Chapter 12
A boy with a spider
Star Hammer was more than half way through the Veiled’s system. It had reached its maximum speed of approximately 75,000 kilometres per second when the Veiled ship came through its final space fold that placed it near its homeworld.
The Veiled on the sixth planet were shocked when they saw the new addition to their system on long range scans. No one had ever dared to attack their homeworld. Yet, here was this black moon heading directly for their world. They were shocked by the audacity of it, but confidently unworried as they directed their great ship to position itself between their homeworld and the massive oncoming intruder.
The Veiled’s homeworld was a large, old world, the natural resources of which had been depleted long ago. It was mostly a cool-grey coloured globe with dark-blue, metallic accents of the structures and machines that covered the whole of its surface. Everything had to be imported to this ancient planet; its only two exports were control and death. This is where the Veiled felt secure, and was the seat of their power from which they ruled all the surrounding sectors of space. From here the Veiled controlled everything, including their mother ship. This fortress of a ship had never been physically occupied by the Veiled, or any other life form for that matter. It wasn’t necessary. They could easily control it from the safety of their homeworld.
The Veiled ship now headed toward the moon at near light-speed, its heart-like core pulsated flashes of bright red as it powered up for the attack. Upon reaching the enormous, dark sphere, it slowed to match the moon’s slower speed, keeping a few kilometres away. It fired off one of its pulsating orbs, which hit and encompassed the whole of the moon.
On cruisers, this had been extremely effective, but on the massiveness of this unusual invader, it did nothing but mar its black surface, only managing to make it appear a little less shiny. The energy of their weapon was being spread far too thin, and after a second attempt, the Veiled realized that this was futile. They were not going to ‘dissolve’ the thing before it made it to their planet.
Although the Veiled mother ship was the largest vessel in the Galaxy, it was dwarfed in comparison to Star Hammer. It was like a bee trying to stop a baseball, but this bee was able to do far more than just sting. It tried a different approach. All of its spines began to glow brightly, and the giant ship began to spin slowly. Then, white beams of an unknown energy shot from a group of spine tips facing the moon. Each time a new group of spines faced Star Hammer, they too released their beams of power in a Gatling gun-like precision.
The beams were focused on a specific location dead centre on the black moon, and this method yielded a better result. After a few volleys, a tiny section of the moon’s neutronium skin had been disintegrated, and further volleys started digging deeply through rock and toward its core. Soon, they would reach that which moved the monstrous device, and end all this.
But Star Hammer’s defense programming analyzed the attack, and took counter measures. It rotated the damaged spot 180 degrees away from the Veiled ship. The Veiled ship changed orbit around Star Hammer to continue the damage on that same spot, but the black moon just kept rotating, easily keeping the deadly beams away from the weakened location.
Time was running out for the Veiled as Star Hammer quickly closed the distance to the their homeworld. The Veiled knew it, and broke off the attack. Given enough time, the Veiled ship could have eventually destroyed the doomsday machine, but time was something they didn’t have in abundance. The Utayatuians knew this when they had designed the monstrous device. Time is often an important, if not critical factor during a military engagement. Utayatu had created a situation that exploited that factor, and it had completely caught the Veiled off-guard. On some level, the Veiled were impressed by the bold and utterly imaginative method of attack.
Star Hammer was only a few minutes from impact when thousands of small shuttle vessels left the Veiled’s homeworld. A great exodus was in progress as a multitude of grey, spiky ships left the surface of the doomed world. All of them headed straight toward the mother ship that had positioned itself like a small, spiny moon near the planet. The seemingly endless swarm of shuttles flowed toward the mother ship, to disappear through dozens of large openings in its red core.
Hundreds of evacuation ships were still leaving the planet when Star Hammer hit with a force rarely seen in the Galaxy. The Veiled ship quickly pulled away, leaving the doomed shuttles nearest the planet behind. The black moon shot through the cool-grey ball of a planet like a bullet through an apple. The planet exploded outward in every direction, as if in slow motion. Countless planetary pieces separated away from its core in silence. A couple were as large as an eighth of the original planet’s size, and various other smaller sizes.
The hundreds of Veiled escape crafts caught in the cataclysm were quickly overtaken, and destroyed by the planet’s shrapnel. The doomsday machine went clear through the planet, and exited the other side in a somewhat flattened state. Remarkably, it was still in one piece, held together by its tough, neutronium skin. The broken moon continued on a trajectory that would take it directly into the system’s sun.
