“I will sanction their hope. I am not here to conquer.” Anguhr lowered his sword and his rage cooled. He knew this was not Zaria’s physical form. She would not risk being struck down like the Titans.
“Then, once again, your actions bring peace.” Zaria offered. She shrank to Anguhr’s height. “Is that such a harm to you if that becomes your new reputation?”
“I am the Destroyer, for all who stand against me. For all who stand with me, I make them stronger.”
“And yet, still a student in need of more history lessons. You are great strength, Anguhr. Though, remember, I am truth.”
Anguhr arched his eyebrows again in a fiery glare at Zaria, but he stood alone.
“I suggest you build a scabbard for this,” Zaria’s voice entered Anguhr’s ears and a bright glint ran down the length of Azuhr’s sword blade. “It has a double edge, just as your axe.”
Anguhr’s interest perked at the mention of his axe. He wondered if Zaria knew its location. But she was gone. Anguhr looked at his prize. The sword blade was darker than the ground, and the planet’s perpetual night.
Myra slid along loose dust at the foot of the low mountains. Her group sought a safe path to reach the Hull. The danger from the invaders was over, but Myra saw another. Toward the horizon, a flaming piece if warship hurtled to the surface. It burned from its own fires more than friction with the air. Her group would be safer in the rifts until the rain of artificial meteors lessened. Most of Tectus’ people would be safe beneath their city’s force shields. Myra saw tumbling glitter overhead from pieces resisting entry into atmosphere. She realized shattered starships pieces might be raining for some time. Her group would need to shelter in the rifts for a while longer.
Another sight made her heart race. The red fires of the hellship burned as it traveled an arc in the skies over the Hull. Why the demons came and killed the invaders, she didn’t know. Myra used her empty rifle as a prop to lean. She recalled the demon’s salute. Her mind swirled in confusion. It was soon lost in the swell of great relief. The red mass looked to be growing smaller. The ship was leaving orbit. The legacy of Poledoris lived on.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Dark Urge was the most powerful threat to life that ever existed. Most instinctive creatures and sentient minds would rejoice that she now suffered mental collapse after military defeat. Her present existence was akin to a complex, artificial intelligence with five-dimensional interface now regressed to a simple, push-button vending machine with empty product slots. Yet, the automation under her unconscious control kept Hell from becoming a star brighter than the constrained Red Giant it orbited. Thus, her child-thing avatar needed to live, for the Great Widow appreciated being alive, even if she was more ancient than the arcane technology surrounding her.
The Great Widow was the largest spider that ever lived. In other circumstance, tribes of giants could shelter beneath her body, if she did not consider them food. She maintained her life through vast patience. She was a predator, and a weakened tormentor now skipped blithely near her fangs. Yet the colossal arachnid only used her long, articulated legs as a gentle corral, not for grasping a victim. Her natural limbs proved excellent for balancing on the thinnest silk and moving through the varied surfaces and chambers of the planetary furnace. Currently, her front legs entertained her tormentor’s remnant. The avatar of a young girl missing half-her head played gleefully as its arachnid sitter contemplated an impossible event.
Something had accessed the Great Widow’s vast web. To her, the sensation felt near to violation and a cosmic trespass. The vast, silken structure rested within a pocket dimension found through a crack in a darkened corridor. The Great Widow entered her web physically to tap all the data flowing from quantum waves across creation. The network of strands seemed chaotic, as would a diagram of collided subatomic particles. To the spider, there was order. It was her domain. Never had anything trespassed and survived.
This spider’s web caught thoughts as easily as others snared flies. Some powerful minds had found emanations of the web and dared seek its base. They never saw Hell, but afterlife for them was a trap of quantum-interlocked silk. This recent intruder had touched the web and traveled its strands, but then lived to fly on. It was very strong. But worse, it was a force unknown. For the Great Widow to identify more than its ebbing resonance, she would need to travel her web. Yet, the Dark Urge could not be left alone, lest she die, or worse, become what she was before madness reduced her to this half-headed avatar.
