The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  The two ships that had been trying to cut him off rose over the limb of the moon behind him and immediately opened fire.

  A direct particle beam hit brought the shield down again, leaving the Archetype exposed to enemy fire until it once more recuperated. Damage was piling up faster than the Archetype could repair it, a fact the AI hadn’t hesitated to point out to him.

  “Again, I must recommend disengaging and withdrawing. You are risking—”

  “Getting my ass kicked. Yeah, I know.” Just as the Lens prevented Nathis from simply destroying the Slipwing, he knew he wouldn’t want to destroy the Archetype, either, if he could avoid it.

  But as Dash smashed up more and more of his ships, he’d probably give up on that idea and focus everything on blasting the Archetype out of space. And Dash was running out of options to prevent that.

  Another moon lay ahead, one of at least three dozen orbiting the huge planet. This one trailed a long tail of vapor from volcanoes erupting across its surface. It was close enough to the gas giant that the tug of its gravity flexed the moon as it rotated, heating it up with tidal forces.

  Dash zoomed into the gaseous trail, then closed in toward the surface, a fog of sulfur, water vapor, and a host of other chemicals enveloping him. For a moment, at least, he had a respite; the thick cloud of noxious vapor would obscure him on the Shira scanners. Of course, that would only last a few minutes, until they just decided to pummel this whole side of the moon with missiles.

  He couldn’t just hang around here, waiting for the Archetype to regenerate, anyway. Every second that passed was another that the Slipwing had to endure conditions in the gas giant’s hostile atmosphere.

  Dash had to end this.

  And that meant taking on Nathis.

  “Three Clan Shirna vessels are closing on this position,” Sentinel advised him. “They will likely launch a saturation pattern of missiles.”

  “Yeah, of course they will.” Dash took a deep breath. The Archetype’s shield had flickered back to life, but would probably drop again after a single hit. The dark-lance was partly repowered. He had a few missiles left. The only bright spot was the distortion cannon, which seemed to regenerate much faster than the other systems.

  It was what he had.

  Dash launched himself out of the plume of volcanic dust and gas trailing the moon along its orbit. He stayed low to the moon’s surface, weaving among towering piles of erupted sulfur compounds, bright with swirls of orange, yellow, red, and brown. Particle beam shots started to pummel the surface around him. He dodged and wove desperately.

  “Hey, how much lava, or whatever it is, is there under this moon?”

  “Tidal heating has probably rendered much of the moon’s interior molten.”

  “Perfect.”

  Dash slowed, allowing a pair of Shina corvettes to gain on him. The Archetype’s shield took a trio of particle beam hits in rapid succession and died. Another beam slammed into the Archetype’s right leg. It was a serious hit, rendering the limb essentially inoperative. Dash groaned at the sudden wash of pain-that-wasn’t but gritted his teeth and let the two corvettes close even more.

  One of the trailing ships apparently decided something was up and started to fall back. The other raced in, determined to reduce the range to the point where its particle cannons would almost certainly be lethal. Dash decided it was time.

  He flipped over and fired the distortion cannon at a point above the surface of the moon behind him. It exploded in a shower of pulverized rock, releasing a searing fountain of sulfurous magma that enveloped the two corvettes. The spalling fragments and gouts of glowing liquid instantly shredded the closer of the two; the more distant crashed through the rapidly-growing column of erupting magma, wobbling into a spin.

  Dash yelped as the gravitational distortion pulled the Archetype toward the impromptu volcano. He slammed a hand into the brittle rock of the moon, yelping again as it plowed a furrow across the surface, slowing, but not stopping him. Just before he was pulled into the eruption plume, the distortion faded and he flung himself away from it, rising from the volcanic moon like an ascending rocket.

  He looked around. The damaged corvette spun away from the volcanic moon, thrusting frantically, trying to regain control. No other Clan Shirna ships remained in threat distance.

  Dash powered through space, looking for—and finally finding—the rest of the Clan Shirna flotilla. Nathis had deployed it in a defensive screen between Dash and the gas giant. He obviously expected Dash to try to rescue the Slipwing, and dared him to try. It would expose him to the massed fire of all of the remaining Shirna ships as he tried to close.

