When I’d been in high school I’d had a bad dream. I’d felt as if I’d woken up and felt a grim presence of evil standing by the foot of my bed. It had watched me. I’d been frozen in fear at that, unable to move or speak. Then the curtains beside my bed fluttered. I’d known that someone was sneaking in through the window. With great terror, I’d shouted, lunging upward from my bed, trying to grab the intruder before he shot me.
Back then, I’d woken myself up from the nightmare. The curtains had been fluttering because I’d forgotten to shut my window. The presence of evil had also departed.
That same kind of evil feeling slammed against my mind now.
Creed!
Abaddon spoke in my mind.
I stared at the creature who was five times my size. His eyes burned with authority, with evil that threatened to steal my courage. I knew, though, that if I faltered, he would tie me up. He would do worse than rape my wife before my eyes.
Rage swept through my being. It was a righteous force that pulsated with desire. The demon from another space-time continuum had toyed with me for the last time. He had screwed with my friends for the last time.
My hatred blocked his mind talk. It sealed me in my own universe. I did not go berserk. Instead, a cold and ruthless fury motivated my actions.
Abaddon concentrated on me, as two left-hand fingertips touched his forehead.
I moved sharply to the right. I don’t know what the Karg leaders saw. Maybe I moved in the flick of an eye to them. Reaching the first anti-life creature, I swung the meter-length force blade.
The Karg fell into two halves as gouts of machine oil spilled from his carcass.
The next few moments were a blur of action. I slaughtered Kargs. They were no match for the avenger from the Fortress of Light.
Jennifer leaped at me. She moved faster than the Kargs but slower than me. Her knife gleamed with electric power.
I swatted the knife with my force blade, destroying it. Then, I side-stepped her next leap. She fell toward the deck. In the slow-motion time it took her to reach the floor, I slaughtered another seven Kargs.
From the deck, she looked up at me.
I knelt beside her for just a moment. “I’m sorry,” I said.
Her eyes burned hotter with anger.
“I should have gone back for you,” I spoke, doing it as slowly as I could. “Now, I have come for you, Jennifer. After this is over, I’ll take you away.”
“Liar,” she said slowly, as if she had to force out the words.
I didn’t have any more time for her. Abaddon used another mind trick, this one a blast of knotted pain.
I shot to my feet and staggered backward.
You cannot win, Abaddon said in my head.
I slammed against a wall, lowered my head and let the coldness of my rage fill me once more. My tenderness toward Jennifer had given the First One an opening. With the rage, I shoved his thoughts out of my mind, sealing them behind a glacial wall.
My head rose and maybe my eyes blazed with cold fire. A new fervor had ignited in me.
“I see,” Abaddon said, turning, heading for the back of his throne.
“Run, First One,” I said.
“You are mistaken, puppet.” He raised a long handle from behind the throne. His fingers pressed buttons. The long handle buzzed with noise. A flickering force axe appeared. His was not a pure energy like mine, but red and sizzling. His artifact felt older than mine, much older.
I strode at him, building up speed as I crossed the chamber.
“Look at him race to his death,” Abaddon said. “He cannot wait to die.”
I charged him, knowing that he was likely the greatest and most dangerous entity in existence. He had powers of which I couldn’t conceive. A personal force shield protected him. He was huge. He could teleport, and I had no doubt he was many times stronger than me. What’s more, his force axe could surely shred my amazing suit.
I would like to say that I didn’t care, but that would be a lie. When fighting the prince of liars, it seemed like a poor policy to practice his strengths.
I was afraid, but that fear was in a citadel of determination surrounded by a vast moat of icy hatred. The fear watched from a distant vantage point inside of me.
He swung the axe. I dared to parry. The two energy forces crackled with power. His strength and speed caused me to fly backward and slam hard against a bulkhead.
Abaddon laughed with malice. “I had forgotten the joy of hand-to-hand combat. You are a gnat, Commander. You cannot defeat me.”
