The screen behind him replayed the battle.
“Why didn’t you port to the fleet?”
“Fear. I feared I would lead these new sentinels to the Seventh Fleet and eventually home. I reasoned that our loss was justified. I had the same concern about transmitting our data to the fleet. I deployed the life rafts hoping the commanding officers might survive and that we could bring this intel back. I hoped the gravity mines would destroy the fleet of sentinels, and the subsequent wave would push the rafts far out of range of any sentinels late to join the battle. I spaced the rafts so that if one were destroyed, our evac tags would port us to the next raft in the chain. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I hoped that the rafts could at least carry our logs and telemetry.”
“In that regard, we judge your mission to be a success, Ares. The intel you delivered may save us in this war.”
“War?”
The auditorium was silent.
“Am I to be briefed on the aftermath of my mission?”
“Yes. In private. By someone who’s very eager to see you.”
CHAPTER 29
The guards led Ares to a large stateroom that was much grander than his captain’s quarters on the Helios. They were treating him like a member of the admiralty. He tried the data terminal, hoping for answers, but it was off. What were they hiding?
The expeditionary fleet had known about the sentinels for over a hundred years but had assumed the spheres were simply relics of a long-extinct civilization, possibly science buoys studying stellar phenomena.
They were clearly much more.
The door opened, and his wife, Myra, stepped inside, tears welling in her bloodshot eyes.
Ares ran to her but stopped short. He stared at her protruding belly, trying to comprehend.
She closed the distance between them and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back, a million questions fighting a war in his mind, with a single thought winning out: I am alive, and she is here.
They moved to the couch, and she spoke first.
“I found out right after you deployed. I submitted several requests to override the comm silence order, but they were denied.”
“I’ve only been gone point one years.”
She swallowed. “They wanted me to tell you. You’ve actually been gone for point seven years. Missing, assumed killed in the line of duty for point five. We had your funeral.”
Ares stared at the floor. Gone for over half a year? What had happened to him? He should have been able to exit the medical pod in the life raft when the wave had passed, once he had stopped porting between the life rafts in the chain. But awareness hadn’t returned to him. It was as if time had disappeared, and his mind had broken from reality.
“I don’t understand.”
“The doctors think a part of your mind essentially shut down—it happened to all the officers. The others are still in a vegetative state, but physically, they’re fine. The doctors are very concerned about you. They want me to… assess you.”
“For what?”
“Any mental changes. They think the experience may have changed you—psychologically.”
“How?”
“They’re unsure. They think the experience may have expanded your mind’s pain tolerance and even permanently altered your brain wiring, making you capable of all kinds of… I don’t want to repeat it. They’re worried.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m the same man I was.”
“I see that. I’ll tell them. And even if there is… an issue, we’ll fix it—together.”
There was something different about him. Ares felt a low simmering rage growing inside him.
His wife broke the awkward silence. “After you went missing, I transferred to the Pylos. They searched for point two years. The funeral followed, but I convinced the captain to allow me to take one of the survey clippers to continue searching. I used up all my leave. I think fleet medical thought if I searched long enough, until I was satisfied, it would be healthier for me and for the pregnancy.”
“You found me?”
“No. I probably never would have. With the wide expanse of space and with the raft’s emergency signal off…”
“I had to.”
“I know. The sentinels would have found you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I found something else. My long-range scans showed massive changes in the sentinel line. Their alignment has broken. They’re retreating. We believe you opened a hole in the line, and someone is trying to come through. The sentinels are fighting them. The admiralty and global council think the sentinel’s enemy could be an ally for us—if we could join up with them.”
She took a pad out of her bag and handed it to Ares. “What I found out about the sentinel lines convinced fleet command to send all the expeditionary fleets to this side of the sentinel line. Every ship has been searching for you, deploying probes. The combined surveys revealed that the opening in the sentinel line is getting bigger.” She pulled up an image. “Here’s why.”
Ares almost drew back when he saw it. A battlefield with the debris of thousands of ships stretched out to a massive star.
“What—”
“This battlefield, it’s where our potential ally is trying to break through. And there’s more. They’re trying to contact us. Our probes have picked up a signal. It’s simplistic. Binary followed by some cipher with four base codes. We’re still working on it. We think this army has sacrificed a great deal to open this hole in the line—they concentrated on the place you first opened, where you led the spheres away from the line. The entire fleet is on their way there. We’ll reach it tomorrow.”
“Our mission?”
“Make contact. See if we have an ally and how we can help in the sentinel war.”
“What else do we know?”
“Not much. The sentinels have destroyed every one of our probes, but we have one image.” She tapped the pad, and a grainy image of a floating piece of a ship appeared. Ares stared at the round insignia, a serpent, eating its own tail.
“A serpent…”
“We’re calling them the Serpentine Army.”
