They had gone to another beacon. Fools. What dangers lurked out there? Did they know? Care?
Dorian walked to the communications bay and activated the logs. He would have their location in minutes. He hoped he could stop them in time.
CHAPTER 26
To Milo, the new beacon was yet another miracle. And he had brought the team here, led the way. Instinctively, he knew that action had been his purpose all along. He felt that if he hadn’t stepped through the portal at that exact second, something terrible would have happened. Perhaps he would never know. As he turned to his companions, he sensed something was wrong.
This beacon was different. David knew it instantly. The station that shrouded Earth was a science beacon—the floors pearl white, walls matte gray, it’s every feature minimal and clinical.
This beacon felt more militaristic, dark and rugged, with black floors and walls. It seemed ancient and used, almost decrepit. Where a wide picture window lay opposite the portal door in the last beacon, a relatively small, industrial window looked out onto the black of space, where a few stars twinkled, but nothing remarkable caught his eye.
David raised his gun and began searching the space, Sonja following close behind him, covering his back.
The layout was similar to the last beacon: a saucer with the portal in the center. However, it had a staircase with two levels. There were more rooms and more equipment here. And it was empty.
David could feel a slight motion. Was this beacon rotating?
He returned to the portal, where Paul and Mary had joined them.
David gripped Milo’s shoulders. “Never do that again.”
“It had to be me.”
“What?”
“I’m the most disposable,” Milo said with a nod.
“You’re not disposable.”
“I’m not a scientist or a soldier. I—”
“You’re a kid.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You will be the last to go through from now on.”
“Why?”
“Because,” David said, shaking his head. “You’ll… understand when you’re an adult.” The words were a surreal moment for him: saying something his parents had said to him countless times, him always thinking it was a lame cop-out.
“I want to understand it now,” Milo said.
“You’re the last one of us we’d ever put in danger.”
“Why?”
David exhaled and shook his head. “We’ll talk about it later. Just… go to your room for now, Milo.” David silently groaned at his own words. He saw Kate fighting a smile as Milo traipsed away toward the residential pods.
David nodded to Sonja, who began setting up to guard the portal.
He put his arm around Kate, leading her to a bedroom.
“Teenagers,” she said when the door closed.
“I’m not happy with you either,” he said. “You opened the door for him.”
“I had no idea he would go through.”
“First things first: can Sloane follow us here?”
“Yes. But he’s going to have a hard time finding us.”
“How hard?”
“Like one in a thousand.” Kate paused. “Unless he’s really, really smart.”
David didn’t like the sound of that. He hated Dorian Sloane. David had dedicated a large part of his life to finding and punishing Sloane, but he wouldn’t lie about his enemy: he was smart.
“Then that’s a problem.”
The door opened, and Paul stuck his head in, cringing as he spoke. “I’m really, really sorry, but you two need to see this.”
Kate and David followed him back to the portal area, where the others stood, their backs to them, staring through the small window.
David realized that this beacon was in fact rotating. Through the window, the empty view of space had been replaced.
A sun burned brightly in the center of the scene, but it was the flat expanse of debris that stretched from the beacon almost to the burning star that took David’s breath away. Remnants of star ships, thousands, maybe millions of pieces spread out. David thought if a hundred Earths were destroyed in the space, that it still wouldn’t have filled the area that all the shattered vessels did. The floating wreckage was mostly black or gray, but here and there, a speck of white, yellow, or blue dotted the plane. Pieces of debris collided with each other, arcs of blue and white light reaching across like lightning bolts connecting them for a fraction of a second. Taken in whole, the glistening dark debris field looked like an asphalt road in space that led to the sun.
Where the others had stood in awe of the view of Earth from the last beacon, it was David’s turn. For a soldier and a historian, the view was a transcendental moment.
He felt some part of himself let go. Maybe it was the scope of it, the realization of how tiny a speck the human race was in the vastness of the universe, or perhaps it was seeing proof that there was a force this powerful in the universe, powerful enough to destroy worlds. Whatever the cause, something changed for him in that moment.
Kate had been right.
They couldn’t hide. Or bide their time.
Their odds of survival were long.
They would have to take chances now. It was their only hope.
CHAPTER 27
Dorian wanted to shoot the beacon’s computer. And Kate Warner. During the few minutes the portal had been disconnected from the Alpha Lander, she had connected to a thousand other beacons. The entries were all grouped in the same time interval, preventing Dorian from discerning how long the portal had connected to each beacon. She could have connected to 999 beacons in the first second and used the remaining time to access their true destination. They could be at any one of a thousand locations in the entry.
He paced the room. How could he find them? What did he have to work with? He had checked: there was no video surveillance. Porting to another beacon was a risky move. That David and Kate had taken the leap surprised even Dorian.
How did they even choose which location? Randomly? Surely not. Did she know something? She had to—but what? What did she have to work with? Kate had the memories of one of the Atlantean scientists. Was that her clue; did she remember something that could help them? An ally? The idea struck a chord of doubt in Dorian. If they knew more than he did…
He manipulated the computer quickly. Yes. The beacon had a backup of the resurrection memories. There were three entries: those of Janus, his partner, which was identified as being deleted, and… Ares.
