Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2)

by Marie Andreas

  As if to accent his words, one of the gray ships fired upon the Commonwealth ships—they were both nothing but drifting balls of debris within two rounds of strikes. Even though their full power had been restored, their shields didn’t slow the strikes at all. Vas’s hand clenched on the arm of her command chair. She had nothing against those ships personally, and the ease with which they were destroyed was horrifying.

  “Deven, Gosta, anyone, options, for all of our ships—the Monk as well.” Vas watched where the gray ships had originally appeared. Ten was terrifying and she couldn’t imagine what would happen with more. “Actually, Gosta, start pulling Marli’s people off her ship. Their shields are completely down. Use the link Xsit has to tell them to get to their med lab. But we can only take two at a time.”

  She froze as another thought hit her. There was one more ship out here—the empress’s hauler. She’d said it was damaged, but it still was running a massive particle mover.

  Vas ran to Deven and Bathshea and handed them the small controller the empress had used to access her particle mover. “Can you gain control of her particle mover with this? Ours won’t be able to move enough of them off at once—hers can. If they can get to that hauler and get it back up and running they might be able to escape.”

  Marli swore. “Savan can fix anything.” She opened the mic to her ship. “New plan. Get everyone to the med labs.” She nodded to Gosta as he ran for the lift and the particle mover. “We’re going to be pulling people out in pairs at first. But we might be able to grab everyone. Savan, you’ll be on a damaged hauler. Get it fixed but don’t run until I say.” She spun. “What’s the rest of the plan?”

  Vas looked at the screen and the burning Commonwealth ships. Those gray ships had taken them out and disabled the Scurrilous Monk with hardly any effort. Most of the ships around them hadn’t even fired.

  They wanted the Victorious Dead and the Warrior Wench intact—the Monk as well, but since it was the biggest threat to them of the three, they were willing to take it out as an example.

  As if the destruction of the Commonwealth ships hadn’t been enough.

  52

  Deven took the controller pendent and Marli joined him. “I think we can make this work. It’s a fairly simple program.” He turned to Marli and he connected the pendent to the console. “You’re sure your people can fix the empress’s ship? We get one shot, and that ship of hers is a hauler—no weapons if the grays figure out what we’ve done.”

  Marli nodded. “They will fix it. Savan? I want alpha omega zed in place as soon as you are off that ship.”

  “But, Captain—”

  “No. We have to do it. Do you have emergency power?”

  Vas looked at Deven but he shrugged. Gosta hadn’t detected any power left, but Vas wasn’t surprised at more secrets.

  “Yes.”

  “As you leave, launch the code and aim the ship at as many of the bastards as you can.” Marli turned to Vas. “We’re going to have to haul ourselves out of here in a hurry. That code is a sunburst explosion. I didn’t want anyone ever getting that ship.”

  Vas felt her jaw drop. That was going to be a story best shared on the floor of a bar. Preferably after a nice long night of fighting and drinking. A sunburst was an insanely powerful weapon—another tech that had vanished with the Asarlaí. Very much like the planet killer Aithnea had used. Only this one would actually create a new sun. Tiny at first, but within a week no ship would be able to pass through this space.

  “Vas, I have us connected. The empress’s ship’s particle mover is up.”

  Vas called down to engineering. “Gosta, how many have you gotten?”

  “Just four, Captain. There is something interfering. Those gray ships are running some sort of tech.”

  “Hold off now. We’re going to put the rest on the other ship.” Vas turned to the command crew and opened a secure comm to the Victorious Dead. “The second we pull those people off, the Monk is going to explode; we need to get away from the grays fast enough to avoid going with it and not get trapped by them.”

  Vas went to her command chair. With all of the connections in the arm consoles she could track things better on it than running from console to console.

