Kalak barked the order to deploy towards the ship’s aft. He realized his horde would soon be under attack. He also knew Lord Ursuhr would focus on killing the rebel General, Anguhr. Defending the ship would be his and Martis’ duty. Unfortunately, General Anguhr had the foresight to give his demons a tactical edge. The constant barrage of missiles created a barrier and constricted Kalak’s deployment of his demons while the enemy advanced. They would be on him before he could mount a counter attacks in open space. This forced Kalak’s strike wings into close-to-ship formations while the attackers had open space to maneuver and adapt. One plan underway might gain them time and the advantage. No matter. He had to fight now, not wait for success in special ploys.
Kalak had many ways to kill a swarming assault before it reached the ship. But not in this battle. Martis reported that he could not open fire on the coming onslaught. An infiltrator attacked the ships’ guns and the plasma envelope had temporarily blocked simple line of sight targeting. The battle would come to Ursuhr’s ship. The hordes would fight it on and near the hull. Kalak knew he led the strongest warriors in the galaxy. They were Hell’s demons. Yet, so where the coming enemies.
Gin felt strained by the silence. The lack of noise made the atmosphere feel slow and gain great mass. Zaria had left to retrieve her sword. He and Proxis manned the bridge. Actually, Proxis manned the bridge. Gin stood and passively took in data, but he felt strangled in not releasing anything. Even the odd noise. He had reduced his own size to be in proportion to Proxis as a show of camaraderie. It did not work and only added to the feeling of the silence becoming a crushing mass. He was granted relief. Proxis spoke.
“We have—” Proxis paused. He stared at a small image among many now circulating before his dais. The image became the centered, largest stream of visuals and data. “Incoming. A ship.”
The visual feed showed a spinning cylindrical mass made from the burning beams of a Hell ship. It sped closer to the outer hull from the direction of Ursuhr’s ship.
“It defies detection, as did Ursuhr’s ship.” Proxis said. “I register it on passive detectors, only. We can see it. Yet—”
“It’s not from this ship.” Gin stated. “Is it possibly—?”
Gin saw the cylindrical craft suddenly cut through by a plasma lance. The cylinder exploded. A few demon bodies and weapons flew out from the blast.
“Um, from Xuxuhr’s ship?” Gin finished his question.
“No.” Proxis answered. “Wrong vector.”
“I admire you certitude.” Gin said with wide eyes as we watched the bodies and wreckage disperse.
Proxis pitched his thorny brow at a right-leaning slope and glared at Gin with a serpentine gaze. Gin considered becoming a giant again.
“Are we under counterattack?” Zaria asked as she reentered the bridge.
Zaria had regained her sword. It was sheathed on her back with its handle at her right shoulder. She had also gained a wary group of ten demon escorts led by the recognized Wahx. He and his team never stopped glowering at her and holding their rifles at the ready. Zaria suddenly stopped short when she saw the shorter version of Gin. She looked down at him with a gaze lit with bewilderment.
“Of course,” Proxis answered. “But this was a curious incursion. The ship held only a flight team and weapons. Too many for the crew.”
“Then the strike teams are en route.” Zaria said. She then drew her sword. “Or, already here. How many demons are still on this ship?”
“More than enough,” Proxis looked at Zaria with characteristic suspicion and glanced at her sword. “Guard teams of new demons stand ready to fight on board, or as emergency reserves. Lord Anguhr has never needed such reserves.”
“You need a minimum of ten warriors to one to fight an insurgent force. Minimum.” Zaria said with mounting concern evident in her voice.
“I can see no way such a force could—” Proxis began.
“The missile strike in the trones.” Zaria cut in. “They may not have been the only weapons the other Generals hid there.”
The sound of demon rifle fire echoed from the starboard passageway.
