Legacy of Shadow

by Gallant, Craig;

  “Yes, Ambassador.”

  “See that it is carried out immediately.”

  “Yes, Ambassador.” The hulking creature turned away to follow the instructions, but was drawn back as Taurani’s voice barked out again.

  “See to it personally, Commander. Everything we do here is in jeopardy if that craft is allowed to land.”

  “Yes, Ambassador.” Bochia stumped off without a backward glance, gesturing into the shadows with one arm as he made for the door. Several soldiers who had been standing there moved off with him.

  Iphini Bha stared down at the console again, hoping the time she had purchased for Marcus Wells would be enough. The knowledge that she was helping a Human twisted in her gut, but it helped when she thought of him by name. There were brief moments when she wished she could do more.

  “Bha, we will discuss this, when circumstances allow.”

  The voice was soft. She had thought Taurani had cut the connection after sending off his killers. The threat stopped her heart.

  “Bha?”

  She swallowed, and then forced the words through tight lips. “Yes, sir.” The stylus was still, hanging limply from her hand.

  “I know what just happened, girl. I am sending Iranse to relieve you. You will give him the Skorahn, and await my arrival. When I reach you, we will have words, you and I.”

  With a sharp hiss, he ended the connection.

  She touched the medallion at her throat again. Surrounded by enemies, distrusted by the very creatures for which she had betrayed her home and friends, there was nowhere for her to turn, nothing more she could do. At least he was sending Iranse. There was a slight comfort in that, at least, even now that she knew she had been manipulated all through their clandestine friendship.

  But the old, whispered stories of Khuboda Taurani’s excesses on Iwa’Ban began to claw their way out from the shadows of her mind. Her grip on the stylus tightened.

  Behind closed lids her eyes fluttered. It was almost as if she could sense his approach, through miles of steel and vacuum; inexorable as death.

  *****

  Marcus squeezed his eyes shut as the heavy transport completed its latest turn, angling upward toward the executive docking bay near the top of the Red Tower. Memories of his time as administrator clung to the edges of his consciousness as he tried to focus on not losing control of his stomach. He had taken interstellar travel quite for granted since his abduction, with his only experience being aboard Angara Ksaka’s personal ship. The combat transport lacked so many of the amenities of the Yud’ahm Na’uka, but of them all, he missed whatever the little ship used to compensate for inertia the most.

  He felt like a child sitting at the adult table, strapped into a hard metal chair designed for the hulking body of a Variyar warrior. In the troop bay behind him, thirty such warriors stood easily, only resorting to the overhead grid of grips and bars for the most violent or sudden maneuvers. A row of seats had been bolted down to the rear of the command deck to give Marcus and his two escorting mystics a good view of flight operations and out the vision screens in the nose of the ship.

  Through those screens he had seen two other Variyar transports shattered by defensive fire, and several bolts strike the dancing shape of Angara’s ship, leading them in their weaving path through the city. The beautiful screens that seemed to flash into existence to save the ships from fire, usually, had so far kept the swift ship from harm, but his heart was in his throat each time he saw another attack slash in.

  “Approaching the Red Tower.” The Variyar pilot, a fierce female warrior named As’vhikudu, growled. Although, to be fair, anything they said sounded like growling. He had not realized how much effort K’hzan must have put into articulating his speech around those enormous fangs. Either that, or for some reason his nanite implants were having a harder time translating these lower-caste warriors.

  The familiar, angular tower emerged from around a tall, bulbous structure that must have once been a tanker of some kind. The Tower was bright with defensive fire, tracing an interlocking pattern of hard light all around its crest. He remembered his tour of the Tower’s defenses, Justin and the mystics in tow. He had worked the guns, put them through their paces. There was something wrong with the way they were performing against him today. They were scoring hits, of course, they had lost too many ships to deny that. But he thought they should have been dealing out more damage. He was fine with the fact that they were not, he just wished he knew why.

  It had occurred to him, not long after they first diverted from the main bay, that his own ship was leading a charmed life. All around him, the small fleet was being pummeled. But not even an incidental, glancing blow had landed against his transport. He was afraid to attribute any significance to that, knowing that the minute he took something like that for granted, he was going to get dashed from the city’s sky. He knew, even from his narrow experience, that As’vhikudu was a good pilot; maybe even almost as good as Angara. But she was not good enough to account for their continued immunity.

  “Lead element is heading in.” As’vhikudu ground out.

  Marcus hunched forward in the massive chair, pushing at the uncomfortably wide restraining belt. He watched as Angara’s Yud’ahm Na’uka dropped back, allowing one of the thick-bodied transports to lurch ahead and then drive in for the long, narrow slit of the executive docking bay.

  He didn’t know if it was just bad luck or if attempting to land in the Tower had triggered more aggressive subroutines in the defensive systems, but a sleet of devastating bolts flashed down from every direction, shattering the ship’s shields, pummeling it into scrap and dashing it against the side of the Tower where it burst into a brief, brilliant flare and then darkened; charred wreckage spinning down into the darkness.

  “Shit!” Marcus screeched, recoiling from the sudden deaths of over thirty warriors. But before he could say more, another transport heeled over and plunged through the drifting mist of its sister’s death, smashing through the containment field of the dock and filling the darkness within with strobing blasts of energy.

