With that action complete, the two forces seemed to pull apart, as though done testing each other. Demios had spent a good chunk of his fleet in the assault, but had still kept back a sizeable reserve. The Wardens had suffered heavy loses too, and as Oktavius scanned the tac display he realised they’d been left without a single undamaged warship amongst them. Most of the Wardens ran small crews, and had called in old alliances, favours, even mercenaries for this battle. Even those who owned larger vessels tended towards cargo haulers and other less ostentatious methods of transport. Formidable as they were, they were not an army. Sera had them outnumbered and outgunned — and she hadn’t even shown her pretty little head yet. Demios’ lumbering battleship was clearly visible towards the rear of his position, surrounded by red-hulled cruisers…
And fighters.
Oktavius swore. Fighters were something few of the Warden’s ships were equipped to repel. Conventional tactics used fighters to combat fighters; only a handful of ship designs were capable of fending them off with fast-tracking automated batteries. None of the Wardens maintained their own fighter squadrons, Oktavius knew. It was an expensive conceit. Pilots worth a damn didn’t come cheap, and they needed housing, feeding and constant flight time in well-maintained aircraft. Planetary governments and sector fleets kept a full complement, but beyond them only pirates and mercenary groups fielded fighters in large numbers. Hell some of the Wardens out there were in their personal fighters because that’s all they had…
Oktavius made a decision. Time to play his last card now, rather than wait until it was too late to make a difference. “Rufine, please order Fire Control to target Demios’ battleship.”
“Right away, my Lord!”
If Sera had been running the battle up there, it would have been a pointless gesture. Demios’ fleet was at extreme range for Atalia’s surface guns, and it was almost certain that the munitions would never reach their intended target. But Oktavius suspected that Demios was running this show, at least temporarily. And Demios was proud. A direct attack on his flagship could not go unpunished — not for someone like him. Firing directly at him with the hitherto secret guns in the fortress would rile him up, hopefully goading him into doing something rash… like making a full frontal assault on Atalia? Oktavius scoffed. Demios was arrogant, but sadly not stupid.
“Weapons have acquired their targets, My Lord,” Rufine reported. “However, the gunners report that firing is likely to be ineffective at this range.”
“Noted,” Oktavius said. “Fire at the earliest opportunity.”
He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing his tension to go with it. This was a gamble; revealing the presence of the ground-based weaponry was his one surprise, and something he could have held in reserve. But that implied losing the battle above, and Oktavius wasn’t ready to admit defeat just yet. Not when he’d assembled the galaxy’s finest warriors in the skies above him.
As the powerful payload of ordnance blasted spaceward, Oktavius permitted himself the tiniest of grins. He was doomed — even an idiot could tell that. But he would make the traitors pay dearly for their victory. With luck, none of them would survive to enjoy it. Taking them with him would be a small satisfaction to weigh against the death of his Order — but the Wardens would rise again. There were still some out there, far-flung warriors too distant or too busy to heed his call. They would regroup, re-establish some form of Council, and the Wardens would return to defend humanity.
In over ten-thousand years, they had never failed.
His only regret was that he wouldn’t be around to see it.
30
Kreon lay on the cold bunk in his cell, his mind ablaze with horrors.
But the hallucinations held no power over him.
They didn’t need to.
The death of his daughter — for the second time — being forced to watch it on the viewscreen…
Had broken him.
He cared for nothing anymore. Not himself, not her ridiculous cause… not even the galaxy. It would burn when he was gone; more accurately, it would have the life drained out of it one planet at a time. The Black Ships had returned to this galaxy over and over, larger and more powerful every time. At least twice in recorded history, they had wiped out all forms of sentient life. This time humanity would be their target, and every living person in the galaxy would die. Thousands of years from now, or tens of thousands, a younger species would discover space travel. They would colonise the planets as they found them, and marvel at the ruins of a civilisation long-lost. Sooner or later they would find the Portals, and would seek to understand them… And so the cycle would continue.
Against such immeasurable and ancient inevitability, what was he, just one man, to do?
There was no longer any hope for mankind. Just as there was no longer any hope for him.
He lapsed into an apathy so deep it was like a coma.
The drugs the Lemurian torturers administered were filtered from his blood within minutes. There was nothing they could do to stop that, but they could see what was happening. Their solution: more drugs, administered constantly, in such vast quantities that even his bio-engineered smart blood had trouble keeping up.
Kreon didn’t care. Given the choice, he would have surrendered to the drugs — even though the nightmares they brought would give him no respite. Assessors came and went, casually trawling his mind for tidbits, leaving confused more often than not. Kreon’s memory was a bottomless well of secrets; three-hundred years of clandestine operations, of hidden manoeuvres, of trickery and misdirection so complex even he came close to losing track at times. Delving into his stream of consciousness even with determination and focus, it would be difficult in the extreme to discover anything that made sense to them. Other people, particularly those born with the Gift, had developed tightly-structured defences against this kind of mind-rape. Kreon had never bothered. By the time it became as issue, his mind was already augmented three ways to Earth and back just from trying to store all the data he’d accumulated. His strategy under probing was simple: jump in, he invited them. And unbolted the floodgates.
