Hallowed Nebula

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “We’ll take the chance,” Foster snorted.

  “You need to create some distance, preferably while the two groups are still fighting. I can change that.” Jainuzei’s rifle lowered and pointed at the floor, a peace offering. “Make the Nephilim stay, and I’ll personally request our fleet to change position.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit,” Chevallier said as she kept her rifle aimed at his head. “Captain, don’t listen to him. Finish the job!”

  “I am a man of my word, Captain,” Jainuzei said. “Bringing dishonor to myself is not something I could easily live with, and you know that. I can give you safe passage out of this and turn my back on the fact you maimed my beloved wife.”

  Foster lifted an eyebrow. “Levesque’s your wife?—”

  Williams’ voice and hologram returned to Foster’s wrist terminal. “Captain, we’re going to lose the Rezeki’s Rage!”

  His warning of the fate of the Rezeki’s Rage forced Lisette to step forward, away from the protective grace of the EDF team. She stood in the middle of the standoff, unfazed at the number of weapons pointed at her front and back by both sides.

  “Avearan’s aboard the Rezeki’s Rage, right?” Lisette asked.

  Foster’s teeth gritted. She knew where this was going. “She is,” she said, reluctantly.

  Lisette clenched her fists and shut her eyes. “Let me stay, then.”

  “Lisette!—”

  “Tell Avearan—”

  “I ain’t tellin’ her shit,” Foster roared. “Whatever it is you wanna tell Avearan, you do it yourself face to face with her. But you gotta come with us for that to happen, ya hear?”

  Lisette faced Foster, and she saw tears streaming down her cheeks. “Get her out of here. I know Avearan came out here to find me, to rescue me. Now it’s time I saved her.”

  Jainuzei moved forward, wrapping his large hand over Lisette’s shoulder. “A wise choice, Nephilim.” He pulled her away and had two robed Aryile secure Lisette. “You are free to leave now, Foster.”

  Foster didn’t want to leave. Not without the woman that continued to be held against her will. First, the Empire arrested Lisette, then the Soldiers of Marduk took her, Jainuzei took her back, and was about to do it again. The cycle had to end. But was it worth forcing the Kepler and Rezeki’s Rage to hold out until they met their ends?

  “Lisette,” Foster pleaded to her.

  “I’d rather die than let Avearan go through it,” Lisette said while the two Aryile dragged her out of sight. “You guys don’t know her like I do; she went through worse things in life. She’s the one that needs a chance to be happy for once. To be free.”

  Two minutes later, Foster was on the bridge of the Kepler, not realizing she stood still long enough for LeBoeuf to teleport the large party back to the ship. She tossed her rifle in the corner and left the bridge without saying a word and entered engineering.

  When the all-clear was given, she went to touch the vortex key and stopped when her wrist terminal beeped with a text-only message. It was from Saressea, she managed to get aboard the Prometheus, mentioned something about the Whisper helping her get out of prison, before wishing her, the Kepler, and Rezeki’s Rage good luck.

  The Prometheus still had to maintain the look they were loyal to the fleet. Saressea was stuck with them until further notice.

  The Terran alliance fleet pulled away just as Jainuzei promised, dragging the Draconians along. Foster opened a vortex just small enough for the Kepler and Rezeki’s Rage to escape from the battle.

  As much as Foster hated Jainuzei, she had to respect him for keeping his word.

  62 Rivera

  XSV Johannes Kepler

  Dark Energy Maelstrom

  July 24, 2119, 11:17 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Nobody aboard the Kepler cheered after they made their escape with the Rezeki’s Rage. You cheered when danger was behind you. The Kepler and Rezeki’s Rage were still in it. The clouds of the maelstrom were eating away at both ships as they traversed through it. The only saving grace was there were no other ships in pursuit of them.

  Tolukei was still weak and mentally exhausted from his previous attempt at covering the Kepler with the goo using telekinesis. He wasn’t able to return to those duties. It left the crew of both ships with one option; leave the maelstrom at once, before it was too late. But where would they end up if Foster created a vortex for them?

