Matshi nodded. “It makes sense for them to have tried a stronger bomb.”
“And Benedict has seemed to have an affinity for fusion weaponry in his guerilla attacks,” Spud agreed.
Benedict. That’s where I’d heard it. It seemed like weeks ago when we’d all been sitting around the table in Matshi’s kalyvi watching Benedict’s holo as he was doing, we figured, some calculations. What had he been muttering? M-c squared, E = mc squared, Einstein’s equation for conversion of matter to energy … Alpha … trapezalnitaks. Radiation belts on Orion Alpha! Summeldare … ram. The Somalderis!
“Can you temporal track on that thing?” Excited, I asked the Kharybdian about his holo unit. “When were the trapezalnitaks formed?”
“I can’t temporal track with this,” Eikhus sighed, then brightened. “But, I can measure decay parabolas and estimate a date.”
Eikhus’s fingers splattered through the holo display for a few minutes, while I shared my memory of Benedict’s mumbled words with the group. The Kharybdian seemed puzzled, frowning as he worked.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I keep doing it and doing it, and it still comes out the same.” Eikhus sounded extremely frustrated. “My calculations show that these belts have only been around Orion Alpha for three months.”
“Months?!” Matshi cried. We all looked at each other in alarm.
“Let me see what some other planets in the area show,” Eikhus suggested. The results were not reassuring. Populated planets around Betelgeuse and Bellatrix also showed evidence of recent radiation belt development. Had Benedict’s Andarts used fusion bombs to try to cross to another dimension, creating radiation belts? Were those attempts the so-called terrorist attacks Zygint had warned us about?
If Ulenem was right, and Orion’s solar systems were the latest testing grounds for Benedict’s attempts to travel to another brane, millions of beings could be in danger from radiation poisoning. And, if Benedict and his lieutenants eventually tried a crossing with the Somalderis and it wasn’t strong enough to power the transition, could blowback destroy one of the most densely populated star systems in the universe?
“I cannot answer that question,” Spud said gravely. “But, I must refer us back to our brief glimpse of Benedict and the last word we heard him utter. If my memory serves, I believe it was ‘catastrophe’.”
Chapter 14
Orion
En route to Orion Alpha, Orion—present day
The constellation of Orion is also known as the Hunter. It’s fitting, as some of Zygfed’s best hunters hail from its many solar systems. Ulenem was one of a long line of Assassins from Orion Alpha, many who had honorably served Zygfed in heralded battles. Ironically, Zygfed had brought relative peace to the constellation’s quadrant, by drafting Orion warriors into Zygint and the Sentinel Corps and effectively halting their bloody incursions into neighboring star groups such as Sirius. Long-victimized Scyllians and Ursans became grateful supporters of the Zygans for ending the rains [sic] of terror.
Our own hunt for the terrorists now pointed us in the direction of the planet Orion Alpha. Ulenem’s warning, as well as the discovery of those recently created radiation belts around so many worlds in the Orion system, led us all to suspect that Benedict (or another villain with the same name, Sarion joked) was using the star system as his new testing ground. We needed to go there and investigate.
Spud and I agreed to lead our team to Orion in my Zoom Starcruiser. Matshi would follow in his warship with Sarion, and Eikhus and Nephil Stratum would join us in the Nautilusxxiii after picking up Setsei and Suthsi from the Ytran Enclave.
Contact metrics were finalized and we fled Zyga, once again, by stealth. I set nav to warp towards Orion Alpha.
“So who’s this Milton guy you were talking about before,” I asked Spud.
“John Milton,” Spud responded. “Merely the best English writer of all time.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not Shakespeare?”
Spud snorted. “In my opinion, Shakespeare was a very inferior fellow. His entire oeuvre was soap opera and situation comedy,” he added for my benefit. “And,” he chuckled and gave me a wink, “it may actually have been written by another man with that name, Francis Bacon.”
“Hey, I’ve played that,” I returned with a grin. “Six Degrees of Francis Bacon.” I did a pretend drum roll with my hands. “Ba-rum-pum.”
Spud looked at me through narrowed eyes, “That, Rush, was worthy of Sarion.”
