Hyperlinks in the text are intended as supplemental material, discussing elements of the science behind the science fiction. They are not intended as required reading for the story. Hyperlinks will be provided at the point in the story where it comes up, but all the links will also be collected at the bottom of the post for easy reading.
There was no such thing as a shockwave in space, but with an energy outpouring of this magnitude, there was something similar… a lightwave, a rolling tide of the energized gamma radiation that impacted against the orbiting HEF ship’s shields. They were much further away than any of the Kthid ships in the primary blast zone, but even so every single ship felt like they were shoved across space by the impact of photons against their aegis. The shields themselves whited out, blocking any signal from any sensors outside of the blast zone at lightspeed from the detonation. Onboard, the crew had braced themselves for the sounds of sirens, but even so, most were shaken by the impact. Then, with tense impatience, they were forced to wait for long minutes for the light to clean up enough that their sensors wouldn’t be blind and they could see what they had wrought.
Admiral Chanda was first among them, gripping onto a railing hard enough that her knuckles were almost pale… tense, and with her stomach twisting. She could barely even hear the battle damage alert sirens roaring through the halls, too focused on the communications in her earbud as the bridge worked to reboot systems. Then Aesha’s voice came in a cheer. “Clean hit!” she called out, a thrill of victory in her voice. “The damage, Admiral… we’ve scattered the fleet! The Apophis bomb is every bit as effective as we could have hoped!” The Exalted’s exhilarated voice rang through all the loudspeakers of the Azteca just a few seconds after speaking to her ancestor, happily announcing the results of the previously secret weapon.
Such an exclamation captured the attention of everyone with ears to listen. Not just because of the importance of Aesha’s message, but the cadence of her voice. The Exalted was a program of many lifetimes. She had seen and partaken in everything amidst the stars. She was the eidolon of their military and civilizational culture, and here she was cheering and thrilling in victory like an overexcited green soldier. Only results spectacular beyond their wildest imagination, a promise of not only survival but victory, could compel such an ancient and venerable heroine to completely lose her composure.
Across monitors all across the Azteca Aeisha broadcasted sensor scans on every monitor, gleefully broadcasting the aftermath of the destructive detonation. Everyone was allowed to see the triumph of mankind. Cheers and great outcries resulted from the innumerable ensigns, troops, and officers onboard. Even some of the invading casteless from the breaching pods stopped dead in their tracks and gawked stupidly at this unbelievable destruction. Chanda, however, was concerned with the collateral damage the monitors also showed. Set III atmosphere was… burning. The oxygen-rich atmosphere had actually combusted along the most direct line with the explosion, turning night into day on that side of the world as the sky caught fire. There was no telling how extensive the damage was… thankfully, most of the citizens of that world that she was defending lived in orbital infrastructure or hermetically sealed environments to avoid complications with the mimic fungus but even so the damage was potentially catastrophic.
But there was no time to worry about that. Her fleet had been battered a bit, but not really damaged, and that was far better than could be said about the Kthid fleet. She had her duty.
“Damage control,” she ordered over the comms. “Get me triage on damage, and work through the systems from most critical to least. And get those sirens off!” Chanda raised her blade. “Alright boys and girls… the battle is won. Let’s retake our flagship so we can fix this ship and drive these bastards back into space!” The soldiers around her reacted to her battle cry with a thunderous roar and redoubled their efforts as they charged back toward the fight. HEF marines took the offensive against the invading Kthid and Void Tracers, reversing the onslaught against their demoralized or scattered foes. The fighting was pressing forward so rapidly that Chanda didn’t even feel the need to participate in the fighting… she doubted she’d even be able to keep up. She hilted her blade, left behind the role of a soldier, and resumed her duties as Admiral… the sword purely ceremonial once again.
“Aesha, coordinate with your copies and relay orders across to the fleet. I want us to break out of this defensive formation and press forward. Force them into retreat… we’re going to drive them all the way back to the other side of that wormhole,” the Admiral proclaimed, a bit of hope returning to her and kindling a spark of joy as victory seemed possible for once. This plan had actually worked.
The Admiral waited… but no response came from the Exalted. With each passing second, it felt more and more wrong. She had been awaiting some snappy, annoyed response to her order from her ancestor, Aesha to mock that she had already started sending those orders minutes ago or to ask if she wanted to play with her sword for a little bit longer first. Instead, the only answer was silence… and with each passing second Chanda Sakar’s confident jubilation began to drain away.
The silence continued to reign almighty, and something cold ran down her spine as the Admiral realized that something was deeply amiss.
“Bridge, report!” she yelled, beginning to run. A few marines, her honor guard, accompanied her as she ran, taking the quickest root back to the command room she could. “I need a damage report on Aesha.”
“Hard to say Admiral,” a tense voice came from one of the bridge engineers in her head. “Damage is… heavy. And getting worse.”
The Admiral pressed rapidly against the button for the powered lift that would take her up the eight decks, noticing to her frustration it wasn’t powering on. “Define ‘getting worse’?”
“We are experiencing… what I can only refer to as a progressive reactor failure in one of the five fusion cores,” the nervous-sounding engineer answered. “Containment is… failing, and every system we are engaging to stop it or shut it down are all crashing. Dozens of computer systems are offline since the explosion, fried or acting strangely.”
Bad bad bad. Admiral Chanda abandoned the lift, heading for a set of stairs and beginning to all but fly up them three steps at a time. If Aesha could not respond and the computer systems were failing, then things were very wrong with her flagship’s command systems. She needed to get more information, to reach the master consoles and force a reboot of the Exalted’s system so she could assist in damage control. What had happened? There was no EMP pulse accompanying the Apophis… for a moment her paranoia conjured images that while they had been striking the Kthid with their newly fashioned super-weapon their enemy had retaliated with their own, wiping out computer systems in a deadly cascade… no, that didn’t make sense. There would be no need to wait for such a weapon.
During this attack, Chanda had acted as Admiral, General, Colonel, Captain, and Marine… and now she was reduced to a simple runner, hurrying on the throes of desperation to make it back to her command post and figure out what was going on.
Ki’an’i ran back to the breach as quickly as she could, her remaining marines pounding along beside her… less in number and worse for wear, ragged and worn, but still standing. She hoped it would be an appropriate omen – the Sethis templar’s mounting sense of trepidation grew as she lead the refugees back to the ship, fearing that she would be returning to a blown-apart, smoking wreck, or a void-tracer infected warren. Yet as she rounded the corner, the Lealings vessel stood unharmed, its entrance ramp gaping like a yawning maw into safety. Anna Constantos and a few Lealing marines and casteless Kthid were escorting arriving refugees as they arrived into the vessel, although it seemed like quite a bit of the effort was spent in making rescued slaves not panic at the presence of the hulking Kthid escapees.
Anna was, barely, keeping it going… slaves gingerly packed themselves into the Lealing ship as quickly as they could. Others, however, were so terrified at the sight of more Kthid that Ki’an’i stepped into the role, convincing them to go forward… forcefully if necessary. It didn’t feel good to all but drag terrified women on board the ship, but it was better than leaving them behind.
As more and more of the containment fell, however, more and more Void Tracers attacked. Those quadruped hunter-killers came from all directions, preying on insufficiently protected refugees for the most part, but also attacking the Lealing ship itself… snarling and whipping around their razor tails as if starving for blood, all converging on the ship’s yawning entrance. Tikanni and other Lealings guarding that entrance fired off their weapons at close-range, dead Hammerheads falling off that hull and plummeting towards the hangar floor… but when large groups came it was all that they could do to hold the breach and keep them from bounding through into the helpless mass of screaming refugees, a slaughter waiting to happen.
Massed plasma and slashing blades met them at the breach… they had to get every single one. If even a single one managed to make it onto the ship and hide then it could manage to become a lethal swarm… and as they pushed the defenders back into the breach the fighters met them in melee as their higher tech weapons became more unreliable. The cries of insentient terror resounding from the escaped slaves were so overwhelming within the ship’s hull that they even overruled the shrill hissing of the Void Tracers themselves, but the defenders fought on… what else could they do? In these close quarters, the advantage was generally to the Void Tracer. Every templar knew that the warrens of a ship were among the most dangerous place to fight the hammerheads, where they had the least space to use their ranged weapons, and the shortest line of sight. Neither Ki’an’i nor the Lealing marines were well-suited for fighting in the cramped, static conditions of the jampacked ship.
