What do I do? I can’t walk away. It’s too late for that. If I were to leave or decline, I would be kicked out of the family forever. I would lose everything. In the back of her mind, her crystronics caught wind of the emergency alerts going out through the system. Inside her head, she could see the news feeds of Ragnarok attacking.
Her eyes went wide. Oh no.
* * *
Ilrica tapped the controls and gave the console a quick swift kick just for good measure. She had managed to squeeze every drop of speed out of the ship she could. All around them they could see other ships heading in the same direction. There was no time for a coordinated assault. Everyone military ship in ten sectors was headed to Central, either to prevent it from falling, or to avenge it after it did.
In the opposite direction flew the civilian craft, escaping the battle in whatever ship they could find. The elite families had their own private transports of course, and were the first to leave. Next came the upper middle class people able to squander their life savings at the last minute for whatever overpriced and under maintained heap they could lay their hands on.
The poor remained on Central, unable to escape.
“Ragnarok has just hit the planetary defense line,” Kalia reported, hacking into so many live camera feeds that Ilrica had to brush some of them away so she could see where they were going.
Zurra pulled the cable out of her neck, and tried putting it into her forehead instead. “Um, I think comscan is broken,” she said aloud.
“Diagnostic checks out,” Trahzi confirmed.
“Okay, then why is it telling me that there is a small star coming up behind us?”
“What?”
They looked over just in time to see a fireball fly past them in space, then another, then another. A swarm of living fire was swooping past them at incredible speed.
Trahzi’s eyes went wide. “It’s the Trahzi.”
“Well, that ought to even the odds,” Ilrica said.
“No,” Trahzi said, plugging herself into the comscan. “They’re going to be killed! We have to warn them.”
Trahzi caused the hull of the ship to give off an aether vibration. The pulse went out through aetherspace. When it passed over the Trahzi, they scattered about in formation like a flock of birds. One of them disappeared, then reappeared inside the bridge.
“State your business,” he said, standing a full two feet taller than Trahzi, his red, superheated skin warping the bulkhead below him.
“Lyssandra Bal has a new weapon,” Trahzi said, wasting no time with introductions. “One that is specifically designed to kill our kind. She used one on me at the battle of Corsair’s Demise, but I’m sure that was just a prototype. If she has installed a larger version on Ragnarok...”
“Our kind?” the male Trahzi asked, disgust on his face. “You are not one of us. You were cut away, like all weak things.”
Everyone could see how much that comment hurt.
“It doesn’t matter if I am weak, what matters is that the information I bring to you is true,” Trahzi pleaded.
“We do not trust the words of the others,” the male Trahzi said coldly. “Ragnarok has reemerged from the prison we placed it in. We have come to seal it away again. If you value your lives, you will stay out of our way.”
And with a flash of fire, he was gone.
Trahzi sat down in her seat, crushed. Kalia and Zurra came over and placed a hand on her shoulder reassuringly.
“So this is what it feels like,” Trahzi sniffed, trying to maintain her composure. She looked around at the other girls. “I’m sorry I treated you all like that. I didn’t know how much it hurt.”
“Hey, it’s no problem,” Ilrica chuckled. “We’ll get you back for it one day.”
* * *
Ragnarok’s countless weapon batteries came to life, and began pounding away at the defense barriers around Central. It looked like glowing rain descending down from above. They were the strongest barriers in existence, yet they buckled and fractured under the very first volley. System defense ships swarmed around the massive spider-shaped ship like insects, exploding from even the slightest effort of the monster they circled.
Inside, Lyssandra clenched her fists and stood up, hatred in her eyes. Slowly she drew her pistol and aimed it at the ArchTyrant.
“What are you doing, Lyssandra?” he asked coldly.
“I am Lyssandra Bal, last of the hill people,” she said, her voice quavering, “and I will not let you get away with this.”
“Such insolence. I am your master!”
“No, you’re not. You’re just a copy of the mind of my beloved, not his soul. An intelligence without a soul is incapable of love.”
