Paul Hughes: Enemy

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.)

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