Chapter Ten: Sundown

“We’re in orbit,” Zanzikai told us, though it was rather unceremonious. There was no shift or bump as we stopped moving, nor could we see anything outside. Truly this ship wasn’t meant to be a tool for passengers and crew, but simply the tiniest limb of a much greater mind than I’d been in a long time.

“Great,” Konzor said drolly, “what a milestone.”

“Oh, shut up Vendorii, you’d all be dead in a matter recycler if it wasn’t for me.”

I just watched as the medbay worked on Dagger’s body, a set of three narrow arms poking around beneath her skin, setting bones and joints into place while sewing up her organs. Dagger looked small without her armour, small and frail despite having enough muscles for the entire military. She was covered up by her conservative underclothing, but all visible skin was either bruised or covered in blood.

“Makes me want to barf,” she said, looking down at herself. The medbay was blocking the pain from her lower body, but I couldn’t blame her for feeling uncomfortable.

“Don’t,” said the soldier operating the machine, “or you’ll hit one of your organs and they’ll fix you up with the vomit still in there.”

“Urgh, don’t even say that, asshole.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Must be weird, needing to ask how someone’s feeling, huh?” Dagger smirked, wincing as she watched the robot probe her lung, “instead of just knowing.”

“That stopped being weird long ago,” I smiled, “it was a learning curve though. And you didn’t answer the question.”

She paused, watching the machines do their work.

“Hopefully I’ll be alright by the time we need to do something. For now though? It sucks ass. But thanks for caring. And thanks for saving my life, yet again.”

“You saved me first. You didn’t have to.”

“Of course I didn’t. But I’ve spent far too much of my life letting people die because I didn’t have to save them.”

“You mean Vlissik?”

“Yeah,” Dagger looked away, “there’s no way to make their lives mean anything. Nothing we can do to make it worth it. All we can do is do better for everyone still alive.”

“Well, we’ve completed our mission at least.”

“I don’t think so, Greenie. Zanzikai seems worried.”

“You care about him?”

“He’s an asshole but he isn’t a liar and he’s smarter than the damn Arkolt on some things. If he’s worried, I am too,” she breathed through her teeth, “if he thinks we’re entering the endgame, I believe him.”

“Speaking of that,” Zanzikai said under his helmet, “I’m detecting some narrow-channel photon-extraction beams.”

“That,” Dagger said, “is the most incomprehensible sentence I have ever heard uttered by anything, and I’ve had to listen to Arkolt binary chittering for eight hours on end.”

“You people are cretins; I swear to the gods. Just look here.”

I blinked as two of the ship’s walls became windows, obviously not truly transparent but portraying the outside world so perfectly it might as well have been. Below us, the burnt planet of Vlissik spun dreamily, whilst the Arkolt ring-maintained orbit around us like a wall. We’d rendezvoused with the Ultimatum of Infinity which was drifting beside us, mostly shadowed by our transport and only faintly lit by the tiny sun in the distance.

“Holy shit,” Konzor covered his mouth. The handful of Trigan soldiers did likewise, whilst I, the humans, and the Plavians just frowned.

“Uh yeah,” Dagger raised an eyebrow, “it’s space. Surprise!”

“You can’t see that?” Konzor stared, “you seriously cannot see that?”

“Ah,” Zanzikai clicked, “infared. Let me just adjust the visual frequency…”

The image blurred a little as three bright red lines appeared in space, three red beams pointed from equally spaced points on the Arkolt ring.

“The Trigan population back home will be panicking about that, and I don’t blame them,” Zanzikai said grimly.

“What the hell is going on?” Dagger uttered, panic crumpling her face.

“Extraction beams. We didn’t even know they had this technology. They’ve never used it until now. If you’d rescued me sooner, I could have warned them, I could have,” he shook his head. “I wanted years to prepare for this. But we can’t stop it now.”

“Can’t stop what?”

“The energy purge.”

“The what?”

“You think the universal portal can just flip on and off like a light? An absurd assumption. You’d need a power source big enough to peel the fabric of reality open, and an even bigger power source for a portal the size of this one. Nuclear and zero-point energy simply won’t cut it, you understand?”

