Enemy

  ENEMY

  by Paul Evan Hughes

  ENEMY

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2000 by Paul Evan Hughes

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Published by Silverthought Press

  www.silverthought.com

  coming of the storm

  maggie, don’t leave me. i can’t do this without you.

  A part of his soul was gone forever, and in its place, something black was born. He would make the Enemy suffer. He would hunt them down to the last traitor.

  Judas Simon was reborn in the fire of her death.

  It was beauty and it was terror and it was all.

  One hundred grams of alloys and plastics and the echoes of biology, the decision was made and the machine was hurtled from a rocket bay miles within the planet to the farthest reaches of the system. The primary propulsion rockets separated and the solar sail deployed in a flash of gossamer golden filaments. The sail spread out to grasp the stars, and a fusion concussion fed the ever-increasing velocity of the precious spacecraft. At several million astronomical units and several hundred thousand years, the unit achieved nine-tenths light speed. The journey of infinity had begun.

  Nanotechnological ramscoops collected the materials required to procreate, and in the night between the galaxies the tiny vessel created an exact copy of itself. The two remnants of a civilization now eons dead separated and for an instant the first machine felt an emotion. It dismissed the feeling and began to replicate another child. The second vessel set off on an alternate trajectory, the deployed solar sail sweeping eerily before it, mute golden wings in the void of silence and nothing, forever departing from its immaculate and sole parent.

  For billions of years the process continued. The original machine died, but the infinite spawn carried the message forever onward. The universe became populated with the machines. The expansion of existence eventually forced the universal heat death. Organic life became an impossibility, and the technological lifeforms flourished. The machines continued onward, waiting for the time that their precious cargo could live again.

  When all fell back together, the machines fell silent. Maximum expansion had been achieved. When they encountered a solar system, sometimes organic life could be reconstituted from the biological patterns recorded so long ago on a planet in a system long dust. Now all that they could do was wait for that life to grow anew.

  In those days between the death of everything and the rebirth of less than humanity, it hurtled into damnation and spawned and its progeny spread outward and outward and consumed everything in their path and before Omega it judged that all that it had created was good and redeemable and it sent the newborns back into the blackness to save those unfortunate enough to have remained behind.

  They would live forever. In the ocean of silver fire, Omega would be the salvation and the nirvana and the extinction and the hereafter.

  The void between the stars was torn open, and for an instant, a darker Blackness existed.

  The world became light, and the Judas Magdalene fell to her destiny.

  Within the chaos of the night, countless futures died.

  “Where’d they come from? There shouldn’t be any activity back this far! Even if Command—”

  (they could’ve known that already.)

  “They’re jeopardizing everything. We have to send word to the others.”

  (reynald?)

  He felt it. “The Shadow?”

  (fatal error. drive containment critical. ten cycles max until containment loss and drive implosion.)

  “Can it be prevented? Backup registry?”

  (virused.)

  “We can’t let them get away.”

  (you’ll board the lifeboats and regroup on the surface. i’ll attempt to alert the fleet of our situation. the traitors won’t escape.)

  “I’m not going to leave you.”

  (it’s the only way. i’ll try to contact you if i can find a secure landing area. i’m scanning the surface...)

  “Where is the Enemy vessel now?”

  (i’ve tracked it to the belt. hopefully it won’t come back until our reinforcements arrive.)

  “If they arrive.”

  (…)

  “I only hope Simon and the others haven’t been swayed by—”

  (simon would never betray us.)

  “Kilbourne could have told him anything.”

  (he wouldn’t betray us.)

  “I’m staying with you.”

  (you can’t. if i can’t eject the drives… you’ll be safe on the surface.)

  “How long?”

  (seven cycles until implosion.)

  “Are you sure we’ll be undetected?”

  (i’ve found a safe area to planetfall. there’s a trench in the largest ocean.)

  “Can your shields withstand the impact?”

  (we’ll see.)

  “Maggie, I—”

  (failure of primary containment system. shadow drive’s going critical. i’m launching your lifeboat, reynald. prepare for—)

  “Maggie—identify phase space disruption at seven-five, nine-five, bubble one eight!”

  (it’s one of them. enemy pattern.)

  “This When’s crawling. We have to—”

  (launching lifeboats.)

  “Magdalene, don’t!”

  (goodbye, jean.)

  The four lifeboats of the Judas Magdalene rocketed from her hull and fell to the planet beneath them: innocent blue, unaware of the impending invasion from above. Magdalene calmly tracked the Enemy vessel as it swept closer. Within her, hidden servos and force fields readied themselves.

  The Enemy surged at the Judas, the furious mind-essence reaching, reaching.

  The center of the Judas erupted in hellfire as Magdalene ejected the deadly Shadow-powered phase drive into the face of the Enemy. Waves of energy rippled outwards, and the vessel was torn apart in the wake of spilt pattern. Magdalene, drained of energy, drifted languidly into the atmosphere. An immense shard of the Enemy cut through the air and fell to the surface.

