Eaters of the Light

by J. Edward Neill

  And I ignited the Sabre’s quantum engines to the tune of three-hundred million kilometers per minute.

  I never saw the Hermes fleet. The stars beyond the cockpit window, few in number and impossibly far away, faded to black as the Sabre carved its way through the void.

  I’d never done anything so rash in my life.

  What’s gotten into me? I wondered.

  This isn’t the plan.

  But I knew. I’d glimpsed the Strigoi planet floating in the dead space before my console. And I knew.

  Somehow, someway, our enemy was aware of us.

  I had only a few minutes before reaching B-7 Black. I used the time to prep the Sabre’s weapons systems, which the Ring had fully replenished. My fingers slashed across the Sabre’s console, keying through commands at a rate only centuries of practice would allow.

  The screen read:

  Light lances – 100% charged

  Solar bombs – 72 in inventory

  Light beacons – 980 in inventory

  Standard String Reprogrammers – 25 in inventory - current molecular setting: glass

  Star-Makers – 2 in inventory

  I wished for a co-pilot to help me manage whatever fight lay ahead, but Strope was already a half-billion kilometers behind me.

  And my last pilot – the one who’d helped during the invasion of XV Prime – had become an old man a hundred years ago.

  The only person I wanted to sit beside me – Joff.

  “Tell me I’m doing the right thing,” I said aloud. “Tell me my instincts are right.”

  No one answered.

  I glanced at the console one last time. I had only two more minutes. In hopes of confusing the Strigoi, I’d programmed my trajectory to pass B-7 Black by a hundred-million kilometers, and then approach from the opposite direction the Hermes fleet had planned.

  This could be the end, I knew.

  If they destroy me...if they find the Ring…I’ll have no bodies left.

  I’ll float in the darkness forever…a little bundle of sad blue light.

  The Sabre’s engines slowed.

  Grave B-7 Black consumed all sights beyond the cockpit window.

  Sunless, black, and lit only by the fell radiance glimmering from within its towers, the giant planet hung in the void like an ornamental tomb. B-7 looked easily ten times Hermes’ size, no doubt bigger than any Strigoi-occupied planet I’d ever seen.

  No moons, I realized.

  But thousands of satellites.

  Doesn’t matter.

  I’ll attack it directly.

  I cut the quantum engines and ignited the Sabre’s standard propulsion systems. I worried – much like Hermes’ defensive cubes – Grave B-7’s satellites might be programmed to annihilate anything approaching at quantum velocities.

  At ten-thousand kilometers per minute, I descended toward the dark planet. My heart pounded inside me. I’d destroyed so many Strigoi worlds before, and yet this one felt different.

  Have to kill it before they attack the Hermes fleet.

  Have to hurry.

  Beneath me, Strigoi ships erupted into the permanent night. I saw nothing through the cockpit window, but glimpsed their blacker-than-black wings on the Sabre’s vid-screens. They looked like scythes, smaller, sharper, and uglier than my ship, but just as deadly.

  I leveled off the Sabre at two-thousand kilometers above Grave B-7’s surface. With a flurry of commands, I released five-hundred light beacons into the atmosphere.

  I’d done the same above XV Prime.

  I hoped it’d work again.

  Beneath me, scattered ropes of black radiance tore through the darkness. The Strigoi death-beams chewed holes in the night, but I knew how to evade them. I didn’t make the Sabre twist or dance, but simply changed her speed in short bursts.

  To survive, I did many things simultaneously.

  I avoided death-beams by the hundred.

  I lanced the darkness with sharp lines of the Sabre’s light cannons.

  I detonated the light beacons in a wide spread beneath me, clearing a path through the Strigoi satellite web.

  And between flashes of my fingertips, I programmed one of the Sabre’s star-makers.

  This planet’s big enough, I was sure.

  If I hit it right, it’ll go stellar.

  And wipe them all out.

  I felt the sweat on my forehead.

  I tore the Gamma Suit’s arm-cannon off—I needed my right hand to program my attack faster.

