The Shadow Among The Stars

by Dylan Sanchez

  Bel’Wa crossed the distance to Nicadzim at a sprint, planting her shield in the direction of the Aeshma. “Nico, are you alright?”

  “Yes, fortunately.” He extended a hand upward, and Bel’Wa hauled him onto his feet with a quick tug.

  Nicadzim wheeled back toward the Aeshma with his glass-launcher on his shoulder once more, jogging off to take cover behind a pillar as Bel’Wa split in the other direction. Bryluen sprinted from pillar to pillar, assessing the damage they had done to the Aeshma so far. Its wounds were small, the only real damage having been dealt to the tendrils. She kept her rifle braced, occasionally snapping off a shot against one of the beast’s arms. She noted many of its bodily injuries seemed to be sealing over and filling in as the fight raged onward.

  Runner was leaping and grappling between pillars to give himself the best angles for his shots, and had altered the settings on his weapon numerous times. So far, he had yet to find a combination of settings that would do more than distract or uselessly dent the Aeshma. Vort had struck it several times and dealt broad surface wounds, but Kirby remained the only one of them capable of dealing what seemed to be real and immediate damage. Bryluen reflected that having a second individual able to meaningfully stand toe-to-toe with the behemoth would have allowed Kirby to use her cannon and make this fight far easier. She had initially been surprised that Vort could not deal more damage; she now surmised that whatever material coated the Aeshma may have some functional relation to the energy-dispersing foams used in starship armor. At any rate, it was better than the armor on most heavy vehicles.

  The monster toppled another pillar as it lunged toward Kirby, the pieces of the totem rolling and bouncing aside. One larger piece tumbled directly into the Stone. On impact, the totem piece broke apart violently. Not only was no visible damage dealt to the Stone—later investigation would confirm not even dust had been parted from it—but somehow no particulates or pieces of the totem fragment came to rest on the black surface. Bryluen rolled her eyes at this latest addition to the material’s long list of unexplainable properties.

  A flash and a bang sounded out as Kirby’s hammer found its mark once more. An entire section of tendril flew from the end of the Aeshma’s arm, spinning through the air just under Vort as he made another attack run. The monster stood back and raised both of its arms. They each formed into cannons and the beast began to fire. It knew the damage it had suffered would effect its accuracy, and it apparently decided to compensate by firing as many shots as possible. Kirby jogged as quickly as she could from its field of fire, large bolts of energy hurtling across the room and striking the far wall. Three more pillars were destroyed as the howling blasts crashed around her. Kirby was swung about by the force of a glancing impact, red lights flashing in her cockpit as a portion of her rear torso warped. Vort almost immediately struck the back of the Aeshma’s head with lightning, then accelerated and begin to rise and fall unpredictably as the abomination took aim at him. The air was filled with the sound of repeating concussive booms as the Aeshma’s weapons fire traced all around the darting alien overhead. It paused for a moment, and then lowered its arms. The temperature in the chamber dropped several degrees for an instant, then the damaged or severed tendrils rapidly reformed with a crackling sound. The beast then raised its newly repaired cannons, but Kirby stepped in and struck its chin to prevent it from firing.

  Bryluen motioned to Bel’Wa, who was a couple of pillars away. Bel’Wa broke from cover and ran to meet her. “That’s officially the limit on being reasonable about this. Want to see me do something ludicrous? I’ve developed a taste for something I think you’ll find interesting!”

  Bel’Wa leaned out from behind the pillar they were sharing to unceremoniously send another bursting round into the thrashing Aeshma’s head. “You know I live for this. How can I help?”

  “Boost me up two pillars that way.” Bryluen holstered her rifle, then took her nanowhip and the vise she’d received from Nicadzim in her hands. “Be ready to come up behind me.”

