Precipice

by David Mack

  Before he finished his gentle protest, T’Prynn was over the dune and running faster than any biped Pennington had ever seen.

  Bugger, he fumed, and then took aim at the half-dozen Klingons still standing on this side of the dive-bombed ancient temple, patrolling in the ruddy glow of firelight. T’Prynn had covered most of the distance to the temple before the first of the soldiers noticed her.

  The warrior lifted his rifle.

  Pennington fired and hit the man in his gut. The shot struck with enough force to knock the Klingon onto his back.

  The remaining troops all drew down on Pennington. He kept firing at them, both to hamper their aim and keep them distracted. Disruptor shots streaked toward him and flashed as they strafed his dune. Globs of sand melted into glass flew in all directions and pattered across the slope behind him.

  Then one of the Klingons crumpled and dropped out of sight. Half a second later, disruptor shots from the downed warrior’s position struck the other four Klingons in quick succession.

  With the path cleared, T’Prynn climbed onto an excavation vehicle that had been knocked onto its side and ran up its crane arm, which had smashed through the temple’s wall and become stuck there. Seconds later she ducked through the rent in the stone wall and was gone from sight, inside the temple.

  Damn, Pennington thought with admiration. She’s good.

  Imagining the danger T’Prynn was facing inside the ruins, Pennington was torn. She had been explicit in her instructions that he should return to the Skylla; she was counting on him to be her insurance against failure. But abandoning her felt wrong, and Quinn was his friend—how could he leave him in harm’s way?

  There’s nothing between me and the temple, he realized. To hell with it, I’m going. He bolted over the top of the dune and ran toward the ruins. In his head he knew it was a bad idea, but in his heart he knew it was right. His feet felt light as he sprinted across the level sands, and the night air was cool upon his face.

  With each step he took the night grew a shade colder. When his breath formed a misty plume ahead of him, he stopped and realized he was shivering. The pale glow of moonlight on the temple’s façade dimmed, and a darkness pure and terrible settled upon everything for as far as Pennington could see. Dreading what he would see but unable to stop himself, he looked up.

  There was a hole in the sky.

  A patch of black blotted out the stars and descended on the temple from directly overhead.

  Pennington didn’t have to wonder what this horror was.

  He had seen it before.

  Quinn drifted back toward consciousness aware of two things: the fact that he was being held upright by two people holding his arms, and the tickling sensation of blood tracing a slow path down the middle of his nose, pooling on the tip into a droplet, and falling away.

  He opened his eyes to see the droplet land on the tip of a Klingon military officer’s boot. Then he lifted his head to see a weathered, goateed face dusted with sand glaring back at him.

  “You’re still alive,” the Klingon officer said.

  “That’s debatable,” Quinn said, wincing at the pain of hearing his own voice inside his throbbing skull.

  Breaking eye contact with Quinn, the Klingon said to someone behind him, “He’s all yours.” Then he stepped away.

  “Thank you,” said Zett, who stepped forward to take the Kling on’s place in front of Quinn. The ebony-skinned Nalori flashed a grin of onyx-black teeth. “Hello again, Quinn.” His solid-black eyes made Quinn think of an abyss.

  When Quinn said nothing in reply, Zett reached out and with one fingertip gingerly probed the wound on Quinn’s forehead. “I hope I didn’t cause you any permanent damage,” he said. “It would be a shame if one little bump caused you to forget the information Commander Marqlar wants me to extract from that pile of fatty mush you laughably call your brain.”

  Twisting to speak over his shoulder, Quinn said, “Hey, Marqlar, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know if you’ll just kill this guy.”

  “Tempting,” Marqlar said. “If Mister Nilric’s methods prove unsuccessful, I will consider it.”

  Quinn nodded once. “Fair enough.”

  Zett’s cruel smile never wavered. To the soldiers holding Quinn’s arms he said, “Turn him around.”

  The soldiers dragged Quinn about-face to see the glowing artifact on the pedestal—and Bridy Mac bound by her wrists, supine on the altar.

  “I’ll offer you a choice, Mister Quinn,” Zett said. “If you’ll tell me what I want to know, I’ll kill you quickly and with as little pain as possible before the Klingons sacrifice your beautiful friend to something more horrible than you can possibly imagine.”