The Veiled ship, still pulling away from the devastation, continued receiving those shuttles lucky enough to have escaped. Several massive chunks of the planet headed in the general direction of the rescue mission. One fragment, the size of a large planetoid headed directly for the Veiled ship. The ship was forced to move out of its path with only a few seconds to spare, resulting in the destruction of dozens of escape crafts as they impacted on the planet chunk’s surface. The last hundred or so small ships that were not in the planetoid’s direct path, disappeared into the safety of the mother ship’s red core.
If the Veiled had been furious before due to Admiral Kraug’s incompetence, they were seeing red now. A rich, bloody red that burned brighter than the core of their fortress ship. That THING had destroyed their homeworld, and more than ninety percent of their population!
The system’s yellow-orange sun created silhouettes of the moving planetary pieces behind the massive ship as it remained motionless for a few minutes. Then suddenly, without warning, it created a swirling space fold, and swiftly disappeared into its dark centre.
“Sygoss, are you there?” Xin called out a second time on all known frequencies. “If you are, please, I need your help!”
“This one has not left,” came the reply in the archaic Z’va Prime language from nonexistent lips. “Sygoss knows. You wish this one’s aid, but know that creation is far more challenging a task than that of destruction. Sygoss cannot bring back life from the dead, or near dead. Would undo what has been done if that were so.”
“Can’t you do anything to save him? Please... I... love him...”
“Love?” It was a word from a machine that astounded a god. “It is a powerful emotion for a synthetic being. But do you grasp its meaning? In purest of form, it can result in selfless acts of sacrifice.”
“I would give up my very existence in exchange for his life.”
Upon hearing this, Sygoss’ tone changed from one of pessimism to optimism as his thoughts continued to translate into sound waves. “Yes.... It is a possibility.... A synthesis.... A biological based life force with a highly evolving synthetic. Curious.... Your makers gave you the ability to develop beyond your initial limits, but failed to see the missing element that was needed for your ultimate ascendancy.”
“I don’t understand your meaning.”
“Understanding is not necessary. Only consent is required. Sygoss cannot create life from nonexistence, but can reshape existing life into new forms, or two forms into one.”
“You want to combine me with Dave?”
“Yes, but know that your sentience will be lost to the life force of the biological. Its power is strong, its spirit, virtually limitless. You will attain the end of your evolutionary cycle, only to lose yourself in the process. Sygoss regrets this consequence.”
Xin scanned Dave
’s blackened and broken body. He didn’t have much time. Most of the MBRUs were within his skull and heart, keeping the most vital organs alive. The other organs were failing quickly. His brain had fared the best, being completely enclosed by bone that was closer to the density of steel.
“I consent,” Xin confirmed with certainty. “Do whatever is necessary to save him, please.”
“Very well. Consent is given, consent is accepted.”
Sygoss focused thought toward matter. Dave was lying on his side in a slightly curled up position. His body was gently lifted up off the floor into a head up position and hovering a short distance above it. His unrecognizable, disfigured head began to glow as bright as a small, white sun. Still in a half fetal position, his body started a slow top-like rotation.
Xin felt an invisible force tug strongly on her. She instinctively increased her anti-gravity drive to compensate.
“Release yourself to it,” Sygoss said firmly.
Xin did what she thought she would never do; give herself over to someone else’s control. Without further thought, she turned off the power that gave her mobility. She could sense Sygoss’ presence all around her as she was moved toward Dave. She was pressed up against his midsection, his blackened arms hung limply over her like a burnt marionette. The two distinctly contrasting forms now rotated together in this odd embrace. The rotations gradually increased in speed until the two became a blur of one. The brightness spread down from Dave’s head to rapidly encompass the whole of both forms.
Xin could feel herself slipping down into a blackness unlike anything she had ever experienced. Her synthetic mind flashed back to the first time she met Dave, she touched his mind briefly, he was with her, serenity flowed over her, and then she was gone.
A blinding flash of white light consumed the Odyssey’s bridge accompanied by a staccato swoosh sound of deafening finality.
Time: Nine Earth hours later.
Location: Planet Utayatu.
The mother ship, carrying all that was left of the Veiled race, entered the atmosphere of Utayatu. The mammoth ship had used almost half of its power to make it to the hidden planet. It was something they knew to be rash, and defied their long experience of tactics and strategy, but here they were just the same.
