The Last Stand (The Forever Gate Book 9)

by Isaac Hooke

  BOOKS BY ISAAC HOOKE

  Science Fiction

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  They Have Wakened Death

  I Have Seen Forever

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  Walls of Steel

  The Pendulum Swings

  The Last Stand

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  Terminal Phase

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  THE LAST STAND

  THE FOREVER GATE

  BOOK IX

  Isaac Hooke

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, organizations, places, events and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © Isaac Hooke 2016

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

  www.IsaacHooke.com

  Cover design by Isaac Hooke

  Cover image by Il Ho Kim

  table of contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  epilogue

  postscript

  about the author

  acknowledgments

  one

  Ari narrowly raised her sword to deflect the surprise blow Jeremy launched. She wished she had taken the time to equip the shield she’d secured to the back plate of her armor, as she couldn’t exactly do that at the moment, not with his blade darting in and out in a fury.

  Snarling, Jeremy launched a particularly powerful stab, unleashing flames from the tip as he did so. Ari was forced to dodge to the side as she knocked the weapon away. The fire licked her armor but otherwise caused no damage.

  She countered with a sideways slash and followed up with a leaping, downward plunge. Jeremy parried both, though he was forced to retreat.

  Ari kept up the offensive, pummeling Jeremy with everything she had, and the man continued to give ground under her onslaught.

  She fought in the middle of that no man’s land that separated her outnumbered army from Amoch’s, in the square where both sides had gathered opposite each other in the city of Kismet. For a moment, she wondered vaguely if the battle could be won with a single duel alone, by two champions elected to fight on the behalf of both armies. If she defeated Jeremy, perhaps Amoch would honor her victory and stand down.

  She knew it was wishful thinking on her part. Still, by defeating Jeremy she would deal a demoralizing blow to the enemy, one that would set the mood for the entire battle to come.

  As she forced him backward, the damaged obelisk at the center of the square momentarily blotted out the sun. Jeremy swiveled sideways, retreating into that shade, and she followed. He abruptly sidestepped, leading her into the sun once again; his positioning was such that the molten disk was above and behind him, blinding her.

  Jeremy used the moment to switch to the offensive and he pressed the attack. Ari squinted, narrowly defending against that blur of a blade. She retreated into the shade.

  Powerful tines of electricity erupted from behind Jeremy, sourced from the first ranks of Amoch’s army as the lightning wielders unleashed their powers. At first she feared the bolts were aimed at her and Jeremy, but the powerful energy tore past toward her men instead. From the periphery of her vision, she caught a glimpse of the lead defenders dodging behind their lightning shields.

  She heard Renna’s voice some distance behind her. “Attack!”

  Still fighting, Ari was vaguely aware as her men rushed forward. They launched flames from their swords, but the enemies produced their own shields and deflected the fire. Then they unsheathed flaming swords and advanced to meet the charge. Her army was supposed to be better equipped. So much for that notion.

  As defenders raced past, three swordsman abruptly joined her side, sweeping Jeremy backward in the rush.

  Around her, the defenders fought members of Amoch’s army. Fire swords clanged from lightning shields. Streams of flame and tines of electricity were exchanged on both sides. Enemies fell, bodies sometimes aflame. Defenders dropped in equal numbers, their hair smoldering, the charred areas of their skin indicating where lightning bolts had struck.

  Members of the heavily-armored enemy hunter class swept through the ranks, their oversized daggers and telescoping blades cutting wide swaths through the men.

  Ari equipped her shield in time to defend against two enemy swordsmen. She defeated them, but one of the hunters rushed to fill their place. It raised its huge dagger to strike at her. She hefted her shield to block the blow, not at all sure it would hold up.

  An explosive arrow struck the hunter in its unarmored face, and the resulting detonation completely obliterated its head. Leaving a trail of red mist, the empty helmet arced several meters into the air before thudding into her shield; the headless, heavily armored body fell to its knees and toppled.

  She glanced over her shoulder. A few paces back, Renna stood with bow and arrow in hand. The Keeper nodded.

  Ari hurried forward to find the next foe. A man unleashed lightning at her, but Ari blocked it with her shield and then skewered the opponent.

  Another man replaced him, launching fire at her. She sidestepped and somersaulted, cutting her weapon horizontally: the attacker’s head rolled from his shoulders.

  When she landed, she saw Amoch and Wraylor not far ahead, gliding through the battle like royalty.

  Defenders rushed Amoch. He had merely to gesture with his staff and the men were swept aside by an invisible hand, their bodies disintegrating in midair before they could strike the cobblestone.

  Wraylor pointed her bone staff at one man who raced toward her, and his body dissolved into a slithering mass of cockroaches. Those insects swarmed over the body of another defender, leaving behind a skeleton picked clean of flesh.

