Celestial Incursion

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “A maelstrom that vaporizes matter,” Peiun said.

  “That wasn’t vaporized, it just ceased to exist.”

  He faced her and her glowing psionic implants and dress. “How is that possible? You cannot destroy matter. You can change it, break it into pieces, but there’ll always be something of it remaining.”

  “I don’t have an explanation for it,” Alesyna said. “I was able to feel the presence of that container with my mind one moment, then unable to the next. I’ve vaporized things with my abilities during my training, but I’ve always felt what remained of it. Water turns to vapor; a body turns to ash and smoke. That container is gone, along with the sections of this hold that’s fading away as you probably noticed.”

  And that concern was the sole reason the repair crew had left the cargo hold untouched, and why nobody had yet to perform a spacewalk to patch up the exterior of the ship. His crew feared what the maelstrom’s clouds would do to their bodies, a fear he now shared. Alesyna went on to demonstrate that her powers, including a psionic shield, had no effect on stopping the exposed interior of the cargo hold from vanishing. Emergency force fields, now they were operational, had no effect either.

  Peiun had a decision to make.

  “Cancel repairs to this section and others.”

  “Sir?”

  “I know we’re in a dreadful situation, but we can’t take the risk of losing more crew,” Peiun said. “Let’s focus on conducting repairs to areas that have not and will not be exposed to the maelstrom’s clouds.”

  “On the note of repairs,” she added. “There is something you should see.”

  Peiun’s face twisted at her words as he confirmed his orders had been passed onto the repair teams via HNI. “Very well,” he groaned. “Show it to me.”

  After taking one last glance at the majestic clouds from the hull breach, Alesyna folded her hands together, entered a deep trance and forced their two bodies to vanish with a glow of teleportation light. The two reemerged deep within a pitch-black maintenance walkway, Peiun shredded his environment suit, while the glow of Alesyna’s protective barrier diminished.

  Alesyna led him deeper through the maintenance walkway, as their eye glow reached its maximum luminosity making the pitch-black lighting a nonissue, a reminder of why the Hashmedai race were such deadly predators during ancient times. They came to a stop within a hidden chamber where the soft humming noises of the main reactor bled through the walls. They weren’t far from engineering.

  A mess of wires arched away from a contraption of human design, feeding into various compartments and vital systems of the ship. He looked at the unexpected contraption and cross-referenced it with his HNI’s database. The projection that flashed before his eyes contained concerning information.

  “Why do we have an MRF?” he asked her.

  “I believe the only two people that could answer that are the captain and first officer.”

  “Who are no longer alive to explain this to us,” he said. “This ship isn’t important enough to have an MRF installed, given how rare these are to construct for our people.” Though its presence does explain why this ship survived the invader surprise attack. Reduced mass would have given us the maneuverability to survive. The captain must have had it secretly activated.

  “Ships undertaking secret assignments given out by the Imperial throne do have these installed, regardless of their class.”

  “Which this ship wasn’t part of, to my knowledge,” Peiun said, gazing at the device. “Is it operational?”

  “It isn’t, it was damaged during the invader attack. And given the secrets around it, none of our repair teams are trained to conduct repairs to it.”

  Peiun hissed at the device and slithered past Alesyna to exit. “Keep me informed if you discover anything else on this ship that I should know about.”

  Alesyna crossed her arms. “You seem frustrated.”

  “I was having a pleasant week before these invader monsters appeared,” Peiun said, stopping to address her. “When I learned we were returning to Paryo, I had made plans to visit my mother and father. And now . . . I don’t know if they are alive or dead.”

  “You are frustrated.” She flicked a lock of her black hair behind her shoulder. “Did you not copulate with the servant?”

  Peiun looked at her curiously, “How do you know about her?”

  “I asked her to visit you. You are the man that will lead the charge for our ship, you must have a clear and relaxed mind, and she can help you achieve that.”

  “I sent her away; I am unworthy of her body.”

  “We all must fill our bodies with bliss to remove apprehension. It is what the empress has taught us since she took the throne. We all must ensure we do, so we can better serve the empire.”

  “Are you offering to assist me, then?” Peiun asked, giving Alesyna’s figure beneath her glittering and seductive outfit a decent look.

  “I prefer taller men, such as the servant that was tending to the first officer,” she drily said.

  Peiun smirked at her. “Thank you for your concern, Alesyna, but I shall be fine.”

  The two made one last round of the wounded ship, documenting the extensive damage done, and adding it to their growing list of concerns and tasks that needed to be accomplished.

  Number one on the list? Escaping from the maelstrom.

  10 Odelea

  Abyssal Comet, Labs

  Aervounis orbit, Luminous system

  August 3, 2118, 19:41 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Odelea’s vertical iris eyes were bloodshot.

  She’d denied them the much-needed rest they craved since boarding the Abyssal Comet after her dramatic escape from Veromacon. The invader ships had left the system, vanishing into what witnesses reported was a storm cloud at the edge of the system. Navy personnel chanted their praise to the Gods for making the invaders flee. Odelea sang her praise at the chance to learn about the new discoveries that waited. It also helped her suppress the unspeakable things she saw planetside, when Odelea’s inquiring mind got rolling, the real world and its problems faded away temporarily.

