by Mick Fraser
“Isn’t Bard the one who helped us through the Blockade?”
“Yeah. Like I said: hard choices, kid. If I was him, I’d have made the same one. To protect Gaelan, and Keera... In a heartbeat. But the rest of us, we were cut loose. We took everyone who would follow and for years we fought, ran, died, hid – and then we got a chance. Evayne made a mistake, chased a bunch of us away from Dulgaar and left a gap in her defences, a critical target sitting pretty, just waiting for us. Well, we took the bait, and we launched a concerted strike on a satellite array in a stretch of empty space called Warden’s Gaze. We took it easily enough, repurposed it, and set up our base of operations there. It was the perfect vantage point, and we finally had a headquarters, a home. It was defensible, and for the first time we’d secured a position Evayne couldn’t sneak up on. But it was a trap. She’d rigged the array with a magnetic pulse charge that crippled us overnight. She came at us with almost her entire fleet, and she ripped us to shreds. We were trying to evacuate and fight at the same time, trying to save the families of those who had pledged themselves to our ridiculous fucking cause. But we had no chance. None. I was ready to put the Shadow in harm’s way, maybe give Keera and our daughter a chance to get away – but Keera acted first. She arced Gaelan over to us with Six-Tails, and she flew the Silver Soul right into Evayne’s flagship...”
He fell silent for a moment, and Angela studied his face in the grim red light. He didn’t look sad, like he was recounting his grief. It was something altogether different. It was pride. Maybe a touch of awe.
“It was beautiful,” he continued. “It was Keera, all the way. We got out – just us. Everyone else was dead. After Evayne patched up the Hero, she refused to waste resources hunting us down herself. Maybe figured without Keera, we’d have no fight left, we wouldn’t be worth the trouble. She was right, I guess. We stopped fighting, and we learned to survive instead, learned to steal, to smuggle, to hide in plain sight. We’ve been dodging freelancers and contractors for years. But when I found out about you, a weapon we could use against Evayne, a weapon Evayne wanted to use against us, I saw a chance. I still see a chance. Keera’s dead, Rathe’s dead, the Founders are dead. Along with hundreds of others by Evayne’s hand. Do I have vengeful thoughts? You’re fucking right I do. But I won’t use you, Angela. That’s Evayne’s bit. Though, I am a pragmatist. I don’t see shades of grey, colours, rough edges... I see black and white, what works and what doesn’t, what keeps me alive, what gets me killed. And I deal with every part on its own merit.”
“You play the hand you’re dealt...” she whispered, something her granddad had liked to say. Drenno nodded. Angela stood up, affecting to look stern. “I thought you didn’t open up. Are you telling me this to make me trust you?”
“No,” he replied. “I’m telling you this so you know I trust you. That trooper in the cave? He saw you arc. No one else on Evayne’s payroll has seen that. Not even Varo saw it on Haze. Sooner or later, you might meet her face to face. We need that advantage, it’s all we’ve got. He was never going to keep that secret, so I made a decision. Maybe it was wrong. Honestly, I don’t have to give a shit. We’re still alive. Maybe that’s as good as it gets.”
Just then the sirens cut out, making Angela jump. “Is that a good thing?” she quipped.
“Not likely.”
Dizzy’s voice burst over the tannoy. “Hold on to something! We’re coming out of a shift and we’re coming out hot! Impact is imminent. I repeat: impact is imminent!”
“Dammit, I hate when he’s right!” Drenno spun, and Angela followed him down the corridor and into the lift. As the doors opened onto the bridge, she strapped herself into her chair at the belly-gun station and Drenno joined Dizzy at the command console.
“You’ve never crashed my boat before, Diz!”
“Trask-shit. We’ve crashed plenty.”
“The Jack. Never the Shadow. That’s a lot of weight to plough the ground with.”
“Tell me something I don’t know! I’m locked onto the coordinates. We should land right on top of the Dashaan, which is a good thing – because it’s underwater!”
“What?”
“Stroke of luck, right?”
