by Justin Sloan
He laughed, reaching for the equipment he’d picked up on the space station—bought from the pirates—and suited up while Arlay fetched them chutes and helped Lolack strap his on. She finished with a gentle kiss.
“Come back, or this time I’ll come after you myself,” she threatened.
“Nothing could keep me from you now,” he replied. “That’s a promise.”
“SHUT UP AND GO!” Flynn yelled and Valerie and Robin headed toward the rear of the ship, pulling Lolack with them.
A moment later they leaped out the back, their chutes blossoming and yanking them hard, then they hit the packed sand of the jungle outside the resort. Valerie cut the straps off in an instant, then moved at vampire speed to Robin and then Lolack, helping to free them.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The ground shook around them and two seconds later a large mech ran at them, blue shield up and rockets at the ready.
“Mine,” Robin shouted, darting right in a flash.
“Mechs versus vampires,” Valerie said with a smile. “This should be fun.” She shouted a warning to Lolack, then sprinted in the direction opposite Robin. The mech was already confused. It fired after Robin first, but a moment later she used her strength to twist its shoulder mount so that the next shots exploded in the barrel. The mech stood still and dissolved the shield, preparing to fire its launchers at her, but she was gone and then Valerie hit from the other side, using her super-strength to take out one of its legs. It was too heavy even for her but she was able to knock it off balance, and it fell over and landed like a turtle.
They opened up on it until they hit its energy core, and Robin yelled, “Back!”
They returned to Lolack’s side, holding him down as the mech exploded and took down two more that were about to join the fight.
“There you are!” Aranaught’s voice came out loud and clear from the resort. “But you’re too late. He’s already mine.”
“Not a chance,” Lolack said, charging forward.
A wave of cyborgs met them, while the Grandeur shot another mech out of the sky and turned on the rest that were converging on Valerie’s location.
“We need to get inside fast,” Valerie said, shooting down the two closest cyborgs.
“I can run,” Lolack replied. “These legs are long for a reason.”
She glanced at him and nodded. “Go. I’ll cover the two of you, then join you.”
They took off while she mowed down more of the cyborgs. One scaled a tree with his metal arms and threw himself at her, but she drew her sword and sidestepped to cleave him in two. Two more came bounding in on metal legs, but they met fire from Robin. A glance showed Lolack hadn’t been exaggerating; he was damn fast. Not vampire-fast, but close enough.
“Get over here!” Robin shouted, sending a barrage of bullets into the jungle where the cyborgs were coming from.
Valerie ran to her and they darted around the back of the resort building, crashing in through a window and plowing down two more cyborgs that had been waiting for them.
Another figure moved at the top of the stairs and Valerie spun to shoot, but Lolack knocked her rifle aside.
“No, that’s him!” Lolack gestured to the male Valerie could now see was tall, with vibrant orange skin under his red robes—only he clearly wasn’t himself. Half his face was metal, and there was glass covering one eye. “Or mostly him.”
“You should shoot me,” Tenowk said, descending the stairs one at a time while the sounds of chaos and explosions continued outside. Then his voice took on a more feminine robotic tone. “As I said, your friend is mine.”
Aranaught had him.
Valerie considered lifting her rifle to shoot, but Lolack was still standing in the way, hand held out.
“You’re still in there, brother. I know you too well.” Lolack took a step forward to meet his brother-in-arms and dearest friend. “I see you before me, and I’m not leaving here without you. That’s a promise.”
The Grandeur made a pass, followed by the building shaking and more explosions nearby.
“Dammit, don’t take us out too!” Robin shouted into her comm.
“I’m not sure how you’ve kept the ship from me,” Aranaught said, “but I’ll have it soon enough. Trust me, you can’t win this.”
“You’re a machine,” Valerie replied. “How could a machine have any concept of what we’re capable of?”
Tenowk growled and lifted his hands, and Valerie saw that while he had no weapons, the ship that Aranaught had been housed in had re-formed itself into an internal defensive system. There were weapons on all sides of them. Advanced, but also foolish.