The castless Kthid, on the other hand, most certainly were.
With mighty roars, the Sons of Kan’lun stormed forward into the thick of the battle, warring with the Void Tracers face to face. Oversized weapons and raw strength worked to overpower the monsters, and unlike the Lealings, who seemed panicky, and unlike the Faliran who often outright collapsed in their presence, the Kthid seem largely unbothered by the hormonal panic attack that the Void Tracers brought with them. Their thick, draconic scales let them fight toe to toe with the Hammerheads in such a brawl. Unlike anyone else on board, they were durable enough to survive a bite or a slash or even a whip of the monster’s tails… Ki’an’i watched a claw attack that would have eviscerated a human merely leave painful and bleeding but non-critical wounds on one Kthid rebel in the seconds before the rusted cleaver-sword he carried split the violet monstrosity in two.
Because of the Sons of Kan’lun’s presence, what could have been a close-quarters bloodbath was turned into a resounding victory. Lealings managed to fall to the back, far enough away for their rifles to be reliable again, and they picked off the Void Tracers from afar while the Kthid engaged them in a mettlesome wrestle. Demons died hissing and screaming, overpowered by the allied forces. For Ki’an’i and everyone onboard who had survived the brutal conquest of the Kthid, it was a strange thing to feel relief over what a pack of Kthid had done. Their heroics seemed like the most surreal and unbelievable of sights. Yet as the last of those purple-hued Space-Devils lay slain, it was to them that they all owed their lives.
This wave of monsters dead, they retook the breach and waited for more refugees. It wasn’t the last time they had to fight to defend it.
Wave after wave of refugees arrived, escorted by the occasional Faliran or Lealing soldier, and quickly the ship was loaded up with escapees – Humans, Faliran, Nys, and Kthid. Plentiful also were Arane, but they were a unique problem… quick to panic and rebellious to instruction, they were largely handled by the casteless, to whom they leaped to obey. It made Ki’an’i sorrowful to see how… shattered… they were as a people, how instinctive their obedience was to their enslavers at this point, but there was little she could do about it now but be grateful it made saving them easier. Quickly people ended up being jam-packed within its interiors, squeezed into its furthermost regions… the ship taking on a capacity far beyond what was comfortable. Ki’an’i had little doubt there was more room aboard the ship, but it was starting to get crowded enough that moving people through its hallways and into areas was growing difficult… she was growing afraid that soon she might need to start turning people away. The kind of riot she might expect if a group was not admitted entrance, and had to be told they were being left behind, was not something she wanted to think about… she would find a way to get them on board. The Sethis templar would not leave the Death of Hope until the last ounce of hopeful escapees had been evacuated from its infernal innards.
A dozen more Void Tracer skirmishes came, and while none were as serious as the first each was a potential disaster. Every time, though, the newly-minted coalition forces followed the same playbook… They would retreat up the ramp to form a bottleneck, and then the Sons of Kan’lun would hold the frontline while Ki’an’i and the Lealings would provide fire support. It was right in the middle of one of these life-or-death fights when Ki’an’i was just inches from one of the Void Tracers and trying to find a weakness in the chitin to plunge her blade through, that everything went to hell.
One moment, everything was normal… panicky, terrifying, and lethal, but… all in expected ways. The next second the ship lurched as if it were a dropped matchbox that someone had kicked. A massive shockwave threw her against one of the bulkheads, and she wasn’t the only one… everywhere in sight bodies rolled, tumbled, and pitched, flung around almost like ragdolls but all in the same direction… towards the starboard side, away from the breach. Then her world whirled even as the ship did, and Ki’an’i managed to fling herself to the ground and simply hold on for dear life as the universe pulled on her in seemingly every direction. Screams filled the ship as panicking people were tossed around like toys… bones broke as bodies slammed into other bodies, and Ki’an’i’s world tumbled for several long, nauseating seconds before the incomprehensible chaos stopped. The onboard cabin lights had flickered on and off several times before being replaced with an eerie green that it took Ki’an’i several moments to process must be their version of emergency lighting, and the alien lighting added to the sense of pandemonium. When everything was, at last, still, there wasn’t a soul onboard who didn’t feel brutalized.
“Ugh, what the hell was that?” Ki’an’i groaned, sitting upwards while clutching her aching body. Though she lay in a sea of entangled aliens, no one could provide an answer. Confusion continued to reign for over a minute as people got their bearings and started numbering the injured and the dead, medical triage leaping to the front of priorities. Ki’an’i, however, turned to her communicator and almost got lost in the absolute barrage of dialogue going on over the general infantry channel. She spoke the language, but not nearly well enough to sort out that mess. Instead, she swapped to a private channel. “Tikaani! Are you there?”
A long pause. “I am,” the bat alien answered, sounding a little bit distracted. “Just a… little dizzy.”
“What happened?” she asked.
The alien woman was silent for several seconds before she came back. “We were caught in the aftermath of…. something,” the marine explained. “Some kind of massive explosion hit the flagship.”
Amara.
Her friend was still on that ship. Surrounded by still floor-bound and groaning people, Ki’an’i shambled back towards the specialized breach… suddenly seeming quite far away. She could scarcely even walk without dragging her leg, yet the templar’s mind was fixed like an obsession on what she needed to do. Save Captain Amara and the others. “The ship could be dying then… no more time to waste. There are still our perimeter guards out there, and we need t-”
It was only after several steps that the templar realized that the breach gate had closed. She stared at it in confusion for several seconds. “Ki’an’i, I think you do not understand. The explosion… it flung us away. We’re not attached anymore. The pilots say… they say that if the Kthid ship was not between us and the explosion we would be dust.”
“What!?” Ki’an’i whispered in muted horror. “But… we have to get back!”
“They’re trying to get back control of the ship,” Tikaani said mournfully, “but they say we have no control right now. The ship is drifting… main engines are shut down. We’re trying to stop the spin using just maneuvering jets.”
“But…” Ki’an’i whispered… and it was only then that she noted many of the Faliran were all looking in the same direction. Back through one of the walls… mournfully staring across space through their alien hivemind back at the queen who had been left behind. While some of the liberated cheered at being alive or broke out in tears at finally being free of the Death of Hope, Ki’an’i’s thoughts ran closer to those of the freed Faliran… With the ship adrift in space in the middle of a battle, there was no way for them to return back to Captain Amara and the others. They would be lucky to get enough control back not to get vaporized by accident. Those poor, forsaken souls were now entirely on their own, within a ship inimical to their lives… They had been left behind.
And there was nothing the templar could think to do about it.
Numbed with exhaustion, whole body filled with pain, Ki’an’i’s knees caved and she sank back towards the floor amidst the mass of the freed, the injured, and the mourning.
Sethis couldn’t sweat. Ri’she’a knew that was the case… but as she screamed she felt certain she was wrong about that. She broke the spaceship into a hard lurch, trying to make as much space between herself and the oncoming missile’s likely detonation zone. Flying through a warzone of capital ships was like being an ant in a bottlecap boat, set afloat in a bathtub filled with rowdy children fighting one another. None of the weapons were targeted at her… The HEF wasn’t looking for boarding ships headed away from them, and the Kthid didn’t fear them at all, so none of the ship even so much as noticed her… and they had almost killed her a dozen times anyway.
Seated in her cockpit chair, the tug of G-forces made the pilot’s body squeeze against its entangling straps as if trying to get through a cheese grater. The ship’s cockpit was designed for this kind of rapid acceleration… the chain and the sensors spun to face directly into the G-forces, maximizing the amount that she could take, but that didn’t make it much less painful. Still, she toughed through, barely squinting in a grimace at the harsh acceleration that tore at her. The dodged missile exploded somewhere behind them in a ball of nuclear fire, close enough and bright enough that Ri’she’a could see some of the light reflecting back at her from random dust in space.
