Wrath of the Void Strider (39 page)

Gavin grasped the gravity well of the distant neutron star and placed it within the heart of the ithiral starship.  Explosions, like liquid, poured into her center mass.  A waterfall of metal and plastic flowed from the skyline.  It shrank in fits and bursts.  Seconds later, the battle station was gone, and another deafening cheer rang up from the bridge crew.

Gavin’s chest ached, and his head swam.  He steadied himself upon the edge of the tactical console.

The ithirals changed course.  A dozen battle stations formed up and advanced on the
Wraithfin
’s position, abandoning their previous engagements.  On the opposite side of the planet, the remnants of the Union fleets gave chase as the starships that had been decimating them now sought a single target.

Range was not Gavin’s concern, and time was on his side as the ithirals ponderously advanced.  Well before the battle stations had moved into firing range, he placed the pulsar’s gravity within each of them.  One starship at a time, the twelve-strong formation vanished from the battlefield, the sum of its matter destroyed on an atomic level.

“The western hemisphere is all clear!” Hull announced.  “Santiago, you did it!”  Grinning, he clapped loudly and hooted.  “The coordinates of the ithiral beacon tower are on the screen in front of you.  Time to get Sawyer’s team in there.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he muttered and stared down at the tactical display.  He took in the logistical data and steadied his breathing.  “Right,” he whispered, and he created a rift between a single crate in the aft hangar bay and the entrance into the underground passages leading to the beacon tower.  He was to hold it open until Captain Hull received a signal from the strike team that everyone had gone through.

He wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed when the captain stood up, wearing an enthusiastic smile.  Hull announced, “They’re through!”  He regarded Gavin.  “Santiago, they’re through.  You can let go.”

“Oh, sorry,” he muttered, and a line of spittle trailed from his lower lip.  Bile swelled up from his stomach, as Gavin closed the tunnel.  Wiping at his brow, his hands shook as he fought to maintain his balance.  “It’s, uh… closed.  Sorry.”

“Hey, kid, are you feeling alright?” asked Hull, and he stepped to Gavin’s side.

Swallowing to moisten his throat, Gavin answered, “Sure.  I… I think I just… need some water.”  He collapsed, unconscious, at Captain Hull’s feet.

Displayed on both the main view screen and the holographic battle grid, the rest of the ithiral fleet crested Thasad’s western horizon.

The
Draconian
led the advance.

Chapter 25

Moments earlier…

Ithiri’on’s command center was vaulted and black, its walls covered in cables and conduit.  Seated upon a decorated throne bright with waterfalls of colorful holography, he studied tactical readouts as reports from panicked ecclesiarchs flooded his senses.  The massive, polished crescent before him provided absolute control over the battlefield.

Checking and rechecking the list of participants, he muttered, “How can this be?”  Battle Stations
Fury
and
Grim
were simply
gone
, and an unfamiliar sensation gripped his stomach from within.  Sweat beaded upon his brow as he stood and watched a fleet of twelve battle stations close on a single enemy starship.

He flinched as each one of them vanished.  “
Impossible
!” he roared, and he sat down heavily upon his throne.  At last, he cleared his throat and cried out, “Cleric Thiari’an, contact the High Council immediately!”

A holographic female appeared at the center of his console.  “By your will, wise and powerful Grand Ecclesiarch.”

Moments later, eleven full-bodied holographic projections materialized within the command center.  A willowy female regarded Ithiri’on with grave concern.  Her horns were slim and extravagantly curled.  “Why have you summoned us?”

“Forgive my intrusion, fellow Grand Ecclesiarchs.  I require your counsel regarding a situation most dire.”

A barrel-chested ithiral seethed, “Explain your situation, and we will be the judges of just how dire it truly is!  Perception can skew any number of—”

“Spare me the formalities,” Ithiri’on snapped, and he ignored the barrel-chested fellow’s overt puffery.  “Time is of great importance, as you will shortly understand.”  Swallowing visibly, his machine armor whirred and hissed as he wrung his hands and rose to stand.  “Our enemy commands a holy weapon of tremendous power.  Already, they have plunged fourteen of our battle stations into the
Oblivion of Annihilation
.”

Stunned silence befell the High Council.

“Tell me Battle Station
Fury
was not among them,” the willowy female breathed.