“You gave your love to me without condition! I trusted you! I even gave you back your youth!”
“I gave my love without condition to Hee’hidzin. His soul now resides in Gerald Dyson. You are just a shadow of the man I loved.”
She pulled out her pistol and fired. The blast passed clean through The ArchTyrant’s ghostly body without effect, striking the dead, dry trees in the distance.
The ArchTyrant clucked his tongue. “I always knew you would betray me one day.” He held out his hand and purple lighting leapt out. She jumped to one side, but the tendrils of evil energy followed her. She screamed as she was bathed from head to toe, her body convulsing and writhing in agony.
Gerald ran up and stepped into the blast, shielding her from it. Lyssandra looked up in amazement. The ArchTyrant had to pull back for fear of killing him.
“Why?” she panted. “Why would you...?”
Gerald groaned, struggling to stay on his feet. “I’m guessing if I die then you’ll fade away and your control over this machine will be lost.” Gerald reached back and grabbed her hand, forcing the pistol of her barrel up underneath his chin. “Am I right?” he asked.
The ArchTyrant gave a ghostly sneer. “Clever boy.”
Gerald forced the barrel tighter against his skin. “Now, call off this attack, and let her go, or so help me I’ll blast my own brains out, and you’ll cease to exist!”
Lyssandra looked up at Gerald, her eyes swimming.
The ArchTyrant held his hand over the holo-tank, and began reluctantly powering down Ragnarok’s weapons.
Lyssandra’s pistol gave off a crackle, and a puff of smoke came out of it, broken by his bad kharma.
“Aw, crap,” Gerald whispered.
“HA!” The ArchTyrant shot out his ghostly hand. A wedge of stone rose up in between Gerald and Lyssandra, pulling them apart. The ground grew up, encasing both of them in stone from the neck down. They struggled and fought, but could not move.
The ArchTyrant bellowed with laughter, and the attack began anew.
* * *
E’Duwag passed Lai’Monda to Cha’Rolette. As she took it the cauldrons were smothered, leaving the only light in the room coming from her.
She could hear everyone breathing. Other than that, she was completely alone in the dark, which is exactly how she felt.
E’Duwag could sense her hesitation. He narrowed his voice to her only.
Daughter, what is wrong?
The battle at Central, she said, responding only to him. It is serious.
Do not be concerned. I know it is practically on our doorstep, but our own defenses are superior to Central’s. I have placed the fleet of drone warships in orbit. We are quite safe here.
I know that. My concern is for Gerald. The reports say he is in there.
Him again? Why are you wasting so much time on him?
I proposed to him.
And he turned you down. There is nothing connecting you to him anymore.
E’Duwag took off his mantle and held it over her, ready to lower it onto her waiting shoulders. Cha’Rolette held the chalice up to her lips. Everyone held their breath. For the family, she announced solemnly, for the path, for the bloodlines, for the root, trunk, branch, and stalk. For each and every one of you, I pledge to live....
She hesitated.
I pledge to live a life without...
She froze, her eyes wavering.
...without...
The chalice clanged as it hit the floor, its contents spilling everywhere. Cha’Rolette took off, running for the exit. A wave of confusion and outrage passed through the assembled crowd.
* * *
Ilrica brought the ship in tight, passing underneath a burning destroyer, and they got a good glimpse of Ragnarok up close. The defense grids were broken, and the massive spider-like ship was coming down into a low orbit. A battlecruiser spilt in half below them; a wave of fighters were incinerated before them.
It seemed like nothing the Alliance could throw at it could cause any significant damage to the machine. Even the defense cannons firing from the surface, many times larger than what could be mounted on a battleship, were doing only minor damage to its outer shell.
The only group making any real progress were the Trahzi, who swarmed about, attacking one point in unison, destroying all the weapons there, and then disappearing entirely, only to reappear at a new point and destroy it.
Their ship shook as it was struck, the beam shearing off nearly all of her armor plates in the first hit.
