by Paul Tassi
Noah quickly tapped his communicator to call for help from the colony. His readouts were glitching and showed him no available frequencies. His comm was being blocked.
Another scream.
Noah left the dead guard and sprinted onward, his warhammer in his hands. Though he’d trained for this, the moment felt surreal, like some sort of disjointed nightmare.
The feeling was amplified a thousandfold when he turned the corner.
The white stone sanctuary was drenched in blood. The corpses of a half dozen Anointed were strewn all over the room, some draped across the prayer stones, their snow-colored robes soaked in crimson blood. All the women had their veils torn off, and many of their faces were frozen in displays of grotesque horror. Most had plasma burns across them while some had their throats haphazardly slit. There were two more dead colony guards among the bodies of the women. Neither of their radios worked and their weapons were missing.
Noah looked up at the statue of Zurana surrounded by a half-lit collection of candles.
This is how you protect your followers? Noah thought angrily. Zurana said nothing, only looked impassively over the carnage in the room.
What the hell is going on?
Noah tried his comm one more time to no avail. When he looked up, he found himself standing opposite a lone figure in solid black armor. It was pointing an energy pistol at him.
A blank-faced helmet hid the assailant’s features and there were no markings on his armor plating.
“I know you,” came a crackling male voice through the armor.
“The gods will curse you for this,” Noah growled. “You disgrace your own order with your actions here.”
“Guess again,” came the icy reply.
Noah was in no mood to guess. His right hand left his hammer and he scooped up a stone bowl full of holy water next to the altar. The first shot from the man’s pistol grazed Noah’s neck. He didn’t get to fire twice as the bowl crashed into his arm and the gun flew out of his grasp. By the time he’d recovered, Noah had already closed the gap between them.
The warhammer smashed into the armored gut of the intruder, propelling him backward over a prayer stone. He reached for another gun strapped to his hip, one taken from a dead guard, but another swing from Noah caused the weapon to instantly crumble, along with at least three of the man’s fingers. His cry echoed around the chamber until it was silenced by one final crushing blow to his helmeted head. The metal caved deeply and blood, brain, and bone sprayed across the stone.
Noah blinked, stunned and silent. His face was sticky from the spatter. He’d just killed someone. It wasn’t like the simulations. His blood had gone sub-zero in his veins, and he felt nauseous. He couldn’t look away from his handiwork; the man’s head crushed to pulp on the stone. The slain Anointed women lay all around him in silence, and Zurana still surveyed the entire scene from her perch at the opposite end of the room.
“What was that?”
Noah heard the voice echo from an adjacent hallway. He quickly dove to the wall and flattened himself against the stone.
“Let’s go, they’ll keep searching,” came another voice.
Noah held his breath as two pairs of metal footsteps grew louder down the hallway. As they entered the room, they spotted their dead compatriot.
“Oh gods—” was all the first man could exclaim before Noah demolished the back of his head with a swing from his hammer. Unfortunately, weakened from his other strikes against metal armor plating, the warhammer’s graftstone head exploded on impact. The armored man stumbled forward and hit the ground unconscious or dead, Noah couldn’t be sure. Rather, his focus was on the second man, who was scrambling to turn his rifle toward him. Noah dropped the useless piece of wood that used to be his hammer and shoved the barrel of the gun upward, slamming the man into the wall.
The two struggled for control of the weapon, Noah’s natural strength slowly being overpowered by the augmentation of the power armor. The man’s finger slipped into the trigger and let loose a spray of rounds that caused stone debris to rain down on them from the ceiling. Noah mustered all his strength and threw the armored figure into the opposite wall. Wrenching away the rifle, Noah slammed it across the man’s visor, leaving a deep gash across the metal. The man countered with a blow of his own, his metal fist meeting Noah’s exposed temple, sending him sprawling on the ground inside the sanctuary. The rifle went clattering away, and the man drew a sidearm. Noah came up with a pistol of his own, pulled from the second downed intruder, now lying in a pool of his own blood. Noah was faster by a millisecond, and the man crumpled to the ground with a smoking hole in his helmet.
Noah was sprawled on his back and attempted to catch his breath, but another female scream made him leap to his feet. He didn’t have time to think about what he’d just done. He left the three corpses and sprinted down the corridor clutching an energy rifle with a pistol hastily shoved into his belt.
He’d never been this deep inside the spire before. It was a maze of corridors, and he realized he was in the personal quarters wing of the Anointed. The doors to the adjacent rooms were all splintered and destroyed, and inside each one was a new body, veil ripped off and covered in blood. Noah heard whispers coming from up ahead. He peeked around the corner and saw two figures converging on another door.
“What happened to them?” the first one asked. “They’re not responding.”
“Probably just our jammer killing the wrong signals,” the second one said. He moved into the light and Noah was stunned by what he saw. Though the first man was clad in the same black armor as the others, the second wore the olive plating of the colony guards.
A traitor.
“How can she be this hard to find? You work here!” the first man asked.
“They keep changing the room assignments,” the colony guard replied. “It’s this one though, I’m sure of it.”