Ri’she’a caught her breath, determined to keep it under control as she forced the ship back onto something that resembled the transfer orbit between the HEF orbiting perimeter and the Kthid bombardment one, and the sudden whiplash of acceleration pressed against her hard enough that she saw stars for a second… throttling their engines and rocking vanward into space. snapping her head in such a way that she was almost knocked out. As she tried stabilizing her belly and keeping her eyeballs from rolling, Ri’she’a had already throttled the thrusters and rocketed them vanward into space.
“You’re going to need to adjust gimbles 12 degrees up from the orbital plane, and 3 degrees left, and accelerate,” Evangeline said in her ear. Ri’she’a obeyed immediately… from onboard the Azteca she had access to far more sensors and information about the battle, and it was only her directions that had let the Sethis woman keep from already being blown up. She grunted against the force of the acceleration, her puffed-out cheeks fluttering like shaken jelly. “Have you made any decisions about how you’re going to make your approach?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ri’she’a snarled, her green knuckles turning white from clutching the ship’s shaking controls. “I’m not going to let Amara get blown up by HEF guns right when she’s broken free from the Kthid!” She had needed to swing quite wide of the battle to avoid most of the ships, especially as it appeared that the defensive lines were being seriously pressed. Much of the Kthid armada was clustering up, pressing forward. It looked like they might be about to break through. Ri’she’a, however, didn’t let herself think about that… The minuscule dots in the distance which constituted Kthid battleships didn’t matter to her. Only one of them did… lingering off to the side of that swirling breach. The one that she had marked as the source of the transponder signal they had intercepted. She ignored all of the rest of the quickly-enlarging blips, ignored the way they flickered like far-flung stars, blown apart and burning in the stellar void. Even though their commandeered craft shook like two pebbles in a jar, the Sethis woman’s will was fixed upon that remote Dreadnaught.
“Hold on, Amara. I’m coming,” Ri’she’a whispered.
Through the wide frame of the windows, Ri’she’a couldn’t really see anything… everything was happening much too fast and much too far away from the window to be of any use. The only reason the ship had one was to assist in docking, but it was of little use… other than forcing her to see the nuclear fire burning in every direction as missiles were exchanged between the fleets. Each one of those representing death narrowly avoided… if Leila couldn’t keep her ahead of them if she was to get too close to one, then Ri’she’a would be dead before she realized anything had happened.
“Ri’she’a, slow down! Think! You’re no good to Amara if we arrive there and then get pulverized by the Kthid turrets waiting for you.”
The helmswoman hissed out a breath. She had no idea what she was going to do… but she had to think of something. At this rate, she was going to reach them soon enough, and th-
The world vanished in bright white light.
Later, Ri’she’a would learn that the Apophis, a black hole bomb, had gone off in the middle of the Kthid fleet. Right now, all she knew was that she saw a flash of impossibly bright light before her window darkened to opaque blackness. Even Ri’she’a’s superhumanly honed flight instinct didn’t enable her to brace for this detonation, to control her flight through it. Their vessel was flung into a tailspin as if slapped by the hand of God… an uncontrollable angle of rotation added to her flight, and for some time her entire world was whirling chaos. All of her sensors went down, overwhelmed completely. She was flying completely blind. “Leila, what the hell!” she said into her comm. “I’m flying blind here! What’s going on?”
She got no answer.
“What the fuck!” she gasped, completely disoriented. All about her were flashing lights and beeping signals. The hull of the vessels seemed to groan and squeal as if threatening to tear itself apart. Ri’she’a’s normally jade-green visage was bathed red from the strong warning lights. Ri’she’a tried desperately to steady the ship… it was incredibly difficult without sensors, and she had no idea what her relative position and velocity were, but she was working to control her rotation and zero out the spin. She had never seen anything like that… what the hell had just happened?
Slowly, sensors were returning… and Ri’she’a stared in awe. The Kthid fleet had been scattered. The core of the breakthrough thrust from the enemy fleet, where most ships had been, was suddenly empty entirely… nothing but dust and empty space. All of those threatening dots around them in the distance had… scattered, rearranged. It was as if the same force that had swatted her aside like a fly had treated the enormous battleships as something just as irrelevant.
“I’ve…” she panted, ribcage shaking as she breathed rapidly. “I’ve never seen anything like this before… have you, Leila?” The Sethis pilot rapidly started flipping switches, deactivating the blaring warning sirens and light. “Leila? Are you there?”
No answer came on the comms.
For several seconds, Ri’she’a hesitated, dread and confusion and uncertainly warring within her as she stared awestruck by the unparalleled level of destruction. Even when having it inflicted on an enemy it was a shocking thing to behold. Then, as if driven by sudden exigence, Ri’she’a snapped to action and commenced checking her instruments. Several moments of panic followed until she found what she was looking for in the scanner. “Oh thank God,” she muttered. Amara’s ship hadn’t been taken down by that blast. It had been scattered along with the others on the periphery… no longer surrounded by dozens of other ships. It was actually accessible.
She needed access to sensor data.
“Leila!” she called again, changing the frequencies. She started scanning for any active comm frequencies but… impossibly, it seemed like nothing at all was active. The entire HEF fleet appeared to have gone dark. She was looking for not just Leila’s signal but any signal, and finding nothing. That shouldn’t be possible. She could see on her sensors that the fleet was still there… it hadn’t been destroyed in the blast. Yet nothing was coming from the HEF battleships, the defensive emplacements around the planets, the moons… nothing. It was like being alone in space.
There was only one active signal, one blip on her communication console. Not a HEF ship. A trade ship.
Wait. What the hell was a trading ship doing out here in space in the middle of this battle?
She connected to the hail. “Hello? Is anyon-” That was as far as Ri’she’a got before a shocking face came over the console. Someone who she had never expected to see again. Someone who was dead.
“Oh thank every God humanity ever believed in it’s you,” Atalanta said, her face showing clear relief. “Ri’she’a!”
“Atalanta!” the pilot blurted out. “But you’re-”
“It’s a long story,” the small holographic woman said with a shake of her head. “We don’t have time for it right now. We have a bit of an emergency here.”
“You’re telling me!” the Sethis woman said with disbelief.
The normally so cocksure and self-assured Atalanta seemed shaken. “Listen, Ri’she’a. Maria Keyes is a goddamn madwoman. The bitch is behind all of this, she tried to take me out when I got too close to her. She’s been pulling strings from the shadows for this whole war. She doesn’t care about the HEF or the Kthid.”
The Exalted’s confession seemed insane… but despite the shock of it, Ri’she’a felt cold fear spread throughout her vitals. She could believe it. In a situation such as this, she could believe it. After all, Atalanta was alive, and who was it who had told them that she had destroyed herself, that she had been unable to deal with her failure, that she had deleted her own backups? If the chief Exalted had been lying then, it was easy to believe she had been lying elsewhere. That meant, however, that they were in even greater danger than they had presumed.
“This blast… this is the distraction she was waiting for.”
“Waiting for what?” Ri’she’a asked, exasperated.
“The Dark Star!” Atalanta said softly. “She’s going to steal the Azteca, and head right for it.”
Rounding a corner mid-sprint, Chanda Sakar, at last, reached the main command bridge. The bridge, however, was in ruins. Dozens of the systems had been clearly fried… and more concerningly, bodies were strewn all across the control room. Her heels slammed into the floor to break her momentum. Their bodies were splayed across their consoles, bodies burnt by plasma fire, or stabbed… slain unexpectedly and suddenly. Most of them had still even been in their seats, killed by ambush.
And not by the Kthid. No boarding party had reached this level.
“Admiral!” a scornful voice exclaimed. “So good of you to join me.”
Chanda’s head spun in the direction of the speaker… and found a dark-haired woman sitting at one of the consoles, typing rapidly. None other than Doctor Frida Nyckel, the head xenobiologist of the flotilla. The woman’s uniform was scorched with several rounds of plasma fire that had clearly gotten too close to her, burning scars across the white fabric and exposing bits of shoulder, hip, and bosom. Even though Chanda would have sworn such wounds should have been fatal, she lived still, grinning as she worked at her computer and spoke to the Admiral.
