by J. N. Chaney
My left hand slaps the lance-rifle down just enough for me to clear it. My right grabs the front of his helmet. I plant my knee in his chest, hoping to knock him against the wall.
He barely moves, but his weapon fires and misses.
Shaina races forward on the medical cart with screaming passengers diving off and covering their heads. She lays her rifle across the steering yoke and fires with one hand.
Her rounds hit the Prothean’s legs with spectacular effect. I fling myself away before I get shot. The rest of the wounded soldiers follow my example, rushing the Prothean and bearing him to the ground with their combined weight.
Zedas stomps forward, reaches through the tangle of arms and legs, and places his fist close to the Prothean’s neck. He extends his sword. The blade bursts through the armor sending a fountain of blood over us.
“Good work!” Shaina shouts. “Bloody, but effective.”
The men and women cheer, their faces revealing amazement at not only surviving but winning.
“Now let’s go, you slackers!” Shaina honks the cart’s horn several times.
Garin points into an adjoining hallway. “Mr. Doctor Murphy, there are more coming.”
“Shaina, take the lead. Zedas and I will bring up the rear and try to slow them down,” I say, already moving into position.
“We’re almost to the engine room,” Shaina yells back a short time later. “We can make it. This is going to work! Just don’t stop, Murph.”
Zedas and I run backward at times, then race to catch up with the fleeing refugees. New pairs of Protheans join the pursuit at each intersection. One of them is Axu and his armor has a new adornment. A red and black plume juts up from his helmet. Cords of the same color hang from his shoulders and arms like a cape.
“Give me five minutes, Axu. You owe me,” I say.
“Do not speak of debt.” He growls his words. “Never speak of the word, I warn you.”
“Did you forget who tipped you off about the gate ship? Or did you just stumble onto the one thing everyone had been looking for?” I count dozens of Protheans behind him. Instinct warns not to reveal the code word Axudain. Part of me wants to give him the finger and shout it at the top of my lungs, but his fear is real, and if he’s scared of the consequences, maybe I should be as well.
A Prothean with a blue plume steps forward. “What is he saying?”
They argue in a language that hurts my ears for a full minute. The border of symbols along the top of the hallway scroll faster, agitated by the debate—I think. Other Protheans edge away from the running display. Maybe they can read it and don’t like what they see. With no way to test the theory, I file the observation for later consideration.
I shout back over my shoulder. “Shaina, can you lock the blast doors to the engine room yet?”
“Yeah, Murphy. We’re inside.”
“Do it. We’ll find someplace else to hide,” I say.
Zedas nods approval. “They would follow us in unless we hold them here a while longer. It is best to create a diversion and fight if necessary.”
Axu points his lance-rifle at his blue plumed rival, who backs down. Axu seems to grow taller right before my eyes, super interesting if I wasn’t going to be dead in five minutes. There definitely won’t be time for me to write a paper on the phenomenon. It appears that the winner actually grows larger after a confrontation.
Axu moves toward me while his warriors wait in silence. He is definitely larger than I remember him. “I cannot help you, Orphan.”
Despite what he says, he hasn’t started shooting.
I glance into the narrow side passage. If the engine room is sealed, nothing we can do from here will improve its ability to resist a siege. The Protheans can cut through walls and blast doors, but the engine room is a special part of any ship. Shaina and the others will have to hold out there until we can get help, or until we’re all lost.
“Follow me, Z-man.”
“Of course, Baby Murph.”
I sprint away from the conflict at a right angle. Zedas follows close behind. Axu and the Prothean knights follow single file as we twist toward a new feature of the gate ship. The passage spirals along this arm of the ship.
“We’re coming to another airlock,” I say. “I think we can jump to another arm of the ship.”
“I vote against this idea,” Zedas says. “Better to turn and die fighting.”
“No offense, Zedas, but your idea sucks. We’re jumping across to the old ship.”
“What is the old ship?”
I open the door and nearly get sucked out when the pressure changes. “It’s like the haunted part. You’ll love it.”
“More jokes.” He fires a long stream of heavy charge bolts into the narrow passage, slowing our pursuers. “I am finding them not funny at all, Doctor Hank Murphy.”
“Last one across is a rotten egg.” I aim for a portal with purple symbols circling its frame and leap through darkness.
“I don’t want to be a rotten egg,” Zedas complains as he follows.
36
Gliding through the void might be relaxing under other circumstances, or terrifying. It’s all a matter of perspective. What could be quieter and more peaceful than the void?
Nothing.
“Is this like meditation?” I ask, but my words are silent without air to carry sound waves.
So how was I talking to Jack?
Zedas hits the purple door several seconds before I do. He cranks it open, we tumble inside, then quickly close it.
This time I take the lead, opening the door and forcing Zedas to follow me.
“You are still the rotten egg. I was first,” he says.
“Fine. Lock that door behind us.” I reach for the controls but find it already sealed. Through the view screen, I see three Protheans warming up their lances to cut through.
