Nathan watched as balls of plasma shot out from the tendrils of the Relyeh ship. He realized immediately that they weren’t coming toward the Pilgrim at all.

  They were heading for the ships around them.

  A dozen balls of plasma struck a dozen Relyeh transports, tearing through their shields and hulls and breaking them to pieces. Immediately, the ends of the tendrils started to glow, prepared to fire again.

  The Relyeh transports stopped firing, beginning to scatter as they attempted to run. The tendrils adjusted to match the change in vectors, flinging twelve more rounds into the enemy ships and breaking up another group.

  Nathan stared at the ship in disbelief. All this time he had been waiting for Caleb and Hayden to come through the portal. It had never, ever occurred to him they might arrive in another way.

  He had asked for a miracle. He couldn’t believe he had gotten it.

  “Max, do you copy?” Caleb said.

  “Affirmation,” Max replied. “We can all hear you. Hahaha. Haha.”

  “Is the interlink ready?”

  “Affirmation. We require a more powerful QCT to sufficiently enhance the signal.”

  “I have it. I’m sending a ship. Load the interlink on it and bring it here.”

  “We can utilize the interlink from the Pilgrim.”

  “We can,” Caleb agreed. “But Vyte was nice enough to construct an amplifier inside the Salvation. Why settle for the Relyeh on Earth when we can stop them all?”

  72

  Caleb

  A dozen meters below the charging Q-net amplifier, Tora greeted Max, Pyro and an armored soldier she assumed was Nathan as they walked from the teleporter into the damnation’s central chamber. Each of them carried a component of the interlink.

  From where he stood near the amplifier, Caleb looked back at Nyla. “Is it ready?”

  “Almost,” she replied.

  Caleb had been thoroughly surprised when the damnation had arrived outside Earth’s orbit to find the Pilgrim there. Its only protection against the invading Relyeh ships surrounding it was a failing Axon shield. The enemy craft had tried to contact the damnation to ask for help in defeating the resourceful humans once and for all.

  Caleb’s response hadn’t been what they were expecting.

  They had routed the Relyeh ships, but the enemy was still in control of the planet’s surface. Tens of thousands of Norg and xaxkluth still occupied Earth, continuing to carry out Vyte’s final orders: Capture and kill. Prepare the planet for Relyeh occupation and control.

  People were still dying down there, the terror and bloodshed continuing until they could hopefully end it all with the death of every Relyeh on Earth.

  Caleb looked down at Tora. He could tell she was explaining how to get from the bridge below to the chamber above, where the amplifier was. Then Tora moved to the center of the bridge and jumped, turning herself over in mid-air and letting the strange gravity pull her to the bottom of the connecting bridge. She walked around the side to the top and waved down.

  “Hahaha. Hahahaha.” Max’s laughter echoed in the chamber, and then the Intellect followed her lead, easily making the jump with the interlink terminal in his hands. “Colonel Card, appreciation to see you alive.” Max looked past him. “Where is Sheriff Duke?”

  “He was injured,” Nyla said, approaching Max. “He’s in the Sanctorum. I’m Nyla.”

  “Curiosity,” Max replied. “You are an Axon hybrid, like Vyte. But unlike Vyte.”

  “And you aren’t a hybrid, but you joined the humans.”

  “Sheriff Duke is my friend. Hahaha. Haha.”

  “He’s our friend too,” Nathan said, joining them. He lowered Pyro to the ground, having carried her to the platform.

  “Colonel, I thought we were dead for sure. If you hadn’t shown up when you did...”

  “Forget it.” Caleb’s face cracked into his first smile in a while. ”I’m just glad we got here in time.” His smile melted away. “Hayden is pretty banged up, but we think he’ll be okay.”

  “You think?” Pyro looked stunned.

  “The Sanctorum offers the best chance he has. By the way, whose idea was it to launch the Pilgrim?”

  “I think we all chipped in,” Pyro said. “It bought us some time.”

