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Jaxan gave thanks for the shudder of the transport as it slid down through the skies of Zadomir; it hid her own shivers of fear.
“We can’t stay aboard,” Varley was saying over the thrum of maneuvering fields through the hull. “Ground control will no doubt override ship’s controls at the first sign of trouble.” He chuckled grimly. “Probably just lock us in and wait us out.”
Jaxan looked over her shoulder, into the Skyuza’s main hold. The Initiates massed behind them, waiting in a huddled, trembling mass. All eyed the unloading ramp, still closed before them. Once that cracked, their time would come. The largest and healthiest-looking stood in the front ranks, clenching the particle projection rifles liberated from the transport’s stocks. The weapons looked ridiculous in the hands of most of them.
“External sensors are giving us the view now,” Varley went on. He touched a control panel on the ribbed bulkhead just shy of the ramp and a hologram materialized before him, bluey light glinting in the sweat jewels on his brow. “It’s just the main landing pad.” He pointed at the image of a broad, rectangular tarmac, bordered by bulbous, domed buildings of a construction that seemed vaguely familiar. “Depending on where we come down, our best bet is to make a break for one of these structures.”
Jaxan pushed down a surge of hopelessness, of panic, and regarded the layout. “That other transport is here,” she said, pointing at the vessel settled near the landing pad’s south side. “That’s where they’ll probably put us down.”
The hologram shifted, grew in perspective as they descended for the surface. Varley touched the control and froze the image in place. Holographic notations popped out all about it. He gestured to the south side. “Those buildings, there.” He indicated a large clustering of domes that splayed away from the pad, into a series of tunnel-linked outbuildings that looked almost like legs of some foul thing, crouched on Zadomir’s craggy surface.
Jaxan frowned, eyeing the knots of armed and armored figures, caught in the freeze frame and waiting on their descent. “Those aren’t Zados, or Morvenan; they’re human.”
Varley started to say something, but the hologram blipped out. Lights came on throughout the hold, triggered flinches and whimpering from the Initiates. The note of the maneuvering fields ratcheted higher and the hull quivered as they fought the pull of gravity to bring the ship in for a smooth landing.
“Ground control has taken over the autopilot,” Varley hazarded, drawing and fingering his blaster pistol. He met Jaxan’s gaze. “It’s about that time.”
She drew in a breath and nodded, turned from him to face the Initiates. She met Vetai’s gaze before panning hers across the others. Some of them stiffened, showed some grit under her scrutiny, holding their weapons high. Vetai smiled back at her and gamely tried to balance the rifle in her small hands.
“We’re landing,” Jaxan announced. “As soon as the ramp drops, you all need to be running for it. Shoot anyone standing in the way.” She saw a couple grimaces at that. “Do not hesitate. Whoever’s out there certainly will not.” She thumbed over her shoulder. “There will buildings, either behind us or to the left, depending on how we set down. Make a run for those and find shelter. If the way is blocked, blast it open.”
Glowing eyes fluttering like an altar of candles stirred by a breeze. A few Initiates gulped visibly.
“Telekinetics,” she went on, “don’t waste your time on weapons. Pick up whatever you see that’s loose and fling it at anyone out there.” She smiled grimly. “I’ve seen it done and I bet you’ll know what to do.”
One or two grinned back at her at that.
“Where will you be?” Vetai asked.
Jaxan drew her blaster and held it up. “Leading the way, all the way.” She pointed with her other hand, panned the finger around at them. “But if anything happens to me or Commander Varley, I’m telling you all, now, so you’ll know what to do.”
“If you find the others from the first transport,” Varley added, “set them free. Numbers might make a difference.”
“Speed definitely will,” Jaxan said. “Don’t stop, like I said. And fight. Keep fighting until there’s nothing left. Fight for your lives.” She panned her gaze back and forth. “Fight for each other.” She held Vetai’s last and grinned for her. “Does everyone understand?”
The transport thumped and bobbed under foot, set everyone to wobbling as its landing gears touched ground and flexed under its weight. Jaxan’s ears popped as pressurization in the hold changed. Seals cracked and hissed after a final shudder and the winding down of the maneuvering fields. The ramp hydraulics whuffed and began to squeal, letting it slide open.
The Initiates huddled back behind crates or each other, waiting with eyes slitted and teeth clenched. Jaxan sidled up behind the bulkhead to her right, Varley kneeling down by her shins and aiming his blaster for the opening. She did the same, augmentations mating to her weapon’s electronic site and projecting a yellow icon across her vision. It quivered a little as her hands shook. She clenched, felt a swish of adrenal cool wash up through her nerves.
Just got to live through the next few seconds, Dad, she told herself and her father’s shade—even though there was no sign of him here. Just a few seconds...and then the few more after that...and so on...
Her targeting icon settled upon the leftmost of a trio of men who jumped onto the ramp before it finished dropping and were already coming up. All three wore red-trimmed, black body armor bearing the crest of an arachnid form superimposed over a cross—the symbol of the Star Empire of Golgotha. The man she aimed at had his helmet facemask up and gawked as he suddenly beheld what awaited them in the hold.
Varley fired first, catching the middlemost Golgothan, an officer by his markings, squarely in the chest plate and flinging him backwards down the ramp in a spray of sparks and slag. Jaxan fired a half a second later, missed her man, who duck at his leader’s fall and fumbled to unsling his blaster. Her second shot smeared away his still-stupefied face in an ugly jolt of smoke and fiery matter.
A frenzy of ruby-hued particle bolts ripped out from the gaping hold. The Initiates’ spasm of fire slashed the third Golgothan to burning pieces and punching out into the landing pad beyond—or sprayed off the interior of the transport in splashes of spark and squalls of ricochets.
“Go!” Jaxan screamed, firing at movement out on the pad. “Go and don’t stop!”
Varley was already surging forward and she raced after him, pounding down the ramp, leaping the smoldering remnants of one of the Golgothans—what in the hell are they doing here? But she didn’t have time to think or puzzle it over. Out on the pad, more black-clad forms were reacting, either dashing for cover behind parked vehicles and crates, or shooting back.
A blaster bolt skipped off a crate as Jaxan reached it and momentary ducked for cover. She came back up shooting. Her three-round burst missed, but sent an attacker ducking behind what looked like a cargo truck. More bolts screeched in from her right, sent her ducking again as they lit up the Zadomirian dusk as bright as a blue-sun sky.
They’d come down to the right of the first transport. Golgothans and at least one scuttling shape that looked like a Venklath were scattering from this at the disturbance, some in flight, more with weapons out. These barked and cyan bolts ripped in amongst the Initiates spilling forth from their transport. Tumbling bodies set off a chain reaction of stumble and collapse. Screams rose higher than the energy bolts. The ragged Morvenans tried bringing their clumsy particle rifles to bear. A few red bolts answered the blue-white; but the latter doubled in ferocity in seconds, tearing through metal and flesh and filling the air with flames and death.
Jaxan came from behind her crate again, firing to the right wildly. The Venkalth was silhouetted perfectly against lights from the far side of the field and one of her bolts found its leading legs, blew a scuttling appendage apart like sticky pottery. It went down squealing and tripped up the Golgothan behind it. Jaxan kept firing until human and non-human forms were ablaze.
Her fury attracting a storm of counterfire, blaster streaks ripping the lid of her crate to splinters and slag. She dropped down on her buttocks, clenched low as hot bits sprinkled and stung at exposed skin. Something thumped onto the concrete at her side and she found herself looking at an Initiate, smoking drifting from a hole in his sternum, the glow fading from his eyes.
“Scott!” she hollered over the din.
“Got to keep going!” he screamed back from where he’d taken cover behind a canister that she hoped contained nothing flammable. He lunged into motion, sprinting for the near side of the tarmac and the cluster of domes there. Initiates surged after him instinctively, even foolishly as more exposed themselves and blaster fire chased them.
Jaxan exploded back to her feet, backpedaling and firing at first, then pivoting into a full sprint after Varley. Blaster streaks keened past her, smacked into fleeing forms. Slain Morvenans hit the pavement in twirls of limbs and smoke. Wailing and the thunder of dozens of pairs of feet almost drowned out the firefight clamor. On the far side, slit openings of doors were forced and the Initiates who’d reached them were waving their companions on in.
A Morenan girl who couldn’t be more than ten stopped suddenly and turned. Jaxan flew by the kid, actually skidding on her heels in her attempt to arrest her forward motion. Doubling-back, she reached for the girl.
“What are you—”
The parked cargo truck she’d just passed boomed as though caught in some unseen grip. With a groan of metal it shifted up onto one set of its huge rubber wheels, wobbled, and then left the ground altogether. Jaxan gawked as she realized the girl was one of the telekinetics, lifting the monstrosity with her young mind. The huge machine reached a meter off the tarmac and hung there, struck several times by blaster fire. A bolt smacked its underside and flames whoompfed from a lit fuel line.
