Bender of Worlds

by Isaac Hooke

  Instead, the kraals came.

  At first the Darkslayers successfully fended them off, and for a while it seemed the platoon would escape. They performed a tactical retrograde, slowly retreating toward the main company. But the platoon members quickly became exhausted: the kraals just kept coming. Captain Grahms begged for reinforcements, but the Major refused the request, saying all units were occupied in the hunt for the high value. By the time reinforcements finally arrived, Chase was the last man standing, covered in the blood of his brothers and sisters, and half delirious.

  Chase stumbled again. He decided to forgo any further efforts to hide his inebriation.

  Hell with it. The AI already reported me.

  The Major had essentially sacrificed the platoon. And for what? To capture the same man who had helped them defeat an entire dweller fleet. That was how the TSN repaid those who came to their aid. Oh, the irony wasn’t lost on Chase.

  Help the TSN and your reward is infinite servitude.

  The ship was abuzz with rumors about that man. Some called him a freak of nature, this individual who could create intact Branchworks from the massive amount of Essence starship hulls provided, without need of a guiding AI.

  Others called him the World Bender. He who wielded both the White and Dark.

  But if the World Bender had truly come, the TSN should have been working with him, not trying to capture him to satisfy the whims of their Paramount Leader.

  Yes, Chase was done.

  When his enlistment contract was over, he had no plans to renew it. Too bad that wasn’t for another five years. You couldn’t just quit once you were on active duty. Otherwise a whole lot of soldiers would desert whenever combat situations came up.

  Yes, infinite servitude.

  Well, five years wasn’t infinite. Assuming he lasted that long. After what happened to the Darkslayers, he wasn’t so sure anymore. They had been taught that no man or woman was left behind. But Chase realized that only meant as long as the Paramount Leader’s operational goals were first met. In the Paramount Leader’s eyes, they were all expendable.

  He thought of the Volur woman. Lyra Glorandriel was her name, according to her public profile. Chase sympathized with her. The rumor mill said she was the World Bender’s friend; if that was true, the TSN would never let her go. They’d use her up and once they were done with her, they’d toss her dried and desiccated corpse out with the garbage.

  Just like they did to the Darkslayers. My forsaken brothers and sisters...

  He made his way back to the deck that housed his new temporary quarters. He wasn’t sure why the major had roomed him with the Volur. In his counseling sessions, when he’d asked about it, the medical AIs told him he would remain there until he could be assigned to a new unit. They explained that it was best not to reside in his old berthing compartment—too many memories. He could agree with that: when he’d gone to empty out his storage locker, he’d bawled his eyes out.

  As he rounded the bend to his quarters, the fire alarm went off.

  What the—

  “Warning, emergency, deck three, compartment G-five,” Brownnose’s voice came from the intercom overhead. “Dispatching fire-fighting drones. Remain clear of passageways three-B-one and three-D-one.”

  Ahead, the door to his compartment opened, and a figure draped in white foam emerged. It had to be Lyra, but when he ran an ID, he got a random name.

  He ducked from view as she glanced his way, and then he slowly emerged when she headed away from him toward the deck’s evacuation station. She left a trail of foam behind her.

  Good for her.

  He didn’t want to report this, but Brownnose had probably already noted his presence. There would be questions. Still, he could claim he didn’t know who she was, since he couldn’t see her face, nor ID her. He’d just pretend he hadn’t noticed her emerge from his quarters.

  If the major asked why he hadn’t actually checked inside the compartment, he’d just repeat what the AI was currently barking overhead. “I was told to remain clear of passageways three-B-one and three-D-one.”

  He turned around and made his way back toward the distillery.

  Lyra and Gwenyth led the charge aboard the Hammerglorung. They were like a pair of deadly Valkyries as they brandished their beam hilts, their bright white Essence axes hewing through the environmental suits of any aliens in their path. They launched Essence Missiles to defeat laser turret emplacements. They carved through breach seals, allowing the hydrocarbons to gush past, the liquid desublimating and vaporizing into the ever expanding void they created as they cut their way deeper into the enemy ship.