“They are here!” Zaria shouted and bolted to the fighting. Her escorts grunted and followed.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Across legends, histories, and the lore of civilizations that spanned stars, most giants were seen as lumbering, heavy, and slow. Anguhr was certainly heavy, and, just as Ursuhr, huge. However, his agility was remarkable. It was a useful trait as he leapt to avoid Ursuhr’s maul. He somersaulted across the flaming, chaos of hull beams. His hands grabbed the handle of his axe. His body spun to avoid the impact of the maul’s head where his own had just been. Anguhr leapt to his feet. The axe blade again searched for a limb, neck, or body to cleave apart. Ursuhr’s own speed became important to keeping himself whole.
Solok watched his leading strike wings near Ursuhr’s vast warship. The Generals Anguhr and Ursuhr looked small on the top hull. They also maneuvered to strike each other. Advanced teams from Ursuhr’s horde flew out to engage the staggering number of attacking demons. On the top of the hull, Anguhr’s axe and Ursuhr’s maul collided. The impact caused another shockwave to blast the hull and radiate out. It struck the demon formations and knocked them away from the ship. Another clash of the Generals’ weapons blasted another shockwave.
Solok commanded from the lead strike wing that quickly regrouped. The following mass of demon formations blocked the sight of their own ship and space behind them. Solok considered his attack. An assault along the ship’s top was impossible while the Generals fought. Taking the bridge would end the battle more swiftly. Getting there through enemy horde and rampaging Generals would be brutal. Again, Solok smiled. He raced his horde straight to the closest side. Of course, that was where the opposing demons emerged in force. There, a wave of anger shot towards Solok’s forces. It was the massed rifle fire of Ursuhr’s horde.
On Anguhr’s ship, Zaria ran to the sound of the rifle reports. Motion was so much slower in a physical form, yet it provided the interaction necessary to achieve her plans and save creation. Even when the interactions were often violent. She found more violence ahead. Two units of demons fought each other, as she expected. Yet seeing it was still surreal. What eased the strangeness was an obvious difference in combatants. The insurgent demons’ skin and thorns held an odd, dark hue that absorbed light and made them so black they appeared as three-dimensional shadows. Ideas flashed through her head as quickly as fired bullets. Ursuhr or his engineers had taken the concept of camouflage technology and applied it to a new species of demons. She would never have expected innovation from a General. Yet mental flexibility allowed Anguhr to endure an extreme emotional shock. Zaria felt dread when considering other permutations of the technology she had dispersed from Asherah and other Builder sites. It also made clear how dire things would become if Ursuhr won. His innovative side proved a greater threat than his ability to detect life Zaria had hidden.
The insurgent demons had pinned a small squad of Anguhr’s guards at a passage junction only a sprint down from the bridge. They fired a smaller, more compact version of the demon rifles. They also bore the same style of powerful grenades on belts bonded across their chests. One insurgent pulled a grenade and grinned as he prepared to throw it. Instead his arm came free at the end of Zaria’s sword. The demon turned to look at the severed site at his shoulder. Zaria’s sword quickly slid in and out of his darkened hide. His body lost its covering darkness as he fell dead. His comrades were cut down by the fire of Wahx and his unit that moved up behind Zaria.
“This team was heading for the bridge.” Zaria’s eyes flashed. She dropped the now inert grenade and demon arm beside the rest of its body.
“A natural, strategic move.” Wahx droned as he kicked the mostly intact insurgent Zaria had killed. The ones he and his unit had slain were blasted pieces scattered down the passageway. He turned to eye the trapped demons that now emerged from the adjacent passageway.
“Proxis will—” Wahx began.
“He cannot detect these enemy demons.” Zaria cut in. “We must engage them in line of sight.”
“Yes,” Wahx growled. “Then, agreed. Sirc, Kire, go with her. Fight. Protect our Lord’s ship!”
“All of us will.” Zaria nodded.
Wahx squinted at Zaria. He then quickly bolted down the ship. Two demons stayed behind as all others followed Wahx down the passageway. Zaria took them to be Kire and Sirc. Rifle fire sounded in their direction almost instantly. Her two assigned demons began to move toward it.