  Three grays were now attacking the Scurrilous Monk. If everything else hadn’t been enough to convince Vas that was an extremely tough ship, that alone would have. So far it had lasted longer than the entire planet of Lantaria had. The rest of the grays continued to do nothing but watch the Warrior Wench and the Victorious Dead. She knew they wanted the Wench for those damn breaches on the side. She had no idea why they weren’t going after the Victorious Dead yet. Maybe because it wasn’t a threat.

  “Dreamwalker ships,” a male voice came through the comms. “You will stand down and answer for your crimes against the Asarlaí government. You have five seconds to respond.”

  Vas spun and looked at Marli. “What the hell are Dreamwalkers? And are they seriously admitting to be Asarlaí?”

  Marli had gone white, but she stalked forward. “Turn on the camera.” Her voice was little more than a snarl, but Bathie waited until Vas nodded in agreement.

  “I am Marliress Gtill Sorlian. What house are you?” As she spoke, Marli dropped her glamour. Before they could answer, she spat out a loud and fast series of words.

  Vas had no idea what Marli was saying, but the tone sounded like swearing. Her deck crew was silent.

  “Why are you on the Dreamwalker ships? You are not of their kin.” The image on the screen changed to an interior of a ship so foreign to Vas she could only guess it was the command deck of the lead gray. Most all of the positions were occupied by the black-suited beings. Even on their own ship, the masks stayed on. Probably a good idea if Terel’s studies were right and they were completely bio-engineered.

  But the man speaking looked like a mangled Asarlaí. He looked to be shorter than Marli, and his features were dull and rounded where hers were sharp. His eyes were a weak gray instead of red, and his teeth were no more pointed than Vas’s own.

  He did have the extremely white skin and long white hair. And the Asarlaí attitude.

  Marli growled and spit. “What have you become, you foul bastard of my people? Did you crawl out of the swamps of Ileria where our ships exploded? You are not Asarlaí.”

  The captain on the gray ship tipped his head as if hearing someone beyond reach of the comm. Marli reached back to Deven and the pendant. She gave a tight nod.

  “You are she, the one we have been looking for. How did you destroy our ships? Why? We are your kin.” The Asarlaí wanna-be tried to stand up taller. “You will lead us as is foretold. The Dreamwalkers will fall, and we will restore what is right.”

  He stopped talking and Deven turned off the comm on their end.

  “He can’t hear us right now,” Deven said. He’d moved over to the communications console. “Marli’s surviving people have all been moved to the hauler. Savan was able to create a delay on your weapon, but only a few minutes. The Victorious Dead is ready on their end. Savan got the hauler up and running—but it won’t last long.” He didn’t add, ‘if we pull this off’ but it was clear in his voice.

  “Excellent. On my mark, open the comm to the gray ship again, and move us all out.” Vas nodded to Marli. “If you don’t mind?”

  Marli gave a terse nod. Much more impressive when she was seven feet tall and her red eyes were ready to bore a hole through the screen in front of her.

  Vas dropped her hand. “This has been an interesting experience you mutated, bulbous, mass of Ilerian refuse. But we already have one Asarlaí, a real one.”

  The Scurrilous Monk lurched forward as the programming for its final fight kicked in, ramming one gray ship and pushing it into two more. Mac gunned the Warrior Wench and Gon fired a massive barrage of missiles on the closest gray ship.

  One of the grays tried to catch them, but Vas took over weapons for a moment and fired a full barrage at the dead ship next to the gray ship th
at was attacking—it exploded and did enough damage to the attacking gray to stop it completely.

  “Nice shot, Captain!” Mac yelled as he fought to get even more speed from the engines. The missiles on both sides fired. Gon was using everything they had.

  The ship rocked as a strike from one of the grays got through, and she saw the Victorious Dead take a hit as well.

  “When is your ship exploding, Marli?”

  “I don’t know.” Marli had gone back to her glamour, but the point was moot now. “Savan, what kind of delay did you use?”

  “Cap—we can’t—at—” The reply was too garbled to hear. Marli ran to the communications console when the Scurrilous Monk exploded, taking out at least four of the grays. Then the rest glowed and vanished.

