Warden's Vengeance

by Tony James Slater

Shields flared and went out in Àurea’s fleet, her ships unprepared for the ferocity of the assault.

  Answering blasts claimed some of the attackers, but their number was too great. Before the Ingumend ships could redeploy, the flotilla swept past, driving hard back to their point of origin. They left shock and disarray in their wake, and two Ingumend capital ships burning from stem to stern. Several others had taken significant damage. The sudden strike was a complete reversal of the Church’s tactics, and Àurea was at a loss for how to respond.

  As her gaze followed this new group across the tac display, several larger dots winked into play around them.

  More ships? Àurea drew a sharp breath.

  Another fleet!

  An entire task force just lying in wait for them, closing around the Ingumend like the jaws of a giant beast.

  And these ships weren’t inclined to be nearly as passive.

  The ship shook with multiple impacts, as the Church force behind them unleashed the full fury of their weaponry. The surprise sortie had been a feint, she realised. A more organised force might have given pursuit, flying right into the teeth of these new arrivals.

  For once, their inefficiency had actually saved some lives.

  “Away!” she shouted, above the commotion and comm-chatter. “Full speed to Helicon Prime!”

  The way she saw it, they could hang back and endure this new onslaught, or put as much distance as possible between them and the ships that were settling in behind them.

  We were headed that way anyway…

  “Keep watch for boarding skiffs,” Sera reminded the crew. “Save all short-range batteries for them alone, we can’t risk any getting through.”

  “I see a second wave of skiffs leaving the carrier group on the right,” Lantz reported.

  Àurea grabbed the comm officer’s shoulder. “Warn the other ships!”

  A feeling of hopelessness washed over Àurea, as she saw the skiffs fanning out. There were dozens of them, the soldiers inside more than a match for her ragged group of volunteers.

  Yet again, her mother came to her aid. “Comms! Have the fighters form a screen ahead of us. Get the Folly to hang back and keep that pincer force off us. Tactical!” she looked along the line of consoles. “I want one of you dedicated to sharing our data with the other ships. Concentrate on the skiffs; anything they’ve got, add it to ours. The rest of you pick a sector each and watch them like hawks. There’s too many ships out there for you all to be watching all of them.”

  She received a chorus of “Yes ma’am,” in response.

  The comms officer was paying strict attention, firing off encrypted messages as fast as Sera was dictating them. Now he waved for her attention. “Signal from Captain Seneka. On screen?”

  Captain Nikolau stirred in his seat. “He’s still alive? Yes, put him on.”

  The Captain Seneka who appeared, grinning ear to ear, was very different to the petrified man they’d seen earlier. “Nikolau, they surrendered!” the captain beamed. “Every one of the boarders! They came through the breach with their hands up, and asked if they could join our rebellion!”

  “What?” Nikolau glowered. “That’s… is that…?”

  “It’s a trick,” Sera said at once. “They’re trying to lull us.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Seneka roared, obviously displeased with her challenge. “I’m telling you, we’ve got these men and their weapons. They’re cooling off in the brig for now, but if we need ground troops when we reach the surface they’ll be on my team.”

  Captain Nikolau stared at him. “Is it possible?”

  “Our message is well-known,” Àurea interjected. “It’s only natural that the fighting men and women of the Empire want to be on the right side.”

  “We are losing,” Sera pointed out.

  “You may be losing,” Seneka snapped. “My army is growing by the minute! Nikolau, ignore the boarders. It was the Church’s last gamble, and they’ve lost. We can be inside the atmosphere and targeting the Temple Mount in minutes!”

  The comm officer waved for attention again. “Ma’am, we’ve had two other captains receive open messages from the boarding skiffs. They declared no hostile intent, and requested permission to come aboard!”

  “Don’t let them!” Sera cautioned.

  “Their own side will blow them out of the sky if we don’t,” Nikolau countered.

  She glowered. “We have troop transports of our own? Send them there! Our warships cannot be compromised, it’s too great a risk.”