  Without slowing, I bent the ship’s trajectory lower into Grave B-7’s orbit. Death-beams chased me down toward the endless black towers. I saw several Strigoi spires crack and disintegrate, their tops annihilated by the beams missing me. Scythe ships chased me through the smoke. Their weapons singed the Sabre’s top and underbelly, but never once caught me directly.

  My hands couldn’t stop moving. Flashes of white light washed over the Sabre’s vid-screens. The beacons I’d released spread their radiance far across B-7 Black’s horizon. The light, almost stellar in nature, devoured many of the Strigoi ships behind me.

  Like vampires, I remembered a story Joff had once told me.

  Killed by the light.

  Lower and lower I flew. I twisted between the dark towers, carving a path with the Sabre’s light lances. The sharp white beams melted away every Strigoi structure in my path, cutting black bone and dark, nameless metal as if it were fire burning through paper.

  I saw them on the planet’s surface.

  Sprinting through the shadows, streaming from their towers like ants, they climbed atop black artillery and fired hellish weapons at me. On one vid-screen, I saw their eyes massing in the gloom. They looked no different than the creatures I’d slain on XV Prime.

  Black skulls smiling.

  Dead hearts pumping behind dark bone cages.

  Four white eyes blazing.

  Half-machine. Half skeletal corpse.

  Soulless and unafraid.

  “You should be afraid,” I whispered.

  I released ten String-Reprogrammers from the Sabre’s underbelly. The long, narrow missiles made silver streaks as they cut through the darkness beneath me.

  Anything they touched, any material at all – they’d turn to glass.

  Strigoi death-beams cut three of the S.R.’s out of the sky before impact. The other seven hit the dead city in places I couldn’t see. I didn’t have to watch to know what happened. The black bone dwellings and cold, corrupted machinery was already doomed. The chain-reaction turned entire towers to pale glass, whose thunderous weight collapsed and shattered in a storm no one could hear.

  No atmosphere.

  No air.

  No sound.

  With the armies beneath me turned to clouds of glass powder, I slowed the Sabre and dipped even lower. Scattered death-beams erupted from the oceans of glass beneath me. Some of the Strigoi had evaded the S.R.’s chain-reactions, and were still trying to end me.

  I didn’t bother lancing them.

  I threaded the Sabre through a last flurry of death-beams and dove down into the ravine I’d seen from orbit. In the deep black abyss, no Strigoi weapons awaited. They hadn’t expected me to fly so low.

  Strange, I thought.

  No more ships chasing me.

  Thought I’d be dead by now.

  Sweating, aching, my every muscle taut, I flicked a floating button above the console.

  I didn’t hesitate.

  I’d done it hundreds of times.

  With one quick motion, I released a lone star-maker into the ravine. In a flash of silver, it plummeted into a place no Strigoi weapon could reach.

  I jerked the Sabre’s control stick and reversed the ship’s momentum. An instant before scraping the ravine’s black stone sides, I spun the Sabre around and roared back to the surface.

  Ten seconds, I thought.

  And then it’s done.

  Time closed in around me.

  If I don’t speed up, the new star will
consume me.

  But if the Strigoi satellites catch me at quantum speeds, I’m dead.

  I had to hope.

  I flicked two floating switches.

  I closed my eyes.

  And ten seconds later, the Sabre halted in deep space, fifty-million kilometers from B-7 Black.

  I let myself breathe. With a pull on the control stick, I swung the ship around.

  And there, in the place B-7 Black had once floated, an infant star blazed. Her light was liquid gold, and utterly overwhelming. If not for the Gamma Suit’s shaded helm, I’d have burned my eyes away with a glance.

  It’s beautiful, I thought.

  I stared for a short while. B-7 wasn’t black any longer, but glorious in her rebirth as a tiny star. Nothing of the Strigoi remained. The light consumed every tower, every satellite, and every speck of black Strigoi material within millions of kilometers.

  I might’ve wept at the new sun’s glory, but within moments my joy collapsed into shadow.

  A new star, but with nothing to shine upon.

  No planets. No life.

  Nothing.