  Vas wanted to think that they somehow blew them up as well. She had a very bad feeling that was not the case.

  Alarms rang as more hits from exploding debris got through the battered shields. “Mac, get us out of here. Stay connected with the pilot of the Dead and the hauler, but find somewhere to go now.”

  She could see that the Victorious Dead was leaking atmosphere. It shut off after a moment, but that wasn’t good.

  “Aye, Captain,” Mac yelled back. They passed the Victorious Dead. Vas made sure the other ship still followed through, then they all hurled through the gate.

  53

  The entry into the gate had been at an odd angle, and the grating sound of the gate fighting back was still echoing in her ears. Vas pulled herself off the floor and turned to question Mac, but he shrugged as best he could without letting go of the controls. “Not my fault. We took some bad hits. I’m thinking Ragkor’s ship did also. They’re with us, the hauler too, but all of us have some serious damage.”

  Vas turned to look at Marli, but she stood there in the middle of the command deck, her brown eyes wide and staring at the star field on the screen in front of her. The screen that had shown the destruction of her ship.

  Vas had gone through losing a ship, but it was only taken apart—not destroyed. Even though it had been at her own command, the Scurrilous Monk was destroyed. And it was such a powerful ship that it never would have crossed Vas’s mind to think it would have gotten to that point. Had Marli not ordered the massive self-destruct she had on that thing—there was no doubt those gray ships would have taken it and all of the technology onboard.

  Judging from the look on Marli’s face, it had never crossed her thoughts either.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t save your ship,” Vas said. She knew such a loss would have devastated her but she was surprised at Marli’s reaction. The Asarlaí woman had always seemed to be above emotions—at least anything beyond sarcasm and mockery.

  “It’s more than that.” Marli shook her head, but kept her eyes on the screen. “They shouldn’t have been able to do that, any of that. We destroyed three of their ships without a problem. My ship alone could have taken ten of them out. They shouldn’t have been able to create a cloak or block us like that. They shouldn’t have been able to disable us.” She started shaking and Vas dragged her over to the closest console and forced her to sit. “They pulled a dimension warp at the end. No one else could have done that. The same people weren’t on the other ships. That’s why we could stop them. But that’s not who was on these ships. No.” Marli wasn’t talking to Vas anymore, but herself. Her eyes were still wide and she appeared to be slipping into shock.

  “My people are back and they’re stronger than before. The third age of the Asarlaí has begun.”

  Silence filled the command deck. Even for Vas, having that possibility growing in the past few weeks was far different from hearing it confirmed. From the one person who would know. But fear clouded judgment. Right now, she needed everyone to stay focused.

  “Xsit, I need you to open comms to both the Victorious Dead and that hauler, as well as ship wide.” When Xsit nodded, Vas turned to the deck crew. “We need to find a place to hide out and recover. We’ve slowed them down; it will be harder to cross into our world. We lost many good people. We’re injured, we’re tired, and we’re grieving. Yet, we will recover. We’re going to find a place to recover and rebuild. I don’t want to lead anyone to Home, so it won’t be there. I’ll take any—”

  An explosion that dropped Vas to the floor cut her off. Alarms rang out across the ship.

  “Captain, those gray ships came through the gate, they are firing from within the gate,” Mac was hysterical as he tried evasive maneuvers to avoid the shots. Firing in a gate stream was impossible, or it was until now. Unfortunately, even if they weren’t limping, none of her ships could fire back.

  “I need to get to my hauler,” Marli ran for the lift.

  “That’s impossible, you’ll die,” Deven yelled.

  “Then I’ll see my people in hell.” The lift door slammed shut and another explosion rocked the ship.

  “Captain, we can’t take more of these hits,” Ragkor’s voice was weak and Vas wasn’t sure if it was because of his injuries or problems with the comms.

  “Break off, Ragkor. Savan, you too, break off. If you have a chance to take a gate out of this stream—do it.”

