Arc had never considered himself claustrophobic. The many cells he’d slept in during his career on Augerium had never been spacious accommodations, and the hidden compartment he’d crawled into with Marissa and the other slaves aboard the Rhapsody had barely fit them all. Neither had made him feel as cramped and trapped as he felt now, squeezed into the centre of what remained of Inferno Company beside the Rashani, riding aboard a small armoured carrier vessel. With over twenty mercs, three Rashani, and a handful of Corda’s own men, there was barely any room to breathe. Rifle butts rested on the floor between legs, and a strange hush had fallen over the crew. The crash of distant explosions penetrated through the ship’s thick hull, and everyone was listening for the sound that might herald their doom. It was that silence that Arc found so stifling, but he couldn’t break it; he was listening, just like the rest of them.
They’d received the go-ahead to launch the moment their battleship had reached the Superius’ altitude, along with some advice to approach the hangar from beneath the enemy ship to avoid attention from the remaining cannon. That was the only defensive action they could take while airborne; everything else was up to the fighters outside. The carrier could be shot out of the sky at any moment.
The Rashani beside him seemed to project a silence that was somehow deeper and more solemn than the others’. Mela had her head bowed in some kind of meditation, while the younger two were bunched close together, eyes anxiously darting around at every crash. It hit Arc then just how young they were—just kids, really. Vis tried to hold himself high, but Arc could see the way the boy shook and twitched. They shouldn’t be here. Regardless of what everyone else wanted, Arc did not like putting two untrained kids in the heart of a battle. Hopefully Mela would have the sense to keep them out of harm’s way.
The entire craft shook suddenly, and Arc had the distinct impression that they were rising. Fredrichs, decked out in full armour and carrying a rifle with the scariest bayonet ever made, finally broke the silence. “Guns ready! We all have our jobs, but we clear a perimeter around this carrier before we try anything bold. Am I understood?”
Inferno Company roared in agreement, then followed up with a symphony of clicks and clacks of guns being loaded. Arc pulled his own gun from its holster, feeling greasy just for holding it. The weapon in question was an electric pistol, a small firearm that usually stunned instead of killing. In place of ammunition, it contained a small battery pack, and a long cord ran from its back to a book-sized reserve battery that hung from his belt. He had never held a gun before; the animal’s tools of death had been blades, clubs, and hands—close range weaponry—but he could still feel some beast-like cunning in its design. If things went smoothly, he might never have to use it.
He gave his armour a quick inspection as well. The red and white colours of Inferno didn’t particularly jibe with Arc’s more subdued colour palate, but he wasn’t going to face the enemy in a suit. Despite the unfortunate association with the old days, he welcomed the feeling of protection. It was like putting on a second hide, and it fit perfectly.
There was a sharp intake of breath beside him. Mela had roused from her meditation, her eyes fixed straight ahead, her lips pressed tightly together. She held her hands just below her chest, the silver glint of her Lucidil poking through her clasped fingers. Nue fumbled for her own, mimicking her master’s stance with anxious energy. Vis stilled her trembling with a gentle pat on her shoulder, then drew his sword. Next to those two silver spheres, the regular blade made the boy seem vulnerable, a feeling mirrored in his pale expression.
The sounds of guns and explosions grew louder, as if the fighting was happening right on the other side of the wall. The entire squad flinched at the sound of the first shot that ricocheted off the hull, but the pitter-patter that followed was reassuring in a strange way; nothing was getting through that armour.
The ship lurched once more, then again and again as it adjusted its position to fit into the hangar. Then the drop, a slow descent that sent vibrations through the floor under their feet, until it suddenly stopped when the ship touched down. Arc swallowed as one wall of the carrier slid away, and when Fredrichs gave the call to charge, he was running with the rest of them.
The Superius’ hangar was twice the size of the one on the junk heap Shodus had previously commanded, as befitted a Magnus-class vessel. Most of its fighter ships were already outside, and about half of those remaining had somehow been reduced to burning wreckage. As Inferno Company opened fire on a squad of Zulkar, Arc looked around in bewilderment. It looked like someone had already been through here.
