“–a living death,” Blackmore finished. Braeden could hear the relief in the other man’s voice. He had felt it too, not that long ago. They hadn’t been wrong, nor had they failed. Hope hadn’t abandoned them just yet. “It actually works in our favor,” the Commander said thoughtfully, “with Sylvia back with us, the Enemy would have no reason to know that Rylynn survived. Not many knew who she was, so it’s not all over the empire that she’s in a coma. So this Betrayer thinks that she is out and thus won’t plan for anything she might do.”
“I like having the secret trump card,” Braeden agreed.
“Yes. Now we just have to find a way to keep something of the empire safe until she comes back to us.”
“There must be a way to get as many Spectrals to bond as possible,” Braeden muttered.
“Hasn’t that always been the problem?” Blackmore asked wryly. “What we need is a miracle. And it just so happens, I know where to get one.”
It was perhaps not an official day of prayer, but those who could sense that something worse than an invading army was on its way poured into the empire’s many churches. Unseen to most, the Spectrals prayed as well. Prayed to protect all they could, prayed for a miracle.
Chapter 7 – Freedom
Brel’toatalklen ses-KGor
Colony Lenti Space
Lenti-Solum System
Disputed space
Barrels upon barrels filled the storage bay. The sight filled Brel’toatalklen’s heart with pride. For the first time, Char Jelly was now in the hands of non-Legion Fleet crews. If it hadn’t been for Admiral Knight contacting him to join an allegiance that would topple the old order and bring in a new and better one, the source of the substance would still be a secret. And he and his supporters wouldn’t be as filthy rich as they were now. He also had a tactical advantage over other mercenary clans. That and the money was what he cared about, not the whole order toppling. That was just an entertaining sideline …
Until it’s turned on you, the small, paranoid voice in his head whispered. Brel’toatalklen snorted softly as he left the storage bay. His position was secure and well-backed by powerful, large clans. His only threat was Talis’talklen ses-Ky. They and their small following were the only ones who hadn’t followed him. But now they would see how wrong they had been. With his haul, he would bring the old ses-Ky to their knees.
Brel’toatalklen smiled with satisfaction just before almost losing his footing as the floor paneling bucked under him. Pain blossomed in his shoulder and arm from smashing into the wall. “What was that?” he snarled into his comm.
“The Zar’dakens are firing on us,” Kep’tauta ses-KGor replied.
“I told you not to provoke them,” Brel’toatalklen growled as he staggered to the bridge. It was difficult with the off-shift crew rushing to their own stations. They tried to give him the room he needed, but that was hard to do with the ship’s trembling.
“We didn’t. We told the men not to harass the Zar’daken transports days ago, just as you ordered. The Zar’dakens are just attacking us,” Kep’tauta explained.
“Evasive action and open a channel to Zar’Shash. I’ll be there soon.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Moments later, Brel’toatalklen finally made it to the bridge. He marched through the doors to see the view screen was full of Zar’Shash’s visage. “What is the meaning of this attack?” Brel’toatalklen demanded.
The Zar’daken WarKing hiss-clicked at him in what he knew to be the Zar’daken version of a smile. “I thought it an appropriate way to tell you that your presssence is no longer required or desssired.”
“You back-stabber! We are allies,” Brel’toatalklen snapped.
Zar’Shash clicked his laughter. “Alliesss againssst an enemy that isss no longer here. You have your pay. Leave.” The ‘while you ssstill can’ — a silent warning between them just as the Zar’daken ended the communication.
“Get me the Movement, captains,” Brel’toatalklen ordered, as he sat in his chair. Antel’alusa ses-KGor shook his head from his console. “I’m sorry, Toatalklen, but I can’t. One of the Movement ships was just destroyed by the Zar’dakens and the other has not responded to any of my hails,” Antel’alusa reported.
“Call the fleet. We will teach those slimy bastards what happens to traitors,” Brel’toatalklen ordered. Kep’tauta rushed to comply.
“Sir! More Zar’daken warships have arrived,” Antel’alusa shouted.
“How many?”
Antel’alusa turned to face him, his yellow eyes wide, “Ten, Sir.”
