by White, Gwynn
“We broke you,” As-hamaz said. “Let us put you back together as we see fit.”
Danris scoffed. “Want me to boom 'em?” he asked Skip, pulling the sonic boomer from his back. The accompanying Marines raced over to prop him up.
“Oh, yes,” As-hamaz said. “Make the second one death by sound.”
Just as Danris had almost finished powering up the Shatterer, he turned it on Skip and El-erae.
“No!” Skip cried. He dived one way, while El-erae hopped and rolled off to the other, landing on her feet with a jump.
The sonic blast tore through the wall to the next room, and tore a chunk off the side of Skip's helmet as he ducked to the ground. It was lucky it didn't tear a chunk out of his head as well. He felt the sound inside his brain, inside his chest, inside his heart. His entire body shook, and he had just gotten the edge of the blast. If he hadn't dived, he would have been torn apart.
Skip could barely move. He couldn't get up. Danris was charging up the weapon again.
Some of the Marines tried to fire on the Mind-killers, but As-hamaz got them to turn their weapons on each other. Glacia probed their minds just in time to tell them to jump out of the way of the gunfire, until the Marines lay in a pile on the ground, bewildered.
El-erae dove and span, whirling about with her staff. She struck the ankle of one of the Mind-killers with a crack. The Raetuumak screamed out and fell to the floor, but before El-erae could move in for a second strike, the force of the Mind-killer's scream was amplified by a psychic wave, knocking her back to the ground.
El-erae's attack gave an opening for Glacia. She pushed hard, though they pushed back. The force of the psychic blows was physically evident. They literally moved across the floor, digging their feet in as they tried to hold their ground. Gusts of what seemed like wind threw back their hair or fur, and pulled the skin back on their faces. One moment it blew one way, and the next the other. This mental tug of war played out with Danris also. Glacia turned him towards the Mind-killers, and they turned him back towards Skip, who still struggled to get up from the ground. The supporting Marines shimmied along with the Bulker, their minds equally caught in the net.
The next sonic wave passed as Danris switched targets, missing both. As-hamaz's mental prowess was like nothing Glacia had experienced before. In it, she sensed a link to a darker, more powerful force: the Umbra.
Skip watched as Glacia was brought to her knees, as she was weakened, just like him. She struggled to push back, to fight off the attacks on all of their minds, but even with a hundred of her own, it was not enough.
Skip had fallen, and was of no use on the ground.
Don't you damn fall, the admiral had told him. Well, he'd fallen before. When he was crossing those bars as a child, and all those taunts and jeers came at him like missiles, he fell. He'd been through life, and he'd stumbled along the way. But he always got back up. He always tried again.
So now, he searched for that unrelenting part of him, and when he found it, he told himself to get up. Sometimes someone else would pull you to your feet, but he'd learned well that more often than not you had to push yourself up.
He struggled up and turned to As-hamaz. If there was one thing he could count on, it was the hatred that had festered inside him any time he saw that furry face. As-hamaz wanted to break him, wanted him not just to fall, but never get back up. He wanted him to kneel, but he was the Man Who Didn't Kneel. He wanted him to cry, but he was the Man of No Tears.
He hobbled forward, grabbing his gun. One step, then two.
Then the wave of mental pain came upon him like a pouncing predator. He was momentarily paralysed. His body still shook from the vibrations of the sonic blast. His breath was fleeting. His sight was strained. Everything was a struggle. But then, that was life.
He pushed on, through the barrier. Another step, another fall. He got back up, but was brought down again. Yet even his attempts, feeble though they might have seemed, gave strength to those around him. El-erae took out the second of the Mind-killers with her flips and swipes. Glacia renewed her pushback against As-hamaz's never-ending siege.
“Stay down!” As-hamaz shouted at him.
Skip fell to one knee, and felt the other buckling. The pain was excruciating, as much in his body as his mind. Unlike El-erae or Glacia, he couldn't separate the two.