  A seething mass of dog soldiers filled the docking bay, and a solid wall of light rose up from them to stagger the attacking ship. But it landed, roughly, with a dazzling pulse of blue-white lightning that flattened the nearest warriors and blinded the rest. The Variyar warriors, even more intimidating than usual in their hulking vacuum armor, rushed from the forward deployment ramp and swept into the Council forces.

  Even while he watched the first big Ntja soldiers go down beneath a hail of Variyar rifle blasts, the Na’uka flashed through his field of vision, the panels and plates of its floating components sliding all over the fuselage in a dizzying ballet. Another searing wave of blasts struck Angara’s ship, but its shields were far more effective, apparently, and it sailed through the opening with its shields fully visible, trailing blue sparks.

  Another burst of illumination heralded the lightning orb weapons on the ship’s wings, as fans of electricity stabbed out at another contingent of Ntja.

  “Go! Go in now!” He was straining at the belt, pushing forward while he shouted at As’vhikudu. “What are you waiting for?”

  “The firing pattern from those towers is regular.” The pilot pointed one gauntleted hand to indicate the surrounding structures. “We should be clear in—”

  “We’re clear now! They’re not shooting at me! Go in now!” He wanted to growl, but he realized it would only sound pathetic to these creatures. He hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, but he could see tiny figures struggling along the floor of the docking bay, and as he watched, one fell through the twinkling containment field and plummeted down to the surface of the Concourse far below. He wasn’t going to fly around out here while his friends fought and died trying to get him inside.

  Suddenly, the flaring light show within the slit died as if someone had hit a switch. There was a moment’s pause in the chaotic movement, and then the forces rushed toward each other.

  “Su
ppression field.” The pilot’s assistant muttered to the Variyar commander. “Close work, now.”

  Marcus was not sure, but he could almost convince himself that he saw the quick, tiny flashes of an Earth handgun popping off in the melee. He wondered how Justin had found more ammunition.

  “We need to get in now!” He howled, seeing Sihn Ve’Yan’s lip curl from the corner of his eye and not caring. On the other side it looked like Nhan was almost as eager to come to grips with the enemy as he was. He swallowed, realizing that both of the Thien’ha were far more capable, at least.

  As’vhikudu grunted something that might have been assent and throttled forward, sliding them toward the battle.

  A streak of light flashed in from his right and grazed the forward viewing screens. The pilot jerked back from the contact and the ship lurched. Marcus was suddenly reminded of how much he disliked traveling in the big flying box.

  Then he realized: they had just been shot at. What about his immunity? What about his connection with the city? Suddenly, he felt more vulnerable than he had ever felt before.

  Several more blasts slashed in, engaging the shields and draining power from the internal illumination.

  “Multiple origination points.” The pilot muttered as she pushed the ship toward the docking bay. “Off-pattern.”

  Marcus craned his head around to try to see what was going on through the distant viewing screens. Although he could see straight ahead of the transport well enough, his peripheral vision was awful. How could the city be shooting at him? How could his city be shooting at him?

  He caught a flash of light high and to the right: a small opening, barely large enough to admit a single small ship. One of the auxiliary bays their slipshod plan called for the follow-on transports to use. But why was it open?

  Then another blast slashed out and took his transport on the nose.

  Movement in the small bay revealed the presence of enemy infantry. It wasn’t the city shooting at him; it was more of the damned Council troopers.

  Other shots were coming in from other private docking ports. And all of them were targeting his ship. His eyes widened, and then narrowed. Someone in there had figured out that the city wouldn’t fire on him. Whether that had been enough to figure out where he was, or if they just decided on general principal not to let that stand, didn’t matter. They’d decided to see to it that the city didn’t have the last word on that score.

  One of the aft flank shields was the first to go down. Sparks flew through the passenger compartment as the overloaded gravitic circuitry exploded. A horrible rending sound tore through the ship next as first one, and then a second blast caught the transport through the hole in its defenses. His stomach fell away as the ship flipped over with a shuddering, reluctant heave.

  “Controls not responding.” As’vhikudu’s hands floated through the control interfaces with an admirable calm. Her assistant was also collected as he accessed a river of data coming at him through various screens and fields. “We’ve lost our window.”

  Marcus watched as the entrance to the executive bay slid away. Even as that happened, however, another transport rose up to take their place, ramming itself into the opening and disgorging its payload of warriors.

  By now, the other ships in the flotilla had realized what was happening. They were peeling off to claim their own auxiliary landing sites, pouring fire into the bays to silence the portable weapons deployed there.

  But all that was going to happen without him, he realized, as his own ship continued to fall out of the battle.

  After all this, he wasn’t going to get to the control center. He was going to crash into the Concourse, probably through the Concourse, and smash into paste on the surface of the Relic Core far below.

  He shook himself out of his useless histrionics as he realized that As’vhikudu had managed to level out their descent. They were still going downward, but they were no longer in freefall, and they seemed to have wrested some control from the situation.

  “Can we get back up there?” He jammed his palm against the belt release and staggered forward, holding onto anything he could reach to keep his footing. “Can we get back up to the battle?”

