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The Complete New Dominion Trilogy

Page 71

by Drury, Matthew J.


  The wings.

  This figure had wings, great majestic wings, the wings of a giant bird or a bat – if that creature were armoured like an insect and had no fur or feathers or skin for covering. For the wings were nothing more than pairs of elongated, segmented spikes, great hooked claws protruding from her back and reaching down to her knees. Even as Chen watched they flexed, their tips dripping ichor like a spider’s fangs, and she somehow knew they were seeking prey.

  This figure was not human. Yet its face, its features…

  They were Kimberley. Or at least they still bore traces of the woman she had been. It was Kimberley if she had been twisted, remade as a parody of herself.

  Kim, transformed. Into Combine.

  Now the dreams made sense. It had all been real, not just a cry but a warning and a message. She had shown her what was happening to her, bit by bit. Chen remembered the welcome again, and that sense of both loathing and acceptance that followed it. All of that had come from her.

  As if to cement her understanding she heard a voice now, both in and out of her head. It was so deep it echoed and so cold it made her teeth ache. And it was a voice she had heard twice before. Once when it welcomed her in her dreams and once when it announced the ‘power of that which is yet unborn!’ Now that voice spoke a third time, its words slithering up and down along her spine.

  “Arise, my daughter,” it cried, and there was no mistaking its exultation. “Arise… Kimberley,” it crowed, and all the Combine in the chamber bowed their heads. All except one.

  “By your will, father,” the figure in the Chrysalis remains said proudly, head raised high. Her voice was deeper, more resonant, and it echoed in Chen’s ears and in her head as if each word carried layers of meaning and emotion, too much for her to catch all at once. The words rolled across and through her, sending shivers down her spine. “The Eidolon serves me.”

  She stepped down, gracefully exiting the bits of shell and fluid, standing tall in the chamber. Kim had been a fairly short woman, her head up to Chen’s shoulder. This new figure could have looked her in the eye, if she had deigned to notice her. She did not, and Chen couldn’t decide if she was relieved or disappointed by that.

  Despite her radical transformation, she could still see Kimberley’s strength, her vibrancy and purpose. In some ways Chen was even more drawn to her now, mesmerised by her new form and the new power she sensed within her. She knew she should be repulsed, sickened, or even terrified… but she was fascinated instead. A part of her wondered if that was also part of her change, if this overwhelming attraction was a chemical or mental assault, but she couldn’t believe that, especially since Kim had not even seen her yet.

  What the figure did see, however, was the fight near the archway. Zou and a few of the other troopers were still alive and still battling the Combine, and Chen watched as the woman’s brow furrowed and her eyes blazed with anger.

  “Let all who oppose the Overmind feel the wrath of the Swarm,” she announced, her wings flaring out behind her, and at her words the Combine increased their attack, biting and stabbing and slicing with renewed frenzy. Zou fell to a vicious blow from a Cephlack, her head toppling several meters from her body, and the blow severed another trooper’s arm as well. Others fell right behind her, and in a moment Chen was the only one left alive.

  The Combine had not survived unscathed, but they didn’t seem to notice their losses as the remaining creatures regrouped and turned back toward the centre of the chamber, their golem overlord still directing them from its corner of the chamber.

  “Well done, Overlord!” that same strange cold voice boomed again. “What I have wrought this day shall be the undoing of my enemies, and the beginning of our conquest!”

  Then every Combine turned toward Chen, and she felt the wave of their hatred wash over her.

  “Let not a Terran survive…” the voice commanded.

  Chen struggled to raise her Lat’ari rifle. Though she knew the odds were hopeless, she planned to go down fighting. But her rifle wouldn’t move. Glancing down, she saw a hand on the barrel, a speckled green hand with bladelike nails effortlessly stopping her from bringing the weapon to bear. Looking back up, Chen found herself meeting the gaze of the creature from the Chrysalis. It was a cold stare, the eyes bright but emotionless, and the pupils danced independently, leaving glittering trails in their wake. It was the look of an alien, with no trace of the younger woman she had known.