“Okay, so we’re here,” Zurra commented. “Now what?”
Kalia plugged her dreadlocks in and ran a series of scenarios. “If we stay out here we’re dead. The safest place would be to fight it from its own surface.”
Everyone looked at her as if she were crazy.
“What? From there the cannons block line of sight to each other.”
They all looked at each other.
“It’s crazy, I love it!,” Ilrica said, smacking a few runes on her panel.
Kalia and Ilrica slapped a spacewalk ring around their necks, while the bridge came to life with emergency warnings. The rings hummed to life, creating a skin-tight barrier around their bodies, and a dome around their heads.
At Ilrica’s command, a seam appeared along the front of the bridge.
“I promised myself I’d never do this again,” Zurra said tensing up.
The bridge blew open and they were shot out into space. For several seconds, everything was silent. They sailed through a sea of beams and fire. Spinning debris and swimming spacecraft. The surface of Ragnarok grew larger and larger before them. They could feel the heat as their ship was struck again and exploded.
* * *
Swarms of ships circled Ragnarok, but she swatted them down as fast as they arrived. The Trahzi managed to blast the tip off of one leg, but it lurched into place nonetheless, coming to a halt directly above the capital. The bottom opened up like a maw and a beam of scarlet pounded down, burrowing into the earth with startling speed.
Inside, Gerald and Lyssandra could do little more than look on in horror. “What is he doing?” Gerald asked.
Lyssandra lowered her head and whispered. “This is all my fault.”
“I am about to link Ragnarok with Central Core at the center of this ball of rock,” the ArchTyrant boasted. The ship rattled a little from a blast by the Trahzi, but he kept his footing. “I will absorb everyone connected with Central Core at once.”
“But that’d be the entire Alliance!” Gerald yelled. Tens of thousands of worlds full of people!”
The ArchTyrant cackled. “Yes. If you thought you had bad Kharma from just a thousand worlds, just wait and see what you will experience when I kill every living thing in the galaxy! Once I absorb everyone attached to Central Core, organized resistance will crumble. From there, I will go from world to world, absorbing the plants, the animals, even the microbes in the soil. On and on, until there is no life left at all.”
Gerald’s eyes went wide with fear. “No.”
The orb in the ArchTyrant’s hand flashed. He held up his fist, and it began to solidify.
“Don’t you see? It’s perfect. Using the aenergy of Ragnarok, I will have an immortal body of my own, yet my soul will still reside within you, Gerald Dyson. All the negative Kharma I create will attach itself to you, not me. Once all life has been extinguished, only you and I will live on, Gerald Dyson. Me, as the god of all creation and a new galaxy forged with my own hands, and you, to suffer for my crimes in my place for all eternity!”
Gerald threw back his head. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
* * *
Trahzi flew along the surface of Ragnarok, bathed in a ball of fire. She jinked hard to one side, barely avoiding a blast aimed right at her. She whipped out two long whips of flame, then made them stiff. Like giant swords she held them out, skimming along the surface, and slicing off cannons at the nub as she streaked across like so much grass.
A wave of missiles from an Alliance cruiser exploded overhead. Ilrica froze time, the explosion now hanging over her like a red and orange cloud. She slashed into the side of a laser cannon, slicing deeper and deeper into its innards until she was satisfied, then she leaped to another, then another, then another. When time sped up again, a cluster of thirteen cannons exploded and then were silent.
Zurra narrowly avoided a stricken fighter craft crashing into the surface, splitting into a thousand tiny copies of herself. They pressed their way through seams and into exhaust vents. Everywhere, cables were chewed through, crystals were smashed, and power streams were polluted. Dozens of cannons fell silent, hanging there like limp reeds as the tiny Zurras crept out of them like gremlins and moved onto the next area.
Kalia folded out her blade and ran up the side of a barrel like it was a hill, cutting deeply all along its length. When she reached the tip, the barrel exploded. She flipped open her shields and weathered the shockwave. When she came back down to the broken nub, she extended wires from her fingers and slashed away until she found what she was looking for. A crystal riverbed. She grabbed one of her dreadlocks and plugged into it.
