The Sons of Sora

by Paul Tassi

  She looked down at a readout on her arm.

  “Sorans. All of them, it would seem. No humans of Earth.”

  “Prisoners of war,” Erik said, surveying the grisly landscape.

  “Perhaps being human, not Soran, has allowed you to survive the conversion process for this long. There are slight genetic differences between the two species, after all,” Theta mused.

  A hundred voices called out to Lucas from the pit. Mournful wails. He shook them out of his head.

  “Can you hear that?” he asked the group. Noah and Erik exchanged a worried glance.

  “We need to keep moving,” Noah said. “There’s no telling when more Xalans might show up to investigate what happened here.”

  The pool howled at him as he left. Or perhaps it had been the wind the whole time.

  A storm had descended upon the ruins of Dubai by the time they exited the hotel. Lightning crackled from cloud to cloud and violent thunder pierced their eardrums. The rain was falling in sheets, and Lucas wondered what was possibly happening with Earth’s climate to drown a desert region like this. But he was just thankful the clouds were not red anymore, and the rain no longer burned. The planet had been mortally wounded. But it had clung to life, just as he had.

  Sixteen years.

  He could hardly believe it. He knew that his periods of consciousness had been brief inside the chamber, but he’d thought only weeks had gone by. A month, maybe. But they’d made him sleep for sixteen years. Made him dream.

  It was astonishing to see Noah and Erik grown. Noah had sprouted into the spitting image of his father, the cannibal chief Lucas had executed at Kvaløya. He wasn’t quite as tall, but it seemed he would be someday. Lucas never planned to tell Noah about his true parentage, content simply to say that he was a stray child with a dead mother they found on their travels. That much was true, of course.

  And Erik. He saw a bit of himself in his younger son, the one that actually shared his blood. Well, his old self. Before he’d lost his hair, sprouted ink-like veins and frosted blue eyes. He was built the way Lucas had been at that age, lean but athletic, and carried himself with a sense of purpose and obvious pride. But clearly there was more of Asha in him. The dark curls, the wide green eyes. And already, he saw a bit of her temper there as well.

  He’d missed almost their entire lives. In between thunderclaps, Noah told him about the colony, about his girlfriend, or “pair,” named Sakai, one of the tank-bred humans Malorious Auran had spawned to perpetuate the race. He was introduced to Finn Stoller, the son of the new High Chancellor whom Lucas had known and rather disliked in his past life. And Noah told him the story of how he’d become recently reunited with his childhood friend, Auran’s granddaughter Kyra, after an attack at their local cathedral. There was something about Kyra that was disquieting to Lucas, but he couldn’t understand why. She appeared to be a perfectly lovely girl, and Lucas shook off the feeling.

  They trudged forward through the rain, his muscles relearning how to walk. He wondered how Asha would react when she saw him, the twisted Xalan experiment. But god, he couldn’t wait to lay eyes on her again.

  Lucas stumbled over a downed wooden traffic barrier, but caught himself before falling into the mess of fractured cement and broken glass that was the Dubai coastal highway. He looked up just as a flash of lightning illuminated the sky. He saw … a shape.

  “Hey,” he called out to the group in the rain. “Did you see that?”

  Erik gave Noah a hesitant look. They thought he was crazy.

  Another flash. The shape grew bigger in the clouds. A void that rain was simply swallowed into. Lucas stopped walking abruptly.

  “Lucas, we really have to keep moving,” Noah said diplomatically, but with a hint of frustration.

  Another flash. Then they all saw it. It wasn’t in his mind. Floating above them was a ship, the likes of which he’d never seen.

  9

  Noah’s eyes widened as the disc-like craft descended toward them. This wasn’t Lucas hallucinating again. The rain was being absorbed into the shape, and suddenly a string of lights erupted around the edge of the void. It was round and flat and had no external engine as far as Noah could see.

  “Theta …” Noah called out, gripping his rifle tightly. The ship was getting lower. Too low. Theta was checking readouts that were completely blank.

  “There is nothing,” she said. “The sensors relay that nothing is here. It is impossible, but …” she trailed off.

