Wrath of the Void Strider (17 page)

“Is it?”  She glanced toward Gavin.

Takeo raised his brow.  “Perhaps not.”

They resumed their investigation, discovering an assortment of stone and metal disks imprinted with jagged symbols.  Nearby, they found a dozen angled and interlocked metallic forms, as well as several ancient figurines of men in what looked like bulky pressure suits.  Bins were filled with assorted rocks dressed in unknown runes, next to boxes of fossils.  Set upon one stand, a handful of shiny orbs and cubes, each bisected by bands of glowing white, pivoted slowly, constantly.

“I have no idea what most of these things are,” said Zerki, “and for as much of it as there is, it looks like Behemothylax was doing a lot more than planet-shaping.”

“Not by itself, either,” added Gavin.  “It doubt Behemothylax was making its own placards.”

Valerie studied the harvest dates.  “Some of this stuff is really old.  Hundreds of years old.”

Takeo regarded Zerki and asked, “How long ago did you say they launched this thing?”

Zerki crossed her arms.  “Not hundreds of years ago.”

Valerie jumped as her tablet buzzed.  Taking a deep breath, she reported, “Captain, they’re almost done.  D’Arro’s loading in all the equipment.”

“Thanks for the update.”  Zerki took in the breadth of the reliquary.  “I suppose we’ll have to come back at another time.  Filan, I’m sorry we weren’t able to locate the central core.”

She glanced toward the entrance.  “I think it was that green thing under the grating.”

“Was it?  Are you sure?”

“No, but it’s a binary organic.  I could sense it.”

Zerki said, “You’re welcome to go check it out, but be careful.”

“Thank you.”  Filan looked to Takeo.  “Would you like to come with me?”

“It would be my pleasure.”  They crossed the vast chamber to the far bulkhead.  Carefully, she loosed her optical ponytail and drew out a lengthy cable.  She crouched, slipping one end into the glowing green haze.  She probed the surface for an access point, while the others gathered round.  “Ah,” she exhaled, “there you are.”

Her platinum hair cables turned bright green.  Filan gritted her teeth, pressing her eyes closed as she briefly lost her balance.  Takeo was quick to brace her.  He reached for the interfacing strand, but she clumsily pushed his hand away.  “No, it’s okay.”

Suddenly, Valerie gripped the sides of her head, bowing forward.  She sputtered, “Captain, it’s happening again.  Something’s… coming.”

Zerki hurried close.  “Are you getting a vision?”

She nodded.  “I think so.  I see… Ellogons, lots of them… and… something else.”  Valerie exhaled, and she leaned her head back as the world spun into focus.  “We need to get back to the ship,
right now
!”

“Understood,” said Zerki, and glared at the interface strand.  “Filan, it’s time to go.”

She didn’t respond.

“Takeo, pull it.”

“Aye, Captain.”  He pulled the plug, and the green light faded completely.

“Oh my god,” Filan whispered, her eyes filling with tears as Takeo helped her to stand.  “The ellogons reprogrammed her to attack Union colonies!”  She wiped her eyes.  “She didn’t want to do it, but she was a prisoner in her own body, for
so
long.  She remembers every single life she took!”

“Tell us all about it when we get back to the
Shadow
,” said Zerki.  Hastily, she urged them along the passages toward the closest exit hatch.

Filan looked hurt as she hurried alongside Takeo.  “Why’d you pull me out?”

“Valerie saw ellogons incoming,” Takeo explained.  “Captain made the call.”

Filan stumbled and stopped.  “Oh no,” she whispered.  “Behemothylax sent out a signal flare when I first got in.  Maybe that’s why they’re coming!”

“Come on,” Takeo urged.  “We can figure it out, later.”

She quickly caught up to him.

Looking to Valerie, Gavin asked, “Are your visions ever wrong?”

Somberly, she answered, “Not yet.”

Zerki halted and pointed to an overhead hatch.  “They trapped the core, and now we know why.  I can only imagine the political backlash if word of this got out.”  Her expression was fierce.  “They were responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents, and they will answer for it.”

She urged her companions to climb the ladder.  Valerie went up first and pushed the hatch open, letting in sheets of rain.  A moment later, she was out in the storm, and Gavin followed, with Takeo close on his heels.  Before Filan took hold of the rungs, Zerki grabbed her by the shoulder.  “Did you download any of it?”

“Yeah.  All of it,” Filan answered, and she wiped at her nose and eyes.

