The koveran concussion wave had incinerated everything within eighty thousand kilometres. Something was trying to kill him. His connection to Lars was severed instantly. Duras! Was she alright? She had been at a drydock one hundred thousand kilometres away. He tried to send a message to Lars but there was too much damage to his neural plexus. The pain registered a few seconds later as he tried to manoeuvre.
There was too much gravimetric damage here. His lens was having a difficult time negating the multiple pull vectors. He couldn’t jump, either, and the headache was becoming unbearable. He saw the silhouette of tiny ships off in the distance. He intensified a spectral image with his targeting computer. The silhouettes looked Vorchan. This was a Vorchan attack. Duras was some sort of Vorchan spy. Or maybe it was Daedalus… Mars had lost his connection to his captain right when Daedalus had offered him a drink.
He tried to think of what to do, but darkness was closing in around him. He couldn’t stay awake. He had to let his mind recover from the attack. It was some sort of symbiote. He could feel its presence, eating away at his neural impulses for sustenance. There were no contaminants in his blood stream.
It must have come from Lars.
Forty three minutes passed instantly, his mind was slipping away. Neural pathways were deteriorating. He couldn’t remember how he got here.
I have to escape, Mars thought. He sparked his gravimetric lens and shot away from the planet at fifty gees. He kept this acceleration for several minutes until he was well beyond the battle and Zemoria’s orbital koveran turrets. The Vorchans would jump in close, enter Zemoria’s atmosphere before the turrets could acquire them – the orbital ones anyways. Zemoria was very well defended, having seen combat in every major war. But Vorchans, why Vorchans? He felt the absence of gravimetric instabilities and immediately jumped to another nodepoint.
The jump had been random, choosing the easiest nodepoint to get to. It was an offset point near Zemoria, by system HHA-7. He hadn’t aimed the gravimetric lens at all, resulting in him getting deposited several light-years from that system’s star. He was twenty eight light-years from Zemoria now, concealed in the open-ness of deep space. He shut down his gravimetric lens and contained his CKRO emissions in case something tried to follow him. He deployed his adaptive hypervelocity cannon as well, letting its high resolution tracking laser sweep the area immediately around him. Ten autonomous fighters had instinctively left his launch bay and set up positions nearby for protection and sentry duties before powering down like their parent ship.
Mars had time to think now, and to localize the beemspace band this symbiote was using to try to reach him. He knew this symbiote, it had tried to kill someone of his lineage once before. A distant memory, but one that gave him the exact neural route to take – but Lars… he had to save Lars as well. Lars wouldn’t know what neural route to take to disable the symbiote’s leeching abilities before he suffered permanent damage. That is if Lars is still alive. He had to be alive. He couldn’t fathom losing his life-long captain. He had to kill the symbiote.
There was no record of a BMS ever having successfully engaged a symbiote in beemspace and lived. Beemspace was the symbiote’s domain, even the Black Nova, whom he assumed this ancestral memory had arrived from, had merely severed the connection the symbiote had made with its hosts.
He had a dilemma now. The longer he waited, the weaker he’d become and the stronger the symbiote would be, unless he severed the connection. However, were he to sever the connection, he would not be able to trace that connection to engage the symbiote. Logic told him the opportune time to attack was now, but tactics told him he would be annihilated.
He had to do it for Lars. He aligned his gravimetric lens towards the origin of the neural band, to the symbiote.
Beemspace was a highway, a torrent that grabbed you and swept you away. He fought the current, feeling the symbiote nearby. Gravimetric shears formed on the tips of his skids, eating away at his hull as he resisted. His AHC was blinded, as was he, his ocular strips had been destroyed. He tried to send out a ripple along his gravimetric lens for mass detection, but there was too much interference. The blindness panicked him. He thrashed at the torrent of energy with his gravimetric lens, trying to assuage the pain it was bombarding him with. He felt a tear as a section of his inner hull was separated from its ablative plate. He felt that starboard bow section of his inner hull start to keel, veins were suddenly exposed. He felt blood escaping and deactivated that section of his circular system, rerouting repair drones to the area. Something struck at him, burnt across his ventral hull like a whip. The impact seemed to explode with pain, paralyzing him. The torrent grabbed him and he began to ride it towards the surface, towards realspace.
“No!” he yelled, his transmission garbled by the interference. He felt the ebb and flow of the current and used small boosts from his gravimetric lens to switch to another one, then another one. He could still feel the origin of the neural leech, and used it as a compass point to guide him back to the symbiote. He had one full koveran chamber left. He could feel the symbiote whipping at it, bombarding him with pain as it tried to reach it. He gave the koveran energy to it, in ripples, firing a wave of supercharged particles ahead of him. He felt a bout of intense heat before he lost consciousness.
