“We are an easy target for his main guns if we race straight at him!” Zaria warned.
“Look at his course!” Anguhr thrust a massive finger at the upper left screen. “He altered it right as Ursuhr attacked. With his ship still in an internal siege from Gin’s clone, his battle options are limited. He will likely opt to maintain the full power of his aegis over offensive fire.”
“Yes. After his last battle, I agree.” Zaria said watching the screens. “He moves to put Hell between us and his ship just as he moved behind the planet, then. Though he cannot use Hell as he did that world.”
“Ursuhr snipes at us with missiles as he hides.” Anguhr said. He noted Zaria must have seen the battle that damaged Sutuhr’s ship. “I cannot see Ursuhr, but he and I know the path ahead: Destroy Sutuhr. So if he acts to intercept us, it will be along predicable courses. And so Proxis—”
“Missiles away, Lord!”
“Our salvos will keep him from assuming the necessary course for a successful hit.” Anguhr nodded to his Ship Master. He then focused squarely on Zaria. “Unless he can dismiss my warheads. But I don’t think his invisibility is coupled with a greater aegis.”
“Not likely,” Zaria said.
“I cannot detect any emanations of Builder technology,” Gin said looking at the bulkhead of woven beams as if focused on something outside the ship. “Other than the Iron Work, naturally.”
“No matter. For now.” Anguhr said as Hell’s surface flashed on the center screen. “The distance from the trones and Hell is too short for him to charge his main guns and fire before we intercept Sutuhr on the opposite side. And my mines—”
Anguhr looked at Proxis who turned and nodded to Anguhr with a smile. “Already deployed, Lord.”
“They will deter him, further.” Anguhr finished.
“Negative impact of missiles and mines, Lord.” Proxis reported.
“But he is likely moving toward Hell, behind us. Now, with difficulty.” Anguhr said.
“I’ve noticed—” Gin began, but was interrupted by Ursuhr’s face reappearing. It flashed on a smaller left projection as a tactical map dominated the center screen.
“Your mines and missiles cannot stop me,” Ursuhr’s voice growled from the projection. “It only delays your death, Anguhr. Be strong and face it.”
“You will not face me openly, coward.” Anguhr replied. “You are not even proud to serve Hell. Else you would blaze across this space with your aegis at full flame. Instead, you hide. Afraid.”
Ursuhr laughed. “Pathetic attempt at a goad, junior General. Thank your own prisoner for my tactical advantage.”
Anguhr turned and glared at Zaria.
“I did not help him!” Zaria screamed.
“Oh, you did, Zaria.” Ursuhr’s triumphant smile returned. “You, who would be the savior of life and slayer of Hell.”
Zaria looked at Ursuhr’s image with shock.
“Yes, I know your name. From prisoners of my own.” Ursuhr nodded. “They were killed after they told me all I demanded to hear. True, your aide to me was unintentional. It resulted from your foolish act of desperation, making allies of primitives. You seeded ancient yet complex technology to hide life. A cloak with a coded dagger. You wanted the primitives to use a shield, but your shield also emitted an infiltration program. That was its true power. The ability not merely to passively hide, but to actively blind.”
Zaria said nothing. Anguhr listened keenly.
“I destroyed a world where one of Zaria’s phase engines was too much for the local saurians to implement.” Ursuhr spoke with obvious pride in his low, groaning voice. “They used it instead as bait and bomb. Their assassination failed. Worse, they didn’t know what a demon sees, a ship records. And a General can read. The failsafe detonated that engine. But from then on, I knew what to seek. Zaria had been busy. And desperate. You gave too much to those ill suited to use the technology. I, however, am a General from Hell. With enough scans by enough demons before the failsafes could detonate, I was able to subvert future energy build ups and record the data with safeguards of my own. I could purge and mine the information. Of course, before I had my full war prize, many demons became vapor in the blasts. But I got what I needed. The worlds would die, anyway. And now I have a great weapon to use against you, Anguhr. Pathetic rebel!”
“I am amazed you could decipher any of the data you found,” Anguhr said. “I am stunned you could use it.”
