personnel were scrambled for action, Leanne and Coram among them.
The air over Silverwing came alive with the vehicles of human and Lacertan personnel, and the flying dragon forms of Knights and Corps, swarming above the buildings as the grass dragons had done only a day ago, all of them converging in a single direction: towards the
glaring glow of a fountain of energy rising up from a tree-covered mountain and casting an
ominous light into the sky. Whatever was in that mountain, it was gathering power from deep within the planet for some dreaded purpose.
At the controls of a Fleet hovercar, with Coram piloting, Leanne and Coram faced the harsh radiance of the fountain of power pouring up from the green mountain ahead of them. For a moment, they looked over at each other. Into Leanne’s mind came Coram’s words from when they’d lain in bed together just hours ago, about what the things they had done in bed would do for them. I believe it will give us a bond. I think sex together will make us stronger together--closer and stronger. The two of us in bed, our bodies together, me inside you, coming in you, making you come--it will be our strength, Leanne.
From the look in Coram’s eyes, Leanne could tell that the memory of his words was as much with him as it was with her. She saw it in his eyes and in the tiny smile that curled one corner of the lips that had kissed her so many times with such dragon-like passion. They were in this together, as one, and together, they would see it through. Whatever awaited them inside that mountain would prove no match for Leanne Shire and Sir Coram Dunne.
They returned their attention to that mountain and that pillar of energy. Coram pressed the accelerator, and the hovercar sliced the air faster, heading out of Silverwing with the swarm of Lacerta’s defenders.
On the western slope of the mountain lay the gaping entrance to the caves inside, a broad and dark maw into which individual Knights and Corps members were already flying when Leanne and Coram’s hovercar came swooping in. The cave entrance was large enough for
vessels of the size that Coram was piloting to fly inside, and other hovercars were doing just that when Coram and Leanne arrived.
Some larger vehicles were coming in to a hovering position and letting out teams of human
personnel with jet harnesses and Lacertans flying under their own power, while others sought landing space in clearings in the forest from which they would discharge their own troops. Whether on foot, aboard hovercars, or on jets or wings, the defenders of Lacerta made their way speedily into the mountain. Coram hovered their craft only for a moment to let some who reached the cave entrance ahead of them plunge in first. Then, he sent their craft surging
forward, its forward beacons blazing to light their path into the stony darkness.
No sooner were they across the threshold of the cave than the dim space was lit by more than just the beacons of craft flying in. Rushing towards the oncoming vessels were bursts, streaks, and flashes of hot, yellow-orange brilliance, accompanied by sounds of shrieking that echoed off the stone walls and the reverberating sound of thousands of wing beats.
“Grass dragons!” cried Leanne. “Incoming!” And at once, she picked up her mist rifle, already locked and loaded.
Leanne did not even need to hear Coram say, “I pilot, you shoot!” The moment she saw the oncoming fires, she was already taking aim.
In an instant, the scaly, flying creatures were all around them and all around the other hovercars and flying combatants as well. The little animals breathed and sprayed fire everywhere. Flames and sparks danced on the windshield and body of the hovercar. Leanne pulled her trigger and released her own jets of hissing mist, swerving about in the passenger seat and discharging clouds in every direction, forward, sides, and aft. Wherever her clouds of anti-mutagen billowed out, they swallowed either a portion of the swarm of dragons or a bolt or billow of their fire.
Confused and stricken, the little beasts started to hit the windshield and forward hull and go spinning by overhead. The air was filled not only with anti-Chimerian mist but with the skirling cries of its targets as they pinwheeled and plummeted down to the floor of the cave passage.
The mists cleared as quickly as they acted, and Coram and Leanne looked ahead to see their fellow craft and the other winged and jet-packed troops discharging more mists ahead of them, and the swarm of grass dragons either parting or dropping away, clearing a path into an inner space that was already lit with a pulsating glow. Belying the glow, the heart of darkness still lay before them.
The forces of Lacerta and the Fleet poured into a vast inner cavern and swerved and turned around in the air inside the space. The sounds of whooshing engines and beating wings made a cacophony inside the cavern, and yet dwarfing them all was the sight that greeted them in the middle of the huge, stony space. In the cavern floor lay the crater-like opening of what
Coram and Leanne both recognized as a geothermal vent. From deep within the vent rose a throbbing pillar of energy whose radiance was almost blinding at this close proximity. The enormous jet of power shot clear up to and through the roof of the cavern, penetrating the rock strata of the mountain and letting out into the air above, where it was visible for miles around. The energy surged upward and out, undiminished, unstoppable, intense and pulsating, summoned by the one sight that was even more shocking than the tower of radiance itself.
Near the edge of the crater stood a little alien with smooth and mottled brownish skin and a shell-like cranium. Coram squinted at the being in the glare of the energy fountain and recognized him as a Visanian, a member of a species that had little traffic outside of its home planet and had been known to the Commonwealth for less than a decade. His memory of interplanetary studies told him that Visanians were naturally telepathic and not widely trusted in the greater quadrant, which was why they were so reclusive.