As a group of combined minds, they had decided on this careless course of action. The minority had tried to dissuade against this decision, but the majority of Veiled minds had won out. Their pain was too great, their wounds, too fresh. Immediate retaliation had been the final conclusion. Destroy those that would destroy them. Time had been used against them; now, time would be used against their enemy. The hidden world’s fleet wouldn’t anticipate such a bold move. They would destroy the hidden world quickly, and be gone long before the enemy fleet made it through their final space fold.
The Veiled ship swiftly destroyed the fifty or so small interceptors that confronted them when they entered the planet’s atmosphere. Without Utayatu’s space fleet, the planet was virtually defenseless, as the Veiled had hoped. Now they would turn this lushest of all worlds into a burned up cinder like all the rest. Then they would leave, recharge to full power, and engage the hidden world’s fleet at a space and time of their choosing. Once all enemy ships were destroyed, the midway planet would be destroyed or perhaps enslaved – they did need a new homeworld.
Together, the many minds of the Veiled ordered the planetary surface destruction sequence to begin. Thousands of drones shot out of the long spines, and fanned out in every direction above the planet’s surface. But before they could release the second group of drones, the minds of the Veiled were confronted by a single, powerful mind. “Stop or be destroyed!” it screamed into the depths of their very souls.
Shaken, the Veiled scanned for the individual mind that was foolish enough to disrupt their multiple chain of thought, and soon found the intruder. A small, black silhouette of humanoid form hovered only a ship’s length away from them. Why had they not been alerted to its presence? And what was this strange being? Their scans were unable to extract any useful information from it. Every type of detection wave sent toward it never returned; they all disappeared into its blackness.
Frustrated, all the Veiled survivors sent out a thought. “Who are you to interfere?”
“My name is David Van Bercham, and those living on this planet are my friends. Leave this planet and this Galaxy.”
“We can not do that. We will not do that,” the chorus of the Veiled’s thoughts shouted back.
“Then find an uninhabited planet, and learn to live in peace. Stop this insanity.”
“It is not our way,” came back the unyielding reply.
Well, you can’t say I didn’t try, Dave thought.
For a moment, he paused, ignoring the Veiled ship to look at the absence of light that was once his hand. It was the exact shape of his flesh and bone hand, and when he turned it sideways, he could even make out the shape of his fingernails in detail. He formed a fist. Now it was less recognizable as a hand. But this wasn’t energy absorbing neutronium skin. He wasn’t a human version of Xin. This was something vastly different. There just wasn’t anything there! Or was there? He hadn’t noticed it when surrounded by the blackness of space, but here, in the blue sky of Utayatu, he had become very conspicuous, and it transfixed him.
This was all very new to him. His power was untested, but he somehow knew the Veiled were no longer a threat to him. They had become... insignificant.
So much had happened in the past few hours. One minute he was on the Odyssey’s bridge heading toward a Taelrok cruiser, the next, everything went black. Then, his mind had joined with Xin’s, and in that brief moment, he had become her. He knew everything she knew, had experienced everything she had, only to find himself alone once again. In contrast to the brief unity of minds, it was a painful separation that made him want to scream because of the loss. He had never felt so alone, and yet, she was still with him in his thoughts. That sampled female voice was forever silent now, but everything else was a part of him. She was a part of him.
Sygoss had given him a rare gift, but it was also a curse that he would have refused if he had been able to. Xin was gone. She didn’t have a soul. It was the missing piece that he had provided. Sygoss had accomplished what the scientists of Z’va Prime had aspired to do – create the final stage of evolution.
The probable god had also given him some of his own power. Was he now a god? He didn’t know. Before Sygoss had left him and this Galaxy, he had mentioned that time, space and matter would no longer confine him. “But you are not without limits,” Sygoss had said.
Dave was so deep in thought he didn’t even notice the white ball of energy until after it hit him. The pulsating, white glow completely surrounded him, and his human shadow was swallowed up into its centre. But unlike in the past, with every pulse, the undulating globe became less bright, until the silhouette that was Dave, reappeared like a black ink spot seeping through a white tablecloth. The Veiled had tried to destroy him, but only managed to get his attention, speeding them toward the inevitable. When he finished absorbing the last of its energy, Dave focused on the Veiled ship like a predator upon its prey.
Dave thrust out his right hand toward the monster ship that even now phased eerily between dimensions. I could crush you with a thought he contemplated with a brooding resolve as his shadowy fingers slowly formed into a fist. The ship’s spine-like protrusions were thicker than the giant redwood trees of Earth, not unlike the massive evergreens down on this planet. The longer spines began to groan, then bend, and finally snap in half like twigs. Several broken spines fell like giant javelins, and crashed into the thick forests far below.
