Land of the Dead

by Thomas Harlan

  Hadeishi popped up as the lead Khaid sprang past a fallen beam, and the Yilan tucked into his shoulder stuttered, flash-suppressor spitting flame in a brief, brilliant cross. At point-blank range, the armor-piercing munitions tore up the chest, faceplate, and shoulder of the hunter’s armor, knocking him back into the Khaid following behind. The other Imperials also let loose, all fire concentrated on the same lead figure. By the time the hunter had collided with his companions, the armor had been punctured twice by the hundreds of rounds and he drifted limply away.

  “Go!” Mitsuharu barked, ducking back. One of his men tossed a grenade—their last—into the midst of the enemy vanguard and then kicked off, sailing down their escape route. The other Imperials were already gone as the grenade cooked off in a sharp, hot blast. The Khaid hunters were thrown back by the pressure wave, but it was an even chance any of them suffered any lasting damage. Their armor was too tough for the lightweight weapons Hadeishi’s crew had managed to scavenge. The blast did collapse the roof, however, which had already been weakened by an engineering crew.

  The spitting howl of a squad support weapon replied—Mitsuharu didn’t remember the code-name assigned by Fleet intelligence—but the flechettes tore a horizontal gap across the fallen debris and hot sparks chased him down the hallway.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, the Chu-sa ducked under a haphazardly strung line of glowbeans and went to one knee, his face seamed with worry. The main medbay had been abandoned an hour ago, when the Khaid attack into the shipcore had focused on the secondary command ring, which also held the medical section. The surviving Imperials needing a corpsman—and there were many now—had been hauled out by grav-sled or z-line to the armored compartment managing the boat and cargo bays in the primary hull, which had escaped the initial assault. On a properly equipped Fleet ship, Hadeishi might have had one or two spare shuttles tucked away in the boat-bays. But the Kader had nothing spare, so they’d cut power to the bays and vented as much debris and garbage as could be found through the doors to discourage the Khaid from trying to land in them.

  Lovelace was tacked to the floor, her body wrapped in a survival blanket, leaving only the status readouts of her z-suit visible. Her rounded face was pale behind the faceplate, eyes closed. On her wrist, the med-band was a softly glowing bracelet of amber and green.

  “Not dead yet,” Mitsuharu said softly, squinting at the tiny readout. “But you’re not going to last without proper facilities.”

  “Sorry, kyo.” The Mirror Comms officer’s voice was a broken rasp. “They sealed the hull splinter in with me, but I can feel the knife twisting when I breathe.”

  “Don’t talk then.” Hadeishi sat, his back against the wall, her wrist held lightly between thumb and forefinger. “We’ve all run out of time in any case. And the Khaid are sadly lacking in regen pods. They don’t eat their own dead, but do employ a species of shipbug blessed by their priests for the very purpose.”

  “I taste terrible,” the girl said; her voice very, very faint.

  Mitsuharu nodded, watching her respiration flutter. The pale blue light of the glowbeans painted her cheekbones a deathly hue. “I’m sure you do, Sho-i. It was an honor to serve with you. I am sorry I did not listen—you tried to keep me from this fool’s errand.”

  “We—” A bubbling wheeze stopped her for a moment, but then she managed to say: “We were dead if we tried to run out past those two destroyers. You bought us another sixteen hours, at least.”

  I did that, he thought. To no good end, save to bring down a few more Khaid before the black sea takes us all.

  One of the lights on her med-band began to pulse red. Feeling a terrible sense of déjà vu, he gently dialed the band to send the Comms officer unconscious. Plum petals are falling, sickle moon sharp as—

  The poem faltered in his memory, the pace and tenor of the chatter and background noise on his comm suddenly changing. Hadeishi looked away from Lovelace, eyes closed, letting the voices of his men, his subcommanders, the sound and feel of the ship penetrating his back, his hands, the soles of his feet wash over him. On one of the channels, Tocoztic’s familiar voice—his breathing labored—said: “Is this getting easier, or is it my imagination?”

  Mitsuharu stiffened, rising from the floor. “All units report. Are you currently in contact with the enemy?”

