by Isaac Hooke
Maybe it was better to leave the ship to fight on its own. Surely the Decantium class cruiser was equipped with Essence specialists who could make far better use of the Chrysalium hull than he. But he realized if he did that, it was essentially the same as giving up.
I’m not going to leave. Not without trying to help, at least.
In fact, he believed in his very core that he had come here for a reason. That the dwellers had chosen this moment to attack, the very moment when he had appeared at the rift, told him he was meant to stop this invasion.
And somehow, he would.
Billions of human lives.
He released the Dark Essence and felt the queasiness from zero G in his stomach keenly, but did his best to ignore it. Free from the distractions of dousing all those ethereal flames, he ran a quick calculation on his local suit AI and discovered that he was traveling in roughly the same direction as the Decantium class ship, though at a slightly slower speed, which was why it appeared he was falling toward it. According to the AI, the speed difference was small enough that he could impact without smearing his insides across the hull. Always a good thing.
“But what if you’re wrong?” Tane asked the spacesuit’s AI.
“Then we both go splat splat,” the AI replied.
“Why are AIs always so reassuring?” Tane said.
He let go of the artifact and continued to float alongside, carried by their combined momentum. He pressed the cord release button on his utility belt, and wound out several meters of carbon fiber cord. Then he released oxygen from a side vent and adjusted the flow to clumsily circle the artifact a few times. The loose cord followed him, while its free end remained fixed in place. Before the cord ran out, he stopped his circling motion, clambered back to the free end, and tightened it so that he was firmly roped to the artifact. He looped the free end underneath his utility belt and tied a quick knot.
According to his local AI, at his current speed and trajectory he would just miss the ship. So with the AI’s help he vented more oxygen from the rear nozzles on the suit, applying the necessary thrust in the direction of the Decantium cruiser. Now he just needed that ship to survive long enough for him to reach it.
Thirty seconds past, with the ship growing ever larger until it filled his vision entirely. And then the hull was passing by below him in a blur.
Tane fired thrust in attempt to better match its speed, but it was no use. It was like watching a grav train speed past on the tracks.
Well, here goes...
He released a final vent of oxygen from his rear nozzles and plunged into the hull. He fired countering thrust at the last moment so that he wouldn’t bounce right off, and hit gently. He slid alongside the flat exterior, the artifact secured to his back. He tried to grasp the surface but couldn’t find purchase. It was almost like falling beside a building with a slippery-smooth surface.
He looked down between his boots and saw a superstructure coming up. An antenna of some kind. He activated his shield belt. Since he had the hull of a starship in front of him and a large artifact strapped to his back behind him, the protective energy field would only form along both flanks, above his helmet, and underneath the soles of his boots. He only cared about the latter for the coming impact.
His motion slowed right down half a meter from the superstructure as the shield area underneath his boots buffered the collision; the inertial dampening saved him from any internal injury. The energy bar on his HUD instantly dropped to zero and he physically crashed into the connecting bar a millisecond later, breaking the antenna off. That slowed him down further, but also caused a rip along the right side of his leg.
He checked his suit integrity but still had pressure. That made some sense, because if the tear had penetrated his suit he would have a little trouble breathing right now. Having the saliva inside your mouth, the fluid covering your eyes, and the liquids wetting the alveoli within your lungs boil away wasn’t a pleasant experience, nor was the hypoxia that followed. On the plus side, his body would balloon up to twice its normal size, filling up all all the spare space inside the suit, and there was a chance his swollen skin would seal the breach and thus restore pressure. The exposed area of his body would still freeze solid of course, and would have to be lopped off at some point, but hey at least he’d survive.
He slammed into something else, bringing him out of his grim thoughts. He was firmly lodged this time, his boot jammed between what looked like the slats of a large vent.
He double-checked his suit integrity again. Still 100%. He was still securely strapped to the artifact. Good: he could fire a few Essence Missiles and then return to Remus, seeing as his suit was in physical contact with both the hull of the ship and the dark artifact. He realized now that physical contact wasn’t strictly required, especially after watching the dwellers attempt to snatch away the artifact’s Dark Essence from him. It obviously took greater Siphoning skill to increase the accessible range.
He could feel the Arcanum lurking beyond the black surface behind him, the raging conflagration waiting to be unleashed upon this universe. Conversely, he could also sense the incredible flow of White Essence lingering within the Chrysalium hull in front of him. The enormity of that latter flow frightened him, literally a tsunami of untold power waiting to sweep away the dweller fleet, easily overshadowing the fiery conflagration within the artifact. He could only imagine what it would actually feel like to Siphon that enormous tidal wave through the hull and into his body. He wondered if he would be able to survive it.
No going back now.
He cleared his thoughts and extended his will against the mental barrier that existed between himself and the Esoterum inside the hull. His consciousness expanded far more than it ever had before, and he anchored his Sight lifeline quite a distance away from himself. Then he pushed hard against the invisible barrier.
His consciousness snapped back inside of himself and the White Essence erupted through him, an icy tsunami stronger than anything he had every experienced in his life. He surrendered instantly, knowing that to hold back for even a moment would be to allow himself to be ripped apart by the cold.
