“How did he sneak up on us?’ Sarena asked Toth, keeping her eyes on the dreadnought. There were the gleaming barrels of at least fifty cannons. The bright light of the ship’s core bled through the seams of the ironwood and ports of the guns.
“I would say the damage we had getting off planet because of the two Emissaries had something to do with it,” Toth said.
“Is there any way we can run?” Pieter asked from the doorway.
“We can’t run, the moment we move, we will get blasted by a broadside,” Sarena said.
“Hold onto something, Benny has—”
Before Toth could finish, gravity reasserted itself. Sarena and Pieter hit the wooden deck of Benny with a thud.
“Reestablished the gravity well,” Toth said, leaping down onto his six legs with the grace of his kind.
“Thanks, Lasha,” Pieter said with a groan.
“Welcome, Emissary,” Toth said with a growl before leaping onto a large table. An indentation where he was supposed to settle waited, his “helmsman position” he called it.
Sarena looked at Toth. “A bit more warning, before Benny does it.”
“Benny knows it is distressing for his occupants to be without gravity. He finds it strange as well. He wanted to do it as soon as—”
“Are you two just going to ignore the bigger problem here?” Pieter asked.
Sarena looked at Pieter and smiled. “I think we should hand you two over. I get my heart’s desire, and I get to be rid of you. I’ll miss the kid, but at least you will be out of here.”
“Thanks, pilot,” Pieter said. “If you will give me a few moments to get ‘the whelp’ then we will leave.”
Sarena bit her tongue. She didn’t want to give Pieter to Harkness. She knew that the moment he stepped out of Benny, he would be killed. And, she would probably be killed along with him and Benny. But she had to at least try.
And, at least he will be away from us and out of our—
Damn it Toth, stop it! She looked at the Lasha, curled up in the helmsman nest. Because you hate him, doesn’t mean—
You hate him too, Sarena. Or am I wrong?
“You aren’t wrong,” Sarena said.
“What was that?” Pieter asked, turned back to look at the two of them.
“Nothing. But, you can’t go with him. I doubt he even has Lightman with him,” Sarena said.
“Who is this Lightman you keep speaking of?” Pieter asked.
“A partner that left me high and dry,” Sarena said through clenched teeth.
“And in prison,” Toth said from his perch.
“What did he—”
Toth suddenly stood up, his back arched and he hissed. Pieter reacted by grabbing his sword and pulling it from his hip. “Damn it Lasha, what—”
“There are others aboard Benny,” Toth said. “I can see them now. And, they are after Kyp.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Pieter took the hand given to him by Sarena and pulled her closer to him. He felt a rush smelling her hair as she pulled in close before pushing past him to get through to the main hallway. For a moment, he wanted to chase after her. Instead, he shook his head and kept going down one of the branch hallways, trying to find the last of the invaders. He reached out with the Void and felt something ahead of him. He held the witchwood sword ready in a guard position with one hand while he palmed the door mechanism with the other. It irised open without a noise. He saw two of the bug men chewing on cables of vines and moss, their thick claws raking and tearing at the vines trying to open up larger and larger lesions that bled viscous sap of red and white to form a wan pink.
He charged forward as they turned to see him. They tried to reach for their strange guns, but Pieter’s movements were boosted by the Void, and he cut them both down before they could find their rifles. He tried to keep the bloodshed to a minimum, not wanting to infect Benny’s systems with whatever nasty goop the bug men had in their blood. The two halves of each corpse splatted to the deck with a wet thump, and Pieter felt a wave of nausea that bounced off the cocoon that he wrapped around himself while in the embrace of the Void.
He was about to turn when he heard a keening from the cables. He turned to look and saw a strange beetle like creature that emerged from the vines and tore more of the system of vine cables apart. Three more emerged and started to do the same thing. “What in the—”
Sarena appeared at his side before he knew she was there, firing into the room. “Get out of there. We need to seal off this whole section.”
