by Larkin, Matt
They’d spent hours trying to secure the ship, but Conglomerate troops were coming in faster than he could kill them. Sooner or later, one was going to get a lucky shot in on him.
His comm buzzed in his ear.
“I’ve found Leah,” Rachel said. “They’re holding her one deck below you, about a half kilometer ahead.”
“Good, lass.”
He’d hated leaving Rachel alone on the bridge, but they had to find Leah. And for the moment, Rachel was safe.
David ran down the hall, for once glad the Ark was so bloody large. It meant even with a small army, QI couldn’t fill all the halls with soldiers. The best they could do was secure major junctions and strategic points. That left him relatively free to move about and take them down one by one. By his count he’d killed or incapacitated twenty-two QI troopers so far. Of course, he had no way to know how many there were on the ship, but Rachel was working on that.
“You’re nearing their position now, Mac,” Rachel said.
David slowed his advance and crept forward, stopping just outside the room.
“How many inside?”
“Hang on. It’s not like there’s a cam in there. It’s more like the Ark can feel … I have to concentrate … I think four, besides Leah. One by the door, the others spread out.”
“Left or right from the door?”
“Left.”
All right then. David buzzed the door and charged in, immediately slamming his elbow into the man guarding the door. He shot another QI trooper before they even realized what was happening.
The next pointed a MAG at Leah. “Drop it or she—”
David shot him.
The last man fired at him. A hail of MAG rounds glanced off his armor, shredding his shields. He rolled behind a table. MAG rounds tore right through that, too. David fired a burst of pulses in the attacker’s direction. The MAG rounds ceased.
Well. Not his cleanest rescue mission ever, but it worked.
He rose, scanning the room.
Leah was bound with magnetic restraints, sitting at a table. Blood from her former captor now spattered her pretty face. Her disgusted expression might have made him laugh, if it wasn’t because he had just killed three men.
“You all right, lass?”
“Yeah. Great. Get these things off me.”
He undid her restraints, then placed them on the man he had knocked out. Bugger would have a headache to beat the holy universe, but since he was the only one of his lads getting out alive, he was lucky.
“Mac, come in,” Rachel said over the comm.
“Aye, lass.”
“I’ve just picked up a signal from the planet. Phoebe’s shuttle was damaged and she’s under attack from the Lazarus Group. She says they’ve taken Knight.”
Seriously? He was impressed anyone could take Knight alive. The Gehennan was vicious as a Calnehian badger and ten times as fast.
“All right, we’ve got to go get her, then.”
Rachel was quiet for a moment. “I’ve got my hands full holding off the Jericho fleet, Mac.”
Shite. David couldn’t well leave Rachel alone to fend off any remaining QI troopers, either.
Leah seemed to see what he was thinking, because she nodded. “Don’t worry. I can take the shuttle down to get Phoebe.”
David moved to scratch his head, forgetting for a moment he wore his helmet up. He lowered his hand and instead patted Leah on the shoulder. “That’s not going to be a fun ride, lass. There’s a whole fleet out there, jamming our signals and trying to keep us from escaping Eden. If they spot the shuttle—”
“I’m a qualified pilot, Commander.”
Commander. Och. Leah must have been feeling a wee bit touchy.
David squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t think I don’t believe in you. I just don’t want to lose you.”
For a moment, she chewed her lip and a barely suppressed wave of emotion surged from her. Emotions he couldn’t read, though he was sure Rachel would have been able to. Leah shrugged out of his grip, then tapped her suit to extend her helmet. “You won’t. I am a Sentinel. They caught me off guard once. It won’t happen again.”
She paused to grab one of the MAGs, then jogged out down the hall.
“Be careful,” David shouted after her.
She waved a hand at him without looking back and kept running.
Sometimes it was easy to forget she had all the training and lethal skills of any other Sentinel. She too wore the black-on-black uniform of those who guarded humanity against the darkness.
