by A. R. Knight
What he’s betting on is that they’ll do enough to buy Sax and Bas some time to find a way off of this station.
“At least we’ll keep our promise to the Teven,” Bas says as Sax returns to them.
“Yes, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled when the entire station is burning because of your actions,” Eneks sighs.
“You’ve killed us all!” L’Renee shouts from her terminal.
“Only if you let them,” Sax says. “It’s either fight or die now, Ooblot.”
“Then we fight!” N’Ollene announces. “Fire, Sister, and fire again!”
This time, it’s five white bursts lancing forth from the station, and now the shuttle tries to move. It jockeys up and down, so that only three of the shots manage to splash across its shields, with the last punching through and glancing off the shuttle’s armor.
“Aim for the frigate,” Sax says. “Keep it away from the station. We’ll handle the shuttle.”
“I don’t like this,” L’Renee replies.
“But we’ll try,” N’Ollenne adds.
Sax and Bas lope over to the airlock as the shuttle screams in for a hard docking. Two Oratus against who knows how many. Sax still has the miner he took from the Flaum guard, but that’s hardly enough artillery. They check around the airlock, looking for vulnerabilities, for places to set up in cover, but the bushes won’t block any lasers, and the airlock is wide enough to let the troops stream through.
“Our only chance is breaking the seal,” Bas says as they study the airlock, looking for hope.
“We don’t have the weapons to do that,” Sax replies.
“But we do,” Agra-Red’s voice comes from behind them. The fiery whelk’s assault miner, built into its body, has a full set of batteries lacing from the weapon and around Agra-Red. Black, the burly female Flaum, stands next to him, along with Plake, each holding oodles of their own weaponry.
And they’re all aiming at the two Oratus.
“What do you think, Plake?” Agra-Red says. “We blast them, the Vincere lets us all go?”
The Vyphen captain brushes her purple-red mouth with an iridescent feathered arm, then shakes her head. “Feel like that option’s already gone. These two have torched all of us. That’s what happens when you fire on a Vincere ship. They’ll just raze the station rather than take stock of who’s innocent and who’s not.”
Sax is trying to find a vulnerability, but unlike the useless Flaum guards from earlier, Plake, Black, and Agra-Red are keeping their distance. They’d have more than enough time to react, aim, and fire before Sax could leap to them.
“That’s the point,” Bas hisses. “We told you. There’s something bigger going on here, something that ends if Evva gets captured.”
“Big enough to damn everyone on this station?” Plake says.
“Yes.”
The Vyphen puts on a show of considering, but Sax bets she’s already made up her mind. He’s thinking if Plake really wanted them dead, she’d have shot them in the back. Not even given him or Bas a chance to respond.
“Here’s what I’m looking at,” Plake starts. “The rest of my life spent running nutrient goop and stopping in dives like this one, or a short burst spent trying to hurt the bastards who’ve turned the Vyphen into cretins like this one.”
She nods at Eneks, who manages to look both offended and embarrassed at the same time.
“The Oratus torched my homeworld,” Agra-Red says. “I’ve got no love for them. No love for you two, either, but it sounds like you might give me a shot at doing some real damage.” It twists, aiming the assault miner behind Sax. “Besides, I need more excuses to play with this thing.”
Both of them look at Black, who’s wielding a snub-nosed gouter, hooked to a big tank on her back. She looks at the Oratus and shrugs.
“Coorvin says you’re on the good side, and I trust him.”
There’s a loud thunk from behind them, followed by the whirring and clacking sounds of locks sliding into place. The shuttle’s docking.
“Now get out of the way, you morons, or I’ll fry you too,” Agra-Red waves the tip of its miner, and both Sax and Bas break to either side of the airlock door.
Eneks dashes to the airlock’s control panel, glances back at Plake, who shakes her head.
“Not until they’re inside,’ Plake says. “We’ve only got one shot at this.”
