Daughter of Atrocity, page 25
Reaching out through voidspace, she felt the shape of their accompanying ships in her mind’s eye. Chutz didn’t seem to be interested in them. Instead, he was straining forward, intent upon their destination point of emergence. What did he know that she didn’t? She stretched those senses out even further, seeking signs of any other presence in the voidspace, but for the moment there was none. She was heartened by the fact that there didn’t seem to be any residual ship traces on the path that they were now travelling either. Their last experience with the Sirona ships had made her wary.
The spot they were aiming for was coming up fast.
“Jay, Timon,” just about there. “Maybe one day you’ll be able to see this stuff too.”
“Not holding my breath for that one,” said Timon. “Not sure that I’d really want to either.”
She gave a little shrug, not that he could see it.
“Weapons ready?” he said instead.
She gave everything a quick once over, checked the displays, though she still didn’t know if any of this was effective in voidspace. She could see markers for the other ships, so she guessed there was that at least. They still hadn’t got around to doing anything with weapons testing. Perhaps that might be a dangerous oversight. She gave a little grimace at the thought, but then she felt the adrenaline rush as she sensed the point of emergence sweeping down upon them again. Her mouth was dry, and she tried to moisten it, feeling her heart pounding as she yelled the command.
“Now!”
They’d emerged almost directly on top of a cluster of Sirona ships.
“Shit!” yelled Timon, wresting the ship to the left and up, away from the threat.
She heard other chatter, surprise, commands. Everything was chaos, filling her ears with noise and voices, and filling her vision were those vase silvery ships. They were too close, too close.
“Mahra,” Jayeer’s voice.
Chutz was bouncing up and down on the back of the flight couch. And still the voices came.
“Mahra!” Jay’s voice again.
And in that instant, she reached inside, found what she sought and quiet, deadly determination washed over her.
She narrowed her eyes and she fired. She fired, and she kept firing, lances of energy striking out at those silvery shapes.
There were other clusters of those ships, the huge red sun roiling over all of it, movement above and beyond her, but she registered nothing.
Still, she kept firing, watching, as with her teeth gritted in determination, those lines of fire started to score those silvery surface. She pressed forward in the couch, growling through tightly closed teeth, firing, and firing again. She saw one of the ships erupt, pieces of it spinning outwards, striking another of those ships and cartwheeling off. Then the sight was swept out of her view, and she spun the couch to track it. Just for a second she watched it, and then she was already seeking another target.
All around her, there was light and destruction, motion, chaos. She was supposed to be doing something, wasn’t she? She sent another beam of energy burning out to a Sirona ship.
She was supposed to be….
And then a strange realisation started trickling through her awareness. None of the Sirona appeared to be firing back. She noted it briefly, and then moved on, stabbing the controls, urging the destruction down upon the Sirona ships again and again.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sirona Space
Timon was yelling something at her. The other ships were still firing, but her hands had drifted away from the controls. How could they not be firing? And then she felt it. There was a stirring all around her, something that worked deep within her guts. Chutzpah had gone completely still. Mahra’s hands still hovered over the fire controls, but she did nothing. The sensation grew and grew, swelling like a wave, threatening to sweep her away and yet it remained inside her. Timon was saying something over the com, and then it was Jay’s voice, but she couldn’t register the words, couldn’t understand what they were saying to her; this sensation was consuming all. It was like the feeling she had when she knew a ship was going to jump, only more so, a hundred so, more than that.
“Timon, shut up” she croaked. “Something’s happening.”
Surely the other navigators had to be feeling this too.
“Mahra, what?”
“Just…be…quiet,” she managed to get out.
The feeling intensified within her, taught and then with a sudden release, it washed away, replaced by the inner awareness of movements all around them. One by one, then together, in groups, the Sirona ships started jumping.
“What the hell?” said Timon.
Mahra watched with an open mouth. They were all jumping. Every single one of them. What the hell was happening? It was not just the ships they’d been firing upon. It was all of them. Steadily the numbers lessened, as they disappeared until finally there was nothing left. The CoCee wing was left floating beside the fiery red orb and few still visible pieces of slowly spinning wreckage. Very soon, they too would have drifted out of sight.
“The fleet,” said Jay. “There’s no way to warn them.”
How could they have known?
“Shit, we need to get back there.”
“Wait,” said Mahra.
“What?”
“Just wait. There’s something odd here. Something strange. Let me work it out.”
She stretched out with her senses, looking for that thing that was troubling her. If the Sirona had jumped back to Flavius, then there was little they could do anyway, but wouldn’t they have jumped all together? She looked for the ships, looked for the exits into voidspace and their paths, and suddenly knew what it was that was off. The ships hadn’t jumped en masse; they hadn’t entered voidspace with a common destination. They had jumped in ones and twos and in clusters and they had gone in multiple directions at once. They had simply scattered.
“I don’t believe it,” said Mahra.
