Darkspace Calamity

by Christopher Bodan

  Fiametta cut the visual feed to preserve the signal and cranked up the gain. A second later, Calico Kate’s unmistakable brogue came through loud, clear, and annoyed. “This better be good. I’m a might bit busy just now.”

  “Hello, Kate,” Kisa said cheerfully. “Just wanted to check in.”

  “Who is—” The confusion drained from Kate’s voice almost immediately. “Kisa. I might have known. Last I saw you was on Embry station. How’d you survive the fire?”

  Kisa winced but managed to keep it out of her voice. “Trade secret.”

  “And your bloody luck. You should be dead.”

  “Hah! Neither you nor the Guild are that lucky. Don’t you want to know how we found this channel?”

  “No. I just want you to get off the line.”

  “Not yet,” Kisa replied with mock sweetness. “I’ve got news that you’ll want to hear. See, I happen to know that you’re in this mess because the noh are looking for something, some kind of artifact.”

  “How in the dead stars do you—”

  “And I know,” Kisa interrupted, “that you’re not stupid enough to trust them.” She distinctly heard Kate snort at that. “So what would you say if I told you that the artifact they’re after is actually the Source?”

  “The what?”

  Kisa rolled her eyes. “The Source. It’s connected to the Calamity, somehow, and it’s a staggeringly powerful esper generator.”

  The explosions in the background dimmed as Kate took cover. “Now that last part I’m interested in. What of it?”

  “Well, you’re not stupid enough to trust the noh, but Vance might be. What would you say if I told you that he’s got the Source on his ship right now?”

  “I’d say, if so, why hasn’t he done anything with it?”

  “Who says he hasn’t?” Kisa replied. “Think about it. Maybe he’s just dumb enough to think he can make the noh a better offer than you can. So. What would you say to that?”

  “I’d ask why you’re telling me this.”

  “Because he’s also got Squall.” A sudden, ominous silence radiated from the speaker. Kisa and Fiametta exchanged glances.

  “And how might you know that, kitty cat?” Kate asked with deadly calm.

  Kisa closed her eyes and rolled the dice. “Sweetie, you know it too. I’m going to guess that you put her on his ship to keep an eye on him. When was the last time she checked in?”

  The silence on the other end of the line dragged out for too many heartbeats before they heard Kate swear. “That sadistic, self-serving bloody bastard. He’s selling us out—selling me out. Once again,” she said to Kisa, all the banter gone, “why tell me this?”

  “Because the Source is bigger than us, all of us. If the Source is here, then the Calamity has finally reached the Last Galaxy. You know what that means. I’m outside the Black Spot right now, and I’m going in after the Source. Vance or the noh will do terrible things with it, and while I know you don’t care about that, I know you do care about Squall. And Vance and the noh will do—and likely have done—terrible things to her.” And you can’t afford to let his treachery stand, Kisa mentally added. She let the spoken and unspoken thoughts hang between them.

  “Don’t think, darling, that I’m fooled,” Kate said, the banter back along with a great deal of venom. “But I do appreciate the message. Do us both a service, hmm? Stay out of my way. I’d hate to have to kill you while still owing you a favor.” The comm line went dead.

  Kisa turned to Fiametta and grinned. “Well?”

  Fiametta shook her head but could not help smiling. “You’re playing longer odds than usual. Let’s hope it works.”

  “Oh, it’ll work. I just hope it works out well,” Kisa replied, steering them into the docking bay. “That’s the real gamble.”

  ***

  Candy flew out of the Lucky Chance’s hold like Kisa had launched her from a slingshot. Candy smiled tightly, recalling the last time she had been in a slingshot. She fired her relic’s jets and spun toward the Black Spot’s maintenance bay. Star and sunlight raced across her visor. Soundless explosions bathed everything in the lurid colors of igniting oxygen. The pressure suit and air supply would hold for a few minutes, but she fully intended to be outside for only a few seconds.

