Maddox decided to think of it as a descent, since it was called underspace. Was that really the situation? They were using these terms in order to delineate a different situation, but what was actually happening?

  “What is that?” Keith asked.

  The main screen showed enormous geometric structures. Some were gigantic polygons larger than Earth. Another was the size of Jupiter.

  “Professor,” Maddox said, “can you shift us to the next level?”

  “Not yet,” Ludendorff said. “The Prism Drive builds up energy for a shift. I noted fluctuations in the crystal during our first attempt. I suspect this is an old Prism Drive. It has not made these shifts in many an eon because of where it was situated all this time.”

  “Galyan, do you agree with the analysis?” Maddox asked.

  “I do,” Galyan said.

  “All right, let’s— Keith,” Maddox said. “Keep clear of the geometric shapes.”

  The starship veered as a purple beam flashed toward them from the largest shape.

  “Shield power is draining fast,” Keith said. The beam was turning the shield red, brown, and then black. “We can’t withstand the beam much longer.”

  “Use the star drive jump,” Maddox said. “Get us out of this position.”

  “What effect will the jump have here, sir?” Keith asked.

  “Just do it,” Maddox said. “We’ll find out.”

  Keith plotted a course and activated the jump. The starship disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the vast geometric shape. They hadn’t determined the shape’s composition yet. No beams lashed at them here.

  Galyan, who had popped onto the bridge, said, “The shield is re-energizing.”

  “Thank you,” Maddox said. “Divide your time between the bridge and Ludendorff. Tell me if anything untoward happens in the engine room.”

  “I will, sir,” Galyan said.

  “Look at that pulse over there,” Keith said.

  On the huge, Jupiter-sized geometric structure was a buildup of bubbling energy.

  “I think it’s going to fire at us, sir,” Keith said.

  “Something is hailing us,” Meta said.

  “Put it on the main screen,” Maddox said.

  Meta did.

  A bright geometric shape like an Inquisitor fluctuated with colors. “Who are you?” it asked in a high-pitched voice. “Why do you intrude upon my territory?”

  “Are you in control of the structure getting ready to blast us?” Maddox asked.

  There were more color shifts and a change of shape in the mote of light. “You are alien to this place. You are a germ. I must destroy you.”

  “We’re going to leave. Would you allow us time to leave?”

  “That is subterfuge, a lie.”

  “My boy, my boy,” Ludendorff said over the intercom. “I’ve got it. We can shift.”

  “Do it immediately,” Maddox said.

  “I will fire on you immediately,” the bright geometric shape declared.

  Maddox said, “Would you give us a few moments in order to collect ourselves for destruction?”

  “I do not understand. ‘Collect yourselves for destruction’? What kind of phraseology or terminology is that?”

  Even as they watched, the image on the main screen dissipated. Victory submerged deeper into the weird substance of underspace. All the geometric shapes disappeared.

  Metal screeched and twisted in the starship. Maddox stood and collapsed, crushed to the deck by fierce gravity.

  “What’s happening?” he said, as a crushing force pushed upon his chest, making breathing and speech difficult.

  “It’s a gravitational well,” Keith said, sunk low in his pilot’s seat.

  There was enough velocity so Victory moved from the gravitational pull. That eased the force pulling upon those on the bridge.

  Maddox worked to his hands and knees and found himself huffing and puffing as sweat dripped from him. He crawled to his captain’s chair and climbed up until he was reclined in it.

  Galyan appeared, standing upright. “Sir, there are great gravitational anomalies in this part of underspace. They are sprinkled throughout the region.”

  “Can you map them?” Maddox panted.

  “Yes,” Galyan said. “It will take me a few seconds, though.”

  “Do it and then put that map on Keith’s board.”

  “Yes, sir,” Galyan said.

  A few moments later, the gravitational distortions and pull lessened even more.

  “I’m picking up a hail,” Meta said.

  Maddox looked at her. “Do you know from whom?”

