In an instant, the light turned to darkness and the heat to cold. Barren was face down on the floor. His wounds were still there. His chest was burned as if with a powerful acid, his skin melted like candle wax, an eight-armed scar left behind.
He drew breath into his lungs, feeling as if he had not done so in hours, and screamed raggedly. He felt something give in his throat, cutting his shrieks short. He could feel his broken ribs digging into him, and his left arm twisted horribly.
The ogre was there, picking him up from the floor, carrying him away from the bridge. He could hear K’Shorr’s words, but could make no sense of them. There was only the pain, and the sound of his screams.
Thirty-Two
Grond, possibly for the first time in his life, let out an elated whoop.
“Never make that sound again,” Brazel said.
“Fuck that, this is fun,” the halfogre said. This boat Remember had given them was a much more impressive piece of technology than either of them had realized, and while they weren’t exactly flying rings around the spiderships, they were holding their own, and that was something that had never happened before. With Brazel handling the flying, Grond handling the primary guns from the copilot’s chair, and Asper manning a belly turret, they’d taken out six spiderships since the battle started. In all his years working with Brazel, he’d never even heard of someone having that kind of success against active Benevolence. Not once.
I am going to get so many free drinks out of this, he thought. Assuming I survive.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OVER THERE?
“More specific,” Brazel snapped. “Trying to not die here.” He threw the Nameless into a sharp spin and dove down toward Khkk, forcing two pursuing spiderships to dodge out of each other’s way.
ROASHAN.
“Seven!” Grond shouted happily as he splattered another spidership, saving a Mal pilot whose ship was listing badly and leaking something into space. He looked away from his targeting software to see what Namey was talking about.
Roashan had … transformed. Formerly a patchwork, vaguely amoeboid circle, the station had split itself in half and folded backwards, now looking for all the world like an immense sniper’s rifle.
He felt a brief pulse of emotion. It didn’t feel like his own.
“Asper?” he commed. “Was that you?”
“My apologies,” the elf responded. “I was … speaking with my parent. I did not mean to allow that to overflow.”
“What’s going on?” he asked, and then the universe erupted in fire.
Grond blinked, trying to clear the stars from his eyes. “Are we hit?”
ROASHAN IS FIRING ON THE CAPITAL SHIPS, Namey said. THE AMOUNT OF FIREPOWER THE STATION IS GENERATING IS TREMENDOUS.
The spiderships pursuing them broke away, and each and every one of them turned toward Roashan, which was pouring energy into the closer of the two Benevolence capital ships. Grond and Brazel watched as the beam, itself wider than a spidership, at first glanced off the capital ship’s shields, then either found the frequency or overcame the shields and burned an enormous hole into the ship. The beam wavered, flicking up and around, cutting the huge ship nearly in half. A few seconds later, it silently blew apart, the shockwave damaging the second capital ship, which suddenly had to deal with hundreds of tons of shrapnel impacting on its shields.
“How the hell long have they been able to do that?” Brazel shouted.
“It is the entire purpose of the station,” Asper answered over the comm. “Elude the Benevolence for as long as possible, and have the power to make them regret it when escape was no longer an option. The station was a weapon, but a weapon of last resort. I doubt they have the power for a second shot. The spiderships will tear the station to pieces before it can fire again or get away. My parent sacrificed Roashan to buy xir pilots time to get away.”
“We can help, can’t we?” Grond said.
“No time,” Brazel said. “We’ve got a clear path to the ground for the first time since the fight started. Let’s take advantage of it. Rhundi’s down there somewhere.”
“I don’t speak insect,” Rhundi said as a torrent of powerfully scented pheromones wafted over her. “Any chance I’m going to get lucky and find out you speak humanoid?” The good news was that the Khkks hadn’t immediately opened fire–in fact, if anything they appeared to be debating what to do about her. Several of them were waving appendages at each other and making a flurry of excited-sounding noises, and Rhundi could pick up on a large part of the chemical portion of their conversation as well. Gnomes had an exceptional sense of smell, but that didn’t really lend itself to being able to understand what the Khkks were saying to one another.
