Gods and The City (Gods and the Starways Book 1)

by Steve Statham

  She struggled to hold the pieces of herself together. More ships rose from the world below, a vast Otrid fleet. Her own ships responded sluggishly as her control wavered. They fell one by one under the renewed assault of the enemy ships.

  Faraway felt an unfamiliar sensation rising within parts of her, a feeling she had not experienced since the days when she had been fully human���panic. Other parts of her watched the scene unfolding inside her ship with cold fascination as her destruction approached.

  No, not destruction, she realized. Something worse.

  Faraway calculated what it would take to fall into Divine Space, leaving these enemies behind, but froze when she observed the reaction of her attackers. The invading programs paused and reoriented to follow the altered information streams. The watching eye of the dark thing focused like a predator waiting to pounce, as if it could read her very thoughts.

  And then she had a flash of insight���The whole point of this attack is to gain the knowledge of Divine Space!

  It was the one ability, this gift from the Benefactors, that no other species in the galaxy possessed, as far as she knew. The Benefactors had left the galaxy on the next step of their evolution and only the gods of humanity held the keys to this almost magical shortcut through space. It was the one technology the Otrid did not possess, or humanity would doubtless have been overrun centuries ago. The Otrid were constrained by slower methods of travel, these blunt-force wormhole portals they used to skip between star systems.

  The Otrid had laid this elaborate trap for her, they had captured this ancient one-eyed alien that possessed the power to strip away the bonds of linked complex systems, all to gain access to the door that opened to any point in the galaxy.

  Faraway burned the knowledge of Divine Space from her memory and that of her ship.

  She burned away her knowledge of the location of Grey Wolf’s Wandering World, along with the location of the new world that Apex was painstakingly constructing.

  Faraway tried to burn away the coordinates to The City in the Lodias system, but that information was so thoroughly ingrained in the ship’s many systems she might as well try to dismantle the sphere ship with her bare hands.

  She began the sequence to end her own existence, but the gods of humanity could not be so quickly extinguished.

  She had only initiated the first steps toward the cascading implosion that would destroy her when a surge of energy emanated from the dark alien. She felt the hostile presence, a consciousness of unfathomable menace, invading a significant swath of her mind. The creature hunted with a blood-chilling efficiency for the information it desired.

  The cold fury of the creature was horrible to behold as it realized she had burned the knowledge of Divine Space from her own mind.

  She felt genuine pain then, physical pain, as the Otrid and the dark alien began the process of rearranging her thoughts, scrambling the imperatives that guided her. Nano-level intruders invaded her core physical form located deep within the ship. A small, utterly alien part of herself was growing larger with each passing second.

  They are remaking me, she knew, and the sadness only a god could feel overwhelmed her. I am to be the instrument of humanity’s destruction.

 

 

  Goodbye.

  I am sorry I failed you all.

  22

  To Fight Back

  Talia disengaged from the memory shard with a mental gasp.

  It had taken her a full minute to absorb the cache of Faraway’s final thoughts and memories. It took further seconds to reorient herself after exiting the simulation. The emotions Faraway had felt in those last moments were overwhelming���all too human, but amplified as only a god could experience.

  She still had several drones within the Administrator’s office, and she viewed their feeds now. His body was still, and scans revealed no energy signatures within the corpse. Whatever that hidden Faraway fragment had been, its mission was now over.

  The situation was even worse than she had known. This new alien threat the Otrid had allied themselves with, or probably enslaved, possessed a devastating power. She immediately accessed all reports of alien life forms from Tower’s memory files, searching for anything that might shed light on the creature. But this strange alien species had never been encountered by humans, or even Benefactors, until Faraway’s unfortunate encounter.

  The threat was bad, but they had also been lucky to some extent. Talia knew that the Otrid and their dark ally had also corrupted Triton. But the Otrid did not yet have access to Divine Space, or they would have flooded local space with their ships long before now. Like Faraway, Triton must have burned the knowledge of Divine Space from his memory. They had thwarted the Otrid’s ultimate goal, as had Tower.

  The gods were strong when it counted.

  Talia called up deep files that the Benefactors had compiled on Otrid technologies. The interstellar portals the Otrid used to navigate through space were known to them, but considered an inferior technology. Traveling by the portals was far slower than the shortcut of Divine Space. The Benefactors, as well as human analysts of the time, believed the portals took years to construct and even then had limited range. When necessary, a jump portal could be generated quickly, but only over relatively short distances.

  From Faraway’s memories Talia knew the Otrid had spent decades, if not centuries, luring her to a remote planet where they could spring their trap. That they had located The City and opened portals inside the Lodias system indicated they had been methodically generating and jumping through the portals for years, likely in staggered waves.

  Talia had immersed herself in her role as the powerful demigod guardian of The City, but now she felt once again like an ignorant child. In her past life as a Radiant Acolyte she had had no idea how valuable a technological breakthrough Divine Space was. It was a perspective that now seemed obvious, but so few of The City’s inhabitants seemed to understand the nature of the gods’ greatest power.