  To Rivera’s knowledge, traveling through the maelstrom was like taking a subway in a city. If you got off at the wrong station, you’d find yourself in a part of the city you might not be familiar with, too far away from your intended destination, and the original location you began your journey. Leaving now might put them in a restricted area controlled by Radiance, or it may put them in the deeper regions of the nebula no mortal was allowed to visit. Or in the middle of a star. It will be a risk they’ll have to take.

  Being rescued from enemy captivity was supposed to make you feel safer. Rivera felt the opposite since coming aboard the Kepler. She had to change that, and the schematics she had in her HNI were the key to making that happen.

  Rivera left the Kepler’s engineering, walking past Foster who had been attuned with the vortex key they had. Foster looked just like Alisha when Rivera watched her touch the one aboard the Gerard Kuiper. One hand was placed on the cylinder device, while their tattoos shined with blue light. Like Alisha, Foster stood in a trance-like state, like she was spaced-out, asleep on her feet. Psionic energy from the device made her hair flutter about like it was caught in a brief windstorm. It was both majestic and terrifying.

  The Johannes Kepler’s bridge seemed a lot different by the time Rivera arrived, granted she never spent much time on it after Foster took command. After kicking the dragons out of Sirius, Rivera helped with a few minor repairs and then went to Earth to poke around the insides of the Carl Sagan.

  Music from the 1980s played; it was hard to hear at first unless you made your way up front to the helm where Chang sat. She caught a glimpse of Odelea eye flirting with Pierce when she asked him a question. Williams was in command, and he looked bitter as hell. She heard about the dreams he’d been having, triggered by PTSD that he never had problems with until they awoke from cryo almost a year ago. Chevallier shooting him didn’t help. There was an increase in bad vibes when Chevallier and Williams were in the same room. Those two needed to share Rivera’s bong when their shift was over and mellow out. She made plans to pester them to do that.

  But first, she had something important from her HNI to share with Williams.

  “Commander, can I show you something?”

  “It better be a solution to our problem,” Williams said. “We’re about to evaporate, already lost a layer of the outer hull.”

  Rivera found the files in question in her HNI and opened them. A small rotating hologram of the aquarium Nereid was held in floated in-between the two.

  “The Gerard Kuiper kept together in the maelstrom because they captured an Undine and forced it to use its psionic powers to affect the goo,” Rivera explained. “I’m not sure why, just that Undine psionic abilities can simulate the goo, and make it move, expand, and grow. It’s how they got the whole fleet through the maelstrom, and it’s how the Gerard Kuiper made it to the planet with the ruins on it. They only got stuck there because the Undine they had died because of the aquarium. When they had Nereid in the aquarium, it seemed like she had the power to make the goo not only cover the Gerard Kuiper but spread to cover and expand across the command ship.”

  Williams glanced at the projection and the various notes attached to it. “So basically, the Gerard Kuiper became a Charybdis ship?”

  “Yes,” Rivera answered. “Alisha discovered the technique after exposing herself to an engram from the Marduk Poniga and Undine as with the engram experiences she had from a monolith.”

  He grimaced. “Another monolith . . .”

  “Somewhere on New Babylon was a monolith like the one Foster touched,” Rivera said. �
��And on Earth too . . . Eicelea and Vynei discovered it deep underground Baghdad.”

  “Baghdad being the location of the ancient city of Babylon,” Williams said. “That can’t be dumb luck.”

  “Or the fact the Dragon Maiden dug a hole to it,” Rivera said.

  “So how does this help us?”

  “Sarpanit uploaded the designs for the aquarium into my HNI before we got separated. I can build a similar device for Nereid to use here.”

  “Didn’t you say the Undine they had died?”

  “Sarpanit seemed convinced that Nereid would be able to survive given her mutant nature.” Rivera’s gaze shifted about, searching for the Undine girl. “Where is Nereid right now?”

  “In sickbay,” Williams said as he got up from the captain’s chair and went for the bridge’s exit with Rivera. “Pierce, you have the bridge.”