  Odelea commandeered an unused lab that sported a wide observation window where the planet Aervounis rotated, with its great oceans, tropical climate, and floating cities, outside of it. Sitting cross-legged on a chair, surrounded by fourteen holographic windows, Odelea’s brain reviewed everything that had been discovered about the invaders thus far comparing it to her notes.

  An audio recording her implants took of the invader attempting to speak, replayed ominously in the background. She lost track of the number of lies she told herself about what happened before the recording had been taken.

  “The entire quadrant is in total disarray, and here you are in the lab.”

  Odelea spun her chair around, her fatigued face and eyes locked on an Aryile woman wearing a short silver dress and long fashionable cape, Queenea, Ienthei’s twin sister and co-owner of the Souyila Corporation. Queenea was a marvel within the Union, her blonde hair and flawless seductive Aryile looks were on par with her intelligence. Had she remained in university, she might have become a scholar like Odelea. Queenea’s presence within Souyila extended beyond the Union as various human publications, at one point, voted her ‘the galaxy’s sexiest alien.’

  It’s not a hard thing to achieve when your parents gave you the most expensive genetic enchantments, Odelea mused, not surprised that Queenea managed to enter the labs without her noticing.

  “Never squander the gifts from the Gods,” Odelea said. “The Abyssal Comet is a warship, yet it has a lab, that’s a rarity in the fleet. It’s no coincidence that we were evacuated here.”

  “The Abyssal Comet isn’t a warship, it’s owned and operated by Souyila,” Queenea said. “That’s why there’s a lab, and why we were brought here. That, and it was the closest ship to Aervounis that wasn’t critically damaged by the invaders.”

  “More proof of the Gods’ divine will, they ensured this ship
would survive for me to access its long-dormant lab.”

  Queenea looked at a plate full of browning apple cores, human fruit Odelea had taken a likening to. “How long have you been in here?”

  “Since we boarded,” Odelea said, pausing the audio recording. “I’m onto something; I can’t bring myself to sleep on it just yet. The speech pattern the invader soldier vocalized is somewhat familiar. And then there’s the storm clouds in space the invader fleet appeared from and vanished into without a trace. Look at these sensor logs of the clouds.”

  Odelea flipped through the holographic windows around her until she found the sensor logs in question, handing it off to Queenea.

  Queenea winced a minute later after reading its contents. “It can’t be.”

  “Pure ethereal energy? I think it is since these readings are almost identical to what our ethereal refineries scan and pull out from the aether space fissures.”

  Queenea’s controversial research led to the discovery of tears in the space-time continuum that lead to aether space. It was within these tears in space where refineries were built, extracted and refined the energy that bled away, converting it into Radiance’s newest and most used energy source. The energy they refined, however, was not pure since it was old and lost much of its luster. Fresh and pure ethereal energy theoretically existed deep within aether space and was considered impossible to reach with the resources they had available, and, given what happened in the Barnard’s Star system in 2040, a large relief to many.

  Things in life that are impossible to attain, are like that for a reason.

  “Ultimately, we need more data,” Odelea said, taking the hologram back. “The navy was, of course, focused on combat, defense, and their survival, not scientific scans of these storms the invaders are able to use.”

  “There’s that word again, invader,” Queenea said, rolling her Aryile eyes.

  “This is not the Empire; these storms are not how space bridge jumps work, nor psionic wormholes. The Empire has not been able to create psionic wormholes since the battle of Barnard’s Star. We must alert the galaxy and tell them we face a new threat—”

  “They know.”

  “I mean outside of Radiance, the humans, even Hashmedai, they all must be aware.”

  “They know,” Queenea reiterated. “Earth and Paryo have been attacked as well.”

  Odelea’s hands covered her lips. “My Gods,” she whispered beneath her hands.

  The news had Odelea stunned and planted new seeds of fear in her stomach. Radiance suffering an attack was one thing, but the Hashmedai and humans? Three of the mightiest nations in the known galaxy were unable to halt a singular threat. Her mind began to calculate the sheer number of mass extinctions that would plague the galaxy if the invaders fought a long, drawn out war with everyone. The number was staggering.

  “It’s all over the knowledge network, Odelea,” Queenea said. “That’s why I’m here; you’ve been in here too long.”

  Odelea pushed all but one hologram around her away. It was a projection of the invader she had to share an elevator ride with, half its face was exposed as its helmet had been damaged. There was thick, brown scaly skin exposed, arching horns, yellow eyes, fangs sharper than a Hashmedai. It made her heartbeat race, and fingers fidget. Suppressed memories of the attack were returning.

  “I suppose I’m not the first one to capture images of this new species, then,” Odelea said.

  “Sorry.” Odelea felt Queenea’s soft hands pat her back. “I know how much you enjoy being the first in the galaxy to discover something, and how much you want to be recognized as a high scholar for a marvelous find. But, this time, everyone discovered the invaders at the same moment.”