“What? What is it?”
“They haven’t gone anywhere. They all seemed to just pick a random direction and jump.”
“How, can that…? Report,” said Timon. “Are the other navigators seeing this.”
There followed a few confirming responses from the other ships.
“That doesn’t make any sense. Perhaps they’re regrouping. Mahra?”
Once more she reached out. At first it was nothing, and then slight, slowly growing, she started to feel that familiar disturbance that meant something was approaching and ready to emerge.
“Oh, hell, Timon. You could be right. Everybody ready on weapons!” she yelled over the com.
And in that next instant the pressure grew and grew, and a moment later, where had been emptiness a new group of ships popped into existence. They weren’t the Sirona back for another round. They were familiar. It was the CoCee’s second wing. Mahra could just imagine what they were thinking.
What followed was a quick back and forth between the arriving ships and their own in some attempt to explain what had just happened. Once again, Mahra reached out, seeking those Sirona ships, but then once again, there was nothing, merely their lingering traces in every direction surrounding them.
“What are we going to do?” she asked finally. “Should we go back? Timon, up to you.”
“I say we wait here for a bit,” said Timon after a pause. “After all, this is supposed to be the buggers’ home system. They have to come back here eventually.”
“Or perhaps they don’t,” said Jayeer.
“What?”
“Well, it’s not as if they seem to have a homeworld floating around next to this lovely big red sun in the sky, do they?”
“Mmm. You do have a point there, Jay,” said Timon. “Still….”
“Order, Commander?” That came from one of the other ships.
“Hold position for now. That includes Alvius’s wing,” he said, including the latest arrivals. “And we’ll wait and see what happens. I want to give it a little while.”
Suddenly, Chutzpah, who had been uncharacteristically still while their conversation took place, started scampering back and forth atop the back of Mahra’s couch.
“What is it, Chutz? What’s going on.”
She felt in then, deep in her guts, in the back of her brain.
“Timon, Jay, get ready. There’s something coming back in. Maybe you were right.”
Her hands hovered over the fire controls.
Timon gave the orders to be ready, but she suspected the other ships already knew thanks to their onboard navigation personnel. Something about this felt different though, bringing a frown to her brow. If it was the Sirona, she would feel the disturbance from all directions, wouldn’t she? Unless they had, as Timon suggested, done just that, and regrouped somewhere before returning as a united wave, blasting as they emerged. Her heart felt like it had skipped a beat.
The feeling continued growing. No, it was something else, something far, far more concentrated than the scattered Sirona signals. This was something altogether different. Once again, Chutz had gone still, fixed in place, staring out into a point in front of them. She could feel whatever it was coming from that direction too, And then in the next moment, something, she had no idea what it was, covered their view.
“What the hell is that?” said Timon. “Nobody fire! Nobody fire!”
For the first few moments Mahra struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. It covered her entire view, and she scanned up and beyond, trying to find the edges of it. At first, she thought it was something, some sort of cloud that had appeared blocking out the star and space beyond it, but an instant later, she came to the realisation that whatever it was had to be solid, one, enormous solid mass, beggaring her comprehension. How could anything possibly be that big? Whatever it was, the surface, swirling bronze in colour, was covered all over with what looked like blisters or bubbles sprouting from every part of the surface, sometimes one upon the other, deep, or milky green. Her gaze drifted over the surface, seeking anything that made sense, but all she could come up with was a vast, haphazard grotesqueness. It just hung there in space before them, seemingly doing nothing.
“Um, I don’t like this at all, Timon,” said Jayeer quietly. “What is this? Some part of the Sirona we haven’t seen?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Damn it’s big.”
“Yes. Very good, Timon. But what exactly are we going to do?”
“Actually,” he said. “I think it might be a very good idea to get the hell out of here right at the moment.”
“Well…?” said Jayeer.
“Everyone prepare to jump,” he said over the com. “Both wings back to their systems of origin.”
A couple of queries came back, but he repeated the order. “Just do it for now. We can work out what else we need to do when we get back.”
“Mahra?”
“Yes, on it,” she said.
“Oh, and for pity’s sake, nobody fire,” he said as an afterthought to the assembled ships.
Mahra reached, found their vector, gave the instructions. Slowly and then more quickly, The Pilgrim accelerated towards the spot, and yet still that monstrosity hung there, apparently doing nothing.
“Now,” said Mahra.
Jayeer hit the jump drive. Nothing happened. Instead, The Pilgrim kept accelerating out and beyond the point.
“What the hell?”
The same thing was occurring with the other ships. Not only could Mahra sense them still there, but she could see them out the viewports and the displays around here. Jayeer slammed the controls for the drive again and then cursed. Nothing.
“Shit, Jayeer, what’s wrong with it,” growled Timon.
“Nothing. I don’t know. Look. Whatever it is, is affecting all of them. It’s not only us.”
“Jay, stop,” said Mahra. “You just can’t keep hitting it. We need to align.”