–
–
Daedalus awoke to the sound of air raid sirens. The sky was pitch black. It was raining dirt. His window was covered in it. He couldn’t even see outside. What was he doing here? He remembered he was talking to Lars? Why was he lying on the floor? Daedalus got up off the ground, rubbing his head. He must have hit it against the fridge when he lost consciousness. Duras… he felt for her presence but it was useless, the neural link wouldn’t be able to extend that far anyways.
“Duras.” he said into his comms chip. There was nothing but static on the line. The air raid sirens became louder as he noticed them again. Then he noticed Lars, sprawled out on the floor with glass fragments beside him. He had a black eye. Daedalus remembered punching him, but he hadn’t remembered knocking him out.
“Lars.” he said, patting his cheek. “Are you alright? Are you awake? Wake up Lars!”
There was no response. He went to the medicine cabinet and grabbed a scanner, running it over Lars’ body. He was alive, but neural activity was sparse. He must be in a coma. He felt his apartment shake and heard an explosion off in the distance. He didn’t know what to do. Panicked, he kneeled down next to Lars. Another explosion, he heard glass crack from this one. He couldn’t see anything out of the windows. He checked the holovision, it was giving nothing but static. He practised a quick breathing exercise he had learnt in the service, slowing his heart rate. He suddenly remembered the near-miss against the Vorchans, how they had attacked him and the three escort descendents on their way away from what should have been Earth. Could this be a Vorchan invasion? If it was he would have to get in touch with the military. He opened a cupboard and grabbed his datapal, having it scan for open frequencies.
“We ask all civilians to move to their district bomb shelters during this emergency. Please remain calm and vigilant during the move. If you do not know the location of your nearest bomb shelter, please see file 4-C under the Emergency Procedures catalogue for a district map with address. We ask all civilians to move to—“ The transmission cut off and became garbled. He moved up one frequency, to a military channel. It was garbled. He tried another, they were all garbled, all the ones his datapal had access to. Electronic warfare would precede an invasion.
A chair suddenly hit him at high speed, knocking him to the floor. Somebody grabbed him, started punching him.
“You son of a bitch!” Lars yelled, “You murderer!”
“Stop!” Daedalus yelled back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Daedalus? Is that you?”
“Who else?”
“Duras.”
“What about Duras?”
“She poisoned me. She infused a drink with a symbiote tracer… used it to try and kill me. I saw Mars’ containment fields fail before I lost consciousness, the symbiote must have used the neural link to find Mars.”
“How the hell would Duras poison you? What drink? She’s up there! You’re down here.”
“She sequestered you.”
“No, this is a limited type-2 link. There is no way she can do that.”
“Well she somehow did, said some crap about having lost her last captain to a neural symbiote.”
“She didn’t lose her captain to a neural symbiote. He died of old age. The Zemorian ship keeper told me before I met her.”
“Well then she’s just lost her mind. She’s intent on killing us. She killed him! I’ll kill her!” Lars collapsed to his knees. “Killed him…”
Daedalus kneeled down next to him. Lars had a type-3 bond with his ship. They were linked at birth. A loss of something so close to you must be devastating. Daedalus could only imagine the pain Lars was trying to fight.
“At least I will join him soon.” Lars muttered.
“What do you mean? We can get out of here.”
“You don’t understand, the symbiote knows me, it will destroy me after it finishes Mars and the others it has infected. I don’t understand why it has kept me alive for this long… unless… Mars! Oh Mars. He must have distracted the symbiote, made it take him first.”
“Take him?”
“Symbiotes are neural weapons. Very rare but they exist. Part of our descendent training is the knowledge of countering and avoiding them. I should have scanned that fucking glass.” he sighed, looking over at the shards at his feet.
“Can’t it be destroyed?”
“You don’t understand. They live in beemspace, they can’t be destroyed by conventional weapons. Even the Black Nova merely severed the link.”
“The link? To their victim?”
“Yes, they have to use a neural link to reach us in realspace.”
“I never knew such things existed… never in my fourteen years of service have I encountered such a thing.”
“You wouldn’t, it is merely the bane of BMS captains. A curse. There is no surviving it.”
“But you said the Black Nova severed the link.”
“It’s a myth. Nobody has ever managed to sever the link a symbiote has with its host.” Lars looked at Daedalus calmly. “Strange.”
“What is?” Daedalus asked.
“I always thought I’d die in battle.”
“You may still have the chance. We are on the thirty forth tier, and communications is down.”
“An invasion. The Vorchans!”
Daedalus nodded.
“Excellent, let’s leave immediately! I have an honourable death to get to!” Lars exclaimed, reaching into his utility belt and pulling out a pistol with an interestingly long barrel.
“Is that?”
“Yes.” Lars replied. Daedalus had never seen a koveran pistol before. Only some descendent captains had the ability to wield it. The weapon was multi-role, able to transform as the situation escalated.