The answer came as an explosive round seemed to fall from above and scattered a cluster of enemy soldiers. He looked up; a pair of Valk suits hung from the ceiling, raining fire down on the Zulkar. The attack on two fronts allowed Inferno to push outwards, forming an expanding ring around the carrier. The Zulkar fought back with guns and modified krigot weapons, but Fredrichs had her troops constantly on the attack, pushing the Imperials into a retreat from the hangar.
Arc and the Rashani had remained near the centre of the ring, not being much use in this part of the assault. Once Fredrichs could clear a path further into the ship, it would be up to them to locate Trem and the source of the Rashani poison. The Zulkar prisoner back on the Valiance had given them a rough idea of where to find both, but it would still be a dangerous search.
One of the Valk suits detached from the ceiling and made a slow, lazy descent into the ring of mercs. It touched down near Arc, and he stepped back in surprise. “Hello?” he ventured, unsure of the pilot’s purpose.
The pilot removed her helmet, and Arc’s heart thudded hard in his chest. Marissa smiled back and gave him a wave. “You don’t look so happy to see me, sweetheart.”
Arc recovered his wits and smiled back. “You’ve grown in the last few hours. You’re taller than me now.”
Marissa chuckled politely, casting her eyes over the hangar. “I think we’ve done what we can here—I need to get back outside. Stay safe, Arc.” She tilted her head towards the Rashani. “You too, kids.”
“We will,” Arc said.
“Try not to crash and burn,” Vis added.
Marissa gave a mock salute and slipped her helmet back on, twisting it onto the neck-piece. She launched into the air with almost minimal preparation, twirling around the hangar and boosting out into the wide blue sky. The other Valk followed after in a more restrained flight path. Arc felt more than a little pride at how quickly she’d adapted to flying.
It took only ten minutes for the mercs to clear the way. Fredrichs called them over impatiently, giving them all hard looks as they approached. “They have three other ways into the hangar. We need to keep it secure, so I can’t spare many troops.”
Vis piped up. “We can handle it ourselves.”
Nue looked mortified, but Mela and Fredrichs shared a meaningful look. There were benefits to sending a smaller force into narrow corridors, Arc had to admit, but one Rashani, two trainees, and a pacifist made for a poor squad.
Vis met their looks with a peeved expression. “Time’s wasting. We lost these guys once before, and I’m certain they have more than one way off this ship.”
He had a point. Arc turned to Fredrichs. “I trust these three. We’ll go ahead and avoid the enemy if we can. They’ll be focused on trying to take back the hangar, so it shouldn’t be too hard to slip by.”
Fredrichs shook her head. “That won’t be possible. Unless Shodus is well and truly insane, he knows exactly what we’re after. He’ll have soldiers guarding Trem with their lives.”
“I spent weeks in Shodus’ company,” Arc said. “He is insane, well and truly. We’ll be careful.”
Fredrichs grunted in frustration. “Go then, and don’t get killed. I don’t need both your wife and the captain pissed at me.” She saluted as they passed into the corridor. Arc wondered if it was out of formality, or a feeling that they wouldn’t be coming back.
* * *
“Stop.”
Arc froze, looking to Mela. She glared straight ahead to where the corridors intersected, her jaw clenched. The kids stopped behind them, holding their breath.
Footsteps. No, more like footstomps; the clang of boots on the floor, surging from the left like a tidal wave. Arc rested his hand on his holster. Was this it—the moment he’d been dreading since he’d first held this gun? He waited, listening, as if he could predict the soldiers’ destination by the sounds of their boots. There would be no choice but to fight if they turned down this way.
A murk-green helmet with a black visor shot into view, followed by a long neck, then shoulders that tapered into even longer arms wrapped around a rifle, all of it propelled by a pair of gangly legs. Just as quickly, the soldier was gone, only to be followed by another and three more after him. None of them turned their head in Arc’s direction; they knew where they had to be, and were focused on getting there and not drawing their master’s ire. It was another minute before Mela gave the signal to keep moving.