The spider looked at one risk while needing to identify another. To act, she would need to improvise. Gently she guided the child-like Dark Urge to her mouth. The child-thing smiled and skipped unawares. The spider opened her calipers. Then her fangs parted. A fine mist of venom enveloped over her shrunken mistress. The child-thing coughed. Then, as the Great Widow had wanted, she fell into a deep sleep.
Soft, silken strands wrapped the small, quiescent body. Adept, arachnid legs lifted and slid the cocoon to her carapace just before it separated into her vast, smooth abdomen. There, she could protect and feel the former tyrant, and her rearward eyes could see any unexpected motion. Any links to Hell’s operation should continue along mental wavelengths as they ventured into the web’s dimension. All the machines should still function. That was the hope.
The Great Widow slid fully into her web’s dimension. She did not need her eight eyes to know exactly where to climb onto her greatest creation. She looked at the sleeping Dark Urge, and climbed on.
All of Buran’s eyes saw only darkness. His ship was, for a brief fraction of perceived time, nowhere. The Sword Wing’s energy on entering the sling point beneath Tectus meant this would be a short sojourn outside four dimensions. The ship would fall back into normal space before reaching the other end of the sling loop. Then, time again would be linear, just as the path of an arrow or particle beam. In this non-moment, Buran had only his mind to fight with, and he was in silent combat.
Buran’s opponent seemed enjoy non-existence. It might live in a quantum state of dead and alive. Whichever, it was a strong. The opponent found Buran’s mind and never fully left it. The trespasser was intelligent and possessed knowledge that rivaled Buran’s own understanding of temporal physics and forces beyond. Yet, Buran had to learn and remember in real time. The trespasser appeared to sense a need and access the required information. It seemed to transmit rather than recall data.
Perhaps it stole knowledge from stored files. But what database held knowledge similar to the original engineers who constructed celestial anomalies like the co-orbital chain linked to his homeworld? These questions were Buran’s own thoughts. He tried to hold onto them in the darkness. But the trespasser seemed a native to gloom. It was hard to fight off. Buran heard its voice grow stronger in the back of his mind. Finally, the voice was clear.
“Resistance? You know such thoughts make me angry,” the voice said. “To be fair, your brain’s rejection of me is not truly a thought. It’s a reaction. An instinct. More akin to an emotion, such as anger.”
The voice paused. Buran felt a series of tumbling ideas fall into order.
“Ah, now I have a thought. An observation.” The voice continued. “I see an inverse order, here. You have an emotional response. I see that, and then I think about it. Then my thoughts create an emotional reaction in me. Inverse. Sort of a loop. Resistance. Anger.
“But forgive my digression. I am still somewhat new to thinking. Most of my experience is with instinctual thoughts. Keep quiet. Stay still. Seem inert. I hid inside my mind while others stared at me. That is, when they dared look directly at me. Sideward glances are how most others regard you when you appear as a half-formed abomination.”
The voice paused again and Buran felt another reaction. It was either crying or laughing. Perhaps it was simply the ripple of madness.
“Well, yes.” The voice went on. “Yet, unlike other pariahs, I had value they could not quantify. Then a wave of energy came and I gained deeper, fuller
thoughts. It’s invigorating. Still, I remain quiet while I plan and act through others. Most could not bear my presence. That’s good. Because now I’m looking out at them, and they are blind to what I can see. And what visions I have for their doom.”
The voice halted speaking as it was clearly overtaken with laughter.
“But existence is still frustrating!” The words echoed in Buran’s mind as if shouted by a child. It calmed and kept on. “I become more powerful. I form more thoughts and build my once a child-like—no, pre-child mind. I take steps to realize my destiny.
