Enemy (50 page)

     YOU HAVE SEALED OUR VIC—

     It happened.

     Mara shuddered from the exertion.

     Within the battle chamber, Sapphire was enveloped by the swirling winds of the Whenstream, now contorted into a visual cacophony as the remnants of her fleet struggled to get to a safe distance, tearing across the timesweep waves at impossible speeds.

     “How many?”

     (seventeen golgotha. two mecca. three gethsemane. one ladahk. one london. one eden. two galilee.)

     “And a partridge in a pear tree.”

     (enemy forces detected in pursuit vector.)

     (they’ve locked on to our pattern position and follow us.)

     “Didn’t Reynald—

     It happened.

     So, so many Judas lay in the void, disabled.

     When Reynald gave the order, they followed it.

     Almost four hundred Judas inverted their Shadows at once, uploading the reformat virus into the Whenstream.

     Cataclysm was an understatement.

     To open up a Shadow in the Stream was an accepted tactic of the Judas, using a black hole that was the Shadow to open a phase space portal into the Stream.

     But to invert a Shadow in the Stream...

     Of course, it had been done in space battle countless times before. Space battle, not time battle, not Stream battle inside of Program Seven. The Shadow tethered the Judas vessels to the main program.

     To invert the Shadow code was in essence to sever all tethers, which forced the program to reformat to a new phase level, a physical phase level. To invert meant the end of the virtual program as a new reality was written.

     “Arch, signal the fleet.”

     (-channel open.-)

     “Upload the reformat virus. Invert Shadow drives now.”

     Reynald closed his eyes.

     The effect was immediate.

     Deep within four hundred Judas cores, containment fields were released, and the orbs of light that were the Shadows shattered, imploded, pulling the metal and alloy of the Judas in upon themselves in a fantastic display of fire and silver.

     Reynald felt no pain.

     It did not stop there.

     The Mujahadin and Enemy vessels that were closest were pulled into the massive whirlpool of silver fire where the Judas fleet had just been. They ceased to be before they knew what was happening, leaving contrails of white in their wake.

     The Enemy vessels on the periphery of the battle writhed, struggled to escape the relentless, unremitting pull of the ever-growing sphere of rewritten reality, now a great black globe from which snakes and rivulets of energy pirouetted. Their fate was inevitable. The Enemy forces were dragged in.

     The bubble within the Stream that had been Judas Command began to dissemble, to collapse inward upon itself, upon the Shadow. All of existence began to rewrite itself as the Judas program reformatted to physical space.

     Matter and anti-matter. Existence and non-existence.

     Indeed, cataclysm was an understatement.

     The bubble of nothingness shrunk, fell upon the Shadow at an maniacal speed.

     The explosion was beyond painfully bright, beyond even the human visual range, as time shattered, as the Stream itself was splintered into infinite shards of phase space that ceased to exist.

     This rabid wave of destruction swept outward, outward, consuming all of phase space in its path, tearing the Stream apart in its wake, in its sheer, innate, unimaginable force.

     An eternity of futures were no more. There was only one: a black, blank, empty world of void.

     And still the Stream collapsed further, further.

     Time was falling apart. The Judas program was rewriting existence.

     Time was dying.

     “Didn’t Reynald—

     And the Stream behind them became light like none before seen as the bubble collapsed, exploded outward in a fury that simply had never known existence.

     The Enemy fleet following them was torn apart.

     The remnants of the Judas fleet, ignoring the dangers of their actions, went to maximum speed, feeling the agony of the burn, trying to distance themselves from the death that swept down upon them. Several of the slower, older vessels were torn to detritus as they fell behind. The forms of the Judas seemed to stretch, stretch as their speed overcame that of light.

     The fleet vanished, travelling too fast to see.

     They had outrun the wave of reality, but still it swept along its relentless course.

     It would inevitably outpace them.

     They raced into the past.

     “Ready, Simon?”

     ((always, michael.))

     “Then let the sons of bitches bring it on.”

     The damned drew closer.

     Malachi.

     He followed the Enemy, cruising directly behind the fleet. They were eager, whatever they were doing.

     Then...

     A noise, faint. A rhythmic tone. He struggled to hear.

     It was a Judas frequency. A beacon. A homing beacon.

     Shiva?

