Shards of Eternity

by John Triptych

  Hauk held his breath in astonishment as he followed the events happening outside using the visual com-link channels. The lieutenant’s team nearly got all of the intruders, but one of them managed to slip through and was now eating its way deeper into the hull. Even though it was but a single swarmer, the damage it could inflict was potentially catastrophic.

  Following the lieutenant’s helmet cameras, the boy could see Strand firing at the top of the swarmer’s shell as it continued to bury itself deeper. If not killed right away, these organisms could produce more eggs and unleash them until the entire ship’s crew was killed.

  A beeping alert from one of the warbots next to him brought his mind back to where he was. Turning the remote cameras off, Hauk switched to a tactical readout of the ship, hoping to spot where the antibodies would be emerging from. He figured the swarmer would release its eggs somewhere near the manufacturing decks of the ship.

  Within minutes, the boy uttered an exasperated wheeze as a series of red blinking dots on his virtual map suddenly began popping up near the juncture. I don’t believe it, he thought. They’re all around me.

  Hauk turned and stared at the warbots in front of him. He had given them their own nicknames based on ancient learning videos he watched while perusing the ship’s archives during his downtime. “Ernie, cover the starboard side of the intersection. Bert, you back him up.”

  The two warbots instantly shifted over to their assigned positions.

  Hauk kept an eye on the virtual map. His suit’s AI was having a hard time taking an accurate count of the enemy and could only give him an estimate—close to two thousand. Great, of all the places they could get to, they have to come to me.

  When they got to within extreme range, the boy toggled the final commands for his warbots using his helmet’s heads-up display. “Ernie, Bert—go to weapons free. Auto-fire at will.”

  Seconds later, the walls along the corridors in front of them seemed to bulge before exploding outwards in a cascade of melted carbon paneling as the antibodies burst forth. The creatures they faced were the size of beach balls, and the spheres had rows of thin, protruding tentacles and eyed pseudopods along their surface, giving them a resemblance to gigantic, visible amoebas. These uncountable creatures launched themselves at Hauk and his bots by either expelling gas as a propellant or using their tentacles as springs.

  Both warbots opened up simultaneously, their lasers and gauss batteries eviscerating the oncoming horde of antibodies. Hauk stayed close behind, looking to help, but it seemed his bots had the upper hand as the creatures kept on coming, seemingly unaffected by the amount of casualties they were taking.

  Each laser flash and gauss ordinance would pop the antibodies like a water filled balloon, expelling their acidic contents into free floating globules of molecular soup. In less than a minute, the corridors in front of them seemed to resemble a cascading wave of floating raindrops, along with pieces of membranes, feelers, and tentacles.

  Hauk marveled at the apparent ease his fire team seemed to be having, though a suspicion began to form at the back of his mind. He couldn’t help thinking there was something else to it. The whole attack seems too obvious, he thought. Even my simulator fight against them was harder than this.

  The wall paneling a few meters behind him instantly corroded away as more antibodies poured out. Hauk turned and began firing at them with every weapon in his arsenal. “Bert, six o’clock!”

  The second warbot twisted its keg-like torso towards the rear corridor and began shooting as well. Hauk could see long, organic tubes like unrolled intestines spewing out more eggs coming from the hole along the walls, with the ova quickly hatching into more antibodies. The boy used his lasers to cauterize the entrails into little bits and pieces. One egg-laying part of the monster must have separated and begun boring its way down here, Hauk thought as he kept discharging his weapons.

  Spotting what seemed to be the egg layer’s protoplasmic-looking body in between the holes in the wall paneling, Hauk used his suit thruster to get closer. He needed to make sure that part of the swarmer was destroyed or else it would eventually multiply and take over the entire vessel.

  He didn’t have a clear shot, and his low-powered weapons necessitated a hit at a precise location. As he got to within two meters of the wall panels, Hauk reached out and began using his hands to tear away at the layers of nanocarbon dividers. Sure enough, he could see the pulsating mass of armored flesh and the putrid motions it seemed to make while absorbing the air and using it as fuel to make more eggs.

