The Phoenix Darkness

by Richard L. Sanders

  “Because,” said Pellew. “I sure as hell wasn’t about to let you take my missile.”

  The intruder nodded. Then, for no logical reason whatsoever, he tossed his railgun far behind him—disarming himself. Pellew didn’t know if that was meant as a gesture of peace, or a display of superiority—like a bet that he could still defeat Pellew, on even terms, without any weapons at all.

  Big mistake, thought Pellew, he charged, wanting to have the element of surprise, and dove as he reached the intruder, ready to tackle him with all his momentum.

  ***

  Blackmoth found the human soldier amusing. There was something in him, his tenacity, his desire to fight, that sparked a memory inside Blackmoth’s own mind. A memory of a time long ago, before he’d seen the light.

  I was little more than you, once, he thought as he caught the soldier with his hands, blocking his tackle with ease. He threw the soldier into the bulkhead, where he crashed and collapsed to the floor. Blackmoth looked down at him and waited, wanting to see what the human soldier would try next.

  As he’d expected, the human soldier got back to his feet, despite the pain he was in, and charged at Blackmoth once more. Except, instead of trying to tackle him, this time he threw a punch, followed by several quick jabs. It was an unimpressive, even banal form of mixed martial-arts soldiers learned and Blackmoth had mastered as a child. He easily deflected the incoming blows. Block after block he watched the human soldier struggle to connect with him, clearly frustrated by Blackmoth’s superior hand-to-hand skill and, no doubt, surprised by Blackmoth’s restraint.

  “Tell me, soldier,” said Blackmoth as he ducked a fast jab then blocked a second. “Are you the leader of that army of the damned back there?” he pointed his thumb over his shoulder to where crumpled heaps of corpses lay in piles.

  “Army of the damned?” the soldier sounded confused. He kept his attention on trying to best Blackmoth and darted close, managing to get something of a grip on Blackmoth’s arm and wrist, trying valiantly to grapple him down to the ground and pin him. The soldier even managed to jam his knee into the back of Blackmoth’s leg.

  Had he been a normal man, he likely would have gone down with such an attack. But for Blackmoth, this was mere child’s play. In a blur, he rebuffed the soldier’s efforts and sent him to the ground, sliding along the floor.

  “The men you sent against me, did you intend to send them to the slaughter?” asked Blackmoth. “Because I have delivered them to the void.”

  “Those were my men, you heartless bastard,” the soldier said, regaining his feet.

  “Their blood is on your hands, soldier,” said Blackmoth. “The responsibility always lies with the commander.”

  This had the effect Blackmoth expected and put the soldier into a heated state of rage. When he charged Blackmoth this time, his fists we’re practically flailing, his legs kicking, and he did all he could to land a blow, just one blow, desperate to rip Blackmoth apart limb from limb.

  Blackmoth easily sidestepped the attacks, blocked the blows, and held the soldier at bay. For all his athleticism and practiced hand-to-hand combat, this soldier was little more than a speck before the sword of The One True God. Dealing with him was like dealing with a child still bound to the cradle.

  “Are you afraid?” asked Blackmoth, when the soldier’s flurry of blows stopped and he bent down to catch his breath, hands on his knees.

  “Afraid of what?” To his credit, the soldier made a respectable effort to sound strong, to sound intimidating. As if he still had some power here, or any hope.

  “Afraid of the void,” said Blackmoth. He noticed the soldier’s eyes subtly take interest in something behind Blackmoth and then hurriedly glanced away, as if he pretending he hadn’t noted the railgun on the ground, several meters away. But Blackmoth knew the soldier would make a play for the railgun. He’d always known it.

  The soldier charged him one more time, exchanging two more blows, which Blackmoth blocked with ease, but it was a feint, an obvious one, and the soldier spun around, ready to sprint for the railgun. Only this time, Blackmoth wasn’t quite so gentle. He caught the man by the back of his arm and wrapped his free hand around the soldier’s throat, stopping him in his tracks.