Dorian queried the computer, asking, Can I see the resurrection memories?
You may only access your own memories, General Ares.
The beacon recognized him as Ares. He queried the computer again. How can I view them?
A small door at the side of the room opened.
The conference booth can be configured as a resurrection memory simulator.
Dorian stepped into the square room. The walls and floor glowed brightly, making the box seem as though it were built out of light and virtually limitless in size. He blinked, and it was gone, replaced by a place much like a train station. A large board hung above, blank.
“Identify memory date,” a computerized voice boomed.
Memory date, Dorian thought. Where to start? He truly had no idea. After a moment, he said, “Show me Ares’ most painful memory.”
The train station disappeared, and Dorian saw his reflection in curved glass—but it wasn’t his face, it was Ares’ face. It looked almost the same as it had in Antarctica, though the features were different somehow. Not as hardened.
At first, Dorian thought he was in yet another tube, but it was too large. He looked around. A lift. The rest of the reflection revealed his attire: a blue uniform with a rank insignia on the left chest.
As the seconds ticked by and the lift rose, Dorian felt his own thoughts and presence fade. It was only Ares standing in the lift now; Dorian was simply watching, experiencing them as they came. In this memory, he
was Ares.
The lift trembled, and then shook violently, slamming Ares into the back wall. Words and sounds whirled around him, and he fought to stay conscious.
The blurred visions and slurred noise coalesced, and a man was shouting in his ear. “Commander, they’ve caught us. Permission to port to the main fleet?”
Ares pushed up as the lift doors slid open, and the ship shuddered again. He stood on a bridge where a curved viewscreen covered the far wall. Around the room, a dozen uniformed Atlanteans were shouting and pointing at terminals.
On the screen, four large ships were fleeing hundreds of round, dark objects, which were gaining on them, shooting at them. The dark spheres converged on the tail ship, crashing through it in a ball of yellow light and blue pops.
“Port to the main fleet, sir?”
“Negative!” Ares yelled. “Deploy life rafts. Space them out.”
“Sir?”
“Do it! When we’ve cleared the rafts, order the auxiliaries to eject their gravity mines and all ships to release their asteroid charges.”
On the screen, a thousand little discs slipped out of the remaining ships in the fleet, a tiny few connecting with the round balls that swarmed the ships. The explosions ripped the spheres apart, but there were too many of them.
We die protecting our fleet, Ares thought as the screen filled with light and searing heat ripped the vessel open and pressed into him.
He opened his eyes. He stood in a small rectangular vessel with a single window that looked out on a surging wave of light—the remnants of the battle he had just fought.
He was on one of the life rafts—his emergency evac tag had ported him to the raft, along with nine others: the first officer from his own bridge and the captains and first officers of the other vessels in his sub-fleet. They were all standing, recessed into their medical pods. A few heads poked out, taking stock.
The wave reached them, and the flash of heat, pain, and bone-rattling force blew through Ares again.
He opened his eyes. Another life raft. The wave was farther away. The evac tag had ported them to the next raft when the wave had destroyed the last. Ares didn’t bother cowering as the wave rushed forward. He watched, waited, bracing himself. The force, heat, and pain washed over him again, and he stood in the third life raft. In the fifth raft, he started dreading the wave.
At the tenth, he could no longer open his eyes. Time seemed to disappear. There was only the oscillating wave of agony and nothingness. Then the ship shook, but the heat and pain never came. He opened his eyes. The raft was twirling in space. It rotated, and he saw the gravity wave, no longer nearly as strong, rolling away, curving the tiny dots of light that were distant stars.
Ares closed his eyes. He wondered if the life raft would initiate a medical coma or simply let him die. He didn’t know which he preferred. He wasn’t sure what followed after that, but he experienced only nothingness, an abyss of time without feeling or thought.
Metal creaked as the raft doors opened wide. Air rushed in, and light crashed down on him, hurting his eyes.
He was inside a ship, in a large cargo bay. Dozens of officers stood around, gawking. White and blue clothed medical staff rushed onto the raft’s platform, nodding to him expectantly.
He pushed out of the recessed medical pod and stepped out. His legs wobbled, and he tried with all his might to stand as he sank to the floor. He felt himself wrap his arms around his shins, curling into a ball as he fell onto his side. The med techs lifted him onto a gurney and moved him away from the raft. The other nine officers remained in their alcoves, their eyes closed. “Why aren’t you extracting my officers?”
The tech pressed a device to his neck, and he was unconscious.
CHAPTER 28
When Ares’ memory had ended, Dorian found himself back in the shimmering room of white light inside the beacon that orbited Earth. Like Ares had been, he was curled into a ball on the floor, his body shaking. Blood ran from his nose, and nausea washed over him. His heartbeat accelerated and more blood flowed from his nose, as though his own fear would pump every last drop of blood out of his body.
