by Chris Fox
“I guess what I’m saying is that the creatures that live on the Eye aren’t minions, not in the same way Reid was. They’re not an outgrowth of the Eye, and it doesn’t control them. I think the Eye has these creatures like a dog has fleas. Does that make sense?” The barrel of her rifle set up a firing arc that overlapped with his.
“Perfect sense.” Nolan nodded, pausing as Hannan raised a fist at the head of the squad. That meant hold, the most basic non-verbal command. He remembered not even knowing that much when he’d first started. “The Eye is making use of these creatures by using them as guards, but they’re just normal animals, however gruesome. We’ve threatened them, and they’ve chosen to retreat. They won’t mindlessly throw their lives away trying to protect Mendez.”
“As long as we avoid more bug goo,” Edwards said, lumbering ahead of them a ways. He paused to look at Nolan. “We almost there?”
“Yes,” Nolan said, quietly trotting up beside Hannan. He crouched next to her, peering carefully into the room she’d found below.
“Looks like its unguarded,” Hannan whispered, clearly disbelieving.
Below them lay a pool of slimy green ichor. In the center was a device that looked like a Primo command console. Mendez lay in that pool, inhuman tendrils extending from his body into the fluid. His face was fixed on the screen, which Nolan could almost make out. It looked like a view of the battle raging above, focused on the Forge.
“Yes. Yeeeesss,” Mendez croaked, leaning closer to the screen. “There goes the cannon. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? That ship can’t hurt you now. So why aren’t they retreating?” Mendez continued to mutter to himself.
Nolan caught Hannan’s eye, nodding down into the room. Hannan nodded back, turning to the squad. She started with Edwards, miming him putting down the medbed. Then she gestured Kathryn forward.
“I’ll go first, to trigger any trap,” Hannan whispered. “Edwards, if I go down, you lay waste to that thing.”
“That thing,” Kathryn hissed back, “is my father. And we stand to gain a lot if we can cure him. We have to at least try.”
“We will, if the opportunity arises,” Nolan interjected, knowing this would become an argument otherwise. “Hannan, approach the pool. If all is as it seems, we’ll follow.”
Hannan crept forward, her rifle sweeping back and forth as she approached the pool. She made no noise, and stayed in Mendez’s blind spot as she approached. No aliens dropped from the ceiling. The ground didn’t erupt. Nearly a minute later, she reached the side of the strange bed Mendez was resting in, withdrew her plasma knife, and placed the edge against Mendez’s throat.
“Seems safe to come on down, Captain,” she called, though her eyes never left Mendez.
Nolan trotted from cover, Kathryn right alongside him. Behind them came Edwards, carrying the medbed. He approached Mendez, who was watching Hannan calmly. At his approach, Mendez shifted to face him. “Ah, Nolan. I was so hoping it would be you. You’ve come to kill me, I hope.”
“We’re going to keep you alive, if possible,” Nolan said, moving up beside Hannan. He ignited his plasma dagger, slashing at one of the ropey tendrils attached to Mendez’s skin. The material was tough, but he cut through it. It spurted brackish green ichor, which looked like it had been pumped into Mendez. Kathryn ignited her own blade and started severing tendrils too.
“We’re awfully chummy with the guy who destroyed thirteen fleets, and sanctioned the bombing of Tigrana,” Hannan said, pressing the dagger closer to Mendez’s throat.
Nolan rose to his feet, putting a hand on her arm. “Hey. We have a chance to make some of this right. Now isn’t the time for revenge. We don’t have the luxury.”
“He killed Mills,” Hannan said, a single tear sliding down her cheek. “They blew up the Johnston.”
“It was under duress. He isn’t the enemy; the Eye is,” Nolan said. He leaned closer, meeting Hannan’s gaze. “I need you to stand down, Sergeant.”
Hannan nodded, removing the dagger from Mendez’s throat and taking a step back. Mendez looked…disappointed.
