by Jacob Holo
Jack glanced at the ceiling and saw a perfect simulacrum of a dark-blue sky and orange sun peeking over the horizon. Here in this habitat disc, it was early morning.
Vierj descended into the habitat disc and stopped.
For a moment, Jack thought she would destroy the city simply because it was there. She’d done far worse in the past, and he’d witnessed some of it.
Instead, Vierj summoned a point of black light over her open palm and dropped it. The point splashed into the lake, expanded into a seraph-sized triangle, and sank through the lakebed. Water drained out of the habitat disc, forming a whirlpool on the surface.
“You seem tense, Jack Donolon. I can feel it in your aura.”
“The Core is close. We need to be careful.”
“Are you, perhaps, concerned for the inhabitants of this city?”
How did she guess that? he thought.
“Sometimes I find it difficult to understand you,” Vierj continued. “These creatures are so far beneath our notice as to be insignificant. What does it matter if they live or die? They present no obstacles to us, and so they live. If they impeded our progress, I would sweep them aside without a second thought.”
“I used to be one of them, you know. It puts things in perspective.”
Some brave soul ran out of a small wooden hut near the beach and fired a shoulder-mounted laser at her seraph.
Vierj sighed. With a snap of her fingers, the man turned to ash.
“Let’s keep moving,” Jack said.
“Of course.”
They dove into the lake, water foaming around their seraphs. Jack flew out of the new kilometer-high waterfall.
Fortifications grew denser and more deadly as they pressed on, but Vierj made such obstacles trivial. In between the kill zones, they passed vast industrialized fields, long corridors choked with hovering cargo containers, and empty mined-out chasms.
Jack dropped into a dense field of giant mechanical silos that formed part of Aktenzek’s vast artificial gravity network. The chamber stretched out in every direction, curving gently around an unseen spherical center.
Vierj reached out with her talent and cut open the floor. They dove through the breach and slowed.
The Core loomed before them: a smooth, white planetoid within the fortress planet, hovering in the center of a great spherical chasm. All along the ceiling, tightly packed mechanical cylinders buzzed with stored energies: the massive drives and fold engines of Aktenzek.
“Vierj, I’m not detecting any access to the Core’s interior. Can you make an entrance?”
“A thin barrier shrouds the entire Core. It would be extremely taxing for me to use my talent here. I will focus on finding a more traditional entrance.”
Jack felt a powerful spike of influx from the planetoid’s surface and spun to face it. The Sovereign’s Palace sat on the Core like an immense mirror-sloped pyramid. A lone seraph ascended from its peak.
This seraph resembled the Renseki, with elegant curls flowing up the limbs, torso, and wings. These stylized shunts glowed with brilliant red fire, but unlike the Renseki, its body shone with gleaming gold armor.
Vorin Daelus, Sovereign of Aktenzek, ignited his chaos dagger.
“You will go no further, traitor.”
“Is that so?” Jack readied his sword and shield. “Stand aside, Vorin. You can’t possibly defeat us.”
“We shall see about that.” Vorin spread his wings wide. Their edges flashed with crimson energy, and he raced in.
“Vierj, keep looking. I’ll handle this guy!”
Jack accelerated towards the Core. His blade clashed with Vorin’s in an explosion of crackling energy. Their weapons ground harshly against each other, showering the air with sparks.
Though Vorin didn’t share Seth’s agility, he’d piloted seraphs for two whole centuries, and his level of finesse was enough to catch Jack by surprise.
With the slightest turn of his dagger, Vorin let Jack’s blade slide past him. He swung in with his fist and pounded into Jack’s lower torso.
Jack groaned, a burning sensation radiating out across his stomach. He tried pulling his sword back, but Vorin grabbed hold of both his wrists, locking them together so that neither could strike.
“You are strong, traitor,” Vorin said coldly. “But even you cannot defeat all the seraphs coming to my aid.”
“Nice to see you too, Vorin!”