“Of course, we do,” he said. “Of course, we do.”
She felt the ship start to slow and turn. She felt cold inside. They had no idea what was inside that looking shape that was taking up half the sky. She could see the red edge of the sun poke above its top now, sending shafts of light across the surface, painting those blister-like protrusions with a copper light. Who were they? What were they?
As if in answer to her unspoken thought, she felt something new inside her mind, something that was familiar and yet strange at the same time.
“Timon, Jay, I think there’s something…,” she swallowed as the sensation inside her head grew and then faded grew and then faded. Chutzpah had clambered down onto her shoulder and was trembling as he sat there. Whatever it was, he was feeling it too. The feeling expanded, like sound, swelling, filling her head, and she cried out.
“Mahra, what is it?”
She couldn’t answer. The noise that was not a noise trickled away and then washed in like a vast wave into a seaside cave, filling her with the concept of noise, if not noise itself and threating to simply overwhelm her.
“Stop!” she cried out. “Stop” she said with her voice and inside her head.
The sensation, the concept of noise drifted away, swelled again, but this time more gently. She knew this feeling, this thing touching her mind or something similar, she knew, but this was so much more, so vast, and it carried with it a difference an otherness that was completely and utterly like nothing she had felt or experienced before.
Again, the noise filled her head, and again it faded.
There was chatter in the background, voices, but she couldn’t pay them any mind at the moment. This thing that was inside her head was absorbing everything, sweeping her away in currents of power. She could feel something else behind it, an intelligence, and yet still, it was only sound. Once more it swelled and faded. She needed to reach out, touch it somehow, find that familiarity there.
Who are you? She sent the thought question outward.
That swelling noise that grew and grew and then faded away.
She closed her eyes, concentrating, seeing if she could find anything at all within that noise.
Who are you? She thought, narrowed, trying to give it direction and shape.
Again, the noise swelled inside her head drowning out everything else, absorbing all thought.
And then it came too loud.
We are said the words, or at least the concept of the words inside her head.
You are… she thought back, trying to put energy in it.
The words dilated into being inside her thoughts.
We are…
Sleeth
Mahra paused. Was she right? Was this completely something other?
You are Sleeth she sent.
We are…
There was a pause then. Nothing. She thought she’d try again, perhaps putting more focus into it and then, just then, she felt that slightly uncomfortable tickling inside her mind. This time the words were clearer, but they came more slowly.
We…are…Sleeth they said. Go home…
What? Mahra said to them.
There was a lengthy pause, a silence that beat inside the recesses of her mind, and then came the sound, the thought wave breaking inside her head once more.
Go…home…little creatures.
Mahra shook her head, not sure that she had heard right. Had they just been told to go home? She waited, but there was no repeat.
“Um, Timon, Jay, I think we might have a bit of a problem.”
“You don’t say,” Timon responded.
“No, you don’t get it, Timon. Something else. They have been talking to me.”
“What? How?”
“I’ll explain later. Just trust me, they have. They called us ‘little creatures.’ Told us to go home….” She looked out at the vast ship, “I don’t know if they meant we should go back to the system we just came from, or whether they actually meant we should go home.”
“They, who?” said Timon.
“Called themselves or itself, or whatever, I don’t know, Sleeth.”
“Okay, so not Sirona.”
“Not Sirona, no. Somehow, I think they are completely other. I can feel it.”
“How did they talk to you, Mahra,” asked Jayeer then.
“Inside my head,” she said simply. It was going to prompt a lot of discussions later, she knew, if there was a later, that was.
“I see,” said Jay, neither accepting or denying what she was saying with the simple words.
“So, what should we do?” said Mahra, “I have a feeling we should comply. I mean look at the thing.”
“Don’t know,” said Timon. “Let me think.”
The next moment, apparently, the time for thinking was over. Over in the other wing, four of the CoCee ships simply ceased to exist. One moment they were there and the next they were not. Mahra felt them go. There was no searing bust of light, no trajectory; the ships just suddenly blew apart into expanding shapes of parts and debris. Mahra’s heart was hammering, the sight of what had just happened echoing behind her eyes almost like a solid thing.
“No,” she said. “Wait!” and then, thinking more clearly what she had to do she sent.
No more she thought at them desperately. No more! We are going.
“Timon,” she said quickly. “Give the order. We have to get out of here.”
She reached for the jump point, found it, assessed their position.
That vastness of the alien ship hung there in her awareness, keeping her conscious that any moment, they could wind up the same way. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, as they neared the place, expecting any instant not to be there, seeing, and yet trying not to look at the strange grotesquely marked vessel.
“Now,” she yelled.
And this time, thankfully, they managed to jump. As voidspace flowed into existence around them, she felt relief pour down upon her, but it was tempered with a deep sense of trepidation, something that she knew wasn’t going to leave her in a hurry.
Chapter Forty