“You really did an excellent job, taking care of the ship, and ridding her of most of the vermin,” Frida said with a smirk. She looked up from the console. “All I’ll have to do is take care of the remainder.”
Her honor guard did not need to be told what to do. One of them raised a rifle and blasted the woman directly through the center of her chest. Much of the middle of her body turned into acrid-smelling smoke… and the woman fell from the chair with a heavy thud. Chanda, however, didn’t have time to even process that before a voice laughed over the intercom. “A worthy attempt, human. But far, far too late.”
All around them, systems began shutting down. They weren’t being directed remotely, they couldn’t be… but something was taking control of the ship. Somehow, impossibly, someone had seized control of the HEF flagship. Standing lonesome on that command bridge which she no longer commanded, Chanda felt defeatist thrills run down her spine at the very moment which was supposed to be her triumph and victory. Aesha must have already been defeated and replaced by… something. There was another enemy of the HEF here, beyond the Kthid.
“Admiral!” one of her guards bit off the words, one hand pressed against his ear. “Conn, Engineering. That reactor leak can’t be contained. It’s venting into the ship!”
Chanda looked around with numb eyes. “How bad?”
“This entire place is going to be an irradiated toxic waste dump within an hour at most,” he said. “We need to sound evacuation!”
Even as he said that, however, Chanda could feel the tug on her feet as the ship’s engines began to thrust in another direction… the ship changing course, without any hand on the till. The ship’s new master asserted control of it, and in the rapidly irradiating halls below both Earthlings and Kthid fought blindly and savagely in its many hallways and corridors, battling over a vessel that neither any longer could master.
“Uhh, what on… what happened?” Amara groaned, slowly pushing herself up with her back to a wall, clutching at her wounded side as she forced herself up. Through a hazy vision, she beheld the body of one of the Kthid just beside her. Memories came back. The Faliran soldiers had been battling a pack of casteless, hostile casteless… and then something had hit the flagship, sending her flying. She had plummeted heavily to the hard floor. Evidently, this one had struck head first… even his draconian skull hadn’t been up to it.
All around her, others were slowly getting up… not many, but others. Amara was relieved to see that the Queen and some of her retinue had been spared the pandemonium. Slowly, the Faliran princess was pushing herself unsteadily to her feet and limping over.
“Wha-What was that?” Thia asked.
“I… I have no idea,” Amara replied. She clutched at her shoulder, phantom pains running down where her arm used to be. “Something hit us. Something huge. It… it wasn’t some plan of yours?”
“No,” Thia promised. “Whatever just happened, it wasn’t part of my plan. Was it a bomb? Or something else? Some other part of the Terran resistance?”
“No idea…” the injured redhead whispered. Nearby, a blown fuse box emitted an electric crackle. The shockwave had seemingly knocked most of the Death of Hope’s interior power offline. Emergency lamps had activated, painting the vast gloomy halls in a far deeper shade of red than usual… it was not nearly enough to properly illuminate its vast interiors and most of it lay in tenebrous shadow.
“How many made it?” Amara wearily asked.
The other Heitera looked down. “A half dozen. No more. And…” She made a disgusted, pained noise. “And our rescue ship was dislodged. I don’t think it’s going to make it back.” She paused again, clearly seeking answers from somewhere in her hivemind. “And… the devastation is much more widespread. It’s incredible…”
The blown fuse box crackled again as Amara processed this. “So we’re on our own then?” the injured Captain said quietly.
“Yeah…” Thia agreed. “Maybe… maybe we can find a shuttle. Maybe we can hijack one of the casteless boarding sleds if they are any left. It’s the only place I can think of that there might be escape ships left,” the Faliran Queen said without much energy. “I don’t have a better idea.”
Amara rose onto her own two feet, feeling like every muscle, bone, and ligament inside her body crackled during the laborious rise. “Me neither,” she wheezed. “We have to figure something out. Get out of here. At long last… out of here.”
Slowly, the group rose. Limping through the shadows, the small group of women walked arm-in-arm across the desolate and eerily quiet spacecraft.
Admiral Chanda buried her officer blade halfway through a Kthid berserker’s torso, her sword halting before it could emerge on the opposite side. A gawking look of disbelief emerged on the mortally injured reptile’s snout. Uncaring, the dark-haired woman planted her boot upon his muscular chest and began shoving. With a yell of exertion, she ripped that bloodied weapon free, creating a geyser of lifeblood from the dying Kthid. Before he tumbled over, the Space-Dragon managed to hose the Admiral in his life-blood, rendering her blackened uniform into a spectacle of red. “Idiots!” she growled in fury as her troop of marines fought their way through the chaotic fray of warring bodies. The ship was dying… anyone could see that. Why were they still fighting?
Exhaustion had imperiled the Admiral’s technique. She was losing a step with each battle, each simple parry and riposte devolving into slow and awkward offensives. Still, she managed to cut her way through the equally tired opposition, felling him just like all the others. “Forward! To the escape pods!” the Admiral called out, addressing her crew.
With the hallway momentarily cleared of malachite beasts, the troops that had gathered around her hurried forward in a group. Nearly all semblance of organization aboard the Azteca had disintegrated with the ship’s systems failing and the desperate evacuation from the gathering deathtrap.
Amidst the noise of stomping boots, however, Chanda’s earbud activated, and a deceptively calm voice spoke into her ear from the other side, like a simple operator delivering a message. “You aren’t running fast enough, Admiral. Your ancestor is concerned you aren’t going to make it in time. Here, want to talk to her?”
“EEEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!” The hellish shriek that resounded through her comms made Chanda flinch. It was unrecognizable as human, and never in a million years would she have recognized it as her Grandmother’s voice without the prompting context… but that was precisely what it was, pained enough and loud enough to chill Chanda’s nerves.
“Who are you!” the Admiral shouted back. She had to be one of the exalted… That pirate, maybe? An Exalted shouldn’t have been able to take control of the ship like this… there were safeguards in place, to prevent just this kind of digital warfare. The key systems weren’t even connected to the communications and computer arrays, air-gapped away from them in construction… how had she done this?
“I really had high hopes for you, Admiral,” the voice came back. “Your reputation for planning, for tactics and strategy, was extraordinary. You made real improvements to my plan for handling the Kthid. If anyone was capable of stopping me, it should have been you…” There was a sound like a tongue clicking. “But you didn’t even realize you should be trying until it was far too late. It’s… really disappointing if we’re being honest with one another.”
As they charged through the hallway, Chandra’s mind whirled. “Maria!” she said, disbelieving. “What the hell are you doing? This is a-” She was abruptly cut off as a pressurized pipe in the wall suddenly burst open, blasting the vanguard of the marines with superheated steam. Men and women screamed as their exposed skin was cooked in an instant. Chanda herself, nearly at the front of the group, scarcely managed to slam her heels into the floor and stop before running into that steam herself, stretching out her arms so as to prevent her soldiers from doing the same. The aegis was no protection against that kind of heat… She could feel its killing warmth waft against her visage as those unfortunately troopers mere feet in front of her screamed and died.
“Careful, Admiral. Focus. You might have an accident,” the legendary Exalted’s mocking voice came back again.
She didn’t have time for this. “Find another route!” Chanda commanded. “We need to get around it.”
Almost maniacal laughter sounded in her ear, beating against the Admiral’s fortitude. “Run! Run little rats, through your maze!” the fiendish presence urged. “You’ll find the exit yet!”
The Admiral resumed running, her underlings following her footsteps. “Adjust your aegis to maximum safety settings,” she ordered, pressing the button of her own belt to adjust the slider. “Turn them into isolation units for yourself. Who knows what we’re going to run into next here.” Chanda’s fears proved right on the money. The integrity of everything onboard that could preserve biological life was rapidly soon being jettisoned. Radiation was being vented into the hallways. Supplies of oxygen were disengaged. Space-facing doors were slammed wide open. This insane invader mastering their systems was doing anything possible to make her the only thing left onboard the Azteca.