Sax watches through the glass into the white cream of the airlock. Instead of a real window opening to space, there’s now a tunnel lit by small globes of light. A tunnel that leads back to the shuttle, to the force coming to take them all.
Though, going by Agra-Red’s manic grin, Sax thinks the Vincere’s going to have a harder time than expected.
The first Flaum troops pour into the airlock, and they’re ready for almost anything. They’ve got miners, they’ve got armor, and they’re moving like a trained squad. What they’re not expecting, though, is a mad red Whelk with a giant cannon waiting for them.
At Plake’s nod, Eneks opens the panel and, as the airlock door shunts aside, Agra-Red opens up. A cascade of red bolts pours forth, punctuated by a rising whine as the weapon’s pumps keep working to churn gas through the miner’s ionizing batteries. Agra-Red keeps the steady spray moving back and forth, and, beyond the panicked screams of trapped Flaum, there’s a new sound: vacuum alarms. Agra-Red’s pierced the shell leading back to the shuttle, exposing everything to open space.
At the first hint of the pull, the airlock slams shut of its own accord and Sax doesn’t even move a centimeter. The Flaum, and anyone caught in the tunnel to the shuttle, isn’t so lucky. They’re blasted out into space, and Sax can see their flash-frozen figures spiraling away into the black.
“Seal it,” Plake says.
Black steps forward with her gouter and starts a spray of heavy green liquid. It splashes around the airlock, letting loose plenty of steam as the plasma burrows into the metal. The cooling comes rapidly, with the green settling into a deep gray and hardening around the door, eventually encasing the entire entrance.
“They can break that,” Sax says.
“But they won’t,” Plake counters. “Not when they have plenty of docking bays to use.”
There’s a crackle, then L’Renee’s voice echoes over the station’s broadcast system, “They’re launching additional shuttles and fighters. Scrapper Station, get ready for imminent assault!”
“Show them what a bunch of scuzzy lowlifes and vagabonds can do!” N’Ollene adds.
They don’t waste time hanging around the airlock. All five of them - Eneks retreats back to the Sisters - head to the lift, hustle in, and take it down to the Nexus.
“Never expected you to come to our defense,” Sax says as the lift chugs lower.
“Never wanted to,” Plake replies. “You forced our hand.”
“We meant to.”
“That’s not what you’re supposed to say.”
“Thank you,” Bas hisses. “Now, we have to leave.”
Agra-Red laughs. “Leave? After you’ve got them all riled up?”
“Even if we manage to hold back this assault,” Bas says. “They’ll be calling for reinforcements. The station will be destroyed, unless we get away. Unless we claim responsibility.”
“Compassion? From an Oratus? I didn’t think you had any,” Plake says, then sighs. “And I suppose you’re planning on us to take you?”
“Yes.”
Sax isn’t much for subtlety.
21 Burning City
We make it all of ten steps. We’re next to one of the feeder pools, a quartet of Whelk standing, looking at us with nothing going on in their eyes, when there’s a yell from further down the room.
“The humans came this way!” The Flauma’s voice is hard, angry and bright. “Leave these, get them!”
It looks like the Flaum’s group is busy shooting freed, confused species and tossing them into piles. Summary executions for potential problems. Seeing it makes me feel sick, but I suppre
ss the revulsion when I see the ten Flaum turn our way.
“And now we run,” Viera says.
Part of me wants to stay and fight, because it’s clear the sort of end coming to all of these innocents. Clear the Sevora are choosing harsh security, that they’re treating these species as products rather than people. But we’re outnumbered and outgunned, and if there’s going to be this much death, then the sacrifice ought to be for something.
Viera fires a few shots from her miners, though I don’t see if any hit. I’m looking around, trying to find an exit, and locate one along the back wall; a series of arched doors similar to the ones in Nasiya’s tower, the ones leading to those tubes and the white platforms.
“That way! Through the arches!” I shout as I break into a run.