“Are they human?”
“Based on the size of the corridors we can see in the cross section, it’s possible. And their code is readable to us. We’ll solve it soon.”
CHAPTER 30
For David, tearing his eyes away from the massive debris field that stretched from the military beacon to the burning star took an extreme act of will. The view was captivating. The mystery of what had happened here, of what could have destroyed thousands, perhaps millions of ships filled his mind with possibilities—and fear. The moment he had seen it, his entire perspective on their situation had changed, perhaps his entire perspective on life.
He turned. Paul, Mary, Milo, and Sonja waited, but he looked only at Kate, whose expression changed from dread to confusion as she tried to read him.
“Okay,” David said. “Kate says we’re safe here for the time being. We’re going to take this opportunity to get something we need.”
Haggard, defeated expressions greeted him. Not a single guess about what “they needed” was offered in the seconds that ticked by.
“Rest,” David said. “Everyone is going to eat, sleep, and shower—and nothing else for the next eight hours.”
Sonja glanced at the portal.
“No guard duty this time,” David said. “We’ll barricade the portal. We have plenty of supplies on this beacon. We’ll make secondary barricades at the corridor on both sides that lead out. That will be plenty of early warning if Sloane gets through.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “All right, let’s go. Sonja, if you’ll help me build the barricade. Milo, you too.”
Milo smiled, and then grew serious as he fell in with Sonja and David, grunting as he helped them carry the heavy silver crates out of the storage rooms and up the stairs to the portal area.
When the barricade was complete and everyone had retire
d to the residential pods, David put a hand on Milo’s shoulder. “Milo—”
“I know, I…”
“Let me finish. I told you before that you would understand when you’re an adult. My parents used to say that to me all the time when I was a kid.” He read Milo’s expression. “I know you’re not a kid, but it’s something adults say to kids when there’s something they can’t understand yet—and there are a lot of those times. This isn’t one of them. None of us wanted you to go through the portal because we would never put your life in danger before our own.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re adults, and we care about you. We’ve had a chance to grow up and become what we are. Yours is a life still to be lived, and it’s more important than ours. This isn’t a military decision, it’s about what’s right and making decisions we can live with. If we chose to put our lives before yours, none of us could live with that. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Milo said quietly.
“Can I count on you, Milo?”
“You can, Mr. David. For anything.”
When David entered the residential pod, Kate was sitting at the small desk table, scratching her head.
“I know you’re mad at me,” she said.
“I’m not.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Okay, I was. But I’m not now.”
“Really?”
“Seeing the debris field, this place, it’s made me realize something.”
Kate waited, still suspicious.
“If that signal really is from a potential enemy, and they have some idea where Earth is, we need to make a major move to find help. Assuming there’s anybody left on Earth to save.”
Kate looked at the floor. “I agree. What do you want to do?”
David began pulling his clothes off. “Right now, I want to rest. Then figure out a plan together. I want to start playing offense. This whole time, starting the second I found out you were sick, I’ve been hanging on, trying not to lose you and the remaining time we have. I’ve been scared. I’m still scared, but I think we need to take some risks if we have any chance of coming through this.”
“You were right about one thing,” Kate said.
“Yeah?”
“We should enjoy the time we have left.”
Paul didn’t remember going to sleep; he had been that tired. He opened his eyes and searched for the sound.
Mary stepped out of the shower and casually moved her arm up to cover her chest.
Paul shut his eyes quickly and tried to arrest his now out of control pulse.
“That shower is super weird.”
“Yep,” Paul said, his eyes still closed. “Like a one-person disco with no water.”
Paul could hear her getting her outfit out of the hamper, slipping it on, and sitting in the chair.
“Yeah. Reminded me of a tanning bed.”
He sat up and looked at her curiously.
She shrugged defensively. “I went once. In college, right before spring break. So I wouldn’t burn. And probably because of peer pressure since the other girls—”
Paul raised his hands. “Not judging. I mean, from a health stand-point, it’s an unsafe way to tan. But a small amount of sun daily is quite healthy. The UVB rays convert the cholesterol in your skin into a precursor for vitamin D, which is, in truth, a hormone, not a vitamin. Essential too. Seasonal affective disorder, autoimmune conditions, certain cancers, all dependent on healthy vitamin D levels.”
“Right. Well, I was just saying that I haven’t, you know, changed… I haven’t started tanning or dressing differently. Not that it matters. The dating pool is abysmal in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.”
“Sure. I bet. I don’t think you’ve changed a bit.”
“What does that mean?”
Paul cleared his throat. “I… you’re just the way I remembered you.”
Mary squinted.
“In a good way,” Paul added.
Paul thought the pause that followed lasted at least three or four hours.
“You still work a lot?” Mary asked.
“All the time. Especially the past few years.”
