Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 57 - A Countdown to Extinction (Patreon)

There is freedom in hopelessness born of necessity. Striving toward a goal you think is impossible to reach can sometimes result in miracles.

Galatira Iamaxis

“It’s charging up,” Patrick said.

“How long?” I asked, racing across the room to one of the terminals. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I needed to figure something out. I didn’t need any further explanations to understand that the Templar’s cannon was Earth’s doom. Perhaps it wouldn’t immediately destroy the planet, but it would do enough damage that it probably wouldn’t matter.

“Alistaris says a minute. Maybe two at the outset. He says it’s a Mark-7 D-3274. It’s going to tear a chunk the size of a continent off the planet,” Patrick stated.

I didn’t care about the weapon’s designation. And if I was honest, the explanation of the cannon’s strength wasn’t important either. I could intuit that much on my own.

“You have to get everyone to turn back around,” I said. “Send them back to the surface.”

“Already on it,” was Patrick’s response. I could tell he was stressed, probably in battle. The Leviathan was no warship, but it was capable enough to hold its own, especially with him at the helm.

I reached the first terminal and slammed a Mist tendril into the machine. A second later, the system was opened to me. However, I belatedly recognized that it was quarantined from the ship, and by a gap I couldn’t hope to bridge. I slammed my fist into the wall, denting the blue-painted plastisteel.

I didn’t know what to do.

I didn’t know how to save everyone.

After everything, the collective might of the enemies we – no, I – had made was overwhelming and unstoppable. I could kill thousands of Templars. I had slaughtered tens of thousands of Adjudicators and mystics. And yet, it was not enough. One person couldn’t fight against the entire universe.

But even as the countdown to Earth’s doom progressed, I refused to accept that. I’d overcome worse odds. I had beaten other people I should never have been able to touch. I could save Earth. I just needed to figure out how.

So, I cast my senses outward in a web of Mist tendrils that tore through the Infinite Conquest. Time felt like it slowed down. And for me, it did. One second lasted whole minutes, at least from my subjective perspective. With that glut of time, I scoured the ship for something – anything – that might give me an edge.

And I found the weapons systems.

While the Leviathan – or any of the other vessels in Earth’s fleet – was not a warship, the Infinite Conquest certainly was. And it had all the requisite weapons that designation would suggest. I harnessed them all.

After only a second or two, I aimed and launched every missile. I fired every cannon. I engaged every gun. The result was a barrage of gunfire the Templars couldn’t hope to dodge. The first missiles slammed into a powerful shield that dissipated their force with ripples of Mist. However, the slower-moving cannon projectiles never got that far, because the swarm of norcite-shielded drones swooped in to intercept them.

Whole swaths of the machines were destroyed in explosions of blue Mist and pieces of metal. However, their sacrifice was effective, and the Templar ship was spared the bulk of the barrage. I tried to fire another, but I was disturbed to find that they wouldn’t respond to my commands. I attempted it again and again, but after a few more seconds, I found the culprit responsible for my failure.

The crew of the Infinite Conquest had destroyed their weapons’ firing mechanisms, rendering them useless. I was so furious that I lashed out, killing a few dozen of them with my Mist tendrils. Then, after gathering my wits, I tried to fix the problems.

But for all my talents, I was no engineer.

Perhaps Patrick could have figured it out. Certainly, he could have done something. But me? My talents lay in another direction.

I railed against my own futility, but there was nothing I could do. The weapons were useless. My plan had failed before it had really had a chance to get started. Sure, I’d weakened the Templar ship’s shield. And I’d managed to destroy much of the drone fleet. But the huge cannon descending from the ship’s belly continued to charge, and countdown to Earth’s destruction persisted.

For a moment, I considered calling Patrick back to the Infinite Conquest and escaping. I had tried. I didn’t owe Earth any more than that. And besides, what had humanity ever given me? Since my childhood, it had taken everything. First, my mother whose face I could scarcely remember. Then, Jeremiah, who’d died because of an insecure woman’s jealousy. But it was more than the people I’d lost. It was the life I’d never gotten to live. I’d been fighting for so long, and all because of humanity’s inability to resist alien corruption. Because of their collective inadequacy before the tide of oppression coming their way.

