The attack on the Cusp Foundation star base orbiting a dead moon of a planet in the Omicron Cassiopeia system was as powerful as it was unexpected. A squadron of a dozen Galactic Alliance warships and fighter craft dropped out of compressed space in close proximity to the base and surrounded it on all sides. On of the first things that happened was the disabling of the star base’s defensive shields, offensive weaponry and nuclear reactor. The six fighter craft swarmed over the star base, making surgical strikes with the green disruptor weapons on very specific areas of the base, knocking out defenses and greatly reducing the available power.
The entire star base was quickly scanned and a listing of its occupants distributed. One of the larger cruisers attached itself to the main hatchway at the bottom of the star base. The blast doors had been secured from the inside, but the main laser battery of the cruiser made short work of them, and in no time the star base was being boarded by Alliance military personnel. The Cusp Foundation occupants mounted a half-hearted resistance to the boarders but were soon decisively vanquished and taken into custody. A dozen or so escape vehicles tried to get away but their engines were rapidly disabled by the Alliance fighter crafts picking them off as they came out the bays. The escape craft were strung together and tethered to one another in preparation for being towed to a nearby Galactic Alliance facility. On the star base the Alliance personnel were accounting for the remaining occupants and laboriously searching booby traps and hidden explosives for which the Cusp Foundation was infamous. This slowed the progress considerably but the star base was declared secure and safe in approximately three hours. The data cartridge recovered from the Dreen 7 neutrino emitter provided a very clear trail leading directly back to this star base.
Onboard the Archangel, Captain Twillig was meeting with his senior staff, discussing the results of the just-completed raid. They were going over the manifest list of the occupants who were now detainees of the Galactic Alliance.
“Looks like there were no big fish in this fishing expedition,” the captain said with a little disappointment. “Just some lower-level technicians and administrators. Possibly the big guys got wind of this operation somehow and made their exit.”
“Will we be able to glean any information from their computer systems?” Alanna asked.
“Unknown at this time,” the captain responded. “We are currently downloading their memory cores and as usual it will take a little time to get through their redundant encryption layers, but I think it’s a fair assumption that we will find out something we didn’t know before.”
“I think we can be certain that the Dreen 7 emitter was built and launched from that facility,” Talox added. “We found tools and plans that they used to modify the Beta Carinae propulsion unit, and as usual the Cuspies were more than a little sloppy with their work, because just about everything on the base was contaminated to a certain extent by neutrinos with the same radiation signature as found on the planet.”
“Isn’t it unusual for neutrinos to persist in the same location for a long time?” Alanna asked.
“Yes it is,” Chief Engineer Tony Moreno replied. “Their manufactured neutrinos are a little different from natural ones; they have some added, strange properties. We’re trying to understand those oddities.”
“We, of course, will be anxious to see if we can uncover any more information on the purpose and ultimate plan of their neutrino emitter, whether it was a one-time experiment or a prelude to something much larger and ominous,” the captain said. “I think all of us are aware beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Cusp Foundation’s fake piety and sanctimonious preaching are more likely than not to be a cover for a much more devious, dangerous motive.”
“You can say that again, sir,” Brisbane offered. “They are not to be trusted, even for a second.”
As the discussions continued, a message came over the security console. “Communication from the medical transport ship Windrose, bringing some of the Cusp Foundation personnel here for treatment,” Talox said. Pausing for a few seconds, a confused look crossed his face. “One of the detainees is very adamant about speaking to Lieutenant Richardson.”
Brisbane stopped in his tracks and looked around the room. “They want to talk to me?” he asked. “I certainly don’t know any Cuspies personally.”
“Nonetheless, Lieutenant,” Talox continued, “they insist on speaking with you as soon as possible and will not speak with anyone else.”
“How long until the Windrose arrives here?” the captain asked. Alanna looked at her electronic pad. “About one hour, seventeen minutes,” she replied.
“When they arrive and get cleared and situated in the medical department,” he said to Brisbane, “pay a little visit to whoever is asking for you. It may just be one of your fans, I know you have them everywhere, but it may also be a critical piece of information we need to know.”
“Will do, sir,” Brisbane responded, scratching the back of his head, wondering why someone from the Cusp Foundation would be so insistent on speaking to him.