The girl pushed her hands out before her and the truck lurched away, across the field as though flung by a giant. Golgothans, seeing it coming, scattered to get out of the way. Several weren’t fast enough, were swept under as the mass struck the pad, tumbled, and careened side-over-side into the neighboring transport. Fire spumed forth, at first a rushing roar, then a whaaaam of detonating engine that rocked the other Skyuza off its landing gears and sent a flame-wreathed shockwave rushing across the tarmac.
Jaxan found herself on her backside before she knew what had hit her. For long moments, the concrete stung against her shoulders and lower spine while the sky above her was smoke and embers rushing for the stars. Blood taste filled her mouth, but she seemed otherwise unhurt. Ears rang as she blinked and wobbled to get back to her feet. Smoldering debris pattered down around her.
The telekinetic girl turned to her with a crazed smile. The fire plume of the exploded truck and demolished transport silhouetted her like a maniacal little scarecrow.
A blaster bolt sliced out of the anarchy to glance off her hip in a smear of flames.
“No!!!”
The kid went down with a yelp of shock more than pain. But that came quickly enough, a throttled moan becoming a scream as Jaxan scampered to her side. Blaster fire skipped off the concrete around them as she tried to pull the girl to her feet. She thrashed, raked one of Jaxan’s cheeks inadvertently as she tried to pick her up.
“No time, Jaxan!”
Varley appeared at their sides, kneeling, firing with a confiscating Golgothan weapon into fumes and fire. Shadows advanced from the seething gloom, cyan blades lashing out from each. With his free left hand, he fumbled for Jaxan’s shoulder, pulled at her.
“You’ve got to move!”
Jaxan flung the kid over her shoulder, ignoring the stink of her singed flesh and her pained convulsions. The slit-entrance to the dome at the edge of the field seemed impossibly far, but she lurched for it, chased by energy bolts, explosions kicked up at her heels, and Varley’s bellowed admonishments. Morvena who’d already reached what looked like a garage of some sort watched them with wide eyes and gawking mouths.
They flinched back as Jaxan stumbled through the entrance into a hold packed with shivering, panting forms. She dumped the wounded girl into the arms of the nearest of these and whirled back to the slit with her blaster up. Varley backpedaled past her, firing as he came. An energy packet dashed off the lip of the right door, spattered him in slag and set him to cursing and momentarily batting off fiery bits.
Jaxan took his place at the door, blasting away. The fire from outside intensified for a second, then slackened. Shapes scuttled between wreckage and vehicles abandoned on the tarmac. More could be heard coming from the far side of the field, beyond billowing smoke, and an alarm wound up, warbling mournfully against the red-brown, knife-edged cliffs that enveloped the base at a distance.
“Are you alright?” she asked Varley.
“Fine, dammit!” he snapped, patting out the last of the cinders. He settled at her side and stared out into the fire-wreathed night. “Gravity’s lighter than standard,” he said oft-handedly.
“That’s what you’re paying attention to?” she squawked back at him.
“Helped us move faster,” he replied. “But it’ll be the same for them.” A bolt rang off the outside of the building and he flinched back for a moment. “They’re surrounding us.”
“What have we got in here?” Jaxan looked over her shoulder. The inside of the dome was mostly empty, looked like a motor pool emptied out to service starships come and going. The surviving Initiates crammed into the middle of this. A body in the black of Golgotha lay in one corner, smoking from an energy wound and visibly avoided.
“I’ll get that other doorway,” Varley said, “and someone at the windows. Looks like they’re giving us a few seconds to sort themselves out. Caught ‘em completely with their pants down!”
Jaxan grabbed his sleeve as he started to move away. “Right, but...” she tugged him close “Scott, what then?”
“I don’t know,” he half-giggled, sounding almost deranged. “Didn’t think we’d make it this far!” A flinch across his face brought back some semblance of control. “We hold them off.”
“Hold them?”
“That was the plan, wasn’t it?” He grinned and seemed very sane, very frightened. “We give these bastards a fight. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
***
THE LIFT DOOR TO MAIN Engineering hissed open and Styx staggered out. Normally a dark-hued man, a patina of aerosolized metal had darkened him further. The fires he’d been fighting looked like they’d gotten a little too close for comfort. Dropping the emergency axe and slumping against a bulkhead to catch his breath, Rougan could see the fight hadn’t gone well.
“Starboard magazine is cut off,” he wheezed. “Doesn’t look like it’s threatened but the relay mechanisms are jammed. Melted.”
“At least we won’t have an antimatter blast in our laps,” Rougan replied. He turned to Vekkla, slumped against the wall nearest the Reflex Furnace and drinking from a water bottle. “What did the aft projectors look like?”
“They are completely destroyed,” the cephalopod replied grimly, “all coils.”
Rougan nodded mutely. A silence settled over the rest of the engineers huddled around him. He’d been using the Main compartment as a coordination point, sending details out and back to different points of crisis. Everyone was used up. And the news that an entire bank of their shield capacity was gone added fatalism to their exhaustion. One hit there and Tenacity was dead.
The workstation by the Furnace pinged with an incoming message, simultaneously with his augmentations’ comm suite—Raker was getting impatient. Rougan sighed, considered dismissing his people in order to take it privately. But to hell with that; they all knew the situation. And he was wrung-out, too.
“Captain?” he replied, touching the workstation controls.
“What’s the good news, Tom?”
Rougan suppressed a snort. “Well, we haven’t quite blown up, sir.” That got smiles and chuckling from the listening engineers, but a tense silence from Raker’s end. “The Drives are surprisingly stable,” he went on hurriedly. “We’ve got almost full power from the Hypernaughts. Problem is, some of the systems we’d send all that to are gone.”
“Shields?”
“Aft quarter is completely gone,” he Rougan replied with a glance at Vekkla. “Portside ventral, mostly, too. We don’t have enough surviving coils to compensate across the entire perimeter, and even trying will badly weaken what we can put up.”
“Can you get any of it back?”
“Are you going to bring us out of Void Speed and give us time to work?” Rougan didn’t mean to let out the nearly-mad note that crept into his voice.
“You know where we’re going, Lieutenant Commander.”
Rougan flinched at Raker’s icy tone. “Aye sir.” He swallowed once and thought about it. “How long do we have?”
“Thirty-eight minutes.”
Jesus. Styx was muttering something and shaking his head. Vekkla’s flesh turned a bruised yellow-brown that couldn’t possibly be a positive expression. Rougan held up a hand as muttering rose to protest from the others. “Hold one, sir.” He hit mute on the comm panel and asked Styx, “Is the way to Parts and Storage open again?”
“You want me to pull a Shield Coil from backup?” the man wondered. “And—I’ll tell you, Tom—one’s about all we’d have time for.”
“That’ll do.” He looked at Vekkla. “Can we make that work?”
“Shields aren’t my specialty, sir,” the cephalopod replied. “But if I had to guess, we could just smash out one of the portside coils and replace it in that time.” It made its kind’s equivalent of a shrug. “That will be the best we can manage. The aft side sockets are all melted.”
Rougan nodded and touched the workstation again. “I think we can restore a little of the port and aft banks, sir. But don’t let anyone get behind us for long.”
“No promises,” Raker replied. “You’re sure about the Drives? Full power? Number Two’s not going to flake out on us again?”
Rougan glanced at the Drive schematic, watched as Two fluttered between green and yellow, as if just to taunt him. “No promises, sir,” he snorted.
“Do your best. Thanks, Tom.”
Rougan sighed and turned to his people, couldn’t help but sag slightly against the console at his back. “Alright, you heard him. Styx, break out the spares! Let’s go people!”
Vekkla sidled up beside Rougan as the others scrambled to their tasks. “I do not suppose you have that flask available, sir?” the Xokan wheeze-whispered to him.
Grinning at the octopoid being, Rougan replied, “Nah...forgot it in all the rush. Probably for the better.”
The Xokan’s tentacles fluttered in what Rougan could only interpret as dissatisfaction. He had a moment to wonder where exactly on the cephalopod’s anatomy it would actually take a drink.
“Probably for the better,” Vekkla muttered. “But I still wish it was not so.”
***
“IT’S NOT IDEAL, SIR,” Imliss was saying, standing at the opposite head of the table in the senior conference room, “but at least it’s relieving the strain on our facilities.” She glanced at one of the un-shuttered viewports, at the profile of Rrudalor, silhouetted against the weird streaks of distorted space-time as it streaked along at Tenacity’s flank. “The Grakans say they can take at least another shuttle-full.”
“That’s about all you’ll have time for,” Dath replied. He softened his tone as he noted the sag of the physician’s shoulders. Her long coat had long-since ceased being white and looked like it might sag off her bony, drained form. “Hurry, please, Karen.”
“I will.” She turned and started for the door, then paused and stiffened, turned to look back at him. “Twenty-eight. That’s how many we’ve lost.” Her lips quivered. “So far. I thought you should know.”