  Vas knew the Asarlaí would be after her ship. Whatever they’d done to create the breaches could be opened again. Maybe she could save some of her people—and Marli’s.

  “Captain—”

  “Damn it. Break off. We will find each other. Break off now!” She had the gate stream up on her screen; there were three or four older gates on approach. None that she recognized.

  Ragkor didn’t answer, but the Victorious Dead vanished. Vas said a prayer to Aithnea that they had made the gate and not blown up.

  A moment later Savan and the hauler also disappeared.

  “Damn it. Walvento, did Marli make it down there?”

  “Aye Captain, but she vanished before I could start the particle mover. No idea where though.”

  Vas sent another prayer then turned to Mac as another strike hit. They were trying to disable, not destroy, at least for now. Those breaches made the Warrior Wench valuable. “Pick a damn gate, flyboy.”

  “But, Captain, we’re leaking fuel, if we are off by a tiny bit….” Mac let it hang there.

  If they were off just a bit, the fuel would ignite everything the moment they entered the gate. “No options—go now!” Vas yelled as they started passing the last of the gates.

  Mac swore and the ship tumbled.

  Yet it held in the new gate stream.

  The stream was longer than Vas expected, but there were no ships following. They were also going far faster than was safe.

  “Good shot on getting us through, Mac, but slow down.”

  “I can’t. It’s out of control.” Mac yelled as the ship tore out of the gate.

  Vas had been in hundreds of systems in her life. Thousands of planets. But the system on the screen before her was completely new. Three suns filled the far end, and a grouping of eleven planets trickled out away from the gate. Readings from the ship came flooding in. They were out of fuel, out of weapons, and had a lot of structural damage.

  And she had no idea where they were.

  * * *

  The End

  Dear Reader,

  * * *

  Thank you for joining Vaslisha and her crew on their second trip into the breach.

  I really appreciate each and every one of you so please keep in touch. You can find me at www.marieandreas.com.

  And please feel free to email me directly at Marie@marieandreas.com as well, I love to hear from readers!

  If you enjoyed this book (or any book for that matter ;)) please spread the word! Positive reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and blogs are like emotional gold to any writer and mean more than you know.

  Thank you again, and we all hope to see you back here for the DEFIANT RUIN! Vas has never faced something like this—join us for the conclusion!

  * * *

  Marie

  * * *

  (PS-
if you also like fantasy with humor, please check out The Lost Ancients series.)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing is a solitary process, but it can’t be done alone. I couldn’t have gotten this far without the love and support of all of my family and friends.

  I’d like to thank Jessa Slade for editing magic—her ability to corral my wild stories is a talent. Thank you also to editor Brenda Salamone of Ibis Literary for helping keep the words inline. To my most awesome team of beta readers/typo hunters who plowed through the entire book and helped tighten it up: Lisa Andreas, Lynne Facer, Lynne Mayfield, and Sharon Rivest. And a special extra thank you to editor/proofreader extraordinaire Ilana Schoonover-thank you for being as fast and as good as you are. Any remaining errors are mine alone.

  My cover artist, Aleta Rafton, for creating yet another awesome work of art. And to The Killion Group for their always perfect and timely formatting of the entire book and print cover.

  BOOKS BY MARIE ANDREAS

  The Asarlaí Wars

  Book One: Warrior Wench

  Book Two: Victorious Dead

  Book Three: Defiant Ruin

  * * *

  The Lost Ancients

  Book One: The Glass Gargoyle

  Book Two: The Obsidian Chimera

  Book Three: The Emerald Dragon

  Book Four: The Sapphire Manticore

  Book Five: The Golden Basilisk

  Book Six: The Diamond Sphinx

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marie is a fantasy and science fiction reader with a serious writing addiction. If she wasn’t writing about all of the people in her head, she’d be lurking about coffee shops annoying innocent passer-by with her stories. So really, writing is a way of saving the masses. She lives in Southern California and is currently owned by two very faery-minded cats. And yes, sometimes they race.