Part of him wanted to go with her, to make sure she was safe, but she clearly needed to do this alone. Her pride had been hurt when those QI troopers had taken her. He supposed that must be why she was acting so strange. He could understand it. Best let her go.
Besides, Rachel needed him. He jogged back to the bridge. Several QI troops had gathered there and begun trying to cut through the door to reach Rachel.
David shot them all.
“I’m back, lass.”
She buzzed him in.
“Thank God, Mac,” she said, though she kept her eyes on the hologram ahead of her. “The bastards were cutting through my skin.”
Right. Her skin. Fantastic.
He retracted his helmet.
“I’ve picked up a message from Knight. He’s asking for extraction from another planet.”
“What?” Bloody void. The Lazarus Group had taken him to another world? “Where?”
“Gadara.”
David scratched his head. “It’s not far from here, but we can’t go now. Leah just took a shuttle down to get Phoebe. We have to get her first. You’re going to have to tell him to hold out a wee bit longer.”
“You tell him,” she said. “I’m kind of preoccupied operating the weapons by myself.”
There was irony for him. Knight had been the one to rescue him from Horesh, and now David was going to have to be the one to tell him no one was coming right now. Small comfort knowing the Gehennan could take care of himself. David hated leaving anyone behind, but these were the choices a commander had to make. Phoebe was already here, expecting extraction.
“Mazzaroth on,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
My worst fears are true. Knight has been taken, and I can do nothing for him. I suppose knowing my quest would have a cost and feeling that cost before me, seeing those I care about suffer, are two different things.
Ships had gathered all around her. More Quasar Industries cruisers had joined the battle. The sky swarmed with threats, stinging Rachel like a thousand insects. For hours Jericho had been trying to board the Ark. She’d shot down a seemingly endless barrage of missiles, boarding pods, and drones.
David had reported clearing many of the QI troopers, only to find a pod of Jericho soldiers had boarded.
And she had left Knight alone on Gadara.
The Lazarus Group had probably tried to torture him to get information about her and her Ark. Knight was her responsibility, a member of her crew, and she’d left him because of Leah and Phoebe. Leah. The woman in love with her man. How easy it would be to just leave her behind and head to Gadara.
Well, maybe not that easy, with a fleet between them and the Gate.
It didn’t matter. She would never do that. David would never forgive her for it, even if she could have lived with herself. She was doing all this to help people, not to abandon them. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself. But then, she’d probably killed several hundred people today, too.
“Come in, Jordan,” David’s voice said over the comm.
“Rachel here.”
“I’ve cleared the Jericho boarding party, but my suit’s damaged. I need to return and repair it, let it recharge.”
A sudden sense told her another party had boarded in the hangar. Little bugs crawling around inside her without her permission. They all needed to be stepped on.
The thought made her shudder.
When had she been will
ing to kill so readily? Was this her feeling, or the Ark’s? Could such an entity—a ship with the power to reshape worlds or destroy them—have a conscience? Her own identity had become so hopelessly enmeshed in the Ark’s, she couldn’t say where the line lay anymore. It wasn’t just her ship. It was an extension of herself. It had bonded with her brain. She felt its heartbeat like her own. So anything she did to prevent an invasion was really just self-defense.
Wasn’t it?
David buzzed the bridge door, and she waved it open.
Her eyes were dry from staring at the hologram so long. So far, the cruisers had kept their distance. One had tried to close and a warning shot had deterred it. Still, she hoped Leah would return quickly. Her enemies were multiplying rapidly.
“Are you all right?” she asked David without looking at him.
“Aye, I’m fine.” His voice sounded pained, so she spared him a glance.
David had removed his suit jacket and pulled back his undershirt, revealing a bloody wound on his arm. Even Sentinel armor could take only so much punishment.
“Mac …”
“I’m fine, lass.”
