“Ahh… twenty-seven hours, My Lord,” the tech replied.
It was not what Oktavius needed to hear.
Even with the impressive weapons some of the Wardens had brought to bear, the odds against them were steadily increasing. Demios was simply too well equiped, his fleet too well drilled.
After days of waiting, of posturing and manoeuvring, their time was up.
This battle would be decided in a lot less than twenty-seven hours.
A crescent-shaped formation of fresh red-hulled fighters swept into the fray, their weapons spitting death and destruction. Oktavius thought Demios had committed everything already; now he saw the last stroke of a master tactician, revealing his reserves only as they tore their way through the battlefield. The last decent-sized ship the Wardens commanded, a heavily modified ore barge boasting reinforced shields and an array of potent weaponry, succumbed to the sudden influx of fire. Oktavius studied his display as the ship jettisoned lifeboats before tearing itself apart in a series of internal explosions.
He slammed his fist on the console again, making one of the more nervous staffers jump. “Apologies,” he muttered, no longer caring about the impression he gave them. He’d set out to win this fight. He hadn’t let himself believe it, but deep down inside he’d had a feeling. The Order of Wardens wouldn’t end like this — not gunned down by a braggart with more money than sense. Sera had been the threat that worried him the most, and as far as he could tell she had yet to make an appearance on the battlefield. What that signified — disinterest, arrogance, or an entirely uncommitted force waiting in the wings, he couldn’t fathom. He just knew that it wasn’t good news. Much as he’d dreaded seeing her tear through his defences, her absence worried him more than any devastation she could rain down on his beleaguered forces.
What the hell was she waiting for?
He both prayed for and dreaded an answer with every second that passed.
Behind him, the tac-console pinged.
“My Lord?”
The crescent of fighters had reformed into a wedge, and racing past the Wardens’ defensive line they swept towards Atalia.
“Brace for impact,” Oktavius warned his staff. Not that he needed to — they knew the drill, and had been preparing for this their entire careers.
The fortress shook, dust falling from the dome above Oktavius as the fighters’ payloads took their toll. The lights flickered, then came back on; it would take many such sorties before the ground staff was in danger. The real threat came from the capital ships, who thanks to the fighters were now largely unopposed. It was a combination blow that Demios had pulled off perfectly. Of course, having the numbers so heavily skewed in his favour hadn’t hurt him.
“My Lord!” Rufine repeated more insistently.
“Yes?” Oktavius snapped. “What is it?”
“My Lord, I have a group of new arrivals, requesting to join the fleet.”
“What? Who is it? Put me on with them.”
A black rectangle appeared in the centre of the main screen as the call went through. A grizzled face appeared in it, narrow eyes darting this way and that as the man followed the icons on his tactical display. “Oktavius,” he said, his voice gruff. “Needing a hand, are you?”
Oktavius looked down at his console. The newcomer appeared to be leading a varied group of mostly smaller craft, including several fighters. Not enough to make a difference, he realised.
“To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” He let a note of arrogance creep into his tone, as befitted someone of his status.
“Name’s Sharki,” the man replied. “I’ve been looking after Earth for you, and I’ve come to collect my back-pay.”
Oktavius had to stifle a laugh. “As you can see, I’m a little tied up at the moment. But if any of this rock survives the next few hours, you’re welcome to try and extract your fee from it.”
“Well then! Guess I’ll just have to keep you alive till you can pay up,” Sharki replied.
Oktavius sighed. He vaguely recalled hearing of this man, perhaps from Kreon.
The one Warden who could have helped me win this…
Kreon’s absence was a doubly bitter pill, in that it was Oktavius himself who had told him not to come back.
But Kreon had never listened to him before. Trust him to pick this one time to obey…
Oktavius had been calling Kreon for days, ready to threaten, plead, beg… but there had been no response from him for close to a week. Which meant either he was dead, or he’d abandoned them completely.
Regardless. There was no need for more outsiders to throw their lives away on what was rapidly becoming a hopeless cause.
