by Isaac Hooke
Tane withdrew his attention from the nose camera feed to his own body. The dark filaments had returned. They emerged visibly from his joints, and all of them pointed down into the deck, toward the planet. Their direction would change as they got closer to the city. Assuming it contained what he hoped it would.
Gia followed the course G’allanthamas had given her, weaving the ship between the different observation centers. Tane couldn’t see any of those centers, of course, and neither could Gia, but that was the point. Their efforts seemed to be working because so far no dweller ships had arrived to intercept them.
At one point, Gia said: “Are you sure you don’t want me to bring you any closer to this destination? I mean, why stop at the shuttle?” She glanced at Jed, who shook his head. Then she gazed past him at Tane: “I know you promised me this would be a quick in-out operation. That I wouldn’t have to get my hands dirty. Your words: ‘Enter the Umbra, jump to the planet in question, and return.’ But I want to do more. I feel like I’m a squire lugging around equipment or something, while you guys are the knights who get to do all the fighting. It’s not my style.”
Tane shrugged.
“In fact, if you're really the Bender of Worlds,” Gia continued, “why don't I just carry you as close to the alien city as possible, and you can rain down hell on the colony, just like you did against the alien fleet? Until they surrender. Meanwhile, I’ll add in a barrage of dragon and plasma fire.”
"How do you even know about what I did to the alien fleet?" Tane said. He glanced at Jed suspiciously, but the Volur shook his head.
“It wasn’t me,” Jed said.
"I saw footage on the Galnet," Gia explained.
"It leaked already?" Jed said.
“Oh yeah,” Gia said. “It’s all over the Galnet. You’re friend here is famous. There were a couple of reporters embedded on the flagship. They captured all of it and leaked it a few hours later.”
"Typical," Sinive said.
"Those reporters speculated that the feats the individual in the spacesuit performed could only belong to one person," Gia said. "The prophesied Bender of Worlds."
"Well," Tane told her. "I could rain hell down on the city, as you say. But even if I didn't have a moral problem about laying waste to a city populated by thousands of civilian aliens, I wouldn't do it anyway."
"Why not?" Gia said. "Morals are niggling things, anyway, best done away with at an early age."
"She's joking, in case you didn't pick up on it," Jed told Tane.
"Sort of," Gia said. “But in some situations, sometimes I'm not sure standard morality applies. This case, for instance. These are aliens, not humans. Assaulting their colony isn’t quite the same thing."
“It’s that line of thinking that led the TSN to destroy the dweller homeworld,” Jed said.
“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Gia commented. “You do know that single act ended the war? Saving billions of human lives?” Before Jed could answer, she turned to Tane and said: "So why wouldn't you do it?"
"Because it would mean ruining our only ride home," Tane said. "I'm guessing the footage you saw didn't show what happened to the TSN battle cruiser I was touching when I was done?"
"No, it didn't," Gia admitted.
"The ship's Chrysalium hull disintegrated," Tane said. "Spacing its crew. Some made it to the spacesuits and lifepods in time. Others didn't."
"Oh," Gia said. "Okay then. Forget that."
The vessel made good time toward the destination, so that soon Gia was glancing Tane’s way once again.
“We’re fifteen minutes away from the target site,” she said. “You might want to gear up instead of just standing around. Unless you intend to spacewalk in the nude.”
“I wouldn’t want to do that,” Tane said. “Teasing you women with my hot bod and all.”
“Oh my heck,” Sinive said. “I just rolled my eyes so hard I could see my orbits.”
“Orbits?” Tane said.
“Yeah, eye sockets?” Sinive said. “It’s an anatomical term. Never mind. You’re just making me do another eye roll.” She glanced at Jed. “By the way, do I get a weapon?”
“Why are you asking him?” Tane said. “I’m the one who decides.”
But Jed ignored him and told her: “I haven’t made up my mind yet if you’re coming.”
Tane felt angry at being slighted like that, but then he reminded himself he preferred it this way.
I don’t even want to be the Bender of Worlds, remember?