  “One of the Inkari, if that’s what we call them now.”

  “Yes, yes, put the Inkari on the screen.”

  On the screen appeared one of the squid aliens as its body quivered. “You have discovered the Prism Drive. I congratulate you on your cleverness. But it will not help you in the end. We will swarm you. Do you understand?”

  “Can you beam him?” Maddox asked Keith.

  “Beam me?” the Inkari asked on the screen.

  Maddox squeezed his eyes together, realizing he was exhausted. The strange manifestations were upsetting his equilibrium. It all felt so weird and wild. Perhaps there was a psychological aspect to moving in this under region of reality that he had not considered.

  “No, sir,” Keith said. “He’s on the other side of a gravitational well. If our beam lashed out at that thing, I think the intense gravity would warp it and we would not hit what we aimed at. Maybe that’s why he isn’t firing at us.”

  “Ah,” the Inkari said on the screen. “You apprehend some of the novelties and differences of underspace. Know, alien, that it will get worse the further you try to follow us. I warn you now, leave while you are able.”

  “Why would you want me to leave?” Maddox said. “I thought you attacked me and wanted to add my ship to the great graveyard of ships around Bluemar.”

  The squid alien quivered, and it seemed as if he looked at Maddox with rage. “How do you know these things? It is impossible for you to know. Those are secrets.”

  The Inkari turned as if listening to somebody off screen. It turned back to face Maddox. “We have just received word from Omegan. You have dealt with him. I see you are evil alien intruders who wish to stop the great coming. The great coming is an event that will change destinies of trillions of beings. It cannot be stopped. And we, the Inkari, are the chosen ones. We will gain great power as the chief servant of the anointed one.”

  “That’s interesting,” Maddox said. “We too would like to become one of the chosen ones.”

  “Impossible. You are grotesque aliens. Can you swim in water for hours?”

  “If I need to,” Maddox said.

  “How? That seems deceptively impossible. No, you are weird and alien.”

  Ludendorff’s voice came over the intercom. “Sir, I can move us again. I think we should.”

  “Let’s do it,” Maddox said.

  Once again, even as Maddox spoke with the Inkari, Victory moved in underspace, leaving the intense gravitational forces behind.

  The starship appeared where huge quantum flux fields generated particles and flashed them. Barriers appeared. Bridges appeared. It was a strange and alien place and seemed so odd from regular space where they had vacuum or often nothing more but a gas particle here or a molecular unit there.

  “Keep watch,” Maddox said.

  Again, he felt a strange struggle tug at his heart. As he looked around, he realized one thing: he hated underspace. It was too bizarre.

  Maybe he could find a field to lessen the effects of the changes. Was there something like jump lag producing odd effects to the body? Did going from one location in underspace to another put a great strain upon the psyche? Maybe there were spiritual forces at work, and that is what caused the distress in him.

  Maddox looked around. There did seem to be pain and frustration on each of the faces he saw.

  “Professor, let’s get out of here. Professor, can you hear me?”

  Galyan appeared. “The Professor has collapsed. It will be up to me now.”

  “What’s going on, Galyan? Do you sense any strange emanations?”

  “Not on the normal fields that I usually sense, but there does seem to be strange emanations. I am still trying to catalog them. Since they are new, I am surprised any of my sensor functions regarded them.”

  “The point right now is to find the star,” Maddox said. “Is there anything you can sense outside of Victory that could help locate the star?”

  Galyan’s eyelids began to blink rapidly. “Yes, Captain. One more shift will bring us near the star and planet.”

  “Take us there as fast as you can, Galyan. If any of those quantum flux particles hit us—can our shield stop them?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Drop the shields,” Maddox said.

  No one listened to him. Everyone seemed to be contemplating some vile situation, so he or she sat frozen. Maddox shot to his feet and staggered to Keith’s board. He swept the pilot’s hands out of the way and dropped the shield.

  “Let’s save energy,” Maddox said.

