by Richard Fox
Valdar reeled back against the wall, watching as a jagged figure emerged from the box. Ice cracked and fell from the rest of the body as it stumbled into the bars between the two cells. The ice man wiped his hands over his face, smoothing it out into features that Valdar recognized.
“Oh, hi, Marc.”
Ibarra shook his head from side to side quickly, then flicked loose bits of ice from off his body.
“Here again, fine. Fine. I’ve been in worse places…Valdar?” Marc cocked one eye to the admiral.
“C-C-Can you do something about the cold?”
“I’m good as new.” Marc tapped his chest with a clink. “These Qa’resh ambassador bodies run off ambient heat. Ingenious; never need something so banal as food or electricity to—are you freezing to death? So sorry. The temp should regulate itself as soon as…”
Marc looked up at the lights.
“As soon as!”
There was a whoosh as hot air came through the vents.
“Service here is awful,” Marc said. “How’s the food? Not that I care, but you deserve better than white bread and hot dogs.”
Valdar scrubbed his beard and brushed out ice.
“What did you do?” the admiral asked. “We had intelligence you were in and out of favor with Stacey. You seem to be back on the outs.”
“I may have committed some light…treason. Again.” Marc bumped his fists against each other with the faint ring of a bell. With one hand clenched on top of the other, two fingers popped out at odd angles. The fingers moved to new angles. Then to a third. Then back to the first.
Valdar, a blue Navy sailor in his early career, recognized the semaphore signals.
N-O-D.
Valdar nodded.
“I’m so glad you’re finally here, Valdar. We never really had the chance for a real heart to heart. What with you hiding out on the Breitenfeld around Saturn while I was working to help the Union before our little spat over the Hale Treaty.” Marc leaned forward, shielding his hands beneath his chest from the watchful eyes in the lights. His signaled a new message, one at odds with his words. “I’m going to tell you exactly how stupid the Terran Union is and I’ll start with President Garret.”
Valdar kept his eyes on Marc’s hands, taking in the silver man’s real message one letter at a time.
Chapter 19
A jump gate opened near the Lagrange point beyond the dark side of Luna. The Toth dreadnought, Last Light, slipped into the Solar System and her engines flared to life. The massive plumes of plasma fire scored Kesaht klaw ships emerging behind the miles-long vessel.
Bale perched atop the command throne of the ship’s bridge, his claws scratching at gold-weave carpets around him.
“Faster! Faster! Before they fire their macro cannons!” the overlord shouted.
“We’ll be in the dead zone in just a few more minutes,” Tomenakai said. “We could reduce our acceleration. It would stop damaging the support fleet we—”
“But Lord Bale’s safety is paramount,” said Charadon, a Toth warrior with scales white with age. He swiped at the Ixio, who slunk away from the angry Toth.
“Access the Crucible gate over Ceres,” Bale said. “Send a message to the Vishrakath assaulting Mars. I wish to speak with our allies.” He nudged a limp corpse at the foot of his throne. Kricks had proven more forthcoming with Vishrakath battle plans and communication codes once Bale had consumed his mind.
“Yes, master,” Charadon hissed and used his tail to whack a menial on the back of its head.
A holo globe projected out of Bale’s throne and a bloated Vishrakath queen in a fog of green smoke appeared.
“Bale? Your assault is four hours late. My brood has lost nearly fifty vessels!”
“Mother Gale Sting, I presume?” Bale asked.
The queen scratched stunted forelimbs against her mandibles.
“How do you even know my brood call? That is not for lesser species.” Venom dripped from her mouth and Bale realized she was particularly angry.
Bale tapped a claw tip against Krick’s sunken cranium. He was glad the cameras didn’t show the envoy’s fate.
“I have my means, brood mother. My fleet will take close anchorage over…Fermi City, a densely populated section of Luna. The humans lack the will to sacrifice those lives to a miss from their macro cannons. My ships will clear a corridor for my Last Light to orbit to the Earth-facing side…and then bombardment will begin. When will you neutralize Mars? I did give you a head start.”
