The pause on the other end lingered just a bit too long. Gobran’s heart skipped a few beats, and then gained a few more as the answer came. “This is Alecya Kipso,” the voice rang high with laughter and relief. “Welcome home, Father.”
Gobran laughed until his sides hurt and his eyes filled with years of unshed tears.
i
“You might want to straighten us out,” Avienne said from her seat, leaning back as she closed and opened her left fist, testing her returning strength. Zortan grunted and the shuttle jostled in the general direction of the Victory’s bay. “I meant straighten us towards the bay,” Avienne clarified.
“This is not my area of expertise,” Zortan said through clenched teeth, his tall, strong frame awkward in the small shuttle.
“I would have never guessed,” Avienne said, pleased her words were no longer slurred. “Let me have a try at her.” She pushed herself up, feeling a bit dizzy but stronger by the minute.
“Are you sure you can handle her?” Zortan asked. She grasped the controls before her and switched main flight to her console.
“No.” She shot him a grin. “But I am sure that we’ll wind up with our noses flat against the Victory if you try.”
The controls jostled in her hands, and it felt good to hold them steady and urge the shuttle towards the Victory’s open mouth. The numbness still cast a thin veil between her and reality, but she suspected it no longer had much to do with the drugs.
Victory was an impressive ship, a model Avienne guessed was just a bit younger than the Destiny. Her hull was smaller and sleeker, but less care had been taken with her design. Gun towers were pulling back into the hull as they approached, so the more delicate equipment would not detach during atmospheric entry.
Her viewing ports were sparse, but they were all lit, meaning this ship was still at full power. She guessed they had stashed her away and maintained her upkeep — unlike the Destiny, which had flown steadily and without pause.
“She’s a beauty,” Avienne said as they entered the shuttle bay, unlocked the wheels and gently landed.
“She was actually considered quite ugly when she was built,” Zortan voiced as the bay pressurized around them. Avienne urged the shuttle forward on its wheels. When it came to a stop, they waited for the doors to open. “But, then again, she was sister to a much greater ship.”
Avienne gave him a slight grin. “She was a great ship, wasn’t she?”
Zortan smiled, his features softening. Avienne suddenly wondered if perhaps he was a father. Another mystery with no answer. “She was the best.”
The doors opened before them and several of the Victory’s crew lingered about, weapons strapped to their belts.
“The captain will expect me on the bridge,” Zortan said. “We have…unfinished business. You might be safer here.”
Avienne opened the door of the shuttle and hopped out before Zortan, pleased to find the ground fairly stable. She turned back to face him as he exited, sword in hand. “No way I’m staying out of this one.”
Zortan studied her for a moment and simply nodded, strapping the great sword to his back above the cloak he seemed to favour over a coat. He didn’t seem to mind the tensing of the crew around them as he carefully secured his weapon. Avienne suspected he enjoyed it.
“This should be fun,” she mumbled as she followed his long strides towards the functional elevator, escorted by two nervous crewmembers.
She swore she heard Zortan respond, “Quite.”
i
Flames erupted around them, the blast hurtling the shuttle off the pad seconds before Ardin had fully landed. The shuttle shook in response to the Destiny’s final screams.
Cailan! No time. Ardin knew he couldn’t save the captain and he swallowed hard.
“Hang on!” The shuttle complained as he urged her forward. The bay door was already closed and Destiny’s metal was collapsing on itself as the fire sucked out the ship’s remaining oxygen. He pushed on the controls and hurtled forward, toward the second exit, when a second explosion rocked the ship. This time the Destiny moaned so deeply it resonated in his chest.
The ship buckled sideways and the shuttle’s top scraped Destiny’s hull. Metal separated all around her but no sparks flew; the oxygen had already been eaten by the first fiery explosion.
Behind Ardin, Josmere’s moans echoed Destiny’s and Layela reached back from her seat to grab her friend’s hand.
Ardin slowed the shuttle, trying to mimic the movements of the ship, but still they were knocked around. The Berganda’s moans ended.
