“Oh dear,” the Dyonari muttered. “Perhaps I have said too much. You really should forget the last few moments of our conversation, General.”
“I should—what?” Agrippa blinked. “I—what were we saying?”
“You were telling me where you and your soldiers need to go,” Glossis said.
“Yes—I—yes, of course.” Agrippa hesitated, feeling there was more being said but unable now to recall exactly what it had been. “Ahknaton,” he murmured. Then, louder, “Ahknaton. We have been ordered to Ahknaton.”
Glossis motioned ever so subtly with his slender, needle-like fingers, then bowed again. “Safe journey, General Agrippa,” he said. “Perhaps we will meet again someday.”
Agrippa looked at the circle that floated in the air. He could see a desert landscape stretching into the distance within it. Then he turned to the Dyonari one last time. “Thank you again for your assistance today,” he said. “It won’t be forgotten.”
Glossis bowed more deeply.
Agrippa turned and hopped up onto his tank. Obomanu in turn dropped down through the opening and into the driver’s seat. Agrippa assumed his usual spot, his upper half projecting out of the hatchway. He saluted Glossis and nodded toward the other Dyonari now gathered around behind the commander, then barked orders down into the tank.
The big vehicle lurched forward and shot smoothly through the portal, Major Torgon’s tank just behind it.
As they passed through the gateway, Agrippa glanced back one last time. His vision was filled with impossibly big, bright, shining snowflakes.
BOOK SEVEN:
THE GODSLAYERS
1
The desert beyond Anakh City was cloaked in the still, cold darkness of deepest night. Even so, shapes moved across its rolling hills.
Colonel Niobe Arani made a quick, sharp gesture with her left hand and the two dozen troops behind her froze. A second later, they had slipped into near-invisibility behind whatever cover was available, there on the scrub-covered, sandy hillside beyond the gleaming pyramids of the Heliopolis. She adjusted the settings on her visual implants and studied the landscape between what remained of her Nizam attack force and the nearest visible Sand Kings soldiers.
They had come through the portal some two hours earlier and walked directly into an ambush and a withering crossfire. It was a miracle any of them had survived. Arani had ordered as many back through to safety as possible before that avenue of retreat had been cut off. That number had included Titus Elaro; though she wished he was with her now, she was glad that her ruse had worked and he’d run back through before noticing she wasn’t coming right behind him. She had wanted him to get away; he was in truth just a new recruit, while she had duties to the troops she had spent so much time and effort training. She was never going to leave until all the others able to do so had made it back through.
“What do you see?” asked a feminine voice to her right. Despite her training, she nearly jumped straight up. She hadn’t thought anyone was there, and certainly hadn’t heard anyone approaching. She looked to her right quickly and, even with the vision augmentation, could only barely make out the shape of the Inquisition woman, Delain, crouched down in her black robes and hood.
“Not a lot,” Arani whispered back. She gave the woman one more quick look. She hadn’t at first been sure if she should trust her, when she had come running through the portal from Mysentia even as Arani had been trying to funnel her people back the other way. But then she had recalled that Delain served as assistant to Stanishur, and the dour Grand Inquisitor was one man she trusted implicitly, following their harrowing shared experiences on Ascanius. That had been enough to set Arani’s mind at ease—for the most part.
Delain made a gesture before her own face—casting a spell? Adjusting her visual implants? Both? Neither?—and then nodded. “There are a few Sand Kings gathering further to the east,” she whispered, pointing.
“Right,” replied the colonel, impressed. She possessed what she believed were high-quality optics—the kind only available to officers of the legions—and even she was having difficulty making out what Delain was referring to. “But they don’t look to be heading this way.” This was as much a guess as anything, and she waited to hear how the Inquisitor would reply. As it happened, the woman in black said nothing.
