by Larkin, Matt
Bloody void. He’d thought the buggers wouldn’t be able to get their systems up again so fast after the antiprotons.
“Missile tubes reloaded, sir,” his new weapons officer said.
“Prepare another barrage.” They might not fall for the same trick twice, but every missile they targeted was a shot not directed at the Sephirot.
“We’ve lost one of our cruisers,” Rachel said.
Shite. He needed to finish this foe off quickly or his remaining allies would be dead before he got there.
“I’m taking us in for the same vector as before. Fire all missiles, then concentrate pulse cannon fire on the hull breaches.”
“Sir, they’ll also be able to target our breaches if we—”
“I know that, ensign. We don’t have time to play it safe.”
He brought the Sephirot around for another pass, diving underneath the Angel ship. Missiles filled the air again, then pulse fire. Pulses tore into the Angel ship, ripping through the weaker interior, thanks to the hull breaches.
The Angels returned fire. Warnings flared all over David’s console. Plasma fires had spread through three decks. Seven, eight hull breaches. One of the hangars blew out.
David pushed closer. They had to do this. They had to show the damn Angels they would not submit.
“Fire! Fire everything we’ve got left.”
MAGs and pulse cannons ripped into the Angel ship. It rocked, rippled, and imploded like a bubble folding in on itself.
David banked away as sharply as he could. Somewhere behind him a console blew out, spewing sparks over the bridge.
“Cut power to that!”
He steered back toward the remaining Angel ship.
“Can we bring up the antiproton cannons?”
“No, sir,” the ensign said. “We’ve lost too much power.”
“Ion cannons?”
“One of them.”
“Power it up.”
“Sir.”
Another Sentinel cruiser was adrift, and the last looked hard-pressed. But they were not alone.
“Missiles. Get their attention.”
Missiles had the best range, though from this far out, the Angels had plenty of time to shoot down a barrage. It didn’t matter. He just needed to buy a few seconds to close the distance.
The Sephirot launched another volley, but his console showed only about three quarters of the tubes firing. He tapped, revealing the problem. Some entire tubes had been blown off the ship. Bloody void. There was no way to fix that without putting into space dock.
“Mac!” Rachel said. “They’re retreating.”
Even as she spoke, he saw it. The Angel ship shot down the missile barrage, but began fleeing toward the Conduit Gate.
A murmur ran through the bridge. The crew whispered in awe. They had just driven away an Angel attack.
The murmur grew into a whoop. Men and women clapped and cheered. David raised his hands, palms up, encouraging them.
Let them have their moment.
They had lost a lot of brothers and sisters-in-arms this day. Soon they would mourn those losses. But for now, they had won.
They had beaten an Angel assault. And he was going to make damn sure the entire holy universe knew about it.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-THREE
May 11th
David has broadcast the battle over the Mazzaroth. Half the universe or more now knows the Angels can be defeated. By us. By human beings who have drawn a line. People, working together to build our own future.
David jolted when the Mazzaroth actually connected. Aluf Mishma Lamport appeared on the screen, his face hidden behind his helmet. This had to be the tenth time David tried to reach the man. At this point, it was mere ritual. He never expected an answer.
“Captain McGregor.”
“Aluf Lamport, I …” David cleared his throat. “Thank you for taking my call. We’ve got to talk, friend.”
“Do we?”
“We made an alliance against the Angels, Aluf. I didn’t expect that alliance to fracture so easily.”
The Aluf folded his arms. “Did you not? Was it not a temporary truce in times of extreme threat?”
David bloody well hoped not. “The Angels are still out there.”
“At the moment they seem more interested in conquering this New Eden Republic than invading Asherah.”
Aye, they did at that. Angel attacks had spread across the Milky Way and Andromeda, severely hampering his attempts to build up the new government. For whatever reason, the Angels had stayed away from Eden itself. But their tactics made new systems increasingly wary about signing on.
And why? Because the NER had stood up to them? Or … because they thought to make the remaining Sentinels their own army?
“Look here,” David said. “What do you think they’re going to do when they finish with us? They’ll be coming for you, quick as you like to renew their attempts to wipe you out of existence. If they conquer us, that’s just that many more forces they’ll bring against Asherah.”
The Aluf was quiet for a long moment after that. David couldn’t say whether it was a good thing or not. At last the man unfolded his arms. “What you say may be true. We will take it under consideration.”
“Good. Then we—”
“Mazzaroth off.”
Bloody void.
“That went well,” Rachel said from across the room.
“Better than I expected, anyway.” He strolled over and sat on the bed beside her.
“How are the repairs going?”
They had been stuck in space dock, refitting the ship. But since it was a QI prototype, the local crew was unfamiliar with some of the systems. “Slowly.” Much slower than he’d like. Every minute they spent here was a minute he wasn’t protecting people from assault. “Any word from Knight?”
“No. It’s too soon, anyway.”
“Aye.” David scratched his head, wondering whether to bring up the topic that had been wandering around his mind for days.
Rachel laughed. “Out with it.”
Bloody empath. “So, lass … are you still using contraceptive tabs?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“I just … I thought after we got married we would start planning a family … it’s what you wanted too, right?”
