by Chris Fox
There was a moment of weightlessness, then the Remora came crashing down on her side. Something broke internally along the keel, and a fresh wave of smoke billowed out of the oxygen scrubbers as the ship finally came to rest.
A giant crack ran through the viewscreen, and I hung limply from my restraints as I struggled to turn enough to see the part that still worked.
“Sound off,” I managed weakly, my voice loud in the helmet as I fought for breath.
“Green!” Briff’s voice crackled through one speaker.
“Green,” Vee said, though she held her head with a groan.
There was no answer from either my father or Rava. I twisted around and caught sight of both. My father lay against the wall, a rivulet of blood running down his forehead.
Rava was slumped against the controls, her eyes closed but no visible sign of injury. At least she was breathing.
“Green,” Kurz’s voice whispered over the comm from the same speaker Briff’s had come from. “There is a hole in the aft cargo wall. May I suggest we rendezvous here, and quickly. Were I the Wyrm, that is where I’d attack.”
I unbuckled my harness and tumbled from the chair. I’d fully expected to crash face first into the floor, and surprised myself by landing on my feet. Thank you, armor.
I reached up and pressed the comm button on the chair. “Good plan, Kurz. We’re on our way.” I released the button and turned to Vee, who had a welt on her temple the size of my knuckle, but nothing worse to show. “Can you get Rava and my father up? Bring them to the cargo hold as soon as you can.”
She nodded, so I climbed into the corridor, which was a lot harder to traverse at a ninety-degree angle. Given that, and the odds that we’d soon be fighting a Wyrm, I willed a bit of void from my chest into the armor.
The icy magic slid into the armor, which sensed my need and used it to warp the gravity around me. I drifted off the deck, now able to fly through sheer will. Pretty damned amazing, and one depths of a perk for being captain of the Word.
By the time I reached the cargo hold, Kurz had set up opposite a two-meter tear in the outer hull. He’d taken up cover behind two of the crates full of food bars that the minister had been willing to part with.
I took cover behind a pair of crates opposite him, and set up my own firing lane with both fists cupped together. I could use my pistol, but from what I could tell the armor packed a greater punch so it seemed like there was no point. I missed Ariela.
Something heavy landed just outside the cargo hold, a titanic boom echoing through the cargo bay. It was followed by a rustling…of wings.
3
I cannot express the terror I experienced in that moment. My team was on the bridge, and an adult Wyrm was approaching my position. The tritanium hull wouldn’t even slow her down, and no spell I could cast would do more than annoy her.
“No one has to die, boy,” an ancient feminine voice rumbled, the subsonics making my teeth itch. “Come out, and turn over the armor. I will let you live, and if you are very lucky you will manage to repair your ship, and find a way back to the Word of Xal. You will have a chance. You are resourceful. Make use of it. If you do not come out, then you have none. I will kill you and your crew. You have no idea how important that armor is to the Maker’s children.”
I filed that away for later, assuming I survived this. Vee might have some thoughts on the Maker’s children, as she used the deity’s name all the time.
I flipped on the suit’s external speakers, and mustered my confidence. “The suit won’t do you any good, unless you’re able to take the trials. The minister has the core and the bridge under lockdown. The armor is worthless. If you come in here we will defend ourselves. I’m sure you’re powerful, but so are we. We will go down swinging.”
There was probably more I could or should say, but that was the best I could come up with.
Kurz surprised me by approaching the tear in the hull and yelling at the top of his lungs. “You do not speak for the Maker’s children, Wyrm. I don’t know who you are, but we have kept the faith, and I will use the Maker’s own strength against you if you attack. I possess miracles that he has granted me, and I will wield them in his name.”
An idle part of my mind, the part that wasn’t occupied by thoughts of being eaten, noted that Kurz wasn’t that devout. Vee was, but not him. Then it hit me. He must be playing for time. Kurz didn’t have any such miracles.