Jack headbutted Vorin. He headbutted Jack right back.
Their two seraphs spun above the Core, both men struggling for an advantage. No matter what Jack did, he could not twist his sword into the Sovereign’s side, and the two finally crashed against the Palace’s silvery slopes.
Sparks scintillated as they slid down the slope, tearing open a deep diagonal groove. Jack fired his wings, and they took off again, still locked and unable to break.
Jack let the energy sword on his left dissipate and transformed his right hand shield into a blade. It wasn’t perfect. He had never been good with his right arm’s weaponry shunts, but he forced the blade to extend through sheer strength of will.
Surprised and off balance, Vorin tried to pull away and block the attack, but his counter came too late. Jack cut into his shoulder and drove down diagonally towards the cockpit.
Vorin managed to deflect the attack at the last instant. His dagger clashed against Jack’s in a flash of energy, and the attack went high, cleaving through the gold seraph without killing the pilot.
Jack pulled his dagger out of the chest cage, lopping off the seraph’s arms, head, and all six wings. Red chaos-imbued fluid spewed from the long cut and splashed against Jack’s barrier in an arterial shower. The legs and lower torso fell and crashed against the Palace slope, but that half’s shunts still flickered red.
Jack’s heart raced. He searched for any seraphs that had arrived during his duel with Vorin.
There were none. He and Vierj were still alone in Aktenzek’s Core.
“Vierj, status!”
“I have just found the entrance.” She transmitted coordinates.
Jack orbited the planetoid and stopped over a patch of white no different from any other. He reignited his sword and dove down. Two diagonal cuts and a strong kick allowed him to force his hands into the gap. Mnemonic forces in the armor fought to repair the damage, but he tore the armor open and dropped into the Core’s interior.
Jack found himself between two tightly packed rows of clear cylindrical vats. A partially completed seraph floated within each container, suspended in a cloudy fluid. He folded his wings and walked deeper into the facility.
Some of the seraphs were bent over, their wingless backs exposed, spines open and ready for the artificial neural columns. Others were nothing more than copper endoskeletons awaiting their fibrous musculature, arterial pumps, and shunt fluidic transfers. All of the seraphs lacked their armored mnemonic skin.
Further into the Core, the containers held only parts of seraphs. To his right, dozens of nearly finished arms bobbed gently in their tanks. To the left, Jack saw neural columns being grown in thin vertical tubes. Some of the columns were fully grown and possessed an unmistakable brain-like texture. Others had yet to mature beyond thin gray strands suspended in clear organic slosh.
Jack shivered. No wonder the Choir didn’t let pilots in here.
At the end of the seraph factory, he found a passage leading deeper into the Core’s interior. He raised his chaos sword and paused for a brief moment.
His hypercast array received an incoming message.
“About time.” Jack let the signal through.
“Hello, Pilot Donolon,” Veketon said. “It’s been a while.”
“Hello yourself. I was wondering how deep I’d have to go before one of you would call, though I’m not surprised it’s you.”
“There is no need to proceed further, Pilot Donolon. I am sure we can discuss this rationally. You seek the Gate’s location, do you not?”
“You know it, Vek.”
/> “Yes, I do know that, among a great many other things. What I don’t know is why you desire its location as well.”
“Just helping out a friend.”
“Really now? Vierj is many things, but I doubt she is your friend. You have poor taste in companionship, Pilot Donolon.”
“To each their own.”
“Indeed.”
Jack raised his sword again. “Enough stalling. Either give me what I want or I drop into the next chamber and start cutting at random.”
“Before I give you the Gate’s location, I want you to understand one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You have less power over me than you might think,” Veketon said. “Yes, you could destroy the Choir and the seraph factories and even cause enough destruction to the Core that Aktenzek would cave in on itself, but you can’t harm me.”
“It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
“And why shouldn’t it be?”
“Like father, like daughter, huh? What did you people ever do to her?”
“Simple. We said no.”
