Enemy (51 page)

     The Enemy fleet, like a school of stingrays without substance, so beautiful and fluid in form, deftly avoided Sapphire’s armada and plunged past them into the open When hole.

     The Judas were disoriented, wary of the situation.

     And from nowhere, a Mujahadin appeared.

     Sapphire jumped. “Open fire. Open fire!”

     Simon saw the window of opportunity.

     Malachi’s attention was focused on the incoming Judas.

     Simon opened fire as he distanced himself from the Mujahadin. He had no idea what fleet that was, but it was predominantly Golgotha, and that was a good sign. They were moving to intercept.

     Malachi reeled from the barrage. His weapons ports flared and he targeted Simon, but his shot went wide as a strategically placed arc of light lanced through his hub. The mechanical sentience that had been Malachi flared from existence. He was no more.

     ((burn in hell, malachi.))

     Simon powered down with great relief. These Golgotha were allies, then. Maybe all hope was not lost.

     The shell that had been the Judas Mujahadin Malachi spun from the force of its violent death. It was ensnared by the gravity well of the third planet and pulled down, intimately close. His body careened over countless barren miles, scorched earth left in the wake of the Enemy scourge. But this was yet a young planet, and if given the chance, it would live again. The Enemy harvest had eliminated the primitive reptilian lifeforms of the planet, but life would flourish once more. Malachi’s body crashed to earth in a volcanic valley, shattering the planet surface with its massive form, finally coming to rest in a vast pool of magma. His structure easily withstood the temperature as he was immersed in the molten rock. Down, down, down he sank, never to see the light of day again...

     ...At least until sixty-five million years later when the Diablo Mining Company, facing bankruptcy, drilled a new shaft deeper than ever before, searching for copper, finding only an impenetrable metal wall, and the military would quickly move in, sealing off the area, sending down investigative teams who would eventually enter this vessel in the earth and find within it an orb of stars...

     Oh well. That’s another story.

     Simon was filled with relief.

     ((identify yourself, golgotha fleet commander.))

     She did.

     “It’s just a little girl.”

     Jennings, West and Patra were on the bridge, staring raptly at the holograph projected before them. Patra had arisen from her slumber unaffected, yet distant. Zero-Four descended from the battle chamber, stood transfixed at the image.

     She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, a frail, gaunt figure just now becoming a woman. Yet her eyes betrayed her true age. Her haunting silver eyes were the ancient eyes of someone who has seen too much, lived too much, hurt too much for someone her age.

     Her light brown hair fell into her eyes, and she swept it back in a reflex gesture. Patra noticed with some trepidation that the hair was not entirely brown… Some disturbingly silver strands highlighted it throughout. And her face shimmered not only with the perspiration of her exhaustion but also with the inhuman sheen of the countless infinitesimal strands of silver interwoven with her flesh. She shook with exhaustion and pressure.

     “Judas Golgotha Mara Commander West, Sapphire.”

     West spun around to find Patra gazing quietly at him. He looked back at Zero-Four questioningly, but Zero-Four motioned for silence. West turned back to the image.

     Jennings was mesmerized. “Can she really be the commander of one of these,” he motioned to the vessel around him, “and be so young? She looks so... so tired.”

     Zero-Four tilted his head in an almost tender gesture. “Sapphire West. Made commander at age fourteen. Led the Altwhen Containment Forces. A hero.” There was an air of sad reverence about Zero-Four as he looked at the wasted figure before him on the screen. He whispered, almost to himself, “Children fighting wars of time. Children.”

     Patra’s head looked up to meet the gaze of the young woman projected ghost-like before her.

     Silver eyes...

     The warrior child.

     My god. The warrior child.

     She buried the thought deep, deep in her mind.

     On the screen, the girl turned from Patra and spoke again. “And you are Judas Golgotha...” She hesitated.

     ((simon. judas golgotha simon.))

     “Simon? I thought you were a Gethsemane. Reynald told me—”

     ((reynald? is he with you? is he safe?))

     Her eyes were cast downward, and Zero-Four noted how tears stood on the verge of running down her cheeks. “He’s dead.”

     ((oh. i... he... he was—))

     “—Maggie’s captain. He was a good man, and he gave his life for the Judas. He—…” Her voice trailed off, and Zero-Four knew from her concentration that she was communicating with her Judas, Mara.

     She snapped herself out of her reverie, signaled by the silent communication with Mara. Her face became panic. “We have to get out of here now. The wave’s getting close—”

     “What wave?” Zero-Four broke in. “The timesweep waves coming from upwhen?”

     “The Stream—It—.” Sapphire didn’t know where to begin. “To destroy the Enemy fleets and the Mujahadin, Reynald and the others inverted their Shadows in the Stream—”       “Sweet Richter… They released the reformat virus? What effect—” 

     “The Stream’s been splintered. It’s falling apart, tearing from existence from the future to the past, rewriting the program with an empty reality. It’s drawing near.” The look of desperation on her face was enough to convince Zero-Four. “We need to leave now!”

     “Simon, prepare to enter the Stream on a Purpose-point vector. Maximum speed.”

