Throne of the Dead (Seraphim Revival Book 2)

by Jacob Holo

Jack’s active scanners could easily spot the throne now, flying out with thirty-six archangels in tow. He increased his speed and aimed himself at the enemy throne. Already, the archangels were beginning to break apart into separate sub-formations. Close combat specialists retrieved their swords and energized them while others trained their cannons and rail-rifles on the approaching Alliance seraphs.

  Beams and kinetic bolts shot between both forces. A fusion beam struck Jack in the face but merely splashed off his barrier like water against steel. He ignited his left-hand energy sword, forming a long blade of coherent energy. He focused again, blue crackles forming a small shield above his right forearm, its edges as deadly as his sword.

  Archangels continued to waste time firing on him instead of Knight Squadron. He barely felt their attacks.

  Jack rocketed straight at the throne.

  An archangel got in his way and tried to strike him down. Jack cleaved its sword in half and bisected its torso. Streamers of blue fluid sprayed out of the wound, the two halves floating away.

  He sped on, not even slowing. Archangels reacted sluggishly to his accelerated senses and soon had far more pressing matters to deal with. Knight Squadron slammed into the archangels and began cutting through the ranks.

  The throne saw Jack coming. Its strange halo-wing spun up, inner and outer edges burning with a burst of power. It shot towards him with singular intent.

  “You damn copies are tough, I’ll give you that.” Jack raised his sword. “Now try facing the original!” He brought it crashing down.

  The throne caught the blade with its talons.

  “Oh crap!”

  Blue energy crackled against its palm. Mnemonic skin shriveled and peeled back, and the systems underneath blistered and oozed fluid. But the throne seemed unconcerned.

  The throne slashed in with its other fist.

  Jack blocked, talons skating off his shield.

  He reeled back with his sword and struck again. This time his sword cut into the throne’s side, burning in just beneath the chest cage. Its halo-wing revved up, and the throne pulled back, luminescent fluid dribbling out of the wound.

  The two opponents spun around each other, keeping their distance. Archangels and seraphs fought bitterly all around them. In the distance, Outcast ships continued to fold in and press forward against the slowly receding Alliance fleet. Space thickened with beams, explosions, and torpedo salvoes.

  The throne lunged with open hands. Jack blocked, and the talons screeched across his sword and down to his wrist. Sharp fingers sunk in.

  “Gnh!”

  Jack felt hot pain slice through his arm, but no physical damage reached his true body. The seraph shielded him from such dangers.

  He twisted his wrist out and grabbed the throne’s forearm. Its barrier yielded, and its armor crumpled under the force of his grip.

  The throne came in with its other clawed fist and Jack caught it, their hands locking. Blue energy crackled between the two machines, barriers playing against each other. The throne’s power was incredible.

  “But not good enough!” Jack still had his chaos sword fully energized. He twisted his left arm and drove his sword into the throne’s side. The throne struggled to free itself, and the two flew crazily about space, each vying for supremacy.

  Jack spotted a huge oblong shape flash by. He turned his wings, throttled up, and powered himself and the throne towards the object. The asteroid weapon platform loomed behind the throne, a black ugly rock with weapons blistering its surface.

  The throne struck his wrist again, tearing in with its claws.

  “Damn, that hurts!”

  Alarms flared red in his mind’s eye. Fluidic lines ruptured, and one of the endoskeletal struts cracked.

  The seraph voiced its concern without words.

  “I’m working on it!” Jack shouted, flying straight towards the asteroid.

  Throne and seraph slammed into the rock. Barriers flashed, and the armor plates encasing the asteroid buckled and blasted clear. Rock fountained up from the new crater, and the throne’s hold loosened.

  Jack pulled his wrist free. Conductor fluid streamed from deep gouges, shifting from electric blue to oily black as it vanished into space. He pierced his sword deep into the throne’s shoulder.

  The throne’s hold on his other hand weakened. Jack ripped it away and stabbed into the throne’s throat with the edge of his shield. Energized fluid poured from the wound. Thick pulsing jets splashed both of them.

