by Jacob Holo
Seth spotted another archangel approaching from his left. Tesset dropped her stealth field, sheered the archangel’s wings off with her rail-carbine’s bayonet, then vanished once more. The archangel tumbled through space, its austere design lacking a seraph’s auxiliary drive shunts.
“Come on, Jack,” Seth breathed. “Get out of there.”
Despite the brutal nature of the battle, Seth took some comfort in the lack of thrones. Their inability to show up indicated a long start-up sequence: a trait that could be exploited in future attacks. They were truly fearsome opponents in space, but stuck inside a hangar? That was a very different matter.
Seth sensed a spike of chaos energy from the Glorious Destiny. He flew in close.
Jack descended from the Glorious Destiny. His seraph was a large white machine with smooth organic lines, wings tight against his body. Chaos shunts stylized into the Litany of the Mission burned with blue fire.
And yet, something was horribly wrong. Seth toggled his chaos scanner to full gain and watched the seraph not fly out of the Glorious Destiny, but fall weakly away from the ruined bay doors. Jack’s influx wavered and fluctuated across a wide range of power levels.
“Seth…” Jack gasped. His voice was almost unrecognizable.
“Jack, what happened?”
“I’m hurt bad. We need to get out of here.”
“What about Quennin?” Seth asked urgently. “Is she with you?”
“I’m… I’m sorry…”
Seth didn’t dwell on the words. Emotions fought to boil up within him, but he forced them down with rigid self-control. He needed to pull his comrades out of this battle. Nothing else mattered. Not yet.
“Knight Squadron, we’ve got another archangel wave coming in! Neutralize them! Renseki, take out those last two negators! We’re short on time! Tesset, follow me!”
“Confirmed, sir,” Jared said. Knight Squadron formed up and flew towards a gathering swarm of over forty archangels.
“We’re doing all we can, Seth,” Zo said. “Give us time to break through.”
“We don’t have time! We need to leave NOW!!!”
Seth formed up next to Jack with Tesset hidden close behind. Slowly, Jack’s chaos signature began to settle down, but that did nothing to lessen Seth’s concern. Without i-suit or medical attention, Jack could die from even minor wounds.
What happened in there? Where is Quennin?
Seth’s attention snapped up towards the Glorious Destiny. The command throne forced its way free of the twisted bay chute and accelerated towards them. Seth readied his swords and flew up to engage the enemy.
The command throne wielded the same lance as before. It charged in and swung with terrible speed. Seth countered. Sword met lance in a snap of blue and purple light. Energy flashed from the contact point. Hot pain danced up Seth’s arm, and he found himself thrown back.
Tesset appeared to the throne’s side and ignited her bayonet. She stabbed in, but the throne spun around to face her in a blur. Their weapons crashed together, and Tesset’s blade cracked into a small spider-web pattern.
“Ah!” she cried.
The impact flung her away from the throne, twirling out of control. Tesset quickly righted herself and vanished.
Jack formed up beside Seth and lit his chaos sword. The blade wasn’t a physical conductor like the two Seth wielded, but was instead a single lambent bar of energy that extended out of the seraph’s left forearm. At the same time, motes of light collected over his right forearm, then snapped together, forming a shield of light.
“We can… take him…” Jack wheezed.
Seth watched Jack’s chaos signature stabilize at a power level far lower than normal. He was in no condition to fight. Certainly not against a throne.
However, Seth didn’t have time to suggest an alternative. The throne swooped down, and Jack shot up to meet him, energy sword meeting lance in a fantastic eruption. As injured as he was, Jack was still quite possibly the most powerful being in the known universe.
The throne struggled against the attack, and Seth spotted an opening. He spread his wings out. Their edges blurred with sudden power, and he pulled around the throne in one quick motion.
Seth dove swung one of his swords in a fast arc aimed at the throne’s halo-wings.
