Chapter One

Diarmuid Riordan woke suddenly to quiet. Not even so much as the ticking of the clock in the kitchen downstairs, or the passing of a vehicle outside in the warm summer night. “Ethne,” he murmured. And again, “Ethne.”

The darkness was complete; Diarmuid could not even see the hand he held up in front of his face. “Where are you, love?”

No response, so he reached over and felt for her on the mattress next to him, “Ethne?” Diarmuid rolled onto his side, facing where Ethne Hogan ought to be, and squinted into the darkness. He couldn’t make out anything, not the edge of the mattress, not the end table and lamp next to the bed, nor the doorways into the bathroom or hallway. He had heard the term ‘pitch black’ before, but this was the first time he’d ever actually experienced it. It was so dark that he wondered for a moment if he had gone blind.

Then a flare lit the night outside the bedroom window, bathing the neighborhood in a slowly descending green florescence that coruscated off the windows of the other dwellings.

“What the … Ethne! Where are you?” he shouted, rolling off the mattress onto the floor in the narrow space between the bed and the open window. His shout sounded strangely muted to his own ears.

“I’m out here, in the back yard. Whom do you think set the flare, anyway?” was the soft reply. It sounded like Ethne, but not. There was no carry to her words. It was as though he hardly heard them, like they came muffled through a fog. Something was very strange.

Diarmuid lifted his head and scanned the yard below from the window. Sure enough, Ethne stood on the grass just outside the back door, in a robe that barely fell halfway to her knees and left nothing to the imagination. She tilted her head up to look at him in the window, winked, smiled, and ran inside. He could hear her muted footfalls as she sprinted up the stairs to the bedroom. He stood and crossed to the armoire, opening the doors and grabbing their worksuits, boots, and dop kits from the shelves therein.

“We’d better get to Base,” she panted as she came through the bedroom door at a run. “There doesn’t seem to be any power and that flare will die out soon. Get dressed and let’s go,” she added as she pulled underclothes for the both of them from their drawers.

As Dairmuid dropped her worksuit on the bed in the fading luminescence, he noted Ethne’s barely contained excitement. “No power at all?” he asked.

“I didn’t see anything,” she said, tossing his things in his direction. “Until I set the flare. Then I could just see the neighborhood.”

“Guess we’ll be hoofing it, then.” He muttered as he pulled his undershirt over his head.

“Oh!” Ethne gasped, taking a deep breath and looking directly at him for the first time since she had rushed headlong into the room. “I didn’t even think of that.” She bent down and continued to pull on her undershorts.

How he loved her, standing unshaken in front of him, knowing this was probably the beginning of the end, yet keeping the fear at bay and letting the excitement of the moment shine through her bright eyes.

Maybe she wasn’t afraid. Maybe she had no fear to keep at bay. He didn’t know, and didn’t really care right then. His mind was ticking over possible travel options at a mile a minute. He had to get them to the base as soon as possible. They weren’t far from it, but without power, none of the usual forms of transportation or communication were available to them.

“We’ll use the aqueducts,” he decided. By now they were both dressed in their worksuits and boots. He tossed her dop kit to her, grabbed his own, and in the dim light guided her out of the room and down the stairs ahead of him.

“We need to alert the troops. How many do you think just wakened like we did because of the quiet?” Ethne wondered aloud.

“There’s no time, and no way to do it without power,” he reminded her. By now they had run through the downstairs and out the front door.

They stood on the street in the almost absolute silence. The hush was eerie, the silence deafening. No dogs barked, no automobiles passed, no radios or televisions blared. There were no voices, there was no hum of electricity nor drone of air conditioners, and even the sound of their footfalls was barely audible. It was so quiet that the drumming of their hearts seemed to fill their heads. When they moved, the brush of fabric was almost non-existent.