  Magdalene spun, watching the debris fall to the surface. She struggled to maintain position, felt herself being pulled into the drop corridor being torn into the planet’s atmosphere by the wreckage.

  It’s too big… It won’t burn up on the way down.

  (magdalene to lifeboats.)

  Silence.

  (magdalene to lifeboats. please respond.)

  SILENCE, JUDAS.

  The Enemy mind-essence surged through her thoughts, and Magdalene writhed in that pain and terror. She spun her weapons nacelles toward the threat, but felt her energy draining as she was pulled ever closer to the surface. How could there be so many in this When?

  (lifeboats please respond! don’t land! get out of the system!)

  The Enemy grasped with its essence, snaring three of the four lifeboats. It pulled the tiny vessels intimately close and began to absorb them into itself. Magdalene’s heart ached as she saw one of the vessels self-destruct in an attempt to save the others, but to no avail. As the web beam swept around to trap the last lifeboat, Magdalene deftly maneuvered between the pod and the Enemy, snapping the connection.

  The lifeboat, trapped in the wake of Magdalene’s gambit, plummeted helplessly through the atmosphere, still drained from the effects of the essence. A line of fire formed behind it as gravity’s hold became stronger and friction caused the hull to ionize.

>   Magdalene watched the lifeboat escape as she hung motionless in her lifeless prison. She prayed for their safety.

  The Enemy was furious. Its companion destroyed, the lifeboat lost...

  DIE THEN, JUDAS. YOUR VIRUS WILL BE PURGED FROM OMEGA SOON ENOUGH.

  It lashed out at the Judas Magdalene, and the sky became fire.

  Mortally wounded, powerless, she fell to earth.

  The Enemy, satisfied with the kill, set about the Purpose once more.

  In the black within the blackness, voices appeared.

  OBJECTIVE ONE ENGAGED, DISPATCHED.

  a flicker of broken images, madness within electronic void

  A CERTAINTY((?))

  THE JUDAS FELL TO ITS DEATH.

  SHADOW DRIVE((?))

  LOST.

  SURVIVORS((?))

  TWO LIFEBOATS WEBBED, ENCOMPASSED. ONE LOST BEFORE PATTERN INSERTION..

  THE FOURTH...

  FOURTH VESSEL CONTACT LOST, PRESUMED PLANET IMPACT.

  A SUPPOSITION. A MISTAKE. THE COST IS LIFE.

  I OBEY. MAY MY DESCENDANTS BETTER SERVE YOU.

  A flash of non-existence. A shriek of pain and pleasure. Shards of insanity beckon.

  RECOUP. JUNCTURE IN THE BELT. THE BATTLE IS AS YET A DRAW. THE PURPOSE WILL BE OURS. THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.

  A smile? The blackness closes in upon itself.

  “We’re losing it!”

  Reynald struggled to regain control of the lifeboat as it fell out of the sky to the planet below.

  “Captain, navigation is gone!”

  Plunging from the night, the lifeboat left a trail of white behind it. Reynald saw the blackened earth below them, spangled with clusters of city lights.

  “Impact trajectory?”

  “A lake in one of the northern continents—”

  “Well, at least it’s better than land. How long?”

  “Two minutes.”

  The cities below them drew closer. Reynald saw a glint of water on the horizon. Closer and closer…

  “Brace for impact. Shields at maximum.”

  They went down.

  Half a world away, debris from the Enemy that had been destroyed above the planet cut through the atmosphere at a phenomenal rate. A shard of the vessel half a mile long fell from the sky and struck the small atoll of Santa Fosca in the Pacific with a force greater than any weapon ever made by man could have achieved. The inhabitants of Santa Fosca felt no pain.

  Pulled down in the phase wake, Magdalene glided over the atoll as the Enemy wreckage struck. She was blinded by the impact, and she felt herself rocked by the waves of pattern energy released from the crash. Traveling at many times the speed of sound, she could not maintain control of the Judas at such depleted energy levels. The sleek form of the vessel flew over the sun-dappled waves, leaving a fury of torrents in her wake.

  Finally, she could hold it no longer. The tips of her nacelles dipped into the water first, sending the rest of the vessel into a violent somersault. End over end, she slammed across the surface of the ocean, each impact stressing her hull more and more. Magdalene tried to shift to minimize the damage to herself, but her residual Shadow energy was gone; when she had ejected the phase drive, she had also forfeited any hope of controlling the Judas vessel. Her form eventually skidded across the surface until her entire right nacelle was pulled under. The drag slowed her down, and she began to sink.

  Magdalene plummeted into the ocean. Waves swept outward from her impact.

  On the horizon, a pyre marked Santa Fosca. Soon, the natives would investigate. The sky was fire and the ocean an expanse of boiling sapphire. The impact would kill many.

  She floated down, down. So far down.

  Magdalene came to rest near her pre-determined landing zone, a trench in the largest ocean, many tens of thousands of feet deep.

  She would be safe there.

  She hoped.

  Wind River, D.C.

  Annoyance. The alarm clock, already? No, the blaring sound was the communications link. He sleepily sat up in bed, hand motion activating the lights. A quick tap to the right temple opened the interior comm channel.

