Balance of Power: The Blackened Prophecy Book 2

by Oganalp Canatan

  “I… I do not know. The wisdom of the Great One cannot be questioned. I follow and obey.”

  Rebecca clenched her right fist a few times, trying to shake off the tingling. Five hours had passed since the suicide bombing attempt, but her hand and hearing to her right still had issues. The doctor said it would pass but couldn’t tell her when that would happen. It was irritating, to say the least.

  “How many more of you onboard?” Ga’an took over the questioning.

  “I do not know. I only knew my blood brother, Eremite Galvin. We are not allowed to know other followers’ identities and mission.”

  Ga’an grunted.

  “It is reasonable,” Rebecca said to her first officer. “That way, you prevent your subjects from giving in to torture. Even if they are caught, they have no idea about the bigger picture.”

  Ga’an nodded. “Does this have anything to do with Raymond Harris? Or the creature that attacked New Eden?”

  “I… I do not know. We all knew the Great One was interested in the Arinar. He was intrigued when he heard the reports of a man using the stones. We are all taught the history of Lohil. More than that, I cannot tell. I am not in touch with the Brotherhood since we came on board.”

  “I am not sure if I like the idea of a crazy fanatic having an interest in Mr. Harris,” Rebecca leaned back in her chair. “What do you think, Mr. Ga’an?”

  “Raymond Harris is the Lohil. He has the gift and the curse to bend fate and pull things toward him. This Cosmon Brotherhood interfered with us many times now. If I have learned one thing in my time with the Lohil, it is that around him, nothing is of coincidence.”

  “True,” Rebecca nodded. “Girl,” she leaned forward, nailing the intruder with her stare. “I want you to tell me where your base is.”

  Ensign Mara shook her head, earning a powerful smack from Ga’an. “Speak, woman!”

  “Look, young lady,” Rebecca rubbed her right wrist with her left hand. “There is only one way out of here for you if I am not happy with your answer. I suggest you think this through.”

  The intruder was beaten, defeated. She looked at Rebecca and Ga’an, then lowered her stare, nodding hesitantly. “The tattoo on my neck. If you look at it under neon light, it has the Sacred House's night sky engraved. Your cartographers can plot a course by comparing the formations to the ones outside.”

  “If she received a signal this close after New Eden, it means we are not that far away from her home. It may take time, but it is doable,” Ga’an agreed.

  “Earth and Sol are probably farther than her home. Bacchus took close to a year to arrive at New Eden without a jump station,” Rebecca reasoned. “I guess a shorter distance would be better for Deviator. Mr. Ga’an, it is time we found out why that maniac is after us. Do something while we await word from Mr. Harris, anyway.”

  “Agreed.”

  Ensign Mara’s face brightened. “What about me?”

  Rebecca looked Mara in the eye. She searched for pity for the girl but inside her was just a deep, dark hole. “When I was a captain, the crew had a nickname for me. They thought I had an unbendable will.”

  “I heard the stories.”

  “I was somewhat harsh,” Rebecca said, smiling drily. “The nickname faded as I moved from ship to ship until I became the Fleet Admiral. Nowadays,” Rebecca lowered her eyes to her right hand. It was twitching, “I am finding myself more and more in favor of that nickname. You know what they used to call me?”

  “The Iron Lady.”

  “The Iron Lady,” Rebecca repeated. She looked at the guard with the handheld neon light, checking the ensign’s story.

  The man nodded curtly after inspecting the girl’s tattoo. “It is here, ma’am. We have the constellations.”

  “Good,” Rebecca said, standing up. “That concludes our business.”

  Ensign Mara winced, but it was more in fear than agony. “What will be my fate?”

  Rebecca measured Ensign Mara with her stare. “I have told you. That concluded our business.” She signaled the guards.

  “No!” Ensign Mara protested, but she was already out of Rebecca’s mind. It was war, and she had been too soft for too long. No more. Ensign Mara’s screams faded as the girl was dragged from the interrogation room. The Iron Lady looked at her right hand, watching it twitch.

  Ensign Mara’s screams were only answered by the ship computer’s announcement. “Warning, airlock decompression is in progress.”

