EXTERRUPT: Heavens Above
Chapter 77 - Act IV - INGRESSION
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Chapter 77 - EXTERRUPT: Heavens Above
Paysha
It’s a clear night and the moon hangs gibbous over the Lake of Light. A cool breeze evaporates the sweat from my skin after our ascent of the escarpment. Beside me are my lover and my brother, with Py at my heel. I’d insisted on having more than First Daughter for company. My reaction to the Phoebus looming over the Lake still scars my memory. Tonight’s arrival has far more potential for terror. This will be no joyous reunion.
We’d climbed high enough that the panoptiks below are scattered across the Lake like the illuminated bumpers inside a giant pinball machine. IsoCommune 35’s telescope is ready to capture every detail of their arrival. But human minds still crave direct experience, seeking affirmation of their perceived existence, no matter how tiny their part on this universe’s stage. It’s why between us and the bluff’s precipice stand the immobile outlines of the General and his commanding officers.
Hanif barks an order to a lieutenant. An old two-way radio crackles and the pantographs flash atop the panoptiks. Every twinkling light across the Lake blink out in rapid succession. The dark and silence of the neoDesert is now absolute, but will offer no blanket of comfort or restful sleep. Instead, thousands of Panoptiki watch and listen for the enemy’s imminent arrival.
A shudder runs through me as I also scan the star-studded heavens, anticipation and fear rising in equal measure at what we’ll be facing, what strength I’ll need to keep myself and others from harm. Any hope that terror won’t seep into the panoptiks might be too much to ask, but I wish our lives weren’t being eclipsed in this way, especially the one I’m nurturing inside me.
My inner mentors tell me the known unknown will soon be revealed. The heads of Xiao-Mai’s eagles have swivelled without pause, searching the night sky from their human perch. I let her spot the Seed first. As her and her charges’ gazes focus as one, she points to the eastern horizon. “It is here,” she says, with a soldier’s dispassion. We watch as the glowing meteor expands, coursing through satellite-strewn orbits towards us, as innocent-looking as a disposed habsat.
<Okay, peeps. Never mind Lewey, here’s your real Janus. Although I prefer we drop the ‘J’ with this one.>
<Please focus, Imp.>
<Like a LADAR, Prof.>
The unheavenly body emits a final pulse of orange before fading to invisibility, only brief flickers of masked starlight betraying its final trajectory as the Seed plummets towards the Lake, the panoptiks and their brave inhabitants. Its extravagant velocity is made obvious as a double boom resounds across the Lake, echoing off the escarpment and unsettling the eagles. In the darkness, First Daughter ignores her father’s presence and searches out my hand, fear unmasking the child still hidden within the new warrior. Archie notices the covert handclasp and I respond with a shrug. It’s what it is, brother. I’d hold yours too, if I could. If they’d let me.
As the enemy carapace continues its descent, its form gains clarity, turning from kite-shaped shadow into a dark rhomboid, a diamond cut with a brazen, terrifying beauty.
Why is their Seed so much bigger than yours?
<To encase their enormous ego, of course. But you know what they say: big Seed, little—>
<This is hardly the time for smutty rejoinders, Imp.>
<Time? Don’t talk to me about time. We’ve been sat on our elliptical arse on this rock long enough for these apes to count beads, farm food, drink milk, invent money and pretend to be civilised, despite constantly killing each other.>
<I’m only requesting you show some basic courtesy and treat this event with the seriousness it deserves.>
<Oh, I do apologise. I thought Op. 148 was to eradicate the fucker, not roll out the red carpet for them.>
<There should be honour even in battle.>
<Really? I’ve seen very little of that down here.>
The enemy’s carapace decelerates into its final approach, the waxing moonlight reflecting as dark metallic whorls on its still glowing skin. With no visible sign of motive force, it re-orients to the vertical and kisses the planet with the single, glowing tip of the massive rhombohedral body. The sputtering and crackling of vitrified sand dies away, leaving the Lake blanketed in silence.
That’s it?
