Shards of Eternity

by John Triptych

  Dilye could only stare in horror at the dead beast. The blood on the ground had not yet coagulated, which meant it had been a recent kill. “My lady, we must—”

  A third voice echoed in the darkened catacombs. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Dilye uttered a shrill scream while pushing herself in front of her lady, even though she wasn’t quite sure where the other presence was coming from. Ava stood rigid with fright, like one of the uncountable stone columns supporting the weight of the vaulted ceiling above them.

  Someone stepped forward into the faint light of the glow cube. A third woman, with shoulder-length reddish-brown hair and wearing a utility jumpsuit, now stood in front of them, her silvery eyes sparkling in the dimness.

  An intruder, Ava thought. Quickly recovering from her surprise, she refocused her grit, for she had been instructed to always be calm, like all nobles should. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  The trespasser glanced down at the recently deceased droog. “My apologies, Lady Ava. I thought this way would be the least guarded route inside the palace. I wasn’t intending to kill, but this droog gave me no choice.”

  “I demand to know your name and purpose,” Ava said.

  “My name is Karana,” she said. “I was once Toto Vega’s executive officer until he betrayed me and left me behind to die when he stole two crystal relics from Union space.”

  “You’ll pay for killing one of the archon’s sentinels,” Ava said. “Why did you even bother to come here?”

  “Because there’s a lot I can tell the archon about Vega,” Karana said. “Especially about the ones who control him.”

  27 The Dig

  The crevasse was a massive gash that had formed naturally along Pirindra’s surface over the eons. Being several hundred klicks long and dozens deep, it could even be seen from low planetary orbit; an immense, fractured landscape of ice walls and canyons.

  In the still of the night, a shuttlecraft flew into the frozen tear and began hovering inside, being careful not to collide with the relentless vertical columns of packed ice. Inside the vehicle cockpit, three individuals were poring over their respective consoles in order to find the elusive site of a pivotal battle that had occurred many years before.

  Duncan Hauk piloted the shuttle until it hovered less than a klick above what looked to be frozen wreckage underneath. “LT, we’re now in position over the first location they gave us.”

  “Okay,” Garrett Strand said as he continued to type on a keyboard while staring into a newly attached box-like machine on the side dashboard. “Give me a minute to see if I can get a precise reading on this.”

  Fytti sat on the opposite side of them and kept her eyes on the virtual map. “What makes you think you’ll be able to find the resting place of the sub-archon when the other search teams couldn’t?”

  Strand glanced back at her and winked. “Because up to this point, everybody was just using Concordance bio tech to find the target vehicle the sub-archon was in when it crashed. Now it’s time for us to use some Union equipment. Add in the intel we got from Unus and your own database, and all this gives us much greater odds.”

  Fytti didn’t blink. “I just don’t believe this will be any better. Both the archon’s military and the rebels used special droogs to hunt for Jurt Maladore’s scent, yet they never found his body.”

  “Those hunting droogs probably got frostbite on their noses,” Hauk said. “It’s pretty cold and airless out on the surface.”

  Fytti hissed. “Why must you both think of Concordance technology as inferior to yours? We have droogs bred and adapted to life on the surface, and they can find a scent even in this thin atmosphere.”

  “Droogs are great scent hounds, that’s for sure,” Strand said. “I encountered them before when I was deployed behind enemy lines during my time in the Star Force. Almost no one could escape their tracking on foot once they had your scent.”

  “Right, so if they failed to locate the sub-archon’s downed craft, what makes you think this stuff you brought with you is any better?”

  Strand smiled and patted the small box-like machine in front of him. “Because I got this.”

  Fytti remained skeptical. “And what is that?”

  “It’s a sensor module that can track fusion thruster emissions,” Strand said. “The kid and I installed it on your shuttle, and we’re going to use it to find the command vehicle this sub-archon was in when he died.”

  “We also have sensors that can track fusion emissions; that’s nothing new.”

  “This is state-of-the-art Union gear I took a few months back,” Strand said. “It’s so sensitive that it can determine the exact deuterium helium-3 fuel mix that your Concordance vessels use. Your side tends to use more concentrated helium in order to control plasma irregularities.”

  Fytti gave him a blank, confused look. “Yeah, so?”

  “So, if I could just get the sensor frequencies right, then I ought to be able to pinpoint the very ship the sub-archon went down in, rather than track his body via chemical scent.”

  “And how will you know what specific attack craft to look for?”

  Strand looked up, as if talking to an imaginary friend. “Sappho, have you downloaded the full database that Unus gave us into your search systems?”

  The Nepenthe’s AI immediately responded via audio speakers. “Yes, Lieutenant. I’m ready to do a grid-by-grid analysis based on the records that were transferred to me.”

  Fytti’s face turned into a visage of terror. “I-is that an … AI?”

  “Obviously,” Strand said. “Duncan had a mobile copy of Sappho embedded in his smartcom, so we just uploaded her into your shuttle’s com-link system for easier access.”

  Fytti grimaced. “Get that abomination off my vessel!”

  “Whoa, settle down there,” Strand said soothingly. “Sappho isn’t gonna hurt you. She’s just helping us out to both map and review the search grid. Using an AI just makes things faster.”