I rose stiffly. I should have broken bones. Maybe the suit helped absorb some of the shock. The remaining Kargs seemed to move a little faster than before. Their bullets were streaks in the air again.
Was my suit losing power?
I couldn’t worry about that. I was here to win or die, and I’d better win.
This time, I approached warily.
“Yes,” Abaddon said, “you’re learning.”
At that point, two Kargs lying on the deck as if dead fired their slug-throwers. I heard the shots, turned and dodged the first bullet. The second ploughed into my suit’s force field. That showed the bullet long enough for me shift aside. I also noticed an appreciable quickening in my opponents.
My suit couldn’t do that too many more times, or I would be moving at normal speed again.
I would have raced to kill the Kargs, but Abaddon attacked, swinging the force axe.
I dodged. I parried indirectly, not taking the full brunt of the axe-blow, but using my force blade to redirect one of his swings.
More shots fired behind me. I couldn’t turn, however. Abaddon pressed me too closely. At any moment, I expected to hear the sizzle of my suit’s force shield and feel myself slow down.
That didn’t happen.
Abaddon’s force axe swished past me as I dodged and buried itself into the deck, crackling with power.
I used the opportunity, twisting around, wondering why the Kargs hadn’t finished me. Both of them were slumped on the deck as if really dead this time, with bullet holes in them that leaked oil.
Dmitri raised a heavy slug-thrower. My friend had broken his restraints. Clearly, he had shot those two Kargs. Maybe he’d helped Ella, too. She picked up a slug-thrower from a dead Karg.
Abaddon tore the axe blade free. He bellowed and charged me.
The next few seconds were the most desperate of my life. I weaved and dodged, parried and kept death at bay by the barest of fractions each time. Twice, my force shield sizzled as his red energy blade sparked against it.
I staggered away as Dmitri and Ella fired slugs at Abaddon. The First One swatted a bullet away. Another made his force shield glow with power as it devoured the slug.
I think Abaddon realized it would hurt him having them firing at him while battling me. Thus, he halted, produced a halo around himself and disappeared.
“Look out!” I shouted.
The First One appeared by Dmitri, swinging. The Cossack tried to block with his slug-thrower. The force axe sheered through the weapon and sliced Dmitri in two, each half thudding bloodily onto the deck.
Ella scrambled madly out of the way.
“No!” I howled. “Dmitri!”
I charged Abaddon, and my rage was no longer cold, but hot. I attacked recklessly, my force blade a blur. Abaddon back-pedaled, blocked a swing, sidestepped and blocked another.
I felt myself tiring fast, but I wanted vengeance for Dmitri Rostov. The Cossack had just saved my life, and I’d let him die. I could no longer bear that.
“Fiend!” I shouted, lunging cobra-quick.
This time, Abaddon didn’t parry or jump back fast enough. The tip of my force blade penetrated his personal shield. They both sizzled and sparked, and I felt stiffening resistance, but I was determined. With a grunt, I shoved my force-blade tip into his darkened flesh at the hip, burning into skin and muscle.
His force axe chopped down. Our two energy weapons roared with a flash. It hurle
d him backward and caused me to tumble head over heels.
I found myself panting on the deck. My Forerunner artifact lay several meters from me. The handle was molten and dripping, destroyed.
His longer handle still seemed whole, although the red-powered force axe was no longer in play.
With a groan, Abaddon sat up.
I tried to do likewise, but found that my muscles refused to obey my will. Was I already paying the price for over-exerting my body?
Abaddon worked up to his feet, panting, his face contorted with pain.
Ella aimed her Karg rifle at him.
“No,” he told her. “Put it on the deck.”
Ella moaned, trembling horribly, trying to fight the command. She could not, at last placing the rifle on the deck. She slumped after that, holding her face in her hands, weeping softly.
“You fought better than I expected,” Abaddon told me. “But it wasn’t good enough to defeat the greatest being in the universe.”
He was right, but at least I’d hurt him. That was something, wasn’t it?