  “No, Chu-sa,” worried voices replied. “It’s been quiet on either side of us for maybe five minutes.”

  Just as Hadeishi thumbed the all-channel push control on his z-suit comm, the partially open bay doors flared into a white-hot bar. The debris cloud outside was ionizing as a particle beam ripped across the surface of the Kader. The impact reverberated through the frame of the ship seconds later, transmitting itself to Mitsuharu as a keening shriek rising from his boot-soles. Screams on the comm channels were snuffed out abruptly as the beam punched through the central ring of the cruiser.

  The boat-bay doors crumpled as the primary hull twisted, suddenly torqued by a series of explosive blasts. Hadeishi dropped to the floor, crouching over Lovelace’s body, and felt the walls and floor ripple. Glassite shattered as the boat-bay windows tore from their frames. A second colossal impact followed as a shipkiller rammed into the gap torn by the particle beam. The missile vented plasma into the shipcore, immolating the dozens of Imperials still trapped within the secondary hull.

  The concussive wave transmitted to the primary hull as well, tearing the bay doors away entirely. The old cruiser split open, though Mitsuharu knew only that he and Lovelace were thrown against the far wall of the compartment along with everyone else in the makeshift medbay. Cries of agony filled his ears, but the Chu-sa’s attention was fixed on the violently glowing dust-clouds now visible through the gaping hole where the boat-bay had been. What tiny bit of atmosphere had remained in the management compartment now vented out into hard vacuum, crystallizing as frost on their suits.

  Hadeishi’s suit visor flickered, trying to focus on the abyss outside, then suddenly picked out—and enhanced—the outline of a Khaid destroyer sliding past at ten thousand kilometers, a long black shape with a blue-white flare where the drive nacelles were burning at one-quarter power. The first thing springing to mind was the image of a missile hatch cycling open as he watched …

  “We’ve got to get out”—he forced himself away from the wall, one arm snaking behind Lovelace’s shoulders to pull her with him—“of here.”

  Before he could drag her away a stabbing white glare flooded the compartment, momentarily polarizing Hadeishi’s visor to black.

  “What is—” someone shouted on the channel, before being drowned out by a tidal wave of static.

  Hadeishi felt his skin burning painfully from residual heat the z-suit could not disperse and gasped, blinded by even the microsecond of exposure to the antimatter reactor annihilating itself. When his vision cleared, the compartment was filled with drifting corpses, the walls discolored by the blast of radiation.

  “Report,” he croaked, “any survivors, report!”

  For a minute, or more, there was silence—stunned, wordless silence—but he could hear someone breathing harshly. Then a handful of voices babbled back, reporting status of their teams and their compartments.

  “Chu-sa, what happened?” Cajeme’s voice was suddenly clear and sharp; and the thought of the little Yaqui’s survival released a tiny fraction of the bone-crushing despair Mitsuharu had been struggling to wade through.

  “A Neshter-class destroyer,” Hadeishi managed to croak out, “blew to atoms within visual of us. I do not know why, or how, but nothing else has hit us in the last sixty seconds, so I claim victory.”

  THE PYLON

  Gretchen flinched away from a sudden, titanic plasma blast. The air erupted with blinding flame and a whirlwind of shrapnel. She lost her balance, teetering at the edge of the platform. Both Piet and Hummingbird lunged forward, gloved hands seizing her arms. Only then did she realize the burning cloud was passing through the two of t
hem without harm. Eons in the past, the technicians at the consoles were strewn about like matchsticks. The mighty Hjogadim Lord burned like a torch while the golden serpent suddenly, violently, escaped from its physicality. The great hall, to its farthest corners, boiled with unforeseen catastrophe.

  Anderssen blinked tears from her eyes, trying to focus on the present. Meanwhile, Piet had torn away her utility rig and was digging through the pockets.

  “I saw her stash it … back in the ship,” his voice rasped over the comm. “It must be here somewhere!”

  “It is gone,” Sahâne barked in amusement. The Hjogadim gestured towards the shaft. “Cast into the abyss.”

  Piet glared at the alien. “Then you will serve in her place.”

