It shifted beneath his feet and he nearly lost his balance. Something vibrated through his boots and up his legs. His teeth began to ache, and his skin tingled.
He reached the closest implant, gleaming silver in the starlight. It was as tall as he was, and roughly three feet in diameter. Whatever substance it was made of had not corroded or been damaged by however many hundreds or thousands of years it had been buried in the ground. It was the source, he was sure, of the Adjudicator control.
Nils Oolmena flipped switches on the fluxor, flooded the chamber, and fired it up. A green light sparked on the end of the nozzle. He squatted at the base of the implant and began to cut.
The implant was hard. So hard, in fact, that it must be of tyrillium, which made sense. The Adjudicators needed something that could survive the rigors of the monster’s holy mission. Cutting with the plasma torch was like scraping granite with a metal rasp.
Or so it seemed at first. Slowly, the plasma began to eat at the substance. First a millimeter, then a centimeter, and then he was making better progress. But oh, how slowly. There were six implants. At this rate it would take him until dawn, assuming the plasma charge held up.
Do what you can. Even three or four of them destroyed might be enough.
The Dweller stirred. Not a big lurch, not enough to make the earth shake like when all of the workers had been scrambling across its back that afternoon and evening. But it was twitching. It felt something. What if it suddenly heaved its way free?
You are going to die anyway. Keep cutting.
He was maybe a third the way through when his own implant buzzed. A brief stir, then a shout of alarm.
“STOP!”
The voice roared in his head. At the same time, chemicals flooded his veins. His limbs convulsed, and his skin burned as if he’d been tossed in acid. Nils Oolmena flew backward.
He lay there convulsing in agony as a figure strode toward him from the direction of the dirt ramp. It was the Slave Master in its mech suit, all but the helmet. Its gray, ghoul-like face stared down at the overseer. Several insectoids clacked and hissed. One must have spotted the Hroom and skittered a warning to its master.
“YOU! Devotee! What have you done?” Rage and loathing filled the Slave Master’s words.
Nils Oolmena answered, defiant. “I am not a devotee. Not your slave.” The words brought fresh agony. “I am . . . your . . . enemy.”
The Slave Master bent and picked up the plasma torch, which was still glowing green at the tip. It yanked off the fluxor from Nils Oolmena’s shoulder with the other two arms and snapped it in two, then hurled the whole thing end over end. It bounced across the skin of the Dweller and came to a rest several meters away.
“You’ve done nothing, vermin. You haven’t even damaged one implant, and there are five more. The Holy Dweller will rise to the heavens and nothing will stop it.”
Nils Oolmena’s implant buzzed, and the insectoids chittered. The mindless things. Loathsome creatures, killing on command, even their own kind. They would all die tomorrow, but first they would destroy the only hope of stopping the Slave Master’s plan.
Six insectoids scrambled toward him. They held up their chitinous claws and clacked them together. Those claws had cut the throats of numerous workers, had gutted and disemboweled others. Now the creatures came toward him, eye stalks waving.
There would be no running or fleeing. Nils Oolmena felt only weak, tired, beaten. He bowed his head and waited for the searing pain, and then death. If the gods favored him, he would walk the Endless Dreamland.
A screech. He looked up to see one of the insectoids collapse with greenish fluid running from a wound in its back. Another of the creatures had slammed its claw through the shell. Two others clipped the eye stalks of a companion, which flailed, clattering, as it went down. The two turned on the final insectoid, which slammed its claw out and smashed one of the attackers onto its back.
The first insectoid tore out stringy entrails from its victim, then rushed to join the other two. They dispatched the final resister. Suddenly, there were only three, not six, and they turned about instead of coming at Nils Oolmena.
And in that moment he realized what must have happened. How so many of his assumptions had been wrong. Everything he’d known, or thought he’d known about the insectoids. They were mindless hive workers, he’d thought, nothing but tools of the enemy. How many times had he told himself that?
Except it wasn’t true.