Now though, all they’d be seeing was his grief. He no longer cared about the relationship being laid bare, not that he sensed anyone picking up on it. The specifics were drowned out in a tidal wave of pain so visceral that several of his tormentors simply gave up, pleading mental overload.
He’d have smiled at them, if he was able.
There was no physical torture. Again, there was no point; the pain he coped with every waking moment far outstripped anything some amateur surgeon with a blade could inflict. He had the grim satisfaction of knowing that he had done worse to his body than they ever could. Prospective torturers had attempted to work on him in the past, only to discover that there was little damage left for them to do.
Except for this. The pain of losing Àurea was so massive that he felt it physically, like a skewer through his chest slowly twisting.
He’d have died, if he could.
He would die — of that he had no doubt. He’d always thought that saving the galaxy would be his fate, a clean and noble thing that would inspire subsequent generations to make the same sacrifice when called upon.
Now, if they’d only give him a knife, he’d use it on himself. Straight to the jugular, where true blood still pulsed. He’d solve all their problems simultaneously, and let the galaxy get on with its long, slow collision with destiny.
He was done with it.
His lust for death bled over into drug-fuelled dreams, where the blank-faced psychics tore him limb from limb after each interrogation. Again and again he died, each manner more horrendous than the last, a never-ending parade of suffering which, in his more lucid moments, he was starting to believe he deserved.
Only one dream was different.
As the hallucinogens ran rampant through his system in doses that would kill a normal man, he was approached by a demon. Flames licked around her, and for a second he thought
his precious Àurea had returned from the grave, extending a fiery hand to lead him onwards to Sydon’s judgement. He moaned, reaching out for her — only to have his hand slapped away, the demon’s flames burning his flesh where they touched. A knife materialised, its blade hard and flashing with reflected firelight. It plunged into him again and again, beyond his ability to stop it.
“You won’t bleed, old man!” the demon accused him. Her flames burned high as she pulled the knife from his side. “Then this will have to do.” And the heat of her fire seared into his eyeballs as the flames rose up to engulf him.
His last thought was almost joyous; was he finally dying? Would he be with his beloved Àurea at last? Pertinent images from her life flashed through his mind, like old Earthen photographs with the flames licking around the edges. Her first steps. The furrow of her brow as she concentrated on some obscure piece of technology. Her laughter, the first time she saw him in the huge leather trench coat she’d bought him. The agony on her face as she knelt on the platform, her life draining out through the holes in her body.
“I am ready,” he said, praying that she could hear him.
“You will need to be,” the demon snarled in response.
And was gone.
* * *
Kyra felt like she had it easy.
That had always been her defence against torture — look on the bright side.
She hadn’t lost anyone she cared about since Blas died, and that big lug was an accident waiting to happen. Kreon was still alive. Tris was still alive. And she was still alive, at least for now. She’d devoted a lot of time to perfecting her mental discipline, and she drew upon that strength now to guide her drug-induced dreams into a procession of victories. Battles she’d won. Enemies she’d vanquished. Limbs she’d watched spinning through the air after a swift cut from her Arranozapar. Shoes she’d worn. Heels she’d stolen. Racks of boxes she’d stashed in the Folly, without anyone even batting an eyelid. They were still there, waiting for her…
So long as these motherfuckers don’t cut my legs off!
She thought as little as she could about Àurea.
She’d lost plenty of people in her life — first as a child during the invasion of her planet, then fighting to free her people. Eventually she’d fled, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake — too many by far to let her ascend the throne, as her followers had wanted. No, the regime change had to be clean. Her sister, innocent to the last, had taken the reins. Kyra had left enough of her supporters scattered around the court to advise the young Queen, and had done what she did best: faded into obscurity.
And now the Lemurians wanted to delve into her memories.
Take a good look, ladies! If it’s suffering you’re after, you’ve come to the right place!
It was funny, when she had a moment of clarity to think about it. The bevy of torturers devoting their attention to her had no idea how this was done. She’d killed more people in her lifetime than all of them put together. Had done so in horrific ways designed to make statements. Had killed innocent bystanders to get a chance at her true target. Whichever way you looked at it, she was more of a monster than any of them. And yet here they were, trying to break her resolve with mental anguish…
Pah! Amateurs.
The physical stuff was a chore, though. A few of the guards seemed to have trouble keeping their hands off her. It would have been flattering, except she was barely conscious at the time, and unable to express her disinterest.
Luckily, when they came for her she was feeling lucid. Three men armed with stun batons, two more holding backstop outside her cell. She’d played dead while they checked her over, waiting for the pivotal moment — when the first man put down his stun baton and made himself ready to take her. She’d dealt with unwelcome attentions before, though usually she wasn’t dealing with a head full of hallucinogenic drugs at the time. Luckily, the Gift saw her through — she could read the mens’ intentions as though they had flashing signs above their heads. As the first man bent over to fumble with her jumpsuit’s closure she reached up, fastening her fingers in his greasy hair. She pulled his head down as her knee thrust up, making one hell of a mess of the man’s face. The other two must have shit bricks at that point, realising the mess they’d already made. Whether their actions were sanctioned or not didn’t really matter to Kyra; she took it personally when thugs tried to do things to her that she didn’t like.