Rachel sighed and mussed up her hair a bit before speaking. “Yeah. Yes, Mac. It is. I just … Like this? I mean, Angels killing people everywhere we turn. It doesn’t seem like the right time.”
David sidled closer and wrapped his arms around her. “You scared, then? Maybe there isn’t going to be a right time, lass. That’s the holy universe we live in. Means the present is always the right time. Never know how much more than that we’re going to have, do we?”
“Don’t talk like that. We’ll have time when this is done, Mac.”
“Aye, if it’s ever done. Things might not go back to how they were.”
Rachel leaned in closer to his embrace, trembling a little. He squeezed her.
“I’m just thinking … When we touched that other universe … It’s out there. Just beyond some imperceptible wall. Waiting for us. Waiting to get in.”
Aye. And with her empathic gift, no point in denying he was scared as all shite by it. But there was nothing to be done for it. Thanks to Caleb, now they knew what it was. The Adversary. Seemed almost unthinkable. He had always imagined the Adversary as aliens, somewhere beyond the Local Group. They would wait with a fleet to invade human space. The Covenant protected mankind from them.
Actually, that was kind of true, albeit not in the way he’d thought. Mankind Shall Adhere to the Bounds of the Conduit. Because if it was breached it could make a bloody hole straight to the Adversary. So they were aliens, but not waiting on the edge of space. Waiting beyond it, in a realm of hatred. An entire universe that was alive, according to Caleb—who was, admittedly, a bit off rotation. But something had scared the shite out of the Jericho man.
“Look, you said there are stil
l some seals left, aye? So now that we know what this Apollyon is up to, we can put a stop to him, too.”
“Mac, we don’t know how many are left or where they are. How are we going to protect them? Especially while we’re busy fighting off Angel attacks and Asherah is trying to take over whole galaxies?”
That’s why they needed that alliance with Asherah. David needed the Aluf to see reason. It was in mankind’s best interest to stand united against the Angels. Maybe … Maybe the Asherans would never join the NER. But if they could have peace … That would be worth any effort.
He sighed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, lass. But right now, it’s you and me in this room. No Angels. No Adversary. And no bloody Asherans.”
She laughed. “You’re incorrigible.” She kissed his cheek.
David flipped her around in his arms and leaned her down to kiss her mouth.
Let them forget fear. At least for one night.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-FOUR
And with the line drawn, we say, ‘enough’. We will not be slaves. We will not bow down. We shall rise.
Gadara.
Knight hated this damn planet. The Lazarus Group had brought him here from Eden to experiment on him. To test the limits of his Nephilim bloodline. To try to activate dormant genes with electroshock torture and retroviruses that ravaged his immune system. And forced him to relive the traumas of his childhood. And he’d sworn to kill Galizur—Raziel.
And now he was looking down at the little shithole from a shuttle.
“Hey,” Phoebe said. “You all right?”
“Fine.”
“Look. Forget what happened on the planet, all right. Try to remember what we did in orbit after that. Pretty nice, you know? Especially for you, I mean.”
No kidding. He had never expected … Phoebe had come for him. He’d been alone, certain he would die, and she had come to save him. And maybe she had saved more than his body.
She elbowed him. “Wake up, ninja boy. I’m taking us in for a landing. Meaning forget what I said. Don’t go thinking too deeply about what happened in orbit. No time for that now.”
Knight jumped from his seat and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her hard. The shuttle spun out of control, flipping around in a loop.
Phoebe pushed him off and he fell back into his seat, laughing.
“God, Knight. You’re totally off rotation, you know? I have to set the autopilot before we think about romping.”
He chuckled again, and caught the smile she tried to hide.
She lowered the shuttle onto the landing pad, then turned to stare at him. “No killing anyone.”
He spread his hands. He knew what they were here for.
“I mean it. Not even half-killing.”
“Ten percent?”
She rose. “God, did you just make a joke? Be still my heart. Keep at it, maybe I can cram a sense of humor into you, yet. I was afraid I was going to have to ask Leah to surgically implant one. You wouldn’t have liked that. Come on.”
Knight shook his head, and Phoebe led him to their waiting escort. Men in gray Lazarus coats. Knight glared at one and slipped a throwing knife into one hand. He flipped it around in his fingers, catching the sunlight and reflecting it into the man’s eyes.
Phoebe said no killing. She never said not to terrify the little shits.
“Looks like they fixed most of the damage I caused last time I was here.”
“Yup, yup.”
“Guess they probably couldn’t bring back all the people I killed. So much for the Lazarus project, huh?”
Several of the guards shifted, each casting nervous glances his way. Knight pulled another throwing knife, and began the same dance in his other hand.
“Hey, Knight,” Phoebe said, “remember that talk we had about appropriate conversation? And how you should maybe brush up on it? Well, keep brushing, big guy.”
The guards moved a little further aside from him and led him to a building, perhaps fifty stories tall. They took a lift up to the penthouse, where the guards left them. Knight reached out, telekinetically scanning the room. Only one person. He opened the door. The floor was totally open, a single office that must have been more than two thousand square meters. Like the great hall of a palace in some sappy vid. A long, ornate carpet stretched across the path leading to the desk where Raziel sat, currently in his human guise.