And now the three sprang at the Slave Master, who stood as if stunned. Gray face slack. Realizing, even later than the Hroom, what was coming. Belatedly, he lifted his fist and smashed it at one of the attackers. It shattered the shell of the creature, who went down, twitching. The other two leaped at the Slave Master’s face, the only unprotected part of its body.
The Adjudicator grabbed one in a spare hand and held it at arm’s length. Claws clacked uselessly at the air. The third landed on the Adjudicator’s shoulder and almost knocked it to the ground, but the mech suit’s third arm swung around and knocked the insectoid down.
It was no good. The enemy was going to win anyway.
Yes, if Nils Oolmena stood by helplessly. He’d struggled to his feet as soon as the insectoids began to fight amongst each other. Now he lowered his shoulder and charged. He slammed into the Slave Master while it was still struggling with the last two insectoids.
The Hroom was taller than his opponent, but weakened from weeks of labor and short rations. His enemy wore a mech suit, and braced its feet to hold its ground. It shouted a command for Nils Oolmena to stop, but whatever dose of chemicals flooded the Hroom’s brain earlier had spent itself, and he kept fighting as he knocked both of them to the ground.
An armored hand closed around the Hroom’s throat. Pain. He gasped for air, but none came.
Suddenly, the Slave Master bucked, and the grip released. One of the insectoids had got loose. Two of its limbs dangled, torn half loose from their sockets. But it had its claws up and was stabbing and pinching at the enemy’s face. It tore out one of the Adjudicator’s eyes. But the Adjudicator was ripping it apart at the same time.
Nils Oolmena groped around and his hand closed on a stone. He brought it around with all of his strength. It smashed into the Adjudicator’s forehead, and it went down, limbs rigid, motionless.
Two of the Hroom’s three allies had rolled onto their back and were barely twitching as their limbs curled in death. The third attempted to crawl forward on shattered limbs. Green, mucus-like ichor dripped from its wounds. Slick, indigo-colored liquid dripped from its left claw—that was the Slave Master’s blood.
Nils Oolmena was crawling, too, and reached their downed enemy first. He lifted the stone and brought it down on its face, but his blow was too feeble, and glanced to the side. And the thing was still alive, starting to come to.
The insectoid reached a joint in the armor, pushed its claw in, and snipped. Its other claw peeled back a section to expose their enemy’s pelvic region. There, it began to snip and cut, but it, too, was fading.
The Hroom lifted the stone again. He brought it down, this time with better aim, and it struck their enemy at the bloody ruin of its right eye. Another blow, then another. His ally worked below. And then it was over, the Slave Master was dead. Nils Oolmena dragged himself back and fell next to the insectoid, which was beginning to twitch and roll onto its back.
He reached out for the dying insectoid and touched at its implant with his long fingers. The implant was bent, and scored with faint claw marks. Someone had deliberately damaged the device, one of its fellows. All this time, the insectoids had been trying to free themselves, not so different from Nils Oolmena and Lum Gee.
He hummed his gratitude at the dying creature. It was barely twitching now, and the other two were motionless.
There was no time to waste. Somehow, he had to get up, get his tired body to work—he thought he’d cracked a rib in the fall—and cut through the massive implants coming out of the Dwel
ler’s body.
He dragged himself to his feet and looked up, expecting to see devotees lining the rim of the crater. Would they turn on him after seeing their dead master at the bottom, or would his position as overseer keep him alive?
But there was nobody. Only the darkness above, with the six star fortresses gleaming in orbit overhead, jewels among the stars of what humans called the Milky Way, and his people the Dreamland Path. Enemy ships waiting for the Dweller to arise. Green light from the auroras streaked across the horizon. So beautiful, the night sky on this planet. So deadly.
The old plasma torch was wrecked, and he needed another, so he dragged himself up the ramp, thinking to raid the toolboxes attached to the equipment. He reached the top and was only a few feet from the rim when the ground heaved and bucked. Another small earthquake, caused by the waking Dweller.
