The Sac'a'rith (22 page)

“
We should stay here. I am certain they will attack at this point,
” I sent back.

We did not have to wait long before the skeletal warriors came marching fearlessly down the hall towards the door. They opened fire with their borrowed weapons and focused their fire on the sentry guns, using the walls and other obstacles for cover. They were attacking from all directions at once, and they did not show pain or any other reaction when the sentry guns hit them. If they were damaged too greatly by the guns, they merely fell over and the others stepped over them and carried on. There was absolutely no emotional reaction to the events around them; they might as well have been robots.

They were light brown in color and had absolutely no flesh on their bones. They appeared to be skeletons of various races, but the only one I thought I recognized was human. There was no decay on their bones, nor did they have any obvious signs of injury at this distance. The skeletons moved naturally as if muscle and tendon were still connected to their bones. In the sockets where their eyes should have been there were red, glowing orbs.

On their hips they had short swords, but I could not make out the style of the swords from where we were crouched. In their hands they held government-issued blasters and rifles that everyone assumed they had picked up from the fallen station guards, but even to my inexperienced eye there were too many for that to be correct. The weapons, like the walking dead, must have come from somewher
e else.

“
There are too many of them. We need to pull back
,” I sent.

“
Too late, we’re surrounded,
” he replied as more came up behind us.

We dove for cover behind a pile of bodies and began firing on them. Soon wraiths appeared and began to fly towards us. I sensed Crivreen beginning to get nervous. “Forget them, they can’t hurt you, but those skeletons can. Keep firing.”

“What if the new armor fails?” he asked.

“It won’t,” I said. I knew we needed to do something fast or he would lose his nerve. “We are pinned down here. Can you toss some lightning in their midst to buy me a few seconds?”

“Sure. What are you going to do?” he asked.

“Cast!” I ordered and then watched as lightning arced through the advancing skeletons. That distraction was all I needed. I leapt over the barrier of bodies we were hiding behind and sprinted towards their position as fast as I could. As I got close I jumped into the air, spread my arms wide, and slammed into their ranks.

My plan worked perfectly. The front line of skeletons collapsed under my weight. I quickly rolled off that pile and sprang to my feet as the rest of the squad charged in. I was in the middle of their number, so they could not use their blasters without hitting each other, and thankfully they were smart enough to know that that
was a bad idea.

They drew the swords from their sides and moved in to attack. As the first one swung, I caught his wrist and pulled hard while spinning in the direction he was swinging. To my surprise his arm came off in my hand as he went flying by me.

I kept the sword and threw his arm at another attacker. I was able to use the sword to fend off their attacks and occasionally get a hit in myself. At one point in the fight two attackers swung at once. I dodged back and their swords slammed together in front of me. I swung my sword to decapitate the one, and yanked off the arm of the other to claim his sword. That gave me two swords and a much better chance at survival. I was fighting for all I was worth. I used every trick Narcion had ever taught me, but they kept pushing me back. There were just too many of them.

Then out of nowhere multiple lightning bolts slammed into the ones closest to me and I heard Crivreen yell, “Quick, I’ll cover you! Teleport out of there!”

I cursed furiously, as I had forgotten that was an option. I teleported clear of their number and beyond their reach. Crivreen soon joined me as they turned to charge us. We ran down the corridor and quickly found cover, but they did not pursue.

“Narcion, there are too many attacking at Central Command. Crivreen and I are pulling back,” I said over the comm.

“
Do you think we should head to Engineering and help them
?” sent Crivreen.

“
What about Central Command?”
I asked.

“
If they fall, control of the station will be transferred to Engineering. We can’t help them. I think our best chances are to join up with Narcion and Felix and see if we can keep control of Engineering,”
he sent.

“
That makes sense, but Narcion wants us to find out how they are getting onto the station and stop them, so that is what we are going to do,”
I sent.