“I made it as easy as I could for you to find me, leaving breadcrumbs wherever I could,” he said, his voice cracked from disuse. He looked like a pale shadow of the man Nolan had known, clearly nearing the end of his life. “The Eye never tried to stop me. I think it was overconfident. It didn’t make me put more defenses around this place.”
Nolan wanted to believe him, but in that moment he couldn’t even weigh the words. He had work to do. “Kathryn, pick him up and put him on the medbed.”
Kathryn severed the last tendril, then heaved her father into the air. Kathryn managed to deposit him atop the bed. Nolan bent to the control panel, pressing the gems Manda had shown him.
The bed began to hum, and after several moments the screen lit up. It showed a figure representing Mendez, his skeleton and nervous system in great detail. Overlaying it was a forest of red tendrils, far worse than had been in Kathryn. These had spread to every part of Mendez’s body. Nolan looked away, pressing the purify button.
The process began, a white light bathing Mendez as it hummed. A red icon with a Primo skull appeared on the screen, and the process paused. There were two buttons below it.
“Why did it stop?” Kathryn asked.
“I think because using it is going to kill him,” Nolan said, as kindly as he could.
“Yes,” Mendez croaked. “Do it. Either I’m free, or I’m dead. Please.”
Nolan considered for one more second, meeting Kathryn’s agonized gaze. She couldn’t decide, so he did. He pressed the Confirm button, and the process resumed.
The light bathed Mendez, repeating the procedure Kathryn had undergone. They stood in silence, waiting the nearly sixty seconds for the process to finish. When it had, Mendez had all but wasted away, his skin sagging around his bones. There was almost no muscle remaining.
“Oh, Kathryn,” Mendez said, smiling up at her. “You did it. You got free, and you’ve freed me. I’m so proud.”
“Dad,” she said, smiling as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. This was costing her, but Nolan was impressed with the bold face she put on her words. “I hate to be all business, but we need you to stop the Void Wraith fleets.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Mendez said, stretching a trembling hand to the console. He touched a blue button, then slowly moved his hand to a red. The process continued, and he spoke as he worked. “This morning I ordered an assault of twenty-five key worlds. Those assaults are underway even as we speak. I’m ordering nearly two-thousand vessels to suicide themselves. They’ll crash into asteroids, or moons. Whatever it takes to end themselves. The Eye gave me absolute control. It seemed to feel a human mind running things unfettered was more efficient, because we’re unpredictable.”
Mendez pressed a final key, and the console sent a pulse of light toward the ceiling. It disappeared into the rock, presumably aimed at a some sort of satellite. He turned to Nolan, giving him a weak smile. “I’m proud of you, too.”
“It’s possible we can still save you. Our new allies have incredible technology,” Nolan offered. Kathryn’s eyes filled with hope.
“No,” Mendez snapped. “You have to let me die. My body will never be the same, and even if it was I can’t live with what I’ve been forced to do, with the things I’ve seen. Death is a release. I’ve earned this, Nolan. You have to let me go.”
“I love you, Dad.” Kathryn said, then calmly drew her pistol and shot her father in the temple.
Nolan flinched, unsure what to say. There had been a time when Mendez was like a father to him, and he felt the man’s death keenly. It must be even harder for Kathryn.
“Captain.” Izzy’s voice echoed over the comm, aimed at all of them. “If you’re still on the surface of the Eye, you might want to get out of there. We’re about to microwave it from the inside.”
73
Microwaved
Izzy forced herself to keep her eyes open as t
he Helios Ship passed through the still smoking crater, into the horrible Eye. The repeated blasts had created a smooth finish, sections of rock vaporized by each blast. They flew deeper, the walls of the crater narrowing as they approached the bottom. There was a moment of claustrophobia, and then the ship burst through the hole into the Eye itself.
She hadn’t really been sure what to expect. The outside was certainly terrible; the inside was infinitely worse. An ocean of green liquid filled the bottom third of the Eye, secreted from every wall in the place. It continued to fill the pool, which was full of tiny bodies—billions of them, all taken from the human homeworld for digestion.
It enraged her, more than any of the recent atrocities she’d been forced to face.
