Before the Lord Joshua Davidson had left Shet’s former prison planet, He had sent Shet’s pyramid into deep space beyond the Cube. He allowed Shet to be drawn to it and to find it, and Shet continued to use it as his headquarters. And deep inside of it, Shet had found something that hadn’t been there before: an idol of the World Serpent, a black stone carved in the form of a tree trunk with a snake coiled around it. By this means Shet could communicate both with the World Serpent and with other fellow servants of the Dragon of Chaos – including Nicholas Blackthorn.

Once again, the Lord of the Realms was setting the rules of engagement – by giving Shet over to what he really desired to have. Shet didn’t know whether to be grateful or wary or both.

Nicholas’ flagship had a chapel to the Great Mother Cosmos to the rear of its bridge. Through such means he could keep in touch with his Elemental allies in the same way that Shet could keep in touch with his. It was by such anti-grace that Shet and Nicholas were able to speak to one another without being intercepted by anyone listening to hyperspace traffic.

Shet kneeled before the idol, and the idol began to hum.

“Nicholas, how close are you?”

“It’s taking longer than expected to locate the place, but I’m closer than ever. Babel will soon be in my hands. Thank you for the symbiote.” Nicholas referred to the small tube of liquid kept by Shet for so many centuries: a sample of Babel’s symbiotic cells. With that sample, Nicholas could awaken the Elemental, yet he would be at only half power without the Babylon Matrix.

“What is yourstatus, Shet?”

“The Deep Space Service is retreating into the Sphere and Annexes, and into new Nodule Fields that have been set up in each sector of the Cube. The Ayyah can move freely in the Cube now.”

“This is not as good as it appears, Shet. Each sector has tens of millions of stars, and planets, moons and deep space colonies beyond count. The Sphere is using the sheer vastness of space against us while protecting its own interests. We cannot possibly hold that much volume against them; the Ayyah are far too few for that.”

“Then we must adjust our strategy and tactics accordingly.”

“Agreed. What is your next move?”

Shet smiled with a hiss, though he knew that he and Nicholas couldn’t see each other. “I plan to go to the homeworld of the Mephitica, where the Lightchild Susan Starrider is. Admiral Wu Chin is on the way there, as is Bakbuk and several of his students – including the Undying Singer himself.”

“How do you know this?”

“The Sphere obviously wished its foes to know it. They transmitted the news openly to the various Deep Space Stations. Even the civilian Doublestar News Agency picked up the story, in order to give the interstellar community hope.”

“I see. I will ask my own intelligence personnel here about that news. Shet, this move is dangerous even for you. Beings who underestimate what the Undying Singer can do ‘at need’ tend to end up dead – and he’ll have allies almost as dangerous as he. More dangerous in a way, in the person of Wu Chin; he is a master strategist.”

“I know. You needn’t trouble yourself, Nicholas; your success is more needful than mine. As far as the Ring of Stars is concerned, you’re out of the picture for now. I’ll fill the minds of its inhabitants with the dread of me.”

“Oh, I get it. You want them to leave me alone, so you’re dangling yourself as bait. I didn’t know you cared so much.” Even through the telepathic link, the sarcasm was stinging. “Prophetically speaking, when your doom and that of the World Serpent comes, my doom follows. I don’t think the Old Man’s dropped that part of His own planning. And remember, the Undying Singer’s destined to be pitted against us. You risk having our necks being put on the chopping block before the time.”

“All the same, I’m one piece of bait they can’t afford to ignore.”

“They won’t. But though Starbright doesn’t know you very well yet, he knows me all too well. He knows I won’t be content to stay in the background – and he’s right. He knows I’ll be up to something, even if he doesn’t yet know what it is. Your tactic might work on most of his peers, but not on him.”

“I’m depending on that – to coin a phrase.”

“There’s no guarantee he’ll come after you specifically – although he’d be well-advised to do so.”

“If he doesn’t, then someone very powerful must. There’s something else I’m about to do as well…something that will cost a very great many lives, Adamim and non-Adamim alike.”

“The idea, may I remind you,” said Nicholas with mock politeness, “is to focus on the Adamim alone. Overthrow my strategy for the hell of it and you’ll have hell to pay, Shet – from me.”

“You’d disapprove of collateral damage done for the sake of terror?”

“If it doesn’t work against the larger strategy, no.”

“Well, then. Don’t worry, the galaxy will be ready for your return in due time. Just focus on getting Babel and the Matrix; you may leave the rest to me.”

“I will. But remember the price of failure – for both of us.”

The idol ceased its humming. So far, so good. Now Shet had to make a much more demanding contact. This time as Shet knelt down, the eyes of the snake glowed green, and a hissing voice came from it.

“Why am I still in the Shadow Realm, Shet? You promised to free me.”

“Great World Serpent, the ‘front door’ of the Portal of Twilight is operated by the strongest Elemental there is, this side of Nicholas Blackthorn. To open a ‘back door’ from our Realm to yours takes even more power. My power is still far too low.”

“What of the Matrix?”

“It will be soon in my hands.”

“And the Shadow Master?”