  Sahâne nodded and rose to his feet, helped by one of the other Templars. To Gretchen it was plain that something in the Hjo had found surety at last, banishing his chronic fear. “What will you have me say?”

  Confused, Gretchen eyed the Europeans, Hummingbird, and the alien. A message? To the dead? No … to those sleeping below? But they cannot hear us—not without a Voice—uh oh …

  Piet paused, squaring his shoulders, and then recited: “That we await their coming and are prepared to aid, as did their servants of old. That we pledge true service, where so many failed them before. That we have need, for a great peril will soon return.”

  Sahâne’s snout twitched in amusement, but he nodded.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Gretchen caught a glimpse of a thin blue-black furred shape shrouding the pilot like a ghostly cloak. How could anything have survived that plasma blast? She turned in amazement to get a better look. But the apparition was already gone. The ghost-world was fading now, consumed by the chaos of ancient battle. Too many fleeting events to leave a lasting mark on the substance of the consoles or the time-worn floor. Only one last glimpse of the Lord Serpent wicking through the air as a burning ribbon. Then it plunged into the cowering body of a still-living blue-black technician.

  In a last burst of memory, the slim, now-radiant alien escaped over the edge of the pylon.

  A vampire, Gretchen realized, falling back into the waking world, her limbs clammy with shock. A parasite of some kind, that … something like that was in the tablet! It was controlling me, guiding my mind! Xochitl was right—and there are hundreds of thousands more of them, down there, in the abyss … the deities of the Hjogadim.

  “I will say these words, to the Gods,” Sahâne announced, breaking her train of thought. The priest made an elegant, human-style bow. “If you give me leave to do so.”

  The three Templars shared a glance and nodded, almost as one. Piet gestured with his assault rifle, pointing Sahâne towards the nearest console. “Waste no time, then.”

  Gretchen watched curiously as the Hjo paced deliberately to the largest, most centrally located console and then pressed fingertips to forebrain, a swift, mumbled litany on his lips. What is he?… Anderssen felt suddenly the fool. Her ghost-sight quickened, and she saw the air around Sahâne come alive with flickering glyphs and signs. His masks are on overdrive and—spouting nonsense? They must be trying to decipher the control systems … but are too new to understand these older mechanisms.

  Despite the confusion of symbols, the subaudible hum in the floor changed pitch. At once the consoles flickered awake, glowing with dappled green and gold. The air in the enormous chamber stirred. Long lines of lamps began to shine among the abandoned cradles. Anderssen crawled to the nearest panel and felt it becoming aware under her hands, waiting for guidance. She realized that despite the echoes of destruction reverberating in the ghost-world, the gargantuan machine around her was intact and functioning.

  Automated maintenance, she guessed. Little bots or nanites always working to clean and fix and repair … gathering up the bodies of the dead, taking them away to be properly disposed of … A frown creased her forehead. But not by the great doors? Wouldn’t they … ah, but everything there is in a great untidy pile. Collected by the automated janitors, for something else, something larger to take away. But it couldn’t? Because the doors were locked tight, sealed.… She suppressed an automatic reaction to look around the platform for the corpse of the last technician, the one that had sealed the doors, trapping himself inside, and then expired in due time. Not here, not here … some chamber where he’d cached a bit of food and water, until he knew the tomb was forgotten and no one would return.

  So, treachery. Battle and slaughter in the midst of the great undertaking. Millions of stasis racks, all empty. Storage for the bodies drained of guiding flame. Waiting for their masters—their operators?—to return.…

  Gretchen’s tongue awoke. “I don’t think you want him to do anything with that console, Löjtnant Piet.”

  The pilot turned, politely curious.

  “His race views ours as slaves and toys. I do not think the honorable Lord Sahâne will treat us kindly once he’s figured out how to work the controls of this fortress.” She forced a grin. “I think war-machines will come and we will all die. And then he will be in control of this place, and all that it contains.”

  Piet stared first at her, then at Hummingbird, and finally at Sahâne. Gretchen was woefully aware of his sudden confusion, and fear, and the absolute depth of his ignorance. If a penny will not do, then a pound must suffice. She coughed wetly. “We don’t have much time, but I think I can deliver your message to his Gods—to the Vay’en who are sleeping far below us, in the singularity.” Another cough, this one unforced. “Even without the bronze tablet.”