And I was tired of it.

I’d given it my all. I had fought. I had done more than anyone could reasonably expect. Who could blame me for saving myself and leaving it all behind?

But there were two issues with it. One was practical, but the other was more personal.

From a realistic standpoint, I knew the Templars would never let me escape. Perhaps Patrick could manage it. He was talented enough, certainly. But I couldn’t believe that the Templars, with all their power, would be incapable of countering a relatively low-leveled smuggler’s skills.

The second – and, if I was honest with myself, more important – issue was that I couldn’t stomach losing. The idea of failure was nothing new. I’d experienced enough of it in my life that it wouldn’t cripple me. However, the notion of just giving up was anathema to my very ethos. Even if it was necessary for my survival, I didn’t think I was capable of admitting defeat and acting accordingly.

So, my mind raced in a thousand different directions as, with every passing second, I searched for some solution. Some way to prevent the Templars from destroying Earth. To keep them from claiming victory.

And then, suddenly, I figured it out.

I had access to one function that could save Earth. I just needed to make it work. So, I dove into the terminal, searching for the blockade controls. Normally, it was intended to keep things in. However, it seemed to me that it would only take a slight adjustment to configure it to keep things out.

The more I thought about it, the more I latched onto the idea. And soon enough, I found the controls and went to work. It was the most difficult bout of hacking I’d ever attempted. Turning the blockade on and off was easy enough, and it was tantamount to flipping a virtual switch. Yet, reversing its function was something else altogether, and accomplishing that feat required me to push into the fundamental framework of the controlling system.

Seconds passed, and even as I toppled one obstacle after another, solving equations and piecing together virtual puzzles, the Templars’ weapon continued to charge. My head exploded into pain, and exhaustion gripped my mind. I pushed through it, shunting my discomfort to another thread of thought I could ignore.

And eventually, I managed it.

Patrick’s voice erupted over the Secure Connection, “It’s about to fire!”

Indeed, with my Mist senses, I could feel that the thing was nearly charged. I only had a second or two.

I thrust my mind into the underlying foundation of the system, then rearranged things in a way I hoped would accomplish the goal. It wasn’t as simple as flipping everything around. Instead, it required me to change a hundred different commands, each one chaining into another.

The weapon fired.

And I finished the job.

The blockade – or shield, now – reactivated, but it was too late. The cannon didn’t fire a single projectile. Instead, it erupted into a continuous beam that hit Earth with the power of a meteor.

Millions probably died.

But the assault only lasted a second before the shield finished activation. A blue shell of Mist encircled the globe, cutting the beam of destruction off. But it continued to fire. I could feel the Mist being destroyed.

Shields were finite, after all. They could be broken. Overcome. And it seemed that the Templars intended to do just that. The blockade was incredibly powerful. With earth’s weapons, we’d had no chance over breaking it. But the Templars were on a completely different level. They had access to firepower we could only dream about.

And slowly, the shield was overwhelmed.

After almost thirty seconds, it became clear that my gambit was useless. The blockade would soon fall, and Earth would follow.

“Mira…”

“I know, Pick.”

“What do you want to do?” he asked, even as I sensed the beam melting through the shield.

“I…I don’t know…”

And I didn’t. I’d done my best. I had given everything I could. And yet, everyone was still going to die. I was still going to lose.

I wouldn’t accept that, though. There was an argument to be made that I simply couldn’t. I wasn’t capable of accepting my own failures.

With that fueling my efforts, I drank deep of the Mist, searching for an answer. The problem was power. The shield could hold. There just wasn’t enough Mist to keep it going when the beam continuously destroyed the nanites. As I continued to infuse myself with more Mist than I’d ever held before, I felt my body shifting. Whatever humanity I’d maintained – and it wasn’t much, after most of my body had been destroyed – retreated before the flood of Mist.

And that’s when I realized the answer.

In retrospect, it seemed so obvious. If the blockaded needed more power, then I could provide just that. I could be the battery that fueled Earth’s saving grace.