Pieter backed away, Sarena following until they got to the main hallway. Sarena slapped the side of the wall and a thick door of wood slammed down just as a small wave of bugs was coming towards them. He watched as Sarena gritting her teeth and hissed out, “Benny, vent the aft section nine through twelve.”
She then buckled, hitting the ground hard as Pieter heard a whoosh and the scrabbling of claws as the bugs tried to remain on Benny before being expelled into the æther.
“What is going on?” Pieter asked.
“Damn things are in the whole section. We can’t do anything but vent them.” She grabbed her side, near her hip and grunted with pain.
“What are you—”
“Leave me alone, Emissary,” Sarena said.
“I am trying to help—”
“You can't help anything. You have brought destruction to my friend, almost destroyed my ship and for what? Some stupid theory about an invasion? Are you insane?”
“What were those things then?” Pieter shouted back, pointing at the door. “Those didn't look like any kind of bugs I have seen before.”
“Could be some mutant form of Ilvan wood ticks. Or, could be some kind of new strain of blight bug. Either way, they are off the ship.” She tried to stand up, pulling away from Pieter as he tried to help. She took a step, faltered and fell.
Pieter grabbed her, pulled her up and helped walk and carry her to the infirmary.
Sarena came to, looking at Pieter. “What is going on?”
“I’ll answer that,” Toth said, leaping onto the table she was on. It was an exam table and bed, like the one she had found herself after Centauri Prime. She noticed Toth had some bandages around his abdomen.
“You fainted, and I think it is because of something you did,” Toth said.
“Thanks for that,” Sarena said. “What happened to you?”
“This? Just a war wound from fighting one of those bug men singlehandedly.”
“I helped you, Toth,” Kyp shouted from his position.
“Well, the human child helped a little.”
Kyp leaned against the bulkhead, sulking.
She looked at Pieter again. “Thank you for helping me.”
Pieter flashed her a grin. “You are welcome.”
She reached out for his hand. “I am sorry I was cruel. I was—”
“You were being a stubborn woman is what you were doing,” Pieter said, pulling his hand away. “You could have been killed, and all because—”
Sarena stared daggers at Pieter. “Get out.”
“What?”
“I said get out, you and the boy. Now, or I’ll have Benny vent the air from the whole ship.”
“What about you?” Pieter said.
Sarena tapped a small vine that was above her. “This will give me and Toth air. Benny doesn't trust you two enough and would do it without question.”
Toth watched the argument for a long moment, waiting to speak until they were left alone. When Pieter and Kyp did leave, he turned on Sarena. “That was a little bit much, don’t you think?”
“Is that concern for them?” Sarena asked, arching an eyebrow.
“No. Concern for you.”
“How so?”
“The Emissary was trying to help. You were rather stubborn. Had you made the course correction like I suggested, we wouldn’t have run into the duke, and we wouldn’t have been attacked by—”
Sarena glared at Toth and wished he would shu
t up. She was amazed when a vine crept down and wrapped itself around his mouth. He jerked his head back and hissed at the vine when it tried to move towards him again.
Sarena felt a small smile on her lips and then a great deal of pain in her side. “Oh, Benny, could you increase the pain killers?”
“He is maxing them out now,” Toth said. He looked closely at her, “But something tells me you already knew that.”
Toth was right, Sarena realized. She knew, some part of her knew, that Benny was doing what he could to make the pain go away. Still, she simply grumbled when she moved and then stopped moving altogether and tried not to breath to heavily.
“What is going on, Toth?” Sarena asked, resting her head on the mossy headrest.
Toth looked at her with his Lashan unfathomable gaze. “You don’t know what you did?”
“No, I have no idea, won’t you enlighten me?”
Toth gave her the equivalent of a smile. “No, not yet. I think I need to speak to my elders before that can happen.”
“Damn feline…ouch!”
Toth bit one of her fingers she raised to speak. “You know how I feel about that word.”