The command throne saw him coming and caught the blade. His chaos sword dug into its palm, but failed to penetrate deeper. Fluid oozed out of the wound, atomizing into droplets of opalescent blue.
The throne twisted its wrist, trying to snap the sword’s internal conducting ribbons. Seth struck its elbow with his other sword, but barely left a mark.
Seth reeled back and swung down again. And again, and again, and again. The rent in the throne’s armor widened. Fluid pulsed out, yet its grip did not weaken and its barrier remained strong.
Still holding one of Seth’s swords, the throne brought its lance and thrust at Seth’s body.
Seth let go of his sword and jerked away. The tip of the lance grazed his forearm. Armor ripped open. Fluidic lines ruptured and spewed conductive liquid into space. The attack sent a wave of burning pain washing through his mind. In the cockpit, the skin of his true arm crisped and blackened. Blood boiled and arteries burst open.
“Gah!”
His i-suit extended tendrils of nano-cilia into his flesh to repair the damage.
The command throne tried to stab him through the chest, but Seth retreated before that could happen.
Five more craft launched from the Glorious Destiny, all thrones.
“Zo!” Seth shouted.
“Just a few more seconds.”
“Jack, get away from them!”
Seth and Jack turned and fled in opposite directions. The six thrones split and pursued both of them.
Over from the Renseki’s position, a series of antimatter detonations wracked the final Outcast negator. No debris remained.
“That’s it, Seth,” Zo said. “We’re clear to fold.”
“Choir! The reserve!” Seth said.
“Folding now.”
Six Aktenai frigates, four dreadnoughts, and a single negator flashed into existence. The negator powered up its field effect, ready to pin Outcast forces in place once the Alliance seraphs were clear. The negator wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t have to. Its sole purpose was to secure their escape.
“All seraphs, fold now!” Seth said.
Twenty-one seraphs vanished as one, emerging several light-years away near the Resolute. Each seraph landed in a separate bay, and each bay had a separate launch catapult, allowing all twenty-one Alliance seraphs to dock simultaneously. Once secured, the Resolute folded space towards the Alliance main fleet.
They were safe.
Seth broke his bond to the seraph, even as the great machine rose through the Resolute’s catapult rail system. Mnemonic skin peeled back and the hatch lowered, connecting with the gangplank. Seth yanked his helmet off, ran onto the bay ledge, and tossed his helmet at a startled technician. He raced through the open airlock to the next bay and didn’t stop until he reached Jack’s seraph.
Automated rails pulled the machine up into that seraph’s specialized bay. Instead of the seraph standing in the open, thick walls of transparent mnemonic alloy surrounded it. Sturdy hatches opened at the top. Robotic arms descended, affixing pipelines to valves in the seraph’s mnemonic skin. Coolant flushed through the seraph’s circulatory system, darkening its shunts.
Sedating the beast.
Even from behind layers of insulation and armor, Seth felt cold air prickle his face.
The hatch opened, and Jack staggered out. He was a horrific sight. Blood soaked his clothes, matted his hair, and broke apart in caked patches on his hands. The cryogenic chamber’s airlock finished cycling, and Jack limped through. He looked up, meeting Seth’s gaze.
“It’s not mine,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“Are you all right?” Seth looked around. No technicians waited for Jack. No medics stood ready
to assist him. No one came to this bay unless they absolutely had to.
“Medic!” Seth shouted down the open airlock to the next bay. “Someone get over here, curse you!” He sent out a linked command just to be sure.
Jack staggered forward and steadied himself with a hand on Seth’s shoulder.
“I’m okay… I think. Just confused…”
“We need to get you to the medical ward.”
“Seth… I think I’m dead.”
“Don’t give up on me! We’ll get you fixed up. Now, come on!” Seth put Jack’s arm over his shoulder and guided him towards the bay lift.
“No, not dying, Seth. Dead. I’m dead.”