There were no streetlights, no stars or moon visible, and the only light was from a few flares that had been set off in separate parts of the town. So there were others up and about, even though any sounds they made weren’t carrying. The other flares were different colors; there was a pinkish flicker off in the distance to the west, and a yellow-green shimmer a couple streets over. Further on the horizon to the north was a blue-white radiance that appeared to be the latest, as the flare was still visible drifting silently in the sky above the rooftops.

“Come on, we’ve got to go,” Diarmuid urged. “There’s no telling what’s happening. This could be the real thing, or it could be a drill. Either way, we’ve got to get gone. The closest aqueduct junction is on Third Street, so move.”

They ran through the night, glancing left and right at intersections, anxiously scanning the road ahead of them, throwing quick glances behind, sure someone was in their vicinity but unable to see or hear anything other than their own nervous panting in the hissing silence.

Out of the corners of their eyes they caught occasional glimpses of movement a street over, or in an adjoining yard, but nothing close enough to make out as a person, and they never heard a corresponding sound to confirm these imagined sightings. Every so often another silent flare would light the barren sky. The silence was so dense and layered that they did not hear the whistling shriek of the flares as they ascended, nor the expected boom as they burst into light. The flares simply brightened into whatever color they were, and floated in their glowing radiance silently above the township.

Within moments of reaching the aqueduct junction on Third Street Diarmuid realized they were not alone. He grabbed Ethne’s arm, pulled her close and pressed his finger against her lips, pointing to the open channel overhead with his other hand. He then reached up, grabbed the lip of the pipe, flipped himself over the edge, and rolled into a kneeling position in the middle of the channel. And promptly found himself staring up the barrel of a handgun holding steady no more than an inch from his nose.

“Dammit, Riordan! Give a clue you’re about next time, will you?” an exasperated voice ground out as the handgun was moved from view. “I almost blew your fool head off!”

“Hideo,” Diarmuid gasped, “What are you doing here?” He dropped his head into his hands and groaned, “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry, Captain, just doing my job. Didn’t realize it was you until you were already up here” was the whispered response. She didn’t sound all that apologetic, though. Then again, as Security Command, why should she? “I got here as soon as I figured the aqueducts were the only way onto base. Someone’s got to make sure it’s just the good guys who get through.” Then, in the hushed confines of the pipe she grimly asked, “This isn’t a drill is it, boss?” It was more dark and quiet up here than on the ground below, and their voices had no echo, barely even a vibration.

Riordan looked beyond Hideo to three other people squatted in the pipeline, “I don’t think so,” He agreed. “Ethne’s down below, help me haul her up.” The two of them leaned over the lip of the channel, Diarmuid ‘pssted’ to Ethne, she raised her arms, and they quickly lifted her over the lip into the aqueduct with them.

“What gives?” Ethne whispered as she squatted between Riordan and Hideo. “Who else is here?”

“Clyde and the Dmitri’s,” responded Hideo in a whisper. “I need you to bring them along with you to Base while I stay here and send the rest on.” She turned to Riordan “Clyde can’t stay to help me, there’s something wrong with him; he needs medical attention.”

It was then that Captain Diarmuid Riordan noticed one of the other three people who had been in the aqueduct with Hideo was as close to unconscious as to make no difference. The other two, married doctors Isidro and Madaleine Dmitri, were shoring the barely conscious man between them, agitatedly subvocalizing to one another. Isidro looked up at the captain and softly explained, “He came into the clinic about an hour ago, complaining of headache and cramps. Within minutes he collapsed, seized, and vomited. He’s aspirated something, and we can’t get his fever down. Last check it was 103. If we don’t get him somewhere to work on him, we’re going to lose him.”

Ethne crawled over Diarmuid’s lap and pushed him further along the aqueduct toward the Dmitri’s. She peered out beyond Third Street and whispered back over her shoulder, “You go with them, I’ll stay and help Hideo. She needs another body, and you have to get to Base, pronto.”