An hour and a half later Brisbane reported to the Archangel’s medical facility. “Which one wants to see me,” he asked Dr. Angela Calcagno, chief medical officer.
“She’s in 2B,” the doctor replied. “Humanoid female, won’t tell us her name or age or anything. Appears to be of a very advanced age, possibly in her nineties, showing signs of advanced senescence and dementia. Extremely fragile and occasionally drifts in and out of lucidity.” Dr. Calcagno looked at Brisbane. “Go easy on her, Brisbane. No telling how much time she has left.”
Nodding slightly, Brisbane donned a sterile suit and proceeded into the room. The door opened noiselessly and Brisbane looked upon a tiny, thin, fragile woman lying in the bed. Her straggly, unkempt grey hair and deeply wrinkled face and hands gave the impression of someone coming to the end of a very long life. She breathed in tiny, irregular gasps, and the corneas of her eyes were a cloudy gray. Even though, she noticed someone coming into her room and turned her head to look at her visitor.
“Hello,” Brisbane said gently. “I am Lieutenant Brisbane Richardson of the Galactic Alliance starship Archangel. You are in our medical facility. How can I be of assistance to you?”
It took her a couple seconds but a flash or recognition crossed her sunken, sallow features. The skin on her face appeared dry as parchment and seemed to hang in brittle folds off her cheekbones.
“Brisbane,” she said weakly. “It’s good to see you again. It’s been a long time.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “You don’t seem to have changed much.”
Brisbane looked at her with slight confusion. “Excuse me,” he said softly. “Do we know each other?”
“Come now, Brisbane,” she said, smiling a little. “I haven’t changed that much.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “On second thought, perhaps I have.”
“Maybe you can refresh my memory a little,” Brisbane said as he moved around to the side of the bed. “When was the last time we saw each other?”
“I remember clearly the last time we spoke,” she said, her weak voice interrupted by shallow breaths. “It was on this very ship, on the bridge. It was some months after I got on everyone’s bad side by my admittedly ill-advised over-use of a unique little technology derived from the Forever Stone. Had a little something to do with temporal micro-anomalies or as you referred to them, TMAs.” She looked at him out of the corner of one dim eye. “Ring a bell yet?”
Brisbane returned her gaze blankly, still not understanding what the woman was getting at.
“Not yet, eh?” she said. “Well, let me continue. My Kellurian friends and I cut a wide swath of destruction through your Galactic Alliance fleet, capturing as many as seven of your esteemed starship captains. It looked for a while as if anything would be possible for me and no one could to stand in my way, but then my little world came all crashing down on me just like one of my little temporal micro-anomalies, all because of someone named Lieutenant Brisbane Richardson.”
Brisbane gazed at the fragile, withered shell of a woman and something triggered a vague recollection within him, but he was still unable to remember exactly who she was. She almost looked old enough to be his grandmother but seemed to remind him of someone much younger.
“The last time I spoke to you was twenty-four years ago,” she continued after taking a couple of deep, laborious breaths. “I had decided to take a retirement from my previous life of mayhem and questionable activities and settle into a role for which I thought I was truly destined – that of being a mother. My pregnancy was the most fulfilling and ecstatic time of my entire life, and when my beautiful child was finally born, I was so filled with happiness and joy I felt my heart would burst. The only piece missing was my child’s father, who could not be there to share my great joy with me because he was on the great Galactic Alliance starship Archangel, as head of their Special Operations department.”
Brisbane froze and glared at the woman as the meaning of her words sunk in. In the outside room, Captain Twillig, Dr. Calcagno and Alanna Kosari huddled around a monitor in stunned disbelief, listening to every word.
“What are you saying?” Brisbane asked incredulously. “Are you implying that somehow I am the father of your child?” he asked in halting tones, barely believing he was saying the words.
“Indeed I am,” the woman croaked, her brittle lips parting into a half-smile. “I am your one-time nemesis, Daressencia Laportine, and you are the father of my child!”
Brisbane let her words run around in his brain for a couple of seconds but they still did not register with him. “I do remember someone named Daressencia Laportine from a long time ago,” he said in confusion, “but she was at least a couple of years younger than I am. I mean no disrespect, madam, but it appears to me that you are considerably older than I am.” He leaned in closer to her tiny, willowy frame. “How could you possibly be Daressencia?”