  “In its current condition and power state, the Archetype is unlikely to survive such a concentrated barrage.”

  “Tell me about it, Sentinel.”

  Dash let out a frustrated growl. He had to get to Nathis, which meant getting at his big cruiser that was sitting in the center of the Clan Shirna formation. He might be able to do it if the Archetype’s shield was fully regenerated, but it wasn’t, and he just didn’t have the time to wait for it.

  But what if he could create another shield for the Archetype?

  He looked around and saw exactly what he was looking for just a short distance away.

  The massive slab of rock spun through space, a sparkling trail of yellow sulfur spreading behind it. Maybe half the size of a frigate, it had been blasted out of the moon’s crust by Dash’s distortion cannon, achieving escape velocity on a course that would eventually send it plunging into the gas giant. Dash was going to change that.

  He fired the distortion cannon at a particular point in space. The slab wobbled, then slewed that way. He fired again. And again. Each shot deflected the slab more, changing its trajectory until it swept majestically toward the Clan Shirna fleet. It left the distortion cannon mostly spent, but it didn’t matter. This was only going to end one way.

  Dash moved to put himself behind the slab with respect to Nathis’s ships, planted his hands against it, and pushed.

  “You know,” he said, “this would have been a lot easier if your Creators had just powered this thing up in the first place.”

  “Shall we have this conversation again?”

  “Ah, no.” Dash frowned for a moment, then couldn’t resist a smirk. “You know, that was kind of a smart-assed answer, Sentinel. I think I’m rubbing off on you.”

  There was no reply. Dash’s smirk widened.

  But it faded as the first particle beam blasts started hammering the slab of rock.

  “Here we go.” He pushed harder, the Archetype driving the sulfurous asteroid ahead of it.

  More impacts followed. Glowing sulfur mist wafted around the bulk of the slab, cooling into fine, yellowing dust. As more and more particle beams converged on it, the side opposite Dash began to boil. He couldn’t see it, of course, being pressed into the shadow of its back side as close as he could, but he could feel it, a faint crackling, bubbling sensation echoing through the slab.

  “Any idea how long this thing will last?”

  “The calculation is approximate, as there are many variables with a range of possible values—”

  “Just how long?” he asked again.

  “Perhaps another ten minutes, and then the slab will likely deconsolidate,” Sentinel said.

  “Fall apart, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  Dash pushed harder still. “You could have just said that,” he muttered. “I mean, why say marmalade, when you can say jam?”

  “Based on my understanding of those two substances, they are not interchangeable.”

  Dash shook his head. “Oh, never mind.”

  He did a quick calculation of his own. Ten minutes might not be enough.

  “Can you put anything else into propulsion for this thing?” asked Dash.

  “By diverting power from the distortion cannon and slowing regeneration of other systems to a minimum, yes. The risk, however—”

  “Is accepta
ble,” said Dash.

  The Archetype surged forward, its hands crushing the substance of the slab and starting to sink in.

  Hopefully, this would be enough. Because if it wasn’t, Dash would find himself fully exposed to all the firepower the Clan Shirna ships could muster, and at point-blank range.

  And that, he thought, would probably, truly suck.

  Sulfur coated the Archetype in ragged, dusty yellow. Most of the slab was gone, vaporized into space. Dash was surprised that what remained was still holding together, but he drove on regardless. Some of the Clan Shirna ships had started to maneuver, and he loosed his remaining missiles to keep them at bay. This resulted in a destroyed a corvette and a severely damaged frigate.

  That convinced the other ships that had broken from the line ahead to back off, degrading the effect of their fire. They had no way of knowing he only had three missiles left.

  A huge chunk separated from the slab and whirled off, driven by the force of vaporizing sulfur. There was barely enough left to cover the Archetype.

  “Any idea how much longer, Sentinel?”

  “Until you reach the capital ship?” asked the AI.

  “No, until I can retire. What do you think I mean?” asked Dash.

