“How? That When was abandoned—”
“—three weeks ago. Zero-Four, I believe you were there.”
Michael Zero-Four stared at her with a gaze like acid and dust and quiet, accumulating hatred. “Yes.” His voice was quiet, almost a sigh. It was the voice of an ancient and weary traveler. “I piloted Gethsemane Simon into that When.”
“And there was a confrontation.”
He laughed, almost a chuckle. “A confrontation… Yes. There certainly was a confrontation, Hannah. That When was on the verge of being uploaded when we got there. We lost too many in that engagement. Vishnu, Paul, Mohamet…Magdalene. Too many.”
“They are mourned, Zero-Four.”
“I’m sure they are, but we had some concerns about—”
“The Fourteen-seven When was as far as we knew not yet uploaded by the Enemy. Their presence was indeed a shock and surprise to our reconnaissance forces. Magdalene’s loss hurt us all, Michael.
“Did it?”
She looked at Michael Zero-Four with a delicious fury, which thankfully was interrupted by another Judas captain, Okeke from the Judas Seattle Baird.
“How could there be a web breach in an abandoned When? Could the native populace have caused it?”
“Doubtful…We’re sending a recon team to investigate.”
“This could be another trap. My group has tracked them from bubble 7K to bubble 8.5K. They’re definitely on the offensive this time, Hannah. They’ve been attacking our Forts up and down the Stream. Have the Altwhen patrols reported any—”
“There’s been no proof of a link between the destruction of Fort Evans and this web breach.”
Zero-Four frowned, stood. “Wait a minute. Fort Evans was attacked?”
“Michael, you—”
Okeke looked angrily at Hannah. “You haven’t told him? Fort Evans fell while you were floating out there in stasis. The Black seem to have launched a full-scale offensive on our advance positions.”
“Sweet Richter. How many casualties?”
Okeke looked icily at Hannah, then back to Michael. “All was lost. Fort Evans, Fort West, Forts Nixon, Tehran, Hatchet, John Wayne, Kiribati… So many others. They’ve found most of our bubbles and uploaded them.”
Michael’s hands curled to fists, shimmered with the shift.
“What the hell is going on, Hannah? If they’ve found our advance bubbles, they can find us! They probably know our damned position already. With that much activity… Why was Maggie back that far? Did you suspect an Enemy presence?”
“Don’t speak out of turn, Zero-Four. You—”
“Cease with the formalities. The Alpha-Point periphery was swarming with Black. They’re ready to open it up, Hannah. The slaughter of Simon’s fleet is evidence enough. If you knew about their buildup of forces, why was Maggie that far back in the Stream alone?”
“I don’t have to explain my actions to you; needless to say there was an Enemy presence and we needed to investigate. Enough of that for now. We can discuss it further when you return.”
“When I return?”
“Yes, Michael. You have combat experience in the Fourteen-seven When. You’re going back to investigate the web breach.”
“I am? What a pleasant surprise.”
“Where is Simon now?”
“He’s at the dockyards being refitted into a Golgotha-class chassis. He took some major burn escaping that When.”
“Did he? Well, we must send an escort with you, just to make sure you get to the Fourteen-seven When safely.”
“An escort.”
“The new gunships.”
“I see.” Zero-Four was infuriated.
“Good.” Kilbourne smirked.
“Do you think there’s actually a web breach, Hannah? Is there anything else I should expect to find when I get there?”
“Whatever do you mean, Michael?”
Zero-Four looked back at Okeke, who shook his head and placed his index finger to his lips, a gesture that had become very popular lately. Zero-Four stormed from the chamber. The Circle adjourned.
Detach. A quiet humming, the gentle sensation of movement. The transport was empty at this hour. Zero-Four rode alone.
The news of a confirmed web breach disquieted Michael Zero-Four. Everything about this disturbed him at some base level… Judas forts being uploaded by the dozens. Judas Command covert missions to Whens literally thousands of years earlier than any Enemy forces had been tracked. The debacle of Maggie’s death and the massacre in the belt and at Alpha forged an anger within Zero-Four unlike any he had experienced in quite some time. Things had not felt so… so liminal since the changing of command after His death. There was a force within the Judas, a force working behind the scenes. People were disappearing; people were dying. Things were falling apart. And now he had to pilot a mission back into the When they had just left supposedly for dead, with escorts. Gunship escorts. What was Kilbourne planning? Something wasn’t right.
He lived in strange times, if the end times could be called strange. He searched for a better adjective and found he no longer had the energy or patience for an eloquent vocabulary.
The transport he now rode carried him away from Command to the dockyards. It was still a breathtaking sight, this foothold in the Whenstream, hopefully as yet undetected by the Enemy. A last bastion of hope thrust into the fabric of the night.
Judas Command, Fort Iscariot, Fort Hope, Fort Richter, the Cyst, the Bubble, Program Seven, no matter what they called it, this was the place where the remnants of humanity lived out the end times. Command was anchored between times, a place of refuge and solace in the war for eternity. Here, the Judas carefully guarded the precious patterns reclaimed from the Enemy and amassed the knowledge of the countless dead civilizations that the Enemy had uploaded. This place was a virus in the code of the Enemy Purpose. This place was history and memory and hope.
Zero-Four watched the swirls and eddies of forgotten futures and impossible pasts flow around the transport as it docked. He turned from the window, hands folded in his lap. He leaned forward, feeling empty and ancient and gray.
Simon loomed below him. Zero-Four studied Simon’s new chassis, a Golgotha-class. The refit was impressive. He was a full-fledged warship now. Of course, the Golgotha were no longer top-of-the-line. The development of the prototype gunships had seen to that. The gunships were meant as a replacement for the aging class of vessels. Eventually, all lower classes would be refit into Golgotha. Well, if they lasted that long… Losses in the Gethsemane and Eden classes had been terrible in the last engagement.
There was a pang in his heart as he remembered the massacre in the Belt. Simon had fought like a madman to avenge the death of his beloved Magdalene. Such a senseless loss…Why had she been sent in alone, anyway? Before leaving that When, they planetfell and rescued her crew from the harvest upload. Exiting orbit, Simon had gone to maximum speed too soon, burning most of his primary hull off in the process. Then the icy fingers of hibernatory stasis had taken them.
Simon had drifted for weeks in the void, wounded, terrified of the Enemy becoming aware of their presence. He had not dared to broadcast an emergency beacon for fear of being discovered and uploaded.
Zero-Four remembered being revived at Command. Simon was in refit at the yards. Reynald and his crew had seemingly disappeared. And Jennings, the refugee they had picked up, was being interrogated.
Now this.
They docked at the yards.
Zero-Four arose from his seat as the transport gently nudged the docking ring. Jesus, this program feels real, he thought, and smiled inwardly. Too real. Why do I have to feel so old? When did I last feel young? Program Four,