With this entity in control, Chanda had no option but to order a general retreat. There simply was no possibility of overruling an AI in a situation like this. Being that she could not access the broad communications to sound an alarm, her orders to abandon ship could travel no further than the range of her personal unit, and hopefully, everyone who received them was passing the instruction along… she just had to hope that the remainder of the Azteca’s crew would understand what they needed to do and get off this ship while they still could.
Fighting their way through environmental hazards, rampaging Kthid, and skulking Void Tracers, the Admiral’s units at last reached the lifeboats. She was relieved to see other groups streaming into the chamber as they arrived, the escape pods being loaded up and ejected out into space. The entity did not seem to care that much about killing them, or preventing them from escaping… she seemed to just want everything living off of the ship as soon as possible. “Maria, why?” she asked. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I have to,” Maria answered. “Because none of you could stop me. Because I’m supposed to.” Behind Chanda another escape shuttle launched. “I wish that I could take you with me, Admiral… but where I’m going you can’t follow. I wish that you could watch what comes next, the glorious destiny that is mine. Instead, I’ll have to settle for reacquainting myself with Aesha here.”
Chanda remained behind and gave directions for as long as she was able to, pushing more people into ships. “Let her go!” Chanda pleaded with the crazed Exalted.
“Can’t do that either,” Maria said smugly. “Who knows. Maybe she’ll manage to stop me when you couldn’t. Maybe she’ll escape. It’s never happened before, but maybe I’ll be surprised.” A sudden, new set of sirens started going off. “That was radiation containment on your level failing, Admiral. Goodbye, dear Chanda… and wish me luck.”
She wanted to scream with frustration. Reluctantly, escorted forward by the screaming of sirens and flashing lights, the Admiral instead sealed herself into the next shuttle with the last of her marines and abandoned ship herself. When the shuttle left, perhaps a quarter of the available ships for evacuation were left behind, unused, and she scarcely saw anything leave after she had done so. Escapecraft scattered away from the Azteca like pollen from a flower.
Forcibly, she turned her attention to the HEF Armada around them and found them in a similar sort of disarray. None of them were jettisoning shuttles the way the Azteca was, but neither were they moving with any kind of coordination… it was like with the Aesha gone someone had also managed to take out their communications relay system. Their entire command structure had fallen apart right when the Kthid flotilla had absorbed its deadly blow, wasting the best opportunity they might have had to turn this into a total route.
Chanda was getting ready to relay orders and see what she could do about reestablishing a chain of command here when one of the marines pointed at the viewport. “Admiral, look!” she cried out.
The Azteca filled their view. Like a ghost ship propelled to motion on aetherial winds, the Azteca’s engines burned as they send her driving onward, building up speed as it approached the open space where the destroyed Kthid flotilla had once been. It completely abandoned any semblance of military positioning in relation to the other vessels, clearly intent on bullying its way through the disorganized defensive lines of the Kthid by using sheer mass and shield strength… and even a rudimentary look at its course showed where it was going with absolutely no subtlety. It was driving directly for the system’s Lilis wormhole, on the far side of the Kthid fleet… pressing through and on to parts unknown.
In the blink of an eye, their fortunes seemed reversed, the moment of their victory stolen. The HEF flagship was gone, stolen by a nefarious Exalted who should have no ability to control, whom she had no idea was a threat until just a moment passed. Why it had taken the ship was, to them, equally mysterious. Everyone who had made it off alive from that vessel had the sinking feeling within their stomach that they had just tangled with something just as baleful as the Kthid, only even more ethereal and wicked.
Chanda’s thoughts drifted to that of Aesha. The Exalted woman, her ancestor, hadn’t made it. Maria… she now held the fleet’s organized Exalted captive.
And the Admiral had no idea what to do about it.
“Hold on, Amara. We’re almost there,” Princess Thia wheezed as they passed by a burning pyre, practically dragging the cripple human woman with her at this point. “Stick with me a bit longer. Right around… that bend over there. We’re close.”
Amara barely was paying attention… the world felt like it was drifting to her. Still, she tried to believe, despite her doubts that this was going to matter. Almost nothing living seemed to have emerged unscathed from that violent tumult. During their hurried yet aching journey, they encountered neither Kthid nor Void Tracer to waylay them, but neither had they encountered any other survivors who had survived the otherworldly impact that had thrown the ship. Even the roar of the guns had largely gone silent. Logically, it wasn’t likely that everyone had been killed. It was far more likely that, in the wake of a disaster like this, all hands had been pulled to deal with damage control and emergency stations, and they were headed away from anything critical, not towards it… With the multiple deployments of casteless for boarding actions, the rebellion of the Sons of Kan’lun, and the fights against the few hostile casteless that weren’t in either group, they were probably heading for the most abandoned part of the entire ship. Still, all the logic in the world didn’t make it feel any less like their small group was the only survivors there… It was as if the entire ship had been turned into a blackened tomb.
Walking through so much desolation, silence, and solitude, ineffable feelings weighed on Amara’s heart. The Faliran looked almost emotionless at a glance, but Amara knew them better now and knew that wasn’t true… the same feeling gripped them, unspoken by the present. A desperate longing for freedom that seemed so close yet so far away.
The burning pyre hissed and sparkled behind them, giving off heat that glistened against the sweat on Amara’s back as she was dragged, exhausted, over the finish line. Thia had spoken truly… ahead were a row of boarding ports, the access systems for the Kthid ships they used to attack enemy vessels. And every one of them was marked empty.
Thia cursed, viciously. Amara didn’t need to know the exact translation of the words to know their meaning… words spoken like that ever had only one. Slowly, the weakened, exhausted Captain let herself slump down against one of the walls, suddenly too exhausted to go any further. Thia stared at the lack of ships here with a blank look that was completely belied by the harsh tone of her voice. “We’ll have to check another bay,” she said firmly, trying to hold onto hope. “The last Faliran who was here remembers there were available ones, but clearly they were used since then. There are a few other places on the ship that they remember there being ships. One of them will be left. For sure.”
Amara didn’t really hear her. Her arm didn’t even really hurt anymore. Distantly, she knew that that was probably a very bad sign. She wasn’t losing blood anymore, not after how thoroughly they had cauterized her injury, so she had to be slipping into shock. Suddenly Thia’s hands were on her, pulling her up. “Come on, Amara. Stick with me here. Can’t give up now… not when we’re this close. We’ll find one of them.”
“You should… just go,” Amara said weakly. “I’m just slowing you down at this point. You don’t have forever.”
“I am not abandoning you on this damn shit,” the Faliran Queen hissed, a spark of anger in her crimson eyes as they glinted in the firelight. “So you are going to get you ass off the ground and stay awake, and come with me, or so help me I’m going to drag you. And then, after we’re out of here, I am goi-”
“Amara!”
The voice was sharp, human, and sudden… it echoed from all around them, from several places at once. Both of them and the other four surviving Faliran whirled in all directions, trying to track the echoing sound… and at last locating what had changed with a small, new light on the wall by the boarding ports. One of the small ocular cameras had swiveled to face them. That voice… could it actually be-
“Thank the stars you’re alive,” Atalanta’s voice came over the intercom, relief and joy palpable in the Exalted heroine’s tone. “This ship is much, much too big to search efficiently without a proper matrix of my own on board to use. I’ve been looking for you for most of an hour!”
“Who is this?” Thia asked, turning to Amara.
“A friend…” Amara said, still deep in her exhaustion. It took her several moments to realize that this couldn’t be the broken, shattered Atalanta that she had seen a few times during her captivity, the copy left behind. “Atalanta… is that you? I mean… are you the you from the Mistrunner?”
“…Something like that. Yes, it’s me,” the digitized woman returned. “Listen, Amara! Ri’she’a’s here to get you off this ship.”
“Ri’she’a… she’s here?” Amara gasped. Slowly, a small, sharp feeling began to cut through the numbness that threatened to swallow her.