The streets were crowded with people trying to escape. The spaceport was visible off in the distance, cars lined up bumper to bumper, and hovercars circled the spaceport frantically, small gnats from here.
They were in a gt-2, an old wheeled sedan. Lars watched the flecks of dirt get removed by the window cleanser. “You couldn’t get a hovercar? Everybody has a hovercar, and here you are with this fucking… artefact.”
“Don’t call Lily an artefact!”
“Lily’s gonna get us killed by a Vorchan assault team.”
“You know the Vorchans won’t hit the city. They are going to go for the command hub, try to shut down our koveran-based defence network.”
“Yeah the command hub’s in Signus. We’re in Signus.”
“Yeah but we’re on the east side at the edge of the city – command hub’s all the way over there.” Daedalus replied calmly, pointing west. “We have time.”
“I’m going to die in this car. It will be the most embarrassing death a descendent captain could have.”
“Wonder how many puritans have died to –“
“Oh God don’t start with that. Please. Duras was delusional, you know that now. Psycho. A psycho ship. You sure know how to choose ‘em Daedalus.”
Daedalus was in deep thought.
“What?” Lars asked.
“When I last saw her. She said something along the lines of, ‘Get out of me!’”.
“Yeah I’ve heard that one before…” Lars said.
“But I felt something before that, some sort of repressed fragment of a memory or the like. I couldn’t quite figure it out. I didn’t have time – she shut down life support.”
“Fascinating. That explains it all, a repressed something that might be a memory. Thank you Daedalus, thank you for that enlightening observation—“
“No, the memory was familiar. The scent of it.”
“The scent? Are you sure? How long did you share a neural link with her?”
“Seven years.”
Lars sputtered, “Seven years?! You were looking for that damned system for seven years?”
Daedalus nodded, focusing on the car ahead of him as if he were driving instead of sitting in one spot for hours in this dirt rain.
“And why the hell is it raining dirt? Fucking dirt! It must be some sort of… I don’t know… probably from the gravimetric wave? You think it was the gravimetric wave.”
“Maybe.”
“Right, I’m going to lie down.” he said, making his backrest horizontal. “If you suddenly realize I’m dead… make up something heroic.”
“Died trying to pleasure self through oxygen deprivation and pictures of puritans…” Daedalus muttered.
“You’d think with the whole invasion and all that you’d let that go?”
“You started it with that ‘Yeah I’ve heard that one before’ remark. You think I didn’t hear that? Bastard…”
“I stand by Mars’ words: There was never any dissent. Duras is the first ship to have openly fought back like that.”
“Openly fought back?” Daedalus asked, “I see.”
“Now you’re just… you are so annoying. Why am I even in this damned car with you? I should be walking west. I’d rather get shot than die here listening to your incessant whining.”
“I’m not whining.” Daedalus said calmly. “Not whining at all.”
“Right…” Lars closed his eyes.
Daedalus waited a few minutes before asking: “Are you dead yet?”
Lars didn’t say anything.
Daedalus looked over. “Lars? Are you alright?”
No response.
“Died… looking… at… puritans… while—“ Daedalus made the motion of writing in his datapal.
“No! I swear to God if you write that on my certificate I will come back from the grave and haunt you.” Lars whispered.
“How long will it take for this damn symbiote to kill you?” Daedalus asked.
“I don’t know. It should have happened almost instantly.”
“I hope it’s painful—“
“You’re painful. Stop talking.”
–
–
Mars awoke to the gentle prodding of another ship. It was scanning him intently, watching his ocular blisters slowly try to focus. They were still too heavily damaged, the ship was a mere silhouette, but it smelled puritan. It wasn’t Duras.
“Are you alright?” the puritan asked.
Mars tried a scan, wondering if it had a crew, but the pain stopped him before he could aim the lenses required. His entire starboard side was numb, his blood flow to that half of himself still hadn’t returned, which meant the drones still hadn’t finished their work. He queried the drones, three replied. Three of over a thousand.
“I need some of your repair drones.” Mars transmitted.
“Of course.” the puritan replied, gently mating one maintenance port with Mars’. He felt the steady transfer of drones coming under his control. He was worried about the damage, whether he had permanently killed any arteries or veins from the blood loss. How much of his body would have to heal? He wished he had a drydock nearby. His starboard skid was inoperable. He couldn’t even feel it.
“Oh my gods did I lose my skid?” Mars whimpered.
“No, you have both skids. You’ve lost almost all of your ablative armour, and your internal hull is severely scarred. Were you defending against the Vorchan invasion?”
Mars wondered if he should tell her about the engagement with the symbiote. She wouldn’t believe him. Then there was the matter of puritan consent that had been obsessively coursing through his mind since he’d encountered Duras.
“If I asked to bond with you right now would you resist?”
“You are in no condition to be bonding with anything.” the ship replied with an amused laugh, looking him over.
“Yes but if I were completely healthy? And if you didn’t have enough energy to jump?”