“What do you mean, you haven’t made up your mind?” Sinive said. “I’ve come all this way, you’re not going to make me sit this one out. I don’t care if you give me a weapon or not. I’m coming out there.” She scowled at Tane. “And neither of you can stop me.” She was quiet a moment, then she added, more softly: “I’ve got no one else now. The two of you are all I have. You’re the only ones who can help me save Nebb. Not to mention get rid of this control chip in my head. It’s in my best interests to help you.”
At first he thought she had been going to tell Tane and Jed how much they meant to her, but then she had to go and add that last bit, ruining the whole thing.
That hurt. But Tane didn’t say a word.
Jed glanced at Gia. “Do you have any spare weapons?”
Gia nodded.
“There are a few pistols and rifles in the armory,” Gia told Sinive. “Take your pick.”
“You can come with us as well, if you want,” Tane told the woman.
“As much as I want to, I can’t,” Gia said. “There are some crillia who’ve decided to stowaway on the hull. I’ll have to do some cleaning while you’re gone.” She reached over the edge of the jump chamber and caressed the stocks of the rifles that rested on the deck below her.
“We can wait for you,” Tane said.
“No,” Jed said. “That wouldn’t be a good idea. It’s best not to linger on this planet for longer than we have to. We’re leaving as soon as we reach the shuttle.”
“There you go,” Gia said.
“But what if kraals attack you while we’re gone?” Tane said.
“Then I’ll take off and relocate,” Gia said. “I can take care of myself. I assure you.”
“Okay then.” Using the overhead map, Tane retreated through the passageways to the aft airlock. Just outside it, he began to suit up.
And so we brave the trials of the Umbra once more.
He felt no fear, of course. Not here. But still, a part of himself worried for Jed, Sinive, and G’allanthamas. If the mission went badly…
But he refused to think about that. He would reach the artifact, attain the Essencework he needed, and then leave.
It would go well.
Though try as he might to convince himself of that, he still couldn’t entirely believe it.
24
Tane fetched his gear from the pouch and removed the binding cord. He slid on the Chrysalium Star Rings, the Nova Bracelet, and the Osmium Gauntlets, shrinking the latter enough so that he could fit his spacesuit gloves overtop. Then he equipped the armored robe he purloined from the Umbra, and afterward donned the Feral Necklace and slid it underneath.
He shrunk the armored robe to its most compact setting and put on his spacesuit overtop.
I really have to get me one of those void-capable robes sometime.
The Osmium Gauntlets had a pass-through feature to allow injections, and he momentarily enabled that as he pressurized the suit: he felt the sting on the upper side of his palm as the sonic injector applied the required accelerant—Tane had fetched a fresh vial of the stuff from sickbay to replace the accelerant he’d lost to the TSN when they’d swapped it out for controlling nanotech.
He reached into his pouch and retrieved the D18, beam hilt, grenade harness, and shield generator, and attached them to his suit as appropriate. He let the D18 hang from his shoulder by the strap.
He turned toward the airlock to find Jed already standing there, his armor at its full thi
ckness, the faceplate sealed. He wore a slight smirk on his face.
“I remember when I had to lug around multiple layers of armor and spacesuits like you,” Jed said over the comm. “Then one day I decided to invest in a good suit of powered armor, and the skills to use it. Best investment I ever made. All I ever wear these days is this armor.”
“I noticed,” Tane said. “Though I have to wonder, doesn’t it start to smell after a while?”
“It’s self-cleaning,” Jed said. “And it has a built-in sonic shower equivalent.”
“Of course,” Tane said sarcastically.
Sinive arrived in her spacesuit. She had a pistol holstered to her utility belt.
“Everyone ready?” Sinive asked over the comm.
“As we’ll ever be,” Tane answered. Gia was still listed as online in his contact list, since he was still connected to the Musenet, so he looped her into the comm band he shared with Sinive and Jed. He also added G’allanthamas.
“Gia, what’s our ETA?” Tane sent.
