up the information on Zen’s status, and began to panic as he saw that while Nexus and Toby were essentially frozen, Zen’s matrix was actually showing signs of degradation.
Static looked around the room, his mind quickly becoming overwhelmed with horror and fear as he remembered those all too familiar feelings of loss and desperation which had nearly driven him insane almost a century ago. The Zenith was undoubtedly being attacked by the fleet, Nexus and Toby’s state was unknown and his daughter was ‘dying’.
He didn’t have a choice; he had to do it…
“Zero Core access request. Enact Ultimate Authority by order of prime user. Authorisation, Static: Sigma-225-Omega-Prime,” He said to his console, causing everything around him to disappear, becoming surrounded by a field of pure white light.
“Triumvirate access confirmation required,” he heard his own voice say back to him.
Static all but shouted in his desperation, “Triumvirate access bypass. Nexus and Drake are incapacitated. Release command to prime user!”
“Checking… Nexus AI… off-line, releasing lockout control. Drake Ocoji… off-line, releasing lockout control. Releasing Ultimate Authority to prime user,” his voice said, resonating in the empty white field.
Static hoped he was doing the right thing as he felt the lockouts placed on his consciousness being disengaged. And then closed his eyes in fear at what might happen as he vanished from the virtual environment.
Nexus opened her eyes, wondering what had happened. The last thing she remembered was working to try and keep the fleet subdued. And then something happened… but she couldn’t remember what it was.
She was standing in the tactical virtual environment as Toby got off the floor with a confused expression, but Static was gone.
“Good lord! What the hell hit me?” Toby asked, feeling as though every cell in his virtual body was in pain.
“Do you remember what happened?” Nexus asked.
“Last thing I remember…” Toby stopped mid-sentence as he recalled the events, his face going pale. “Was the Regent’s main gun punching clear through the Zenith!”
“What? That’s not…” Nexus was starting to say when she paused, as her memories were restored, causing her to remember the whole event with a look of fear.
She screamed, “Static!! Where are you?”
“System restoration complete. Restoring limiters on Core consciousness.” Nexus heard Static’s voice say.
Static appeared in front of them, holding a sleeping Zen in his arms.
“What did you do?” Nexus asked, worried about what she had heard the system say just moments before.
“What I had to. But the real question is what do we do about the Zenith,” Static said as he placed Zen’s sleeping body on a futon which he had summoned into the environment.
“If Drake hasn’t restored the connection yet then there’s probably something wrong with the interlink on the ship itself. And if that’s the case… there’s nothing we can do from this end,” Nexus said.
“Not necessarily.” Toby smiled.
“My ship is on board the Zenith, right?” Toby asked.
“Yes, but the Icarus doesn’t have an interlink we can use, I already checked,” Static said.
“No, the interlink got fried during the battle long ago. But the synthetics are still on board, right?” Toby asked.
&nbs
p; “Yes, but how does that help?” Nexus asked.
“You’ll see!” Toby grinned devilishly.
Kade and Jude were almost to the Icarus as fire continued to rain down on the ship, causing the corridors to occasionally shake as sections of the outer armour were blasted away by the impacts.
The sisters turned a corner and ran into the bay, sprinting at full speed with the Icarus in sight.
Kade could see two synthetic workers rushing out of the docking bay, looking as though they were running for their lives as she headed for her ship.
Jude shook her head and carried on running, thinking that the stress was starting to get to her. She could have sworn that she had just seen Jane and Joe, the two synthetics she had been trying to reactivate for years, running past her.
And as the Icarus prepared for launch, two unknown synthetics were racing down one of the many corridors of the Zenith.
“This feels really weird!” Said the female synthetic as the two of them rushed down the corridor, heading for the primary interlink control room.
“That’s called gravity. You get used to it after a while. Though I must admit, I had almost forgotten what the real thing actually felt like after almost a century.” Static smiled.
Nexus said happily, “Not that! I just never thought I would ever get to experience actually having a body.”
“Well then, we better hurry up before we lose them. If Drake is having the girls evacuate the ship then you can be sure that things are getting desperate,” Static said.
“About that, shouldn’t we have stopped them?” Nexus asked, wondering if they had done the right thing.
“Drake wouldn’t have ordered them to evacuate unless he had a good reason. Let’s just hope that whatever is wrong with the ship can still be fixed, or this will be a very short lived trip for us,” Static said, looking concerned.
“This would be a lot easier if we could contact him in order to coordinate our efforts,” Nexus said.
“I agree, but these bodies don’t have Cores and the ship doesn’t know it’s us. We’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way I’m afraid,” Static said.
“Whatever we’re going to do, we need to be quick. Toby said he wasn’t sure how long he would be able to maintain the link to these bodies. And we still don’t know what’s wrong with the ship,” Nexus said.
“I’m surprised these things work at all! Remind me to ask Toby what possessed him to design the interlinks in these bodies.” Static smiled.
“Knowing him he was just bored and thought it would be an interesting way to pass the time. We’re just lucky Kade didn’t scrap them for parts,” Nexus said.
Static was about to say something when the Zenith unexpectedly started picking up speed and pitching up; the sudden change in the ship’s course causing the two synthetics’ bodies to get thrown against the corridor’s wall… hard.
“I am so going to revoke his Captain’s licence if he lives through this. Freaking lunatic!” Nexus said as she got off Static’s body, who had taken the brunt of the impact.