They’d avoided detection so far, staying out of the main corridors that the soldiers took, at least according to their talkative prisoner’s information. His advice was holding up for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before they ran into whoever had been placed to guard Trem. Shodus couldn’t be so arrogant as to think that he didn’t need to guard the Aquila.
They passed quite a few rooms, and Arc snuck a look into a couple of them. They appeared to be laboratories, stocked with scientific equipment and computers. Plant life seemed to be the subject of the first laboratory, with clear terrariums holding an abundance of green—maybe it was Norus II’s native fauna. The second had some of the same equipment as the first, but also resembled an armoury, with unorthodox-looking weapons hanging from racks and a shooting range pockmarked with different-sized impact points. With what Arc knew of Shodus and the Empire as a whole, he had a feeling the latter sort of rooms were more common. He didn’t care to check all of them; Surdt had said that both Trem and the poison would be found closer to the prow of the ship. They carried on, balancing the need to stay hidden with the desire to hurry.
Mela stopped, making a choking sound in the back of her throat. Arc didn’t need a signal to know to stop; her eyes had gone wide, lower lip hanging loosely.
“Sikkat?” Nue asked, coming up behind them with Vis.
“Just around the bend, I think,” Mela said, almost mumbling. She lifted her hand and slowly wiped it across her sweat-drenched forehead. “I can feel their anger, but also their confidence. Five—sorry, six. The last one is weak, unconscious.”
“Trem,” said Arc, feeling a little light-headed. So close—they were so close.
Vis unfolded his blade. “Well, what are we waiting for? I doubt they’re allowed bathroom breaks, so there’s no point in putting it off. We have to fight them.”
Mela looked over her two charges, failing to hide the anguish in her expression. “I will do it. Mr. Rhapsody, look after these two, please. If I fail, they will know, and you will all run.”
“No,” Vis said, quiet but firm. “If you don’t want us to fight, then you shouldn’t have brought us onboard. Nue needs a chance to prove herself, and that means she needs to fight. If you go out there alone and die, then you’ll have made for an astoundingly poor teacher.”
Mela did not respond to the boy’s words, but they made sense to Arc. He certainly wasn’t going to let her fight alone. “We should all go. Two Rashani plus two should be more than enough.” He didn’t say that with complete confidence, and he was sure they could all sense that, but the alternative was being a coward.
Mela lowered her eyes, gazing into the reflective surface of her Lucidil. “I will take the lead. The rest of you will stay behind me—you may not argue this, Vis. Nue, I may need to call on your aid, but you will not engage the enemy unless I say so.”
Vis frowned, then relented, the hostility draining from his expression. Beside him, Nue raised her Lucidil to her chest. “I will do my best, Sikkat,” she said, quietly.
“That’s all I can ask of you.” Mela pressed her hands against the sides of her own sphere, flattening it into a disc as Alis had done once on the Consortium. She held it flat end forward, and it spread out to shield most of her body. She gave Arc a look, and he knew exactly what it meant; whatever had been said, the old plan still stood. If she fell, he would get the kids out. He nodded, then stepped aside to let her pass.
The shooting started the moment she rounded the bend. The needle rounds made a slight tink noise against the Lucidil’s surface, crumpling against the shield and falling harmlessly to the floor. But other rounds flew past her, hitting against the walls with a much louder sound. The hall was wider than the one Arc and the kids crouched in, enough for several shooters to stand shoulder to shoulder.
Mela stepped back, baring her teeth against the force of the shower of needles. “Nue, another shield please!”
The girl didn’t even hesitate. The Lucidil went flat without her bothering with the hand motions and she turned it towards the oncoming fire as she hurried to her teacher’s side. Arc and Vis followed after her, ducking behind the silver discs.
Arc peeked around Mela’s shield between volleys to catch a glimpse of their attackers. Mela hadn’t been wrong; five Zulkar, all armed with rifles. He ducked back down as they opened fire once more, narrowly avoiding having his skull perforated. He pictured the shooters in his mind: three crouched on one knee with two more standing behind them. Those numbers needed to be thinned out.