Diarmuid, who was now crouched between Hideo and Ethne, rested a hand on each of their shoulders and squeezed. “All right. Don’t stay long. Wait another half hour if you can, then double-time it to Base. Send any comers in the meantime on in groups of no less than three for safety.” With that he and Isidro shouldered Clyde’s weight and took off along the aqueduct with Madaleine bringing up the rear.

It was a long haul, which felt even longer dragging the burning dead weight of an all but unconscious full-grown man through an aqueduct system that was barely large enough to conceal one adult hunched over. Diarmuid would scout out thirty feet of pipeline, then return to the others and take up the burden of the fevered Clyde with Isidro. In this way they traveled the aqueduct system for almost a mile before other townsfolk who had been sent on by Hideo and Ethne caught up with them. This made it easier on Diarmuid and Isidro, as the others took turns carrying the ailing Clyde the final two miles to Base.

During the entire trip the growing assembly made barely a sound, and the unnatural quiet continued to blanket the area. After they had traveled about half the distance to Base, the last flare had descended from the silent sky and they were enveloped in total darkness once again. The fear of the group was palpable. There were no whispered conversations, just barely heard utterances of pain when someone stepped on another accidentally, or barked a shin against a broken piece of aqueduct.

By the time they had made it to the aqueduct junction on the base, Hideo and Ethne had rejoined them and taken the lead. It was Hideo who responded when they were challenged by a queerly subdued but brusque “Halt! Who goes there?”

“Baba Hideo, Security Command. Who queries?”

“Where exactly are you?” demanded a disembodied whisper.

“In the aqueduct junction, pretty much over your head.” Hideo answered.

“All right then, we’re moving you underground. Right here we’re above Base stores, so take seven steps down from the aqueduct, move three paces forward, pivot left, grab the handrail and descend another fifteen steps. Watch your head. Got that?”

“Yes.” By now Hideo had recognized the owner of the disembodied whisper.

“Once you get down there keep your left hand on the rail and follow the directions of the next person.”

“I have a couple dozen others with me, Seamus, and at least one is injured.” Hideo complained. “We have need of assistance, not orders.”

“Damnit Hideo, follow protocol! Move it!” Seamus Faolan Eochaidh, Command 2nd, ground out. Then, “Please tell me you found the captain.”

“Right here, Seamus,” Diarmuid spoke up as he brushed past Ethne and Hideo and headed down the seven steps from the aqueduct junction. “We really do need help with Clyde; we have to get him and the medics to the base clinic post haste.”

Seamus met Diarmuid at the bottom step and grabbed him in a quick embrace, “We’ve got big trouble, everyone has to board Matagot” he murmered in Diarmuid’s ear, letting him go. “Tellus confirms immediate launch necessary; you’re needed in Debrief now. I’ll take care of these folk, you go.”

With that he practically shoved Diarmuid down the stairs to base stores and turned back to the cluster of people milling about the bottom of the aqueduct junction steps. “What part of ‘move three paces forward, turn left, grab the handrail and descend another fifteen steps’ did you not understand?!” he demanded. “Move it! Down below, now!”

Riordan stumbled down the stairs into the underground warren of tunnels. The green glow of emergency lighting that lit the tunnels seemed bright as day after the complete darkness of the town above. He broke into a run once he hit level ground. Squinting in the seemingly bright light, he passed through Base stores as quickly as he could, then veered into a right-branching tunnel that traveled in an arc around the base Launch Bay and led eventually to the Operations Center. As he ran he noticed that here in the tunnels the sounds weren’t dampened as they had been in the town above. He could hear shouted orders and heavy equipment moving in the Launch Bay. Whatever had caused the silence in town did not reach underground.

As he ran around the Launch Bay, Riordan wondered if Eochaidh really meant to move everyone from the aqueduct aboard Matagot. It didn’t seem possible: Matagot was only one of five ships, and could accommodate fifty personnel. Fifty specific personnel, few of which had been in the aqueduct tonight. This particular base housed five Ocelot strike/survival class starships, from the former Pan-Galactic Coalition Guard, each with an established crew of fifty. This base, Tellus Base VII, was one of thirty such planet-wide; all hidden from planetary governments beneath functioning townships that served to hide their existence. Each town consisted of Base personnel only, and to all appearances was a typical town of the resident nation.