  “You never answered my question,” said Blackmoth, sensing the evil within the soldier as he held him. This one should have been given to the void long ago…No wonder the galaxy is in such dire need of purification.

  “I’m not afraid of you or anything else,” said the soldier, resiliently.

  “Not even the void?”

  “Especially not the void,” the soldier swung his head backward, crashing his helmet against Blackmoth’s and then, while kicking Blackmoth in the shin with his heavy metal boot, he desperately tried to break free. It was no use.

  Blackmoth ignored the pain in his leg. It was irrelevant, as was the life of this pathetic creature here before him. As were the lives of the many billions of such creatures which had populated and polluted the One True God’s beautiful galaxy.

  He released the soldier’s arm, but still held him by the throat. The soldier twisted, trying to take advantage of his now free arm, readying to strike Blackmoth as hard as he could. But Blackmoth struck first, slamming his fist directly into the soldier’s helmet with full force, cracking it open. Shards of transparent metals sliced into the soldier’s face, like shrapnel, and he let out a scream of terror, but to Blackmoth, it was silent.

  With both hands, Blackmoth picked up the soldier and heaved him, tossing him to the ground where he rolled to a stop right next to the breach in the Nighthawk’s hull. He lay there, broken and beaten, but still trying to fight. He struggled to get up, unsuccessfully, and swore at Blackmoth with every colorful word he knew.

  Blackmoth ignored him and went to the cockpit of Hunter Four. He pressed a button and, with a snap followed by a loud bang, withdrew the seal that had been acting as a patch over the large breach in the Nighthawk’s hull.

  What atmosphere there had been vanished, blowing rapidly out into space and taking the soldier along with it. He spun as the air took him; in a blink he spiraled past the windows of Hunter Four and disappeared into the darkness.

  “And now one more has been given to the void,” said Blackmoth. “Two-thousand three-hundred and seventy-one.” He thought of all those he’d slain here today and combined the number with the many lives he’d already taken. So many sacrifices in the name of The One True God, a name he was unworthy to speak, and yet that number was nothing before such a tremendous intelligence as The One True God. He demanded far more. The galaxy itself must be baptized with blood. “And so it will,” said Blackmoth. “And so it will.” He looked out the window into the blackness, seeing only a few stars; not many were bright enough to be seen over Hunter Four’s docking lights. He stared at those stars, imagining them winking out one after another as the One True God’s fury became known.

  “Fodder for the storm,” he said. Then he closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for his sins and those of the soldiers he’d just slain. Not for forgiveness of sins; neither their sins nor Blackmoth’s could be forgiven. Merely a prayer of acknowledgement, of humility, of submission to that great power which stood, greater than all others, with a maw the size of infinity, that power who commands the void, a vast pit without end. Neither could be sated. Neither could be filled.

  “My brothers,” he said, still staring at the darkness and thinking of the dead soldiers. “In His name—a name no mortal has worth enough to speak, may you find absolution in the never-ending void. And know that, as this universe passes away, we shall meet again. So says I, the Harbinger of Darkness.”

  That last soldier had been something foul. Hubris clothed in the flesh of a man no stronger than the others, no more talented, no more able to resist the Will of the One True God. And now he was no different than any of the others, another lost in the void clenched by the fist of death from which there is no escape. Blackmoth’s only regret with that man
was that he had only suffered ten seconds before losing consciousness. “I should have made you bleed,” said Blackmoth. “I should have taken from you one drop at a time until you were all out. You should have been my hourglass, a timepiece of blood, counting down the hours and seconds until the fourth destruction. Until the dawn of the darkness…”

  Blackmoth fell silent for a moment as he recalibrated the extractor and turned it back on. It warmed to life, turning and coiling once more.

  “Two-thousand three-hundred and seventy-one,” he repeated.

  The loss of atmosphere had returned the Nighthawk’s deck to its proper state of null gravity, allowing the missile to float once more as the retractor slowly reeled it in.

  When the missile arrived, he gently secured it, then sealed the cockpit and detached Hunter Four from the Nighthawk.