  So much knowledge and data at my fingertips, yet none of that will tell me what I should do.

  She shifted her perspective and viewed the people of The City as they went about their business. Many were simply hidden in their homes, waiting for the attack against The City to end. Others scurried from place to place, seeking friends or scavenging for food. She watched with satisfaction as Vance’s patrols surrounded another nest of the invading aliens.

  Not all of us will be passive spectators to our fate.

  Talia opened a comm link to Vance.

  “How goes the war?”

  Vance started as her voice echoed in his helmet. He glanced around, as if she might have materialized right over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? We’re killing and capturing on schedule, god-lady. Haven’t you been watching?”

  “The fight continues on many fronts. I’d rather hear it direct from you.”

  “They seem to know they’re beaten. We’re rounding them up without much resistance. Any chance you can fabricate some kind of shackles we can use, in case any of these prisoners start having second thoughts?”

  Before he had even finished his sentence Talia contacted the heads of the master machinists’ guild and the industrial craftmans’ league and directed them to begin design and production of shackles that would hold the aliens. She was eager for any opportunity to get more people directly involved in The City’s defense.

  “An excellent idea, Vance. What else do you need?”

  “I’d like to know if my wife and kids are safe. What’s the fighting like in the market district?”

  Talia linked to the axis flyers, drones and servitor robots in the market district tower where Vance made his home. “The aliens have been cleared out of that sector,” she said, and then shifted her view to internal feeds. “Your wife appears tired, but they are safe. Your tw
o youngest are sleeping. The oldest is sanding a piece of wood in your shop.”

  He exhaled. “Thanks.”

  “Is there anything else you require?”

  Vance thought for a second. “Be nice to know the bigger picture. We’ve got this bug hunt to keep us busy, but we’re meeting a lot of panicky people along the way. Nobody knows what’s going on. Crazy rumors are spreading. I think more people are going to get hurt by not knowing than getting the bad news officially.”

  “Thank you, Vance. I’ve been thinking about that very problem. I can’t put off dealing with it any longer. I’ll be addressing the whole City soon.”

  Inside her underground cocoon, Talia closed her eyes and exhaled. She was surprised at how good it felt to seek council from someone, even a person she had known for so short a time. And Vance had cut right to the heart of one of the major problems facing them.

  She took a few seconds to organize and prepare her thoughts. She refined her warrior goddess Aspect in small ways that she hoped would project a sense of reassurance and resolve. She accessed her memories of her own history studies of successful statesmen and leaders for cues on how to sway people.

  She felt a small glow of satisfaction that she was able to rely on her own education and research from her years as an acolyte, and not just the endless stores of Tower’s information caches.

  Talia then cast projections of herself to all the temples, public screens and work stations under the dome. Hundreds of copies of her warrior goddess Aspect appeared at once. Some people ran in fear, but most began to slowly gather around the projections.

  “My friends, fellow citizens, I am Talia, of late a Radiant Acolyte to the god Tower. I have been elevated in these dark times to protect The City. I do not have all the powers of the seven gods of mankind, but my abilities are considerable, and I will use every one of my powers to ensure the safety of The City.

  “But I bring grim news. Some of you have heard, and other have only suspected. Tower is dead.” She paused as the confirmation of the terrible news sank in. Across The City, cries of despair could be heard. At Tower’s main temple, people threw themselves on the ground, sobbing and chanting the Ninth Lesson, in which Tower had laid down his laws so long ago.

  “He gave his life for us. The explosion that even now still lights the sky was his final act, and it was an act of self-sacrifice. He temporarily pushed back the invaders, buying us precious time. We must not waste it.

  “That is not the end of the hard news. Faraway is also dead, and likely Triton too, or he may be compromised in some horrible fashion.” The cries died down, and the resident of The City settled into shocked silence.

  “Other gods may come to aid us, and I have every reason to believe they will answer our prayers. But we cannot count on that. Our enemy is the Otrid, the destroyers of Earth, and they will not rest until they have completed their work. We must plan our own defense, and not just defense, but offense as well.”

  For a fraction of a second she considered harnessing the power of the blood riders to calm the crowd, but immediately dismissed the thought.

  No. The people need to feel their true emotions, and learn to govern them.

  “Our attackers are targeting the gods one by one, until we are left alone and defenseless. They think we will fall easily without the gods. That will not happen! We will defend ourselves and fight back!”

  Talia projected an image of Vance on all the screens. “I have appointed this man to lead our ground forces against these long-limbed aliens. Please give him your full cooperation. When the aliens inside the dome are subdued, he may ask for more volunteers. Consider it. You will not be joining the fight naked and alone. I have established an armory that is even now producing advanced weaponry.” She paused, and deep underground, took a deep breath.

  There’s no going back now.