  “Mother of God,” Chen gasped, unable to stop herself. “Kimberley, what have they done to you?”

  The other Combine forces slowed to a stop, several only an arm’s reach away. They froze then, unmoving, and Chen listened dully to the conversation taking place around him, numb despite the fact that her fate hinged upon the outcome.

  “Destroy the Terran,” the golem overlord demanded. “The Overmind commands it.”

  “This Terran is mine,” the former Kimberley stated, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I will dispose of her in my own fashion. Leave us.” The other Combine remained there, not approaching but not retreating, and she bristled, quite literally, as the spikes that had been her hair rose above her head and her wings arced upward, vibrating with her rage. “Leave us!” she repeated, and the other Combine bowed.

  “As you command, O Dyàus,” the golem overlord acknowledged. It did not move but somehow it seemed to dim, the pulsing along its sides fading slightly, and Chen knew it had focused its attention elsewhere. The lesser Combine passed through the arch and vanished from view.

  Even the giant maggots had disappeared, Chen realised as she glanced around. The chamber was now completely empty save for the two of them, and the inactive overlord – and the remains of her soldiers here and beyond, mingled with those Combine they had slain.

  With the Swarm out of sight, Chen stopped trying to raise her rifle, and she released her grip as well, letting the weapon fall back to her side. She stepped away to stare at Kim more easily and the alien woman met her gaze calmly, her hair settling back down around her face, though the tips angled toward her, looking uncomfortably like animate weapons. Her wings also dropped back down to drape around her, but rustled slightly, giving Chen the uncomfortable sense that they could act without her conscious control.

  “Kim,” she asked finally, reaching one hand toward her face but stopping it just short of touching her, fascinated and repulsed by her altered appearance. “Is that really you?”

  “To an extent,” she replied, the commanding echo fading from her voice and leaving her sounding more like the woman Chen remembered. She looked down at her hands, turning them this way and that, flexing the long fingers, extending the vicious claws. The tips of her wings echoed the movement. “I’m far more than I once was, Lora.” At the sound of her name Chen started, and Kim glanced back up at her, her hands clenching into fists. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she warned her.

  Chen thought she heard sorrow, perhaps even pity, in her voice, and that shook her. Kim’s words also confused her. She shouldn’t have come? “But the dreams,” she argued. “I dreamed you were still alive… that somehow… you were calling to me.”

  Had she been wrong? Had this all been a mistake? A trick of her own mind? But how could she have known what was happening to her then? How could she have heard that voice inside her head if not through Kim? She must have been sending those dreams!

  “I was,” she admitted. She seemed to dwindle slightly, the patches on her skin fading, the wings folding in upon themselves, and her hair turning softer and more pliant, until she resembled the Kimberley Stefánsson of old once more. She turned her face away, but Chen could hear the pain in her voice and imagine her expression. “While I was in the Chrysalis,” she explained, “I instinctively reached out to you telepathically. I made a mistake, Lora, judging you for the blood on your hands. Emotions clouded my decision. I should never have stayed behind.”

  “I’m here now, though,” Chen pointed out. “And so are you. We can get you
out of here, Kim. We can get you someplace safe.” We can undo what they did to you, she wanted to say, but couldn’t. Not that she needed to – Kim had been able to answer her thoughts even before, and now she seemed far more powerful.

  She was already shaking her head, and the mottling was resurfacing, as if reflecting the turmoil within. “But that was then, Lora,” she told her, turning to face her again. “Before I saw the Light. Before He came to me.”

  Chen swallowed in the depths of her throat, and a wave of dizziness came over her suddenly. “Who came to you?”

  “The Eidolon, of course,” Kim said. “The Power of the All, the very same power used by my father before me. I’m one of the Combine now. And I like what I am.” She raised her arms high, the shell-like spots shifting across her limbs and torso as she moved, creating a moving layer of protection. Her hair rose and reached for the roof as well, yearning upward, and her wings rose to their full extension, flaring out behind her. Even in the dim light of the creep, Chen could see her eyes flashing.

