NEXUS POINT
Compendium – Story 1
By Andrew Hawnt
The displays
surrounding Thomas blazed in flickering colours before flickering
into darkness, but the cramped bridge of Echo Five was still
awash with light from what was happening beyond its bulkheads.
Trapped, Thomas could only watch as the massive battlecruiser
Pyrinus Blade exploded around his ship. The reactors had
ruptured and were leaking strange energies into other damaged
machinery throughout the gargantuan vessel, which in turn caused more
explosions to erupt and be swallowed by the vacuum that had replaced
the artificial gravity.
“Thomas,” came the
wavering voice at the other end of the comm. “Can you hear me?”
He slid the channel
over to two-way. “I'm here, Sab. I made it.”
“You've done it now.
Come home. Please.”
Alerts turned the
cockpit red. Incoming fighters from the obliterated Pyrinus Blade.
He nodded for crosshairs to be generated by his ship's AI and the
targeting system appeared before him, matching the movement of his
eyes. He brought Echo Five around to face what was to come.
“I will,” Thomas
said quietly. “But not just yet.”
Commotion on the comm,
Sab and the others back at Seven had seen the fighters
scrambling as well. Thomas muted it. He had to concentrate. He saw
the fighters, eight on each side of him, and between them came a
larger ship, somewhere between a fighter and a shuttle.
A familiar sigil
flashed on the comm display. A sigil he himself had designed as a
child, drawn over and over as though it had always needed to exist.
He approved the hail
and waited for the voice.
“You never told
them,” came the sneer of the central ship's pilot, the craft framed
by the total destruction of the Pyrinus Blade behind them.
“How could I?”
Thomas said, attempting defiance but unable to deny the tremble in
his tone.
“It ends here for me
and begins for you,” rumbled the sinister response. “For one to
live, the other has to die. The circle completes itself and balance
is restored.”
Thomas balled his
fists, thinking of Sab and the others. “How do I make it happen? I
don't know how.”
The ships slowed, with
the lead stopping before him and the others gathering around. No
escape. He had destroyed the flagship and there would be no running
this time.
Their eyes locked
across the small void between them. Thomas choked back tears, seeing
his older self staring back at him, scarred and greyed and clad in
the unmistakable uniform of the Supreme.
The Supreme sat back in
his cockpit and gestured to the ships around them. “It will happen
the same way it has always happened, which is why we both know we're
trapped in this cycle. I die, you are flung back in time twenty-eight
years and grow to become me. The Supreme. The man who toppled worlds.
The devout rebel becomes that which he most hates.”
“I'll never become
you,” Thomas said, powering down his weapons. “Kill me. Wipe me
out. You'll never exist. Or let me live, and I ensure that I never
follow the path that leads to you.”
“You can't escape
this loop, Thomas. Neither of us can.”
“We'll see about
that,” Thomas snarled and killed the comm channel. He swept his
palms up over the throttle controls and Echo Five hurtled past
the Supreme's ship. The leader's fighters blazed their energy weapons
after the smaller ship as they gave chase.
Not this time, Thomas
thought. He aimed his agile ship directly at the mass of ruined
machinery and erupting reactors that had been the Pyrinus Blade.
The fighters gave chase, yet two became brief fireballs as they
collided with the unpredictable debris of their fallen ship.
Thomas weaved his own
through the barrage of metal and violently exploding cores, managing
to take another fighter out by swiftly moving behind a bulkhead which
was in motion, catching the fighter on one side and tearing it apart.
The others had begun to
match his evasive moves, opening up with cannons as they gave chase.
They quickly had him surrounded again between two massive slabs of
crackling bulkheads, and the Supreme's ship followed. Once it was
before him, Thomas saw all of their cannons power up.
He had to break the
cycle that had plagued his dreams since childhood and was coming true
before him. Thomas reversed a cannon and fired directly into the
bulkhead behind him.
Weeks of study had paid
off. The bulkhead split, revealing the unstable core of an engine
behind it, tethered to a nearby engineering platform via a ragged
umbilical of cables. A second shot detonated it, sending a column of
searing energy exploding through the Supreme's ship, annihilating it.
As the core blossomed
into a gigantic sphere of energies being released and warping space
around him, Thomas punched the throttles and hurtled out of the
debris field, the resultant shockwave wiping out the other fighters.
Once he was at a safe
distance, Thomas brought the Echo Five to a stop, turning to see the
glittering remnants of a ruined empire shimmer like tiny stars, the corona of the Pyrinus Blade's destruction looking like an eclipse had
been painted over space.
“Sab,” he called,
pushing the comms to maximum. “I'm coming home. Do you hear me? I'm
coming home.”
The message went
unanswered, as did many more.
His journey home passed
in silence. As he finally neared the Earth, he wept. Gone were the cities he
knew. Gone were the towers and spires and squares he had lived to
protect. Gone was Sab. Gone was his family. Gone was his time.
“Sab... darling...”
Missiles rose from
countries Thomas had never seen before, and Thomas let them.
The circle was broken,
and so was he.
===
© Andrew Hawnt 2020
About Compendium 2020:
Compendium 2020 is a
project from author Andrew Hawnt and consists of 52 weekly stories
encompassing science fiction, fantasy and horror. They are a mix of
short stories and flash fiction, 100% original and written throughout
2020. Why is he doing this? To keep the words flowing. To keep the
ideas coming. To see how far he can explore the worlds that live in
his head.
About Andrew Hawnt:
You can find Andrew on
Facebook at facebook.com/andrewhawntauthor and on Twitter and
Instagram as @andrewhawnt. Formerly a musician and DJ, Andrew is
known for his books, comic book writing, music journalism and more,
including fiction in Doctor Who Adventures, the Judge Dredd Megazine
and others. Look out for his film work soon.
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