The Smuggler's Ascension: The Ties That Died

by Christopher Ingersoll

  The fighting in the hallways was fiercer, as the troops there had not had their weapons disabled by the electromagnetic pulses. The first of the Dark Priestesses met them there in the corridors, as well, and black lightning erupted in the Palace hallways. Groups of Su’Tani cast their shields up while others targeted the Priestesses with their pulse rifles.

  It soon became apparent that the Priestesses’ shields were not as effective as Karina’s had been, and many Dark Priestesses were cut down in short order. Kristof received reports from other teams in the Palace of similar results. All seemed to be going well, which worried Kristof. The last time things had seemed to be going well had been a trap.

  As if on cue, the Su’Tani began to be assaulted with waves of darkness as well as lightning, and it became hard to see where they were shooting or where the lightning was coming from. Kristof reached inside to the power resting there, and brought it forth in a red fire that burned away the waves of darkness.

  The sound of several Priestesses howling in pain came to their ears as the darkness lifted, and the Su’Tani quickly cut down the Priestesses and Clovani troops that had been attempting to sneak up on them. Once the area was secured, Kristof called a halt so his teams could rest a moment and tend to their wounded and dead.

  Anasha and Max joined Kristof as he knelt by a broken statue and took a drink of water. Max’s armor showed evidence of taking a few laser strikes, but not lightning. The barrels of his mini gun also smoked, showing that he had been using the weapon heavily in the fight up until this point. Anasha seemed to not be phased by what had happened so far, her mind was far away with Sabine at the moment.

  Kristof kept his mind in the here and now. He knew there was little he could do for Sabine at the moment beyond sharing her pain and taking some of the load, but he sensed Karina ahead and he did not want Sabine attached to him when that fight began.

  “Her labor is progressing fast,” Anasha said after a moment, “Faster than a normal labor should. The doctors are concerned about her heart and her pain levels, but are afraid to give her anything. I’m trying to share the load,” she added, having picked up on his thoughts, Kristof knew, “But she’s blocking me.”

  “She knows that we need to be focused here or we aren’t coming back to her,” Kristof said. “I can feel Karina ahead. I think she is in labor as well, though what fowl spawn she is bringing forth I could not guess. We need to end this soon.”

  Sounds of battle could be heard out in the city, which meant the Clovani were regaining the use of their weapons and that the Puranni ground forces were on the march. The Dark Priestesses took that moment to renew their attack as well, and Kristof closed his mind to everything but the battle at hand.

  The fighting grew more heated the closer they drew to the entrance to the Temple. Twice more Kristof had to draw on the power within to break up an attack by the Priestesses, until at last they could see the entrance to the Temple. The great black iron doors gave way as Max launched a shoulder mounted missile at them, revealing a long dark tunnel behind them.

  Kristof filled the tunnel with his cold red fire and burned away a number of traps that had been left for them, and they could hear the howls of frustration from the Temple. Kristof gave the Su’Tani soldiers some last minute instructions to keep anyone else from entering the Temple while he, Anasha, Max, and a small team would handle whatever was waiting in the Temple for them.

  “Stay close,” Kristof said to Anasha as she took the small crystal vial of Cassandra’s tears from a protective case that had held it. “If you see an opening to strike with the tears, take it, but don’t try and force it if its not there. We only have one shot at this.”

  “Yes, sir,” Anasha saluted, before she grabbed Kristof and kissed him hard for luck.

  The interior of the Temple was about what Kristof would have expected. There was a tall, stepped altar on the opposite side of an inky black pool. There were dark columns all around, which meant a lot of hiding places for the enemy to hide.

  High above on the altar, Kristof could see a robed figure squatting and howling. The sight of her red hair told him that it was Karina, and seeing her like that he knew she was in fact giving birth. A second Dark Priestess stood near to Karina’s side. Max stepped forward with his mini gun and unleashed a storm of laser fire at the altar, but a shield stopped all of his blasts short.