“You could at least tell me what is going on with Benny and I?”
“I could, couldn’t I?” Toth said. He turned around and made as if he would leap off the table.
Sarena grabbed him by a leg, which caused Toth to try and jump and thud against the side of the table.
“Human, let me go. I will do more than bite a—”
She left him go. She watched as he caught himself as he fell and landed. He looked up and scowled at Sarena for a long moment. “Now, I won’t tell you.” He sauntered out of the room, deaf to Sarena’s cursing.
***
Creeping along the corridor of the interior hallway, Kyp felt fear start to fill him. What if you can’t do this? What if your Sempai is a fraud? It sounded like Flynn’s voice in Kyp’s head asking the questions. He pushed the thoughts away and kept moving. Then he came upon something that wasn’t right. There were two parts to a small ship’s prow that had broken open like a beak. A viscous ooze sealed the ship into place penetrating Benny’s hull. It was a foul smelling fluid that dripped down onto the deck creating pools of the stuff. Kyp felt his fear grow seeing the thing. There were three of the beaks in the same general area. But no crew. Then, he thought he saw a shadow of movement. He ducked into a room and saw three humanoid coming towards him.
Kyp looked at the men who had boarded the ship. They were nothing like he had seen before. Their faces were masked by some kind of black face covering, yet their eyes were the things that caused a chill to run down his spine. The eyes were red, and they glowed in the dark hallway. Each of them had a short-barreled rifle of some kind, and they moved in teams of three. Three such teams were sweeping through the hallways near him, rifles out and ready. He wasn’t sure how he knew there were more than the three he saw, but he sensed it.
There was some kind of clicking noise, and it sounded like that was how they were talking to each other. One trio was moving closer and closer. He tensed, his hand around the hilt of his sword. He felt his breathing starting to come faster and shallower. He tried to run through the same kind of breathing exercises as Sempai had taught him, yet it wasn’t working. He felt a cold trickle of fear at the base of his neck.
The group of men moved forward, sweeping the small cargo room that Kyp had slipped into before they had seen him. Kyp lunged forward, striking one of them in the arm. The blade of wood struck hard, the vibration going up his arm. The second one turned to fire at Kyp, yet the youth brought the sword across the rifle. There was a strange thrum that went through Kyp’s head and the rifle felt to the deck in two pieces. The man who raised the rifle looked at Kyp with puzzlement.
There was a flurry of clicking and clacking noises. The third one started to move away as the other two moved into the cargo room to get on either side of Kyp trying to surround him. He watched the two of them, then struck out at the one on the right. The blade bit, and a thrum sounded in Kyp’s head again. Longer and louder this time. Then he saw black blood decorate the end of the blade and the deck. A hissing emerged from the clicking and clacking. Kyp whirled around to block the first one whom he had injured and caught a clawed hand coming down on his head. The split second he had to see, they weren’t claws of any kind of human from the systems. They looked more like bug claws in his mind. He pressed upwards, severing the claws and fingers from his hand. The first attacker let out a high pitched keen and sulfurous blood poured from the stump. All three attackers moved in closer. Kyp swallowed hard, readying himself for the onslaught.
“Kyp!”
Kyp turned to see Pieter cutting down the third attacker, then took two steps into the room and cut down the others before Kyp could blink.
“What, what is going on?” Kyp asked.
“I don’t know, Toth said there were intruders. What are these things?”
“I don’t know. I felt them coming and—”
“What do you mean, ‘felt them?’”
“The same way I told you about feeling the ‘lines’. Once I could walk instead of hovering, I felt them in this section of Benny. I came to investigate, saw there were a bunch of them wandering. I hid until—”
“How many more?”
“I saw nine total, so six I guess,” Kyp said.
“You guess?” Pieter looked at Kyp. “Be sure. You have to be sure.”
Kyp looked at Pieter. His Sempai was glaring at him. “Six, yes, six more.”
