A silent alarm blinks on the bridge of the Alké, now powered down. Andreï nods his head, closes his eyes. He does not want to know. Not far away, Xeno ships cleave through the assault of the Ozy. Has Salman not heard his surrender message?
His left hand is held by that of Pallas. She has collapsed at the foot of the command seat like a baroque pietà, her face lowered and hidden in her hair, and she only holds his hand, the sole contact with Andreï, perhaps the first since forever.
Andreï is torn between the selfish temptation to do nothing, bathed in the intoxication of irresponsibility, and that of carrying Pallas, collapsed, into a pod, if any remain. His apathy is, in the layers of his mind, strangely strategic. If the vision of his own death has always been the correct one, then any distance he maintains between now and the moment he will stand before the Aleph is time gained…even if he does not know why that time would be gained.
And because one must love and take care of those one loves, he rises with difficulty and takes Pallas in his arms. She is collapsed and seems to sleep with her eyes half-closed.
The monitor blinks more furiously, and he ignores it. He lifts Pallas, crosses the bridge with her thin and light body in his arms.
The monitor passes under his gaze. It indicates overload. It is a radar-detection monitor, and Andreï did not know one could overload such a sensor with targets. Well, yes, there is a limit: that of one trillion ships…
With one hand, he adjusts the monitor and whispers to the AI to bypass the overload notification.
The screen indeed displays a maximum number of points. Ships, since they have just come out of Drift, all at once, like a stellar wall. The screen displays one trillion, but there are more, certainly. How many more? Who are these ships? After all, what force, human or Xeno, possesses quadrillions of vessels? Pallas nods her head. What a strange time to sleep.
As if he were with a child, he sits down before the monitor where Petra used to serve, Pallas on his lap, nestling her head in his neck. He tries to capture an image of the ships, but they are small…two meters or three each. Dark points on a black background.
However, he captures an open transmission from the HS. Gulmira appears on the screen:
- "To the Fleet that has just appeared at the Drift point, identify yourselves."
No response. Andreï appreciates knowing that Gulmira is just as in the dark as he is. He does not want to hope either: too painful. And yet, if they are not Xeno ships, what are they?
The AIs have reconstructed the images from the interferometer, and the ships appear. They are those horrible creatures, the…Chimera Sapiens?…the Frankenstein of the Aleph. They have come to deliver the coup de grâce. Andreï, silent, rocking Pallas, contemplates the human stellar force. Yes, there are the Zero and wave-creatures, but who can fight against the planet-ship that can destroy everything and the invincible multitude of horrors? Truly, the commerce of war so familiar to humanity will allow it to raze and subjugate all life in the universe. What a dismal irony to belong to the camp of the victors.
Will they swarm onto the Alké and consume it? Should he rush toward the pod?
Gulmira has also identified the creatures and attempts contact again:
- "Chimera Fleet, we have the situation under control. Please establish contact so that we may designate the appropriate targets."
No response. The wall of millions, of billions of billions of creatures that keeps pouring in becomes a tunnel of creatures taking shape in space. They are so numerous that this tunnel creates a gravitational field that diverts drifting wrecks like a tornado.
- "Chimera Fleet," insists Gulmira, "please make contact on a secure line and indicate your attack plan, or I will alert Lodovico command."
This time there is a response.
The image that appears is that of a medieval crest bearing a turtle. A turtle who has its hand extended toward its interlocutor and raises its middle finger, and even Andreï shakes his head to properly register what he is seeing. The turtle exclaims:
- "Get your fat ass out of my flight path, ugly-face, I've got a fucking shitty ship as big as a planet to blast!"
- "STATE YOUR IDENTITY," Gulmira screams with such authority that even Andreï feels like saying his name.
- "I am the Aleph's worst nightmare and I've come to fuck him and all his henchmen! I COMMAND A FLEET OF ONE TRILLION SHIPS AND MY NAME SHALL BE ETERNAL! THIS IS THE DESTINY THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN DICTATED TO ME AND I HAVE COME TO FULFILL IT! SO REMEMBER MY NAME WELL, THE NAME OF THE ONE WHO FUCKS GODS: I AM LORD LUCKY!"