  “A wise decision,” Galyan said. “I also believe our shield was acting as a magnet. I believe some of the quantum flux fields are ready to fire more particles of energy and the shield would have acted as a lightning rod.”

  “Oh, damn.”

  Maddox moved Keith out of his chair and assumed the piloting position. He moved Victory.

  The weight, the press of strangeness upon his psyche forced him to concentrate. Odd memories surfaced. He saw his mother die. He saw him running his sword through the chest of Artaxerxes Par and the savageness he had felt upon slaying the hated enemy.

  “Captain,” Galyan was shouting, “you may now move. Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Maddox said.

  As a blast of quantum particles shot at the starship, it sank deeper into underspace and reached a gentler zone. Maddox spied a star and around it orbited a red planet. Did that imply the ruby ring around the planet?

  Maddox squinted. A narrow red beam projected from the planet. This was the place. They had made it.

  Maddox surveyed the bridge. The crew was stirring, coming out of the funk that had gripped them with a strange mental or spiritual paralysis. It was time to see what exactly Bluemar contained and how, if it would be possible, for them to assault the engine boring against and trying to break through into Dimension X.

  -66-

  From an eighth of a light year away from Bluemar, the crew of Victory studied the planet with its passive sensors, but no one detected any Inkari saucer ships.

  “I think we have drifted off course,” Galyan said. “Perhaps our inability to properly utilize the Prism Drive caused this as we went through underspace.”

  “I second that.” Ludendorff was on the bridge and had splotches on his skin and his eyes were red-rimmed. He had taken some kind of psychic hit while moving through underspace, perhaps even from merely being in underspace.

  There was greater tension among the crew. Maddox felt it tug at him. He wondered if it would help if he put on the anti-telepathic band but decided against it. Ludendorff had said before that there could be sustained brain injuries if anyone wore a band too long.

  The others were on the bridge deciding how to stop the dimensional breakthrough.

  Using teleoptic sights, they saw that a beam or drill was emitted from the main engine. That engine was above the ruby ring around the planet. The engine was five times the size of Victory. It was an odd cubic structure. Power lines like constant lightning fed directly from the ring. Then they discovered five saucer ships in planetary orbit, not that many in Maddox’s estimation.

  “How can we do this?” Maddox asked.

  “Likely, we must enter the engine,” Galyan said. “I have been analyzing the readings and fluctuations. There is a warp inside the engine, a weakness. Perhaps with a Prism Drive blast, we could destroy the engine and thus the drill.”

  “We only have one Prism Drive,” Maddox said.

  “We might be able to use the fluctuations we have noted and retrace our steps through underspace back to normal space without the Prism Drive,” Galyan said. “Think of it as a cork shooting up from deep underwater to the surface. It will not be exactly like that, but follows the idea in principle.”

  “Then we lose the Prism Drive forever,” Ludendorff said. “We’ll probably need the drive against Leviathan when they attack the Commonwealth.”

  “As to that,” Galyan said, “I do not know. I know that I can make a bomb device with the Prism Drive that will explode if Captain Maddox can place it in the main warp coil. From my studies, that is exactly where such an explosive device needs to go.”

  “How do we reach this location?” Maddox asked.

  “A tin can,” Keith said. “That seems like the obvious way. Even as everything is different, it’s the same old, same old.”

  Maddox glanced at Meta before looking away.

  “I am coming with you,” Meta said.

  Maddox looked up at the ceiling as he sat in the captain’s chair. He didn’t have the strength of will to argue the point. He’d needed all his will to maintain his concentration. This place was weird. He hated it and wondered if there were emanations from Dimension X coming through and assaulting the entire place. He had been born and raised in normal space, not made to live in underspace.

  He remembered a painting from a medieval artist. It showed a shepherd looking through the veil to see the cogs and wheels of the cosmos.