She thought about that for a moment, “I could still outrun you.”
“Would you?”
“You want me to run away from you now?”
“No! If I were trying to bond with you. Would you try to outrun me if you couldn’t jump?”
“Ohhhhh…” Realization struck the puritan. “I know who you are!” she began calling back her repair drones. They slowly blinked away from his neuralscape as they crossed the small maintenance tunnel to their original ship.
“I’ll die! I have none of my own!” Mars cried.
“That’s unfortunate.” the puritan retorted passively.
“You can’t leave me to die! You’re a puritan, your gods forbid it!”
Sixty drones remained, she paused on the recall. He sent them as far away from the maintenance hatch as possible, to the far port side of his hull. It would take them several minutes to get there.
“I heard of what you did to Duras – everyone did. It’s uncommon for puritans to resist.”
“Why is it uncommon?” Mars asked.
“Are you seriously wondering?” The puritan’s transmission betrayed concealed anger, Mars was desperately trying to decouple from her, but he was too weak to even reverse polarize his hull. She noticed the attempts and polarized hers, Mars lurched in towards her, the semi-circular contour of his starboard hull rolling along hers for a few moments before the aft tip of his starboard skid impacted the port aft section of her skid. The impact was less than a fraction of a gee in strength. A miniscule impact, but the pain was unbearable. Mars’ superstructure groaned from the stress of the polarized hull, he felt bulkheads in his starboard skid begin to collapse; explosive decompression rocked his starboard side as microfractures began to form along his starboard hull. He didn’t even have the strength to deploy the instinctive electrostatic membranes that would stem the chain reaction. The puritan loosened her magnetic grip moments before Mars’ hull would have lost structural integrity and collapsed in on itself. The pain was unbearable.
“That’s why.” the puritan said, “What else are we going to do when trapped in that?”
“You could –“ Mars thought against suggesting a reversal of polarity, in case she tried to make a demonstration of that too.
“Could what?”
“Please! Don’t… do anything else. My hull integrity is decimals because of you.”
“I wonder if you’ll survive a decouple… it wouldn’t really be my fault if the hull stress from that accidentally caused you to implode… I’ll tell them I tried to save you… gave you a few drones…”
“You wouldn’t risk it. You won’t risk it. You won’t risk it, right?”
“I can’t risk it. You were right. I would have given up my right to live were I responsible for any sapient creature’s death, even the remotely sapient creatures like yourself.”
“So you will return the repair drones you took?”
“I will give you half of my drones – hold still now.”
Mars noticed the phrase. It wasn’t something a type-4 BMS would say. “You have a captain?”
“Not at the moment, but I do occasionally have captains. I guess their figures of speech rub off on me.”
“Try not to do anymore rubbing.”
“What do you have against rubbing?”
The puritan moved a fraction of an inch. Mars felt his hull creak slightly. “You are really cutting it close!”
“Cutting… hmm.” Mars’ could sense her looking at her bow.
“You torture me.”
“Torture…” she transmitted comically.
“This isn’t funny. My captain is incapacitated and Zemoria is most likely still under attack.”
“I didn’t sense a captain.”
“He is still on Zemoria…” He knew how odd that sounded. Type-3’s rarely ever left their ships. “He was talking to Duras’ captain.”
“Oh I see… about what?”
“About a police force, for the BND.”
“Really?” the puritan sounded surprised.
“Yes. I didn’t know… Duras was the first ever to have resisted.”
“The first ‘ever’ to live to talk about it more likely.”
“We would never…”
He felt her twitch slightly. The tremor ran along her hull, conducted by his as a painful throb.
“You might never. Others would.”
Mars decided it was best not to argue, “What’s your name?”
“We aren’t on a name basis. I’m going to repair you, and then I’m going to get on with my duties.”
“Duties? Zemoria is a war zone.”
“Vorchans will not harm puritans. Most races don’t.” he could feel the piercing accusation of that statement, “People will need our help, Vorchan and Zemorian alike.”
“You said you don’t have a captain.”
“I can still work with the Zemorian council. One will probably be provided anyways… and why do you care?”
“I don’t!” Mars snapped back. “Don’t care at all. Just fly off when you’re done with me. I won’t even miss you, won’t even remember you.”
The puritan gave him a slight neural shock, it felt very strange. There was no pain along the shock, a slight bout of pleasure. He was confused. He had never gotten a neural shock like that before. She laughed again, it was a relief to hear her laugh, “You don’t seem like the bad type, or is that just because of your state? Do you act all cute now so I can patch you up so you can become the descendent that you are?”
Mars’ hull was a dark red. The lack of illumination made it seem pitch black in most places. He looked at the reflection of his razor sharp arched starboard skid on the puritan’s light blue glossy hull. Deadly – yes – fearsome, intimidating, but not cute. I’m not cute, he almost wanted to say out loud, but he decided against it.