“No!” he yelled back, like he yelled to those Alphan children. His hair was affray, pushed back by the force of the mental assault, all but that little golden curl of defiance.
He got back up, pushing on, taking the pain and using it to drive his feet forward like a whip. He could feel the veins bulge in his neck. He could feel his eyes bulge in his head. He clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw ached.
“Down!” As-hamaz bellowed. The strain was now evident on his face too. Glacia was gaining mental vigour from Skip's assault, from his undaunted willpower.
“Never!” Skip cried out, taking another painful step forward. He gave it his all, forcing his blaster rifle to aim at As-hamaz. He fired.
As-hamaz gasped and stumbled back. The wave of mental aggression continued, but it was suddenly halved in power.
“One death,” Skip said, breathing heavily. He fired again.
As-hamaz fell to his knees, wheezing.
“Two!” Skip blurted, spitting out the word, letting his anger guide him. He fired again. “Three!”
As-hamaz fell over, but struggled back up just as quick, leaning on one arm. Skip fired at it.
“Four!” he yelled. “How many more deaths?”
As-hamaz cried out, clutching his blasted arm as he collapsed to the floor. Skip blasted the other one.
“Five!” he shouted. “How many do you deserve?”
He fired another six blasts in quick succession, until his gun was out of charge.
“Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten! Eleven!” he cried. He was overcome by emotion. He realised this wasn't just about As-hamaz. It was about everything. There were buried memories from his “missing year,” when he disappeared from Empire territory. He didn't know what they were. Just like the Umbra, they were shrouded in shadow.
As-hamaz writhed about on the floor, moaning and shaking. He should have been dead. Eleven blasts at this range would have killed most species, but it seemed this Raetuumak had a strength of body as well as mind. Skip didn't care. It meant he could kill him again.
“Well,” Skip said, standing over him. “One left, huh?” He stared at the pitiful creature, feeling some compassion, but knowing that As-hamaz had none for anyone else. “How do you want to die?”
As-hamaz snarled at him. “It doesn't matter! It won't be as bad as yours!”
Skip limped over to where Danris was standing, wide-eyed. He helped turn him towards the Raetuumak, then flicked on the charger.
As-hamaz struggled to his knees, spitting blood. “They'll be … back for you … Captain!”
Before Skip could ask him what he meant, the gun fired. The blast tore through As-hamaz and the surrounding rooms, leaving just a pile of blood and metal.
El-erae offered Skip her staff to lean upon. He needed it. Glacia seemed to recover quickly now that the Mind-killers had been neutralised. The rest of them were exhausted, though it was a fight worth being exhausted after. They had won.
As-hamaz was dead.
Yet, like a ghost, Skip couldn't shake the thought of those who As-hamaz said would be back for him.
51
Inside the Swarm
Outside the Ark, the battle raged in space. Larsman cruised past the sides of the space barge, giving a volley, before continuing on, out of the way of its answering blasts. Other times, when the flak cannons aboard Gemini Left were destroyed, he rotated the rocket, revealing another set of cannons, and then another, until it seemed that the Gemini didn't just have endless ammunition—it had endless guns to fire them.
Inside the rocket, the gunners toiled, rotating their gun positions to take out many of the approaching fighters. Admi
ral Mendan took up a gunner post, and he made the journalist Ted Nebula take up the one beside him.
“If you want to live, boy, you'll fight like the rest of us!”
Ted cringed as he fired. His flak cannon shook violently, shaking him with it. Tapping letters on a datapad hadn't given him the muscles he needed for such a powerful weapon, so he struggled to move it, and had to largely rely on the automated settings.
Raetuumaka fighters struggled against the superior firepower of the Gemini, so some of them resorted to desperate measures. They dived at the thrusters of the rockets, hoping to at least destroy the Infinite engines, and cripple the Gemini's means of escape. The crew had to coordinate well to keep these suicidal fighters at bay, with all reporting to Larsman of an incoming wave. He cranked the thrusters on full then, letting the intense heat break the fighters apart before the impact. It was a delicate and dangerous thing, because just one mistimed move could let a fighter through, and the Gemini crew would be stuck out there, unable to return home.