  As the storm of laser fire ebbed and the air cleared, Kristof watched as Karina handed a small bundle to the second Priestess before turning to face them. The Priestess turned and disappeared somewhere to the back of the altar, and Kristof cursed as he realized they could not stop her.

  “Welcome, brother,” Karina called, though there was no joy in her voice. “You seem much better than the last time I saw you in the company of our dear brother.” Karina gestured to Kristof’s right and he turned to look.

  Along the wall on the floor nearby lay the naked and desiccated remains of a man, and after a few moments Kristof realized he was seeing his brother, Korvan. Pity for his brother, who had never had the strength to resist Karina’s cruelties, filled his heart. Regret and not being able to save Korvan also came to him, but her forced those emotions away so he could focus his anger on Karina.

  “What have you done?” Kristof asked in revulsion as he returned his angry eyes to Karina.

  “You’re an uncle now, Kristof,” Karina said with a leer. “An uncle twice over, in a manner of speaking.”

  In a rage, Kristof hurled the cold red fire of the Hammer of the Father at Karina, only to watch it stop short as it struck her shield. It came to him then that Azrael’s tapping into of the Great Maelstrom in the Underworld had given him and his Paramour the power to resist the Father’s power.

  Karina howled with insane laughter as she unleashed a lightning storm throughout the Temple chamber.

  ~37~

  Anasha shared Kristof’s revulsion at seeing the naked desiccated corpse of Korvan Anders, and at knowing his sister had used him to conceive her foul spawn that was even now escaping to parts unknown with a Dark Priestess. She had never met Kristof’s brother, but from the stories she had heard she could not imagine Korvan cooperating, which meant that Karina had raped her own brother in order to conceive. It was monstrous, beyond any horror that the woman had committed in the past.

  Kristof’s fire did not touch Karina, Anasha saw with some consternation, as the room erupted in lightning and everyone was forced to find cover or throw up some hasty shields. Karina’s lightning was stronger than any they had felt from the Dark Priestesses, and several Su’Tani were blasted into smoking corpses in the blink of an eye. Kristof resisted the lightning, but Anasha saw that he did not do so without cost. Pain registered on his face as he too dove behind a column.

  “Come now, brother,” Karina called out, “Surely you did not come all this way simply to hide now. Face me like a man. Our father cries out from the grave at seeing you cower so.”

  “I stopped caring about what father wanted years ago, Karina,” Kristof said as he struggled to catch his breath. Anasha could see that he was still in pain from the lightning.

  Karina had not moved from the top of the altar, so Anasha began looking for a way to come at the woman unseen. The altar seemed to be a stepped pyramid, so perhaps if she could move from column to column, Anasha could get to the side steps of the altar and come at her from the side or behind. It seemed the only option unless Karina came down, which did not seem likely at the moment.

  “Max,” Anasha whispered, “I need a distraction.”

  Max nodded and took out his missile launcher once more and reloaded it. The surviving Su’Tani troops in the Temple with them saw what he was doing and also prepared to add their fire to his.

  The Su’Tani fired first to create a distraction, and when Karina turned to them Max stepped out and fired. The missile streaked across the room and struck Karina’s shield with terrific force, creating a large fireball and a lot of smoke.

  Anasha was runnin
g as soon as the missile struck. She had no illusions that the missile would be successful where Kristof’s fire had not, so she took advantage of the momentary cover to run as fast as she could to get out of Karina’s line of sight. Kristof launched another volley of fire to keep Karina’s attention firmly fixed on him and not what anyone else might be doing.

  Two more Su’Tani found their end at the end of Karina’s lightning as Anasha heard their brief screams of pain. The sound of Max’s mini gun returned, and Anasha felt the need to rush even faster as the thought of anything happening to Max and Kristof raced through her head.

  “Enough, Karina!” Kristof yelled, and Anasha heard his fire erupt once more as she crept up the back side of the altar. She could make out the back of Karina’s head now, but she was too far away to risk trying to use the tears still.