“I have lost him.”

“WHAT?!?”The Serpent’s eyes glowed even brighter with fury, and Shet sank in unbelievable pain.

“Master, you know what stopped us!” Shet cried out in agony. “There is no reckoning of the power He wields – and no predicting what His servant will do with it.”

The Serpent relented. “Find the Shadow Master, or else find another. More decay is needed, more deception, more fear. The Dragon of Chaos presses me, even from behind the Portal of Darkness. The pain you felt for a moment is the pain I feel from him always – and it is unbearable. He wants a war; you must free me.”

“I am an entropy sink; to create the entropy required…”

“Yes?”

“The Shadow Sharks.”

“Yes.”

The Serpent hissed in dark delight. Not all Shadow Creatures had been imprisoned with him in the Shadow Realm. Some still dwelt in the accretion disks of black holes, places where unshielded organic beings would be destroyed almost instantly. Among them were many Shadow Chasers, the Daimonae…and some things even more terrible than they.

“They will kill many,” Shet pointed out. “The Lightchildren will not stand for that much death; they will come out in force. What is worse, we risk amplifying the Undying Singer’s Power in response many, many times over.”

“I know. If we do nothing, then we fail anyway. What has Nicholas advised?”

“What he always advises: we must corrupt the Undying Singer and his fellow Lightchildren if we are to defeat them.”

“Then include this advice in your strategy against them. Do not contact me again unless you have good news.”

The eyes of the snake went dead.

***************

Shet came storming into the main chamber of his pyramid and grabbed one of his servants. “Is he here?” he demanded.

“I am here.” Jade Dragon stepped out of the shadows; he was dressed all in black, hood, cape, shirt, trousers and shoes.

“You look far too much like the Hooded Man, Jade.”

“All the better to deceive the unwary for a moment,” Jade replied cooly. “Besides, He wears charcoal gray as a rule – when He’s not wearing dazzling white.”

“You have become subtle in other ways. I didn’t even sense you were there.”

“The one called Alan Blackstar: you wish for me to train him?”

“Yes, him and others who are willing. I need an army of Shadow Warriors, and a master for them.”

“He seems hardheaded, but I will work on that. His hatred of the Bladesmasters’ own Sijo is palpable. Is Sijo Chris Alan truly as dangerous as Alan Blackstar says?”

“He is still young and inexperienced, however formidable in potential. We must defeat him while he is so. Do we have a good estimate of the number of Lightchildren we face?”

“Shet, there were 144 million Lightchildren exactly at the Founding of the Sphere. There are at least twelve times as many now. They are employed by the Four Wings of the Deep Space Service; roughly one-fourth of them are in the Fleet. Not all of these are battle-ready personnel, but I estimate that we face a minimum of 300 million Fleetmen of all levels, all of whom have some training in Blademastery.”

“And one who is not even officially a Fleetman, yet who is Toa’s and Bakbuk’s protégé. Well. This war will not be a quick and easy one.”

“No, sir. Even as things stand, the Sphere could put a squad of Fleetmen on every naturally inhabited world in the Cube, although obviously not on every colonized moon or worldlet.”

“Our position on the galactic go board is still weaker than the Ayyah suppose, then.”

“You’re sounding much like Nicholas Blackthorn.”

“Our Master’s demands are forcing me to think like Nicholas.” Shet hissed unhappily, but there was nothing for it; the World Serpent knew a master strategist when he saw one, and Nicholas was peerless among Elementals in strategy.

“I see.”

“I hope that you do. Your task, Jade, is to build an army of Shadow Warriors three times as large as the force of Fleetmen that can be sent against us – and to train Alan Blackstar as the nemesis of Chris Alan Starbright.”

“You mean, as the new Shadow Master?”

“If we are unable to find the old one, yes. Perhaps Bitterroot and Blackstar can work together. Otherwise, we musthave a replacement for Bitterroot.”

“I understand. Meanwhile, what will you do?”

“After you leave, I will take the pyramid to the Galactic Core. There I will unleash the Shadow Sharks.”

“That is an exceedingly dangerous move.”

“I know. Go now.”

***************

The Ring of Stars had been formed by an ancient collision of two spiral galaxies. The resulting conglomerate was a little wider than the Milky Way of the Old First Realm. An outer ring of stars, gas and dust, rich in stellar nurseries, formed the bulk of the galaxy. In the center was a huge ellipsoid of much older yellow, orange and red giant and supergiant stars. Some of these had become white dwarfs, neutron stars and even black holes over time.

Black holes had accretion disks, usually. These disks were the favored habitats of Shadow Creatures, and especially of the Shadow Sharks.

Shet’s pyramid had one tremendous advantage even over speedy starships like the Hind of the Dawn: it could appear anywhere in the Covenant Realm instantaneously on its own power. Only the Node and Nodule Fields kept it at bay, as they kept all other supernatural evils at bay.

To Shet, one star was as close as another. A mental command, and his pyramid was approaching a major accretion disk.