The enemy fighters went down by the dozen, but the real struggle was finding a way to take them out without striking the cargo aboard the Ark. Stray shots had already weakened the shields surrounding the massive crates of nuclear waste. The fear was very real that another few hits might expose that explosive payload and kill them all.
52
Darkness and Light
Maggie led Team Hushwire into the ship sewers that Skip had told her about. They used them to traverse large sections of the vessel, bypassing many of the guard positions. So far, their codename was working out. At least, they had the “hush” part down pat.
As they travelled, Maggie checked the water levels constantly, out of an abundance of caution for the Marines in their heavy suits. Some of them were armoured with power saw attachments just in case they got trapped below.
“I hope you know where you're going,” Sergeant Kast said. Maggie wondered if he might have resented being assigned to her team, sneaking through the sewers like a rat.
“We're mapping the way,” Maggie replied.
Kast grumbled. “Normally you send a scout ahead.”
“You can be our scout if you want,” Cada said. She never had much love for Marines.
“I'm a soldier,” the sergeant said, “not a scout.”
“Then we do it this way,” Maggie stated. “This is the quickest and safest way to the control room.”
In time, Maggie started to pick up Ontri's signal more clearly, though it still flickered out periodically. They halted when it seemed like he was directly above them, though two floors up.
“Skip,” she said over the comms in her suit.
“Yeah?”
“I think I found Ontri.”
“Great. Patch him through to me.”
“Well, that's the thing.”
“What?”
“I keep losing his signal.”
“Oh. Yeah. I still have you jammed. Let me see if I can get him.”
He cut off.
“Skip?”
She waited. No response.
“Typical,” Toz said, rolling his eyes. “We should've let Skip one-man this whole thing.”
“He tried that,” Maggie replied. “It didn't work.”
Then Skip's voice came through, but it was broken up. She couldn't make out what he was saying.
“Skip? Skip, I can't hear you.”
Then it dropped again, but this time it was different. This time, something interfered with the signal.
All eyes turned, sensing something emerging in the tunnel far ahead. Out of the shadows came a different kind of shadow: the Umbra. It turned into the form of a man, like a boogeyman of children's nightmares. Now it stalked the waking world of adults.
The Marines turned to it, guns at the ready.
“Wait,” Maggie said.
They didn't like waiting. The apprehension was palpable.
“What the hell is that thing?” Kast asked.
Maggie didn't answer. She couldn't answer. The fear was lodged in her throat.
The shadowy figure stepped forward.
“We meet … in darkness,” it said, its voice coming seemingly from everywhere, deep and resonant. Just like the shadow appeared to seep into everything around it, turning the water a darker black, removing the glimmer from the steel, its voice seemed to seep into their minds, filling them with terror.
“We don't want to fight you,” Maggie said. She wasn't sure why she was trying to reason, when her heart told her to panic, to run. She didn't want to kill, but more than anything she wasn't sure how to kill this. Skip's ideas didn't come from a scientific text. They came from a children's book. They only got one shot at this. She didn't like that it was a gamble.
“Why are we stalling?” Kast whispered through his clenched teeth.
They all took a coordinated step back. The shadow advanced.
“We need time,” Maggie whispered back. She glanced at Cada, trying desperately to clear the interference blocking Maggie's signal. They didn't just need time. They needed Ontri.
“Then do not fight,” the shadow urged, and it sounded very convincing. “Simply bow down and call us your Masters. The shadow is all-consuming. Your galaxy is in the path of the shadow's maw. It must be consumed.”
They stepped back again, and the shadow advanced closer. Its wispy tendrils almost reached out to grab them.
“Can we shoot now?” Kast whispered.
Maggie looked at Cada, who shook her head.