“A fledgling soulcatcher?” The dragon huffed a snort, and light flashed outside the tear in the hull. The plasma jetting from her nostrils, no doubt. It would cook a man instantly. “You would presume to lecture me about the Maker, because you have a covenant with a ship he built? Inura is my grandfather, little human. His blood flows in my veins. Soon, yours will flow in my stomach.”
The bad pun reassured me. At least I wasn’t the only one bad at trash talking.
“Wait,” I yelled, then hesitated as I tried to figure out where I was going with this. I moved closer to the hole, and peered out at the Wyrm, who was staring right back at me. “Let’s say I turn over the armor. What do you plan to do with it? What is it the Maker’s children want? Because as I understand it the Inuran Consortium are also his children, and they literally blew up my planet. So I’m kind of short on trust. You get it, right?”
Then I ducked back behind cover, though the Wyrm hadn’t made any threatening gestures.
“You are a good deal better at negotiation than I’d have expected given your poor marks.” The Wyrm took a step closer, and the deck thundered under her clawed foot. “Perhaps you can see reason. I am willing to trade information, if that will convince you to save your own life and the lives of your crew. The Consortium are an abomination, and they will pay for their many crimes. That armor is how we repay them. I can wake the Word of Xal, and I can take up—”
The hesitation was brief, but it was enough. There was only one thing being captain of the Word would allow you to take up. Ardaki. The legendary staff that the Guardian insisted I must keep secret at any cost.
“—I can take up my spellblade, and avenge my children and my brothers.” The Wyrm’s voice quavered, with fury or grief, or perhaps both. “I will find them and flay them, and I will create a new core of Outriders, ones who will eclipse their forebears of old. Ones who will remain loyal and steadfast, no matter what is asked of them.”
In that instant I finally put together the obvious. I remembered Visala trying to take the staff, and her hand dissolving. She’d shaken it off like a sunburn. She was in control of the academy…which were probably these Outriders she was talking about. She’d even mentioned my poor marks.
“The staff rejected you,” I yelled back, knowing that would provoke a reaction, whether I was right or wrong. I glanced behind me, but there was still no sign of Vee or the others. “The Word of Xal will as well. I don’t require the armor to maintain my connection. Even if you pass the trials I will still be captain. You’ll never get the staff.”
That last line was a test. I needed confirmation she was who I thought she was. Confirm it she did.
“So you’re saying I must kill you.” The Wyrm actually managed contrite, though that didn’t make me feel any better. I’d pretty much demanded she kill me. I’m brilliant—what can I say? The Wyrm took a thundering step closer. “It’s a pity. You have vastly exceeded my expectations given your complete lack of ambition during your senior year. When I take the Word of Xal I will command a monument to Inura be created, and I may even mention you on the plaque.”
“Kurz,” I hissed as I approached the soulcatcher. “Can any of your souls delay her?”
“I don’t know,” the bearded lurker replied. I could see his face through his faceplate, which wasn’t reassuring as it spoke to how thin the ferroglass was. “I will try.”
He didn’t ask what I’d be doing, which was great as it freed me up to actually do it. I raised a trembling finger and sketched a blazing purple dream sigil in the air. It pulled the magic directly fr
om my chest, and a glowing symbol hovered there, waiting.
I’m not very good at hardcasting, but sometimes it’s the only way to deliver a spell. In this instance I was casting an illusion, one of the few dream could manage without the aid of air.
I added another dream sigil, and the two fused together to create a high-pitched sound, one that would irritate most living creatures. The irritating shriek echoed out of the Remora, into the cargo hold, and then into the corridors branching out from it.
“Was that some sort of sonic attack?” came Visala’s amused voice.
At the same instant Kurz lobbed a fist-sized vial filled with a vibrant green gas through the hole. It shattered at the Wyrm’s feet, and the cloud quickly rose, then flowed into the Wyrm’s ears, nose, and mouth.
Visala gave an annoyed snort, then shook her head. Her eyes closed, and her gums rose up in a snarl, exposing a sea of razored fangs that would make short work of my armor and my very delicate parts.