  Another flash of lightning revealed black shapes with singular blue lights falling from the underside of the dark ship. Heartbeats began to pop up on Theta’s display. Four, eight, a dozen.

  “I have seen this ship,” she said breathlessly. “My father was attempting to study it for the SDI. There was only three seconds of footage of it, taken in the Makari solar system.”

  Noah understood. So did Erik.

  “The Black Corsair,” he said, raising his twin pistols toward the dark stretch of deserted highway in front of him. Of course someone had come to investigate the slaughter at the hotel lab. But him? Was it really him? Noah felt his throat constrict in panic.

  The sound of claws on metal could be heard through the rain up ahead. Dark shapes leapt through the air, bounding over decayed cars toward them. Tiny lights from their power armor twinkled in the rain.

  Noah looked around frantically. He saw a large overturned car that had once pulled a long metal container two lanes to his right. Grabbing Theta and Kyra by the arms, he hauled them over toward it.

  “Stay in here,” he said firmly. “No matter what you hear, don’t come out.”

  “No!” said Kyra angrily, twisting away from his grasp. Noah was stunned. “You need help!” she continued. “We’re armed.”

  Theta put up no such protest and was huddled against the side of the compartment.

  “Please,” Noah pleaded with Kyra. “I—”

  Ignoring him, Kyra began to make a beeline back toward the others, checking the power pack on her scattergun.

  Noah swore and turned to Theta.

  “Send out a distress beacon to any SDI signature remotely near here,” he said. Theta barely had time to nod before he slammed the container’s sliding door shut.

  Noah bounded after Kyra, who was disappearing into the rain. Surviving the spire had changed her, it seemed. Hardened her. Bravery was one thing, but recklessness was another. He didn’t need another Erik on his hands. Noah looked up at the ship and heard yelling ahead. He sprinted faster.

  He never reached the voices.

  The Xalan slammed into him, propelled by the jetpack attached to the rear of his armor. It shot out a blue flame that was vaporizing raindrops in the downpour. Noah immediately lost his grip on his rifle, which clattered to the ground, and the pair of them rocketed into a nearby automobile that cratered with the impact of Noah’s power armor. His head cracked against the metal and his vision went white.

  He regained focus just in time to deflect the Xalan’s extended pistol hand. The shot blew a hole through the passenger door of the car, and Noah countered with a power fist to the creature’s midsection. He heard the Xalan’s armor crunch painfully. He threw another punch at the creature’s throat. It was a glancing blow, but it was enough to stagger his attacker and allow Noah to launch himself back to his feet. Gunfire could be heard coming from up ahead. He had to reach his friends.

  Noah eyed the creature who was now clutching his side. The only Xalans Noah had ever seen in person were Alpha and his family. This one was taller and fully armored and had a strange symbol on his chest. If this was one of the famed Shadows, Noah knew he would already be dead.

  His hammer.

  He whipped out the long darksteel warhammer, which he’d almost forgotten was strapped to his back because of how little it weighed. The recovered Xalan raised his pistol again, but Noah shattered it into debris with one lightning quick swing. He found he could strike infinitely faster with the darksteel than with the colony�
�s clunky practice mauls.

  The Xalan ducked under the second swing and reached for the rifle on his back. Noah thrust the hammer forward, and its top spike speared the gun’s barrel. The weapon misfired, and a small internal explosion sent shrapnel into the Xalan’s hand, resulting in a howl of pain.

  Noah didn’t wait for the creature to pull out any more weapons. One more thunderous swing shattered the Xalan’s entire chest plate and sent him flying through the already broken windshield of another car. Noah leapt into the air, his power armor lofting him eight feet up, and he came crashing down on the hood, his hammer caving in the Xalan’s chest completely.

  There was no time to stop and breathe. Ahead, another armored trooper was firing his gun at someone, possibly Erik. Noah sprinted over the rest of the demolished car and slid across the gravel, driving the spike on top of his hammer through the back of the creature’s neck. The Xalan seized up and collapsed onto the cracked road, but whoever he’d been shooting at was now lost in the torrential rain.