“That’s too many,” Kep’tauta muttered. “Especially if they deploy those darts of theirs. They’ll wipe out the fleet.”
Brel’toatalklen glared out the few screen at the ten hulking, spiny shapes of the Zar’daken warships. “Fine, we have what we came for. Tell the fleet that we are leaving the world to the Zar’dakens. May it rot through their hulls.” The last he muttered softly.
***
Zar’Shash clicked-purred his pleasure as he watched the mercenaries flee. A whole fleet of puny ships fled the surface and surrounding space of the planet. It reminded Zar’Shash of pugee schools fleeing a traveler’s steps. Hundreds of ten-legged, dirt gray creatures would ripple away from whatever frightened them in waves. Such stupid, vaguely amusing pests.
“Can we fire at them, Honored WarKing?” his chief of weapons clicked excitedly.
Zar’shash gestured magnanimously. “A few shots here and there wouldn’t hurt. It might make them go even faster.”
“Thank you, Honored WarKing.” The Chief of Weapons bowed and moments later, Zar’Shash and this tiny fraction of his fleet were treated to bright weapons fire chasing after the fleeing ships. Some of the little ships swerved to avoid the attack and ended up colliding with their neighbors. Others couldn’t get away fast enough. A warship-destroying laser shot against a pint-sized ship was an unfair contest for the ship. For the observing Zar’dakens, it was an amusing light show.
Once the last of the fleeing ships escaped weapons range, Zar’shash turned his Communication Chief. “Inform the fleet that the planet is ours. Initiate the takeover. You know the drill.”
“Yesss, most Honored One.” The Zar’daken bowed before announcing his WarKing’s orders.
Reports came in that unsettled those who heard them for some reason. The Communication Chief frowned in confusion. He even checked with several other advisors before approaching his WarKing. A rasping sound informed those around him of his nervousness, but he could not stop his reaction.
“What isss it?” Zar’Shash demanded in annoyance.
“Forgive me, Great WarKing, but the slavers report that there are few to none left upon the planet. It has been abandoned.”
“Well, what do they expect? They are weak cowardsss who have been fleeing this planet for more than a year since the mercenaries attacked. I do not care about ssslaves from here. The rest of the Ssspectral Empire will be our ssslaves. We came here for the Char Jelly. Tell the extraction crewsss that I expect them to get their work done.”
“Yes, Honored One.” The Communication Chief bowed again, glad to get away. He tried to take comfort in his king’s words, but he couldn’t. Surely there would have been more than a few left on the planet’s surface. He wondered silently if some of those ships had been fleeing refugees and not Telmicks at all. Were they truly that exhausted from fighting for their homeworld that they would just leave it? He did not understand these people. Had they no pride?
Once the orders were given and the operation was under way, Zar’shash ordered his ship to the front lines on the Coronaius System border. It was a good decision on his part …
Deep underground, near the heart of the Colony Lenti the Edacaf, the ancient knife charged with the Defender’s energy and the soul of a Soul Shadow finally reached the bottom of the silvery pool. It had taken two-and-a-half long months to do so. For a moment, nothing happened, but then a long-dormant device latched onto the ener
gy in the knife. It released a chemical that activated the Char Jelly. The reaction spread like wildfire through pool and its many tributaries into the mines. It was a out of control chain reaction that couldn’t be stopped. Stone and mining equipment, pipelines and unfortunate Zar’daken extraction crews got to witness the suddenly boiling of the Char Jelly. After the sudden and violent bubbling that splashed silvery liquid over everything, there was a moment of silent. Then it began. The insatiable acid ate through stone, equipment, pipelines, and unlucky Zar’dakens.
Screaming clacks echoed with crumbling mineshafts. But those screams were nothing to the Soul Shadow prisoners. They had screamed forever. They had pleaded forever, it seemed. And now, with the silvery pool boiling and overflowing and jumping about like a living thing, it seemed their pleading was being answered. A particularly large bubble popped, coating the dread crystal prison, causing the just-forming silvery substance to boil. In that brief moment of silence after the boil, the Soul Shadows stilled. No longer did they scream. Now they waited. A slithering sound filled the air as the crystal’s dust fell into the voracious pool.