  Runner stood on a pillar directly across from the monster’s current position, and with a quick adjustment of his cannon sent a bursting shot directly into the Aeshma’s mouth as it fought Kirby. It reeled for a moment from the hit, smoke flowing from its maw. It huffed a breath—more in irritation than in anything else—causing Runner to throw up a hand in frustration. He cut the motion short as the monstrosity raised one arm to fire toward him. As the Dreaded’s arm cannon began to glow for its next shot, Runner’s adrenaline peaked. Every violent motion and chaotic flash of the battle stretched out like taffy, slowing to a gentle crawl. Long before any form of conscious thought had registered in his mind, he had already begun vaulting toward the next pillar, the hiss of his boot lifts elongated into a long whistle.

  Suspended in the air, he witnessed a near-frozen moment in time. Vort swept close behind the Aeshma at the far side of the chamber, a procession of colors normally too fast for a human to see rippling across his surface. A gout of flame began to jet from his trunk, slowly billowing outward in lurid blues and whites as it washed over the behemoth’s back. Halfway across the chamber from Runner, Bel’Wa was braced beneath her shield like an ancient statue. Bryluen stood atop the shield, and with a mighty shove Bel’Wa was throwing her up the side of a pillar closer to the monster.

  Nearer to the vigilante, Nicadzim’s honeycomb rocket launcher whistled out a stream of projectiles. Each detonation was an iridescent storm of color, the violent shrapnel bursts aimed at the creature’s hide pleasingly even and geometric. Kirby was mid-swing, her hammer slowly striking the beast’s torso just beneath its extended limb: the air was visibly warped by the pressure burst as the impact triggered the hammer’s explosive mechanism. The first hints of fire crawled out from beneath the hammer’s head, and chunks of the monster’s hard outer flesh spun away from the impact in a stately whirl. Through her cockpit and helmet visor, Kirby’s eyes betrayed the bestial snarl she wore. The brilliant light of Dread Naught’s firearms glinted off the blue-toned armor of the Marduk and reflected from the cockpit window, coloring Kirby in a dozen wild flares, auras, and colorful rays as she danced with the Aeshma.

  As he descended onto the next pillar, the normal flow of time seemed to reassert itself. Bryluen finished clambering up onto the pillar and called out. “Stop shooting for a minute! We’re gonna do this the old fashioned way!”

  The team ceased firing just in time for Bryluen to leap toward the Aeshma’s back. Dialing her whip to its maximum length, she swung it hard around the abomination’s thick neck as she descended. As she landed on its back she neatly caught the weight at the end of the whip, quickly securing it to the handle using the large vise. The body of the whip warped and dented from the immense magnetic force now holding it together—more than enough to allow Bryluen to ride the Dreaded like she were jet-skiing.

  The wire pulled against the beast’s throat, but Bryluen knew it would take more weight and strength than hers alone to make anything meaningful happen. “Bel’Wa! Happy Brightstar, and come up behind me!”

  The Storm Mother sprinted around the Aeshma’s back as Kirby and Nicadzim both kept its attention in melee. Bryluen leaned back, holding out her hand. The Storm Mother detached her shield from her arm, then slammed it into the ground ahead of her. She leaped up, catching one foot on the shield’s handle before pushing up onto the top edge of the shield and then off before it fell over. She caught Bryluen’s outstretched hand before the monster turned to investigate whatever was happening on its back. Bryluen pulled her up until she could hook her own hands in the wide vise handle.

  Bel’Wa began to laugh as the pair of them stood on the Aeshma’s back pulling on the wire. The monster began trying to extend tendrils backwards to swat them off, and in response Bryluen pulled her pistol and began to fire. Bel’Wa followed suit with her arm cannon. Nicadzim was suddenly present next to Bryluen, his own weight added to the clamp. With one arm he swung his baton at a nearby tendril, causing the
limb to twitch and thrash away. The sudden close-range fire against its tendrils caused the Aeshma to focus on attempting to wrest the accumulating task force members from its back.

