“Not yet, sir.”
“I want our operatives to report in. Any troop movements lately, especially our neighbors?” His thumb pointed behind his back in a direction that may or may not have actually been north.
“No, sir. Our suppression forces have reported nothing to the north, and nothing overseas. The resistance has been quiet for quite some time.”
“Any word from.. them?”
“Sir?”
“The Styx, General. Any word from the Styx?”
“No, sir. I doubt even they could have survived this.”
Jennings rubbed his temple, closed his eyes.
A dull ache formed behind his eyes as he thought of the Styx project. There were still so many unanswered questions, so many mysteries behind the whole why and how of the debacle. If only they hadn’t tampered with the thing in the mountain… Oh well. There was no turning back. The remnants of the Styx project had been placed on Santa Fosca for everyone’s own good. The project had been a failure and the remaining specimens had been isolated on the tiny atoll.
Bad feeling…
“There’s more.”
A second flashing dot appeared as Cervera returned the projector to global setting.
“What the hell is that?”
“At 0135 hours, a tidal wave was formed five hundred miles from the Santa Fosca impact site. Waves washed over what was left of Guam. We don’t yet have a death toll, but we’re expecting the figures to be pretty high.”
“The wave covered Guam? That would mean—”
“We’ve lost contact with most of our Pacific bases. There’s casualties in the Pact zone as well. This was a big blast.”
“What could have caused an explosion like that?”
“The source of the wave is still unknown.”
“Could someone be testing out there without our knowledge?”
Cervera didn’t answer, but adjusted the projector once more. A third red dot appeared on the other side of the globe.
Close. Much too close.
“
“At 0145 hours, a smaller impact wave was detected within Lake Superior by a Containment Line vessel, the Indomitable. Apparently something came down with enough force to sink another one of our Line ships, the Freeman Teller.”
“Did the Teller have visual contact?”
“No, sir. They reported a complete systems blackout before and after the impact. Whatever came down came in fast and close. It almost hit the Teller.”
“Three impacts within fifteen minutes. How fast can we have teams at the sites?”
“We’ve sent seven ships to Santa Fosca, and we’ve ordered the Third Pacific Fleet to Guam to assist in recovery operations.”
“And Lake Superior?”
“The Indomitable is investigating the impact site.”
“I want five other vessels taken from the Containment Line and sent to that site. We have to know more.”
“Yes, sir. At the Guam site, we’ve called in remote subs and a destroyer from the Atlantis settlement to investigate. The Mariana Trench is the deepest trench in the whole Pacific. We’ll try to gain visual contact with whatever came down, unless it was a bomb.”
Jennings pondered that statement. Unless it was a bomb…
“We need to know what we’re dealing with. I want everyone on this, stat. But keep it quiet. We need to know if we’re talking meteors or atomics or…” He drifted off. “Something else.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Contact Satcom. Level three online alert.”
“Yes, sir.”
It would be a long night.
Bad, bad feeling…
the black
OBJECTIVE ONE: DISPATCH SUCCESS QUESTIONABLE.
REPORT.
SUSPECTED LIFEBOAT SURVIVAL.
A SUPPOSITION((?))
PROBABLE SURFACE IMPACT, CREW SURVIVAL.
THEY WILL FALL WITH THE REST.
THEY WILL. PROGRESS((?))
BELT DEPLETION NINETY PERCENT.
DEPARTURE SOON. PLANET HARVEST FOLLOWS((?))
PLANET HARVEST FOLLOWS. UPLOAD FOLLOWS.
joy in the black of hell
AUGMENTATION OF PURPOSE PATTERNS FOLLOWS. SOON.
PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.
COMPLETION IS THE PURPOSE.
knowledge of ancient honor. pleasure
QUERY. ONE BELT REMNANT, ONE BACKWARD((?))
insight
REMAIN THEN. COMPLETE HARVEST. WE DEPART.
GO THEN. WE WILL JOIN IN THE PURPOSE SOON.
PURPOSE BE.
the darkness within the void parts
one remains. one fades into distant memory
Panic.
Water flooded the lifeboat.
They blew the hatch, and everywhere there was water.
Reynald activated the auto-delete sequence as he gasped his last breath of air before climbing out of the lifeboat. The water was stifling, frigid. They swam up into the moonlight.
In the night air, eight men released their burning lungs and inhaled for seemingly the first time. Most of the young men had never before tasted real air. They were born anew in a world of black and cold.
Lights to one side: the darkened shoreline.
They swam.
Magdalene:
She slept but did not sleep. She felt the ocean around her, the suffocating press of the depths. When had she last felt water, really truly
So tired.
Thoughts. Flashes in the black ocean of her mind.
She snapped out of her daze. Kilbourne—the Fleet must be alerted, at least those remnants that hadn’t been swayed. Simon must be warned of the plan.
Under her careful and gentle watch, she initiated a quantum singularity, just large enough to slip a communications beacon into the void.
(compressed beam communication relay initiated. tight beam when hole search initiated.)