  “Too late, ma’am,” the comm officer said. “Both captains heard from Seneka and they’re allowing the skiffs to dock. I’m getting more reports of boarders declaring for the Ingumend.”

  On the viewscreen, Captain Seneka smirked. “See! It’s the power of the message. The whole navy is defecting! Let’s get to the planet while we can!” The scene flicked off as he cut comms.

  On the tactical overlay that replaced his face, Àurea noticed the Folly falling back towards the rearguard as the second enemy fleet advanced.

  “More boarding skiffs to the fore!” someone called out. “Sector seven.”

  The relevant sector of the display enlarged, and Àurea felt her eyes go wide. Hundreds of the stubby-winged ships had been jettisoned like a cloud, blanketing the approach to the planet below. “How many?” she asked, her hand going out to her mother. “In each ship, how many?”

  “Depends on their gear,” Sera responded. “Maybe twenty in heavy armour; twice that without the equipment. But boarding parties are usually heavily armed.”

  “Broadcast on all frequencies,” Captain Nikolau, called out. “Tell them we’re with them, for the freedom of all our people!”

  “No,” Sera hissed. “They can’t all be on our side. Look at the fleet behind us! Can’t you see? We’re being herded.”

  “The Church has realised their mistake,” Nikolau shook his head vigorously. “They’ve let us get too close to the planet, and they’re desperate to catch us. Full speed ahead!”

  “Weapons!” Sera shouted. “Destroy anything that approaches without permission.”

  “Those are our men out there,” Nikolau snarled at her. “I came up from the Navy! And when I defected I brought my whole crew!”

  “A crew that have all died fighting Church soldiers,” Sera reminded him. Her voice was dangerous now. “Where were these men until now? You cannot trust them!”

  “Skiffs approaching ma’am,” said the comm officer.

  “We have them painted,” called one of the gunners. “Do we fire?”

  “Yes!” Sera told them.

  Captain Nikolau surged up from his chair. “Wait—”

  “Distress call!” The comm officer was frantic. The viewscreen crackled to life with the bridge of another ship. “We’re overrun!” the balding captain shouted. He glanced around in panic, and Àurea noticed he was clutching a pistol. “Get out of here!” He snapped off a pair of shots at someone off-screen. “The boarders! They weren’t soldiers, they were—”

  And something lunged in, slamming into the captain before he could finish. Blades rose and fell, and the hideous creature let loose a tormented scream. More of them flooded into view, their claws and weapon-implants making short work of the handful of bridge crew.

  And the image went dark.

  “Transgressors,” Àurea breathed into the silence that followed.

  Sera recovered first. “Destroy those skiffs!” she yelled.

  Crimson lasers stabbed out, the viewscreen switching back to the battle outside. The ships behind them responded sluggishly, but they too appeared to be targeting the boarders.

  “They’re too close!” one of the gunners cried out. “There’s too many!”

  “It’s fucked,” said Nikolau. “It’s all fucked. We’ve got to go.”

  “No!” Àurea spoke up. “We’re almost past them. We have to hit Helicon Prime. The defence will crumble if we destroy the Temple.”

  “That’s insane! We
can’t fight those things. We can still escape! Re-group outside the system and—”

  “Ma’am!” one of the tac officers called. “We’ve got two skiffs on our hull. There!” He pointed at a monitor. The feed showed a view of a nondescript hallway, with a pair of young engineers jogging down it, tools in hand. As the image flicked up onto the main viewscreen, the two men stopped abruptly. The wall ahead of them began to glow, rapidly heating to incandescent white; then it split in the centre, the pieces drooping inward, unfurling like the petals of a delicate flower.

  For a second the camera showed only the two engineers, stood frozen just short of the opening.

  Then in a blur of steel and malformed flesh, a horde of Transgressors boiled from the breach.

  The two young men were cut to ribbons before they had time to react. Their blood splattered the walls and floor, a few drops reaching far enough to fleck the camera lens.

  “Shit!” Nikolau swore. “Shit, shit, shit…”

  Àurea glanced back at him, to find the man with his hands over his eyes, rocking back and forth in the command chair. “Mother…?” she asked.

