Raine VS The End of the World Read Free Page B

the bridge of Destroyer 1446 . Every eye was on Captain Black, as his finger hovered precipitously over the self-destruct button. He calmly studied the visual data as the enemy veered ever closer, weighing his orders to eliminate the station against the lives of his crew of one thousand. It was the slim chance that his onboard hackers may yet uncover the Belladonna’s blueprints that stayed the Captain’s hand at the last second. Black pulled out his machine pistol instead. His subordinates fled in terror.
    With his sidearm raised against the glass, the Captain caught a singular glimpse of the darkness in Elizabeth Hermes’ eyes, lit with the fury of a dying warrior making one final effort to save her home. She came from port side, pursued by their own guided missiles, her damaged craft careening straight for the bridge. He took aim at her head and feathered the trigger.
    Well played, Professors , Black mused, closing his eyes as the vacuum burst around him.
    ▬
    Thanks to the unbearably sharp and sudden pains in her chest, it took all of Elizabeth’s strength to pull the Falcon up at the last second, leading Destroyer 1446’s missiles into its command dome. Her regenerative cockpit glass patched itself in a second, but Elizabeth felt the bullet wounds in her torso and knew the end was near. She clutched at her racing heart. Her lung was collapsing. She pressed the comm. switch.
    “R-r-report,” she managed at barely a whisper.
    “Rutger in. The Belladonna 5000 is prepped and ready in fifteen seconds.”
    “Th-thank you.”
    “You are welcome, Captain. Your voice sounds distressed. I can delay the launch.”
    Elizabeth shook her head, and the words that came out of her were faint, but firm.
    “No. S… It’s too l-late for me. T-take care of her.”
    “Understood.”
    Elizabeth savored a parting glance at the gaping hole she carved into the bridge. Saw the UAA men explode out of the vacuum. Felt the Falcon lurch forward, spin out of control. Steered it in a last-ditch attempt towards the military vessel’s communications tower.
    “Mom!” sounded a most familiar cry. “Mom, stop the countdown! I’ll save you!”
    “I’m s-sorry, Lily,” were her last words. “F-f-forgive us.”
    And then she was gone.
     
    ≡
    Silence fell over the dark scene. Large robotic arms attempted to repair the battered warship. The new commanding officer of Destroyer 1446 looked out from his viewing platform with sadness as the conduits surrounding the flower-shaped vessel blinked one last time.
    The artificial wormhole opened and shut within a fraction of a second. With a blinding flash the space station vanished beyond its folds; the resulting vacuum collapsed into a shockwave. The very space around the Destroyer warped out of shape before reverting to relative normalcy.
    When the other UAA battleships arrived on-site, there was nothing left to salvage or study, no evidence that the Belladonna ever existed.
     

I. Raine
    “Time and space are not conditions in which we live,
but modes by which we think.” – Albert Einstein
     
    Thirteen years later (Lillian’s relative time)
     
    < Recall inhibitors checklist OK >
< Vitals OK >
< Neural checklist OK >
< Subject: “All systems nominal. Seeya on the flip side.” >
< Execute protocol tree: raine_v_endless_metaverse >
< Request accepted. >
    ∞
    The year was 1992. Or at least, it appeared to be 1992, on a cold Sunday night in January. It also appeared to be a video arcade in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, only the old brick building, the falling snow, and the surrounding block were all a part of a virtual simulation comprised of digital artifacts from the timeline Lillian Hermes left behind when she inherited her parents’ time-traveling space station.
    It was a program being run for the benefit of one individual, a certain reclusive sixteen-year-old who showed no signs of relenting her attack.
    The name of this fierce anomaly was Raine Townsend, and to her