Jennifer Wells - Beyond the Stars - At Galaxy's Edge

Once it covered my waist, I eyed her grimly. “The Arx should be far enough away to survive the blast, but if you’ve got a new locale in mind, it wouldn’t hurt to head in that direction close to now.”

“I seldom linger in any one location. It will take me a few moments to reach the transport wing and depart, but no longer than it will take you to reach your target.” She paused, looking uneasy. “I’m confident in my ability to achieve shelter, but how will you reach a safe distance before the detonation?”

Suit in place, I re-secured the utility belt on my hips. “I won’t.”

The silence hung a span too long. “Oh.” Another gap of silence. “Is it painful?”

I snapped both ends of the explosives ribbon to the belt. Carefully. “Almost always.”

“Then your sacrifices for the cause are even greater than I realized.”

“No need to make a scene over it.” Sacrifice was such an empty word, tossed about by those who weren’t engaging in it to make themselves feel better. I did not and would never know Maeli well enough to say if this was her purpose in using it. Didn’t really matter either way.

Satisfied the ribbon was secure and not exploding, I gazed up at her. “What else do you have for me?”

“I’m sending you the drones’ ID frequency. Broadcast it, and they’ll take you for one of their own‌—‌unless you bump into one. So... don’t.”

“Noted. No dancing with the drones.”

“Since you don’t dance, I trust that will not be a problem.”

I laughed for her. These flares of irreverence were probably a clue pointing to why she acted as an anarch. Part of me toyed with wishing I’d get the opportunity to find out more about her reasons... until I remembered I didn’t do attachments.

I situated the breather skin over my face and reattached the depleted kit to the belt as well. “Time to do this. Thank you for your help, Maeli. Nos libertatem somnia. ”

“Nos libertatem somnia, Eren asi-Idoni.”

I slowed my respiration rhythm to maximize the effectiveness of the breather skin. Then I stepped through the force field separating the corridor from the entry tube.

Three rapid steps to the exit and I pitched into space toward the Phoenix Gateway.

The channel coils would get me to my destination eventually, but I pulled my arms in and mimicked a missile to help the propulsion system along.

The journey was much like the fall down the service tunnel, excepting the scenery. My deliberate revolutions presented me with views of the Arx, the Gateway, the galactic core and the intergalactic void in turn.

The once imposing Arx profile quickly shrank in the shadow of the mammoth Gateway. Each ring measured a kilometer thick and a hundred meters wide; the rig driving them weighed greater than six teratonnes. It had been built to last, and no conventional weapon an anarch might procure was capable of destroying it.

But even the strongest creations could not withstand the application of a fundamental law of physics. Matter and antimatter could not exist in the same space, and their collision was going to result in the expulsion of energy on the order of eight hundred petajoules‌—‌and perhaps most importantly, the annihilation of the matter/antimatter which triggered it.

Presto, no more Gateway.

The first of the three rings grew large on my horizon as the terminus of the channel neared. Right before I reached it I brought my legs up to hit the outer boundary at full speed, sprint across its breadth and launch off the structure in free flight toward the center loop.

The Gateway activated, heralding an incoming vessel from its twin in the Phoenix dwarf galaxy. The pulsing energy slammed into me, sending me spinning off course. I skidded out of control over the rim of the ring and grasped the edge with fingertips to spare.

Of all the cursed timing.

I adjusted my grip, trying my damnedest not to pant. Oxygen was a mite scarce resource in space, and now that I was out here I had what I had and no more.

“Well, hell.” Nobody was apt to notice an Anaden dangling off the side of one of the loops, legs swaying about in open space, right? Maybe I should stay here for a while....

But there existed no room for such luxuries in my life. The morbid irony implied in the notion I considered the act a luxury didn’t escape my notice as I hauled myself up over the ledge and stood on the flat surface of the ring to survey matters.

From here, the void to my right loomed as darkly shrouded as the core to my left shone bright. It felt as if I stood on the precipice of not merely a galaxy but existence itself. It was indulgent of me. Also dizzying, but dizzy was not something I needed to be at the moment.

I removed the ribbon of explosive slabs from my belt, careful to orient it in the correct direction so I would place them in the desired order. The protective layer was set to start dissolving as soon as it came into contact with the metal comprising the exterior; therefore I had to start with the slab bearing the thickest layer in order to buy time to position them all.

I detached the first slab from the ribbon, stuck it to the metal at my feet‌—‌and ran. Five kilometers to the next target location, and the reaper’s clock counting down on me like a shadow nipping at my heels.

The balls of my feet barely hit the surface as I soared from stride to stride. Lacking oxygen, my muscles used my body’s stored energy reserves to fuel my movements. The minimal gravitational effect the power rig generated for the drones kept me from flying off into space, while also allowing me to travel at greatly enhanced speed.

A virtual bullseye marked the next site. The ideal placement and spacing had been worked out in advance by anarch scientists, or engineers, or whoever it was who sat in labs and did those things so people like me could venture outside and... complete the missions.

I hardly stopped as I released the slab, not wanting to lose any momentum.

When the clock hit zero I would be dead, but right now I was alive. High on oxygen deprivation, the magnificent view, and the act of running free along the curving arc of an apparatus that warped the fabric of spacetime to sling objects and people 430 kiloparsecs in a frozen, boundless instant. The stars at my back, the universe at my fingertips‌—‌

‌—‌a drone clambered up the lip of the ring just as my foot hit metal. I tripped hard over it, landed on my ass with a painful crack and tumbled across the surface.

The drone landed on top of me before I could move. One of its spindly tool arms sliced through my shoulder as the other poked for my face.

With a groan I kicked at it and skittered away to climb to my feet. Undeterred, the drone sprang toward me.

“Off you go, machine!” I grabbed it with both hands and hurled it over the side into oblivion.

The cut on my shoulder hurt like a bitch, but worse, the swipe had sliced open the thin film of my suit. My dwindling life expectancy had now been cut in half.

But it hadn’t damaged my legs, so I ran once again. Two primed slabs still to place.

If I failed, the destruction might not be total. This constituted an unacceptable outcome. To my superiors, but mostly to me. I did not do half-measures, and if I was going to die in an explosion of white hot agony, it was going to be a properly majestic explosion.

One which served as a fitting symbol of how far we were willing to go to dismantle the Directorate superstructure and break its chokehold on not solely us but the entire fucking universe.

The near vacuum of space sucked at the tear in my suit, but I ignored it to sprint. Only a little farther.

That was such a lie.

The light of the core sank above me as the ring bowed in to the void. The marker for the next-to-last location blinked urgently at me, and I readied the drop‌—‌