“We’ll be landing in five minutes,” Gia replied.
“Finally!” G’allanthamas said. “I can’t feel my leftmost fore-tentacle anymore. And my right front foreleg has gone numb. If I stay here any longer, I’ll begin to decompose. Oh, the suffering. The cruelty of my treatment.”
“Woe is you,” Sinive said.
“She mocks me!” G’allanthamas said. “When I’m at my weakest. Your woman is a cruel being, Doomwielder.”
“She’s not my woman,” Tane said between gritted teeth.
“If you say so,” the dweller told him.
He glanced at Sinive, expecting to find her angry that the dweller would even suggest such a thing, and ready for her to blurt out something like “I’m no one’s woman,” but instead he saw only sadness behind that faceplate. She quickly averted her eyes.
I’ll never understand her.
“Muse, are you detecting any kraals down there?” Gia asked over the comm line.
“Oddly, I haven’t detected a single kraal so far,” Muse answered.
“Maybe the dwellers clear them from their colony worlds,” Sinive said.
“Oh, kraals are down there, don’t you worry,” G’allanthamas said.
“I still can’t get over how closely you talk to a human,” Sinive said. “I mean, sure, you hung out with Tiberius for two hundred years, but that was a millennia ago. Language changes over time. As do idioms. And yet, you sound like one of us. A modern day human.”
“I’ve been keeping up to date on human culture and dialects,” G’allanthamas said. “I’m a bit of an anthropologist, you could say. I have a friend who has cracked your Galnet, and he forwards me relevant material.”
“Weird hobby…” Sinive said.
A couple of minutes passed before Gia announced: “I’m nearing the target site. It appears clear of kraals. I’ll set us down a hundred meters away.”
A few seconds later Tane felt vibrations transmitted from the deck to his boots.
“We’ve landed,” Gia said. “Depart whenever you’re ready. And Jed, take care of yourself out there. Please.”
Maybe Jed answered on a private line. Or maybe he said nothing at all in reply. Either way, the Volur was the first to walk into the airlock, and he allowed it to seal behind him: the Mosaic was so small that the airlock could only fit one of them at a time.
Tane went next. He stepped inside and the hatch sealed behind him. The air vented and then the outer hatch opened. Actually, it was a ramp, not a hatch, and it folded downward. He proceeded down the sloped surface. The running lights of the Mosaic were currently disabled, so Tane couldn’t see a thing out there beyond the pool of light at the base of the ramp. And when it sealed behind him, he was left in darkness entirely.
“Don’t suppose I can piggyback on your LIDAR feed?” Tane asked Jed over the comm.
He received the sharing request a moment later and accepted. The landscape immediately popped into existence around him, with white, hollow polygons representing the rocky terrain.
“Me too, please,” Sinive said. Her transmission easily passed through the hull at this close range.
A moment later she emerged with the illumination from the airlock, and when the ramp sealed behind her the darkness returned.
Another pool of light appeared on the far side of the ship, and Tane and the others walked there in time to witness G’allanthamas emerging from the cargo bay. The dweller seemed more substantial than the lit cargo bay behind him: his edges were clear and defined and not blurry like the rest of the ship.
The dweller immediately began stripping out of the alien environmental suit.
“Ah, it feels good to be free of that cursed thing,” G’allanthamas said. “I just wish there had been enough room to take it off aboard!”
The dweller stowed each piece in the cargo bay behind him, and then he leaped down onto the surface. The bay doors closed, taking the light with it.
“So, Gall,” Tane said. “You have the ability to create a beacon for a distortion tunnel…”
“I do,” the dweller agreed. The alien paused. “You want me to make one here?” Though the individual words were sourced from several different speakers, G’allanthamas had managed to imbue a sense of incredulity to the question.
“Good guess,” Tane said. “The moment I grab the artifact, I want you to take us back here. Or if something goes wrong before then.”
“You honor me, Doomwielder,” G’allanthamas said. “But I’m not so strong as that. I can’t create a distortion tunnel all the way here from the city.”