Then the shadow darted forward, and no one questioned if they should shoot. Every Marine fired. The Umbra seemed to take no damage. It leapt into them, but Maggie charged forward, blocking the blow with her shields.
Then the shields flickered out, as if the shadow consumed that too.
“Run!” Maggie cried.
Toz fled before she even said the word. Cada ran, still trying to break through the interference and reconnect Maggie to Skip and Ontri. The Marines ran, trudging through the water, the pounding of their boots sending menacing echoes through the tunnel. They fired as they went, shooting madly behind them—hitting nothing but shadow. The bolts and bullets went through it, achieving nothing.
And Maggie ran. She'd made this run before, but now it was different. She felt like a lot more people were going to die.
The shadow pursued them. As it did, the water turned to ice.
“Skip!” Maggie cried into her comms. “Skip!”
His voice came back, crackled.
“Skip, it's here! Skip, we need help!”
The shadow pounced on the slowest Marine, dragging him down, tearing through his armour as if it were cloth. His screams filled the tunnel, lapping at the heels of those yet to be consumed.
“Got it!” Cada cried. She cleared the comms.
“Skip!” Maggie shouted. “Get Ontri. We need those lights!”
“I'm tryin', Mags! I'm tryin'!”
That wasn't good. Everyone in the sewers was trying not to die.
Maggie heard Skip's voice as he tried to reach Ontri. Cada worked as she ran to clear up the signal. It worked, just in time for the second Marine to fall.
“Ontri!” Skip shouted.
“Good sir!” Ontri replied cheerfully. “I have come to rescue you.”
“Yeah, do me a favour.”
“Anything for you, good—”
“Hack the ship's systems. Get all the lights on. Full power. Stars, overload them! Take the energy from the shields, the engines, whatever.”
“But sir—”
“Do it, Ontri! And fast!”
Another Marine tumbled.
“We need those lights!” Maggie bellowed.
“Processing,” Ontri said, as he hacked into the systems.
“Process faster!” Skip ordered.
So Ontri overclocked himself yet again. Something else popped.
“Pro … cess—” was all they heard.
They couldn't see what happened to him. His own systems shut dow
n. His own lights turned out. Ontri stood still, his head bobbed forward, his shoulders slouched, his arms left dangling. If anyone tipped him on that occasion, he would have toppled over—and no amount of overclocking would brace his fall.
53
Flickering Out
They couldn't see Ontri's lifeless form, but they knew they were in trouble. Another Marine fell, and then another. Each one that tumbled delayed the shadow just a little. It was horrible to think that those still alive felt a tiny piece of gladness when another second was added to their lives.
“I'm coming down!” Skip shouted through the comms.
“No, Skip,” Maggie said. “Get to the control room. Scuttle this ship!”
They arrived at a part of the tunnel where a hatch in the ceiling was open, but they couldn't reach it. There was no ladder, nor any other means of climbing.
Kast grabbed Cada and lifted her up. “Quick!” He pushed her through the hole. Then he and two other Marines hoisted Maggie up.
“What about you?” she asked, as he pushed her through.
“What about us? Get your job done, Maggie. We've got ours.”
“What about me?” Toz shouted from below.
“Fight like a man,” Kast said, “and die like one.”
“Maggie!” Toz screamed.
Maggie reached down, and Kast grabbed her hand. She pulled him up, much to the displeasure of the Marines below. Though maybe secretly, beneath that layer of disgust, some of them wished they had done the same.
“Let's kill this thing,” Kast said.
He turned, and the remaining Marines turned, weapons at the ready. They shouted and fired, and then they screamed and fell.
The trio upstairs backed away from the hatch. Maggie triggered the switch to seal it up, and the doors closed slowly.
Come on, she urged. They creaked closer. Come on!
They shut, but they weren't the only sealed doors. The surviving members of Team Hushwire found themselves inside a small cubical room full of metal pipes. The door was firmly locked.