Gradually the room grew dark. He picked up Yalda’s body and lay her down gently on her sleeping pallet, and then he returned to the main room to pick up Zhila as well.
“Goodbye, my sweet grandmothers,” he said, kissing first one’s cheek, and then the other. He pulled a single blanket over them to cover them both.
A sense of hopelessness settled into his bones until he began to wonder whether there would be anything left to care about by the time he summoned the Emperor. Ninsianna was gone, the devil cruiser had blown up Immanu’s house, and now his adoptive grandmothers were dead. That old hunger ate at him, reminding him that if he didn't find Ninsianna, he would be condemned to wander eternity alone, the fate of a Seraphim who did not find his mate.
Alone…
It was the only fate he had ever feared.
He spent the night on the cot where Yalda had passed away, clinging to the bowl of unbaked bread which his two friends had not lived long enough to bake for him for supper.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 113
Galactic Standard Date: 152,324.02
Monoceros Ring: Eternal Light
Former Supreme Commander-General Jophiel
Jophiel
The mood within the Eternal Light was nervous as they tailed the curious armada comprised of Sata’anic ships, Tokoloshe dreadnoughts, and other vessels from petty kingdoms hostile to the Alliance traverse the empty space between the Monoceros Ring and the broken Orion-Cygnus spiral arm which jutted through the larger Perseus arm like an arrow which had pierced a lover’s heart.
Jophiel stared with frustration at the images her scout ships relayed to her via a primitive direct line-of-sight. Five-watt yagi relays were an exceptionally primitive form of communication, but one which made it difficult for the enemy to pick up their radio transmissions. Unfortunately, the Eternal Light herself would be much harder to hide. The moment they broke cover from the red giant, it might as well have been a supernova, so blatantly would her ship show up on even a perfunctory scan.
“Have our long-range drones picked up anyplace we might take cover when we try to leap across the empty space?” Jophiel asked her second-in-command, Major Klikrrr.
“Not so far,” Klikrrr clacked his mandibles together. “It is as if the goddess, herself placed this ring around the galaxy as a frame.”
Jophiel leaned back in her commander’s chair, her snow-white wings raised with irritation and apprehension. She had a choice to make. Either travel far up the Monoceros ring until the natural curvature of the galaxy provided cover for her to make the leap across the vast, empty space. Jump now, and pray the lizards had decided to behave blind, deaf, dumb and stupid by not posting a rear-guard. Or wait until the Sata’anic armada disappeared far enough into the Orion-Cygnus spiral arm that the star systems they put behind them would finally silence the noise.
None of these options was a good one. Like her, the Sata’anic armada was operating under line-of-sight communication and they kept making random course corrections, none of them logical, of a type typical when a military vessel wished to avoid being tracked. The chances of reacquiring the target once she lost it were slim and none.
If only her living needle ship hadn’t disappeared! Now that little ship could leap between the dimensions, unseen by all except the goddess herself, and while it was prone to forgetting it was supposed to be on a military mission, it had prior to now always been a loyal little ship, counted upon to return so it could tell her where, at minimum, it had last seen the armada.
Damantia!
“We have no choice,” Jophiel said. “Mark the exact trajectory of where they entered the Orion-Cygnus arm and program a drone to sit there, waiting for our signal to reawaken it so the lizards don’t pick up its broadcast." She ran a stellar calculation in her head. “Recall the remaining drones and shuttles. We’ll go the long way around and hopefully we’ll pick it up again.”
She paced up and down the bridge, her white wings fluttering with irritation as she watched her crewmen work, waiting for her shuttles to return. She did not dare leave them out here. All of her shuttles were designed to operate out of a forward operating base or a command carrier. To leave a pilot behind would be a death sentence for them. Only a few deep-space reconnaissance shuttles existed, one less since Mikhail’s shuttle had disappeared, and not one of them was currently under her command!
If only she’d had the foresight to assign one to her own ship before Lucifer had rebelled, fractured the Alliance, gotten himself killed, she’d been placed under arrest, started her own little counter-rebellion, stolen back her command carrier and disappeared out into the middle of absolutely nowhere!
The absurdity of planning for all those contingencies gurgled in her throat until she broke her normally serious demeanor by chuckling in front of her crew. The more she tried to stop, the harder she laughed, until tears began to roll down her cheeks and her sides hurt from trying to suppress it. That was it. Now, to top it all off, she had just gone insane!
“Sir?” Major Klikrrr inquired. One fluffy green antenna twisted forward, the other back in a Mantoid equivalent of a quizzical look.
“I will be down in the aviary burning off some steam,” Jophiel sniggered in between guffaws. She pointed at the display screen which showed the location of the shuttles moving back towards the ship. “Call me twenty minutes before the last shuttle docks.”
For too long she had been stuck in her commander’s chair, too busy giving orders or living inside of her head, trying to outthink the likes of Shay’tan or Lucifer’s antics, and not enough time simply taking care of herself. It must be the pregnancy hormones! She strode into the aviary, stripped off her military jacket with her now-missing rank pins, and took to the air in the huge room with the lofty ceiling, the only place on an Alliance ship which could accommodate an Angelic's need to fly.