Noah started walking toward them, cloaked by the darkness of the hallway. The colony guard kicked the door in with an iron boot and Noah raised his rifle to fire.
The man died before he could.
A blast from the doorway propelled the guard into the opposite wall, the boom echoing down the hall. The first man shielded himself and cried out only to have his legs swept out from under him by another thunderous shot. A scattergun.
Noah crept toward the downed assailants. Neither stirred. Slumped against the wall, the colony guard was missing half his face. The other man lay prone with both his legs detached and pointing in odd directions on the floor.
“Hey!” Noah called out. “Don’t shoot, I’m from the colony. I’m one of the Earthborn. I’ll get you out of here.”
Noah crept toward the lit doorway. The heavy wooden door had been knocked completely off its hinges and into the room.
“What’s your name? Which one are you?” called the voice from inside. A woman, another Anointed. She sounded young.
“Noah,” he replied.
There was a long pause. Blood droplets tumbled down the wall opposite from the doorway. Noah looked around nervously for more enemies in the dark, but there were none, and he could hear no more cries.
“Show me your arm,” the voice said nervously,
Noah was confused, but stuck out his right arm so that it was visible in the entrance. He gave a small wave.
“Your other arm.”
Noah understood now. He tore away his already ripped undersuit and thrust his left arm through the door. The burns creeping down his bicep should be visible now, a mark well known around the world.
“Alright,” came the voice, still shaking.
Noah stepped into the light and prayed he wasn’t going to be torn apart by a scattergun blast. He held the rifle by the barrel, off to his side just in case she saw it as a threat.
The woman in the room was still veiled, seated against the back wall pointing the scattergun toward him, her grip shaking. Flecks of blood dotted her white robes and woven mask.
“Gods, you�
�ve changed,” she said, lowering her gun and pulling off her veil with one hand.
Noah stared into a pair of wide, deep blue eyes. The girl was seemed to be about his age with pale skin and short, jet-black hair. He had no idea who she was.
5
“We have to get out of here,” Noah said, his eyes darting around the room and back out into the hall. He secured his grip on his rifle, content that the girl wasn’t going to kill him.
“Are they all dead?” she asked, peering at the two bodies behind Noah. He offered his hand and pulled her to her feet. The girl’s head barely came up to his chest.
“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s why we have to move. I can’t reach anyone on my comm. I thought these men were here for me, but they’re here for you. Why?”
“I-I don’t know,” she said.
“Then why do you have a scattergun in your room?”
“For protection.”
“Expecting a day like this one?” Noah asked, rubbing his temple with two bloodied fingers. This situation was too unreal to comprehend.
“I was told—”
“Later,” Noah said, pulling her by the hand into the hallway.
“We should go out the back to the courtyard,” the girl said, tugging him the other direction. He followed, assuming she knew the labyrinth better than he did. She stepped gingerly over the body of another fallen woman. Torchlight showed that the girl was on the verge of tears.
Noah kept trying his comm to no avail. A thought occurred to him. Should he even be trying to contact colony security? One or more of their own was responsible for this massacre. He thought about trying Tannon, but remembered the Watchman was attending to business off-world, far outside the range of local communication.
The pair of them emerged from a small door at the rear of the spire and entered an old graveyard filled with white tombstones in the shape of small trees. No one was there to greet them.
Almost as soon as they were out in the open, Noah’s comm squealed.
“Hey, brother,” came Erik’s voice.
“Erik!” Noah shouted, quickly realizing he should still be keeping his voice down.
“I’ve been trying you for twenty minutes, where are you?” his brother responded.
“Listen, Erik, I’m—”
“Anyway, Finn and I are about to leave for the Mission, and I figured I’d give you one last chance to not be lame. I really think you should come.”
Mark’s Mission. Noah had forgotten all about it. He had to get out of here, go anywhere. His mind raced. Sure, he could take this girl to some casino for a few days while he sorted out whatever the hell had just happened. As of now, he wasn’t even sure which authorities he could trust. But he could trust Erik, for all his faults.
“Erik, I’m at the spire. It’s been attacked. Dozens of Anointed and all the colony guards are dead. I need you to pick us up at the rear of the mountain in the graveyard.”
There was a pause.
“Shit, are you serious?” came Erik’s startled reply.
“Yes. Get here. Now. Don’t contact anyone.”
Noah heard Erik talking to someone, presumably Finn.
“On it. See you in four.”
The comm went dead. Noah immediately tried Sakai, then Wuhan, then Quezon. All were silent, switched off or worse.
Noah made his way to the edge of the cliff, which overlooked the colony. The lights of the buildings below were dimmed. There was no one stirring down there other than the usual patrols.
This wasn’t an attack on the colony, he thought. Just on the spire. Just for this girl.
He was relieved that at least Sakai was safe. He tried her one more time with no luck.
“What’s your name?” Noah asked the girl. She was standing next to a tree, shaking as the wind pierced her thin white robes. Noah had nothing to offer her for warmth. She was crying.
“You wouldn’t remember. It’s been so long.”