He wasn’t fine. He was bleeding, trying not to show her how much it hurt. Rachel’s senses were so caught up in the Ark she couldn’t read David’s feelings. A sudden emptiness opened inside her chest. As she became the Ark was she losing the man she needed most?
Leah definitely needed to get back here so she could treat that wound.
The thought, so detached, wrenched Rachel’s heart. Couldn’t she get out of the damn chair and do something herself? But the situation demanded her every attention.
David began field dressing the wound, but he must have caught the look on her face. “I have done this before, you know.” He injected himself with something—nanobot regenerators, probably.
Her mind flashed with an incoming call. A Mazzaroth call originating within the Ark itself. From the hangar bay screen.
Galizur Blake.
God, he was on the Ark.
“Receive call.”
The hangar bay filled her screen. Galizur stood there, surrounded by a dozen armed QI guards in heavy combat armor. David would be hard-pressed to fight that many, especially with his suit damaged. These soldiers were armed with MAG rifles, too.
“Ms. Jordan,” Galizur said. “You’ve gotten yourself into quite the predicament, haven’t you?”
Rachel reached into the hologram and flung a flurry of plasma blasts to shoot down more drones that drew too close. “I’ve been in tighter spots.” Being trapped on Gehenna, pursued by the entire force of Gibborim, came to mind. Right now, she had the most powerful ship in the known universe at her disposal. Things could be worse.
“Rachel. You must turn the Ark over to me. If you don’t, you risk losing it to Jericho Corporation. They have you badly outnumbered, and you cannot hope to fight them all alone, even with the Ark.”
Rachel almost laughed. Angels above, he was still thinking she would just hand it over. No one would ever separate her from the Ark. It was an extension of herself. She could no more give it up than give up her own hand. “Be that as it may,” she said, “why in the holy universe would I give it to you?”
“Because it’s mine.”
“Look, whatever contract we had before, I’m sorry. But circumstances have changed and I cannot turn the Ark over to you or any other corporation.”
Galizur shook his head slowly. “You mistake me. I do not speak of our broken contract. The Ark is mine.” He lowered his hood, then let the robe fall away. A heartbeat later a hologram surrounding him winked out and revealed his true face.
A cybernetic bar poked out the side of his cheek, and another above one eye. That was nothing, though, compared to the cybernetic wings on his back. His muscles flexed and stretched his wings, out to a five-meter span. A beautiful, terrible fold of metallic razors layered one upon another.
“Dear God,” David said by her side, his voice a bare whisper.
Rachel’s mouth wouldn’t work. Her brain wouldn’t work. It was impossible. The Angels were gone. They’d Vanished. She had the only remaining Angels in the ship’s cryo chamber. The universe didn’t need them anymore.
“Not God,” Galizur said. “Just His messenger. I am the Angel Raziel. I have led you to my work so you might uncover the Ark, Ms. Jordan. Now you will hand it over to my command.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
Of all the things I expected to find in my search, still Galizur managed to surprise me.
Rachel stammered, trying to get her mouth to work. Galizur was an Angel. Not just any Angel. The Angel Raziel. The Angel who wrote the Sefer Raziel. Galizur had given her the lead to find the book on Gehenna. He’d directed her to Knight. He’d given her just enough pieces of the puzzle to begin to solve it, while apparently missing the bigger picture.
“Why …”
He’d played her like a pawn. If Angels could look like humans through holograms, then, could there be more of them out there? Was that the truth of the Vanishing? That they were hiding in plain sight? Except, she had over a hundred Angels frozen on this ship.
“Why lead me to the Ark, Galizur? You had to know where it was, so why this elaborate game?”
Raziel spread his arms and wings wide. “You think I need explain myself to you, human? Every plan must hold within it a deeper plan, if you hope to overcome the enemy. You do not plan a move ahead, not if you wish to win.” He collapsed his wings behind his back. “You must plan a dozen moves ahead. You will hand control of the Ark over to me. Immediately.”