Dath suppressed the wince that fought its way to his face. The way she said it sounded like an accusation. “Thank you, Doctor.”
She whirled and was gone, the door whisking shut at her back.
“I’m sorry, Dath...” Ylura began to say, seated to his right.
He held up his hand for quiet, a nasty, curt gesture—but one that hid pain as he turned his seat to his left, where Alvarez sagged back in a chair. “If we can’t reach the starboard magazine, how many missiles does that leave us with?”
“It’s not great, sir,” the Tactical Officer replied. “Two volleys. We’ve got a couple plasma blasters out, too—shrapnel damage.” He leaned forward, over the tables, fingers fidgeting together. “Anti-missile racks are expended. And only the starboard torpedo tubes.”
“Can we safely overload those?”
“Yes sir.”
“Charge them up,” he said harshly. “Charge everything up. We’ll be going in hot.” He touched the comm control on the tabletop, keyed up the channel to the bridge and the Operations Station. “Regal, do we still have an eye on Devourer?”
“Longe-range scanning indicates she will be reaching Zadomir shortly.”
“Thank you.” He released the control and glowered again at Alvarez. “She’ll be waiting for us, with whatever they’ve still got there.”
“Won’t be much.” The young officer shook his head and smiled ferally. “They emptied those docks out in chasing us.”
“Agreed.” Dath returned the expression. “Get back up to the bridge, Sergio. I’ll be up there shortly.”
“Aye sir.”
Dath waited for him to go, for the door to whisk shut once again, before he pivoted to face Ylura and her cousin, standing off to one side and watching the ghostly stream of phenomena past Tenacity’s port side.
“So,” Ylura started cautiously, “now we know it all.”
“Except why,” Dath growled. “The Gray Ring and House Red, conspiring together?”
“They had the same ends,” Ylura replied with a weary shrug. “Alliance with the Republic, even just continuing friendship, meant a weakening of both. Krazmyb’s whole platform has been hyper-nationalism. And the Ring’s activities would never be tolerated in the broader galactic community.” She glanced at Yddisa, but the young Morvenan didn’t seem to notice. “Both stood to lose everything should the Unity proceed.”
“And, so, they turned to the very thing they feared most—” Dath blew out a breath “—their Old Enemy.
“I didn’t say it was sane.”
“It was fear,” Yddisa snarled. “It was cowardice. The future terrifies them. Their sort would always rather wallow in a doomed, backwater empire than face the unknown—and the possible.”
“But the Initiates...?” Dath frowned at Ylura. “I thought you said the Ring has been trying to research, use them to discover some new level of power? They were bartering away their future. And what do the Golgothans intend to do with them?” He held down a shudder. “Could they use them?”
“Undoubtably,” Ylura replied after a glance at her cousin. “The Arathra are telepathic parasites. Their human cultists they use as puppets and vessels of their will. But they are still simply implements to them. The Initiates, with their powers and sensitivities...they could use them as the Old Kings did.”
“Slaves,” Dath said.
“Worse,” Tahna bit out. “Weapons.”
Ylura flinched. “Dath, we’ve got to get them out there.”
He reached across the table for her and she reached back, accepted it. He held on tight for a moment, felt for that bond that existed between them.
“We will.”
***
“SIR! DISTRESS CALL from the surface!”
Heath scowled at Bauer as the young Communications Officer pivoted to face him. “What are you talking about?”
Devourer was decelerating for orbit over Zadomir, its bland brown and white-swirled curve flattening beneath them. One of the construction gantries hung in the void off the starboard bow, empty, as they’d all be. This scheme had cleaned out everything, including the Zados’ chances at remaining unpunished for their meddling.
“It’s from the base!” Bauer went on. “They say they’ve got an uprising on their hands!”
Heath shot Harlander a look as the Magus stepped from his darkened corner to his side. “Uprising? Who?”
Panic flooded Heath’s veins, became a knot of pain at the base of his skull. And the emotion wasn’t his. Damian Heeeath, the Mistress wailed. It’s the supply!
“Prisoner breakout from the transports,” Bauer reported, needlessly now. “Base Command reports they’re fighting to contain it, but there are hundreds of them!”
“They’re unarmed and drugged,” Heath insisted through a fog of his Goddess’ fury, pressing fingertips to either side of his sweat-drenched face. “The base has a garrison...”
Harlander’s hand was on his shoulder, gripping, trembling. “Mind-witches, Heath,” he rasped at his ear—by the throttled sound of his voice, was enduring the Mistress’ connection, as well.
Heeeeeath, the Mistress wailed. We must have the supply! You must secure it! Everything else is secondary to that!
“Bauer, reply to Base that we have arrived and will support from orbit—”
The Mistress pinched his skull in the fangs of Her mind. Bombardment is too dangerous. You will kill too many of them. You must send people down.
“She is right,” Harlander added hoarsely. “I can take a detachment down and rally the Base Command.”
“A handful of your Fangs isn’t going to make any—”
“Sir!” Keitel cried from his station. “Long-range scanning shows Tenacity inbound! She followed us from MEU-1279! Arrival in less than twenty minutes!”
Heath looked to the main screen and the regional display, saw the light-mote of the Republic battlecruiser streaking for them. The Mistress relaxed somewhat from his mind, perhaps realizing events had overrun Her immediate needs and she needed to let him command, once again. Or it could have simply been the cool flow of vengeance through his bloodstream. Either way, a smile crinkled his lips.
“Brother-Commander Mueller,” he rasped, wiping sweat from his upper lip with the back of a sleeve, “ship’s status report?”
“Moderate damage to the shields,” the First Officer replied. “They’re hovering at about eighty percent. Sensor suite still spotty, but mostly resolved. We have two plasma blasters out, due to overheat. Propulsion and all other systems are at nominal.”
“And Tenacity’s already been torn up from the fight over the gas giant,” Harlander added.
“We’ve expended over half our missile complement,” Keitel warned.
“And she’s still a Fenris-class,” Heath said, waving Harlander to step back from him. “Wounded, but very dangerous, as we all know already.”
The supply, Heeeath, the Mistress implored, more gently now, but still with needle-pricks across his nerves.
“Helm, take us around to the far side of the planet and reduce power to Drives,” Heath ordered. “Reduce our signature.”
“That won’t hide us for long,” Mueller pointed out.
“Not trying to hide, Brother-Commander,” Heath replied. “Just creating uncertainty. Raker will have to guess which angle we spring from. More than that; if he has any intent of helping those witches on the surface, he’ll have to send down shuttles, or at least hold in geosynchronous. When he slows to do that, we hit him.”
“Aye sir,” Mueller agreed hungrily.
“Second ship on sensors,” Keitel noted. “It’s that Grakan free trader.”
“Grakan junk-pile,” Heath sniffed. “Ignore her. All weapons will concentrate on Tenacity.” He turned to Harlander. “Ready your men at the shuttles. As soon as we’ve finished her off, you may head for the surface.”
Harlander didn’t bother with an acknowledgement, simply spun and left. The Mistress was receding almost completely, now, seeming satisfied with her vassal’s orders and direction. In Her place, a trembling glee came over Heath.
Tenacity—Raker—had escaped him before. They had had her crippled and ripe for the taking, just outside the Typhon System, months ago. This was not quite so ideal; but she was here, again hurt, again exposed.
And this time, Heath would not be stopped.
***
JAXAN EYED THE SWIRL of smoke and flame out on the tarmac. Fumes gave everything motion, set her blaster sites to twitching this way and that. But nothing definitive showed itself. The only Golgothans she saw now sprawled on the concrete, smoldering from energy blast hits.
“Got quiet,” she muttered to Varley, crouched at the door on the other side from her. “Too damned quiet.”
It wasn’t really. From behind the wreck of the first transport, a loudspeaker blatted something harshly, orders in the gutturals of Golgothan Standard. And machinery thrummed; sounded like engines and anti-gravity motors whirring up. They were out there, getting ready for something.
“Watch the windows,” Varley told their mismatching of defenders. “And watch those back doors.”
Older Initiates readied by the slits in the dome they’d slid open, aiming confiscating weapons out into the night. Few looked competent with them, but all had acquired a cold stare in the last hour of fight and standoff and death. A few more waited near the back doors into the rest of the complex that they’d hastily-barricaded.
The rest huddled in the middle of the garage—what Jaxan figured now must have housed some of the heavy equipment she’d seen abandoned on the field. She tried not counting the Morvena, but knew they’d left no small number of the poor devils on the tarmac—perhaps a few even trapped, still, on the Skyuza.
“What the hell are they waiting for?” Jaxan rumbled through clenching teeth. “They were all over us.”
“Maybe we’ve got them on the run,” Varley quipped.
“Ha.”