Mela gave Nue the signal to move forward after the next volley, and the pair moved in sync as a single advancing wall. The needles came again, but the women pushed against them, undaunted. Arc could see their arms shaking against the impacts, their strained expressions. No matter how strong the Lucidils were, their owners would tire eventually.
Arc gripped his pistol tightly between his hands and took a deep breath. He counted the time between volleys: three seconds between the final tink and the start of the next. Once he was sure of the interval, he waited until the final needle hit in the next volley to aim the pistol between the shields and fire. The electric charge struck one of the standing Zulkar in the chest, sending a high voltage burst through his entire body. On an un-armoured target, it might have killed, but the Zulkar remained swaying upright for a brief second before tipping forward. He landed on the shoulders of two of the shooters in front, momentarily distracting them.
“Nue, now!” Mela shouted.
Suddenly the Rashani charged, leaving Arc and Vis to catch up. With only two rifles firing, the pair closed the distance to the Zulkar in a matter of seconds and smashed their shields into the formation. The split between the shields widened as Arc caught up, and Vis dove through, slashing at the Zulkar crouching in the centre of the corridor. The soldier had no time to react and toppled backwards, allowing the boy to run right over him.
Mela’s shield folded in on itself, reshaping into a long blade. She brought it down across the barrel of the nearest rifle, slicing it apart, then struck its owner across the helm with the flat of the blade. As that soldier reeled, Mela thrust her sword into another’s arm, eliciting a cry of pain.
Arc stood a step away from the fighting, mesmerized by the duo. The grace of Mela’s Rashani fighting style seemed to complement Vis’ methodical brutality, and two of the Zulkar were out of the fight in a matter of seconds. He knew he should be fighting too, but the usual doubts and fears were returning, making his legs feel like cement. Nue stood nearby, looking equally unsure of herself. The still-conscious Zulkar in the back row had drawn a sword and now engaged Vis in a sort of duel. Their blades clashed, with Vis pressing hard on his opponent to put him on the defensive. The boy lacked any of the discipline Rashani were supposed to have, but he was good at fighting, just like Arc had once been.
“Vis!” Nue suddenly screamed.
Arc whipped his head around to follow her gaze. The Zulkar Vis had trampled was rising to his feet, rifle trained on the boy’s back. Nue rushed forward, struggling to reshape her Lucidil, but she was moving too slowly.
Forgetting the pistol in his hand, Arc outpaced the girl and slammed into the Zulkar’s back. The rifle fired as he went down, a burst of needles digging into the wall. Arc pinned the soldier beneath his weight, then grabbed for the weapon. They grappled for it for a few heartbeats, until Arc got a strong hold on the grip and slammed the butt against the Zulkar’s chin. The soldier went limp beneath him.
Arc jumped to his feet, holding the rifle like a club in anticipation of another attack, but the hall was quiet. Five Zulkar lay on the floor, limbs splayed in every direction. Some were wounded, but they all seemed to be breathing. He wasn’t sure why he cared, but it was a small relief. He dropped the rifle on the floor and snapped it in half with a strong stomp. Vis leaned against the nearest wall, panting, while Nue flitted around him like a concerned hummingbird.
“Watch your back, kid,” Arc said, sternly. “Don’t want to upset your friend.”
Vis glared back indignantly, breathing heavily. “Thanks.”
The Zulkar had been positioned in front of another room, and Arc didn’t need Rashani senses to tell him who was inside. As he approached the door, though, he saw the Rashani returning to a combat stance, facing down the hallway.
“What’s wrong?”
“More are coming,” said Mela, dully. “I think the ones on the floor made a call before they started shooting.”
Arc turned from the hall to the door, conflicting desires pulling him in either direction. They were so close—retreating now would be insane. But they might not have such an easy time with these new Zulkar.
In the end, he couldn’t make the decision himself. “Should we retreat?” he asked Mela.
“What, now?” Vis exclaimed, incredulous.
Mela smiled. “He has a point. I sense only one life in that room. You should be safe on your own, Mr. Rhapsody. We will hold this position until you’ve secured Trem, then we will fall back to somewhere safe.”