Angela could see from Drenno’s face that, no, in actual fact, it was not a stroke of luck at all.
“I’m sorry!” shouted Six-Tails from the other side of the room. “Did you say underwater just now? It sounded like you said underwater!”
“Coincidentally, Rruska had a Class 4 Global Event,” Shimmer explained levelly. “88% of the planet’s surface is below sea level. What remains above is like pockets of paradise, hot, tropical, and the sea is clean. It’s a genetic melting pot.” She caught Angela’s eye and leaned forward, rocking and rumbling in her seat. “Lots of life signs!”
“Not all friendly, either,” said Illith. “Rruska is in the Lonely Vale, and the system is run by pirates.”
“More pirates!?” Angela shouted. “I thought we – you – were pirates?”
“No, real pirates,” Drenno affirmed. “Like, nasty ones. Corsairs, called the Seven Rings Fleet.”
“Can we avoid them?”
Gage’s bitter laugh echoed down the commlink. “They already know we’re coming by now, Earthborn. They’ll be on us inside a day.”
There was a noise like a Concorde breaking the sound barrier, and the shutters burst open to reveal a huge blue world rising to meet them like a comet in reverse.
“Here we go!” Dizzy roared as he yanked on the control stick and dragged the Shadowstar into a hard bank, trying to get a level approach vector. “You feel anything banging against the back of your head, don’t panic – it’s just your arse!”
Angela’s clenched her teeth and squeezed shut her eyes as Rruska’s gravitational pull seized the starfighter and tore her from the heavens. The next few minutes were a blur of noise and light and heat, as a swirl of dizzying motion warped the bridge and what lay beyond it into one great screaming helix. All Angela was sure of was that they were in free-fall, stomachs in mouths, asses in the air. They spun and spun, over, under and over again, until at last there was a sudden cessation of movement, a neck-breaking halt during which the Shadowstar seemed to reverse its fall, just for a heartbeat, before exploding into the surface of Rruska’s great ocean.
CHAPTER 37
~A MORE TASTEFUL COCKPIT~
QUITE HOW DIZZY managed it, Angela couldn’t be sure, but somehow he skimmed the Shadowstar across half a mile of salt-water, beaching the great ship almost on her side on a stretch of land barely a mile wide and three miles long. The crashing starfighter tore a furrow thirty feet deep in the sand, burning tracks of it to dark glass as she screeched to a smoking halt. The crew shook in their seats as debris rattled around the bridge like lottery balls. Angela’s fingers gripped the arms of her chair so hard she could feel the cold metal beneath the leather. The great ship ground to a halt half-buried in the furrow she had dug, but she landed upright and on the level, as far as Angela could tell. It should have been impossible.
“Well,” said Dizzy shakily, “I got the landing gear down.” As he spoke the console beside him hissed and spat sparks. In the sudden, unsettling stillness that followed, Drenno coughed.
“Damage report?” he grunted.
“Are you kidding?” Dizzy quipped.
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Dizzy tapped the console. It buzzed at him, almost angrily. He peered at it through one eye. “Everything is damaged.”
“Thanks.” Drenno pulled himself up and out of his chair. He looked around at the others. “Everyone breathing?”
“Only the ones who breathe,” said Gage, rising from the other side of the room and surveying the mess. “The bridge looks better like this.”
Drenno looked back to Dizzy. “Any chance Varo got a bead on us?”
“Every chance,” the To’ecc replied. “He nailed our containment unit. We left an Aethir-trail three ticks wide from here to Seth.”
Shimmer helped Illith get to her feet, dusting the dirt from her hypersuit. The Silsir was bleeding milky red blood from a cut over one eyebrow. “And what is the bad news?”
Dizzy chuckled, hammering the console with two fists. Nothing happened. “That was the bad news. There’s good news, but it ain’t that good: we were going fast. Way faster than the Halo can manage. We might have bought a few hours.”
The Captain hit the door switch and it clicked a few times before slamming open not with its standard ssh but with a grinding clunk. The corridor beyond looked mostly untouched, save for a scattering of debris, a few errant bolts. Angela glanced the other way, to where the lift door was opening and closing.
Ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk.
The weather beyond the window reminded her of British summertime by the coast; a blue sky wreathed in ashen grey cloud, pierced here and there by yellow rays of sun. She approached the console beside Dizzy and peered out at the clean, untarnished beach with the grey-green sea beyond it, where frothy surf sloshed back and forth to kiss the sand with insincere affection.
When the console finally bleeped, Dizzy cleared his throat. “Okay,” he said levelly, “here’s the rummicub without the extras: first off, the landing gear is jacked. It’ll keep us upright, but only because it’s half-crushed into its traces. We take off as-is, it’ll never support another touchdown. The Phase-drive is completely uncontained; the shield is fried, the chevrons are about fucked. Repairing that is priority number one. We have no hull damage that can’t be patched over in a few turns, but we’ve leaked Aethir for the last sixty or so ticks, which needs time to replenish, so we need to keep the power usage to a minimum. Beyond that, she’s okay. More or less.”
“And the reliquary?” asked Shimmer.
“Almost directly below us.”
“Underwater?”
“No. Natural caverns. It was built before the upheaval, used to be on the surface. There’s life out there though: the ocean is teeming with it. The Shadowstar’s mind has taken a knock, so her database isn’t cycling like it should. I can’t tell you what’s down there, only that there’s lots of it.”
“Someone should explain the definition of good news to you,” said Gage sourly.
“I’m not here to tuck you in, bright eyes.”
The Auton gave him a dark look as Illith turned to Drenno. “Job one needs to be the artefact. We should go and secure it while Dizzy and Gage start patching up the ship.”
He nodded. “Sure. Gaelan, transfer the Shadow’s mind to your databand. We’ll take her with us since you can’t run the scans remotely. Shimmer, you’re with us; Tails, take Winston and see what you can do about interior damage. We need to be gone before Varo finds us, so let’s get moving. How’s the air out there, Winston?”
“The same as in here, Captain. We’ve been taking it in since we landed. Luckily for you, it’s perfectly breathable, though a tad higher in Carbon Monoxide than usual. I would recommend hypersuits, though, for all of you.”
“Fair enough,” Drenno agreed. “You heard him: gear up, people.”
THE landscape was arid, craggy, formed of golden sandstone that arched up from the beach here and there like grasping claws, or else stood as natural bridges over deep rock pools and sink-holes. As they climbed from the Shadowstar’s furrow and the back side of the island came into view, Angela almost gasped. The blue-green sea seemed to flow forever, glittering like a jewel until it met the summer sky at the distant horizon. Here and there an island protruded from the waves, some bearing small clusters of flora, others as barren yet oddly beautiful as this one. There was no visible life, so whatever Dizzy’s instruments had picked up was either marine or subterranean.
Looking up towards the sky and its yellow sun – whose size alone belied its alien nature – Angela half expected to see gulls wheeling in the sky, screeching and dive-bombing for scraps. There was nothing. Aside the gently breaking waves, the world seemed utterly still.
She caught Drenno’s eye. “It’s so peaceful,” she said in response to his expression.
He grunted. “That’s what bothers me.”
Winston’s voice crackled over the commlink. It sounded tinny, broken, far away. “You’ll come across a high arch in about a quarter of a het. Beneath the arch there’s a natural depression, likely filled with sand. Burrow into it and you should find a steep cave entrance. The reliquary is at the far end, but... it’s strange. The angles are odd.”
“The upheaval,” Shimmer explained, tapping her databand’s wrist-reader. “This world quite literally toppled on its axis. According to Arkalian records, the oceans rose up and swallowed Rruska over the course of but a few days, and most of what is now above sea level may have once been mountainside. This Dashaan was likely built into a cliff face, which we are now walking upon. Having also seen Seth, I wonder if the Founders engineered such events to further deter treasure-seekers.”
Angela looked down, trying to picture it. “Far out...” she whispered.
“It is too open,” Illith said. “The smell of the water reminds me of home, but I miss the trees.”
