Enemy (38 page)

     a journey of aeons, the inception of life anew. the mind of machines struggling to find its lost children. the taste of blood and the beginning of the search.

     a populace enslaved, an insane few holding a reign of dementia. an insatiable greed, a society grasping for things best left hidden. a world grossly overpopulated, masses suffocating from centuries of forced supplication.

     a light from beyond eternity and reason, a light ancient yet temporal. a new realm of possibility.

     and from the light came a man like the void between the stars, a man of darkness. a man of reason.

     a division formed. delusions of godhood. some turned to the light, some to the darkness. unrest utter unrest. brother killed brother.

     a planet forsaken, a planet abandoned. a war across time and space. endless vicious shouting killing swarms clawed at each other in the mad conflict. humanity was split and fell to the darkness of jihad.

     they clung to their saviors still, the incomprehensible forces from beyond time that forced humanity apart.

     mad insane delirious HORDES of men and women taking to the space between times, taking to the stars and beyond in a blood frenzy killing all in their path, leaving a scarlet swathe in their wake.

     billions billions billions bowing down to a new god.

     a purpose. a betrayal. a chase.

     an eternal war.

     swarms hordes throngs multitudes masses, screaming, chanting... something...((?))

     and, in the end, a seemingly out-of-place memory:

     a man, jumping into an orb of stars...

     RICHTER.

     West shook with the force of his silent scream.

     Richter.

     The signal was received.

     Shiva woke from his slumber.

     It was time.

     He slowed his pace.

     black

    
IT IS READY((?))

     YES. STRIKE FORCE AWAITS DEPARTURE. OUR PATIENCE NOW BEARS OUR REWARD.

    
PURPOSE BE. PROCEED.

     the Enemy once more set about the hunt.

     Patra.

     She was torn.

     Even floating in this foggy state of uncertainty and unreality, Patra could feel the division within her. She could feel the struggle between the remnants of her humanity and the foreign, incomprehensible force of the Enemy threatening to shred her very soul apart.

     She could do nothing in this dream state.

     What had she become?

     More Enemy than human, more web than flesh, could she honestly trust herself to fight for these people, these Judas? What if the Black within her became overpowering, forced her to succumb to its force?

     She would die before that happened. She pledged.

     And suddenly—

     —
READY((?))

     YES. STRIKE FORCE AWAITS DEPARTURE. OUR PATIENCE NOW BEARS OUR REWARD.

    
PURPOSE BE
—

     —whispers forced their way into her mind. She gasped in the darkness, helpless against the agonizingly intrusive, violating voices.

     The Enemy.

     Patra’s mind raced. It had to be the web within her that allowed her to witness that terrible Voice.

     The Enemy was near.

     Patra tore at the mental bonds that held her motionless body in hibernatory stasis. She had to warn the Judas. Something disastrous was about to happen.

     The Enemy was coming.

     Simon was watching his passengers with mild interest.

     He wished he could dream. Sometimes.

     Simon read the patterns of his four passengers. Strange, he thought… Within the last decem the patterns of the two refugees he had rescued from the Fourteen-seven When had experienced a dramatic increase in emulated heartbeat and respiratory rates and adrenaline levels. Nightmares.

     Can lines of code have nightmares?

     So they were having a touch of stasis shock, maybe a rough transition to their new lives. Worse things than nightmares had happened in this war. Worse things had happened to newly-coded Judas. Simon dismissed the issue and went back to waiting.

     Not long now... Soon, they would emerge from the Stream into a When where chaos held sway.

     External monitors opened, Simon pondered the Stream, the swirls of non-existence, the gunship Shiva—

     ((shiva, what is it?))

     No answer. The gunship had slowed his pace, dropped below Simon. His weapons nacelles began to shimmer as they charged with the power of the Shadow.

     ((shiva—))

     [she was a traitor, simon. that’s why she had to be eliminated. that’s why we killed her.]

     ((what do you—))

     [she was a weak link, simon. just like you.]

     Shiva began to channel the Shadow’s fury.

     [the purpose will be prevented.]

     He fired.

     Hell became reality.

