The Forsaken Empire (The Endervar War Book 2) (4 page)

Trust me, she said as the vortex continued to churn.

Red forced himself to stand. His heart was pounding. He took one last glance at Farcia. What he saw terrified him. Was she still the person he knew? Or was this the other? The imposter?

As he looked for the answer, Red peered into the vortex. All he saw was darkness. A doorway into nothing. But before he could think anymore, he hit the floor. His face slammed into the cold surface with a thud. He felt it enter his back; the sparks were clouding his vision; the sensation sent fire into his body. He wanted to scream, but he could no longer move. Red was losing consciousness.

Chapter 4

The impact sent her flying into the wall. She had no idea why or how. Her scans came up clueless.

Arendi, are you OK? What’s happening?

She heard the worried ensign over the comm, but Arendi had no time to respond. Her internal alerts were all going off; five enemy contacts were approaching and fast. She pushed herself off the wall, ready to engage. Her spatial abilities remained functional and intact. The bands at her wrist activated.

In her vision was the strange fire, followed by a surging shadow, along with the casualties. Dozens of bodies were on the promenade floor, none of them moving. Her artificial eyes took in the grim sight, trying to focus.

Targets acquired, her scans declared.

Indeed, the enemy contacts were there, cloaked in their invisibility fields. They were accelerating, crushing organic matter under their feet. They intended to surround her, moving at speeds considered superhuman.

Arendi would respond in kind. She tightened her fists. The skin, and then the armor of her jacket, hardened.

All five then came at once, discharging their weaponry. It arrived as an explosion of plasma beams and scramblers or radiation bursts that sought to disrupt her systems.

She noticed the strategy. The attackers sought to contain her and then close in. Her sensors detected the presence of high-powered blades armaments that could cut through heavy alloy and force field.

Arendi sidestepped it all. She would take the offensive. Her android systems sent her charging. The strength was climbing, going ten and then twentyfold, beyond anything human. She ran fast and leaped, aiming for the nearest hidden offender.

The scans registered the movement; Arendi felt the enemy vibrations in the air and crashed against it, her fist meting out lethal force. She did so, with the spatial shielding surrounding her. The unique technology was her own, developed from the Great War and declared confidential. It effectively turned space itself into a weapon. The bands at her wrist were capable of molding it whether to expand or contract, but to the extreme. In this case, Arendi chose to expand. It dragged and stretched the attacker, luring it into her fist. She felt the force. Her knuckles were punching through metal and ripping through circuitry.

Arendi expanded space again, pushing it beyond its natural bounds. The sudden jolt separated the molecular material holding the attacker together. The machine blew apart, shattering like glass and puffing into smoke.

Landing on the floor, Arendi detected the others. They continued to fire, the hot plasma coming. She bent the space around her, deflecting the beams to her side. The remaining enemy contacts persisted in their attack, moving too fast for her to target them all at once.

Arendi was angry. She had no time for this distraction. More innocent people were dead, and now the station had been set ablaze. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the true threat. There she stood: the white-haired woman. And along with her was the other target, a presumed accomplice who went by the name Red.

He was cowering on the floor, clearly shaken. Arendi spoke into her comm. Take them down. Now!

Ensign Justice heard the command from afar. She was already at work.

Targets locked on, the ensign replied. Commencing.

The shots came blasting through the promenade. The bullets were designed to capture and impair. Firing them off was an Alliance sniper bot, equipped with a long-range rifle over two meters long. The spherical bot propped itself through a staircase into the promenade. The ensign had remotely taken control over it; she was effectively pulling the trigger, but from a starship out in space.

Secondary target down, the ensign said over the comm. But primary target is still active.

Arendi saw it as well. The man had fallen face down on the floor, screaming. He was now trapped and secured behind a suppression net. The mesh lay over the target in a cobweb of electrical fires; he lay stunned and in pain.

The white-haired woman, however, was still standing. Another enemy contact had intervened, coming between her and the bullet. It was large and cloaked, but not for long.

