The Sanctum of the Sphere: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 2

by Luther M. Siler

  “This is probably the part where you’re saying I’m not going to blow myself up,” Rhundi said. “You’re correct! I’m riiiiight by the escape pods. Guess how many are left? And guess how many I need?”

  “The damage to the ship is extensive, sir,” the officer said. “We’re going to be on the ground soon no matter what happens. The only question is whether we land or fall.”

  Rhundi continued, more than a bit of amusement in her voice. “And, hey, if you’re just along for the paycheck, do me a favor and lock yourself in your quarters. I know Barren’s not paying you enough to risk your life. And I’m the only one who knows where the rest of the bombs are. Just wait for the ship to land, and then go about your way. That is, if you can avoid getting killed in the war he started down there. Good luck.”

  K’Shorr started laughing.

  “Told you she was good, boss,” he said. “I mean, I’m gonna find the furry little bitch and kill the fuck out of her, but you gotta appreciate the craftsmanship.”

  “Land the fucking ship,” Barren said. “I’ll show you where. I’m going to make her regret this.”

  The elf snarled, a trickle of blood from a bitten lip running down his chin.

  “I’ll make all of them regret this.”

  Overmorrow watched as gouts of flame erupted and boiled off into space from several points on the hull of the capital ship on the viewscreen.

  “Did we do that?” xe asked.

  “No,” Smashes-the-Stars responded. “Looks like it’s happening internally. Saboteurs, maybe? Shall we assist them?”

  “Not unless they ask for it,” Overmorrow said. “Continue to monitor the situation.”

  Xe felt a gentle touch in the back of xir mind, as Asper reached out to xir.

  I am here.

  We are on our way, Asper sent. The halfogre and the gnome intend to follow the capital ship before you to the ground. I will rejoin you as soon as I can. Be safe.

  Of course, Overmorrow replied. Battle well, my child. We will both end this day blooded. Earn yours well.

  Xe felt Asper let go, and returned xir attention to the people around xir.

  “Multiple contacts at the edge of the system,” Smashes-the-Stars said. “It’s the Benevolence. They’re here. And … there are a LOT of them.”

  “Let them come,” Overmorrow answered. “What will happen is written already.”

  “If you’ve seen the script, I’d love a look,” the dwarf replied. “Not all of us are as in touch with the universe as you are.”

  Overmorrow smiled. “Warn everyone. It won’t be long.”

  “There they are,” Brazel said, watching the long-range viewscreen. “The Benevolence are here. A couple of capital ships. Who knows how many spiderships.” There was no denying it: The new ship handled like a dream and despite the rush job the captain’s seat was not only perfectly sized for him but was easily the most comfortable chair he’d ever sat in. Unfortunately, what the ship had in creature comforts was more than outweighed by its drawbacks.

  TWO HUNDRED AND TWELVE, the ship’s AI intoned. Brazel considered naming the AI “Drawback” and then rejected the idea. AND AN UNKNOWN NUMBER STILL HOUSED WITHIN THE CAPITAL SHIPS THEMSELVES.

  “No one asked you,” Brazel said. The new AI had a deep, mechanical voice. He decided that he didn’t like it very much.

  I RECOMMEND CEDING FULL CONTROL TO SHIP SYSTEMS AT THIS TIME, CAPTAIN, the AI continued.

  Brazel glared at the nearest viewscreen, then felt silly about it and found a speaker to glare at instead. “And why would I do that?”

  LIVING BEINGS ARE INFERIOR PILOTS. YOU HAVE A MUCH GREATER CHANCE OF SURVIVING THE COMING ENGAGEMENT WITH MY PILOTING THAN WITHOUT IT.

  “Four minutes out,” Grond said. “They’ll intercept us before we get to Khkk unless this thing can go faster.”

  “Letting machines do the thinking for them is Benevolence work, thanks,” Brazel said to the ship. “I’ll fly myself.”

  I STRENUOUSLY PROTEST.

  “I strenuously give no fucks. And change your voice to something less annoying.”

  THIS IS MY SOLE VOICE IMPRINT, CAPTAIN.

  “Grond, do something about the AI,” Brazel said. “I don’t give a fuck what.”

  “Shooting’s my job anyway,” the halfogre said. “You just fly the thing.”