  This underspace was the cogs and wheels of the cosmos that they could normally never reach. But with the Prism Drive, with this thing from a different dimension, and the non-Aristotelian physics that went into it—they had reached underneath and looked behind the veil. To actually be inside the cogs and other places where the machinery of the universe, their universe, operated to make things happen as they did—it was too much. What kept them sane here? Maddox didn’t know, and now was not the time to study it. Now was the time to finish this and then get the hell out of here.

  Maddox realized he had been woolgathering. “What were you saying, Galyan?”

  “I am saying that we should strike sooner rather than later. I have been noticing on my personality profiles that all of you are changing and having—the politest way I can say it, Captain, is mental episodes. You mentally fade out. In the Professor, he has had these physical manifestations, but he too is under great strain. This underspace is not good for any of you humans. I think it is easier on any mechanical processes.”

  “Have you checked on Andros?” Maddox asked.

  “I will do so immediately.”

  Galyan disappeared, and Maddox mentally faded out.

  “Sir, sir,” Galyan said.

  Maddox jerked back as his head swayed.

  “Andros believes he has made the nanites, but he is screaming and he is alone. His head is hurting him to a tremendous degree. I suggest that someone go down there and put him under.”

  Maddox gathered his resolve. He used the Erill spiritual power. He practiced the Way of the Pilgrim, but it would not come. No matter how he breathed, no matter how he sought it, the Way of the Pilgrim would not help him in this realm.

  “Keith, ready the tin can. We need to go in pronto.”

  “I suggest, sir,” Galyan said, “that this is a time for battle armor, for anyone who goes.”

  “Right,” Maddox said. “Who do you suggest goes, Galyan?”

  “Sir,” Galyan said, “you are asking me?”

  “You were a driving force once,” Maddox said. “You were a commander. I now doubt any of us on Victory is thinking clearly. Therefore, I am going to go with your suggestions.”

  “Logical, logical,” Ludendorff said.

  “Sir,” Galyan said, “then may I suggest that you, Meta—that is it. You two have shown rare physical gifts. I think anyone else is going to collapse.”

  “We are going to go armed for battle,” Maddox said. “Keith, you are going to have to do your damned best in the tin can to get us there.”

  “I will do my holy best,” Keith said.

  Maddox grinned tightly. “Galyan, what do you think?”

  “I think that I should go with you as far as I can.”

  “No problem for me,” Keith said. “I can use all the help I can get.”

  “All right,” Maddox said, “get started.”

  “Sir,” Keith said, “first we need the phase bomb.”

  “Can you make it?” Maddox asked Galyan.

  “I will need both Ludendorff and Andros,” Galyan said. “Even with Andros screaming, they are the only ones who have the mental capabilities to do this. I will need them both.”

  “How soon will you be ready?” Maddox asked.

  “It will not be long, sir, but we must work on it while we all have mental capabilities to do this.”

  “Professor,” Maddox said, “go with Galyan. Galyan, get Andros. Meta, let’s go check out our weaponry so we’re ready to leave. Keith, you get in the hangar bay and get your fold fighter ready. This is a fold and commando assault, probably the most important we’ve ever done.”

  With that, Maddox ended the ad hoc meeting, and each rose and left to do what they needed to do.

  -67-

  Maddox and Meta chose standard-issue space marine armor and donned it in the hangar bay with the fold fighter. It was heavy space armor, powered by a unique system with hand cannons, atomic grenade launchers, and even a beam weapon.

  Just in time, Ludendorff staggered to Maddox as marines set down a huge backpack, which nearly dwarfed Maddox’s armor.

  “We did it,” Ludendorff said. “Mainly, Galyan did it. I’m finding it hard to think in underspace. I don’t know how you’re doing it.”

  “I don’t know either,” Maddox said. He didn’t feel good. He didn’t want to say too much, though. Meta had been taking uppers and depressants at the same time. It was an odd mixture, and he didn’t think it was good for her, but he needed her help.

  Using a lift, the marines affixed the huge satchel bomb onto Maddox’s armored back. Maddox doubted he could have stood except for the exoskeleton-powered armor. Without the armor, he’d never be able to lift such a package.