Live or Die Trilogy, Page 35

  “Unknown technology.”

  It was a real cold shower for the Commander.

  His beliefs suddenly collapsed, leaving in their place a monster of terror: a beast screaming inside of him.

  “Officers, C6 units, I need you all in the Ready Room, immediately!”

  They had covered practically everything in just over twenty minutes. The limited time frame was a reflection of their apprehension, stemming from the idea that they needed to hurry. No one could be certain that the Ikalian ship wouldn't make a sudden hyperspace jump and land on Earth a few seconds later.

  A remote possibility, but not one to be undervalued.

  “Is that the only solution?” Eldgh asked, making certain that there was no other way.

  “Yes, Commander,” the head of engineering confirmed. He was the Taahrian with the most experience in particle physics. He had dedicated every moment of his life to the issue since his last awakening. With the support of the C6 units, they had put together an idea that was all but bizarre. “As we've already said, if the special graviton flux generated by the Zorth'jun's deflector is really able to make any type of energy just slide off of it, it can't be all that effective on large bodies.”

  “How large are we talking about?” Eldgh asked.

  “Dozens, maybe hundreds of meters in diameter!”

  “What do we have that's big enough to throw against it?”

  The officers said nothing, while the C6's quantum brain took a fraction of a second to arrive at the answer: “The shuttlecraft in the hangar.”

  “What are its measurements at the longest part?”

  “Thirteen meters, twenty eight centimeters, three millimeters and...”

  “Fine, enough!” the Commander interrupted. “Computer!”

  An auditory signal indicated that the central AI was ready to receive orders.

  “Put me in touch with the hangar port!”

  Seven minutes later, the Alpha Orionis was parallel to the Zorth'jun, although still about a thousand miles away. It was a trivial amount when one considered that the two ships could move at a velocity close to one percent of the speed of light. Actually, the Ikalian ship had accelerated and the AI on the Betelgeuse had promptly compensated to maintain the distance between them. The command was to remain glued to the Ikalians. But that idea didn't work very well. Releasing a shuttle at that speed was physically impossible. The only solution was to distance themselves from the Zorth'jun, come to a stop and allow the shuttlecraft to leave, then position it along the enemy ship's route.

  Having been apprised of the situation, Eldgh didn't have to think twice. He stopped the ship as rapidly as possible, calculated the trajectory, started the superluminal engines, then made a hyperspace jump of three seconds to reappear just along the Zorth'jun's route. Using that strategy, Eldgh managed to put more than six hundred thousand kilometers between the two ships. That meant that the Zorth'jun would be on top of them in about two hundred seconds: more than enough time to place the obstacle in its path.

  “Ten seconds to impact!” the tactical officer announced.

  The Alpha Orionis had moved to a safe distance and every single Taahrian began to wait impatiently.

  “Seven... six... five...”

  “That's it! Come on, please... work!” Eldgh whispered.

  “Three... two... one... impact...” the officer's voice choked out. The shuttle craft exploded into bits before it touched the hull of the enemy ship. The pieces scattered behind it.

  No cursing, only silence, in perfect Taahrian style.

  “I want solutions!” exclaimed the Commander, trying not to lose heart.

  “We could locate a celestial body, like a meteorite, an asteroid, I don't know... and launch it against the ship!” suggested the tactical officer again, the most proactive of the group.

  “Is that a possibility?” The Commander's question was clearly directed to a C6.

  “Theoretically,” the android responded. “The probability of success would be nine percent over a period of five to twenty seven days.”

  “Do we have that long?”

  “Impossible to formulate hypotheses,” the artificial being responded; but the question was for his companions and not the unit.

  The bridge crew's bewildered, uncertain faces suggested a lack of confidence in the suggestion.

  “We need a plan,” Eldgh tried to urge them.

  “Commander...”

  “Yes...”

  “I think we're out of time.”

  30

  Little Samuel, the pride of his father, Mike, ended up attracting all the attention. His vivacity was mesmerizing. A real godsend to avoid talking about the usual topics. Aliens, spaceships and end of the world were at risk of saturating their lives. It was as important as it was necessary to get away from certain issues if you didn't want to go crazy.

  When Namiko and Sirio finally joined the group, the preparations for dinner began. The Japanese woman helped Betty in the kitchen, in an attempt to prepare a highly unlikely but promising Japanese-Australian dinner.

  Tylor, Mike, and his wife Natalie vied for holding court, unlike the Italian, who just listened, deep in thought. No one paid him any mind, or at least they tried not to.

  At the end of the evening, everyone decided they should go for a walk in New Canberra Nature Park the next morning, to take advantage of the nice weather and a Saturday morning when they were all free.

  The Wilson family's hotel was located near the nature preserve. They were already at the entrance to it when the others joined them.

  The walk required constant monitoring of the misbehaving Samuel, as he traveled along the paths in the preserve.

  It didn't take long for Namiko to fall in love with him, and, in some way, envy the Wilsons' happiness. But it wasn't a malignant envy, though it was hard to find anything positive about it. It was a profound discomfort due to the unlikelihood that she would ever live that same coveted life. An inability for which, among other things, she wasn't at fault.