As if to punctuate the thought, the huge First One put a hand on the hip wound, groaning as he did. He took his hand away. It was dark with blood.
“You will pay for this, mortal,” Abaddon said. “You will—” He quit in mid-sentence, staring in shock at something behind me.
I twisted my head to see what the First One was staring at. My jaw dropped at the sight.
The Curator stood in the chamber. His blue robe glowed and his hair floated. He held his heavy metal rod with both hands.
“Brother,” Abaddon said with scorn.
The Curator did not speak. His blue eyes blazed with wrath. He seemed the essence of grim justice. He aimed the staff as if it was a weapon.
I realized then that it had been buzzing. Now, a gout of power flowed from the end. The raw energy struck Abaddon in the chest. The First One howled in agony. I had the feeling his armor and personal shield had weakened, allowing this energy to strike his being directly. The giant First One howled and put his hands in front of the beam. He must have summoned something from inside of him, for he blocked the surge of power, shoving it back a meter from him. The power from the staff kept pouring out, however, beginning to incrementally push the block back at Abaddon. The First One’s massive shoulders hunched and his head lowered. His blocking power bushed the gush of energy back a centimeter and then another. Could he shove the power all the way back to the staff? Would that destroy the weapon?
The Curator’s fingers manipulated the metal staff. The buzzing sound quickened until the rod screeched with energy. It shook so violently it seemed the Curator had to fight to hold it, like a fireman wrestling a powerful hose. The gout of raw destroying force became a torrent. It shoved Abaddon’s blockage back, back and back some more.
“No!” Abaddon howled. “None thwarts me! None!”
The facts proved otherwise. The raw power reached his hands, melting them. Yet still Abaddon resisted, using his mental strength. His face had screwed up into a mask of agony. Then, the staff’s energy began to devour the First One’s wrists, crawling up and destroying the forearms.
All at once, the blocking force collapsed. The torrent gushed upon Abaddon with full force. For a second, nothing happened. Then, a titanic explosion blew the First One apart. It was bloody and sickening and incredibly final.
Abaddon was dead and gone like that. It was amazing and unexpected. After all I’d been through, after witnessing Dmitri’s horrible death, we’d done it, or the Curator had.
At that point, my forehead slumped against the deck as I fell unconscious.
-45-
I woke up in a bed. It was soft with smooth sheets and a smoother blanket. It felt good to be between them. Robins tweeted outside. They sang from the branches of an old oak tree.
I lay there absorbing the goodness, glad to be doing nothing at all. I’m not sure how long I lay like that. Finally, though, I shifted my position. I thought about Abaddon and the Curator’s staff. What had powered the annihilating energy bolt?
Is that why the old man had sucked up Claath before? Had the staff used several Jelk to make that beam? Had Claath been the final ingredient, the final topping off of the gas tank, as it were?
I had a sneaking suspicion that was it.
As I lay there, I looked around the room. It reminded me of my bedroom as a teenager. There was the same dresser, the same tennis shoes on the floor. There was a poster of Josey Wales—Clint Eastwood—holding his six-shooters just as it had been in my old bedroom. There was another of my favorite Budweiser swimsuit model—
Wait a minute. This was exactly like my old bedroom.
I reached to whip back the covers. My arm, the muscles and tendons, were just a wee bit stiff. I wondered how long I’d been lying here. I moved my arm under the covers, flexing the muscles. It felt as if they had been sore, very sore, but had now almost recovered.
In any case, I pulled back the covers and checked out my bicep. It was huge, deformed long ago by steroid-68. That meant I wasn’t in my old bedroom at home. It meant this all wasn’t a strange bad dream I’d been having about aliens, bio-terminators and Forerunner artifacts. That meant—
The door swung open and the Curator stepped inside. I smiled until a terrible sinking feeling swept over me. I’d made an oath before leaving for Abaddon’s moth-ship. I had agreed to become the Curator’s effectuator, whatever that was supposed to mean. Did that mean I’d never see my friends or the sweet Earth again?