  “He’s gone.” Sera’s tone was cold and brusque. “I’ve seen it before. How many crew on this vessel?”

  The captain’s son, Ensign Lantz, was the first to respond. “S… seventy-eight,” he stammered, his eyes wide as he stared at his father.

  “Dead… we’re all dead,” Nikolau moaned.

  Sera ignored him. “How many soldiers?”

  “L… less than ten.”

  She swore. “Bring them here. Have them defend the bridge at all costs.”

  “Yes ma’am,” the comm officer replied.

  “But…?” Lantz started. “What about the rest of the crew? The Transgressors, they’ll kill everyone!”

  Sera stared at him for a long moment. Then, with a whine of servomotors, she strode towards the door. A clunk came from her armour as she flexed her wrists, and a pair of vicious-looking blades snapped into place beneath her gauntlets. “I’ll take care of this,” she said, her voice like ice. “Àurea, you have the bridge. Hold them off as long as possible and make your run on the planet.”

  The door swished open in front of her.

  Àurea couldn’t help herself. “Mum, no!”

  Sera turned back to her, a strange look playing on her face. “You forget yourself, child.” Then her mouth turned up at the edges in the ghost of a smile. “Besides, this is what I do.”

  30

  Tris strode out of the Portal with his glaive at the ready.

  Into an office of sorts; wood panelling, an oversized desk, and a variety of control consoles that lined the walls.

  Kreon was there ahead of him, the old Warden already making for the room’s only door.

  Tris stood aside as Kyra exited the Portal, shivering in her armour. Her helmet was still attached to her hip, like his; her long ponytail had reverted to the black-slashed-with-red that she favoured in battle.

  “Damn it! Next time we go through one of those things, remind me to bring a scarf!”

  She moved aside too, making room for Loader.

  The talos came through easily, his gleaming sapphire form presumably immune to the cold. The revelation of his psychic powers was still fresh in Tris’ mind, and he wondered if Loader had felt the overpowering weight of malice that dominated his own experience of Portal travel.

  But this was not the time for idle questions.

  Kreon had the door open a crack and was peering out. “All clear,” he announced, letting the door swing fully open. It, too was wood; Gerian’s fixation with objects from Earth was evident anywhere the man had spent time.

  “Tunnels beneath the Tower?” Kreon hazarded, as he led the way out of the office.

  “Correct,” Loader answered him. The disturbing screech made by the body’s former occupant had been replaced by a drawl closer to the talos’ original voice. Not that that was any more ‘original’ than the body he now occupied, Tris corrected himself.

  “I am attempting to access the Tower’s mainframe,” Loader continued. “The servers are located far below this level, and should still be operational.”

  Tris dropped back to walk next to the talos, letting Kyra moved in front of him. “Is this where you watched the trial from? How far down are we?”

  “One second… Done! I now have limited mainframe access. In response to your question, we are over eighty levels or almost a quarter-kilometre below the surface of Helicon Prime. According to classified blueprints, there is a tunnel up ahead that runs directly into the undercroft of the Temple Mount.”

  “Temple… where the Keepers live, you mean?”

  “Correct. Assuming they are living beings. There are no public records of them beyond official announcements; my analysis of the footage in those broadcasts suggests a strong possibility that their images are computer generated.”

  This was news to Tris. He’d been picturing a bunch of frail old men in long robes, sitting around a big polished table. Church elders were always… well, elderly. Weren’t they?

  “Direct us to this tunnel,” Kreon said over his shoulder. He was advancing with his rifle up; beside him, Kyra was doing the same.

  The level they were moving through seemed abandoned, which made sense seeing as how the entire Tower above them had collapsed. Here and there Tris saw evidence of the disaster; ceiling tiles on the floor, stress cracks appearing in the white walls, light fittings that had gone dark.

  Still, he raised his pulse rifle and kept his gaze moving around them. He turned occasionally to check behind them, but when he reached out with the Gift he could find no evidence of people nearby.