  Soon after, he plunged into the depths of alteredspace. The time is coming, he thought, feeling the electricity of anticipation flowing through all of his veins. And when the moment is ripe, all shall tremble before the might of The One True God. Five destructions there shall be. I am the fourth.

  ***

  Shen didn’t know what the hell was happening. First he’d been trapped inside the observation deck. Then, after miraculously forcing the doors apart, he’d found himself on deck without gravity or atmosphere where he’d clung in terror to a ceiling fixture for the better part of five minutes before he could get himself to move.

  During that time, he saw an intruder guiding some sort of missile on a chain, a missile that looked suspiciously like ones he, Pellew, and Calvin had destroyed on Remus Nine. But that made no sense; there was no isotome missile aboard the Nighthawk! Then again, the stranger himself had made no sense. A man’s face inside that helmet, Shen had seen it clearly, nothing special about him except he’d pointed a railgun at Shen and, just when Shen believed fate had chosen to write the ending to his story for him, the man lowered the gun as if in an act of mercy and proceeded onward.

  What happened after that, Shen had no idea. Even with his improved hearing he couldn’t hear sound in a vacuum. But by the looks of it, there'd been a fight…a bad one, more like a massacre.

  He lost count of the number of corpses he ran into as he glided, pushing himself from wall to wall. He constantly was bumping into one dead soldier or another and swimming through clouds of blood droplets and other gore he didn’t even want to try and identify.

  So much death…so much carnage…

  For a minute there, the gravity, atmosphere, and lights had returned. And Shen used that chance to spring for the hatch, thinking all had been restored. He was eager to get to the Bridge to find out just what the hell had happened. And then, as instantly as it had returned, the atmosphere blew out of the ship again, bullying him over and sending him floating into a bulkhead, the artificial gravity a thing of the past.

  Back to this, he thought. And he kicked off the bulkhead and toward the nearest wall in a series of maneuvers, which slowly but surely were getting him to that hatch.

  How he remained conscious in these conditions was a mystery he didn’t know the answer to. It was deathly cold, his legs and arms had swelled up like balloons, and he couldn’t breathe. He needed to breathe; his body kept trying to breathe. But there was no air, not even nitrogen, to take into his lungs.

  I should be dead, he kept thinking over and over, but somehow he wasn’t. He even managed to make it to the hatch. He pressed the control to open it.

  Nothing.

  He pulled the emergency lever.

  Still nothing.

  Damn, I have not come this far to die here! He gritted his teeth and tried to bang on the hatch, to force it like he had the observation deck doors, but it was no use. He lacked the strength now, and there was nothing to prop himself up against in the null gravity. The harder he pushed on the hatch, the farther away it sent him, hovering downward.

  Nevertheless, determined, he pushed himself off the floor and hovered back up to the hatch, hell bent on finding some way to reach the other side. For, although his body had proven incredibly, even miraculously, resistant to the deathly effects of vacuum exposure so far, he could feel himself getting weaker, sicker, and knew if he didn’t get back into an atmosphere soon he would die. Whether he had seconds or minutes left, he wasn’t sure.

  Chapter 12

  “Proxitor Ol’ixe, again you seek audience with me. What favor is it you wish of the Nau this time? Do you wish to be rewarded for bringing us these human spies, or is there some other matter troubling?”

  Alex wasn’t quite sure what to say. He even found himself surprised to be standing here, in the Nau’s own quarters, having disturbed him from his sleep. This was not the right time, he thought. But as he’d tried to walk to his own quarters to catch some sleep, he’d walked through the extraction corridor. The rooms themselves were closed, but none was so perfectly sealed that it trapped all the noise. The screams and cries of his human companions had disturbed him with each and every step. And, although he’d tried to reassure himself that by saving their lives he owed them nothing, he still felt a miserable, sour-like ball of emotion weighing him down in the pit of his stomach.

