“Base to Donovan, we’re seeing a lot of activity out here. The vessel is changing color, and all the sediment has broken free.”
Rao shook his head, his eyes wide. “We oughta get out, Marc.”
Marcus never had a chance to make the decision; it was made for him. All three men were simultaneously lifted from the catwalk and flung towards the corridor they had come from. They all screamed, and more screams crackled over the comm channel.
The ship began to scream as well.
Surrounded by the ship’s screeching, plaintive cry, Marcus accelerated down the blood red tunnel,. He hurtled faster and faster through twisting tubes, and the walls became a blur. He was moving so fast that the tunnel lost its shape, all the detail gone except for the strobing lights and the swiftly approaching darkness.
“Base to Donovan, come in! It’s moving! Donovan?!”
Marcus was about to die. His remains would be liquified, totally beyond identification. He’d always hoped to face his demise with class, but instead he was frothing at the mouth and screaming like a child.
Then he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Before he could decide what to say to his maker, the light engulfed him and it was over.
His arms were crossed in front of his face as if they could possibly stop whatever was coming, and he was twitching like a broken servo. As he lowered his arms, it took him a second to realize he was, in fact, still alive.
He was floating a couple meters above a landing platform in a stark white room. There were four other corridors with their own platforms, and in front of each were clusters of his staff in shiny white pressure suits, hanging in place like fruit in gelatin.
“Base to Expedition? Anyone?”
Gravity kicked in and everyone dropped to the floor.
“We’re okay, Mason,” Marcus said as he dusted himself off. His breathing was ragged and the words came out stilted. He slowly climbed to his feet, and saw the rest doing the same. “We’re all okay.”
The room, stark white and glistening like ivory, was one they hadn’t explored yet. It was broken into three tiers, each lower than the last and connected by ramps with molded hand-rails. The domed ceiling above was circled by a string of pill-shaped lights which blazed a bluish white.
Marcus and his people were on the highest level, where the five tunnels and their landing platforms were located. Other than the platforms and the dazed crewmen standing on them, all three tiers were empty as a sound stage.
Zebra-One’s screaming could still be heard, but it was muffled as if this room were somehow insulated from the rest of the ship. Marcus had a strong sense of safety, although it might have just been in contrast with the terrifying journey that brought him there. “I think she took us here to protect us,” he said.
Mason Shen’s voice came back. “Good to hear ya, sir. With all the screaming… well, I thought the duty roster was going to be a lot shorter. Zebra-One’s still going crazy, so we’ve pulled the Shackleton back to a safe distance.”
“Define crazy,” Rao demanded.
“The irises are opening and shutting. Tentacle-like appendages are thrashing about at the mouth of the secondary hull, and all kinds of colors are playing across the skin. It’s pandemonium, sir.”
“What the hell did you do, Marcus?”
He was absolutely sure Juliette had asked him that exact question before, in that precise tone. Many times before, in fact. “I woke her up,” he answered.
Something below his line of sight caught Marcus’ attention, and when he looked down, he made a strange discovery. The floor directly beneath him was glowing. It was a disc of bright amber, which pulsed in and out. He glanced around at the rest of the crew, but none of them had a similar disc under their feet.
Faulkland looked him up and down. “I could be wrong, but it seems she’s trying to get your attention.”
Another moment later, a path along the floor lit up, leading from his disc to a spot in the middle of the second tier. The message was pretty obvious.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Juliette said.
He slowly walked the path and the disc followed. “Stupid has gotten us this far. If this turns bad, keep everyone together and find a way out.” He was filled head-to-toe with foreboding, but he knew he was meant to be here. He was willing to see where faith would take him.
As he walked, familiar shapes bubbled out of the floor and ceiling, formed from the same glistening white material. They were reminiscent of consoles and duty stations, just above waist height and perfectly positioned for a standing person. With every step, more of these things appeared, like a garden suddenly touched by Spring.
When he reached the spot marked for him, a circular hand-rail formed around him like a cage, while a chair came up and gently cradled his body. A cylinder emerged from the ceiling, then a smaller one telescoped from inside it, and a third after that. The last cylinder’s surface peeled open, and a flattened arm reached down out of the hole. It was curved like a scorpion’s tail and tipped with a yellow device the size of a fist whose flat surface bristled with metallic quills. The whole setup was eerily similar to a dentist’s chair.
“Marcus?” Faulkland asked. The cowboy was cautious. Marcus should have been terrified, but he wasn’t.
“Faith,” was all he said, and he tried to relax.
The scorpion tail curled around and examined him from one side and then the other. It fluidly swooped in and examined a spot on his right temple. Then it pulled back and struck.
There was a sharp pain, like a spike of hot metal had been driven through his head. For a moment, he thought he was screaming and then all was silent. Everything was blanketed in perfect silence.
Stars. The stars were everywhere, like a hundred billion onlooking eyes, pin pricks in an infinite sheet of blackness. There was nothing but emptiness there, and Marcus had never felt such freedom before. Such peace. He was at home.
He floated there in the dark waiting for what he knew was coming. He was the forerunner, and in another moment the rest of his fleet would begin to appear all around him. The other ships. The others like himself.
He was a ship? He was momentarily lost, confused, unsure of who or what he was. Then she was sure. Of course she was a ship, a great and powerful vessel. She was the pride of the Eireki fleet. All around, her countless brothers and sisters arrived to fill the void, and joined their voices in a song of light.
She was the queen of that light. Its keystone. Its source and destination. She was the light of stars that danced in the dark of night, and the song of creation that stood before the destroyer.
Her lover came up beside her, the prince of her race who so often wandered the void in solitude. He radiated sadness and sorrow for the destruction soon to come, and for the peace they had failed to attain.
The chance for peace was gone. Now was the time for war.
She bowed to him and pressed forward, and her fleet raced to match. A trillion of her kind cut through the emptiness, blotting out the distant stars and carrying the entirety of the Eireki species aboard them. The Eireki who were creators and protectors, who filled her with love and life and purpose. They filled her with strength unimaginable. She and her crew, bonded through their thoughts, were one.
The enemy also rode in force, and she could feel their blight in the distance. They were the dark and twisted Nefrem. The so-called chosen children. They were destroyers, who existed only to devour and pervert the light.
Side by side, the legion of ships and their Eireki crews awaited the coming of the darkest one. The source of the destroyers. Their mother. Their living planet.
And then the enemy came, its arrival thundering across all of creation. The queen of the light bid her fleet to wait, and hide in the shadow of a gas giant. They would attack with the rising sun.