     ((yes, michael.))

     “Sapphire, is your fleet ready?”

     “As ready as it’ll ever be.”

     “Then let’s go.”

     They left the When, abandoning Malachi’s body to whatever fate would have it.

    
ANY SIGN OF THE VIRUS((?))

     NONE YET... BUT THEY WILL COME. THEY ALWAYS DO. THEY WILL NEVER BOW DOWN TO US.

    
READY PATTERN LOAD PLACEMENT FOR FINAL COUNTDOWN INITIATION. THIS TIME THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED, AND ONLY WE, THE HOLY, SHALL REMAIN. ONLY THE VISION OF OMEGA WILL REMAIN.

     ENERGY LOAD IN PLACE.

    
RELEASE CONTAINMENT SEALS.

     SEALS RELEASED. PATTERN LOAD INFUSED.

    
ASCENTION AWAITS US. OMEGA WILL BE COMPLETED.

     Zero-Four stood on the bridge watching the Stream swirl by in a nightmare cacophony. He was lost in his thoughts.

     “Michael?”

     Zero-Four knew they would come back, knew the question before they asked it. Zero-Four turned reluctantly, looked at these innocent people, dreaded what he must tell them.

     “She’s your daughter.” He whispered, barely audible.

     West held Patra close. He shook his head, uncomprehending. “How’s that possible? How could—”

     “Time is a cycle.” Zero-Four sat, hunched forward, his hands limply hanging between his knees, the gauntlet interfaces so painfully visible. He looked old. Wasted. “Time’s a cycle, and it’s our curse. We float through it in so many ways.”

     “This isn’t the end.” Patra spoke gravely, knowingly. “This war’s only just begun for us.”

     Zero-Four looked at her, a sad smile on his face. He slowly nodded. “It’s just begun.” He looked back at the floor.

     “I couldn’t tell you before. You weren’t ready. I wasn’t ready, but time’s running out.”

     “Tell us.”

     Zero-Four sighed, the sigh of ages spent fighting the war between times.

     “I knew at some point in this war, I’d have to find someone… That I’d meet someone who’d be right for the mission.”

     “What mission?”

     Zero-Four laughed quietly to himself, his smile breaking Patra’s heart.

     “This isn’t a mission from Command. This is a decision that I had to make by myself. They never wanted to complete the task, but I now know that it’s the only way.”

     West sat down next to Zero-Four. “Michael, you want us to do something for you. Just tell us.”

     Zero-Four turned to West and looked into his eyes. Yes, he’s the one.

     West shook his head. “We’ve never met before you rescued us.”

     Zero-Four nodded. “Yes, we have. We met an eternity into the future, on a world that was falling apart. On a world that the Enemy was uploading. There was only room for the children, and you placed your twin daughters on the escape vessel. You gave us your daughters so that they could survive, and you remained behind to die in the Enemy upload.”

     West’s face was blank. “We have to leave, don’t we?”

     “I have to send you into the future.”

     “But why?”

     Zero-Four lips quivered barely noticeably before he spoke, but Patra saw and understood before he uttered the words. “You have to kill me before I can build the machine.”

     West’s face remained cold and blank. “You’re sending us to kill you.”

     “As a child. Before there’s any chance of me even thinking of the machine. You have to kill me before I can destroy everything again.”

     Jennings shook his head, a frown on his face. “You can’t blame yourself for all of this. There’s no way you could have known that the machines—“

     “That doesn’t matter anymore. The fact is that I built a machine that would attempt to end all of existence. And it may still succeed, unless I can guarantee that I never think of the machine in the first place. The only way to guarantee that’s to make sure I’m not alive.”

     A heavy silence filled the room. The only sound was the non-sound of Simon racing furiously into the past.

     “I first realized what had to be done at the resurrender.”

     “You’ve said that word before.”

     Zero-Four stood, paced slowly around the circular chamber. “The resurrender. We engaged the black around the third planet’s moon, but there were so many… We sent a small force to the planet surface to save as many people as we could. Richter stayed behind to lead the forces battling the Enemy. There were so many.

     “I was on one of the rescue vessels. We loaded as many people as we could, including your twin daughters, onto the Judas. Maggie and Simon were among the rescue Judas that day… If they’d stayed in moon orbit, they would’ve been killed. We left the atmosphere to find a vast field of dead Judas and a waiting armada of Enemy. It was the longest and bloodiest battle we’d fought up to that point.

     “Most of the rescue vehicles were destroyed as soon as they left the atmosphere. The Enemy swept down upon the planet and began the upload. But the battle raged on above the surface. They were about to capture my vessel when Richter distracted them, flew between us. Richter fought like a madman, taking down so many of the damned before they engulfed his vessel, the Lazarus. In the instant before they uploaded him, he called out to me, to all of us. He commanded us to leave, to escape before the Enemy took us all. He gave his life so that we could escape. He commanded us to regroup, to build our forces again, and to attack the Enemy with no mercy at every possible opportunity, to attack them with the last of our strength until we ourselves were no more. He told us never to surrender again.