  There was something though; way up ahead, in the direction they were going. Not a person, but a presence.

  “We’re coming up on some company,” Kyra announced, confirming Tris’ discovery.

  “I too sense life forms in front of us,” Loader stated. “I would prefer not to engage them directly. My first act in this new body should not be one of needless bloodshed.”

  Kyra gave him a quick glance over her shoulder before returning her attention to their route. “Hate to break it to you buddy, but if these assholes try to kill us, any bloodshed on our part is gonna be more than necessary.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tris told Loader. “We’ll take care of ‘em. We’re fighting for our lives, but nothing here can harm you.”

  “My point precisely,” the talos drawled. “However, the point appears to be moot; I am reading no thoughts from the life forms ahead.”

  Tris concentrated on his Gift-sense, looking lower in the spectrum. Loader was right. “Kyra, there’s something wrong here. If that’s people up ahead, they’re either asleep, or…?”

  “I know what you mean,” she agreed. “From here we should be able to tell what they’re thinking. But all I’m getting is a mindless drone, like… mental static.”

  Kreon kept them moving forward through a number of intersections; Tris assumed Loader was communicating directly with the Warden’s transceiver to direct them.

  “We’re close,” Kyra said, tension in her voice.

  Tris felt the same way. He’d come across his fair share of odd psychic readings lately, and not one of them had been good. “Not more of those psychotic monsters from the Pit,” he said, half-jokingly. It was about the only time he wouldn’t fear meeting Transgressors; not only did these ones appear to be dormant, but he reckoned Loader would take little convincing to help end the creatures’ suffering.

  “Off to the left,” Kyra said, coming to a halt facing down a side corridor.

  “We should press on,” Kreon countered. “Whilst we have the advantage. Once the Church becomes aware of our presence, we will be wading through soldiers down here.”

  “I’m with Kyra,” Tris said, surprising himself. “There’s something wrong down there. We can’t risk leaving it behind us.”

  Kreon considered for a second. “A fair point,” he conceded. “But we mu
st be swift.”

  “I’m always fast,” Kyra said, flashing Tris a grin. “But I’m worth it.”

  Loader trailed the pair of them, as they moved off down the corridor. Kreon hung back, keeping their escape route in sight.

  Tris knew they’d reached the right place when he saw the door. It was plain metal, above average size; it was also the only one on the corridor, which stretched as far as he could see.

  Kyra glanced at him, and he nodded. Letting her rifle hang, she pulled the swords from her waist. Two quick slashes was all it took; the door toppled inwards, landing on the floor with a crash.

  Tris sprang through the opening, his gun raised—

  To be greeted by row upon row of little booths, not unlike a futuristic version of a modern office. Each booth was sealed, but the top half of their partitions was glass. Inside he could make out human workers, all awake but seemingly stupefied. Even those closest to him didn’t flinch at the intrusion; they just stared into space, the headphone-like devices on their bald heads claiming their full attention.

  Kyra leapt through the door and ran over to the first cubicle, her swords poised to strike.

  Tris was looking right at her when she gasped, her face contorting with revulsion.

  “What is it?” he made it to her side in a hurry, eyes roving the booths for any sign of danger.

  “They’re not…” Kyra started. She sounded sick. “They’re not human.”

  Tris looked in through the glass and felt the bile rise in his throat. Kyra was wrong; what he saw was at least partially human.

  It had no mouth; milky white orbs occupied the sockets where its eyes should be. The torso was relatively normal, though hairless and emaciated. Scrawny arms were bound to the body with a metal band which encircled the person’s waist. Below that things got really ugly; the lower half was a mass of cables and tubes through which pallid, atrophied legs could just be glimpsed. The whole person was not much bigger than a child, though its proportions were grotesquely skewed. The head was almost a third of the whole, with the rest of its body almost comically shrunken. But there was nothing remotely funny about it; the forest of wires that connected it to the console in front of it were permanently grafted into its body. As Tris looked on, he noticed fluids of different colours pumping through some of the tubes, coming and going; nutrition and waste, his mind identified them.