“The city is about two hours away?” Tane said.
“Correct,” G’allanthamas said.
“What if I gave you the dark artifact from Sigma 231?” Tane said. “So you could Siphon through its Darcanium? Then could you create a return tunnel…”
“Like the other artifacts, it’s not ordinary Darcanium,” G’allanthamas said. “Tiberius imbued the surface with a thin layer of White Essence, making it accessible only to one of your particular abilities. I can’t access it unless you Siphon the Dark through it first.”
Tane knew what the alien was saying was true: the Amaranth dwellers on Remus only attempted to take away the threads of Dark Essence from Tane after he had Siphoned through the artifact there.
“Fine, then I Siphon the Dark through it first,” Tane said. “And then you take over.”
“But then you’ll have to abandon the artifact,” G’allanthamas said. “Because to hold the tunnel open, I’ll need to continue Siphoning a large amount of Dark Essence through it. If you shrink the artifact and sever my connection, the tunnel will close. So unless you’re willing to abandon the artifact, I would suggest placing the beacon closer to the city. Perhaps outside my shuttle when we land.”
Tane considered that. He wasn’t willing to abandon the artifact just yet. He might need the Darcanium it contained at some future date. “All right, we place the beacon after we land outside the city.”
“Good enough,” G’allanthamas said.
“Lead the way, Dweller,” Jed said. “Take us to your shuttle.”
G’allanthamas took the lead and the others fell in behind him. Tane was careful to keep Sinive in front of him, even if G’allanthamas claimed she had no further orders embedded in her subconscious. Jed brought up the rear, soon becoming invisible.
When the Volur vanished, on cue Sinive asked: “The dweller isn’t going to place blurring spheres over us?”
“If your ship has been spotted, it’s already too late,” G’allanthamas said. “I would prefer to conserve my stamina until we really need the spheres.”
The surface was composed of shards of loose rock—a form of shale, Tane thought. He could feel different pieces pressing into his boots as he took each step. Sometimes, when tramping over a slight incline, he would slip a little as the stones shifted underfoot.
He swept his gaze across his surroundings as he advanced and kept an eye out for pot
ential ambushers. He held his D18 at the ready.
“I still think it’s crazy how dwellers can survive anywhere in the Umbra without environmental suits,” Sinive said. “No matter the atmosphere.”
“It is the nature of this place, and our intrinsic link to it,” G’allanthamas transmitted. “We are as much a part of the Umbra as the Dark Essence. In fact, some say that without kraals and dwellers, there could be no Arcanum. Though I’m not so pompous as to believe that myself.”
Tane heard a slight humming coming from somewhere behind him, as picked up by the external microphone of his helmet. He glanced over his shoulder: the Mosaic’s ramp opened into the darkness, and he saw the silhouette of another spacesuit against the glowing backdrop. It was Gia, judging from the sawed-off rifle she held in hand, and the second one strapped to the back of her suit.
“Time to clear some crillia,” Gia said, her voice distorting slightly.
Tane turned away and continued the advance into the darkness. He kept a wary eye on the landscape around him.
“Hey Dweller,” Sinive said. “Where are all the kraals hiding?”
“They’re here somewhere,” G’allanthamas said. “I guarantee you. They will be entirely unlike any you have encountered before. But maybe we’ll get lucky and not run into any.”
“Somehow I suspect we will,” Sinive said.
“Don’t jinx us,” Tane said.
“The alien already did,” Sinive retorted.
They made it to the shuttle without incident. Or rather, to the waypoint marked on the map. But there wasn’t actually anything there.
“The shuttle is…?” Tane said.
G’allanthamas turned around and began to dig at the spot with four of his hind legs.
“Why am I reminded of a cat trying to bury its poop in a litter?” Sinive commented.
G’allanthamas occasionally paused to examine the hole he was digging, only to continue a moment later. After about a minute of that, the dweller exclaimed: “Here we go. Precisely where I left it.”
“I don’t see anything,” Tane said.
