Shadows of the Son

by E L Strife

  Lifting the Suanoan handgun, Bennett charged out from his post. He took down eleven Linoans in a strobe of plasma, before diving behind a wall. “We can’t lose both of you. Where are the others?”

  A strained sigh preceded Lavrion’s words. “Terson and Nephma went with my sister to the main bridge.”

  The Life Force bar for Lavrion bumped up one unit to Bennett’s relief. “Your job is protecting Yari now. You know where to find us.”

  Bennett swung out from his hiding spot, ducking beneath an ArcBow. Planting the barrel of his gun in the Linoan’s ribs, Bennett fired. But no others came. The math wasn’t right in his mind. Peering out into the hangar, Bennett saw a flash of red trail Azure’s silhouette to the door at the other end. Charred Linoans were scattered everywhere.

  Azure rammed a fist into the control panel. It fizzled and snapped with electrical arcs. The doors hissed open, and Azure’s hulking figure disappeared inside. He’d entered the upper level of the bridge without a second glance or a moment of tactical contemplation.

  He’s not thinking straight.

  Weaving through pallets of supplies and parts, Bennett peered in through the oblong glass windows of the nearest door. A group of Primvera huddled together around an obsidian pedestal. The contraption etched with veins of light in colors that matched their withered bodies. Overhead, the dome festered with plasma. The upper deck was empty otherwise.

  Red streaks filled the far end of the lower bridge, just visible over the railing. Bennett couldn’t see for certain, but he figured it was Azure. Atana’s beacon blinked on the same level, her status unchanged since their arrival.

  Some of his concerns eased. Atana’s charts hadn’t changed. Unless her wristband is broken.

  Bennett stepped back and took a shot at the control panel. It sparked, and the doors cracked open. Awe, come on.

  He hung the rifle across his chest and took a deep breath. His muscles ached from the beating he’d taken in the rolling ship. Slowly, he pulled the doors apart far enough he could slip inside.

  Warped whistles and sizzles of exchanged plasma fire reverberated throughout the main bridge. Raising his weapon, Bennett sank low, creeping toward the edge of the platform to peek at the situation below. All he could see was a luminous blanket woven of fiery blue, green, and red threads. The players were indecipherable.

  Chains clinked softly behind him, prompting Bennett to turn.

  Eight Primvera shivered as they stared up at him, their palms strapped to a floating hoop around the pedestal. The ninth was slumped over, his eyes shut in sunken sockets.

  Bennett scanned the deck again. Finding it still empty, he snuck back and circled the group under cover of the shouts and repeated whiz-thunks of firing weapons below. Atana’s status still hadn’t changed, and Azure had likely reached her position. The Prims didn’t look like they were getting freed any time soon. He couldn’t, in good conscience, leave innocents in a hot zone.

  Inspecting the armored snakes running down each Primvera’s spine, sets of pincers framed around each flume strand, Bennett figured one wrong move could set off a Kilavi-ending result. Metal collars matched the cuffs. All were linked to a claw-shaped brace which snugged itself to the base of the Primveras’ shaved heads. Amianna had mentioned Suanoa liked to harness the power of Primes to open Slashgates.

  He reached for the stick-thin arm of the closest Primvera. She cowered away. Her skin was a faded-violet but bore splotches of darker colors.

  “How do I release you?” he asked, sliding back to give her some space.

  She responded with words he didn’t understand and a frantic shake of her head.

  Bennett frowned and opened a channel to Yari, lowering his voice. “Hey, I’ve got nine Prims locked to a post up here on the bridge. Any idea how to free them?”

  “Damn it. I bet that’s why I can’t get the system to disconnect. No idea. You could try the Clio marking pattern. It got me in here. But don’t take my word for it.”

  Bennett stood, eyeing the menacing black harnesses holding the Primveras hostage. “Head this way as soon as you can. They may need Lavrion’s help.”

  Studying the radiant symbols at the top of the obsidian pedestal, Bennett tried to find a pattern that would make up the same shape as the marking on his chest. Suddenly, the glyphs peeled up like ghosts, swirling and repositioning midair. He blinked in shock and slid back.