It had been too long since she had indulged herself thus. At the Eternal Palace, stripped of rank and with little to do except for ‘busy work,’ she had journeyed out daily to fly around the branches of the Eternal Tree. She realized now their species had lost something by being confined to ships in space. Oh! How she yearned to set down upon a planet so she could stretch her wings!
She flew until the sweat began to bead on her forehead and her undershirt was damp, for there were no air currants or updrafts on a ship to buoy her, and then she settled onto the ground and walked, picturing all the ways she could transform such a lofty, empty space into a living, breathing garden, complete with a large, central tree. Yes. If they were all destined to be deserters and heretics, she would make it comfortable here. She would find a way to help her species reconnect with the flora and fauna they’d been genetically engineered to protect.
Her comms pin beeped at her.
“General Jophiel?” It was not Major Klikrrr’s voice, but the ATO assigned to babysit her missing needle.
“Yes, Lieutenant Ska-irt?” Jophiel asked.
“He’s back.”
“Who’s back?” Jophiel asked, for a moment drawing a blank.
“Your needle, Sir,” the ATO said. “And you’re not going to believe this, but he brought company.”
Jophiel paused, trying to get her brain wrapped around the message.
“Company?”
“Needles, Sir,” the ATO said. “Lots and lots of needles.”
“I’ll be there right away,” Jophiel said.
She pulled on her jacket and worked her way through the ship, so large there were portions where the elevators moved not only vertically, but also horizontally. The needle pen was a small corral that had been set up in a tool room immediately adjacent to one of their two flight major flight hangers, one so large it could accommodate a battle cruiser for repairs. It was necessary to travel through that flight hanger to get to the tool room. She opened the door to step inside and crashed into the backs of a group of her own crewmen.
Her crisp order for them to get back to work died on her lips as she looked
up and saw that every square inch of the flight hanger was seething with long, black shapes.
Needles. Lots of needles. Far more needles than existed in the Alliance fleet. There were big needles. Little needles. Fat needles. Skinny needles. Needles traveling in family pods, some of them with fat little butterballs at their sides which she could only presume were offspring. Every square meter of the flight hanger was filled with the mysterious, black living ships.
Her Mantoid ATO kneeled next to a needle which lay upon the floor, a peculiar, black substance oozing out of its side. Floating next to him was her needle, and she knew it was her needle by the radio collar buckled around its neck. It kept nudging the wounded needle as though it was worried.
She glanced around the room and saw that this needle wasn’t the only one which appeared to be wounded. Everywhere she looked, some needles poked at other needles, and they all seemed to be in some sort of distress.
“Don’t just stand there!” she ordered her men. “Go and see if there’s anything you can do to help them.”
Her men disbursed and she strode over to the ATO to find out what in Shay’tan’s name was going on here.
“Lieutenant Ska-irt?” Jophiel asked the ATO. “Report?”
The ATO scrambled to his feet and gave her a salute even though, technically, according to Parliament, even the needle out-ranked her.
“S-sir!”
Her needle turned and began to poke insistently against her thigh. She reached out and patted it, but she was more concerned with the sudden invasion of her command carrier by an alien species.
“As you were, Lieutenant,” Jophiel said. “What is the meaning of this?”
“They just appeared, Sir,” the ATO said. “One moment, I was tidying up the needle pen, getting it ready in case the little guy returned. And then the next moment he was back, practically jumping up and down like one of those little circus madraí that leap up and turn handsprings.”
“Where did they come from?” Jophiel pointed at the black shapes which teemed, floor to ceiling, wall to wall within the flight hanger.
“Well I asked the little guy what he was so excited about,” the ATO said. “Our translation device is pretty primitive. So when I couldn’t understand him, I asked him to show me. So he disappeared, and when he reappeared again a moment later, he came back with all of these.”
Jophiel’s needle poked at her thigh, and then at the poor creature which lay upon the floor. She knew it was dying, though how she knew that she did not know. She kneeled down next to it, and placed her hand upon the poor, wounded creature’s nose.
“What happened to you, little friend?” Jophiel asked the needle, which appeared a bit bigger and far older than her own needle, which she suspected was still relatively young. The creature bore wounds as though it had been targeted by some sort of energy weapon, and as she touched it, she could sense the exact moment the creature’s life force left its body.
Her own little needle sank down and nestled alongside of the now-dead creature. The needle translation device, more of a primitive judge of emotion than actual words, registered the emotion, ‘sadness.’
Jophiel stood up. All around her, similar scenes of loss occurred.
“What killed them, Sir?” Lieutenant Ska-irt asked. The Mantoid’s under-wings hummed with distress.
“I don’t know,” Jophiel said. She touched her own needle. “Little friend. I wish you could tell me what you need?”
Her needle rose slowly, and then it disappeared.
“Damantia,” Jophiel cursed quietly beneath her breath. Her comms pin chirped.
“Supreme Commander-General?” Klikrrr’s voice came over the radio.
“Major Klikrrr?” Jophiel said. She did not correct him that they had all agreed she would go by the honorific of ‘general’ since calling her E-fuzzy wasn’t an especially auspicious title to lead a counter-rebellion.