The woman smiled and started to laugh, which quickly turned into a series of hacking coughs which wracked her entire body. “I really can’t expect you to believe that right off the bat,” she said, gasping for her breath, “considering all that has happened recently. But I invite your medical personnel to do a DNA scan of me and compare the results to the scan you have in your medical library computer for Daressencia Laportine.”
Dr. Calcagno turned to look at Captain Twillig, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief. “Do it!” the captain ordered grimly.
Brisbane noticed on the medical monitoring equipment connected to this frail, aged woman that the DNA scan had indeed begun. He leaned in close to look at the woman’s face. Somewhere, down inside there, he caught a glimpse of a feline-looking woman with striking eyes whose long, black satin robes and exotic beauty caught the eye of every person she encountered. Suddenly Brisbane jerked backwards, as the full realization washed over him like an irresistible wave. “You ARE Daressencia Laportine!” he whispered.
“The mother of your child,” she said, mustering enough strength to tug on his sleeve. “And I am telling you that you must find our son and stop him before he does something which will destroy everything and everyone we have ever known.” Daressa kept a firm hold on Brisbane’s sleeve and began to get agitated. “You must talk to him and reason with him.”
“Talk to him?” Brisbane exclaimed. “I’ve never even seen him,” he protested.
Daressa pulled on Brisbane’s sleeve with surprising strength for one who could not even sit up by herself. “There is less time than you might think,” she hissed, her glassy, cloudy eyes seeming to almost burst out of her thin, skeletal face.
Falling back onto the bed, Daressa released Brisbane’s sleeve. “Our son was one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen. From the very beginning he showed unusually high intelligence and a keen intellect. He was tutored by some of the most brilliant minds of the galaxy, and I used all of my resources to give him every conceivable advantage. The universe was his playground, and he grew into a fine, young man. And every time I looked into his eyes, I saw you looking back at me.”
Brisbane continued to listen in stunned silence, barely able to comprehend everything that was being revealed to him. Daressa took a long, wheezing breath and let out several deep, rattling coughs. She looked over to the side of the bed.
“Then, about four years ago, he came under the influence of the Cusp Foundation. I certainly don’t have to tell you about them. They perverted him, filling his head with all manner of lies and superstitions. They convinced him that he was the Chosen One, sent to bring something they called the “New Dawn” to the universe. But in reality they only wanted to use his brilliant mind and his scientific knowledge of the advanced technology of the Forever Stone to develop a way to extinguish all forms of life in the universe, and repopulate it with life forms of their own choosing. They convinced him it was his destiny to create a way to cleanse the universe and purge it of all humanoid life, which they considered evil and irreparably corrupt. In a short time, our son came to assume the role of Messiah, and quickly took leadership of the Cusp Foundation.” Daressa stopped her narrative to take some piteous, gasping breaths, and Brisbane was not entirely sure that they weren’t sobs of despair. My son, the leader of the Cusp Foundation – he said those words to himself but could scarcely believe them.
“After they developed a process to eradicate life, they had to test it out. You saw the results on Dreen 7 – all life forms dead, from the largest animals to the tiniest microbes. But soon afterwards, they needed to test their weapon on humanoid life. When he brought those loathsome Cuspies to my home base, it was the last straw. I discovered what was going on and stepped in to stop him, taking out six of the Cuspies in the process. What I found was that the evil of the Cusp Foundation had taken over our son. He and his minions turned on me, and nearly destroyed my base. Then they took me and used me to test their weapon.” She looked at Brisbane desperately, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “They used their weapon on me,” she said in painful agony. “Our son turned this device on his own mother, and you can see the results. Their weapon induces highly accelerated aging in any living organism it touches, plant or animal. But there is more – the weapon causes extensive DNA changes which turns the body against itself. It turns your blood into poison and your immune system begins to destroy you. Your body ends up aging at an extremely rapid rate and your immune system slowly kills you. It destroys you from the inside and outside at the same time, look what it did to me! And they intend to unleash this horror on the entire galaxy!” Daressa at this time was becoming extremely agitated, and began pulling strongly on Brisbane’s sterile suit. “You must stop him!” she cried, nearly strangling on the words. “You must stop our son!”