And yet, a telepath would make a most natural and convenient agent for a greater enemy. The moment this occurred to Coram, he spotted something else—something inside the energy geyser, right over the mouth of the geothermal crater. There was another figure suspended in the outpouring of energy, a figure much larger than the Visanian. Coram could not make out the
features of this other being—until it stepped forward as if coming through a curtain, and stepped out onto the cavern floor beside the little mollusk being.
Even through the din in the cavern, Coram could imagine Leanne gasping when the other entity stepped into view. He could hardly blame her. They were seeing a creature that should not exist. Coram had seen holograms and vids of this creature from long-ago battles. Every member of the Knighthood, the Corps, and the Fleet had seen them. Everyone pledged to defend the Commonwealth, its worlds, and its citizens had seen them and knew this entity when they saw it. The horror was they should not be seeing it.
The shock was that the being who stepped forward from the energy pillar was known to be dead. Dead—slain in a battle with the Knights of Lacerta on the same day that Sir Rawn Ullery disappeared in the destruction of the Chimerian warp nexus, the mission that had stopped the Chimerians spreading across the quadrant. This being now towering over the Visanian at the crater had no business among the living.
And yet, there it stood: the High Chimerian. The sense of shock and disbelief among the protectors of Lacerta now storming the cavern was itself like a living thing. It wasn’t possible for this enemy of all life to be here on the very planet they called home. Setting down the hovercar on the cavern floor with other craft and other Knights and Fleet members doing the same all around, Coram set his jaw into a hard frown at the magnitude of the evil they faced—and his resolve that this evil would not stand.
Leanne, her rifle still in hand and ready to fire at the slightest sign of aggression from
either of the beings at the edge of the crater, climbed out of the craft and onto the floor of the cavern. Coram did likewise and could either see or feel dozens upon dozens of other weapons all around them already trained on the two aliens. His nostrils flared. Rig
ht about now, he would have liked to be able to breathe fire like Sir Rawn.
The worst thing she could do, thought Leanne, was to show the slightest trepidation at this moment. The Visanian, she knew, could already sense at least her surface thoughts. It would be better not to communicate any emotion to him along with those thoughts. She knew full well whom and what she was facing. This was the most life-or-death moment she had faced since Dorian III. After a few paces, she raised her voice: “In the name of the Commonwealth of Worlds, the Interstar Fleet, and the planet Lacerta, we order you to surrender.”
At once, Leanne and all the uniformed and armor-skinned defenders around her winced and nearly staggered at what felt like a wave of hot pressure entering their skulls. It was a voice, coming not in sounds but in thoughts, a massive telepathic transmission. It took an effort to keep her weapon raised as her mind “heard” the response.
You are in the presence of the regenerated High Chimerian. As of this moment, you belong to me. Your minds will be my mind. Your flesh will be my flesh. Your biology, your physicality, and your being shall all become a part of the Chimerian Unity. Through you, I shall begin the extension and spread of my power across this planet, and from this planet to the galaxy beyond. All life will be united in my will.
The Visanian said, “I am Cadoq, Prime Servant of the High Chimerian. ‘Tis I who have brought the second generation of the greatest life form in existence. Life as we have known it is chaos. It searches out its niche without direction, without order, without plan. Where there is intelligence, where there is sentience, that intelligence serves no purpose but its own.
Many planets have perished in wars between unfettered intelligence, or succumbed to the depredations of industry that have raped and despoiled the natural world. The planet Earth itself once nearly came to such a fate. All living worlds are precious. Under the High Chimerian, no such planet need suffer. The randomness and chaos of natural selection will at last be brought to
order. There will be no wars, no conflict, no despoiling of nature anywhere that life exists. All that lives will serve a unifying vision. The new order begins with you.”
Leanne stood her ground. “Those are all the same things the original High Chimerian and its followers said. Life was meant for freedom. Every living thing deserves to be free.
Every intelligent being deserves to become whatever it wants to be. We demand your surrender.”
With an eerie calm in the face of the defiance of so many, and the defiance of an entire world outside the cave, Cadoq simply replied, “‘Tis you who must surrender. You will be the beginning of the new Unity as my master has ordained. The energy inside this cavern has magnified the telepathic powers of the master a thousand-fold. You will now submit and join us.”
The deathly dark eyes of the High Chimerian flashed red like glowing coals. Another force, like the telepathy of its “voice,” struck out in all directions like an invisible tsunami, like the mightiest hurricane ever known on any planet, an immense, brutal, bludgeoning storm of pure thought. Where Leanne and the myriad of others in the cavern were almost staggered a
moment ago, now their legs buckled and they reeled about, stricken and stunned. Leanne looked dizzily over at Coram and saw him lurch in place, then slump against the side of the hovercar, clutching at his head with one hand. That was the last thing she saw before her vision grew
blurry, and she began to hear bodies and weapons falling all around her. She dropped to one knee and gasped, desperate to keep her awareness, to remain conscious, against the hammering inside her head.
