by A. G. Riddle
“A serpent…”
“We’re calling them the Serpentine Army.”
“Are they human?”
“Based on the size of the corridors we can see in the cross section, it’s possible. And their code is readable to us. We’ll solve it soon.”
30
For David, tearing his eyes away from the massive debris field that stretched from the military beacon to the burning star took an extreme act of will. The view was captivating. The mystery of what had happened here, of what could have destroyed thousands, perhaps millions of ships filled his mind with possibilities—and fear. The moment he had seen it, his entire perspective on their situation had changed, perhaps his entire perspective on life.
He turned. Paul, Mary, Milo, and Sonja waited, but he looked only at Kate, whose expression changed from dread to confusion as she tried to read him.
“Okay,” David said. “Kate says we’re safe here for the time being. We’re going to take this opportunity to get something we need.”
Haggard, defeated expressions greeted him. Not a single guess about what “they needed” was offered in the seconds that ticked by.
“Rest,” David said. “Everyone is going to eat, sleep, and shower—and nothing else for the next eight hours.”
Sonja glanced at the portal.
“No guard duty this time,” David said. “We’ll barricade the portal. We have plenty of supplies on this beacon. We’ll make secondary barricades at the corridor on both sides that lead out. That will be plenty of early warning if Sloane gets through.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “All right, let’s go. Sonja, if you’ll help me build the barricade. Milo, you too.”
Milo smiled, and then grew serious as he fell in with Sonja and David, grunting as he helped them carry the heavy silver crates out of the storage rooms and up the stairs to the portal area.
When the barricade was complete and everyone had retired to the residential pods, David put a hand on Milo’s shoulder. “Milo—”
“I know, I…”
“Let me finish. I told you before that you would understand when you’re an adult. My parents used to say that to me all the time when I was a kid.” He read Milo’s expression. “I know you’re not a kid, but it’s something adults say to kids when there’s something they can’t understand yet—and there are a lot of those times. This isn’t one of them. None of us wanted you to go through the portal because we would never put your life in danger before our own.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re adults, and we care about you. We’ve had a chance to grow up and become what we are. Yours is a life still to be lived, and it’s more important than ours. This isn’t a military decision, it’s about what’s right and making decisions we can live with. If we chose to put our lives before yours, none of us could live with that. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Milo said quietly.
“Can I count on you, Milo?”
“You can, Mr. David. For anything.”
When David entered the residential pod, Kate was sitting at the small desk table, scratching her head.
“I know you’re mad at me,” she said.
“I’m not.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Okay, I was. But I’m not now.”
“Really?”
“Seeing the debris field, this place, it’s made me realize something.”
Kate waited, still suspicious.
“If that signal really is from a potential enemy, and they have some idea where Earth is, we need to make a major move to find help. Assuming there’s anybody left on Earth to save.”
Kate looked at the floor. “I agree. What do you want to do?”
David began pulling his clothes off. “Right now, I want to rest. Then figure out a plan together. I want to start playing offense. This whole time, starting the second I found out you were sick, I’ve been hanging on, trying not to lose you and the remaining time we have. I’ve been scared. I’m still scared, but I think we need to take some risks if we have any chance of coming through this.”
“You were right about one thing,” Kate said.
“Yeah?”
“We should enjoy the time we have left.”
Paul didn’t remember going to sleep; he had been that tired. He opened his eyes and searched for the sound.
Mary stepped out of the shower and casually moved her arm up to cover her chest.
Paul shut his eyes quickly and tried to arrest his now out of control pulse.
“That shower is super weird.”
“Yep,” Paul said, his eyes still closed. “Like a one-person disco with no water.”
Paul could hear her getting her outfit out of the hamper, slipping it on, and sitting in the chair.
“Yeah. Reminded me of a tanning bed.”
He sat up and looked at her curiously.
She shrugged defensively. “I went once. In college, right before spring break. So I wouldn’t burn. And probably because of peer pressure since the other girls—”
Paul raised his hands. “Not judging. I mean, from a health stand-point, it’s an unsafe way to tan. But a small amount of sun daily is quite healthy. The UVB rays convert the cholesterol in your skin into a precursor for vitamin D, which is, in truth, a hormone, not a vitamin. Essential too. We depend on healthy Vitamin D levels to avoid or prevent seasonal affective disorders, autoimmune conditions, and certain cancers.”
“Right. Well, I was just saying that I haven’t, you know, changed… I haven’t started tanning or dressing differently. Not that it matters. The dating pool is abysmal in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.”
“Sure. I bet. I don’t think you’ve changed a bit.”
“What does that mean?”
Paul cleared his throat. “I… you’re just the way I remembered you.”
Mary squinted.
“In a good way,” Paul added.
Paul thought the pause that followed lasted at least three or four hours.
“You still work a lot?” Mary asked.
“All the time. Especially the past few years.”
“Me too. Only place I’m happy.” She propped her elbow on the table and ran a hand through her hair. “But I think I get a little less happy every year.”