  NOT ONE STEP BACKWARD

  “Admiral Conway, Commander Ga’an, you are expected on the bridge.”

  Ga’an jutted, looking at a speaker nearby as he and Admiral Conway passed through the hallway. “That is not my voice. Did you order the announcements changed, Admiral Conway?”

  “It was a real-time announcement, Mr. Ga’an.” Admiral Conway smirked. “Your announcements are still there. Between suicide bombers and man-eating aliens, I hardly have the time to oversee such things.”

  “Mm.” Ga’an nodded in satisfaction. “I find them to be effective.”

  “Yes, about those.” Admiral Conway slowed her steps and raised her hands for emphasis. “They are a bit too effective if you get my meaning.”

  “There is no such thing as being too effective, Admiral Conway.” Ga’an knit his brows. The woman made no sense. “I do not get your meaning.”

  “By that, I mean—” Admiral Conway started, but Ga’an’s own voice echoing from the speakers cut her short.

  “Marines, wake up. Your duty calls.”

  “See,” Admiral Conway pointed at the speaker, “that is what I am talking about.”

  Ga’an looked at Admiral Conway’s face, her finger, then the speaker. “Are the marines not supposed to wake up at this hour because their duty calls?”

  The admiral just shook her head. “No worries, Mr. Ga’an. No worries.”

  “Admiral Conway, Commander Ga’an, you are expected on the bridge. This is not a drill.” Lieutenant Commander Jong’s voice sounded grim.

  “I do believe this is an emergency,” Ga’an said. “I am sure I heard fear in his voice.”

  Admiral Conway nodded, her face getting serious. She touched her chest insignia, “We are on our way, Mr. Jong. What is the issue?”

  “Admiral, we have lost contact with the stern rooms. Someone is systematically shutting down internal communication and power.”

  “Another saboteur?” Ga’an asked, not hiding the distaste in his words.

  “I do not know, Commander, but we are losing every connection with those rooms. The personnel is nonresponsive. Even the damage control signals are offline.”

  Admiral Conway’s eyes grew wide, her lips pursing. “We are being boarded.” She hastened her steps. “Mr. Jong, red alert. All hands on deck, all squads at the ready. I want all the task force leaders ready for a briefing by the time I am there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  An intermittent siren filled the hallways following the exchange with the familiar voice of Ga’an announcing everyone to report to their stations. “Soldiers, get ready for battle.”

  ***

  “Talk to me, Mr. Jong,” Rebecca dashed into the bridge, barking and ignoring the saluting personnel.

  “Ma’am,” the lieutenant commander stood up from his station, giving her the datapad he held. “We are losing connection with the rear of Deviator, room by room.”

  “What could it be?” Ga’an asked, standing tall beside Rebecca. “The Cosmon Brotherhood?”

  Rebecca knew it only too well. “It is Her.”

  Ga’an’s jaw clenched, and Rebecca saw her second in charge take a step backward. “That thing is here? Curses… Curses of the blood.”

  “Not Her maybe, but the bugs. We were half-buried in the ground. It would have been a miracle not to have breaches. I need eyes and ears there,” she turned to address the task force leaders standing in attention near the holographic display. “Marines. We are being boarded by those weird creatures. I want you to bar
ricade the stern at these key locations. You know the drill for intrusion,” she brought the superdreadnought’s deck plans up on the main display. As Rebecca pointed her finger on the map, junctions connecting to the armory, life support, and power generators lit in bright red.

  “Major Valery, take your men to hangar bay five. That is the closest one to the armory. Activate all the mechs we have. Put them in defense mode. Our priority is to halt the invasion. We will then talk about repelling them.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Major Valery saluted and left the bridge with purpose.

  “Major Bennett, your job is to make sure we have air. The life support room is yours. Do not let those air filters fall into enemy hands.”

  Major Bennett fed a round into her rifle in response, leaving the room. She was raining orders to her men by the time the Special Forces task leader neared the elevators.

  “Major Kasper, I will join your team, and we will hold the generator room,” Ga’an said.