  Nyla stepped forward, getting Nathan and Pyro’s attention. “I’m Nyla. Welcome aboard my ship.”

  “Your ship?” Nathan said.

  “It’s okay,” Caleb said. “She’s on our side.”

  “I’m on the side of ending violence and the suffering of civilizations,” Nyla said. “As long as that’s your goal, then I’m on your side.”

  “I like her,” Pyro said. “The Salvation. Did you come up with the new name?”

  “With Caleb Card’s help.”

  “I like that too.”

  “The amplifier is ready. We need only modify the connectors to attach it to your interlink. Did you bring the power source.”

  “Affirmation.” Max pulled open the front of his Skin, revealing the QDM embedded in the gel beneath. He reached in and pulled it out.

  “I was nervous about bringing the QDM over,” Nathan said. “I’m a little less nervous now.”

  “It will help stabilize the output. The Salvation needs to feed when this is done.”

  “Feed?”

  “The ship is alive,” Caleb said. “The main part of it lives down there.” He pointed over the edge of the platform.

  “What does it eat?” Pyro asked.

  “It is Relyeh. It requires both fear and flesh.”

  “How are you going to feed it if we kill all the Relyeh?” Nathan asked.

  “If this works, I won’t need to. Do not be concerned.”

  “But it has an ick too, right? Won’t this kill it?”

  “No,” Pyro said. “The amplifier will push the signal outward. It’s too close to the source to be affected, the same as Ishek.”

  “That’s good to know,” Caleb said.

  “How long to fashion the connector?” Nathan asked.

  “Not long,” Max and Nyla replied in unison. They looked at one another. “Let’s get to work,” they said together.

  “That’s normal,” Nathan said sarcastically.

  Max merely shook his head and motioned for Nyla to move to the amplifier. As they worked on the connector, Caleb and Nathan shared their experiences since last seeing each other. When Nathan shared the sad news of Issac’s death, Caleb took it hard. They hadn’t known each other well, but Issac was the only other person alive—that he knew of—from his own time. At least he had died well, like he believed any Marine should.

  “Completion,” Max said. “It’s ready.”

  Caleb turned back to the room. The interlink cap was dangling from the wires that had been connected to Vyte’s head, while the terminal was set up and connected to the side of it. Nyarlath’s ick floated in a gel-filled canister, also connected to the terminal.

  Caleb approached the cap, taking it in his hand. His experience and control over the Collective made him the perfect candidate to trigger the virus. He withdrew the data chip from his Skin with his other hand, holding it out toward Pyro. “This contains the algorithms Valentine stuck in my head. Load them into the system.”

  Pyro took it and went to the terminal, inserting the chip and downloading the patch. “Done.”

  Caleb put the cap on his head.

  Caleb, I’m afraid.

  He paused. Ishek had never admitted to being afraid of anything.

  If this works, I will be the last of my kind.

  But there were other of his species out there. They were slaves.

  I’ll be the last Relyeh. And I’ll still hunger.

  There would always be fear in the universe. Even Proxima was no utopia. At least Ishek would be free, and he wouldn’t let him suffer. They were too strongly bonded for that.

  “What about the Axon?” Nathan asked. “With the Relyeh gone…”

  “The Axon will return to their original pursuits,” Max said. “With no more need for war.”

  Caleb looked over at Pyro. “Turn it on.”

  “Wait.”

  Caleb turned toward the entrance to the chamber, along with everyone else. “Hayden?”

  73

  Hayden

  Sheriff Hayden Duke stood in the entrance to the chamber wearing only a loincloth. He stared at the collection of individuals staring back at him. His breathing was even. Steady. Resolved. His body was strong. Healthy. Pain-free.

  Whole.

  He flexed the fingers of both his hands, still unaccustomed to the feel of real flesh and blood, his memories of the sensation returning with each twitch. He had looked himself over when he woke up, surprisingly revolted by what he had seen. New hands. A new eye.

  This wasn’t him.