Siphoning bonus. All White Essenceworks are enhanced 7990% percent due to Siphoning through Chrysalium hull.
That tidal wave of power froze his core and erupted from all sides of him, moving outward, away from the ship. But because he was sandwiched between the hull and the artifact, he saw no flickering ribbon he could shape.
No problem. Tane threw out the lifeline for Essence Sight and his perspective snapped to far above himself, giving him an eagle eye view of the ship and the battlefield. Now he could see the ribbon: it emerged from where he was lodged against the hull like a giant, waving pennant.
He pushed against that ribbon, the root of his sapling, and attempted the only effective Branchwork he knew: the Essence Missile. Unfortunately the Branches rocketed outward at an uncontrollable rate and he was forced to release the massive, malformed work out into deep space.
He tried again but once more was unable to actually direct it—the flow was too massive, too untamable. He understood now why ships had specialized Essence throwers equipped with advanced AIs to assist in the shaping, redirecting the massive flows into preset Branch designs.
It looked like he wasn’t going to be able to make a difference after all. He watched helplessly as more TSN ships were obliterated, the dweller ranks unstoppable.
And then he had an idea. He wasn’t certain if he could claim credit for it, or whether the idea came from some new, vague memory the artifact had given him. It certainly wasn’t instinct.
With the White Essence still filling him, he compartmentalized the part of his mind responsible for surrendering to that massive tidal wave of power, and with the remainder of his mind he allowed chaos to reign. At the same time he reached through the artifact.
The burning conflagration tore through him alongside the tsunami, setting fire to those portions of his being that bordered the icy fl
ow.
Both Essences traveled through him, vying for control. Hot and Cold. White and Dark. The amount of Essence flowing through hull and artifact was massive. His body acted as a funnel for it all, Siphoning and directing. It required the utmost concentration not to be swept away on the one hand by that never-ending tidal wave of White, and on the other to constantly douse the sprouting flames of Dark. If he relaxed his concentration for even a moment, he knew he would destroy himself. Utterly. It was like trying to contain a fire on a massive yacht while at the same time steering the vessel through the storm of the century.
Though he was still viewing the ship through the external perspective of Essence Sight, a familiar notification icon flashed in the lower right of his vision.
Siphoning bonus. All Dark Essenceworks are enhanced 570% percent due to Siphoning through Dark artifact.
Unsure of how long he could hold onto both Essences, he focused his attention on the massive ethereal ribbon that continued to wave erratically from the hull. The flames of the Dark Essence licked at its surface from all sides, the fires springing into existence slightly faster than he could contain them.
It’s time.
He began to create the Essence Missile once more, but this time clumped flames of Dark Essence around each Branch, using the Arcanum to contain the White. It worked. He continued forming the Branches and Leaves, intermixed the two powers into the same tree. Sometimes he applied too few Flames to a given Branch, and had to quickly place more of them before it exploded beyond control, and sometimes he placed too many Flames, and had to remove a few so that the Branch could take its proper shape. It was a balancing act, one that he quickly got the hang of. In moments he had formed the biggest Essence Missile he could imagine, one that was about three times bigger than the Decantium class ship itself.
As the combined Essencework “set” in this reality, he hurled it at the incoming enemy vessels. The Missile moved quickly, a thick, bright beam of White light shot through with Dark veins, and surrounded by bolts of black lightning. Reality itself seemed to distort around the edges of the Missile, displacing the light from nearby stars as it passed.
The Missile struck one of the dweller ships, shattering the alien craft. The work remained intact after the impact, and Tane found that he could steer the Missile while it continued forward. With his new memories, he was able to modify his Essence Sight to follow along, and he managed to destroy four more successive ships before the combined work dissipated. A couple of those vessels tried to launch their equivalents of Essence deflectors to repel Tane’s Missile, but the Essencework was simply too massive, easily swallowing the deflecting work along with the firing ship.
He continue mixing White and Dark in that manner to devastating effect, essentially becoming a one man army, destroying aliens with his mind. He occasionally failed to create an Essence Missile, presumably because his level in that particular skill was so low, but as he continued to create them his failure rate eventually dropped to zero.
The drain on his body was immense as he wielded the tsunami of White through him, but the Dark seemed to help mitigate the effects so that he didn’t feel as exhausted as he probably should have. He was able to fight for what seemed hours, though in truth only minutes must have passed.
The invading aliens quickly pinpointed his location and were concentrating their efforts on the vessel he clung to. But the other TSN battlecruisers had noticed him as well, and they had begun rallying to the Decantium class ship. The TSN protected him with everything they had, aiming their disruptors at alien ships in an attempt to prevent them from launching those deadly spheres in the first place; activating their deflectors to divert enemy spheres that had already fired; and physically placing TSN vessels in front of the Decantium to provide extra shielding against standard laser and plasma attacks. Sometimes when the deflectors couldn’t stop an incoming Essence attack in time, the TSN ships would sacrifice themselves, moving into the path of incoming dark spheres and allowing their vessels to be ripped apart so that Tane could fight on.