  Her relic unfolded as she flew, its dart-like prow pointed at the pirate ship and the oddly back-canted legs tucked up and ready to land. She extended the machine’s gangly arms to aid in maneuvering, and the relic’s long, slightly curved blade flew out into its hand. Esper glittered along the weapon’s edge. Candy adjusted her flight just enough to strike the seams around the maintenance bay’s sealed doors. An opening appeared, peeling open like a flower as air rushed out. She reversed with a flip that would have broken bones in an atmosphere and slipped in just before the emergency bulkheads slammed shut.

  The bay was relatively small and cluttered with loaders, lifters, and other labor machinery in various states of disrepair. Candy gratefully pulled her helmet off as she soared over the mess. She spotted the main access and hovered next to it long enough to jam the datastick into a corroded port beside the door. It lit up and hummed happily.

  Candy pulled back, got some altitude, and fired a blast of esper from the relic’s shoulder-mounted cannon to punch through the interior door. Pulling the machine’s limbs in close, she dove into the corridor. Much of the crew had gone for boarding parties, but the Black Spot did not lack for defenders. Small knots of pirates came to challenge her in disjointed groups. She struck them as fast as she could, to keep them off balance, but she still did not see anything like the Source.

  “Cola,” she shouted over her shoulder. “I need you to find this thing.” She spun the relic as it bowled into four corsairs and sliced them apart.

  The foxlike cypher laughed gleefully, clinging to the back of the relic. His usual soda bottle was wide open, drenching the walls and decking in sticky sweet syrup. “One second,” he replied, giggling. He leapt off and snatched up something from one of the fallen pirates. Candy pulled up, confused, and instinctively caught the thing he tossed at her. “Here,” he said, and climbed back aboard.

  It took Candy a second to realize that he’d taken a communicator. She stuck its interface end into a port just past her control yoke and immediately heard the internal ship’s communication. An unexpected attack had pulled most of the remaining crew off to the upper decks. Sounds like someone that they had not expected to fight, she thought, frowning. If she didn’t know better, she would think that they were being boarded by other pirates.

  Then her own comm beeped. A quick look showed a short message from Kisa indicating that they were almost in and something about a distraction.

  Candy grinned but did not have time to think too much. Help was coming, and that would have to be enough. She turned back to find Cola stock-still and staring with eyes gone glowing white. He raised his hand and pointed to the right, still staring straight ahead. “There. That way. In the secondary hold.”

  “I need better directions than that,” she said.

  He pointed down the hall to their left. She sped off that way, twisting around two more tight turns before flying into a larger corridor that ended in a reinforced double-door.

  “That’ll do,” she shouted and fired her weapons.

  The doors buckled but held.

  “Hang on!” she shouted. She felt Cola tuck into the small of her back. Candy ducked her head and turned to lead with her relic’s shoulder. The impact rattled her teeth and scrambled her brain for a second, but it sent the bulkhead doors flying.

  One of the doors scythed through a pair of noh women with drawn daggers. Beyond them, Candy saw maybe half a dozen cages set up along the back wall with only two occupied. One prisoner was a small, auburn-haired woman who clutched at the bars in clear pain and frustration. That would be Squall. A glowing creature, violet and white with a fish’s tail, hovered near the small woman and fed her esper.

  Candy looked to the next ne
arest cell and saw a horrific sight. A chee hung suspended and literally eviscerated from the cage’s twisting bars. Her parts lay spread out across the floor below her, all coated in lubricants and sealing oil. Still more vital fluids dripped slowly from the robot’s limp frame. Any organic creature would have died long since, unless kept unnaturally alive, but the chee managed to feebly rotate her head and some life flickered in her eyes. She moaned softly, as if trying to be heard.

  The chee did not command Candy’s full attention, however, because a nightmare rose to move between her and the prisoner. Tall by any standard, the noh woman who fixed burning, baleful eyes on Candy wore little more than a few strips of cloth and a dozen long prayer scrolls draped from her shoulders, hips, and horns. Oil and coolant coated her hands, arms, and powerful legs. The noh woman stopped and regarded the Alliance Knight with a seething hatred. Red destruction esper roiled around her form like an aura, and tendrils of crimson energy writhed along the ground at her feet.