“You let us lead the assault and we took the full brunt of the Union’s counterattack,” Gale Sting said.
“And now Earth is nearly defenseless. You served as excellent bait.”
The brood mother hissed and spat curses that didn’t match any translation protocol.
“Incoming fire detected,” Charadon said.
“Do hurry, insect,” Bale said. “Just remember to stop shooting mass drivers once they surrender. No point in killing off potential slaves or ruining a habitable planet more than necessary.” He cut the transmission. “Any danger to me?” Bale asked.
“This is the last of the grand ships,” Charadon said. “Her capabilities are still a surprise for the meat. Macro shells are intersecting in space around the jump gate…We are clear.”
“And the Kesaht ships?” Tomenakai’s hands whipped through a data globe. “The…the portal opened in the wrong spot. Our fleet will be at the mercy of their cannons for nearly fifteen minutes.”
In the globe, a straight line cut through the Kesaht fleet, annihilating two cruisers and damaging more ships as a macro shell ripped through the hulls like a bullet through glass.
“Acceptable,” Bale said. “Tomenakai, order the Klaw ships and Crescent fighters to scour Luna’s and Ceres’s surface of all weapon batteries. Raid leader, keep us close to Fermi City and have our shields up. I do hope the Union decides to break their own rule about civilian casualties. To see a shell bounce off our shields and impact the city…ah, to know the look on their faces.”
“Yes, master,” Charadon said.
“The rest of our ships?” Tomenakai asked.
“Have any that survive form a perimeter around my ship,” Bale said.
Tomenakai was silent as he issued orders. A few minutes later, the Ixio studied a real time projection of Earth, then ripped his gaze away from the Kesaht fleet as it was savaged by macro shells.
“My Lord Bale, you said the human world was desolated. Worse than Kesaht’ka, destroyed by human cruelty, and that is why they came for your home…why they annihilated your people.”
“I did?” Bale asked. “I mean, of course I did. Don’t be fooled. To set foot on that planet is a death wish. We’ll remove every human we can…for their own good. Raid Leader, prepare a culling force, just like the old days. I want true born humans, Trinia gave us the genetic markers to look for. I want a thousand to feast on soon as Earth surrenders. Last time I ate this well was when things got out of hand with the Karigole.” His tendrils twitched, anticipating an epic meal.
“‘Ate’? Lord Bale?” Tomenakai glance between the Toth over lord and the data globe as more Kesaht ships died to Union guns. “I thought what happened in the war room was some sort of…sort of…”
“Oh that,” Bale’s claws snapped with annoyance. “Stress eating. It does happen when I get a bit peckish. I was going to reveal that particular aspect of my existence to the Risen…eventually. A necessary evil due to human treachery. Well, that’s a lie. Toth upper castes have lived like this for so many centuries.”
Tomenakai touched a control panel below the data globe and keyed in a command. He opened a synaptic link from his Risen crystals to the Crucible and dropped the disruption field around Kesaht’ka.
“And your fellow Ixio, I was a bit rushed when I tasted his meat,” Bale’s feeder arm snapped out from under his tank. “I would like to savor that one more time.”
Tomenakai ducked under Charadon’s grab and ran for the doors. A Toth warri
or levelled a crystal pole-axe at him as more moved to block the Ixio’s escape. Tomenakai ran faster, and impaled himself against the spike at the tip of the warrior’s weapon.
It wasn’t the first time he’d died, but hearing Bale curse out his warriors did lessen some of the sting as his brain died and his mind broadcast to the Crucible and back to Kesaht’ka.
Chapter 20
Major Aiza of the Ibarran Legion shuffled his feet in the Nekara dust as Sergeant Jaso finished burying a sensor. A fog had rolled in, leaving the crucified as looming shadows all around them.
The rest of his team formed a loose perimeter as the sergeant worked.
“I don’t like this place,” Saunders said. “Ghosts are watching us.”
“We’ve done archaeotech grabs before,” Aiza said. “You’ve been in…unusual places before.”
“Not someplace haunted.” Saunders flicked a thumb against his gauss rifle’s safety.