It meant this was the hub. They could take over Aranaught from here.
Her first move though, had to be to get Lolack out of harm’s way. She leaped for him, grabbing him and rolling as the room lit up with gunfire.
“Take them out!” Valerie shouted to Robin, then took Lolack’s arm and ran to the side hallway as more shots hit nearby. “It’s here…the core!”
They reached cover, though the wall next to them was quickly shredding under a hail of bullets.
“But where?” he shouted over the noise, then motioned behind her. “Incoming!”
Sure enough, another mech plowed through the front entrance at that moment, a massive saw blade terminating one arm and what looked like a fifty-caliber machine gun the other.
Valerie was preparing to meet it when a thought hit her. Spinning around, she saw that it wasn’t red robes on the man, but the metal on his face connected with more that ran down his back and bulged behind him.
“The fucker wanted us to survive this, to save your friend and bring him onto the ship.” She processed this, shooting at the mech, and then broke after Lolack to get to cover.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she knows how strong we are. This is all a ruse. If we take your friend aboard the Grandeur she’ll be able to take over, and then we’re hers.”
“Or worse, she waits until we’re at the fleet, then takes it all over.”
Valerie cursed, checking her ammo and then quickly reloading. “But we can’t leave him, so…”
“I need to work my magic, right?” He smiled. “Get me and him alone—that’s all I need. Hold them off for two minutes. Can you do that?”
Valerie smiled and shrugged. “I don’t see that we have any other choice.”
The wall collapsed toward them and the ceiling starting to fall as the mech came in firing. Valerie sent Lolack one way while she charged in to take it down.
She had a plan now, and there would be no stopping her. She ran through the chaos, sabotaging mechs and taking down cyborgs on her way to Tenowk, trusting her guess that Aranaught was imbedded in him and therefore she wouldn’t risk damaging the main part of her plan. When she reached him they went flying into the next room, and she shouted, “Lolack!”
“We have to escape,” Tenowk said in his own voice, sounding desperate. “Get me out of here!”
All part of the ruse, she knew now.
She smiled and said, “Don’t worry, we will.” She threw him against one of the wall posts, and, hating herself for doing so, bent her sword around his neck to keep him in place.
“What...what are you doing?” he asked in panic. “They’re here! They’re going to kill us!”
“I don’t think so,” Lolack said, charging in and not wasting anytime. He tore off the robes, and found all manner of panels and other devices set up. “Two minutes!” he reminded Valerie.
“You got it,” she replied, and then charged back out into the main room, rifle blazing. Robin was at her side in a flash, the two leapfrogging their attacks, and shouting into their comms for the Grandeur to keep enemies from entering the resort as much as possible.
Bullets rained down outside, and the fight continued.
As Valerie was smashing a cyborg’s head to pieces, she heard Lolack calling for her.
“Keep them busy,” she told Robin, then da
rted back up the stairs to find Lolack. Instead of finding the Lavkins finishing up on the technical side, she found Tenowk with a gun to the admiral’s head, hand trembling.
“He’s in there,” Lolack said, smiling at his friend. “He knows me.”
“We have to finish this!” Valerie shouted, ready to take this guy out.
“No,” Lolack said, voice calm. “You have to finish it while I keep his attention.”
“You can’t defeat me,” Aranaught said. “I’m everywhere! Trying to stomp me out of existence is like removing air. What would you do without air?”
“We’re not removing you,” Lolack answered, gesturing for Valerie to move to the back of Tenowk’s head. The panel was open, and a series of wires there had been pulled free and reconnected in different ways. Only two still hung lose, metal exposed. When Lolack crossed his fingers, Valerie got the message. “Just...purifying you,” he added, then motioned for her to act as he dodged left.
Tenowk’s arm raised to shoot her, but Valerie was too fast. She dashed forward, connecting the wires in a split-second, and then looked up to see if the shot hit. But it never came.
“Tell Flynn now!” Lolack commanded.
