The Dark Between the Stars

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Before DD could argue with her, she closed the airlock hatch, sealed her helmet faceplate. After the air was purged and the outer airlock door opened, Orli faced the oddly gelatinous membrane of the bloater. She extended her gloved hand, touched the surface, and patted it. It felt as if the bloater were made of a kind of stiff jelly.

  With a shove, she inserted her arm all the way up to the elbow. The density and texture inside eluded her, but the pain in her body did not. If she died, the plague would die with her. DD would destroy the Proud Mary as planned. But if she didn’t die . . .

  “What have I got to lose?”

  Orli ducked her head and plunged into the bloater, where she found herself drifting in an invisible, intangible embrace. Baptized in the blood of the cosmos. Orli didn’t know what to do with the green priest’s mysticism, but all she had left was trust and hope.

  Pushing aside any vestiges of hesitation, she opened the faceplate of her helmet.

  Bloater protoplasm flooded her helmet, her suit; it poured into her eyes and ears and nose. Instinctively, she drew a last breath and sucked the impossible substance into her lungs. It raced everywhere, saturating her cells.

  Orli Covitz felt reborn.

  ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO

  GENERAL NALANI KEAH

  As commander of the Confederation Defense Forces, Nalani Keah knew when the battle was lost, whether or not she wanted to admit it. But leading the CDF involved more than just numbers and analyses. She had a heart, too, and fiery passion, and she knew damn well she was never going to give up.

  The roiling shadow cloud hung in space like a stain on the universe. Even though the gigantic Shana Rei cylinders did not move, they seemed to pulse out waves of chaos and disaster.

  Two verdani battleships again hurled themselves against the ever-growing nightshade, but the obsidian hex plates were more than just opaque: the darkness seemed to drain life itself from the huge treeships.

  And the eclipse barrier continued to drown the whole planet in darkness. The worldforest was dying.

  Klikiss robot vessels streaked out from the dark nebula like attack dogs. On the Kutuzov’s bridge, Keah sounded battle stations and summoned her scrappy Manta cruisers into defense formations. “The bugbots are after our asses again—let’s show them what scrap metal looks like.”

  The rattling call to arms made the pulse pound faster, the adrenaline flow.

  The black robots attacked at random points, caused whatever destruction they could, and then retreated into the shelter of the shadow cloud. The CDF had destroyed dozens of the enemy ships, but they kept coming! How many armored vessels did the damned bugbots have? Did they keep replenishing somehow?

  Standard CDF weapons did little or nothing against the hexagonal plates or the Shana Rei cylinders, but at least the robots were an enemy her people could fight. It did her soldiers good to blow up a few bad guys every once in a while.

  “Mr. Patton, power up the magnetic fields on our railguns. Let’s get rid of some of those spare projectiles we’ve been hauling around.”

  The weapons officer grinned. “My pleasure, General.”

  The Kutuzov thrummed as a blizzard of high-velocity projectiles sprayed across space, turning three oncoming robot ships into metal confetti. The other enemy vessels spread out in evasive courses that—because they were robots—were not quite random enough to fool Keah’s tactical team. They anticipated the paths of the robot ships and sent out another spray of projectiles.

  Yes, it was good to blow up a few bad guys every once in a while.

  Keah’s green priest looked up from his treeling with a horror-stricken grimace on his face. “General, I think the worldforest is under attack!”

  “That’s old news, Mr. Nadd.”

  “Not the Shana Rei—it’s . . . faeros!”

  The Kutuzov’s imagers were focused on the nightshade, the Shana Rei shadow cloud, the attacking robot ships, but when the General scanned down at Theroc, she saw a cluster of shooting stars roaring toward her from below, streaks of fire like the ones that had caused horrific devastation during the Elemental War. They had hammered the worldforest, caused tremendous destruction to Ildira, and shattered the Earth’s Moon into a million fragments.

  “Oh, crap. I could have gone my whole day without seeing them again,” she said. “All ships, prepare to defend against the faeros!”

  “But . . . how, General?” asked the first officer.