He addressed the man on the screen. “If self-preservation is an instinct you possess, you may wish to reconsider that strategy. Your help is welcome of course, but I fear your…” he glanced down at his console, “seventeen ships may be too little too late.”
“Oh yeah, right!” On the screen, Sharki nodded enthusiastically. “But don’t worry! I brought friends.”
And across the room, Oktavius heard the tac-console ping again.
“Ah, sir…?” Rufine’s normally rigid discipline seemed to have been forgotten. “We’ve got another twelve ships moving to engage the enemy.”
“Great,” Oktavius fumed. “Maybe I should get in my fighter and join them!”
“But My Lord,” Rufine continued. “The new ships… they’re Siszar vessels!”
Oktavius looked up at the main display, and made an angry gesture to wipe Sharki’s smug video feed off it. “Where are they? Show me.”
He felt his brow furrow as the view switched to a different orbital feed — just as a trio of mottled green nestships rocketed past, spitting fire.
“What the hell are they doing out there?”
“I’m… I’m not sure My Lord” Rufine replied, sounding breathless. “But they’re tearing Demios’ fighters to pieces!”
It was true. Wing after wing of fighters scattered before the spinning hailstorm of laser bolts. The Siszar craft excelled at this; it’s what made them humanity’s most potent adversaries. The fighter formations were splitting up now, the pilots scrambling to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the nestships. The squid-like vessels swerved off in pursuit, not needing any deceleration to turn. The fighters were outpaced and overrun, vanishing from the tac-screen in threes and fours as the Siszar targeted multiple ships simultaneously. Oktavius could hardly believe what he was seeing; from the brink of defeat, he stared wide-eyed at the display in front of him as the ragged remnants of Demios’ lethal fighter cloud fled back to their fleet for protection.
A few short minutes was all it had taken.
“Incredible!” Oktavius was ecstatic. His dying hopes rekindled as he studied the display. “Get that mercenary back,” he demanded.
The black rectangle took over the viewscreen again, and was filled with the mop of chestnut curls atop a lined but smiling face.
“You have my gratitude, young man,” Oktavius told him.
Sharki’s grin widened — no doubt appreciating the irony of being called ‘young man.’
“Not a problem, yer Lordship. I was just looking for Kyra, and I thought she’d probably be right in the middle of all this.”
“She’s not, unfortunately.” Oktavius decided not to elaborate. “But these friends of yours… can we count on them to stand with us against Lord Demios? What have you offered them?”
“Ah, I think they’re fighting for reasons of their own,” Sharki said. “They don’t want money, anyway.”
“Understandable. Do you know what they do want?”
“Yeah, they’re awfully keen on finding the Empress of the River of Silver Flashes. She’s like, I dunno, a leader to them? They keep showing up near Earth, looking for her. Anyway, she lit out on us a week ago, and told us to be ready for a big battle. I figured she meant this. I don’t suppose she’s here is she?”
Oktavius reached up to tug
at the tiny tendrils of beard he was starting to grow. “I’m afraid I have no idea,” he admitted. “But I haven’t seen a Siszar fighting on the same side as humans in over a decade.”
Sharki’s face fell. “Ah. She was sort of my interpreter as well, you know? I was hoping she’d help me talk to this bunch.”
“I’ll put out some feelers and see what I can discover,” Oktavius promised. “But for now, I’m afraid we have bigger problems.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the tac-display began to ping once more.
“Ah, My Lord…” Rufine began.
Oktavius heard trepidation in the tech’s voice and felt his sudden bubble of hope starting to deflate. “Yes Rufine, what is it?”
“We have more signatures showing up on the far side of Demios’ fleet. They’re already moving in to take position on his left flank.”
“More allies for him, you mean?”
“It appears so. I’m picking up encrypted comm-chatter between Demios’ flagship and the new arrivals.”
Oktavius tried to lighten the mood. “Not Siszar ships are they?” he joked.
