by Larkin, Matt
“That’s not for you to decide! We stand on our own feet. We can make our own choices about what we can handle and what we cannot.”
“No, Ms. Jordan. By the time you realize the danger you will place yourselves in, it will be too late. Some doors, once open, cannot be easily shut. Even now, one of the fallen seeks to take the Ark for himself. They are coming for us as we speak and I cannot—”
“Enough!” she shouted. “I won’t be cowed by your lies like my ancestors were. The Angels were false prophets without real power. We gave you power over us when we bowed before you. Your strength was always in the people who followed you blindly, convinced you were sent by God himself. You are nothing without us.”
“You are mistaken.” Raziel lifted his hand and a wave seemed to rush forward and slam into Rachel. It felt like being lifted by the ocean and flung against the wall. The breath flew out of her and she fell to the deck, banging her knees.
When she could lift her head, she saw the others had been thrown, too.
Knight was the first up. He rushed toward Raziel and launched a blinding series of attacks. The Angel fell back, blocking each strike.
David climbed to his feet and brandished his pulse pistol. Before he could even fire, the weapon flew out of his hand. It hovered in the air and then began to fire over her people’s heads. David threw himself prone, tackling Phoebe back to the deck to avoid the blind fire.
He rolled away, then came up on the far side of the room. All Rachel could do was stay down and watch as David tried to aid Knight in his fight against the Angel.
The being had Knight’s speed and seemed even stronger. He landed a blow on her protector and Knight flew backward, impacting the wall. It took him several seconds to get back to his feet, and by then Raziel had spun on David. He whipped his wings in front of himself. A sickening shriek of metal echoed through the bridge as the wings scraped against David’s suit.
Rachel thanked God David had his helmet up. The force of the blow hurled David against the screen. Lines marred his armor where the Angel’s wings had scored it.
Phoebe evaded the flying pulse pistol long enough to grab it and bear it down, using her own weight to pin it to the floor.
Knight charged back in, engaging the Angel again.
Rachel had the sick sensation she had made a terrible mistake.
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
All I can say of Knight for certain is that the experience on Gadara changed more than his body. He appears shaken, altered, from the cocksure assassin I once knew. And, perhaps because she came to save him, he has thrown himself so completely into Phoebe, I am almost overwhelmed by it. It’s as if his whole life, he was searching for something to grab on to, some foundation for his life, and at last he may have found it.
From the bridge of the Empyrean Throne Caleb watched the approaching Ark. It didn’t try to flee, which unsettled his stomach. He advanced on the Angel relic with an entire Conglomerate fleet. Not just Jericho Corp—he’d informed every megacorp of the impending mission to claim the Ark.
And they were here, by his side. A thousand ships. Almost a hundred Shiza Security cruisers, filled with Companies. Each Shiza Company consisted of four to six highly trained spec ops personnel. They’d board the Ark and secure the way.
Then there were the Redeemers. Jeremiah Jordan had come with seven Redeemer battleships and twice as many cruisers. Caleb didn’t know how many Hearts the ships held, but he’d vastly prefer Shiza take the Ark than the Redeemers. Shiza, like the rest of the Conglomerate, would likely let Jericho take custody if granted certain sureties of shared tech. The Redeemers, though, they’d probably want to hide the damn thing all over again.
Regardless, the Conglomerate had agreed that Quasar Industries had held out on them. With the Sentinels embroiled in a full-fledged war with Asherah, QI was left to face the might of the combined Conglomerate alone. It would be a short battle.
“We want to cripple them, not destroy them,” Caleb said to Captain Ellis. “Fire a limited missile barrage on outlaying sections of the Ark.”
The Throne drew closer, and Ellis did as Caleb ordered. On the screen, he saw the rest of the fleet follow suit. Hundreds of missiles shot toward the Ark.
And for whatever reason, it did not shoot the missiles down. What the void were they doing in there?
Explosions rocked the Ark’s hull. Several sections decompressed, venting into space. As the shimmering skin blew away, it released some kind of viscous fluid. The Ark’s blood, he supposed. Apollo called it a living entity, and they had severely wounded it. He’d really expected more resistance. If Jordan had given up, why not just contact him to surrender?
“Cease fire. Raise the fleet,” he said.
“Yes sir,” the comm officer said. “You’re online.”
“This is Caleb Gavet. Commence boarding assault. We don’t know how many people are living aboard this ship. Spare those you can, but take that ship at any cost. Try to minimize damage to the Ark itself.”
Caleb glanced at Rebekah. She hugged herself, as if in awe of the Ark. He couldn’t blame her. The thing was twelve kilometers long and beautiful. Dark as the night and glittering like stars. Now venting atmosphere and blood. It was like they had wounded a great behemoth of legend. He almost expected a deafening roar, though he knew he’d never hear any such sound in space.
“It’s going to be fine. We’ll have it soon.”
She nodded.
They would take the Ark, and then he would pay Apollo a visit. Caleb was increasingly convinced the scientist had outlived his usefulness. Except … Someone would need to study the Ark and harness its secrets. He supposed, given such a prize, maybe the man would be sated. He could wait, eliminate Apollo later, after he’d milked this new discovery of every last edge possible.