“She’s just knocked out,” Layela whispered, as though trying to convince herself. Ardin cast her a quick look, and saw features pale and drawn but determined. She didn’t intend to die here and, quite frankly, neither did he.
He brought the shuttle to the last bay, long ago closed and without oxygen or power. The Destiny had been badly wounded during her last battle and her starboard engine had been compromised. It meant that the hull was at its weakest here and with fuel no longer running to the engine, the chances of an unplanned explosion were limited.
“I never thought I’d shoot my own ship,” he muttered. Forgive me.
He fired his two rockets. They impacted near the engine, the ship lurching at the new explosion. The metal ripped and shrieked, and the engine was pulled half out of its joints, revealing a hole big enough for the shuttle to fly through.
Ardin slowly brought the shuttle out, careful to pay attention to the Destiny’s lurching movements. Dark space surrounded them and he allowed himself a deep breath. He leaned back onto his seat. Layela squeezed his arm gently, and he covered her hand with his, glad he wasn’t alone. He wondered if that was the only way they would ever connect. By seeing each other’s homes and dreams being destroyed.
He didn’t dare turn back for one final look, keeping the memory of his home intact. The Destiny was quiet behind them.
As quiet as a graveyard.
CHAPTER 31
The elevator doors hissed open on the bridge of the Victory. Bright lights and the faint scent of lemon assaulted Avienne’s senses. She couldn’t hear the engines’ hum, and wondered if Destiny had once been this quiet.
The panels reflected the light, in a similar configuration to Destiny’s, except this one was cleaner and not worn away by years of use and poor repair jobs. Avienne’s stomach lurched with regret — regret at Destiny’s slow and long deterioration, and regret that she had never taken the time to treat her better. She let the regret wash over her and slip away, to leave behind only the slow numbing knowledge of loss. She did not fight it, but she did not let it encompass her, either.
“Captain Zortan Mistolta,” Gobran Kipso greeted them, ignoring Malavant’s redheaded child.
“Captain Kipso,” Zortan acknowledged the man with a nod. His dark eyes locked with Kipso’s, and neither man backed down or turned away. Avienne gave a low whistle. It took guts or stupidity to face down Zortan.
“I must admit,” Kipso let the words come slowly, “I have long imagined the scene in which I took down the traitor of Mirial.”Avienne grinned at the thought of Gobran Kipso taking down the tall, imposing man before her. “However,” Kipso broke out in a huge grin. “I just received very good news and don’t wish to spoil it by having to kill you!”
“What news?” Zortan asked, ignoring the fat man’s bold claims.
Gobran gave a short, quick laugh. “Survivors, Zortan! Survivors! My beautiful daughter lives yet!” He paused and his smile faltered a bit. “I asked about Adina,” he continued in a soft whisper as he met Zortan’s eyes. “She lives, too.”
Zortan stood perfectly still for a few moments, and Avienne wished she could see his face. She wondered who Adina was. Then Zortan nodded and Gobran clasped the side of his arm warmly, as though the two had once been friends.
“I’m still bringing you in,” Gobran smiled. “But alive. And I don’t expect you to cause too much trouble for an old friend!” The shi
p roared through the atmosphere, flames licking its hull, as the old planet of Mirial welcomed one of its wayward children home.
She could hear the smile in Zortan’s reply. “Only as much trouble as an old friend is willing to cause me.”
Gobran laughed as he braced himself at the slight turbulence, and was about to say something else when Loran interrupted him.
“Captain, there’s something coming towards us!”
Considering Gobran’s size, Avienne was surprised at his speed. He was on tactical in moments, pushing the young crewman out of his way.
Avienne looked out the viewing port and gasped. Coming towards them, in a great foaming sea, was a wave of white, broken by shades of blues and greys. The ship jostled once more and was still as it stabilized in the planet’s sky, but still the wave came towards them, and Avienne could have sworn it even diverged slightly to cross their path.