  I spun the Sabre around once more.

  The Hermes fleet hadn’t arrived.

  I considered what might await me when I returned.

  And I knew I was afraid.

  Forty-Nine

  I lifted the Gamma Suit’s helm up and off my shoulders.

  And I stood at the Sabre’s cockpit window, gazing into the void.

  Out in the darkness, I spied a cloud of floating black dust. The blob of ash, sinew, and bone fragments could only mean one thing:

  Strigoi ship…destroyed by light weapons.

  I looked and saw many such clouds.

  The battle must’ve been a terrible thing.

  I retreated to the cockpit chair and sank into the hard, crackly leather. With a single button press, the Sabre’s vid-screens came alive with remnants of the battle that’d ended only moments before my return.

  Three of the Hermes Ring, dissected into thousands of metal shards, hung dead in the void. Only skeletons remained of the once mighty ships. Most of their pods had been burned away to nothing.

  And I saw worse.

  Bodies floated in the darkness. Half-frozen, their mouths wide with horror, most of Strope’s pilots hadn’t even put on their spacesuits.

  Probably assumed they had more time, I thought.

  Never expected the Strigoi here.

  I gazed long into the dark. Storage crates, tattered pieces of Ring pods, and cold, lifeless corpses drifted against the backdrop of silent stars. Left unclaimed, the wreckage seemed doomed to float through space until the end of time.

  Ring One, the largest of the Hermes fleet, drifted into my view. Two of its thirty-six pods had been incinerated by Strigoi death-beams, but the rest remained intact. I saw the shattered remnants of a dozen Xiphos warships spinning slowly away from the great Ring. Their silver hulls had turned black from Strigoi weapons, and their slender wings had melted. The Xiphos ships had looked like elegant swords before I’d left, but now were nothing more than coffins left open to the deep, airless cold.

  I heard voices crackle on the Sabre’s console.

  Some said my name. Others were in a panic.

  I ignored them all.

  I closed my eyes and pieced together what had happened:

  The Strigoi attacked. Fifty scythe ships. Maybe more.

  Some of our fleet was ready. Strope...he must’ve warned them.

  I see remnants of light missiles.

  And several Strigoi ships carved to pieces by light lances.

  The Hermes ships drove the Strigoi away.

  But…

  Three Rings are destroyed.

  And two others damaged.

  Hundreds are dead.

  Where’s my Ring?

  Where’s Strope?

  I knelt beside the console. The voices flowing into the receiver sounded weak, the Rings’ signals fractured by damage they’d suffered during the battle.

  “Callista here,” I said into the com. “Primary objective complete. Grave B-7 Black destroyed.”

  More voices.

  I caught only partial words in the scramble.

  “…destroyed?”

  “…Vark counterattack…”

  “…seven ships in pursuit…”

  “…ipha’s daughter…”

  “…Sabre…dock with Ring One.”

  “Is the Vark threat neutralized?” I asked. I didn’t want to dock with a Ring only to be caught strolling through its pods when another wave of Strigoi ships attacked.

  “Negative,” a woman replied. “Seven Xiphos ships in pursuit. Outcome unknown.”

  “Where is my Ring?” I said.

  “Also unknown,” she answered.

  I knew the voice.

  Kira. Big Woman.

  I pulled the Gamma Suit’s breastplate and left-arm pieces off my body. Despite the Gamma’s interior cooling, I’d sweat right through my flight suit. The black, sticky material clung to my skin in a dozen places.

  I might’ve been a thousand years old, but I wasn’t immune to fear.

  “I’ll wait to dock,” I said into the com. “If the Vark return, you’ll need me.”

  More voices.

  More confusion.

  I tuned it out and spun the Sabre into a defensive position a few kilometers away from the largest Ring. Ring One’s damage wasn’t fatal, I knew. Its airlocks had sealed off its two annihilated pods. Most of its crew had survived.

  Whether it could endure a long journey through space was another matter.

  I almost felt bad for the dead. But I’d seen so much – I’d no grief left to give.