“I am properly insulted,” I huffed.
“Anyway,” Spud continued with a twinkle in his eye, “John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, an epic poem in which Satan, a fallen angel, is cast down into Hell and decides to fight God and re-enter Heaven. He finally succeeds and ends up tempting Adam and Eve to eat the apple of the Tree of Knowledge, so now they too are cast out.”
“You think Benedict and/or Gary are fighting—”
The pain was overwhelming. I almost lost consciousness as my head cracked against the viewscreen and my sore elbow was momentarily wrenched from its socket. In the darkness, I couldn’t even see Spud, nor hear his breathing. Nav was obviously dead. Our ship pitched and rolled endlessly, magnified by the forced transition out of hyperdrive. My back slammed against weapons control, which, already damaged, crumpled with the force of the blow.
I was unable to visualize anything inside or outside our ship as we somersaulted in black space. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I pulled myself back into my seat and grabbed my Ergal, hoping I could jumpstart nav and improvise weapons.
Spud must’ve had the same idea, as auxiliary nav came on along with the ship lights. I gasped involuntarily. Spud had a huge gash on his scalp and was drenched in blood—some of it apparently mine.
“Weapons regen!” I shouted. “Fusion torpedos.”
“Laser charges,” echoed Spud hoarsely. “Full power.”
I scanned nav holo and ran my fingers on it to enter an evasive pattern. “Identify attack.”
Crash! Another blow hit us from the side and we flipped over and over—this time, fortunately, tractored into our seats. Smoke filtered in from our vents, fogging up the interior and triggering the atmospheric shields that all Zygan ships automatically activate if airlocks are breached accidentally or deliberately. “Ventilation resuming,” Spud grunted, as we felt the flow of fresh air.
“What is it? Who?” I cried, between deep breaths of replenishing oxygen.
“Zygan, certainly,” Spud said, alarmed. “And they obviously know all our evasive maneuvers.”
I hit nav again. “Manual.” My skills as a pilot trainee at Mingferplatoi had been good. Would they be good enough?
Crash! We pitched again, but this time it was a glancing blow and the damage was less. I dove a light-year and spiraled up to catch our assaulter by surprise from behind. No such luck. The Zygan ship had duplicated my moves and was still following us when I leveled off. Panning, spooling, flipping, all were useless. The Zygan pilot’s skills were terrific, and his ship seemed to be even stronger and faster than ours. Spud continued launching a few of our charges and torpedoes, which, dodged by the Zygan vessel, flew harmlessly off into the ether.
Crash! The lights and nav went out again, and we floated, dead in space. Neither of our Ergals could regenerate systems this time. We were in deep space, in deep trouble.
“Escape pods?” I suggested to Spud.
He nodded, and we Ergaled into our suits and ejected invisibly into the vacuum. Or, so we thought. The tractors hit us the moment we left our ship, which was then blasted into smithereens by a well-aimed fusion torpedo from our attackers’ vessel. As we were being hauled through space towards our captors, Spud was actively mouthing some words to me I couldn’t make out from inside his helmet.
I shook my head and shrugged. Nothing to do now but wait. We’d be in the Zygan ship soon enough. And somehow I didn’t think we’d be meeting friends.
* * *
As soon
as we’d entered the airlock, the tractors were released. We tried to Ergal out of the enemy ship, only to find that our Ergals had somehow disappeared, and we were effectively unarmed. Someone apparently had a functioning Ergal, because we were M-fanned into a holding cell right after clearing the airlock.
The holding cell was a small chamber, no larger than my walk-in closet at the Malibu pad. We sat at the far end of the room, watching its locked portal and waiting for our captors to appear and reveal themselves. Spud lifted off his helmet and turned to me.
“What were you trying to say to me out there?” I asked, as soon as I had removed mine.
Spud shook his head and said, “I suspect it is Gary.”
The chamber door whooshed open and a familiar voice greeted us. “That’s right, Escott. Gary.”
Neither of us was happy to see him holding a stun gun. Spud remained stone-faced. I tried a smile. “Boy, are we glad to see you.”
Gary didn’t smile back. “What were you two doing in this quadrant?” he asked coldly.
