“It's nothing. The name neverkey was just a joke, that's all. A very old joke, now. The Aetheral took it seriously?”
“It did. What does this key open?”
“I told you that I don't know where the waybeads you need are, but I do know that some of them are locked behind a door that this key will open. It may help you.”
“What is this one called?”
“The solarkey.”
“How did you get it?”
“Isn't it obvious? I stole it.”
“Anything else?”
“That is all, I'm afraid. It is precious little, I know, but my people did not trust me enough in the end. Setting up Ansider and waiting here; leaving behind the other clues – it was all I could do. After centuries of debate, the Tok decided to vacate the field and let the young races of the galaxy solve their problems for themselves. They did not want themselves to be seen as gods. It was a terrible abdication.”
“Do you know where the Magellanic Cloud went after Ansider?”
“Ah, that is something I can tell you. A world you now call Borial.”
Borial. She knew it. An advanced world with a Cathedral ship in orbit and another subjugated population. She would need to go there if she escaped the black hole. There were few records of the fate of the Magellanic Cloud after the rise of Concordance, but it was known that battles had taken place around the Borial system three hundred years previously.
Four years.
Enough. She couldn't wait around to extract more information. She'd lost too much time, and she'd lose more before she escaped the gravity well. If she ever did.
But she was about to turn and run when one final thought occurred to her. “The Aetheral; it wanted you to know that it did the right thing.”
“And what did you think?”
“Most of the time it was irritating, frankly. It asked too many damned questions. But, yeah, it did good. It was noble; it transcended what it was. I miss it.”
Toruk nodded his head in appreciation, an oddly familiar gesture from so ancient and distant a being.
Looking back no more, Selene ran from the chamber.
His words followed her down the corridor. “When it comes to it, do not waver. Destroy the Morn.”
They were Toruk's final words. She threw herself across space and back into the Dragon even as she instructed the ship to pull away and commence its escape manoeuvre.
The howling agonies running through the Dragon's bulkheads almost made her scream out loud herself. She pressed her hands to her ears in an attempt to blot it out. It felt as though the ship were tearing itself in two. She could sense, also, its refusal to accept defeat. It would have been so easy for Eb to subside, slide back into the black hole for eternity, condemning Selene to the same fate. He was already mortally wounded; it would be the end for him whatever happened. But he refused to relent, both for her sake and the future of the galaxy.
The raging reached a new magnitude as they edged farther and farther out of the gravity well. Their progress was achingly slow, each moment an eternity of torment. There were Concordance ships up there, a halo of them. It had been only moments for her, but they'd waited for years on their timeline, watching her progress. What had happened in the galaxy throughout that lost time? Were Concordance now utterly unstoppable, their destruction of worlds or their shackling of the Morn complete? Had she returned simply to watch the end of everything?
She put those questions out of her mind. Keep fighting. The Cathedral ships were irrelevant if the final metaspace jump couldn't be made. If it could, she would be away before the enemy fleet could reach her. And then, armed with what she'd learned, she would attempt to destroy them all: Concordance, the Morn, Omn.
The Radiant Dragon teetered on the edge of its assigned jump radius, then finally, agonizingly, tipped over. The screaming from the ship reached a crescendo as she felt the metaspace projectors spin up, felt the surging thrill in her gut as the ship translated.
She felt, also, the moment that the screaming stopped, and Eb died.
The Radiant Dragon drifted in the grey void of metaspace, and everything was quiet. It was just a ship now; the outer shells of its AI core were functioning, but the Tok entity at its heart was gone.
Selene breathed. She was alone, but she was still alive.
END
Selene's journey continues and concludes in God Star.
Dear Reader,
Many thanks for reading Red Star. The trilogy continues and concludes in God Star, Volume 3 of the Triple Stars Trilogy, available from Smashwords.
Want to know more? Sign up to my newsletter and you'll be the first to know when I release new books. There are some fine sci/fi and fantasy books to download for free as thanks.
If you want to get in touch, I can be found at simonkewin.co.uk, on Facebook or on Twitter.
Thanks again for reading.
Simon Kewin.
God Star
The Triple Stars Volume 3
Available from Smashwords | Find out more
The darkness at the heart of the galaxy
Following the clues given them by the Aetheral, the Radiant Dragon and Toruk, Selene and Ondo close in on the existential threat to galactic life unleashed by Vulpis.
They battle Concordance all the way, aided by unlikely allies and mysterious messages. The trail leads them to more artefacts left behind by the Tok, drawing them ever-closer to the secrets at the heart of the galaxy.
But what they find there, and the truth they uncover about galactic history, changes everything…
Simon Kewin was born on the misty Isle of Man, but now lives in England with his wife and daughters. He is the author of over 100 published short stories as well as a growing list of novels. He writes fantasy, science fiction, contemporary literature and some stories that