  Good question.

  Like fiery comets, the faeros hurtled out of the Theron atmosphere, leaving sooty trails behind them as they rushed toward the defensive line.

  “They’re coming right at us, General,” yelled Tac Officer Voecks.

  “Brace yourselves!” Keah said.

  At his treeling, however, Nadd’s expression changed from terror to confusion. “Wait, General, they’re not . . . attacking. Something happened down there—none of the green priests can understand it.” He blinked in surprise. “Prince Reyn says the faeros are here to help.”

  The molten cannonballs rocketed past the CDF battleships as if they weren’t there and headed straight for the gigantic nightshade blocking sunlight from Theroc.

  The first two fireballs splattered against the interlocked black hexes, and the impact spread across the eclipse barrier like napalm. Even though CDF ships had been bombarding the nightshade without success for days, the faeros shattered some of the hexes. Dazzling cracks began to show between the plates, as long-blocked sunlight streamed through the gaps.

  Another fireball slammed into the eclipse plate near where the weakening verdani treeships had been trying to rip it apart. The force was sufficient to dismantle a wide segment of the occultation barrier. Even more sunlight flooded through, carving a bright blade of daylight across the night-smothered planet.

  In response to the unexpected threat, the black Shana Rei cylinders finally began to move. The huge battleships spilled out dozens more hex plates that twirled in to rebuild the nightshade as fast as the faeros could destroy it.

  An explosion shook the Kutuzov, and Keah held on to her command chair to keep from being thrown to the deck. An attacking robot warship soared past, launching another volley of weapons at them.

  “No significant damage, General.”

  “That’ll teach me to drop my guard,” she grumbled. “Now let’s teach that bugbot a lesson of our own. You soldiers aren’t getting paid to watch the faeros do our fighting for us—come on.”

  Mr. Patton wore a hard grin as he aimed the railgun launchers. He fired a projectile right up the exhaust port of the escaping robot ship, which blossomed into wreckage. The bridge crew cheered. More Manta cruisers chased after the remaining black robot ships as they scrambled back toward the shadow cloud like a child hiding behind its mother’s skirts.

  Her sensor chief cleared his throat. “General, this is probably the last thing you want to hear, but I’m detecting a large group of inbound ships. Are we expecting company?”

  “Not unless one of my Grid Admirals is acting independently.” General Keah had not called for any CDF reinforcements, which would have proved useless. “How many ships?”

  Lieutenant Saliba ran a quick analysis. “Forty-nine, sir.”

  “Then there’s your answer.” She felt a palpable relief.

  After Mr. Aragao opened a comm channel on the standard Solar Navy frequency, Keah leaned forward. “Z, I think you’ve been watching old Earth cavalry movies. I’m pleased you can surprise me after all.”

  Adar Zan’nh’s face appeared on her screen. “The Mage-Imperator’s consort told us Theroc was under attack. As you’ve said many times, General, a good military needs to practice in order to remain in peak fighting condition.”

  “Practice away, Z! I hope you brought more than one functional sun bomb this time.”

  Zan’nh nodded. “Each warliner is equipped with ten. Do you think that will be sufficient?”

  “One way to find out,” she said.

  The faeros fireb
alls continued pounding the nightshade. Looking oddly out of place, the gaudy Solar Navy warliners cruised ahead with angular fins extended. When the Ildirans launched their sun bombs, the result was like a recreation of the Big Bang. The Kutuzov’s screen filters dimmed protectively as one small nova after another erupted against the flat expanse of black plates.

  The forty-nine warliners launched their second rounds even before the first had finished exploding. Sun bomb after sun bomb exploded against the occultation barrier, and at last the opaque wall fell apart into thousands of individual hexagons, which tumbled loose through space. The substantiated matter of the hexes dissolved back into nothingness, like shadows vanishing in the dawn.

  As soon as the nightshade began to crumble, the faeros fireballs sensed that part of the burden had been lifted from them. They flew away from the broken barrier, but rather than flitting off into open space, they streaked toward the shadow cloud. The hex battleships were already diminished by the ruin of their nightshade.