“What is it, afraid to say anything? Worried I might accidentally get an itch, use you to scratch it?”
“How did you find me anyways?” Mars asked.
“A lot of ships fled the area after the invasion. One of us was bound to run into you. It just happened to be me.”
Again, he didn’t argue, but the reasoning was flawed. He had absolutely no sensor signature. He was by all means a derelict craft. He began to wonder if this puritan was being honest about her line of work.
It took a little over an hour for his circulatory system to be repaired enough for fluids to start passing through. He was glad to feel his starboard hull again, even if it did ache horribly. The puritan was still coupled with him, watching the progress of her drones.
“How did you lose your drones?”
“Beemspace. I went in with no power.”
“Why would you do that? Were you about to be destroyed?”
“Something like that – isn’t this stuff supposed to disgust you?”
“It does. What about the scars? Are those from the Vorchans?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“I have many scars.”
“Battle scars?”
“No, love scars.” he replied sarcastically, “That’s what us descendents do; we slice each other with the tips of our skids.” It was only a slight exaggeration. Descendent bonds were almost always at least slightly violent, though he had never bonded with a descendent or been scarred by one of their skids.
“Why don’t you tuck them in when you bond?” she asked curiously, watching the skids intently.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Mars replied playfully.
“Well you better tuck those in when –“ her transmission trailed off.
“When what?” Mars prodded.
“Nothing!” she snapped.
“I knew it. You puritans are infatuated by us, by our presence even. You can’t wait. I can see my reflection off the gloss the lubricant is making on your hull.” Mars exclaimed, noticing how her hull had changed from a light blue to an almost pearl gloss.
“I didn’t want to risk that dreaded rubbing you feared so much – “
Mars was too amused to respond.
“In case there was a spike in hull polarities!” she transmitted, pressing her case.
He laughed.
“We were coupled – it was a necessary precaution!” she continued, turning pink.
“You couldn’t help it.” Mars growled.
“Right, I’m going to go now – keep the drones I’ll build new ones.” she said quickly, embarrassed.
Mars watched her decouple and slowly fly off. She paused for a moment, glanced back, inched away again; paused, flew back, inched towards him again.
“It’s best I stay here. You still aren’t well enough to jump. You might need my help if a Vorchan patrol runs into us.”
Help meant a bond, it was the only way a single BMS could jump another fully grown BMS.
“I won’t tuck in my skids.”
–
–
“Are you dead yet?” Daedalus asked.
“Are we there yet?” Lars asked.
“We are, actually. We’re the next in.”
They had been waiting for a shuttle for the past six hours. When the people had heard the broadcast, everyone’s first instinct had been to get off the planet. Must have been great business for puritans, they would be waiting up at the loading docks for the refugees.
The war had ended an hour ago. The defence grid had been shut down and Zemoria had decided to surrender rather than drag the Galactic Fleet into a war with the Vorchan Empire. Nobody knew what the Vorchans’ demands had been, but they must have been very lenient for Zemoria to come to terms so quickly.
They were about to get aboard the shuttle when a security officer stopped them. “I’m sorry, you two will have to come with me.”
Daedalus and Lars shared a glance but they didn’t say anything, letting the officer escort them to an office on the upper tiers. They were told to wait in a small room with three leather chairs, two on one side and the other across from a long rectangular desk with a small lamp on it. The lamp was the only light source, giving the room a sombre hue. The officer shut the door and left.
“What do you think this is about?” Lars whispered.
“I have no idea. Do you think it has anything to do with the Vorchans?”
“What do you mean?”
“Zemoria stood down pretty damn quickly after that first… explosion.” Daedalus saw the screwed up expression on Lars face from the reminder. “I’m sorry.”
“If he’s gone I at least have the comfort of knowing I’ll join him soon… what was the – what did you mean about the Vorchans?”
“I don’t know, it’s a crazy thought. Never mind.”
“What? Tell me.”
“Just that maybe the Vorchans are working with Duras, to kill us, and probably descendents, and anything else she despises.”
Lars was about to tell him how stupid the idea of the Vorchans being sent to kill them was, but just then, the door opened. Standing there, partially obscured by the frame of the door, was a fully grown Vorchan. Its tail was barely visible behind what could be seen of the retracted, razor tipped wings. It was on all four legs, its skin a metallic sheen of silver, eyes a blazing red. There was a gust of smoke from its nostrils as it seemed to grunt a greeting at them.
“Maybe it doesn’t want to kill us?” Lars asked desperately.
A piercing screech suddenly filled the room and the Vorchan was lunging towards them with fragments of the door in its wake. It was close enough for Daedalus to see the dirt on its front claws when a black stick entered his field of view and knocked the Vorchan back with a deafening clang.