He fought to stay conscious. What had the memory done to him? For weeks, Dorian had seen Ares’ memories. During the Atlantis Plague, he had seen Ares’ attack on the Alpha Lander as well as events that had shaped human evolution for the last thirteen thousand years. He knew Ares had revealed those memories to him, allowed him to see what he needed to see in order to rescue Ares.
In the weeks that had followed, the nose bleeds and night sweats had started. He awoke frequently from nightmares that faded instantly.
Dorian wondered if reliving these memories would kill him. And he wondered what choice he had. He had to know the full truth of Ares’ past, and he desperately wanted to see these repressed memories that had driven his own life, the monster in his subconscious.
He glanced around. The room seemed to have no beginning or end; Dorian couldn’t remember where the door was, but that didn’t matter: he had no intention of leaving.
One thing about the memory was certain: there was an enemy out there. Ares hadn’t lied about that.
Something didn’t add up though. In the memory, Dorian had the distinct impression that Ares wasn’t a soldier, at least not at that time. The battle with the hundreds of spheres had seemed improvised: asteroid charges, gravity mines—they sounded like tools of exploration, not weapons. The crews and ships hadn’t been prepared or made for battle.
Dorian used the voice commands to reactivate the resurrection memory simulation. At the simulated train station, he loaded the next memory, beginning where the last had left off.
Ares opened his eyes. He lay in a bed in an infirmary room.
A middle-aged doctor rose from a chair in the corner and walked to him. “How do you feel?”
“My staff?”
“We’re working on them.”
“Status?” Ares asked.
“Uncertain.”
“Tell me,” Ares commanded.
“Each of them is in a coma. Physiologically, they’re fine. They should wake up, but none of them will.”
“Why did I wake up?”
“We don’t know. Our working theory is that your threshold for psychological pain, your mental endurance is higher.”
Ares stared at the white sheet covering him.
“How do you feel?”
“Stop asking me that. I want to see my wife.”
The doctor averted his eyes.
“What?”
“The fleet council needs to debrief you—”
“I’ll see my wife first.”
The doctor edged to the door. “The guards will escort you. I’m here if you need me.”
Ares stepped out of the bed cautiously, wondering if his limbs would fail him, but they were stable this time.
The table held a folded standard service uniform. He wondered where his expeditionary fleet uniform was, with his rank and insignia. He unfolded the flimsy garment and reluctantly slipped it on.
Outside, the guards led him to an auditorium. A dozen admirals sat at a raised table at the center, just off the stage, and two hundred more citizens, wearing a variety of uniforms and insignia, filled every seat behind them. An admiral Ares didn’t recognize instructed him to provide a full mission report.
“My name is Targen Ares, officer of the line, Seventh Expeditionary Fleet. Current commission…” An image of his destroyed fleet flashed through his mind. “My most recent commission was Captain of the Helios and sub-fleet commander of the Seventh Expeditionary Fleet’s Sigma group. Our mission was to collect one of the spheres currently referred to as sentinels.”
“And you were successful?”
“Yes.”
“We’d like to reconcile your report with the ship’s logs and telemetry we recovered from the life raft.”
Behind Ares, the giant screen transformed from black to a view of Ares on the bridge of his destroyed ship. The screen showed a single
sphere, floating alone.
The video showed his four ships following the sphere, then it following them.
“How did you lure it away from the sentinel line?”
“We studied the line for weeks. Our survey spanned eighty light years and confirmed the working theory that the sentinel network completely surrounds a large swath of our galaxy. The spheres are evenly spaced, like a spider web, but they’re moving, collapsing in on us. It’s not an immediate threat, but if the rate of movement holds, in the distant future, about a hundred thousand years, the sentinels will reach our solar system.”
Murmurs went up around the room.
“How did you capture the sphere?”
“We noticed spheres occasionally breaking the line, but they quickly returned. We correlated these occurrences with errant space probes—usually ancient derelicts from extinct civilizations. Most were solar powered and emitted simplistic universal greetings. Each time, the spheres would intercept the probes, perform some analysis, and then destroy them. Our mission briefing noted that the spheres have attacked any ship attempting to cross the sentinel line. But no ship had ever been destroyed, so the sphere’s destruction of the probes was curious to us. We should have taken it as a warning. We created a probe of our own that repeated a simple binary ping. We used it to lure a sphere away.”
The screen showed footage of a sphere following the fleet, gaining ground on a small object floating ahead of it. It cut to a scene in the future with the ships circling the sphere, then several sequences in which spheres were destroyed.
“Several attempts to capture the sphere failed. We finally managed to capture one, though we disabled it in the process.”
The screen changed to the cargo hold of Ares’ ship, where a massive black sphere towered above him. The ship shook, and Ares braced against the wall.
“This is the beginning of the assault. A dozen spheres targeted the Helios, firing plasma charges. We were able to outrun them. The line sentinels seem to be very simplistic. They’re much slower than our ships. Our mission parameters called for comm silence, which we maintained. A few hours later, stable wormholes opened, and a new kind of sentinel arrived. Hundreds of them. They were much more… advanced. And aggressive.”