“No, My Lord.” Rufine’s reply was practically a whisper. “They’re Lemurian Sanctuary-class battle stations. Twenty-seven of them.”
Slowly, Oktavius turned to face him. “That’s not possible. We have a treaty with the Lemurians.”
Rufine was silent for a second, letting his display confirm the information. “With respect My Lord, who negotiated that treaty?”
Oktavius felt his blood run cold. “It was Sera.” He glanced at his console and flicked the clearest image they had up onto the main viewscreen. The deadly spheres drifted lazily in the distance, their sleek black forms visible only in light reflected from the ships beside them.
In that moment, he knew it was all over.
Even Demios was as nothing compared the the might of the Lemurian Empire.
All this time he’d been wondering what Sera was up to…
Now he knew.
31
When they came for him again, Kreon was ready for them.
The cocktail of drugs that had inundated him for Sydon knows how long had been withdrawn. The last vestiges of dreamscape dissolved around him and he sat up on his cot. The scene which greeted his eyes was a surprise; he stared around at the damage he’d done in his drug-addled fury. The white wall panels were buckled and dented; great cracks had appeared in the hard white surface, and chunks of it had fallen off to reveal the bare metal underneath. Every piece of the walls, and some parts of the ceiling, showed the stress of repeated heavy impacts. Across the back wall he’d scrawled a message in his own blood; it was still legible, though dried brown and flaking. Dimly he remembered ranting those words over and over, as barbed thoughts tore at his head and liquid fire coursed through his veins.
He was standing in the centre of his cell, cataloging his physical injuries, when he heard the guards approaching.
Gerian had removed the Kharash pendant before locking him away in here, so Kreon could no longer make an attempt at reading the guards’ intentions. But it wasn’t difficult to extrapolate; he hadn’t been clear-headed since being forced to watch the execution, and the only visitors he’d had in that time had been Assessors.
The sudden change in treatment could mean only one thing.
“Wake up old man!” a guard shouted, as he reached Kreon’s cell. “Oh, up already are ya? Eager one, ain’t ya?” He tapped the bars with a shock baton, confirming the current was off. “Alright. Today’s yer lucky day old man. Finally time to die!”
A second guard appeared behind him, sniggering at his friend’s joke. There was a clunk, and the bars slid back to let them in. Two additional guards remained in the corridor outside.
“Here. Put this on.” The first guard, the larger of the two in the cell, threw a folded bundle onto Kreon’s cot. Kreon glanced at it; a cheap black jumpsuit. He looked down at what he was wearing, surprised to discover the hideous yellow had almost completely disappeared beneath a layer of grime and other noxious substances.
Shrugging, he turned his back and peeled off the filthy jumpsuit.
Black is a more dignified colour to die in at any rate.
The body he revealed as he undressed must have horrified the guards. He heard a sharp intake of breath from behind him as the mangled mess of his back became visible. The turmoil of desiccated flesh matched the putrid smell of the cell, something he’d only just become aware of.
“All right, come on,” one of the guards demanded.
Kreon took his time to finish dressing, then turned to face his jailor. “Where is Gerian?” he asked, his voice cracking with disuse.
“The Assessor General is none of your business,” the larger guard snarled, raising his shock baton menacingly. “Mention his name again and you’ll get a taste of this.”
Kreon fixed the man with an icy stare. “If you attempt to use that device on me, I will kill you with it.”
The burly guard’s eyes lit up and he took a step forward — but his colleague, who’d been gazing around at the state of the walls, threw an arm out to block him. “Hey! Gotta keep ‘em lookin’ nice fer the broadcast,” he said.
The bigger man growled, but lowered his baton. “Hands where I can see ‘em,” he said instead.
Kreon obliged, allowing the man to fasten powered restraints around his wrists. The cuffs looked new, and undoubtably had extra layers of security added to them. He got his transceiver started on cracking the encryption. With his head clearing at last, he discovered a message trapped in the transceiver’s buffer. It was also encrypted, so he got the decode started on that as well.