Thousands of drones swarmed around the Ark, not needing to fire. The ship made no attempt to hinder any of the boarding pods or shuttles sent toward it. They landed in the hangars, poured in through the hull breaches, and took every opening.
Caleb chewed his thumb. “How many troops have we landed on the Ark?”
Ellis looked at a console before answering. “Best estimates are around two thousand from the whole Conglomerate.”
“Send another five hundred of our own men, Captain. Jericho troops.”
“You don’t think two thousand soldiers can take on what QI personnel are aboard?”
Caleb had no doubt they could. But he was done playing games with QI and Rachel Jordan. He was done being manipulated by Apollo. He’d had all he could stand of this whole situation, and now he was taking control. He just looked at the captain with a raised eyebrow until the man relayed his order.
“A-are we going to board that thing, too?” Rebekah asked.
“Eventually. After everyone on board is in custody. No sense taking chances.”
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
I don’t envy Knight the horrors he has endured in his life, but sometimes I envy his intense clarity of purpose.
Knight pushed himself off the floor to see Raziel heft Rachel up by the front of her shirt.
“Desist this at once,” the Angel said. “The Ark is under attack.”
Knight rolled to his feet. “Let her go.”
Raziel stared into his eyes. “I’ll have a use for you soon. For now, help secure this ship.”
He had to be joking. Knight charged right at the Angel, then dropped back on his hands. He kicked out at both the Angel’s knees, and Raziel stumbled, dropping Rachel.
Knight grabbed her and thrust her at Phoebe. “Get her out of here!”
The Angel righted himself and buffeted his wings. Knight leapt backward, but the blades shredded through his long coat. Were they monofilament edged? They’d carved through his nanomesh. Which meant they’d slice through flesh and bone with ease.
Knight spared a glance at David, unconscious on the floor beneath the screen, and at Rachel, struggling against Phoebe. Leah ran for David. He wasn’t used to
having to take care of so many other people. Knight was a loner. A ghost in the night. The only way he could protect so many people was to take this fight away from them.
The Angel approached him with wrath in his eyes. Raziel had managed to fling them all away with a telekinetic wave. If he could do it, maybe Knight could, too. He reached his hand forward and pushed, trying to see the air with his mind, see it move. A ripple pulsed forward and Raziel fell back a step, his jaw hanging open in an all too human expression.
Knight smirked. Nice to see the Angel wasn’t prepared for him. Surprise was the key to victory. Always do the unexpected. Knight rushed in and feinted one way, then landed a body blow the other.
The Angel grunted from the impact, but Knight felt like he’d just punched a solid wall. Metal-reinforced ribs? Was that possible?
Raziel swung and Knight ducked, then blocked more blows. The Angel was fast—with natural reflexes nearly as good as Knight’s own. But Knight’s training had honed his abilities to levels beyond his nature. He could use that. The Angel probably wasn’t used to combat.
Knight feinted again, then swung with an uppercut.
And Raziel simply wasn’t in the right place. He twisted like he’d known exactly what Knight was doing, and his fist landed on Knight’s chest. The impact hurled him against the wall and knocked all breath from his lungs. His vision blurred for a moment.
His ribs might be broken.
There was a pressure in his head. A crawling presence in his mind. The sick realization hit him—the Angel was in his head. He’d seen through Knight’s feint because Knight had planned it. And if he didn’t get Raziel out of his mind, he’d never hold the Angel off.
Raziel advanced on him. Knight kipped up, but focused his energy on the foreign presence inside his thoughts.
Surrender. The words echoed in his mind, almost making him stumble.
No. Get out!
Serve.
Knight focused on Raziel, sending a wave of anger, pain, and loss. All of the abuses and injustices of his life fell at the Angel’s feet. Knight’s life had been an experiment, a test. It was time his creator felt all he had suffered.
The Angel faltered, and Knight charged right back in. He landed a barrage of blows against him, driving Raziel backward. The Angel struck with his wings, scoring the deck. Knight flipped over the attack and kicked the Angel in the shoulder blades. Raziel fell to his knees.
Knight started in, then backed away. He dare not get so close to the wings. They could tear him to shreds before he knew what happened. Instead, he telekinetically pushed again, flinging the Angel into the hall. Raziel stumbled, then rose with a beat of his wings.
“You think your meager powers enough to stop an Angel, child?” He advanced back toward the room.
Knight glanced over his shoulder. Rachel had joined Leah in trying to wake David. The Sentinel was coming around, but not in time to do anything here. The Angel would tear the others to pieces.
Phoebe fell in beside him. “Are you all right?” She had reclaimed her pulse pistol. The moment Raziel appeared in the doorway, she fired a continuous burst.
The Angel folded his wings, blocking the shot. The pulses turned the metal incandescent, but didn’t seem to harm it. The pulse pistol flew from Phoebe’s hand and clattered against the wall.
She charged at Raziel, but Knight grabbed her, yanking her back. One heated wing scraped along her suit, and from her scream, scorched the pale flesh beneath.
“Phoebe!” He did his best to shove her away, toward the others.