  Kristof’s cry of pain came loud and clear through the room even as Karina laughed with glee. Anasha watched as Karina started to walk down the opposite side of the altar towards where Kristof had been, and Anasha ran quickly up the back of the altar on silent feet as she gave chase.

  The sight that greeted her as she crested the pyramid almost stopped her heart. Max lay against the far wall, either stunned or dead, Anasha could not tell. All of the Su’Tani troops who had entered the Temple were now dead, and Kristof knelt upon his knees at the base of the altar, his armor smoking from multiple lightning strikes. He was panting and seemingly barely conscious.

  Karina laughed as she descended the pyramid to the floor, her shield dissipating as she went to gloat over her brother. Anasha made sure the vial of tears was ready in her hand as a last desperate charge came to mind.

  “You thought to come here and slay me so easily, did you brother?” Karina asked mockingly as she stood before Kristof. “My love Azrael had a surprise for you, though. The power of the Underworld sustains us even in the face of the wrath of the Father. Now you will die, as will your whores. Where are they, anyway? I thought I had seen the little blond trollop with you. Is she cowering in fear somewhere? Or did she have the sense to run and leave you to your fate? Maybe I’ll find her, I hear she has a taste for women now.”

  Anasha came in a silent rush down the altar steps behind Karina, and the insane woman did not hear her until the last moment. Karina turned just as Anasha smashed the vial of tears on her chest. The crystal shattered and the tears of Cassandra splashed over Karina’s skin like stars in a midnight sky.

  “Go fuck yourself, instead,” Anasha growled as she spit in Karina’s face.

  “You bitch!” Karina yelled as she struck Anasha with a volley of lightning, yet even as Anasha flew through the air to crash against the wall with a bone jarring impact, it seemed to her that the lightning was diminished. The lightning burned, but she was still alive as she crumpled to the floor in agony.

  “What have you done?!” Karina/Azrael yelled in one mixed voice, the insanity in their voices reaching a fevered pitch as they looked at their hands, sensing the loss of their connection with the Great Maelstrom.

  “Cassandra sends her regards,” Kristof said from Karina’s feet, and Anasha saw comprehension dawn in the mad woman’s face seconds before Kristof unleashed the full force of the Father’s wrath.

  Karina/Azrael howled in rage and agony as the red flames of the fire swirled around her body like a fire tornado. They tried to unleash their lightning once more, but Kristof was now able to contain it with the connection to the Underworld being broken. Karina’s robe burned away, and Anasha cringed at seeing the desiccated state Karina’s body had come to in her love affair with Death. In a last effort to plea for mercy, Karina/Azrael looked pleadingly upon Kristof.

  “Father, please,” Azrael begged, clearly beseeching to more than just Kristof.

  “No son of mine,” Kristof snarled as he increased the heat of the flames which no longer burned cold, but had turned the Temple into an oven. Anasha watched as the spirit of Azrael rose free of Karina’s body and was consumed in the flames, and then Karina’s body flashed out of existence a second later.

  Kristof fell to the floor then, his body still. Anasha cried out in despair and struggled to crawl to his side, her every muscle in agony as she moved. She found him still breathing and pulled him into her lap as she called his name, but he remained still. Anasha wept as she struggled to think of what to do and she cried out for help.

  ~38~

  Sabine struggled with the pain even as she felt Kristof and Anasha fighting their way through the city below. Things seemed to be going well for them, so she withdrew her attention so she could fight her own battle. Never before had she imagined such pain, but she had refused to allow the doctors administer anything to dull her senses. If she had but a second to see her son when he was born, she would not miss it because of drugs. In time the pain became so great, however, that she begged for something to ease it. By that time, however, the doctors feared that anything they gave her might overtax her system that was already on the brink of tolerances.

  Her grandfather had come to be with her, Sabine saw after a while, which could only mean the space battle was going well. She gladly accepted what comfort he could give even as another contraction wracked her body yet again harder than the last. The monitors beside her bed beeped alarmingly as her heart rate soared with the contraction, and she cried out from the pain.