The hologram showed Leah’s shuttle returning. Rachel sent a mental command to the Ark to direct the shuttle to the other hangar, away from Raziel. That would not have been a pleasant surprise for their doctor or Phoebe.
“I think you’d best do as he says, lass,” David said.
She shot him a glare.
“He’s an Angel, Rach,” David whispered. “I kinda think you ought to cooperate.”
She turned back to Raziel. “I don’t appreciate being deceived for so long. How do I know I can trust you now?”
“I give you my word you will not be harmed. If you concede to my terms immediately.”
Rachel brushed her hair from her face and looked around the bridge, as if searching for answers. Leah would need a couple of minutes to dock the shuttle, and then they could be out of here. She hated to leave Eden behind, but now they knew where it was. Now everyone knew. All the Angels’ secrets and lies were falling away. At long last mankind would know the truth.
It was what she’d set out to do.
The idea of handing over the Ark felt like someone ripping her heart from her chest. But maybe Raziel did have a right to it. His people had built the damn thing, and if they weren’t gone, sooner or later more would come. It was better than a megacorp taking the Ark. Wasn’t it? Unless, of course, he used the Ark to usher in a new Days of Glory—a new age of oppression and theocracy.
“I’m prepared to hand over command to you on the bridge. But first I want a straight answer to my question.”
“Do you think to dictate terms to me, Ms. Jordan? You are in no position—”
“My position is on the bridge! You came in here and started dictating, Angel. So tell me, why all these plans? Why the subterfuge? You want the Ark? I want the truth!”
Raziel stepped closer to the screen and she felt a sudden pressure against her mind. Void, he was scanning her emotions. Could he really use psionic gifts like that, seeing only an image of her on a vid screen? “I admire your determination, Ms. Jordan. Your courage carried you this far, so I will give what answer I may, with the proviso that not everything will make sense to you.” The Angel smiled, though without any obvious humor. “I have acted through you as an intermediary in order to limit the attention I draw to myself. However, your actions have made any attempt to remain concealed impossible. Moreover, the mission on Gehenna allowed me to push another of my tools to the limit, to test its mettle.
Answering two conundrums with a single solution, if you will.”
So Raziel had enemies? Or at least someone he was hiding from. It meant there likely weren’t too many Angels in hiding. But Raziel, as far as she knew, had hidden the Ark himself. Which meant he’d known all along where his brethren were frozen. Why had he not freed them before? Or was he the one who had imprisoned them?
Rachel’s eyes darted to the display. The shuttle was secure.
But what tool did he mean? The mission on Gehenna had allowed him to test the mettle of … Rachel herself. And Knight. Raziel, as Galizur Blake, had led her to Knight, told her to enlist his aid. He had to know where the Sefer was, or at least the general area. And the danger. He wanted to push Knight to his limits. But why?
“Very well, Angel. Come up to the bridge, and I’ll hand over command.”
She wasn’t sure what choice she had. Raziel was right. She couldn’t well fight the entire Jericho fleet. At least not while trying to deal with the Angel on her Ark. God help them all if Raziel decided to thaw out his brethren. She cut the line.
“David. I need you on weapons.”
David sighed and walked over to the console. “Aye. So we’re not handing over the Ark?”
“Before we do anything, we have to save Knight.”
Even if he wasn’t her friend … Even if he wasn’t her crewman, she would go after him. And now she knew Raziel had some special interest in Knight. He’d been testing the Gibborim, trying to … what? But again, the answer was too obvious. Because she’d been right about Knight being descended from Nephilim experiments. Raziel was pushing Knight to see just what he was capable of. A man designed to mimic the powers of Angels.
“We have to get to Gadara.”
As soon as she moved toward the Gate the Jericho ships opened fire. But they were holding back, trying to damage her without destroying her. It was her edge.
“Punch through!”
She pushed the engines, pulling close to 50 PSL. Let them try to shoot her while she was traveling fast enough to dilate time.