by Jacob Holo
“Stop!” Zo cried. “Stop! Please, stop!”
Quennin lessened the pressure and waited.
Zo began to weep, letting out long wet sobs.
“Are… are you going to kill me too?” she asked. “Like you killed Mezen and the others?”
“Answer my question first.” Quennin’s voice was as cold as death. “When I was helpless on the flyer, you and the Renseki tried to kill me. Why?”
“I was… Quennin, I was only following orders.”
Hot sudden anger surged up within Quennin. She drove her glaive into the Renseki seraph, piercing its chest right through the pilot’s cockpit. The seraph went limp. Its barrier died, and its shunts darkened from blue to black.
“Wrong answer, Zo.” Quennin pulled her glaive free of the machine corpse.
Zo Nezrii was dead.
***
Seth spread his wings and charged the throne again.
It was all alone, isolated from the rest of its ilk. Veketon’s escort thrones and archangels had forced a deep wedge through the Alliance lines, but this one throne had become isolated. Cut off from support, he attacked it with every drop of strength he had.
Seth hacked into the throne’s shoulder for the third time in a row. Blade met armor in a spray of energy. Luminous fluid dripped from the wound, forming globules in space.
The throne lashed out, talons shining with blue light. Seth struck its fist with his other sword. Fluid oozed from the throne’s scarred hands. These monsters could regenerate at frightening speeds, but Seth kept up the pressure. He pulled a sword free of the throne’s shoulder and brought it down again.
And again, and again, and again.
Seth hacked at the throne in a blur of speed. Fluid and fleshy chunks spat off the ruined joint. The throne writhed with visible pain now, its attacks becoming the desperate ones of a cornered animal.
Seth attacked and attacked and attacked.
The throne jerked and thrashed. Seth pulled back, the throne’s talons skirting his barrier in brief flickers of reactive energy. Tesset dropped her stealth field, ignited her weapon, and chopped down onto the throne’s halo-wing. Energy spewed off the spinning wheel in a thick stream. The throne spun around and swung wildly for Tesset.
She wasn’t there.
Seth dove in again and cut down. The blade sheered through the shoulder and came out its armpit. Conductor fluid gushed from the wound. Seth raised his other sword in a quick arc, embedding it in the throne’s chest.
The throne raked its talons across Seth, catching his forearm and leaving three deep grooves. Acceptable damage. Seth barely felt the hot burns, barely acknowledged the cooking of his own flesh in the cockpit. His mind coolly added it to the growing list of injuries. He would not fail, not against this monster.
“Its wounds aren’t closing anymore,” Tesset said.
“Keep at it!” Seth shouted. “We can do this!”
The throne clawed at the sword embedded in its chest. It pulled the large blade free and tossed it away angrily. Fluid spluttered from the tear.
In a distant part of Seth’s mind, a message played out summoning all available pilots to rally near the Gate. No one answered. The Alliance had no reserves left, and Seth ignored the message. He was fighting for his life.
Seth clutched his remaining sword double-handed and brought it down diagonally. The blade struck the throne’s neck. Fluid geysered from the wound as if under high pressure, and Seth forced the sword deeper. At this range, with their barriers touching, Seth could hear the throne’s screams reverberating in his mind. The voice was a rumbling, animalistic wail.
Seth tore the weapon free, reeled back, and chopped down again. Tesset materialized behind the throne and stabbed her bayonet into the opposite side of the neck. The throne frantically tried to attack, its remaining arm reaching, clawing, groping for anything. But it faced two of the fastest pilots in the Alliance, and its attacks went wide.
“Just die already!” Seth shouted.
He struck the throne’s neck with all his strength, cleaving head from body. The throne lashed out one last time, talons digging into Seth’s shoulder.
“Aahh! Curse you!” he gasped, tasting burnt meat in his true mouth.
After that last spasm of strength, the throne went slack. Shunts across its body died to black, and the fluid pouring from its body reverted to a rusty brown.