Only this time it didn’t slow, but grew in strength until he struggled to keep his balance. Another heave, and he fell. Dirt shot into the sky and rained down while Nils Oolmena dragged himself away from the lip of the crater. Cries sounded from the other devotees, who emerged from their holes. The tremors momentarily stopped, but it was clear the Dweller was awakening below.
Cavlee and humans and Hroom and insectoids alike fled toward the perimeter, and Nils Oolmena joined them. Another big heave. They stumbled, fell, rose again.
A thundering boom sounded behind them. He looked back to see a swinging, tentacle-like appendage emerge from the ground, fifty, sixty meters long and growing. It fell on top of the hill of dirt and rock and tore through it like it was made of dust. Another appendage emerged, this one even longer and thicker.
The devotees reached the edge of the encampment. There was nowhere left to go, and when Nils Oolmena fumbled to shut down the force field and let them out, like Lum Gee had done, he saw that the enemy had fused the boxes shut to keep the switches from being flipped.
Lights glowed and flashed from the pit. And heat, something igniting. He caught a glimpse of a long, cone-shaped protuberance—perhaps the thing’s head—and then a blast of blue-green fire. That was plasma, an engine firing, igniting everything.
The ground shook, and the air roared with the sound of engines. Fire washed out of the pit, and the heat was so intense that his companions fell, moaning and screaming and dying all around him. Clothing caught on fire. Cavlee wailed and hurled themselves against the camp barrier, which threw them back with sizzling jolts.
The Dweller emerged from the pit with a final, thunderous boom. The Hroom overseer, lying on his back, unable to breathe through the heat, stared as the Dweller, the star leviathan, roared away from the surface in a mass of tentacles, like some vast squid, and rocketed into the sky toward the star fortresses waiting for it in orbit. Even then, even dying, most of the devotees cried after it in ecstasy. Their work was done, the holy creature released into the heavens.
Nils Oolmena’s last thought before the fire took him was of the damaged implant. Had he accomplished anything? Anything at all?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Two star fortresses entered the Lenin System through a previously undetected jump near the system’s red giant. New ships, never before seen. Smythe assigned designations: November and Oscar.
Working through the phonetic alphabet, that meant there had been fifteen known Adjudicator capital ships, with two killed: Charlie and Kilo. Several others had taken serious damage that may or may not limit their fighting abilities. But still, twelve operational star fortresses, each one more than a match for a single battle cruiser, of which the Alliance had three, plus Dreadnought.
Tolvern was still trying to work out the ramifications when the two shed their dragoons and charged to intercept the Blackbeard-Void Queen fleet. Nyb Pim ran the numbers, and they weren’t good. Nine hours until the newcomers forced combat, and another seven or eight until Bravo and Foxtrot came in from behind to pin the allied ships in place.
“And then we’re dead,” Tolvern said. “Pilot, chart a course to the Moscow jump. Capp, inform the other officers of the fleet.”
Capp gave her a pinched, worried look. “Void Queen still can’t jump.”
“I’m fully aware of that.”
“You’re not gonna leave her, right? It’s to try to meet up with Citadel and the lot, yeah? They was already in Moscow fourteen hours ago.”
“And with any luck, they’ll arrive in time to save our hides.”
Capp looked somewhat mollified by this, and turned to obey.
Fox’s subspace had contained critical information. Moscow and Lenin were binary match systems, and Tolvern didn’t want to position herself near one jump point only to have him enter through the other, tens of millions of miles away, where he couldn’t do any good. He’d given her the location of his jump.
The fleet shifted course. Instead of orbiting the star just inside the asteroid belt, they made as if to flee for the jump into Moscow. Bravo and Foxtrot moved to cut them off. The two sides were shortly on a collision course, with November and Oscar to arrive shortly after combat began.
Void Queen led the vanguard and sent over news that confirmed Capp’s fears. Vargus was still swapping in parts from a warp point engine stripped out of a freighter, and she estimated two more days to repair her warp point engine. This battle would heat up before then.
Tolvern positioned Blackbeard at the rear and kept a wary eye on November and Oscar. The rest of her ships numbered more than twenty-five star wolves, war junks, and navy destroyers. What Tolvern wouldn’t give for some missile frigates and torpedo boats, even at the cost of acceleration and maneuverability.