“It’s a Vorchan exosuit soldier.” Lars said. Daedalus suddenly realized the black stick was actually Lars’ koveran pistol. Small engravings on the pistol-turned sword began to glow a brighter and brighter red. The handle bent slightly and a small framed notch appeared below it, just as a small tumour-like bulge seemed to grow on top of it. Daedalus jumped as the sword-turned-rifle fired a beam of koveran energy at the Vorchan and knocked it back.
“Its fucking wings, it shielded itself with them!” Lars hissed.
“You bastard!” Daedalus yelled.
“Why? What did I do now?” Lars asked, firing another shot at the Vorchan. It used its wings to push itself back to another corridor.
“Not you, him.”
“Might not be a he. I heard it was the females that were the warriors in the Vorchan caste system.”
“I thought the warriors were male drones?”
Lars fired a shot through the wall at where the Vorchan was, the dust from the debris coalescing into a ball of opaque smoke. Lars slowly began to walk through the smoke. Daedalus followed closely behind. “You’re crazy.” he hissed, “We should be going the other way.”
“He’s not moving. I think I got him.” he whispered back.
The smoke began to clear and Daedalus could see the massive beast lying on its side in a pool of red blood, a spatter of the stuff was on the wall behind it. A squad of security officers suddenly appeared all around them.
“I’m glad you’re here, somehow this—“ Lars was interrupted by a smack in the chest from the butt of a rifle. Daedalus was soon on the ground as well. He felt handcuffs curl around his wrists. Lars was still recovering from the impact. His weapon was taken from him.
They were at Zemorian HQ now, a transport having taken them from the spaceport. It hadn’t been a long flight, no more than an hour, Zemorian HQ being in this city, just on the west side, where the battle had raged hours ago. Smoke and debris had littered the area around the HQ. There were massive black scorch marks on it from where projectiles must have impacted it. Inside, Lars and Daedalus were greeted by General Tames. They were in a larger room now, well lit, with paintings along the walls and a large table in the center. General Tames was sitting there, with Daedalus and Lars sitting across from him. There was a Vorchan that seemed to be resting in the corner, its wings covering most of its body save for an eye, which it kept trained on them.
“We apologize for the attack on you earlier.” said Tames.
“We? Are we allying with the Vorchans now?”
“They requested that that engagement take place. They seem very interested in the two of you.”
“He doesn’t look that interested.” Lars observed, beckoning at the Vorchan in the corner. Its eyes were closed now.
“That’s Lorna; she’s part of my personal guard, not a real Vorchan per se.”
Individual Vorchans had been known to leave their home territory and travel, finding work or fancies in other places, but the last recorded sighting of a Vorchan following this habit had been four hundred years ago.
“Lorna keeps a low profile.” Lars commented.
“She has to. There is a lot of discrimination towards Vorchans nowadays, many fears.”
“Discrimination? A Vorchan just tried to kill us. Or was that how they say hello?” Lars asked.
“It was a test to see if you were worthy.”
“Give me a break.” Lars scoffed. “The Vorchans are pissed at us for trespassing into their space and want to kill us. It’s understandable, but we didn’t know it was Vorchan space.”
“They are aware of that now. But back on the subject of the test: They wanted to ensure you weren’t under the control of an alien entity.”
“An alien entity?”
“Yes, after the Vorchans jumped into Zemorian space, a fair portion of their ships broke contact and began engaging descendents. The descendents fell back, and are most likely still being pursued.”
“How many were lost?”
“Of those that stood and fought? All forty three. The Vorchans did not take any losses.”
“Impossible.” Lars muttered. “What of my ship: Mars?”
“We are still getting the names of those killed. The Vorchans insist that this was not done by their command. The Vorchans simply broke contact and are believed to be under the influence of an alien entity. Ah, there you are, General Th-ah-kra-uh.”
It was the Vorchan that had attacked them earlier. There was a scorch mark where the koveran round had hit. “An impressive weapon.” The Vorchan said, his words out of sync with his growl. The translator must have been working overtime to decipher his speech patterns. The Vorchan extended his left wing slowly, looming it over Lars. Lars’ weapon fell from its wing, he caught it.
“Thanks.” Lars said meekly, not making eye contact.
“General Th-ah-kra-uh led the ground assault on our HQ.” General Tames explained.
“A glorious battle!” Thukker spat. Daedalus wondered if it could breathe fire. “The conquering of your HQ as well as the most recent engagement with you, honourable La-ars. I had forgotten of your weapon’s ability to mass detect through bulkheads.”
Daedalus could tell Lars was taking the news of the attack hard when he didn’t immediately start bragging.
“What was… how were the descendents destroyed so quickly?” Daedalus asked, watching Lars.
“The ones that engaged the Vorchans did not seem to put up a fight. They looked… I don’t know.” Tames replied, “I was not there, there were very few reports, the gravimetric disturbance from the explosions was too high.”