Ithiri’on nodded, his expression apologetic.  “It was the first to fall.”

Her knees buckled, and she sagged against her throne.  “My… husband.  My love.”  Tears splashed from her cheeks as she clutched her hand to her chest.

An older fellow with gnarled horns asked, “Are you certain it’s a holy weapon?”

“It strikes as an angel strikes, without sound or source.”  Ithiri’on’s breathing was ragged.  “What else could it be, if not the hammer of the gods?”

The older man nodded, his gaze downcast.  “At last, we have been judged.”

“We have been found unworthy,” said the barrel-chested ithiral.  “The gods demand our surrender.”

Snarling, the willowy female rose and struck her console.  “The gods be damned!  Ithiri’on, you must summon the full might of our armada!  Let them bring swift judgment to our murderous enemy.”  Her expression was venomous.  “As the supreme battlefield commander, it’s your decision to make!”

With a heavy heart, he sank once more upon his throne.  He drew a deep breath as his mind raced.  “Very well,” he said.  “Perhaps the gods will find us worthy once more.”  Returning his attention to the battlefield, he located the
UNSS Wraithfin
and set course to intercept.  He ordered the remaining battle stations to form up behind the
Draconian
.

·· • ··

Aboard the
Wraithfin
, Valerie stood at the back of her strike team.  Like the other members of her attack group, she was dressed in standard battle dress.  She recognized a few faces from the K’n-yal operation: Brucker, Haley and Ajax.

Everyone’s attention was on a single black crate magnetically locked to the center of the hangar bay.  Any moment now, it would fall through space, signaling their advance.  Anxiously, Valerie watched as the
Wraithfin
suddenly shuddered.  She creaked and moaned as she shook, and warning klaxons blared.  The computer announced that her ventral armor was compromised and that a hull breach was imminent.

The corvette pitched, tossing the strike team about, scattering them to the deck.  A moment later, the shaking stopped, and tense silence hung in the air.  Brucker got to his feet, as the rest of his team did the same.  He spoke into his microphone and waited, but received no response.  Waving to one of his fellows, he instructed him to get an update from the bridge in person.

With a snappy salute, the soldier dashed to the bay’s forward bulkhead.  A moment later, he declared, “The cargo bay’s breached!”  He tried in vain to get the door to yield.  “Sir, we’re locked in!”

“How bad is it?”

The soldier studied the damage report.  “Minor, but we’re steadily losing air.”

Brucker nodded.  “Find it.  Patch it, and that should reset the overrides.”  His team spread across the deck, searching for the leak, listening for the whistle of flowing air.

Valerie’s head was light, and she was having difficulty drawing a full breath.  Her ears popped incessantly.

Before they could uncover the fissure, the crate tumbled backward through the air and vanished.  Brucker called his team together, and they marched through the rift Gavin had created for them.

Steeling herself, Valerie followed.  She was the last one to cross through.

Brucker removed his earpiece and toyed with the microphone.  It had been damaged when he was thrown to the deck, but not badly.  He made a few quick adjustments and returned it to his ear.  “Captain Hull,” he said, and he grinned as he heard a response.  “We’re through.”

It took a moment for the gravity bridge to collapse, and in that time, Valerie studied her surroundings.

Enormous stone pillars rose up from what had very recently been the jungle floor.  Endless rings of mesas were connected by natural bridges.  Built atop the network of plateaus, the ellogon capital was a skyline of soaring buttresses, swooping architecture and majestic arches that glittered in the sun.  Roofs were plated in gold, bronze and copper, wondrous caps upon hundreds of towers.  Radiant motes hovered over ornate byways.  Adrift within Thasad’s heavy atmosphere, they brightened the clouds, a gently flowing river of light.  Glassy waterfalls spilled down from rooftops into artificial lagoons, fountains and canals.

Like the branches of an ancient banyan tree, elevators and pathways connected all levels of the city, joined by plunging spiral staircases.  Abundant sky docks had been subtly woven into the ancient ellogon architecture.  Enormous steel fans, slats and sails sprang from building facades, esthetic sentries endlessly trumpeting their architects’ passion for form.  Great market spheres floated in mid-air, now little more than memories of a time when the ellogons had thrived.  Monolithic skyscrapers gleamed in the early morning sun, reaching for the firmament.  Between the taller buildings, towering holographic displays cycled through giant images of trees and animals that had been native to Thasad.