  Angered by the sight, Ari retreated to the collapsed portion of the obelisk that was strewn across the square. She sheathed her sword, stowed her shield, and clambered onto the ruins. The vantage point proved favorable: she had a clean line of sight to Amoch.

  She slid the bow down from her shoulder and loaded one of the explosive arrows from the quiver at her waist. She aimed at Amoch’s center of mass and released.

  The arrow flew true and detonated violently upon impact. Though he was invulnerable, the explosion knocked him far back; he struck several of his own men along the way, clearing a momentary path through the enemy. He was soon swallowed from view by the churning mass.

  Ari launched a second arrow at Wraylor and the hooded woman was similarly hurled backward, vanishing in the throng.

  Those two momentarily taken care of, she aimed her bow at a member of the hunter class, who was tearing a path deep into the defenders. Her arrow struck its unarmored face and the resulting explosion liquefied the gol’s head.

  Her exhilaration at those small victories was quickly doused when, from her vantage up there on the ruins,
she realized how hopelessly outnumbered her army was. Already, she thought her ranks had been reduced by half, while the enemy hordes meanwhile seemed endless.

  Briar should have arrived by then with the promised reinforcements from the Black Den, but apparently he had decided not to come. Without his men, it seemed apparent to Ari that the battle was forfeit.

  She heard a loud thudding from her right. Brute. Apparently the creature had spotted her, because it was headed straight toward her, tearing through the fray, alternately elbowing men aside with its powerful arms or slicing them down with one of the four scimitars it held. The Dragon Lady moved in a graceful dance of death at its side, beheading any who dared oppose her own advance.

  Ari had time to release one more arrow. She aimed at the cobblestone immediately between the creature and the Dragon Lady.

  The latter noticed Ari’s intention in time and nimbly leaped away. Brute was not so quick. The arrow struck and the resultant explosion knocked the large creature backward. The beast smashed into the ground, and the cobblestone dislodged around it.

  The Dragon Lady leaped onto the fallen obelisk and attacked.

  Ari dropped the bow, withdrawing her sword just in time to defend against the katana. She retreated under the flurry of strikes, nearly losing her balance on an uneven section of the ruined obelisk.

  The Dragon Lady attacked mercilessly, the expression on her silver dragon mask never changing: the wide eyes, the thick nostrils, that unnerving gaping grin.

  Ari tripped and fell over the edge of the ruins. She landed hard, with her back to the cobblestone. Her armor absorbed most of the blow, but the wind was still knocked out of her. She had dropped her sword, and it lay about a pace to her right.

  The Dragon Lady leaped at Ari. In midair, the woman raised her blade with both hands and plunged it downward in time with her descent.

  Ari rolled toward her dropped sword, but she doubted she’d retrieve it in time to defend against the katana.

  The Dragon Lady landed beside her.

  Ari scooped up her sword, knowing that death was imminent...

  And then she heard a loud clang beside her.

  Another blade had intercepted the death blow meant for her.

  She spun to see who it was.

  Renna.

  Ari clambered to her feet while the Keeper forced the Dragon Lady backward. Ari grabbed the shield from where she had stowed it on her back and strapped it to her arm. Then she rushed the Dragon Lady and renewed the attack.

  Together, she and Renna pinned the woman against the ruin of the fallen obelisk. The Dragon Lady struggled to keep up with the twofold attacks.

  Renna was abruptly drawn away by an aggressor from the side; Ari positioned herself to screen the Keeper’s back from the Dragon Lady.

  Ari kept up the relentless assault. She used the lightning shield to her advantage, protecting the left side of her body so that her sword arm could continue the attack unabated. She struck that curlicued armor repeatedly, but as in the previous engagement, Ari could not inflict even a dent. As she gazed into those grotesque features while she fought, she had an idea. The mask... the mask was the key. If she could rip it off and then strike at the face, her opponent would fall.

  An opening presented itself and Ari slapped the mask with her hilt. The hand guard caught against the embossed edge, and Ari flipped the weapon upward.

  The mask flew off.

  Ari was stunned by who she saw underneath.

  “Gemma!” Ari said.

  Zak’s sister picked up the attack, taking advantage of Ari’s momentary distraction. “Who told you that name, gol?”

  “Your brother!” Ari defended the blows. “He is with us now in the real world your Amoch speaks of!”

  Gemma’s face crumpled in outrage and her attacks increased, becoming frantic: “Lies! You killed my brother before my very eyes. You and the gol Ten burned him to a crisp!”

  Gemma’s attacks became a fervent blur, coming in from all sides, and even with the shield Ari had trouble defending. Gemma’s assault only abated when the ground began to shake and men screamed around them. A shadow fell over the pair. Motion drew their gaze skyward.

  Meteors of different sizes fell from the heavens, pummeling the defenders. One particularly large one was headed toward her and Gemma, blotting out the sun.

  Gemma leaped backward, while Ari dodged to the side. The meteor struck: the ground exploded and she was flung across the battlefield.