“Dogfighting with you,” I answered, somewhat truthfully, then instantly regretted being flip as Gary aimed his gun at my chest. I curled into a defensive crouch and added. “Okay. Sorry.”
Gary turned to Spud. “You don’t think I monitor my office?”
Spud looked pained. “I should have. But I counted on Core Security as being adequate …”
Gary Ergaled himself a chair and sat down facing us, stun gun remaining at the ready. “Once again, why are you here?” he demanded.
He turned his gun towards me for a moment, but I had already decided that answering “because we can’t escape” would be unwise. Neither Spud nor I said anything.
Finally, he continued. “Your bearing seems to indicate you were headed for Orion. Why?”
I theatrically nudged Spud. “See, I told you we were off-course. We were on our way to, uh, see a live comedy show on Scylla.”
Gary and Spud both looked at me, incredulous. I rolled my eyes and then finally said seriously, “Oh, cut it out, Gary. You know why.”
Gary smiled at last. “Yes. Yes, I do. Very clever of you to figure some things out.” He raised his eyebrows. “Not very clever of you to leave a temporal trail I could track.”
Spud shook his head. “Ev …”
“No. When I first sent you to Phoenicia, I put trackers on your Ergals that left temporal footprints. Just wanted to be sure nothing went wrong.” He couldn’t resist a smirk. “No reason to take them off when you got back.”
“So you knew Sutherland was in Phoenicia all the time!” I said angrily.
Gary snorted. “Knew? I sent him there. Poor Wart and his shattered reputation…” His sigh turned into a laugh.
“And why are we still alive?” Spud interrupted.
My heart skipped.
“Frankly, I was a little slow on the draw.” Gary smiled again “I underestimated you. You’ve now had a couple of hours lead on me. And before I eliminate you as threats, I need to know who else you’ve talked to.”
My heart stopped. Spud simply nodded, satisfied. “I thought so.”
Gary looked at each of us in turn. “So, let’s not get melodramatic here. Just give me the names and I’ll catharizexxiv you.”
“And if we don’t?” I said, clenching my teeth.
“I’ll put you through hell,” Gary said coldly, “and then I’ll kill you.”
Our only hope was that our cavalry would arrive in time. Matshi and Eikhus working together might be able to vanquish Gary. Unfortunately, our designated rendezvous time was still a few hours in the future. Until then, they wouldn’t even know we were in trouble. Could Spud and I hold out that long?
* * *
Zyga—present day
Matshi glided his ship along the stunning rocky coastline of Zyga’s Megaran Enclave above the sparkling aquamarine sea below. Bacchanalian resorts were few and far between in Zygfed, so the Enclave was a favorite vacation destination among Zygans, who enjoyed its lovely beaches during the day, and its exciting entertainment at night. At the top of the Megaran Bluffs was one of the Universe’s largest collections of holo caverns with magicians, dancers, comedians, singers, Deltans (pleasure facilitators), and other entertainers from the far reaches of Andromeda. The Enclave, like Megara itself, was famous for being on 36/12xxv.
Sarion was waiting for Matshi in a Transport portal off Promenade 48. The Megaran had enlisted three mates to accompany him on the mission, Pallas, Nissos, and Lykkos. Matshi had sparred with Pallas at a Megaran wrestling arena a couple of years before and was thrilled to have Pallas and his friends on his team.
After the pick-up, the always-wary Matshi took a parabolic route from Zyga to our agreed-upon meeting point in the Bellatrix solar system. He didn’t expect Eikhus to arrive for another hour, what with the fussiness of the Ytran meiotes, Setsei and Suthsi, and Eikhus’s tendency to pilot the Nautilus like an elderly excursioner. But, Matshi was surprised to see that we weren’t there. We were respected pilots, and I usually lived up to my last name, Rush.
The Chidurian scratched his head, and, after a few minutes, began a parsec locator scan to look for us.
“Afraid to ask for directions, huh?” Sarion joked as he walked over to Matshi.
Matshi did not seem amused. Even Sarion finally realized his friend was very worried. “What’s the matter?”
“Fusion torpedo residue,” Matshi shook his head. “And I’ve picked up some Terran DNA …”
Sarion’s expression registered concern.