  He had pushed aside the Relyeh servants, a race of fragile, exotic humanoids who scattered at the barest hint of his anger. He had wandered through the ship, something in his mind calling out to him.

  Something leading him here.

  “Hayden, are you okay?” Nathan asked.

  Hayden barely heard him. His eyes landed on the interlink terminal, following the wires to the cap on Caleb’s head. “I’ll do it,” he said, starting forward.

  “Hayden, you’ve just come from the Sanctorum,” Caleb said. “You aren’t in any condition to—”

  “I said I’ll do it,” Hayden hissed. “This thing is the reason she’s dead.”

  “Hayden, I understand you’re upset. I know you want justice. But—”

  “Give me the cap, Card,” Hayden growled.

  “You’ve never been in the Collective. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “I’m going to end this. It’s not a request. I’ll do it.”

  “Hayden, she wouldn’t want you to—” Caleb tried to say.

  “Don’t make me take it from you, Cal. I need to do this. I won’t mess it up.”

  “Caleb,” Max said. “Give it to him.”

  Caleb glared at Hayden, confused by the vitriol of his insistence. Even Hayden didn’t completely understand it. He only knew he had to be the one to finish this. It was his right. He had earned it.

  “All right, Sheriff,” Caleb said, removing the cap and handing it to him. “You do the honors.”

  “Thank you,” Hayden replied.

  He put the cap on and closed his eyes. He could almost feel the Collective even though the interlink wasn’t active yet, like a tickle in the back of his mind. Something was different. What had they done to him?

  “Chandra,” he said. “Do it.”

  “Okay. Here we go,” Pyro replied.

  “Good luck, Sheriff,” Caleb said. “If anything goes wrong, we’re here to bail you out.”

  “Much obliged, Colonel.”

  “Activating the interlink…now!”

  Hayden felt it like a jolt of electricity through his brain, the shock releasing something in him as if it had been caged too long. His mind was suddenly opened to what seemed like an entire universe, and he could sense every one of the billions of entities connected to him.

  “I’m in,” he said.

  “The package is loaded,” Pyro said.

  “What do I need to do to release it?”

  “Nothing. Just stay there.”

  “Pozz.”

  “How do you feel?” Caleb asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine? No pressure? No pain?”

  “No. Should there be?”

  “You were right; you are the one to do this.”

  The darkness behind Hayden’s eyes faded. In an instant, he was looking at a web of electricity stretching into infinity around him. Countless strands of pulsing light moved in three dimensions around him.

  The Collective.

  He was looking at it as if he were floating above the pocket universe where the messages traveled, connected but outside the regular flow. He looked down at his hands. They were made of light too, the fingertips stretching out to touch the web and pulsing with increasingly dark energy. The virus. It spread from him, and as it spread everything it touched began to fade.

  “I think it’s working,” he said. “I think they’re dying.” A smile creased his face.

  The virus continued to spread. He watched as some of the pieces of the web grew darker in places as if they were trying to cut themselves off from the sudden scourge, only to see those areas infected with the rest and fading away. He watched as the virus split, beginning to travel down multiple paths, increasing in size as it overwhelmed more and more of the Collective.

  It was working. Hayden was sure of it. The Hunger was dying by the thousands, starting with those closest to Salvation.

  Starting with Earth.

  He imagined the scene there. The thousands of xaxkluth groaning and collapsing. The millions of trife hissing and falling still. The queens screaming out in fear for their brood before succumbing to the assault. Millions of Relyeh dying almost in unison and returning the planet to humanity.

  He could barely contain his excitement. His joy. His relief. For hundreds of years the Relyeh had infested Earth, and in the next few minutes they would all be gone.

  “Power levels are steady,” Pyro said. “The ick is holding up well.”

  Hayden remained floating in the Collective, watching the destruction. The virus would spread from the Relyeh on Earth to those on Proxima, and from there outward to wherever they were located. Given enough time and momentum, the attack would make it all the way back to the Hunger’s home system, killing all of the ancients along the way.