  How she wanted to be close to her Sirio in the same way that Natalie was with Mike. How she would love to marry him. How she wanted a child. It was a perverse game that she needed to end as soon as possible. Betty, and others, had suggested that she get him to fall in love again. It would be easy because the two of them were born to be together. Namiko thought about the possibility carefully, but realized how impractical it was to manipulate feelings. There was no logic to them. Especially when they belonged to someone else. Or maybe, in fact, all her worries were baseless.

  While they were happily wandering around the Nature Park, elsewhere in the galaxy, the Alpha Orionis was about to decide the fate of the universe. And facing that, how much did a lost love matter? From a pessimistic, but entirely realistic, point of view, it was possible that they could be vaporized by some kind of absurd weapon at any moment. She had gotten to know Eldgh well. If the Betelgeuse had moved away at high speed, it was only because he was trying to ward off something important. Something that a crazy Taahrian like him, Namiko thought, had to overcome at all costs.

  Sirio was extremely confused and worn out. He just couldn't stand the situation any longer. What hurt most was not so much the inability to remember and understand things, as what to do about Namiko's situation. He had to put an end to her torment. But how? Undergoing psychotherapy would put him at serious risk; he wasn't interested in psychopharmacological drugs; and running away or killing himself would've not only been cowardly, but would've aggravated the situation for those who loved him.

  Oblivion. That was the solution. Living in an eternal, infinite oblivion.

  After spending the entire morning at the park, the long walk had tired them out and more than one stomach had started to grumble.

  “What do you think about going back to find a nice little restaurant?” Tylor's proposal was received with enthusiasm and the group did an about-face. As she was the one pushing the wheelchair, Betty's arms were the first to show signs of
exhaustion. So Mike offered to relieve her. And only then did they notice Sirio's absence. They turned back to look for him and found him at the bottom of the pathway that had just left. It seemed that the Italian, distracted by his thoughts, hadn't even noticed that he'd been left alone.

  “What's he doing?” Namiko said loudly. “I'll go get him.” And she turned to go meet him.

  It seemed that he truly had his head in the clouds. As she got closer, she saw him lose his footing. If not for her quick thinking, Sirio would've fallen into a canal full of rainwater. It wasn't all that big, but it could've been dangerous.

  “Be careful!” Namiko yelled in vain. “Sirio! Be careful!”

  Unfortunately for the Italian, by the time she had caught his attention, he was already suspended in mid-air.

  They all saw him fall head over heels which really frightened them: taking a tumble like that could've broken his neck. So everyone ran frantically to his aid.

  It was immediately evident that the fall had been serious.

  The Italian had a cut on his forehead and was stumbling as he attempted to get back on his feet.

  “Wait! Stay right there. We'll help you,” Mike said, worried that his friend might aggravate any injury from the accident.

  “That's all we needed,” Tylor commented.

  Namiko and Betty were the first to get to Sirio, who, for his part, could've sworn that he was fine. If he hadn't gotten to his feet again, he figured, it was only because of the cramped space and wet ground. He was soaked from head to foot.

  Stuck in that uncomfortable position, an avalanche of memories was suddenly reawakened.

  Suddenly and unexpectedly.

  “The hole, the hole, the hole,” he began to repeat.

  His companions thought that banging his head had made him delirious.

  But Namiko understood and hoped that things were finally all coming together.

  Sirio remembered the woman who had accompanied him in those terrible days spent underground. Then he saw images of a space ship, the Alpha Orionis. Each and every flash brought back other memories, and he relived the feelings to which they were tied.

  He was sure of it.

  It was on board that ship that he had undressed her for the first time.

  Then he had gone to Japan with her.

  To Osaka.

  And they had fallen in love.

  Forever.

  31

  No, there was no more time: it was the tragic truth.

  The sensor data was unequivocal: the Zorth'jun's superluminal engines' pre-ignition systems had been activated.

  Eldgh had to stop the curse in front of him from reaching Blue C.

  He absolutely had to.

  There was only one thing in the universe that could stop the Ikalian ship's advance.

  “Move!” the Commander ordered his helmsman.

  “What do you intend to do?” asked the First Officer, but there was no reply.

  At that moment, Eldgh had decided the fate of an entire civilization, as though he was a god.

  The AI's control was disabled and the Alpha Orionis began to move towards the Zorth'jun, with standard propulsion systems at maximum.

  “I need more power!” he ordered the crew in the engine room via holographic intercom.

  In that moment, all of the officers on the bridge understood their fate. They were to die in the largest spacecraft collision in recorded history. No one said anything. No one protested. No one despaired. They had been brought back to life and trained to annihilate the Ikalians by any means necessary. And if that was the only way, who were they to stop the Commander from fulfilling their destiny?

  Eldgh thought of the myriad lives on board the Betelgeuse. He was about to end all of them, without warning, without any appeal, in secret. What should he do?

  Live or Die?

