“Not often,” he replies after a pause. “But it has been known to happen throughout history, and it can be catastrophic. Yes, it’s fatal to individual vessels that get ejected out of formation at weak points in the SQS—literally sucked out of the quantum bubble by gravity—as they Breach and end up fried, irradiated, crushed, or otherwise torn apart by the immense forces of the black hole. But it’s even worse if such an individual Breach results in the cascading collapse of the entire SQS network. That’s when most of the Fleet gets destroyed in seconds.”
“Oh my God, how horrifying!” I say.
Aeson’s cheek muscles twitch. “There have been several such catastrophic or near-catastrophic events, at least two in the last hundred years,” he says softly. “That’s a very high safety rate, only two out of twenty-seven missions, but still. Ships were lost, destroyed, people got killed or badly hurt. In fact—the Imperator is usually the one who places himself in danger and who most often dies in the process.”
My lips part.
Aeson watches me, his face a mask. And then he says, “That’s why my Father is afraid. He knows what happens, what can happen at these missions. Because—my Grandfather, the previous Imperator, died in such an event, died trying to save the Fleet. And my Father never forgot.”
“Oh, Aeson. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know!” I place my hand on his arm and squeeze gently.
“Another sad story for another day,” he says, looking in my eyes. “My Grandfather was no longer Imperator. He’d taken his retirement by then, but he wanted to perform this one duty on my Father’s behalf. It ended in tragedy, and to this day my Father is tormented by it. Which is probably why what happened later—to me—came about.”
“You don’t have to say any more . . .” I whisper, holding his arm. “Please, don’t.”
“But I do,” he says in a hard voice. “I need to finish this.”
I nod silently and listen.
“As I was saying, I was in the sebasaret Resonance Chamber with my Father. The Stationary Quantum Stream had just gone live, and the Fleet started to spread out along the Rim, widening the net as each ship took its place then sent out the buoys. My Father had finished singing the SQS sequences, checked the network for stability, and was starting the main voice sequences to generate the immense energy of the Great Quantum Shield itself—the reason for our mission.
“Everything was going well. The shield energy was starting to build in strength, ringing with power and registering at near optimum levels on all our instruments. As normally scheduled at this stage, additional pilot shuttles were deployed to the pegasei super-flocks to harvest them by means of light traps.”
“How does that work?” I ask.
“Pegasei feed on light,” Aeson reminds me. “We simply use probes armed with frequencies of light that’s particularly favored by the pegasei. The probes send out concentrated bursts of that specific light, which somehow stands out from the disordered churning plasma radiation of the accretion disk, and even reaches deep inside the ergosphere. Pegasei are drawn to it, as an animal is drawn to a scent or flavor. When they approach, the traps turn on quantum containment fields and the pegasei are captured and held.”
No, not animals. . . . They are sentient beings. I’m momentarily reminded of the containment orbs in Stage Four of the Games. And then I think of Arion.
Meanwhile, Aeson continues. “As all of this was happening, and I was helping to monitor the Stream network while my Father sang the Shield, a number of system warning alarms came on. . . . Apparently, a powerful plasma ejection split off from the main flow of one of the relativistic jets. It was caught, twisted by gravity into a loop, and somehow redirected back into the accretion disk, creating a gravity shockwave of additional turbulence throughout the Rim.
“We have no idea how, but the shockwave affected the isolated reality phase inside the Stationary Quantum Stream containing all of us. This kind of thing never happens—the realities inside and outside never make contact, that’s the whole point of the Stream—but it did. As a result, several of the outlying buoys in our Fleet network were suddenly tossed out of formation. They drifted, approaching the Stream’s boundary that was already weakened by the radiation turbulence near those spots. In moments, they Breached and got fried immediately.”
“Oh no!” I whisper.