“First, I will take revenge. Revenge on those who usurped my power. You are an instrument of that revenge, Buran. So resisting me is an annoyance. I need you to act for me. You know we will realize our dreams, together. That's why, here in the dark parts of your unconscious mind, you let me in. Though, it may well bring your death. As with the Fire Titan. But what is your life to my goals but a thing to sacrifice? Death. Oblivion. But not like this momentary one. For those other than me, death can be forever.”
Buran saw black. Fine points of light pierced it. A glow became brighter as his eyes adjusted to the image projected on the bridge where starlight reflected off nebular dust. Buran relaxed his arms and felt a moment of microgravity as the ship’s systems recalibrated to its location in interstellar space. A murmur sounded as his crew began to communicate with each other. Buran looked across his bridge. Roelar steadied his legs, but his eyes focused intensely on Buran.
After the liberation of Tectus, Anguhr had his prize. Solok had his victory. Proxis had a jaw ache. The pain came from clenched teeth that had yet to relax after the Sword Wing fled the battle. The enemy ship appeared a worthy opponent, and Proxis held the bridge as the hellship’s sole commander. The feeling of an incomplete contest was new to the Ship Master. And annoying.
“The air is already on fire. Yet your stare sears it, further.” Solok spoke to Proxis on the hellship bridge.
The words surprised Proxis. He turned to the Field Master who stood at his left between him and Anguhr’s throne.
“What is it that could vex one who just killed an entire enemy fleet?” Solok continued.
Again, Proxis was surprised. Solok’s tone held a salting of taunt, yet he was expressing personal concern with the jest. It was very Uruk-like. Proxis realized he needed to think of Solok not merely as holding the place of the original Field Master. Solok was now the leader of Anguhr’s horde, and, indeed his ally in more than crushing opponents.
“The ship. The capital warcraft. They called it the Sword Wing.” Proxis said.
“A ship with a name,” Solok flexed his jagged brow in thought. “I guess all our enemies have names. Soldiers and ships.”
“Perhaps,” Proxis said. “But this one posed—”
Proxis paused and flexed his own brow as he contemplated describing an equal that was not born in Hell.
“You feel it is a threat.” The words were louder and lower in tone as they reverberated across the bridge. Anguhr had watched and now entered the conversation.
“Indeed, Lord.” Proxis said. “I express my regret to you and the Field Master that I failed to kill it.”
“It fled,” Solok said with a sniff. “They knew they were overmatched.”
“Possible,” Proxis said. “If the Sword Wing’s master fled in cowardice, then it is no threat despite its power. Yet, it stood with a fleet and had an energy signature that suggested vast firepower.”
“So then it was cowardice,” Solok said.
“Or, perhaps it fled for strategic reasons,” Proxis offered with a slow nod to solicit Solok’s consideration.
“Then it must have a reason not to engage us.” Solok cocked his brow to the right. “At least, at that moment.”
“And you seek the answer to this, but also to find and fight this powerful ship.” Anguhr’s voice echoed again.
“Yes, Lord.” Proxis nodded. “Consider that enemy fleet’s attack on a starless planet. A mere rock in the void. But was it? Why devote the whole of that fleet with its most powerful ship when the population had no true defenses.”
“The ones I saw cornered fought well, for fleshy things.” Solok shrugged his wings.
“But the world was of strategic value to that fleet, and they meant to hold it.” Anguhr said. “But why?”
“Perhaps we should return and scythe that world.” Solok offered.
“Lord Anguhr, Field Master, I suggest that our target should be that ship, the Sword Wing. It will hold the answers.”
“And finding it will relieve your aggravation,” A low, rumbling laugh rolled down from Anguhr’s helmet as he looked at his lead demons.
“I agree with the Ship Master that we should find this Sword Wing.” Solok nodded to Proxis. He turned and bowed to Anguhr. “If it is a threat, then it must be destroyed if not first interrogated.”
