The Loss Queen (Approaching Infinity Book 5)

by Chris Eisenlauer

  He’d kept some of his particles aboard Sinzer’s Ghost Planet and since it was so near, he gathered there instantly, coming together within the operations bridge. Strips of cloth appeared out of nowhere, layering and tying together to define Parish’s figure. A blond woman of impressive build, tending the controls below a four-meter-by-two view screen looking out over empty space, turned to regard him.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Parish,” she said.

  “Thank you, Pai, but I won’t be staying. I need to talk to Sinzer.” Parish had already voiced this through his Artifact to Sinzer himself.

  A young man, no more than sixteen years old with short, neatly-kept black hair, appeared suddenly out of thin air. He immediately put his hand to his mouth and coughed violently. He wiped his lips with his knuckles, smearing the blood that had come up.

  Pai rushed over to him, producing a handkerchief, and wiped the blood away. He smiled, thanked her, took the cloth and further wiped his hands. “Apologies,” he said.

  Parish shook his head. “No need. Are you okay, Sinzer?”

  The young man shrugged, smiling wanly. “It gets a little worse every day. I don’t know if that means that I’ll run out of days or if I’ll just sink to new depths of suffering.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Geiss,” Pai said in a harsh whisper.

  “Sorry,” he said in response. “Now, what’s got you so excited, Mr. Parish?”

  “Spaier Waice is dead.”

  Sinzer frowned and looked down. “I of all people understand what he means to you, but we’re not ready yet.”

  Parish nodded. “I had something I needed to do, too, but. . .”

  “But you’re going. I understand. We will continue the search. Perhaps we will be able to complete it without you. If we are able, we will be going ourselves to aid you. This doesn’t alter our bargain. I am forever in your debt for what you have retrieved so far.”

  “We should have talked a long time ago, Sinzer,” Parish said.

  “Indeed,” Sinzer said. “It seems we are very much alike.

  “How will you go, Mr. Parish?”

  “Part of me is already there. It’ll take some time for me to gather, longer than it would you to teleport, certainly, but I should be there within hours.”

  Sinzer nodded and produced his hand. Parish clasped it in his own.

  “Come when you can,” Parish said.

  “We will. Good luck in the meantime.”

  Pai sidled up next to Sinzer, placing her hands upon his shoulder, sharing the well-wishing by way of a pretty smile.

  “Thank you. Both of you.” The wrappings that covered Parish, unraveled and stretched away in different directions, fading as they lengthened until there was no sign of him left.

  10,923.026.1000

  Planet 1612 (Loss)

  Yago River, North Bend

  After two hours of arduous work, with Jav Holson not more than a hundred meters away, Vays had managed to crawl to the jump ship, to reach the ladder, to pull himself up and through the hatch, and to finally climb into the pilot’s chair. He was in excruciating pain, but what concerned him more was the lack of pain over a large percentage of his body. There was no feeling at all all the way down his left side to where he hoped his toes still were, and he feared that it wasn’t a temporary condition. They should be there, encased in what was left of his armor, but he couldn’t get the image of them starting to blacken with rot out of his mind. If he focused hard enough, he half thought he could feel the numbness encroaching, spreading to steal the waning life yet housed within his broken body. Supporting this fear was the Titan Star’s failure to mend itself. If it had truly been destroyed, he knew that he’d be dead already, but time was not on his side.

  He struggled with his good arm, forcing his shaking and rebellious fingers to exactly reverse the ship’s last course, and pushed the throttle to full.

  Ten minutes later, Vays hovered before the open deck bay door of the 2nd Perimeter bunker. It took him another twenty minutes to guide the ship into the bunker’s mouth to make use of the jump deck. He keyed the sequence for a return to the Palace, but was met with an error message. He forced himself to remain calm, a substantial feat he recognized, and keyed it again only to receive the same message.

  He sighed and leaned back in the chair. He could try to fly back to the Palace, but navigating through the mist would prove difficult. He chuckled, now a painful process, imagining a scenario where he successfully reached the Palace just as he expired. He closed his eyes and tried to tune out the pain, focusing instead on the creeping nothingness eating through his nerves. It might not be so bad to just let go.