“Ha! Nothing’s ever that simple with you, Vek. So why give me the Gate’s location?”
“Because the Choir wishes to beg for its collective unlives, and I speak as their representative. Besides, I loathe the chore of having to build all of this again.”
Jack smirked. “They can’t hear us, can they?”
“They hear something, but it is not this precise conversation.”
“Fine. Vierj and I will spare them.”
“Then we have an agreement.”
“Sure. Whatever. Now where is the Gate?”
“Why, the last place anyone would ever look for it. You see, we hid it within Imayirot.”
Jack blurted out a laugh.
Imayirot. The Dead World. A world slaughtered by the Bane.
Of course. The one place no one would ever look. A place both sacred and taboo to the Aktenai and the Grendeni. A place of such profound cultural grief that neither faction would ever desecrate it. Of course that’s where the Original Eleven hid the Gate.
“I see you appreciate our choice,” Veketon said.
“Oh, you have a twisted sense of humor,” Jack said. “You’d better not be lying.”
“I suppose you have every right to be suspicious, but you can verify it easily enough. Vierj should be able to feel its presence from low orbit.”
“You’re not afraid of her getting back to the Homeland?”
“Not really. Twenty thousand years ago, yes. But now, the situation has changed. Having her go through first and weaken the Keepers has a certain appeal. It’s not ideal, but it can be of some use to us.”
“You people really are a bunch of planet-sized buttholes, you know that?”
“We’ve been called worse.”
“If you’re lying, we’ll be back,” Jack said.
“Of course. I look forward to our next conversation, Bane.”
Veketon’s reply chilled the humor out of Jack. He walked back across the seraph factory and exited the Core.
“Quite a discovery,” Vierj said.
“Yes.” Jack wasn’t at all surprised that Vierj had listened in. “Who could have guessed it would be Imayirot?”
“It seems somewhat obvious now. I hate that world. I almost died there, and the memory of that experience still haunts me. Even now, I am reluctant to return.”
“Looks like we don’t have a choice.” Jack flew away from the Core. “Be prepared. They’ll undoubtedly try to block our escape.”
Jack and Vierj ascended through the Core’s ruined security checkpoint and entered the gravity silo field.
Eight seraphs sped across the field straight towards them. Six had the unmistakable silver lines of the Renseki, though one stood out larger than the other: the honor guard’s command seraph. Another possessed flame-red armor, with large kite-crystals burning with green fire.
And the final seraph, with its black angular armor and thin gray scars, flew ahead of the pack. Twin purple daggers snapped out of its forearms.
“Here we go,” Jack whispered.
***
Seth charged straight at Jack and swung in. Their blades met in a fierce snap-flash of blue and purple light. A shockwave blew out, ripping through several gravity silos.
Quennin and the Renseki swarmed over the Bane’s featureless seraph. On the way down, Seth had elected to engage Jack alone. He hoped his comrades could suppress the Bane until reinforcements arrived.
A force of over fifty Aktenai and EN seraphs now patrolled Aktenzek’s shattered surface portal, along with four Aktenai dreadnoughts and three primitive Earth Nation dreadnoughts. Jared had coordinated the defense with shocking skill for someone his age and was even now organizing their descent.
All we have to do is hold them, Seth thought, struggling against Jack’s raw power.
Seth found none of the earlier hesitation in his opponent. Both he and Jack fought with all their skill, cunning, and strength. They crashed their blades together, broke apart, then struck again. They wove through the endless fields of gravity silos, their blades colliding in massive displays of energy.
Seth’s dagger grated against Jack’s shield, showering the surroundings with short-lived sparks of blue and purple. Jack pushed in, his wings burning almost white with energy, and threw Seth into a gravity silo. Machinery crumpled as both seraphs crashed through.
Seth maintained his dagger integrity, even as they broke out the other side. They crashed into the ground and cut a long groove across it.
Jack lifted off and darted for the exit, but Seth fired his wings, skidded across the ground, righted himself, and shot after him. Jack spun around at the last second, bringing his shield up. Seth slashed down, and the blow rebounded off Jack’s shield.