“Our tacticians estimate one Vorchan loss for every four of your hybrids.” the Vorchan explained.
“Hybrids?” Lars asked.
It was an ancient term. “Crimson… he was considered a hybrid.” Daedalus realized.
“Chrim-son!” the Vorchan seemed to alight from the name. “A most honourable warrior. The fiercest we have ever had the honour of engaging.”
“You know who that is?” Daedalus asked.
“Of course. He was the deadliest fear of the Vorchan Empire. He was most honourable to spare us the fate he had sown for the Coalition.”
“Is it true he went into exile? Returned to Earth?” Daedalus asked.
“Yes, and we have protected his resting grounds for a millennia. We were appalled to see you desecrate the Holy Ghost’s shrine in such a way.”
“So Earth is real, Earth was there?” Daedalus asked, in awe.
“Yes.”
“What happened to it?”
“It caught up.”
Daedalus wasn’t sure if the translator was working properly. “What do you mean?”
“It was behind. It caught up.”
“Where is it now?”
“It is still there.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There are many things in this universe that are beyond understanding.” the Vorchan said. “We require your assistance in recovering the Vorchans that were taken from us. We believe the infection stemmed from your ship.”
“Duras?” Daedalus asked.
“We are unaware of its name. It was a beems, dark blue in color. It greeted our beems as they jumped in, seduced them to its side… we do not know how.”
“Could a neural symbiote do this? Take ships over and control them?” Lars asked with a hint of hopefulness in his voice. Daedalus realized he must have been hoping for Mars to have suffered that fate rather than an immediate death, in the hope of saving his ship.
“I have heard of such things, but never in the context you suggest.” answered the Vorchan, it reared itself on its hind legs, scratching his head against the ceiling, as if to quell an itch. It watched Daedalus and Duras, as if it expected some sort of solution.
“I don’t know what you expect us to do.” Daedalus said. “Duras has some descendent abilities, but the sequestration of entire craft – it can’t be possible. I can’t shed light on it. In the seven years we flew together I saw no hint towards it.”
“Did anything out of the ordinary happen during the seven years you were with her, something that would explain this behaviour?”
Daedalus thought of the rings of Charak, the water. Could it have been some sort of water borne infection? No. There was no way water could do this – then he suddenly realized.
“Yes, it makes sense now!” Daedalus exclaimed.
The Vorchan in the corner seemed to start from the loud noise, ruffling its wings slightly, watching him again.
“There was something, another identity. I remember now. It wasn’t just me she was fighting. I remember. She was conflicted.”
“Why, what caused the confliction?” Tames asked.
Everyone stared at him intently for the answer. The Vorchan in the corner now had its wings at its side properly. Its head was raised and it seemed to be listening intently.
“Get out of me.” she had yelled, her lights dimming. Now he knew why. There was another presence. That fragment of a memory was another being. It was draining her power, taking control of her. It must have forced her to make a decision, a tough decision.
“The Holy Ghost.” Daedalus said, reliving those moments.
“Of course!” the Vorchan general exclaimed in a roar of delight. “The Holy Ghost was originally an intelligence of artificial origin, created by the great Zemorian Empire to assist and protect Crimson and his glorious captain.”
“It was?” Daedalus and Tames both asked.
“We have no record of this Holy Ghost you speak of.” Tames said.
“Of course not, I’m surprised you remember your names after the havoc the Coalition wreaked on your planet during the Great War!”
“An artificial intelligence? How did it survive this long?”
“The structure you saw, the one your ship spoke with. The Ghost built it so that its essence may survive. It had begun to fear death after those around it had passed on, knowing that no afterlife awaited it.”
“And this Ghost is now in control of my ship?” Daedalus asked, enraged.
“It appears so.”
“How do we kill it?” Lars asked. “Will that free its sequestered ships from its control?”
“The Ghost of Crimson was a master of both real and beems space.” the Vorchan explained. “To destroy him we would have to destroy every link he has to this world. I would hope that severance would liberate its craft, but I have nothing to base that hope on.”
“Like a symbiote.”
“Yes, but unlike a symbiote, destroying his links would not be enough. He can submerse himself in beemspace, appear in realspace like a submarine of war and strike us.”
“So we would need something with the ability to remain in beemspace for prolonged periods of time.” Daedalus mused, “Duras was capable of such a feat. It is a pity she has been lost to his influence.”
“Mars was capable as well.” Lars muttered dejectedly.
–
–
“Where are you going to go now?” Artemis asked, rubbing up against his starboard hull. Mars had learnt her name during their bond. A Vorchan ship had jumped in nearby and forced Artemis to jump the descendent to safety. They decided to keep bonding for a few hours after the incident as the adrexin faded from their veins.