  Noah heard a thunderclap shockingly close by, and as he turned around found it wasn’t the weather at all. Kyra stood a dozen feet behind him, holding her smoking scattergun. On the ground in front of her was a downed Xalan with a constellation of smoking holes in his back. He was reaching for his discarded rifle, but another boom from Kyra’s gun removed the Xalan’s head this time. He hadn’t heard either of them behind him, and it very well could have been him lying there headless if Kyra hadn’t been there.

  Noah was just about to shout his gratitude over the howling wind when he saw a shape materialize behind her. His eyes widened and he bolted forward. Noah shoved her out of the way and she crashed headfirst into a nearby concrete barrier, just as the figure fired his weapon.

  The blast caught Noah below his ribcage and sent him spinning wildly to his right. But he kept his footing and when he came around, he brought the warhammer with him. It shattered both the helmet and skull of the Xalan attacker before he could fire another shot.

  Noah dropped to his knees, clutching his side. A black hole was scorched into his armor and the flesh underneath was charred. The armor had deflected most of the blow, but the plasma still burned like hellfire. He looked over at Kyra, crumpled in a heap up against the barrier. A quick scan revealed she was alive, but unconscious. Muddy water pooled around her face, and Noah looked behind him where the air was being lit up by gunfire.

  Recognizing this could probably be the safest place for her in the present situation, Noah used all the natural might the gods had given him, along with the artificial strength from the power armor, and dragged the carcass of a rusted car a few feet backward so that it would shield her from view. Once that was done, he sprinted toward the rest of the gunfire.

  Xalan corpses lay scattered on the cracked cement, and he couldn’t remember if they were the ones he’d killed or not; the storm reduced vision to a minimum and he was disoriented. He kept running until he saw one body that looked decidedly human and froze in his tracks, his stomach dropping. Noah bent down and rolled the body over.

  Finn Stoller. But he was breathing.

  There was a smoking hole at his breastbone, but he was alive. His precious prototype assault rifle lay a few feet away, and had taken even more abuse than he had. A few plasma rounds had reduced it to scrap metal, and it would never fire another shot. Noah quickly dug into his pocket for some healing gel, which he hastily dumped on Finn’s wound, ignoring the proper procedure he’d learned in his lessons at the colony. Even with his suit’s stabilizers, his hands were shaking. All the training on Sora hadn’t prepared him for this.

  “Come on!” shouted a voice from the darkness.

  It was Erik, and as Noah stood up, he realized his brother wasn’t talking to him.

  “Come on!” Erik shouted again toward a pair of Xalan solders trying to flank him from cover. He held out one of his laser pistols, but his other arm was drawn into his body. He was hurt.

  Pieces of Xalans lay in a small clearing on the highway, neatly cut. Noah watched Erik fire the laser pistol at the car the two Xalans were hiding behind, and bright golden beam ripped through the metal cleanly. A howl indicated one of the Xalans had lost an appendage. The other one finally bolted upright and leveled a string of shots toward Erik. His brother dove out of the way, rolled upright again, and a new beam split the Xalan’s head in half from his brow upward. The other one stumbled out from behind the automobile, missing an arm, and Erik whipped the beam across his chest, dropping him permanently. He shook out his good hand painfully as the gun was beginning to overheat.

  Erik finally saw Noah walking toward him, hammer in hand. The rain was doing its best to wash his armor clean of blood, but it was still everywhere. There was more gunfire, but it was further away now.

  “Where is everyone?” Erik shouted over the din of the storm.

  “Theta safe, Kyra and Finn hurt, but alive,” Noah yelled back, not wanting to waste words. “You?” he asked, motioning toward his brother’s arm.

  Erik extended his left hand. Noah grimaced as he saw that his brother had lost his two smallest fingers, with a third mangled badly.

  “They’ll grow me some new ones,” he said, pretending like he wasn’t in agony. “Where’s this Corsair, anyway?”

  Noah wondered if Theta was wrong. Maybe this was just a routine Xalan patrol coming to investigate the lab incident. But that ship …

  More gunfire, and a human yell. There was only one of them left. Erik and Noah turned in the direction of the sound, but shifted their gaze upward as more blue lights descended from the dark ship. More soldiers.

