Nova Wars

I proved Hellspace exists, so it reached back to prove I exist by touching me. - Digital Prairie Harry, Age of Extinction, 2 years Pre-TXE

"What's Hellspace?" D44 asked.

Emry stared at her for a second. "The burnt hyperatomic plane? You've never heard of it?"

D44 shrugged. "If I did, I don't remember."

Emry turned and looked at Naxen and Wrexit. "You two?"

Both shrugged.

"Hell," D44 said, drawing the word out. She nodded. "Sounds bad."

"None of you have heard of Hellspace? OK, it's a burnt hyperatomic plane that is constantly on fire. Has strange things living in it? Corrupts n-space -our reality- when it comes into contact?" Emry tried.

"Nope, never heard of it," Naxen said. He shrugged. "I get the feeling that I haven't heard of much."

Emry gave a long suffering sigh. "Just contact with Hellspace, just a brush, can cause computer code corruption, alteration of the physical world, alteration of how a being thinks, acts, and looks."

"Sounds bad," D44 said.

Emry just stared at her. "Yeah. You could say that."

Wrexit looked around. Everything looked fine to him. "So, what? Do we get a mop or something?"

Emry sighed again. "No," he seemed to firm up. "We go to the engineering section and see if we can get the Hellspace shields up and running."

Wrexit frowned. "Sounds dangerous."

"More dangerous not to. Pretty soon things will start coming through that make the shades look like friendly pets," Emry said. He looked at the wall mounted fabricator they pulled the cables from. "I'm going to need a disaster frame and I'll walk you through putting me in it."

Naxen grinned. "That, we can handle."

It took a while. Several time the grinding sound started, making the room shudder, the lights going dim and coming back up overly bright at the height of the grinding and shuddering, then slowly dimming back to normal as the sound and vibration wound down.

"That's not good," Emry said at one point.

"What is it?" Wrexit asked.

"I think, and I hope I'm wrong, I think it's the primary reactor trying to start up and failing," Emry said.

"Can we fix it?" D44 asked.

"Not unless we get to it. Until then, I don't know," Emry said.

"If it doesn't start, does it matter?" Naxen asked.

"Maybe, maybe not," Emry said. "Depends on whether or not the Hellspace shielding has its own local power source. If it does, then no, it doesn't matter right away, if not, then it matters a lot."

"So, nothing we can do right now," Naxen said.

"Right," Emry nodded as D44 and Wrexit attached the left leg to the lower torso section of the 'disaster frame', which was a robot chassis with space in the chest for Emry's 'survival core' to be loaded in.

Wrexit just shrugged. "Then I'm not going to worry about it," he said. He pulled the rubbery internal lining of the outer shell over the hip joint, then moved to the shoulder while D44 went and got the left arm.

"So, what is exactly is this place?" Naxen asked.

Emry looked up from where he was typing in commands on the fabricator. "A Confederate Joint Armed Services Main Support Logistics Base. It's used pretty far behind friendly lines to refit and rearm spaceships, ground forces, all of that," he saw the slight confused looks. "A military space base."

"Then where is everyone?" D44 asked, kneeling down to attach the fingers to the hand. She activated the small backup power cell in the hand, the fingers just slotted in, the hand doing all the work once she put the round knob into the socket. She stood up, grabbed the forearm, and attached the hand to it.

"I don't know, that's the problem. Time/date stamps are all corrupted. For some reason the system thinks over forty-thousand years have passed," Emry said.

"It's been like fifty thousand years since the Second Precursor War," D44 said. She winced slightly. "I learned that in school."

Emry sighed. "Fifty thousand years locked down in a Fairy-Day Cage, sleeping while the universe moved on," he paused for a moment. "Nifty Thrint Field saved me, I guess."

"Probably nothing's changed," Wrexit said. "If something changes, it's usually for the worse."

Emry looked at him. "Why do you say that?"

Wrexit shrugged. "Dunno. Just how it seems like it is."

"Remembering more?" Naxen asked.

Wrexit shook his head, accepting the arm from D44. "Not really. Just bits and pieces," he laughed. "I know you used to run in front of cars and act like they hit you."

Naxen laughed. "That sounds funny."

Wrexit leaned back as the arm locked into the socket and started going through self-tests as the socket covers slid into place. "Know you were the best at it."

Emry was looking at both of the Telkana. "Huh."

"What?" Naxen asked.

"Nothing," Emry looked away.

"I can remember riding in the car with my parents," D44 said. "I look out the window a lot."

Emry made a weird look. "Check the wiring harness on that one," he said, pointing. "Finger pressure feedback sensors aren't reporting."