Jaxan heard a pained intake of breath and glance at the Initiates again. Vetai had one set of fingers pressed to her temple as her eyes pinched shut. A few of the others looked similar, grimacing, clutching their heads, one even sagging to her knees. They looked as though they could hear something no one else was.
“Vetai, honey,” Jaxan turned fully from her perch at the door, “what is it?”
The particle rifle Jaxan wasn’t even sure the girl had fired dropped from her other hand with a clang and she had both temples squeezed now. Behind her, someone dropped, knocking down others like struck bowling pins. A low moan was passing through them as they wobbled and crumpled and pawed at their heads.
“What the hell’s happening to them?” Varley hissed. One of the Morvena minding a position at a window drifted back from it, their weapon dipping low. “Hey, hold that spot!”
Jaxan fought the urge to go to Vetai and the need to remain at the doorway. A moment later, though, a ping from her augmentations blanked those considerations out. “What is that...?” She touched the side of her face, now. A schematic of Zadomirian orbit sprang out in the lower left-hand quadrant of her vision and showed a light-mote slowing for an approach of the planet.
“Tenacity!” Varley exclaimed, was clearly being pinged, as well.
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But she’s close enough that our short-ranged communicators are picking up her transponder and trying to connect!”
Jaxan gave herself a shake, blinked several times to command her onboard AI to confirm the findings. Repeatedly, it displayed Tenacity’s signature, and getting stronger, coming on fast and loud for the whole galaxy to see.
For the first time in what felt like years, but had certainly only been under an hour, Jaxan thought she might live to see another.
“They found us...”
Bang!
A jerk went through everyone in the garage. Jaxan and Varley stared at each other, then looked to the rear of the room, towards the barricaded entrance that presumable led further into the complex. A purl of dust drifted from the lip of the jarred slit-door.
Bang!
Bang-bang-bang!
The seam near the latch to the slit-door dimpled inward as blows like small hammers pummeled its other side. Thin metal deformed, began bulging inward all along its edges. Something like heavy shapes being flung against it shook the door, gave it a constant ring. The violence of the assault on it caused the upended worktable barricade flung against it to rattle back, jarring the already-distracted Morvenans into retreat.
“Hold that!” Varley hollered at them, half-turning from his spot at the front. “Lean into it, whatever it is!”
The upper right-hand corner of the door peeled inward, forced by repeated impacts. Sparks and twists of metal spalled away from it, exposing an open, dark corner. Something flitted through the gap for a moment, lengths of spiny, finger-like appendages extending, flexing, then retreating when the space wasn’t enough. The blows resumed and the corner rent further inward. A clang-screech followed as the edge of the door parted and slid a centimeter into the room, slamming the barricade back into its defenders’ shins.
More of the appendages were creeping through the gap. And, with a gust of icy shock blowing through her, Jaxan recognized them. Not just appendages...legs! Hairy, chitin-sheathed legs that would be followed by bulbous, murderous bodies.
One of these squirmed through the broadening gap, trailing slime from the abrasions of forcing its way into the space. Segmented legs got a grip near the bent door latch, pulled, a heaving bulge of abdomen through while rows of hateful, inhuman eyes glowered out.
Jaxan raised her blaster without thinking, fired. The cyan bolt shrieked by gawking Initiates and slammed into the arachnoid shape, turned it into a brief fireball and spray of splintering chitin and steaming slime. Morvena screamed and flinched away from the detonation. And Jaxan realized the error of her reflexive shot instantly; her blast had jolted the door further open and left a glow, slagged hole where the latch had been.
And the bastards were squirming through.
“Arathra!” Varley screamed and fired his own blaster, splattering one of the vermin as it writhed over the top of the door.
Not full-sized specimens, no—but drones, the “Children”, the worker-murderer class of the Golgothan goddess’ sick society. And mirrors of the horrors that had stalked Tenacity’s corridors while she fought for her life outside Typhon. And they were here, coming for them.
“Kill them!” Varley bellowed. “Fire!”
Some of the Initiates had collapsed where they stood, overwhelmed. Jaxan could only guess it was from the low-level psychic assault of the drones. But a few fumbled to bring their weapons to bear, even as their companions scattered or cowered. A ruby beam clawed out, carved a glowing slash in the wall that ended in a fiery splash of exploding Arathra. The Morvenan teenager who’d fired grinned in momentary triumph.
Another Arathra surged paste the gluey remnants of its predecessor and leapt for the kid. He got the rifle up, crosswise before his chest, before the horror hit him. Impact still carried both to the floor. The kid landed with the thing trying to claw its way past the braced barrel for his face.
Varley kicked the Arathra in the flank, sent it tumbling in a flail of limbs that opened a lane through scattering Initiates. He followed the blow with a one-two blast from his weapon that blew the creature into neat, twitching halves. But he didn’t hesitate to savor the victory, as the kid had, turned instead to slam his shoulder into the barricade.
“Block it up!” he roared at the Initiates. “Help me, dammit! They’re coming from inside the facility!”
Jaxan started towards him, but screams from the defenders at the windows turned her. One of the Initiates—one of the few full-adults—was waving out into the night from her vantage, unable to form words in her fright.
Slamming back against the front door frame, Jaxan aimed once again out at the landing field. At first, she saw only the lazy twist of red-lit smoke, her augmentations finding no movement to settle the holographic site upon. But then she heard. Almost felt the skittering. Sets of hateful, hooved feet hammering the pavement.
Then she saw. Shapes burst through the fumes at ground level, coming on at a ground-eating, fluid, utterly-inhuman pace on eight legs apiece. Rows of eyes caught firelight and danced like kicked sparks. Fangs glistened and foamed. Man-sized forms lingered back, far back, appeared unwilling to follow too closely.
The Arathra weren’t just coming from inside the facility; they were coming from everywhere.
“Fire!” Jaxan cried and triggered a blast that turned the closest into shreds and flame. “Fire, damn you all!”
***
“TWELVE MINUTES TO THE surface,” the shuttle pilot announced as his vessel slid from the bay of Tenacity. “Going in hot!”
The compartment shook as Ylura helped Tahna clasp the loan-out armored chest plate at the flank seams. “I’m sorry it doesn’t fit so well,” she told her, not really certain why, and giggled. Tahna replied in kind, but submitted as her cousin finished the work.
Cho was shouldering back through his toughs, his faceplate lifted from his helm and his features grim. “Stay back with Ghath,” he told them—in his stress forgetting to address Ylura by rank. “We’re already taking fire.”
The shuttle rattled again. The interior of the compartment was a bland, armored gray to match most of its occupants—a squad of ten. But a holographic display projected at its fore showed the external view. They fell away from Tenacity like a skydiver, dropping for Zadomir’s ugly brown-and-white as jolts of energy fire streaked by. Something glanced off the shuttle’s shields to starboard in a gouge of pale brilliance, jolting everyone.
“Might not have much of a job to do, at this rate,” Ghath muttered from one side.
“Shut up,” Cho called over his shoulder at the Korthan giant. His voice was surprisingly mild. He looked again at Ylura, then at Yssida. “I’ve seen what you can do, Miss. Can we count on a little of that help, down there?”
“That is why I am here,” she replied with a determined grin.
“If there are Morvena,” Ylura said, drawing Cho’s gaze back to hers, “she can rally them and guide them out of the way. But Golgothans are human; she’ll have limited effectiveness against those.”
“Hey, any help I can get, Lieutenant.”
“Right. Thanks, Cho.”
He nodded and turned back to the others. “Check your weapons! Check each other!”
His voice grew progressively harsh, hoarse as he sidled through his people to the head of the compartment. “First fire team steps off with me! Don’t trip over each other, this time!”
Another quiver went through the shuttle and it wasn’t clear if it came from blaster fire or atmospheric entry. The vibration wobbled Ylura close to Tahna. The contact conjured an image from her skull—one she knew came from her cousin: the pair of them exploring the hedge maze in the back of their uncle’s estate. They both knew its patterns by heart, but in the sun and green of a summer day, feigned confusion, played at being lost.
We’ve always been lost in all of this, Tahna thought to her. You and I were only ever wandering in the maze of our society, never truly a part of it.
Picking up on the fatalistic, gray-black hue of Tahna’s aura, Ylura took her arm in her hand, gave her a supportive little shake. I’m not lost. Not anymore. You don’t have to be, either.
Tahna locked gazes with her, her eye-glow simmering down to a warm red-pink, like a sunset. She smiled and it was impossible to miss the melancholy. I’m glad for you, Big Sister. Really, I am. But for me, there is only the wandering.
You said you had purpose. Ylura tightened her grip. You said you had a cause.
I did. Tahna visibly shook herself. I do. We help our people. We help them home. Her face tightened into a furious mask. And then we make home face what it allowed done to our people.
That doesn’t sound like a maze, my dear. Ylura clapped her on the shoulder. That sounds like a straight line.
But the sorrow in her eyes, across Tahna’s aura persisted.