“Good.” He settled a hand on Kyp’s head. “Be calm. Breathe in… count to five, breathe out.”
Kyp started to go through the breathing, following the instructions of Pieter. It felt better with Pieter was here. His Sempai gave him a sense of comfort.
“Do not grow used to that,” Pieter said. “You need to learn how to control and curb your own Rift on your own. Otherwise—”
Kyp nodded. “Hunters.”
“Worse, your Sempai will hunt you down.”
Kyp paled for a moment, then gave a small head bow. “Yes, Sempai.”
“Good.” There was the sound of a scream of plasma. Pieter spun around before Kyp could blink, bringing his blade up. He caught the bolt of plasma and sent it shooting back towards one of the strange bug-like creatures. They scattered.
“Get ready. We need to fight our way out of here,” Pieter said.
“I can’t fight. I—”
“Breathe. Yes, you can.” Pieter struck forward, catching one of the red-eyed bugmen in the throat. Two others pulled back, seeking some kind of cover.
“What are we—”
Pieter took a stance, a neutral one that he had taught Kyp. “We fight here. And then we try and stay away from Duke Harkness.”
“What does Duke Harkness want?” Kyp asked, settling into a similar stance.
Pieter gave Kyp a sidelong glance. “Us.”
Another bolt of plasma shot towards them. Pieter shoved Kyp to one side while moving the opposite direction. The blast struck the bulkhead where it popped and sizzled against the wood.
Pieter stood and attacked as another of the bugmen charged into the room, the creatures claws slicing out. Pieter caught the claws with his blade, slammed the arm into the bulkhead and lashed out with an elbow at the bugman’s head. It connected, and the bugman went down. Pieter touched the hull in one spot and a soft illumination bloomed in the room.
Kyp saw the bugmen weren’t wearing something that covered their whole face, just something covering their mouths. He leaned down to touch one when it snapped open and tried to bite his finger. Kyp pulled his hand back as Pieter slammed the tip of his blade into the creature’s head. It hissed for a moment, shuddered, and was still. There was a translucent green ichor that was everywhere. Kyp’s own blade shuddered in the light for a moment, then the ichor was gone. Kyp looked up at Pieter astonished.
“The blade doesn’t like to be dirty. It can clean itself.” Pi
eter caressed the pommel of his sword and then brought it to his hip letting it adhered to his belt. Kyp did the same, the blade stuck fast.
“Good, you and the blade are bonding. That is rather quick,” with a nod.
“Thank you, Sempai.”
Pieter nodded, tousled Kyp’s hair and then walked out of the room. “What about the bodies?” Kyp asked.
“We will let Benny dispose of them. I am sure that his internal things will make short work of the trash.”
“What are they?”
“Something that is disturbing and wrong. But, I have seen something like these before.”
“Where?”
“The Shadow Archives.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“What is the Shadow Archive?” Kyp asked.
“It is a place that has been in my family’s keeping for generations. It is a giant library of knowledge. Most of it is buried knowledge that can’t be accessed by anyone,” Pieter said. The two moved out of the room and up the corridor towards the command room. Pieter could tell that Kyp was having a hard time with his sword bonding to him.
“It is going to take some time to adjust to the sword, Kyp. But, we don’t have that luxury. We have become apostates, you and I. And I think that we can find some answers at the Shadow Archive.”
“How are we going to get in there?”
“I am a former member of the house. I know where all the cracks in the security are,” Pieter said. “But, we can’t take Benny.”
They entered the command room. Sarena was alone, resting her head on the long railing that surrounded the pit with the command chair and the other places for the crew. “I still think it is odd you don’t use the chair,” Pieter said.
“I can command Benny from anywhere in the ship. If Toth is nearby, the messages get to Benny at the speed of thought,” Sarena said, looking at them. She looks so tired. I can’t believe I dragged her into this.
Void Emissary: The Book of the Void Part 1 Page 14