Seth stopped. He looked at Jack’s face and saw the belief in his eyes. Then he gazed down and took in the wound for the first time. With blood everywhere and Jack’s clothes obstructing the view, Seth had missed the hole until now. It went right through him, right through his heart.
Jack shouldn’t be alive. How could he be without an i-suit or the medical ward’s facilities?
“I’ve been like this since I left the Glorious Destiny.”
Seth shook his head, refusing to believe what his eyes told him.
“Quennin did this to me.”
Seth felt his lips part, but no words came out. He stood there, frozen by Jack’s claim. It couldn’t be. It could not be!
“I’m sorry,” Jack muttered.
Seth shook his head. “No.”
“She didn’t want to be saved. She killed Dominic, and then she did this to me.”
“No. That can’t be true. It’s not true!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You must be mistaken! That can’t be! How could she even harm you?”
“The Eleven repaired her talent. She was incredibly strong, maybe stronger than me.”
Two medics finally arrived but hesitated when they saw Jack.
Seth turned sharply. “Get over here! He needs help!”
“I don’t understand,” Jack whispered, staring blankly ahead. “With that kind of power, why not leave?”
Seth stepped aside and let the medics take hold of him.
Jack shook his head and pushed them away.
“I’m fine.” He stood straight without support. “I can make it on my own.” He began marching towards the bay lift. “I can… I can…”
Something finally gave out. His legs crumpled, and he fell forward, chest and face hitting the ground hard.
***
Tesset entered the Resolute’s medical ward and let her sense expand. Her focus passed the two closest occupied futons and their hidden medical apparatuses. She recognized them as Mansfield and S’Zet, members of Knight Squadron injured in the battle and resting from their recent surgeries.
She expanded her sense further, pushing through walls as if they were insubstantial mist. Behind their smooth surfaces were extensive collections of medical nanoprobes, organic growth cultures, and isolated databanks for the ward’s robotic doctors.
At the far end of the ward, all by himself, was Jack Donolon.
Tesset shook her head, recalling the first time she’d sensed Jack’s aura. A normal person possessed a singular warm sensation within them, communicating much about their personality and mood. But Jack was not normal, and his aura writhed and wriggled within his body like an insane nest of self-devouring snakes.
The sense of wrongness and indescribable pain had overwhelmed her. Her stomach had turned, appalled and nauseated by the vertigo of his soul, and she’d thrown up on the spot.
She didn’t this time. She’d grown accustomed to Jack’s uniqueness.
Days after their first meeting, Tesset had asked him how he could tolerate such painful memories. Even through the cluttered chaotic turns of his soul, Tesset had sensed his surprise.
“You know? How?” he’d asked.
The two pilots had formed a close friendship ever since, bonded by each other’s uniqueness.
Tesset walked closer to Jack’s futon, making sure he couldn’t see her yet. She took the moment to examine his wounds. There was the same sense of wrongness and bottled-up pain as always, but something had changed. A hole cut through the tangled sickening mass, slowly closing.
Tesset walked into Jack’s view.
He looked up and smiled. “Tesset!” His voice sounding almost normal. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I appreciate you coming to see me. Or visit me, in your case.”
Tesset knelt down next to the futon. “You know, I don’t need eyes to see. Besides, color is overrated.”
“You only say that because you’ve never experienced a sunset.”
“Sounds like you’re feeling better,” Tesset said.
His voice and aura bespoke of returned health, and yet… Tesset reached out and gently touched his arm. She didn’t really know what she’d expected. Cold clamminess? Brittle necrotic flesh? She found none of that. It was like touching insulation. All she felt was the texture of his skin and the warmth of her own hand reflected back.
She pulled away, suddenly embarrassed.
“Yeah.” Jack thumped his chest. “For a corpse, I feel pretty good. Plus the ward gave me a new heart. It’s not moving, but it’s there if I need it.”
“Any idea what happened?” Tesset asked.