Unseen by all, in the next heartbeat she fought a duel against the intelligence inside the machine, a match that lasted a trillion moves. Her dreadlock steamed and hissed from the stress of it.
When the duel ended, the intelligence retreated, cutting off controls to that entire leg from the rest, preventing Kalia’s invasion from going any further.
With a wicked grin, Kalia gave orders of her own. The cannons on that entire leg stopped firing, traversed to a new target, then opened fire at the body of Ragnarok, tearing deeply into it.
* * *
Inside, the ArchTyrant directed the attack, standing over it like the lord of all creation. An Alliance carrier momentarily obscured his vision when its stricken form crashed into Ragnarok and exploded. The entire ship rattled from another attack from the Trahzi.
“Blast those demons,” he cursed, waving his hand over the holo tank.
By this point there were so many stricken Alliance craft around Ragnarok that it formed a cloud of debris. Tens of thousands of lifeboats floated about, carrying demoralized and frightened sailors.
Having no ships left to fight, Ragnarok’s canons fell silent.
So exhausted she could barely stand, Ilrica looked up at the sky full of life pods around her.
“Oh no!”
The cannons began firing again, this time targeting the life pods.
“That monster!” Kalia screamed out through the comm-link. “We have to stop him!”
“With what? There are no more ships.”
Suddenly glints of silver appeared on the horizon. Like a swarm of silver darts, the Ssykes drone warship fleet sped into range, eliciting cheers of joy. They fanned out in perfect formation, like the wings of an angel.
Everyone just hold on, a familiar voice rang out in their minds. I’ll draw their fire, the rest of you get the pods out of range or down to the surface!
Inside the fleet command ship, Cha’Rolette sat by herself, plugs and cables in her neck, controlling the entire fleet with her mind alone.
“I can’t believe I am saying this, but thank goodness for a Ssykes,” Zurra teased over the link.
; I’m not a Ssykes anymore, Cha’Rolette corrected. But you can call me Yvette if you like, that’s what they used to call me back at the orphanage.
“But if you left the family, how did you...?”
I may have left the family, but I still know all the security protocols, at least until they change them. Now, I’m in weapons range; everyone get ready.
Cha’Rolette stood up in her chair, and raised her hand in command. Forward my mindless minions! She shouted. Die for your Duchess!
Ilrica snickered. “Some things never change.”
The drone warship fleet slammed into Ragnarok. Firing all their weapons in unison at the same point, they were able to inflict horrible damage along one side.
The machine tore back into them with ruthless abandon, their silver forms exploding like fireworks in the black sky. Cha’Rolette spared nothing. Damaged and spent warships she rammed into the surface of Ragnarok, intentionally detonating their aether drives, and scooping out huge chunks of the beastly machine.
All the while, Trahzi, Ilrica, and the others, moved the lifepods away to safety. Some of the drone ships deployed nets, scooping up dozens of life pods to ferry them out of weapons range, then going back into the fray. It was incredible, even to experienced slicers like Ilrica and Kalia, that she was able to divide her attention so many times simultaneously.
Ilrica lifted up her hand and changed the necass, causing a stray pod to fall sideways, away from the fighting. She could barely stand. “I think that was the last of them.”
Kalia pulled her dreadlock out just in time, avoiding a purge spike as the crystal channel she had exposed went red and the machine reasserted its control. There on the side of the spider, as the flames cleared, she saw what she hoped to see. “I’ve punched through the outer shell right there. Somebody tell the Trahzi!”
Trahzi flew up to the nearest Trahzi, which regarded her with disgust. However, when she pointed down towards the gaping wound, all the Trahzi moved in unison, gathering together to attack that one spot.
Together they gathered their energies, forming a miniature star to launch into the breach.
Trahzi flew back down to the surface, and scooped up Kalia and Zurra, ferrying them away from the blast zone.
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