Colony - Nephilim

by Gene Stiles

  When the tremendous explosion ripped outward, Raet arched her back in agony. She raised her tortured arms and let the excess energies rip the heavens above her. Now that it was gone, her drained and weakened body dropped like a stone. Raet quivered as if all strength was sucked out of her flesh and bones. Using pure, determined willpower, she struggled to her feet, knowing she must reach the safety of her warbird before Iapetus could regroup. She could not withstand another attack.

  Raet crumbled into the pilot’s chair and ripped the helmet from her sweat-covered head. She had to use voice commands to order the craft to fly far to the north, her hands shaking far too much to be of any use. Raet left Anak and her crew on the other side of Olympia before she entered the fray so now it was up to them to help. She had done all she could do for now. Another such battle would kill her. Knowing her ship would handle itself, an exhausted and tortured Raet closed her eyes and let a deep, troubled sleep overtake her.

  Chapter XXI

  Far from stupid, Iapetus saw the Falcon step into the breach and recognized it for what it was. Bellowing over his coms as he swerved his sled to the left, he ordered his men to peel off to the sides. The vast majority responded immediately, but in the fog of battle, enraged as they trampled the remains of their fallen comrades, many did not heed him. They were caught in the sun-hot blast and vanished as if they had never existed. All that was left of them was a filthy cloud of gray ash that quickly dissipated in the early autumn breeze. Nearly half his army was now gone.

  Spinning his sled around, Iapetus saw the Falcon fall and struggle to its feet. He slammed on the accelerator, vowing to tear the body out of the shell with his bare hands. Before he could reach the gap, he saw the ship rise and speed off into the distance. He howled in fury and frustration like a rabid beast.

  Iapetus slid his craft to a stop just short of the wall, throwing his body up against the limestone barricade. His ears were full of the shouted babble of his commanders desperately trying to regroup their terrified troops. He let them deal with it at the moment. Holding his pulse rifle tight to his chest, Iapetus made his way toward the steaming breach.

  No blue or red beams sliced the air as he stuck his head around the corner. The puddle of rock slag sizzling on the ground was already hardening though red and yellow blisters still bubbled in some spots. The majority of the lava had fallen into the cracks that fanned out from where the Nillian Falcon once stood, leaving a wide-open roadway his men could use. His black eyes, churning in his grim, square-headed face, Iapetus stepped around the red-hot stone and into the flattened grasslands beyond.

  The Lord Commander scanned the darkening landscape with a vengeance-filled gaze. He wanted something to kill. Iapetus was left disappointed. With the exception of a handful of bloody and scorched corpses, the Olympian forces were gone. A mile away, he saw the rise of buildings and stretches of streets. Already outraged that his battle plans were in tatters thanks to Ra’s intervention, Iapetus growled deep inside his pillar-like chest. As the storm continued to grow, a false twilight descended upon the streets of Olympia turning the windows and doors into black pits. Fighting through that maze of structures could be costly and near-suicidal.

  “So Ra has picked a side,” Iapetus muttered, cursing quietly to himself. “Cronus shall hear of this.” He brushed away stray strands of ebony hair that were matted against his sweaty forehead, his jaws clenched tighter than his hammer-sized fists. “Once Olympia is destroyed, there will be a reckoning. This I promise with my own blood,” he said fiercely.

  As much as he hated to admit it, now it was all up to that foul Admiral Denarius. “He had better not fail,” Iapetus grumbled as he turned to rejoin his men. “He had better not fail.”

  Before the Nillian warbird joined the fray against the forces of Iapetus, Denarius stood on the bridge of the Dreadnaught, beaming with a savage glow. A barbaric sneer covered his rounded jaw as he ran a massive paw over his shiny, dark-skinned, bald skull. In his grisly brain, visions of the carnage he would soon reek upon Olympia swirled in a sickly cesspool of delight. His deep-brown eyes scanned the darkening skies and mountainsides of the quickly approaching strait. The bridge displays did not detect any fortifications left along the thirty-mile-wide narrows, but Denarius trusted his own eyes more.