  ATTACK PROTOCOLS ARE ALSO FULLY AUTOMATIC, the ship said.

  “Pull the fucking brainbox,” Brazel said. “And throw it into something that will melt it.”

  MY PERFORMANCE WILL BE SIGNIFICANTLY DEGRADED IF AI FUNCTIONS ARE DISCONNECTED.

  “There’s got to be an off button around here somewhere,” Brazel said, as the halfogre got out of his copilot’s seat and headed for the engine room.

  “Gimme a minute,” Grond said. “Be right back. Try not to get blown up before then. Benevolence will be within range in … oh, two minutes.”

  “Hurry,” Brazel said. “Don’t wanna hog all the fun.”

  Brazel’s subcomm buzzed in his ear. He recognized the signal.

  Holy shit.

  “Rhundi?”

  “Hi!”

  “You have really pissed Barren off, dear. I assume you’ve gotten off the ship already?”

  “Yeah. One problem, though? I’m sort of on an escape pod and the thing handles like … well, like an escape pod. I’m less piloting than in a controlled fall. And he’s been orbiting over what looks like a hotspot for a while. You up to a combat rescue?”

  BENEVOLENCE FORCES IN CONTACT RANGE IN ONE MINUTE.

  “Can you find a way to make yourself invisible in between now and then? Hopefully they’re going to be too busy to shoot down escape pods.” Something was nagging at him. “Wait, isn’t Barren chasing you?”

  “I sorta took out most of his guns. Long story. You’ll love it.”

  “Okay, well, we’re about to get busy here. I’ll comm you when we’re on the ground.”

  “Stay alive, okay?”

  “You too, love.” He closed the connection, watching a brace of spiderships heading for the fleet of Malevolence ships in the distance. Thus far, none had bothered to pay much attention to them. Then again, he hadn’t given them a reason to yet.

  “All right, ship,” Brazel said. “Remember said you’re a warship. Time to prove it.”

  He accelerated to combat speed, bringing the ship’s shields to full power and taking aim at the rearmost spidership. I’ve never actually deliberately opened fire on Benevolence before, he thought. Every time he’d encountered them in the past his first and sole impulse had been to run. Hopefully Remember wasn’t lying about this boat’s capabilities.

  Then, feeling odd, he corrected his own thought.

  Ship.

  He opened fire on the spidership, bolts of flame ripping from the warship and raking along the target’s flank. He took out several maneuvering arms, and the ship spiraled away, bursting into a cloud of nanoparticles when a stray missile from another ship hit it.

  “That’s something,” he said, taking aim at another spidership. My first Benevolence kill.

  He felt a jolt as the ship suddenly slowed down, the inertia throwing him forward in his seat despite the dampers and his restraints. The lights in the cockpit dimmed and a loud buzzing sound filled the ship.

  “Um.”

  That’s not good.

  “GROND!” Brazel shouted. “Did you do that? We’re sorta involved in a whole thing up here!”

  “You told me to pull the brainbox!” the halfogre roared back. Brazel could hear his partner’s footsteps as Grond raced back to the copilot’s seat behind him. “I replaced it!”

  “With what?” Brazel asked. “You just happen to have another one with you or something? I wasn’t serious about replacing the goddamned brainbox! I just wanted you to see if you could make the thing shut up!”

  “Replacing the brainbox is one way to make the ship shut up,” Grond said calmly, buckling himself into his seat.

  The control su
rfaces in front of Brazel started flickering as the AI rebooted. Three spiderships disengaged themselves from the group in front of them, pivoting rapidly in space and reorienting toward their new ship.

  “I am not getting fucking shot down twice in one day,” Brazel yelled, trying to force the ship into a dive. It responded, but sluggishly. The shields looked like they were still up, though. At least that was something. The first volley of shots from the spiderships missed or glanced off. The second round of explosives didn’t, and the ship rocked.

  “You see a damage report anywhere?” Brazel shouted.

  “Maybe we should have read the manual,” Grond said. The halfogre was smiling.

  WE’RE FINE, a familiar voice said. SHIELDS AT NINETY-SIX PERCENT. WAIT. WE WERE DYING A FEW MINUTES AGO. WHY ARE WE NOT DEAD? THIS HAD BETTER NOT BE THE AFTERLIFE.