  “You will collide with it in approximately one minute.”

  “Did it not occur to you to tell me that?”

  “I just did,” said Sentinel.

  The remainder of the slab crumbled into fragments that spun away.

  Nathis’s flagship loomed ahead, backdropped by the swirling cloud tops of the gas giant.

  Particle beam fire converged on the Archetype. The abused shield, which had once more managed to flicker to life, quickly died. But the fire wasn’t as intense as Dash had expected. It took him a moment to realize why. He was now so close to Nathis’s ship that the remainder of the flotilla couldn’t fire without hitting the cruiser. It still left Dash exposed to the big ship’s own weapons, and they pummeled the Archetype, searing away its substance.

  “Many systems are approaching failure tolerance,” Sentinel warned.

  “Yeah, I know, Sentinel.” Dash strained to say. “Just a few more seconds.”

  Dash used what power remained in the Archetype to adjust his course a fraction. A massive wall of metal rose before him, filling space.

  Then the Archetype, mighty fists raised, slammed into it.

  Dash felt the impact like a body-blow. Metal crumpled and tore, structural components bent, strained, and snapped, and hull plating buckled inward. Massive deceleration drove Dash forward, testing the limits of the cradle’s ability to protect him. For a moment, the world turned grey and faded away.

  Then it cleared again. Dash shook his head. The Archetype had come to rest, half-buried in Nathis’s cruiser, just sternward of the bridge.

  Dash clambered out of the cradle, making to exit the Archetype. As he did, he snatched up the plasma pistols he’d retrieved from the crashed Clan Shirna ship on his foray outside the galaxy. For an awful moment, he thought the big mech might not be able to open, because it was jammed into the side of a cruiser, after all. But the hatch slid smoothly open, letting Dash step out and onto the deck of Nathis’s ship.

  A Shirna appeared, looking stunned, his neck patches a lurid green. He met Dash’s gaze, his eyes widened, and he reached for a pistol hanging on his belt.

  Dash shot him.

  As the man fell, it struck Dash that he hadn’t been wearing a vac suit. Glancing back, he saw that a repulsor field enveloped the Archetype and the huge gap it had punched into the cruiser’s hull, maintaining atmospheric integrity. It made sense a big ship like this would have such a last-ditch defense. It also meant Dash didn’t need to be vac-suited either, as long as, that is, the repulsor field held.

  He decided to keep his helmet on. He also maintained a firm grip on pieces of debris and tangled structural components, because if the field did die, all this atmosphere would rush out fast.

  Weaving around a broken conduit that was spitting blue sparks and a searing flame like a cutting torch, Dash entered a corridor. To the right it went…somewhere, didn’t matter. To the left, though, it had to go to the bridge. And if Nathis was anywhere, he’d be there.

  Dash walked up to the door. The artificial gravity still worked, too. Also not surprising on a ship this large. The damage from the Archetype’s impact was extensive, but also localized.

  The door slid open, and Dash found himself face-to-face with two Shirna. Both were armed, but neither were ready. One of them shouted something and raised his pistol, but Dash was ready. Wielding a plasma pistol in each hand, he fired them at once, killing both Shirna.

  Crouching, he stepped on the bridge.

  It was chaos. Although the bridge hadn’t been impacted directly by the Archetype, there’d been enough collateral damage to take most of it out of action. Consoles shone error messages, sparked and sputtered, or just sat there dark and dead. Dash could see at least a half-dozen Shirna scattered about, some injured, some dead. The shock of the Archetype crashing into the ship must have been horrific. Thanks to its super advanced tech in the cradle, Dash had only felt a hard deceleration.

  But a few figures were still up, and Dash recognized one of them.

  Nathis.

  Before he could react, a plasma blast smacked into the bulkhead beside him. Dash took cover behind a dead console and returned fire.

  No. There was no way he was going to get this far and fail to get Nathis. Leaping out of cover, Dash blazed away with both plasma pistols, dropping all but one of the remaining Shirna—and Nathis, who simply stood, glaring, his neck patches the angriest crimson Dash had ever seen.

