by Larkin, Matt
Us. Raziel would be affected too. Which meant he planned to come along. To fight.
Knight tucked the grenade into a storage compartment in his suit. “I’ll make it my last resort.”
Raziel nodded. “Leave me. I must commune with the others.”
Was he going to tell them …?
“Get out, Pariah!”
Knight blew out a breath, then did as Raziel asked. The Angel was right. There was not much time left. He needed to see Phoebe.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY
July 17th
We have drawn them out, forced them away from the Conduit. This may be our last chance. We cannot fail this time.
Thanks to the modifications Phoebe had made, the Sephirot’s view screen revealed the outline of Lotans. They remained invisible to the naked eye, of course. But the screen allowed Rachel to see the basic shape. Hundreds of jellyfish-like creatures swarmed around the Ark.
NER ships continued to fire on Redeemers, separating them from the Ark, while the Lotan forced it further away from the Conduit. Cornering it. There would be no escape.
Rachel pushed the joystick forward, taking them in.
Explosions rocked along the Ark’s hull as the Lotan’s strange energy weapons lit it up.
“What the void are they shooting?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Phoebe said. “It seems to be similar to our antiproton cannons. Plus the tendrils themselves seem to create breaches in the Ark’s skin.”
That was putting it lightly. The jellyfish ships wrapped around the Ark like an octopus trying to crush a shellfish in its arms. Wisps of gas and plasma evaporated off the Ark’s hull wherever the Lotan squeezed.
But it was costing them. Plasma bursts from the Ark shot down another Lotan. Rachel had lost count of how many had vanished from the screen. Fifty? More?
“Phoebe, take the controls,” Rachel said. “I’ve got to get down to the hangar with Knight.”
“Yup, fine. But I expect him back in one piece. I mean it. I’ll kill you dead if you let something happen to him.”
“Yeah, got it.”
Rachel rose to allow Phoebe to sit, then headed for the lift. Inside, she fingered the implant Raziel had given her. A small black circle, with prongs she was supposed to press into her neck. It would burrow in and attach to her nervous system, allowing her full psychic access to the Ark.
And he’d said installing the implant wouldn’t hurt too badly. She’d asked. Repeatedly. Somehow, she suspected he was lying. The prongs were only about two centimeters long, but the thought of impaling them into her neck was … unappealing. Her stomach churned.
She tucked the sickening thing back into the shielded box the Angel had given her, then into a compartment in her suit.
Down in the hangar, Knight, Raziel, and a group of four Sentinels had already gathered by the Angel’s ship.
“With the distraction the Lotan provide, I should be able to get us into the hangar.”
Grim determination seeped off Knight in waves that made her glower. The Gehennan had strapped a new sword to his back. Throwing knives covered his thighs, and grenades ran along his belt. She and the other Sentinels were there to help, but in the end, they all relied on Knight and Raziel to face the Angels. That kind of pressure would break most people.
But then, she had her own part to play. She had to take control of the Ark once again. Its presence in her mind had cost her last time. It had become a part of her, an addiction she was far too eager to embrace again. And that frightened her—just how much she missed its warmth in her mind.
She nodded at Knight, then filed into the ship and strapped herself in. Ironic—the last time she’d fled the Ark had been in this same ship. David had flown it then. David, the love of her life, betrayed and murdered for this war. And in his name, she was going to end this.
The others strapped in, and Raziel sat at the controls. The Angel didn’t ask if they were ready. He just launched the ship out of the docking chamber.
And then they were in space. The battle continued to rage around them. The Lotan ships—which she suspected might be part of the aliens themselves—were faring poorly. But then, so was the Ark. Plasma leaked from a hundred breaches along its hull. An entire section of its skin had been peeled away, and Angels were sucked into space.
“Some segments are decompressed,” she said. “Helmets up.”
Raziel piloted through the mess of plasma and warheads filling the air, confident and sure as he slipped into the hangar.
The moment the ship jittered to a stop, the Sentinels popped their harnesses and rushed out. Redeemers and Magog swarmed toward them. Rachel leapt out and fired her pulse pistol, gunning down a howling Magog and then a man.
Knight charged forward, pulse pistol in one hand, katana in another. He shot a Magog, decapitated a Redeemer, and kept running. So fast. Inhumanly fast on his feet. Rachel shook herself, trying to focus on the remaining assailants. MAG rounds ricocheted off her suit. She shot the attacking Magog and the doglike creature collapsed, a hole in his chest.
And then a trio of Angels flew in, gliding on shimmering metal wings. “Betrayer!” one spat at Raziel.
Their own Angel had spread his wings as well. A single beat carried him into the air. The wind knocked Rachel down, and she stumbled.
“Get to the core!” Raziel shouted at Knight.
Knight ran as Rachel climbed back to her feet. An Angel landed in front of him, jabbing with its wings so fast she could barely see the motion. Metal clanged against the deck, throwing up a shower of sparks. Knight twisted, slid between the Angels’ legs, and severed one with his sword. Fast as that he was up and running again, even before the Angel had collapsed to the deck.