Zerki exhaled, smiled graciously, and nodded.  “Very good.”

They joined the others outside in the rain.

Landing lights shone through the darkened storm, and they rushed to the shuttle as soon as it landed.  Takeo, Filan, Gavin and Valerie settled in as Zerki issued a ship-wide alert to make ready for flight.  At the shuttle’s helm, Krane docked with the
Sanguine Shadow
, and he joined his captain as she hurried for the bridge.

“What’s the rush?” Collins asked as Zerki stepped off the lift.  Krane took his station and began preflight diagnostics.  “Captain?”

“Ellogons.  Possibly many.”

He regarded her skeptically.  “Unlikely.  There’s no way Lodoxol could’ve found out so soon.”  He studied her as she called up a ship’s diagram and watched as each bin turned from red to green.  “Something happened down there.”

The lift doors opened again.  Gavin raced for the jump rig as Valerie and Filan stepped off.

“I’m sorry,” Collins said, and he approached the byriani.  “You’re not allowed up here.”

“It’s alright,” Zerki countered.  “We might need her.  Krane, how quickly can you gather those bins?”

After a moment of calculation, he answered, “Five minutes.”

“That’s rather optimistic.”

He cast a sober stare.  “I’m never optimistic.”

“Val, is that enough time?”

She held up her hands uncertainly.  “I can’t say.”

Zerki sat back, anxious.  “I would hate to scuttle such a haul.  Krane, make it happen.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Excuse me,” said Collins, “but why do we need Filan on the bridge?”

Zerki held his gaze.  “The computer was the bottleneck during the last jump, right?”

Collins nodded.  “Effectively, it was.  Still, you remember how fast it went.  Hardly even had time to look away.”

“Every second counts.  Filan could make the difference.”

Collins solemnly nodded.  “Not sure I entirely follow, but I understand what needs doing.”  He turned to Filan.  “Right this way.”   He led her to the communications console, prompting the man sitting at it to rise and step away.  Collins crouched down, dislodged a plastic covering, and bundles of fiber optics spilled out onto the deck.

Krane hooked the first bin and moved it into position.  One by one, he secured and set each of the massive containers in place.  Slowly, the starship settled over them.  Reverberant booms echoed throughout the
Sanguine Shadow
as her docking arms locked each bin into place.  “We’re packed and ready for launch.”

Zerki exhaled, puffing her cheeks.  “Well, that’s my pound of luck.  Krane, take us up.  Don’t mind the headwinds.  Set course for Helios System, planet Huya.”

“On it.  Setting course for—”

“Captain!” the woman at the scanning station interjected.  “Starships are coming into range, right over us!  It’s too soon to identify, but there’s at least twenty of them!”  She put the scanner display on the main screen, where everyone on the bridge watched as dozens of gray dots appeared in a tight group high above Behemothylax’s crash site.

“Must’ve been on standby near the moon,” said Collins.  “Only way they could’ve gotten here so fast!”  His throat bobbed visibly.  “Captain, what the hell did you find down there?”

“Damn it,” growled Zerki, and she struck the railing.  Her eyes sharp, she looked to her Navigator.  “Gavin, get us out of here.”

Nodding quickly, he gazed up at the display screens as the
Sanguine Shadow
rocketed for the starry void.  Telemetry charts and images of their destination appeared onscreen.  He secured the headband.  “Okay, Captain, I’m ready.”

On the tactical display, identification tags appeared, attached to each of the approaching vessels.  Their labels identified them as ellogon warships, a mix of frigates, destroyers, cruisers and battleships.  Gray markers turned red.

“Filan, tell me you’re ready.”

She nodded confidently.  “I’m plugged in and ready to work, Captain!”

“We can’t jump this close to the planet,” said Krane.  “The air is too dense.”

Zerki looked sternly at Gavin.  “Change of plans.”  She cleared her throat.  “Right now, I need you to bridge us out of here.  Do you understand?”

His stomach sank.  “I still don’t know how I did it!”

“Those warships are going to get lock on our position before we can jump, and that’ll be it for us.  I know you can do this.  I know that you’ll save us.”

“Right,” he whispered, his heart pounding in his chest.  He closed his eyes and imagined the funnel he had seen during the video playback.  “Is anything happening?”

“Not yet.”

The woman at the scanning station announced, “Three destroyers have weapons lock, Captain. They’re coming about!”  A trio of markers shifted to bright red, now decorated with crimson exclamation points that bobbed over each one.  Live heading data tumbled through a waterfall of numbers as the computer tracked the destroyers’ positions.