The wind whipped over them, howling as it came through the tall glass and steel buildings of Anakh City and blew along the canyons just beyond, making it tough to hear anything for a few moments. They weren’t using the Aether to communicate on the off-chance the local forces could somehow intercept or overhear them. Arani wasn’t sure that was even possible, but she didn’t want to take any chances. They were making do, but it made things ever so slightly awkward.
As the wind died down again and silence descended, Arani thought back to their escape and had to stifle a laugh. Delain glanced at her, one dark eyebrow raised and just visible under her hood.
“Just thinking how surprised Rameses’ troops must have been when we literally vanished from the cul de sac they thought they had us trapped in,” the colonel explained quietly.
Delain didn’t smile; she merely nodded once.
“How did you know about that hidden passage?” Arani pressed, curious now. “Even they didn’t appear to know about it—and it’s their world!”
Delain shrugged. “The Grand Inquisitor trained us all well. He has shared all of the hidden ways with us. If there’s a secret passageway anywhere in the Empire that he doesn’t know about… then I assure you, no one else knows about it either.”
Arani nodded at this. “That doesn’t surprise me in the least,” she chuckled. Still smiling, still thinking over their next actions, mainly including how to stay alive and out of the way of the Sand Kings patrols until Tamerlane and Elaro came to rescue them, Arani leaned back her head and gazed up at the star-speckled night sky.
She frowned.
The stars were moving. And there were a lot of them. Far more than she had expected to see.
“Ummm... Inquisitor,” she murmured, “what do you make of that?” She pointed straight up.
Delain pulled back her hood and looked up. She made a slight sound of surprise in the back of her throat.
“Yeah,” Arani breathed, “me too.”
The space above Anakh City—over Ahknaton itself—was filled with starships. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of starships.
“Those aren’t patrols looking for us,” the colonel concluded quickly. “Those are big ships—capital ships—way up in high orbit.” She shook her head. “But—why? Do they belong to Rameses?”
“That is not possible,” Delain replied. “Ahknaton possesses virtually no navy.”
“As far as we know.”
Delain shrugged. “The most optimistic projection would not put them close to affording that many ships, nor constructing them in such a short time— let alone doing so in secret.”
“Then what are they? Where did they come from?” Arani stared at them, pushing her optics to the limit. She still couldn’t make out any details.
“They are an odd mixture,” the Inquisitor said, continuing to stare upwards and obviously seeing much better than the colonel. “I recognize human ships—the Chung, naturally, and the Riyahadi—as well as a few Rao. Three or four larger Dyonari vessels. And—” She hesitated, as if unwilling to believe what she had to say. “And also there are quite a few ships of completely alien design—ships I am utterly unfamiliar with.”
This took Arani aback. “Aliens other than the usual suspects?” A chill ran up her spine. “Where could they have come from?”
“I don’t know,” Delain said. She blinked, then added, “There is also a comet.”
Arani looked at her, puzzled. “A comet?”
“You don’t know,” Delain said. “Trust me. It could be the worst news of all.”
“Right,” the colonel said, clearly not convinced. She started to say more, but then felt a signal coming in across the Ae
ther. She recognized it as Tamerlane and knew she had no choice but to answer it—even if it meant revealing their position to anyone who might be able to trace such things.
“General?” she sent back across the link. “We’re still here.”
“Very happy to hear that,” Tamerlane replied. “We will be joining you shortly.”
“You will?” Arani suppressed a grin. “Excellent news, sir. Will you be opening another portal?”
“No,” Tamerlane said, and the distaste was evident in his voice. “We are taking ships. ETA at Ahknaton is twenty minutes.”
“Ships? You’re flying here?” Arani nearly choked. “Sir—I don’t think that’s advisable.”
“I’m well aware of their planetary defenses, Colonel,” the general replied. “We will deal with them in short order.” He paused. “At least well enough to slip our little fleet through and down to the surface.”
“No, General,” Arani warned, “not the orbital weapons. I’m talking about the armadas currently occupying almost every bit of airspace over the planet.”