  “Vays! Vays, respond!”

  Was that Scanlan’s voice? Vays opened his eyes, and struggled to sit up. He reached for the console to open the communications channel.

  Scanlan appeared upon the inset hard screen. “Vays! It is you. The Emperor is acting very strangely, cutting off all jump access to the Palace, but I can bring you back to an external deck.”

  “Great. But you’d better hurry. I’m not sure how much longer I. . .”

  “Vays? Vays?! Initiating emergency jump now.”

  • • •

  Scanlan was already striding across the gangway linking Gran Mal and the top of a golden spire bristling with armaments. Once across, he entered the materializing jump ship, and made straight for Vays in the cockpit.

  He shrank at the amount of damage Vays had taken. A number of holographic screens popped open around Scanlan as he used various built-in instruments to assess Vays’s actual condition. There was no question that he was dying, that his Artifact was along with him, but he was salvageable. He might not qualify as human afterwards, but Scanlan could save him. He took him roughly from the pilot’s seat and exited the ship with him. They needed room for what Scanlan was about to do.

  Scanlan laid Vays down some ways from the ship, stepped back, and fired the Clockwork Beam at him, targeting the areas of greatest nerve damage. The tiny machines moved liquidly, giving the very real semblance of life, and worked to repair Vays’s failing body. Whatever the machines couldn’t repair, they supplemented or replaced with mechanized versions. Within moments, the luster of the Titan Star had returned. Vays’s fused arm separated itself from his torso and was rebuilt solely of machinery. The silver armor had begun to heal itself. It covered Vays’s stomach now.

  Vays sat up, looked at his new left hand, turning it variously to examine it. “He’s coming, Scanlan.”

  “Holson.”

  Still intrigued by his hand, Vays nodded absently.

  “Is he alone?”

  “He is now.” Vays turned away, not wanting to meet Scanlan’s eyes. A needle of uncomfortable guilt had buried itself inside him since he would never know now if in fact Waice had been a traitor, but guilt only for potentially handicapping the Empire against a threat if he’d been wrong, not for actually having killed him.

  “What’s wrong with the Emperor?” Vays said, coming out of his reverie. “Brin. . .” He paused, swallowed hard, shook his head, composed himself. “Brin was saying something about that as well.”

  “I don’t know. Witchlan no longer responds. The Emperor keeps saying that something is wrong. The Palace is essentially sealed.”

  “Sealed?”

  “To you, to me, to any possible threat. Do you think we can stop him?”

  Vays stood and took in the landscape of countless Lightning Gun emplacements and standard ordnance turrets Scanlan had erected; took in the rows and rows of mobile, track-mounted guns below; took in the legions of heavy machine soldiers, whose ranks continued to grow even now to the beat of the ceaseless factories; took in the pristine form of Gran Mal, ready and waiting.

  “The mist causing all our electrical problems doesn’t reach here. That’s our salvation, Scanlan. Somehow Holson has harvested the Charge and Fire Circuits from his and Kapler’s Grans. Without those, I think you and I would have beem enough, but as it is, your toys are go
ing to ensure our victory.”

  “Excellent. How are your feeling?”

  “I can’t help feeling a little violated,” he said glancing over the changes made to his body, “but you fixed me. In fact, I think you may have improved me. Will there be any trouble with the Titan Star?”

  “There shouldn’t be. The machinery should integrate better with your Artifact than you do. Improvement is a given. You should expect increased performance and output on the order of a hundred and fifty percent. Your psychic facility was already synchronized with your Artifact, so using the power now should yield a further increase, perhaps proportionally larger than before.”

  Vays nodded. “Thank you, Scanlan.” The Titan Star had completely covered him again. The hilt of the Titan Saber formed the horn angling out from his armored forehead. He drew the blade and examined it, seeing that it, while solid enough, was alive with tiny, moving machine parts, meshing, alternating, adjusting, improving. “All that’s left is to wait.”