So, I pushed the Mist out, funneling it into the terminal. In turn, it raced toward the satellites that controlled the actual blockade. But it wasn’t enough. It was too slow. I needed to get closer.

“I hope this works…”

“What are you –”

I didn’t hear Patrick’s retort. Instead, I wrapped myself in Mist, then used my new version of Teleport. But instead of only going a few dozen feet, I passed through the blockade and appeared miles away and next to one of the satellites. I slammed into it, grabbing hold before I bounced off and went spinning into space.

I could feel the vacuum eating at the Mist around me, but I couldn’t pay attention to that. Instead, I shoved a tendril into the satellite, then flooded it with my own Mist.

And it worked.

Even as the incomprehensibly dense Mist inside me drained into the satellite, it used it as fuel to keep the blockade active. Now, all I needed to do was keep it going long enough for the ship’s weapon to run out of fuel.

Seconds passed, and I actually thought I’d found the solution.

But then, a second ship opened fire – not with the massive cannon of the largest ship, but rather, with more normal munitions. Usually, they would have been inconsequential against a shield of the blockade’s power. Yet, with the system already taxed by the huge, world-ending cannon, they started to tip the balance.

The rest of the fleet followed suit.

And once again, Earth’s doom loomed large on the horizon as I felt myself being drained at a ridiculously powerful rate. I could do nothing to stop it, either. The moment I let go, the shield would fall, and Earth would be destroyed.

So I clung to the satellite, sinking deeper into the Mist than I ever had before. The whispers roared in my mind, and I felt my body dissipating with every passing second. I screamed into the void, but no sound escaped from between my lips.

Bit by bit, I felt myself being unmade, drained into the blockade’s system and used as fuel. The tiny bits of normal flesh broke off, frozen and drifting into space. There was nothing left but the nanites.

With that came power, though. Strength. They replicated at an unreal rate, pouring into the satellite as I pitted my will against the might of a Templar fleet.

And for a while, I held my own.

Yet, the tyranny of power soon reasserted itself. I was strong. But so were they. And they had the benefit of numbers and technology on their side.

I had power on my side, too, though. And as I felt myself draining away, I felt closer to the Mist than ever before. Closer than I thought possible. So close that I had difficulty telling where it stopped and I began. I pushed into that, letting the Mist envelop and infuse my very being.

And I saw.

Everything.

The world – the universe – opened up to me in a way that defies description. The whispers that had become screams were suddenly speaking a language I could understand. And they told me what I needed to hear. They explained that the Mist was both more and less than anyone knew. It wasn’t just a series of microscopic machines. It was that, certainly, but it was also a record of everything that had come before. In the Mist was the resting place of everyone who’d ever existed.

Everyone who ever would.

It was everything.

With my eyes finally open, I saw the solution. I knew what I had to do. And yet, I hesitated.

Then, I heard a familiar voice.

“You’ve become more than I could have ever expected. More than I could have hoped you could be. You are poised to save the world, to pick up the slack where I failed. I started off trying to save people,” Jeremiah said, his face shimmering before my inner eye. “I truly did. I wanted to help everyone survive. Somewhere along the way, I lost that. I became bitter. Vengeful. After I lost…everything…I stopped caring about saving people. I just wanted to kill. I wanted to make the aliens pay.”

He shook his head. I wasn’t sure if it was really him, or if it was just an echo of the man he’d been. But I knew it was real. Maybe it was even whatever passed for a soul.

“Then your mother died. And just…I just abandoned everything in favor of a singular mission. Keeping you alive and giving you the tools to survive. In that endeavor, I was successful. You can live. You can keep going. They won’t be able to kill you. You feel that, don’t you? You’re so far past them that you may as well be a goddess.

“You could collect Remy’s boy and jet off into the universe, safe and sound.”

“But?” I asked, feeling like the world had frozen. Perhaps it had. Or maybe I was functioning at such a high speed that it felt like it.

“But you have a choice. Leave. Survive. Fulfil the purpose that was the subject of my obsession.”

“Or?”