Some distance away, directly ahead of the strike team, the ithiral beacon tower rose up from the streets.  It had cast aside bridges and byways, crushed the structures surrounding it into rubble.  Composed of three distinct modules, it stood nearly as tall as the tallest ellogon towers.

At its base, brilliant coils lined the flat sides of a steeply sloped power center.  Beyond the coils, a few stories off the ground, a huge circular generator slowly turned in time with the sequential brightening of the capacitor coils.  It was connected to an enormous L-shaped arm that was in turn mounted to the generator by means of a giant axe-shaped piston.  Along the sloped face, enclosed catwalks allowed access to the lower module’s inner workings.

Nestled against the power center’s far side, an administrative tower loomed twice as tall as its shorter counterpart.  Cylindrical in shape, indented rings separated each of the module’s dozens of floors.  Ghostly green light bled from embedded windows.  It was crowned by a convex, overhanging disk.

Completing the structure, the actual beacon itself was seated against the far side of the administrative module.  It touched the clouds, much simpler in appearance than its companion modules.  Plated in burnished steel, an indented ring marked the base of an enormous lamp that lit the mantle of heavens.  Cylindrical in shape with a rounded top, it was encased in a colossal cage of phased metal.

According to their scans, the entirety of the structure was enclosed in the same shields that protected the ithiral battle stations, though they did not extend below the surface.  At the feet of the strike team, an access plate allowed entry into Thasad’s underground maintenance network.

“We’ll use the tunnel to bypass the shields,” said Brucker.

The team moved into position behind nearby buildings as a demolitionist set charges on the surface of the hatch.  He returned to his comrades, and a muted boom sent the trapdoor down into the depths.  Brucker urged his team through, and they descended single file along a steel ladder.  They alighted upon a grated landing within a series of vast access tubes.  Status kiosks stood at the intersections, silently and constantly cycling through dozens of warnings.

Moving quickly, the strike team advanced toward the tower, checking for hostiles along the way.  They followed a lengthy, curving tunnel to its abrupt end.  Tattered steel edges drooped toward the capital’s ocean of automated machinery, set some distance back from the beacon tower’s enclosed basement.

Brucker called an engineer over, and she deployed a narrow folding bridge that spanned the gap.  Carefully, she crossed the metal plank and pulled a plasma cutter from her tool belt.  Intensely focused, she set to carving a hole in the metal face.

Valerie closed her eyes and reached out in search of the hollowness she had come to associate with ithiral thought.  She found hundreds of candidates, and she took note of their positions.  Suddenly, there was a rush of movement, but none of it was toward the basement.  Dozens of ithirals ran for the beacon module, and dozens more hurried to man the power station.  “Something’s got them in a panic,” she said, and she opened her eyes.

“How much time until they get here?” asked Brucker.

Valerie shook her head.  “It’s not because of us.  I think they’re getting ready to fire up the beacon.”

“We’re in,” the engineer interjected, and she stepped back from the glowing edges of the steel slab she had created.  Blowing into her hands, she stored her plasma cutter and produced four heavy suction cups that she placed near the top of the slab as it groaned and creaked under its own weight.  With the push of a button on each, they sealed themselves and deployed four cables.  The engineer took up the cables and crossed back to her teammates, passed them out to four strong fellows.  Slowly, they lowered the slab into the passage beyond, just as it began to topple backward.

Cautiously, the assault group made its way deeper into the complex.

They climbed up through the basement, and soon stood before the door leading into the power center.  The air itself seemed electrified as Brucker gathered his troops.  “Show no mercy,” he said, “for they will show you none.”  With grim certainty, he pushed open the door and held it until the last of his team had passed through.

Ajax took the lead, armed with a hurricane blaster.  His battle armor provided the mechanical assistance needed to bear the crushing weight of the massive gun.  At his side, four others bore the same heavy weapons, and they marched into a crowd of surprised ithiral workmen.  Before they could raise their hands, Ajax’s fire squad mowed them down.  Streams of blaster bolts lit up the machinery, chewed away its housings, exposing conduits and fiber cables for an instant before they dissolved in a hail of charged plasma.