As Arendi battled the other attackers, she noticed the machine. Its singular eye fired off a concentrated bolt of plasma, annihilating the entryway from which the sniper bot had fired. The force was strong. Strong enough that the beam threatened to puncture a hole in the station itself. Arendi felt the entire premises shake. The lights in the ceiling flickered and dimmed. The promenade itself blared with emergency alarms, the shrill echoes ringing out. She needed to end this, before it was too late.

Arendi’s hand struck another cloaked attacker, her fingers gripping its neck and squeezing. Her other hand then grabbed the next target. She watched as they combusted. The spatial shielding at her wrists flexed, jolting the enemy’s atomic bonds. The offending metal burst from her two hands, and the targets were reduced to powder.

But even as Arendi continued to attack, she saw the new alerts. They were warnings.

Arendi, the ensign shouted into the comm. I’m reading damage

In fact, she had been impaled twice once in her side and another time at her shoulder blade. Her jacket’s armor had sealed the cuts, temporarily stitching the android flesh back together. But whoever was attacking Arendi had clearly studied her abilities and maneuvers. The speed at which the enemy moved within a decisecond or less could surpass the pace of her spatial shielding, striking before the barriers could properly form.

It didn’t matter, she thought. Arendi clenched her hands into fists, and ran, trying to hurry. Her scans told her that there were only two enemy contacts left, both of which now guarded the primary target.

Arendi sought to follow her opponent. But in her sight was the other concern: the strange fire that had swirled during all this time. It had appeared out of nowhere, throwing her into the wall.

The phenomenon continued to burn, generating a ring of energy. She measured it at over five meters in size. The fringes were searing against the station floor. Aside from that, her scans remained clueless. But Arendi began to suspect its purpose.

She watched as the white-haired woman reluctantly took flight, carried back by a machine enforcer. Arendi ran, trying to stop them. She knew where they would go: into this vortex, wherever it might lead.

She tried to pursue, only to be stopped by a string of plasma charges that went off, blocking her path. Through the flash, Arendi saw her target slip away. The vortex then closed, and the fiery breach vanished. She detected the distortion. The air was swooshing and then stabilizing as the flames died out, and the fabric of space became whole again.

All that remained was the final attacker the largest of the group. Like the others, the machine camouflaged itself and came charging. It attacked indirectly, by vaulting from one position to the next. Arendi could sense the movement circling around her. It lunged forward, trying to strike. This time the enemy’s plasma beam arrived at near-point-blank range.

Arendi was just as fast. As the concentrated heat erupted, burning white, she narrowly dodged the blast. In retaliation, she spun and kicked, sending her leg bludgeoning forth. She met the machine with speed and her own enhanced strength. Her steel boot sank into the enemy’s armor, crushing the mechanized layers beneath it. A loud crack reverberated, and sparks poured out of the mysterious attacker, which fell back, tumbling to the ground. It staggered, taking damage, and clawed the floor with a screech. The surrounding cloak fluctuated. The giant machine appeared, fully revealed.

Arendi could see the exhaust billowing from the plasma cannon. The barrel lodged in the machine’s eye had likely fired its last shot. Arendi’s kick had made sure of it. The impact had left a crater in the machine’s now partially crushed head. Even the cloak was diminishing; the curtains to the invisibility field gradually fell.

The machine faced Arendi, as several feet way the secondary target lay on the ground, trapped by an electrical net.

It’s over, she thought. But her foe had no intention of surrendering. The mechanized enforcer approached, impervious to any pain or fear.

No doubt, the machine before her was dangerous. It had infiltrated at least five Alliance facilities. The murderous acts had taken forty thousand lives. The technology in use was clearly advanced. The way the attacker moved, and the robotically harsh design the machine was born lethal. The plasma cannon alone had easily decimated the security forces on board the station.

Arendi felt the familiarity. It had been decades ago, but she had fought something like this once before.

Who are you? she asked. I thought the Unity was dead.