Come on
, thought Gavin, and tears ran from his eyes.

“Receiving data,” Filan announced, her hair now brilliantly aglow.  She twisted around to face the view screen.  A lone green dot rose from the planet’s broad curve, headed directly for a growing cloud of red dots.  “Are we the green dot?” she squeaked.

Collins nodded grimly and squeezed her forearm.

“Here they come,” Valerie breathed.

“Who, the
ellogons
?”  Zerki cast her first mate a withering stare.  “My dear, they’re already here!”

Valerie shook her head. “Not the ellogons.”  She switched the main screen to external view.  “Look.”

Suddenly, a blue beam cut through the inky abyss.  In an instant, the frigate it struck and all hands aboard her were obliterated.  A bombardment of similar beams swept through the cluster of warships, reducing a heavy cruiser and a battleship to drifting debris.

The destroyers that had been targeting the
Sanguine Shadow
now banked hard to starboard.

Zerki studied display screen, and she gasped.  “What is
that
?”

Far beyond the line of engagement, a starship the size of a metropolis materialized, turning slowly about on its axis.  A mountain of towers rose up from its titanic square base.  From below, a starship-sized turret trained on its targets, wiping out the ellogon fleet one warship at a time.

The ellogons returned fire, but their missiles and cannon blasts splashed harmlessly upon the battle station’s shields.

“We’re clear of the planet,” Krane announced.

Gavin’s eyes popped open, and he sucked in a deep breath.  He was in the jump rig aboard the
Sanguine Shadow
, and at the same time in the cold void of space that Huya moved through.  All the numbers and images melted away, taking the shape of clouds, satellites, of the planet’s moon and its distant binary sun.  He breathed in every atom, every molecule in the space around him, and in an instant, he
knew
their destination.

Filan cried out, doubling over, and Collins held her tight as she exhaled glowing fluids from her mouth and nose.  Her bundles of fiber lit up the bridge bright as daylight and were hot enough to burn Collins’s brow.  She clenched her jaw and eyes, and she fought to retain consciousness as petabytes of information coursed through her.  Outside, the PLA swung into position.

A blue beam cut swaths through the group of destroyers that had been targeting the
Sanguine Shadow
.  Their shields vanished, like burst soap bubbles.  Hulls and frames crumbled away, blackening, and exploded munitions were roses in the void.

The battle station targeted the
Sanguine Shadow
.

“All hands brace for impact!” shouted Zerki, and she tightly gripped the arms of her captain’s chair.  There would be no impact, she knew.  She only hoped it would be painless.

In that instant, the PLA fired, and the
Sanguine Shadow
vanished.

With the ellogon flotilla destroyed, the battle station lingered in the void, turning slowly, silently upon its axis.

Chapter 13

Cajun eased Filan down onto a bed within the medical bay.  Tendrils of white smoke rose from her in places, and she was warm to the touch all over her body.  She moaned and muttered incoherently, and he dabbed her forehead with a cool rag.  Her coral lips had taken on a blue tint.  “Hush now,” he said.  “Just relax.”  Collins, Takeo and Taryn stood nearby, watching anxiously.

Fogg floated into view, a column of lights and tiny metal plates.  He printed, “I WOULD LIKE TO HELP.”  Lights flashed brightly, and he bobbed insistently over Filan’s forehead.  “I PROMISED HER I WOULD TEACH HER TO READ ENGLISH.”  He emitted a woeful, eerie sound.

“I’m not sure what you can do,” said Cajun, and he carefully placed a plastic clip over Filan’s index finger.  He cooled the table and prepared a glucose drip.  Expertly, he slipped a catheter into the top of her hand and taped it down, securing the rest of the hep-lock.  “I’ve already injected her with two doses of reactive electrobiotics.”  He looked to Fogg.  “But maybe you can help me keep an eye on her?”

“I WILL NOT LEAVE HER SIDE.”

Collins asked, “She going to make it?”

Cajun set the cool rag upon her forehead.  “Probably.  You got a minute?”

Collins nodded and followed him out into the corridor, where Cajun pressed his knuckles against his lips and rubbed his nose.  “She’ll live, but the truth is I won’t know anything more than that for a few hours.  She’s suffered internal burns throughout thirty percent of her body.  That being said, her organics will probably recover, but her circuitry may be fried.”