With exultant cries, the starving Soul Shadows slipped out of the ever-growing cracks. Their long subdued hunger made its demands and they proved to those unlucky enough to see them, that Char Jelly was a picky, hardly-ate-anything dieter compared to them. Nothing in creation ate like they did.
Faster than the Char Jelly could eat through the planet, they devoured every living thing that hadn’t made it off the planet. Once green forests turned brown and rotted away in seconds. The cherry trees shriveled, their seeds turned to worthless dust. The little marmosets and the huge alligator never knew what stole their life. All they had been aware of was a wind rattling through the tree branches. The L’uf who had chosen to stay and witness the end of their home sat in the branches of the Story Keepers abandoned tree and watched the forests die. Seer’us, the alpha of the Story Keeper’s old guard, turned to the small recorder he held. “Thus our home dies. Goodbye.”
Valencia, Jack, Ace, Mykio, Dukio, Fydo, Lazia, the Story Keeper, and a few other survivors stared into Seer’us’ sad, dark brown eyes. The old Story Keeper cried as they heard the wind howl and Seer’us’ eyes dimmed and leaves around him shriveled. The camera died moments later. Lazia wailed and Fydo held her, silent tears of his own trailing down his face. Valencia couldn’t blame them. It was horrifying to see a planet die, let alone from the inside out by something that you couldn’t see and couldn’t fight.
Where Valencia and those with her knew what had happened, the Zar’dakens were flummoxed. A once-teaming planet was sterilized before their eyes and that was before it simply dissolved. The only thing left was a huge, dense ball of gelatinous, silvery Char Jelly.
Captain Pavesh turned to his science officer to demand an explanation. Before Pavesh could ask, the officer dropped dead. One by one, Pavesh’s other officers collapsed in ungainly heaps of tangled legs. For a moment, Pavesh thought he saw a shadow obscure one of the light strips. Hysterical laughter filled his mind just before he knew no more. Just cold and terror. Nothing.
Chapter 8 – Consuming Darkness
Have you ever been so hungry that you not only felt you would die but that you wanted to? He hadn’t though he would either … of course, that was also the same time when he had referred to himself as ‘I.’ It turns out starving, but not dying, was its own brand of insanity. The various peoples of the universe were, when you just thought about it, just flesh. Needy flesh, which surrounded an energetic soul. When the basic needs of said flesh, as you would know, are met everything is honkey dory (barring injury, of course). And you know that when one need is not met it consumes you. That was what had happened to him. Which was ironic because he no longer had flesh. Hadn’t since he had touched that stone.
That pulsing stone that had promised eternity —
With its help, his soul had shed its flesh and clothed itself in a hunger that never ended. Though it might sound like it, he wasn’t dead. Oh, No! he was alive for eternity. But for those of you who had been horribly mistaken, you had probably though he had been in hell. Why do they always forget that life has its own pain and suffering? It also offered him relief from the hunger, offering him a wide selection of food.
No longer was there no hope of sating the hunger. There were stars, the powerhouses of the universe. Even more delicious were those energetic souls still trapped in their flesh. A buffet of those delectable souls were clustered in little, power-generating metal caskets. He and his kin sped toward them. If they could they would be drooling.
Race
LFH Hail Mary
Border of Iceron, Terress, and Lenti-Solum
Spectral Empire.
The Zar’dakens arrived to the juncture between the Terress, Lenti-Solum, and Iceron systems an hour after the Hail Mary and her battle group had. Five star fortresses against five battle ships. Between the great behemoths were thousands of little ships flitting between. Flights gave chase after little Zar’daken darts. In turn, the darts swarmed after LFGs. And in the middle of their mortal games of tag, they did their best to avoid the deadly lightshow flashing between the motherships.
Race commanded the Spectralian ships under his command to micro-jump again and again. The idea had been to keep the Zar’dakens from getting a lock on any one of them for their ship-crippling blasts. At the same time, they would give the Zar’dakens a dose of everything they had to offer — almost everything. The SCF cannon was a monster in its own box. While it was an awe inspiring weapon, it demanded caution. Elsewise it would bite them in the foot. It was true, in five shots it would destroy the Zar’dakens. Race wasn’t against that outcome. The problem was everyone in the way.