“Or you can sacrifice yourself. You feel it, don’t you? You can give it everything. You can inhabit this system and protect the world. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but so long as it does, no one you don’t want on Earth will get past you. You will be the world’s guardian angel. Its goddess.”

He sighed, then rubbed his bald head. That familiar gesture brought tears. I’d never truly processed his death, instead focusing on my vengeful response. That was a mistake.

“But you won’t be you. Not in any way that matters. You won’t pass on. You won’t join me and the others. You’ll be stuck in between. A different kind of existence. A fusion of human and Mist. I won’t pretend to understand it, but I know you won’t be Mira anymore. You might not be anything. Just a collection of nanites with a singular purpose driven by the person you used to be.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

From the moment I’d Teleported to the satellite, I’d known what was coming. Maybe not in the forefront of my mind, but somewhere deep down, I knew that protecting Earth would require a sacrifice.

It would require my life.

My Mist.

My soul.

It would take everything. I could feel that as clearly as I’d ever felt anything in my life. I didn’t need Jeremiah to confirm it. But his explanation brought everything into focus.

I had done terrible things. I had killed millions. Many of them had deserved it, but hundreds of thousands of innocents had perished by my hand. I’d always thought of myself as a good person. I’d justified my actions in a thousand different ways. But those actions condemned me. I was a villain. A selfish person who only ever acted in her own interests. Since the war for Earth’s survival had begun, I’d tried to change that. I had resisted the urge to flee, but even that was born of some degree of selfishness.

And this was no different.

If spite drove me to selfless sacrifice, was it still heroism? I wasn’t sure. But more than that, I wasn’t really concerned with that sort of thing. I never had been. Instead, I was driven by one overriding factor: I refused to let the aliens win.

I would fight to the last second, and if forcing them to retreat in defeat meant that I had to die, then so be it. I was okay with that.

But others likely wouldn’t be.

“Pick,” I said.

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. I think –”

“Patrick.”

“I’m just saying –”

“Just shut up for a second,” I said, still using the Secure Connection. “And listen. I don’t have much time here. I’m about to do something you probably wouldn’t want me to do. But I want you to know that I love you. Meeting you was the one truly good thing that’s happened to me since…well…since forever. Thank you for putting up with me. I know I wasn’t always the best partner. I was moody, angry, and selfish. But you made me a better person. I hope…I hope you’ll miss me, though.”

Then, before he could respond, I shut off the Secure Connection. If I had to listen to what he would inevitably say, I would lose my nerve.

“Are you sure?” asked Jeremiah.

I didn’t verbalize an answer. Instead, I just gave him a small nod. Then, with my mentor – the man who’d raised me – hanging over my shoulder, I gave myself completely over to the Mist. At first, it was no different than what I’d been doing. But I pushed further, and with every passing second, I diffused into the shield.

At some point, the satellite exploded into a shower of blue sparks. Then the next in the web. The all followed, one by one, but the blockade persisted. Meanwhile, my body dissipated into the Mist, and I merged with the whispers.

They welcomed me with open arms.

But I refused their embrace. Instead, I hovered just out of range, leveraging every ounce of control I could muster to instead infuse the shield with my essence.

It hurt.

Agony unlike anything I’d ever felt rocketed through the Mist that comprised me. I ignored it, forcing my awareness into the shield. The pain continued to mount until there was nothing else left.

Then, suddenly, it ceased.

And I knew everything.

I felt everything.

I was everything.

It was so enticing. So peaceful.

I resisted the urge to continue down that path. Instead, I kept my goal in mind, letting myself spread out and envelope the Earth. Below me, the blue-and-green ball spun. Above me, space beckoned. A tiny ship – no bigger than an insect – stung me.

I swatted it.

Somewhere in the rapidly receding back of my mind, I was aware of the Templar ship – and the fleet surrounding it – being ripped to pieces by huge torrents of Mist. But it was an academic knowledge. A simple acknowledgement of what had come to pass. I felt nothing, save for satisfaction that I’d accomplished my goal.

That I had fulfilled my purpose.

Then, even that retreated, and whatever remained of Mirabelle Braddock disappeared. In her place was only Earth’s protector.