The Ballad of Omega Brown:
Omega and the Mark of Doom
by Tom Vaine
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Every night since it had happened, Omega saw the same thing in his dreams. There were planets on fire, whole star systems long torn apart by warring factions. There were intelligences behind this slaughter as well, a sense of great unknowable powers reaching for control of one another.
Above and behind it all, the name Cirella echoed, and he could see the face of the creature that he and Hoonra had freed, its milky white eyes boring into him as the lightning it summoned marked symbols across his hand.
He would wake at this point, every time, shouting and sweating in his bunk on the Buccaneer. He hated that dream. The truth was, it scared him nearly to death.
Hoonra, his bodyguard, had developed a decidedly different attitude to the whole thing. While the ordeal had affected them both, Hoonra had taken the encounter with the creature seriously, almost religiously so. She had been chosen for a higher purpose, whatever it was, and she was committed to it. Her honour demanded that.
Only, as Omega had pointed out at the time, her honour was actually committed to his service. Omega did not feel especially excited about the idea of being chosen. Hoonra hadn’t spoken to him for days when he’d told her to forget about it. She’d only begun to open up again when he’d told her that he already knew what and where Cirella was.
This was how Omega found himself riding in a makeshift boxcar on the edge of the city, traveling towards its base. Cirella had once been a vibrant metropolis, but that was ages ago. Now, it was mostly a mining planet. Hundreds of guilds and corporate entities had spent time retrofitting the ancient and alien architecture of Cirella’s single, gigantic city into something their workers could use.
Networks of tunnels ran below Cirella’s harsh surface, taking thousands of workers into mines that stretched across the planet’s northern hemisphere. The workers accessed these tunnels, which lay just outside Cirella City, via lifts which took them from the upper levels down to the hardpan around the city’s base.
Most of these lifts were large and in good repair, but Omega and Hoonra were not going where most workers would go. Instead, the contact they’d met had directed them to a spot in the city’s actual foundations. These were truly ancient, an unknowable maze of webworked girders and honeycombed concrete. It was a place for secrets, for things lost between the cracks. Nobody willingly went there, so it felt typically appropriate to Omega that he should have to.
Eventually the car shuddered to a halt. This particular sublevel was as far down as Omega and Hoonra could reach by mechanical transit, and it looked even more desolate than the level they’d just left. There were no lean-tos here, no actual attempt at creating permanence amidst the already existing structures at all.
Omega looked at his wrist link. “It’s hard to tell, but I think this is the place. Even if I’m wrong, this has got to be as far down as we can go without breaching the foundation.”
“This seems incorrect. Why would they want us here?”
“Have I not been asking that for hours? I’m not wrong, Hoonra; this is the place.”
“It’s not what I expected.” She couldn’t hide her doubt.
“Look, we’ve gone the distance here, Hoonra. I know you wanted to see this vision thing through but—”
“There are scars, Omega, brands in our flesh. They cannot be ignored.”
“And why not? The universe is full of nonsense that doesn’t add up. Why should this? Look around you, Hoonra, and face the facts; there’s nothing here—”
The explosion ripped the words from his mouth. Omega was falling before he had any idea anything was wrong. Stonework and concrete buffeted him from every angle. After that he knew nothing at all.
* * *
The last clear view Hoonra had of Omega was the blast hurling him away. There had been a quick change in his expression, just the beginning of understanding, and then everything had gone glaring white. She’d tried to call out, but was thrown from her feet, landing on her back a few meters away. Then, the world was made of dust, and a high pitched ringing in her ears she could not shake.
“Omega!” She pushed herself upright as the tinnitus wore off. There was no response, and she called again. Silence.
As her pupils adjusted, Hoonra could see the collapse. A large section of the ceiling had fallen in, and the support beams beneath lay twisted and useless.
“Omega?”
He had been right there, right beside her, where now there was only a pile of slag. He’d told her there was nothing here, and now he wasn’t there either. Hoonra began excavating the pile, pulling up bits of rubble, scraping her fingers and forearms as she went.
How could she have been so stupid, so blind? Omega had warned her that the mark would not be worth pursuing, and now she knew he was right. Not only would she fail to discover its significance, she’d already failed in the duty she’d been hired for. Hoonra fell to her knees. With Omega dead, there was nowhere for her to go; her honour was lost. Hoonra curled forward, resting her head against the rubble. She would stay this way, she thought, stay and be the last monument to her own defeat.
She felt cold kneeling there, and was sure this must be the shame of her own death closing in. When she did not die, she guessed it might be something else.
Hoonra pressed her hands to some of the wider cracks below her. There was cool air coming through. She stood and attacked the ruin heap, hauling back fragments until she had removed enough from the edge to see the truth.
The concrete below her was thick, but incredibly old. The collapse had taken the roof certainly, but also some of the floor as well. There was a space in the level beneath her. She pressed her face to the widened crack.
“Omega?”
There was still no answer, but that didn’t matter now. He would be there. After all the things that had nearly killed them, surely there was still some luck left.
Hoonra began to heft more stonework away, but stopped. Something was approaching. The whir of tiny gears spinning, metallic feet clicking against the concrete floor. She wasn’t sure who it was until she could make out the low buzzing that constituted their language. Drones.
Hoonra ducked away from the heap. At least she had found the source of her trouble. The Drones wanted something, something tied to the marks she and Omega had received during their last encounter with the machines. That must be it.
If they were here, then there had to be other ways down, other cracks she could find. She would rescue Omega, and together, they would find out what was going on.
* * *
Copyright © 2022 by Tom Vaine