“I know the feeling. Few years ago, after…”
Mary nodded. “Did you ever get remarried?”
“Me? No. The other astronomer I met… is he, were you two…?”
“No. God, no. I’m not seeing anyone.” She paused for a moment. “Is there a woman in your life?”
Paul tried to sound casual. “Not really.” Not really?
“Oh.” Mary looked surprised.
“I mean, I live with someone, but—”
Mary reeled back.
“No, it’s not like that.”
“Right.”
“She just came home with me after work one day.”
Mary looked away. “I figured that’s how it would happen for you.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
Mary began chewing the inside of her lip—one of her habits Paul knew well.
Paul cleared his throat. “It’s actually quite simple. We have a kid—”
Mary’s mouth fell open.
“Well, it’s not my kid. Or it is now. He is. He’s not an it. His name is Matthew.”
“Matthew’s a good name.”
“Yes, of course, wonderful, wonderful name. But Matthew isn’t my biological offspring—well genetically we’re related, but he’s—”
“I think we should get some rest.”
Kate lay still beside David, thinking, unable to sleep. Against her will, her mind continuously pored over what she knew, searching for a clue, some string to pull that might unravel the next piece. She instinctively felt there was a detail she was missing, a key just out of reach.
David snored a bit but stopped. Kate marveled at the man’s ability to sleep—even when they were in imminent danger, as they had been for
, well pretty much as long as they had known each other. To Kate, David seemed to be able to simply turn his brain off and sleep on command whenever he needed to. Was that a learned trait? From years of battling enemies in covert warfare? Or was he born that way? There was so much about him she still didn’t know. Would never know. Didn’t have the time to learn.
The thought made Kate slightly remorseful about what she knew was coming. Part of her wanted David to wake up, but more of her wanted him to rest.
She slipped out of bed, pulled some clothes on, and quietly shuffled out of the room, down the dark, ominous corridor of the military beacon to the communications bay.
Where to start? Janus: he had chosen this beacon for a reason. Why? What was special about it? A battle had happened here. Had Kate’s Atlantean counterpart seen it?
The memory archive revealed the answer: No.
In fact, the memories Janus had stored here began thousands of years after the beacon was placed here. Kate’s counterpart had never even been here.
She decided to back up. She queried the computer, seeking the historical records relating to the debris field.
All information related to the Serpentine battlefield is classified according to The Citizen Security Act.
Serpentine battlefield. Classified.
Thirty minutes of searching the computer hadn’t revealed any more information. In fact, she was almost right where she had started. This beacon was devoid of any information, and there seemed to be no clues. Was it on purpose? To protect against any enemies reaching it and accessing its data core? Was that Janus’ motive? Had he sent the memories here because there was nothing else to find? That would have been clever. And he was clever.
Kate was about to leave the bay when the screen faded, and a red box began flashing. White block letters read: Incoming Communication
Kate gripped the table to keep herself from fainting.
31
Reliving Ares’ memories had been torture for Dorian, but the Atlantean food was almost as bad.
He and Victor sat in the storage room on silver crates, consuming orange gel the Atlanteans deemed “food.”
“Stuff’s terrible,” Victor said.
“Very astute,” Dorian mumbled, finishing his bag.
“What are we gonna do?”
“Guess we’ll have to rip them a new one on the comment card.”
Victor looked confused. Actually, Dorian was beginning to think that was just how Victor looked.
“Where you going?” Victor asked as Dorian strode out into the corridor.
“Homework,” he said, closing the doors to the communications bay.
Dorian dreaded starting the next memory, but he had no choice. Learning the truth about Ares, about the enemy beyond the beacon was his world’s only hope. He had to. And he had never turned away from what had to be done. He stepped into the communications booth and began Ares’ memory stream where he had left off.
Ares awoke to the standard fleet hazard alarm. He had heard it many times—most often when a team doing an experiment, either inside or outside the ship, was in trouble. The last time he had heard it, hundreds of sentinel ships had been bearing down on his sub-fleet. They had destroyed his ships and every last man and woman under his command.
He sat up and planted his feet on the cold metallic floor. He realized he was sweating, but his skin wasn’t warm. Fear. Something was wrong with him.
He battled to get to his feet, his body fighting him, not wanting to respond.
The speaker system dinged, and a calm voice began repeating: “All hands to hazard stations.”
Hazard stations. Every member of the service knew theirs. The drills came at least once every five days. Safety came first in the Expeditionary Fleet, and for the first time in Ares’ career, he had no hazard station. No station period. He was no longer a captain of a ship or a commander of a sub-fleet or even in a chain of command. He was simply an officer with no assignment—and at the moment, no clue as to what was going on.
He donned his standard service uniform and rushed into the hall, where people from all service branches swarmed around him. He tried to ask several people what was happening, but everyone threw off his grasp and continued past him.
Ares snaked his way through the crowd, fighting to get to the lift.
At the bridge, he stopped dead when he saw the screen.