Jack sat up in his futon. He didn’t have a shirt on, but modesty really wasn’t an issue with Tesset, and she found the concept a little difficult to understand. Her sense perceived everything regardless of clothing, walls, or even a hundred solid meters of lead.
“Well. I think this is what happened. You know how I’m a bane. Not as strong as the original, but slowly getting there, right?”
“Yeeeees.” Tesset gave him a very accurate impression of rolled eyes. His bane revelation had once been shocking, but now it felt like old news.
“Well, the Bane kept her body frozen in time. After all, that’s what made her so hard to kill. How can you damage something that can’t be changed? I think when I was attacked some deep instinctive response took over. I must have stopped my body in time as soon as I suffered the fatal wound. It’s really not all that far-fetched. In the last two decades, I’ve only aged a year or two, biologically.”
“So, are you going to stay like this?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“It must be weird.”
“Yeah. I have to consciously think of breathing when I talk. I don’t get hungry and really don’t want to try eating. Chowing down with a digestive track switched off has got to be a bad thing. So yeah, weird describes it pretty well.”
Tesset stealthily slipped a hand into her pocket and pushed a small bag further down. It contained two fresh chocolate chip cookies: Jack’s favorite snack.
“You know, this whole bed rest thing is wearing thin,” Jack said. “What do I need to rest for? I can’t even fall asleep! I feel cooped up in here. I need to get out and do something.”
Jack started to get up, but Tesset placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back down. Jack could claw his way through a mnemonic hull, but he didn’t resist her.
“You’re still wounded. I can feel it.” She splayed her hand over his wound. The proximity helped, bringing every detail vividly into her mind. Her hand felt nothing, but her sense penetrated Jack’s defenses. She felt the delicate joins between new and old flesh, made by the most precise medical technology available to the Aktenai, but still detectable to her sense. She felt the sluggishness of time within him, yet the lightning-quick snaps of thought and reflex continued unabated.
And she felt the hole in his aura from Quennin’s sword, its edges singed and raw. The wound hadn’t fully closed. Little tendrils extended from the sides like wriggling worms, slowly mending the gap.
“You shouldn’t fight in this condition,” Tesset said.
“And why not?”
“I think fighting will make it worse. Parts look ready to tear loose. You need time to heal.”
�
�Hmm. Well, I suppose I should take your advice,” Jack grumbled. “You’ve been right about these sorts of things before.”
“Wise words,” Tesset nodded emphatically. “You should heed them.”
The two shared a laugh.
“So what’s on your mind?” Jack sat up again. “Come on. Out with it. I know you too well, and don’t think I didn’t notice the cookies.”
Tesset felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment.
Jack held out his hand out.
Tesset sighed, reached into her pocket, and handed over the small bag.
“Well, you said—”
“Yeah yeah. Don’t worry about it.” Jack opened the bag and breathed in deeply. “Ahh, that’s good stuff. My senses still work fine, so I’ll think of something. If worse comes to worse, they can just pump it out of me.”
“Eeew.”
“Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that.” Jack set the cookies aside. “So, what is it? I only get cookies when there’s something important on your mind.”
“It’s Seth.”
“Yeah, I guessed it would be about him. How’s he taking the news?”
Tesset shook her head. “I don’t know. His aura’s all jumbled. I can’t make any sense of it. I don’t think he’s taking it well.”
“I figured he wouldn’t.”
“But why? What does it matter?”
Jack’s aura showed a sense of confusion. His brow furrowed.
“I mean,” Tesset continued, “Seth and I are bound to each other until our child becomes an adult, right?”
“Yeah, I’m familiar with your customs.”
“So, what does it matter if Quennin has turned? Why should he care? He’s not bound to her anymore.”
Despite herself, Tesset sniffled. She wiped at her nose.
“You’re oversimplifying the matter.”
“No, I’m not. It’s simple. Seth is bound to me, except… except he doesn’t show it. I don’t know. Seth can be so cold sometimes. It’s enough to drive me to tears.”
“You can do that?”