  Rivera’s hands came over her mouth when she and Williams stepped into sickbay. The surge of joy and happiness helped remove the sour mood the fate of the Kepler was facing. Kostelecky was pregnant. Rivera’s HNI estimated the doctor was due in less than a month.

  “Doctor! Congratulations!” Rivera said to her.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Kostelecky said drily.

  “The positive vibes this crew had are gone,” Rivera said, placing her hands on her hips. “We got to fix this once this is over.”

  “Whatever it is you’re planning on smoking, I’ll pass . . .” Kostelecky said.

  Nereid was on her feet when they moved to her, Tolukei not so much.

  “Everything good with her?” Williams asked.

  “Other than elevated stress, nothing is wrong with Nereid,” Kostelecky said. “If this was Nereid from the past, maybe. Undine’s psionic powers grow with age and repeated use. And thanks to the medical logs Rivera found on the Carl Sagan, I got proof to show it. Nereid is more powerful now than she was when we met her.”

  “It’s why they age so fast,” Rivera said. “Side effect from their powers or something like that, right?”

  “So,” Williams said, his eyes squinting and his hands stroking the thin facial hair on his chin. “If we were to build that goo tank aquarium thingy, and have Nereid slip in it, she won’t die?”

  “Unlikely,” Kostelecky said. “If anything, it made her stronger.”

  Rivera looked at Nereid who had looked tired and remained silent. “Nereid, what do you think about that?”

  “May I have time to recover?” she said. “As the doctor said, it was stressful.”

  “I’ll need time to gather the materials and build it anyways.”

  “Consider this a green light, Rivera,” Williams said. “How long will it take?”

  “We got to have Foster pull us out, ASAP. Between the battle damage us and the Rezeki’s Rage took, we can’t remain in the maelstrom any longer.”

  “We should be far enough from the Draconians and Terrans, right?” Kostelecky asked.

  “Depends on where we end up when we leave the maelstrom,” she said with a wince. “They could easily catch up with us, which is why we tried to stay inside as long as possible.”

  “I’ll pass the message onto Foster,” Williams said. “Rivera, get started as soon as you can please.”

  XSV Johannes Kepler

  Edge of the Divine Expanse, Interstellar Space

  July 24, 2119, 11:38 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  The Johannes Kepler and Rezeki’s Rage accelerated away from a vortex, spilling out the storm clouds of the maelstrom. The two ships weren’t in the nebula, though if you were to look behind, you’d catch a stunning glimpse of it obscuring half the stars and the void of space behind.

  For the first time in days, Rivera felt calm, relaxed, at home with the crew she had been separated from for so long. The maelstrom wasn’t a threat, and the dragons weren’t around, nor the Terrans and their newfound friends of the SOM and Taxah Hashmedai variety. She could feel the positive vibes grow, and she hadn’t hit the bong yet.

  It was a great feeling, one that motivated her to hustle within the Kepler’s machine shop not far from engineering. Rivera utilized life-sized design holograms of the aquarium the Gerard Kuiper had, allowing her to visually see exactly what she needed to build, and where she could throw in a few improvements on the device with her own ideas.

  Penelope was a big help as she used one of the computers to code. The aquarium was going to need a specialized program to help run it, so Penelope offered her computer programming talents.

  “Glad to have you back, Rivera,” Foster said from behind.

  Rivera turned away from the yellow and orange holograms and saw Foster standing at the machine shop’s door. “Glad to be back,” she said. “I’ve seen too many frowns, however, Captain.”

  Foster shrugged. “Been a stressful ride.”

  “Negative thoughts bring negative things into your life.”

  “And HNI in your head goes against the plan.”

  “Sorry about that,” Rivera said, then bit her lip. “I got the implants before you were given command of the Kepler.”

  “Shouldn’t be an issue since there’s a handful of folks here that do have the implants,” Foster said. “Was just hoping that if the Dragon Knights show we’d have an engineer that would be able to stand on their feet.”

  “She might be able to,” Penelope cut in, turning on her chair. “Rivera’s case might be different since Sarpanit was in it and made changes. Maybe, just maybe, she might be immune to the disruption, maybe not.”

