Shards of Eternity

by John Triptych

  Inside the Tiburon’s bridge, the ship’s communications officer turned to look at Baz Wilkerson. “Captain, I’ve lost Vega’s transponder signal.”

  Baz grimaced. “What? How about the rest of our ground crew?”

  “No pings from them either. All I’ve got down there are the archon’s contacts and those battle drones buzzing around in high orbit.”

  Seconds ticked away. Baz felt he was at a crossroads. Toto Vega was most likely dead or taken prisoner. What he once thought was going to be an easy milk run had suddenly turned into a violent reversal, and now his instincts told him to get away. As far as he could.

  The entire bridge shuddered slightly from another hit. The archon’s bio-ship was slugging it out with them, and the Tiburon couldn’t match her enemy’s firepower; all she could do was fire her weapons while accelerating in a tight orbit, using momentum from the planetoid’s gravity pull to dodge the incoming attacks via slingshot maneuvers. Their hit-and-run strategy wasn’t going to last.

  “Captain,” the tactical officer said. “The xtid are here.”

  Baz’s fingers dug into the armrest. “What? We were supposed to meet them in the adjoining system.”

  “That warship of theirs is going full burn towards the planetoid. She’s got weapons blazing, and it seems she just appeared out of nowhere.”

  Baz pointed towards his communications officer. “Send a com-link message to the Wondrous Beacon. Tell them not to fire at us, for antecessor’s sake.”

  “Message sent,” the communications officer said. “No reply as of yet.”

  The tactical officer let out a deep breath. “Xtid ship just fired a whole bunch of swarmer missiles. If we stay in this tight orbit, we’re going to get hit regardless of our maneuvering.”

  “They’re firing at us?” Baz asked incredulously.

  The tactical officer continued to calculate the various missile trajectories using his battle computer. “I think they’re trying to push us all away. Both us and the archon’s cruiser.”

  Baz knew at that moment it was all over. Time to get away and try our luck elsewhere. His voice lowered to a whisper. “Let’s get the hell outta here. Plot a course to get us out of tight orbit and head for the nearest shadow zone.”

  The chief pilot turned and stared at him. “But Captain Vega locked out the star charts. We’ll be jumping out blind without his passcode.”

  Baz was through. He wanted to save himself at any cost. “I don’t care! We got two warships that are way bigger than us coming in to sandwich this vessel at close range. Vega is gone. Let’s take our chances and just go. Is anyone against this plan?”

  No one else said a word.

  “Alright then,” Baz said. “Let’s move it.”

  Hauk counted himself lucky as he made a soft landing upon a field of boulders near the bottom of the crater using his jump jets. According to his a-suit’s AI, the xtid were on one side of the caldera walls, with the archon and his forces facing them on the opposite end. Hauk could see the prisoner’s capsule less than five hundred meters way, but he would have to move out of cover and be exposed to get to it.

  Sappho’s voice came over his audio speakers. “Duncan, we’re losing ECM jamming on the entire area.”

  Hauk kept low as someone from the archon’s side spotted him and fired a stream of flechettes, chipping away at the boulder in front of him. “Anything I should know about?”

  “My analysis is that there are probably explosive devices implanted in that module where the archon’s daughter is being held.”

  Hauk let out a deep breath. “Any suggestions on how to disable those things from here?”

  “It seems there are two other possibilities,” Sappho said. “You’ll have to get close and physically disable the detonator or you must find a way to retrieve the two women inside before the charges go off.”

  “That means I’m gonna have to get closer either way.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Sappho said. “You’ll be exposing yourself to hostile fire from both sides.”

  Hauk cursed. “I’m trying to save the archon’s daughter. I’m on their side.”

  “They’re apparently unaware of your intentions or unwilling to believe it,” Sappho said.

  Strand’s voice came over his speakers. “Kid, that xtid battlecruiser is moving into orbit. She’ll be in bombardment position in a matter of minutes. I think it’s best you get the hell outta there.”