“
They must be opening portals in random places around the station, and there is nothing we can do to stop a portal,”
he sent
.

“What can be done, then?”
I asked.

“
Felix can block the portals with his shields, but he can’t come close to covering an entire station,”
he sent.

“
But surely the station’s shields are up, right?
” I asked.

“
Normally I would assume so, but if they were they should have stopped the attack,”
he sent.

“Command, what is the status of the station’s exterior shields?” I asked over the comm.

“They are down, sir,” he said.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“We cannot evacuate the station with the shields up,” he started.

I cursed and said, “Get those shields back on line, now!”

“Yes, sir!” came the response.

“
We’ll follow your plan and go to Engineering,”
I sent.

I called Narcion, but he did not respond. I figured that meant he was under fire, so we moved as quickly as we could through the station, heading to Engineering. “
How long will it take them to get the shields up?
”

“
Not too long. It’s a question of any ships that are in the way needing to clear out
,” he sent.

I listened over the intercom as the skeletons pushed hard against all the shielded positions of the station. So far, the positions were holding, but I did not like their chances.

“Command, we need sentries out here! Where are they?” I sent over the comm.

“What we have is out there, but we don’t have much to work with,” came the reply.

“What? There is an entire battle fleet less than a jump away! Get more sentries here now!” I said. Sentries were robotic defenders that were heavily armored, mobile, and packed a lot of firepower. They were slow, but if we could get a decent number of them deployed they could systematically sweep the station and start clearing out the walking dead and skeletons. They would be useless against the wraiths, but as they were not alive they would also be immune to their attacks.

“Yes, sir,” came the reply.

“
Why didn’t they think of that?”
I sent to Crivreen.

“
I imagine that they did not know there was a fleet out there to call on. I am not sure you were supposed to let that be known,
” he sent back.

“
What sense does that make?”
I asked.

“
It’s the government. Making sense is not part of the package,”
he sent back.

“
If we don’t get some sentries in these halls those skeletons will eventually take down the shielded locations and we will lose the station,”
I sent.

We continued to run, and there was still no word from Narcion. I was starting to get worried, but tried really hard not to think about it.

“Commander Zah’rak, the station shields are up,” I heard over the comm.

“Excellent. Keep them up. That should prevent the enemy from getting reinforcements,” I replied.

“
They will have to lower them to get the sentries,
” sent Crivreen.

“The only time you should lower them is when the ships arrive with the sentries. Do everything you can to minimize the length of time the shields are down. We can’t save the station if the enemy can continue to reinforce its troops here,” I said over the comm and then sent,
“Thanks, Crivreen, I forgot about that.”

When we arrived at Engineering we were greeted by a very large firefight. The station’s sentries were holding back multiple fronts of attack from the skeletons. It looked as if the sentry guns that should have protected Engineering were already destroyed, but the shields were intact.

“If we only had some concussion grenades with us,” I mused out loud.

“Why don’t we find a weapons locker and get some?” asked Crivreen.

“Do you think they have any?” I asked.

“You’re in charge, so ask,” he reminded.

“Command, is there a stocked weapons locker anywhere near my current position?” I asked over the comm.

“Yes, sir,” they said and then gave us the location. We headed directly there and took some grenades and other supplies.

“Much better,” I said as I strapped two blasters on my sides. I had become used to being heavily armed while working with Narcion, so only having the one gun to work with until now had made me feel completely unprepared for the battle. “Now let’s get back to Engineering.”

When we arrived, I took up a position behind one of the squads of skeletons and threw one of our grenades into the middle of their number and dove for cover. The narrow corridors that surrounded Engineering helped to focus the blast of the concussion grenade.

When I checked the results, I was amazed to see the entire squad of skeletons lying in pieces scattered throughout the corridor. The sentries had already repositioned themselves to deal with one fewer front of attack.

“Quick, can you get us around the back side of one of the other groups of attackers?” I asked Crivreen.

