by Gwynn White
“Ontri!” Maggie shouted. “The lights!”
The shadow was just inches away now. They backed away, until there was no more room to go. They closed their eyes.
Then they heard the generators kick in, and they saw a blinding light behind their eyelids. When they managed to open their eyes again, squinting, the shadow was gone. The Umbra was dead.
54
No Control
To Maggie's surprise, it wasn't Skip who freed her and her companions. It was the Raetuumaka. Throughout the ship, many of them rose up against their captors, fighting with and against their kin. It was a civil war, Raetuumak against Raetuumak—not exactly what Maggie had hoped.
They led the trio through the now blinding corridors of the once dark ship, past periodic gunfire, and up to where Skip had broken into the command room with his Marines. They barricaded themselves inside as more of the opposing Raetuumaka force came their way.
No one spoke about the shadow. They were just glad that it was gone.
“You got control?” Maggie asked.
“Not exactly,” Skip replied.
“Cada might be able—”
“No,” Skip interjected. “We can't.” He showed her the controls. It looked like they had been sabotaged. “We wanted to scuttle the ship, Mags,” he added. “Well, they scuttled the controls.”
“Damn,” Maggie said.
Toz shrugged. “So, what, we let it float?”
“We could tow it, maybe,” Cada suggested.
“What're you seeing out there, Larsman?” Skip asked.
Larsman's voice crackled on. “It's not looking good.”
“Just what I thought.”
“Yeah, Skip. You're on a collision course with the planet.”
55
Down She Goes
No matter what they tried, they couldn't regain control of the ship. Even Ontri's hacking skills couldn't do it. The aut had to hole up with some rebel Raetuumaka on the other side of the ship, far from the others. He expressed no dissatisfaction about it. He was just happy to serve.
“So, we can't stop it,” Skip said with a sigh.
“Not all things can be stopped,” El-erae mused. “It is less painful to just accept what is.”
“Yeah, unless you've got some practical wisdom, I don't wanna hear it.”
“What's the best case scenario?” Cada asked.
“If we can't stop it,” Maggie said, “maybe we can slow the descent.”
Danris grumbled. “What good'll that do?”
“If we can land this thing without it all going off, maybe we can find a way to dismantle and bury it, somewhere no one'll find it or use it.”
“There are the Endless Marshes,” El-erae suggested. “Very deep. The Olruuana bring the bodies of great monks there, where the bog preserves them forever, deep and far below.”
“That should stop the cargo from going off,” Cada said. “Forever, even. So long as the marshes exist, at least.”
“A blink of the eye of the Blinking Gods,” El-erae said.
“Will it fit the ship?” Skip asked.
“Oh, yes. And all of us.”
“Yeah, I wasn't thinking about that.”
“How do we guide it, though?” Toz asked. “We've got no control!”
“We've still got our ship,” Maggie said. “Maybe it only needs a nudge.”
“Oh, it'll need to be a careful nudge,” Skip said. “This thing could still blow at any moment. And we've still got a lot of enemies on this ship.”
El-erae smiled. “There is room for them in the Endless Marshes too!”
56
A Gentle Nudge
It didn't take long to communicate the plan to Larsman. He was up for anything, even if it did mean nudging a space barge full of nuclear cargo. If anyone had the dexterity for it, it was him.
He flew both rockets along either side of the Ark. Most of the enemy fighters were destroyed. A few were now piloted by Raetuumaka rebels, skimming the hull to take out any remaining weapons arrays.
It was a delicate job, but Larsman managed to push the rockets close enough that he essentially had the barge pinched between them. All he had to do now was go gentle with the boosters, easing a little left, then a little more. He had to pray his hand didn't twitch.
Maggie had to guide him. There were no maps of the territory, so she relied on El-erae pointing at a brownish patch of the otherwise blackened planet as an indication of just where those Endless Marshes were. Maggie passed the instructions to Larsman.
“I hope you're right,” he said.
“We all hope that,” Skip replied.
“I'll have to pull away before we hit the atmosphere or we might burn up the Infinite engines. We'll never get out of here then.”
“Just put us on this new course,” Maggie said. “We'll keep this thing from burning up.”
Larsman held up his side of the bargain. With lots of careful manoeuvring, lots of tiny twists of his wrists, lots of held breaths and momentary gasps, Larsman got the Ark on a new course: heading straight into the ancient boglands that were perhaps one of the few untouched parts of the scorched planet left.
“We're closing in,” he said, as they approached the atmosphere. “Time to start praying to whatever gods you believe in. I'm not sure science can help us from here.”
He pulled away, letting the space barge drift down on its own, tugged now by the planet's gravity. Maggie used whatever power she could find to put up the forward shields. The space barge struck the atmosphere, cruising down.
Then the shields conked out and the ship started to crack down the middle. The crates that were magnetically stuck to the surface shuddered in place. The hull groaned. Here and there, rivets popped from their sockets and pinged across the ship. The team worked tirelessly to hold the barge together, getting the shields back on and powering up auts to fill in the widening cracks.