As an experiment, she started slowly lowering her hands. Several heads swiveled her way, but none of the Khkks made an aggressive move. Okay. That’s good.
“I’m going to try and climb out of here, very slowly,” she said. “I would appreciate it quite a lot if no one tried to shoot me.” It occurred to her that she was still wearing several of the weapons she’d swiped from K’Shorr’s closet. The Khkks either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. They continued their conversation, a few of them actually moving out of the way to allow her room to get out of the escape pod.
She climbed out, then raised her hands again, squinting against the bright sun and trying to get a clear view of her surroundings without being too obvious about it. Not for the first time, she cursed being short. The Khkks were a bit shorter than she was, but there were so many of them that she couldn’t see much of what was around her.
She turned around and gasped, getting her first good view of the pyramid structure behind her. It was much taller than she’d realized while she was falling out of orbit, and from the ground it was beautiful enough to make her breath catch in her chest. It looked like it was made of spun glass, multicolored, catching the bright daytime Khkk sun and sparkling in the sky. It looked too delicate to be even a fraction as tall as it was.
One of the Khkks prodded her in the shoulder. She turned toward it quickly, trying to suppress the reflex to move her hands toward her guns.
The Khkk raised an appendage and pointed toward the structure.
“It’s amazing,” Rhundi said.
The insect pointed again. She turned, and realized that the Khkks between her and the pyramid had all moved away. They actually wanted her to go toward it.
“You’re not besieging this thing, are you?” she asked. “You’re protecting it. From the Benevolence.”
A flush of pheromone scents, and a gesture that looked very much like a nod.
“And you want me to … what? Go to the compound around it?”
Another burst of the same scent, and several more gestures toward the pyramid. The temple, she thought. The Khkks were treating the structure like it was sacred. That doesn’t explain why they want me in there. They’ve got to be aware that the place is occupied right now.
She’d figure that one out when she was around people she was biologically adapted to communicate with.
“Okay,” she said. “Off I go.” She turned and started walking, listening carefully to see if any of the Khkks were following her. The structure looked to be a kilometer or so away from her. It was awfully hot outside, but not so bad that she’d have to worry about water for a bit.
I just hope I can find a way in, she thought.
“You’re gonna explain that, I hope,” K’Shorr said. The giant ogre had proven surprisingly gentle, carrying Barren to the ship’s medical station and laying him down on a bed. “I’ve got the docs on the way. You’ll be all right.”
Barren tried to shove him away, catching a scream in his teeth as he used his broken arm.
“No time,” he spat out. “Is the ship on the ground yet?”
“Getting there,” K’Shorr said. “When I carried you off the bridge they said they’d gotten our descent under control. Should just be a couple of minutes.”
“They’ll fight us,” B
arren said. “Destroy them. Destroy all of them.”
“Sure,” K’Shorr said. The gnome had killed the bridge’s ability to accurately aim much of anything, but he didn’t see any reason to remind Barren of that. And he’d gotten the distinct impression that under control had meant something along the lines of “not actively crashing.”
“The Benevolence have … abandoned us,” Barren said, coughing up blood. “We have but one chance to regain their favor. When we land, you must get me inside the Sanctum. Do whatever you need to do.”
“You’re the boss,” K’Shorr said. A medic entered the small medbay, and K’Shorr waved the man over as Barren passed out again and his head fell back against the pillow.
“He needs to be able to walk,” K’Shorr said. “Set the arm and whatever else you notice is broken. Pump him full of painkillers if you need to. Strap him down first, we’re crashing. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The medic just stared at him, the slightest hint of defiance on the man’s face.
K’Shorr sighed deeply, then grabbed the medic by his shirt and lifted him off the ground, putting them eye-to-eye.