Occasionally a few enemy disruptors made their way through the shield of TSN ships and struck his half-formed Essenceworks, but the disruptions wouldn’t take and simply sloughed off his White and Dark combinations.
During the battle, Tane spotted two incongruous shapes floating into his field of vision: relatively tiny spheres of dark energy, at least compared to the massive balls of Arcanum launched by the alien ships. He realized immediately that those tiny spheres housed the two dwellers he had left on Remus. Because of Essence Sight, he was aware of them well before they neared his ship. And when they launched their attack, he was ready.
Jet black smears arced toward his position from the two dwellers. Apparently the works were too small to be noticed by the TSN because no deflectors launched to disperse the incoming darkness.
So Tane created a huge work of Air Current, once more using Dark to constrain White, and slammed it into the Decantium ship. He wasn’t sure whether the Essencework would create some tornado as Sinive had done, or whether it would even work in the void at all. He was relieved when a gust physically shoved the ship aside. It dispersed quickly thanks to the vacuum, but it was enough to move the ship out of the path of those smears. The waning Dark Essenceworks swerved in an attempt to follow the ship, but dissipated before arriving.
Tane launched a counterattack, a colossal Essence Missile that would easily swallow the two dwellers. The White and Dark Missile ripped through space, and the tiny aliens tried to evade, moving in different directions. Tane swerved the Missile to follow one of them. The dweller vanished in a satisfying burst of dark light. It was too late to steer the Missile toward the other dweller, so he released it and created another.
The remaining enemy had created more dark smears, so after Tane hurled his Essence Missile he followed up with an Air Current to shove the ship out of the way. He steered the Missile toward the dweller, but the alien vanished before the work struck, no doubt escaping to fight another day.
The enemy vessels were in full rout by then. They were attempting to flee to the far side of the system while trying to jump out. The surviving TSN ships used their disruptors to stop as many of them from jumping as possible.
Tane flung huge Essence Missiles mercilessly at the aliens, knowing that any escaping ship would only stir up trouble in another system eventually. Plus he wanted to teach the dwellers a lesson: jump to our space with bad intentions and the consequences wouldn’t be pleasant.
Unfortunately, he was wielding so much White Essence that the very hull of the ship underneath him was starting to fold and buckle. He thought he understood the purpose of Essence overflow vents in starships now. Though Tane constructed his Missiles as fast as he could, there was still excess Esoterum remaining in between each Branchwork, and with nowhere to redirect that excess, the raging power apparently lingered toxically in the Chrysalium, causing the ship to slowly disintegrate. The sheer amount he Siphoned certainly didn’t help matters, and likely helped accelerate the hull’s decay. Then again, the deterioration could have been a side effect of Siphoning both White and Dark at once. Either way, the ship was done: already escape pods were jettisoning from the vessel.
The artifact showed signs of decay, too. If Tane wanted to get back to Remus, he had to stop.
He released both Essences and his viewpoint snapped back inside of himself. The exhaustion the Dark Essence had held back hit him with full force, and he slumped inside of his suit.
His work here was done: he had singlehandedly routed a dweller fleet. The TSN would have to handle the multi-system clean up from this point forward.
He was receiving multiple hails on the comm band, but he ignored them.
A beacon flashed softly in the lower right of his HUD. He enlarged the notification screen distractedly. He had two new alerts, the timestamps indicating each had appeared at a different point during the battle.
New skill received.
Dark and White mixing.
Level 1. Allows for the stable creation of White Branchworks at extreme Siphoning degrees.
Level up. Essence Missile is now Level 2. 25% more damage is inflicted, and impacted objects are repelled 20% farther.
He had jumped ahead to level two in Essence Missile, skipping level one, no doubt thanks to the intensity of the practice he just got in. It should have been a great achievement, except he felt nothing. He was too exhausted to care. Too tired even to sleep. All he could do was float there, wishing the exhaustion away.
The hull of the human ship abruptly crumbled beside him. His boot tore free of the vent and in the explosive decompression that followed he and the artifact were sent lurching away.
Individuals in spacesuits tumbled past. As did debris.
If he wanted to return to Remus, now was the time: pieces of the artifact were already crumbling from the edges, and he knew it wouldn’t last much longer either. He’d have to dig deep inside of himself though to get past the exhaustion.
For a moment he didn’t want to do it. He just wanted to lay there and float forever through space. But he reminded himself that the TSN was still out there. They had probably already launched retrieval craft. He certainly couldn’t let the TSN capture him, not now. They had seen what a valuable weapon he had become. Once the TSN had him, they’d never let him go.
The tenuous, dark thread leading back to Remus was gone. At least, he couldn’t see it.
He took a few more moments to rest. Then he unlatched the energy sword from his belt and gripped the hilt in hand. The rune glowed a bright blue and he felt better as the Endurance bonus took hold.
He Siphoned the Dark Essence through the artifact and the flames erupted inside of him. The thread returned, receding into space behind him.