  Behind the Admiral, the two other warships led the heavily-armed sailing vessels in a tight, column, two ships abreast, staying in the center of the dark, deep waterway. The rising winds pushed them hard through the white-capped waves, increasing their speed. Nothing moved and his fleet suffered no further attacks as they cautiously moved toward the sharpened tip of the peninsula.

  “Once through the strait, we shall be but half an hour from the city,” Stephenous said from the helm, his frozen, blue eyes searching the landscape for any possible threat. He would not underestimate the Olympians again. His viper-filled mind was calculating how he could turn his captain’s loses against him when they returned to Atlantis. He may be able to wrest control of the Dreadnaught from the Admiral if the Lord Father found him lacking. Stephenous would see that he did.

  “We shall leave our fleet once we are in the clear,” Denarius said with a cruel chuckle, nodding to his First Mate. “Our three warships are much faster. We will speed ahead and pound the city into dust before they can even catch up. There is nothing to stand against us.”

  “Would that not leave them open to attack?” Stephenous asked, raising one blond eyebrow, the salty, damp winds matting his short, tightly curled, blond hair to his broad forehead.

  “Attack from what?” the Admiral snarled, irked the Mate would dare question him. “From what we know, Zeus has only a small fleet of fighters. We have yet to see even one of them. They are cowards and are too afraid to engage us,” he said, patting the console.

  “We did not know they had the rock throwers either,” Stephenous replied bluntly, daring to incur his captain’s wrath. ‘If necessary, I could kill him with my own hands,’ he thought coldly.

  “You object to my orders?” Denarius said, his eyes going black as he stepped back and faced the man. He put just enough distance between them to ensure he could draw his weapon and fire before the Mate could reach him.

  “Not at all, Admiral,” Stephenous answered, non-pulsed and bland. Inside, he recognized the danger he was in and shifted his weight slightly. “As your First Mate, it is my duty to point out these things. That is all.”

  “Fine,” Denarius bit back harshly, eyeing the man cautiously. “You have done so. Now go below decks and command the gunners.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Stephenous said, snapping to attention. Hurrying to his task, he thought with a smile that if something went awry, it would drive yet another nail in the Captain’s coffin. The Dreadnaught was as good as his.

  “Do you truly think we can do this?” Anak asked skeptically, eyeing the huge length of cable. Gathered around him in the Ripper building were the four Nephilim from his crew and another fifteen of the giants. After Raet dropped them, he and his men sped for the strait to help in its defense. Eriktis met them halfway and told them of his plan.

  “I have a squad of our brothers on their way here now,” Eriktis said, his voice harsh, his bronzed skin bathed in a light sheen of sweat. He gripped his friend’s forearm, glad to see him, but not having time for pleasantries. His usually smiling lips were set in a hard, straight line upon his sculpted features and his turquoise eyes were dark and drawn. “When they arrive, we are going to stop the Atlantean fleet.”

  Inside the mammoth structure, Eriktis pointed to the iron ring attached to the thick, heavy cable. He had slipped a long, steel rod, three foot thick, through the eye. Past the complicated network of pulleys, the building was cleared of materials, giving them hundreds of yards of open space.

  “This will raise the Ripper high enough to tear the keels from beneath their ships,” Eriktis said. “All we have to do is pull it taut and hold.”

  “We are strong, yes,” Anak said, still dubious, “but t
hat strong I do not know. Not only do we have to drag that weight through the sea, but we have to maintain the tension as it hits the ships. A daunting task.”

  “We must,” Eriktis stated bluntly, stepping toward the rod. “The rail guns are gone. If even one of those warships gets through, Olympia is lost.”

  Ten to a side, the gargantuan Nephilim picked up the bar and heaved just as the Dreadnaught crossed over the threshold. Arms as thick as the torso of most men bulged like giant boulders, tendons going as taunt as the cable they attempted to move. Legs like pillars of granite swelled with unbelievable power. Monstrous booted feet dug into the limestone floor, digging pits in the soft rock. Inch, by torturous inch, the array of pulleys began to turn, moving with terrifying slowness.