She flung the moaning, wheezing form of the first man into the one behind him, then swung herself off the cot. The tiny blade she’d crafted from a piece of rec-room chair bracket was ready in her fingers and it took no effort at all to lodge it in the throat of the man raising his baton. He fell, spurting and gurgling, as the third man tried to untangle himself from his friend with the staved-in face. That man pulled himself up, took a good look at his comrades, then fled — taking the support team outside with him.
Nice job, support team.
Neither of the men lying on the floor would be getting up again anytime soon, so Kyra returned to her cot and let the dreams take her.
* * *
Tris was dealing with the mental torment the only way he knew. Faced with a similar onslaught to the one he’d suffered before, he abandoned his tenuous grip on reality. The stern-faced Assessors took on a hellish aspect, their profiles wreathed in fire as they combed through the storybook of his mind. Sometimes only one would be present, sinking his talons deep into Tristan’s subconscious; at other times as many as three of them towered over him, tearing pieces of his reason away like old women rooting through a jumble sale in search of treasure.
But Tris had little more for them to find; he hadn’t known much to start with, the Wardens and their operations being as much a mystery to him now as they were when he’d first joined them. Perhaps Kreon had kept him in the dark for a reason? Or perhaps he was just a slow learner.
As pain racked his being and every corner of his mind felt flayed from the inside out, he clung to one glistening fragment of truth; Ella.
No matter what they did, they couldn’t take her from him.
Her image was like a talisman, a shard of memory with which he could
And in the few scant hours between interrogations, he dreamed about her.
She looked at him, her face so happy and full of love, and whispered sweet words that he couldn’t quite distinguish. He reached for her then, never able to touch her, never quite knowing when she would evaporate.
Those dreams he had aplenty, but none so potent as the time she floated down from the ceiling, suddenly astride him before he even realised it.
“We have a few minutes,” she said, her expression so sultry that there could be no other meaning.
The drugs held him spellbound as she kissed him deeply, coaxing him to life with the pressure of her body against his. His garish yellow jumpsuit melted away at her touch and she drifted up again, light as air, her hair billowing around her as though gravity had no effect on it. When she floated back down it was onto him; her warmth embraced him completely, taking him inside the way she had in their few stolen moments aboard the Folly. She writhed around, weightless above him as she moaned in pleasure — only to vanish a second later, like a puff of smoke in the wind. “Not long now, my love,” her hushed words hovered on the breeze, before dissolving as quickly as she had. He suddenly wondered if the dream meant that she was dead too, and was waiting for him in the life beyond this one.
But it was just a dream. When he woke up the Assessors were back, and the drugs that flowed through his veins carried him high above their heads on a wave of euphoria.
* * *
Oktavius slammed a fist down on the display. “Sydon’s Name! Can’t we hit anything?”
The command staff ignored his outburst — something he should be thankful for. Their discipline, even in the face of catastrophic loses, was impeccable.
Not that that made this particular situation any easier.
Demios’ fighters had been deployed
all at once, in a roiling wave that seemed unstoppable. The surface guns mounted on Atalia had claimed one solitary victim — a scout ship that happened to stray across their field of fire — before Demios had committed his fighter wings, tasking half of them to destroy all incoming ordnance from the fortress.
It had been a depressingly effective strategy. The last spread of micro-missiles had been wiped out long before reaching their targets, and now the fighters were taking turns in strafing the bubble of atmosphere surrounding Atalia. There was no air left in it of course, and the shield was holding — for now. But the fact that Demios’ fighters could roam the battlefield largely unopposed was a problem.
Many of the Wardens’ smaller ships were engaged in dogfights, with varying degrees of success. In one-on-one combat, most of the pilots Oktavius commanded were more than a match for anyone Demios could enlist. But the Wardens were outnumbered; they were being mobbed, three or four to an engagement, and that supply of expert pilots was starting to dwindle.
They needed help, and fast.
Unfortunately, none was forthcoming. Oktavius had spent the last few hours sending increasingly urgent messages to every sector fleet within a days’ travel, along with planetary governors, politicians, and even individual ships’ commanders that he knew from his days in the field.
None of them were in a position to relieve him.
Two fleets had promised ships, but they were from the furthest-out sectors, the ones not yet actively engaged with the Siszar. It would take days for them to arrive, and the slow but steady stream of reinforcements from friendly systems could do little but plug the holes as the ships under his command met a fiery demise one after another.
All in all, Oktavius was starting to lose his sense of humour about the whole affair, and the atmosphere in the command dome reflected this. “We need more ships!” he cried out, to anyone who was listening. “Rufine, how long until the Hirugarren Sector Fleet gets here?”
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