  “Wha–” Brazel sputtered. “Namey?”

  “Namey,” Grond said. The damned halfogre was beaming.

  I’M NOT ME, Namey said.

  “Save the existential crisis, please,” Grond said. “You’re still a boat. Adjust.”

  Grond somehow could feel the boat taking a moment to get a grip.

  I HAVE GUNS, Namey said. He sounded quite pleased with this development.

  “One or two,” Grond said. “Which maybe you want to start using soon?”

  I HAVE LOTS OF GUNS, Namey said. I’VE ALWAYS WANTED GUNS. YOU NEVER GOT ME ANY REAL GUNS BEFORE.

  “YES! You have guns!” Brazel screeched. “Now shoot something with them!”

  WE AREN’T RUNNING? WE USUALLY RUN WHEN THIS HAPPENS.

  “We’ll explain later, dammit!” Brazel shot a look at Grond. Grond read his partner’s mind: By “we,” I mean “you.”

  The Nameless cackled as it dove into combat against the Benevolence forces.

  Thirty-One

  Haakoro had been in tunnelspace for ten minutes when it occurred to him that he had no idea what he was doing. He knew, vaguely, where Benevolence-dominated space was. He knew he was headed in mostly the right direction. And he knew that the sleek needleship he’d stolen from Remember’s docks had plenty of fuel and was easily the fastest thing he’d ever flown. He briefly considered just changing course and heading off for … well, anywhere.

  No. I can do this, he thought. The sector of Benevolence space the troll had highlighted seemed pretty specific. The needleship appeared to be of elvish make, meaning that he probably wouldn’t stick out or attract too much attention when he got there. And he was pretty sure, given the amount of time the trip would take, that he could adjust the single, powerful energy cannon on the needleship until it would cut through the Benevolence shield design he’d seen. He’d done his best to memorize it while Irtuus-bon was displaying it. He had to trust in his own luck. He always had, and until recently the practice had done him well.

  And then he was off to save the galaxy. With a needleship–a long, narrow single-passenger craft that seemed to be half engine and half cannon–he’d only need a few shots, if he could get through the fields.

  “I’m going to change everything,” he said to himself, and began working on reproducing the shield diagram.

  From the command deck on Roashan, Overmorrow watched xir people die. The Benevolence forces were too many, the networked spiderships too coordinated for xir small fleet to make much headway against them. Here or there, a spidership caught in a crossfire or overlapping explosions was destroyed, but despite their optimism at the start of the battle the Malevolence were losing badly. Overmorrow felt each death, and also felt it when pilots took flight and jumped to tunnelspace rather than fall to the inevitable.

  The station’s defenses were mostly automated, the patchwork of overlapping shielding technologies and Roashan’s asymmetrical, cobbled-together shape making a computerized solution simply easier. Nearly every gun on the station, however, was controlled by living intelligence.

  Unless xe needed it to be otherwise.

  “Prep Roashan to assault the capital ships,” Overmorrow commanded. “Pull everyone away from their stations and to a place of … relative safety. We attack as soon as the station is ready. Until then, keep us alive and hold them off.”

  “This may not be the best set of circumstances for that,” Smashes-the-Stars said. “It was meant to be a last resort–”

  “You do not believe we are in a position of last resort?” Overmorrow said placidly. “Perhaps you are viewing a different battle than the one I see.”

  Smashes-the-Stars nodded, took a deep breath, and executed the command.

  From outside the station, all of Roashan’s exterior and interior lights suddenly went dim. The entire station began to slowly rotate, changing orientation so that the flat side of the disc faced the battle. Nearby spiderships broke away from chasing down and destroying individual Malevolence fighters to challenge the huge space station, but its shields were powerful enough that their attacks were simply brushed off.

  And then the entire station slowly began to bend, a long, ragged seam opening between the dozens of different parts Roashan had been assembled from, and folded itself behind its central drive. The drive itself was transforming as well, elongating, the emitter focusing and shrinking to only a few meters wide.

  Overmorrow felt Asper in xir mind.

  I said I was nearby. What are you doing?

  What needs to be done, Overmorrow replied. Remain with the halfogre and the gnome. Assist them in their tasks. I will see you again soon enough, child.