  “You can’t imagine how this feels, Lora,” she told her finally, lowering her arms again, and somehow Chen knew she was talking about more than just the physical changes. The wings remained up, as if determined to remind her how much she had changed. “I am one with the Combine now,” she said, smiling. “And I have the Power of the Eidolon. The Power of the All. It is wonderful, Lora. It envelops me. It makes me whole, sets me free. I can never be alone again. I can feel my father’s presence through the All. We are One… together!”

  “They called you Dyàus,” Chen said, remembering the golem overlord’s comment as he left, and her smile grew wider.

  “Yes, I am. The Dyàus Pítah.” She raised her right hand, fingers spread wide, and the blades sprouting from her fingertips rippled in response. So did the spikes on her head and the wings at her back. “The Prophet of the Combine. The one who will lead them to dominate the multiverse!”

  “Guess it runs in the family,” Chen said, shaking her head.

  The Dyàus Pítah didn’t bother to reply; she didn’t need to. Chen could read her reply in her smile.

  “So what?” Chen asked, backing a step away and shifting the grip on her rifle in case she needed to raise it suddenly. “Are you going to kill me now, Your Majesty?”

  “It is certainly within my power,” she told her, “I could kill you in nothing more than a whisper,” and Chen knew she was right. She’d seen what death and destruction the Eidolon had unleashed in the past, through Cristian Stefánsson. She had no reason to doubt that Kimberley was capable of anything less. A part of her wanted to see her in action, to admire her new talents. The rest of her wanted to run screaming. Instead she stood very still and waited to see what Kim decided. The ball was definitely in her court.

  Kimberley flexed her finger-blades again, waving them menacingly in Lora’s direction, and for an instant Chen thought she was dead. She was still smiling that sad smile from her past, however, and she did not move to close the distance between them. “But you’re not a threat to me, Lorelei,” she told her finally, stepping away and widening the gap. “Be smart,” she warned her, that echo creeping back into her voice. “Leave here now, and never seek to confront the Combine again.”

  That last statement was issued like a command, and Chen felt the force of Kim’s words and of her personality bearing down on her, compelling her to submit. “Doesn’t look like I have much choice,” she muttered, hoping that would be enough to placate her. For a moment they stood there, both armed but neither attacking, the tension almost visible between them, like a flicker of light. Then the moment passed and Kim turned, dismissing her utterly.

  For a second Chen considered raising the rifle after all, shooting Kim from behind. At this range she couldn’t miss, and for all her powers and organic armour and mottled skin and scary hair, a plasma cell would still finish her. Chen was sure of it. Well, almost sure.

  But she never got the chance to test that theory. As Kimberley turned away her skin paled, then became transparent. In the blink of an eye she had vanished completely, fading from the edges in until finally nothing remained. Chen was alone.

  Kim was still nearby, she knew. She had simply gone invisible. Chen thought the process required a specialised Rãvier suit, but apparently the Dyàus Pítah no longer required such props.

  The Dyàus Pítah. The name sent a chill racing through Chen’s body. By adopting that title, she had made it clear that the transformation had been a full success. Kimberley Stefánsson was gone. Only the Dyàus Pítah remained. And she was not inclined to be friendly.

  Still, she had let her live, and Chen certainly wasn’t complaining about that.

  Holstering her disruptor but keeping the rifle ready, she staggered back to the archway and through it, forcing herself to examine the remains of her team as she passed them. They’d earned the right to hold her gaze, and it would be insulting for her to look away just because it made her uncomfortable. She made sure she knew each face, each name, before turning away and passing through the arch again. There were more troopers on the far side, most of them stretched out on the floor. But a few still stood, leaning against the tunnel walls, and these gave a ragged cheer when she appeared.

