“Okay. I’ll cover you.”
“Okay. Be careful.”
He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “You too.”
She gave him a pained half-smile as they entered the airlock leading to the launchers. It took a few seconds for the room to cycle, and then they were airborne, or space-borne to be precise.
The sky was full of flying blobs. Long pseudopods were stretching out from the critters, some of them reaching for her and John. Yikes.
They flew towards the Chung Cheng and the growing Outsider swarm. She poured power into her shields and blasted the pseudopods as she flew. John smashed through one of the monsters, and it exploded into a shower of rapidly-vanishing chunks of gelatinous matter. They could be killed. That was something. But she also felt a burst of sheer agony coming from John at the moment of impact. For him, fighting the critters was going to be like putting out a fire with his bare hands.
She and John sped and fought through the shadow-things and closed in on the Chinese spaceship. It was hovering close to the Outsider gateway, and its shields were down. Christine could sense waves of pure malignancy coming from it, and the sickening presence of Mr. Night.
“I’ve got this,” she told John, and smashed her way through the ship’s hull. A torrent of air escaped through the hole she’d made, along with the flailing forms of several crewmembers. Her heart lurched at the sight, but moments later she realized she couldn’t feel anything coming from those bodies. They were moving, but they weren’t truly alive. Zombies. Why did it have to be zombies? She hated them.
She flew through the ship, smashed her way through interior walls, and through the occasional zombie, and headed toward Mr. Night. This was it, the fight she’d been dreading.
The Freedom Legion
Aboard the FLS Liberty Ship, Jupiter’s Orbit, February 7, 2014
Olivia O’Brien had been mourning quietly in her quarters when the attack began.
After their initial barrage had shown to have no effect on the anomaly, First Fleet had withdrawn to a respectful distance, with the exception of the Chung Cheng and the Liberty Ship. Olivia had been allowed to recuse herself for the time being, and she’d enjoyed a few minutes of privacy. Her tears had run out some time ago, as she struggled to come to terms with her loss. Larry had been trying so hard these past few months; that brief time had been like a second honeymoon, and she’d begun harboring hopes for the future. Yes, their relationship was still stained with distrust, and that wouldn’t go away easily or quickly. She’d forgiven him, but she couldn’t forget. For all that, they had smiled at each other before sallying forth to battle the Genocide, and their last kiss had been intense and fraught with the knowledge it might be their last.
And so it had been.
The sirens tore through her grief, and forced her to set it aside.
Alarms blared as the swarm of shadowy entities flew towards the Liberty Ship. Missiles, railgun rounds and energy weapons reached out to engage the attackers, and flashes of light in the distance marked direct hits and showed brief glimpses of more amoeba-like dark masses heading their way. A full third of the initial swarm had targeted the Neo ship; the rest veered towards First Fleet.
She had never eschewed her duty, no matter what, and this time was no exception. Olivia checked the status screens and heard the frantic orders to redeploy to face the hordes emerging from the anomaly. All space-capable Neos were being directed to form up around their ship, to cover those spots the Liberty’s weaponry couldn’t reach. Olivia rushed towards the launch catapults, and then dutifully waited in line behind the heroes who’d arrived before her. She spotted Dawn Zhang, code name Dawn Windstorm, two places ahead of her in the line. The young Legionnaire was wiping her eyes and trying to compose herself. Olivia knew the woman had been Larry’s last indiscretion. Were those tears for him? A part of Olivia seethed at the possibility: what right did that tramp have to grieve for her man? She quickly dismissed that unworthy thought, however. Things were never simple, and whatever Larry and the young woman had shared had been more than purely sexual. Olivia left Dawn alone and didn’t say a word. A few seconds later, it was her turn, and she was launched into space.
The normally-empty vacuum around the Liberty Ship was blazing with destructive energies. Many of the vessel’s weapon systems were powered by Neolympians with assorted ranged powers, firing from hardpoints designed to channel and enhance their destructive capabilities. As Olivia flew towards her designated spot, she saw the relentless barrage of electrons, photons, telekinetic force, plasma and dozens other energy wavelengths reach out in a dizzying variety of colors. Dozens of the shadow entities burst into flames or broke apart into rapidly dissolving fragments.
Hundreds more followed in their wake.
Olivia cast twenty flaming spears in half as many seconds. Unrestrained by the confines of an atmosphere, the missiles flew at relativistic speeds and unerringly struck the fast-approaching targets. To her dismay, only half of the hits resulted in outright kills; the rest clearly damaged the entities, but they pressed on, and as she launched the twentieth spear, long tentacles of pure blackness reached out toward her. Her shield flared up, consuming the first pseudopod, but the entity’s follow-up attacks pushed through it, drowned out her fires, and struck her.