“No,” Zaria said. “Follow me.”
Zaria ascended from the bridge and onto the flaming red expanse of the top hull. She thought of Anguhr fighting on his own aboard Ursuhr’s ship against that General. Her own battle on this ship would likely not be as frightful. She changed her mind when bullets ripped through space and flames towards her. The large, high velocity rounds pelted her emerald armor and then burst as molten flecks from the energy she surged ahead of herself. She employed new defenses imagined since fighting Xuxuhr. She expanded her field to protect Kire and Sirc who emerged behind her. The infiltrators were surprisingly close and fast. They moved across the hull and between the gaps in the burning beams like snakes through a cratered landscaped.
Sirc and Kire took flattened positions beside the crouching Zaria and aimed their rifles.
“Hold your fire until I—” Zaria never finished her order.
Insurgent grenades blew all three of them backward. Sirc and Kire but were blown off the hull by a new assault of grenades. The larger Zaria rolled, and still gripped her sword.
“Gin!” She shouted. She immediately heard his reply in her mind.
‘I understand. Hold on!’ Gin replied over their thought wavelengths. ‘They are already closing in!’
On the bridge screens, Gin and Proxis observed Zaria crawling her way to a hull gap as a sheet of insurgent bullets struck her energy shield. The smaller Gin turned to Proxis.
“Hold out your hand.” Gin said with a slight bow of his head to Proxis.
Proxis glared at Gin but slowly raised his right palm and sharp fingers to him.
Gin leapt and fell into Proxis’ hand as the ball of amber. Proxis then heard Gin’s thoughts within his own brain.
‘I do this as an act of trust. You can crush me as this ball.’ Gin transmitted. ‘Now please return that trust. If you or this ship is destroyed, then so am I. What I do now is for you, your General, as well as my own world. I only ask for a few moments of trust.’
Gin still had a full range of senses. He detected Proxis’ left hand reach up and hover over the key that fired the secondary batteries.
Proxis saw the reason for Gin’s dramatic gesture materialize over the hull near Zaria.
“A few moments?” Proxis asked as a challenge.
‘Perhaps more.’ Gin replied as thought. ‘At least until victory.’
Proxis gave a low growl, but his left hand moved away from the dais.
Seconds before, Zaria had watched insurgent demons fire and skillfully maneuver closer to the bridge. She hoped Wahx and his units had killed all of Ursuhr’s new breed inside the ship. Here, she was the last defense. She gripped her sword and prepared to leap. The leading insurgent unit was ready for her attack and raised their compact guns. Then, an unseen force crushed them against the burning hull beams.
Zaria sighed in relief. Flames of the crimson aegis flattened wider. They whipped beneath an unseen, circular mass. One of Zaria’s comet ships from the Iron Work became visible. Its tail slashed reeling insurgent demons. The comets were not merely chariots as Zaria had claimed. They were warrior transports. The second ship hovered near, but stayed concealed. Without battle cry or need for orders, fresh teams of archers, gulos, and two giants leapt from it. They appeared to jump straight into existence near the middle of the invisible comet’s hull. Eden’s warriors attacked the insurgents and quickly adapted to the hull’s fiery, gap filled battlefield. The second comet became visible at the end of the insurgent force. More of Zaria’s forces entered the battle from the first comet. They surrounded the insurgents. The demons did not surrender, nor were they offered the chance. Zaria charged and joined the fight.
On a vaster scale, Solok’s battle also neared descent from tactical combat to mere annihilation. Solok evaded the Generals’ shockwaves. Yet, before the demons clashed, each horde faced the opposing force’s rifle fire. The loud burring of rifle fire was unheard. Solok’s strike leaders and their tiers of lieutenants drew their swords and thrust them forward. The swords deployed force shields. The formations flew forward under protection. However, the enemy also used the same if rarely needed tactic. They exploited gaps and slight separations in the lines. Solok’s demons fell victim to well placed shots and hits from massed salvos. More of Ursuhr’s demons emerged from the side of his ship. The fire intensified. It was time for the next stage of Solok’s plan.