The link seemed to go dead for a moment. Arani waited patiently. At last Tamerlane’s voice returned. “Did you say ‘armada,’ Colonel?”
“Yes, General.”
Another pause, then, “And...what might you mean by that?”
By way of response, Arani simply selected a stored frame of video from her memory and transmitted it via the Aether link. A couple of seconds later she heard Tamerlane gasp.
“Colonel—what you sent me—those ships are in orbit now, as we speak?”
“Yes indeed,” she said. “Right over our heads.”
“I...see,” Tamerlane said. “I knew Rameses was ambitious, but...” He paused. “Alright, very well. Let me—” He went away for a couple of seconds, then came back, his voice a bit more strident. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but it appears it is too late. We are dropping hyper just beyond Ahknaton now.”
“Oh dear,” Arani said. She looked up at the night sky again.
“We will see you soon,” Tamerlane said. Then he added, “I hope.”
The link closed. Arani blinked and looked back at Delain. The Inquisitor looked troubled. Arani found she didn’t have anything to say that might change that.
“The Sand Kings must not have detected that communication,” Delain said after a few seconds, as she continued to watch the local soldiers patrolling along the edge of the city.
“That’s one good break for us, then,” Arani breathed. She looked up at the tiny lights in the sky; lights that signified what had to be an impenetrable wall between Tamerlane’s approaching ships and the planet. “Now, if nothing else can happen to bring any attention our way, we can—”
A blinding light flared just beyond their position on the hill.
“Oh, come on!” Arani growled, even as she spun around and drew her pistol. She recognized what was happening and she could only assume it was a bad thing.
A portal was opening—an inter-dimensional pathway very similar to the one that had brought her and the others to Ahknaton.
“Could it be the general’s rescue?” Delain called, standing up from her place of concealment.
“Pretty sure not,” Arani said. “Up and at ‘em!” she called over the Aether link to her half-dozen remaining soldiers. As she did so, she leveled her pistol and made ready to fire.
The light flared brighter still, and then an army of heavily armed and armored troops rushed out of the portal, tanks arrayed behind them.
2
With a lurch, the transport craft slid back into normal space. Standing on the flight deck between the two pilots, Tamerlane watched as the brown disc of Ahknaton took shape directly ahead.
“All ships accounted for, General,” the co-pilot reported.
“For now,” Tamerlane muttered. “Alright,” he replied, “good work. What is the tactical situation?”
The co-pilot studied her display for a long moment and then gasped.
“Lots of ships, right?” Tamerlane asked.
The co-pilot turned in his seat to look back at the general. “You know?”
“I was just told.”
The co-pilot turned back to the screen. She was wide-eyed as she studied the numbers coming through the computer. “By the stars! Thousands of them! Human ships, alien ships—”
“And unknown ships,” Tamerlane finished for her. “Yeah—I know.”
The co-pilot glanced quizzically at Tamerlane but didn’t reply.
The general moved up behind the lead pilot. “Can we get through?” he asked.
The pilot made a wordless sound that didn’t seem particularly positive or encouraging. “I don’t see how, to be frank with you, sir,” he said. “There are just so many...”
“We don’t know they’re hostile,” Tamerlane pointed out. “At least, to us. Not yet,” he added.
“They don’t seem to be attacking Ahknaton or its orbital defenses,” the co-pilot reported. “In fact, no one is firing at anyone at the moment.”
“That strikes me as a bad sign, if you don’t mind me saying, sir,” the pilot observed. “If they’re not shooting at each other...”
“Yeah,” Tamerlane finished for him. “They all may be waiting to shoot at us.”
Suddenly the proximity alarms shrieked.
“What’s that?” Tamerlane demanded. The only answer he received at first was a violent shaking of the craft, nearly hurling him across the small bridge. He pulled himself to his feet and moved back next to the pilot who, along with the co-pilot, had been spared the rough treatment by various belts and crash webbing. “What just happened?”