“Lemme make somethin’ fucking clear here,” he growled, his eyes shining red and coloring the man’s face. “I’m going to go and pick up as many killing tools as I can carry. If I come back here, and he’s dead, or you’re not in the room actively tending to him, I’m going to make killing the fuck out of you my first priority. I will have nothing else to do on this useless rock other than to cause you an incredible amount of pain until I let you die. If I come back and he’s fixed, as far as I’m concerned you can have what’s left of the ship. We understand each other here?”
The man, struggling to breathe a bit, nodded. Or tried to. It looked like it might have been a nod.
K’Shorr dropped him. The man collapsed to the floor, his legs going out from underneath him. K’Shorr smelled urine.
“Not kidding about the crashing thing. I’m not sure why the alarms aren’t going off. She may have blown those too. So work fast.”
The ogre turned and left, making a mental inventory of exactly what he wanted to bring with him. He had a feeling that Barren wouldn’t be paying him for much longer, and had a checklist of lives he needed to end before he had to find another job.
Starting with Rhundi Tavh’re’muil.
Interlude 4
Then
Grond awoke to pain. His legs, his shoulders, his arms, his chest. He had broken teeth and a mouth full of blood. His vision was blurry, and the bright light was painful. His lungs were on fire.
I’m outside. He was outdoors, and as he looked around he realized it was worse than that. He was naked, and tied up on the ground. His hands were bound in front of him, and his feet tied together.
Someone slapped him. His teeth rattled in his mouth and he looked around wildly, trying to make his eyes focus enough to find the source of the agony. A hand grabbed his jaw, intensifying the pain.
“You stupid bastard,” K’Shorr said, his eyes glowing red. The ogre had a breathing mask on, his voice magnified through speakers. “All you had to do was win that fight. All you had to do. And it shoulda been the easiest thing ever. There wasn’t a one of them that should have even been in the fucking pit with you. But no. Had to go and think for yourself. You have any idea how much money you just cost Barren? How much money you just cost me?”
Grond tried to speak and failed.
“Don’t bother,” K’Shorr said. “I don’t give a damn what you have to say. Got told to make an example of you. Came up with a real good way to do it, too.”
The ogre rolled him over, and Grond felt something cold being shoved in between his elbows and his back. Then a horrible tearing pain in his shoulders, as he was lifted off the ground by the bar. He scrabbled for purchase with his feet, finding only a small ledge that he could stand on with his toes. There was no way he would be able to hold his weight for long, and his lungs were already straining to keep breath in them.
Then a line of ice was drawn with a sharp blade below his waist, and a searing pull that went deep into his viscera, and he blacked out again.
“Gods,” Snider said. “They crucified him.”
“More than that,” the other gnome said. “They halved him.” She pointed.
“Maybe we ought to just let him die,” Snider said. “It already took too long to snatch the rest of the kids. And how long did we have to wait for K’Shorr to leave? He’s gotta be—”
“He’s breathing,” she said. “Cut him down. Cut him down now.”
The two of them worked in frantic silence for a few minutes, Snider using a microtorch to cut through the post that was holding the bloodied halfogre in the air. Eventually the post gave way, and he hit the ground with a crash. They worked quickly, severing the ropes and freeing his arms.
“If he’s alive, he’s coming with us,” she said. “Comm the ship.”
Snider shrugged. “Send the Incandescent,” he said into the comm. “Rhundi and I need a pickup.”
Thirty-Three
“It is time for us to go,” Smashes-the-Stars said. In one sense, they’d gotten incredibly lucky–the single blast that Roashan had managed had crippled one capital ship and caused substantial damage to the other. Some of the spiderships had left the battle to return to the capital ship, and most of the Mal pilots had leapt to tunnelspace by now. The rest were too dumb or too stubborn to flee. Or their ships were too crippled to make the jump. She tried not to think about those.
The rest of the spiderships, possibly orphaned by the destruction of the first capital ship, were tearing Roashan to pieces.