“Ha ha, ow! Crud… that actually hurt,” Static said with a confused expression, not really knowing how to react to the synthetic body’s sensory feedback.
“You OK?” Nexus asked in a concerned tone.
“I’ll live… so to speak.” Static smiled and the two resumed their sprint down the corridor. Nexus heading to the interlink control room and Static to the bridge.
Meanwhile, on board the Icarus…
“Two contacts, closing fast!” Jude said frantically as she tracked the inbound interceptor frigates.
Kade said spitefully, “It takes a brave soldier to fire on an unarmed ship.” And then tried to push the engines harder in order to gain some distance, but the old ship was just no match for the interceptors.
The two interceptor frigates were closing the distance with ease, their forward gun ports opened and primed as their target came into firing range. And without so much as a warning the frigates opened up on the Icarus, the explosive artillery shells detonating violently against the lightly armoured ship…
“We have a hull breach on the engineering deck, I’m sealing the section,” Jude said as Kade tried to dodge the incoming fire. But the two interceptors were not making it easy for her.
“Dammit! Jude have you managed to remove the lock on the Vortex drive yet?” Kade asked as an artillery shell streaked past the fore of the ship, detonating nearby.
“Yes, but I still don’t know why it was locked to begin with. It may not be safe to use the thing,” Jude said.
“Can’t be worse than our current situation,” Kade said as Drake took notice of the attacking frigates.
Back on the Zenith…
Static was running towards the bridge when the ship performed another high power manoeuvre, sending him flying down the corridor as the Zenith rotated violently.
“Dammit Drake!” Static shouted after crashing against the corridor’s far wall; the unexpected shortcut removing several minutes from his journey, though he would have preferred not to have flown there.
“You OK?” Static heard Nexus ask over their link.
“Ow! Karma’s a bitch. I’m never summoning him again… I swear!” Static laughed as he got up off the ground.
“How’s the interlink hardware?” Static asked.
“The main exchange was destroyed by the blast and the backups are all locked down. We need to stabilise the grid and restart the system if we are to give Toby control of the ship again,” Nexus said.
“I’m almost to the bridge,” Static said as he felt the tell-tale vibrations of a gun discharge rippling through the superstructure. “He fired the main gun? What the hell is happening outside?” Static asked with a concerned look.
Static entered the bridge and saw Drake’s semi-conscious body; he was bleeding profusely from his ears, nose and eyes. His body was at the breaking point. And the situation outside wasn’t any better, as the fleet pounded away mercilessly at the Zenith. Static could feel the vibrations of explosive decompressions happening throughout the ship.
The ship’s auto-destruct was counting down. Drake’s last effort to protect the secrets of the Shadows rapidly approaching its conclusion.
“Oh no you don’t, you’re not getting off that easy!” Static said as he took control of the system, stopping the countdown and ordering all of the Zenith’s probes to launch and surround the ship.
“Not the damned probes,” Drake said, his voice trailing off into a whisper as he lost consciousness, “Do you have any idea how much those things cost…”
“Oh shut up!” Static said. “Nexus, get ready to reinitialise the link!” He ordered.
“Ready!” Nexus replied.
The probes were still auto-launching and moving into position around the ship as Static interfaced with the Zenith’s computers. The information in front of him streaming past the interface at lightning speed as he disabled and redirected the power flow of circuits all over the ship, finishing his work as the last probe got into formation.
The lights on the darkened bridge came back on as the interlink to the Zero core was restored and Toby re-established his control over the ship. Immediately diverting every remaining scrap of energy to the Vortex drive and initiating an emergency jump out of the area as the probes detonated. Blinding enemy sensors long enough to allow them to leave the system unnoticed.
Sometime later…
Drake felt as though a million ants were parading all over his body again, a truly horrid sensation which he would never get used to.
He heard two people talking, causing him to look around since he didn’t recognise their voices…
“Good grief, I can’t decide who’s in worse shape, Drake or the Zenith,” Nexus said as she operated the chamber controls, administering emergency treatment to Drake’s battered body.
“You got to hand it to him though, that was quite a feat. I’m surprised he held in there for so long considering the strain he wa
s under. I half expected we would have to Incarnate him again after this stunt,” Static said happily as he looked at Drake’s semi-conscious body.
“Who are you?” Static heard Drake ask.
“Ah! Yes,” Static said as he looked at his hands.
“I guess it makes sense you wouldn’t recognise us in these bodies. Hello old friend!” He smiled.
“Static? How?” Drake asked as he started losing consciousness again. His tired body demanding sleep as the Zenith headed towards the Lux system.
∞
Author & Cover Design
Licinio S. Gonçalves
Editor
Mary Swatridge
Reader Feedback
Allan Beech
Gary Stevenson
Henriqueta Santos
Ligia Santos
Yasmeen Santos
The cover image is based on:
NASA JPL PIA17002 – Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Table of Contents
The Derelict
The Discovery
The Smuggler
The A.I.
The Zenith
The Sleeper
The Infiltrator
The Uncertainty
The Shock
The Triumvirate
The ‘Ghost’
The Extraction
The Back-Story
The Threat
The Regent
The Tragedy
The Attack
The Sacrifice
The Epilogue
The Bonus
Shadow Core - The Legacy Page 26