  “In any case,” Rivera said. “My HNI contains the files Sarpanit left behind, including the missing data from the Carl Sagan. It will still be worth keeping me around, Captain.”

  “Wasn’t thinking of kicking you out!” Foster held her hands out in a slow down motion. “You’s still part of the family, no matter what you jammed inside your head. Ya hear?”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  “We’ll be landing on Riylor, the Vorcambreum homeworld, in a few days,” Foster said. “There’s a large Radiance fleet in the system, figured the Terrans and Draconians would think twice about chasing us there. We’ll be getting repairs and supplies once we arrive, so if you need any materials to build this, let me know.”

  “I’ll have that list for you in the hour.”

  “Also, if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like you to help with the repairs on the Rezeki’s Rage. Gonna be hard to convince Radiance to board and fix up an Imperial ship . . . and since you speak their language.”

  Rivera smiled warmly. “Happy to help.”

  She really was. Finally, Rivera was able to do the job she signed up for. She felt like a space engineer once again, one free of the insane AI Goddess that was in her head, driving her mad with its negative influence.

  The Gerard Kuiper had her now, in her android form. They were the ones that had to put up with the headaches.

  63 Foster

  XSV Johannes Kepler

  Renterious Base, Riylor, Devaguai System

  July 29, 2119, 15:42 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  The star of Devaguai cast light strong enough to force all windows aboard the Kepler to auto dim, preventing sudden blindness to those that might have been looking out. It was a white main sequence star with a hint of blue, making it very similar to Sirius A. Chang had cracked a joke about the Kepler finding its way back to the system that made their lives change forever.

  An expansive asteroid belt had to be crossed in order to gain access to the inner planets of the system. That alone took days since the Kepler was forced to travel at sub light speeds to match the maximum speed of the Rezeki’s Rage that flew alongside it. The Radiance Navy protecting the system wasn’t happy to learn an Imperial ship entered with the Kepler. Foster kindly reminded them she was given the power to run the mission her way, which included bringing the Rezeki’s Rage into the system for repairs.

  The Devaguai system was the closest and most populated Radiance system to the Divine Expanse, the locati
on of the Hallowed Nebula. So, it wasn’t surprising for anyone, including those on the Rezeki’s Rage, of Radiance’s disagreement of its presence in the system. In the past, the system, and its nearby colonies, was always on high alert when the Empire sent its fleets into the nebula, searching for proof that the Radiance Gods weren’t divine. The war without end might have been in ceasefire mode, but the bad blood between Hashmedai and Radiance in these parts was still in go-fuck-yourself mode.

  Once clear of the asteroid belt, four Radiance heavy cruisers escorted the two ships to the Vorcambreum homeworld of Riylor, which in reality was a large moon orbiting a gas giant. The Kepler dove through the clouds of the moon, landing at Renterious base, a Radiance military base sitting at the basin of a wide open and rocky plain. The Rezeki’s Rage remained in orbit while orbiting repair crews from Radiance bickered and drew straws as to who had to repair the evil Empire ship because Foster demanded it.

  Half the surface of Riylor was covered in xen ethereal crystals, the power source of Imperial and UNE ships, and at one point, the Union until they switched to refined dark energy, AKA aether. Riylor was the only place in the known galaxy to get the crystals and was heavily mined and distributed them throughout the galaxy for a price.

  Nobody knew exactly where the XE crystals came from. Some believed one of the asteroids delivered them to the moon during ancient times, and others suspected it had to do with the planet’s close proximity to the nebula. Some believed that the system’s stellar drift through the galaxy, at some point, saw the Devaguai system pass through the nebula. And if you were to ask any of the Vorcambreum, they’d tell you that a higher existence put the crystals on the moon, an existence that came from the nebula.

  When Radiance made contact with the Vorcambreum and told them the story about the three Gods, both sides drew the conclusions they were speaking of the same divine force. Little else was needed to convince the dwarf people of the Vorcambreum race that assimilation into the Radiance Union was the best thing for them. And so, more fuel to the belief that the three Gods lived in the center of the nebula had begun.