“Not until the rest of our people are safe,” Overmorrow said. “The shields will hold.”
“The shields are already collapsing, Overmorrow,” Smashes-the-Stars said. The dwarf briefly considered the possibility that she’d have to knock Overmorrow unconscious to get xir to abandon ship. “Virtually everyone on Roashan is in position to evacuate as soon as you give the order. The rest are all also stubborn assholes and won’t go until you do.” She looked around for something heavy. She’d never seen anyone sneak up on Overmorrow before, but hell if she wasn’t going to try. The elf would have to turn xir back sometime.
Overmorrow’s shoulders drooped, and Smashes-the-Stars felt a wave of relief as xe reached out and let the remaining Malevolence on Roashan know that it was time to go.
“Start the countdown,” Overmorrow said. “Two minutes. That should be enough time.”
“I’m not sure we have two minutes,” Smashes-the-Stars said, but she did as she was told. The station shook as more of the shields failed. She checked a damage report. They had just lost a quarter of the station.
“Then we will have to hurry,” Overmorrow said. “Let’s go.”
A roar from the sky nearly knocked Rhundi flat. She looked up to see a familiar sight: Barren’s ship, descending at what looked like an unhealthy rate of speed, heading directly for the compound that she’d been sent toward. A cry went up from the Khkks, and fire erupted from the ground–both outside and inside the walls–toward the ship.
“Oh, no,” she said. How much of their weaponry did I take out? She was pretty sure that targeting had been disabled, but they would still have–
Dozens of tiny specks detached themselves from the bottom of the ship and ignited, speeding toward the ground.
Explosives. Simple, dumb bombs. They still had their bombs.
And they were going to land far too close to her for comfort. She looked around for cover: there was none. If there had ever been any of the rock formations that were so common on Khkk near the pyramid, they’d long since been quarried or removed. There was nowhere to hide. She hit the ground, curling into a ball and covering her head.
Then the bombs struck, and the world erupted in light and sound. She felt a wave of heat pass over her, and waited until the sound of shattered rock hitting the ground stopped before daring to look around.
I guess
I don’t have to worry about how I get in anymore, she thought. The bombs had blown a hole in the wall around the pyramid that had to be thirty meters wide, and while the ship was listing badly it looked like it was at least technically going to “land” inside the compound. The Khkks who had survived the bombing run looked uncertain about what to do, anger about the violation of their space warring with their taboo about getting any closer than they already were.
Her subcomm pinged.
“Brazel?”
“You okay? That didn’t look good.”
She let out a deep breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding. “I’m fine, but I think Barren and K’Shorr are on the surface. They just crashed their ship into that compound.”
“It’s called the Sanctum of the Sphere. Remember told us all about it. We’re coming to get you.”
“Meet me inside,” she said.
She could feel her husband getting ready to argue with her.
“This isn’t our fight,” he said.
“I’m making it our fight,” she said. “Try not to get shot down by the Khkks. Do you think Barren and K’Shorr are heading for the pyramid?”
“The Sanctum,” Brazel said. “And probably. Remember said it’s important, but she’s not sure why. We think they know something we don’t.”
“Wonderful,” Rhundi said, picking up her pace. “Well, I haven’t thrown myself into danger in a while. Let’s do this.”
“You have thrown yourself into danger multiple times today,” Brazel said. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’re cutting out,” Rhundi said. “See you on the ground.”
“I am not cutting out,” Brazel said.
“Rhundi lies a lot,” Grond observed. “Have you ever noticed that?”
“It’s the foundation of our marriage in a lot of ways,” the gnome mused. “You see anywhere down there that actually looks like a landing pad?”
EVASIVE MANEUVERS, Namey said. THEY’RE SHOOTING AT US. Brazel felt the ship spin and juke, avoiding fire from the ground
“Didn’t Remember say this thing had some sort of camouflage mode?” Brazel asked.
The Sanctum of the Sphere: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 2 Page 22