Unimaginable pain almost paralyzed her. Her protective aura sputtered and died, and she felt the cold kiss of vacuum on her skin. If the tentacle hadn’t been so badly damaged, she would have died right then and there. Instead, the dark tendril dissipated shortly after hitting her. She willed her shield and aura to reform, calling forth more energy from the Source, and just barely managed to burn off the next two tentacle strikes. A desperate burst of unformed plasma dealt with the attacking entity once and for all.
It had taken all she had to deal with one of things at close range. Given the disparity in numbers, they wouldn’t be able to hold off the attacker for very long. She glanced at her HUD and saw a dozen Neos nearby had already fallen; their icons were red and blinking, indicating a cessation of their life signs. Below her, the Liberty Ship was covered by dozens of black spots, like a carcass being beset by devouring ants. Here and there she saw clouds of vapor indicating breaches in the ship’s shields and outer hull.
A moment later, yet another Outsider was upon her, and her world narrowed down to her own personal life and death struggle.
* * *
“Prepare to repel boarders!”
The command was still echoing in Chastity Baal’s ears when her section of the ship was penetrated and exposed to explosive decompression. She and her squad swayed on their feet as air rushed through the opening the shadow monster had created. Fortunately for all concerned, every crewmember, Neo and human, was wearing a sealed suit of battle armor. Chastity’s suit was merely an extra layer of protection. The six members of her squad wore powered armor with integral force fields and heavy weapons. She hoped they would suffice for the task ahead.
The shadow thing was like a bubble of ink surrounded by dozens of limbs that reached out in all directions. “Open fire!” she shouted, and followed suit.
Her personal weapon spat out rapid bursts of charged particles. Next to her, Sergeant Chevalier cursed loudly in his native Haitian patois as he cut loose with a 20mm railgun, and off to his left the heavy weapons specialist went down to one knee and used his plasma cannon as a hose, plying the constant stream of superheated gas over the entity. The energy blasts of the rest of the squad joined in the ensuing conflagration.
The creature withered and died.
A moment later, however, another black tendril punched through the ship’s hull and wrapped itself around Sergeant Chevalier. The soldier had time for a brief scream before his power armor dissolved into a cloud of metal, plastic and flesh. The heavy weapons specialist’s panicked reaction sent his plasma stream into the pseudopod, destroying it but also widening the hull breach. The squad scattered in every direction to avoid be
ing bathed in plasma. The new shadow thing, a much larger version of the one they’d just destroyed, recoiled from the heat and disappeared from sight.
“Cease fire!” Chastity shouted, and the specialist regained his composure and shut down the weapon. “Cover both breaches, and stay away from the exterior hull!”
The squad redeployed just in time for yet another blob of darkness to push its way into the ship. It was met with a storm of fire that tore it apart.
In the quiet that followed the third entity’s destruction, Chastity was able to check on the ship’s status through her comm system. There had been over a dozen breaches, but so far they had all been contained, and the ship’s shields had been brought back online with enough strength to push the creatures away, where they could be engaged by the close-defense systems. She glanced through one of the holes on the hull and saw streams of energy and railgun bursts hitting the tentacled things pushing against the force fields keeping them at bay. Most were destroyed outright, but some lingered for several seconds, surrounded by the coruscating energies of the shields as shadow and light consumed each other. The entities’ mere touch was draining the shields, and as she watched, more of them arrived and struck at the energy barriers keeping them from the ship. Sooner or later they would get through again, this time in numbers the crew wouldn’t withstand.
“Check weapons and reload,” she said unnecessarily; the squad was already working on that.
It was just something to say, to fill the quiet before the end.
* * *
Cassius Jones raged against the dying of the light.
The brief moments he had spent as a captive of the Genocide had almost managed to unhinge his mind. At one point, he’d almost let the Taint inside of him free to do with him as it willed, as long as it allowed him to escape. Luckily, Christine Dark had managed to do what Cassius had not, and destroyed the Genocide. Cassius had barely survived the alien’s death throes, but survive he had. Now he had the rest of his life to figure out what to do next: confide in Christine and hope she could cure him? Flee once more into the vastness of space? He didn’t know.
In any case, the rest of his life was likely to be a matter of a few more minutes.
Unlike the Genocide, these Taint-creatures could not stand against him. He destroyed them by the score, and for a while he vented his rage against the entities and single-handedly kept an entire section of the Liberty Ship free from attackers. Their numbers seemed to be endless, however, and he was being surrounded by more shadow monsters that he could slay.
He didn’t give up, drowning hundreds more in a torrent of radiant golden energy, but his reserves, still recovering from the battle with the Genocide, were beginning to fail. Sooner or later the monsters would batter through his defenses, and he would either die… or join them in the dark.
He prayed he’d have the strength to choose death.