D44 checked it, unplugged it, plugged it back in. The pinprick telltales went green.

Finally, it was done. They waited for Emry to put the instructions on a datapad, then opened up his case.

The case was the size of a washing machine, but the 'survival core' was just a touch over a third of a meter per side in a cube. There was a handle on the top, with press-buttons and an LED panel. The LED panel showed a green smiley face as they pulled the handle and D44 and Wrexit carried it over to the disaster frame. They put it carefully in place, then tapped the buttons before closing the chest.

Nothing happened.

"Think we killed him?" Naxen asked, setting down his fizzystim bottle.

"Naw, he's just waking up. Probably knocked him out," Wrexit said.

"He has to do function checks and stuff," D44 said.

The grinding noise started, the vibration light. It got stronger, the lights brightening to almost painful levels, then dimmed back down as the grinding noise wound down.

Wrexit laid on the bench, staring at the ceiling. Naxen did the same on the table next to him. D44 sat for a minute, then laid down.

All three slept through the grinding as it came and went.

-----

He was all by himself but he wasn't alone. He was swinging a set of knuckle dusters on one hand, the grav arc on the leading edge burning white. With the other hand he had a cloth around his forearm that he used to slap aside fists, knives, broken bottles. Blood was spraying, people were screaming.

He was laughing.

"Wake up," the tapping on the hardshell plate of his chest woke him up.

The disaster frame was leaning over him. The face looked like Emry.

"I'm awake," Wrexit said, sitting up.

Emry moved to D44 and then Naxen, waking them up.

The three ate while Emry paced back and forth, obvious impatient to get moving.

"We need better weapons," Naxen said.

D44 hefted her sword. "I like this."

"Got brass knuckles with a graviton boost?" Wrexit asked, remembering his dream.

"Lemme check," Emry said, tapping through the holographic controls. He looked up. "Yeah. Let me set the color to red."

"How about a knife? Not like a sword, but a long bladed knife?" Naxen asked.

Emry checked. "Got one designed for fighting shades. Mark II Close Combat Cutting Bar, Telkan, huh, it has a salt block that the chain rubs on to cover the chain," Emry said. He tapped the keyboard.

They sat and watched as the fabricator worked, lifting the lid so Wrexit could get both glove covers. He put them on slowly and carefully, feeling the weight, as Naxen checked over his knives.

It felt good.

"What does the salt do?" D44 asked.

"Disrupts the shades," Emry said.

D44 hefted her shield and sword. "Maybe you should coat them with salt crystals," she glanced at the blade Naxen was holding. "I'll take one of those too. Bigger though"

Emry just nodded.

"Can you do my forearm?" Wrexit asked, holding out his left arm. "And my knees and thighs?"

"Sure, why not?" Emry asked.

He worked through each request, until the trio of Telkan stood there, salt crystals and iron powder gleaming in the light.

"Ready?" Emry asked.

"Ready," they each said.

Emry moved over to the door.

"We'll go this way. It's not the shortest route, but it'll keep us clear of everything I'm getting corrupted data from."

They nodded.

Emry opened the door, revealing a red cube area ahead. He headed toward it. Naxen and Wrexit looked at each other, then at D44, who nodded.

"I'm with you, brothers," she said softly.

Nodding, they started following Emry on a long, twisting route through the corridors, moving through red boxes in the middle of the corridors.

"Hey, how did you talk to us on the spaceship?" D44 asked.

"The computer secondary systems woke me up, had me guide in the ships that were coming in. The first ship was full of nothing but the dead and a bunch of shades, all out of some Lanaktallan world. I knew things were sideways," Emry said. "The computer wouldn't load me into the main digital sentience array, said there was hardware failures," he paused before looking outside of the red box. "Clear," he said. "Anyway, I had access to the station to ship communication's hardware, but it was bringing up my heat levels pretty fast."

He paused. "You were the first living I've seen in at least two weeks," he said. "There was some garbled messages that I got after I checked the deployed ansible. The hypercom wave is weird, like it's stagnant, or something's wrong with it."

They paused again. D44 checked, waved them forward, and they jogged to the next red box.

Emry tapped his red forearm. "Had some stuff about the shades. Partial message, header unknown. Gave some instructions, repeated several times to stay alive, that I wasn't alone, that other people were linking up. Dogboi howls, iron, salt, the color red. Warned me to disable all monitors, disable all picture in picture, use only red and silver for displays."

"Huh," Naxen said.

"Think it's happening everywhere?" D44 asked. She hugged herself. "I hope my broodmommy is OK."