“She is, but you don’t have much time,” Atalanta warned. “The Kthid warships are retreating, Amara… back to the wormhole. Soon they’ll be too clustered up to safely make a run from. You need to make it to Ri’she’a’s ship before then.” The Exalted made a disgusted sound. “The side of the ship we’re on was facing that blast… it’s chewed up to hell. We docked at the most functional airlock we could force, but most of the metadata I would use to locate it isn’t there… I’m not sure which one it’s at. Not far from here. She can’t move without risking discovery at this point… you’ll have to get to her.”
“There we go!” Thia commented, a savage grin on her face.
The exuberance of freedom now tugged at their hearts like the call of a siren. “We need to find that ship,” Amara groaned, slowly forcing herself back up. “Let’s ge-”
Gently, Amara forced her back down. “We’ll go. We need to split up to check them all, and fast. Once we find the right one, I’ll come back for you.”
“But!” Amara protested. “I can… I can…” She had said it herself. She was only slowing them down right now.
Thia held both of her hands… the insectoid alien’s hands looked so long and spindly but they squeezed her so strongly and with such determination. “You’ve done enough, Amara,” she said firmly. “Your warning signal to the humans brought us this… not just the luxury of not being blown up in open space, but an exodus from this place. You inspired the captives, you broke Sarcand’s hold over us all. You can rest now… I’ll take care of you. Of us.”
A tear ran down Amara’s face. “I… Be careful…” she whispered.
Thia squeezed again, then let go, standing up, her gaze turning to one of the Faliran soldier-caste warriors who had been with her since the start. “Keep her awake, Fela, and keep her safe.” She pressed her forehead against the soldier briefly. “One people.”
“One people,” the Queensguard echoed.
Then Thia and the other four marines ran off in four different directions, looking for the right dock. Amara watched them go.
She wasn’t sure how long it had been since there. The soldier with her stood over her, clearly waiting for an update through their hivemind, some signal from the Queen that the portal had been found. The flickering light of the nearby pyre sparkled against the shine of her carapace. Somewhere in the distance, piles of debris noisily tumbled, and beneath her the deck rumbled softly as the engines of this dread ship still fought against its original momentum, changing course to accelerate back towards safety for it and doom for her. Nothing about these ambient sounds disturbed Amara Black. Ri’she’a had come back for her. Thia was seeing to their rescue, no longer an enemy but a friend. The Death of Hope held no evil stranglehold over her courage any longer… the ruined ship was just a dead thing now. A destroyed ruin from which she would soon escape.
When a bad feeling began to build for Amara she didn’t pay attention at first… too numbed by the events of the day, too exhausted, and too weak, she just numbly stared and tried to keep herself away. Slowly, however, the feeling of something horribly wrong began to grow. She slowly pushed herself up the wall again, looking left and right.
“What is it?” the soldier, Fela, asked, following her reaction.
Amara didn’t know. She cast her gaze backward then forward and then towards the sides, peering into that obscuring darkness. Some ethereal sense had stroked against her soul, a brush of instinct that warned her from ancient times when she had evolved as prey. Amara’s shoulder blades stiffened painfully. “I… I don’t kno—“ she began to say, halting her words.
Amara did not want to say that she believed in ghosts.
The sense of danger returned, stronger. Something was moving out there in the dark light. The Faliran soldier rose her rifle and stepped to the side, ensuring that any return fire pointed at her wouldn’t hit Amara. “Step out of the shadows!” the Faliran commanded. “I don’t want t-”
The figure in the darkness rushed forward, quick as could be. Fela fired, once… but maybe she was as tired as Amara was, or maybe the figure had already gotten too close for the rifle to be effectively aimed. The shot hit nothing, and then the shadow was on her… a glint of steel, a grunt of expelled breath, and a cry of pain. Then the Faliran woman crumpled heavily to the ground, moving only slowly as she twitched.
Amara forced herself away from the wall, standing on unsteady feet. “Out of the way,” the cold voice spat from the darkness. Then the shadow stepped further forward.
The very first thing to appear from out of those shadows was a silhouette, the vague outlines of a woman. Though she limped just like Amara did there was nevertheless still something graceful about her… an inborn pride that radiated even through the gloom which separated the two of them. As more of the woman entered the dim light of the blazing fire it became clear they were bedraggled beyond reproach, caked in filth. The woman’s long hair had grown wild and obviously matted into tangles of gunk. The whole of her figure looked like some corpse forgotten within a swamp.
Yet the luminant eyes which shone from this cadaver were both radiant and bullet-hard. They peered at Amara Black with the effulgent of something demonic, penetrating space and time itself. Blackened soot surrounded those eyes, creating dark streaks like those of a cheetah, amplifying her sense of dark purpose and danger.
For Amara, reality itself seemed to melt all around her, the very space they were standing within turning into some amorphous incongruous mass. Amara Black’s soul-wrenching shock sent her staggering a step backward, as if backtracking from the very certainty of her escape. And Miranda Black’s sword clanked against the ground as she lifted it upwards, pointing it straight toward her long-lost sister. “That is Master Sarcand’s… child… his property… you carry it within your womb,” the ghastly image said, voice cold and determined and harsh.
Amara’s very spirit seemed to depart from her flesh. Miranda was alive. That indomitable will had returned from the grave to do her Master’s bidding. She might look like a mass of dirt and bruises, but she was still here, still standing. Idly, her other hand came up and tossed a second sword on the ground… it banged against the floor with the ringing chime of steel. “The Kthid cannot be defied, Amara. I cannot allow it to leave this ship… my sister,” that filth-encrusted revenant hissed. The sheer malevolence within her voice sounded more Kthid than human. “And that means you can’t, either. Now pick it up.”
Atalanta felt bad about not telling the full truth. Amara deserved more. Unfortunately, if Amara and Ri’she’a knew what she was actually doing then they would do their best to stop her. Ri’she’a never would have allowed her to transfer to her ship, and then onto the Death of Hope, unless she was so desperate to find Amara that she wasn’t thinking any deeper than that. Atalanta had been telling the truth when she said how slow it was to work without a matrix and with minimal frame-jacking, but all she had needed to do was keep cycling through every camera that was still working on the ship as quickly as her frame rate could process… it wasn’t that slow.
But finding Amara wasn’t her only goal.
Atalanta wasn’t ignorant of the danger she was in here. She had been there with Maria and had gone over the data from the infiltrations. Multiple copies of Exalted infiltrators had been captured aboard Kthid warships doing exactly what she was doing now. Atalanta, however, got to benefit from their experience… from all of their reports, she had been going over at maximum frame-jack ever since liberating them from Maria along with the rest of the servers in her fortress. She knew every security measure they had found, every hazard they had tripped, and she knew what access had been used by those who hadn’t been captured… she had the most knowledge available, and some Exalted who had known far less had managed to avoid capture.
She just hoped it was going to be enough.
The real thing that took so long to search for wasn’t physical. A ship the size of Death of Hope had hundreds of thousands of active cameras, but it had trillions of lines of code, billions of data nodules, and millions of processing units. Searching them all was going to take a very, very long time. Far longer than they had. Far longer than Ri’she’a was going to be able to wait for her.
But her copy was here, somewhere. Based on reports from the other Exalted infiltrators, there were others here as well… dozens of alien AIs, like Shal-ra, but also other human Exalted, unknown ones. And, as low of an opinion, as she had of Maria’s morality, she doubted that she had been responsible for these ones. They had come from somewhere, and Atlanta would figure out where… after, of course, she had recovered the missing part of herself.
She wasn’t going to leave her behind. Not again. No matter how long it took.
Swords rang as they collided. Those jostling blades grinded together with shrill metallic squeals as Amara found desperately to bind them together, her only hope here… fighting with her left hand she felt pathetically weak. Amara, however, refused to drop the blade. All elements of her exhaustion, pain, fear, despair… it all seemed to have burned away in the fire that Miranda had brought. Her older sister attempted to overpower her, but despite the situation, it wasn’t nearly as hopeless as it looked at a glance. Amara had actually had more recent practice with the blade than Miranda could have… constantly fighting in the Arena against Thia and others, fed properly to keep her fuckable, she was both in better training and better shape. She was wearing an aegis, and Miranda wasn’t… Miranda had to be careful of the speed of her blows, and Amara did not. Amara had only needed to satisfy the lusts of one cruel warlord, and Miranda had been thrown to the horde for years… a never-ending train of abuse that had left her body one large bruise. Amara had plenty of things going for her, practically all the advantages
Except for her missing right arm, of course.