This isn’t what he had expected. He had envisioned a desperate battle in space between the Veiled mother ship and himself – a duel between Titans. He imagined throwing a large asteroid at it, playing a cat and mouse game in a nebula, or tempting it to follow him into a black hole. They would follow, of course, because of their
hubris. He would survive it, they wouldn’t. No, the reality was too easy, and a bit frightening. He was a boy with a spider, pulling off its legs at his leisure.
“NO!” Dave opened his hand. “There is no doubt you deserve this for all the planets you’ve destroyed, but I’ll be damned if you make a mass murderer out of me. I won’t come down to your level.”
He said the words, but deep down he was afraid, afraid of himself. Was it true? Would absolute power eventually corrupt him absolutely? Xin was a part of him now. He only hoped that her moral compass was now ingrained within him. Perhaps Sygoss, in his wisdom, knew this. Tempering his human emotions with a machine’s logic, keeping his ego in check.
He stretched his mind out thousands of light-years through space and time. He viewed the satellite Galaxy that the Veiled had originated from so long ago. He knew the location; it had been documented in Utayatu’s history files. Xin had accessed those files, and he now knew everything she knew, as well as the entire contents of the Z’va Prime library. On Earth it was known as the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, and it was relatively close to the Milky Way.
He concentrated on the monstrous ship. He visualized where he wanted it to be, and the Veiled ship instantly disappeared. There was no thunderous sound, or blinding flash, or any effect of any kind to announce its send-off. It was there, it was gone, it was simple, and it was over. He didn’t need to understand quantum mechanics to achieve this feat any more than a child needed to understand the respiratory system in order to breath.
Dave didn’t know what the Veiled would find there after all these millions of years. He didn’t care. He followed the teleported ship with his final message to the Veiled. “Come back and I’ll finish what you started.” It wasn’t a threat. He was far beyond threats; they knew it. It was a promise.
What now? Dave hadn’t thought past this moment. Sygoss had left this Galaxy forever. All the space fleets would be heading back to their respective homeworlds. Admiral Quarauq would be returning back with his fleet to this world soon, and with the Odyssey in tow.
The Odyssey.... She was beyond repair, so he had given her to Utayatu. Besides, he now needed a ship as much as a bird needed a cage. Dave was happy to give the Odyssey to Utayatu. Kaibiak was glad to receive the small ship, and promised to have her put on display at their central museum. She was the last remaining artifact of Z’va Prime. The science ship would be greatly honoured for its role in the Veiled war, as would Xin and himself. That’s what they were calling it already – the Veiled War – the galactic war to end all wars. He hoped this was correct.
So what now? The physical world was now too confining for him, and the concept of time had become nothing more than an illusion. Maybe he would do a little more exploring. After all, exploring the Galaxy was the reason he had come along with Xin in the first place, but now he could do it far more efficiently. His soul, spirit or whatever he had become could transport instantly through space-time, bypassing the need to travel at near light-speed. Even space folds were no longer necessary, and far too slow.
He teleported himself out of Utayatu’s atmosphere to instantly reappeared just outside the Milky Way Galaxy, as easily as he had transported the Veiled ship. His mind reached out to the Galaxy below – exploring, observing, learning, and he began to understand.
There was still a great deal of life growing and evolving. There were a few races, even now, preparing to travel to the planets or stars nearest to them. The Veiled didn’t effect as much change on this Galaxy as he had thought. Granted, some of the most advanced races had been eliminated, but for each one removed, two more would eventually take their place. The Galaxy would continue on, and find balance once again. It was like a living organism, and the Veiled had been an invading virus.
Had he not removed them, they would have eventually died out, or would have been destroyed by resident races. The Galaxy was just too big, far too big for even the Veiled to dominate it all. But they weren’t trying to dominate it all, and that was the point. He understood that now. It all came down to the indefinite continued progress of existence and events, or simply, time.
Dave looked beyond the Galaxy. His thoughts spread out in every direction. He observed a hundred galaxies, a thousand galaxies, a million galaxies, and still there was no end. The Universe seemed infinite, but he had been spreading himself to thin, sending his mind outward in all directions at once. This wasn’t working. He needed to go in a straight line in only one of the infinite possible directions, and he needed to go personally.