The “voice” of the High Chimerian rumbled cruelly in her head, in Coram’s, in the heads of the entire attack force. My thoughts are becoming your thoughts. Your consciousness, your will, is dissolving into my own. You will think as you are directed to think. You will feel as you are commanded to feel. You will act as you are commanded to act. Each of you present will
receive a portion of the Chimerian genome. It will bind you forever to one another, and to me.
You will go forth from this place and seek others of your kind, to whom you will impart the
genome. They will seek out still others and spread the genome unto them. Every sentient being upon the planet will thus become a part of the great Unity. And all will spread forth from this planet to bring the Unity to every other world. And the vision of life under the mind of the High Chimerian will be fulfilled. The ultimate order will come to pass. Submit. Submit…
Now on two knees, her rifle on the ground in front of her, Leanne clutched desperately at her temples as if to hold her entire body in one piece that way. Through clenched teeth, she half-screamed, “No…NO…!” She looked over at Coram and saw him writhing helplessly on the ground, waging the same battle in his own mind. She crawled over to him, resting on her elbows next to him, staring down into the agonized look on the handsome face of the man who had
given her such pleasure—perhaps, she now feared, the last pleasure she would ever know. Through the roaring storm in her mind, she heard the cries of so many others, fallen and consumed by the same force that now gripped the two of them.
“Coram…,” Leanne moaned. “Fight it. Fight them. Fight…”
He reached up and gripped her arm. She managed to bring her hand to his and clutch it tightly. They lay there together, hand in hand, trembling against the dissolution of their thoughts.
“Leanne,” Coram gasped. “We…are…stronger…together…”
Those were the last words he uttered. One last time, Leanne summoned the words he had said to her in the night, about the two of them having a bond, being closer and stronger.
Then, there was nothing. Leanne did not even feel herself sinking down on top of him on the cavern floor.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When awareness returned, it was unlike anything else that Leanne had ever experienced.
She was awake. She was fully conscious and aware of her surroundings. Coram was standing at her side, and standing with them, all around them, were all the other members of the Fleet, Corps, and Knighthood who had stormed the cavern with them. They were standing silent, motionless, at attention, as if in a training drill.
Not only were they motionless, but they actually could not move. She sensed that in herself and in all of them. They were utterly unable to move—unless bidden to do so by the High Chimerian who stood before them with Cadoq at his side, in front of the fountain of energy rising from the geothermal vent.
Leanne felt no pain. She felt nothing at all except for a dullness in her mind and a numbness in her body and limbs. Though she was flesh and blood, she felt like a statue. And, most disconcertingly and unnervingly of all, she felt somehow as though her very thoughts were wrapped up in a cocoon—and what they were wrapped in were other thoughts, not her own.
With a sudden dread that she could not express, she realized that the thoughts imposed upon her mind were all identical—and she was sensing them in Coram’s mind and in the minds of every uniformed man and woman around her, as an endless throbbing of echoes. She wanted to panic at the knowledge that in a very real sense, her mind was no longer her own. Her mind had
become a part of all the other human and Lacertan minds around her—and all their minds in turn were now a part of the mind of the alien creature who had them at attention.
Inside her own head, she wanted to scream, but her own feelings, her own thoughts, were muffled and muted by the enwrapping thoughts and feelings of Coram and the others. It might not have been so horrifying if it were only Coram, but it was all of them. And enfolding them all, she felt the intruding, clutching, all-possessing will of the High Chimerian.
A sick sensation of absolute revulsion welled up inside her, but even this was beyond her ability to express or even to feel completely. She knew that Coram was feeling the same thing, and she desperately wanted to reach out and take his hand, to draw strength from him and lend him her own strength, to pull them both out of the mental and physical morass i
n which they now found themselves.
But she could do nothing. Her body was not her own. Her very mind was not her own. It was a violation, as deep and savage as any other violation that any other woman or any other being had ever experienced. And she was forbidden full access even to the feelings of shock and rage and horror that it caused her. Leanne’s feelings were wrapped and smothered. She was truly powerless.
With the vestiges of free thought that were left to her, Leanne knew that this was the way it would be for every intelligent mind in the galaxy if the High Chimerian had its way. Every thinking, feeling being on every planet in space would be mentally, emotionally enwrapped and smothered the way she now was. And it would go far beyond intelligent life. All animal life—every mammal and reptile and bird and fish and insect, everything that knew any emotion or
existed by any primal instinct—would lie in the clutches of the evil that now possessed her. It would be the end of the freedom of life itself. And she and all the champions of Lacerta and the Commonwealth who had come to this cavern with her would be the beginning of it. The High Chimerian would use them to attack the capital of Lacerta. They would seize the Fleet Headquarters. They would seize the Spires. They would attack the rest of the planet. They would move out into space, taking this evil with them. And Leanne and her compatriots had flown right into it, right into this most terrible, heinous trap.
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