“Mirial’s guts,” Gobran whispered, his features taut and white. He walked to his captain’s chair with slow, awkward steps.
“Do what you can to avoid that,” he whispered to Loran, whose big eyes remained glued to the screen. “Loran,” Kipso placed his hand on her shoulder, jerking the young woman back to reality. She pulled sideways on the controls and the ship turned slowly.
Too slow, Avienne knew. A ship this size wasn’t made for quick manoeuvres in an atmosphere. She trained her eyes to the wave, now almost on top of them. The greys and blues shimmered and took shape, and she strained her eyes to make them out. Faces!
She took a step back and gasped. The wave overtook the ship and small sounds like knocks resonated over the entire hull. It was like they were caught in a bad hailstorm, except that each knock seemed to be followed by a whisper, a plea to be let in. A thousand icicles formed on her spine.
“Captain, they’re dragging us down!” Loran cried, desperately pulling back on the controls. Kipso went to help her.
“Gant, weapons!” he shouted. “See if you can’t hit them with the ether cannons!”
Avienne turned to the young man at the tactical controls. Sweat ran down his brow and outlined his wide eyes.
In two quick steps Avienne had closed the distance to the tactical station. The young man didn’t even seem to notice her, his eyes filled with terror and reflecting the ghostly features of their assailants.
“Blood and bones, out of my way!” Avienne pushed him aside. The man slid off the seat and onto the floor, his mouth still moving and his eyes still transfixed.
“Cannons, now!” Kipso screamed. He pulled hard on the controls while Loran stood beside him, sobbing and paralyzed with fear. For half a second Avienne saw what she saw — faces looking at them, colliding with the view screen. Some were distorted almost beyond recognition, blue shimmers pointing out old features; others, the most blood-chilling ones, looked so human that if they had not been white and translucent, Avienne would have believed them flesh and blood. All of them, in the vision of their eyes, held a plea echoed by their mouths and reaching to the farthest tips of their diluted fingers and toes.
There were thousands of them, so many that the blue sky was gone and the surface still unseen.
No need to aim, then, Avienne thought. She quickly familiarized herself with the layout of the console. The symbols were familiar, all but one. It was a sun, similar to the one in the symbol of Mirial. Those must be the ether weapons!
She pulled back on the levers. The hull creaked as the weapons were released, and she idly wondered if the wraiths circling them would find access into the ship through the weapons bays. She quickly pushed the thought from her mind — the weapons were isolated. They had to be, to be safely used in space.
Avienne powered up all five of the guns she could identify: two starboard, two on the port side, and one on the stern of the ship. She suspected there was at least one located on the stem, but could find no sign of it.
“Come on, faster!” she muttered, watching the readings. The power meter displays slowly crept upward, until they became full and red. Avienne did not hesitate.
“Firing!” If Kipso was surprised to see her at the station, he did not show it.
The blast of the ether weapons wasn’t as impressive as laser fire would have been, but still Avienne heard the satisfying clunk and jerk on the ship, impressed that all five had fired within seconds of each other. She looked at the view screen, where an orange wave passed through the wraiths, sweeping their features away.
The hull was silent. No more knocking, no more pleading.
Avienne hit the “warm” key on each of the weapons to recharge them, never taking her eyes off the mist that scintillated before them. Kipso stood awkwardly over the pilot’s chair, muttering to Victory and urging her to respond faster. Avienne chanced a glance at her panel. The ether weapons were recharging, but not nearly fast enough for her liking.
Loran was quiet now, her two hands covering her mouth as though stifling a scream. Avienne hoped her hands would stay there.
Then a slow shriek began, at first mixing with the sounds of the Victory’s straining engines, but then rising in pitch steadily. A spasm travelled through the whole mist like a single heart beating wildly, and the faces reappeared, angrier, louder, and stronger.
They clutched the Victory’s hull, banging on the metal.
“Seventeen more seconds and I can fire again,” Avienne said.
Kipso grunted agreement. Good enough! She glanced down at her console and ticked down the last few seconds until she could fire.