  Overmorrow felt a moment of purest panic from Asper, then just as quickly a feeling of regret and acceptance as xir child accepted what xe had said. Xe felt a whisper, a touch, and then nothing, as Asper focused on the task at hand.

  “Attack the capital ships,” Overmorrow commanded. “Fire at will.”

  Rhundi watched, strapped into a crash seat, as the escape pod tumbled toward the surface of Khkk. Tumbled far too fast, in fact. The escape pod hadn’t been specifically targeted but the guidance systems had been damaged by a stray shot and she was in far less control of the descent than she wanted to be. The crash seat would protect her, but she was falling directly into what was supposedly an active war zone and she very much hoped to land in one of the less active parts.

  What she saw didn’t look good. Malevolence forces–at least, she hoped those were the Mals–had holed up in a walled compound the size of a small town, dotted with squat, cube-shaped buildings. At the center of the compound stood an immense three-sided pyramid that towered over the buildings around it. Amazingly, at least from a distance, the pyramid didn’t appear to have a scratch on it. In fact, the entire compound appeared mostly unscathed, although the walls looked like they’d taken a lot of abuse.

  The opposition, whoever they actually were, had the town under siege. It was completely surrounded by a troop encampment that looked to be at least half a kilometer thick, set just far enough away from the walls that range was likely an issue for those inside. Surprisingly, she saw no signs of heavy artillery or mechanized transports. Surely as well known as Khkk was for weapons design, someone had invented something that could wipe this compound from the surface. A siege seemed downright old-fashioned.

  Something’s making them careful, she thought, right before the escape pod took another hit, sending her directly toward enemy lines. She closed her eyes, thinking of her family, and tried to sink as deeply into the crash seat as she could. The trick in these things was always to relax, and let the seat do its job. This would be her fourth crash-landing. The first time she’d involuntarily stiffened her legs to brace herself and broken one of them.

  The second two were Brazel’s fault, she thought, smiling, and then the pod slammed into the ground.

  It was a few minutes before she could convince herself she was still alive. She tested her limbs, slowly, checking her fingers and toes for pain, then moving on to her arms, legs, and finally her neck.

  Alive. Hell, uninjured. Mental note: buy the company that makes these thin
gs.

  Next step was getting out of the pod. The thing had two doors on opposite sides and a few explosive bolts that would blow the whole pod in half if necessary. She was hoping to not have to use those. If there was any way to get out of the pod without attracting any more attention than she did slamming into the ground, she was going to use it.

  One of the doors was on the side the pod had landed on. The second pointed in the right direction. She disentangled herself from the chair and leapt for the release. The door popped open.

  A few dozen oversized insects with large weapons were standing outside the door.

  “Oh, shit,” Rhundi said, then raised her arms in surrender.

  Barren received no warning at all, a blinding white pain striking him between the eyes, the surprise and pain dropping him straight to the deck of his crippled ship. He felt the floor fall away, replaced by a shining radiance and a tremendous feeling of pressure and heat from all directions. The symbol slammed into the backs of his eyes, seared into his brain: the oval eye, eight-armed.

  The voices were all. The voices were everything, male, female, old, young, human, elf, dwarf, ogre, others that he could make no sense of at all. They had but one thing in common: they were all fearsome in their implacable anger, and they spoke as one.

  YOU HAVE FAILED, SLAVE.

  Barren tried to speak, to reply, but could not. There was no air in the room to pull into his lungs, only the terrible pressure. He could feel his ribs cracking.

  YOU SHALL DIE TODAY. YOU HAVE FAILED US. YOU FORCE US TO DO OURSELVES WHAT YOU CLAIMED YOU WOULD ACCOMPLISH.

  He pushed with his arms, trying to stand, to at least raise his face from the floor, panic and agony flooding his muscles in equal amounts. He felt one of the bones in his left forearm give way with a crunch, and gave up. He coughed, violently, a fine spray of blood spewing from his mouth. His screams were silent, but impossible to suppress.

  YOUR LIFE ENDS, SLAVE. YOUR GIFTS WILL BE SUNDERED, YOUR NAME BROKEN, YOUR MEMORY STRICKEN FROM OUR COMMUNION.

  Forgive, he thought frantically, hoping they could hear him.

  WE DO NOT FORGIVE. END YOUR OWN LIFE BEFORE WE REACH YOU.