  Sahâne’s eyes were black as ink, his long face unreadable.

  Piet blinked at Gretchen, and then eyed Sahâne suspiciously. Nodding, he raised his weapon. “Away from the console, creature.”

  The Hjogadim moved back, slender hands raised.

  “And him, too, get him away from everything,” Gretchen said, feeling her weakness returning, indicating Hummingbird with a tilt of her helmet. “You mustn’t trust him at all.”

  The Templars were quick to action. They forced the nauallis away, to the top of the steps. Hummingbird went without complaint, though his eyes were fixed on Anderssen, his entire body tensed.

  No, old Crow, I won’t tell you what I’m going to do. Not now, not ever again.

  She suppressed a start of alarm when the still-open secondary comm channel squeaked in her ear. Oh oh, not much time left! Rubbing her gloves together, Anderssen placed her hands on the console.

  The control surfaces gleamed like water under her touch. The glyphs swam to and fro in her unsteady vision. She closed both eyes, letting her mind grow quiet, feeling the pattern of the ancient machinery radiating against her outstretched hands. Somewhere here …

  “This is truly a construct of the Vay’en?” Hummingbird’s voice was reasonable, quiet, and far distant from her hurrying, busy thoughts. “A curious turn, to find the Hjogadim here in such numbers.…”

  “I do not know of these Vahyyyen,” Sahâne replied testily. “My people built this fastness long ago, for our signs and symbols are everywhere. Even the passage-signs are in archaic Hjogadim, just as you might read in the Perfect Path. You trespass! This female of yours cannot have the first conception of how to—”

  Gretchen moved along the control surface, following fragmentary memories, until a collection of glyphs under her hands suddenly felt incorrect.

  A constellation of meanings, she perceived, where specific arrangements of the glyphs equal actions. Not verbs and nouns, but hieroglyphs. Like in the transit core outside. She adjusted two of the outermost symbols, letting them flow under her fingertips into their long-accustomed, proper orientation.

  A rippling groan permeated the air, rising up from the floor below the pylon. Everyone tensed, but nothing happened immediately. Anderssen craned her neck over the edge to see that the endless rows of cradles had tilted upright. Their restraining wings were unfolding. Ready for the next fifty thousand passengers!

  “I did that,” she said idly to t
he onlookers. Then she returned to letting her awareness expand and hoped against hope to grasp the meaning of these … That is odd. Two whole sequences of the controls were suddenly and clearly out of joint. These feel … stuck. She tried to move them back into what was so-obviously their proper configuration. Intermittent thought-images from her gold-tinged dreams surfaced, colliding with the glyphs on the control surface, but yielding faint guidance to her. Yes, this first is a control constellation which means death. Transfiguration. Yielding to chaos. But still, neither set of control symbols would move. The controls are jammed, she realized with a sinking feeling. Her focus turned to the second set.

  This is birth; borrowed memory told her, rejuvenation. Images of a blossoming flower invaded her vision—opening, wilting, dying, budding, opening, wilting—no, not just any bloom, but a perennial. But why—

  Gretchen grasped the totality of the puzzle in one shining instant. Many details were lacking, but the shattered pot suddenly fell together in her hands. What cold calculating horror. She knew what must be done. Hummingbird is going to be displeased with me.

  Anderssen laughed aloud, drawing a strained look from everyone arrayed around her.

  NEAR THE SUNFLOWER

  “Time to safety limit?” Koshō felt a great lightness steal over her as the Naniwa slipped past the last of the gargantuan wrecks. They were once more in open space, with nothing between her battle-cruiser and the distant speck of the artifact but vacuum. Somewhere ahead the ionized clouds of two Hayalet-class battleships marked the edge of the thread-weapon guarding the Sunflower. She hoped they would be able to use that—somehow—to their advantage in dealing with the rest of the Khaid. Her attention snapped to Helsdon, who was still crouched over his consoles, stylus tapping intermittently as he tried to tune the sensor array to detect the quantum distortions caused by the alien weapon.