“Gnh,” Seth ground his teeth together and pulled the talons out of his shoulder. “Ah!”
Seth pushed the throne away. The monster was headless, lifeless, missing one arm, and bleeding through its armor.
He didn’t feel much better.
“Here, Seth!” Tesset’s green seraph appeared next to him, its lines sleek and aggressive. One of her wings was missing, and the damage to her torso shunts looked bad. She’d stowed her rail-carbine on a wing cluster and held the sword the throne had thrown aside.
Tesset tossed the sword over. Seth caught it and examined the blade. The fight with the throne had taken its toll, especially when the weapon had been lodged in that beast. Seth still felt the full length conducting his influx, but a slight resonance came back, as if the blade wanted to shake itself apart. He spotted numerous gouges and small cracks.
But the blade produced a stable double-edge. He could still use this.
The fight with the throne had led Seth to the very edge of the Gate Maelstrom, a position close to the reinforcement request from earlier. Seth accessed the message and let it play. His stomach twisted with shock.
“Zo! What’s your status?” he throttled up and headed into the Maelstrom.
“Seth, there’s nothing you can do for us,” Zo said. The signal’s origin didn’t immediately register with Seth. It took him a moment to realize it didn’t come from Zo’s seraph.
The signal came from the Choir.
Seth rounded a smoothly cut planetary fragment and cut his drives. The hewn bodies of all six Renseki floated in space, now carried along by the intense eddies this close to the Gate. They drifted by, a dismembered stream of corpses, black fluid weeping from every wound. He wanted to scream out, but no sound came from his lips. Instead he just stared at it in breathless silence, his mind incapable of absorbing so much grief at once. His friends and comrades from countless battles…
Dead…
All of them…
“Zo…”
“We failed. I’m sorry, Seth,” Zo said, her mind now a part of the Choir.
Two command thrones came into view, returning from the Gate. They passed through the horrible dismembered flotsam and veered towards him.
Seth turned to leave, but found two more thrones coming in behind him, boxing him in. Two whole squadrons of Aktenai seraphs had been charged with occupying those thrones, and when Seth looked up their status, he found them all dead. He couldn’t escape, not without being engaged by at least one of the thrones. And once one delayed him, the others would overwhelm him.
Icy terror shivered up his spine. His wings quivered. Many times before, he had faced terrible foes, but never had he felt fear like this. Not even when he had fought Jack and the Bane. It was cold and certain now. He was going to die.
“Jared! Get Knight Squadron over here now!”
Jared didn’t reply immediately, and when he did it was with the strained voice of someone occupied by combat. “Everyone is engaged, sir! And I mean everyone! We don’t have anyone to spare!”
“Choir!”
“It grieves us to report there is no one available, Pilot Elexen. Do what you can. We will welcome you when this is over.”
Seth mentally reached for his fold engine, but found it negated by both friend and foe. The Outcast had brought their own negators forward. No one was escaping this battle. Neither Alliance nor Outcast had any choice but to fight to the bitter end.
To the death, Seth thought. He lit his swords.
The four thrones held their distance. A hypercast channel opened, and Seth let it through.
“
Greetings, Pilot Elexen. It would appear—” Veketon began.
Seth let Veketon gloat. He muted the channel and opened a private one to Tesset.
“Yeah, Seth?”
“I want you to leave. They can’t detect you. Head for Knight Squadron and link up with them as soon as you can.”
“Seth, I can’t just leave you here.”
“This is not a request!” he shouted.
“But… Seth?”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
It took her a while to finally say it. “Okay… I… I understand.”
Seth unmuted Veketon.
“—would be willing to beg for mercy? It might help. I am not without compassion, and you would make a valuable prisoner.”
“Get this over with, Veketon.” Seth raised his swords.
“Actually, I am not going to decide what to do with you,” Veketon said with a hint of glee. “I am not an unreasonable man. I understand there are emotional ties here that make simply killing you unwise. Therefore, I shall let the Twelfth decide your fate.”