“So where are they getting it from?”

“You’ll see soon enough. It’s probably already happened, due to light-speed lag and all that,” Zanzekai took off his helmet and stepped towards the viewscreens, gazing out into the endless black universe. “This universe is wrong. It’s dying. The last of its energy is fading. But it isn’t dead yet… It’s such a shame, it really is. We had a little longer together. We should have had a little longer. But maybe it’s for the best. Maybe for the best. Still… Anything for one more Summer day. Anything.”

And then the sun went out.

The single coin of light in the empty universe shone brightly for a single instant, reawakened to its former brilliance in its final moment. And then it was gone, along with the three massive beams. The star everyone on Enfirmia had lived under their entire lives. The star that had fed every field, every forest, every ocean still in existence.

Gone.

There were no more stars.

Below us, the planet of Vlissik fell invisible, shrouded by a shadow that would never end.

Beside us, the Ultimatum of Infinity was pitch black, revealed only by the few tiny lights on her hull.

Around us, the Arkolt ring started to glow, the entire superstructure now a brilliant orange, shining with the barely restrained power of a star.

“What the fuck,” Dagger whispered.

“It’s begun,” said Zanzekai, “they have enough power to open the portal, to open it for as long as they need,” he sighed, “ladies, gentleman, and whatever in the name of the gods Greenie is, you and I have just witnessed the very last star die. The universe is empty. The show is over, they’ve had their last bow, and we’re just the final audience picking up our coats and bags before the theatre falls empty.” His head fell backwards, eyes locked upon the shining Arkolt ring, “I should contact Enfirnia. Let them know what’s going on. Before everyone starts to panic.”

“You won’t stop that,” Konzor said, still awestruck by the empty circle where a star had once died.

“Is everyone back home… Are they all dead now?” asked Dagger.

“No. The atmosphere will hold some heat for a while. Most of our population lives in spaceships, space stations, starscrapers, and underground complexes. We’ve also been hoarding as much stored power as we can ever since arriving at this system. We could survive another couple hundred years.”

“If you don’t mind living in the dark,” I said. This was madness. Utter and true madness.

I had woken up that day, scared of dying in battle.

I’d been scared of guns and bombs and ships.

How naïve I had been.

The ring started to spin. Slowly at first, but then faster, faster, even faster. Parts of it were moving, patterns of light shining on the surface, entire parts ripping off and flinging away from sheer centripetal force. One by one, the sphereships started to wake, about twenty-two by my count, one still damaged from the earlier battle.

“We should move,” Zanzekai said, “we should definitely move soon.”

“Yeah,” Dagger said, “those ships will destroy us before we can get over the shock of the freaking Sun disappearing!”

“Yes, but not just that,” Zanzekai replaced the helmet, and the view shifted as we started to break orbit. “Come in Ultimatum of Infinity. This is the Zanzekai Two. It is vital we move from our current position.”

“The Sun, it just vanished,” whispered the Ultimatum’s pilot.

“Yes, yes, it’s very scary. It’ll get even scarier soon, so just scooch towards us a little.”

“O-of course.”

“Much obliged.”

Together we flew for a few minutes, the spinning Arkolt ring growing smaller until we could see it through a single screen.

“You ever hear of rapture, Greenie?” Dagger asked. She was almost fixed now, aside from the bruises and scabs.

“No,” I responded.

“Yeah, I was thinking that. You can’t have a cult or a religion of one. I don’t know where it started, but it was billions of years ago, and the idea has persisted in some way ever since. The idea of our gods taking the worthy into the afterlife whilst the world ends in fire.”

“We have something like that,” said Konzor, “where only the honourable are taken, to the great battlefield of Kadath.”

“This isn’t like that at all, is it?” Dagger giggled, “it’s the opposite. The Arkolt have destroyed heaven itself, or Kadath, or whatever, while poor souls are still here.”

“I don’t think the fire has started yet,” I said, “I don’t think it’s even started.”

“Something worse than the Sun fading to black?” Konzor clenched his fists, “ It terrifies me, but I think you might be right.”

I was.