"We'll get the Hellspace shields up, then check the ansible. Might be able to see what is going on," Emry said. "I'll be honest, the way those garbled messages looked, it seemed like the entire spur was infected with shades, something called Atrekna, and everyone who wasn't dead was fighting for their lives."

D44 looked away, still hugging herself.

"Looks clear," Emry said.

They got three steps when a dozen shades erupted from the walls, screaming.

The grav-fists came to life with a sharp crack as Wrexit extended out his fists. The first one caught the shade in the mid-section, exploding out clear ectoplasm. He blocked another one with the iron and salt laden crystals on his forearm. The shade drew back with a screech, its hands dissolving. He saw one lunging for D44's back and swung hard, catching it through the back, his hand passing through the lineart, the salt and iron crystals coating his arm smoking as the white lines twisted and bent.

Clear ectoplasm splattered D44's back as she hacked one down, following it as it held out its hands and tried to move backwards, her sword chopping like she was cutting down a tree.

Naxen moved fast, ducking under swipes, nimbly moving out of the way, stabbing just above the waist at the back, halfway up the side of the torso, or into the back of the thighs on the shades, the fact they were larger than him making it easy for him to target.

Emry had a half dozen pulling at him, smashing him against the wall as they tried to pull him through it.

D44 hacked at the hands, making the limbs explode into black smoke or shatter into ectoplasm. Naxen kept working on the ones still flooding at them, stabbing as fast as he could.

Wrexit stepped up next to him, swinging his fists, blocking the shade's attempts with his forearms. He had his feet planted, putting his hips into each swing, his arms lifted in front of him, elbows bent, arm hocks and wrists stiff as he waded in more than danced around.

It felt right the way he was throwing punches. Fast, brutal, rarely bringing his arms out to full extension.

He found he had to pull his punches so he wasn't thrown off balance, but for some reason his body knew what to do even if his brain didn't.

The last one he punched in the chest, it fell back screeching, black mist spreading where there had once been lineart. He threw a second punch and it splattered.

He stood there, winded, staring at the splattered clear goo.

"Clear?" Naxen asked.

"Crystal," Wrexit said, lifting up his hand and staring at it. The grav-arc was snarling, sparks popping off it to dissolve within less than a centimeter. He touched his pinky to his thumb and it winked out.

"Clear," D44 said.

"Clear, for now," Emry said. He headed for the next cube. "We need to keep moving."

They moved through the hallways, attacked twice on the way. Both times, it was when the grinding started and the holographic red areas cut out. Once they were still fighting when the holograms came back on and the shades were slammed away from them, screeching.

Naxen grabbed Wrexit's shoulder pad to keep him from following and throwing punches.

"Main Engineering," Emry said at the blast door. "Not sure what we'll find, but from there we will either be able to activate the Hellspace shielding or at least find out what's wrong with it," the grinding started then wound back down before the lights did much more than flicker. "And I can run a diagnostic on the primary power systems."

D44 hefted her blade, which was still smoking from the ectoplasm interacting with the salt and iron crystals. The Mark 2 Cutting Bar was slung across her back, still unused. "Let's get on with it."

Emry nodded, touching the door controls. "Locked down, give me a minute. My slicers can cut this."

After a minute the blast doors receded. The one facing them pulling back into the corners, the one behind it moving into the floor and ceiling, the one past that pulling in to the left and right, and the last one pulling back into the corners.

The interior of the Main Engineering was full of shades that screamed and rushed them.

Wrexit found himself laughing as he waded in, the grav-fist snarling. He'd step into their swings, lifting his arm to take the blow on his biceps or middle forearm -between the elbow and wrist hock- or knocking their blow to the side. At the same time he'd punch, twisting at the waist, putting his hips into it.

D44 smashed them back with her shield, chopping at them with her blade, which was smoking heavily. When her sword passed through harmlessly she threw it to the side, reached behind her, and pulled the cutting bar free.

The motor roared as she triggered it and drove the blade into the chest of the shade that was coming at her again, one arm smoking from where her blade had nearly damaged it. The shade shrieked as the roaring chain plunged through its chest, showering ectoplasm.

Naxen kept tight to Emry, stabbing at any shade that got too close with his 'ripper', the Mark 2 Close Combat Cutting Bar snarling as he slashed at the shades.

Emry ran for the master console, running up and slapping his hand on the induction port.

"Brother, help me," D44 suddenly called out.

Wrexit turned to see that she had a whole swarm swirling around her. He charged forward, leading with his red painted shoulder that gleamed with salt crystals.

"ON YOUR RIGHT, SISTER!" he bellowed out.

D44 shifted slightly so she was chopping away from him with the roaring chainsword.