Rachel shot down another Redeemer. Sentinels formed up around her. “We’ve got to get to the bridge! It’s this way.”
She glanced back at Raziel, who collided in midair with his two Angel attackers. They collapsed in a heap, slamming into the deck. Metal wings sheared against each other, the sound mind-rending. They moved fast—almost as fast as Knight. It had turned into a melee of wrestling and chaos and the shriek of metal.
A Sentinel grabbed her and pulled her down the corridor. “We can’t help him right now.”
The man was right. She ran toward the bridge. Sentinels cleared the path before her. They took down Magog and Redeemers with frightening efficiency.
And then an Angel blocked their way. The span of its wings almost filled the hall. Sentinels fired at it, and it wrapped its wings around itself, deflecting the pulses. It continued to advance on them, protected by its metal cocoon.
“Fall back!” she said.
The Sentinels at once began a fighting retreat, continuing to fire, preventing the Angel from rushing them. Fast as the Sentinels could shoot, the Angel was faster. Blocking every shot.
Rachel primed a plasma grenade. “Get ready to run on my mark,” she said over her comm. She flung it. “Run!”
She turned and made a break for it, the others beside her. A split second later the grenade erupted, and the Angel screamed. The shockwave sent Rachel stumbling forward. She spun around in time to see the Angel rising, though plasma burns covered its face. Fury lit its glowing eyes.
The Sentinels opened fire again, this time catching the Angel with a pulse between the eyes. It fell.
Rachel picked herself up. One down. “Press forward.”
More Redeemers tried to block the way. They fell in droves, but one of her Sentinels went down. A MAG round had breached his helmet. Rachel knelt by him. Never had a chance. Their kinetic shields were all giving out. Without those, any direct hit …
But they had no choice. Back down now and this was all for nothing.
And then some kind of shockwave erupted through the ship. The Ark shrieked and trembled, sending Redeemers and Sentinels alike tumbling to the deck. Rachel’s HUD winked out. Her suit wasn’t responding.
Knight must have fired off the QEMP. Everything would ta
ke a minute to reset. She rose and tried to fire at a Redeemer. Her pulse pistol was fried too. She rushed forward, jumped on the Redeemer, and brought her elbow down on his head. Sentinel training had given her some Merkabah basics. The other Sentinels recovered quickly, and the Redeemers fell before their superior skills.
A pair of Magog barreled around the corner. Sentinels charged right in, though the dog-men were stronger than ordinary humans. A Sentinel wrapped one of the dog-things in a strangle hold and brought it to its knees. Rachel walked over and looked the creature in the eyes. Despite its animal features, the eyes were human. Its mind at least partly that of a man. Rachel punched it in the nose.
They pushed on, charging onto the bridge. Muriel was there, lying on the floor, choking. Spasming as his organs failed. Two more Angels lay strewn about in similar condition. Raziel would be like this now. Incapacitated. Dying, unless they got him to the cyro chamber.
“Hold this room against any intruders.” She pulled the implant from the shielded box. Now or never.
Holy shit those were sharp-looking prongs. She’d come all this way to do this. She had to.
She retracted her helmet to expose her neck, then pressed the unholy thing there. Deep breaths. She could do this. She could do this. Knight had done his part. Raziel might well have died for this.
Okay.
Time.
She pushed the implant into her neck. It was like being jabbed with needles. The thing whirred, then sucked onto her skin. Electric fire surged through her veins. Her body convulsed and she fell to the deck. She tried to scream, but her throat seized up and only a gargle escape.
Her mind surged, her psionic senses reaching outward. It was there, just beyond her grasp.
The Ark is mine!
The Angel’s voice had already grown dim with his fading life signs, but the pressure slammed against her mind like a pulse cannon. A presence coiled through her sinuses and wrapped itself around her brain. Her vision faded as the Angel assaulted her. Flares of pain shot through her nervous system. The Angel had connected their minds powerfully, and he was pulling her down into oblivion with him.
But if he could do, so could she. Rachel reached out, sending a pulse of rage at the Angel. Muriel had ordered the destruction of New Rome. He had taken her home. Her family. Her world.
Burn, you bastard!
The pressure against her mind recoiled and the Angel’s thoughts seeped away into darkness.
Rachel touched the Ark. It was hers, once again.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE
The weight of human destiny presses in on me. The voice of Hell echoes through my mind.
Rachel rubbed the implant at her neck. Raziel had told her to remove it as soon as the ship was hers. She knew she should. She could feel the Adversary edging ever closer to her. Its voice was a whisper at the back of her mind, offering her every dream she could imagine. Every answer she had so long been denied.
And that was the thing—there was no hope of further answers from Raziel. The Angel had been wounded so badly, she wasn’t certain he would survive, even in cryo sleep. Knight and the other Sentinels had begun the process of bringing the Angels to the cryo chamber while weeding out the last of the Redeemers and Gogmagog.
And if she took the implant out she would never know the truth.
Oh, she knew better than to give in to the Adversary. But this implant allowed her to make sense of the Ark. To bond with its consciousness in a way she had never quite managed on her own. Maybe that was always the temptation the Angels faced. Just a little more knowledge. Just a little more power.