A shiver runs through Andreï's body. Can he really, with his vast resources, bring down the artifact-ship? The Chimeras will pass near the fortress of the Alké and pull it into their assault. Alone, he cannot steer the ship. Damn minimum crew requirement.
- "Lord Lucky," asks Andreï. "I am the enemy of the Aleph as well, but you are going to pass near my vessel and probably destroy it."
- "Sorry bro I've already launched the assault!" answers the turtle cheerfully. "I won't go into detail, but I've also got some assholes on my tail and I'd better blow up that big shitty ship before I lose control of the little levers if you know what I mean."
- "Understood. I don't know who you are, Lucky, but…thank you."
- "No worries, brother."
And the turtle gives him a wink.
There may be a solution, Andreï tells himself. One ship that remains. The Wau, perhaps. Make contact…
The tunnel, a thousand kilometers in diameter and several astronomical units long, made of the Chimera Sapiens, continues to form with this inexhaustible mass that diligently bursts from nothingness through the Drift point. From the control center he has hacked at the edges of the After, having heard Andreï's call like all of the HS, Lucky coordinates the Drift departure of the billions of billions of creatures to form an organic spear that will bring down the fractal-dimension ship.
In the hollow of the tunnel advancing toward its target whirl the colossal wrecks of the defeated Endymions, millions of asteroids, captured by the gravity of the whole.
Other Endymions, and Xeno ships, are attracted by the colossal thing and have no salvation except to enter Drift, and sometimes cannot, like those warships whose Drift locks up when the trajectory deviates: they are then pulled in, torn apart, carried into the tunnel.
The tunnel stretches into distant orbit around Caliban, and on the planet the oceans recede by two kilometers under this sudden gravity. It pulverizes the Alké and the Amaterasu, as well as the carcasses that formed its fortress. It drags in a hundred Ozy, who must expend all their energy to fight against its gravitational pull.
At supreme speed, it finally crashes onto the fractal-dimension ship. All eyes converge upon the struggle of the monstrous spear against the invincible shield, as Lucky screams as though speaking to battle companions:
- "COME ON GUYS! BASH THIS THING TO PIECES! SHOW THAT ALEPH BASTARD WHO'S STRONGER! COME ON GIVE IT EVERYTHING! I'M PROUD OF YOU GUYS! COME ON! COME ON!"
The creatures crash and tear themselves apart on the infinitely sharp hull of the fractal ship, forming an organic mass that freezes in space.
What an idiot, thinks Gulmira. Idiot in his words, in his strategy. I will find him again.
At each contact, the surface of the ship slices through the atoms of the creatures and triggers nuclear fission explosions. There are thousands per second, and the ship becomes as luminous as the nearby star, creating a new permanent aurora borealis over half of Caliban.
The ship becomes covered in organic matter, which accumulates, which burrows. Some Chimeras survive, attempt to smash the walls, also explode, new suns. Under the constant impact of the creature-tunnel, the Hyperion begins to deviate from its course. It must push its engines to keep heading straight, but cannot.
There is now a visible hole on its surface, while the Chimeras have not all exited Drift yet. This hole, dug out by the explosions - can it grow further?
It will not even be necessary. The mass of the Chimeras is such that the ship begins to twist and groan on all sides. Whatever the dimension, gravity is a powerful force, irresistible; it operates. There comes a moment when the organic mass on the ship is such that it loses balance and begins to collapse in on itself.
Suddenly, like a fragile glass bell in the deepest ocean, it twists in one motion and crushes itself. Other Chimeras continue to crash upon it, before Lucky - on the verge of being erased by guardian AIs who have forced their way into the virtual control center - disconnects everything. All consciousness leaves the fighting creatures and their hosts return to the After.
Caliban, nicknamed the planet of war, now has a moon - a moon of blood and fractal-dimension materials - and an immense ring of creatures with empty minds, frozen in cosmic cold, yet not dead for all that.