“A possession? Really?” The Wyrm straightened and her eyes opened. “That might work on a hatchling, but even a young adult would shrug off such a—”
She trailed off suddenly, though it took me a moment to realize why. A scuttling sound echoed in the darkness, and I realized it was coming from the corridors leading off from the cargo hold.
Every corridor at once. A veritable army of creatures was approaching, skittering through the darkness as they neared the cargo hold. My phantom sound had worked.
I don’t know that anyone could have been prepared for the monsters that emerged. Hideous, misshapen lizards scuttled out of the corridors. They had scales, like a drake, but far, far too many limbs. Eight bulbous eyes stared out of a face more at home on a spider than a dragon.
Magic pulsed from the creatures, and gave each an orange glow from all eight terrible orbs. Fire magic. It resonated with the magic in my chest, and I knew a sort of kinship I’d only ever felt with other fire mages like my father.
Each drake-thing carried a staff in two of its hands, and every last staff emanated magic, though they varied in form. The first ranks of drake-things spread out, then lobbed a volley of spells from their staves, all aimed at Visala.
Her claw came up, and she cast a ward exactly as she had against the missiles. White wards sprang up in a globe around her, just in time to intercept the fire bolts.
The spells slammed into the ward, which quickly discolored, then began to fade, and finally broke apart. The last few bolts hit Visala, though they did little more than earn a pained grunt.
Visala’s answer was much more effective.
The Wyrm inhaled a deep breath, her chest distending, and then she unleashed a wave of gold-white plasma, just as she had at us. The heat washed into the Remora’s hold, and I could feel it even through the Heka Aten.
Her magical star-mass enveloped the first few ranks of drake-things, and each offered a shrill inhuman shriek as it was consumed. When the Wyrm’s terrible breath passed, only their staves remained, though not all the magical weapons had survived. A few were lumps of gold or silver, melting into pools on the deck.
Many, many more of the drakes flowed into the cargo hold, and sent another wave of fire bolts. This time Visala was too slow with her ward, and fell back with a mighty flap of her wings as she offered a deafening roar that shook the hold.
The spells assailed her like a swarm of wasps, painful though certainly not lethal. Visala erected another ward, then kicked off the deck and leapt toward the blue membrane as an enthusiastic wave of fire bolts discolored, then breached her ward.
The spells continued to pepper her flanks until she disappeared through the membrane and back into space.
“What is that ground bound phrase you use in your media so much,” Kurz asked as he turned a wry smile in my direction. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire?”
“Let’s hope the natives are friendly,” I prayed aloud. “Enemy of my enemy and all that.”
4
I forced a series of calming breaths as I stared out at the approaching army of drake-things. The deck was littered with their charred corpses. Dozens of the things had just been killed.
Would they blame us? Would that even matter? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way it was my responsibility to take the risk. I heard Vee approaching behind me, and the knot in my shoulders eased when I heard the whir of my father’s hoverchair behind her. She’d gotten him up.
Rava moved silently behind them, as always. There was no sign of the wound, nor the knot on Vee’s lovely face. It really was nice having a life mage on board.
“I’m going to go out there,” I explained, partly to convince myself. “I’ll try to communicate. If I fail and they gun me down, try to stay quiet. If they attack…well, this is only going to end one way.”
Then I bravely urinated in my armor. Now, to be fair, the armor is designed to be urinated in. It’s a complete filtration system that will deal with any bodily waste, so that you can stay in it permanently if so desired.
I didn’t want to die. But there was very little chance of survival. I badly longed for the days when someone else stepped out first, but being captain came with a whole load of responsibilities. This was the most basic.
I slapped the button next to the cargo ramp, and the torn door opened a meter before grinding to a halt as the mechanism caught. It was enough for me to shimmy through, and I climbed to my feet on the other side.
“Jerek,” Vee called, and I paused to face her. “See if they have a spelldrive we can use. If you can get your hands on one I could definitely get it mounted. I might need you to use void magic to levitate it.”