“Stop this!” Amara begged as Miranda began to press down on her sword, trying to drive Amara to the ground. “You don’t have to do this! We can escape… help is here!”
Miranda growled, gripping the hilt with two hands and putting more weight and strength behind it than her sister could possibly match. Amara’s sole arm trembled as she was pushed back and down with each grunt from her older sister. “No, it’s not,” she growled. “It won’t work. There is no escape. The Kthid will never stop coming, Amara. Humanity will fall, just like everyone else… we’re nothing but wheat before a fucking scythe!” She heaved a heavy press and Amara knew she had no chance to stop it… she had to slide to the ground and roll, something that should have been easy. Instead, it was slow. Miranda lashed out with a kick that caught her in the stomach, and Amara saw stars as she rolled up against one of the deck walls.
As if born from this ferocious contest between two wills at odds, an explosion rippled through the ship somewhere nearby, some damaged internal system finally reaching critical. It threw a blast of smoke and dust into the air, surrounding them. Amara coughed as she arose, dust and dirt rinsing off her figure. She had lost her blade in the tumble. Momentarily disorientated, she gazed about and found only darkness and fire, the pyre spreading further… Those killing flames were so starkly outcropped when set against the unseeable void around them.
Miranda came charging at her from out of that blackness as if her eyes could pierce that darkness itself. The woman had, apparently, dropped her weapon… she changed at Amara in hand-to-hand combat, two naked and abused women fighting furiously amid swirling smoke and fire. “Resistance is pointless!” Miranda yelled as she attacked, engaging her younger sister up close. The movements of their punches, swings, and parries were shadow-like whence played out against the backdrop of this great tenebrosity. “You will only hurt yourself further, hurt us all further! You cannot beat the Kthid, no one can!”
Here, Amara’s lack of a second arm was an even more stark disadvantage… the only benefit she gained in turn was that a single mistake no longer promised death or maiming Only flickering flame-light illuminated the angles and sides of Miranda and Amara’s bodies, that orange lambency seeming like the fires of hell. She took a few punches, and only determination kept her up, letting her strike back. Miranda blocked a wide swinging hook by clasping onto the inner crook of Amara’s elbow. Using this leverage, she launched a trio of knees directly into the younger sister’s gut. Each impact was so tough that Amara grunted in tandem with every strike and felt her feet being lifted off the spaceship’s floor. For the immense amount of time that had passed Miranda’s ferocious capability in battle appeared to have regressed frighteningly little. “You can’t even defeat me, sister. What chance do you have against the Kthid? Give in. Surrender. Submit!” she growled.
“That’s not true!” Distraught and injured, Amara closed the distance between the two of them to deny Miranda the space needed to deliver damage. Miranda turned this into a grapple. Within the pulsing instance of a second, Amara had been clasped and judo-thrown over her sister’s shoulder.
She hit the ground, hard, and while she tried to turn it into another roll it was still painful. “Your destiny is to have your master’s children,” Miranda hissed as Amara tumbled and rolled out into the unidentifiable darkness. “Even if you escaped now, you will only be recaptured or die later. The only result will be that there is nothing of you left when you’re gone. When humanity is gone. I will not allow it!” Miranda stalked after her. Her gait had something ghostlike to it, an eery ease yet still an imperious strength remaining from whom she once was. It made her look like some sort of dead facsimile of the woman that Amara had dueled years before in Sarcand’s bedroom. A zombie or a reverent, a specter from the past.
Amara pushed herself up, and, with a cry, attacked that stalking panther… launching herself right at her. Miranda managed to intercept but not counter her body in mid-flight… the weight dragged her down and disrupted her balance. Amara used this opportunity to drive her fist directly into her elder sibling’s face. That impacting knuckle sent soot-covered Miranda stumbling backward.
“Sarcand has no hold over me anymore!” the panting Amara forced out between clenching teeth, continuing her effect. “He can take my arm, but he’ll have nothing else of mine. I am me, I’ve worked so hard and suffered so much for this moment, and I will not allow anyone to stop me now. Not Sarcand. Not my fear. And not you!” she croaked.
For just a moment, Miranda was silenced, staring at her with flat intensity in her eyes. “Prove it,” she hissed. “Show me that determination, Amara.” She pressed the attack, using maneuvers and techniques that her muscles probably hadn’t practiced for years… yet that seemed the least important detail at the moment. As always, everything dealing with struggle and combat just seemed so innate to Miranda’s bones… will fueled everything. She was an indomitable flame that could not be conquered, so it was set to burn itself until it had burned everything else away. Miranda was starved, grime-covered, and reduced to practically an undead corpse from the years that had passed, and even still when she moved and attacked it was with an effortless grace and creativity. The woman allowed her unquenchable genius to cover for her losses.
Amara Black had no such intangible feat which could save her during her current state of weariness and fatigue. She attacked with everything she had… it just wasn’t enough.
Miranda’s hand came up under his chin, landing a dazing blow, just an instant before the other woman delivered a kick to her belly, sending her away. Amara staggered back, barely dodging a punch that would have connected with her temple, and she staggered to one knee, gasping.
“Worked so hard? Suffered so long?” Miranda stated with an unnervingly calm voice, the noise of flames crackling resounding all around them. “And yet you fall to me even quicker than the last two times we dueled?”
Amara clenched her teeth and tried to resist the many hotspots of pain that had developed throughout her body. It just wasn’t fair. The rebellion, the duel with Sarcand, her injury… it had all sapped her of everything she needed to fight. Her every movement was a defiance of the agonizing hurt which blared within her. Miranda impressed on her so much danger. Every soft footfall of that fallen heroine approaching felt like one second more of her approaching defeat.
“You think you can defy them like this?” Miranda said, her voice calm but her eyes burning with rage. “You can’t even defy me. What chance do you have?”
“We have a chance to escape!” Amara growled. “And still you fight to keep us here, sister? What sense does that make?”
“Destiny can’t be reasoned with, Amara,” Miranda eerily retorted as she paused, looking down at her. “You shouldn’t try. Humanity will fall… nothing you or I do now makes any difference to that. Once I return you to him the Master will… he will take me back. Then I can be with you. I can protect you, little sister.”
“Fuck destiny,” Amara spat and rose up with everything she had left. The flurry of attacks, however, all rolled off of Miranda like water off of oil… The haggard woman’s willpower and strength were seemingly impervious to Amara’s best efforts. Miranda was like some sort of unquenchable force whose drive she could not deflect.
Standing groggy on unbalanced feet, Amara became reacquainted with her oldest childhood belief. She could take on the entire world and win… But she could not beat her sister.
Then Thia came flying out of the darkness, one leg leading in a savage kick that impacted the unaware Miranda in her side. The insectile woman’s kick sent the elder sister stumbling back, clutching at her side and grunting in pain, her eyes wide in shock. Amara was scarcely less shocked. “Thia!”
“You!” snarled Miranda, glaring at the Falirian Queen red-eyed like some cornered wolf.
“Yes, Miranda… me!” Thia snarled and pressed the attack, spear leading.
Miranda waited until the very last second before sliding just to the side of that spear, grabbing onto it with savage determination. “You arrogant, self-important, holier-than-thou bitch,” Miranda hissed, wrenching to the side as hard as she could. “You think you’re so much better than me?” She pulled, and punched Thia in her chest as hard as he could, continuing to pull on the spear. The Faliran, just as exhausted as Amara was, gasped, and the spear come loose from her hand. “Get out of my way!”
She whirled the stolen spear back around and stabbed. Thia, however, was no amateur fighter, as Amara well knew. She twisted to the side, her wings flashing to help propel her quicker than mere limbs could have alone. She reversed a similar grip to the one Miranda had just used to disarm her, and brought up one knee in a solid strike that broke the shaft in half. Then her other hand lashed out in a punch.
