And only now, at the end, do you realize that your old god betrayed you, that their new god, the god of progress, was right all along. Only now, when the change is upon you, do you understand.
“Change?” he croaked as he choked on slime and dead tissue.
Did you know that your church caused your Collapse? Did you know that you struck out against technology and it all came crumbling down? They struck against the new god in the name of the old, and now you have fallen so far that I could tell you how and it would sound like so much gibberish.
“Change?” he croaked again.
Don’t worry. Soon you will understand. Soon you will become. Soon you will transform and your apotheosis will be complete.
“Change?” Did he even say that one out loud?
Now, worm, are you ready to see what’s on the other side of the chrysalis?
***
Spetzna screamed as he fired the last of his pulser rounds down the hall, slicing through Greek bodies and shattering bones. Bile rose in his throat as the glee echoed in his heart. What the hell? What was going on in his mind?
“Displace, displace!” screamed Pasha and Valya bellowed and led three men down a side corridor, tossing grenades ahead of them and clearing the path forward. Spetzna dropped his pulser, it was useless now, and drew his looted Greek version. It felt strange in his hand, but when he flipped off the safety and fired, it killed just as easily.
The sight of blood was answered with the rush of blood, with the need to kill, to butcher, tickling in his mind. This was beyond anger, beyond rage. This was what the Greeks must have felt when they mutilated the living and dead corpses of their Russian victims. This is what God felt like, when he smote the wicked.
No. “Back by squads!” he screamed. “I need fire on each side corridor. Forward in fire teams, plan c!” This wasn’t what God felt like. This was what Satan felt like, when he led the Fall.
The halls around them were blackened steel, now scored with the scratches and pocks of pulser fire, as scarred as Spetzna’s own face. Battle-worn, like a grandmother who has raised far too many boys.
He shook as he moved, his fire teams leap-frogging from corridor to corridor, laying suppressing fire as the rest of them ran through. There were Greeks everywhere, as if Mount Olympus had shat out an army.
He fired, and the pleasure shuddered through his body, not sexual, but a release nonetheless. He had gone mad, or Satan had finally claimed his soul. Is this what it felt like, after you’ve sinned too much for salvation? Is this what it felt like in your final fall from grace?
He had tried. He had tried to be a righteous man, but there were so many terrible things to do to bring his men home alive. There was so much killing, so much sin. He violated so many proscriptions in a given mission, and the commandments broke like dried grass under booted feet.
It was all for naught. He had finally killed the last good part of his soul. He was a monster now, just like every other monster in the history of the human race. The monsters had always been there. The monsters were eternal, ubiquitous in history. Now he knew how the monsters began. Now he knew what the monsters felt. It was time to embrace the monster, and do monstrous things. His gut writhed in protest.
“Major,” Pasha screamed, and he heard it on the comm and from the rear at the same time. “Major, we are deep in the shit now!”
The monster could wait.
“Major, what do we do?”
“You’re going to amaze me. You’re going to amaze everyone,” Spetzna said, then started to shout orders.
***
Icarus strode onto the bridge of the Daedalus, standing taller, more confident now. Terrible pain still wracked his body, but it mattered little. He was in control.
Around him the bridge crew gasped and cringed away, even the tech serfs who had lost their sense of smell. A whisper and gasps flowed outward, but he was beyond such petty concerns now.
Through the canopy at the front of the ship Icarus could see nothing but stars... but in his mind’s eye, he could sense the maelstrom raging out there, still echoing with the death cries of a lost ship. So close. So very close. Just hours ago, he thought his sense was a spiritual gift. Now he knew they were just psychic abilities the church had learned to awaken in young novices.
He discovered new powers. The alien, only able to stoke and feed off emotions before, now had access to his mind, to the full suite of human abilities, from the latent telepathic ability that allowed him to sense other humans to the biofeedback abilities it currently used to reshape the internal structure of his body.
But he didn’t have time to think about that. The Russians, the bastard Russians and their heretic church. He had to destroy them. He had to kill them, to taste their dying screams in the void. He would rip their energies from their bodies and dine upon them in leisure, smooth and tangy in their stoicism.
He could feel the pain of every soul on the ship. He could sense the remaining Russians, even if he couldn’t pinpoint their exact location among all the hate and anger of the Greeks. Something else... ah. The Commander hadn’t had any prisoners to torture, so he was torturing his own crew. That would make them fade right into the glory of the maelstrom. Clever.
Still, he had to find the renegade Russians before they caused real damage. They would have to be destroyed.
But before he could deal with the Russians on his own ship, he had to deal with the external threat. After that he could comb through the Daedalus in peace.
“Commander,” he said, and the Commander looked in his direction.
“What can I do for you, Father Superior?”
“Do we still have enough of an acceleration advantage to meet the Catherine in space?”
“We’d have to match velocities while letting them close the gap.” The Commander looked at one of the tech serfs, who nodded. “Yes. We could do that. Why would we want to?”
“Because we are going to ram that ship.”
The Commander spun on him, his emotions flaring with rage and horror. Icarus lapped them up without blinking.
“Are you mad?”