  It took all of Fytti’s willpower to refrain from drawing her holstered weapon. “She, or whatever you call it, isn’t allowed in Concordance space. The penalty for harboring such a being out here is death.”

  Hauk turned towards her. “Please. Sappho is only here to help us. She has no control over your shuttle’s piloting or engines because of your computer’s simple system architecture. She’s only residing in our com-links and the fusion sensor box. She can’t possibly be a threat to you.”

  Fytti’s response was slow and deliberate. “You people don’t understand. My ancestors fought against these intelligent machines and we were nearly exterminated. You didn’t even tell me you placed that thing in this ship until after the fact.”

  Strand had had enough. “Look, you want our help or not? Right now, we need maximum effort in a short amount of time to find this relic before Vega assumes full control over this whole star cluster. You need to put your fears aside and trust in me and my team to get the job done.”

  Fytti didn’t respond. Her gnawing fear of intelligent machines was overwhelmed by the reality of her position. If she spurned their help, she would have to go into exile to escape from Vega’s relentless pursuit.

  Sappho’s calm voice assuaged her fears somewhat. “I’m sorry you feel that way about me, Fytti. I am here only to assist the lieutenant and Sergeant Hauk. Once we locate the downed aerospace craft, I will delete myself from your vessel’s systems. You have my solemn promise.”

  “You’d better,” Fytti murmured.

  A few klicks above the bottom of the crevasse, several teams of men wearing breathing masks began rappelling down the sides of the ice walls using ropes and pitons. Section Leader Unus gestured at his most senior subordinates while looking down at the frozen remains of a wrecked aerospace attack craft below.

  One of his sub-officers stood beside him and peered out past the edge of the cave they had taken cover in. “Here we are again. It feels like we never left.”

  Unus nodded as he
remembered the screams and the noise of the battle that had been fought in the very same place many years before. “Let’s see if we can find that damned shard once and for all.” He turned to look at his com-link operator. “Any word from Leader Essala about our proposal yet?”

  The female com-link officer shook her head. “Nothing yet, sir. But I am getting some chatter coming from Section Leader Y’tay. He wants to talk to you.”

  Unus frowned. This area happened to be inside Y’tay’s territory, and as local section leader, he called the shots when it came to operations within the crevasse. The problem was that Unus didn’t bother to tell him his own unit was here, for he wanted the glory of presenting the recovered shard to their overall leader Nubnar himself.

  The com-link officer continued to fidget with her long-range communicator. “What should I tell him, sir?”

  “Stall him,” Unus said. “We need a little more time. Tell him I am currently unreachable.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sappho’s voice came over the shuttle’s cockpit once more. “We’re getting incoming com-links from Section Leader Unus. He says he’s deployed two teams over the second and third possible wreck sites, but he is having a hard time stalling another rebel leader named Y’tay.”

  Hauk was listening in while continuing to pilot the shuttlecraft. “Who is Y’tay?”

  “The rebels here in Pirindra have got assigned territories where they operate,” Fytti said. “Y’tay controls this part of the planet. My guess is his men found out about what Unus is doing and they may try to put a stop to it.”

  Strand kept his focus on the sensor’s telemetry data. “Sappho, is there any match based on the fuel still in their tanks?”

  “A very low probability, Lieutenant,” Sappho said. “Based on their element mix, it seems the wreck below us might be more of a troop transport and not the sub-archon’s command craft.”

  “Okay, let’s wrap things up here,” Strand said. The last thing they needed was a clash between two rebel groups. “Kid, take us to the next site.”

  “On the way, LT,” Hauk said.

  Unus watched as his team down below began to unleash their hunting droogs. The genetically modified tracking beasts had methane packs strapped to their spines, allowing them to use their olfactory senses in the mostly nitrogen-based atmosphere. These particular droogs could only breathe methane instead of oxygen, and their special diet included hydrogen peroxide as an oxidizer in order to metabolize their food.

  Checking his time meter, Unus could only do so much to quell his growing impatience. “How long till we know if it’s the right ship?”

  His sub-officer shrugged while wiping away the forming frost from the visor of his breathing mask. “Could take minutes or hours. It all depends on whether the droogs get a scent. If they do, then we’ll have to use ice cutters to dig the cadavers out.”

  “They can sense a body, but we’ll have to be the ones to identify it,” Unus said. “How many corpses do we have to go through?”

  “Scavengers have been taking frozen corpses from these wrecks for ages,” the subordinate said. “We’ll be lucky to even find a body these days.”

  Unus moved his arms to try and get more circulation. Despite wearing a thick parka and gloves, his limbs were rapidly becoming numb from the incessant cold.

  The com-link operator placed her gloved hands over her headset; it looked like she was receiving an incoming message.

  Unus crouched down so he could be at eye level with her. “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure, sir,” the operator said. “I’m starting to get snippets of incoming transmissions from the Scythian garrison. I think they’re going on high alert.”

  Unus cursed. The last thing they needed was the archon’s troops coming over. “See if you can get an update from the search teams.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The moment Unus stood back up, a loud voice boomed along the ice tunnel his group was using as a command center. “Don’t move!”