The pilot was incredulous. “A—a comet, sir!” he said. “A comet just blasted right through our formation. Somehow our instruments didn’t detect it before. And now—”
Tamerlane shifted his gaze from the tactical display to the main window. They had gotten close enough to Ahknaton that the waves of starships were visible ahead of them—joined now by a spinning, tumbling mass of blood-red ice, streamers of steam trailing away from it as it barreled on toward the planet. The starships lying in its path were already igniting their maneuvering engines to move out of the way as the shuttle-sized yet deadly chunk of ice approached.
While the two pilots looked on in astonishment, Tamerlane recovered his senses and barked, “Behind it! Now!” He activated the Aether link to the other pilots of his little armada. “All ships,” he called, “follow us—follow the comet! As close as you can get!”
Moments later, the Imperial transports had formed up in an arrowhead shape, rocketing along only a short distance behind the comet. One of the ships positioned itself just far enough to one side of the formation to effectively see past the icy escort and beam tactical data from ahead of them to the rest of the ships. What they saw shocked them all over again.
One of Ahknaton’s major orbital defense bases floated motionless just ahead. Fighter craft clung to its gantries like wasps around a nest, yet none of them had launched. Massive particle-beam cannons and missile launchers lined its external decks, yet none of them were firing yet.
And the platform was directly in the comet’s path.
“What are they waiting for?” Tamerlane breathed, watching in grim fascination as the comet swept on and on, closing the distance with the platform in mere seconds. “Are they all asleep? Why don’t they fire?”
The Imperial transports followed along in the wake of the comet and slipped easily past the waves of starships. Not a one of them fired. It was as if no one even noticed them there, in the shadow of that blood-red harbinger of doom.
One second ticked past. Another.
Now, so belatedly as to be entirely pointless, the platform opened fire. Its particle beams shot out, ripping into the massive comet. Small fragments were torn away, sent tumbling into new and nearly as deadly trajectories. The main body of the comet tumbled on, inevitable as death.
And then came the impact.
The comet struck the orbi
tal station like a high-caliber lead slug from an old-fashioned musket tearing through a melon. The platform disintegrated, fire blossoming everywhere, secondary explosions touching off as the munitions stored within it were ignited. Another two seconds and all that remained was a cloud of debris—and a hole right through the alien fleet and the planetary defenses.
Tamerlane whooped. “Go!” he cried. “Go!”
The two pilots glanced back at him, grinning, and punched the accelerator.
The comet continued on toward Ahknaton. Just behind it came Tamerlane’s little fleet—untouched and undeterred.
“This is going to work!” he shouted to the pilots and to the universe itself. “It’s going to work!”
And then the big alien starships behind them seemed suddenly to come awake, all at once. The nearest ones curved down and opened fire, and Tamerlane’s fleet began to explode.
3
General Iapetus strode out of the heavily-armored shuttle that had carried him and a battalion of his Sons of Terra down from the Atlantia.
Just behind him came a young man clad in the white uniform of the Ecclesiarchy—a soldier-priest of the Empire’s religious order, under the direct command of the Ecclesiarch, Teluria. He went by the name of Jasur.
“This had better be worth my time,” Iapetus growled as he led the black-clad II Legion soldiers out onto the rocky surface of Tolkar.
“The Lady Teluria assured me that this was something you needed to see, General,” Jasur responded, “in person.”
They marched a short distance away from the shuttle, passing a small village that was situated just off to their right. Moments later, Jasur led them up to the crest of a low hill. The Ecclesiarchy officer crouched down and leaned out over the edge, peering down. Iapetus moved alongside him, also looking.
At the bottom of the hill, the ground had been ruptured by some sort of impact. A crater, Iapetus recognized immediately. And a red glow shone up from its bottom.
It took Iapetus only a couple of seconds to realize what he was seeing.
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 49