I’m sure it looks that way to you, my love.
***
“SHUTTLES AWAY!” REGAL announced.
Dath watched the quartet of blips of Tenacity’s entire shuttle complement drop from them towards the surface. Streaks of fire slashed up from the planet and the ships spread out into evasion paths. Alarms blatted from the tactical display as a scattering of missiles trails extended for them.
Trying not to think about Ylura in one of those, suspended miles above a hostile planet, Dath ordered, “Clemens, signal Rrudalor to provide covering fire!”
Tenacity shivered as her own short-range armament opened-up, clawing for the rising missile volley and turning the warheads into pale smears of fluorescing gas in Zadomir’s stratosphere. Rrudalor’s armaments blazed in turn, finishing off the salvo. But alarms warned of more rising.
“It’s that sub-arctic base,” Alvarez noted. “The one we saw before. Most of the rest of the settlements have gone dark; no comms, no weapons fire, nothing.” He smirked. “Probably realizing this has become more trouble than it’s worth!”
“Captain!” Clemens exclaimed and turned from her station to him. “I’m picking up Golgothan transmissions from the surface, the base, some of them un-encrypted! It...sounds like there’s a fight already underway on the surface.”
“Confirm that,” Dath said.
“Sir!” She cupped a hand to her left ear, pressing the set to it and face crinkling in confusion. “I’m...getting ping-back from Fleet augmentations!” The crinkling smoothed into shock and her eyes widened. “Captain, it’s Commander Varley and Lieutenant Jaxan’s signatures!”
“What?!?!”
“It’s faint, but Control confirms it’s them!”
Dath’s mouth hung open a full second. Ylura had said the pair had been observing the Ring’s transports. Maybe they’d infiltrated. Or maybe they’d been caught, and dragged here. “Inform the shuttles,” he ordered and turned to the Systems station. “Do we have eyes on Devourer, yet?”
“I’m not seeing her,” Yi replied. “We lost her signature not long after she arrived in-system. Scanning again, sir.”
“She’s out there,” Dath growled and eyes the unresponsive sprinkling of contacts in orbit with them. “What about those construction docks?”
“Nothing, sir,” Yi replied. “They all appear empty.” She typed a command into her console. “They are powered-up, however.”
“They were building those ships that jumped us,” Dath said. “That means they’re fair game. Alvarez, target the nearest and fire. Maximum yield to ensure nothing falls on the planet.”
“Aye sir!”
A new alarm warbled and a speck of light flared into being on the far side of Zadomir on the tactical display. It was already moving, tearing around the curve of the planet. Its glow intensified as power levels rose.
“There!” Yi cried. “Devourer coming on fast!”
“Coming right at us,” Dath rumbled.
Of course, Heath was. He’d waited for them to settle into the high orbit and start disgorging shuttles, perfectly exposed and shackled by the drag of gravity. Now Dath had to make the choice between breaking free to maneuver or standing in place and taking whatever punishment came her way to protect the landings.
Except, there was a third choice.
“Zovga, bring us about,” Dath ordered, “and take us right back at her!”
“Sir!”
“Alvarez, fire everything we’ve got!”
Devourer was already disappearing behind the cloud of its Death Web missile salvo, a dozen missiles tearing out over the brown and white curve of Zadomir. The tails of those projectiles lengthened for Tenacity, she followed them in at a still-accelerating course, plasma bolts searing out. The ranges were tactically close, almost knife-fighting distance already. Heath was counting on overwhelming fire to whittle down Tenacity’s advantages.
The Old Wolf shuddered in response, her own missiles fuming from their racks and winding into the path of the enemy’s. Blasters and particle cannon throbbed simultaneously, carving the space over Zadomir into multicolored angles. Tenacity, too, sped up behind the firestorm of her attacks, charging for Devourer; the two ships practically missiles, themselves, on a collision course.
Dath clenched his armrest as sweat tickling into his eyes, burned. Tenacity heaved around him as Golgothan plasma bolts connected with their shields. The ship advanced through a cataclysm of exploding missiles, fireballs, energy streaks, and spalls of shrapnel glittering off her protective fields.
This insane, hyper-velocity game of chicken couldn’t last long.
“Torpedoes!” Dath hollered.
A trio of solid energy shafts crashed forth from Tenacity. But it looked like Heath had already been the first to blink. Devourer was peeling out of her charge, veering away from the planet and off to Tenacity’s starboard. She was almost fast enough. One of the torpedoes streaked off into nothingness, leaving a faint, momentary glow across Devourer’s flank shield. But the remaining two slammed home amidships, ball-lighting patterns linked in snaking energy that tore at the shields and turned the ship’s turn away into a tumble.
“Hard to starboard!” Dath ordered. “Keep on her!”
“She’s running hard!” Alvarez replied. “Heavy damage to her starboard shield banks!”
Had they had a full torpedo spread, that would have finished the fight, right then and there, Dath reflected furiously. But he had no more time to ponder it; a fresh set of alarms were warbling together into a single cacophony. “What the hell is—”
Tenacity jolted as smears of cyan marred her aft shields. The weakened quarter almost instantly went red on the damage readouts. And following that came sprays of missiles from a half dozen unexpected angles.
“The docks!” Alvarez squawked. “They kitted them out with light plasma weapons and missile racks!”
Dath gritted his teeth as he eyed the orbital platforms, flinging out fire. Tenacity shook again, hard enough that he heard something bang loose and rattle belowdecks. “We can keep taking a beating to aft! Zovga turn our tail away from them! Put the starboard shields between us and that fire!”
“Devourer will pull away,” the Korthan replied.
“Do it!” Dath met Alvarez’s eyes. “Knock those damned things down!”
Tenacity’s plasma blasters were already strobing, blitzing the dock-fired missiles from the sky. Particle beam cerulean joined cyan, stabbing out for the construction facilities. The docks had little in the way of defenses; a Fenris-class broadside was certainly beyond their capacity. The first one disappeared in a hurricane of fire and shrapnel, hadn’t finished exploding when Tenacity’s beams found a second, and a third, kept going, searing.
The skies over Zadomir shined bright as day as the criminal enterprise they’d built so painstakingly with Gologtha’s help went down in flames.
But the ugly, familiar alarm of hostile targeting was warbling anew. “Devourer coming back!” Alvarez cried. “Off the port bow!”
“Turn into them, Zovga!” Dath hollered. “Port turn! Take ‘em down the starboard side and rotate towards the dorsal shields!”
Dath’s guts twisted sickeningly as the violence of the maneuver leached through the inertial compensators. Tenacity almost began to cavitate, twisting and spiraling at the same time. It looked as though she’d careen right across Devourer’s path and the other ship responded reflexively, beginning to angle away.
That didn’t stop her from firing.
Heath didn’t bother wasting missiles at this range, unleashed with his ship’s full close-range armaments, a perfect Golgothan battle pass. Dath bit down a groan as the bridge juddered around him and the holoscreens glowed with hits. A splash pattern of bolts walked the length of Tenacity’s starboard shields, feasting upon the energetic barrier, draining it. Something had to get through. Did.
A tearing blast rippled up from the right flank, rumbling the length of the hull and nearly shaking Dath from his chair. He held on only with a desperate fumbling of his left arm and that motion sent agony slivering from his right, overriding the painkillers. White flames fluttered in his good eye and warning from his augmentations’ body monitors flickered red across the artificial one.
He fought to ignore both as he called to Yi, “How bad?”
“Hull breach,” the young woman replied. “L Deck, starboard, aft. No vital systems.”
“They snuck one through in that weak tail-side quarter,” Alvarez snarled.
“Let’s not let them do that again,” Dath spat. “Zovga, starboard again! Hard turn! Get on their tail! Get between ‘em and Rrudalor!”
“Captain,” Regal called from her station, “getting the signal that the shuttles are down and deploying at the site!”
That meant Tenacity didn’t need to be covering for them or their Grakan friends. “Clemens,” Dath said, “tell Garrasta to get Rrudalor the hell out of range! She’ll just be getting in the way now!” He didn’t hear her acknowledgement and most certainly didn’t want to hear the combative Grak captain’s reply to that. “Alvarez, where’s Heath?”
“Trying to put distance between us, sir.”
“Trying to get breathing room,” Dath growled. “Zovga, don’t let them have it!”
“Aye sir.”
On the tactical, Tenacity shot out from Zadomir, chasing the red spark of Devourer almost directly away from the planet. Both ships were building up velocity now, clawing for the speeds that provided nearly as much safety as shields.
“We got plasma torpedoes, yet?”
“They’re charged,” Alvarez replied. “Almost at overload levels, now.”
“Hold them.”
Missiles splayed out from Devourer and rushed back along her tails towards Tenacity. Point-defenses went to work instantly, ripping the inbounds to ribbons of antimatter fire and slag. Tenacity sailed through the still-settling conflagrations, wreathed in them as she charged for her prey. More missiles splattered out from Devourer in an uneven cadence, the Golgothans firing frantically now, letting fly as soon as their racks were reloaded, no attempt at a coordinated Death Web, now.