  In the cockpit chair, I closed my eyes. I heard Kira call my name over the com, and then a man’s voice wash over hers. I couldn’t make out everything he said, but I recognized the sound of him.

  Captain Mahtim.

  He’s angry.

  For time unknown, I meditated in the chair. The four surviving Hermes Rings gathered in defensive positions behind me. Fourteen Xiphos warships, most with depleted weapons, lined up above and beneath the gathered Rings.

  My Ring was nowhere to be seen.

  No one knew where Strope had gone.

  We all waited.

  For Strope.

  For the warships.

  For the Strigoi to return and wipe us out.

  I heard the chatter over the com, the small arguments, the sharp commands. They doubted the destruction of B-7 Black. They choked back tears for the hundreds of lives lost. They called for me to explain.

  I said nothing.

  The moment arrived sooner than I expected.

  Two Xiphos ships, both with wings scorched by death-beams, cut their quantum engines a few thousand kilometers beneath our position. Like ghosts, they materialized as if from nowhere.

  I opened my eyes long enough to see the friendly white pings on the console’s map. The Sabre’s vid-screens zoomed in on each of the new arrivals.

  Seven ships in pursuit, Kira said.

  Only two returned.

  I listened to the voices rattle across the com.

  “Xipho Three and Eleven returned,” said a breathless pilot.

  “Status of the others?” asked Kira.

  “Lost.”

  “Status of the Vark?”

  “Destroyed.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them.”

  “Impossible.” Captain Mahtim cut in. His rasps grated on my ears. “Their engines are more powerful. They could’ve easily—”

  “Pardon, Captain,” a young woman interrupted—her voice sounded somehow familiar. “When the Vark detected us, they assumed we were fleeing. They…talked to us…said they would track us home and destroy our world. I talked back. I goaded them. They decided to fight. We killed them all.”

  Captain Mahtim sounded disgusted, though by what I couldn’t tell.

  “What about the objective, Sir?
” the young woman asked. “What about B-7 Black?”

  Captain Mahtim spoke directly to me.

  “Lightbringer,” he snapped. “Dock with Ring One immediately. Bring Xipho Three and Eleven with you.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Leaving the Sabre felt like an awful risk.

  But I needed answers.

  * * *

  In a cold corridor just inside Ring One’s airlock, I stood in my fresh black flight-suit. I’d left the Gamma Suit aboard the Sabre, piled in a heap on the floor. I felt exhausted, both from the aftereffects of hypo-sleep and the toll of my extreme concentration during the destruction of B-7 Black.

  I was a mess.

  I felt no exultation for my small victory.

  No one had ever told me the extent of the Strigoi infestation of Andromeda. But I’d sensed the people’s desperation the moment I’d landed on Hermes.

  One planet destroyed – but little closer to victory.

  A pod door opened, and Kira stepped through. I saw her face and I knew her hatred for me had subsided.

  She knows B-7 is destroyed.

  She understands now.

  “Come,” she said.

  And so I did.

  We swept through six of Ring One’s pods. The Hermes vessel looked far different from my own. Banks of computers, weapons caches, and sealed bunks lined the walls. I’d grown accustomed to the great wide windows of my Ring, but the Hermes ship had only a few narrow panes, beyond which the stars crawled across the eternal Andromeda midnight.

  As I walked through the white pods with their pallid blue lights, the ship’s crew watched me. I felt the same as I had on the streets of Sumer just before meeting Hephast.

  Everyone sees me.

  But it’s different here.

  They think I have answers.

  I have none.

  We arrived in the ship’s command pod. Darker than the others, its consoles looked eerie in the shadows. Hazy blue light leaked from each computer into the cold, dry air. I counted twenty attendants watching over twenty different consoles, all of whom stopped and faced me when I arrived.

  “It’s Lightbringer, Sir. As requested,” Kira announced.

  Captain Mahtim emerged from the pod’s far end. He was taller than I’d guessed, and older, too. With his sunken eyes and thin grey hair, he resembled the occupants of Sumer’s Congressional Court. He looked severe, angry, and artificial.