Noah’s eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.
“What are you talking about?”
“My name is Kyra,” she said. “Kyra Auran.”
A jolt ran through Noah.
“Kyra?” he said. “How the …”
Kyra had been Noah’s best friend through his early childhood years. The granddaughter of the Palace Keeper, Malorious Auran, she had been introduced to him back when Noah’s father was still alive. The two became fast friends and were inseparable for years. Even when he, Asha, and Erik were forced to live in exile, Keeper Auran had brought Kyra for visits until they were seven. After Noah and Erik had been transplanted into the colony, he never saw her again, even with Auran in charge of the installation for a spell. Noah had been told she remained in Elyria with her parents. Gradually, she had faded from his memory.
It was almost impossible to recognize her. He could barely picture her as a child anymore, though her bright blue eyes did ring some distant bell in his mind. But as long as he’d known her, she’d been blond, and her black hair now was a drastic change. Also, she’d aged twelve years, and had become a strikingly beautiful young woman rather than a bubbly child. But there was some small piece of him that could see that she was his old friend.
“Why are you here?” he finally got out. “What’s going on?”
Kyra leaned against the tree. Noah looked cautiously at the exit to the spire; he’d managed to barricade it with a log, but that wouldn’t stop a plasma burst. They just had to pray the invading force was all dead and no one was coming to reinforce them. Noah scanned the sky for ships. The clouds had parted to give way to an almost blinding field of stars.
“A few years after you left for the colony,” Kyra said, “someone broke into my house in Elyria. My parents were killed, I was shot.”
Noah started to say something, but it got lost in his throat.
“The city lawmen killed the intruders. They said one had my picture on a chip. They thought they were trying to kidnap me for ransom, because my grandfather was Keeper.”
She looked out toward the colony down the cliff.
“Grandfather Auran was devastated. He treated my wound and told me I wasn’t safe. I needed to go far away from him, from Elyria. Somewhere hidden. He’d been retired from running the colony for a few years by then, so he brought me here.”
Kyra stared up at the towering white spires behind them.
“I’ve been at the spire ever since. He said the colony guards that kept the Earthborn safe would keep me safe too. He said I could even see you from time to time, but I couldn’t say anything.”
Noah remembered the small Anointed he’d caught staring at him from time to time. And the guards at the spire. They’d been there for her as much as they’d been there for him. For all the good it did either of them.
“I was so thrilled to see you start to come here a few years ago. I was never allowed down into the colony itself,” Kyra continued. “I took my vows, I served Zurana. But I never revealed myself to you or anyone else. The Anointed ask no questions.”
“I have a few,” Noah said, interrupting. “No one was trying to kidnap you tonight. This was an assassination attempt, through and through. Why would someone be trying to kill you?”
Kyra burst into a fresh set of tears.
“I have no idea. My sisters. My friends. They’re all—” she couldn’t even finish the thought. Noah realized that perhaps he was being a bit too harsh given what she’d just endured. He was still trying to process the fact that he’d just killed three men, but he would have to deal with it another day.
“I was careful!” Kyra cried. “I wore my veil. I changed my hair like he said just in case. I kept the gun, but I never thought I’d use it! I never knew this would happen!”
“I know you didn’t,” Noah said, and he moved to put his arm around the shivering girl. He could feel goosebumps prickle through her robes. He winced as her head brushed across the black plasma burn on his neck.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” Noah co
ntinued. “Off-world, where whoever these people are won’t think to look.”
Kyra’s chin was buried in his chest and she was still sobbing.
“You should try and reach your grandfather,” Noah said. “Maybe he can help us. But for now, we need to get far away.”
As if on cue, a huge ship decloaked not thirty feet away from them, hovering over the edge of the cliff. Noah jumped, pointing his rifle at the vessel, but when the rear ramp descended, it was his brother standing there clutching an energy pistol.
Where did he get that?
Erik was noticeably stunned when he saw the pair of them covered in blood, their tattered clothes whipping around from the thrust of the luxury liner’s engines.
“What the hell happened? Who is this?” he called to them.
“We need to go,” Noah replied, hoisting Kyra up onto the hovering ramp like she weighed nothing. He climbed in after her. The three of them dashed inside and the craft ascended into the night sky.
Inside the cruiser, a Shatterstar-class luxury vessel with apparent aftermarket cloaking abilities, Noah and Kyra found themselves staring at Erik, Finn, and Theta.
Noah quickly filled the shocked trio in on the events at the White Spire. Theta took Kyra to one of the guest suites and found her some non-bloodstained clothes to change into. Finn found some for Noah, but they were naturally far too tight. The group was sitting in a plush lounge area that looked like it should be one of the rooms of the Grand Palace itself. Finn nervously eyed the cushions of the sprawling white couches, which were now smeared with drying blood.
“You’re Kyra?” Erik said incredulously as the story concluded. He had been old enough to faintly remember her presence during her visits in their youth. They didn’t have many guests at their various safehouses scattered around the world while Lucas and Asha’s names were being cleared in the killing of Talis Vale.