  “The Source is mine, girl,” the noh said in thickly accented Standard. “As is your life.”

  Chapter 18

  Blade of Israbad, Shattered Sword corvette, Origin Point

  Malya clutched the rail around the raised command dais on the assault corvette’s spartan bridge. The princess had been vaguely disappointed at the far less adorned or embellished interior of the Blade compared to the few other paladin ships she had boarded during this trip, but she supposed that reflected the captain’s nature. Captain Corvan, a white-haired human with the easy stance and air of a lifelong spacer, stood calm and stern on the dais behind Malya as his boxy, stout ship maneuvered sharply through the debris field. His gaze shifted smoothly between the screens on his console, the holographic display above their heads, and the wide view ports surrounding them.

  “Entering real space as far out as we did has proven useful, despite this mess,” he said, somewhat grudgingly.

  “Well, Captain Harker has been here before, and none of the rest of us can say that. Seemed wise to heed his advice.” She worked hard not to clutch the safety rail and turned a smile on him that she hoped was wide and pleased but she suspected actually looked nervous.

  Corvan smiled back with only half of his mouth. “True, though it still rankles a bit to rely on a pirate for so much of this.”

  “Strange days indeed,” said Sebastian Cross as he joined Malya just below the dais. Beside him, the holographic head of Captain Harker flickered and came into focus.

  Malya turned from him to the overhead display as one of the larger asteroids glowed and acquire a number of computer tags.

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” Harker said, his voice crackly with interference, “there it is. Not much to look at, but like all great dramas, the Calamity begins very small. Frankly, I was expecting more defenders. Our scanners show only two vessels.”

  “As do ours,” Cross said, referring to the data pad in his hand. “Large ones, though. Dragon ships.”

  Malya glanced at one of the secondary displays above them as it dissolved into an enlarged sensor composite of the enemy ships. They loomed over the asteroid like great storm clouds.

  “They’re—oh.” Harker’s brow furrowed. “We have confirmed that one of them is the Wrath of Wyrms.”

  Malya frowned at the red wedges that appeared on the larger display and back at the enlarged composites. “Why do I know that name?”

  “Because it’s the personal ship of Kasaro To, the Noh Empire’s only known Relic Knight,” Sebastian Cross said. He looked concerned for the first time since leaving slip space. “Now we know why the defense is so thin. We had thought that the entirety of Dragon Fleet To was at Ulyxis, and they must have had no more strength to spare. But if Kasaro To is here, then the Point’s defenders have a great deal of strength already.”

  “More than I expected them to have, since I doubt they anticipated an attack by two Relic Knights,” Harker said, and he frowned too. “Even so, if the accounts of the Herald are accurate, she would not leave this to chance. We should—”

  Pings and chimes sounded out on three sides of the bridge behind the corsair. “Unknown contact, 101 by 087.” “Cloaked contacts, several, bearing in from 299 by 304.” “Esper flares, four, all 180 by 184. They’re almost on top of us!”

  “Ambush,” Harker said with an unnerving calm. “Actions stations. Evasive maneuvers, red blossom pattern. Paladins, follow our lead and keep a distance of at least 300 kilometers. Get me firing solutions on those cloaked contacts. All commands are to protect the paladin ships and deliver them to Origin Point.” He looked over at Cross. “Your ships are not well-suited to this sort of fight, Lord Cross. We will clear the way and join you when we can.”

  “No, that means you’ll—” Cross paused, considering. He showed no pride at Harker’s assumption of command or dispute with the tactical decisions, simply concerned for lives that he felt responsible for. He finally set his jaw and nodded. “Thank you, Captain. Divines protect you.”

  Harker nodded, his features grave, and cut the link.

  Cross turned to Captain Corvan. “We have our course. Send to all commands: use the pirate craft as shields for as long as possible, and make best speed to Origin Point.”