“I swear these dead are watching us,” Maddinger said, motioning to a corpse hanging from an X. “How long they been here? Shouldn’t they have rotted away by now?”
“Jaso, are you done with painting the Sistine Chapel on that sensor by now?” Aiza asked.
“Motion detectors keep giving me an error message,” Jaso said. “There’s some sort of constant vibration throwing off the calibrations. Like we’re on top of buried utility cables or something.”
“The marshal wants a trip wire to tell him if anything moves out here, not excuses.” Aiza felt sweat run down the back of his neck. Even in temperature-controlled power armor, the stress was getting to him.
“There.” Jaso tapped his forearm screen. “Getting a reading from Ivey and Weber on the perimeter.”
“What’re you talking about?” Ivey said from behind Jaso. He jerked a thumb at Weber. “We’re right here.”
“Then…” Jaso did a double take at his screen and scrambled to his feet. He flipped his gauss rifle off his back and charged it to high power.
“Pull in, close perimeter,” Aiza said. He put his back to the rest of his team as they drew back to the sensor. He opened a channel. “Ground command, team seven has…I’ve got static. Weber, get me a link.”
The team commo specialist hit a button on his belt and an antenna extended out of the back of his armor.
A rattle rose through the fog like a snake’s warning.
“There!” Jaso pointed at a shadow as it flit between the crucified.
“Some sort of an animal?” Ivey asked.
“Sounds good to me,” Aiza said. “No first contact bull with an animal. You see it, you shoot—”
There was a rush of air like an arrow passing and a crack.
Weber let out a cry and Aiza turned to see him being dragged into the fog by a black stalk bristling with spikes. Weber vanished into the fog and his screams cut out with the crunch of breaking power armor.
“Light it up!” Aiza fired from the hip and sparks flew as gauss bullets hit a cross in the fog.
“Stop—stop moving.” Jaso looked at his forearm screen and shot a hand to his right. The legionnaires opened fire.
Aiza checked the compass built into his visor and set a bearing back to the Ark.
“Fall back,” he ordered. “Conserve ammo or we’ll—”
A shadow flashed across his eyes and blood splattered against his visor. He wiped it away and saw Ivey and Maddinger standing still, arms lowering their rifles.
“Move, move, legion!” Aiza nudged Ivey and his head fell off, blood spurted out of neatly severed arteries, and his corpse wobbled on its feet.
Maddinger slid apart, cut from shoulder to hip.
“Jaso?” Aiza heard the sergeant screaming in the fog. He whirled around, utterly alone. He shifted his weight forward to run, but something grabbed him by the shoulder.
A dead alien on a cross had one hand on him, its eyes dead and face slack.
Aiza shrugged hard and ripped the corpse’s arm out of the socket. Dust fell out of the tear like sand down an hourglass. Terror overwhelmed his training, and he dropped his weapon as he backed away, eyes locked on the dead alien as it lurched at him, one hand still bound to the cross.
His heels bumped against something and he tripped back, landing flat on his back. Weights slammed down on his forearms, cracking the armor as they pinned him to the ground. Two long, spiked tendrils held him firm.
Aiza fought, but he could manage little more than thrashing his legs and bumping his head against the ground.
The rattle grew louder and Aiza froze as a thickset jaw moved into his vision. The creature looked down at him, silver eye slits set deep in a wide onyx skull. Triangular teeth jutted from the jaw, some dripping red with human blood.
It leered closer to Aiza’s face, and the eyes flashed.
The stalks on his arms wrapped around his wrists and the creature bolted away, dragging the screaming legionnaire behind.
****
Seru regarded the human splayed out in front of her, his limbs stretched to an X by ropes of tightly woven cubes. She stood half again as tall as Major Aiza, now stripped of his power armor.
“What a disappointment to find flesh beneath your exquisite exterior.” She bowed slightly and lifted his chin with sharp fingers. “Do you cling to your rotting shell because you choose weakness, or because the curse this—” she prodded his chest, drawing points of blood “—is all the prophet will allow you? Perhaps you’re unworthy. Are you fodder or is the prophet the only one that’s transcended? So many questions…”
Seru gripped Aiza’s face and turned it up to hers. His eyes widened, alive with fear.