Since the towns were located in out-of-the-way and difficult-to-find areas, it was rare indeed for a newcomer to move in, or an out-of-towner to visit. When this happened, the outsider found no real estate available, no business opportunities, and no vacancies (or hotels, even). The world powers were not privy to the existence of the Tellus Bases for a very specific reason: they were the enemy.

This planet, Terra, had been the origin of the Pan-Galactic Coalition many millennia ago. After centuries of space exploration throughout the known star systems, the Coalition had been created to keep mankind under the rule of a central government. Whatever its original intent, poor management and interstellar distances led to the ultimate failure of the Coalition. Member planets in central galaxies were overcrowded and unable to produce goods to survive, so outlying systems were relied upon to feed the masses. The planets and moons of these outlying systems were heavily taxed and eventually fought back, erupting into intergalactic civil war on multiple fronts. The Coalition collapsed. Of the fourteen Pan-Galactic Coalition fleets, eleven deserted and became base fleets to newly organized separately governed star systems, abandoning Terra.

The three remaining Coalition fleets returned to Terra and attempted to keep trade routes open. Since Terra was overcrowded and had no exports, trade failed. The fleets themselves were sold off piecemeal to the now-liberated outlying star systems. Due to planet-wide disease and famine, the population of Terra shrank to an eighth its former size within a generation. The planet separated into nations divided by geography, which in due course visited devastating war upon one another over such intangibles as religion, race, creed, and agriculture.

These wars resulted in the elimination of half the already decimated population of Terra. With the final breakdown of planetary communication came a return to base survival, and the Tellus Enigma was born: Tellus, Goddess and Soul of Terra, who watches over all life and metes out justice. Tellus, Commander of the Armies of the Gods, Matriarch of Life and Death.

While these events unfolded on Terra, over years untold, the outlying systems rose and fell, merged and split, succeeded and failed. All communication between them and Terra had ended long ago, and most were no longer aware their ancestors had originated on Terra. There were few legends of the origin planet, and none were substantiated. When the Terran-based Coalition had first failed, the new governments of the outlying star systems had broken off all contact with the former Coalition, which had never been re-established.

Meanwhile, back on Terra, the various nations continued to war as travel beyond the solar system ended, yet the Tellus Enigma spread. Adherents were few but dedicated. Those of the faith knew Tellus would provide. Within a few hundred years those of the faith were persecuted beyond all others. They were harried out of their homes and communities in every nation and forced to go underground. Yet they knew Tellus would provide. Those of the faith were blamed for sickness, crop failure, and natural disasters. They were sacrificed on the alters of other religions. Yet they knew Tellus would provide. They were stripped of rights and property, and made the property of others. Still, they knew Tellus would provide. Nations rose and fell around them and, finally, Tellus provided.

First Tellus provided contact. All adherents of the Tellus Enigma could call upon Tellus at any time and receive a direct response. Tellus responded from both the animate and the inanimate: communications devices, electronic devices, people or animals nearby, through flora and fauna, whatever it took to get her point across. Tellus sometimes allowed non-believers to hear her words as well. Eventually specific gear was created for the express purpose of communicating with Tellus, and Tellus became as real and accessible to her troops as the Commander-in-Chief of any great nation.

Then she provided thirty underground bases, spread across the planet. Tellus directed the faithful in locating appropriate sites, then in creating the underground bases and their aboveground townships as camouflage. Some even in areas where there were no longer existing nations or peoples. Once a base and town were completed, Tellus personnel moved in and joined the Tellus Base network, becoming as troops in the army of the Tellus Enigma. This work took decades. Many practitioners did not live to see the completion of the Tellus Bases, but their children did. For centuries the inhabitants of the Tellus Bases lived in harmony and safety, but ultimately the nations of Terra learned of their existence and sought after them, planning to remove all remaining vestiges of the Tellus Enigma.