     The Enemy tore into the Stream.                          

     so slow

     a swirl of events

     so this is how it will end for me

     a reflex

     fading

     Patra felt the Enemy rip into the Stream, heard infinite voices screaming, commanding, weeping. She sensed the bliss of impending bloodshed.

     Helpless, she cried out in horror as the Enemy killed Shiva in a fit of ecstasy.

     Helpless.

     Simon.

     Time became fluid.

     Shiva fired.

     So this is how it will end for me, Simon thought.

     He braced himself for the end and

     —BLACK BLACK BLACK IMPOSSIBLE BLACK SO SO MANY—

     suddenly the Enemy strike force was upon them, emerging from the past, killing, thrashing, diving.

     The deadly arc of light intended for Simon emanating from Shiva was cut off as an Enemy flew directly between them. The Enemy shattered, and Simon reflexively shifted as the debris tore through the Stream. A great black and silver shard severed the tether that held Simon within the Stream, and he shifted into an unknown When with a violence that threatened to tear him apart. Shiva spun around, confused, as the Enemy fleet bore down upon him.

     Completely caught off guard, Shiva was dazed.

     This isn’t supposed to happen. The Purpose must be prevented.

     He bore the brunt of the attack. He paid for it.

     As the Enemy emerged from the past they flew at full speed directly at the unsuspecting Judas. The collision was spectacular as the colossal mass of an Enemy vessel slammed with incomprehensible force into the main cockpit hub of Shiva, shattering the center of the vessel, severing the weapons nacelles, leaving them to spiral off in opposite directions.

     Shiva was silenced forever.

     The Enemy vessel, destroyed by the collision with Shiva, was carried by the momentum of the impact into the path of several other Black, which tried to avoid the fiery debris but were ensnarled in it.

     The rest of the armada deftly avoided a pileup in the wreckage and swept ominously onward through the ancient pasts.

     Upward through time. Upward to Command.

     Oh god. Oh dear god.

     With no bioneural flux to focus the Shadow, severed from his pattern tether, Simon faded from the Stream with force enough to overload his mechanicals. Locked up from the reflex of the emergency Shadow break, Simon drifted dazed in an unknown When, an unknown time in an unknown space with unknown stars coldly dotting the stark night sky.

     They had been so close... Was this the correct When? Simon could only hope. With the last of his energy, he activated his homing beacon. If Malachi were near, he would detect Simon’s call. And then—

     No.

     So dark...

     Must warn them.

     So very dark…

     Michael!…

     He fell into the void. Darkness became him.

     Arik Mandela felt the vessel shudder, heard the emergency sirens roar to life, knew something was tragically wrong even before his pattern was completely downloaded. The hypoderm arm of the stasis chamber pumped his newly-formed body full of stasis-release chemicals and adrenaline. The chamber covers slid open and he found himself thrust into a frigid world of noise and confusion. All around him in the massive room other men and women also looked around, dazed. He had to assess the situation.

     A ripple of timesweep washed through his image, for a moment obscuring Mandela in a haze of static. That can’t be good.

     “Shiva? This is Mandela. What’s going on?”

     ...

     “Shiva, report.”

     silence.

     “Bloody hell.”

     He calmly arose from the recess of the chamber, grabbed a handhold as his momentum struggled to pull him into the core of the spherical room. He could sense the vessel move beneath him in a seemingly random pattern. He had to assume that Shiva had been neutralized. Something terrible had happened.

     He shifted his mind and close-combat phase armor materialized around him. “Suit up, people. Let’s handle this by the books.”

     Mandela used his suit’s grav shifters to swim to the door of the stasis chamber. He spun to face his troops.

     “Alpha squad. We have to get to the hub to assess the situation. Shiva’s com lines are down, so he doesn’t answer. It appears we’ve lost nav. Now this could just be a simple malfunction, but we can’t take any chances. We’ll secure the hub first and go from there.”

     He reached out with his mind and the chamber door activated.

     The corridor was dark, with only the emergency lights online. The group swept outwards, using the grav shifters to help them traverse the blackened terrain of the gunship nacelle. Within a few minutes they were at the pivot point door to the hub.