“Me, as well.” Zaria added. She still worked to conceal her shock and dread of Ursuhr’s surprise adaptations of Builder technology.
“Why?” Ursuhr’s triumphant smile collapsed into a frown on the screen.
“Because you are a stupid brute.” Anguhr answered.
“I am a General and demon Lord!” Ursuhr yelled.
“And a bit of a surprise, I admit.” Zaria said.
“The surprise is your doom! You have failed! I can now undo all your work across the galaxy!” Ursuhr raged on. “Do not mistake my unmatched strength for a lack of brain power!”
“Especially when you can task innumerable demons as engineers and force them to work until their brains are cinders.” Anguhr said.
Ursuhr took a breath. “It works.”
“Point taken,” Anguhr replied. “Now, take this to heart. Leave Hell’s system. Or, I will find a way to face you in personal combat. I can and will kill you. Your are not truly the strongest. This you know. Else you would also refute Sutuhr’s leadership. Instead, you are his thrall. Even the Dark Urge can see your weakness. It is not Sutuhr’s strength that made her put him in command. It is that you are pathetic.”
Ursuhr’s image vanished in mid-roar.
“Missile salvo incoming.” Proxis announced.
“Excellent.” Gin smiled and studied the screens where trajectory lines flashed from seemingly nowhere. “More data to find his ship.”
“My insults will buy us minimal time,” Anguhr said. “Take through Hell’s increased radiation fields. It will baffle his targeting beams.”
“And Hell’s defenses?” Zaria asked.
“She will lash out. We will endure.” Anguhr replied. “She knows her best tactic is for her children to clash and kill each other in space.”
“A wonderful mother,” Gin said.
“And what would you expect from Hell, old friend?” Zaria remarked.
“Now, remove Ursuhr’s cloak, or I will hurl you both to the surface of Hell.” Anguhr commanded.
‘Here I thought we were friends.’ Gin sent his thought to Zaria.
‘We are allies, at best.’ Zaria replied along the same waves. ‘Friendship comes when wars end. Right now, let us fight for our cause. We must stop Ursuhr! If he can use the technology—!’
‘Then he can detect it and perhaps defeat it, and all you have protected.’ Gin thought. He nodded and applied himself to his task of finding the ursine General.
Zaria stood next to the control dais and looked down at Proxis with an entreating look. Proxis glared up at her. He turned to his General.
Anguhr sighed and nodded. “Transfer to mental commands. Allow her the dais. I know you will protect my ship, Proxis.”
Proxis nodded and bowed to Anguhr. He stepped aside and let Zaria kneel down to use the dais, but watched her intently with focused, serpentine eyes.
Anguhr’s ship dared to near Hell. Its red aegis flared against the waves of radiation hurled from the Forge by the Dark Urge. Velocity drove it through the assault of energies across physical and strange spectra. A constant and violent storm of energy roiled beneath the ship as it cut across the skies. Blasts of plasma and lightning sent shockwaves across the wastelands far below. For an instant, the Dark Urge cowered but then became enraged. Anguhr’s boldness surprised her. Yet, Hell was her fortress. She changed her fury into weapons, and opened portals to hurl them at the impudent child of Azuhr.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Zaria continued entering commands at the dais. Yet she was no longer on t
he bridge of Anguhr’s ship. All around her was flat, black darkness. There was a sense that something moved in a circular path in the distance. Its motion was a vertical wave, or ripple in a curtain a mind knew was there yet could not see. Zaria knew the presence of the Dark Urge. And that her mind was now in Hell.
“How have you done this?” Zaria asked.
“Do you think you can come so close to Hell, to me, and not be subject to my power? My power, my sister, myself.” The Dark Urge said in a unidirectional and deep, feminine voice. “At least the half of the self, I was. Not the part I am. Now I don’t need you, sister. Self. I am whole.”
“You are fearful,” Zaria said. “But I can still help you.”
“You can perish as all do who oppose me. As all do, expect me. I am dark. Forever.”
“What have you done with the Great Widow? Have you killed her, too? Did she dare speak the truth of your madness and you set her aflame as you do the rest of creation?” Zaria stood tall and defiant.