His jaw tried to open, but she held it shut.
Seru released him, her face contorting as he spoke.
“Kallen, ferrum corde...”
“No time for this. No time to wait and test your answers for truth.” Seru went to a wall made up of the same linked cube strands, each the width of Aiza’s arm. The strands flexed against each other, and a gap opened. A glowing cube a half-inch across floated out and Seru plucked it from the air.
“No time…so we have something special.” Her mouth pulled into a smile, revealing clenched and pointed teeth. “We reserved the theosar for the best of our culture. The most loyal. Transcendence without the loss of higher functions. Don’t worry…your soul will still join with Malal. One day.”
She set the cube a few inches in front of Aiza’s forehead and it levitated when she released it.
“The sensation is extraordinary, but worth it in the end. Trust me.” Seru’s lips mimed a blown kiss, but Aiza felt nothing.
The cube floated toward his face and he tried to look away.
“Noooo,” Seru grabbed his chin and turned him to the cube.
It hit his skin with a hiss and Aiza went into convulsions. The light spread through his face as it melded into his flesh. He gagged and became rigid. His face froze in a silent scream and his flesh turned dark gray. Circuit-like lines spread from the cube, running through his eyes and down his veins.
Aiza collapsed, chin lolling against his chest. The strands let him go and he flopped to the floor.
“Oh dear, I do hope you’re not permanently broken.” Seru crouched down, face close to the ground.
Aiza flipped to his back, mouth locked open. He sat bolt upright and his hands went to his throat. His skin had gone dark gray, the lines of circuitry shining.
“You don’t need to breathe anymore.” Seru’s eyes flashed. “We’ve transformed your worthless flesh into living metal. You’ll thank me soon enough. We brought our entire race to greatness…some more willingly than others. Now…whom do you serve?”
Aiza stood, body rising like strings were guiding him.
“I am Major—”
Seru jabbed fingernails into the top of his head and motes of light flowed through her hand and into Aiza. The Ibarran’s eyes filled with white.
“Such a strong will, but that can torn away…Now, whom do you serve?”
&n
bsp; “My soul for Malal,” Aiza rasped.
“Very good. Very good. Now come with me, thrall. You’ll tell me all there is about the prophet, the Ibarrans, and the entire rest of the galaxy. Tell me, how many races need Malal’s grace?”
****
Marshal Davoust bounded up the metal stairs of the barricade Ibarran pioneers had assembled around the Ark. Aides loaded down with communication gear followed him, along with the biggest, meanest legionnaire bodyguards the procedural tubes on Navarre could put out. More than once, the marshal thought Lady Ibarra should’ve restarted the doughboy program, but she had little interest in having the Nation’s fighting done by such simple constructs.
“What is it?” he asked a soldier on the battlements.
“Reports of movement out there.” The legionnaire said, motioning his rifle toward the fog. “But we’re not picking anything up on optics.”
“Could be our sensor teams?” He glanced at a clock displayed on the inside of his visor. “They’re due back. Status?”
An aide with a small forest of radio antennae on her back shook her head.
“None have reported back in,” she said.
“You hear that?” the legionnaire asked. “Coming from out there…sounds like a bag of dirt hitting the ground.”
Davoust turned up his audio receptors and the soldier was right…irregular thumps from the surrounding crosses. Then the sound of shuffling feet.
“Armor to me.” He slapped his thigh to get his staff’s attention.
A faint tremor caused pebbles to shimmy across the ground.
“Is it the Ark?” Davoust looked up the pearl hull and frowned.
“Down!” a bodyguard shouted and Davoust was shoved off the battlements. A black streak ripped through the top of the defenses, killing the legionnaire and knocking his staff off like bowling pins.
The scythe dug its claws into the dirt as it slid to a stop. A giant panther’s body with a blunt dragon’s snout. A pair of thick, spiked stalks bent out of its back like double scorpion tails. It looked right at Davoust, silver eyes gleaming as it hunched back to pounce.