Forward Operating Base Democracy, Asteroid Belt, February 7, 2014
The USSS Ticonderoga became a short-lived star, a rapidly expanding sphere of fire and flying debris. The Star Destroyer had been the Outsider swarm’s first target, no doubt attracted by the vessel’s size and energy signature. Adam Slaughter-Trent watched helplessly while the flagship of First Fleet self-destructed after the alien horde overwhelmed its last defenders and were about to enter the engine compartment. The last words of the Ticonderoga’s chief engineer as he drove all fifty fusion reactors into a critical reaction had been “See you Hell, motherfuckers!”
“Second Fleet has reached optimal firing range and is engaging in support of First Fleet.” That was one bit of good news: Second Fleet tore into the flank of the steady stream of shadow entities and allowed the decimated ships of First Fleet to withdraw and redeploy into a defensive formation, jagged echelons of ships firing in close support of one another. The initial engagement had shown that once the creatures managed to enter a ship in numbers, it was all over unless there were enough Type Two or higher Neos to stem the tide, and most Neos had been out with the Liberty Ship, which was holding out but just barely.
Most, but not all Neos. FOB Democracy held most of the reserve, some seventy Neos Type 1.8 and higher. They would have to do.
“Sancho, my armor,” Adam muttered. He laughed, and his laughter sent shivers down the backs of everyone in the Situation Room. A moment later, the Brass Man armor suit grew over him, transforming him into a metal-clad warrior.
“Pardon, sir?”
“I will lead a sortie with our parahuman reserve forces,” Adam said. “Please take over all command and control functions, Admiral Perez.”
“Yes sir.”
There was no argument. It was clear that the two fleets needed every bit of help they could get. The battle had drifted too far from the Democracy for it to be of any direct help; the base was moving towards the engagement, but its engines weren’t powerful enough to accelerate its mass to a useful speed.
It was time to march toward the sound of the guns.
Nothing he could do would achieve much except to buy some time. He could only hope someone would put that time to good use.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Christine Dark
Aboard the ROCSS Chung Cheng, Jupiter Orbit, February 7, 2014
One would have expected a dramatic pause as hero and arch-villain faced one another on the bridge of the dying ship, followed by a brief monologue, an exchange of taunts and even a teachable moment or two before the final clash of arms, to win or lose it all.
One would have been wrong.
As soon as Christine and Mr. Night spotted each other across the burning bridge of the spaceship Chung Cheng, they went at it hammer and tongs. There really was nothing either of them wanted to say or hear, except maybe a dying gurgle.
Kinetic blasts smashed through shields or were swallowed by Outsider darkness. Christine landed a couple of good shots that sent atomized blood flying from Mark’s body, a sight that hurt her almost as much as it did her target. A moment later, Mr. Night tackled her and used Mark’s fists to pummel her, which hurt even worse. She bit her lips and choked out a scream of pain, and batted him away with an invisible force mallet. As they exchanged blows that turned the inside of the spaceship into a floating junkyard, she reached out to Mark with her mind.
Dreamland, Mr. Night version. A place of grayness, black shadows, desert and ruins. She and Mark faced their nemesis on top of a hill overlooking a dead city. Screams of terror and primal suffering echoed faintly in the distance. Here in Dreamland, Mr. Night looked like his old self, a thin old m
an in a black suit, smiling out of one side of his mouth. He wasn’t wearing his usual sunglasses: his eyes flared with evil intent, and there were things moving behind his solid-black eyeballs
Mark looked like his old faceless self; that was who he was, take it or leave it, and even his time in this hellish dimension hadn’t changed him very much. His soul was tattered and stained by the Outsider stuff, but for the time being it was still his own. And her? Christine had expected to show up in her Snipe persona, but this time she looked downright normal; no superhero costume, no gaming character outfit, just her, wearing jeans and a shirt, much like she would on her way to class, back when she’d been on Earth Prime. She was going to win or lose this as herself, not what other people wanted her to be, or the fake shells she’d used to hide who she was. She felt the power welling up inside of her, and she accepted it. That power wasn’t something she’d wanted or asked for, but she had it; her choices were limited to what she would do with it.
And the one thing she wanted most was to kick this rat bastard’s ass.
The fight started almost like a dance, everybody moving with incredible speed and grace. Mark charged Mr. Night while Christine tried to skewer him with her patented psychokinetic spikes. The object of their affection pirouetted nimbly and dodged their attacks. He stayed on the defensive for several seconds, avoiding their deadly strikes with seemingly effortless ease. Was he toying with them?
Waves of black energy poured out of him. When they touched Mark, he screamed in pain, and she felt the darkness inside of him grow stronger. She used her shields to protect herself, and had to channel all her energy into them to prevent the Outsider stuff from burning its way through and touching her.
New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance Page 35