Tenacity’s displays clouded with the inferno of it all. Holograms pixelated as the punishment of it overwhelmed the sensors. She punched through the storm-front of swirling gases and shrapnel. Space opened up before her.
Alarms screamed.
“High energy turn!” Alavarez shrieked. “They’re turning into us! Port side!”
Dath clenched his teeth till they hurt. “Got him...”
With violence that had to be agonizing to everyone aboard, Devourer ripped through a sharp curve to port and careened back the way she’d come, passing Tenacity at a forty-five-degree angle. Heath’s only hope to keep the fight even, now, was to get in close again, a close-range broadside. And he was throwing the dice in desperation.
“Turn into them!” Dath bellowed. “Fire torpedoes!”
Hellfire linked Tenacity to Devourer for an endless second. Cyan storm washed forth from the Golgothan and fell upon Tenacity’s shields in the full horror of the “killer bite”. Shields fluttered, died. Plasma savaged ablative plate, gouged it into globs of slag that lit escaping oxygen into torrents of fresh, brief flames.
But three bars of solid, plasma torpedo destruction impaled Devourer amidships as she tried to slide past.
Dath folded over at the waist, barely kept to his seat as Tenacity bowed away from the terrible hits. Vaguely he sensed her tail kicked out from behind her, the whole ship beginning to sideslip. Everything shook and went red. Everything rumbled. Hull breach was obvious in the ongoing roar, somewhere from the ship’s guts
A quadrant of the main screen divided off with a wildly-pixelating image of Imliss, eyes wild and huge against the darkened smear of her face. Sparks flashed behind her and figures tumbled or scrambled back and forth.
“Fire in the sickbay!” she screamed. “Fire in the—”
Dath slammed the comms override control on his armrest, killed the intra-ship feed. For a full heartbeat, he hated himself about as much as it was possible to hate someone. Shocked looks from the bridge crew only added edges to that loathing. Swallowing back the acidy churn of nausea, he hollered, “Where is Devourer?”
“Port aft quarter, sir!” Alvarez replied unsteadily. Clearing his throat, he added, “She’s hit! We nailed her hard, sir!”
And that much became obvious as the main screen steadied and the tactical display solidified. Devourer was rattling and slewing away from Tenacity at what looked like a not-totally-controlled arc. Secondary explosions walked back along her spine and debris spalled out across her wake, smeared in streamers of brief fire. Energy fluctuations riddled her signature.
“Her forward and port shield banks appear to be totally blown, sir,” Alvarez reported. “Getting indications of internal explosions, too.”
“Bring us about, Zovga,” Dath ordered in a savage voice, still seeing Imliss’ frantic face in his mind. “Get on her tail, again.” He looked at Yi, whose face glinted with tears. “Do we still have forward shields?”
“Aye sir,” she replied in a thick voice. “And starboard.”
“Keep Devourer on those sides, Zovga,” Dath said. He softened his voice slightly. “Ensign Yi, reinforcement to those shields, if available.”
“Plasma torpedoes charging, sir,” Alvarez said. “Particle cannon ready.”
Dath nodded, but tapped his armrest control, brought up the engineering channel. “Tom?”
“Rough ride, Captain!” Rougan replied with a crackle of static. “Voids holding steady. I...ah...we’ve got other problems. Everywhere.”
“I know it,” Dath said. “Tom, anyone you’ve got free, send to sickbay. We’ve got fires and casualties.”
“We’re on our way, sir.”
“Thanks.” He clicked the control to cut the channel and looked at Alvarez. “Best we can do,” he told him, knew he sounded defensive. But, dammit, it couldn’t be any other way! Dath cleared his throat and held up his chin.
“Alright, people. Let’s finish this!”
***
“SHE’S RIGHT ON US, Brother-Captain!”
Heath drew the back of his right hand across his left cheek and found blood across it. His face itch-stung where a fleck of metal flung from the conduit that had exploded to his left sliced the skin. He coughed once on the smoke purling in the compartment and ignored the discomfort as he scowled at the pixelating main screen.
“Damage report?”
“Portside shield generator coils blown-out!” Mueller reported from his right, near the Systems station. “Ventral banks partially gone. We cannot compensate.” He looked up over at Heath. “We’re wide open on that side!”
Panic that had nothing to do with Devourer’s perilous state pierced his guts. He’d sensed nothing from the Mistress; not her fear, not pain. Nothing.
“Is the Cradle hit?”
Mueller paled to near-translucence. The ash smeared into his sweat along his left face made him ghastly as he leaned in over the Systems officer to read from the display there. “Internal explosions did not get through,” he announced in a half-exhalation of relief. “But the Number Two magazine vented to space and all the munitions went with it. We were lucky none detonated!”
A quiver worked its way through the deck plates beneath Heath’s feet, another secondary explosion belowdecks. “How many missiles left?” he asked through grinding teeth, turning to Keitel at his left.
“None.” The young officer was shaking head as he pivoted to face him. “Sir, Number Two was the reserve.”
It took a full two seconds for the words to stop rattling around in Heath’s skull and settle into meaning. The critical weakness of Golgothan manufacturing was its inability to produce heavy, long-ranged energy armaments for its ships—at least not yet. And without missiles...our teeth are knocked out.
“Propulsion?” he managed above a croak.
“Port Void Drive was offline, but coming back up now,” Mueller answered. “We’ll have full speed capability again in seventy seconds.”
A jolt passed along Devourer’s length and the tactical display began to warble as the icon pursuing aft of her strobed with energy bolts.
“Taking fire, Brother-Captain!” Keitel’s voice ratcheted up an octave. “Tenacity outmatches us at this range.”
“I am aware, Keitel,” Heath replied coldly.
Pain pinched in through either of his temples and he hissed, clenched, half-folded over. Keitel blinked in surprise but, having seen this happen before, had the sense to look away as Heath fought to control his reaction to the Mistress’ sudden, fierce attentions.
Damain Heeeath, She rasped, very much unhurt and very much furious, we can’t leave the supply. We must find a way.
“We...can’t...” left him as a gasp, the wheezing of a gutted man. Sweat rolled off his forehead, spotted his pant legs as he clenched the sides of his face.
All that power, Heath! The Mistress wailed. Think of what we would be leaving behind! Her tone became frantic. How will I explain that to my Sisters?
The pressure receded enough that Heath could see through the gray creeping in from the corners of his vision. Breath returned, filling his lungs slowly, bringing back thoughts that were his own. Rage filled this. Tenacity flashed with the building fury of her guns as she raked Devourer’s tail. This could not be happening. Not again!
But it was.
And Damian Heath’s duty was clear.
Mistress, he replied in slow, careful thought, we cannot. The fight is going against us. We will die here, if we stay.
He could feel her flailing in impotent rage. The waste, Damian Heath!
We still have the ones aboard Devourer, he told Her. You still have them, Mistress.
A crash shuddered to the very superstructure of the ship. A bank of overhead lights fluttered out and died. One of the Systems station’s displays pixelated into meaningless static and the tech there cursed softly.
“Brother-Captain!” Keitel called. “Particle cannon hits! Tenacity closing!”
Yes, the Mistress was musing, as if the nearness of their—of Her—annihilation was not Her most immediate concern. The others. Yes, this is true.
“Sir,” Mueller was practically pleading, “Tenacity is still one engine down.” He stepped over to his side, leaned close. “Our port Drive is back up, now. We can outdistance her...” he set his hand upon Heath’s shoulder “...if you decide so.”
But they’re such fragile things, the Mistress was going on in his head. We will expend them very quickly, I fear.
Mistress, Heath forced strength into his thoughts, as close to challenging Her as he’d ever dare. We are being expended very quickly.
That seemed to send a twitch through the great, terrible creature at Devourer’s heart. Contact broke for a full second, and in it, Heath could hear the alarms, the rumble of a last secondary explosion in one the lower decks, the jolt as Tenacity’s sniping at their aft shields grew more persistent.
Get us out of here, the Mistress commanded, at last. We will live to conquer another day.
“Divert all available power to the Drives,” Heather snapped out, “and to the aft shields! Helm, maximum possible speed.”
Heath glared one last time at the hateful light-mote of Tenacity—his prey, his tormentor.
“Go!”
***
YLURA AND TAHNA EMERGED last from the rear-hatch of the shuttle into bedlam.
They’d landed atop a small, rocky hillock to the southeast of the dome cluster at the landing field’s edge. Dust swirled in reddish vortices about them, mixed with the tarry black of flames boiling from fires on the tarmac. Energy blasts lanced through this and Ylura was suddenly, very aware of their vulnerability, knelt and dragged Tahna down with her.