  With each grunted step, the spiked cable rose sluggishly from the ocean floor. The higher it slid through the heavy weight of water, the less the pressure against it became. The wheels turned a tiny bit faster, prodding the grunting Nephilim forward. Sweat poured in rivers from the broad brows of the twenty men. Veins popped out upon bronzed skin and pulsed with the pounding of giant hearts. Humongous back muscles threatened to tear and breath came in ragged pants. As the Atlantus and Gaidian passed overhead, the hooked, bladed balls were within a hundred feet of the surface and rising fast.

  The Ripper struck the first two Atlantean sailing vessels amidships, the razor-sharp, taloned, steel blades gripping and slashing into their oaken keels. The balls rolled in the frothing waters as the ships ran over them, tearing large, gaping gashes in their underbellies. At the speed they were moving, their Captains felt nothing more than a few bumps, not knowing they were in trouble until their holds began to overflow with briny seawater.

  Eriktis was thrown on his back, the wind torn from his lungs, as the impact vibrated along the cable. The only thing that saved him and his brothers was something he had not noticed before. In the center of the pulley array was the main wheel, twice as tall as the Nephilim. The cogs on the enormous steel gear were deeply notched and meshed with the other pulleys. On the back side of the main wheel, not visible from the front, was an immense chock that dropped into place with each turn. It prevented the gear from reversing direction. It saved them from being jerked into the teeth of the machinery and losing all the ground they had gained.

  Still, there was enough give in the cable to knock the Nephilim from their feet. The rod they were holding smashed into their chests, cracking ribs and tearing overwrought muscles. Four of the behemoths caught the cold-rolled steel in their faces, snapping their necks like twigs and crushing their skulls into a bloody pulp. Two others had their chests pulverized, shards of shattered bone piercing their lungs and hearts.

  Anak struggled to rise, his broken arm hanging limply at his side. One leg muscle ripped to shreds, he only managed to drag himself into a seated position with his back against the wall. His amber eyes were blurry with pain as he cradled his injured arm in his lap and panted.

  ‘Was it enough?’ he asked himself as he closed his eyes and let the golden glow of Healing encompass his body. ‘Was it enough?’

  The Ripper was hidden just beneath the roiling, deep-green ocean surface. The next two Atlantean ships passed over the unseen claws before the first ones had even started to list. The barbed claws snagged the timbers of their hulls near the prow. The vessels shuttered as the immense cable went taut and spilled their guts into the turbulent water. Ripped stem to stern, they floundered less than two hundred yards further before the weight of the water pouring into their fractured hulls brought them to a slow and deadly halt.

  The four remaining ships split away from their sinking comrades, their Captains desperately attempting to tack against rising winds that reverberated against the cliffs, creating powerful cross-currents. Their shipboard coms blazed with shouted, frantic orders. Their scanners picked up the claws of the sea monster hungrily reaching out for them from beneath the turbulent waves. Panicked crews battled the riggings, sails and the stiffly blowing winds as they fought to turn the speeding vessels. The last two in the column managed to turn back to sea, but the hapless friends were not fast enough. They were snagged in their sides and locked in the deadly embrace of the Ripper.

  Sailors from the dying armada killed each other over the few skiffs and lifeboats, terrified as hundreds of huge gray fins circled the sinking ships. Those unlucky enough to fall into the ocean depths screamed in piteous, high-pitched wails as the water boiled red with blood and chunky pieces of human meat. The great battleships of Atlantis were no more.

  Hearing the frenzied screams and maddened orders of their brethren infuriated the Captains of the three warships. Denarius ranted and bellowed into the comlinks, berating the commanders of his sister ships for wanting to turn about and aid their dying compatriots. Their deaths would be meaningless if they went unavenged. An incredible explosion of lightning shot upward into the sky beyond the city, matching the storm in Denarius’ heart. It was time to wreak havoc on their murderers.

  Poseidon held his ships back, waiting until they were west of his position. He was not aware of the devastation visited upon the Atlantean fleet by the Ripper, but he did know his fifteen vessel fleet had little chance against the three armored warships. His dark emerald eyes looked the pits of some ferocious, demonic serpent hungry for death.