  As the flaming ellipsoids provoked them, the Shana Rei launched the first active weapons that Keah had seen. A mouth opened at the flat end of the hexagonal shafts to vomit out a gout of black static.

  The manifested shadow struck and engulfed the first faeros, wrapping around the fireball like a shroud, coalescing and darkening. The black cocoon cracked and trembled. Dark orange lines shivered through the inky skin as the faeros struggled, but gradually it died like a candle flame starved of oxygen.

  Another gout of black static engulfed a second faeros, but with each weapon launched, the Shana Rei hex ships seemed to diminish further, as if creating the darkness required immense effort and energy.

  And then many more faeros swarmed toward them.

  The fiery ellipsoids pursued the retreating hexagon ships into the shadow cloud. Streaking in, the fireballs intensified, as if about to go supernova, inspired by the Ildiran sun bombs.

  Klikiss robot ships buzzed around before wheeling back to the safety of the shadow cloud. The dark nebula contracted like a folding fist, and the last of the robot battleships disappeared into it.

  The Shana Rei retreated into the tear in space, slipping between dimensions, and the remnants of the shadow cloud swirled like smoke being sucked into an exhaust vent. Then they were gone from the Theron system.

  The last remnants of the nightshade crumbled and vanished, ending the eclipse. The surviving faeros flitted about like sparks in an updraft before they shot away into space.

  “Guess they didn’t want to stay for the victory party,” Keah muttered, then raised her voice. “But we sure as hell are going to have one!”

  Nadd the green priest wept openly. Even the Ildirans aboard the Solar Navy ships were excited. The comm officer was already relaying a congratulatory message from King Peter and Queen Estarra.

  General Keah wanted to make some kind of inspirational victorious comment on their victory, but it was unnecessary. Her crew kept yelling and cheering. She decided that she owed Adar Zan’nh another one of her historical ship models. In fact, after today he could take them all.

  ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE

  MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

  The Mijistra medical research center was staffed by thousands of doctors who trained among their greatest sages before being transferred to serve throughout the Empire.

  Every member of their kith was predisposed to practice medicine. Some became proficient surgeons, while others were diagnosticians, pharmaceutical specialists, first-aid technicians, or skilled biochemists. Others performed intensive research, like those investigating Reynald’s disease. The medical kith members who would gather in the quarantine chamber today were those who specialized in autopsies.

  Jora’h and Nira watched the proceedings through a rectangular observation window made of thick crystal. Gale’nh stood with them, silent and curious, insisting that he might notice a detail because of his own encounter with the Shana Rei. Open to any insights, the Mage-Imperator agreed.

  The walls of the autopsy chamber were smooth and seamless, molded from a continuous shell of polymer metal. The diagnostic equipment and power sources were all self-contained.

  “This is dangerous work, Liege,” Gale’nh pointed out. “What if the darkness is still within them, some residue of their possession?”

  “We hope to learn the answer, Tal,” Jora’h said. “And we must take risks before we can learn.”

  Nira’s expression was hard. “I want to know what turned those people into monsters.”

  Gale’nh straightened. “I will submit myself to analysis if it would help . . . vivisection, if necessary. Prove that they are not still within me.”

  “No!” Nira said.

  “It will not be necessary,” Jora’h said in a tone that allowed no argument. “Let us learn from those we have lost.”

  The analytical specialists entered the chamber through three layers of security hatches, each of which sealed behind them. The randomly selected bodies for inspection had already been brought in, and when the dissection team was in place, the chamber was locked and secured. Banks of ceiling blazers shone down upon every surface; the bright light could be increased a millionfold in an instant, should extreme sterilization precautions become necessary.

  Inside the chamber, five cadavers lay on the tables, chosen from the participants in the mob massacre. Four members of the medical kith were ready to proceed, the lead autopsy specialist, Enda’f, and three assistants.

  “We will extract every possible answer from these specimens, Liege,” said Enda’f. He tugged gloves onto his long-fingered hands.