At the moment, the Hail Mary was the only ship in the battle group that had an SCF. Ordering the others out of the way would alert the Zar’dakens that something was up. It was the only weapon they feared. That fear made them wary when suddenly, all of their attackers ducked behind a ship. They would micro-jump to them and a ray of highly energized particles would zip through space like a ray of death. Race didn’t want to kill millions of innocents simply because he got trigger happy and missed. The other problem would be that the Zar’dakens didn’t yet know that a hasta class starship had SCF cannons. Race wanted that cat to stay in the bag. John, his weapons officer, might already have the coordinates of a star ready, but their targets weren’t. He would only fire if he was sure he would be able to destroy his targets.
Which was why he and the others were doing their best to wear the Zar’dakens down. Their main targets were the engines. Once those were out, the Zar’dakens would be sitting ducks, just waiting to get shot.
Both sides might now have shield-destroying Char Jelly, but the Spectralians had a few new tricks up their sleeves, thanks to Rylynn. A cycle or so ago, Rylynn and her friends had used a Telmick-jamming signal to confuse thousands of Zar’daken darts. The darts had locked onto their LFA and followed with the intent to destroy. They didn’t care when the LFA had slipped through a hole in the Zar’daken mothership’s shields and jumped to the other side. The darts had continued on their mission — and destroyed themselves and the mothership. The Zar’dakens had no idea how that one ship had been destroyed. So they were not anticipating a jamming signal to get between them and control of their darts.
Westley, Marius, and Jason were out there in an LFA, playing out a similar attack on one of the Zar’daken motherships. They shot at it, drawing her darts after them. The Hail Mary jumped and the Zar’dakens got lucky. A different ship from the one Westley and the others were attacking decided that it was tired of waiting for the Legion Fleet ships to just sit around and be targeted. It fired ship-crippling cannon blasts in a fanning arch. The Hail Mary was just lucky enough to jump into one.
The good ship bucked, nearly throwing Race from his chair. Others of his bridge crew were not so lucky. “Shields?” he shouted over the roar of the klaxon.
“Shields at forty perce
nt, Captain,” Lieutenant Evens replied, before turning off the klaxon.
“Really?” Race asked in surprise.
“Aye, Sir,” Evens said, looking over his shoulder with a stupid grin on his face. “Those new shields seemed to be working, Sir. But I wouldn’t suggest getting hit again.”
Race grunted. “Commander, get that scrambler online.”
“Aye, Captain,” Commander Eric D’trace said. Race could tell the once-chief engineer was still not used to his new rank. Well, neither was he.
Race made to turn back to the view screen when a flash of glowing star dust drew his eye toward Rael. Suddenly, the klaxons went off again. “Captain! A Zar’daken shuttle just slipped through a char hole in our shields! They have boarded the ship on D-Deck!”
“D’trace! You have command. Keep us moving and shooting,” Race ordered, standing and rushing toward the bridge door. “Rael, inform security that I’ll meet them where our new friends are!”
“Be careful,” she called after him as the door shut. Race hurried to the lift that would take him down to D-Deck. He blessed the lift’s speed as he drew his blaster. Stepping of the lift, he met with security officer Eastlyn.
“Captain.” The man nodded in greeting. “The interlopers are down this way. The others have them pinned…” No sooner did the words leave his mouth than an explosion shook the corridor. Race and Eastlyn managed to brace themselves in time to keep their feet. But it had been close. Sharing a look, they silently agreed that things were not as in control as they could have wished.
Quickly, yet alert for trouble, the two men raced down the corridor. Shouts and shots urged them on. Back to the wall, Race peered around a bulkhead. Down the corridor, cutting through the security team still trying to fend them off, were a group of six Zar’dakens. Their sharp, segmented legs proved an effective weapon against the short humans. A Leopard Kin growled and launched himself at the invadors. His cat-like reflexes kept him one step ahead of his opponent.
Defender of the Empire: Chaos Page 6