“I’ll be quick.” He would not have the lives of these people on his conscience.
There was a lock on the door, but it was electronic. A full-power blast from his pistol fried the circuits, and he was able to pry the door open with brute force. He took one last look at Mela and the kids, wishing them well, then stepped inside.
The lights were out and the room was pitch-black. Arc stopped with one foot in the doorway. He could hear breathing. Not a good sort of breathing, though; this was a series of short, sharp inhalations, punctuated by frequent coughs and gagging sounds. Arc ran a hand along the wall just inside the doorway, and his fingers brushed a plastic nub. He flipped it, and the room was bathed in light.
Torture chamber was the first thought that sprang to mind. As with the laboratory-slash-shooting-range from before, an assortment of tools hung on racks along two walls, only instead of guns, there were electrical prods, small scalpel-like blades, hammers, and metal vises lined up from biggest to smallest. The far wall was dedicated to a large screen that would put most home theatres to shame, and a familiar crab-like device hung menacingly from the ceiling. The room’s sole occupant lay on a table in the centre, straps binding his body so that he was forced to face the screen. For an instant, Arc didn’t know what he was looking at, but then he began to pick out the wheezing creature’s features. Arc had never seen an Aquila’s face before, and he felt a strange sensation run down his back when he looked down at Dae Trem. Where the closest comparisons to Dwin and Phal were animals, Trem looked almost human.
Dressed in little but his undergarments, Trem’s flesh was bright pink, although a deep purple bruise had formed under one eye. His face was round, with plump cheeks and a bump of a nose with two small nostrils like pinpricks. His hair clung to his head in tight brown curls, his small triangular ears partially hidden in the tangle. If Arc hadn’t had a good deal of respect for his fellow diplomat, he would’ve been tempted to think of him as sort of cute.
He came close and leaned over for a better look. Trem’s eyes flickered open, bright orange, and went wide. His right hand jerked against its restraint, slender fingers gesturing to a table on the far side of the room. Arc saw the gleam of the beak-mask on top and dashed to retrieve it. He had no clue how to put it on Trem’s face, so he undid one of the arm-straps and handed it to him. The gasping Aquila pressed it over his face, and his breathing began to steady while Arc quickly undid the rest of the straps.
Trem lifted himself up, throwing his legs over one side of the table while still holding the mask against his face. “Arc Rhapsody—you’re alive.”
“Did you think otherwise?” Arc asked, actually glad to hear Trem speak for once.
The Aquila shrugged. “I wasn’t sure. Shodus told me he was going to make you his pet, but with all the lies he told me, I thought maybe he’d just killed you.”
“He tried to do both.” Arc cringed at the memory of the hot brand on his back. “I’m a stubborn dog, though.”
“Maybe,” Trem said, half-chuckling to himself. “I see you escaped, at least. What of the Rashani?”
“Alis is alive, but bedridden,” Arc replied with a heavy heart. “Osterly didn’t make it. They murdered him right in front of me. It’s my fault—they were trying to break me. But you knew that, didn’t you? Shodus said you were there.”
“I was. My condolences.” Trem reached behind his head and secured the mask to his face. “Who are our rescuers, by the way? Before I was drugged and dragged off the other ship, I overheard that it was under attack.”
“It’s a long story.” He offered his hand. “I’ll tell you on the way back to our ship.”
Trem took his hand, and Arc helped him off the table. The Aquila was wobbly on his feet, so Arc supported him as they walked to a nearby cupboard where Trem’s clothes had been carelessly crammed, then assisted the poor diplomat in getting them on.
“Shodus said he was brainwashing you,” Arc noted as he worked.
Trem nodded stiffly. “He tried to convince me that you planned the attack and that, despite what I saw with my own eyes, you were the one to kill Ahn Delse. That screen there—they used it to show me ‘evidence’.”
Arc felt a surge of anger. “Let me guess—my old fights?”
Trem toyed with the buttons on the high collar of his shirt, looking off to one side. “I reserve judgment on who you may have been. At the time, though, with all the beatings and mind games, I almost believed it. Almost. But Shodus is a fool if he thinks I would ever mistake the man who killed my father.”