  “Eat this,” Hauk said as he used his hands to rip open the creature’s side before firing his shoulder-mounted grenade launchers at the thing. He had mentally adjusted the detonation of the grenades while tearing into the membranous outer layer, and it gave him some time to back away as the embedded explosives had a half-second delay before they exploded.

  The detonation caught him off guard as the monster burst into countless pieces of flesh and fluid globules. A blob of what resembled a sheet of wet placenta hit him squarely on the front of his visor, and molecules of powerful acid began to burn through his helmet.

  Hauk panicked as he used too much juice, and his own thrusters ended up throwing his armored body into the side of the corridor. The few remaining antibodies that still lived instantly saw an opportunity and tried to engulf him.

  The second warbot spotted the boy’s distress and used its fusion thrusters to place itself in between the stricken boy and the onrushing horde. Bert continued to fire as numerous antibodies impacted along its armored front and burned through, finally getting to the bot’s internal systems. With its internal command node disabled, the smoldering warbot instantly shut itself down.

  Hauk screamed as his face and lungs were engulfed by burning, opaque fumes. The boy struggled mightily as he used both hands to twist his helmet open and fling it away. Blinking his eyes, Hauk inhaled a lungful of air before noticing a few acid droplets floating just in front of his face. Holding his arms up, he angrily waved them away, just as he heard the sound of the bulkheads opening up behind him.

  Strand flew into the corridor using his a-suit’s thrusters. Grabbing the boy’s floating helmet, he stared at the numerous burn marks on its surface. “Kid, you are one lucky son of a gun.”

  Hauk looked around nervously, making sure there were no globules of acid floating nearby that could burn his exposed head. “What … what happened?”

  Diego floated beside Strand. “You lost a warbot because of that dumb stunt you pulled.”

  “Warbots can be repaired,” Strand said. “What matters is he got the job done. Not bad for a rookie.”

  Hauk’s mind remained in a confused state. “Is … is it over?”

  Strand nodded. “Yeah, looks like your team took out all the antibodies in this area, including that damned egg layer that got away from me. The last swarmer has been officially neutralized.”

  The boy let out a deep breath. “Thank the antecessors for that.”

  Strand pointed to an adjoining corridor. “It ain’t over yet, kid. Head for the armory and get yourself a new helmet and some more ammo. The damned xtid are still out there, and this fight isn’t finished yet, not by a long shot.”

  15 The Vow

  Zytll couldn’t help but admire his opponent’s tenacity while sitting in his command chair inside the xtid ship. His vessel had just passed the Nepenthe by a scant eight thousand klicks, and the Wondrous Beacon was now making a tight, high-gee turn to face her opponent once more. Despite being weightless in space, both ships had enormous structural mass, and it took a lot of power from their respective fusion engines to maneuver in order to get at the best angle while firing at each other.

  “They had attached battle drones waiting for us as we passed them by,” the ship’s battle master said. “But the parasites we launched neutralized them. Should we adjust our course to retrieve our smaller spacecraft?”

  “Not yet,” Zytll said. “Has our attack run done any d
amage to their engines?”

  “Affirmative,” the battle master said. “But they have also damaged ours. We’re both slowing somewhat, which is why the turns take longer to execute.”

  “What about the Tiburon?”

  “She is heavily damaged and pretty much limping her way to the edges of the dark matter cloud, Executor. It will take at least an hour or two using her present acceleration before she can jump into the Scythian cluster.”

  I can easily have Vega’s ship boarded and take the shards for myself, but I must stick to the plan if I am to get them all, he thought. “And what’s the status of the Stiletto?”

  “The Stiletto has more delta-V than the Tiburon, though still heavily damaged. She is at the far edge of the battle zone, trying to stay either at our high or low periphery and helping out the Nepenthe when she can,” the battle master said.