The massive battlefield that stretched to the star… it was the same scene Myra had shown him, but it wasn’t dormant; it was alive with activity. The Atlantean first and second expeditionary fleets lay at the far end of it—seventy-three ships in total. But a far larger fleet loomed just above the black plane of debris. Massive ships, some the size of the entire Atlantean fleet hovered, blocking out massive swabs of the sun, throwing long shadows on the relatively small Atlantean vessels—all of which were ships of exploration.
When the Atlanteans had launched their first deep space exploration ships, they had armed them. But as the decades and centuries slipped by and no enemies had presented themselves, it grew harder and harder to justify the cost and space of arming their ships. Their primitive period of weapons-enabled ships was seen as comical to some and embarrassing to others. They had come to believe that any race sufficiently advanced to reach deep into space must be civilized.
Standing on the bridge, staring at the massive fleet that loomed above the Atlantean ships, Ares knew how wrong and foolish they had been. These were ships of war, of destruction, just as the sentinel spheres were.
“Play it again,” the ship’s captain called from his standing position at the high-top table in the center of the bridge. Around the bridge, officers and technicians focused on the screen. Ares stepped forward, stopping just behind the captain, his focus squarely on the viewscreen. He watched the scene reset, the timestamp in the top right reverting to an earlier time. They were watching a recording, telemetry from the fleets at the Serpentine battlefield. We must still be en route, Ares thought.
The First Fleet Admiral’s voice played over the speaker.
“Fleet, be advised, we’ve received a signal from the Serpentine Army. We’re working to decode it now, but we’ve re-transmitted the message to confirm our receipt in what we hope will be interpreted as a sign of friendship.”
The screen tracked forward in time. Behind the Serpentine fleet, a wormhole opened and more ships began pouring in. They were all the same shape and size. For a moment, they paused just before the portal, then began circling, linking end-on-end with each other, forming a ring. Or a serpent? A second ring formed, just inside the other, and another until there were seven rings, all fit together, like a donut blocking out the sun. Ares saw a glimmer and realized that they were collecting sunlight. A massive solar cell, trapping energy.
The admiral’s recorded voice played again. “Fleet, be advised, the first part of the signal is binary. This location in space and another region, currently uncharted. Could be the Serpentine homeworld. Second part is believed to be a DNA sequence, possibly a virus. It’s not long enough to be a complete human genome.”
On the screen, several small ships disembarked from a large ship deep in the Serpentine fleet and moved slowly toward the First Fleet flagship.
“Fleet, we’ve got incoming. Scans are negative on content. Repeat, they’re either blocking our scans or there’s nothing inside the vessels. Stand by. All ships hold your position.”
Fools, Ares thought. The admiral was playing it safe, reasoning that they couldn’t fight, so why run? Ares didn’t see it that way. His wife was on the Pylos, an explorer class ship in the second fleet. He waited, hoping to hear the admiral give the order to evacuate the fleet.
The small black ships stopped halfway between the Serpentine and Atlantean fleets.
“Fleet, we’re sending tugs to bring the first few ships in. This could be a peace offering or a communication of some kind. Stand by.”
The tugs pulled a few of the vessels into the closest explorer class ship, and
then the video log spun forward with nothing happening until it ended in a freeze frame.
Ares looked around the bridge. Everyone was tapping notes and working at their stations, some people conversing.
“Keep playing it,” the captain said. “Pay attention, everyone. Any detail could be important.”
“What’s happened?” Ares asked him.
“We’ve lost contact with the first and second fleets—right after they made contact with the Serpentine ships.”
“It’s an attack,” Ares said firmly.
“We don’t know that. It could be a systems malfunction related to the communication. It could be the sentinels cutting off communication. A stellar anomaly. Anything. We’re advancing all our ships to the Serpentine battlefield.”
“Have you apprised the council?”
“Yes.”
“Are they evacuating?”
“No. They’ve decided there will be no announcements until we know for sure what’s happening.”
“Fools. This could be the start of an invasion. We should divide our fleet, call in all the mining and freighting vessels, and evacuate as many as we can.”
“And if this is simply a misunderstanding? An evacuation will cost lives too. The panic would cripple us—at the very worst time. This has been decided.”
“Give me a ship,” Ares said.
“Relieve a commanding officer without cause during a crisis to give you a ship? I didn’t believe the psych report I read, Ares. But it’s looking more accurate by the second. We’ll reach the Serpentine battlefield in minutes—”
Ares stormed off the bridge, into the lift. Scenarios, options, coursed through his mind. He had to get to the Pylos, to his wife, and get out.
The corridors were still filled, but not as jam-packed as they had been.
Ares was twenty feet from the portal bay when the first blast rocked the ship, throwing him into the wall of the corridor. The side of his face swelled, and he thought he would lose consciousness. His ribs and wrist throbbed. He rolled onto his back and lay on the floor as the ship bounced, stabilized, and shook as the motion canceling systems recovered and failed. When the quakes subsided, he staggered to the portal bay and quickly worked the controls. If he could port to the Pylos, he could reach her.