Drenno glanced back at her. “You’ll go home one day, Ill. We all will.”
The Silsir smiled bitterly. “I doubt it is how I remember it. It has been so long.”
Angela felt she had missed something. “Why can’t you go home?”
Shimmer answered her. “We are fugitives, Angela. Evayne ceased using her resources to hunt us, but we are known. It is better to stay away from our homeworlds, friends, families, clans. It is better to stay adrift.”
Moving on in silence, they soon found the arch Winston had described, and Drenno paused beneath it. “Gaelan, signs of life?”
She tapped her databand. “There are faint readings, far below – and out there, under the sea. Nothing close.”
A quick search soon revealed the tunnel opening, and Drenno immediately began to scoop the sand away. Gaelan joined him, and then Angela moved down beside them. While she shovelled with her hands the sand shifted and she lost her footing. Instinctively she reached out and gripped Gaelan’s wrist. There was a moment of heat that made her blink before she cleared her throat and pushed herself up. Somehow unable to thank the other girl, she instead gave an awkward smile. The moment was shattered when Drenno hit something semi solid beneath the sand. Angela took a deep breath, almost relieved at the distraction.
“It’s hard-packed here,” said Drenno. “Give me a hand.”
He started kicking the obstacle as hard as he could, bracing himself on Shimmer. There was a sound like a gate creaking, and the hard-packed sand seemed to explode downwards, cascading into the tunnel beyond. There was a rim of dampened sand, which Shimmer knelt to crush between her fingers. “There is little moisture here. Nothing to dampen this.”
“What about during high tide?” Drenno wondered aloud.
Shimmer put her head on one side. “Then it would be damp all around. It is dry as dust.”
“So...” he said slowly.
“So...” Shimmer repeated.
Angela looked at them both and spread her hands. “So?”
They exchanged a glance, which Angela didn’t like the implications of. She liked it even less when Drenno un-holstered his handcannon and Illith slipped her shock-rod from the sheath on the back of her hypersuit.
“Evayne?” Angela asked.
“No,” Shimmer told her levelly. “This sand was dampened from inside. It has been shored up and sealed. It is a nest.”
CHAPTER 38
~NOTHING SO EXACT AS PROPHECY~
THE TUNNEL DESCENDED sharply. The incline was bizarre, so much so that Angela had to steady herself on the damp wall and place her feet slightly to the side. There were carvings on the wall, similar to those seen in the other reliquaries, hieroglyphs depicting Founder history. Shimmer read them as she walked, her long, white-gloved fingers tracing the lines in the stone, her curious little orb of light illuminating the way. The steep incline didn’t both
er her; she glided an inch or two above the sandy ground.
After a moment Shimmer seemed to sense Angela’s eyes on her. She didn’t turn, but shifted her body slightly. “These hieroglyphs mention you, child,” she said. “Not by name, of course, but they speak of you as a Reclaimer, as well as a Catalyst. The Founders had many names for you, it seems.” She paused and tapped her finger against one particular symbol. Angela peered closer to see what looked like a five-pointed star surrounded by a narrow ring. There was more writing underneath it. Shimmer gave a gentle laugh from behind her mask. “This one is my favourite: Kyrrae illumae y saer. It means ‘She Who Walks As the Light’. As, not in. It is reference to your gift. See here?” The Ri'in located another row of symbols further along the wall. “Here is the short-form: Kyrrae-sae. Arc-walker.”
Angela felt a chill run down her spine and take root in her gut. Her stomach turned, but she realised it was excitement, not fear, that made the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck vibrate so. “They knew I was coming...” she whispered. “She Who Walks As the Light... I was meant to be here. Like a... prophecy.”
“Nothing so exact, Angela. But yes, they knew you were coming. They knew that one day, you or someone like you would visit these holy places. They knew you would be female, they knew you would have their ability to arc.”
Angela smiled at Shimmer. “I’d have preferred a prophecy, but I’ll take it.” She stared down the bizarrely angled corridor, into the deep darkness ahead. “You think they planned all this?”