In the jungle, I used trees for cover, whether to hide or to dodge thrown rocks, fired arrows. Here I do the same, only instead of trees, I use the ambling forms of stupefied Flaum, of clustered Tevens just beginning to flex their arms and legs outside their carapaces. The Sevora Flaum fire away, and they don’t care where their miners burn. Species drop around us as we run, many without a sound. Maybe they’re so divorced from their own feelings that they don’t even recognize pain.
Bolts that don’t hit a bystander zing into the walls and floor around us, leaving scorch marks or bubbling tile.
A shot lands right in front of me, exploding a chunk of the floor, and the hot dust blasts my face, the mask blunting the temperature. I stumble, though the mask filters away the dust, then feel Malo’s arm on my back, pushing me forward.
“If we stop, Kaishi, we die,” he says, and I want to tell him I know but can’t find the breath.
The air is sick with burning flesh, with the electric zap of molten metal and discharged batteries and my mask doesn’t clean out the smell. My ears ring with shouts, the whine of energy being spent, and the constant rumble of explosions outside the building.
But we make the arches. Me first, with Malo just behind, and Viera continuing her stream of wild shots. I notice the armor on her has a few burn holes, but Viera’s still moving and we don’t have time for first aid anyway.
All the arches funnel into a back, smaller section that in turn feeds into those same platform tubes.
“The middle one!” I point as we run towards the only platform already there and waiting.
The rest of the station is empty - apparently nobody wants to visit the birthing pools when everything goes wrong. Lasers continue to splash into the walls behind us, but the pursuit seems half-hearted. By the time we reach the platform, there’s nobody even in sight.
“Anyone know how to use this thing?” Viera asks as we stream through the doors.
“No idea,” I say, turning to the control panel anyway. “But I’m guessing anywhere is better than here.”
There’s no buttons, only a screen with a maze of icons. It reminds me of the console on Cobalt, and I wish Ignos were here to tell me what they all meant. Lacking the Sevora, and lacking the time to dip into the Cache, I tap one that looks like a flying ship.
The doors slam shut. I step back onto the platform and sit in the chair that forms to match my size.
“We’re alive,” I manage to say to my friends, and then the platform rockets away.
Our ride launches us up and away from the birthing pool building, and what I see sears into my mind: across Vimelia’s vast cityscape, towers of smoke rise from all over, like black, billowing trees from a silvery desert.
Unlike our first ride with the Flaum, this platform expands a transparent film around us as we get up to speed, and I find my breath isn’t stolen away by the rapid air. Apparently the Sevora build their transport by grades - ones going to and from the birthing pools get a better class of ride.
“Sapphrite wasn’t kidding,” Viera says as we zip through the air. “Clarity’s Dawn is going all out on this one.”
“Did you see how it looked down there?” I reply. “They were starving, and it seemed like only luck was keeping them alive. Rather than wait for the Sevora to end them, better fight on their terms.”
“Better to die for something than because of someone,” Malo adds.
The tube swoops us out and around the large sculpture heading the birthing pool building, and we get a good look at what’s happening outside the main entrance, where most of the prisoners are scrambling.
It’s just as bad as the way we went - a firing range of Sevora guards lays waste to unarmed, panicked prisoners trying to pile their way out of the building. A one-sided lightshow.
“That’s so horrible,” I can’t keep from saying.
“Ignos wanted you to join that? No thanks.” Viera glances at her miners. “You should have let me stomp the slug when Rackt took it out of your head.”
“Maybe so.”
The platform, mercifully, keeps moving and soon the slaughter disappears out of sight behind taller buildings. It’s still hard to tell where we’re heading, so I tell the other two that I’m going to slip into the Cache.
Even with all the excitement, triggering the Cache and its emerald flash pulls me away from our zipping ride and into the infinite, cool nexus of data. Immediately a giant map of Vimelia fills the space around me, and our current location shows as a blinking dot in a translucent blue city.
The Cache traces out our current path, and it goes right from where we are towards a large oval that, with a mental question, the Cache identifies as the spaceport.