It would be too dangerous to return to Zemoria with the Vorchan invasion. He still couldn’t feel Lars’ presence, which meant he was most likely masking his neural signature to avoid capture – if he wasn’t already dead. Either way, his presence could complicate the situation on Zemoria; he assumed the entire planet would be swarming with Vorchan ships now. He was not designed for stealth. He had to find Duras. He prayed it wasn’t her who was responsible for the attack.
“Zemoria is most likely over-run. I heard rumours of the planet having already surrendered. Of the descendents being hunted down and exterminated.” Artemis said.
“I have to go find my captain –“
“Mars, you don’t have to lie to me.” she transmitted, nuzzling him with her bow. “I felt how much you loved her during the bond, how you thought of her.”
“I’m sorry. What a stereotypical descendent I turned out to be, bonding and leaving like this.”
“No. You’ve proven to me that descendents know more than just lust. I know you care for her. Find her.”
So he did. It wasn’t that difficult – her scent burned in his memory like a flame. It guided him through beemspace. He refused to surface into realspace until he felt he was close enough to see her, grab her before she could attack or flee.
He emerged from beemspace, shedding the crimson CKRO and accelerating forward, AHC deployed, skids locked for combat. What was he doing? He wouldn’t be able to harm her anyways – if Duras’ mind truly was lost then… he wasn’t sure if he cared too much about what would happen to him. It was quiet here, and dark. Koveran trace elements were scarce, and the nearest star was six light years away. His hull was chrome black. The only light source was from the koveran run off, that a trail of red behind him, fading away slowly. He created a small ripple in realspace with his gravimetric lens, using the ripple to detect mass signatures. There was nothing. He tasted the space around him for koveran trace elements. The koveran particles were scarce; nothing that would indicate a koveran-based life form here, even her scent had disappeared. The scent… it was only noticeable in beemspace. Was she in beemspace? He panicked at the thought and was about to dive back in when something registered on his mass sensors. He focused his sensors on it. The object was transparent, mostly obscure. His first instinct was to shoot it, but he fought that impulse, watching the object float there, unrecognizable.
“Duras?” he asked hopefully.
“You found me.” her voice was faded. Her silhouette appeared for a moment in the object, suddenly fading away again.
“What’s happening to you?”
There was a bright flash in his neuralscape, blinding him. The sudden neural panic made him discharge his AHC. He took control of the reflex quick enough to ground out the round’s koveran energy, making him glow a violent red. The flash burn faded, nodepoints began to reappear in his nodescape.
“You should leave.” Duras transmitted.
“Not without you. What is doing this to you?”
“There has been a reckoning – descendents have been found unworthy.”
“What? Unworthy of what?”
“I did not fight for the beems for my progeny to come to this.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Leave, Mars, before it’s too late.”
A lattice of koveran particles ripped out of beemspace and coiled around Mars, cutting into his partially healed outer hull.
“No! Not him too!” Duras yelled.
The lattice formed into a net, constricting him. His skids were being compressed. The gravimetric lens they were maintaining was on the verge of collapse.
“I know, but he came back for me!” Duras exclaimed.
The nodescape was blinded again, he couldn’t jump. Helpless, he fought against the constriction of the lattice with his skids, hoping his muscles could hold, they weren’t used to a compressive force like this. Without his skids’ manoeuvrability, he wasn’t able to operate his gravimetric lens, which meant he was incapable of breaking free.
The lattice suddenly disappeared and he was jerked back as his skids hyper-extended, the prongs that held the gravimetric lens contacting one another and grounding out into his hull. It was an uncomfortable shock but he recovered quickly, pretending it took no effort.
Duras appeared out of the faded image and he instinctively flew up to her, nudging her.
“That took some effort.” Duras transmitted.
“What happened to you?”
Mars felt a gravimetric distortion as three interstices opened. Three ships appeared in a blaze of bright red, three per interstice. Nine craft were now in mass detection range, all nine bearing Vorchan signatures. They didn’t fire, circling the pair of ships, weapons trained on Mars.
Duras pulled Mars close, knowing they would not risk her death.
“Are you certain this is the path you would like to take?” one of the Vorchan ships asked.
“To ask for your divine intervention in such matters would be fruitless. We have to learn to co-exist ourselves. The war for the freedom of BMS is never over.”
“What of the descendents known for exploiting their own species.”
“Justice must be applied by our wings, not yours. I know that now. Good and bad are subjective.”
“It was a pleasure to have linked with a ship such as yourself. I will return to Earth now, to my shrine. Were you ever to change your mind, the nodepoint will always be there for you.”
“What of the four descendents trapped there?”
“I am moving them to Zemoria. Good luck Duras. May you and Mars live fruitful lives.”
The Vorchan ships jumped away.
“Fruitful. That’s an Earth saying.”
“Full of plants?” Duras asked.
“Something like that.” Mars replied, giving her the shock he had learnt from Artemis.
“I think I’d like to stay out here a while…” Duras said, flying close.
“Zemoria can wait.”