He rose when they approached and spread his hands. “Did frightening my people amuse you?”
Knight shrugged. “Yeah. Not as much as frightening you would, though.”
“Child, I have looked into the maw of the Beast and felt its sick breath on my face. Nothing else in this universe frightens me.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think, Angel.”
“Ooookay,” Phoebe said. “Dial back the testosterone, all right. I know you’re not undersexed, so how about you relax and we talk about what we came for. You know, Angel space stations, the Adversary. End of the universe. Small talk.”
Raziel waved them to a pair of chairs across from his desk.
Knight glowered, but sat. Phoebe was right, of course. He’d promised Rachel to come here and get Raziel. Well, here he was. “Rachel wants you back aboard the Sephirot.”
The Angel sat back down and shook his head. “Not yet. There are other preparations I have to make. And I still have hopes of convincing my brethren to make peace.”
“They’re not going to work with us,” Knight said. “You said yourself they see us as insects.”
“I’m hoping recent events force them to reevaluate that stance.”
“Look, if you won’t come with us,” Phoebe said, “at least give us some answers to take back to Rachel. So maybe she’ll let us get on with our lives.”
“I’m sorry, child,” Raziel said, “but I do not think that will be possible for you for some time. If your kind is to have a chance of survival, Knight will have to remain in this war.”
“Fantastic.”
“Fine,” Knight said. “Whatever. Tell us about the seals, Angel.”
Raziel lowered his head and was silent for a moment. When he looked up, his eyes were dark. “We created seven seals to keep the Adversary at bay. Each was a space station, built as a kind of dimensional lock. It was meant to bar the way to parallel universes. Unfortunately, the Conduit, if not navigated properly, might still lead one into other universes. Hence why we instated the Second Commandment.” The Angel waved his hand, and a holo display popped up over his desk, showing seven highlighted locations. “Three thousand years ago, this one—” he pointed at one in the Pegasus Dwarf, “—was destroyed. We never knew how at the time, though I now suspect Apollyon may have been responsible. Regardless, it allowed the Adversary limited access to our universe.”
“Three thousand …” Phoebe said. “You’re talking about the attack on Eden?”
“Yes. With a seal gone, the Adversary managed to bring a ship through a breach in the Conduit. Eventually, it found Earth—Eden—and resolved to destroy humanity.”
“Why?” Knight asked. Why should these aliens want to kill humans? Their war was with the Angels. “What is the Adversary and why does it even care about us?”
Raziel sighed. “We made many mistakes … committed so many sins … The Adversary was our greatest. We created a sentient universe in order to fight against our enemies at the time.”
Enemies? He’d thought the Adversary was the Angels’ only foe. “What are you talking about?”
“The Lotan. You would call them aliens. Beings of dark matter that threatened our dominance of this universe. So we created an organism molded after their own nature. Something with which to fight our foes.”
“And you lost control of it?” Phoebe asked.
“Oh yes.” Raziel shook his head. “The Adversary earned its name because it became an enemy far greater than what we created it to fight. It drove off the Lotan, then it turned on us. Our sin was pride. In our arrogance, we created someth
ing we did not understand and could not control. We thought to play God. It nearly destroyed us.”
“So you locked it away forever,” Knight said.
“We sealed the other universe apart from this one. But still it reached out, corrupting us with the Beast. And seeping dark energy into our universe. A phenomenon we have searched for billions of years for a way to abate.”
“Dark energy?” Knight asked.
“It’s negative energy,” Phoebe said. “It composes most of the mass-energy total of the universe, accelerating its expansion. In theory it will eventually cause the Big Rip. That’s the whole universe breaking apart.”
Sometimes he forgot how damn smart the girl was.
So … When the Angels sealed the Adversary away, it was content to destroy the universe slowly, on a scale of billions of years. Feeding in this dark energy until it dominated all creation.
“With the seals falling, the rate of dark energy injection is increasing,” Raziel said. “But if the last two seals fall, they won’t need to kill us billions of years from now. An armada of Adversary ships will sweep into our reality to destroy their former masters.”
Knight shut his eyes. Raziel was right. He wasn’t going to be retiring any time soon.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE
May 16th
It’s hard to trust Asherah, but David insists it’s worth the risk. If they side with us, we will truly have a force capable of stopping the Angels. That the Angels created the Adversary shouldn’t have shocked me, I suppose. Their creation turned on them, just as we have now done. Given how they treated humanity, it comes as little surprise the Adversary didn’t like being ruled by Angels. In the end, maybe it’s not so different from us.
Rachel had visited Asheran space before, back when she was hunting Angel relics. Every time she came here she felt her psionic nerves stand on end. She had limited gift for ESP or prescience, but the worlds here left her jittery. She’d tried to tell herself that cybernetics were not evil, the Angels had merely declared them so to limit humanity. But still, some fears were so deeply ingrained she could not shake them. And just when she had begun to do so, Raziel had offered another of his cryptic warnings. Damn Angel never spoke straight.