  Hauk spotted a loose boulder lying on its side. The boy leaned out and grabbed it, using his suit’s enhanced strength and the low gravity to lift it up. Holding the large rock in front of him, he quickly dashed out into the open and headed straight towards the detached capsule.

  Two of the xtid instantly fired at him. Hauk held the boulder sideways, and pieces of it began to ablate from the flashes of hostile laser fire. He began making short hops, just enough for the light gravity to propel him forward, yet he stayed close to the ground to minimize his exposure.

  One of the archon’s warriors attempted to reach the capsule ahead of him but was cut down by the xtid. Hauk kept up his insane zigzag, only using his jump jets when he needed to get clear of an obstacle in front of him. The boulder he carried had begun to crack from the incessant laser blasts from the xtid. Closing to a hundred meters. Come on.

  As the boy hopped onto what looked to be a solid piece of rock, the ground began to shake, and clouds of dust began shooting up around him. Hauk lost his footing and fell sideways. Letting go of the boulder he carried, he managed to use his left arm to stop his fall, just as hurtling fragments of stone began whipping all around him.

  Shockwaves of heat and energy buffeted his battle suit, tossing him every which way as he tried to regain his balance. Hauk knew then that the xtid ship was high above, and the orbital bombardment had begun. The massive impacts of kinetic ordinance kicked up columns of swirling dust, and he could no longer see the other combatants.

  The capsule was just ahead. Hauk raced towards it, trusting in luck, hoping he wouldn’t get hit by a massive piece of metal or laser fire coming down from the starry heavens. Fifty meters. Nearly there.

  His tactical map indicated that most of the orbital fire was directed at the archon’s position, and he pitied the men trying to take that kind of unholy punishment with just the armored suits they wore. Twenty meters. I think I’m going to make it.

  A massive gauss shell landed a few meters to his left, blowing a large hole in the regolith, and the force of compression threw him across the other side. Instead of rolling on the ground, Hauk used his jump jets to veer towards the right, somehow retaining his forward momentum as he finally reached the capsule’s location.

  It was a miracle the module hadn’t been hit yet. The capsule had also been buffeted by the nearby explosions, and a near miss had forced it onto its side. Hauk peered through one transparent window, and there were two cat-eyed women inside, holding onto each other in sheer terror.

  “Apparently, the bombardment has knocked out the detonators,” Sappho said calmly over his com-link. “But that capsule will no doubt take a hit if this attack continues.”

  Hauk desperately looked around for a hatch to open, but it had been welded shut. “How do I get them outta there? Can I lift the whole thing?”

  “Even with the light gravity and your enhanced suit, it’ll be slow moving for you carrying all that mass,” Sappho said.

  “There must be a way!”

  “Warning,” Sappho said. “The incoming barrage of orbital fire is coming down directly on this position. You have less than a minute to escape, Duncan.”

  Clenching his jaw, Hauk instinctively began punching at the capsule’s window. The two women silently screamed, gesturing at him to stop, but the third blow broke through the nanoglass, and the air began to seep out of the damaged capsule.

  Both women clutched at each other, their eyes wide with the fear of impending death as Hauk tore through the entire window in less than ten seconds. Grabbing a fist-sized
device from the side of his battle suit, the boy reached in and pulled the pair closer to him.

  Lady Ava’s nictitating membranes closed as she held on to her handmaiden with all her remaining strength. Death was right beside them, and the diminishing air would render her unconscious in a matter of seconds before she died.

  Hauk would have none of it. Right after he got closer to them, he held the device in his hand over the pair and pushed a button. An inflatable, transparent bubble instantly popped out, covering the two women in a thin transparent layer of insulation. When he sealed the emergency pop tent’s opening, the device’s simple controller began pumping in the right amount of air pressure and oxygen-nitrogen mix for them to remain alive.

  Tearing out the remaining bits of metal along the sides of the breach so he could get them out without damaging the tent’s airtight fabric, Hauk then began to slowly pull out the expanding life bubble. “How much time have I got, Sappho?”

