Darkspace Calamity

by Christopher Bodan

  Just before he could reach her, a swirl of pirates locked in their own fight swept him away. Esper surrounded Vance as he snarled, and suddenly an enormous chee composed of wildly mismatched parts stood beside his captain. Cordelia shuddered as he followed Vance’s pointing finger and shouted command to get her. She tried to push faster through the press of people, but the giant swept away the intervening pirates with horrifying ease. Cordelia felt a metal hand clamp down on her arm. She turned to see the chee’s leering, ragged grin nearly on top of her.

  More ozone wafted around them, and Cordelia could feel the sudden rush of air very different from the shipboard atmosphere. The giant chee frowned and looked away as another rift opened just behind him. Cordelia followed his gaze to see two women, one a noh with a great bow, dash through ahead of several warriors in strange armor. A vicious-looking bird cypher swooped at the chee’s face. He grunted and swatted at it. The noh fired a glowing arrow at close range that took the pirate square in the chest. He staggered. The noh vaulted over three corsairs diving for her and, too fast for even Cordelia’s optics to follow, drew and fired again in midair. The arrow spun, trailing red-violet esper, and ripped off the arm holding Cordelia.

  Cordelia barely noticed her sudden freedom. Her gaze had fixed on the other woman who came through the rift, an alien of a kind she had never seen. Though almost human, the warrior wore an esper-traced bodysuit and plates of armor tinged with darkness. The alien’s pale features held an aching beauty and poisonous evil. She floated on circular condensers that literally pulled the world apart to create lift. Cordelia could see esper motes materialize out of the air and fall into the darkness at the center of the condensers. The chee froze, terrified beyond even her recollection of the noh torture. The woman fixed her malevolent gaze on Cordelia, and a look of pleased astonishment crossed her face.

  “Dead gods of the void,” she said. “That’s it. That’s the Source.”

  Candy bowled through the crowd. She sailed over Cordelia, knocking aside pirates, the noh archer, and the alien horror alike. “Back off!” she shouted, and Cola fired the relic’s shoulder cannon. The strange alien raised her staff and deflected the beam. It struck another floating cannon and sliced it apart.

  “She is mine,” the woman said in a calm, firm voice that filled the bay. “I am a mouthpiece of oblivion, and you cannot stop me.”

  Candy said nothing. The sword materialized again in her relic’s hand, and she charged. The noh archer had regained her feet but now simply dove out of the way. The alien’s staff again came up to ward off the attack, and though the relic looked like it could crush battleship armor, its blow never touched the strange woman. Dark esper gathered around her, and she struck with an unseen weapon at the Alliance Knight. Candy deftly avoided the attack and brought her sword around again. Their swift duel shifted away, with the noh archer joining in to aid her companion. Candy split her attacks between them and gave ground.

  Cordelia realized that the Knight was drawing her attackers away and scrambled to her feet. She turned and ran smack into Golden Vance.

  “You,” he said, leering as his mechanical arm latched onto her waist, “aren’t going anywhere.” The light in his artificial eye glowed balefully.

  Then it flickered. A confused look crossed his face. Thick, coruscating bolts of electricity and esper arced over his body. He spasmed, screamed, and released her.

  Cordelia stepped clear as the pirate captain fell on his face. She saw Squall, battered and leaning on her staff, approaching with white-hot fury in her eyes. Tendrils of lighting curled around her feet and played across the deck plates, clearing her way through the crowd. Vance groaned and tried to get up, but Squall sent another bolt into him. Small explosions rippled along his cybernetic arm, and he grunted again. Drops of thin blood sprayed from his mouth. Vance fell onto his back, smoke and steam rising from his body. Healing esper wreathed his form, but it had a lot of work to do.

  “Oh, no, my lovely,” Squall said to him murderously. “We’re not done yet.” She planted the butt of her staff on his chest. “What say we up the voltage, hmm?”

  Electricity coursed into Vance. He twitched and writhed and screamed.

  Squall ended the spell and looked at Cordelia. “I’ll be a little while here. Run. There’s a door behind me, where we sheltered, that leads to the kitchens. Go up two decks and turn to starboard. That way lies Kisa’s ship.” She sent another jolt into Vance. “Go.”