  “It will not be easy, sir. There are ventilation shafts, pipes, ramps, doors in and out of that area. It is like a maze. This is a huge ship.”

  “Major,” Rebecca turned to face her soldier, “you will hold that room no matter what. Seal it with explosives if you must. I do not care. This ship will not lose power. We will worry about the junctions and pipes after we make sure we have power.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Major Kasper saluted, getting ready to leave.

  “Major Kasper,” Rebecca stepped forward, holding the man from both his shoulders. “If we lose power, we lose everything. Hold that room.”

  Major Kasper nodded slowly and left the bridge.

  “Mr. Ga’an, not you.” Rebecca stopped her battle-eager first officer.

  “Admiral Conway?”

  Rebecca ordered Ga’an to halt with a firm gesture of her right hand, “Mr. Jong, can we separate the bow section from here?”

  “With this much damage, I do not believe the clamps are all responsive, ma’am.”

  Rebecca nodded and touched the display again, bringing out a secondary map. “XO, you will form a team and place explosives to these points. Then seal junctions five through twenty-seven.”

  Ga’an narrowed his eyes, looking at Rebecca. “You do not expect the other teams to succeed.”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you send them to battle, Admiral Conway?”

  Rebecca looked down at her right hand. It was trembling. “I cannot let this ship and her crew fall into that monster’s hand. They will buy us time. If they can push the invaders back, good. If not, we will separate the ship from the stern section by force.”

  “We will lose our engines.”

  “The ship will have stabilizer thrusters and secondary life support. We will lose jump capability, but most of the essential systems will be functional,” Rebecca sighed. “These ships are modular, Mr. Ga’an, and this is a ship designed for war. In case of an enemy boarding, there are several options an admiral can choose. Most of the crew will be assigned to defend the bow and middle section. The aft decks and the main engine section are deserted except for engineering personnel.”

  “We have to fight!”

  “Oh, but we will.” Rebecca signaled the communications officer to patch her through to the announcement system. “This ship is now under attack by an unknown number and formation of enemies. All personnel except the core bridge crew are assigned to their emergency defense roles. You know the drill. Go to the nearest weapons locker and find yourself a gun.”

  More than half the bridge personnel stood and hastened toward the bridge elevators. Rebecca saw fear mixed with determination in their eyes, but none of them questioned. In a matter of seconds, only she, Ga’an, Lieutenant Commander Jong, and four more officers attended their stations on the bridge. Rebecca waved at Ga’an, sending him to his duty. Her first officer didn’t look convinced or happy, but he obeyed, with a growl, of course.

  “And people, remember,” Rebecca licked her lips. “Don’t give an inch.”

  ***

  “Holy hell! What is that?”

  “Just shut up and keep firing, Olivia.” Major Valery burst his assault rifle nonstop at the creatures pouring out of the hallway to the armory. “Anything not human, you kill.”

  It was a freak show. Centipedes crawled out of the wall panels and from the ceiling. Men—they had been men—ran toward them, tentacles instead of arms attached to their torsos. Some had antennae and others claws coming from their mandibles or wriggling limbs that resembled tiny snakes dancing on their backs. Valery saw a mech holding back a huge mantis spraying a yellow liquid at the other end of the plus-shaped corridor. It burned wherever it touched, and Valery found himself praying it was only a robot and not a living being under that rain of acid.

  “Pulaski.”

  “Sir?” a marine with an angular face and a huge build replied, chewing a half-lit cigar.

  “Get your big ass over here and tear a new one of that crawling… whatever that is with that gun of yours.”

  “One shredding order, coming right away, sir!” Pulaski positioned himself near Valery’s barricade and switched the mini-gun on, its rotary engine’s noise filling the hallway, suppressing the creatures’ shrieks and screams. “Here goes nothing.”

  The gun fired over eight thousand heated rounds per minute, its bullets strengthened with mini explosives. The corridor filled with smoke from Pulaski’s deadly symphony.

  “Hold it,” Valery yelled. “That’s enough!”

  Pulaski pulled his hand off the trigger. “Yee-haw!” he spat on the floor. “Now, crawl back to wherever you came from.”