“But how – how is this possible?” Brisbane asked, clearly alarmed at everything he was hearing. “How can they make this happen, especially over a huge area?”
“You must stop him! You must stop him!” Daressa kept crying out, over and over again. Several alarms began to go off on the medical monitoring equipment behind her and her body signs were clearly showing tremendous stress, which in her condition was extremely dangerous.
“Daressa, you must calm down,” Brisbane said, placing his hand on her cold, pallid skin and gently pushing her back on the bed. “You are getting upset and that’s very bad for you. Dr. Calcagno will be coming right in to give you something to help you relax. I need to leave for a little while but I will be back just as soon as you have had time to rest. Then we can talk some more about our son.”
“You must stop him!” Daressa said, shaking her head back and forth. “There is no time, you must stop him!” She continued to shake her head back and forth as Brisbane hurriedly fled the room. Outside the patient room Captain Twillig, Dr. Calcagno and Alanna were standing around with very worried looks on their faces.
“What do you make of all that?” Brisbane asked incredulously. “Can you believe what she is saying?”
“This is truly extraordinary,” Captain Twillig said, “I don’t know which part of her story is the most incredible, nor which part to believe.”
“There’s one part we can believe,” Dr. Calcagno said, looking at a computer monitor. “I did a DNA scan on the patient as she suggested and compared it to the scan we had on file for Daressencia Laportine. The unique genetic markers are there and they are impossible to falsify. There is no doubt she is in fact Daressencia Laportine. But there are some genetic differences in certain areas. Her DNA has been somehow altered, and those alterations would be directly responsible for the changes to her blood chemistry and immune system she described. I know of no current medical procedure which could produce results such as those.” Dr. Calcagno looked up ominously at her colleagues. “Everything I’ve seen so far corroborates her story fully.”
The four officers had just begun to discuss the many ramifications of the other parts of Daressa’s story when several loud alarms went off on the medical console. Dr. Calcagno immediately turned to her monitor.
“She’s having some kind of neurological event, a seizure,” the doctor said in alarm. She ran into the room, followed by the other three, and began to switch on some artificial support mechanisms and prepared to administer some drugs. A nurse and a medical assistant rushed into the room to help.
“Ten ccs of neotropoline in the direct line,” Dr. Calcagno ordered. More alarms began to go off and the trace lines of the medical monitors began to drop slowly. “Preparing a neural dampener,” the nurse said.
Daressa’s face started to turn ashen gray. “No neural dampener!” Daressa screamed, shocking everyone with her vehemence. “There is no time,” she gasped. Desperately looking for Brisbane, she spotted him and motioned for him to come closer.
“Listen closely to me, Brisbane. For a long time,” she said with great effort, “the Cusp Foundation was unable to deliver their weapon over the vast distances of an entire galaxy. The best they could do was to employ their weapon on a small planet such as Dreen 7. But that is all changed now. They have recently found a way to deliver the weapon over galactic distances, and their ‘New Dawn’ may arrive very shortly, possibly within the next two weeks!”
Brisbane and the others were profoundly shocked by this news. “How can we possibly stop them in such a short time?” Brisbane protested with great anxiety. “We know nothing about their weapon or its whereabouts.”
Several new alarms began to go off in the medical equipment. “Cardiac arrest!” Dr. Calcagno said grimly, and continued with her desperate work.
Daressa began to turn a dark gray color as the life ebbed from her body. Unable to speak, she used the last of her remaining strength to reach around her neck, grasp the necklace she was wearing and pull it off. Her arm came down on her side and she put the necklace directly into Brisbane’s hand. At that point Daressa let out a short cry, arched her back, and silently fell back onto the bed. The medical alarms behind her had reached a crescendo.
“Doctor Calcagno, can we use the emergency matter transporters to put her in statis until she can be stabilized?” Alanna asked in a panic.
“Not possible,” the doctor said, as she frantically worked the resuscitation systems. “She would never survive the rematerialization.” Dr. Calcagno continued to use all the talents and resources at her disposal to save the life of this ancient, emaciated woman. Minutes later, she ceased her efforts. Slowly and sadly, she reached up and started to turn off some of the alarms. “Time of death,” she said with great weariness, “1467.22.48.” Captain Twillig, Alanna and Brisbane just stood at the foot of the bed, stunned and unable to speak.