  Ari landed on her back. Broken cobblestone followed her down, and she raised her shield to protect herself. When the incoming debris ceased, she crawled to her feet, dazed.

  She had lost sight of Gemma. She did, however, spot Amoch in the distance: he was extending his staff in the general direction of the defenders. He had caused the meteors, no doubt.

  Wraylor stood beside him. She, too, had returned with a vengeance. She transformed the ground into acid underneath several defenders. The men sank, screaming. Some attempted to crawl from the greenish liquid but it was too late, and the tissue sloughed from their faces and arms, leaving bone.

  Brute meanwhile rampaged through the fray, causing death and destruction wherever it went. Though she could not see them in the seething masses, she had no doubt that Jeremy and Gemma continued to fight somewhere out there as well.

  Enemy soldiers raced forward to fill any vacancies. Ari found herself standing before a hunter gol. Renna rushed to her side, and while the Keeper distracted the thing, Ari unleashed flames into its face, disabling the unit.

  Three more defenders joined them and they fought back to back. Other pockets of men formed nearby, surrounded by enemies, struggling to stave off the attacks. It was then that Ari realized her army was completely overwhelmed, reduced to a few score survivors. It was doubtful the hold-outs would last much longer.

  The battle was lost. They could attempt a retreat, but it would be slow and arduous with the enemy on all sides like that. By the time they made it to the edge of the square, most of the remaining defenders would be cut down.

  She had wanted to save Kismet. But she couldn’t even save her own army.

  A horn echoed loudly in the square. Ari ignored it, fighting on. Some of the attackers paused in confusion, perhaps searching for the source of the horn, and she used that moment of hesitation to strike them down.

  Motion drew her gaze to the rooftops, where archers knelt in plain sight. They lined the roofs of the square on all sides, likely placed by Amoch to ambush her. She was angry that the scouts hadn’t reported them, and even angrier that neither she nor her generals had thought to position a similar group of archers.

  We didn’t have enough men for such a maneuver, the voice of reason reminded her.

  Yes, the battle was indeed lost.

  And then a voice echoed above the sounds of war.

  “Let the whoremongers come out to play!”

  She would have recognized that voice anywhere.

  Briar. The archers were his.

  He had come through for her in the end.

  The archers unleashed their arrows into the fray. Explosions ripped through the square, chewing wide holes through the enemy ranks.

  Fresh swordsmen from the Black Den rushed forward, unleashing flames and lightning, and their ferocious onslaught swept the opponents from Ari.

  So there was still a chance she might win after all. A very slim one, but a chance nonetheless.

  Briar joined her. “Why hello, dear niece! Fancy meeting you here.” He wore lightning rings on every finger, and carried a fire sword and shield.

  “Thank you, Briar,” she said.

  “No,” Briar told her. “Thank you, Ari. For showing me that I’m still a good man somewhere inside. And that I still have courage buried within me, however deep.” He glanced toward the dueling ranks ahead of them. “Now let’s teach this Amoch and his whoresons some manners, shall we?”

  two

  Hoodwink resided within a shuttle far above Ganymede. “
Steady as she goes.”

  His pilot, Zak, sat in the cockpit beside him. They were both dressed in spacesuits with exoskeletons attached to the outside. Their helmets were on. In front of them, above the controls, a viewscreen relayed video from the external cameras, giving the illusion that the cockpit had windows. Behind them, in the freight area, a nuclear warhead awaited placement. Custom magnetic shielding designed by Hoodwink and implemented by the engineers would prevent the Satori from realizing what their deadly cargo was. In theory.

  The trailing shuttle, piloted by Klay, carried a similar nuke. Those were the last two weapons of their kind that the human colony ship had aboard. Some might have thought the proximity of the trailing shuttle to Hoodwink’s was dangerous, should that craft be destroyed. However, the nuke wouldn’t detonate in an attack: it required a specific combination of temperature and pressure to activate the proper chain reaction, a combination only the warhead itself could achieve.

  Of course, while Hoodwink wasn’t worried so much about the nuke detonating, he was very nervous about losing it, as they needed both for the plan to succeed. That was why he had assigned the second-best pilot after Zak to the trailing craft.

  Two decoy shuttles flew on the left and right sides of Zak’s, piloted by Clark and Raynor. Zak followed the third decoy shuttle, which was flown by Myerson. At the very front was Hoodwink’s own alien flyer.

  Through the viewscreen, a thick black mass gathered before the Satori mothership, their destination. Much of the ship was occluded by that darkness, and Hoodwink saw only portions of the hull, which hinted at its massiveness.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Zak asked him, his voice coming over the speakers of Hoodwink’s helmet.

  “It’ll work,” Hoodwink said. “They haven’t fired at us so far, have they?”

  “But they will, if this works,” Zak said. “They’re going to be pretty pissed.”