Core Threat by J.S. Morin & M.A. Larkin

Author:J.S. Morin & M.A. Larkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781643550763
Publisher: Magical Scrivener Press

Everyone sat around the common room table, even the Sibyl, all staring at the blinking display of kraken attacks and predictive targets. Zoti didn’t know whether to be dismayed or relieved to know that quantum mathematics managed to map out the seemingly random movements of a mindless predator. Jace Jarvis’s predictive algorithm had become the foundation of an early warning system now shared throughout ARGO and even offered to the zheen and eyndar.

“Here,” Juggler said, standing near the display. “These two border worlds seem the most probable next targets. Both seem highly likely to face kraken threats within the next seven hours.”

“Oi, an’ here he comes again with the mathematics,” Vixen mumbled into her coffee.

“Actually,” Juggler said, “there’s only a difference of twelve million people between Pintara and Delos, so population is almost a non-factor in deciding where we head off the krakens. The probability score is also only a fraction of a percentage point difference, so there’s no clear cut⁠—”

“We’ll go for Delos,” Hiroko said and rose abruptly.

Juggler shrugged. “Well, twelve million fewer people, but a .3 percent greater likelihood of kraken attack, so I guess one could argue the math does favor …”

But the Sibyl didn’t even wait for him to finish before heading back down the corridor to the cockpit.

“Just like that,” Vixen grumbled. “Whole planet down the loo.”

“It was a terrible choice,” Juggler said. “But if we didn’t choose, then we’d sacrifice them both, so …”

“The Sibyl seems able to do advanced mathematical calculations in her head almost instantly,” Zoti said. “Perhaps she weighed the options based on the same population versus an even marginally greater chance of kraken attack.”

Juggler shrugged. “Makes sense.”

Except, the callous ease with which Hiroko had chosen Delos seemed off to Zoti.

“Ain’t no sense to any of this,” Vixen chimed in.

Either way, Zoti felt it as Tatsu plunged deeper into astral space. Very deep, Hiroko sending them hurtling toward another run-in with yet another kraken. Maybe they could lure it into deep space and buy time, make it forget where it was headed.

The monsters were, admittedly, hard to predict once their rhythm was disrupted. There was no telling whether these diversions would buy a week, a day, or merely an hour. But given the lack of better options, Zoti saw no alternative save to stay the current course. Drive them away from civilized planets again and again and … pray.

Wait for a miracle that everyone secretly feared would not come.

Despair—veiled but there—permeated even the Sibyl’s aura these past weeks. She was worn ragged, and Triple-3, the two of them were almost broken from lack of sleep, and more, from lack of hope. Sentients, especially humans, Zoti had found, could endure circumstances that ought to have broken them, so long as hope endured.

That alone seemed as essential to them as oxygen, and deprived of it, they began to asphyxiate inside their own minds. A slow withering process, losing bits and pieces of themselves.

Everyone in the entire Black Ocean was losing hope now.

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