  But then in one of the spacious cargo bays they were confronted by a dweller larger and more powerful than all the rest. It was a Graaz’dhen Amaranth, and it led a fist of alien warriors. Wielding a C’havar, dweller equivalent to a beam hilt, it towered over them and shot out smears of death, killing some of the more exhausted members of her unit outright. It physically slammed others into the bulkheads on either side, smashing their faceplates. Meanwhile its linked minions attacked the unit from the flanks.

  Lyra and Gwenyth fought valiantly against the creature and its warriors, along with the other Volurs. But then Gwenyth dropped her guard for the shortest of moments, and the big dweller cut through her chest with its black pole-ax.

  As the others pushed back the dweller and its cohorts, Lyra hurtled Air Current into his sister’s breached chest assembly, forcing the torn fabric of the spacesuit closed and restoring some pressure to the inner environment. She retrieved the suit repair kit from the cargo pocket in her leg assembly and hastily applied several patches before releasing the Air Current.

  “Lyra…” Gwenyth transmitted.

  “I need Mantis!” Lyra shouted over the comm. That was the unit’s healer.

  “He’s been shot down!” someone replied.

  That settled it. Lyra would have to do it.

  But she was drained. Extremely so. She would have to link.

  “Tarawin, come here!” she commanded.

  As the others continued to drive back the large dweller and its warriors, a woman in an armored robe came to her.

  “Link with me,” Lyra ordered.

  Tarawin extended a gauntleted hand and Lyra grabbed it with her glove. Their combined Essence Linking level was high enough that the two of them could reach through the fabrics of their respective hand gear to achieve the connection.

  Essence flooded inside Lyra as the link completed, though she was still extremely weary.

  Lyra began growing the Branchwork for Wound Healing. She hadn’t created that particular work in years, and yet the necessary knowledge came to her as if it had only been yesterday since she had last used it.

  As the healing apparatus formed before her—an immense branching tree of life—she knew this would be her greatest work yet.

  “It’s up to you to complete my task,” Gwenyth said. “Find the World Bender.”

  “Stay with me,” Lyra said.

  “Protect… him.” Gwenyth closed her eyes.

  “Stay with me!” Lyra allowed the extensive healing work to partially set in this universe, and lowered it onto her sister.

  But it was too late.

  The Essencework was met only with the cold of death.

  She tried again and again, feeding more Essence into the work, making the tree ever bigger, but it didn’t help.

  Gwenyth was gone.

  I couldn’t protect her in time.

  Lyra slumped over the body and wept.

  Covered in foam, Lyra made her way through the passageway toward the evacuation station of this deck. A crew member passed her and gave her an odd look, but her face would have been hidden by the foam so he would have no idea who she really was.

  She reached the evacuation station and rushed into one of the escape pods. As the alarm continued in the background, she shut the hatch behind her, lowered the restraining bar, and hit the eject button.

  It
didn’t work.

  She tried again.

  Still nothing.

  The alarm stopped.

  She slammed her fist into the eject button in agonizing defeat.

  The hatch opened.

  Nelson stood in the passageway outside, flanked by Xescartes on one side, and several armed scepters the other.

  “It seems we’ll be relocating you to the brig,” Nelson said. “Once there, we’ll have the implantation robots perform some tweaks to your control chip. We’re going to lock your mind down so tight, for all intents and purposes you’ll be more machine than human.” He smiled smugly. “We can’t have you running away just yet. Not when the Bender of Worlds has agreed to trade himself for you. Now then, come here.”

  Lyra wanted to scream. She wanted to leap upon the man and tear off his head. She wanted to unleash a barrage of Essence Missiles into him and the Volur and turn their bodies into bloody pulps. Did they not know who she was? Did they not know what she was capable of?

  Instead, she meekly obeyed.