  It wasn’t only Earth that would be free. It was every world the Relyeh had broken and enslaved for their own needs.

  And he would watch it all happen.

  A minute passed. Another. The darkness continued to spread.

  Then something happened.

  A new thread appeared, stretching from deep within the web and shooting outward toward Hayden, moving too quickly to avoid. It speared him in the chest, the force of it jolting his body.

  “Sheriff?” Caleb said. “What happened?”

  The world changed.

  Hayden stood in the Law Office of the Pilgrim as it had been when he first became Sheriff. Even then, the doors to the office were malfunctioning, and they sat partially open, the sound of people in the strand outside drifting into the space.

  He recognized the scene. It was part of a memory. A simple, long-forgotten experience. There was nothing grand about it. He was the only one there, soaking in the feeling of being Sheriff.

  Maybe the memory was more important than he realized. It wasn’t the beginning of his journey, but it had helped shape who and what he had become.

  “Sheriff Hayden Duke.”

  Hayden turned at the sound of the voice. The Governor of Metro was there, in his slightly faded suit and slightly faded smile.

  This wasn’t part of the memory. Malcolm hadn’t been there that day.

  Hayden knew what this was. He remembered the light that speared him.

  “You’re Shub-Nigu,” he said.

  “What is it you like to say? Pozz.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to die. But that’s not one of my options at the moment. You’re strangely unaffected by my effort to do anything more than reconstruct a memory.”

  “Why this memory?”

  “I didn’t choose it. You did. I only entered it.”

  “Why?”

  “The Relyeh have been the dominant species in this universe for nearly a million years. I have existed for almost that long. I have seen civilizations rise and fall. I have lived the experiences of endless Relyeh. I came to tell you that the Hunger doesn’t end here. I don’t end here. You’ve developed a weapon, but we have weapons too. More than what you’ve seen. More than you can know. You’ve bought yourself time, Sheriff. Ten years. A hundred. A million. But we are endless. We are infinite. We are inevitable. We have time, and we will bide it. And when that time is up, we won’t try to absorb your kind into ours again. We’ll lay waste to your world, and leave it as nothing more than a chunk of rock floating in an endless void.”

  “No,” Hayden said. “You’re going to die, right here and now. You can’t stop the virus. It passes through your defenses. The Relyeh are over, and you with it.”

  Shub-Nigu smiled. “You overestimate yourself. Or underestimate us. This is a setback, yes. But it isn’t the end. It will never be the end. Congratulations on your victory, Sheriff. For however long it lasts.”

  The sudden shock jolted him a second time, sending waves of pain through his body. His eyes snapped open, and he found himself looking at Caleb’s concerned face.

  “Sheriff, are you okay?” Caleb asked. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Hayden replied. “Put me back in.”

  “I didn’t take you out,” Pyro said. “The interlink is still active. All of the readings look good.”

  Hayden whipped his head toward Nyarlath’s ick. It had gone still in its container. “Caleb, try to access the Collective.”

  Caleb was still for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I can’t. It’s like it’s gone.”

  “Because it is gone,” Hayden said. “The son of a bitch shut it down.”

  “Who?”

  “Shub-Nigu,” Max said. “Hahaha. Haha.”

  “Can he do that?” Nathan asked.

  “He did,” Hayden snapped, grabbing the cap and pulling it off his head. “He told me this wasn’t the end. He killed the Collective before it could kill him.”

  “What does that mean?” Pyro asked.

  “It means it’s over,” Hayden said, beginning to calm. “All of the Relyeh on Earth are dead. Proxima too, and who knows how much farther out.”

  “It means they may come back,” Caleb said.

  “It means they will come back,” Hayden corrected. “But not today. Not for a long time. They can’t use the Collective. Not anywhere near Earth. Not while we have the interlink.”

  “I can only begin to imagine the chaos closing the Collective will cause them,” Nyla said.