  The symbols reordered themselves, not matching what Yari had suggested. Reaching to tap the first on the left, a prickling memory of the Suanoan ship’s start-up sequence made him seize. Their language started on the right. Gah! Everything about them is backward.

  When Bennett punched in the code, the ghosts vanished, and the restraints clicked open. The glow in the pillar and the dome above simmered out. Every Primvera moved lethargically as if their joints were nearly frozen, and Bennett found himself helping to remove the harnesses while watching over his shoulder.

  The swelling glow of a plasma weapon evoked Bennett’s shield on instinct. It surrounded the cluster of Primvera in time, but the force of the microexplosions rippling through knocked Bennett on his back. The pressure pounded around them, leaving Bennett shuddering and crawling as he freed the last—a girl who reminded him of Krett. Bennett forced himself to stand before their emaciated bodies, waving them out the door he’d entered. “Go!”

  Plasma bullets deflected like a lava mist off of Bennett’s golden shell with bruising strength shrouded in blistering mist. He held his position until the Primvera were safe in the hangar beyond. Finding his rifle lying on the floor, Bennett dropped to a knee behind the pedestal and lowered his protective barrier.

  Ten meters out, stood a Suanoa at the top of the stairs, hands open, exposing familiar plasma weapons embedded in its palms.

  Bennett took three shots.

  The Suanoa stumbled backward and slid against the wall, leaving a navy streak.

  Scrambling to his feet, Bennett descended. He could still hear shots continuing on the lower level.

  Below, shields lifted and fell like bubbles in boiling liquid. Shots zigzagged around the deck. Molten metal dripped from missed targets. Blood stained the floor in all colors between bodies of armored Linoans and Suanoa, and various species of workers dressed in stiff, brown tunics.

  Atana had, to Bennett’s surprise, significantly underestimated the number of Suanoa. There had to be a hundred or more. Half of the uniforms were black, trimmed in a deep burnt red, the others accented by a metallic orange along the seams and on the emblem centered over the chest.

  Plasma blazed past Bennett’s head, singeing hair. Ducking under cover of a control station where a Kriit worker had been shot, he returned fire. As he crouched, he brushed against the body. Still warm.

  His heart wrenched for the man whose freedom was so short-lived. Wishing he could ease their pain, Bennett covered the worker’s eyes with his free hand and uttered a few words he didn’t, himself, understand. The raucous gunfire and shouts shut out Bennett’s thoughts, leaving him tensing with rage.

  Gun grips squeezed tight in his fingers, Bennett raised himself and let go of rules, logic, and himself, freeing the energy within. Time slowed. Muzzle flashes burst bigger and brighter. Plasma rounds snaked through vibrating air.

  The gun kicked into Bennett’s shoulder. One shot, one kill. He swiveled and took down another until the harmony of a pattern hummed in his body.

  Suanoa dropped as if unaware of his presence. But there were still far too many hiding in places he couldn’t reach from his position.

  Lifting his shield, Bennett scoured the abandoned command stations. In a far corner, perched in a truss opening, Terson took shots behind Atana’s manufactured wristband-shield. As the beam melted and sagged from returned fire, Terson jumped to another. Across from him, Nephma had settled into a short hallway with a few others in brown tunics. They laid cover fire as if protecting something beyond their position.

  Squinting through the masses, Bennett saw Atana,
hanging by her neck from a Suanoa’s raised hand. The sight had him lurching forward, the shock sending his shield sputtering out—a mistake he realized too late.

  It felt like a sack of bricks swung at his chest. Bennett caved from the blow and toppled backward onto a bloodied body. Breath left his lungs. Lights flickered to black.

  The iron-sweet scent of death turned his stomach from pity and anger the same way for every species. Spots of vision returned and melded together until he could see the smoky, torn-up bridge again.

  Envisioning his shield, Bennett manifested it just as another barrage fell upon him. Slumping against a wall, he blinked hard and brought a blurry image of his chest into view. The Suanoan space suit bore a charred mark. Wiping a finger over it in shock, he left a trail exposing undamaged armor.