Blaster bolts slammed out from the turret rigged to the ventral surface of the shuttle, hosed around their perimeter. Ylura had no sense of what it fired at, but Cho and his toughs, settling into a circle around the grounded vessel, added a flurry of their own fire. One lifted a blunt-muzzled grenade launcher and released a four-round burst that triggered a crumping chain of blasts out in the haze.
Cho waved to a pack-laden woman, who knelt and keyed a bandolier control. Drones popped from the pack and unfolded into winged shapes that zipped forth into the seething gloom, spitting lightning. A sputter of answering fire sliced back at them and they converged on its source, blasting wildly now.
“I’ve got Lieutenant Jaxan’s signal,” Cho announced over the squad channel as the fire receded. “Commander Varley’s, too!” He pointed. “The big dome, where there’s still firing. Let’s go!”
The armored toughs started downhill at a trot that looked surprisingly bouncy for all their combat loads. Ylura started after them, immediately feeling Zadomir’s slightly lighter gravity, picking up speed. But fingers pulled at her arm, held her back.
She turned to find Tahna crumpled to her knees and shaking her helmeted head. “Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel them?”
And Ylura did, a vague headache intensifying at the base of her skull, what she’d assumed was stress till this point. But it swelled, became a thickening fog of malice she remembered all too well. Things chittered and taunted from that gloom. Images that were her memories danced and cavorted there, warping into horrors they were not.
“It is them,” Tahna rasped. “The Old Enemy.”
“Yes,” Ylura growled, drawing the blaster pistol she’d appropriated. “It is.”
Blaster fire erupted from downhill, followed by shrieks of fear across the squad channel. The toughs were firing wildly, even as Cho demanded they report. A grenade thumped. The drones cut through the haze in the direction of the disturbance, jolting out cyan as they came.
“What the hell are you shooting at?” Cho screamed. “What are you—”
Fog parted to Ylura’s left. A shape like an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare stood there, fangs glistening, dripping, segmented legs tensed for a leap. A splinter of memory sliced through her mind; aboard Tenacity, the dog-sized beasts rushing them, even as they plagued her thoughts with their brutish but effective mind-attacks. This one seemed scrawnier, almost starved-looking.
But it had every bit as much of that murderous speed Ylura recalled as it jumped for them.
She had her blaster up and aimed, fired without thinking. Tahna’s scream merged with the energy blast’s. The bolt caught the hurtling, splayed shape in midair, seared through part of its spikey cephalothorax and sent a pair of legs flying one direction, the rest of it to the right. The Arathra landed, tumbled, squirmed. But it was upright, despite its maiming, in a moment, trailing slime but scuttling for them.
Ylura fired again, missed. Another bolt zipped by her shoulder, slammed the horror squarely between its eye-rows. It rocked backwards, horrid legs twitched, clawing the air. An armored shape shot past Ylura—Ghath, moving with speed she wouldn’t have guessed the huge Korthan capable of. He brought a bootheel stomping down on the still-pulsing abdomen of the spidery form, burst it like obscene fruit, then stepped back and fired into the pulped mass again, again.
“These things again!” he snarled, stepping back and dripping slime. “Watch the—” Blaster fire scrawled the air around him and he ducked low. “Check your fire! Who is that?”
“Not us!” Cho hollered back. “Downhill! There! Top of that structure!”
Smoke purled back to reveal another dome built into the lower hillside, part of what appeared to be a complex of them. Black-clad figures were scampering atop the peak of this, hurrying to set up a tripod-mounted heavy blaster. More were coming up from a hatch in the crown of the structure.
“Light ‘em up!”
Sanctuarian fire fell upon the dome in a righteous fury. Concrete blew away from dozens of hits, fluoresced to white fire. Black-armored figures dropped, burning. The heavy weapon flashed apart at multiple hits. Then the winged drones were humming in, strafing the rooftop in repeated passes. One of the defenders, halfway up out of the watch, was waving frantically to his comrades. A bolt took his arm off at the shoulder and both man and severed limb fell back through the opening.
“Get up there!” Cho bellowed, rising to his feet and charging. “Before they seal it!”
A short run downhill brought most of the toughs to the curve of the dome. Stumbling, scrambling, they fought their way to its top while the drones peppered anything that moved. But there was little by the time Ylura and Tahna reached the structure. The firing thinned out to nothing, save whatever chattered around the landing field. More toughs were fanning out around the base of the dome.
“They got it locked, dammit!” one of the first toughs to the top reported on the squad channel.
“We got anything else?” Cho demanded. Negatives answered him and he nodded to Ylura as she and Tahna reached the top and knelt beside him. “Scans are showing a tunnel network and connected chambers below us, Lieutenant. Looks like they lead over to the main dome, and Jaxan and Varley.”
Ylura realized he was asking her for guidance. She nodded quickly. “Better than crossing in the open.”
“Maybe,” he replied grimly. “Are either of you...sensing anything?”
Ylura started to reply, but noticed Tahna’s wobbling out of the corner of her eye, pivoted to put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “What?”
“They’re down there,” she moaned. “Oh...so much fear...so much pain.”
Cho nodded and pointed. “Ghath, shaped charge!”
“Not just those things,” Tahna grated as the Korthan shouldered forth with a plate-sized explosive. She looked at Ylura, grabbed her hand in both of hers. “The Initiates are down there too! They’re hurting!”
Ylura gulped back bile and looked back at Cho. “Be on the lookout.”
The Security tough’s helmet visor hid his expression, but his hesitation had a prickle of uncertainty. He pointed again at Ghath. “Blow it.” He gestured to others as the Korthan set the charge atop the sealed hatch. “Grenades. Then, Bartosz, I want drones!”
Ghath skipped back from the plate. “It’s set!”
The toughs crowded away from the peak of the dome, Cho pressing Ylura back so aggressively and far she nearly slid back to the ground. The jolt from beneath her—all around her—finished the job, set her tumbling as a shaft of fire belched skyward with a crash that nearly deafened, even with the protection of her helmet. Ears rang and she had troubled picking herself up from where she’d landed, muscles and nerves jellied by the shock of the blast.
“Get back up there!” Cho ordered.
Toughs were already at the smoldering crown of the dome. One and then another tossed egg-shapes down through the glowing hole that had been the top hatch. Another pair of concussions twitched the dome beneath Ylura as she struggled back up its curved side. Muffled by the interior, these had none of the shaped-charge’s punishment.
The drones zipped in close, circled once, and then plunged through the gap. Screeches of blaster fire probed the interior, then cut out. Cho paused in his climb back to the top, touching the side of his helmet and seeming to stare at something. Ylura surmised he was watching a feed from one of the winged shapes’ holocameras.
“It’s clear,” he announced, scrambling the last few steps to the top. “Ladder down is shredded. Rappelling chords. Quickly!”
The pair who reached the crown first were already on it, securing pitons to the roof, then casting rope down into the smoldering gloom. Cho didn’t wait, shouldered his blaster rifle, and gripped one of these in both hands. With a whisk, he vanished from sight. Others followed in rapid succession, none lingering to wait on Ylura and Tahna.
Coming down just ahead of her cousin, Ylura slid into a hellishly-fuming dark. Landing at the bottom, she looked around at blast-charred walls, a scattering of chewed forms in the black armor of Golgotha, and three passages leading out from what appeared to be an antechamber of some sort. Toughs watched each of the three, weapons at the ready.
“Scans indicate that’s the direction,” Cho said, pointing at one of the corridors. With his pause, he clearly waited on an order.
“That’s the way,” Tahna grunted as she slid down the chord and landed beside Ylura. She swayed a moment before pulling on the rope to straighten herself. “I can feel them.”
Cho nodded. “Barty, stay here and deploy drones to scout those other routes. Fire team four stays with her. Watch for movement from within the complex. Watch our asses!” He pointed at the first corridor. “The rest of you, with me!”
The passage had little light as they entered it, but something glistened along the floor, along the walls. Ylura’s foot encountered a strand of something, stuck, then popped free. A weird thrumming ring echoed on into the dark ahead of her, reverberating. She looked down, skin crawling, already knowing what she’d see. Under her withdrawing bootheel, stretched out along the curving wall, ran a strand of web-like matter. Panning her gaze about, she saw the stuff everywhere, thickening ahead until it nearly hid the concrete and metal framework beneath it.
“Shit,” Cho breathed. “Seen this before.”
They proceeded into the webbed shadows slowly now, Cho at the lead, with Ghath a half-step behind. Every step stuck and thwacked as strands caught, then released. The passage ahead rang and shivered as the strides carried their vibrations onward. Blinking through sweat that came in runnels into her eyes, Ylura clenched her blaster till it shook. The Arathra had done this to the lower levels of Tenacity, when they’d infested her before.
They’d made a nest of her—and appeared to have done so here.