Then Tellus found a fleet of one hundred twenty-one Ocelot strike/survival class starships dating back from the old Pan-Galactic Coalition Guard. The fleet had remained hidden in an elliptical orbit around an outlying binary star system. It had been moved there by the Fleet Commander at the beginning of the collapse of the Coalition. The crews had died of radiation flare before the Fleet Commander decided how to deploy, and the ships had floated en mass since. Once their crews had perished, the ships had powered down and drifted in formation until Tellus had found them. In the vacuum of space, twenty-nine of the original hundred fifty had been lost, but how, when, and why was unknown. The rest had slumbered, waiting in vain for their crews.

Now the Ocelot is an interesting class of starship. Its artificial intelligence had been accidentally created at a Coalition bio-medical research facility. Propulsion depended on a combination of crew and ship working together. All other systems aboard ship depended on propulsion. Each ship required a crew of forty to fifty members in order to function. It was a truly symbiotic relationship. Coalition physicists had been unable to determine the exact nature of reciprocity, but that hadn’t kept the Coalition from utilizing them. The perfect combination of crew and ship required months of trail and error to establish. If a ship was unhappy with any member of its crew, it simply refused to function. One of the highest paying positions of the old Coalition had been that of a successful Ship-Crew Integration Specialist. Tellus had found the fleet and wakened the sleeping ships. She had explained her need, and all had agreed to return to Terra to bond with new crews and ensure the safety of the Tellus acolytes. Tellus then guided the Ocelots to the thirty Tellus Bases around the world.

While the Ocelot fleet was en route to Terra, Tellus had provided profiles of all active troops, and the ships had chosen initial crews based on these profiles. The ships and troops had then been reassigned together throughout the Tellus Bases and had begun to make their acquaintances. Within six months of occasional personnel changes the ships complements had been decided. The plan then was to launch the fleet into orbit around Terra and enforce a new planet-wide government led by Tellus. Although peace was the eventual goal of this action, all involved believed war was inevitable. For the past three years the Tellus troops had been training for the first strike. Tellus was almost ready to launch the fleet and begin the war that would bring peace, at long last, to Terra.

But that was yesterday. Today Captain Diarmuid Riordan of the Ocelot class starship Matagot was running pell-mell through the warren of tunnels that made up Tellus Base VII toward a briefing session in the Operations Center. As he rounded the corner into the Operations Center at full speed, he slammed headlong into Engineer Command Liam Scully and Chaplain Zino Hilarion, knocking all three of them to the rough stone floor.

“Oomph!” Scully wheezed. He had landed awkwardly on his back, with his left arm pinned beneath him. Adding insult to injury, both Hilarion and Riordan had landed sprawled on top of him. There had been no mistaking the sickening crack upon initial impact either. Somebody had a broken bone. Or two.

“Nobody move,” Hilarion recommended, “Which of you was that? Captain?”

“No, I’m fine.” Riordan acknowledged. “I’m pretty sure Scully’s going to need a cast, though. Scully?”

“Ow” Scully groaned, then hissed savagely in pain as he rolled over and cradled his broken arm, “and to think I was happy to see you.”

“Smartass, that’ll learn you. Here Zino, help me get him up.” Riordan belied the gruffness of the comment by gently supporting the injured man as he and the chaplain lifted the engineer off the floor. “Do we have a medic around?” he directed in a louder voice to the Operations Center in general, “there’s blood and bone over here.”

“Right here, Cap, what’s up?” asked a woman standing further in the room, remotely monitoring the loading of emergency medical supplies into the ship in Launch Bay III. “I’m just finishing up with Matagot’s clinic supplies here.”

