As Trista ran, another wave of sparks leapt off Four’s armor, and this time he screamed. A moment later, his mech stopped moving.
“Four!”
Trista reached his mech and grabbed the shadowy mound off his back in a giant metal fist. The mech’s haptic feedback system kicked against her palm as the Cygnian struggled to free itself. Four arms with wicked gray claws swiped the air mere inches from the reinforced glass of her cockpit.
Buddy whimpered beside her ear, his claws biting deeper into her shoulder as he cowered.
Trista squeezed as hard as she could, and felt bones crunching. A blood-curdling scream burst from the Cygnian’s lips along with a gleaming black gout of blood, and then the monster went limp and silent. Trista threw it aside and passed her spotlights over Saber Four’s mech to check his status. His cockpit had been ripped open from behind, the reinforced armor of his mech peeled open in curling sheets. The inside of his cockpit was sprayed and dripping with blood, and he was hanging halfway out of his mech in an impossible limbo that implied a broken spine.
“Four! Come in, over.” Trista checked her sensors while she waited for a response. No life signs. “Fek it!” Trista roared.
“Sarge! We’ve got incoming,” Three said.
The rest of Saber squad whirled around, their cannons thumping indiscriminately into the night before she could even respond. Trista spun away from Four to see more chameleon-skinned Cygnians streaking wraith-like from the broken windows of ruined buildings, converging from all sides. Trista’s sensors lit up with no less than seven contacts.
Targeting the nearest one, she opened fire. Fity cal. rounds ripped her target open with an explosion of black blood and glistening guts. Just as she targeted the next one, she heard and felt a heavy thud as something landed on her back, followed by the teeth-gritting screech of alien claws cleaving through her armor.
Chapter 15
Darius stared into the shimmering portal, blinking in shock as a bipedal alien stepped through. The alien’s features were bony, but its frame and musculature were distinctly feminine. Her translucent white skin sparkled and her pale blue eyes danced with bright specks of light. A high brow rose over eyebrow-less eyes to an equally hairless scalp. Darius recognized her as one of the same aliens he’d seen standing behind Cassandra in his vision of her on Ouroboros.
“Hey!” Darius said as the alien cleared the portal. It vanished behind her.
When the alien didn’t react to the sound of his voice, he walked in front of her to force a confrontation, but she passed straight through him as if he were a ghost.
Staring in horror and slowly shaking his head, Darius watching the alien go walking down long aisles of mag-locked rectangular crates.
Darius recognized where they were. They were inside the Deliverance’s munitions storage room. All kinds and classes of missiles and ammo were stored in here in shock-proof armored crates.
As he watched, she stopped beside a particular crate. Reaching into her loose-fitting brown tunic, she produced a luminous knife and used it to slice the lid of the crate open. Raising her free hand toward the crate, she sent the lid drifting away, and a familiar-looking missile drifted out. It was one of the planet-busting ZPFs. Using her knife to open a panel on the missile, the alien spent a moment fiddling with wires inside of it, and then left it there, unsecured and floating inside the munitions room.
Just then, another portal appeared, shimmering in the air where the first had been. Peering through that portal, Darius glimpsed a familiar man standing on the other side, leaning on a pair of rough-hewn wooden crutches. Tanik.
Darius ran toward the portal, but his legs refused to obey. It was as if they were stuck in tar. He watched helplessly as the alien disappeared through the portal. Once again it vanished in her wake, leaving Darius alone with what was almost certainly a ticking bomb.
He tried walking over to the weapon. This time his legs responded, and he made it there in a matter of seconds. He didn’t know much about how ZPF warheads worked, but it was obvious that some of the wires had been crossed, and the intention behind that was obvious enough. Tanik can’t kill me face to face, so now he’s trying to assassinate me with a bomb.
Darius tried sending a message to the bridge via his extra-sensory chip, but his chip was not responding. His heart thudding in his chest, Darius studied the inside of the missile, trying to figure out how to defuse the warhead. He reached in with a shaking hand....