  Guilt was the word the humans used. The Rotham had no proper word to describe it. Rather they characterized the feeling as a symptom of illness rather than the conditioned response to a betrayal of one’s community. But they’re not my community, he’d tried to insist to himself. They are humans, I am Rotham. I was their prisoner!

  Still, here he was, ready to advocate on behalf of the humans once again. A gesture which would likely prove fruitless and only serve to weaken him in the eyes of the Nau. This particular Nau was a high-ranking Advent commander and no doubt already looked down upon Alex for his past failures, including his capture by the Rahajiim. Persuading him will not be easy, he thought.

  “Yes, Great Nau, I am here again. Please forgive my intrusion at this sleepiest hour.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” said the Nau, indicating he was in an agreeable mood, though they both knew there had been something to forgive. An interruption such as this was certainly unconventional and, even under best circumstances, disrespectful.

  “Still, you have my most humble apologies all the same,” Alex bowed his head.

  “Then I accept them. Now, tell me, what business has brought you here? Or is it pleasure you seek?” It was no secret among the members of Advent that Alex was one of the few who preferred the company of other Rotham males. The Nau too was one, but that wasn't what had brought him here.

  “I've come to ask for the extractions to desist,” said Alex, deciding to go for the straightforward approach. “I believe all useful intelligence has been extracted and, should there be any gaps, I believe my own knowledge can fill them.”

  The Nau folded his arms but, rather than looking upset, he seemed amused. “So, the long lost Proxitor has developed affections for the humans. Tell me, which one is it? Certainly it can’t be the Polarian. Or can it?” He looked intrigued. Cross-species romances were very uncommon, considered a taboo almost universally, although only technically illegal in the Polarian states, however this was not the direction Alex had hoped to go with this conversation. “Tell me, Proxitor, which of them has captured your affection?”

  “All of them, sir.”

  The Nau’s eyes widened so much they threatened to burst apart. “ALL of them? So then my ship’s capture of yours must have spoiled quite the party!”

  “No, Great Nau, you misunderstand me. I only meant that—”

  “Come now, Proxitor, have you lost your sense of humor? I jest with you. Of course I know what you mean. You’ve been with the humans long enough to become soft. To develop some of their…empathy, yes, that is the word. And so, as you know they suffer, a part of you suffers with them. Isn’t that right?”

  “Why, yes,” said Alex. Surprised to hear his feelings so well described when he himself could not find the words for them.

  “You needn’t
worry; the sickness will pass in time,” said Nau T’orrna. “Soon you will recall those creatures in there are not people like you and me; they are cretins.”

  “Cretins?”

  “Why, yes! Did you know the human females can produce offspring for nearly forty years! And that the humans practice breeding well into their old age? And you thought your proclivities were a matter of discomfiture! And let’s not forget the Polarian; he’s a tribal warrior from a race of brutes and barbarians. A culture trapped like a relic in time, frozen with one foot in the present building starships and exploring the galaxy, and the other foot trapped in the Bronze Age, paralyzed by myth and superstition, belief in gods and bogeymen and magic. And let’s not forget where their hands are!”

  “Where are their hands?” asked Alex, not quite sharing the Nau’s enthusiastic species-ism. Of course Alex thought his species the superior one, but so did all the others. That did not necessarily make it so.

  “Why, they’re holding the pike of course,” said Nau T’orrna. “With your head upon it. Remember, these are tribal killers and conquerors. And the humans are little better; they are a perverse and self-absorbed species. Each human spends all his thoughts every day obsessing over his own status and appearance so as to impress the other humans, but they themselves are doing the same thing. And so the whole enterprise is for a hilarious nothing!”

  “The humans are a vain species,” Alex was willing to admit.

  “You see?”

  “But these humans, and this Polarian,” Alex paused, finding it difficult to say the words. “They are different.”

  “Different how?” the joy in the Nau’s voice faded.

  “I don’t know. They seem…self-sacrificing.”

  “Hardly a valuable trait; what else?”

  “They are committed to each other. They express loyalty.”

  “They are tribal, go on.”