  Corvan nodded and began relaying orders.

  Malya made her way forward until she had nearly pressed against the armored glass viewport. The debris field flashed past her, but in the darkness between the asteroids, she saw black shapes racing in front of the distant stars. Drive flares and bolts of black energy wreathed in jagged arcs of violet esper flashed across her view. Off to her left, just out of sight, something exploded silently, and a violently expanding ball of gas and flame threw brilliant orange light across razor-edged fighter craft. They suggested nothing so much as daggers.

  “What are they?” she muttered.

  Mr. Tomn hopped to the lip of the viewport and stared out with her. “They are murder,” he said so quietly that only she could hear. “They are the armies of oblivion, and they’ve come to kill the universe.”

  She looked at him, shocked less by his words than by the serious, nearly terrified tone of his voice.

  He looked at her. “They are what is wrong, what has been interfering.”

  “Then we shall stop them,” Sebastian Cross said quietly.

  Malya jumped, and even Mr. Tomn looked surprised as he turned to the paladin. Cross’s cypher stood on the deck in front of him and nodded his armored head.

  “I have read Harker’s accounts of these creatures that aid the noh,” Sebastian continued. His voice rose so it reached the entire bridge.

  “I have read Captain Harker’s reports on the creatures that aid our enemies; they are beautiful, terrible, and utterly devoid of compassion. They fight and maim and kill for no other reason than the act of destruction itself. Life is nothing to them, and so they do the Calamity’s work. They are the darkness of the empty sky. They are the end of all we know.”

  He had opened a comm channel at some point; she could hear a vague echo of his voice in her earpiece.

  “But we have always stood against the encroaching night, and we have never gone quietly. We have never bent our knee to raiders, to reavers, to tyrants or terrors, and we shall not bend before these bitter angels. They come to kill our galaxy? Let them try. We are the guardians on the walls of the world, and we have never yet fallen. We are the spear in the storm.”

  She felt the corvette accelerating as if moved by his words.

  “We are the life-sworn of the Second of the Six Peers,” Cross nearly shouted. “We are the Shattered Sword, and we will not be denied! Strength through honor.”

  Across the bridge and over the comms, Malya heard what sounded like every paladin in the sector shout back to their First, “Glory through service.”

  “You sure know how to work a crowd,” Malya said quietly after Cross closed the comm channel.

  “We’re all still mortal, and that means that we all need a boost sometimes,” the paladin rep
lied. They all took hold of the bulkhead around the viewport as the ship swerved and slipped to avoid asteroids and incoming fire.

  “My lord,” Captain Corvan said firmly above the low roar of a ship in combat. “We’ve received a signal from the pirates. It appears to be landing coordinates for the asteroid.” He frowned. “I’m concerned, as scans show the location to be in treacherous terrain.”

  “What does the message say, exactly?” Cross asked.

  Corvan looked dubious. “It simply lists the coordinates and says, ‘Compliments of the witch.’ Nothing more.”

  “Then that is our destination, Captain. If Soliel says it, I believe it. Coordinate with the other ships for landing sites at that location.”

  Corvan hesitated only a second before nodding and opening a secure channel.

  Cross glanced back at Malya. “Princess, we should get to our assault shuttles. I don’t expect the ride in to be smooth, but it will be short.”

  She nodded and followed.

  * * *

  Kasaro To stalked the rugged plains of the asteroid. Though enormous for what it was, the rock should not have held even so thin an atmosphere as it had, and he wondered again at the time and energy that the Herald’s people had expended to drag this piece of debris into place and prepare it for use. That led, once more, to wondering why; what did they hope to achieve here? He ground his teeth, thinking again of the Herald’s deflections, condescension, and outright arrogance. He slammed his foot down and pulverized several esper crystals. The multihued crystals grew thickly over much of the asteroid’s surface, some as tall as ancient trees, and bathed everything in rainbow-tinted reflections. He ground the crystals further underfoot, feeling somewhat better for it, and stalked toward the plateau and the Herald.