“No, Commander,” Icarus said. “For the first time in my life, I’m sane.”
“We would go to hell for even considering it. We could destroy that ship. We could destroy two ships.”
“Indeed.”
The Commander stomped forward, screaming in Icarus’s face. “Though shalt not violate the sanctity of a living ship!”
Icarus turned to look at the Commander for the first time. Then he struck, his fingers rigid, shattering the man’s voice box, sending shards through neck. The Commander didn’t have time to gurgle. He merely raised his hand a foot or so, his face a mask of shock and confusion. Then he fell over to one side. The energy released at the moment of his death was lifeless and devoid of terror. Very unsatisfying.
“The Commander ordered the crew tortured to mask this ship, did he not?” One of the tech serfs nodded and Icarus turned back to the canopy, to the delicious agony of the maelstrom out there in the night. His once and future home. “Stop torturing the crew,” Icarus ordered. “And bring us within striking distance of the Catherine the Great.”
“We can’t, Father Superior.” The tech serf tried to stand, but his body couldn’t manage it with one try. “The first proscription.” His terror quivered, delicious on the air, heady and rich.
“What is this about the first proscription?” The voice came from behind him, and Icarus didn’t have to turn to sense Colin standing there. Shock poured off him as he took in the discarded meat that was once the Commander. “Father Superior, what have you done?”
“I have become,” Icarus said and turned on Colin. He closed his eyes and Colin began to scream, the agony wracking the boy’s form, the spasms tearing tendon from bone. The energy rolled off Colin, more vibrant in its prolonged agony, frothing and light, a mixture of pain and horror, with just a hint of betrayal. Colin had thought they meant something to one another, as if the worm co
uld mean anything to what Icarus had become. The dying worm.
Icarus quivered in pleasure, even as deep inside him, something screamed in protest. Colin. Never again would he hear Colin doubting him. Questioning him. Challenging him.
“I am your god now,” Icarus said, and he released all of his alien power through his human psychic abilities. The telekinetic ability to kill was new, but it was nothing compared to the telepathic ability the alien had, now that it had access to his human mind, now that he could cause Icarus to interface with them, human to human, without having to cross the vast gulf of evolution. The tech serfs snapped rigid. Then they turned back to their duty stations and began to carry out his orders, puppets at his command.
Icarus smiled.
***
“You’re certain they are coming this direction?” Captain Grigory Petrovich Romanov asked.
The Father Superior nodded. “Relatively speaking, of course. The Daedalus matched velocities and cut engines. At the same time, they stopped torturing their prisoners. We’ve been overtaking them ever since.”
“Do we have them on scopes yet.”
“I have FOUND them,” a tech serf said. The tones of the words didn’t match up. He’d lost his voicebox and the cyberware spliced together his speech from previous recordings. “THEY are very CLOSE. THEY have BEGUN A NEW burn. THEY are ALMOST matching VELOCITIES. We APPROACH.”
“They’re letting us in,” the Captain said. “Engineering?”
“Our burn is far from full power,” the tech serf said. “They came looking for us.”
“They mean to board,” the Captain said. “Get me the lieutenant in charge of the troops.” He couldn’t remember who that was, currently.
After a moment, “I’m here Captain.”
“We’re closing on the Daedalus. What’s your disposition?”
“The Father Superior sent a runner. We’re almost in gear and forming up on the port side. Can you arrange a boarding from port?”
He looked at the tech serf on the scopes. The creature nodded. “That I can. How many of your troops are in the lockers?”
“We climbed into armor and grabbed everything portable. We’re turning out in the hall.”
“All right. Be ready. I can get you a port side boarding but they might force the airlock we choose.”
“I understand, Captain.”
“Range?” the Captain asked.
“TWO thousand KILOMETERS.” Those would be frame-of-reference kilometers, adjusted for the faster-than-light drive.
As long as they stayed FTL, it would be spitting distance. “Time on target?”
“FOURTEEN minutes.”
That was, what, two kilometers a second and change. It would take them about twenty seconds to decelerate to a relative stop. If he cut his engines, which he wouldn’t yet. Maybe forty seconds at the outside? They had him outnumbered, but he would have the advantage of ground, this time.
He set a timer on his chronometer and watched it count down. At two minutes, the engineer said, “Do we cut engines, Captain?”
It had taken them a long time to get to 5 Gs. “No,” he said. “This could be a ploy to get us to cut power and have to start over. Let them dock with us under acceleration. Let’s see if they’re that good.”
At one minute: “Enemy performing a FULL MANEUVERING burn, CAPTAIN.”
“Steady,” he said.
Fifty seconds.
“Steady.” He moved over to the tech serf on scope.
Forty seconds.
“Steady.” He looked over the tech serf’s malformed shoulder.
Thirty seconds.
“Steady.” He could see it there, a blip approaching, burn data on the screen next to it.
Twenty Seconds. “CUT to 5 Gs ON enemy.” They were still inbound at a good relative clip. “HE wants TO come IN hot.”
Ten seconds. “Ready for boarders!” he shouted on the PA.
“THEY are PIVOTING,” the tech serf said.