Gant rose to his feet, looking from the view port to Avienne’s fingers, hovering over the keys. “You’ll just make them angrier!” he screamed. He charged her to unseat her from the station as she had unseated him, but her leg came up automatically. She would have kicked him had Zortan not intercepted him. One quick hit to the neck and the young man crumpled at Avienne’s feet, no longer moving.
Avienne looked down and kicked him sideways.
“He’ll live,” Zortan said.
“I don’t care about that,” Avienne replied, kicking the unconscious Gant again. “If the ship lurches bad I’m going to trip on him!”
She turned back to the controls to find the ether weapons red and full. She heard a thunk behind her and winced — she guessed it was Gant’s head coming in contact with something hard as Zortan moved him.
“Firing!”
The ship made the same clunking sound, except this time it was followed by a bang. No orange wave travelled out through the wraiths.
“Malavant!” Kipso half-shouted, half-grunted from the front. “Fire those weapons!”
Avienne ignored him, looking down at her displays. Three of the weapon bars uncharged.
“Blood and bones,” she whispered as she realized what was happening. The wraiths had hit the weapons hard, as though they knew where to hit. One by one, the ether weapons that would have saved them were destroyed.
“Blood and bones.”
i
Dunkat broke from the Mirial fleet’s pathetic formation, doubting he would be missed in the chaos. The shuttle he had appropriated had impressive manoeuvring capabilities, but in the chaos of the wraiths before them, those capabilities proved useless.
His arms were strained from holding his shuttle upright, and he was getting increasingly annoyed. These wraiths, no doubt a remnant of the true nature of Mirial, were blocking his view of the planet. He had been looking forward to seeing it from the sky, seeing the devastation the Fates had wrought.
His small ship groaned, and he felt a twinge of worry. Just a twinge, but enough to bring a small sweat to his brow. He pulled up on the controls, the ship’s engine complaining as his lift clashed with the wraiths’ intentions. The ship straightened but quickly buckled and its nose dove again, at a greater angle. He felt another twinge of concern and resisted the urge to shift in his seat.
He lowered his eyes to the instruments for an instant. His one-man fighter ship was not faring too badly considering the assault it wa
s receiving. Then again, this was Mirial technology, and despite his hatred of some of their practices, even he had to admit that Solari technology was far behind Mirial’s decades-old defences.
He frowned. The readings on his navigational instruments were erratic. He tapped on the console once with two fingers, setting the altitude dial spinning. A greater twinge struck him, and he felt cold sweat imbue his cotton undershirt. He cleared his dry throat and looked up, his hands feeling numb as he fought to control the ship.
He could not see. No break existed in the wraiths before him. He could very well be within impact range of the ground, and had no way to know it. He tried to recall how far he might have come, but it was all lost in a sea of white.
He gritted his teeth and pulled up on the controls, his muscles bunching. “I did not come this far to fail.”
He had barely spoken the words when the knocking abruptly stopped and the downward pull on the shuttle ended. The shuttle’s nose jerked up before Dunkat loosened his pull on the controls, his arm muscles warm and aching and finally able to relax.
He could see sky before him, blue and crisp, but the land was still white. He waited, his fingers flexing and unflexing around the controls in anticipation.
The sky grew cloudy before the ship, and Dunkat braced himself for another attack, his breath long and calm. He waited as the sky shimmered, but instead of forming many wraiths, it formed a single one, its features harsh and eyes piercing deep into Dunkat.
The colonel leaned back into his chair, his grip loosening, his breath even deeper. He gazed back and shuddered, and greeted the wraith in a hoarse whisper.
“Hello, Father.”
CHAPTER 32
The sky was dark and the land was darker, with no sign of the wraiths to be seen on any horizon.
“Where did the little nasty freaky creatures go?” Avienne asked. She placed both her elbows on the station and cupped her chin in her hands.
A laugh burst from Gobran. He clapped Loran on the back as the young woman took her seat again, still as pale as the wraiths. “They knew better than to continue their attack on us!”
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