  “No.” The pilot was preoccupied, but the assistant glared at him over a wide, armored shoulder.

  “What are we doing, then?” He refused to be cowed by these red-skinned demons and their glossy black eyes.

  The pilot was still lost in her effort to maintain control, but through gritted teeth she managed to grind out, “We are going to have to land somewhere. We cannot maintain altitude.”

  Marcus had another flashing image of crashing into the Relic Core, and then jerked up as other memories flooded into his mind.

  He leaned down close to shout into the pilot’s ear, trying to ignore the giant horns. “Where is Sanctum from here?”

  As’vhikudu scowled out of the corner of her eye, which struck Marcus as a pretty impressive feat, and muttered, “What?”

  “Sanctum! The big bronze ship in the middle of the city! Where is it from here?”

  The pilot thought for a moment, still straining to keep the bucking ship moving forward.

  “That way.” The pilot’s assistant gestured with a claw to the left. Marcus would have sworn it was in the other direction, but then at this point he had no idea where they were.

  “Go that way! Get us as close as you can!” The image of a strange, glossy black wall loomed large in his mind. A lot had happened since the last time he had stood before it. He couldn’t explain it, but the sudden urge to head for that ancient ship was stronger than anything he had felt in a long time. It was the best he could think of.

  The damaged transport left the flashing, smoke-wreathed Red Tower behind, losing altitude with each moment, its rough flight tracing an erratic line among the structures of Penumbra, toward the center of the city.

  Coming between two tall towers, Marcus could see the sudden drop off at the edge of the Concourse, the Ring Wall, and beyond that, the flat expanse of the bronze field that surrounded Sanctum. In the far distance he could just make out the massive dome of glinting crystal that marked the observation deck of the big ship.

  The transport gave another lurch and As’vhikudu cursed. Marcus was knocked off his feet and slammed down painfully onto the ridged decking.

  A rasping alarm began to sound. He heard more Variyar cursing from the back, but his nanites could make no sense of the chaos. Behind him, he heard the warriors scramble for crash positions and wrap themselves in restraining harnesses.

  He thought he was dead when he was hoisted up into the air. Something was wrapped around his chest, thick, iron-hard bundles of steel rod tilted him to the side and then flung him at his abandoned chair. He flew backward and saw the pilot’s assistant standing there, arms outstretched from having thrown him. Over the warrior’s shoulder he saw the flank of a squat tower growing larger in the view fields at an alarming rate. With an impact that drove the wind from his lungs he hit the hard chair, and hands on both sides began to scrabble around him, searching for his restraining belts.

  The assistant leapt straight at him, and Marcus cringed back. The Variyar found the belts with practiced speed, wrenched them around Marcus and drove them locked with a definitive snap.

  He turned back for his own chair then, but it was too late.

  The transport must have struck the building a glancing blow, but it was enough to slew its forward momentum violently to the side. Marcus could feel his neck strain as he was whipped sideways. The pilot’s assistant, without benefit of seat or harness, was thrown violently against the bulkhead where he crashed with bone-breaking force.

  The ship sailed on sideways, but then some part of its exterior anatomy snagged against the roof of the Concourse and they began tumbling, shedding speed and bits of spacecraft as they roared across the surface. He clenched his eyes shut against the noise and the twisting motion, but nothing he did would dampen the scream of tortured material as the ship
was torn apart around him.

  Chapter 25

  Smoke was pouring into the air faster than the atmosphere regulators could clear it away. Shapes loomed out of the thick, soupy air as the fleeing Ntja scrambled up a stairway to the level above the flight deck. She leapt toward them, her knives glinting dully in the subdued lighting, and another towering warrior fell back with a yelp, its thick, black blood spraying up into the ceiling.

  Angara came down in a predatory crouch and paused for a moment, lowering herself against a skeletal stairway leading from the flight deck of the executive docking bay up to the entrances on the raised mezzanine level. The chaos swirling around them was nearly complete, with shouts and cries echoing off the low ceiling as the Variyar warriors pushed the Ntja defenders back toward the exits.

  The deck behind her was littered with dead; rivulets of blood tracing a many-colored pattern over the floor plating. In the drifting smoke it was impossible to tell if they were doing well. Except that they must have been, given that the resistance was falling back, and the surviving horned warriors with their heavy armor and tall, bladed weapons were pressing up the stairs and grav-lifts onto the raised area around the sunken ship deck. But the bodies were piled high around her, those sporting the bronze enhancement blisters of the Ntja and the black, back-swept horns of the Variyar in near-equal numbers.

  The flight deck had been filled with Council soldiers, their squat transports forming defensive positions along the outer lip of the chamber. The pilot of the first Variyar attack ship had placed his heavy, armored charge directly between two of the ships on the deck and smashed through, ripping a hole in the defensive perimeter. Warriors had poured out, taking the Ntja line from behind, and opened more holes in their defenses. She had been able to slip the Yud’ahm Na’uka up and over the tangled mess, sweeping it around, defensive weapons blazing, to touch down gracefully in the open space beside the bent and smoking hull of the first Variyar ship.