More, waves of foul cold pulsed up the web-limned passage. Ylura wasn’t sure it was a chill of the flesh or the soul. But it coursed through her, bringing malice and hate and hunger. The Security toughs seemed to feel it, too, its iciness hushing them, making motions sluggish, tentative. She knew it was them, the Arathra. She knew they were waiting, expecting, tensing for the rush.
Darkness thickened to the point of almost physical. Ylura switched her visor view to full night vision with infrared enhancement. Cho and the others had halted and she saw that the impediment was, in fact, physical. A curtain of webbing blocked the way.
Hissing, Ghath edged forward a step and nudged the barrier with his blaster muzzle. It bulged inward partly, a few strands tearing, before rubbery resistance prevented further penetration. The Korthan withdrew his weapon, dragging a streamer of web with it. “Going to need to cut through.”
Cho touched the side of his helmet. “Barty, we picking up anything behind us?”
“Negative.”
“Then send me a pair of drones.” He stepped back from the barrier, readying his weapon. “We’ll let them do the honors, here.”
“Roger. Just give me a—what was that...?” The pop of static hid her voice for a moment. “We’ve, ah, we got movement to the—watch out!!!”
Blaster fire echoed up the passage from behind, in the direction of the antechamber intersection. Cyan flickers accompanied it in strobe patterns. Someone was hollering, distorted the squad channel. Part of Ylura’s vision divided off to show the view from Bartosz’s helm holocamera. Freeze-frame images lit by blaster bolts showed Arathra scuttling up from one of the other corridor, highlighted when the fire struck them or when one leapt.
“Abandon the intersection!” Cho ordered. “Fall back to the passage entry!”
By Bartosz’s bouncing, retrograde viewpoint, it was clear she was already doing that, firing from the hip as she retreated. Her drones zipped past, covering her. By a flurry of fire tore up the passageway at these, shattering one, then another from the air. The flash of their demise lit up dark, humanoid figures advancing behind the Arathra. One of these cocked back an arm and threw something.
“Grena—”
A terrific crash ripped up the corridor behind Ylura, flung her stuttering step forward as hot air and fumes rushed by. Then there was nothing but screaming over the squad channel, agonized, animalized sound.
“Barty!” Cho hollered, then spun and gestured to the toughs bringing up the rear of their party. “Fire team three, get back there!”
The web barrier twitched behind Cho, bulged as shadows clotted behind it. Ghath was turning towards the movement, blaster coming up. Ylura had her mouth open to scream a warning.
An arachnid blur erupted through a tear in the web and slammed onto Cho’s back. The Security leader flew forward, hit the floor facedown, and whuffed from the impact. The Arathra perched on his spine heaved up for a second, front pairs of legs spread wide and fangs shining.
Ghath kicked it squarely in the cephalothorax, crunched it up against the wall before it could plant those venomous points in Cho’s neck. But another was squirming through the rent in the barrier. Everyone was firing at once, forward into the webbing, backwards along the hall. Everything was eight-legged shadows and blaster streaks.
And then a scream like nothing Ylura had ever heard.
Tahna had both hands clawed to either side of her face and her mouth so wide it looked like it may have dislocated. Her eyes blazed like twin sunrises and the skin over her face went taught over the bones. It wasn’t just the scream of vocal cords; it was the wail of a soul, unleashing with all its psychic anguish and rage.
And the Arathra crumpled where they were, twisting into knots of folded up legs and seized in place. They dropped from perches on walls and ceilings, filling the hallway with the thump of their falls and the rustle of their convulsions as Tahna’s fury smote them. Mindless against physical pain up to the point of death, the spidery creatures could not resist the mind-blast of the Third Circle of Shala.
Ylura swayed, seeing double-vision as pinpricks of pain filled her skull. But she gave herself a shake and hollered, “She’s helping! Don’t stop! Keeping going!”
Ghath needed no encouragement, blasted the Arathra he’d already stomped and then turning his weapon on the webbing before him. Blaster bolts savaged the curtain into tags of flame and found spasming forms of Arathra beyond, splashing them apart with the touch of ravaging cyan. Cho was back on his feet in a second, at the Korthan’s side, blazing away wildly. And the pair advancing, bellowing and firing as they went.
Ylura followed—had to or she’d be stampeded by the toughs rushing to follow their commander. Anything that moved, even if it simply smoldering, she put a blast into. Fear and the agony of Tahna’s mind-wave turned her feral, nearly-mad. She would have shot her own mother in those instants. But the passage was opening up ahead, through the smoldering streamers of web.
Exploding into another chamber brought a moment of relief.
Then a wail of horror.
The room beyond looked like it had been a maintenance area of some sort. But its true purpose had been obscured by Arathran activity. Webbing draped everything, hid the walls and floors, and gave everything the sense of having breached a tightly-knit sack.
Arathra scampered this way and that, a confusion of countermotions, seeming confused. Mostly, they bunched about knots in the floor, what Ylura came to see and realize were cocoons. Some were fully-complete and emmeshed to the walls. Others were partially-complete. Protruding from these, not yet woven over, were arms or legs or a darkly-purple faces, puffy from abuse and likely venomization.
Initiates...
Tahna staggered into the chamber behind her, took one look, and then mind-shrieked again.
This time Ylura did collapse, to her knees. The blast was so potent, even Cho and his men stumbled, seemed disoriented, pained. And the Arathra twisted and fell in place, quivering as her soul tore into theirs. Ylura felt her own mouth stretch wide into a scream, then heard others joining her. One of the still-exposed Initiates popped his eyes open and joined the call. Cocoons writhed, began tearing. More voices wailed and rent the air.
A shadow stumbled into the chamber from the far side, one hand on a black helmeted head, the other clutching a blaster. The Golgothan trooper swayed in the psychic feedback, then saw the intruders to this most awful inner sanctum, and raised his weapon.
Ylura raised her own and fired.
Everything was exploding. Cho and company recovered at the first shot, opened up in a fury of blaster fire that shredded webbing, slagged the walls behind it, and chewed into the Golgothan trooper. Energy bolts crisscrossed the chamber. Fireballs bloomed and flesh wailed.
“Push through!” Cho ordered. “We’re nearly there!”
Ylura followed without thought. She could hear more cries, more voices beyond the chamber, and more blaster fire. But this was already petering out as Cho’s charge brought them crunching over pulped Arathra drone-corpses to a torn-open door. Beyond, shrieks of fear became hollers of relief and calls of greeting. Cho bellowed for whoever was beyond to cease fire. A familiar voice was answering.
Khiry Jaxan’s.
Ylura sagged against a wall in relief, let the Security toughs shoulder past her towards the light streaming in from the smashed doorway. The horrible ring of psychic rage was fading and, with it, the last of her strength. In one quadrant of her vision, a hologram reappeared, broadcast across the squad channel and showing Bartosz tightening a bandage over a thigh as comrades stepped by her to check smoking Arathra corpses.
It was starting to look like victory.
Then she noticed Tahna wasn’t with her.
Staggering back to her feet, she trudged the way she’d come, then broke into a trot, then a sprint. Erupting back into the hideous cocooning-chamber, she scanned about, found smoldering dead, but also Initiates emerging groggily from web-sacks, helped by Security troopers. A few of the latter bunched about a form reclined upon the floor. Ghath was kneeling, but stepped back at Ylura’s arrival. The Korthan’s fanged mouth hung open in anguish.
“No!!!”
Tahna sprawled with one hand folded to her chest and the other flung out to the side. Smoke drifted from blaster burns to her chest and abdomen. The glow of her eyes guttered as her mouth worked in silent words.
“No-no-no...” Ylura shoved past Ghath and dropped to one knee, scooping up her cousin’s head with one hand, the other dropping the blaster to check the wounds. “What are you doing?” She shrieked at the Korthan. “Get a med-pack!”
“Lieutenant...”
Don’t, Tahna’s voice echoed faintly in her skull. Don’t waste time on it. I’m only barely holding onto this body now.
“We can help you,” Ylura insisted as Tahna’s eyes turned towards her, the light nearly faded from them. Just hold on, she thought to her.
Big Sister, this isn’t going to work. Not this time.
You can’t give up!
Not giving up. Accepting.
For a moment, they weren’t there, in that horrid place; they were under a summer sun on Morvena, dancing together in a fountain, kicking its water over each other. That younger version of Tahna smiled through scintillas of sunlit splash at her.
Did we save them?
Tears blurring her vision, Ylura nodded, then unclasped her face shield and lifted it open. The tears dripped free, speckled her cousin’s face. We did.
Work is not done. Tahna sounded very far away. Justice. They must have justice. The last flickers of her eye-glow were upon Ylura now. Take them home. Make our people see them. Bring justice.
I will. She pulled Tahna’s limp form up close to her, felt nothing in the limp weight. I promise, I won’t let them be ignored, again.
Justice...
Ylura clenched Tahna close and crushed her eyes shut, tried only to see that sunlit afternoon, and that sunlight smile.