  This gave Kirby increased opportunity to strike out, a pair of blows staggering the creature backwards. Runner soon came vaulting across the remaining pillars, securing his grapple around the nanowire and drawing himself onto the Aeshma. He clasped the curved vise handle next to Bel’Wa, and fired upon the tendrils with one tri-pistol. Lastly, Vort swooped down and hooked one wing through the vise. He flapped hard with the other wing, pulling at the wire and issuing tight gouts of flame toward any questing tendrils. The wire ground back and forth against the monstrosity’s throat, slowly grinding dust from its surface.

  The Aeshma was now spinning, trying to both clumsily fend off Kirby’s increasingly aggressive attacks and forestall the exceedingly slow garroting it was suffering. It tried to back into a pillar, but Vort turned and severed the top half of the structure with a fan of lightning before impact. A moment after it fell to one knee after a particularly vicious vertical hammer blow crashed into its knee-cap hard enough to cause a crack.

  The thing hesitated, and Kirby stepped in. “Everybody, move!”

  With a roar, she planted her feet and swung at the Aeshma’s lowered head. The blow connected cleanly, the raw kinetic force and the explosive charge enough to blow a number of the creature’s tusks off of its face and send it tumbling over its injured knee. Dread Naught poured off of the vise and ran out of the way. Kirby threw down her hammer, ran past the stricken creature, and jumped up onto its back. She hooked one huge hand into the vise, and crossed her other hand over it. The Aeshma rose slowly with Kirby standing on its back, this time paying no attention to the smaller members of Dread Naught around it. It reached for the wire with its tendrils, realizing a moment too late that its time was up.

  Kirby yelled, and pulled as hard as her mighty hydraulic musculature would allow. A chorus of creaking and cracking began as the wire began to pass through the Aeshma’s throat. It howled and gargled—until Kirby hopped off of its back. The weight of the exosuit pulled the wire straight through the Aeshma’s throat with a high singing sound. It stood straight, and began to turn back toward Kirby when its head simply rolled from its shoulders. The turn rapidly transformed into a flop as the enormous Dreaded soundlessly fell to the ground, motionless and limp.

  Kirby leaned back and howled toward the pitted ceiling like a berserker. The howl soon turned into a cackling laugh, as she extended the middle finger of each gauntlet toward the enormous corpse.

  The team breathed a sigh of relief. Bel’Wa hauled Bryluen into a hug, causing their armor plate to smack together loudly. “I had no idea that wire was rated for that much weight!”

  Bryluen wrapped her own arms around Bel’Wa, a huge grin on her face. “Yeah, space-elevator grade. Material science is great, but you’d choke if you knew how expensive it was per-meter.”

  A Fraught Future, Part Two

  The battle on the surface had gone as well as could be expected. Losses were significant, with a number of incapacitated walkers and several destroyed tanks. More than a third of the Lancers had been shot down or forced to land. The battle may have continued on for some time had the Qixing not opted to dispatch a surprise. The Battle Cruiser class ship Jio’O-Pahr arrived through the Gate with a newly integrated system. Though early and still experimental, a new addition to the ships’ scanner system could theoretically force a Sjorthursar to materialize. Extrapolated from certain energy emanations discovered from the Stone the Qixing possessed, it had been determined the Sjorthursars had the capacity to alter the quantum states of their particles enough to effectively become invisible and intangible. The new system was intended to force a reversal of this effect.

  The moment the Jio’O-Pahr began to sweep near Gru’Thiall, the Qixing scientists’ work was shown to have paid off. Immediately two Sjorthursars were revealed, and the gunnery crews of the defending craft wasted no time in striking out. The Sjorthursars saw their situation was hopeless as further scanner sweeps revealed the others. Unable to pick up their cargo of remaining Dreaded, they cut their losses and attempted to flee toward the Gate. The massive particle cannon arrays across the Qixing Battle Cruiser dug large wounds and tears in the Sjorthursars around it, slaying one of them in less than a minute and a half with a tight bombardment. Within the following several minutes, every single Sjorthursar was slain—three of them pounded into dust and chunks by the Jio’O-Pahr alone.