“How are you feeling?” the Curator asked.
“I’m alive,” I said.
He pulled up a chair with an old leather jacket draped on the back. The Curator sat beside the bed as if he were my grandfather.
“You don’t seem to be too happy about winning,” he said.
“Is Abaddon truly dead?”
The old man’s features clouded. At last, he nodded.
“Was Abaddon really your brother?”
“Come,” the Curator said, “let us speak about other matters. That one is too sore for me.”
I struggled to a sitting position. I was more tired than I realized.
“I fought for you,” I said.
He took his time answering. “Yes and no,” he finally said. “You primarily fought to save the human race.” He grew thoughtful. “I might add that the Earth isn’t out of danger yet.”
“Why’s that?” I asked. “We killed Abaddon.”
“Yes. But the Super Fleet still exists. It is true there was a short, sharp struggle for power in the fleet, but a Karg Overlord has emerged. He is still taking the Super Fleet to Earth. I would imagine so he can destroy the planet and humanity with it.”
“The way you’re saying this,” I said, “it sounds as if you’re willing to let me go back to help with the defense?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
I opened my mouth, reconsidered what I was about to say and closed it again. A feeling of shame bit, though. It was so foreign to me that I almost didn’t know what it represented. The key word there was almost. I did know.
I sighed, wondering what was wrong with me. “Look,” I said. “I made an oath. I’m your hitman or something, remember?”
“I recall the oath,” he said. “But I believe I’m going to modify it.”
“What does that mean? Wait. Before we get into that, I want to know more about Abaddon. I want to understand about the Jelk. Did Claath die in your staff so you could blast—?”
“Please,” the Curator said, holding up his hands. “Let’s deal with one question at a time. Yes, Shah Claath died. Yes, he and other Jelk powered the blast, as you put it. I had to wait to make my assault until you had drained Abaddon’s power sufficiently. I also needed the Karg bodyguards out of the way. That was a courageous and cunning assault, by the way. I congratulate you, Commander. You are a dangerous opponent.”
“I’m a little killer, remember? Now, I would dearly like to know what the little killers are?”
“Humans,” he said.
“I understand that much. How did we become the little killers, though? What does that mean exactly?”
The Curator studied me, finally nodding. “You are little in comparison to bigger beings. In this case, that would be the First Ones.”
“We’re like you?”
He nodded.
“But…what are you?”
“The First Ones,” he said. “I won’t say more on the subject. We had our jobs. We did them, more or less, and some of us… Well, that doesn’t matter today. You are like us in many ways, just smaller, weaker and not as intelligent.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
“Does the truth bother you?”
“Nice counter-punch,” I said. “I suppose it does, but it shouldn’t. The truth is the truth. But why were we called killers?”
“It’s one of the things you seem to do better than any other race.”
“Do you know why that is?” I asked.
The Curator shrugged.
“So…what happens next?” I asked.
“You will leave this place,” he said. “I will also take back my Survey Vessel.”
“Did you beat back the Ve-Ky assault?”
“It was difficult, but the million Kargs helped. Their vicious counterattacks gave me time to remember…” He smiled, shaking his head.
“You don’t like to say more than you have to, do you?” I said.
“You’re heading back to the fringe,” he said. “Thus, too much knowledge can be a bad thing for everyone. By the way, I’ll be taking the Forerunner artifacts like Holgotha back with me. I didn’t have a way to enforce that before, but a few items from Abaddon’s flagship will prove useful in that regard.”
“Dmitri is dead,” I said, feeling rotten all over again.
“That is true. However, if ever there was a noble death, it was his. He died helping to save the galaxy from an extended reign of evil. He died to give you a fighting chance to save the human race.”
“Only a chance?” I asked.
“An extremely powerful fleet is headed to Earth. The Karg Overlord has decided he can’t annihilate the Jade League without first eliminating the little killers.”
Fortress Earth (Extinction Wars Book 4) Page 25