  “Less than ten seconds, Duncan,” Sappho said softly.

  Hauk saw the flashes of light coming down at him, right when he grabbed hold of the bubble tent and activated his jump jets. Just as he cleared some twenty meters off the ground, everything went static as the explosions around him began their expansive shockwaves.

  36 The Transcended

  The chief pilot manning the helm on the Tiburon’s bridge stared with relief at the incoming readouts on the console. “Captain, we’re free and clear. The closest dark matter field is thirty minutes away at our present acceleration.”

  Sitting in the captain’s chair, Baz Wilkerson nodded. “The other ships aren’t giving chase?”

  “No,” the tactical officer said. “The archon’s cruiser sustained heavy damage and had to pull back from the planetoid’s orbit, but they didn’t go after us. It looks like the xtid ship is holding steady at low orbit. She’s probably picking up someone from the asteroid.”

  The communications officer gave him a worried look. “What if they picked up Captain Vega?”

  Baz shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll go before the outfit council in Elysium and plead our case. We’ll tell them we were duped.”

  “It may not be enough,” the tactical officer said. “There’s no doubt the other crews we’ve betrayed will speak out against us. We’ll be executed if we go back there.”

  Baz uttered an earthy curse. “Then we don’t go back to Elysium! We’ll strike out on our own. Not every single outfit goes there for supplies, you know.”

  The tactical officer rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We’ll have very few avenues open for continuing our careers. The other outfits will attack us on sight.”

  “Then we can do other things,” Baz said confidently. “We can rename the ship and get a corporate sponsor with the Union or something.”

  “As mercs? The corporations prefer ex-military types, not ex-pirates,” the chief pilot said.

  “It’s just an idea,” Baz said tersely. Their cowardly complaints were beginning to irritate him. “There are many things we can do. We can sell this damned ship and get new identities to go our separate ways. We can also—”

  A loud beeping noise made them all look at their personal consoles.

  Baz could hardly believe it. A whole bunch of new contacts appeared on his virtual map. Right in the dark matter field they were heading into. “What are those things? Don’t tell me they’re—”

  The tactical officer cursed while looking at his own console. “Lancers. Swarms of them.”

  Baz sat back on the command chair, stunned. “What? But how?”

  The Tiburon’s tactical officer continued to sort through all the new pings on the holographic display. “Someone must have known we were coming this way, so they seeded the outlying shadow zones with remote missile launchers and hid them till they fired.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Start evasive maneuvering, for antecessor’s sakes!”

  “Too many and too close. They already detonated their lancer warheads,” the tactical officer said softly. “We’re going to get hit no matter what. Estimated two minutes to impact.”

  Baz roared in both rage and hopelessness.

  The command crew inside the Nepenthe’s battlesphere remained silent as they stared at their console screens. The larger blip on the tactical map indicated the Tiburon’s position, with the smaller lined indicators marking the incoming lancer missiles that had just been fired at her.

  “The Tiburon is plowing straight ahead,” Commander Creull said. “They figure to take fewer hits by not changing their course, thinking we’d fire more ordinance if they altered trajectory. Bold move.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Captain Lucien Dangard said.

  After deploying their strike teams towards the asteroid field, the Nepenthe remained close to the outer folds of the shadow zones, using the expanse of dark matter to mask her presence. While the three other ships fought their battles near the planetoid, the Nepenthe began deploying remote launchers for her lancer missiles to target anyone who attempted to leave.

  “Hits scored on the first salvo,” Creull said. “Tiburon’s acceleration is slowing. Looks like we must have damaged their drive or the powerplant.”

  Oana Florescu remained anxious while sitting in the chief pilot’s chair. “Take that, you traitorous bastards.”

  “Getting a wide band broadcast on all com-link channels,” Creull said. “Tiburon is surrendering.”

  “Let’s show them how we really feel,” Dangard said. “Oana, power up the drive and engage radiators. Approach and orbit them at two-gee acceleration. It’s time we make our appearance.”