Valerie stared at him, confused, then at Tenowk.
“Do it!” Lolack said, and this time she reacted, repeating the word into her comm.
“Done,” Flynn replied a moment later, and then there was silence.
No more explosions, no more shooting—just the thunder of the Grandeur and the remaining mechs landing outside.
“What exactly happened?” Valerie asked.
“We just purified Aranaught,” Lolack said, grinning as he leaped up. “Tenowk, tell me it’s you.”
Tenowk’s arm shook, and for a moment Valerie thought he was going to shoot. Instead, the gun fell to the floor and Tenowk reached up and pulled off the sword that had been wrapped around his neck with a mighty heave. He strode forward to take Lolack in an odd embrace, arms bent with hands on each other’s heads.
“It’s me, old friend. And something more…” Tenowk felt the side of his face, the metal and the wiring. “Wh-what have they done to me?”
“What do you mean?”
Tenowk laughed. He actually laughed. “I paid for the deluxe spa package, but this wasn’t on the menu.”
Now Lolack laughed too, shaking his head as they stepped apart. “Brother, you’re about to play a larger part in this war than you ever knew was possible.”
“War?” Valerie asked.
Lolack turned to her, expression growing dark. “In my last struggle with Aranaught she revealed that, in her words, ‘We are all doomed.’ It seems she’s put out signals to anyone who might be an enemy, calling them here to once and for all wipe the Lost Fleet from existence. Little do they know the Lost Fleet no longer exists—it is Lolack’s Fleet again, and I mean to reunite it and stand against this enemy. More than that, I think we have a greater ally on our side. Tenowk?”
Tenowk looked at him with confusion in his eyes at first, then understanding. “The power...it’s surging through me. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt.”
“Give them a command,” Lolack said.
For a moment, nothing happened, then there was a loud clang sound outside.
“Come,” Tenowk said, motioning toward the doors. When they stepped outside, a series of mechs and cyborgs were standing at attention. “Let me try something…” Tenowk lifted a hand to his head, though Valerie imagined it was more to help him focus than anything else.
Suddenly one of the cyborgs stepped forward and attempted a flip. He landed on his tailbone, yelping in pain.
Tenowk shrugged. “Well, I can tell them what to do, but it doesn’t mean they can do it.”
Lolack turned to Valerie, beaming. “We have our army, and we have our fleet. We have our AI, too.”
“In a sense,” Tenowk interjected. “I mean, from what I can tell we have to keep it in me, so what am I? Part cyborg, with this new level of control and awareness? I can feel the cyborgs, and even the ship. It’s like I can sense things, and—" He froze, raising his face to watch the sky. “Messages… I can hear them.”
“You’re an IAI,” Lolack said with a grin. “Intelligence on top of Artificial Intelligence. She’s inside you, Aranaught is, but we control her now. Call this the next evolution of AI.”
“Well, color me as confused as a pig in a flower garden!” Valerie said. “But if it means we win, I’m all for it.”
“Oh, we’ll win,” Lolack said, patting his old friend on the shoulder and then watching Robin approaching with a curious look on her face. The Grandeur’s ramp opened and the others emerged, all looking at the mechs with curiosity.
“The ships are nearby,” Tenowk said. “Shall we load them up and return to the fleet?”
Lolack turned to Valerie, awaiting her command.
She smiled, then nodded. “Meanwhile, I’ll see if Flynn and Lolack can explain to the others what happened here, then send a message to Kalan to let him know we’re on our way. I hope they’ve fared as well as we have.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
From that point on, the battle was as exhilarating for Kalan as it had to be frustrating and baffling for the Wandarby troops. He’d sent out a distress call and been picked up by one of the fighters, and now he stood on the top of Flamebird as the Pallicons attacked. He was in constant motion: firing his Tralen-14, then ducking for cover. He made sure to show himself occasionally to let the Wandarby know that he, the evil Bandian, was here and ready to be taken down if they were tough enough to do so.