“That's it,” Skip said. “There's nothing more we can do.”
“Time to bail,” Toz replied.
“I'm rooting for you guys,” Larsman said. “Come back in one piece, will you?”
Then he cut out. The planet's radiation blocked the signal.
“We need to get back to the ships,” Skip said.
It was a long trek to the Offspring, which still clung to the front of the vessel. They let Ontri manage the Bridge at the back, fearing they'd never make it across in time. As they clambered aboard, El-erae hesitated, looking around at the Ark that had brought her people to the stars.
“Come with us,” Skip told her.
She hesitated. “But my people ...”
“We'll take as many as we can fit. We'll drop them off wherever they wanna go.”
She joined them, along with two dozen more Raetuumaka rebels. On the other side of the vessel, Ontri squeezed in as many Raetuumaka into the Bridge as possible. The two fighters took off, along with many other smaller spacecraft and escape pods, leaving the Ark to its doom.
As the smaller craft passed through the atmosphere, the people on board saw the space barge descend into the Eternal Marshes, inch by inch. The swampy earth consumed it, like that all-consuming shadow of the Umbra, until there was nothing left. No one knew how deep it went, not even the Olruuana, but they hoped it was deeper than anyone could reach.
57
Not So Divided
The battle was won, and the exhaustion set in. They only now realised just how much their limbs ached as they stood in the decontaminators. Some had wounds that needed tending, and were sent to the medical bay on Gemini Right. Others needed a military debriefing, and were sent to Gemini Left.
El-erae stayed on the Offspring in the middle, glued to the viewscreen, watching her planet as it faded behind.
“My people,” she said solemnly. “They are divided.”
“Brother against brother,” Toz said. “We've had that in our history too.”
“And you overcame it?”
“Well, kind of. For the most part. T
he crew here is still pretty divided.”
“At least you have shown that you can work together,” El-erae said. “I take comfort in that. It gives me hope for the future of my people.”
Skip was glad to be back on board the Gemini, and was glad to see that so many had survived. When he saw Ontri, he ran over to him.
“Come here, you big old tin bucket, you!”
He grabbed the aut and hugged him tightly.
“Oh,” Ontri said. “Oh my. Is this … romance?”
An analysis of Ontri's systems showed up thousands of errors, many from burnt out chips. Cada was able to do some repairs, but to fix all of the problems she would have to replace Ontri's memory and personality chips. Skip wouldn't allow that.
“He's not going to be reliable,” Cada warned.
Skip smiled. “He'll be more reliable than any human.”
Skip found Maggie in one of her labs, cataloguing details about the Raetuumaka.
“No rest for the wicked, huh?” he asked.
She kept tapping away. “Well, you're not resting.”
“I never really paid any attention to what you do down here.”
“You should. It can be useful.”
“I'm beginning to see that now.”
“Maybe I should check out the systems on Gemini Left too,” Maggie proposed.
Skip smiled. “Could be useful.”
It often took a common enemy to unite two former foes. Skip and Maggie were still two very different people, sword and shield, but they had learned they worked well together. To him, her voice didn't sound quite so grating now. To her, his ego didn't seem quite so big.
The starship Gemini passed out of the Sonata system and back into the emptiness of space. The crew were confident that they would fill it with many new adventures.
THE END
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About the Author
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Dean F. Wilson is a former technology journalist, who wrote his first novel at age 11. He is the author of numerous fantasy and science fiction series, including The Children of Telm, The Great Iron War, The Coilhunter Chronicles, Hibernian Hollows, and Infinite Stars.
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www.deanfwilson.com
Girard, The Guardian Vampire
A True Vampire Novel
Ann Christy
When an ancient vampire rises, Girard must find her before the entire vampire world is destroyed.
When a legendary vampire rises and inhabits the body of a young girl, the entire vampire world is thrown into chaos. The Guardians protect humanity and keep the vampire civilization in check, but nothing has prepared them for this half-mythical ancient who believes she’s a goddess. Angry and vengeful, she’s a force to be feared. Girard and the Guardians are in a race against time to save humanity…and vampires…from the diabolical plans of the risen queen.
1
Girard stepped into the foyer of the great house, his footfalls silent even in this echoing chamber. He’d had more than seven hundred years to learn the art of silence. Being loud at his age would be an unforgivable breach of manners. If there was one thing most vampires prized, it was silence. Ages of noise had made the oldest of them exquisitely sensitive. Sounds as slight as the shuffle of shoe leather against the softest carpet could feel like sandpaper against eardrums.
“You know why I’m here,” he said quietly, removing his hat. When the woman who answered the door made no move to take it, he dropped it onto a small, ornate table that seemed far too elegant for something as simple as his well-worn hat. But, he wanted to keep his hands free.
Just in case. Some vampires were not fans of the Guardians.