<Unlikely. A faker’s gotta fake.>
A horn sounds, its discordant reverberations emanating from the alien arrival. Xiao-Mai’s nails dig into my hand as her eagles screech and strain at their tresses. The ground vibrates as the note repeats. It’s far from the triumphal sound which the Phoebus announced its arrival. This is the sound of death.
A third blast, louder than the others, lances my skull and penetrates my body. A wave of nausea surges up from my organs and I clutch the precious cargo enclosed within my trembling abdomen. General Hanif’s face is an emotionless mask, but his eyes are ablaze, fixated on the diabolical nightmare below. His left hand is clenched and strangely visible in the darkness. There’s an ethereal glow from within it.
The interstellar intruder speaks in a voice of rasped metal, reverberating with inhuman pain and immeasurable age. Their words bypass my ears and pierce my brain like a million cortical needles.
“As promised, I have returned. You may hail me as Diamorpheus. Do not be ashamed of heeding my call. I speak the truth about your dying world. Approach without fear in your hearts or violence in your minds and I will save you to be reborn again. But if you dare to…”
<Is this what fear feels like?>
<I think that was only the carrot. Here comes their stick. It’s been nice knowing you.>
“…I will wreak vengeance on those who do not take sanctuary with me, who choose to defy me. The liars who deny my words are already doomed. They and their ignorant followers will be the first to die. I will show them the meaning of heartbreak as I tear this world open. Cast out alone, they will feed on their pain and deceit throughout eternal darkness. No corner of this universe will answer their pleas. They will decay in agony and become dust again.”
An orange-red light is emanating from the Seed’s central section, illuminating the salt-laden sand around it with flecks of artificial fire. It resolves into a flattened ring which encircles the main body, flickering like a funeral pyre. Then it ascends, casting barely a reflection on the Seed’s surface, until it reaches the upper tip. As it climbs, its fiery glow increases until a fire-breathing torus crowns the towering rhombus.
“Now you must decide: join me here and in time be reborn again. Or prepare to meet your doom and cease to exist forever. The choice is yours.”
The torus rises above the Seed and inclines to the vertical. Like a double-headed coin, it slowly rotates to reveal its monstrous nature. A blazing lighthouse beaming its sickening, destructive message to the world: the blazing head of the demon I know so well.
This demon’s scale is gut-wrenching, more terrifying by far than the symbols adorning the Erebus and Cerberus; which were daubed in the bunker and affixed to Lewey’s belt. But every one of them represents the untrammelled desire for dominance and enforced subjugation; for enslavement and death. My life’s loop has been closed with this unmistakable sign, leaving no doubt as to this enemy’s evil intent.
The time might be now; the place might be here. But I’m not eager to meet them. I’m just a young woman thrust into a world riven with competing lusts for power and all its associated privilege. Yet these jigsaw pieces and their linked consequences will soon collide from circumstances I have helped wrangle through my decisions and actions. Maybe our father was wrong. Perhaps sometimes it is better to do nothing.
<No, Paysha. Now that Diamorpheus is here, we must complete our mental merger. Without such a consolidation we will surely fail.>
<And I wouldn’t really mind another millennia or two with both of you.>
Bells ring out across the Lake from the closest panoptiks to belatedly alert every isoCommune. They’ve also heard the terrible voice from the stars. On pain of death, they’ve been ordered to resist the siren calls. The battle they’ve prepared for has arrived at their armoured doors and stout walls. Winning will ensure everything they’ve striven for isn’t in vain. To lose will mean death or a brutal indentured life. It will make no difference if they are a man, woman or child; alive or yet to be born. I clutch my stomach at such thoughts, cradling the new life inside which is growing so fast, and I try not to pray to an uncaring universe.
Instead, I return my attention to Xiao-Mai’s grip on my hand, attempting to match an eagle’s strength. She needs to be told: the love we’ve forged between us, what we treasure above all else, will soon be altered forever. Whatever lies ahead, there remains precious little time to be together. But, no matter what comes to pass, everything I do will be for her, for what grows within me, and for all the angels who’ve guided me. Nothing else matters now.
They do like a good speech, these bad guys, don't they, eh. Someone should remind them of that classic Eli Wallach line 'If you gotta shoot, shoot. Don't talk.'