  Until this very moment, Poseidon did not know the meaning of hatred. Now as he stood on the bridge of the Lady Dragon, his wide hands wrapped around the spokes of the wheel, he understood what his father felt. His wavy, yellow-red hair billowed around his sharply planed face like a cloud of raging fire. His massive body shivered with the vibrations of the raw, dark emotions twisting inside of him. Never had he wished to kill someone but now he prayed for the moment he could wrap his hands around the throat of Cronus. He wanted to watch the eyes bulge, the lips turn purple and hear the sound of a neck snapping beneath his massive fingertips.

  The Creator heard his prayers and demanded fearsome reprisals for the assault upon his people. In His fury, he sent a blackening sky filled with angry, rolling clouds and riotous winds.

  “Captain,” Kiranimis said, his boulder-shaped head cocked to one side as he listened to his coms. “The forward scouts say the rest of the Atlantean fleet never entered the bay. They do not know why. The sea is clear.”

  Poseidon did not know if he was gladdened or deeply disappointed. He may be outmatched by the warships, but he could crush the remaining vessels of the armada that survived the strait. For the first time, he was cravenly awaiting that moment with a fearsome, eager anticipation. Beneath his trimmed, pointed red beard, his full lips tightened at his loss.

  “Take us out,” Poseidon ordered a little sharper than he intended. “We will divide into seven-ship attack units. One on each flank of the warships while I come up astern. We take them on one at a time if possible.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the First Mate replied curtly, relaying the orders to get underway throughout the fleet. The brawny, barrel-chested man took no offense at Poseidon’s tone. He knew his friend too well for that. Kiranimis could feel the rage radiating from the Captain’s rock-hard body and pitied the object of that wrath.

  Knowing the awesome firepower they faced, the captains’ devised an audacious and dangerous plan. Believing they would lose at least two or more vessels battling the Atlantean sailing ships, they were buoyed by the fact they had a full complement. Their strategy was to attack the warships from either side, targeting their gun ports. Difficult to do on such a rolling sea, but there was little choice. The muzzles of the guns stuck out at least four feet from the hulls. If Poseidon’s plasma guns could liquefy them, they would be useless. Of course, it depended on two major questions. Could they get close enough without being blown out of the water and, more importantly, were the long guns shielded also? If so, they were dead men.

  Poseidon would spearhead the stern attack. While the other ships tried to take out the main guns, he intended to fire harpoons into the rear of the warship an
d board her. As much as he hated to do so, the Captain swapped out crewmen until his men were all Nephilim. With their prodigious strength and size, they could swing across the ropes and rip the metal doors off the turrets and destroy the people within then work their way through the gun decks. On top of that, they were vicious warriors and very, very hard to kill. The only exception was Kiranimis. The stubborn First Mate refused to leave.

  The Dreadnaught bucked and lurched as if the very ocean fought his advance. It felt as if a great hand was trying to push the warship away from the quickly nearing shoreline. Only the fact that it had no sails kept it from listing hard over in the blustery winds. The swells were rough enough that the crew had to lock themselves in their battle harnesses to keep from being tossed like rag dolls across the slippery upper decks. Only the powerful Proto-Sun engines kept it plowing steadily through the sea.

  No words could express the depths of the hatred, rage and fear tearing at the mind of the Admiral. Vipers with blazing red eyes, fangs dripping with acidic venom, coiled and squirmed within his barbaric soul. His mighty armada reduced to only the three warships. Iapetus and the Atlantean legions torn apart and blocked by the Falcon creature, now halted outside the city limits depending on him to break the backs and will of the Olympians. His eyes blinded as the scanners became cluttered with false readings, useless in the ten foot deep troughs and swells surrounding him.

  “And now this Creator-spawned storm,” Denarius grumbled loudly, swearing a long string of obscenities. Peels of booming thunder punctuated every expletive as blue-white lightning tore through the heavens. As yet, no rain poured from the ebon skies to obscure his view of the approaching city skyline.