  On the ground, the remaining Dreaded were unaffected by the loss of their spawning craft, but one of the Qixing frigates remained behind to provide orbital bombardment. Between the reinvigorated defenders and starship fire support, the remaining Dreaded were mopped up in less than an hour. The last Rabisus were swept away, and clusters of En-Rabisus eliminated en masse by rocket fire. Gugalannas were corralled and slaughtered by infantry formations, while coordinated walker fire swept away the last Ur-Rabisus and Omukades. A number of Ogumos attempted to roll off the plateau, only to find themselves picked off by the remaining Lancers.

  Within a couple of hours of the battle’s end, discrete CSOE craft arrived to take both the Stone and the glowing capsule from the tower. By then, Dread Naught was on the way back to Raven’s Landing. The Qixing had already agreed to allow Human custody of the items found at Gru’Thiall under the condition that qualified Qixing researchers and military personnel would be permitted unfettered access. The location the Stone and capsule were sent to was one of the largest and most well-secured installations in Human space. Fort Salamis was a monstrously large space station able to berth three dozen craft at a time, and bearing some of the largest non-terrestrial anti-starship emplacements ever developed by Humans. An assault on the fort alone would be suicidal for an entire battle-group, not to mention the ever-present Marine craft patrolling the system. Due to the danger posed by holding onto a Stone so large, the Commandant Prime ordered not only the H.S.S.Dr. Vercingetorix, a venerable Dreadnought, but the gargantuan H.S.S.B. Mictēcacihuātl to defensive posts at Fort Salamis.

  The CSOE and Astral Marines had already scheduled a number of high-profile meetings with the Qixing Commonwealth to communicate and organize initiatives against the Dreaded. Political committees had been formed, and a major piece of budgeting legislation—the first in Human history created with the consideration of a civilization-wide war—was already being drafted in the halls of Terran High Parliament. In addition, a number of diplomatic overtures to the T’hròstag Empire and Ly Aulth Stellar Confederacy had been set into motion in an attempt to warn them of the full extent of the danger and to possibly garner support of some kind. Even aside from the data previously collected, the temple complex showed it to be an ironclad certainty that the Dreaded threat was going to escalate to astronomical proportions. Numerous specialists were being dispatched to study the temple in an attempt to garner any possible information in a quest for usable answers.

  ◆◆◆

  Dread Naught’s armor was back on the stands in the entry way, the multicolored row of suits marred with burns, scratches, and warped sections of plate. The armor printing machines were hard at work generating replacements for the dented and scarred pieces, to renew the armor suits come morning. Night was falling rapidly at Raven’s Landing, the sky brimming with the jeweled tones of dusk. The entire team was thoroughly worn out both physically and mentally.

  In the coming weeks, they’d each understand what Bryluen meant about delayed traumatic reactions. Even with the highest quality care, coming to terms with what they learned would not be easy. Without any official designation or notification, High Command placed a three-week inactive status on the team to allow them to recover.

  Runner had gone straight to bed, mostly undressing on the way to his room. He was intent on a thorough amount of rest before anything else. As he drifted away into unconsciousness, his thoughts drifted as they always did toward an early memory. Fire, confusion,
blood on his hand. He felt no pain or fear at the memory, not anymore. Every night it reminded him of why he had made the choices he did, and reignited the vengeful furnace in his chest. Dread Naught was a more straight-forward affair than his years of vigilantism, but was equally as dedicated to protecting those who needed protecting.

  Vort and Nicadzim loitered on the balcony for some time, idly chatting. One of them would say a few words the other would quietly acknowledge, then a gap of several minutes would follow. They mostly just each enjoyed being in the company of a friend, unable to yet put words to the ideas spinning in their minds. Nonetheless Vort would sleep well, dreaming of inverted towers, the sulfurous scents of the Great Market, and a million feathers of every color flying below and above. His dreams of home had not yet taken on the dark character they would later assume. For now, such subconscious idling was as comfortable as a worn couch. He would distinctly miss that feeling later, as less-nostalgic ideations slowly supplanted the fading memories of his people.