The Twelfth? Oh, no…
“I will deal with him personally.” Quennin’s voice was like a gust of arctic air.
“Quennin…” Seth whispered. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. It was not only the words, but the speed of her conclusion, as if doing the killing herself was the only logical conclusion. Seth’s heart sank with despair. He was prepared for death, but not like this.
“As you wish.” Veketon pulled away with the two standard thrones. Seth watched their positions shift, hoping for an opening, but never saw it. They took up new positions just outside the Maelstrom, preventing his escape. Several archangels broke away from other engagements and formed up with the thrones to further box him in.
Quennin moved closer, her black throne armed with a long glaive. She appeared undamaged from the battle with the Renseki. The two faced each other within the Gate Maelstrom. The fleet battle seemed distant as Seth watched her black throne.
“You thought I might return to you, Seth,” Quennin said. “There is no hidden motive, no great secret that exonerates my deeds. I serve the Eleven now. It is as simple as that.”
“I know.” Seth could think of nothing else to say.
“We cannot avoid this. Let us perform our duties.”
With those words, Quennin’s halo-wings surged with power, and she lunged forward with her glaive.
Seth dodged to the side and fled deeper into the Maelstrom. He wove a path through the debris, juking and flitting about in quick evasive moves. Quennin pursued him, gaining ground.
No matter how fast Seth was, he only had so many places to run. Quennin overtook him, and he turned around, bringing up his swords. He met Quennin’s attack, swords striking glaive in a brief flash of purple and black sparks. The attack sent hot pain stabbing up his arm, making every wound throb as if new.
“Curse it!” he hissed.
Seth held his defense firm and tried to push back. Even as wounded and outmatched as he was, he was still one of the best pilots in existence, and the strength of his counter must have surprised Quennin. Her halo-wings flashed with renewed power, struggling to hold her position.
Seth pushed Quennin away, then brought his damaged sword around for a strike. Quennin didn’t dodge in time.
The blade cut into forearm, but not very deeply. Black fluid oozed from the wound. Quennin reeled back and swung in with her chaos glaive. Seth pulled away, flared his wings, and ran once more. Quennin shot after him.
They flitted about, engaging in short fits and breaking away, each exchange taking them closer to the heart of the Maelstrom. They fought through thick particle rivers and around shattered moons, asteroids, and planetoids. And every time they clashed, Seth found his wounds singing with fresh pain, his strength fading.
Still he fought on against hopeless odds, against an enemy he could not match. There was no choice in the matter, but he would not yield. Not now. Not ever.
At last with his strength waning, Seth made a mistake. Quennin came in from the left, and Seth tried to block with the damaged sword in his left hand. Quennin’s attack shattered the weapon, and severed his wrist.
“Gah!” Seth cried out in pain.
In the cockpit, the flesh of his arm cooked itself from within.
The pain stunned him into inaction. Quennin used the opening to catch both of his wing clusters at their roots. She placed a foot in the small of his back and ripped his wings out.
“Yaaaahhh!!!” he screamed.
Pain filled Seth’s world. He twisted around, purple fluid streaming from his back, and swung at Quennin with his remaining sword. He would not stop fighting. He would not! He refused!
Quennin caught the blade, and Seth quickly tried to pull his sword free. Quennin stowed her chaos glaive against her back and raked her clawed hand across his torso.
Shunts flickered, and his barrier crashed. System indicators lit up red across both the seraph and his true body. In the cockpit, the skin on his chest sizzled like bacon in three horizontal lines. The connection between seraph and man flickered, and Seth vomited hot blood. The i-suit’s nano-cilia impaled his chest, mending his brutalized organs.
Seth shoved the thoughts of his true body aside, forced them down, down, down! He became the seraph wholly again and tried to pull his sword free.
With her free arm, Quennin clenched down the stump of his left arm, talons sinking through his armor.
Seth winced. He closed his eyes.