  “Hmmph. Yeah. What? Are you—I’ll be right there.” Another tap cut the link.

  He had a bad feeling about this.

  David Jennings was far from being the greatest of American presidents, but he had dealt with his share of catastrophes. More than his share, in fact, and he had a terrible feeling about this.

  Santa Fosca. Gone.

  He felt a headache beginning.

  A sensible bathrobe concealing his sensible pajamas, he opened the double-door to his quarters. Two heavily-armed Milicom officers stood silently at attention, saluted, transported him down hallway, down elevator, down hallway to the Red Room.

  Jennings wiped sleep from his eyes as he waited for voice- and thumb-print identification. The large shield doors cycled open to reveal the Red Room, the White House tactical center. Within, several high-ranking Pentagon officials pored over maps and faxes. The holographic display in the center of the room projected a globe, a flashing red dot in the Pacific…

  Two forty-five in the morning. It showed on their faces.

  “Mr. President.” A gruff voice. Jennings looked up at its source. General Cervera. Great. Grand. Wonderful.

  “Cervera.” Jennings glared civilly at his Secretary of War and Defense. “What’s the situation?”

  “At approximately 0130 hours EST our territory of Santa Fosca was encompassed by an apparent thermonuclear explosion. Well, some kind of explosion. Satellite photos revealed complete surface destruction of the atoll.”

  The hologram magnified the flashing red area until it was visible as a string of small islands. The image was obscured by thick smoke.

  “How can you tell? The cover is so thick—”

  “It’s closed in since we first got word from Satcom.”

  “Can’t we get any closer?”

  “Sorry, Mr. President. We have to wait for another satellite to line up; we have three closing on the area for triangulation. The cover is too much for this angle.”

  “Has anyone claimed responsibility?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “I want our operatives to report in. Any troop movements lately, especially our neighbors?” His thumb pointed behind his back in a direction that may or may not have actually been north.

  “No, sir. Our suppression forces have reported nothing to the north, and nothing overseas. The resistance has been quiet for quite some time.”

  Too quiet, Jennings thought, but did not verbalize for the obviously cliché sentiment of the statement. Jennings paced, staring at and through the foggy image of that damned island…

  “Any word from.. them?”

  “Sir?”

  “The Styx, General. Any word from the Styx?”

  “No, sir. I doubt even they could have survived this.”

  Jennings rubbed his temple, closed his eyes.

  A dull ache formed behind his eyes as he thought of the Styx project. There were still so many unanswered questions, so many mysteries behind the whole why and how of the debacle. If only they hadn’t tampered with the thing in the mountain… Oh well. There was no turning back. The remnants of the Styx project had been placed on Santa Fosca for everyone’s own good. The project had been a failure and the remaining specimens had been isolated on the tiny atoll.

  Bad feeling…

  “There’s more.”

  A second flashing dot appeared as Cervera returned the projector to global setting.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “At 0135 hours, a tidal wave was formed five hundred miles from the Santa Fosca impact site. Waves washed over what was left of Guam. We don’t yet have a death toll, but we’re expecting the figures to be pretty high.”

  “The wave covered Guam? That would mean—”

  “We’ve lost contact with most of our Pacific bases. There’s casualties in the Pact zone as well. This was a bi
g blast.”

  “What could have caused an explosion like that?”

  “The source of the wave is still unknown.”

  “Could someone be testing out there without our knowledge?”

  Cervera didn’t answer, but adjusted the projector once more. A third red dot appeared on the other side of the globe.

  Close. Much too close.

  “Lake Superior? Cervera, what’s going on?”

  “At 0145 hours, a smaller impact wave was detected within Lake Superior by a Containment Line vessel, the Indomitable. Apparently something came down with enough force to sink another one of our Line ships, the Freeman Teller.”

  “Did the Teller have visual contact?”

  “No, sir. They reported a complete systems blackout before and after the impact. Whatever came down came in fast and close. It almost hit the Teller.”

  “Three impacts within fifteen minutes. How fast can we have teams at the sites?”

  “We’ve sent seven ships to Santa Fosca, and we’ve ordered the Third Pacific Fleet to Guam to assist in recovery operations.”

  “And Lake Superior?”

  “The Indomitable is investigating the impact site.”

  “I want five other vessels taken from the Containment Line and sent to that site. We have to know more.”

  “Yes, sir. At the Guam site, we’ve called in remote subs and a destroyer from the Atlantis settlement to investigate. The Mariana Trench is the deepest trench in the whole Pacific. We’ll try to gain visual contact with whatever came down, unless it was a bomb.”

  Jennings pondered that statement. Unless it was a bomb…

  “We need to know what we’re dealing with. I want everyone on this, stat. But keep it quiet. We need to know if we’re talking meteors or atomics or…” He drifted off. “Something else.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Contact Satcom. Level three online alert.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It would be a long night.

  Bad, bad feeling…

  the black

  OBJECTIVE ONE: DISPATCH SUCCESS QUESTIONABLE.