  “Change of tactics,” Zytll said. “Concentrate everything we have on the Stiletto. Let’s see if we can draw the Nepenthe into a disadvantage.”

  “At once, Executor.”

  Commander Creull growled with displeasure while sitting inside the Nepenthe’s battlesphere. The damage control reports weren’t encouraging. Although the pirate vessel was holding her own, the accumulated degrading of her systems would soon prove catastrophic. The female riwwr glanced over to her superior. “We could rig the two shuttles we have using leftover lancer warheads and send them out.”

  “It’s possible,” Captain Dangard said. “But our accelerations are both locked in tight orbital spirals; we could lose the shuttles for nothing since their point defense is still robust.”

  “Right now we’re just trading mostly kinetic fire with them,” Creull said. “We are out of lancer missiles, which is too bad.”

  “We’ll just have to wait until an opportunity presents itself,” Dangard said. “The xtid have a slight edge over us.”

  “And it’s growing,” Creull added. “We’re slowly losing our offensive capabilities.”

  Oana Florescu sat at the pilot’s station, and the new sensor readings on her console startled her. “Captain, Commander—the xtid ship … she’s breaking off.”

  Creull toggled her own personal console and began analyzing the tactical map. “She’s making a run at the Stiletto, and the xtid are covering themselves; their parasites that got left behind are forming a screen to try and blunt our attacks while she finishes off Captain Gwynplaine’s ship.”

  Dangard clenched his jaw. The xtid were sacrificing their small craft in order to try and get at the Nepenthe’s ally. “Do we have a good fire corridor now?”

  “No,” Creull said. “Whoever the pilot of that xtid ship is, he is doing a masterful job of evasive maneuvering. They have lost several parasites already to our main guns, yet our fire solutions are still a gamble at this range. We could get closer but we’ll be heating up against their lasers.”

  “Get closer,” Dangard said. “We’ve got to help Janice.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Oana said. “Increasing delta-V to five-gee acceleration.”

  Creull let out a frustrated roar. “Captain, they just fired another barrage of swarmers at us—probably had a whole cluster in reserve. We need to pull back from pursuit and do another evasion run.”

  “Do it,” Dangard said before activating his com-link circuit. “Janice, you need to get out of here. Head to the nearest shadow zone and make a jump right now.”

  Oana shrieked in dismay as she saw several small red indicators coming from the xtid ship on her map. The lines emanating from the tactical graphic meant a clump of kinetic ordinance had already impacted against the Stiletto, crippling her.

  For the first time in a long time, Dangard raised his voice while talking on the com-link. “Janice, do you hear me?”

  The entire ceiling of the Stiletto’s bridge had caved in after she had sustained a direct hit just minutes before. Janice Gwynplaine groaned as she withdrew her arm from the ruined captain’s chair and floated away. The impact must have crushed the humerus, the upper bone above her elbow, and the agony was nearly unbearable. Reaching towards the side of the chair, Janice took out a tube-like self-injector from the first aid kit, flipped off the top, and stabbed her shoulder with it. After a few seconds, the gnawing pain turned to a hazy numbness.

  Dun Bryant floated out of his chair and surveyed the wrecked room. The air had already seeped out due to the hull breach, and while the crew was fortunate to be wearing their skinsuits and helmets, another more critical impact from the enemy’s main guns had killed the others less than a second later. Bryant had an open wound on his thigh, and he gingerly took out an adhesive patch from his belt and slapped it onto the tear in his skinsuit. The embedded carbon fragment in his torso made him feel like he’d been chopped with a battleaxe, and a piece of it had remained, increasing his agony, yet he continued to stoically endure.

  Janice floated over to where her granddaughter had been sitting. A large piece of the carbon paneling along the walls had been smashed inward and impaled Madison’s chest, killing her instantly. Janice wanted to open the young woman’s helmet so that she could close Madison’s still-open eyes, but she no longer had the strength to do so.

  Dangard’s voice came over her helmet’s audio speakers. “Janice, do you hear me?”