Here in this star system, a black hole was tearing off the outer atmosphere of a companion giant star. At the position where the pyramid found itself, the radiation being given off by the disk would’ve overwhelmed the shields of non-Covenant starships; the tidal effects caused by the black hole would’ve torn those starships apart. Only Shet’s special powers kept the same from happening to his pyramid.

Shet’s eyes glowed green. Even using half of his total current power, he could only nullify the black hole’s tremendous gravity well for a moment. It was enough.

Karish! shouted in Adamic. Shark!

The Shadow Sharks burst forth from their whirling prison in all directions, leaving faint trails of blue in their wakes. They circled around the pyramid in hundreds. They were bigger even than Nicholas’ ship; their dorsal fins alone were as tall as a Deep Space Courier was long.

In a moment, the pyramid and the Sharks were back in the Cube, back among the systems populated with organic life.

“Go!”said Shet with a laugh. “Go and devour all living things in your path, for none can cure your hunger.”

The Shadow Sharks dispersed in all directions at high virtual velocity, seeking out every inhabited star system in the sector. A school of them headed unerringly for where the Babylon Matrix was: the star system containing the homeworld Mephiticus.

So they can sense the location of the Matrix too. Better and better.

The Locus of the Metacosmic Realms was headed for Mephiticus right on schedule. Shet could sense its blue hyperspace radiance even at this distance. At this rate, the Sharks and the Admiral’s task force would arrive at Mephiticus at about the same time. With any luck, the Sharks would get there a little earlier.

Shet moved his pyramid to keep pace with the school.

***************

“Raphael!”

“What is it, Chris Alan?”

“Get a hold of Precious and have her wake the Admiral – assuming he’s asleep. Something terrible is coming – and coming fast.”

“The Admiral is online,” Precious announced after a moment.

“What is it, young Sijo?”

Quickly Chris Alan explained. Wu Chin nodded; his own Introverted Intuiting had been triggered by the same threat without his quite realizing it, and it had kept him from sleeping.

“Do you know approximately where this threat is?”

“My best guess is in the very sector Mephiticus is in, Admiral.” Chris Alan pointed to the appropriate place on a display pane that Raphael called up. “Those are the sector numbers that keep coming into my head.”

“I had no idea you were a Prophet.”

“I’m not. I’m the Undying Singer, with Prophecy Without Measure at Need.”

“I see. Precious, have the CO contact the Dodecahedral Array.” The Dodecahedral Array was a series of enormous and very sensitive tracking stations positioned around the whole Ring of Stars. Its primary use was to track large-scale movements of starship traffic within the Ring.

In a few minutes, Wu Chin had what he wanted, and Precious and Raphael both displayed it. “You are right, young Sijo. Something like a fleet of massive starships is moving through this sector in all directions. One group is headed directly for Mephiticus.”

“But they aren’t starships,” said Chris Alan, “according to their hyperspace spectra.”

“No, they are not; but they move with the virtual velocityof starships. They will arrive at Mephiticus about the same time we do. Precious, hail Amethyst; we need her help.”

Soon Amethyst returned from reconnaissance with her report. By that time Wu Chin and Chris Alan were both dressed and waiting in the Rooster’s main conference room.

“The news is almost as bad as it can get,” Amethyst told them. “They are Shadow Creatures, beings of shark-like form, each much larger than the Rooster.”

“Were you able to kill any of them?” the Admiral asked.

“They are very difficult to kill. A lit Starblade could do it, but my meta-tech sabers had difficulty doing any damage. I paralyzed them for a while, the way I keep beings from teleporting, but…” She grimaced. “They are also very strong, and I had to deal with at least fifty of them.”

“Then our ships’ best normal defenses would be ineffective against them.”

“Yes, sir. Your Fleetmen will have to engage them in space hand-to-hand. There’s more, Admiral: Shet is definitely with that school of Shadow Sharks.”

“So then, Bakbuk’s team will not be able to face the Sharks; they will have to join Susan and her team planetside. Noted. Meanwhile, I will warn the Stations nearest to the other systems being threatened; we cannot leave them without any protection at all. Precious, sound Level Four alert.”

“Level Four?” Amethyst asked.

“Unless the Sharks come on at a truly incredible velocity, there is no sense exhausting the crew before battling them. Level Four will keep the Fleetmen at sufficient battle readiness. At Level Five, they can be in space with their Guardians in a matter of seconds via the ship’s portals. Chris Alan, your cousin Christina will lead one of the teams; she has extensive experience in zero-gravity fighting.”

“Yes, sir. Amethyst, can those things teleport?”

“They are Shadow Creatures, Chris Alan. My guess is that whoever sent them is trying more to cause immediate panic than to cause immediate devastation. If it were the latter, then they’d already be at their destinations, attacking everything in sight.”

“And yet they’re coming on very fast. This smells of Shet, or Nicholas, or both.”

“Yes,” said Wu Chin. “We are being blindsided; such chaos is not the real objective of our foes.”

“What is?”

“That is what we must learn, and quickly. May the grace that is upon you reveal it to you, Undying Singer.”

“Or to someone,” Chris Alan replied.

***************

(Continued in Chapter Eight…)