Arc choked back a gasp, keeping a mask of composure. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize.”
“Nor should you have,” said Trem. “Among Aquila, family ties are a private matter. Nepotism is one of the greatest sins.”
“So you and Delse…?”
“I earned my place at his side.” Trem turned his back to Arc. “He was more critical of me because I was his son. I had to prove myself twice as much as any other diplomat.”
“I didn’t mean to offend,” Arc reassured him. “I don’t doubt your capabilities.”
Trem grabbed his gloves and pulled them over his long fingers. “Sorry—I’m not feeling all that well. Come, we should go. Do we have an escort?”
Arc smiled, happy to change the subject. “Right outside. Three Rashani, more or less.”
Trem’s head reeled back in surprise. “You really must tell me this story.”
* * *
The artifact was black, but not the kind of black any paint could produce. It was a deep, empty obsidian, like space itself, a colour that seemed to permeate beneath the surface. The material itself was an unknown form of metal, never before documented, and so hard that the strongest tools aboard the Superius could barely scratch it, giving them only tiny shavings to analyze. The artifact measured two meters long, and less than one meter in width and height. Its shape reminded Vrakk of the coffins Darem and humans buried their dead in.
He pressed his palm against the impossibly smooth surface, cold as ice, and a pulse of red light radiated from his hand, illuminating geometric patterns across its surface. They meant something, he was sure of it, though his researchers had so far failed to decipher them. But the key was in there somewhere, just waiting to be seized.
The communicator on the lab wall beeped, a small red light winking at him. Another call from the security team, no doubt; they were all clueless on how to do their jobs. He’d listened to them at first, giving orders and asking for status reports, but then the hangar had been breached and he’d suddenly found the Security Chief’s whining unbearably repulsive. He hadn’t answered a call in the last hour. The walls of the laboratory were sound-proofed so that the scientists could do their work in peace; there could be a battalion gathering outside and Vrakk wouldn’t have noticed.
Sudra had given him the coordinates almost a year ago now. She’d said they were a gift from the Dreamer to begin his ascension. He’d gathered a crew and gone without a second thought, enchanted with Sudra and her promises. It was a distant star, out beyond the frontier planets of Imperial space, barely within charted territory. He’d gone on the expedition without notifying his superiors—the first seed of rebellion already planted—but he’d had plenty of resources at his disposal. They’d scoured the solar system for days, running every kind of scan they could. They found it in the end, not by scanning, but by a fortunate image recorded by the ship’s cameras. The ruined ship, immune to most forms of detection, was in close orbit around the sun, and its black outline stood out against the ball of fire. It was like they were fated to find it.
The ship had appeared to be made from the same dark metal as the artifact, but it had been severely damaged. The wreckage resembled a hyperspace accident, with huge chunks of the vessel torn off during deceleration. It was dead, and so was every system aboard. There were no bodies, just the husks of broken machinery. A popular hypothesis among the crew was that the ship had been an unmanned probe, although it seemed unusually large for that purpose. They’d searched inside for any clue as to who had built it. Vrakk could only conclude that it had come from a very long way away, maybe even from another galaxy. It might have once been a wonder of technology, but now it was inoperable.
Except for the artifact. They found it at the heart of the ship, sealed behind meter-thick doors they’d spent hours cutting through. When Vrakk had laid eyes on it, the artifact spoke to him, but he did not hear it with his ears; he heard it in his soul. Birthright; the syllables thrummed to the rhythm of his own heart. This was what Sudra had promised him, the key to all the riches and titles his mother had told him he deserved as a child. With this, he would finally inherit his position as a god.
He just had to get it open. Early tests had revealed it to be hollow, and Vrakk’s mind had run wild imagining what it might contain. A weapon, or the designs for one, something to put the Empire’s arsenal to shame. When the war came, he would use it to win a decisive victory, maybe even wipe the Kinship and the Alliance out for good, and the Empire would bend its knee to him. But the artifact was sealed shut and nothing was strong enough to force it open. The symbols sometimes reacted when he pressed his claws to them, so perhaps they were a password input of some kind, but it was in a language no one had ever seen. He had departed from the Empire after taking the artifact, cementing his betrayal, and with the negotiations at the Consortium being the perfect opportunity to sow discord between his enemies, there had been no time to seek out Sudra. If she did not have the answers, then maybe the Dreamer did.
