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
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?”