  She turned to look at her executive officer. Her voice had a calm sense of resignation. “Dun, can we still fight?”

  Bryant shook his head as he pushed the pilot’s floating corpse away and sat down in front of the helm console. “Our guns are pretty much gone. We’ve … still got some juice left in the fusion engine, and that’s it.”

  She gave him a slow nod before activating her com-links. “Lucien, you need to get out of here. We’ll cover you.”

  Dangard’s tone lowered to a whisper. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “Pretty bad,” Janice said softly. “My granddaughter’s gone.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Lucien, if you get the chance—kill Vega for me,” she said.

  “It’s my number one priority,” Dangard said. “You sure you don’t want us to swing by and pick you up?”

  “No,” Janice said. “We’ll see if we can give you some time so you can fight another day.”

  “Okay,” Dangard said. “Thanks. Be seeing you.”

  Despite the pain, Janice smiled a crinkled smile. “Not for a while, I hope. And not till you pay my debt to Vega.”

  “Count on it.”

  “When you get back to Elysium,” Janice said, “say a toast in my name.”

  “Will do. Over and out.”

  Sitting just below his superior in the xtid ship’s command pod, the battle master switched his full attention to their previous opponent. “Executor, the Nepenthe is breaking off. She’s heading towards the closest outlying dark matter field.”

  Zytll placed his fourth hand below his star-shaped mouth. The battle was making him hungry. “This must mean the Stiletto is finished.”

  “I believe she is,” the battle master said. “The Stiletto is no longer reacting to us. According to my estimates, the last salvo we fired at her scored a direct hit and possibly took out both her bridge and weapons.”

  “Good,” Zytll said. “Disregard her and return our focus to the Nepenthe.”

  “At once, Executor,” the battle master said as he gestured with two arms towards the defense and attack masters sitting beside him. The three quickly switched their tactical consoles over to the Nepenthe’s sector and failed to notice the restarting of the Stiletto’s engines.

  Janice Gwynplaine drifted past the innumerable globules of floating blood inside the Stiletto’s wrecked bridge until she got closer to the helm controls. “Dun, I’ve managed to do a remote restart on the fusion plant from my command chair. How much acceleration can we do?”

  Bryant didn’t seem to notice her as he continued to seemingly stare straight ahead, his hands hovering above his chest.

  She reached down with her left arm and t
ried to shake his shoulders. “Dun, are you okay?”

  When she turned his head and looked at the front of his helmet, she could see his eyes were closed. The red stain on his thigh had gotten larger. When she read his suit’s vitals using her smartcom, it was clear his blood pressure had dropped as well. Coupled with a loss of consciousness, it meant her executive officer was bleeding internally.

  Janice looked around; the caved-in walls had blocked all the exits, trapping them both inside the command bridge. A part of her wanted to get him out of there and bring Bryant to an automed, but he’d surely be dead by then.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. Reaching down, she released Bryant’s gravity restraints and gave him a gentle backwards pull. The unconscious executive officer floated away from her.

  Janice winced as she sat down on the pilot’s chair and reengaged the gravity restraints. She flipped on the console in front of her, and the tactical map marked the xtid ship as moving away from the Stiletto, seemingly confident that Janice and her vessel were done for.

  Her right arm was useless, so she had to reach over and activate the throttle controls with her left hand. The Stiletto didn’t have much thrust left, but it was a modular vessel, and she engaged the release of the bulky cargo modules, instantly discarding a third of her total mass. The radiators still worked, and it was possible to shunt as much heat to them as she could, but Janice switched over to the heatsinks instead, preferring not to activate the superheated plasma fields until the last second.

  They think I’m dead, she thought. The xtid are fully concentrating on Dangard’s ship. If I play this right, they won’t know what I’m doing until it’s too late.

  Despite the imminent triumph, the crew manning the xtid ship’s command pod remained disciplined, for they felt it routine. Every member of their species thought the other races were beneath them, and a victory against their enemies would always be a foregone and unremarkable conclusion, not worthy of any celebration.