  “Nathis!” he shouted, his voice echoing out of the vac suit’s amp. “I’m here for you! Why don’t you come and get me?”

  In answer, Nathis charged, racing across the bridge at Dash, snapping out shot after shot from his own plasma gun.

  Dash ducked back into cover and fiddled with one of the plasma pistols. He lunged the other way in time to see the second Shirna trying to flank him. A plasma shot hit the deck in front of Dash, showering his vac suit with sparks and droplets of molten metal. A warning flashed in his heads-up display, alongside a ticking timer:

  SUIT INTEGRITY COMPROMISED

  SELF-SEALING FUNCTION UNAVAILABLE

  Either the Archetype couldn’t fix and recharge his vac suit, or just hadn’t bothered and had put the power to other uses. Dash ignored it, firing his own pistol once, hitting the Shirna, and making the man cry out twice as he fell.

  Dash immediately turned back the other way to find Nathis looming over him. The muzzle of his plasma pistol, aimed at Dash’s face, was a black hole leading to oblivion.

  “So,” Nathis snarled, “in the end, the Blasphemer fails, as Blasphemers always have, and always will.”

  “You know,” Dash snapped, cutting him off, “you can spare me all this self-righteous, holier-than-thou mumbo-jumbo. I know all about the Golden and your deal with them.”

  Dash was immensely satisfied to see a look of surprise, and then shock, wash over Nathis’s face. His neck patches faded from red to purple.

  Dash dropped his plasma pistol then reached up and unsnapped the fastener on his helmet, before pulling it off and dropping it with a clunk. If the repulsor field failed now and vented all this atmosphere, it wouldn’t matter, Dash’s suit was no longer sealed against vacuum anyway. By the time he had, Nathis had recovered enough to have his neck patches go red again.

  “What you think you know is irrelevant.”

  Dash tried keeping a count in his head, but cut Nathis off anyway. “Yeah, I don’t think it is, actually. See, the Golden…they’re not what you think they are. They’re not going to set you up as some sort of governor, or whatever you think it is they’re going to do. If they aren’t stopped, they’ll destroy every living thing in the galaxy. I might point out that every living thing includes you.”

  Nathis gave a dismissive sniff. “You don’t
know what you’re talking about. That alien machine has clouded your mind. They—the Unseen—are the dangerous ones. They are the ones bent on extermination.”

  “Sounds like something the Golden would say.”

  “Enough!” Nathis raised the plasma pistol. “It makes no difference to you in any case, because you are now dead.”

  Dash counted…four…three…

  “Actually,” Dash said, suddenly grinning, “we both are.”

  Nathis’s eyes widened at his grin, making him hesitate long enough for Dash to throw himself backward—

  And for the world to turn white.

  The plasma pistol Dash had previously rigged for a timed detonation released its energy in a single, dazzling flash of heat and radiation. Nathis, apparently sensing danger in Dash’s attitude, had dropped at the last second.

  The console shadowed most of his body from the stellar flash, as it did for Dash; it still caught Dash up his right leg, causing a searing flare of pain, then numbness. The blast hit almost at the same time, a shockwave propagated through the air still filling the bridge, slamming Dash against the base of a console and leaving his head ringing.

  For a while, Dash just lay there. Grey fuzz rolled in from the edges of his vision, similar to the effect of the hard deceleration when the Archetype had crashed into the cruiser, but more sustained. His last lucid thought was a desperate hope that Nathis was just as bad off, if not worse, because Dash was definitely about to pass out.

  He blinked. His ears rang…his head swam…lightning bolts of pain arced up and down his leg. He levered himself up to his elbows and saw that his vac suit was scorched black along his leg from hip to foot. Its insulation seemed to have been just enough to prevent his leg from actually being incinerated, so that was something at least.

  How long have I been out?

  Dash looked around, blinking, trying to force away the greyness that kept trying to crawl back in and wipe away his tenuous consciousness. The bridge, already badly damaged, was now a shambles, the fusion blast having smashed and burned consoles and scorched bulkheads.