Aeson glances at me. “It was a terrible moment of decision for my Father. This was exactly the worst kind of scenario possible—unexpected, unpredictable critical disturbance in the Rim causing the Stream to fail, and starting a cascade reaction. . . . The Imperator stopped his shielding task and returned to the resonance network instruments. He performed the necessary voice sequences remotely, but it wasn’t enough. More and more ships were Breaching before our eyes. It was unavoidable—he had to go to the location of the collapse and perform vocal tuning on-site, using the very hull of his shuttle to set a new resonance anchor. Basically, it’s the only way to halt the cascade failure and recreate the Stationary Quantum Stream boundary along a new set of parameters.”
Aeson takes a deep breath before continuing. “Gwen, I was terrified. I knew what was about to happen—my Father had to go to the corrupted outer edge of the Stream boundary and very likely die. The Imperator, my Father, paused for a moment, looking at me, then told me to stay here and take over on the Resonance Chamber main console. He looked at me, Gwen, and I have never seen such an expression in his eyes. And then my Father took off running to the shuttle bay. . . .
“I obeyed and waited, useless and panicking, looking at the alarms popping up everywhere, indicating malfunctioning remote instruments on other Fleet ships. Meanwhile two ranking officers hurried to assist me, possibly at my Father’s final instructions—I don’t know, and at that point I didn’t care. There was nothing they or anyone else could do—only someone with the Logos voice, such as myself.”
My breathing has nearly stopped, and I’m frozen with tension as I listen to Aeson speak.
“It was absolute chaos, time slowing down, both metaphorically and in actuality in the ergosphere where this was all happening. The officers and I watched my Father’s progress as his shuttle approached the frayed edge of the Stream boundary, where random Breached vessels were slowing down due to time dilation—from our perspective, of course—while in reality they were burning up and hurtling past the horizon of the black hole.”
“Oh, God. . . .”
“Yes, it was a catastrophic disaster unfolding. My Father’s shuttle stopped at the Stream’s boundary threshold, and then it just sat there, floating at the edge. . . . Yes, it was properly set to resonate, of that I’m certain. It was ready to move out and create the new Stream. All my Father had to do was Breach and continue to sing the sequence. . . . And in doing so he would’ve extended the Stream, bringing it with him, extending and unfurling it to span outward into the violent depth of the Rim. This action would create a new solid Boundary and protect the rest of us in the Fleet, while my Father’s shuttle would very likely burn up, unprotected from the violence outside—even as it was defining the edge of the newly formed safe zone.
“But my Father, the Imperator of Atlantida, hesitated. . . . At the last minute, he froze and could not take the last step—the final active step that was his ultimate duty—that would extend the Stream but likely end his own existence.”
Aeson goes silent. He once again does not look at me as he tells me the next terrifying thing. “That was the moment, Gwen. I somehow knew. I could imagine and feel my Father’s regret and fear and his inability to act, as though it was myself in his place. And then something inside me broke, like an explosion of force, and suddenly I was running out of the Resonance Chamber.
“I ran like a madman through corridors to the shuttle bay, past terrified officers and crew. I saw the first shuttle, took it. . . . Blasted through the tube and was now in the Stream outside. Although still within the safety of the Stream, I could see the fiery churn of the accretion disk plasma, an orange and white
maelstrom, and beyond it the broken space-time reality spirals of the ergosphere. I piloted the shuttle straight along the path of the Fleet array, hurling past other sebasarets, shuttles, cruisers, buoys still in safe formation.
“And as I flew, I sang the Stream sequence. I’d learned it from my Father earlier, he had made sure of it. In seconds my shuttle acquired the correct resonance frequency. It was ready, its hull charged, even before I knew what I was about to do—what I was in fact doing.
“When I reached the decaying edge of the Boundary, there was the Imperator’s shuttle, poised on the brink of no return. . . . I passed it without hesitation, singing the voice sequence, and turned one last time to glance back and see my Father’s ship. As I did so, I also saw a small flock of pegasei, seething in glorious rainbow colors, like an exotic flower blooming strangely among the fiery chaos of the Rim. The pegasei were at the very edge of the Boundary, as though waiting for us—for one of us to act.