“Yeah, this way,” he said and ran off.

Soon we had eliminated all the skeletons attacking Engineering. The sentries stayed by the doors, dutifully standing guard and watching for new attackers.

“Command, Engineering appears secure for the present, but leave the sentries in place,” I said into my speaker.

We moved from there to other places that were pinned down by skeletal attackers. At each place we used the grenades to wipe out the attackers and then moved on, occasionally stopping at weapons lockers to restock with grenades. The two of us were too few to clear the station, but until the sentries arrived we were the only ones who could do the job.

I was really getting worried about Felix and Narcion, as I could not raise them. I figured they were probably under fire, but it seemed like an awfully long time to go without contact.

It took many hours, but finally the sentries arrived and they began to sweep through the station, allowing us to take a much-needed break. We found a self-service cafeteria and got some food from the buffet using our government IDs to pay at the automated stations. While we were eating, Crivreen said, “I guess we should hunt the wraiths next. Leave the rest to the sentries.”

“Yeah. I think there are only a small number here. As long as we keep the shields up we should be able to eliminate them all.”

“What’s to stop them from sending more once we finally think we’ve won and lower the shields?” asked Crivreen.

“I don’t know, but so far they have never returned to a station that we have cleared, so I am hoping the same will be true here,” I said.

“How are we going to find them?” he asked.

“They will come to us. They are not really intelligent, at least not like you and I; they are more like animals. They will get hungry, and we are the only food on the station that they can get to,” I said.

“How long until they are hungry enough to try?” he asked.

“That I am not sure. We will just sweep through the station until we find them and hope they are really hungry already,” I said.

We got up and began wandering the halls. We stopped at a weapons locker to make sure we were fully stocked with ammo and grenades, but that was only in case we met up with one of the various patrols of skeletons or any new patrols of walking dead. My mind was wandering through all I had learned during my time with Narcion and how different life had become, when Crivreen asked a question.

“Why do you call them ‘walking dead’ instead of ‘zombies?’” he asked.

“Two different kinds of, um, creature. Walking dead are like remotely-controlled robots: without someone to control them, they fall over and don’t move. Zombies retain some of their memories and intelligence from when they were alive and can operate on their own, but only for a very short time. Walking dead can keep going until they decay too much to function,” I said.

“Are either of them, you know, alive?” he asked.

“No, the soul leaves the corpse at death. What you see walking around is nothing but animated flesh,” I said.

“Soul?” he asked.

“Yes. A person’s soul is who they really are. At death, that soul leaves the body and goes on to the final resting place for that soul. Only living things have souls; the undead like these walking dead are nothing more than organic machines,” I said.

While we were talking, I sensed something coming up behind us. I spun in time to see three wraiths flying in our direction. I pulled out my borrowed swords and stood my ground; to my surprise, so did Crivreen.

“Follow my lead. Your armor will keep you safe, and charging them will help keep them off balance,” I said. With that I ran towards the wraiths and I heard Crivreen coming up behind me. I yelled out a battle cry and leapt into the air to meet them. The first one got by me, but I was able to hit both of the two behind the leader.

As I hit the ground I spun and finished off the two near me. I ran to help Crivreen, only to watch him cut down the third wraith himself. “What? How?” I asked.

“I was on the fencing team during my time in prison. I was not very good, but good enough to cut these things down,” he said.

“No; I mean, good job, but how did you manage it?” I asked.

“Oh, I see. These swords the skeletons were carrying are enchanted,” he said.

“Enchanted?” I asked. I looked at the sword in my hand. It had a fairly short blade, especially for a warrior my size. The blade had a slight curve to it and was made out of some black metal. The grip and crossguard were normal enough, but there was a beautiful red gem in the pommel of each sword. There was strange, silver writing written along the blade which I did not recognize. The weapons were lightweight and perfectly balanced. Now that I was paying attention to them, I could feel power running through them in the same way I could feel the power in my armor.