  The Ikalians had profited from their existence for millenia. They had created, killed and resurrected them countless times. His people were victims of a philosophy that had been going on for ever and ever. What was the point in worrying about one single instant in which they could save a world instead of besieging it?

  The curse was a part of his destiny and that of those around him.

  He had made his decision: he would crash the Alpha Orionis into the Zorth'jun.

  The enemy ship was moving ever closer and Eldgh began to suspect that he was all wrong. He was being unjust. But what justice was there in a galaxy in which a galactic civilization, which called itself an empire, could abuse its power and ruthlessly subdue billions of people?

  None.

  Like the nothing that he'd been able to stop.

  He saw the Zorth'jun move to accelerate. The Ikalian AI was trying to avoid the collision, but Eldgh's manoeuvers left it nowhere to run.

  Before the impact, only two thoughts were swirling in his head. And for once, they had nothing to do with the Ikalians or his destiny. He simply hoped that the space monster before him wouldn't vanish into hyperspace; and then he thought of her, of Namiko. He thought of the crazy way that he had saved her and the experience that they'd lived through together. She was such an extraordinary woman: stubborn, romantic and heroic. She had, at all costs, returned to Earth to, once again, to embrace her Sirio.

  May you be happy...

  The impact was devastating.

  The Alpha Orionis' mass penetrated the field generated by the deflector and slammed into the Zorth'jun's hull.

  The ships' supermetals crumpled like tin cans in a clash that lasted only moments.

  Eldgh had pointed his ship's bow into their engine room.

  The breaking of the superluminal engines an instant before they curved the surrounding space caused an explosion with more than a gigaton of force.

  It was likely that no one would ever know about their sacrifice.

  Trillions of atomic nuclei fused together.

  Not a gamma ray remained of the two ships.

  32

  The Gamma Ray Burst Explorer Revolution, a satellite of the North-Central American Super State, built to detect both short and long range gamma ray bursts, had spotted one originating within the confines of the solar system. Brief but intense. To the experts, it was immediately clear that the emission couldn't have been generated by the growth of material from a black hole nor by the gravitational collapse of a star. The source had to be similar to a violent nuclear detonation. And there was only one thing that could've caused it: the Alpha Orionis.

  As usual, the news began to spread and, along with it, the fear that they were at the mercy of unknown events.

  How should they perceive that explosion?

  Was it a Star Wars scenario or the fatal breakdown of the Betelgeuse?

  Most experts were inclined to believe the former. The Taahrians had gone to the edge of the solar system, at the very moment when the Earth was expecting help from Ikali. That couldn't be a coincidence. So the dilemma was: who had won the battle? Astronomists and astrophysicists had been working to identify a possible spacecraft en route to the Earth. They had searched for days and didn't find anything. All of humanity waited for weeks. In vain. As if that brief emission of high-energy photons somehow decreed the end of everything. Without offering an explanation.

  Had all of the ships been destroyed in the incident? It was a possibility. The surviving Ikalians on Blue C were unable to provide answers. By this time, they were nothing more than the insignificant remnants of a fallen empire.

  Cast adrift, they continued to suffer terrorist attacks, to be personified as the face of evil; they were guests on an increasingly hostile alien planet. Their fate was sealed: humiliation, segregation and finally, death.

  Epilogue

  As the inferno raged on two worlds, reducing the entire biosphere of each to a formless, repulsive mixture, people on Roukar and Daephale were celebrating the oppressive tyrants' defeat. Then another seventeen civilizations saw the dawn of a bright, new day. The ships disappeared from their skies, and along with
them, all of the purple faces. For some of these people, it would be easy to reorganize a society, and conquering space flight would be simple; for others, less so. But they were all united by the essence of a sudden, unknown fragrance.

  The scent of freedom.

  It was a destiny that didn't include the inhabitants of Blue C, who were destined to remain in the terror of ignorance. Yet it was different for some. Years of psychiatric confinement didn't stop Igor from planning the perfect escape. One day, it suddenly rained as he was taking an afternoon stroll in the institute's garden. The Russian took advantage of the general confusion and climbed over the barrier that separated him from what he called life. That wall and the security officers had been watching him for years. They had learned all of his moments and habits. As soon as the opportunity arose, his mind went back to being that of the man who had spent years in the secret service.

  By the time Karina, the assistant, yelled: “Where is Petrov?” it was already too late.

  Igor ran. He ran through the rain storm, in the fury of nature's elements that told him: “Go, Igor! Go! Be a man again! Be free once again!”

  Tylor, Betty, and Mike, along with his family, rejoiced and embraced. No one could explain how it had happened, but what did that matter? Sirio was himself again.

  Perhaps fate wasn't completely adverse.

  In the end, it had saved him.

  Namiko laughed, screamed, cried and didn't sleep for three days and nights.

  Then she knew that it was all true.

  And she decided to take back Sirio and her life.

  So they ran, under the stars of a new sky.

  Without ships or supernovas.

  Like they had in nights long ago.

  Infinite and romantic.

  Just the sky.

  A magical time in which they embraced, kissed and got to know each other again: their breath, their soul, their memory of a newfound happiness.