  From the planet below, Sabine suddenly felt a hideous pain from her connection with Kristof, and she knew Karina had struck and struck hard. “No,” she moaned as another contraction hit her even as Kristof was struck again. It seemed the pain had no sooner began to lessen than she felt a flash of pain from Anasha this time, and felt a sense of flying before a crushing stop and crumpling to the floor.

  “It’s time, you Majesty, you must push,” the doctor ordered, and Sabine pushed for all she was worth even as her heart broke in fear for Kristof and Anasha.

  The sense of Anasha’s triumphant cheer as Karina and Azrael suddenly becoming engulfed in flame came to her then, and she could feel the Father’s wrath working through Kristof, and she rejoiced for a brief second before the pain of birth blocked out everything once more. Her grandfather took her hand and let her squeeze, even though she found enough spare thought to worry she might hurt him.

  Sabine pushed and cried, pushed and cried until she thought she could take no more, and then the pain eased as the room erupted in a brilliant white light. Sabine fought away her tears so she could see clearly what was happening around her. The doctors and nurses all stood in awe as a figure appeared that was not a baby, but in the form of a full grown man.

  His features were so similar to Kristof’s that at first Sabine thought she was seeing her husband’s spirit, but she could still feel Kristof on the planet below, if only barely. When the figure smiled, Sabine felt her heart soar with joy at seeing her son for the first time.

  “Joshua,” Sabine whispered as she smiled, her heart full.

  “Well met, Mother,” Sabine’s son Joshua said as he smiled down upon her. “I regret that I cannot stay, but I will see you again. I promise. I must go and aid Father and Mother before I go.” Joshua turned to leave before he paused and looked back. “I apologize for hiding things the way I did, but there was no other way.”

  Sabine watched Joshua disappear in a flash of light and she lay confused, until the contractions started once more and the doctors rushed back to her side. After a quick whispered consultation and a sensor scan, the head doctor came to her and said “We need you to push again, you Majesty. It’s not quite over yet.”

  ~39~

  Kristof lay in Anasha’s arms unable to move. Karina and Azrael’s last blast of lightning before Anasha had struck had fried his central nervous system, it felt like. He was unsure if he could move even had he wanted to. For the moment all he wanted to do was lay there in Anasha’s arms. Several Su’Tani had heard her cries for help and had come to try and treat his wounds, but were baffled by what they were finding.

  Anasha was crying, he
felt, as her tears fell upon his cheek. Kristof forced his eyes to open so he could see her above him. Anasha was in pain too, and Kristof could remember seeing the lightning throw her against the wall. One of the Su’Tani gave her an injection for the pain as he watched. Seeing Anasha strike the wall had sparked the final fury he had needed to unleash the power and rid the universe of the Dark God and Kristof’s own foul sister.

  Even as he allowed himself to contemplate falling asleep in Anasha’s arms, they both sensed Sabine’s sudden sense of wonder and joy, and he knew that his son was born. Anasha cried, though now happy tears, and Kristof smiled and struggled to wake himself further. The movements wouldn’t come, however.

  The room slowly began to fill with a bright white light until nothing remained but him and Anasha and the light. He felt the Su’Tani move away and fall to their knees. And then a figure emerged from within the light, and at first Kristof thought that he was seeing himself in the mirror. But the feeling quickly faded as he realized he was seeing his son for the first time.

  “Father,” the God said with a smile, “Mother. I came to you to set things right before I left. I am Joshua, as my Mother above has named me.”

  “Well met, Joshua,” Kristof croaked through a raw throat. His son reached forward to lay a hand on his leg, and suddenly he could feel his body healing as well as Anasha’s healing beside him. “I couldn’t leave you like that, not after everything you both have been through and done for not only me, but the Universe as well.”

  “We thank you, Joshua,” Anasha said as she wept happy tears.

  “I am sorry I could not come sooner, Mother” Joshua said sadly as he placed his hand on Anasha’s stomach. Anasha looked at him in shock, suddenly knowing what he meant as she felt his touch, but the pain was fleeting as he let her go with a sad smile.