He wasn’t sure why he bothered, beyond simple force of habit. He’d been through too many situations like this not to at least go through the motions of trying to escape. But his heart — what was left of it — wasn’t in it. The more he thought about it, the less it mattered. There was no escaping a city of this size, or a planet this well-defended. Certainly, he could kill the two guards in his cell, and their two compatriots outside it. But it would avail him nothing, beyond causing him more trouble. He was on his way to be executed; that much he was sure of. And now that the day was here, he decided to embrace it. He would die today. And Lemurians would be the agents of his demise.
He had just one dying wish: that he would come face to face with Gerian one last time.
For the chance to tear that evil bastard limb from limb, Kreon would gladly sacrifice his own life.
“Out.” The big guard’s belligerence was back, but Kreon was past threatening him. He obliged, stepping from the cell into the brightly-lit corridor. The guards waiting for him snapped to alertness and the other pair followed him out, keeping their shock batons at the ready.
As the cell bars slid back into place, Kreon took a last look at the fetid hole he’d been kept in. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, and allowed himself a tiny shudder. In that small space he’d ranted and raved, harmed himself, soiled himself, and desecrated the walls with his blood. He looked again at the words he’d scrawled, seeing the delusions of a mind unhinged. ‘Here Be Dragons,’ he’d written — an old Earth phrase, though for reasons unknown he’d daubed it in ancient Akkadian.
Fewer letters, he mused. I must have been running low on ink.
Still, something bothered him about it. The translation, perhaps? Akkadian was more of a spoken language, with a dozen shades of meaning attached to each word that could only be derived from the inflection. His brain was still foggy, but ‘dragons’ could easily be expanded to mean ‘monsters’ or ‘demons’. Certainly, there’d been enough of both in his nightmares.
The memory struck him suddenly, of the demon dream and its fiery vividness.
And with that, he realised what was bothering him about the words on the wall.
It wasn’t what they said, or not precisely.
It was the method.
Clearly, a lot of effort had gone into the creation of this
masterpiece.
But it wasn’t Kreon’s.
His blood hadn’t been that colour in close on a century.
* * *
The alabaster labyrinth finally gave way to more conventional surfaces, as the guards escorted Kreon up through the spire. The corridors widened and transitioned to a pale cream stone. Decorative moulding and ever more ornate door frames gave him the impression he was entering the realm of governance. This conjecture proved correct when the guards led him through a wide doorway, into what at first glance appeared to be a throne room. A dais ran the full length of one wall, whilst an even more grandiose entrance way dominated the one opposite. Tiered benches faced the dais, though all were empty; the dais itself, however, was not. Behind a long table inlaid with consoles sat a row of carved wooden chairs. Seven of them were occupied by figures he didn’t recognise; if Gerian was due to put in an appearance, he was fashionably late.
The room’s purpose as a court room became obvious as Kreon was forced to his knees. He didn’t fight as retractable chains from niches in the floor were looped through his manacles. Until Gerian arrived, fighting would accomplish nothing. Kreon could only hope the infamous Assessor General hadn’t decided to play golf instead.
Kyra was next to arrive, led in through the same door Kreon had entered by. Her expression was a study in forced neutrality — until she met his eyes. Then her sorrow poured forth, spilling out between them like an overturned cup. She knew, and she felt for him. It was a small measure of comfort, but it changed nothing. Kreon deeply regretted that his actions here would lead to the deaths of both Kyra and Tristan, but such was the nature of his vocation. Many fine warriors had gone to their graves in his service; perhaps it was justice that he finally be sent to meet them.
Tris emerged from the doorway as Kyra was being fastened down. She’d been positioned to his left, and Tris was brought in and made to kneel at his right. Both wore fresh black jumpsuits in the black of the condemned; they looked exhausted, but they seemed to have held up under interrogation. Kyra of course could be relied on to cope with anything, but he was impressed with Tristan’s resilience.
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