Zedas and I flee. Every door we encounter is open, and every door we pass through closes and locks behind us.
“That is very convenient,” Zedas says after the fifth intersection locks down in every direction except the way we want to go.
“Someone is helping us,” I say.
Zedas grunts approvingly. “I like this someone very much.”
“We need to find a shuttle or someplace to bring the others and plan a way to retake the ship from Axu’s goon squad,” I say without stopping. Every hallway puts distance between us and the Protheans but also leads us away from Shaina and the others.
“They are not goons. You might call them knights or possibly samurai. The translation is difficult for me to hold in my head,” he says.
I compare images of knights, samurai, and other warrior classes of legend. The demon mask helmets and adornments remind me more of samurai than other warrior castes, but it is still an imperfect comparison.
And it doesn’t matter right now. I can ponder the minutiae of their dress code if they don’t kill us and burn the galaxy to embers.
“I’m getting tired, Zedas-Duryan.” Fatigue crashes down on me like a waterfall when I wasn’t feeling even a bit tired seconds ago.
“Yes, it is very hard to go on,” he says.
We come to a door that refuses to open. I turn in a circle. Nine doors lead to this space, all of them closed.
“We’re trapped, Zedas.”
He grinds his teeth. “I knew it was too good to be true. We must find a way to fight. Standing here will bring us little honor in the end.”
“It’s all about honor with you.”
“It’s all about dumb jokes and pointless observations with you, Doctor Hank Murphy.” He growls for several moments, then mutters something in Dogan. “I am sorry. That was undignified.”
“Don’t sweat it, Zedas. Just let me chill for a moment. I need to rest.” I lean on the wall. When I look at the Dogan he’s sitting against the wall, trying to keep his eyes open.
Purple lights flash slowly, setting a mesmerizing rhythm that I can’t ignore. A black sphere rises from the center of the intersection
. Symbols scroll over it from several directions. I see many of the shapes that have been scrolling along the top of hallways for some time now. More complex images remind me of the ship schematics, exquisitely intentional like the gate ship is a language unto itself.
“This is amazing, Zedas.”
He answers slowly. “I can’t make sense of it.”
“My upgrades help. And years of study.” I whisper the words as I reach toward the sphere. To my surprise, it feels solid. Each symbol, number, and word have their own texture.
The symbols abruptly slide away to be replaced by a map of the old ship. A route to another section pulses persistently.
“Someone wants us to go here,” I say.
Zedas forces himself to his feet and nods. “I will follow.”
The journey doesn’t take long. I read other alien script on the way, the meaning always just out of my grasp. One thing is clear. We are moving toward the true control deck of the ship.
Not that learning how to choose the gate ship’s course will save my friends. I push onward, checking frequently to be sure Zedas is keeping up. The dark energy of this place is taxing him more strenuously than it is me. We’re coming to the end of something deadly.
I step into another intersection with nine passages merging around a circular platform, but this is far larger than the first. A Prothean in flowing robes stands in the center, his black and purple form as ethereal as a dream.
“That is a projection, Murph. Don’t trust it,” Zedas says, then places his gun on the floor like it is too heavy to carry another step.
“Who are you?” I’m not sure Zedas is right, but I don’t get close enough to find out. This entity projects menace—like it might accidentally destroy us without trying. We’re bugs to this thing.
He scans me from head to toe and back up, then holds my gaze. Starlight glows in his eyes. “I am Enti, the gate builder. You are trespassing.”
“Didn’t you bring us here?” I ask.
“Yes, I guided you the final distance.”
“Why would you do that? Aren’t you a Prothean?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You should thank him for saving us,” Zedas says.
The dark ghost looks from Zedas to me.
“Thanks, Enti.” I watch a cascade of symbols flow around the top of the room. Some of them run onto and off of Enti’s sleeves. “What do you want from us?”
“I want nothing. All things are mine to take or leave, create or destroy,” Enti says. “This ship was supposed to sleep for ten thousand years. But now it has been awakened. There are intruders. You are an intruder. The man they call the Dark Eye was an intruder until you banished him to the great darkness. The Protheans of Axu are also intruders because they come early.”
“If you show me the way to a shuttle, I will take my people and leave,” I say. “We won’t trespass again.”
“That will not be possible.” Enti turns without moving his feet, or maybe the ship is moving around him. I can’t tell. “I can put everyone but you and the Dogan in cryo-stasis.”
“For how long?”
“Eternity,” he says.
“That is the same as dying.” I look for a way out, but of course there isn’t one.
“Perhaps.”
“Is there a way to undo the stasis?” I ask.
He spreads his hands wide. His sleeves hang majestically. Symbols pulse with energy. Starlight ripples over his clothing. “You may reverse the effect with a stasis rod. There are only two. The Hadrian Emperor, Hadrian Maximus, keeps his deep within his fortress world. The other is carried at all times by the Prothean War Master—and that one is destined to destroy the Goliath Sector so that I may remake it.”
“Neither of those individuals seem likely to part with one,” I say.