  Rhizoras plating?

  In the struggle for breath, a shadow descended upon his position—slender, pale, and holding an illuminated green disc shooting bullets with white lightning. A sharp face with gray-green eye Defending Bennett. Killing Suanoa.

  Coughing hard, Bennett got his feet under him. His ribs and back ached, but he had to get to Atana. It was clear Azure hadn’t made it. Bennett started for Nephma’s position.

  The man grabbed Bennett’s elbow, his tone stern. “I do not suggest running the gauntlet.”

  Bennett jerked away and looked over at the man.

  The Linéten dressed in homespun, dark grey armor held up a chrome cylinder the size of a silencer, bringing with it an almond-shaped shield of green light. He deflected plasma rays as if waving hello to a neighbor. The stranger fired effectively with the weapon in his other hand, taking down another Suanoa. “She’s running out of time!”

  “W-why?” It was all Bennett could manage. He had too many questions, each one demanding an answer.

  The man’s shoulders fell as though he’d explained himself a million times. “Long story. A Prime is the reason my ancestral line survived, so I’m on the opposite side of the typical spectrum. Now, if you’ll pull your head out of your ass, I’ll show you a way to get to your kiatna without dying.” He jerked his head toward a nearby door.

  Bennett watched the man take out three more Suanoa with ease. It was too odd a sight not to stare.

  “For god’s sake, move or die shepherd!” He shouted back.

  Cursing under his breath, Bennett followed. The warmer tint to the stranger’s skin and relatively high muscle mass suggested he didn’t associate with typical Linétens. “Who are you?”

  Out into the hall, the man ushered Bennett through two junctions littered in Linoan bodies and into a quiet corridor where he lifted up a panel in the floor. “I’m an Elite Scout for the Primvera Guild, Empyrean division. My name is Jecarne.”

  Bennett stopped at a distance from him. “You must forgive me for my doubts. Your kind just killed a lot of my people.”

  Looking annoyed, Jecarne tugged his collar down, exposing a bodysuit of hexagonal chromatophore cells. A glinting black shield graced his proud left peck sporting a pair of waving flume-wings, an olive branch, and a crown made of shimmering stars. “The shield tells others my status of three things: loyalty, composure, and life-force, respectively. Tell me, are the wings moving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you have your answer.” Releasing his collar, Jecarne dropped into the shaft without hesitation. His voice echoed up from a hollow cavern below. “They’re going to die if you don’t move your indecisive ass!”

  Checking the halls, Bennett slung his rifle over his back. He sent a quiet prayer to the universe feeling out of sorts for putting his trust in a Linéten and jumped through after Jecarne.

  Chapter 53

  THEIR HAUTEUR was a constant source of Atana’s motivation. Apogee imperial of Kyra Three, Oomuas—a necrotic skeleton of a creature with sagging skin like deflated roadkill—had laced a bony hand around her neck and lifted her feet from the floor with unusual ease. She hated every second his skin touched her, conversely loving every second her presence burdened him. His eyes, like rings of magma floating in holes bored in his head, roiled with fury. That contact was all she needed to connect to his Ether, their Ether.

  The body, mind, and spark were all necessary to survive. The only safe way to eliminate the Suanoa and protect the innocents on the ship was to destroy their minds from the inside out. This had always been part of her plan. Except she hadn’t purged the Kyra. More Suanoa remained onboard, alive. The number she faced terrified her.

  But Oomuas was stuck holding her until she awakened again. And she was stuck until he released her. The easiest way to freedom was death. Each battle she entered with Suanoa, she expected to die as her father did. But Zephyr’s imperials were stronger, their Ether colder. More voices filled this realm than had on Agutra— disturbing pairs of screeches and low rattles making her wish she was deaf again.

  They grew in volume until the sounds overwhelmed thought. Atana squirmed in Oomuas’s grip, begging to cover her ears. She winced from the pain of her body hanging from her neck, the ruckus of Suanoan voices in her mind, and the chill of the endless black numbing her fingers and toes.