  “I will return to Gran Mal. I might be able to do something about those Circuits.”

  “Oh? I suppose I should have expected as much from you. By all means, see what you can do.”

  10,923.026.1300

  Planet 1612 (Loss)

  Yago River, North Bend

  Jav awoke, felt the wound at his side, noted that it was closed, but that it still throbbed. His whole body tingled worryingly. He stood and was surprised to see the area clear of mist. He could see that the jump ship was gone, but also that a clear path through the mist led east. At the fringes, the mist was still thick and impenetrable and seemed to hide some scurrying shapes—overly large insects perhaps? He didn’t know, but somehow thought that his needs were being tended to by the Loss Queen or her agents. He scouted the path, using AI to supplement his vision and saw that it led directly to the Palace. He saw what awaited him there as well, but was unconcerned.

  “Thank you for clearing the way,” he shouted aloud.

  Jav regarded Gran Mid one last time, running his hand over its snout, then addressed what little remained of Waice. “I swear to you, Waice. This won’t have been for nothing.” He stepped back and away, faced the open tunnel in the mist, took a step in that direction and became a blazing streak.

  This was the longest Jav had dared to use the Charge Circuit, but neither it nor the Fire Circuit showed any sign of faltering. He shot through the passage in the mist like a bullet through the barrel of a gun, fire trailing him at a furious pace. In twenty seconds, he passed out of the mist entirely, passed like a ghost through the main gate of the 1st Perimeter wall at the extreme edge of the city fortifications, streaking onward to strike Gran Mal squarely between its viewport eyes. The following flames struck the gate, battering it and setting it alight, flowing through it and over it with tidal wave force, to be caught again by the inescapable rush of Jav’s slipstream. Gran Mal balked, its forelegs rising off the ground, with the force of impact, but Jav could not break through the skull and hollow the Gran out from the inside. The liquid fire came relentlessly, though, setting to light anything in its path or close enough to combust, and now buffeted Gran Mal’s head and shoulders for a full minute before being exhausted.

  “Contact with the Charge and Fire Circuits has been terminated,” the Voice said. With the aid of AI, Jav hung in the air just before Gran Mal’s expressionless “face”. Jav could see Scanlan through the viewport eyes, and retreated a few meters to make room for the projected holographic display.

  Jav quickly scanned the results of his entrance. The way leading up to where he hovered was scorched black and denuded of all structures and machines, but that accounted for a small fraction of what remained. He turned at the sound of Scanlan’s voice.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Holson,” Scanlan said. “I’m afraid your spree ends here, and not in there,” he said, indicating the Palace. He held up a small black box topped with a short antenna. “This little device was all it took to strip you of your stolen powers. I believe you and Mr. Vays have unfinished business.”

  “Vays?” Jav blurted.

  “Me!” Vays cried appearing before Jav, bringing the Titan Saber down upon smoke.

  Jav used the Ghost Kaiser to reposition himself behind Vays and deliver a palm strike between Vays’s shoulder blades, sending him like a shot to the ground. Vays uttered no sound. He simply turned in the air and waved the Titan Saber which became an animate ribbon of steel, lengthening and moving with dangerous fluidity. Ordnance from the ground troops began exploding in the air around Jav, further limiting his maneuvering options. He navigated past the flexible blade, receiving a knick upon his right bicep in the process, but managed to escape the main threat it posed.

  The number of shells bursting around him increased, regardless of where he went, so he descended further in an attempt to eliminate, at least in part, their source. As he went, Lightning Gun discharges followed after him, but couldn’t connect, and soon he was too low, amongst the machine troops and mobile weapons, for them to be of any use. Upon the ground, mechanized soldiers marched towards him, causing the ground to shake with their rhythmic beat, and he set about crippling them. Brute force backed by AI went a long way towards rending and even shattering steel, so felling Scanlan’s troops didn’t prove to be too much of a challenge, but he was starting to worry that their numbers might.