“You need to look at the main viewing screen outside the ship, Sir,” Klikrrr said.
She strode over to one of the large flatscreens which normally displayed their battle plans or other critical information and ordered the AI to pull up the exterior cameras. No matter which camera she displayed, they all showed the same scene. The view outside was dark, and nowhere could she see any stars.
“Tell me what I’m seeing, Klikrrr,” Jophiel said.
“They are needles,” Klikrrr said. “Millions of needles. So many they block the view of the stars. But I suggest you display the camera right outside the launch bay doors.”
She ordered the AI to display the camera in question. Jophiel gasped. Waiting patiently outside her hanger doors was a smaller version of the two ships which had emerged from the wormhole bridge and disappeared along with the Prince of Tyre.
Nephilim…
Her needle reappeared. It bumped insistently at her hand, and then raced back and forth between her and the screen displayed on the wall, no small feat for a fat, black sausage of a ship that was nearly seven meters long.
“You want me to let it come inside?” Jophiel asked.
If it was possible for a needle to jump up and down, it did so now.
“But there’s no room in here,” Jophiel said.
The needle disappeared. So did almost every single one of the ‘wild’ living needle ships, except for the ones which were badly injured or dead. Her needle reappeared.
“Sir?” her ATO said. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“If that ship wanted to take us out,” Jophiel said. “It already would have done so." She tapped on her comms pin. “Major Klikrrr? I want a full security detail down here in the launch bay, stat. We’ve got company.”
She instructed the ATO to allow the alien ship into the outer chamber for recompression, and then made it wait until her security detail arrived and positioned themselves in strategic positions around the flight hanger to take it out should it prove to be a threat. She then ordered the inner doors to be opened so the ship could land. She watched as the enormous blast doors slid aside and the ship coasted in. Unlike her needle, this ship was nut-brown and had long whiskers in the front like a bottom-feeding fish. It was a curious synergy of mechanical and biomechanical engineering, more mechanical than alive. It coasted in silently, she had no idea what forces propelled the thing, and settled down upon the flight deck the same way that the wounded needles had.
This ship was wounded too. Out of its side, more of the black substance that reminded her of engine lubricant or blood seeped out onto the floor. The ship shuddered, as though it was in pain.
“See if there’s anything you can do for it,” Jophiel said. Her motivations were not entirely altruistic. Oh! What the Emperor would do to get his hands on such technology!
Her needle raced over to hover before what appeared to be a hatch. Jophiel followed behind it. Whatever was about to happen, it seemed a living ship with the sentience of a five-year-old child was directing the action. It was not, unfortunately, the strangest thing which had happened to her the past several months.
The side of the ship split open. A ramp lowered, and beyond that ramp stood a creature bathed in light.
“Hello?” Jophiel said, for what else could she say?
The creature which strode out stood head and shoulders taller than her, far broader in the chest, with long arms and nut brown skin, a slanted brow, and a full head of wild, black hair peppered with grey that reminded her a bit of the Eternal Emperor’s. He walked the way any humanoid creature would walk, and despite his great size, his expression was benevolent.
She looked up to meet his eyes. They were golden, just like the Eternal Emperor’s eyes. Her skin tingled. She had been around enough ascended beings to understand this creature was more than mortal.
“You are Jophiel?” the Nephilim asked.
“Yes,” Jophiel acknowledged.
“I am Ogias,” the Nephilim said. “This humble creature came to me with a story. He claimed your Emperor promised he would give sanctuary to a
ny of his species which cared to serve him.”
Jophiel’s mouth opened, ready to deny such an absurd claim, but then her needle pressed it’s nose against her hand, and she remembered the Emperor had said just such a thing when they had placed her son into its marsupium and ordered it to carry the infant to the safety of Raphael’s command carrier.
“I don’t think the Eternal Emperor knew there were so many of them,” Jophiel said. It was about as close to the truth as she could come without either admitting or denying the claim.
“That is good,” Ogias said. “For they have risked everything to come here. Now if you don’t mind, my ship is injured, and I need to heal him before he dies from his wounds.”
The gigantic Nephilim scanned the unmoving shapes laying on the floor and the kin that had stayed behind to hover with them on the death-watch. His mouth tightened into a grim line.
“What happened to them?” Jophiel asked.
“Be thankful your ship showed them great visions of the kindness your species has shown my creations while under the care of your Emperor,” Ogias said. “The One True God sent them to spy upon your empire so he could ascertain your weaknesses, but they liked it better here, so at some point they stopped sending back information and began serving you for real.”
“The one true god?” Jophiel asked.
“You know him as Moloch,” Ogias said.
Jophiel began to choke.
~ * ~ * ~
Chapter 114
February: 3,389 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Mikhail
He buried them at sunrise in a single grave, hands clasped together in death as they’d always been in life, his two longest feathers placed lovingly in each one of their hands. He searched the village, but he could find no sign of Zhila’s spear, so he asked the Chief for his best spear. He buried it between them so Zhila could catch her husband’s eye and protect her sister in the next world just as she had done in this one.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 107