“Spider, spider burning bright?” The Dark Urge laughed. “And here you are, sunshine, encased in eternal night.”
“So are you, sister. Let me free you.”
“Foolish girl!” The Dark Urge shouted and the avatar of the young girl in a dress with only half of her head sprinted by Zaria and vanished again in the black. “I am the darkness!”
“Then be as shadow, but let the rest live in peace.” Zaria said in pleading tones and raised her arms as if to embrace someone. “Call your Generals away from the battle. Even Anguhr. I will come to Hell, all of me. I will protect you.”
“As you protect me now?” The Dark Urge spoke as verbal thunder. “By making a weapon that can destroy me?”
The image of the little girl reappeared but now towered over Zaria who looked up at her. The girl’s half face scowled. She raised her shoe to stomp Zaria, but Zaria didn’t move as the sole came down at her. It vanished. Again, only darkness surrounded Zaria.
“You have annihilated worlds,” Zaria said and lowered her arms. “Too many worlds. The whole galaxy knows fear. Terror. You.”
“They threaten me,” The Dark Urge said in the voice of a child.
“They do not,” Zaria countered in a clam tone. “They were creating their own destinies. They could not threaten you. You are too strong, sister.”
“They would,” the Dark Urge’s voice was again deep but feminine. “Just as the Plunderers did. Just as you do now.”
“I only act to spare life’s destruction before you blot it out with darkness and terror.” Zaria gestured to a black, featureless sky. “You want to remake the galaxy in your image, yet you have no true form. Let me come to you and together we can have shape and bring substance to creation. We can be whole, again.”
“And then I would cease to exist as I am.” The Dark Urge replied in calm, measure tones. “Just as I did not exist before. You say I am formless, but I have existence. I am.”
“So am I,” Zaria said. “Together we can be more than both of us are apart.”
“As something else.” The Dark Urge said with a timbre of repulsion.
“Yes. Something greater.” Zaria thought to draw a deep breath but recalled she was in a place of mind, and a mind bent to madness.
“As nothing.” The Dark Urge furthered.
“As transcendence.” Zaria tried to convey reassurance in tone and thought.
“But not as I am!” The Dark Urge snapped. “No! We are not the same! We are no longer sisters. We are no longer even opposite sides. You are light yet you bring war. You save life yet you seek to destroy me. And you have killed my children. You are the enemy!”
“I am your sister,” Zaria lowered her head as if pleading to a spot on the black surface below, and then raised her head to look up again. “I am light. Let me help you. We should at least be together. I will live in the Forge. I will replace the Great Widow. In time we will grow together even if we stay distinct. Let that be our future.”
“It was our past. It is over. Dead.” The Dark Urge said. “The universe will be dead. I am its doom. I am the Dark Urge. The only light will be fire.”
Zaria made a mental sigh. “Sister, do not make me kill you.”
There was deafening laughter. Even as a mental avatar, Zaria thrust her hands to her ears until it ebbed.
“You see, perhaps we are the same!” the Dark Urge shouted. “You are as much death as me.”
“But your actions have brought me here and forced me to make war!” Zaria shouted against a renewed bout of dark laughter. “Your war is what threatens you!”
“Then come. Help me.” The voice of the child returned to Zaria’s ears. “Take the weapon. Destroy Anguhr’s ship. Bring it to me. We will use it together. We will bring peace.”
“First, send away Sutuhr and Ursuhr.” Zaria said. “I will send Anguhr to take Gin back to Asherah. Then, you and I will live together in the Forge. Your loneliness, your fear, will be over.”
There was nothing. Zaria glanced at to her sides, but she was still in the dark, featureless place. It did not vanish. Her sister was not yet finished.
“So sweet. So kind. So sad.” The child’s voice echoed against nothing.
“You will not let me come to you, will you sister?” Zaria asked.
“Sister?” The question rumbled on thunder. “Call me by my name!”
Zaria paused, and then replied. “You are the power regulation protocol.”
“No!” The single word seared like lightning. “Call me by my name!”
Zaria again paused before speaking. “You have become creation’s darkest urge. But you are madness.”