“Ah, Lily. Liam’s arm, see to it, please.” Riordan then turned toward the head of the conference table that took up the majority of the Operations Center. “What do we have?” he asked. House Command Angus Kenzie, Engineers Kaia Keoloha and Oscar Dirk, and medics Aislyn Hogan and Jarita Inam were standing about the table.

“It’s bad, real bad.” Said Dirk. “We have no outside contact with any of the other bases, and the only ship we have left is Matagot. We need to launch her now.”

As Riordan tried to absorb this he queried, “What happened? Does anyone know?”

Aislyn Hogan, his own true love’s younger twin sister, explained softly, “Before we lost contact with Tellus, she said to load Matagot and launch as soon as you got here. She knew where you were, and she knew no one else would come in after your group arrived.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Tellus already spoke with Matagot, and she’s willing to take everyone aboard. We have to go.” Then she sobbed, “They’re all dead, Diarmuid.”, and spun away from the table.

Jarita Inam wrapped her arms around Aislyn in a fierce hug and patted her back, then released her and spoke, “We can’t fall apart now. We need to clear this room and get moving. We should be the last people. If I know Seamus, he’s got everyone and everything else already loaded and is chomping at the bit for us to get our collective arses in the Launch Bay.” She smiled grimly, “If we’re not careful, he’ll leave without us."

Riordan scanned the room. Scully, Hilarion, and the medic Lily Ho had already left for the Launch Bay, leaving him with just the five others around the table. “Let’s go, then, move.” He ordered. Everyone grabbed an arm load of supplies and headed out.

As they hurried toward the tunnel leading to the Launch Bay, the entire network of tunnels shuddered with an explosion of sound, light, and dust that knocked them to their knees, “RUN!” bellowed Riordan, as he leapt to his feet and pushed the others ahead of him. “Leave this stuff, just drop it!” he continued as he slapped the supplies out of their hands.

More explosions shook the tunnel around them, and the sound of heavy weapons fire screamed overhead. Riordan herded the others along, lending support when they fell and basically badgering them into the Launch Bay. He could hear and feel the tunnel collapsing behind them and his only thought was to make it to the ship before it was too late.

They staggered into the Launch Bay barely ahead of the falling tunnel, then had to contend with a team of armored soldiers firing on them from the rim of the open launch pad. Riordan drove his small group across the Launch Bay floor and up the swiftly closing ramp into Matagot’s cargo hold with not a moment to spare.

“Lift off! Lift off!” he bawled to no one in particular and everyone in general, “Let’s get out of here NOW!” as he ran through the cargo hold toward the bridge.

“Everyone hold tight because ready or not, we’re going out hot,” observed a calm feminine voice over the ships intercom, “This is not your captain speaking, so please direct any and all complaints to your nearest black hole, and thank you for flying Emergency Liftoff Procedures, Limited. Have a nice day now!” And the ship catapulted away from the Launch Bay and achieved planetary orbit before the troops had a chance to digest what they had just heard.

“Rebi,” Riordan chuckled wearily from behind her where he stood in the hatchway to the bridge, “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I swear Matagot chose you as her pilot because she shares your sense of humor. Can we stay up here for awhile until we get our bearings?”

Rebi Shai, primary pilot of Matagot, pushed her seat back from the pilot station and, grinning like an idiot, nodded in the affirmative, “they don’t have anything that can reach us, and even of they did, they don’t have anything that can find us. Right now they think we just disappeared into thin air.” She swung back to her station and began fiddling with the dials, “I’m going to open up their radio channels and see how they explain this to themselves. Knowing the unimaginative dogs, they’ll decide they blew us to smithereens and injure themselves patting each other on the back.”

“Good idea. Find out what you can about the other bases and patch it through to my quarters. Oh, and have all command crew members meet me there now. ”

He left the bridge as she nodded acquiescence and opened another shipwide channel, “All command crew members meet in the captain’s quarters immediately. Repeat: all command level crew members presently aboard the good ship Matagot please to meet in the captain’s quarters for full debrief RIGHT NOW.”