“Come, Nephilim. Surrender to me and serve, and your companions need face no further harm.”
Knight spun, his hands trembling. His mind trembling. The Ark itself shook with his rage. And why not rage? He had scoffed when Rachel blamed the Angels for all that was wrong with Gehenna. But she had been right. Raziel and his kind had created a hell and damned future generations there because their ancestors had refused to bow down. The Angel himself had bred Knight’s parents like animals. He had cast Knight into the fires of the Gibborim, perhaps deliberately orphaned him. All in an attempt to find his potential.
Well, he had found it.
Knight spun on the Angel, thrusting both hands forward and sending out a wave of telekinetic energy. It tore through the doorway like a bomb blast, but the wave parted around Raziel, who had his hands up in a warding gesture.
“You cannot overcome my power, Nephilim.”
Knight rushed straight at the Angel and slammed into him. He was willing to bet Raziel didn’t want to kill him, not after spending generations to create him. So maybe those wings wouldn’t shred him. He shoved the Angel against the wall, and beat at him with his fists.
Raziel grabbed Knight’s arms and pulled them apart, stilling his attacks.
Knight reached for the floor, feeling it with his mind. Then he ripped it away. Shrapnel flew all around them. Metal shrieked, and blood—or some black fluid, anyway—gushed out of the deck. Knight and the Angel plummeted through it, getting caked in the thick stuff, and landed on the deck five meters below.
He hit hard, and it took him a moment to realize where they had fallen. The chill, the mist.
They were in the cryo chamber.
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
The truth is, I was a fool to ever chase the Ark. No matter what I did with it, I could not have achieved the aim I set out for. I could not have simply used the technology left behind by the Angels to better all mankind. Because it was too tempting a prize, and no one would allow another to hold it long enough to benefit.
The sound of the rending deck made Rachel cringe. Her mind was no longer connected to the Ark, and though she didn’t share its pain, she still felt it. And the thousands of minds now on the ship. She had willed command from herself to Raziel—one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
Now she could do nothing to protect the Ark. The screen still showed what Raziel had last been viewing. A thousand Conglomerate ships laying siege to this ship. It was doomed. Even if she could take the command chair—and she knew it wouldn’t respond to her without Raziel’s permission—she could do nothing against such an armada.
David groaned.
“Mac,” she said. “Mac, I’m going to need you to get up. Right now.”
“Give him a damn minute,” Leah said. The doctor was tending to Phoebe’s wounds. Rachel prayed the other Sentinel would be all right. With proper medical attention, almost any injury could be fixed. But Leah didn’t have all her gear. With luck, she still had a few nanobot regenerator injections left.
She turned back to David. “Okay Mac, you with me? The Conglomerate have taken the Ark. Knight is fighting Raziel, but I don’t think he can … I don’t even know what happened. David, we cannot let Jericho or the others have this ship. I don’t know what to do anymore. I … I made a mess of everything. I brought us here and I don’t know …”
God, she was not going to cry again. She had been through plenty of fucked up situations before this. But the thought she would be responsible for Jericho Corp taking over the universe almost made her want to give up. Except, she couldn’t. She hadn’t surrendered to doctrine when the whole universe thought her wrong, and she wasn’t going to surrender to the inevitable now.
“We need a plan, Mac.”
“Aye.” He sat up slowly, rubbing his head. The way he swayed, she worried he might have a concussion. “If we can’t fight off the enemy, maybe someone else can.”
He meant the Sentinels. God, maybe she should have just given them the Ark in the first place. It would have been better than this. Her self-righteous crusade to better mankind had denied the Ark to people who would have used it to preserve her way of life. Maybe humanity as a whole would not have advanced, but at least they wouldn’t have fallen to a man like Caleb Gavet.
“It’s too late,” she said. “Even if we could get a message to the Sentinels, they’d never get here in time. Besides, they’re enmeshed in war with Asherah.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Angels, Rachel. Wake them up.”
She almost laughed. Or cried. In fact, it was probably time for both. “You hit your head pretty hard, Mac, so I’m going to ignore that blindingly off rotation suggestion.”
David tried to rise, and she helped him to his feet. He steadied himself against the screen. “Do you have another choice? Isn’t that going to be better than letting the Conglomerate take the Ark? Return it to its rightful owners, Rachel. Let them decide what to do with it.”
Would that be better? The Angels had all but enslaved mankind, and most people didn’t even seem to realize it. They had made themselves prophets of their own religion and built a theocracy on it. They had eradicated any trace of other religion that might have existed among humanity and forced all to follow their doctrine. And then they had Vanished. They had frozen themselves in cryogenic suspension, and she still didn’t know why.
“Listen to me, Rach.” David grabbed her shoulders. “We don’t know what the Angels will do with the Ark. But we do know a little something about Jericho Corp. We know with this kind of technological advantage, they’ll seize control of the entire Conglomerate, and through it, force a stranglehold on Mizraim. I don’t want to be responsible for that. But this was your quest and your ship, so the choice is yours.”
With the Ark, Jericho could dominate the universe. The technological advances it made would allow the board to rule all mankind. But they could also use it to usher in a new golden age of science.