As far as he could tell, the Pallicons still hadn’t figured out who those mysterious aircraft in the sky belonged to. The Lavkin fighters focused on defending the strange round ships as they visited one Lavkin ship after another.
When they touched down, it was always the same. The doors would open, apparently no one would get out, the doors would close, and the ship would take off again.
And then all the Pallicons attacking one of the nearby ships would die. Some died from gunshot wounds from unseen weapons. Some were stabbed, though there didn’t appear to be anyone standing near them. It was an odd sight: Wandarby warriors reeling from a silent and invisible but relentless attack.
That was how most of the combatants experienced the battle. For Kalan and his Shimmer-enabled translation chip, it was quite different.
He heard the war cries and screams of every Shimmer coming off the ship. He heard their invisible commanders barking orders at them. And he heard them laugh in glee as their enemies fell.
While all that was happening around him Kalan fought on, defending his adopted family’s ship. Jilla, Bob, and Wearl stood by his side in the thickest part of the battle, taking on an endless wave of Pallicons.
“Wearl, thank the stars for your relatives showing up,” Bob shouted to her as they fought off another wave.
She practically spat her response. “They always have their price, and it’s usually not worth paying.”
Nearly an hour after the Shimmers arrived, the Pallicon assault began to slow. Their numbers were dwindling, and they no longer had the High Priest goading them onward. In fact, Kalan wasn’t sure they even had a leader. Each temple seemed to be acting on its own now, attacking as their priest saw fit.
No one officially called off the attack, but they began to retreat one ship at a time.
As the last of the Wandarby soldiers loaded into their ship and fled the Rewot atmosphere, the Lavkins let out a full-throated cheer.
“I don’t believe it,” Mej said. “We defeated them. We fought off the whole damn Wandarby cult.”
Kalan turned, surprised to hear her voice, and he was equally surprised to find Lien standing beside her. He hadn’t known the two of them were there; he had no idea when they’d arrived aboard Flamebird. For all he knew, Mej and Lien had been fighting by his side for an hour.
“That we did,” Lien agreed when he said that aloud, “but not alone. Those were Shimmers
fighting by our side, if I’m not mistaken. I take it we have Wearl to thank for that?”
“No,” Jilla said slowly, as if just realizing it herself. She turned to Kalan. “You called them, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
Jilla's lip quivered as she looked at him angrily. “You idiot.”
Mej blinked hard. “Sorry, I’m a little out of the loop here. Catch me up?”
Kalan kept his eyes glued to the Shimmer ship resting on the island as he spoke. “The Shimmer Empire has declared me an enemy because I helped someone escape from SEDE. They took it as an affront to their honor. I knew their fleet was nearby searching for me, so I contacted them after the ceremony where you adopted us into the family.”
“I still don’t understand,” Mej admitted. “If you’re their enemy, why would they want to help you?”
“I made them a deal. I told them if they helped us fight off the Pallicons, I’d turn myself over to them after the battle.” He turned to Bob and Jilla. “We don’t have much time. They’re going to be here any moment to haul me back to SEDE.”
“No way we’re letting that happen,” Bob said, a growl in his voice.
“Yes, we are,” Kalan insisted. “I gave them my word, and I intend to keep it. Look, I’ve never had much of a family, but you guys,” he turned to Mej and Lien, “all of you, you’ve been a true family. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me.”
“No,” Jilla said, blinking back the tears. “This isn’t how it ends for us.”
“I’m afraid it does, at least for now. Wait here for Valerie to get back with Admiral Lolack. She’ll know what to do.”
Bob stepped forward and held out his hand. “I don’t like it, but I do understand. You’re one of the good ones, Kalan Grayhewn. I’m honored to have worked with you.”
Kalan took Bob’s hand and shook it in the human style, up and down rather than side to side.
Next Jilla stepped forward and fell into his arms. “Goodbye, Kalan.”
He hugged her tightly.
Then he said, “Wearl, I—”
“Shut up,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you. I’m so angry I could rip your lungs out through your nose.”