“Me too. Only place I’m happy.” She propped her elbow on the table and ran a hand through her hair. “But I think I get a little less happy every year.”
“I know the feeling. Few years ago, after…”
Mary nodded. “Did you ever get remarried?”
“Me? No. The other astronomer I met… is he, were you two…?”
“No. God, no. I’m not seeing anyone.” She paused for a moment. “Is there a woman in your life?”
Paul tried to sound casual. “Not really.” Not really?
“Oh.” Mary looked surprised.
“I mean, I live with someone, but—”
Mary reeled back.
“No, it’s not like that.”
“Right.”
“She just came home with me after work one day.”
Mary looked away. “I figured that’s how it would happen for you.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
Mary began chewing the inside of her lip—one of her habits Paul knew well.
Paul cleared his throat. “It’s actually quite simple. We have a kid—”
Mary’s mouth fell open.
“Well, it’s not my kid. Or it is now. He is. He’s not an it. His name is Matthew.”
“Matthew’s a good name.”
“Yes, of course, wonderful, wonderful name. But Matthew isn’t my biological offspring—well genetically we’re related, but he’s—”
“I think we should get some rest.”
Kate lay still beside David, thinking, unable to sleep. Against her will, her mind continuously pored over what she knew, searching for a clue, some string to pull that might unravel the next piece. She instinctively felt there was a detail she was missing, a key just out of reach.
David snored a bit but stopped. Kate marveled at the man’s ability to sleep—even when they were in imminent danger, as they had been for, well pretty much as long as they had known each other. To Kate, David seemed to be able to simply turn his brain off and sleep on command whenever he needed to. Was that a learned trait? From years of battling enemies in covert warfare? Or was he born that way? There was so much about him she still didn’t know. Would never know. Didn’t have the time to learn.
The thought made Kate slightly remorseful about what she knew was coming. Part of her wanted David to wake up, but more of her wanted him to rest.
She slipped out of bed, pulled some clothes on, and quietly shuffled out of the room, down the dark, ominous corridor of the military beacon to the communications bay.
Where to start? Janus: he had chosen this beacon for a reason. Why? What was special about it? A battle had happened here. Had Kate’s Atlantean counterpart seen it?
The memory archive revealed the answer: No.
In fact, the memories Janus had stored here began thousands of years after the beacon was placed here. Kate’s counterpart had never even been here.
She decided to back up. She queried the computer, seeking the historical records relating to the debris field.
All information related to the Serpentine battlefield is classified according to The Citizen Security Act.
Serpentine battlefield. Classified.
Thirty minutes of searching the computer hadn’t revealed any more information. In fact, she was almost right where she had started. This beacon was devoid of any information, and there seemed to be no clues. Was it on purpose? To protect against any enemies reaching it and accessing its data core? Was that Janus’ motive? Had he sent the memories here because there was nothing else to find? That would have been clever. And he was clever.
Kate was about to leave the bay when the screen faded, and a red box began flashing. White block letters read:
Incoming Communication
Kate gripped the table to keep herself from fainting.
CHAPTER 31
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Reliving Ares’ memories had been torture for Dorian, but the Atlantean food was almost as bad.
He and Victor sat in the storage room on silver crates, consuming orange gel the Atlanteans deemed “food.”
“Stuff’s terrible,” Victor said.
“Very astute,” Dorian mumbled, finishing his bag.
“What are we gonna do?”
“Guess we’ll have to rip them a new one on the comment card.”
Victor looked confused. Actually, Dorian was beginning to think that was just how Victor looked.
“Where you going?” Victor asked as Dorian strode out into the corridor.
“Homework,” he said, closing the doors to the communications bay.
Dorian dreaded starting the next memory, but he had no choice. Learning the truth about Ares, about the enemy beyond the beacon was his world’s only hope. He had to. And he had never turned away from what had to be done. He stepped into the communications booth and began Ares’ memory stream where he had left off.
Ares awoke to the standard fleet hazard alarm. He had heard it many times—most often when a team doing an experiment, either inside or outside the ship, was in trouble. The last time he had heard it, hundreds of sentinel ships had been bearing down on his sub-fleet. They had destroyed his ships and every last man and woman under his command.
He sat up and planted his feet on the cold metallic floor. He realized he was sweating, but his skin wasn’t warm. Fear. Something was wrong with him.
He battled to get to his feet, his body fighting him, not wanting to respond.
The speaker system dinged, and a calm voice began repeating: “All hands to hazard stations.”
Hazard stations. Every member of the service knew theirs. The drills came at least once every five days. Safety came first in the Expeditionary Fleet, and for the first time in Ares’ career, he had no hazard station. No station period. He was no longer a captain of a ship or a commander of a sub-fleet or even in a chain of command. He was simply an officer with no assignment—and at the moment, no clue as to what was going on.