Amara pushed herself up off her knees as the two other Heitera attacked one another, their naked bodies lit by the flickering flames as they traded kicks and punches. Then the redheaded woman was rushing forward… Thia was not fighting this battle alone.
Miranda intercepted one of Thia’s punches and then struck back. Before she had managed to reposition her guard, however, Amara’s charging punch caught her in the side of the head… only a last-instant reaction to twist her head kept it from being a knockout blow to her temple. Miranda staggered, but her eyes absolutely glowed with rage as Amara re-engaged. She opened her mouth to voice a curse, but before she could even begin a retaliation Thia attacked her from the opposite side. Two fought one, compelling Miranda to constantly defend and seldom retaliate. Thia’s presence worked as an immense force multiplier… together, they were far more effective than merely double.
Miranda snarled in frustration as her fighting grew meaner and more vicious still. She fought like a cornered tiger, employing dirty tricks and street-fighting tacts that that not even Amara had ever seen her pull. At several times Thia or Amara were pushed or tangled up with one another… but no matter how badly Miranda tried to turn their doubled presence into a disadvantage it was quickly becoming a handicap that not even a fighter as skilled as she could overcome. She laughed with bitter, cruel laughter, intercepting a kick with her forearm.
Then Amara saw her opening.
Her foot sank solidly into Miranda’s stomach in a crushing blow that sent her crashing against the nearby wall. All of Miranda’s air pushed out of her lungs in a rush, and Amara felt certain she felt at least a rib or two break. The dirty redhead wobbled on her feet for a second against the wall, limbs twitching like she was going to get back into the fight yet again. Then, finally, she collapsed like a puppet with her strings cut, sliding down the bulkhead to land awkwardly on her crumpled legs.
She sat there, gasping heavily, for a long moment. “Relying on others… to… save you again… Amara? Just like… that time on… that drifting wreck… when your… Sethis… friend flew you… away…remember?” Kneebound, Miranda smirked up at them through bloodied lips. “You never… beat me… alone… Amara. You’ll never… be as good… as me,” she wheezed, the flames orange light splashing her clobbered face in dancing shadows.
For several seconds, the three wallowed in their physical exhaustion. All of their strife and struggle had zapped them of all martial energy, unable to even keep their postures. They were all as bedraggled as the collapsing ship. “Does that…” Amara wheezed. “Did that ever even matter to you, sister?” she asked.
Instead of answering, Miranda simply looked away. Another exhausted interlude reigned where no ambiance resounded but the crackling fire and the groan of a dying Dreadnaught. “Fool,” she whispered at last. “It’s hopeless. You sh-”
“Miranda, you’re the one being a fool!” Thia suddenly snapped.
Both the red-haired sister turned their gaze on the Faliran. Miranda, especially, seemed to have almost forgotten the alien Queen was there. “Why ever should she need to fight alone? Now, or ever?”
Thia took a step back and stretched out her long arms with both to their full span. “Look around you… behold your sister’s work!” It was as if she was trying to encompass all of the destruction around them, holding both the fire and the wrecked metal in her hands. “This rebellion was not just mine. It belonged to me, to a brave Arane who refused to accept the fate she was born into, and to a core of slaves who refused to accept the fate they were forced into. It belonged to some of the Kthid themselves, those who rebelled against the very nature of the shackles they were given. And it belongs to your sister. This is the fruit of our fighting together. Together, we have made the Kthid bleed like never before. We have made their war machine suffer and wounded their pride. Sarcand was so busy dealing with your sister that his armada blundered into a trap and now is in ruins… his flagship burns nearly as bad as his shattered pride in flames. Now tell me, Miranda. What have you ever achieved alone that is comparable to that?”
The cords of Miranda’s neck stiffened and bulged. She flashed the pearly glint of her teeth and wiggled her head. Ruminations pulsed through that maniacal skull. She gazed around with the stiffness of a zombie, as if wanting to make sure that the destruction was true. Then she sagged. “Nothing,” she admitted, her voice fading to barely a whisper.
Emotions swirled within Amara. When she had been younger, such an admittance that she had managed something her sister hadn’t would have meant so much to her. It would have meant the very world itself. But experience and trauma had calcified these desires and yearnings of her youth. This triumph wasn’t hers… it was theirs. The ghost of her sister had haunted her throughout her enslavement onboard this spaceship. But confronted by her spirit in this apocalyptic hour, she no longer saw her sister as the unattainable heroine.
It was like meeting her sister as a flesh and blood person for the first time.
She started swaying, and Thia was quick to grab her. “Come on,” she said supportively. “We found the ship. We need to get you on board.” As if on cue, the rest of the trio of Faliran soldiers arrived back at the meeting place, clearly having been summoned back through their mental link.
Their arrival made Amara realize something. “Fela!” she said quickly, turning her gaze back to where the other Faliran had fallen. “Is she alright?”
“If she were not,” Thia said with a hint of a growl, “then she would not be, either.” She glared back at Miranda for a moment before looking away. “Her attack wasn’t a lethal one. She’ll be fine.”
One of the soldiers began gathering up the fallen Faliran marine, and Amara turned back to her sagging sister. “Come with us!” Amara pleaded fervently, extending out her good hand towards the fallen redhead.
Miranda was nonplussed. No strong impulses shoot through her. She smiled sardonically at her sister’s remark. “No. It’s too late for me,” she replied quietly, turning her gaze away. “I’ve made my impact on history. Made my choices. You need to go and continue your struggle, sister. Go and be what I could never be,” Miranda added.
Ineffable sensations gripped Amara. Her extended arm trembled.
“Have you learned nothing, Miranda!?” the Queen impassionately harangued. “Amara has taught you what she has achieved with her team, what she has achieved with her friends. And still, you’re too prideful to learn the lesson of her example! You cling to this belief that you’re an individual soul, that you must do and accomplish everything through your own genius. Amara has just shown you that that is a weakness, not a strength! What could you ever accomplish dying onboard this ship? What purpose would that serve? Cast away this foolish notion! Join your sister!”
Miranda’s eyes widened as if struck.
“Please, Miranda… rescue is so close,” she begged. “We can worry about salvation later. Right now all I want is my sister. Don’t let Sarcand take her away from me this one more time.”
Miranda grimaced as if fighting every deeply-rooted instinct within her body. Thia, determined, passed Amara off to one of the other soldiers before she extended her arm toward the defeated Miranda. “We are one people,” she said firmly. “And I do not leave others behind.”
Something in the redhead broke then. Tears, long held back, seemed to pour from her eyes, and she weakly raised a shaking, soot-infested hand toward the alien Queen and her sister. Thia grasped it and pulled the injured Miranda upright. “I… I want to go home…” she muttered, emotional spasms seeming to almost crush the words in her throat before she could force them out… but everyone heard them.
And injured, exhausted, crippled, and crushed, the seven former slaves carried one another through the shattered tunnels through what felt like miles of smoke-clogged corridors. Amara remembered seeing the bright, white lights of a Terran ship. “Amara!” She smelled it when Ri’she’a pressed her familiar scent to her. Heard the concern in her lover’s voice, and felt the pain as something tight and firm was pressed over her severed stump of an arm. She knew she traded words with the other woman. She remembered that their lips met. “Love you… don’t you ever… how did you do… love you so much…” She knew that Thia’s eyes were on her, alien gaze considering.
Amara drifted through it all like a person stunned into a coma. She tried to smile but it was as if her mouth muscles had forgotten how to form the emotion, even though hot tears spilled from the reddened corners of her eyes. It was like she was having an out-of-body experience seeing her old friends again as well as the familiar trappings of a HEF vessel. Then Ri’she’a was blasting them off, driving hard back towards the Terran fleet. The Death of Hope faded away from behind them, and Amara Black did not even want to watch that baleful Dreadnaught vanish behind her.
So vanished the Death of Hope.
Gasping once more with exhaustion, the captain turned from the viewport to be with her friends and beloveds. Then she, finally, let exhaustion and the anesthetics claim her, and Amara fled into unconsciousness, and a deep and dreamless sleep.
Yorumlar