  In the pitchy Ether, white lights flared to life in Suanoan forms. Oomuas had called upon his brethren as she predicted. But Marlit’s appeared as well, joining the corona of Suanoan sparks around her.

  She hadn’t anticipated the imperials joining forces. Though telekinetic manifestations like her shield did not work in Ether, neither did Suanoan plasma weapons. Here, they were minds and sparks; their bodies were ghosts.

  Oomuas signaled over his shoulder. “So nice of our old power couple to be with us once again.”

  Power couple? Atana’s heart leapt into her throat. Zephyr Station— Oomuas had been there. The longer Atana studied him, the more familiar the flecks of burn scars on his face became. She had only a vague memory of crouching in her crate as she was in-processed beside Azure.

  “I didn’t know it was acid,” she said apathetically, remembering slapping a jar off of the table at him upon inspection. “But I’m glad it was.”

  Oomuas’s hand laced tighter around her throat.

  Atana hummed a whimper under the pressure, clinging to his arm and kicking her legs in vain.

  One of Oomuas’s cheeks twitched. “Shut up.”

  In the black mist behind Oomuas, Azure’s sapphire silhouette appeared, wrists bound, staggering forward to his knees as if he’d been thrown. Two Suanoa jammed probes into his shoulders. Azure arched and cried out to the sounds of cracking branches.

  “Azure!” Atana kicked, trying to break free and run to him. She’d seen Azure suffer enough. But Oomuas didn’t budge.

  “You are nothing without her,” one of Azure’s captors sneered.

  A devilish grin warped Oomuas’s face. “You’re well-known back on Zephyr. It’ll mean a promotion when I return with your heads.”

  An overwhelming desire to defend Azure took over Atana. “He has thousands of kiatna willingly following him. No threats or plasma burns or torture. He has power you can’t imagine. Kill him, and you make him a martyr. Then he will have power even in silence.”

  The pair of guards retracted their weapons. Azure fell to his stomach, gasping for air.

  Oomuas bared his long, spiny-black teeth. They glinted under her blue light. “No one is more powerful than us!”

  Atana spit in his face. “The universe still is.”

  He growled until a screech from beyond Azure’s position made them both look. Four of the gathered Suanoa sank to the floor, their phosphorescence vanishing like smoke in a breeze.

  “Heshpan? Caicos?” Oomuas scanned the space. “Nymeh?”

  When no response came, the other Suanoa fidgeted and mumbled amongst themselves.

  Atana didn’t know what to make of it. To be turned to dust in Ether meant the body had to die. Someone was on the outside, in the waking realm, killing Suanoa.

  Several more fainted before their shapes became fading puffs. When the two hold
ing Azure stumbled back and disappeared, Azure vanished from Ether with them.

  Atana’s mind emptied of thought as she scoured the space he’d just occupied, praying.

  No smoke. No dust. Nothing.

  He should be safe, she told herself.

  “Stop killing them!” Oomuas demanded, frantically swiveling around to watch the decimation of his remaining crew and Marlit’s in the ring around them.

  It wasn’t her doing, but she had no complaints. “Why? You yield for no one. We show only the mercy we have received.”

  Whatever the cause, Atana saw her opportunity—his distraction— and let the internal blockades fall, the ones that kept her emotions safe from others and others safe from her power. She focused on the feeling she’d had on Semilath: trillions of sparks gathered around her, angry and begging her for revenge after millennia of oppression and attempted genocide.

  Power stirred within her like the pulse-pounding thrill of an adrenaline rush. Light burst from her body with incinerating intensity, coating her skin in a resplendent blue blanket. The energy from her spark hung mid-air in dewdrops as time slowed at her will.

  Just like Semilath. And Vioras. Atana lavished Oomuas’s surprise.

  His lips curling, he laced his free hand around her neck, doubling the pressure.

  “Long live—” Atana clawed at his hands, desperate for air. Her vision blurred. “The La’kian.”

  Her hold on time and her power fell, unleashing a cyclone of scorching destruction. The armor of Oomuas and his two aimids coated in red light. All others boiled and burst into ash.

  If Oomuas was bothered by the loss, his sunken face no longer showed it. “Still three to one.”