Jack countered with his sword, and Seth stabbed in with his second dagger. Their weapons locked, neither pilot giving ground. Seth felt the awesome strength of Jack’s attack, the limitless power he infused into his weapons, and he forced his own dagger to maintain stability.
Jack threw Seth back, but had no intention of running this time. He swung his huge blade in from the left, and their weapons clashed again. Light exploded from the impact point and another two gravity silos went silent.
Seth glanced at the other battle. The Bane flung itself repeatedly at its foes but had yet to land a significant hit. Frighteningly fast, it forced Quennin and the other to approach cautiously.
Jack broke off suddenly and fell back towards the Bane. With Jack and the Bane so close, Quennin and the Renseki were forced to split their attention. Sensing their momentary distraction, the Bane lunged for Zo.
“Watch out!” Seth rushed in and interdicted its strike.
The Bane almost lopped Zo’s head off, but Seth blocked the attack. The two blades released a violent display of black and purple lightning. Seth tried to hold, but the power at this creature’s command was limitless. He pulled back before his own dagger disintegrated from the stress.
Seth regrouped with his comrades, the chamber’s exit at their backs.
Jack and the Bane joined up.
“They’ll try to break past,” Seth said. “Be ready!”
Both enemy seraphs charged straight in. The Bane lunged at Seth with incredible speed, but he dodged left and thrust in from the side. His dagger slammed against the Bane’s barrier just below the seraph’s chest cage, and met an immovable wall of barrier energy. Seth pushed in, willing his dagger to burn brighter and cut deeper. He felt the Bane’s barrier give just a little, even as a horrible freezing sensation crept up his arm.
His strength faltered for a moment, and the Bane’s barrier snapped back into place. His dagger exploded, and he flew back, stunned. The Bane whirled around, weapon ready, and threw itself towards him.
But Seth was not alone in this fight, and suddenly Quennin was in front of him, blocking the Bane’s approach. She met the monster’s blade with her own dagger. But Quennin had o
verextended in a rush to aid him. The Bane saw this, pulled back, and struck again with a blur of quickness. Its dark blade chopped her arm off at the wrist.
“Ahhhh!” Quennin cried out.
Green fluid pulsed from the wound. Quennin recoiled, and the Bane pulled its dagger back for the killing blow.
Seth relit his own daggers and rushed to Quennin’s aid, but he was too slow.
The Bane sliced into Quennin’s seraph just below the chest cage. Quennin screamed in horrific, burning pain as the blade sliced effortlessly through her seraph’s torso. The Bane pulled up and cleaved her seraph’s head in two.
The screaming stopped.
“QUENNIN!” Seth screamed.
Her shunts died and the broken seraph fell. Two sections clattered to the canyon floor. Green fluid pulsed from the diagonal chest wound, turning black.
Seth swooped down and landed next to her crippled seraph, his daggers buzzing fiercely. She had to be alive! She had to be! He would cut down anyone who dared attack her now.
But no attack came.
Jack and the Bane fled across the gravity silo field, then darted up a narrow supply shaft. The six Renseki followed as fast as they could, but their quarry could both outfight and outrun them.
“Seth, hurry up!” Zo shouted. “We need to catch them before they reach the surface!”
Seth did not hear her.
“Quennin! Quennin, say something!”
Silence.
Seth knelt beside his beloved’s broken machine. Zo and others continued to call out to him, but he ignored them. The entire universe could burn to cinders in his absence and he wouldn’t care.
He brought his hand close, forming a bridge between his cockpit and Quennin’s, locked his position, then forcibly severed his mind from the seraph. In the cockpit, he swooned from the unclean separation, then shook the fog from his head.
The cockpit expanded around him and opened. The seraph’s zero field disengaged, and he walked carefully out of the cockpit, which slanted towards Quennin’s seraph. He jumped down to his seraph’s right palm.