  Cordelia ran.

  She managed to clear the melee before Kisa spotted her. The tonnerian Relic Knight shouted and sent Mihos plowing through the fight toward Cordelia. The chee waved and ducked around the corner. She saw the hatchway ahead and skidded to a halt in front of it. She struggled with the lock for a second, threw the door open, and glanced back to see a crowd of pirates come barreling around the corner toward her. She leapt through and stopped suddenly as if she had hit a wall. She heard a screech of tearing metal. Pain flooded her. Her vision swam. She turned to look into the glittering eyes of the demon high priestess.

  The noh flexed her claws. Driven deep into Cordelia’s chest, dripping red-black esper, they hooked onto her frame and internal systems. With a casual sweep of her arm, she flung the chee back into the kitchens. Cordelia crashed into a cooking unit, crumpling part of it and crushing her own hip. More fluids from her barely functioning components spilled out and mixed with the fuel running freely from the cooker. She slumped down on her back.

  A lurid red light from open flames lit the deck. Cordelia could see the noh turn toward the pirates coming from the hold and trace a nauseating symbol in the air. The prayer strips adorning her horns rose to stream forward, as if blown by a storm. No, Cordelia realized, they were drawn by a great void. She could hear screaming from the pirates. The noh had consumed them, somehow, and as the prayer strips went slack again, she turned to Cordelia with an almost ecstatic pleasure on her face.

  “I,” she said as she advanced with confident steps, “am Zineda, High Priestess of Nozuki the Endless Hunger.”

  Cordelia tried to flee, but she could manage nothing more than weak scrambling.

  “You are a prize that He greatly desires. Though I know not why or for what, I need not know. I know only that He shall have you. And,” she held up her claws again. Coolant and lubricant still dripped from them. “I know that you need not be in one piece.”

  The bulkhead behind Zineda exploded. An enormous chunk of the wall flew free, ripping out part of the decks above and below them. Mihos came hurtling through the gap. Sparks ignited the leaking cooker fuel, and more fires raced across the decking. Zineda lurched forward, driven to her knees by the shockwave, and turned snarling to face Kisa.

  “You cannot have her!”

  “You talk too much,” Kisa replied.

  Mihos dove at the priestess. Zineda leapt to the side, and esper shot from her upraised palm. The power caught Mihos in the face, and the graceful relic crashed to the deck. Kisa rolled free and brought her staff up. Yellow-white esper rose around Zineda. The noh grunted and struggled against a force Cordelia could not see. She howled, enraged, but Kisa only smiled. Then Kisa shuddered and swung her staff like a club at something behind her. Cordelia sharpened her optics and saw a small impish creature, like a combination of a snake and a noh woman, race around the Relic Knight and finally sink needle-sharp teeth into her shoulder. Kisa grunted, grabbed the creature, and hurled it away in a spray of blood. Scratch immediately pounced on the other cypher, but Kisa’s spell had broken.

  Zineda rose on cascades of crimson esper and shouted words in a grating, sticky language. Kisa recoiled as if struck and then collapsed to her knees. Black tendrils of unhealthy energy played around her. Cordelia could almost see the life draining out of her would-be rescuer. She glanced around. She could not move quickly with her damaged hip, and she could not activate her gun. Instead, she rolled to her left and ripped free the fuel line from another cooker damaged by part of the flying bulkhead. She pointed i
t at Zineda and pressed her thumb to the pumping fluid stream. The blockage added pressure, turning the stream into a spray. Cordelia angled that spray over one of the spreading fires, igniting the fuel, and bathing the high priestess in flames.

  Zineda howled again as fire scorched her flesh and consumed her hair. She rolled away, ending her spell. Kisa fell back, gasping. Cordelia tossed the fuel line away, but it twisted, and flammable fluid sprayed everywhere. The flames followed a second later. She beat out the ones on her body, but watched in horror as the fire grew around her. She tried to crawl toward Kisa, but the spreading inferno quickly cut her off.

  “No,” she mumbled as the heat began to overwhelm her. “No, I don’t want to die.”