With our side of Sapphrite’s mission done - all we had to do was poison the birthing pools - our only goal now is to get to the spaceport, find the shuttle that Rackt is supposed to have waiting for us, and get out of there.
I shake away the Cache and announce to Viera and Malo that we’re going where we’re supposed to. Settle back in and watch out the front.
Filling the air now are more and more of the Sevora shuttles that dropped the initial group of Flaum that met us when we escaped the sewers. Nasiya’s emblem blazes on some, Jel’s on others. Both factions, it seems, are coming together to stop Clarity’s Dawn.
And I realize I don’t really care anymore. Not about the Sevora struggle, not about Sapphrite’s wish to live forever with the other Amigga, or whether these creatures devour each other in their murderous politics. No, all I want is to go home.
Which is why I almost scream when the platform slows, then veers from its straight path to go down, right towards a tall, egg-shaped building beneath us. We shuttle through an opening in the top, big enough to only fit our single platform. The floors we pass by are dark, skeletal, as if this building is still under construction.
Eventually, the platform settles at the base, where, indeed, are piles and piles of materials.
There’s also a set of five creatures standing, waiting. One strides forward as the platform’s bubble recedes and our seats fall away beneath us. As the creature comes closer, I recognize the shape. Like Sax and Bas, but smaller, and its scales are a dull gray. Several flake off even in the steps towards us. But the claws on its four arms shine sharp enough.
“Kaishi. I hoped I would see you again,” the creature says, and even with the rasping hiss of an Oratus tongue, it’s one I know.
Ignos.
“You have a new body,” is the first thing I can think of to say.
We step slowly off of the platform into the dark skeleton of the building. Above us, papered window frames filter brown light coming down from the sky, and a dozen open doros along the street let in the noise of the fighting. I smell dust, the twinge of chemicals.
“A host, Kaishi. That’s what we call them,” Ignos, ever teaching me. “But this one is a failure.”
It does seem to be falling apart. Like it’s old, or dying. Why would Ignos call that a failure?
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“There’s never an end to our conflict. The Amigga aren’t going to stop until we’re all dead, which means we need to crush them first. To do that, we need better weapons. We n
eed perfect ones,” Ignos glances at his claws.
“So you’re making Oratus?”
“They’re too hard to capture, but take the DNA from the few we have and maybe we can do what the Amigga did, what we’ve already done to so many other species. What we’ll do to you.”
“Yeah, enough of this,” Viera announces from beside me. “Now that you’re not in her head, it’s time to do what should’ve been done a long time ago.”
She draws her miners as the four Flaum guards around Ignos draw theirs. Viera’s hands are faster than Flaum claws, and she has the half-second advantage of knowing just what she’s going to do. So her lasers hit first, sending a pair of Ignos’ guards burning to the ground.
Ignos, though, doesn’t sit and watch, but leaps towards me instead.
“You have to give yourself to us,” the Sevora hisses as it flies towards me. “The Sevora need you!”
Malo’s metal staff catches Ignos in a wide swing as the creature gets close to me, and Malo slams Ignos down into the ground. The Charre warrior is wielding the staff with both hands, and he raises it up, twists the point, and gets ready to stab the parasite that’d shared my mind.
“Malo!” Viera yells as she comes out of a dive, dodging counterfire from one of the remaining Flaum.
But not both.
The second, last Flaum’s aiming at Malo, and it pulls the trigger as the Charre warrior stabs with the staff. The bolt flies true, taking Malo in the chest and sending him stumbling off of Ignos.
Malo falls at my feet. I want to check on him, but the Flaum is moving its miner towards me now, so I fall back on my training and dive forward, scooping up Malo’s dropped staff and getting Ignos’ much larger body between me and the Flaum.
Another series of lasers flashes around us - Viera, getting back to work.
“This isn’t you, Kaishi,” Ignos hisses, standing back up, a motion that sheds more scales. “You’re not a fighter. You’re a leader, a friend.”
“And what are you, Ignos? I thought you were my friend.” I hold the staff ready, watch those claws.