  Fury hardened Quinn’s countenance. He didn’t need to imagine what was coming; he’d seen it and was sure it would haunt him to his grave.

  Leaning in close and dropping his voice to a sinister whisper, Zett continued. “But if you don’t cooperate with me, I’m going to glue your eyes open and have these men hold your head still while you watch her die. Then I’m going to kill you with ten thousand slow cuts, so I can savor every last ounce of your pain. Have I made myself clear to you, Mister Quinn?”

  “Perfectly,” Quinn said. “You’re suicidal.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  With perfect calm, Quinn said, “Because you were a dead man the moment you laid hands on her. And you knew it.”

  “What I know, Mister Quinn, is—”

  A disruptor shot struck the neck of the Klingon holding Quinn’s right arm. The soldier went limp, let go of Quinn, and fell dead.

  Another shot from the balcony killed the soldier holding Quinn’s other arm and sent Zett, Marqlar, and the dozen troops and scientists on the main level of the temple running for cover.

  Quinn tackled Zett and landed a crushing blow on the Nalori’s transporter-recall bracelet, which shattered. Zett elbowed Quinn in the jaw, pushed his way free, and dashed for cover. Quinn stole a disruptor from one dead Klingon, retrieved his backpack from another, then ducked out of the line of fire.

  Disruptor shots flew in every direction. Quinn darted to Bridy’s side and kneeled next to her. “Don’t move,” he said.

  He put his disruptor’s muzzle to the chain of the manacles binding her to the altar, and he fired. The chain disintegrated. As the cross fire continued around them, he pulled her off the obsidian slab and huddled with her behind it.

  “Gutsy plan!” she shouted over the screeching of weapons fire, then ducked as a stray shot passed close overhead.

  Gun-shy and bewildered, he yelled back, “What plan?”

  Bridy pointed at the glowing gem. “We have to get the artifact before the Klingons beam it out!”

  Quinn gestured at the wild crisscross of energy beams. “Be my guest!” He sniped a pair of Klingon officers as they tried to snag the radiant crystal. Whoever was picking off the Klingons from the balcony was keeping Zett and Marqlar pinned down.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Quinn said. “If you cover me, I can—”

  That was as far as he got before the roof came down and a living nightmare of smoke, shadow, and fear dropped in.

  T’Prynn was lining up a shot on the Klingon commander when the roof caved in.

  Cascading into the cavernous chamber below, intermingled with smashed slabs of stone and an avalanche of dust, was a dark and chilling presence. As it poured into the temple, the air became cold and sharp with the odor of ozone.

  Though she had never before encountered them firsthand, T’Prynn was certain the invading entity was a Shedai.

  On the lower level of the temple, Zett Nilric, the Klingon commander, Quinn, and a human woman—who T’Prynn recognized as Bridget McLellan from the U.S.S. Sagittarius—all were trying to get to the mysterious artifact on the pedestal.

  The Shedai surrounded the object with a dark tentacle of energy, cutting them all off. A second tendril of dark fluid snared the Klingon, then expan
ded into a black blizzard driven by a foul, cold wind. Within seconds it ripped the burly soldier to pieces, showering the walls with his magenta-hued viscera.

  Reaching out with a tentacle that transformed into a dark vortex, the Shedai lifted the artifact high into the air.

  The crystal flared with a blinding pulse of light. Beneath it, the pedestal shattered. The glyphs on the walls flickered like high-intensity strobes, and a tremor shot through the temple, splintering the floors and walls with cracks.

  The few surviving Klingon soldiers and scientists evacuated the temple. McLellan evaded another falling section of the ceiling. Zett fled down a side passage, and Quinn ran after him. In the center of the mayhem, the Shedai grew larger while filling the air with a sepulchral groaning.

  This would seem an opportune time to withdraw, T’Prynn decided. She bolted back to the gap in the wall through which she had entered.

  Drawn across the lonely silence of the void by a summons of inchoate pain and rage, the Shedai Wanderer had known that only the Telinaruul could be responsible.