  The throne thrashed about wildly. Talons raked across Jack’s chest, tearing four grooves into the front armor. He grunted in pain, pulled his sword away, and hacked into the throne’s neck.

  The hot energy blade caused the throne’s mnemonic skin to discolor and crinkle back. Jack forced the blade deeper. He sheered through artificial musculature and fluidic transfer lines. Conductor fluid sprayed out of the wound as if Jack’s sword was a chainsaw cutting through flesh.

  The throne groped for anything nearby. Claws cut through the asteroid’s rock and armor like it was warm butter. It flayed about like a frantic cornered animal. One fist pried at Jack’s sword, talons sparking against the long energy blade.

  Jack drove the blade deeper, now cutting a diagonal line from the neck into its torso. Fluid gushed from the throne, splattering about and turning rusty brown. The throne tried one last desperate swipe at his chest, but Jack slapped the attack aside with his shield, all the while driving the blade deeper into the throne.

  And then, suddenly, resistance left the throne. Its barrier failed, and in one sudden jerk, Jack pulled his sword clean through the throne’s body. His enemy floated off the asteroid, cloven in half and slick with rust brown goop.

  “Still got it,” Jack said.

  The seraph was silent.

  “What do you mean, you’re not impressed?”

  “Jack! Zu’Rashik is folding in!” Jared shouted.

  Jack looked up, his feet planted on the asteroid. Zu’Rashik was a distant white pearl alive with the sun’s light. On its surface were forests, but not of trees. These forests stood thick with ten-kilometer-tall towers tipped with rotary fusion cannons. Gigantic pyramids rose from the surface, each a great hangar for armadas of exodrones. Its automated factories worked even now, constructing new robotic warships for the Dead Fleet.

  Zu’Rashik’s entire surface was covered in a mnemonic shell of ten-kilometer-thick armor. And even if the surface could be breached, any attacker faced a crazed labyrinth of tunnels that stretched from the surface to the Core, liberally equipped with deadly kill zones and automated traps.

  The fortress planet of the Eleven had arrived, vast and impenetrable.

  “Well, here we go.”

  Jack flew away from the weapon platform and rejoined Knight Squadron, which was almost finished with the archangel escorts. He looked around, decided that this location was as good as any, and sent the signal to the Mark II.

  The fold point opened, expanding out as a giant ring of refracted light. The Mark II materialized into high Earth orbit, its long black body gleaming. Jack flew down to begin orienting the device. Six EN dreadnoughts and eight smaller frigates folded in around the Mark II and took up their escort positions.

  The weapon operated on principles similar to all Alliance and Outcast beam weaponry. That is, it focused the result of a powerful explosive into a tight beam via gravitic and magnetic fields, as well as its own armor sheathing. The application of seraph barriers to beam weaponry greatly miniaturized weapon size. A fusion cannon three hundred meters long on a frigate could fit on a seraph’s forearm, little more than ten meters long.

  Likewise, an apocalypse (or antimatter) cannon such as the one used by the Glorious Destiny could be miniaturized from five thousand meters to roughly forty. The Mark II merely took this concept to its logical extreme.

  Measuring two kilometers in length and housing ninety percent of all the antimatter produced by the Alliance during the five year war, the Mark II was designe
d for only one purpose: the destruction of Zu’Rashik. In that, it was still underpowered. The fortress planet had numerous redundant layers of protection, as well as its natural planetary mass to guard vital systems. However, destruction was not the only option, and Alliance engineers had calibrated the Mark II for maximum penetrating power.

  Punch a single narrow beam through the fortress planet, and Jack could take out the gravity drives and fold engines at its core. In effect, Zu’Rashik would be stranded in the heart of the Alliance, its automated industries and defenses open to a sustained frontal attack that even the Outcasts and Dead Fleet would be unable to stave off.

  “As long as I don’t explode with the cannon,” Jack muttered grimly.

  He latched onto the rear of the cannon and linked with the Mark II’s computers. Telemetry data, antimatter containment status, firing interlocks, and gravitic field intensity all came across the link. The Mark II was ready for action.