  Oana’s lips formed a grim smile. Revenge was oh so sweet. “At once, Captain.”

  Baz closed his helmet visor while staring at the gaping hole along the side of the Tiburon’s bridge. He decided to go for broke by rushing forward, expecting the enemy would overthink their attack and place fewer missiles in that path. He was wrong. “Damage control—report.”

  The tactical officer’s voice had grown softer. The will to fight had already left him. “We took several direct hits. One of them really messed up our command relay, so we’re rerouting to make our controls less sluggish.”

  “We’ve got to slow her down,” the chief pilot said. “Heat spikes are off the charts.”

  “Fine,” Baz said. “Slow us down to three-gees of delta-V.”

  More beeps came on their tactical maps, and a large contact suddenly became active, right in front of them.

  “Looks different from one of the archon’s bio-ships,” Baz said. “Who the hell is she?”

  “It’s over,” the tactical officer said with finality. “We’re dead.”

  Baz wanted to hit him. How did Vega ever keep these cowards in line? “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “Take a look at your own readouts, you fool.”

  Baz considered removing his gravity restraints and pulling out his pistol but decided to take a look at his personal console. The Tiburon’s AI confirmed it, and he too felt a sense of despair. Baz never really believed in the antecessors as gods before, but he decided to pray silently to them, just in case there was an afterlife.

  “She’s the Nepenthe,” the chief pilot said softly. There was nothing else to say.

  Less than thirty minutes later, the incoming kinetic ordinance from the Nepenthe completely tore open the Tiburon’s hull, and the once feared pirate cruiser became a ghost ship.

  Executor Zytll rushed towards the airlock located on the Wondrous Beacon’s aft cargo deck. He didn’t have time to put on his thruster boots and instead used his four legs like a set of coiled springs to propel himself from one tunnel to another. He made it to the airlock’s entrance, just as the module had cycled its atmosphere to match the internal air pressure inside the vessel.

  The hatch opened, and the xtid venator standing in front of him still wore the encounter suit he had been equipped with down on the planetoid’s surface. The subordinate stooped slightly, m
aking the customary bow of greeting somewhat awkward due to his armor. “Executor, I am honored to meet you in person.”

  Zytll held out his two right hands. “Did you get it?”

  “I did, Executor,” the lead venator said, taking out the two transparent containers from his suit’s rear compartment and handing them to him. “The five shards, as you ordered.”

  Zytll took both containers and used all four of his arms to open them. Holding the entire collection of crystals in his hands, he couldn’t help but be silent while observing their beguiling glow.

  A com-link stalk protruded from a nearby wall, and the battle master’s voice emanated from the device. “Executor, we have detected a new contact, near the system’s outlying dark matter fields.”

  Placing the hoard of relics into a side pouch along his abdomen, Zytll turned around and began bouncing through the tunnels as he headed back towards the command pod. He had a neck communicator, and he activated it in order to stay in contact with the bridge crew. “Could they be reinforcements from the archon’s fleet?”

  “We’re not sure, Executor, still checking.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Zytll said. “We have what we came for. Head for the shadow zones. We make the jump back to xtid space.”

  “Your will be done, Executor.”

  Zytll figured he would have a lot to answer for. His ship had attacked an allied Concordance vessel, and the political fallout would be massive. At one point during the battle, he had contemplated destroying every other ship in the area in order to silence any potential witnesses against him. In the end, he decided he would be better off if he just took the shards and left.

  I’ll just tell the primes it was all a misunderstanding, he thought. My official report will say the archon’s ship fired first and we merely retaliated in an effort to save our ground teams.

  He sensed there would be a definite loss of prestige. But the acquisition of the artifact was more important. Zytll’s own species considered these recovered relics as the most valuable items in the galaxy, and anyone possessing them would be in line to become a prime. Once accepted as part of the noble class, he would establish his own dynasty and have the opportunity to reshape xtid society.