  Nothing moved inside the smoke-filled hallway except the lazily gliding smoke. Valery narrowed his eyes. “Anyone see anything?”

  “I think they retreated,” a soldier whispered.

  “Or Pulaski turned them into sushi,” another one yelled from the other barricade.

  “Damn right, I did!” Pulaski said, climbing on top of the supply crates they had lined as bulwarks. “I’m the king, baby. I’m the k—”

  A huge claw ripped through Pulaski’s chest with one forceful blow, pulling out his heart and lungs, ripping his ribs apart. Another one came from the hole in his chest and torn the man in two, throwing Pulaski’s right side over the Marines and the left side into the dense smoke.

  “Holy…” Valery whispered.

  The smoke cleared to reveal a demon from hell. The claws, bony and crude, were attached to the creature’s body with long tentacles. Several other talons danced around the thing, making it look like the Kraken from the ancient mythological texts. Its huge, muscular body filled the corridor. Valery couldn’t tell if it was crawling or if it had legs under that bulky frame. Its huge teeth were more saw than bone, and its blood-red eyes were like a hawk’s, ripping through Valery’s soul.

  “Fire…” Valery said softly. Then panic hit him. “Fire!”

  ***

  Major Bennett fiddled with her communicator again.

  “Any luck?”

  She shook her head, switching channels. “Bennett here, we cannot reach them either, Admiral. No one answers over Major Valery’s frequency.”

  “Understood, Major. Continue with your assignment.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bennett cut the communication, and she pulled out her magazine one more time to check it.

  “The bullets are there, you know.”

  “It relaxes me.”

  “It’s called an obsessive-compulsive disorder, Bennett.”

  Major Bennett smiled. “I guess so.” She turned to look at her lieutenant. “You rigged the junction, Harper?”

  “If anything comes up from there, we’ll fry it.”

  “Good.” She turned to watch the corridor. They had positioned themselves at a t-intersection connecting hallways A, G, and L—the only way to reach the life-support room from the stern decks. Another team of marines and mechs was positioned inside the room, blocking the other exits. The hallways were empty an
d silent. The illumination was weak—most of the lamps were out of order after their crash on New Eden, and the emergency lights created more shadows than light.

  A distant boom brought everyone back to their senses. “I’m guessing that was one of your traps?”

  Harper checked his map. “Yep, the one at corridor C.” Another explosion rattled the corridor. “And that was F.”

  “They’re trying all the connections at the same time.”

  “All right, this one was B. They’re close now.”

  “Everyone, get ready,” Bennett aimed with her rifle at the corridor before her with a huge ‘A’ sign painted on the floor. “No heroics, no stupid stunts. Controlled bursts, and we keep them at bay.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Nothing happened after the explosion of the traps at corridor B. No creature ran at them from the end of corridor A. No beast of any kind jumped off the ceiling or ripped the walls.

  “Is that…?” Harper narrowed his eyes. A movement at the end of hallway G got his attention. He raised his rifle to check with his scope. “Ma’am, that’s Major Valery!”

  “What?” Bennett used her own scope. “He sure looks like him.” She lowered her rifle and yelled at Major Valery, who was half walking, half dragging himself toward them, “Valery? Is that you?”

  Major Valery mumbled.

  “He looks hurt,” Harper slowly walked past the barricade they had formed. “I’ll go check him.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Major?” Harper called out for Major Valery. “I’m coming to you. Relax, it’ll be fine.” The lieutenant took small steps toward the major, his finger resting anxiously on the trigger. “Major… What the hell?”

  Major Valery looked like he held something in his mouth, and his eyeballs looked like bee combs. He was still mumbling without forming words.

  “Stay back,” Harper said in a panic. “Stay back!”

  “What is it?” Bennett asked but saw why Harper was retreating in haste to the barricade. “Oh my…” She aimed and fired at Major Valery, taking him down with a single bullet to the man’s head. Or so, she hoped.

  Major Valery’s head popped open like a melon cracked into two. Inside was one big hive of bugs. Bees. They surely looked like bees, pouring out, filling the air like a dense, black smoke.