  She manifested upon yet another former world of the Shedai that had been infested by flickers of life whose ephemerality was matched only by their arrogance. Who were they to defile a Shedai Conduit? To imprison one of the enumerated, one of the Serrataal, in this greatest of all abominations, this prison of dimensional folds disguised as a simple crystal?

  Look at them flee in terror, the Wanderer gloated as she tore the first of the interlopers asunder. Seeing the simple being’s innards liquefied by her wrath filled the Wanderer with pleasure. They have all earned this retribution a thousandfold.

  The Wanderer took the hated crystal from its interface and turned its vile machinations to her own purposes. She destroyed the pedestal—added ages earlier by another upstart species of Telinaruul—and focused her power through the Conduit. With the might of this young world’s fiery core yoked to her will, she could at last smash the long-hated abomination and welcome a partner in her quest for justice. Together they would usher in a new era of Shedai sovereignty.

  First she needed to purge this Conduit of Telinaruul.

  Then she would cleanse this poisoned world—and teach these sparks of consciousness to fear their betters.

  48

  Ragged chunks of the ceiling fell from high above Quinn’s head and shattered on the steps ahead of him as he ran up a flight of spiral stairs in pursuit of Zett Nilric.

  The ruins quaked. Thunderous sounds reverberated in the temple’s walls and echoed through its passageways. A haze of dust rained down on Quinn, who coughed and wheezed. He squinted in pain as fine particles drifted into his eyes, which watered as he struggled to keep Zett in sight.

  All Quinn could see of the Nalori thug were his feet, several meters ahead and just shy of the curve of the staircase’s inner wall. The rest of Zett was out of sight, sparing the assassin a well-deserved shot in the back.

  A massive slab of rock smashed down in front of Quinn, pulverizing three steps into rubble. He stumbled backward and pressed himself against the outer wall as the huge piece of debris rolled past him.

  He sprinted forward and almost impaled himself on Zett’s knife.

  Twisting at the waist, Quinn dodged the stab.

  Zett snapped his arm back to wind up for another blow. Quinn raised his arms. The knife jabbed forward.

  Quinn swatted the blade aside with his forearm—and a metallic clang of impact as the knife struck the armored bracers concealed beneath the sleeves of Quinn’s jacket.

  Noting Zett’s wide-eyed stare of surprise, Quinn smiled. “I thought we might end up doin’ this little dance. Came prepared.”

  Zett lunged as if hoping to gut Quinn with one stroke. Quinn sidestepped the attack and struck Zett’s wrist with a scissoring blow of his armored forearms.

  The knife flew from Zett’s grasp and tumbled down the stairs behind Quinn, its blade ringing like a chime as it bounced off the stone steps and walls.

  As Quinn cocked his arm to pummel Zett, the Nalori’s foot snapped forward and hit Quinn in his solar plexus. Pain shot through Quinn’s gut as the air left his lungs, and he fell backward. Zett turned and continued his mad dash up the stairs.

  Fighting for breath and summoning strength to push through his pain, Quinn forced himself to continue his pursuit.

  As he neared the top of the staircase, the tremors plaguing the temple worsened, and the mortar between stones in the walls began to turn to powder. Great fractures split blocks of sandstone with sharp cracking noises.

  The staircase let out onto a wide, flat terrace nestled in the temple’s roof. Across a small gap, on an adjacent terrace, a Klingon shuttle was powering up to make a hasty retreat.

  Zett sprinted toward the shuttle, apparently hoping that with enough of a running start he could leap across the divide to the next terrace, where the Klingon shuttle crewmen were waving for him to hurry.

  The assassin came to an abrupt, clumsy halt, pointed, and shouted in tlhIngan Hol to the Klingons.

  The Klingons stared in confusion for a moment before they realized Zett was pointing behind them, and they turned.

  A tall spire toppled over and collapsed onto the Klingons and their shuttle. Tons of rock crushed the small spacecraft into a heap of twisted, sparking metal.

  Having nowhere left to run, Zett turned and faced Quinn, who had drawn his borrowed disruptor and aimed it at the sharp-dressed killer. “Lose your weapon,” Quinn said. “Two fingers only.”

  “Don’t be stupid about this,” Zett said as he lifted his sidearm from its holster using only his thumb and forefinger. “This place is eating itself. You can see that, can’t you?”