And then…
…
Nothing happened.
The fight stopped.
Quennin did not kill him. Seth had only the secondary drive shunts in his legs, damaged barrier shunts in the torso, and only one weapon left. But Quennin only maintained her tight grip on Seth’s sword and ruined left arm.
The pain was indescribable. Seth had to concentrate just to think.
And then something stronger eclipsed his pain. Like so many times before, voices flooded Seth’s mind. But unlike earlier, they stuffed his brain to the breaking point, saturating every available crevice of thought.
Seth reeled from the thunder of the voices, his senses completely overwhelmed by their deafening chorus. They shouted at him, and Seth could do nothing but listen. But listen he did, for this was the first time the stream of babble seemed to make sense. On and on it went, but it made sense! It finally made sense!
The voices fell away, and Seth found all the pain returning to him as if it were new. He took labored breaths, trying to manage his agony. He couldn’t risk releasing his i-suit’s painkillers. He needed every last scrap of strength if he was going to make it out of this alive.
They want me to get closer to the Gate. Seth glanced at the Gate and its anchors, so close now. It was his only hope. An insane hope based on voices in his head, but it was all he had.
“Yield, Seth,” Quennin said.
Seth closed his eyes and thought through the pain.
The Gate served as a self-perpetuating dimensional rift, similar to the power bridge a pilot formed for his or her seraph, but on a far greater magnitude. The Gate created a powerful field effect around its position, supplanting any other dimensional disruptions with its own. And so, if Seth could get close enough to the Gate, Quennin could not follow. She would be trapped there with him, unable to power her throne.
If only he could find some way to get there. Seth scanned his surroundings. There. That fast current. It passes close by. If I can get to it, I’ll get a burst of speed that will take me towards the Gate anchors.
“I said yield.”
“What are you going to do to me?” Seth asked, stalling for time.
“I will take you back to the Glorious Destiny as our prisoner. You will be sent to Zu’Rashik to await the war’s end.”
Seth noticed three archangels closing in. Escorts for his trip back to the Glorious Destiny. In his current condition, even they could handle him. Time was running out. He needed to
act now! Seth looked at his sword, still gripped in Quennin’s hand. Still just as effective a cutting weapon as always. He looked down at his left arm, trapped by her iron grip.
He knew what he had to do.
“This is the only way I can let you live. I’m sorry, Seth, but you must yield.”
Now!
He brought up both legs and kicked Quennin in the chest. The attack caused absolutely no damage to her, but it did weaken her grasp on the sword. Seth ripped it back. Quennin’s talons cut long grooves through the sword’s internal conducting strips, and the top-half of the blade flickered and died.
He couldn’t possibly defeat a throne with such a weapon, but that was not his plan.
Seth steeled his mind and brought the sword down on his own left arm. He cut cleanly through the elbow, leaving Quennin holding his severed forearm and nothing more. Pain lacerated Seth’s mind, but he fought it down and ignored the new batch of medical alarms.
Seth poured everything he had into his secondary drive shunts. He fell away. Quennin reached for him but missed, and Seth entered the particulate current before she did.
The current slammed him like a hammer, propelling him towards the Gate with increasing speed. Seth used his own shunts to accelerate the process. Quennin pursued him for a few seconds, then stopped. She knew about Gate effect just as well as he did.
Instead, Quennin sent the three archangels in to pull Seth out. It was of no consequence if they got trapped with him.
But as soon as they veered after Seth, a seraph appeared high above. Tesset dove at the three archangels. She’d stayed against his orders!
“Tesset!”
“Like I’d ever leave you!” she shouted.
Insubordination had never made him happier.
Tesset fired her rail-carbine, disarming one archangel. She lit her bayonet at the last moment and cleaved neatly through an archangel from head to stomach. Her seraph swept past and vanished moments later.
Two archangels pursued Seth into the very heart of the Gate Maelstrom. Powerful currents thundered through this area of space, now even more intense with the anchors damaged.