  Jack locked his feet in place behind the cannon and fed his arms down two tight shafts. His seraph had received a few external modifications to facilitate coupling with the Mark II. Mnemonic skin peeled away at five round patches along each arm, allowing the cannon’s conductor trunk-lines to mate.

  Chaotic energies flowed into the cannon. Along its main barrel, three long parallel shunts burned fiercely alive.

  The gravity generators began to power up, slowly building the field strength necessary to keep the cannon from exploding like an oversized antimatter-fueled firecracker. Jack fired his drive shunts and slowly brought the cannon around, aiming it directly at Zu’Rashik.

  “Jack, the Outcasts are getting curious,” Jared said. “Inbound ships and archangels. We’ll keep you covered.”

  Ten Knight Squadron seraphs unlatched their large door shields from wing docks and spaced themselves loosely around the Mark II. Outcast ships swarmed in towards them, breaking off from other engagements and heading for the Mark II at maximum acceleration. Beam cannons opened fire, lancing across space, and the seraphs of Knight Squadron quickly maneuvered, blocking incoming fire with their shields. Torpedoes and seekers launched from Outcast weapon ports, only to be gunned down by overlapping fields of fire from the Mark II’s escort ships.

  Gravitic field intensity within the cannon climbed, and Jack released the first of ten safety interlocks.

  A fusion beam found a way through Knight Squadron’s protection and impacted against the Mark II. The shock reverberated up its length and shook Jack at the end. Mnemonic armor blistered outward: a dull orange spot on the cannon’s immense length.

  Jack released interlocks two through six and flooded the ignition chamber.

  “Oh, firing this is going to hurt,” he muttered.

  More Outcast ships folded in. An alert opened in his mind. Jack glanced at the approaching force and swallowed. Six thrones, including the two command models, and five squadrons of archangels had veered off the main battle lines. Jack checked their ETA.

  “It’s going to be close.”

  Another beam slammed into the Mark II, then three more in rapid succession.

  “Jared!”

  “We’re doing the best we can!”

  Jack checked the field intensity. “Close enough.” He released safety interlocks seven and eight. Twenty gravity field micro-generators extended wafer-thin manipulator into the ignition chamber, teasing the antimatter into atom-thin sheets. The cannon indicated its readiness, and Jack released interlock nine. Another twenty micro-generators moved identical atom-thin sheets of hydrogen ice just so, waiting between each antimatter sheet. The firing chamber was primed and ready.

  A small shoal of torpedoes penetrated the Earth Nation defenses, and two made it to the cannon’s surface. They birthed short-lived suns. Jack sucked in a breath and held it—

  Waited…

  Waited some more…

  The Mark II did not explode. Shock absorbers built around the ignition chamber had done their job. While the Mark II had rocked about violently, the annihilation sheets within the ignition chamber had stirred less than a micrometer. But that was small comfort, considering they had only two micrometers room to spare.

  “Jack! THRONES!!! Fire the thing already!”

  Jack realigned the cannon and released interlock ten. The far end of the Mark II irised open.

  The two command thrones broke from their escorts, heading straight for him with a burst of speed.

  It would not be enough.

  Jack sent the ignition code.

  Matter and antimatter slipped together, mutually annihilating each other and changing into energy. The titanic planet-busting explosion focused down the Mark II and blared out into space as a coherent beam of purest white. The night side of Earth lit up, bathed in light twice as intense as the sun. Indescribable pain lacerated Jack’s mind, as if oven-hot meat hooks had been sunk into every part of his body and twisted around.

  The beam shot through space, slammed into the surface of Zu’Rashik, and ate through. The beam kept going through thousands of kilometers of rock and dozens of armor membranes. It burned straight down into the very heart of the fortress planet.

  Within Zu’Rashik was its Core: a small moon suspended within the planet’s hollowed-out center, home to its most delicate systems and more precious secrets. The beam struck dead center and ate through the Core instantly. The Eleven’s Choir vaporized. Their secret projects flashed to plasma. The planet’s great fold engines and field generators faltered as shockwaves tore across them.