I blinked at her, though she couldn’t see it from my helmet. She’d already taken for granted that I would go out, face down the spider things, and come back with the means to fix the ship.
“Uh…I’ll see what I can do.” Then I turned back to the drakes, and walked slowly toward them.
Picking a path through their dead didn’t exactly set up the image I was going for, but it was what I had. I raised both my hands, and ordered my helmet to slither off my face.
The stench of charred drake-thing immediately assaulted me, so badly my eyes stung.
“Hey there,” I called in galactic standard. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you can understand me?” I needed them to speak before I could identify their language.
A cluster of the things came together and began a strange sort of clacking that bore no resemblance to any language I’d heard of. The creatures argued fiercely, shaking their staves at each other as they struggled to reach a consensus.
Eventually all but one subsided, then that one shambled over in my direction. It tapped a black-hafted staff with eight ruby eyes on the ground in front of me, three times. Then it clacked at me in its language.
I raised an apologetic hand, then whispered under my breath to activate my academy ability, the very one Visala had granted me, ironically. “Universas Veritas.”
The creature cocked a head, then spoke in the clacking again. Nothing. My body went cold. Out of every scholar the academy had ever produced, over thousands of years, not one had ever encountered this language?
“I can’t understand you.” I gave an exaggerated shrug that I hoped the creature recognized.
“Vyrmonic veritak?” the creature demanded. It spoke slowly and loudly, as if to a foreigner lost in a bad neighborhood. “Dotok daska?” It raised the eight-eyed staff and pointed out the way Visala had flown. “Vyrmonic veritak?”
The meaning seemed pretty clear. The words themselves were nearly recognizable. They sounded like ancient draconic, but the words had harder consonants. Linguistic drift happened over time, especially in isolated populations, though I’d been taught consonants softened over time. Of course, that was for humans.
Was this dialect something they’d developed here over centuries of isolation? If so, how the depths was I going to communicate?
“She wasn’t with us,” I finally said, pointing at th
e membrane where Visala had fled. Then I pointed back at the Remora. “Vyrmonic veritak beat the tar out of my ship. She took out our engines. We can’t even fly.”
A scaled multi-segmented limb more at home on an insect than either man or Wyrm suddenly swung in my direction. I considered dodging, but any hostile act might get me killed. Instead I closed my eyes and waited.
Something grasped at my side, and my spellpistol was yanked out if its holster. I opened my eyes in time to see the drake-thing drop the sleek black fleet tech into a crudely-stitched satchel, then the creature stabbed a limb at the Remora.
“Nok Socio Habuisse?” the creature demanded, the words so close to being understandable, but maddeningly different.
I closed my eyes and considered what he’d said. Habuisse meant companions, and that was pretty close to what I’d heard. He’d pointed at the ship. Was he asking if I had friends?
Odds were high they’d search the ship no matter what we did. If I lied, would they kill my crew? Would they kill me?
“Yes,” I said, nodding at the Remora. “I do have crew.” Then I closed my eyes. This thing was intelligent, and spoke something similar to ancient draconic. If I spoke ancient draconic, could it puzzle out what I was saying? One way to find out. I opened my eyes, and gave a low, slow bow. I switched to draconic. “Do you understand my speech? I do have companions, but we do not need to involve them.”
The drake-thing blinked at me. Its mandible things clicked, and it turned to speak to the rest of its brood in the unintelligible clacking they’d first used. There were some excited responses, then the drake-things gradually settled down to watch me.
“You…understand…speech?” the creature said, each word sounded out slowly. It studied me with all eight unnerving eyes.
I nodded slowly. “I understand. I speak old draconic.”
“Where…you…from?” the creature chittered. My skin crawled, though I tried to keep it from my expression.
“From the planet Kemet,” I explained. “Deep in the system, after a great battle, my people took refuge. Now our world is gone. My people survive on the Word of Xal, another Great Ship, like this one.”