  31

  Under the cover of darkness, Tane and Gia helped Jed toward the rooftop stairwell shed. They gave him their shoulders to use as crutches, and held his arms splayed over the backs of their necks. They’d removed their spacesuit helmets, but still wore the main assemblies, mostly for the strength boost—Jed wasn’t a light man. Tane wore his blurring cap just to be on the safe side, since G’allanthamas hadn’t applied a blurring sphere.

  Sinive led the way to the shed, also wearing her spacesuit but with the helmet removed and tucked under one arm, mostly because she hadn’t yet had time to change—she’d been resting all day, recovering from her interstellar jump. Like Tane, she wore her blurring cap.

  G’allanthamas meanwhile waited next to the shed ahead. It was obvious he couldn’t fit. He’d raised a blurring sphere around himself at least.

  Gia had rented one of the shipyard’s shuttles to bring her to the short-term rental tower. It had taken two trips, since they couldn’t all fit inside the shuttle at the same time. The first trip was made by G’allanthamas. The second by Tane and the others. They landed directly on the tower’s rooftop, with the shuttle depositing them on the landing pad there.

  “So how do you plan to get inside?” Sinive asked the alien when she reached the shed.

  “I don’t,” G’allanthamas replied.

  “What, you’re going to stay on the roof the whole time?” Sinive pressed.

  “Not exactly,” G’allanthamas said. “I peered over the four edges of the building to examine the exterior walls. Specifically, the balconies attached to them. I believe I can enter via one of the patios, so you’ll have to ensure my suite has a balcony. I’ll need you to melt away the windows for me, unless you want me to wake the neighbors with the sound of breaking glass.”

  “We’ll melt the windows,” Tane said.

  Sinive went to the door at the top of the shed and began her hack. A moment later it clicked open.

  She sent Tane the blueprints of the rooms she’d picked out, and he confirmed that all of them had balconies. He helped Jed down the stairs, and paused at the stairwell door that led to the first room.

  “Take care of Jed,” Tane told Sinive. “I’ll let Gall in.”

  Sinive took his place underneath Jed and helped Gia carry the Volur through the door and into the corridor beyond. Jed would be sharing his room with Gia so that she could take care of him. Sinive, Tane, and G’allanthamas meanwhile each had their own rooms. As usual, their suites were all next to one another, except for the dweller’s: G’allanthamas boarded on the floor below.

  Tane took the steps to the next floor and exited the stairwell. At the dweller’s room, he used the check-in passcode Sinive gave him. Inside, he quickly rearranged the furniture: he ripped off the bedspreads and leaned the mattresses and their frames against the walls, clearing out the center of the room for the dweller. There was no robot assistant installed in the suite, Tane noted.

  He went to the balcony and opened the glass sliding door—it wasn’t big enough for G’allanthamas to enter.

  He retrieved his D18 from his storage pouch, enabled quiet mode, and with a few shots melted through the panes as well as the frame section that ran down the middle of the sliding door. Sinive had already disabled alerts for that particular room, so the building’s AI wouldn’t register the damage.

  When it was done, he paused to survey his handiwork. The dweller should fit, but it would be tight.

  He stepped onto the balcony and sent a call request to G’allanthamas. The dweller answered, voice only.

  “There you are,” G’allanthamas said. “I was beginning to worry you’d forgotten me. Leaving me alone, stranded in the heart of a human city, surrounded by your filthy brethren, who all want to kill me. ”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you,” Tane said. “And besides, they don’t want to kill you. At least not the civilians.”

  “Oh no?” the dweller said. “Then they want to capture me, so that they can showcase me to the galaxy in one of their menageries.”

  “Yeah okay, anyway your suite is located on the south side of the building,” Tane said. “I’m standing on the balcony. I’ll wave at you. I assume you have your Night Vision active?”

  “I certainly do,” the dweller told him. “I don’t travel anywhere in the dark without it.”