“That is of no concern to me. What matters is that you do not interfere with the War Master. Hadrian Maximus, however, is an Orphan trespasser and I would give you a chance—and a motivation—to kill him and free your people,” Enti says.
A new sphere rises from the floor, but this one displays the Protheans cutting their way into the engine room. Shaina leans on a pillar with a charge pistol in one hand, ready to defend against dozens of Prothean energy lances.
“Do it,” I say. “Put everyone in cryo-stasis.”
“Very well.” Enti waves one arm and disappears.
The room goes dark. All of the doors unlock.
“I wish he had left the view screen,” Zedas says. “Now I fear the worst.”
The conversation with Enti plays over and over in my head. I break down every word and phrase for meaning, but it’s still a jumble. All I can do right now is commit it to memory.
“Let’s see if he froze the Protheans or just our friends.” I head for one of the open doors.
Zedas picks up his gun. “Why is this so heavy?”
I maintain a steady pace despite the urgent need to see if my friends survived what just happened. I need time to think.
Zedas sings a deep, melodic dirge as he passes through parts of the ship that haven’t seen passengers for eons.
“Do you know how to get back to the engine room?” he asks between verses.
“We’ll get there, Zedas-Duryan. Just stick with me.”
37
We pass hundreds of Protheans on the way to the engine room. None of them move. I resist the urge to poke and prod them. Eventually we will need to test the limits of Enti’s… magic. Every one of them stands like a statue, arms crossed over their chests, weapons strapped onto their backs.
“I should have expected that, I guess. After the way Prothean ships appear,” I say.
Zedas grumbles. “It unnerves me. The stasis must have arranged them like tomb guards. I don’t like it.”
I step around one after another, eventually working my way into the engine room. The first person I see is Shaina standing straight, arms crossed over her chest, weapons perfectly in place on her back. Near her are Garin and Patty-pats. The animal could be straight out of an Egyptian tomb—feet close together, posture tall and proud.
Wak-wak looks more fearsome now than he did in life, multiple limbs crossed over his body in a complex pattern that hurts my eyes to look at. Van and the rest of the Hwelas must have made it off the ship because I never find them.
Zedas continues through the room. “Everyone is like this.”
I wander among the Hadrian rebels, Protheans, and humans from Jack’s squad for a long time. Zedas stays near me, saying nothing until I finally shake loose the grim thoughts dominating my brain.
“We should find food and water. Then look to other practical matters like where to go next,” he says.
“Let’s do that,” I say. “It’s time to learn how to steer this ship.”
“Where do you want to go?” he asks.
“First, we hide the gate ship where no one can take it from us. Then we take one of the stasis rods from Hadrian Maximus.” I lead the way to the true command deck of Enti’s ship, thinking about what he called himself—the gate builder.
“This is a far superior quest,” Zedas finally says.
“How so?”
“There will be much honor, and we will die tragic heroes.”
“Sometimes, Z-man, I can’t tell if you are joking. And I thought you were over all that. You said you didn’t care what your father or anyone thought.”
“Well, maybe that’s true.” He thinks for a bit. “I am also a creature of habit, Doctor Hank Murphy.”
“Aren’t we all.” I lead the way into the control room. “Let’s do this by the numbers. We’ll record everything we attempt so that if someone else finds our work after we die heroically, maybe they can get the ship to work.”
“That is less exciting than dying in battle,” Zedas says.
“But probably more important.”
“If you say so.”
“There is a reason Enti did this. He must know this ship has the power to change everything,”
Zedas says.
I should look at the Dogan and say something, but I’m out of words. Enti offered me a devil’s bargain, and I took it. I should’ve known better. Saving my friends on the ship didn’t change the war raging in this star system. It only delayed the inevitable.
“Nothing can stop the Protheans,” I say. “Except for this ship. If I knew how to use it. And I had a crew.”
“You know there is more to this problem than those things,” Zedas says. “Perhaps Hadrian Maximus will loan us his stasis rod and a crew, an army even.”
“Yeah, that would be swell.” My sarcasm flies right over Zedas’s head.
“And you will lead us to victory.”
“Don’t even go there, Z-man.”
“You must lead the resistance, and Hadrians, and anyone else who would fight to save the Goliath Sector.”
I stand and pace angrily, one fist clenched and the other open to emphasize my words. “I just killed my best friend for wanting to do that exact thing. I just doomed everyone else because I couldn’t think fast enough to save them.”
Zedas considers me for a long moment.
“Nevertheless, it is what you must do. So start with one thing that must be done, and then do another, and you will find your way,” he says.
“Okay, Zedas-Duryan. Let’s find someplace to put this ship, then see what we can learn about Hadrian Maximus.”
“He will certainly be pleased to grant the wishes of two heroic Orphans such as ourselves,” Zedas says with a trademark chuckle.
“He’s going to love us,” I say.
This time, we both laugh.
Murphy, Zedas-Duryan, and Shaina will return in FRONT LINE, coming soon.
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