“Captain,” Izzy said, sending the message to his entire squad. “If you’re still on the surface of the Eye, you might want to get out of there. We’re about to microwave it from the inside.”
“Noted,” the captain replied, the transmission staticky. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll find a way off this rock. Godspeed, Izzy. I know how crazy what you’re about to do is.”
“If we survive, you can treat Lena, Atrea, and me to a proper dinner,” Izzy said. She smiled at the pair, trying to show a confidence she didn’t feel. That’s what leaders were supposed to do, or at least what she thought Fizgig did.
“Done,” Hannan said over the comm. “I’ll buy, Izzy.”
“Atrea, have you completed those calculations?” Izzy demanded. “We’ve got to fire this thing right now.”
“I need a few more moments,” Atrea snapped, without looking up from her console.
“Izzy, the harvesters are beginning to follow us through the hole. There are dozens of them, and they look quite upset,” Lena said, grabbing her tail firmly in both hands. “What should I do?”
Izzy thought quickly, something she’d gotten much better at during her time serving under Fizgig. They had no weapons to speak of, but they were aboard the finest defensive creation ever conceived.
“Atrea, raise the defensive matrix to full strength, just around the ship,” Izzy ordered. She could see the other ships now, flashing toward them. They were beginning to charge their weapons.
“Done,” Atrea snapped. “No more interruptions, or I will never finish these calculations.”
A flurry of blue-white plasma balls shot in their direction, but they washed harmlessly over the shield. There was no shaking, no sparks from overloaded consoles. No sign that they’d been struck at all. The shield was perfect and total.
Izzy smiled. “Take your time,” she said, folding her arms as she continued to watch the enemy squadron on the screen. More harvesters were slipping through the same hole they had, one at a time, like wasps emerging from a hive. Had the hole been larger, they could have approached in overwhelming numbers, but because it was so small they could only move inside at a trickle. That bought her time.
“I’ve got it!” Atrea shouted, giving a very un-scholarly whoop. “I’m feeding the algorithm to the ship. It requires us to use the shield as it is, at the lowest setting. Then we’ll rapidly expand it, feeding it energy more quickly than the emitters can process. That excess buildup will make the shield unstable, and when it collapses the energy contained within it will expand outward. If we are very fortunate, that energy will be forced away from us, and won’t rebound back at us when it hits the Eye. I cannot accurately calculate our odds of survival, but I wouldn’t place a wager on it.”
“Even if we die, it’s worth it. Brilliant work, Atrea,” Lena said, releasing her tail and moving to hug Atrea. “You’ve done it, sister.”
A high-pitched whine began, deep within the vessel. Izzy’s paws shot to her ears, but the motion was in vain. There was no way to block out the awful ringing. Lena had her ears likewise covered, but Atrea was staring at them like they were mad, apparently mystified.
Izzy opened her mouth to say something, but the ringing vanished. In that instant, light welled up from the shield outside them, washing outward in an incredible wave of power. It moved far more slowly than she’d expected, rippling over the now-fleeing harvesters one by one. They popped like bubbles, expanding into superheated gas as they were consumed by the wave.
The survivors clustered around the hole, now struggling to get out. Unfortunately for them the flow of harvesters into the Eye hadn’t stopped, making escape impossible. The wave burned into the ocean of ichor, boiling it away. Then it burned away the harvesters, finally slamming into the wall’s inner lining. Izzy moved her hands from her ears, covering her eyes instead.
She silently counted to five, finally peeking through her fingers. The wave was gone. The ocean of ichor was gone. Everything inside the Eye, except them, had been burned away. The inner surface of the Eye itself was charred and blackened, the living forest of optic nerves now a smooth, barren surface.
The Eye was dead.
74
Free
Dryker lurked near the moon, using the planetary mass to shield his presence from most of the combatants in the fleet. He and Juliard stood silently on the bridge, both refusing to sit, as if denying that comfort would somehow atone for their actions. She had converted him, and he had given the order that had wiped out most of the 11th Fleet.