  They ran into the darkness and soon found what they were looking for. Lucas was surrounded by five Xalans, his hastily assembled power armor crumbling off of him, revealing the bandages and black veins underneath. He was holding the assault rifle that Noah had dropped in the opening moments of the battle. The Xalans were wielding either rifles or long electric spears. Stun weapons.

  They want him alive.

  Of course they did. They’d been experimenting on him for over a decade. The rest of them, however, seemed to be quite expendable.

  Finally, the group circling him lunged. Two fired blue stun blasts from their weapons while three dove in with the electric polearms. Lucas unloaded the rifle into one Xalan whose face exploded immediately, but he was unconscious before could take out any more.

  Noah and Erik bounded over a flattened car toward the dogpile. Erik swung the pistol up in an arc that cleaved one of the riflemen in half. After letting it cool for half a second, he whipped it to the right and decapitated another. Noah, meanwhile, had leapt onto one of the spear-wielding Xalans attempting to pick Lucas up. He jammed the butt of his hammer into the small of his back. Once, twice, until he heard the armor crack. Another Xalan trying to subdue Lucas lunged at Noah with the crackling electric spear and it made Noah’s hair stand on end as he weaved out of its way. Noah swung his hammer upward. It connected with the metal pole, bent it inward, and killed its power source. Whipping the warhammer around, he planted its rear spike into the chest of the creature before turning back to the other one on the ground and crushing him with a powerful overhand blow. The street caved in around the point of impact, and Noah staggered backward from the shockwave. The entire section of the freeway shook while blue lights on the sides of the hammer glowed, then faded.

  Erik stood next to him and they looked down at Lucas, out cold from the half dozen stuns he’d been hit with. Lucas the hero. Lucas the legend. Right now, he didn’t really look like the god of war the stories made him out to be.

  There was another flash of lightning and a figure became briefly illuminated standing on a car ahead of them. Not a Xalan, but a man.

  “Finn?” Erik called out to him, but the man said nothing. More lightning. It wasn’t Finn. The shape was taller, broader, and appeared to be encased in an entirely black suit of armor.

  Noah’s eyes widened.

  Erik was sent flying over the guar
d railing of the overpass as if an invisible freight train had plowed into him and he tumbled down onto the flooded sands below.

  Noah turned to reach for his brother, but he was gone. The air hummed with tangible energy. He turned back toward the man who had now descended from the car and was a walking toward Noah with his arm raised. He stepped over Lucas’s face-down body. Noah sprinted toward him with his warhammer cocked.

  And then, three feet away from the man, his hammer inches away from smashing into his skull, Noah froze. He couldn’t move an inch or blink an eyelash. The man looked at him impassively.

  Noah could see now that he wasn’t wearing power armor. He had on a slim fiber suit, but everywhere his skin was visible it was charred black like many of the corpses in the hotel pool. His hair had been seared off, his skin was hard and cracked, but he was very much alive. The pure ice-blue eyes staring deep into Noah told him that much.

  The Corsair.

  A human.

  No sooner had the realization dawned on Noah than he was flung backward from the horrifying face and slammed into an upright streetlight. He could barely move, and as the man walked toward him, he splayed Noah’s arms out wide by separating his blackened fingers.

  “W-why?” Noah managed to get out through strained vocal cords. “You’re … one of us.”

  The man’s voice was low and rumbled like the thunder that boomed all around them. It sounded like a multitude of voices in one.

  “I serve the Archon. I hunt the Soran traitors,” the Corsair growled through split lips.

  Noah couldn’t get anything else out as his arms were bent backward around the pole. His elbows were driven toward each other and he felt like he was about to pass out from the pain. He heard the gears crack in his armor. The Corsair’s eyes burned with limitless fury, his black skin slick from the rain. The next pop Noah heard wasn’t metal, but bone. His scream rebounded off every dead skyscraper in Dubai.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kyra running toward them, weapon in hand, helmet secured. He wanted to yell to her.