“And then the forces of the black hole were upon my poor little ship. They surrounded and swallowed me. I knew in that single infinite second that it was happening, the pull of violent forces, the immense gravity, the horrible pressure, the hull buckling around me and crushing me, and the burning—burning hell—no time to scream, no time—”
“Aeson!” I press myself against him, shaking, and im amrevu puts one arm around me and gently strokes my hair.
“That was it. I died, Gwen. My ship had managed to repair the Stationary Quantum Stream, and the cascade reaction was stopped. But I did not know any of it, did not know anything because I was . . . not.”
He pauses, with a soft shadow of a smile. Shakes his head.
“And then,” he says quietly, “they brought me back.”
Chapter 22
“Aeson! They? They? Who brought you back? Aeson!” I sit up, stare into his eyes wildly.
He takes a deep breath before replying, drawing me closer again, placing his hands over my shoulders in a calming protective hold. “They tell me, Gwen, it was a miracle, a lucky fluke. At the last moment, my partly-crushed, burning wreck of a shuttle somehow got pulled back inside the new Stationary Quantum Stream boundary that I myself had established moments ago. Somehow, it took a ride on a massive plasma surge backlash, a secondary aftershock gravity wave. At least, such is the official explanation.”
He pauses, as I continue staring at him in terrible distress. “However—according to the various damage reports and incident surveillance recordings, taken from different vantage points, different nearby ships—it is a fact that there was a pegasei energy fluctuation recorded at the same time. In that same exact moment, a flock completely engulfed the shuttle, and even appeared to accompany it just as the shuttle rebounded back into the SQS safe zone. Then, the flock dissipated, as quickly as our instruments could register. It was almost as if they hadn’t even been there. And neither was the shockwave.”
“Oh, God, Aeson. . . .” I say hoarsely, finding my voice breaking. “The pegasei . . . it was the pegasei, they acted to save you! But, what of—you? What of the shuttle and you inside it?”
He nods. “I was dead. They—the Fleet personnel—towed the shuttle back inside the closest large vessel, and then dismantled the crushed wreck in the shuttle bay and pulled out my mangled body—”
I make an involuntary horrible sound, putting my hands over my mouth.
“You know how we have extremely advanced medical tech,” he says, as his strong fingers run up and down my arms. “But even the best Atlantean med-tech has its limits—which, again, you sadly know. Yes, on my Father’s desperate orders, my burned remains were placed inside a stasis chamber and rushed to the most advanced medical restoration unit on board the ship. And they worked on me, for nearly four days, non-stop, taking me out of stasis and putting me back in, over and over, in multiple stages of micro-procedures affecting different body layers, while the Fleet hurried back home.
“I underwent ninety-three hours of surgical procedures, according to the records—while the Imperator himself stood vigil in the room next to the special chamber where they worked on my body, or raved in private grief in his own quarters—this, according to officers who witnessed moments of it, and I was to learn about it later. But—I was dead, Gwen. They restored my body, remarkably well. Tissues, organs, nervous system . . . all grew back. But none of it was functional. I remained a corpse—not even what you would call ‘brain-dead’ in a coma, but genuinely dead on a cellular level. My general condition was beyond repair, and toward the latter part of their endless attempts I was placed back in stasis and left there, to be preserved for an honorable state funeral back on Poseidon.”
“Oh, no, no, no . . . oh God. . . .”
Aeson inhales, then lets out a deep shuddering breath. “It took us just under seven weeks to return, at top speed. We were back on Atlantis and I was rushed to Poseidon, taken out of stasis to prepare me for the final after-death process. And then, impossibly, I woke up on the working table slab, surrounded by frightened and confused funeral techs.”
“How?” I whisper.
“They said that suddenly my body was flooded by an energy field of swirling colors, precisely like pegasei energy. My flesh appeared to be radiating light from the inside. It pulsed with radiance, seven heartbeats in duration, and then it was gone. The next moment my heart had restarted. I had a pulse, my circulation was restored, and I was breathing on my own, but still unconscious. Soon, all normal electrical impulses were showing up on scans, to indicate living brain activity. Finally, an hour later, I was conscious.”