The fact that the 14th hadn’t obeyed was some comfort. His order had done damage, but—thanks to Nolan’s intervention—not nearly as much as it could have. Dryker had been particularly relieved when the tattered fleets made it inside the strange glowing energy shield Nolan had brought with him. The larva recognized it, referring to it as a Helios Ship.
“Yes,” Dryker said, pumping his fist, when the Forge plowed into the enemy ranks. The Void Wraith were paying a bloody price as the allied fleet worked inch by agonizing inch toward the Eye.
He watched with a mixture of pride and hope as the Tigris began their final attack run, breaking apart inside even as Khar’s vessel did the same. Khar had been his closest friend among the Tigris, his only real companion when they’d been imprisoned by the Primo what felt a lifetime ago.
Then something impossible made him rise from his command chair, taking a half-step toward the hologram. Harvesters were accelerating into the Eye at maximum speed. At first, Dryker wondered if they were Tigris. But as more and more vessels slammed themselves into the Eye, it became clear they it was in fact the Void Wraith. Their entire fleet was breaking off, sacrificing themselves like lemmings.
“I have no idea how you pulled it off, Nolan, but I am impressed,” Dryker said, turning to share a smile with Juliard. She returned it, but the joy was short-lived.
Blinding pain seared up every nerve, knocking Dryker to the deck. He twitched and thrashed, flopping about as the fire spread through his entire body. When the fire reached his brain he learned just how much worse it could be, and in that moment he would have given anything for the release of death. How long the pain lasted he couldn’t have said, his mind assailed by countless images from the larva.
Then the pain was gone. With it, the presence of the larva also vanished. Dryker raised his head weakly from the deck, looking at Juliard. She lay several feet away, still panting. A sheen of sweat plastered her blond hair to her forehead.
“Is—is it over?” she whispered, hoarsely.
“I think so,” Dryker said, rising unsteadily to his feet. “Can you feel the larva?”
“No,” Juliard said, eyes widening in understanding. “It’s gone. Sir, I think we’re free!” Juliard rushed forward, seizing Dryker in a fierce hug. He returned it just as fiercely, laughing. “They did it. They killed the goddamned Eye.”
They released each other, Juliard blushing slightly as she moved to her console. Dryker was still smiling when he settled into the captain’s chair. He ached everywhere, but the pain didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was free. The Eye was dead. At great cost, yes, but it was dead.
“Sir, I’m picking up a priority one distress signal,” Juliard said, eyes snapping up to meet his. “Y
ou’ve going to want to hear this.” She pressed a button and the audio engaged.
“—to wait until you killed the Eye, in case the Void Wraith came for me,” a voice rumbled. A Tigris voice. Khar’s voice. “I know you had your doubts about the usefulness of these Judicators, Mighty Fizgig. But I was right. Had I been a Tigris I would have died in that explosive decompression. Instead, I am merely missing a leg. A leg that can be replaced, so I can continue fighting.” It was the most told you so tone Dryker had ever heard.
“It’s good to hear your voice, Khar,” Dryker said, activating his comm. “Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we’ve won. As far as I can tell the larva died alongside the Eye. Those of us infected are free.”
“We’re going to want to test that, sir,” Nolan’s voice came over the comm.
“Of course, I’d expect nothing less. Juliard and I will turn ourselves over for questioning.”
Epilogue
Nolan rubbed the collar of his freshly pressed uniform, a glittering array of medals now decorating the lapels. It was odd being back in uniform, even though he’d only stopped wearing it for a few months. Still, he understood what the UFC now signified. He was a symbol, just as Dryker had been at the end of the Eight-Year War.
That didn’t bother him in the slightest, maybe because he remembered what Dryker had meant to him. People needed heroes, whether those heroes wanted to fill that role or not.
Nolan walked briskly up the corridor, the Tigris guards flanking the door snapping their fists over their hearts in a traditional Tigris salute. He returned the gesture, then strode past them into the conference room. He was, by design, the last person to arrive. The instant he crossed the threshold the clapping began. Nolan found himself flushing, overwhelmed by the sudden attention.