She sat in the command chair and delved deep into the ship’s mind. She would remove the implant. Soon.
No. We can help you.
She shook her head against the Adversary’s voice. Images of Hell—for that was what she had seen in the Conduit breach—filled her mind. Threatened her with the price of disobedience.
She tried to focus on the ship. “Show me. Show me everything.” It was time she had the truth. Then she’d rip out this cursed thing. But she had to know.
And the Ark understood. With the implant, at long last she was able to sort its stream of consciousness, to make sense of it. To tell it what she really wanted.
In her mind she fell, spiraling backward through centuries and millennia. And it showed her the Conduit. Not the mere maze of paths she now knew, but a vast highway connecting all universes. It stretched through the multiverse like the mind of God. And humans lived in so many of those universes.
A thousand Edens grew and rose and fell before her eyes. Mankind flourished in some universes, building great civilizations. In others, humanity gave in to its own dark nature and destroyed itself. In her universe, though, time had moved on a different scale from some of the others. Eden—the Earth—was only just being formed.
While across the veil, humans in a universe with faster time had evolved beyond their humble origins. They had spread across the universe and found it dying. Suns winked out one by one. God help her, she was witnessing the heat death of an entire universe. And a people, an advanced society, facing its own extinction, as all creation ended around them.
They had become a post-human evolution of humanity, but it was not enough. Before her eyes they altered their own genetic code, implanted cybernetics into themselves. Made themselves Angels.
And they mapped the Conduit.
The Ark showed her the memory of Angels. It had bonded with their minds, as it bonded with hers. It was seeing … Raziel’s memories? Its creator? Had her unlikely ally once built this very ship? And she’d never even suspected.
And Raziel was afraid. They were all afraid. In desperation, they fled their dying universe. And they found mankind in many others. Centuries passed, and she watched the Angels manipulate humans in younger universes, casting themselves as gods. Altering the course of human society and evolution. Why?
“Because,” someone said to Raziel, “we cannot allow them to become like us. We cannot allow them to follow our course and become a threat.”
And they found the perfect universe. A young universe, where humans had not yet arisen. A universe that would last for billions of years more. Rachel’s universe.
“A bastion, a focal point for our new multiversal empire.”
Angels came through the Conduit en masse, planning to make this universe their own. Thousands of ships erupted forward and began terraforming worlds. Including the Earth. Making sure it became the way they remembered it. They pressed ever outward.
Until they found the Lotan. Never, in any universe they had found, had the Angels encountered creatures of dark matter. Raziel’s confusion filtered through the Ark. His fear and doubt and curiosity. His concern, when his superiors demanded the Lotan submit to Angel rule. His rage and grief as war erupted, and Lotan began to tear Angel ships apart.
And so, in their desperate arrogance, their most brilliant scientists began experiments. Using the Conduit, they created a living universe to fight the Lotan. They created a breach in the universe to reach their new weapon … the Great Attractor. And it did fight the Lotan … before turning on its own creators, no more pleased to be mastered than the Lotan themselves.
They called the new universe the Adversary, for it turned them against themselves. Grief and pain threatened to drown her. Through the Ark’s eyes she saw her brothers and sisters fall, taken by the Beast. In the end, the Angels fought a cataclysmic war that destroyed a galaxy. And they erected seven seals to bar the way to any other universe, Hell included. It was their last, most desperate gambit. They cut themselves off from any of their own kind stranded in other universes.
Raziel wept for those he had known, people he would never see again. And for the countless losses they had suffered in the war.
They betrayed us. The Adversary’s voice pounded against the inside of her temples. They tried to dominate us, just as they did to you.
“You saw us as nothing but hosts for the Beast!”
/> We saw you as like them. We did not understand you were different. As we are different.
“You tried to exterminate us!”
That fate can yet be avoided. Submit.
Rachel grabbed the implant and shrieked. She tugged at its release, but the twisted thing wouldn’t give way. She ground her fingernail into the button, and at last it snapped free. Tendrils of current raced through her neck. She convulsed and fell to floor.
Then everything went dark.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-TWO
July 20th
I have the Ark, but I fear it will not be enough. Tens of billions may be dead. Billions more will fall if I cannot stop the Adversary.
A thousand Asheran ships descended on Rachel’s fleet. The Fornax Dwarf Galaxy had become the battleground for the Local Group. If she fell here, she wouldn’t have enough ships to stop the Adversary when they came for the Milky Way. The Sculptor Dwarf would likely be next, of course—and refugees fled that galaxy by the billions, flooding into the Milky Way. Believing the NER could save them from Armageddon.
But there was nowhere to hide.
She rubbed the spot on her neck where the implant had been. Nanobot regenerators had healed the outward damage, but it still itched. And her dreams were constant reminders of the price of knowledge. Hell no longer spoke in her mind, but she could hardly forget the visions it had given her. The promises of torment, should she resist. As she did now.
From the Ark’s command chair she reached into the holo display and triggered communications, then sent a hail to the Sephirot. “Phoebe. Take your fleet to port and focus on the leviathans. I’ll handle the starboard side.”