  “Yup.” Gesturing with a tilt of his head, Quinn added, “Toss it over the side. Now.” Zett threw his disruptor off the roof. Quinn nodded. “Good. Now ditch your knife. The special one you keep under your left arm.”

  Frowning, the Nalori discarded his yosa blade. “There,” he said as his last weapon tumbled away into the darkness. “Now what?”

  Quinn hurled his disruptor off the roof, then drew his own knife and cast it away into the night. “A fair fight.”

  Another violent quake rocked the temple, and part of an outer wall collapsed with a roar. From far below, inside the temple, came a nightmarish groaning, as if from Hell itself.

  “This is hardly an ideal setting for a duel,” Zett said.

  Quinn shrugged off his backpack. “Looks okay to me.”

  He prowled toward Zett, who eased into a fighting stance. The two combatants circled each other.

  Zett flashed a predatory grin. “You’re going to regret this, Quinn. You forget, I’ve seen you fight.”

  “No, you haven’t. You’ve seen me get my ass kicked when I was drunk. You’ve seen your goons beat me up while holding me at gunpoint.” Quinn smirked. “You’ve never seen me fight.”

  They stopped moving. Locked eyes.

  Zett charged and launched himself at Quinn. He landed a flying kick to Quinn’s chest.

  Quinn stumbled backward then steadied himself as Zett charged again, leading this time with his fists.

  There was no time to think, only time to react in a brutal dance of motion and collision. Ducks and blocks, strikes and counter-strikes. Hands and feet, knees and elbows.

  Crushing blows left Quinn’s head swimming with dull echoes of impact. He tasted blood from his own split lips as he felt Zett’s nose crack under his fist.

  Zett came at Quinn in a frenzy and landed a flurry of hits. Quinn snared the man’s arm and twisted it until the wrist broke and the shoulder dislocated.

  With his free hand, Zett punched Quinn in the throat. Quinn let go of Zett. They staggered apart, both stunned and bleeding.

  “I’ll give you credit,” Zett said as he steadied himself. “You’re better than I thought. But you’re still going to lose.”

  “We’ll just see abou—”

  Quinn barely saw the spinning kick that nearly knocked off his jaw. A fall
ing sensation preceded a rolling blur of motion. He felt his body strike the roof, kicks and punches slamming against his torso, three of his teeth splintering as they were liberated from his gums. Everything he saw looked purple.

  Fighting for balance and solid footing, he eked out one last moment of clear perception—then saw Zett’s side kick hit him in the chest. The blow knocked Quinn off his feet. He flew backward and flailed desperately as he rolled over the edge. His hands shot out, looking for purchase.

  Just before gravity could lay final claim to Quinn, his left hand seized a small lip in the roof’s edge. Despite a lifetime of people telling him never to look down, he did anyway. Far below lay an unwelcoming patch of rocky ground.

  Half alive and dangling by his fingertips, he watched Zett step to the roof’s edge and loom above him.

  “Told you so,” Zett gloated.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Quinn said, his throat tight from the full-body strain of hanging on by one hand. “I know. Fighting was never my strong suit.”

  The assassin smirked and lifted his foot to stomp on Quinn’s fingers. “You have a strong suit?”

  Zett froze as he saw the detonator in Quinn’s right hand. “Yeah,” Quinn said. “Demolitions.”

  He pressed the trigger.

  The charges in Quinn’s backpack exploded, engulfing the terrace above him in white-hot fire and high-velocity shrapnel. Searing flames vaporized Zett’s suit as bits of metal and stone raked his flesh. The blast wave lifted the assassin into the air and hurled him over its edge.

  Fire stung Quinn’s fingers as he fought to hang on a few seconds longer, howling in pain the entire time. Turning his face away from the light and heat, he watched Zett’s scorched body fall to the ground. The moment of impact was not pretty, but Quinn found it very satisfying.

  Above Quinn the blaze abated. He dropped the detonator and reached up to grip the edge with both hands. That was as far as he could get. He was out of strength and too badly hurt to pull his own dead weight back over the edge. Great plan, he chided himself. I get to celebrate for all of ten seconds before I wind up as the stain next to Zett.