He focus a single thought to a single point, and teleported himself trillions of light-years through the fabric of the cosmos. He was now much farther out than his thoughts had been, but it was still too slow. Dave concentrated harder, teleporting farther and faster, continuing on in the same bearing. Every jump through space seemed like a still image instantly replacing the last like a cosmic slide show. With every new jump there was a drastic shift of the galaxies and their positions – poof, poof, poof. Nothing much changed – poof, poof, poof. It was always blackness stippled with countless white spherical or elliptical dots that were the billions of galaxies.
He continued until there were no new galaxies appearing before him, only a vast sea of darkness. And still he continued on – poof, poof, poof. He stopped to looked back at his starting point, and to his surprise, all the galaxies of his known Universe combined to form a dull, multi-coloured sphere surrounded by black. What was going on? This didn’t make any sense.
Dave expanded his mind outward in all directions. It was then he realized something amazing. It wasn’t the only Universe ball floating in the blackness. There were countless similar spheres, stuffed with galaxies, all around him in every direction, and possibly out to infinity. Each one was an individual Universe, and all of them looked like blurry, coloured marbles. The Universe was in reality, many Universes – it was a Multiverse! There wasn’t just one Big Bang, there were many, and they were all at various stages of expansion. Some were duller and larger, expanding ever outward, others, smaller and brighter, in their earlier stages of creation.
He didn’t know how or why, but his new acquired abilities could sense these subtle changes. Not only could he scan across incredible distances, he could also perceive the extremely small and fast, like the subatomic particles in the immeasurable darkness that surrounded him.
These multiple Universes were an astounding discovery, but it wasn’t the ultimate answer he was looking for. He initially wanted to see what was beyond the Universe, but now the obstacle had been expanded to this Multiverse. It was like breaking through a locked door only to find a brick wall behind it.
Dave wanted to go on. He could still find his way back to his Galaxy, but if he continued on this reckless path of curiosity, he would eventually become lost. He somehow knew this. It was a feeling that intensified with each teleport outward. He so wanted to see what was beyond the beyond, but he didn’t dare continue. He risked losing himself in the unimaginable vastness. Dave was like an H2O molecule that wanted to explore the Pacific Ocean, but was only able to explore a pond. Or was it just a puddle?
It was all a cruel joke. Nothing much had really changed. He was still that man looking up at the stars in the night sky, and wondering what was out there. He thought he was a god, but he was just someone who could see a little farther. Sygoss had said that even he didn’t know what was beyond the Universe. He now understood what he meant. He too was not without limits. Dave was still in the same boat as everyone else. He was to a human, as a human was to an ant, but the Multiverse still had the last laugh.
His recent explorations seemed to take only a few minutes, but on Earth, decades had passed. Earth.... He smiled on the inside. In his mind’s eye he saw Marilyn Monroe’s lips forming into a broad smile, and thought about Xin.... He decided to end his travels for now. Dave focused on his Universe, his Galaxy, his Earth, and went home.
It was the late 21st Century. A black silhouette of once human ori
gin orbited the Earth. He was undetectable by any technologies from below. Dave focused, slowing his perception of the passage of time.
Earth, in its majestic expanse, slowly rotated beneath him. The deep blue of the Pacific Ocean was below him, and the many clouds above it looked like frost forming on its smooth, glassy surface. How beautiful the world looked from this distance. How much more beautiful it could be without the pollutants he detected in the atmosphere. It was a view every ‘captain of industry’ should experience. A view that would change the minds of all but the most corrupt. It still wasn’t too late to save the planet, but it was ultimately up to them. He only hoped that reason would dominate over greed, and soon. Time, however illusionary, was running out.
He didn’t want to interfere with the Earth. Like all the other races in this Galaxy, they needed to find their own way, even if their way ended in self-destruction. Sure, he would destroy that asteroid the size of Australia heading directly for Earth, but it wouldn’t be here for hundreds of years.
Dave’s thoughts reached out to all of Earth’s communications satellites. Every media device was accessed – from holo-TVs to old tech radios, from phone implants to 3D readers. His approximated voice came through every device, in every country, and in every language. “You are a discordant, fleeting species. I will not interfere with your smaller noises. Perhaps, someday, the people of Earth will find harmony, but until that day... I SHALL KEEP WATCH.”
THE END
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2011 - 2012 Robert G. Moons
This work of fiction is the sole property and copyright of Robert G. Moons.
Please do not print or use without permission of the author.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
January 2013 edition
*****
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