Into the Black

(Flag Bridge, BSN Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, Star’s Reach System)

“Admiral, we’ve received word from Black Star Station over Dimiya. Our local contacts have agreed to the evacuation request.”

“Good. Get the civilians on the transports as soon as possible. At the very least, get them up to the station, where the shields will keep demons and other threats out. Tell them to use Anchor Drives once they are out of sensor range from the system, to speed things up. Amazon System will be the rally point, and they can come to Star’s Reach from there.”

The officer nodded. “At once, Admiral. There’s also—”

I lost track of whatever he was about to say, because the next thing I knew, my world was full of pain. I’d had migraines before, and this was exactly like one of those. The best way to describe the pain was as if someone took a red-hot ice pick, and jabbed it repeatedly into my head, and doing that to relieve the pain of the migraine.

I staggered, and fell against the console with the sudden pain. I could dimly hear other screams. Other people. Probably also in pain. I barely noticed my breakfast coming back to grace the deck plates through the pain.

And then it was gone, and I found myself gasping for air, kneeling on the deck and slumped against the console I’d been working at. I decided not to look at the mess I knew was on the floor. It was enough that the pain was gone; I didn’t need the sights and smells of what I knew I’d find to set me off again.

“—miral! Admiral! Can you hear me?”

Raven was at my side, shaking my shoulders, trying to get my attention. Her voice was ringing. No, wait, that was my ears. Somehow, I managed to focus on her, past the blue patch in my field of view.

“R-raven. Hear you. What?”

Raven gave a sigh of relief. “We don’t know. I haven’t detected any transmissions, but something obviously happened, hitting every Nomad in Star’s Reach. I haven’t been able to get reports from anywhere else, yet, so I don’t know if it was limited to this system or not.”

Groaning, I forced myself to my feet. OK, so Raven helped. Well, she did most of the work, as my head was still spinning. At any rate, I was on my feet, which was the main thing.

Slowly, my eyes were able to focus enough that I could see that the blue patch in my vision was a blue box. A system alert. This was somehow part of the game? A little longer, and things came into focus enough that I could actually read what was written in the box.