She put her crew on strict rotation to rest them for the coming action, and that included herself. When she came back on the bridge two hours before combat, Ensign Ping had the helm. The young Singaporean practically sprang to his feet when she came off the lift.
“Thank God you’re back, sir. Everything is happening all at once.”
She pointed to Capp’s seat. “Take the second. Now what is it?”
It turned out to be nothing out of the ordinary, only the usual questions about raising marines from stasis, minor weapon issues, communications from across the fleet that seemed urgent, but were not, or at the least could be delegated to Vargus or Wang.
The ensign was most concerned with the mines at the jump point, detected by the Singaporeans. The missing dragoons must have laid them during their long period of cloaking. And while they were obviously meant to keep Blackbeard and Void Queen from escaping, they’d serve just as well to hem in Algernon Fox’s fleet when it arrived. The last thing Tolvern wanted was to see reinforcements pinned down while four star fortresses pounded her.
She called Carvalho and told him to get the striker wing on standby. As soon as combat began, the falcons would launch, slip free of the battle, and approach the jump point. Pulse the mines, allow Citadel and the rest to break free of the jump.
“Missiles in the air,” Lomelí announced. “Foxtrot. Targeting Void Queen.”
Tolvern raised her eyebrows. “Already? That’s . . . optimistic of them.”
There were only a handful, and it was probably just a probing maneuver, testing countermeasures. Still, it was about time, anyway. She ordered a hard scan of their immediate surroundings to make sure dragoons hadn’t crept up on them during the long chase, then tightened her formation when the scans returned clear. Both battle cruisers detached their brawlers.
Capp came back onto the bridge. She scowled at Ping when she spotted him in her chair and pointed to the defense grid as if he were a naughty dog. He seemed happy to go. That relieved Lomelí from defense, and Tolvern ordered her to quarters for a rest break, ignoring the woman’s protests. Yes, of course Lomelí would miss the first phase of battle. That was the benefit of being at the rear of the fleet; battle would reach Blackbeard last, and her crew could be better rested.
Smythe reappeared next, followed by Nyb Pim. Two ensigns at tech swapped out. Tolvern had all essential personnel but Lome
lí on hand by the time the first missiles threatened her vanguard.
“We’re going to swing wide, as if presenting our battle cruisers against their carriers,” Tolvern said. “But as soon as Carvalho’s falcons are clear of dragoons, the whole fleet is going to withdraw toward this gas giant here.”
She tapped her console to bring up a map of the system on a side screen and focused it on the nearest of the five reddish gas giants. It was mid-sized, with several moons and numerous well-defined rings that made it look like a sideways-facing disc.
“Lenin VI . . . needs a better name.” Tolvern turned to Smythe. “Give me a name from that silly Romans vs. Soviets game you’re always playing.”
Smythe gave a solemn nod, as if taking the responsibility seriously. “Rasputin.”
“I ain’t up on my Russians,” Capp said, “but ain’t he the one what put a hex on the czar?” She tugged at an imaginary beard on her chin. “A wizard sorta bloke?”
Smythe shrugged. “I thought it sounded cooler than Trotsky.”
“Rasputin it is,” Tolvern said.
“Excuse me, sir,” Nyb Pim said. “But if we take the fight to the gas giant, it will be harder to withdraw if the action grows too hot for our liking.”
“We’re done withdrawing. We’re going to hold position, keep in the fight, and pray to our gods and ancestors that Fox’s fleet arrives in time.”
“Yeah, speaking of that,” Capp said. “How is Carvalho gonna get back to us once he hits the mines? Them falcons don’t have enough fuel to go to the jump, then cross all the way back to . . . Rasputin, is it?” She made a sour expression. “What’s wrong with English history, yeah?”
“The falcons will dock with Citadel,” Tolvern said, “and Fox will refuel, rearm, and launch them ahead of his own striker wing.”
The Alliance Trilogy Page 47