  “Ma’am!” It was Cavez, bandaged and battered but still alive. The tall young man limped over to Chen as she carefully stepped through the pile of bodies littering the ground. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll live,” Chen admitted, embarrassed to realise that she had not been wounded beyond a few scrapes and cuts. Cavez was far worse off, but here was the trooper asking about her health instead of the other way around. Still, she knew it was more than just her wound status that Cavez was checking on. The trooper wanted to know whether Chen was prepared to take charge again.

  I’m not fit to lead, Chen thought as she studied the handful of survivors. It’s my fault you’re hurt, my fault your friends are dead, my fault we’re here. I dragged us between dimensions and sacrificed a hundred or more good people, fresh from a civil war, just to chase down a woman who doesn’t even want me around. Put that way it sounded ridiculous, and she had to stop herself from laughing – she could feel the laughter bubbling up inside, fuelled by near hysteria, and she knew that if she started laughing she might not stop. Instead she forced herself to concentrate.

  Cavez was hurt, as were most of the others. She needed to get them to a medic, and that meant getting topside again. “Right,” she called out, “find a partner and form up. We’ve got to retrace our steps as best we can. There might be faster ways out, so keep your eyes peeled for those, too. Let’s go.”

  She motioned Cavez to fall in with her and together they marched back down the corridor, checking the sides and up above for any sign of the Combine. But they saw only rock and bits of creep. Whatever Combine had survived the recent battle were gone. Chen tried not to think about where they might be now.

  It took hours for the battered band to reach the surface. They saw no Combine along the way but still had to contend with confounding directions, irregular passages, unstable tunnels, boiling magma pits, and other dangers. Most of the surviving troopers were wounded, no one not well enough to walk back but several not fit enough to be of much use after so much hiking, and they moved slowly even in the wide, straight tunnels. Chen had one of the men out front as a scout and another in back as a rear guard, the two soldiers instructed to stay as far away from the rest as was safe, as quiet as possible, and as observant as anything. Neither of them called in any problems, not that she’d expected any. Kim – she still couldn’t manage to call her the ‘Dyàus Pítah’, even to herself – had been awakened now as part of the larger Combine plan, presumably some kind of multiverse-wide infestation. The Combine they’d seen so far on Erebos were probably all scurrying to be part of whatever she intended to do first. That would definitely keep them all busy while Chen and her people escaped onto the surface once more. She’d figure out her next move once they were all back above ground
where they belonged.

  They followed the same path back that they’d taken down, at least as far as they could. In several places they had to deviate – at one point a cave-in had apparently occurred after they’d left, perhaps triggered by the fighting down below, and a narrow path was sealed tight with rubble, the air around it thick with dust. A tunnel they’d used before was still there, but whereas it had been a steep slope down, now it was a steep climb up, with nothing but glass-slick walls on either side, and Chen didn’t think any of them could make that trip in their current state, including her. Both times they scouted the area and eventually found an alternate route that took them away from their original entrance point but kept them heading upward. That was the most important thing, Chen felt; to keep moving up, toward the surface and the sky and the ship. Popping up a mile away from their starting point wouldn’t matter as long as they did eventually pop back up. The idea of staying down here forever was far too depressing to consider for very long, and she shoved the thought away every time it surfaced.

  Finally Cavez, who had taken the role of lead scout, came running back down a corridor, a big grin plastered across his dirty, blood-smeared face. “I can see daylight, ma’am!” he announced happily, and the others cheered and laughed and shouted. A few even cried, and no one razzed them for it.

  “Good man,” Chen said, blinking back tears herself. “Lead the way.”

  She followed close behind the young trooper, and sure enough she soon stood at the base of a short, wide chute that showed sunlight at the top. The distance was too far to jump but they gave one of the troopers, a thick-bodied man named Non, a boost up into the chute. He pressed his back against one wall and thrust his legs straight out in front of him, his feet solidly against the wall opposite. Then, his arms spread wide for balance, he began walking his way slowly up the chute. It took half an hour, but eventually he was able to peek over the rim. “All clear, ma’am,” he called back down, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

 

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