A scream was the only reply. Its sound was as abrading as an avalanche of jagged diamond against soft skin. Zaria gripped her ears. She knew the scream was only in her mind. But her mind struggled to contain the pain from the scream and her own failure to reach her sister.
Anguhr’s ship kept its vector towards Sutuhr and left the skies of Hell. On the bridge, Zaria slowly collapsed to the deck plating and curled into a near fetal position with her back facing the others. Gin looked at her, but quickly took over at the dais.
“What happened? Why has she fallen?” Anguhr demanded.
“I would imagine your grandmother reached into her mind.” Gin answered. “Zaria has just endured her own trip through Hell.” Gin looked down at Zaria. “Be strong, old friend. You are not alone.”
Gin stopped entering commands through the physical dais and violated his pledge not to enter Anguhr’s ship as data. He knelt beside Zaria and placed his hands on her shoulder and back.
“Is she dying?” Anguhr asked further.
“No.” Gin kept kneeling next to Zaria but looked over at Anguhr. “But I assume she has realized only one of them, herself or the Dark Urge, can live.”
“That is the same campaign she has tasked us all.” Anguhr growled.
“It may be easy for you to fight those you know as brothers, Anguhr.” Gin sighed. “But if I asked you to kill yourself, what would you do?”
The ship’s sudden veer took the place of an answer.
“I detect launches from Hell, Lord.” Proxis said. “Incoming fire. Of a sort I have never seen.”
Anguhr looked away from Gin and at the screens.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A flat region of Hell’s wasteland shook. The ground rose into three steep mountains that erupted as they grew into volcanoes with circular sides nearly as steep as cylinders. They were, in truth, the barrel’s of infernal cannons.
The eruptions became more violent. Red flame shot from the opened summits. Masses of the same flaming beams from Hell’s warships blasted towards space. The projectiles were gigantic, spinning heads of demonic maces. Black beads swirled in circular paths and through the jutting beams like hornet swarms imparting spin and speed. The bizarre, flaming missiles flew towards the burning wake of Anguhr’s ship.
On Anguhr’s bridge, he leaned to Gin while still watching the screens. “Have you fou
nd Ursuhr’s ship?”
“Soon!” Gin nodded with confidence.
“Hell itself is firing on us.” The thought stunned Proxis. He vowed to follow Anguhr, and now the fact he did so in rebellion to the Dark Urge struck deep into his brain. The impossible became real. It struck the wingless demon, hard.
“Missile screen.” Anguhr said.
Proxis stood frozen.
“Proxis: missiles! Fire now!” Anguhr roared and stood.
Proxis snapped into focus and thought the command. A wall of missiles fired. The shield of warheads detonated almost immediately against Hell’s projectiles. The shock of the blasts hit the ship’s red flames as if a storm gust struck a bonfire. The mace-head projectiles survived the countermeasure, but the strike diverted them from colliding with the ship. They flew into space, unguided and spinning.
On the bridge, Proxis turned and bowed before Anguhr. “I beg your indulgence, Lord Destroyer. I—”
“Fight, Proxis!” Anguhr yelled. “Fight for me and we all live! I will never lead you to certain death. But we must focus. And fight!”
“I will Lord. We will live.” Proxis returned back to his dais.
“General,” Gin stayed next to Zaria, but again looked out beyond bulkhead. “I have infiltrated a network the other Generals use to communicate.”
“Network?” Proxis queried.
“Yes. There are not in direct, ship-to-ship communications.” Gin answered.
“Ursuhr fears contracting your infiltrator,” Anguhr noted. “He has built a wall between Hell ships. Proxis, adjust intercept course to Sutuhr.”
“I have his ship, Lord.” Proxis said.
“You are likely right, General.” Gin said. “But the network of buoys gives me an easier method to—”
“Complete it before I kill Sutuhr,” Anguhr cut in and sat back on his throne still staring at the screens. “Or I will kill you.”
“No you won’t,” Zaria said and stood. “Gin will do this. But enough threats, General. We will all see this war end. But as one force.”
Beyond Apocalypse Page 26