  A clanking and clomping approached her with frightening speed, and the next thing Cordelia knew, a robotic arm had hoisted her clear. She looked up to see a battered, bloody Calico Kate smiling down from her relic.

  “Just you hold on there, my girl,” she said in a surprisingly soft voice. “I’ve got to grab your friend.”

  Kate stepped through the flames and scooped up Kisa with the same care she had shown to Cordelia. Without another word, the pirate queen bounded through the kitchen and ripped open a hole up to the next deck. In no time, she had bulldozed her way to the starboard hangar. Cordelia saw a ship, curved and sleek, in one of the docking cradles with its boarding ramp extended.

  As Kate approached, two figures appeared on that ramp. Fiametta limped noticeably, and a quick optical adjustment showed her marked pallor. Candy looked somewhat better, though her suit and armor were ripped and scarred. She frowned at the approaching pirate and raised her pistol.

  “That’s close enough, miss pirate,” Candy called.

  “Not quite,” Kate replied. She tiled her relic’s hands forward to show their contents.

  Fiametta gasped and rushed toward them.

  “No, no,” Kate said. “Go get medical cots. Kisa definitely needs one; she got hit by that noh priestess with whatever she does that sucks the life from you.”

  Candy went white at the memory. She lowered her gun and raced up the ramp.

  Kate continued, “The chee will need attention too, so I hope you know a good mechanic.”

  “Several,” Fiametta said. “And her name’s Cordelia.”

  “Is it?” Kate said. “Well that’s pretty.”

  Candy returned, just barely corralling two of the rolling cots in front of her. Fiametta turned to assist, and they carefully moved Kisa first. Scratch settled onto his mistress’s legs. Fiametta hooked her friend to the cot’s onboard systems while Candy helped Cordelia slide onto the other one.

  “Why?” Candy asked Kate as the chee settled in place.

  Fiametta turned to hear the answer.

  Kate hesitated and finally sighed. “Kisa I owed for warning me about Vance. We’re even now. Make sure you tell her that. Her,” she nodded to Cordelia and paused. “I’m not—Something Kisa said made me think. If that girl there, Cordelia, really is the Source, and the Calamity really has finally caught us, then all this can’t be just about booty and buccaneering anymore. It’s got to be about something bigger. Maybe that’s what Harker’s always been on about, and maybe he’s right. Won’t stop me from killing him next chance I get, of course.” She sighed. “I’ve done a great many things that most people call evil. I call them that too, if I’m honest. They rarely bother me. But if getting her free helps us against the Calamity, then maybe I’ve done something good—something to toss on the other side of the scales when that time comes.” She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” Candy allowed. “We need to go.”

  “So do I. I’ve a mutiny to put down, after all,” Kate said, some of her good humor returning. She turned and launched her relic back the way she had come. A second later, a damaged Mihos limped out of the same opening, casting baleful glances behind him.

  “What the black void was that all about?” Fiametta asked as she motioned the relic up the ramp.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care,” Candy replied. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 22

  Origin Point, Wildspace Sector N.10543

  The assault shuttle approached the iron and rock plateau at a terrifying speed. It only slowed at the very last possible second as its energy weapons blasted at likely enemy positions. The landing gear crushed the thick layer of esper crystals that covered most of the asteroid’s surface, and the ramps shattered still more as they came down. Malya flew Sedaris out of the ship first, streaking around their drop site in a wide circle. Esper crystals covered nearly every surface, growing literally on top of each other in the lower areas.

  “I don’t see anybody,” she said after her first pass, the comms crackling with strange interference, “but that doesn’t mean they’re not here.”

  “Understood,” Cross replied.

  Squads of Swordsworn and Paragons raced in different directions to grab cover and secure the site. Sebastian’s massive relic jogged nimbly into view a second later. Resembling nothing so much as a gigantic suit of armor with Cross perched in the upper chest, the enormous machine wielded a huge mace in one hand and an equally large sword in the other, broken three feet above the hilt. Even Malya, whose connections to the paladins of the Six Peers had always been distant, was impressed by the sight of the Shattered Sword, the artifact for which the Order was named more than ten thousand cycles ago. Cross’s recovery of the Sword had sealed his elevation to First, and his use of it now showed how seriously he took this endeavor.