Only to be hit by a searing blast of heat that washed him into a blinding sea of agony.
Darius awoke with a start, blinking his eyes rapidly to clear away the bleary film of sleep. His quarters snapped into gloomy, starlit focus.
“Lights, twenty percent,” Darius said, and a pale golden light filled the room. A wall of holo panels opposite the wall where he’d anchored his sleeping bag conveyed the star-studded darkness of the Hagrol System.
It was just a dream.... or a vision? Darius used his ESC to activate his quarter’s comm system and contact the bridge.
“Lieutenant Commander Rowles here, what can I do for you, Admiral Drake?”
Darius considered that. “Get a squad of Marines to sweep and guard each and every store of munitions on this ship.”
“Yes, sir... may I ask the reason for your orders?”
“It would take too long to explain,” Darius said. “Just get it done, Commander.”
“Yes, sir.”
Darius’s mind raced, trying to come up with additional countermeasures. How could he defend against an enemy that could appear anywhere, with no warning? If the goal was to assassinate Darius and take over his fleet, then why bother to sabotage a ZPF missile? Why not simply plant a lesser explosive device in Darius’s room while he was sleeping? Maybe the Keth don’t have any explosives of their own.
Darius ran through a list of possible assassination attempts in his head, and the ways to defeat them. They could steal a bomb or other explosive device, as he’d seen in his vision. The counter to that was to make sure that all of their munitions were secured and guarded at all times. But keeping track of everything from grenades to missiles was not a realistic solution. It would be safer and easier to simply remove himself from the Deliverance. He could hide aboard a smaller vessel with no explosives on board. As an added benefit Tanik wouldn’t know where to find him, at least not immediately. As an added precaution, Darius would assign a few Revenants to his ship to watch over him while he slept.
Unzipping himself from his sleeping bag, Darius went to pack a bag of supplies from the storage lockers in his room. Soon after he finished packing, the speakers in his room crackled to life.
“Admiral, Commander Rowles here. One of the squads just reported an intruder in the aft munitions bay. They managed to disarm her, and take her into custody.”
Darius breathed out a sigh. “Good work, Commander. Tell them I’ll be right down to interrogate her.”
“Yes, sir. There’s one more thing. She appears to be a Keth, sir, and she came aboard via a wormhole.”
“I already know that.”
“You know, sir?”
“I had a vision,” Darius explained.
“I see. Permission to make an observation, sir?”
“Granted.”
“If the Keth are once again capable of transporting themselves via wormholes, we could be in a lot of danger.”
“I was just thinking about that myself,” Darius replied. “but if they can do that, why haven’t they sent saboteurs aboard our other ships? Their goal is to kill the Revenants. The surest way to do that would be to sabotage all of our ships at once.”
“Perhaps only a few of them are strong enough to open wormholes,” Commander Rowles replied.
“Or just one,” Darius mused.
“Such as?”
“Tanik Gurhain.”
“Gurhain? Isn’t he...”
“A Revenant?” Darius supplied. “No, he’s with them. It’s a long story, Commander. I’ll tell you
later. Right now, we need to get as much information as we can from our uninvited guest before the Keth send someone else. If we’re lucky, they haven’t realized yet that her mission failed. I’m on my way to the aft munitions bay. Tell the Marines to watch that Keth like their lives depend on it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 16
“Get him off!” Trista screamed.
“Hang on, Sarge!” Saber Two replied.
Trista heard another shriek of claws raking on her mech’s armor, she glanced behind her to see dark slashes peeking between strips of gray metal. She was out of time.
“Hang on, Buddy,” she said, just before she threw her mech backward. It fell over with a ground-shaking boom. After waiting for half a second, Trista struggled to right her mech, using its arms to push off the ground.
The rest of her squad was still firing their cannons into the night. “They’re scattering, Sarge!” Two said.
“Good,” Trista replied. She spun around to check the status of the Cygnian that had been clinging to her back. It was lying there in a dull gray heap, unmoving. Despite that, her sensors indicated that it was still alive and breathing. She’d knocked it unconscious by landing on top of it.