Arendi was done fighting. She needed answers. Her opponent, however, would not give in.

The Unity, the machine said. We return.

She registered the energy surge a self-destruct sequence was armed and ready. It likely had enough power to destroy itself and send more explosive fire across the area. The machine shook. The power module at its core was set to go off.

No, she said. Not today.

Arendi was about to intervene, but this time she didn’t have to. Her backup had reappeared. Out of the corner of the promenade came a series of shots, hammering into the room. The high-energy bullets were rapid and precise. Five, ten, twenty or more, all emptying onto the target. Some were made to rupture armor, others to break through force fields. Arendi saw the streaks of light pass through the giant machine and its exterior shielding. They cleaved at the enemy, separating the legs, arms, and body. The enforcer crumbled from the impacts. The thick armor came apart. Liquid fuel and metal spilled out.

Arendi took a step closer, crushing the bits of machine corpse under her feet. The battery at the enemy’s core had split open. Inside, the energy banks had failed to ignite, leaving only broken shards and mist. She then heard the relief over the comm.

Direct hit. Target down, the ensign said. That’s the last of them.

Arendi traced the bullets to another passageway. It was there that her backup had emerged. The remote-controlled sniper bot, under the command of Ensign Justice, had taken down the final foe.

Arendi sighed in relief. She deactivated her combat jacket and touched her abdomen, feeling the cuts. The self-repairs had already begun, but if the wounds had been any deeper, she might no longer be standing.

Status? she instinctively asked, tired.

It was a question she wished she could take back. All around her were dead bodies, some of which were maimed beyond recognition.

Belay that order, she said. Just get the medical teams here now.

Although this battle was over, the destruction had spiraled out of control. The death toll was rising, and still, the fugitive had managed to escape. Arendi bit her lip. Her machine systems were simulating a rapid heartbeat and a heavy breath. All were symptoms of anxiety and maybe human dread. She guessed that at least four hundred people were dead, and she had failed to stop it.

Alliance Command, the ensign then messaged. They’re on the line they want a progress report.

Arendi shook her head, fuming. She could already imagine the red tape. This whole operation had been a disaster. She nearly groaned over the comm channel.

This is my fault, she thought. But at least it hadn’t been a complete loss.

She walked along, past the corpses, and toward the man pinned to the ground. The secondary target she said. He was now unconscious, trapped under the suppression net. He wouldn’t remain there for long.

Tell the Alliance we have a lead, Arendi said to the ensign. Prepare a room. The interrogation will begin immediately.

Chapter 5

He sat there in the cold chair, unable to move. His hands and feet had been clamped to its metal surface, and a collar was strapped to his neck. Fatigued, Red shook his head. He had awakened only a few minutes ago. His back still ached, and his gills were chapped. He felt none of his possessions on him, only his clothes, and this strange, tight device hugging his throat.

He was in a windowless room. It was small and dark, with only a single yellow light bulb hanging from the ceiling. He wanted to move, but he remained confined to his chair, needlessly squirming in his seat.

Farcia are you there?

It was the last moment he remembered. The woman he had searched for was finally in view. Was this all a dream? he asked himself, bewildered by everything that had happened. So much violence. So much death. He sank in the chair, shocked and ashamed because of what he had seen. But in the midst of it all, she had been there. For a moment, he could even touch her. He’d only needed to follow.

Now he was here, tied down, in this confined room. Where am I? he shouted. Tell me!

The lips of his gills nearly squealed in the clumsy language. At first he heard nothing but his own echo and his panting. He continued shaking in his seat, angry at the silence. Then the door opened. The block of wall separated, revealing an entryway and soon a woman. It was not the one he wanted to see.

Red recognized her the lone, unarmed figure. A Sentinel. She had confronted Farcia and her mechanical enforcer, demanding their arrest. Now she stood only a few feet away. She was dressed in the same combat jacket. Her black hair was cut at a slant and nearly covered one side of her face.

Red scrutinized her, feeling nothing. At least, nothing from her mind. Was she even alive?