“But,” Matshi continued, “it’s a very small amount. Mixed in with shards of ship composites and metals. But not enough for a complete human. Or two.”
“Then where could they be?”
“I don’t know, but I may be able to trace the fusion residue and backtrack to find its source.” Matshi’s nimble fingers played over the holo as he searched for a ship that could have fired the torpedo.
After a few minutes, he frowned. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“What?” Sarion strained to see.
“I traced the torpedo track back to these coordinates.” Matshi pointed to one end of a jagged line on the holo. “I’m getting an ion footprint there, but I can’t see a vessel.” The Chidurian’s frustration was clear.
“Invisible? Stealthed?”
“Possibly.” Matshi chewed his lips. “But that’s illogical.”
“What do you mean?”
“The footprint of the residue is Zygan. Why, in a Zygan quadrant, would a Zygan ship be stealthed? Unless they’re up to something. Even we’re not invisible-ized, and we’re not exactly on an official mission.”
“Kidnapping? Hit and run?”
Matshi nodded his head. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Do we go after them?” Sarion didn’t seem to be asking a question.
Matshi nodded and gave the command to nav.
* * *
“But we’ll die!”
Frustrated, Nephil Stratum looked at Eikhus.
“Suthsi, that really isn’t likely.” The Kharybdian tried to be convincing. “And we could save the lives of millions.”
Setsei ambled onto the bridge holding a Geryon in each of his two right hands. He handed one of the long, golden, spear-like Ytran weapons to his meiote, who hesitated, and then accepted the Geryon with one of his two left hands. Setsei’s voice trembled as he gently rubbed Suthsi’s smooth right trunk with his own left. “We went to Mingferplatoi for a reason. Let us fulfill our purpose now.”
Yellow tears fell from Suthsi’s eyes as the Ytran took his gleaming Geryon and micro’ed it into his robes. Setsei stroked Suthsi’s flagella with his own as a gesture of thanks.
“What’s wrong?” Eikhus interjected, noting that Nephil Stratum had turned a dark gray.
“I just got commed by Matshi,” she replied anxiously. “Shiloh and William are not at the contact site. They seem to be missing, and Matshi thinks they may have been kidnapped by a
rogue Zygan ship!”
The Ytrans said the word together: “Andarts!”
Chapter 15
Adam
Kidnapped—present day
Rush screamed in agony. Only my ka’vyr techniques kept me from losing complete control and collapsing into unconsciousness, where my neurocache would be ripe for Gary’s picking.
I heard myself scream again. The chorizing procedure allowed me to mentally step outside my body and kept me from experiencing the full extent of the pain. Like a hyperpowered narcotic, chorizing also removed the anxiety that made pain so unbearable. Still my mastery of the ka’vyr practices was primitive. If he knew I was resisting, Gary might ‘turn up the volume’ of the torture more than I would be able to cope.
Meanwhile, Spud was chorizing in another chamber. Perfectly still, his response to the interrogation was catatonia and escape to another plane of consciousness, where Gary would be unable to access his neurocache and effectively download his brain information.
Gary moved back and forth between us, trying to scan our brains with an instrument that I didn’t recognize. It was bright gold and shaped like an orange cut in half, a divided sphere. Gary had placed the flat surface over my frontal lobes, near my forehead. Then, he’d demand, “Who did you talk to?!” over and over. When the answers didn’t come, Gary hovered next to me, shifting his weight impatiently from one leg to the other, and twisting a gold ring on his left middle finger back and forth as his frustration grew.
Both of us were able to perceive Gary’s anger rising as our efforts kept him from his goal. “These techniques are far more advanced than Zygint’s,” he muttered. “How are these green baby Zygint catascopes able to resist?”
As minutes turned into hours, Gary’s fury intensified. I was convinced he knew we could hear him speak as his pacing became ever more agitated. “Catharization is too good for these children. Execution is what they deserve!”
* * *
Matshi’s ship
The holo showed mild dark matter flux, but little else. If there was a ship stealthed at the target metrics, Matshi couldn’t see it on any of the screens.
Pallas nodded at the display. “It’s there. Look at the differential.”