Trista armed her 50 cal. cannons and aimed them both at the alien monster. But she hesitated. If they could take this Cygnian back to the fleet and interrogate it, they might be able to find out why the Cygnians were withdrawing from Earth.
Heavy footsteps boomed, and a pair of mechs came into view. “Want me to do the honors, Sarge?” Saber Two asked.
“No,” Trista replied. “We’re taking this one as a hostage.”
“A hostage? What for?”
Trista shrugged inside her mech, and her control sleeves conveyed the movement to the machine. “See what it knows about the Cygnians’ recent withdrawal. Pick it up, Two, and try not to kill it. If it wakes up, hit it with stun bolts.”
“Roger...” Two went stomping out and picked up the monster with giant metal hands.
“Let’s move out,” Trista said.
“What about looking for survivors?” Three asked.
“Keep looking on our way back to the transport,” Trista replied. “The mission priorities have changed.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
* * *
“What if he lies to us?” Buddy asked, as he peered through the window into the interrogation room.
“He can’t,” Yuri Mathos growled. “Neural probes never fail.”
Trista nodded along with that, watching as medics prepared various syringes for the Ghoul they’d captured. The ghoul was heavily sedated and strapped to an examination table, but the doctors weren’t taking any chances. One of the syringes they were preparing contained an additional sedative, while the other contained a colony of nanites. The nanites were similar to those used to inject the self-assembling extra-sensory chips (ESCs) that acted as neural interfaces for computer systems and networks, except that these would travel to the host’s brain and go digging around for information.
One of the doctors in the interrogation room turned to the window and gave a thumbs-up gesture.
Yuri reached for the intercom beside the observation window with one black-furred hand. “Proceed,” he said.
Wasting no time, one of the medics injected the syringes one after another. After that, both medics left the room and came into the observation room. One of them strapped in at a nearby control station to make contact with the nanites they’d injected. Trista walked over with Yuri Mathos to take a look.
“Well?” Yuri asked.
“We’re inside the host’s brain,” the medic said. “What would you like to ask first?”
“Ask him—”
“Her,” the medic corrected.
Yuri glared at the man with sharp blue eyes. “Ask her, why the Cygnians retreated from Earth.”
“Yes, sir. One moment...” The medic typed out the necessary parameters to direct that question to the Cygnian’s brain. The reply came back a moment later—written in Cygnian.
“The fleet has withdrawn to join the defense of our worlds.”
“The defense of...?” Trista trailed off shaking her head.
“Defense from what?” Buddy chimed in. “What do they have to fear?”
“Quiet,” Yuri hissed. “Ask what they are defending themselves from.”
The medic input that query into the computer next. A moment later the reply appeared on his screen.
Trista read it before he could. “From the Revenants. They’re real? I thought that’s just something people believe in to make themselves feel better about the children who don’t come back from the Crucible.”
Yuri stroked the tuft of white fur on his chin. “Perhaps they are mistaken about the identity of their attackers. Or perhaps not. Whatever the case, any enemy of the Cygnians is a friend of ours. This is very good news. I suggest you get some rest while you can, Sergeant. We’re headed for Cygnus Prime in the morning.”
Trista nodded slowly. “Yes, sir.”
Chapter 17
Darius stood in the brig with their unconscious prisoner and the four Revenant Marines who had captured her. “Are you certain she’s a Keth?” Darius asked.
“Yes, sir,” the Marine Corporal replied.
Darius scowled as he studied her face. The Marines had strapped her into an acceleration harness in one of the brig’s cells. She was bony and thin with shimmering white skin, an elongated skull, and three-fingered hands.
“What should we do with her?” the corporal asked.
The Keth and Tanik had Darius’s daughter, but now he had one of theirs. There might be a way to make some kind of a trade. Then again, even if he could, as long as they could teleport themselves in and out of secure areas without warning, no one would be safe. Darius needed to learn how they did that, and if there was some way to defend against the ability.
“We need to interrogate her,” Darius said.