  “It’s not over yet,” Odelea said. “Now the invaders have left the system . . .” She snapped her fingers. “Yes, of course, bodies of their fallen soldiers should be available for further study. Queenea, I have a request for you to forward.”

  “What is that?”

  “A formal request that all invader bodies be kept aside for my research, once we return to Veromacon.”

  “I shall forward it to my dear brother as his seat on the council may sway things in your favor,” Queenea said. “But keep in mind, he is no longer aboard nor is Iey’liwea, the message may take some time for him to receive. Furthermore, this ship has—”

  “Where is he?”

  “The council learned of Iey’liwea and Ienthei’s attempt to flee and leave the rest of the council behind. They have been reunited with the council on another ship to participate in a lengthy debate.”

  Gods please help them; we cannot afford to have the council bicker during a dangerous time like this!

  The view of Aervounis through the observation window slid away. Wreckage of the Radiance navy, and burning ships came into view. Then there was a flash of light, the Abyssal Comet had entered an FTL jump.

  Odelea stood at the window and observed her wincing glance from its reflection and snorted. “Of course, if we leave the system, the study of the fallen invaders may be placed in the hands of other scholars.”

  She faced away from the window and used her implants to communicate with the bridge. The Abyssal Comet being a ship owned and operated by Souyila rather than the navy meant its crew was fellow coworkers. She had every right to speak with the bridge, too bad they ignored her HNI message requests. Oh no, please Gods don’t take this opportunity away from me!

  Queenea spoke additional words to Odelea, words that became muted with her racing mind.

  Fear of losing her chance to advance her career fueled Odelea’s movements, making her trot rapidly through the brightly lit hallways, up multiple elevators, and storming onto the bridge. Odelea had made first contact with the human race, cured the wraith outbreak, created gene therapy treatments, and helped make ethereal energy a reality. She still failed to be recognized as a high scholar. Odelea saw the bridge crew as people forming yet another barrier that was interfering with her progression.

  Her fists were clenched as she looked at the confused bridge crew looking back at her. They saw a young woman that shouldn’t be there, she saw people that were about to make another scholar’s career flourish and blossom.

  Odelea demanded to know. “Why are we leaving orbit?”

  “Why is there a scholar on my bridge, yelling orders like she’s in charge?” the captain said. “You do your research and we’ll operate the ship.”

  Odelea raised her voice. “We have to return to—”

  “You picked a bad time to roll your age back with gene therapy,” Queenea said, pulling her into the corner, having followed her up.

  Odelea snarled. “What does my appearance have to do with this?”

  Queenea poked Odelea’s forehead. “There may be an old woman in that young body of yours, but you’re certainly not acting like it.”

  Gene therapy was more than just the power to stop aging and/or roll back your age. It restored your body, hormones, and brain chemistry to the levels they were at the particular age you choose to be. Whatever desires young people had returned, and what one did a lot during those years also resurfaced. Odelea was trapped in a body of an Aryile woman entering adulthood for the first time, complete with outbursts, and the firm belief that she was right, and everyone was wrong. Retaining the knowledge and experience of an elderly woman didn’t help.

  Thankfully, the old, wise, experienced woman within her head took control, calmed her skittering thoughts, and reminded her of the numerous young people she encountered over the years that all thought they were smarter than older generations.

  “I’m sorry, Queenea, it’s just I believe, if we are going to survive further, we must learn everything we can about these invaders.”

  “And we will, but first, we must travel to the human homeworld to escort a person of interest back to Aervounis.”

  “The longer we wait—”

  “If it were in my power, we wouldn’t be leaving,” Queenea said. “This may be a
Souyila operated ship, but it still must answer to the council and its wishes.”

  I must be the one that carries out the research, is what she wanted to say.

  Odelea needed to become a high scholar and was convinced without a doubt that if another scholar had been in her position during the past, life in the galaxy would be horrific. The Celestial Order would have won the war, gene therapy wouldn’t have been invented, and people that would have been lost to old age wouldn’t be around today to make the contributions they make within the galaxy.

  Someone else will get it wrong.

  Odelea will not.

  Fearing another new adult outburst, Odelea exhaled, counted to ten, and asked. “Can I at least remain in the system while the progress of my research is still fresh in my head? I’m no use to the new mission of this ship.”

  “Had you not run away I would have been able to explain this situation better,” Queenea said. “There’s no turning back right now, this isn’t a ship built for war, and so is the only one that’s in good repair and can carry out this mission the council has voted for.”

  “Voting already? They seem to be making decisions rather quickly given what has just transpired.”

  “Only three members voted since Iey’liwea and my dear bother, Ienthei, were unaccounted for at the time. Perhaps now you see why they needed to rejoin with them quickly?”

  “Of all the ships in the system—”

  “They chose this because it’s in good repair, unlike the rest, and it isn’t a warship, warships being something the Union needs to remain in the system should the invaders return. The invaders hit the human homeworld the hardest and still have ground assault teams deployed. If we turn back now because of you, and the invaders launch a surprise attack on the individual we need to pick up, we’re going to point fingers right at you.”

  Not ‘they’re,’ ‘we’re.’ Queenea’s words were sharp blades aimed at her throat. “You wouldn’t!”