Suddenly he chuckles. “I remember waking up, with a snap, as if out of a deep, abysmal sleep—no nightmare, only an instantaneous transition from burning hell to soothing peace and sterile silence and beeping medical equipment. . . . My Father’s face staring down at me, my Mother’s gentle weeping, as she stood next to him, holding my cold fingers.”
“It must’ve been unbelievable!” I whisper, my own cheeks wet, crying for him. “I cannot even begin to imagine what you felt—”
“Actually, I felt well,” he says. “No pain, no discomfort from my restored body. I was more confused by the jarring shock of memories restarting, events being completely interrupted and wiped, then consciousness skipping realities, from there to here. I admit, it was very weird . . . to clearly remember the horrible dying, then nothing, and then life simply continuing, with me emerging elsewhere.” He pauses. “It was as if, Gwen, as if I’d gone through a black hole and came out on the other side. I suppose, if death is such a thing, then I had.”
“Do you think—and please forgive me if this disturbs or pains you to answer—were you truly gone elsewhere during that time you were physically dead?” I ask, choosing my words with care.
Where did you go? I hold back the blunt question. All that time that you were dead, where did you—or your soul, or spirit, or consciousness—go?
“I don’t know,” Aeson says thoughtfully. “That part—being dead—I don’t properly remember. Or, better to say, I don’t trust my own recollection of anything between death and coming back. . . . I doubt the accuracy of my adjacent memories. As for those who witnessed my condition—the whole incident is still treated as a questionable impossibility, with no good explanation. Pegasei saviors? A lucky medical anomaly? No one knows.”
Oh, how badly I want to tell him, in that moment, about the sentient beings whose secret I now bear. But, no . . . I promised Arion to keep silent.
Exercising my willpower, I hold back the overwhelming impulse to reveal everything. Instead I watch Aeson gently as he continues his remarkable story.
“And so, I was awake, and my parents were overjoyed to have me alive, and somewhat in awe, I suppose. Though, of course my Father quickly stifled his positive feelings toward me and started to berate my ‘foolish heroics’ while I was still groggy, in the first half-hour of my return to consciousness. My poor Mother begged him to be gentle toward me, and he relented somewhat.”
Aeson p
auses, breathing deeply, then exhaling with a shudder. “And no, not once did he mention what really took place at Ae-Leiterra. He never admitted what happened in that critical moment when he hesitated to act—never mentioned his own failing in his Imperial duty to forge ahead. And by the way in which he chided me for risking myself, it was apparent that no one else knew about his moment of weakness and cowardice. Instead, the Imperator made it sound as though I was the young fool who plunged forward recklessly and got ahead of him on purpose. He claimed that I rushed past him and overtook his shuttle without permission, and got there first in order to lay claim to saving the Fleet.”
I shake my head with a surge of anger on his behalf.
“I let him rant of course,” Aeson continues with a rueful smile. “I lay helplessly in recovery, and I forced myself to swallow the injustice and to keep his Imperial weakness a secret—for the moment. And then, remarkably, my Father changed his story mid-stride. Suddenly, according to him, the shuttle’s on-board instruments had malfunctioned, causing it to stall. ‘So, all in all, a good thing you acted the heroic fool,’ the Imperator announced to me in conclusion. And that was the extent of his praise. He never once told me ‘well done,’ or showed me any other appreciation in private.
“In public, it was another matter. The official mission reports now formally recorded the Imperial shuttle ‘malfunction,’ and my quick actions were commended as heroic bravery. I was recommended to receive the black armband for acting to save the Fleet. A few weeks later, there was a grand public spectacle and a ceremony, and I was honored and promoted in Rank, with all the Fleet present. The strange thing is, Gwen, I received the same honor as had my Grandfather, who was also given the black armband posthumously for his similar actions. In fact, my honors were decided even while I still lay dead and no one expected me to return to life.”
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