  “There is more. For everyone who wants it, I will make available physical and mental augmentations that will enhance your fighting and survival skills. As we near a time when every single individual will have to join the fight to survive, we can no longer ignore the wealth of biotechnological science that dwells in the archives of the gods. The Seven desired to keep our genetic lines pure, to allow us to remain fully human as we rebuilt ourselves. And I am mindful that decision was not just the whim of the gods���the four thousand survivors of the destruction of Earth made the conscious choice to forgo the most extreme alterations so that we could retain our true essence as we embarked on our flight across the galaxy.

  “And so I do not make this decision lightly. But I believe we must elevate ourselves to deal with the great powers that pursue us. Humans have always adapted to survive, and we must do so once again.

  “I know how hard this is. For a thousand year we’ve been told that our main duty was to breed and rebuild the race. The gods looked after us, and we gladly handed the burden to them so that we might live normal lives. But predators are at our gates, and they do not care how we would prefer to live our lives. We must meet them as equals in battle or perish.”

  Talia could almost feel the surge of emotions wash across The City. Hope and resolve swirled in currents among islands of anger and confusion.

  “I will widecast information on how each individual can…”

  A light flared from the temple district, shocking her into silence. Talia could perceive a surge of energy welling up from deep beneath The City, a spike of power that ran from the molten core of the Skyra, through the machinery of her underground chamber, and up to the temple located in the center of the district.

  The temple of Maelstrom glowed as if every molecule of the structure was a source of illumination. The intensity rose until the entire temple district was bathed in a warm golden light.

  Simultaneously, a great shout erupted from the streets of The City, a joyous chorus of praise and wonder. Talia knew what it was���the bloodsong of a people responding to the full power of a god. Even the riders in Talia’s own blood were not immune to the power, and her spirit was raised, her concerns buried as if they had never existed.

  Maelstrom was here.

  Two hundred kilometers above the dome, the sky ripped open, briefly exposing the boiling energies of Divine Space. From this rift emerged a shimmering aurora, a dense cloud of organized matter.

  Using every sensor in orbit, Talia could perceive the magnetic fields around Lodias being manipulated, energy being directed, and the size of the aurora expanding. Within this field she could see patterns of nearly infinite complexity.

  The aurora organized itself into a vast, yet diffuse, revolving grid of magnetic field lines spread across an area nearly the size of a small moon.

  And then she saw it���the starship at the center of Maelstrom’s great cloud.

  Deep below ground, Talia burst into tears, laughing and crying at the same time.

  “You’ve done it, Mik. You’ve done it.”

  23

  Divisible by Four

  Mik barely noticed the disorientation that came with the transition from Divine Space to normal space in the Lodias system.

  He was getting used to it, and had only one thing on his mind anyway.

  Using the ship’s instruments, he could see the dome of The City below. It was unbroken, and messages were flooding into the Hightower’s communication net.

  Not too late. Thank the gods, this gaseous one in particular.

  Mik was plugged into the command systems of the ship, in partial control. As the Hightower entered orbit around Skyra, Maelstrom began disengaging from the ship, leaving the piloting to Mik as the god reconstructed his preferred form two hundred kilometers above the surface. The shimmering cloud of magnetic fields was already forming distinct shapes and patterns.

  Mik’s focus tightened as the god poured out and the Hightower once more responded fully to his commands. It felt wonderful, like putting on a second body that responded to his every thought. Mik was surprised at how grateful he was to be reconnected after
his relatively brief separation from the ship’s systems.

  Reveling in his union with the ship and his relief that they had not been too late, Mik only spared a fraction of his attention on Maelstrom, who was engaging in some god-talk with the population below, a great windy reassuring speech that seemed to Mik a bit on the pompous side.

  Well, that’s a god for you.

  Instead, Mik was fixated on trying to find Talia, to cut through the noise of the dome’s population to isolate her identification signature. He frowned when Talia’s standard contact code did not display.

  Where could she be? Probably deep inside Tower’s temple. Or still in the cave where I left her?

  He was pleased, then, but mildly surprised when her voice was the first one in his ear.

  “Welcome home, Mik.”

  “Talia! You’re alright?”

  “I’m fine. We survived the attack, as you can see. And since then, there’s been plenty to keep me busy.”

  “I’m amazed you managed to cut through to the front of all this comm traffic. How did you get access to all the priority channels?”

  A few seconds of silence ticked past before she answered. “I’ve been promoted, you might say.”

  “No doubt. There had to be a reason Tower had both of us down in that cavern.”

  “Yes, he had his reasons,” Talia said, and Mik thought he picked up a note of sadness in her voice, and some other quality he couldn’t quite name.

  “I can’t wait to see you again, Talia. There are many things I’d like to tell you in person.”

  “Me too, Mik. But we may have to wait a bit. The City needs you and that ship in orbit right now while we rebuild our defenses.”

  He sighed. “I was afraid that might be the case. How hard did they hit us?”

  “Tower is dead. Our fleet is destroyed. Your ship is the only one left, plus a fraction of the micro sentinel swarm. I’m working on getting new ships under construction, but that’s a long process.”

  It was no less than he expected, but the news of the losses still struck him hard. It took a moment before the rest of her report sank in.