Solok thought the order and it became the impulse of all demons. Behind his leading strike wings, the horde arced like an inverted wave with the new crest curving below the keel and the mass of Ursuhr’s emerging demons. Solok kept advancing. Behind and below him his wave continued to flow into the thick of Ursuhr’s horde.
As Kalak feared, his forces were outmaneuvered. There was no retreat as their armory, home, and place of birth came under attack. All was left no was to fight. It was all demons ever knew. However, Kalak had never known a battle where victory was uncertain. The vibration of his constantly firing gun became his primary sensation.
The demons on the crest of Solok’s inverted wave opened fire. Their attack diverted and suppressed the withering streams of bullets streaking towards Solok’s lead forces. The surviving demons of his feint also advanced. Smaller units exchanged fire as the opposing forces closed the distance. Each horde began to see the dark of each others’ serpent eyes.
As fighting continued on both ships, their two Generals continued their attempts to destroy each other. Their duel had raged along the top hull across the ship’s great length. Another shockwave assaulted the red aegis as their weapons clashed. Most watchers would have wished the two massive combatants to suffer fatigue or at least pause to ease their tired eyes. Anguhr and Ursuhr never suffered exhaustion, not even under the great weight of pride. However, Anguhr began to suffer boredom. He allowed Ursuhr’s maul to sail passed his helmet. Instead of striking at Ursuhr with his massive axe, he punched Ursuhr in the snout. In their close proximity, Anguhr had noticed it looked newly healed and decided to restart the process. Ursuhr leapt back and roared. Anguhr stepped back, and spoke.
“We can kill each other, or chose another end. One not in death.”
“We are death!” Ursuhr barked and clutched his maul tightly. “We are annihilation.”
“But we can be something else,” Anguhr’s voice rolled the flames near his boots. “We can seek a new path. A new destiny for ourselves and our hordes.”
“My horde only lives to serve me! As does yours.” Ursuhr countered. “That is our destiny. We rule them. Our ruler sits in Hell. No other place survives her wrath. There is no other existence but to serve Hell.”
“I now serve myself. Hell has no power over me!” Anguhr shouted.
“Only a fool believes thoughts of madness,” Ursuhr said in a strangely calm tone. “You may be strong Anguhr, as am I. But we—nothing—is stronger than the Dark Urge. To rebel is to die. Bring death. Or suffer it. There is nothing more to existence.”
“No.” Anguhr felt his ire returning. “I will not serve a thing I have seen is built on lies. I will create a new path.”
“A new destiny? Ha!” Ursuhr yelled. “We are meant to be as we are made. We are demons. Generals of hordes. But we are still the Dark Urge’s servant
s. She is the greatest force of creation. Why would I rebel? I am scion of her power. With her I stand. Without her, I would not exist!”
Anguhr rejected Ursuhr’s words with a shake of his head. “There are other means of creation. Her power is not infinite, and our purpose is a lie. For me, it is at an end.”
“And so you seek peace?” Ursuhr asked. “Pathetic. Ridiculous! When no enemies are left to conquer, we will simply fight among ourselves. You knew this. Do not doubt it. Now, this respite is the only boon I grant before I kill you. It is what our creator deems. I will fight to win. I am your destroyer.”
Ursuhr flexed his shoulders while gripping his maul handle. His metallic-toned hide began to shine. He skin heated and then glowed as hot metal. His eyes became lit and brighter than Anguhr’s own. The atmosphere rising from the ship’s interior crackled as it burned against him. His rage and passion had sparked another level of power inside him as Xuxuhr had shown on the Iron Work. The transformation startled Anguhr, but he held back any display of shock.
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