  One of the lesser medical kith mounted a set of magnifying goggles and a high-resolution projector onto the doctor’s head. A second doctor laid out an array of tools, as well as devices for performing automated chemical and spectral analyses and a cabinet for holding specimens.

  The third medical kith prepared a body, a long-limbed female who lay naked on the table, her skin a dull gray-green. She was a member of the teacher kith; perhaps in death, her body would teach them important information.

  “We have one hundred seven total specimens, Liege,” the autopsy specialist said. He did not even remark on how appalling the number was. “If we do not make any breakthroughs with these first cadavers, I promise you I will dissect and test every one until I have the answers you require.”

  Nira held Jora’h’s hand. “We should have done this with the attackers that tried to kill me. If we’d learned the cause then, maybe we could have prevented this slaughter.”

  Following that assassination attempt, Jora’h had ordered the tainted Ildirans incinerated in a solar furnace. He had been disturbed by what they represented, and afraid that even after death their corruption might linger. Although he understood the necessity now, he still felt gravely uneasy as he peered down at the otherwise healthy-looking bodies in the autopsy chamber. He felt a chill to know that a hundred more remained in storage.

  How many times would this insidious violence happen again? Had there been other instances on splinter colonies that he was not aware of?

  “You should have studied me as soon as I came back from the Kolpraxa,” Gale’nh said. “I do not believe that any of the poison remains inside me . . . but how could I know?”

  “The worldforest is also fighting the Shana Rei on Theroc,” Nira said with a shiver. “How many places can they strike at once?”

  The Solar Navy had rushed to help as soon as the worldtrees informed them of the nightshade there. “I hope Adar Zan’nh has been able to assist Theroc,” Jora’h said. That would be only a small consolation after what his ravening people did to the poor human settlers in Mijistra.

  They peered through the thick window into the chamber below. Three autopsy assistants leaned close to the dead female cadaver, running their fingertips over her face, shoulders, breasts, ribs. Their deep scans covered the entire surface of her body.

  Enda’f scrutinized the images projected on a holographic screen in front
of him, not missing a detail. When the intense scans were complete, he shook his head. “No apparent external cause of death. No marks, no injuries. She just . . . died.”

  Gale’nh said to Jora’h and Nira, “The taint that killed them—and drove them to kill—is inside.”

  Using crystal knives to make seven access incisions, the assistants and the autopsy specialist cut open the female’s body, peeled away the skin, and studied the muscle fibers, the blood vessels, the body cavity. They removed the internal organs one at a time, frowning—first curious and then fearful.

  The images zoomed closer. Among the wet slime and cold blood, a black substance oozed like oil, curling behind the heart, permeating the lungs and blood vessels.

  “A peculiar contamination,” said Enda’f. “Like a black stain that ebbs and flows.” He poked with forceps, but could not obtain a sample. He used a syringe, but the cylinder came away filled with only normal-looking blood.

  The assistants shifted the remaining internal organs as if to catch an escaping serpent, but they were also unsuccessful.

  The autopsy specialist stood up from the cadaver, his gloves bloody. “I cannot locate the source, Liege, or where it resides now.” He made a notation, consulted with his assistants, then moved on to open the cranium.

  Jora’h said, “It is in the thism itself.”

  After the team removed the top of the female cadaver’s head to expose the brain, the autopsy specialist inserted probes to test the convoluted brain matter. “Ah, there’s the blackness—it has burrowed deep within the cerebral tissue.”

  Gale’nh looked deeply uneasy. “It is still there. . . .”

  Enda’f removed a long, thin knife from the tray. Turning it so that the light from the blazers gleamed on its crystalline edge, he cut into the brain.

  Darkness exploded outward like an erupting geyser. Oily black static sprayed from the opening in the cadaver’s head. More of the tangible shadows lunged out of the chest cavity.

  The assistants recoiled, scrambling away and knocking over the tray of instruments. The autopsy specialist caught the black eruption full in the face and chest. He screamed and writhed backward in agony.