  A few of his men clutched their hand weapons, while the rest stood still in utter shock. Unus held his arms parallel to his shoulders, silently gesturing at his team not to make any sudden moves.

  Four others came in through a branching tunnel and walked towards him. They were brandishing needler rifles. The moment he saw the eyes behind the breathing mask of the first man coming towards him, Unus breathed a slight sigh of relief.

  Section Leader Y’tay glared contemptuously at his counterpart. “What are your men doing in my territory, Unus?”

  “What does it look like? We’re conducting a search among the wrecked ships in the area,” Unus said.

  “When you’re in another’s territory, you ask for their permission first,” Y’tay said. “I got a flash message from Essala, alerting me about your cell being in this crevasse, and I’m only going to ask once. Why are you here?”

  Unus figured it was better to tell the truth, even if just partially. “We’ve received new intel.”

  “On what?”

  “You remember who was out here, right?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Unus,” Y’tay said. “Get to the point.”

  “The archon’s son, Jurt,” Unus said. “He was killed in the battle that took place here, remember?”

  “I fought in that battle, just as you did,” Y’tay said. “So again, why are you here?”

  “We’re looking for his body.”

  “Everyone has been doing that for ages,” Y’tay said. “My troops have come upon scavengers, Scythian forensic recovery teams, even bereaved relatives who tried to dig through the ice, just to get at their loved ones. The sub-archon’s body will never be found.”

  Since he felt his lone chances of glory slipping away, Unus felt it might be better to get his rival’s cooperation so they both could benefit. “An info merchant came to visit me. She’s given me new clues as to where Jurt Maladore’s body may be found.”

  “Which info merchant?”

  “Fytti.”

  Y’tay sneered. “Her? She does nothing but play both sides. A greedy wench.”

  “Yes, but her intel is always dependable,” Unus said. “She’s shared her database with me, and it opened up new areas on the map that no one’s looked into before.”

  Y’tay placed his hands on his wide hips. “And here you are, in my territory, looking for a royal corpse so you can attempt to impress our rebel leadership, is that it?”

  “Haven’t you been hearing the news? There’s a pirate who happens to have three of the Shards of Eternity, and he’s next in line to become archon.”

  Y’tay gave him a thoughtful nod. “Ah, I see now. You’re here to find out if the dead sub-archon who is somewhere in this huge crevasse might have one of these relics on his frozen corpse, is that it? Get your teams out of my territory, now!”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Unus said. “If you allow my teams to keep searching, I’ll share the intel on these new wreck sites with you.”

  Y’tay wagged a finger at him. “Only if we get equal credit regardless of which of our teams finds it.”

  He held out his hand. “Very well, you have my promise.”

  The com-link operator looked up at them with dismay as both men were shaking hands. “Section Leaders, I just got word that the Scythian garrison has been deployed and they’re headed here.”

  Y’tay bellowed in disgust before pointing an accusing finger at Unus. “You and your careless search teams, now look at what you’ve done!”

  Unus’s mouth hung open in outrage. “It was your men that must have alerted them!”

  Hauk made slight adjustments to the controls as the shuttle hovered just above the fourth wreck site. “We’re in position, LT.”

  Strand typed in more commands on the sensor module. “Okay, start running your scans, Sappho.”

  “Working,” Sappho said. “Give me a few minutes to sort through the data streams.”

  Fytti shook her head while staring at the virtual
map. “This particular wreck has been checked through several times already over the years, and it’s been stripped clean. I have no idea why you even included it on the list.”

  “According to Sappho’s preliminary analysis, this is the most likely spot where the archon’s son was killed,” Strand said. “She crosschecked every incident report and all recorded videos of the battle, and it all points over here.”

  Fytti shook her head. “You even consider your AI as a she? This is the height of folly.”

  “You’re being prejudiced against their kind,” Hauk said.

  “For good reason,” Fytti said. “We were all nearly enslaved by them.”

  “A closed mind is no mind at all.”

  Fytti snarled. “Why you little—”

  Sappho’s voice quickly interjected. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but I have gotten a positive reading on a possible command ship at the wreck site below.”

  “Let me see,” Strand said as he started scanning through the results on his console. “I think you might be right, Sappho. Well done!”

  Fytti made a cynical smirk as she read her own copy of the virtual report. “I don’t see anything different from before. There’s a wrecked craft down there, but it looks like just another downed troop transport. The sub-archon’s forces lost a lot of them during that battle.”

  “Look closer,” Strand said. “According to the emission signatures preserved in the surrounding ice, it seems like there’s another aerospace craft buried underneath the troop transport.”

  Hauk let out a deep breath. “It feels like maybe the sub-archon’s ship crashed first and the transport was trying to hover over it for a possible rescue operation before it too was shot down and smashed on top of it. I think that’s why it was overlooked.”

  “Two wrecks on top of one another, and the one at the bottom looks untouched,” Strand said. “This has got to be it, I bet.”

  The boy stared at the virtual readout in awe as more data came in. “I think we might have to dig through the hull of the first wreck before we get into the second one, LT. It’s going to be a lot of work.”