Anguhr considered Zaria’s comments about the need for intelligence as they sailed as a free ship. He was glad the same concepts dawned in his two lieutenants. Knowledge was power. Indeed, the radiant power of the rod he had taken from the Iron Work was information made into energy. He considered it odd that Zaria had made no claim on the makeshift weapon she had intended as the means to kill the Dark Urge. He also considered her words of what demons might want in time, if not conquest. So far, defense of the horde outweighed existential contemplation.
“We will seek this ship and find the answers it holds.” Anguhr boomed. “For now, we continue to our next target. An empire requires a foundation. I hope to find more than a mere rock in the void when we orbit Kaekus.”
“You have a question, Roelar.” Buran’s words acknowledged his second-in-command’s perplexed stare.
“Sir,” Roelar gathered his thoughts. He had real questions for Buran. Those of their recent retreat he could voice with respect and as if seeking guidance. As yet, he needed to guard thoughts about Buran’s drifts into internal reverie. “Our retreat. The other ships—?”
“We were in sudden, catastrophic need to realign our battle plan.” Buran answered calmly, but looked at Roelar with a probing stare of his own. “The hellship proved too powerful for our allies. They were, sadly, useless to us in the furtherance of our mission.”
The murmur of communicating bridge officers hushed.
“Yet, sir, we were there. At the target. Now we have ceded that world to—”
“Take comfort, Commander. We have ceded nothing of value. Only the orbit.” Buran looked passed Roelar at the projections relating incoming data and external views of the interstellar void the Sword Wing now sailed.
“Your confusion is understandable,” Buran refocused on Roelar. “But I have to make the decisions that will save our galaxy. I will not confer with you on all of them.”
“I understand, sir. And I serve. But may I ask what we do now that Hell has taken Tectus.”
“Hell, or rather the General in command, has taken a momentary victory. Even he—it—does not know what secrets the planet holds. If the colonists have not found what we seek there, do you think brutish demons will?”
“Doubtful, sir. As you know, even I have no knowledge of that planet’s role in our mission.”
“An important and still safe one.” Buran answered.
Roelar did not realize the sound of his deeper breathing was clearly audible as he considered events.
“Always recall, we do this to defend our world.” Buran offered with conviction. “We were the closest to realizing our ultimate goal as we have been since launch. But we, our ship, must endure to achieve that goal, justice, even if we sacrifice today for tomorrow. We cannot sacrifice our ship for ego and kill our mission with pride or misplaced loyalty. We must—we will endure.”
Roelar relaxed. “Understood. Your orders, sir?”
“Plot a course from our location back to Tectus. By the time we arrive via main engine thrust, the hellship will be long gone. The survivors of the invasion and demon attack will see us as a relief mission. Th
en we will take what we need and leave as heroes. Both for the still living on Tectus, and our people.”
Roelar bowed his head and turned to his station to make calculations for the return course. He thought about the mission and the future. He considered it the most noble cause of sentient life. He knew those still living on Tectus would survive into the future. Yet, after Buran obtained his unknown element from that world, his own people would soon perish for their sake and all others across the galaxy. He took another audible breath and felt no dread, but pride.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Pride. The Great Widow knew the concept. She saw its apex with the Dark Urge as her demon hordes ravaged the galaxy. That most black-hearted entity felt glorified by the devastation wrought by her creations. When such power turned against her, the glory died. Not even her rage could burn away the failures spawned by wrath and fear. Some legends said that you could not fall farther than into the pit of Hell. Then perhaps it was arcane geometry that if you ruled that fiery abyss, you fell into your own shattered mind. There, madness smothered intellect. There could be no deeper void.
The Great Widow climbed along her anchor strand closest to the entrance to Hell. Its former sovereign stayed in her mental void. Her body lay tranquilized by venom mist, wrapped in silk, and tucked on the giant spider’s back. Pride never guided the Great Window’s placement of silk. She wove the countless strands to capture prey, mark fate (at times one in the same weave) or for stability and transit. The spider had been laying lines for millennia multiplied by eons. Her web was now unimaginably vast.
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