“You want us to escort her to Med Bay for you, sir?”
Darius waved a hand in the Marine’s direction. “No need for that, Corporal. I can handle the interrogation from here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Darius reached out for the Keth prisoner’s mind. She was unconscious, which made it impossible for him to assume control of her. Rather than request a stimulant to wake her up, Darius used the ZPF to clear away the effects of the stun blasts she’d sustained. She woke with a start, ice-blue eyes flashing wide open. Darius zipped into her mind and brushed past her defenses before she could even figure out where she was. Rifling roughly through her memories, he saw her together with Tanik—in a romantic context. Her name was... Feyra. This wasn’t just any Keth. She was Tanik’s partner. Darius saw more memories flashing before his mind’s eye, Feyra’s and Tanik’s childhood growing up on Ouroboros in a violent, ruthless alien culture. He searched for more recent memories and saw the Keth returning to Ouroboros to rebuild. He saw how few of them were left, and how in spite of that, their barbaric training practices continued—children killing each other in coming of age duels to see who was worthy of adulthood. Darius inwardly cringed at the thought. Moving on, he probed for any memories relating to his daughter, Cassandra.
That was when he saw Feyra and Tanik standing around Cassandra’s cryo pod. Tanik was determined to kill her, but Feyra argued for Tanik to spare her life. She convinced him to keep Cass alive so that they could use her to blackmail him again later on. She was certain that he’d give up the Revenants in order to save her.
Darius felt anger churning inside of him like a raging inferno, making it hard to think straight. He forced himself to focus, to find the information he needed. Delving deeper into Feyra’s mind, he searched for anything related to wormholes, the ability itself, and ways to protect against it.
After just a few moments, he had what he needed. He withdrew from Feyra’s mind and returned to his senses with a physical jolt.
“I have what I need, Corporal. Guard this prisone
r with your lives.”
“Yes, sir...” the corporal trailed off, obviously curious about whatever Darius had learned.
Darius glanced at the Keth. She was watching him with her dazzling, blue-white eyes.
“Tanik will kill you for this,” she said, speaking in a halting version of Primary.
Darius favored her with a grim smile. “Not if I kill him first.”
Darius used his extra-sensory chip to contact Dyara, who he’d summarily promoted and left in charge as his second-in-command of the Deliverance and the fleet itself.
“Darius?” she asked.
“Plot a jump to the Eye and coordinate it with the rest of the fleet. Once you’ve plotted the jump and warmed up the Alckam drive, wait for me to give the order for us to jump.”
“The Eye? Why are we going there?”
“I’ll explain when I arrive on deck. Just trust me. We need to go there now, or we’re all going to die.”
“Okay.”
Darius thought about what he’d learned from Feyra on his way up to the bridge. In order to open a wormhole all he had to do was visualize the person or thing he wanted to reach, and then imagine opening a physical portal in order to get there. The limiting factor was having enough raw power to do such a thing, and very few Revenants did—Feyra couldn’t. He’d learned that much from searching her mind. She’d needed Tanik’s help to open the wormhole she’d used to board his ship. The defense against wormholes was equally simple. Two wormholes couldn’t exist in close proximity to each other, so the creation of one would block the creation of another within a radius of at least a few hundred thousand kilometers. That would be enough to protect a planet or a fleet, or both, but creating a stable wormhole that could sustain itself without a constant effort from him was not so simple. The Eye of Thanatos was one such portal, but Tanik had almost certainly shut it to keep the Revenants out after they’d left Keth space. Which was why Darius was taking the fleet there now. The Eye would be as good a place as any to practice using the ZPF to create wormholes. Fortunately, warp bubbles were a secondary level of protection. It wasn’t realistic to travel at warp speeds indefinitely, but at least they’d be safe from incursions by Tanik and his Keth brethren over the course of the month it was going to take them to reach the Eye. A month. Darius grimaced, and his brisk stride faltered at the thought of waiting that long to organize a rescue for his daughter. Could she afford to wait for a whole month? There had to be a better way. Some way to get to her sooner.
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