“Pivoting? But they were already oriented for—”
The Captain caught the back of the chair as the entire frigate lurched to one side and the bones of the ship screamed to wail of tortured metal. The whole ship had moved. What the hell could cause the whole ship to move?
“What just happened?” the Father Superior cried as claxons sounded throughout the bridge. The Captain straightened and looked at the scope.
“They must have had a control failure,” the engineer said.
“No,” the Captain said. “The bastards rammed us. They rammed us!”
“Sacrilege! Not even heathens would ram a ship!” The Father Superior screamed.
But they had. The tech serf had seen them turn at the last minute to control the impact. They done it on purpose. The bastards were going to hell. They had done it on purpose.
Bile rose in his throat. What was the weight on his soul for letting it happen? But, no, there was no time for that. He was damned or he wasn’t. He had to take care of his crew, of—
“Get me the Lieutenant!” They were coming in on the port side. The port side.
“I’m not getting a response.”
I have breaches on decks 2 through 7 on the port side,” the engineer said. “The ship is exposed to hard vacuum.”
“Emergency seals?” The Captain asked.
“Activated.”
Thank God, but that also meant his troops were exposed to vacuum. Most of their armor was probably in good enough repair to hold off the vacuum, but those who weren’t obliterated in the impact almost certainly stood in the path of the Devil’s own wave of shrapnel. How many had survived? A handful of lucky souls? More?
No. The decks would be twisted metal and molten plating. Nothing could survive there for long. Nothing.
“Get us out of here.” Thank God he hadn’t cut the engines. Disentangle us and get us the hell out of here!”
But with his drive still ramping up, he couldn’t actually outrun the Daedalus.
***
The power surged through Icarus and out into the alien, the lines of psychic nourishment open and free flowing, now. More than one hundred souls perished at once, their death screams echoing through the void forming lines of power until they hit the alien in the center of his mind, twisting like a bowl of starving leeches. Still unsatisfying, but so much of it.
Icarus needed more. He needed more. More. More.
The Catherine the Great pulled away now, and he turned to the tech serfs. “Follow it. We have to get that ship. We have to kill them. Kill them all.”
“Kill them,” the serfs said in unison.
Already he felt the sap of controlling so many at once, but they were his now. The more he fed on them, the more they were his. He could use them up, but not before he’d finished. Not before it was all complete. It had taken so long to build power from the cruelties of the Daedalus. It had worked the crew of the Daedalus so long before it had the strength to crack open this human mind.
But now it was done, and its psychic connections to the humans were all it needed.
“Laugh,” he said.
Around him, the bridge crew laughed, the energy of the emotions coursing up the psychic tethers, light and airy, not filling, but with a heady bouquet. They laughed and laughed and laughed. Until their throats bled and the lungs strained. Gurgling sounds of suffering and delight.
And they were delicious. All the power he would need. He was invincible now, and the alien with him. Now, the maelstrom. All that was left was the maelstrom.
At last.
***
Captain Grigory Petrovich Romanov didn’t need to look at the scope again. The end was three minutes and twenty-seven seconds away. His chronograph ticked down the seconds. The Daedalus would overtake them, and although the ramming had been madness, it had accomplished its goal. Their forces were wiped out. The smallest boarding action would take them. They had nothing left. They had no one left.
He almost considered ramming his drive into full accel
eration, but there was no way the ship would survive that. It would be like pressing a detonator. No, better they fall to the depredations of the Greeks than make that final drop into damnation. At least some of the crew still had souls to salvage, didn’t they? The Captain might have lost his by allowing the ship to be damaged, but the rest of the crew were innocent of that sin.
Dying by torture was unthinkable, but was it not also purifying? Redeeming? Better to die like that. Maybe it would even cleanse his tattered soul.
He closed his eyes. His image never cracked—he was the Captain, after all—but it was a near thing. He was responsible for these men and women and machine creatures. In the end, it would be good to let down the mantle of command, the Russian demeanor. It would be good to crawl in a bottle and not come out again.
But no.
One minute.
“Proud Russian citizens,” he said, pressing the button for the PA next to his chair. “It has been an honor to serve with you. Your families will speak of your greatness for generations.” And that was all the time he had.
He closed his eyes again. The alarm rang on the chronograph. A second passed. Another. He cracked his eye. Maybe the tech serf just hadn’t announced the boarding action. “Status?” he asked after a moment.
“IT’S fallen OUT OF FTL.”
And it was. He could see them shooting off behind them. While they still had their velocity, they had down-shifted into sublight kilometers. The scope had to adjust scale to keep them pictured.
“Let them eat dust,” he said. What was going on?
“Greetings, Catherine,” A voice suddenly said over the comm.
“Spetzna?” The Captain said. “Spetzna! For all the saints and angels, man, we thought you were dead!”
“I’ve taken control of the Daedalus’s secondary bridge, Actual. I know that wasn’t in our operational orders. I hope you don’t mind. I’ve had to improvise quite a bit.”
“Major, we will discuss your insubordinate attitude another time,” he said sternly, while buzzing to the point of bursting inside. “In the meantime, report.”
Space Eldritch Page 28