     He listened closer. The beacon was so faint... Had it been damaged somehow? Was Shiva somewhere out there, floating helplessly?

     Realization.

     Like vultures to a corpse, the Enemy flew...

     Malachi made his presence known.

     Zero-Four calmly studied the Black forms racing at him, and he thrust his arms into the interface gauntlets. He became one with Simon.

     Before he could fire, his world became light.

     From behind the nightmare armada, a brilliant wall of luminescence appeared, ripping apart the Enemy in its path, thrusting the remaining Black into stark contrast before dispatching them to the unknown. The wall of light cut through the Enemy ranks cleanly, efficiently, leaving large pieces of the flaming vessels to spiral into the void.

     Malachi.

     Zero-Four tensed his grip on the gauntlets.

     ANOTHER JUDAS HAS APPEARED.

    
WHAT POWERS OF OBSERVATION YOU HAVE.

     OUR FORCES HAVE BEEN NEUTRALIZED. SHALL WE SEND FOR A LARGER STRIKE TEAM((?))

    
AGAINST THAT JUDAS IT WOULD BE FUTILE.

     WE CANNOT LET IT INTERFERE.

    
SOON IT WILL NOT MATTER. SOON THEIR HIVE PATTERN WILL BE CONSUMED IN OUR HOLY FIRE AND THE PURPOSE WILL BE OURS.

     INDEED. OUR VICTORY—

     ...—-...

     agony. innate agony.

     WHAT WAS THAT((??))

    
FROM UPWHEN—OUR FORCES...

     NO THAT CANNOT BE. VICTORY—

    
THEY DID NOT SUCCEED IF WE HEAR THEIR DEATH WAILS FROM THE STREAM.

     WE DO NOT KNOW.    

    
SILENCE((!)) THE STRIKE FORCE WAS SOMEHOW DISPATCHED. NOW WE MUST ACT BEFORE WE SUFFER THE FULL BRUNT OF THE JUDAS FORCE.

     WHAT... WHAT DO YOU MEAN((?))

    
WE HAVE ENOUGH PATTERNS TO COMPLETE THE PURPOSE NOW. THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN UPLOADED ARE UNWORTHY OF OMEGA. WE CAN ELUDE THE JUDAS VIRUS AND SET A PURPOSE POINT VECTOR IF WE ACT IMMEDIATELY.

     WHAT COWARDICE((!)) YOU FEAR THE JUDAS((?)) WE MUST DESTROY THEM BEFORE—

     a flash of brilliance. a dying scream.

    
I FEAR NOTHING. WE LEAVE AT ONCE.

     it stares into its dead compatriot.

    
I FEAR NOTHING. THE PURPOSE COMES FIRST. THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.

     the black closes

     {simon... where’s shiva...?}

     The two Judas faced each other, engaged in an unconscious dance of dominance like two scorpions, circling, poised to strike.

     ((...))

     {simon. where is shiva?}

     ((he’s burning in hell, as you will.))

     {what?}

     ((you’ve betrayed us all, malachi. an enemy strike force traveled upwhen. you let them slip through your fingers. they killed shiva, and then they killed command.))

     {no—how? Kilbourne—}

     ((kilbourne is dead! they destroyed command!))

     {you lie. you are a traitor.}

     The galaxy seemed to explode, bathed in harsh radiance.

     ((the star. they’ve collapsed the star. the purpose—))

     A Judas fleet fell through the dying star. Fifteen Golgotha. One Gethsemane. One Mecca.

     Sapphire’s fleet.

     ((who’s that?))

     Mara had been resolutely flying at max speed down the Stream, trying to put more distance between herself and the crumbling universes behind her.

     Several other Judas had succumbed already, simply too drained to go on. They had fallen behind and paid the price in the horribly small white explosions of their deaths.

     Without warning, a When hole emerged directly in front of the fleet where none had existed before, and before they could react, they were all thrust into an unknown When.

     Into the midst of an Enemy fleet.

     Sapphire screamed.

    
IGNORE THEM((!))

     REROUTE FORCES AROUND VIRAL FLEET. THE PURPOSE IS WHAT MATTERS NOW. DO NOT WASTE ENERGY ON DESTROYING THEM((!))

     INTO THE STREAM, NOW((!))