  And the beam kept going, through three thousand more kilometers of rock and armor, bursting out the far side of the ravaged fortress planet. The entire world shuddered. Quakes shook across and within it. Rock and earth and metal shifted as the planet’s gravitic support fields crashed.

  And yet, for all the damage done to it, Zu’Rashik remained whole. Huge expanses of its surface fell in from massive internal cave-ins. But the planet did not die. It did not explode. Many of its weapons were silenced, but many more remained active. Somewhere within its subterranean labyrinths, emergency field generators engaged, quickly working to reconstitute the planet’s beleaguered integrity.

  All the while, the Mark II had almost survived the firing.

  Just as the beam had struck Zu’Rashik, integrity failed along the left side of the cannon. Emergency vents burst open at six points, and white fury poured out. But this was still not enough to relieve the intense explosive pressure within the weapon.

  Around the six vents, mnemonic armor liquefied. The entire left side of the cannon glowed orange and cracked. Tongues of white flame burst out, ripping through the cannon like blowtorches through wax. Finally, the primary gravitic generator failed, and the cannon erupted into a single great fireball of white light.

  The blast tore Jack loose from the cannon. With the connection to his chaos energy gone, the cannon’s internal barriers failed, and it vaporized instantly. A white furnace roared past him.

  Jack screamed as if his flesh were being flayed from his body.

  His armored skin bubbled, blistered, and then boiled off. Internal systems crisped. His barrier faltered, chaotic energy crackling around him. He had seconds before his barrier failed and the full fury of the explosion vaporized him.

  Suddenly, something struck him, stabilizing his wild tumble. The pain stopped and his barrier reconstituted with renewed vigor. The fireball expanded and cooled, darkening to a mere sun-bright yellow. With the pain still fresh in his mind, it took him a moment to realize what had happened.

  Two of Knight Squadron’s seraphs gripped him from either side, their large door shields locked together, buffering the Mark II’s explosion. While the rest of the squadron had fled out, these two had dived straight in, braving the antimatter furnace to rescue him.

  They were Jared Daykin and Yonu Nezrii.

  Chapter 20

  Lunatic Gate

  Veketon came to a halt and crossed his arms protectively. The exploding cannon’s shockwave slammed into him.
Energy cascaded off his barrier and threw him back. His halo-wings flashed with energy, holding his position and letting the worst of the inferno pass.

  He turned to Zu’Rashik, both the throne’s heart and his own pounding with fear.

  “Dendolet!”

  No one answered.

  “Balezuur? Xixek! Anyone, answer me!”

  Silence.

  “Dendolet!!!” he cried. He set his hypercast array searching through the Dead Fleet. It was a small, crazy chance, but perhaps the others were able to transfer their personalities out of Zu’Rashik’s Choir in time. Backup micro-choirs existed on several ships for just such an event, but the retrieval process was slow, and they had taken too long to identify that cannon’s purpose.

  “Someone! Anyone! Answer me, curse you!!!”

  Quennin’s throne came alongside his.

  His array concluded its search of the Dead Fleet. None of the ships held the memories of his colleagues. The Original Eleven were gone forever. He was all that remained.

  “Did they make it off?” Quennin asked.

  He spotted Bane Donolon’s seraph. He wanted to kill the man! He wanted to tear him apart with his bare hands!

  Veketon shook his head. He tried to focus his mind, tried to take this tragedy and apply cold logic to it. He still needed to decide his next course of action. Should he turn back now and regroup? Or should he press on to Earth and Lunatic Ziggurat?

  Oh, what does it matter?

  Veketon’s restraint faltered. He switched off his eyes and clenched his head. Barrier energy snapped between mnemonic skin and fingers.

  “Veketon, we need to decide what to do,” Quennin said. “With Zu’Rashik gone, we—”

  “It doesn’t matter! Curse them! Curse them all!”

  “I know, but—”

  “They’re gone! They’re all gone!” He dug into his armored scalp. The burning pain did nothing to lessen his grief.

  The huge antimatter fireball died to a thinning reddish smear. In the distance, seraph squadrons folded in around Zu’Rashik and dove into its now exposed interior.

  “What would they have wanted us to do?” Quennin asked softly.