Paul Hughes - Enemy

The battle chamber was thrust into harsh brightness by the ferocity of the weapons fire. For an instant, a thought of hope almost entered Sapphire’s mind until countless black silhouettes emerged from the sphere of hellfire. The Mujahadin were unscathed.

(they must’ve translated our command codes. they can inoculate themselves against our virus. our weapons are useless.)

Desperation.

“Golgotha fleet, prepare to When jump out of here! We’re helpless against this many Black!”

(incoming message from archimedes. it’s reynald.)

“Reynald! What are we going to do?”

“Get out of here as fast as you can, little one. I have a plan, and you won’t want to be around.”

“You’re coming with us. We’ll recoup in an abandoned When and strike again. We’ll find a way!”

“We have to make a stand here. I have to make a stand here. Arch is heavily damaged, and so are many other Judas. We can’t escape, Sapphire. We’re dead in the water. We can’t leave, but you can.”

“I can’t just leave you here.”

“We’re trapped. Arch’s drives are gone. You can’t save us, ’Phire, but we can save you.”

“What—”

“There are a lot of Golgotha with damaged cores. We can’t move, but we can still Shadow.”

“Reynald, you can’t—”

“It’s your only chance. If we invert the Shadow—”

“You can’t do that in the Stream!”

“If we’re going to save existence, we’ll have to take our chances.”

“But you’ll be—”

“Destroyed. Wiped from the registry. Yes, I know, but so will the Enemy. This is our only advantage, and we have to take it.”

“Oh, Reynald…” She began to weep. Such pressure.

“Shh, ’Phire.”

The assault on the Judas continued, their number rapidly decreasing, their resistance futile against the sheer size and force of the Enemy code.

“Reynald…You were like a father to Jade and me.”

“I know, little one. I know. Do this for Jade. For Maggie. For the countless others. Don’t let their deaths be for nothing…Don’t let the Enemy have their souls. Live to fight another day.”

Sapphire’s thoughts snapped back to the voice of Anubis.

The voice of her dead sister.

Set her free.

“Thank you, Reynald. Thank you.” Such despair in her voice…Utter desperation. “Golgotha fleet… All who still have Shadow jump capability, prepare for emergency Stream jump on my mark. Those of you who are disabled,” her voice broke. “Those who still have a Shadow,” she paused. How could she order suicide? “Prepare to upload the reformat virus.”

How many Judas had she just sentenced to death?

“Mara?”

(ready, ’phire.)

“Golgotha fleet, jump.”

Reynald watched calmly from Arch’s battle chamber as so precious few Judas faded from non-existence into the Stream. The Mujahadin and Enemy forces heightened their attack, destroying everything in their path. Where only seconds before Mara had been, fiery bolts of death tore through the silver night.

It had to be now.

Reynald felt Archimedes rocked by the blasts.

Godspeed, little one.

“Arch, signal the fleet.”

(-channel open-)

“Upload the reformat virus. Invert Shadow drives now.”

It happened.

The Black observed Sapphire’s departure.

THE JUDAS FLEE IN TERROR.

WE WILL HUNT THEM DOWN TO THE LAST VIRAL STRAND. THEIR BLASPHEMY WILL HINDER THE PURPOSE NO LONGER. DIVERT FORCES TO PURSUE THE JUDAS INTO THE STREAM. PUT AN END TO THE REMAINING JUDAS PATTERNS HERE. THEY ARE NOT WORTHY OF OMEGA.

THE PURPOSE IS OURS.

PURPOSE BE. YOUR CONSPIRACY TO INFILTRATE THE JUDAS WAS A COMPLETE SUCCESS. YOU SHALL REAP THE SUCCULENT REWARDS OF YOUR ALLIANCE WHEN THE PURPOSE IS REALIZED. I BOW TO YOUR FORESIGHT.

BOW NOT TO ME, BUT TO ALL BELIEVERS.

YOU HAVE SEALED OUR VIC—

It happened.

Mara shuddered from the exertion.

Within the battle chamber, Sapphire was enveloped by the swirling winds of the Whenstream, now contorted into a visual cacophony as the remnants of her fleet struggled to get to a safe distance, tearing across the timesweep waves at impossible speeds.

“How many?”

(seventeen golgotha. two mecca. three gethsemane. one ladahk. one london. one eden. two galilee.)

“And a partridge in a pear tree.”

(enemy forces detected in pursuit vector.)

“What?!”

(they’ve locked on to our pattern position and follow us.)

“Didn’t Reynald—

It happened.

So, so many Judas lay in the void, disabled.

When Reynald gave the order, they followed it.

Almost four hundred Judas inverted their Shadows at once, uploading the reformat virus into the Whenstream.

Cataclysm was an understatement.

To open up a Shadow in the Stream was an accepted tactic of the Judas, using a black hole that was the Shadow to open a phase space portal into the Stream.

But to invert a Shadow in the Stream…

Of course, it had been done in space battle countless times before. Space battle, not time battle, not Stream battle inside of Program Seven. The Shadow tethered the Judas vessels to the main program.

To invert the Shadow code was in essence to sever all tethers, which forced the program to reformat to a new phase level, a physical phase level. To invert meant the end of the virtual program as a new reality was written.

“Arch, signal the fleet.”

(-channel open.-)

“Upload the reformat virus. Invert Shadow drives now.”

Reynald closed his eyes.

The effect was immediate.

Deep within four hundred Judas cores, containment fields were released, and the orbs of light that were the Shadows shattered, imploded, pulling the metal and alloy of the Judas in upon themselves in a fantastic display of fire and silver.

Reynald felt no pain.

It did not stop there.

The Mujahadin and Enemy vessels that were closest were pulled into the massive whirlpool of silver fire where the Judas fleet had just been. They ceased to be before they knew what was happening, leaving contrails of white in their wake.

The Enemy vessels on the periphery of the battle writhed, struggled to escape the relentless, unremitting pull of the ever-growing sphere of rewritten reality, now a great black globe from which snakes and rivulets of energy pirouetted. Their fate was inevitable. The Enemy forces were dragged in.

The bubble within the Stream that had been Judas Command began to dissemble, to collapse inward upon itself, upon the Shadow. All of existence began to rewrite itself as the Judas program reformatted to physical space.

Matter and anti-matter. Existence and non-existence.

Indeed, cataclysm was an understatement.

The bubble of nothingness shrunk, fell upon the Shadow at an maniacal speed.

The explosion was beyond painfully bright, beyond even the human visual range, as time shattered, as the Stream itself was splintered into infinite shards of phase space that ceased to exist.

This rabid wave of destruction swept outward, outward, consuming all of phase space in its path, tearing the Stream apart in its wake, in its sheer, innate, unimaginable force.