But now things were falling apart. Vrakk’s hudriss seemed more threatened with every setback, and this attack was far more than he had anticipated. At first glance they were pirates, but they were far more numerous and strategic than any such scum he’d encountered before. They bore the four-winged sigils of Ago Corda himself, and the unasked question of how they’d found him was answered when the first report of Inferno mercenaries had come in. That foolish slave Rhapsody aimed to ruin Vrakk’s plans and destroy Sudra’s prophecy.
A question suddenly came to him, unbidden and unwanted: why hadn’t the Dreamer spoken to him directly? Vrakk lifted a beaker off the lab table. Tiny black flecks rested in its bottom, samples scraped from the artifact. Sudra had said her god could speak to anyone, yet He had not deigned to share a single word with His supposed champion, relying on a prophet to act as an intermediary instead. In his eager rush to accept the future Sudra offered, Vrakk had never considered such an obvious puzzle.
He turned the beaker over in his hands, testing its weight. Then, with a quick flick of his wrist, he hurled it against the wall. It made a satisfying crash, scattering fragments across the floor. Not quite sated, Vrakk let out a hiss, gathering it in his throat before unleashing it on the empty room.
The communicator beeped again, and Vrakk jabbed the respond button, nearly crushing it. “What?”
“L-Lord Shodus,” the caller stuttered, voice cracking. “We’ve lost contact with the unit guarding the prisoner.”
A hot wind passed through Shodus, his skin shifting to purple. “Have you sent reinforcements?”
“Of course, my lord,” the Security Chief replied. “Only we’ve lost contact with them as well.”
That was it then. Without Dae Trem, the plan had gone completely off-track. Oddly enough, Vrakk felt his rage subsiding. War would happen, though the sides might be different than he’d intended; but the Empire was strong, and would become stronger once he took the throne. He eyed the artifact once more, its mystique suddenly stripped away; a big, fancy brick. He had been obsessed with it before, but now all he felt was indifference. He pushed away thoughts of Sudra and her Dreamer’s promises, because they didn’t really matter, not now, not in this moment. He was the son of a god, and he didn’t need others’ toys to prove that. He would seize his hudriss, his birthright, with his own hands, and he knew just where to start.
The Security Chief had been babbling in the background, and Vrakk cut him off. “Has there been any sign of Marissa Rhapsody?” When the attack had started, he’d told the crew to keep an eye out for that one; she shouldn’t be underestimated.
The SC hesitated before replying. “Yes, my lord. Cameras picked her up in the hangar with her helmet off. She is piloting a Valk suit.”
Vrakk smiled. Marissa Rhapsody was a woman of many talents, as befit a fellow child of divinity. “We removed the Hammerfist from the hangar, didn’t we?”
“Yes, my lord—we were running tests on its new arms, as I recall.” The SC coughed. “But Bunus is dead, and we’ve no other certified pilots.”
Vrakk closed his eyes, recalling Bunus’ sudden death mere feet from their escape. Rarely did Vrakk feel remorse over the loss of a crew member, but there’d been a slight twinge for his bodyguard. “I’ve done a few test flights. Have it ready for launch by the time I get there.”
“But my lord, the Hammerfist is set to Darem specifications,” the SC argued.
“I will bear with the mild discomfort,” Shodus replied. “Unless you would like to try flying it?”
“I’ll have it ready immediately, my lord!” And then he disconnected.
Vrakk lifted his sheathed swords off the table and looped the straps over his shoulders. As he passed the artifact, he ran a claw along its length. It left no scratch. He shrugged and stepped outside. He would solve the mystery when he returned, if it was even worth considering.
There were two children of gods in this battle. It only made sense that they fight; let might decide the course of destiny and the history that would follow.