  “Get some altitude and keep looking,” the paladin said. “We’ll get our position settled here and—”

  Twisting green render beams crisscrossed the sky, and Malya flipped over to dive between them. It took a few precious seconds for her to realize that they had not fired at her. The attacks had scored the shuttle and blasted off its weapons with the best angles of fire. As she turned upright, she could see the noh gunners behind thin ridges of crystal just above the landing site and probably at their maximum range. They had crouched down for cover and seemed to be adjusting the settings on their huge render cannons. She gritted her teeth and swooped low toward them.

  Malya feathered the attitude controls on her relic to slip gracefully through the forest of razor-sharp crystals. Blades extended, she ripped through the noh before they even saw her. Blood splattered across the crystals, and several of them glowed with a lurid light. One of the render guns exploded. Esper-charged crystal shards flew like bullets well behind her. She stayed low, popping up only long enough to identify another noh position. Malya circled the landing zone four times and ripped nearly a dozen gun teams apart before rising again to get a good view.

  Pulse rifles flashed along the edges of the iron plateau. In the distance, another shuttle landed and began trading cannon and small arms fire with still more noh. A few of the monstrous warriors had reached the paladins from her ship, but Cross was making short work of them. The six-eyed hounds bounding nimbly through the crystals concerned her more; they navigated the treacherous landscape far better, and there were a lot more of them. She saw the pit crew hustling down the assault ramp. Sarva arrows struck and exploded around them. Malya wrenched Sedaris around toward the source of the arrows and found them well hidden from the landing forces. She dove on the noh archers but only caught two as they scattered.

  She aimed Sedaris for the approaching swarm of hounds. The beasts hissed and howled as she approached. Several leapt at her, and Malya had to twist and spin to keep them off. This spoiled her attack, but the pack had scattered and spoiled its charge. She hauled back on the controls for a ragged wingover turn and approached again. She pulled up as the pit crew sent rivets and other mismatched projectiles ripping into the hounds. The creatures kept rushing on, however, and the final few leapt to the rise, only for two wrecker mecha to batter them down. Betty waved to Malya as she passed.

  The princess gained altitude in wide circles as the fighting died down. She risked hovering for
a few seconds almost directly over the shuttle and scanned the desolate landscape. Mr. Tomn clambered up her arm, staring intently all around and finally pointing with one paw at a dark smear nearly three kilometers away.

  “There,” he shouted. “That’s our destination.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded.

  She swung around to get another look. The darkness resolved slightly, and she saw shadows falling across a descending tunnel. She also saw movement.

  “It looks like a cave. And there’s someone there.”

  Mr. Tomn nodded again.

  “Then we need to tell Cross. Let’s get a good look before we go.”

  She swooped closer and saw the crystal forest below her seem to seethe and move. Hundreds of noh rushed through the defiles and gullies of the scarred asteroid toward the mouth of the cave. She could just make out an impressive monster with blades rising from his armored back and the shadow of what looked like a massive, demonic lion lurking behind him. Another figure floated beside him, slender and feminine and radiating a dark power that might have swallowed the noh without a trace. Malya felt sick to her stomach.

  Violet-black esper coursed around the woman as she pointed toward the landing zones. Even from over a kilometer away, Malya fancied she could hear the noh growl. He gestured violently, and the woman floated into the cave, though she did so with an ill-disguised contempt. Then the comparatively slight figures of noh priestesses brought several large devices toward their lord.

  Malya’s eyes widened, and she turned sharply to race back to her friends. “Rifts,” she called over the static-laden and choppy comms. “Rifts!”

  She saw some confusion spread through the pit crew, but the paladins snapped to action. Cross strode through their ranks, his relic making sweeping gestures. The Swordsworn began to circle up even as the first sickening tears opened in the air. One appeared a foot above the ground almost directly in front of Malya. Red-gold light spilled from the rip in reality, and she glimpsed an alien architecture of chains and arching bone. Then the berserkers leapt through the rift.