Paul Hughes: Enemy

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 big 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.”