She didn’t move other than to follow his movements with her eyes. No tension or interest enlivened her features, her hand remaining on the doorknob as if she had nothing better to do than hold it open all day. If not for the youthful color in her face, she could have been a statue. Long boned and elegant, she held her head high. Something about the posture—that long necked stance and slightly curved wrist—spoke dancer to him. But not a modern dancer.
Well, modern was relative, wasn’t it?
“May I?” he asked.
She winced a little at the slight echo, the movement so small that a human might miss it. After an uncomfortably long pause, she lowered her chin ever so slightly in acknowledgement, if not invitation. The movement served to reinforce the impression of a performer accustomed to being judged for her grace. Her eyes were large, fringed with pale lashes so long and thick that Girard had the strange urge to ask her if they tangled. Even with all that beauty, Girard could tell the body she wore was one she’d possessed for a long while. Tiny laugh lines radiated from the corners of her eyes and her facial bones lay a little closer to the surface than they would be in a young body. He wondered what had happened to the original owner of that dancer’s body.
“This way, Guardian,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. Her motion of invitation was barely there, almost as though her arms weren’t constrained by joints or anything as unbending as bone. She shut the door carefully, then preceded him across the space. Like his, her steps were almost silent, even in high heels. Girard tilted his head to enjoy the sight of her slender calves.
If the atrium was stark and bare, then the room they entered next was almost disorienting in its blankness. White marble covered the floors and walls, the room’s only color in the hints of grey veined throughout the smooth stone. Even the ceiling was a blank expanse of white, the paling frescos of the atrium absent here.
The room’s size reinforced the notion of nothingness. As big as a church—the old kind of his youth—it was more than a simple space. This was proof that the home belonged to an old one—at least as old as Girard anyway. If he had owned something as personal as a house, it would be less ostentatious, but no less sound-sensitive. This sort of carefully planned abode was the way vampires reached an advanced age, or at least it had been before the modern era made everyone anonymous. Somewhere amongst this maze of echoing chambers he would probably find a small, tight space safe for sleeping. Even with centuries of training and his natural ability to move with stealth, he would be heard long before he reached the place where the old one slept. Alarm systems were useless against a vampire, but a few big rooms would thwart anyone who entered with bad intentions. Including vampires.
“Wait here,” the woman murmured as she walked away.
Once she was gone, Girard closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the house. Doing so was as automatic for him as breathing—another myth that didn’t reflect the reality of vampires. Of course they breathed; they lived in human bodies. He stilled himself to catch any sounds. Every house, every building, and every spot in the world had its own unique voice. Listening was important, particularly if a Guardian like Girard wanted to have a long career. Certain noises, or the absence of any noise at all, usually hinted at danger long before it became obvious.
Tilting his head in the direction of a faint sound, he finally caught something. Somewhere there was a sigh, the tink of ice against glass, the slide of skin over fabric. At last, he caught the soft sound of bare feet over tile. He opened his eyes as a white door at the other end of the room opened.
She looked no more than thirteen years old from a distance, all gangly limbs and a head just a touch too big for her body. A girl in the weeks before she suddenly transformed into a young woman. The illusion was perfect until Girard saw her eyes. They were old and far, far too bright for a mere human. He caught the shine like a sky full of stars in those eyes before her mask of humanity fell back into place.
“Astynomia, even here,” she whispered as she approached, her disgust evident. Given the way her face screwed up, Girard wouldn’t have been surprised if she spat upon the floor. Clearly, this vampire was not a fan of vampire law enforcem
ent. Some weren’t. He didn’t take it personally.
An old word, Astynomia, though in use even today for the state police of Greece. It was possible the vampire inside the child was simply of Greek origin, but the pronunciation said something different to his ears. She spoke the word in the old way, the way he’d heard it spoken by the eldest of his kind when he was small. Even in the most ancient and inflexible languages, pronunciation changed over time.
She circled to the side a little as she neared, a tightening circle that also spoke of age. That sort of movement came from centuries of wariness around others. This child was most certainly an old one. An unexpected twist.
“Even here,” he confirmed and gave her a cordial smile. “We’re called Guardians now and have been for a long time.”
Her bare foot made a little, unnecessary slap against the marble, then she tilted her head down and to the side, looking up at him from under a fringe of dark eyelashes. The flash of irritation on her sweet face brought the stars back, her eyes shining with a thousand points of silver light before fading back to their natural sky blue.
“I meant no offense,” he said, lowering his head in a gesture that might pass for a cursory bow. “My name is Girard.”
She stopped suddenly, one foot still poised to finish a step. Her toes lowered slowly as she rotated to face him, her head cocking to examine him as if he were a curious creature never encountered before. The way she moved was eerie, too fluid to pass for human and too animal to pass for vampire. That strangeness made the hairs on Girard’s arms rise. What was this girl? Some feral vampire raised in the wilderness, maybe.