  The soldiers stood three meters tall, were heavily armored, and equipped with a double-barreled grenade launcher set within their chests. Besides these were tanks which rode on all-terrain tracks. These each had a larger, single-barreled grenade launcher and four ten-shot missile packs capable of delivering full salvos or individual, pinpoint launches. All the ordnance had proximity detonators, but no safety protocols that he’d noticed, which meant that he could use it just as easily against any and all of Scanlan’s machines.

  Jav paused for a moment, allowed several surrounding tanks and soldiers to draw a bead on him, then leapt up and out of danger as the first of the grenades shot forth. A volley of crisscrossing ordnance passed through the spot Jav had occupied and continued on to other machine targets, blowing them apart. Jav noted with alarm, though, that as the downed machines were replaced by the ranks waiting behind, service robots of various sizes and configurations scurried to retrieve the smoking remains and haul them of—to be recycled, he knew. He sighed, but the sight of the Vine hanging from the sky reminded him that he didn’t have to destroy all of Scanlan’s army, just the part of it that was between him and the Palace. He could do this without the Gran Circuits.

  Focusing on what lay ahead of him, he began calculating AI on a grand scale, creating overlapping layers of space, spreading out in a cone from where he stood to the base of the Palace. When he exceeded infinity, thousands of machine soldiers and tanks were forced to occupy the same space for the briefest of moments, which nonetheless was sufficient. Magazines were compressed beyond safety parameters, and ordnance detonated in sequence, lighting the cone Jav had visualized with fire and glittering shrapnel, paving the way to the Palace with junked machines and smoldering slag.

  Employing AI once again, Jav set off for the Palace, but was forced from his path by Vays, who nearly clove him in two. Jav spun through the air, righting himself and skidding to a halt upon the metal-strewn ground.

  “That’s twice you’ve beat Approaching Infinity, Vays,” Jav said. “I’m impressed. You really have improved.”

  Vays stalked closer, dragging the tip of the Titan Saber over the ground and through scattered debris along the way. “More than you know, Holson.”

  Jav saw that Vays was indeed different now. His armor was girded by additional matte black metal, increasing his overall size to some degree and giving the appearance of increased strength and durability as well. Certainly Vays was heavier, but his movements were as light and crisp as ever. Vays stopped, seemed to take a deep breath, and on exhalation expanded. The plates shifted, revealing the familiar vents, the red and green pinpoint lights shining brilliantly.r />
  Everything about Vays was bigger. He was at least half again his normal size. His every angle jutted from him like a knife or sword blade. “Two hundred percent,” Vays said.

  But before Vays could show Jav what he was bragging about, a fierce wind began to blow, whipping through the landscape of Scanlan’s machines, through the streets and avenues they created with their mass, their numbers. Within seconds, the machines were still, and appeared to have aged ten thousand years. Some spontaneously exploded, though feebly, into puffs of dust, raining down upon the ground. For the first time since Jav’s arrival, there was actual silence—the constant drone of Scanlan’s factories had ceased. The silence did not maintain, not entirely, but was punctuated with the soft rattle of sand blowing on sand. Towers and factories collapsed into clouds of dust. Everywhere, structures dropped, poured down in particulate streams, billowing briefly before falling again to add to the thickening blanket that covered the ground. Both Jav and Vays watched, their attention caught variously by breakdowns and collapses. Scanlan too, from within Gran Mal’s head, stared on helpless as all he’d wrought fell down around him. Gran Mal alone was spared the machine fate. In less than two minutes, the city that had served as the Palace’s landing site, which had been co-opted by Scanlan and turned into a giant mechanized weapon, had been reduced to a flat plain, with dust dunes even now taking shape under sculpting winds.

  Laughter echoed in the air some ways behind Jav. He turned to acknowledge the sound and saw, next to Gran Mal’s turning head, streamers fluttering in the air, converging on one spot to give shape to what appeared to be a man. Hovering there, wrapped in strips of fabric the color of dust, was Wil Parish, his arms folded across his chest, sickly purple light pouring out through the gap in the wrappings over where his eyes should be.