He crashed through the shades, feeling like he was hitting thin pieces of paper. They splattered, some reforming, others turning into black mist that puffed away. He stepped back, getting back to back with her, punching at the shades, the red colored grav-arc snarling and popping.

"Whatever you're doing, do it fast," Naxen shouted, cutting two in half. One puffed into black dust, reforming not far away.

"Hurrying," Emry said. He sounded like his teeth were chattering. "System's a wreck. Corruption everywhere. Hellspace, age, uncollected garbage."

Wrexit took a blow on his shoulder from one that drove icy spikes into his muscle, his return punch splattered it across the bulkhead. He knew he was smiling, felt almost giddy as he kept punching.

"NO LAWSEC TO SAVE YOU HERE, TELK!" he shouted, punching a shade twice in the face, the second blow hitting before it could explode into mist or protoplasm. It shattered, the goop falling to the floor.

"Almost... almost..." Emry said.

Naxen spun out of the way, kicked out with one foot, and slammed the red painted iron coated sole of his boot into the leg. The shade didn't go down, but it did swivel, turning in place like momentum didn't exist.

He shoved the blade through its face, ectoplasm spraying his face shield.

The lights kicked on.

Red.

The shades screamed and fled.

"Clear?" Naxen called out.

"Clear," D44 said. She slumped slightly, letting the cutting bar's engine idle.

"Crystal," Wrexit said. He grinned. "Nice fight. They aren't 32nd Streeters though."

Naxen laughed. "I have no idea what that means."

"Hellshields coming online," Emry said. "Main power systems are at less than 3% fuel," he looked up. "Fuel rods are depleted. I'm fabbing up new ones and having the automated systems reload it," he looked down. "Emergency systems are activated."

"OK," D44 said, still panting. She moved up and sat down at one of the chairs in front of a console. "What does that do?"

"I'll run a star comparison, find the navigation stars, figure out how long this station has been drifting, find out where we are, see why we're getting Hellspace corruption," Emry said.

"Sounds boring," Naxen said. He moved over and sat down, cracking open his face shield.

Wrexit moved over to the 'nanoforge', following the remembered instructions, and got three fizzystims. He carried them over, handing one to D44, one to Naxen, keeping the last. He opened his face shield, cracked the can, and took a drink.

It tasted amazing.

The best thing he'd ever tasted.

"Old running shoes and lawn clippings," D44 read. She cracked the can, grinning at the 'you'll be sorry' it squeaked, and took a long drink. She smiled. "That's some damn good grass and shoes."

Naxen laughed. "I've got black coffee grounds and two day old spaghetti," he took another drink, "Tastes great."

They sat there, catching their breath, drinking the fizzystims, feeling the strength return.

"Oh, this isn't good," Emry said.

"What?" D44 asked. "What now?"

"Well, the date stamps are right. Just over forty-thousand years, give or take a couple of centuries," Emry said. "That isn't the problem."

"What is?" Naxen asked.

Emry tossed up a smattering of pinpoints of light.

"This is a map of this area of the Cygnus-Orion Galactic Arm Spur," Emry said.

"What's that?" Naxen asked.

"Where we live," D44 said. She winced. "Ouch," she looked up. "Apparently I like pale grass green."

"Girly color," Naxen snickered.

D44 just laughed.

"Anyway," Emry said, mentally revising all three of their ages down from mid-20's. He motioned and a bunch of the pinpoints suddenly had green circles around them. "This is the Confederate side of the Long Dark," he motioned again. This time a bunch of pinpoints had red circles. "From the station's sensors, all of these systems have been Hellspiked."

"What's that?" Wrexit asked.

"I'll explain later. Short answer, hellspace nova bombs on the stars," Emry said. "Weird thing is, from each hellspiked star there's a beam of hellspace energy crossing lightyears, sometimes twenty or thirty, to reach the next hellspiked star. Each star connects to between four and sixteen stars."

"Wow," D44 said. "Oh, that's a lot of dead people if those places were occupied."

"That's not all," Emry said. The lines suddenly appeared, connecting the stars. "Between the lines Hellspace energy is spreading, about a half light year thick, filling in the gaps between the lines."

He tapped one spot. "That's us."

Dead in the middle of a slowly reddening spot in between five different lines.

"It looks like a wall," D44 said.

"A wall made of Hellspace," Emry said.

Wrexit stared at it. He finished off the can and set it on the console as everyone stared at the star map.

"And we're in the middle," Emry said.

"What do we do?" D44 asked.

Wrexit stood up and turned to look at the other three. He extended out one hand in a snapping motion and the grav-fist snarled to life.

"We survive."