  Tane waved toward the rooftop and the alien appeared overhead. G’allanthamas crawled down the exterior of the building, using balcony railings and the occasional pipe or conduit that ran between them for purchase. For such a big creature, the dweller could certainly climb nimbly, even while inside a bulky environmental suit.

  G’allanthamas slipped once, landing with a loud thud on one of the balconies; he quickly cleared out when the light went on inside the associated room, and hid underneath as a human figure came outside and peered over the edge.

  When the figure vacated the balcony and the light turned off, G’allanthamas continued his descent.

  Tane entered the room and moved to the far side, near the bathroom, and watched G’allanthamas pull himself through with difficulty.

  Once the alien was inside, he skittered into the area Tane had cleared and promptly plopped his carapace onto the floor. He spread out his eight legs and extended his tentacles in apparent relief.

  “Well, it’s not as crowded as the cargo bay, but it’s still bad,” G’allanthamas said. “I’ll never get how you humans can stand to domicile within such tiny domains.”

  “Uh, because we’re smaller than you?” Tane said.

  “Even so, I’ll take the free steppe over a tin can any day,” G’allanthamas said.

  “Good night, Gall,” Tane told his friend.

  “G’night, Doomwielder,” the dweller responded.

  Tane lingered at the door.

  “Something bothering you, Doomwielder?” G’allanthamas said.

  “In fact, there is,” Tane said. He turned to face the alien. “I didn’t have time to think about it earlier, what with the TSN and the dwellers breathing down our throats. But now that we’ve arrived, and finally have a chance to relax, it’s come back to me.”

  “What has?” the alien said.

  Tane peered through the glass dome at the top of the environmental suit and into that sideways-oriented head beyond.

  “What did you mean earlier, when you said, ‘there is another threat coming?’” Tane asked.

  “Ah,” G’allanthamas replied. “That.” He was silent for a moment. “It is too early. You’re not ready to face them.”

  “Face who?” Tane said.

  The dweller didn’t answer.

  “Tell me,” Tane said. “I have to know. I have to prepare.”

  The alien remained silent for long moments. Just when Tane was about to give up and leave:

  “The Hated TSN has been keeping a secret from the rest of humanity,” G’allanthamas said. “They have seen the evidence. I’m sure they have. My contacts among the Cre’i
te have confirmed as much, via their electronic eavesdropping.”

  “And what is this secret?” Tane said.

  “Stars have been vanishing coreward,” the dweller said. “So far, no human systems have been affected. But we dwellers have lost two suns.”

  “How could a sun vanish?” Tane said.

  “Massive distortion tunnels open in front of their galactic orbits,” G’allanthamas said. “Usually, distortion tunnels match the orbital speed of the systems they are created within. But not these. They are stationary, relative to the stars, existing on some higher, absolute coordinate system. The suns fly straight into them and the distortion tunnels close.”

  “Who would want to steal a star?” Tane asked.

  “We don’t know,” G’allanthamas said. “But our scientists have long theorized that a race of technologically advanced aliens exists within the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. We call them the Z’Antamaraan. The Gravity Born. Our scientists have noticed that the mass of the galactic core has been steadily increasing over the past thousand years. As have the surrounding stars trapped within its event horizon. At least ten new stars appear per year, though the number has been accelerating in recent times. It’s almost like they’re gathering those stars, purposely adding to the mass at the galactic center. Why? We don’t know. But if that gathering continues at its present pace, eventually there will be no stars left outside the galactic core. And neither dweller, nor human, will survive. ”

  “So while we humans and dwellers have been warring against one another, a third enemy, perhaps the deadliest of all, has been stealthily attacking from the sidelines,” Tane mused.

  “Yes,” G’allanthamas said. “That is the threat I spoke of. In the Doomwielder prophecies, specific mention is made of the Z’Antamaraan. That you will either save us from them, or accelerate our demise at their hands.”

  “Wonderful,” Tane said. “And let me guess, your prophecies don’t mention how I’m supposed to do the saving?”

  “No,” the dweller said.