Void Emissary: The Book of the Void Part 1

by Lon Varnadore

  “He can. I don't know about us.”

  Kyp realized that the command room was starting to get stuffy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  With Pieter gone with Toth, Sarena felt alone for the first time. Benny was all around her, even Kyp was nearby. Yet, after the first strike of the slave Ilvan ship, she felt completely alone.

  “Sarena, one of the slaved Ilvan is coming about.”

  Sarena shook herself from her thoughts and looked at the viewport. The brownish black slaved Ilvan ship loomed closer and closer The pointed bow of the ship started to glow with the sickly green light again.

  “Benny, hard to port. Kyp, brace yourself.”

  Sarena watched as Benny lumbered out of the way. Though the ship didn’t move enough. Her left calf flared with agony when the blast of energy struck Benny port side flank. She gritted her teeth from the pain. Dammit, what can we do? Serena looked at the display before her. “How can we even do this Kyp?” She looked at the youth and he shrugged. “Those Ilvan slaved to the Harkness’ ship are going to kill us. We have nothing.”

  Kyp was at a loss, Sarena could tell. So was she, she cursed herself. Why did Toth have to go with Pieter? “Damn it cat, I need you here now!”

  Serena grabbed at the railing that Benny had grown for her years ago, to hold onto whenever he entered a burst mode. It was comforting and soothing. The wood was cool to the touch, and she felt the same life pulse of Benny that she always felt when she touched a part of him. She wanted to put her head down on the railing and let the soothing pulsing work on her nerves. She felt as though she was going to burn away, the heat that was being pushed outward from Benny’s overtaxed engines and the wound on her leg and shoulder. What can I do, Benny? Please, there must be something. She started as the other slave ship moved. Firing a warning shot across Benny’s bow.

  The pulses changed. She felt as though the pulse moved a slightly different way. She looked to where it headed and saw something she hadn’t seen in a long time. No, that’s not true. When I escaped Io.

  An alcove in the pilot’s room. It was near the back, away from the commander chair that she never used since she took the ship from Lightman. She moved a bit closer when Kyp asked, “Sarena, what are we gonna do?”

  Serena shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “There has to be something you know how to do?” Kyp shouted. “There has to be something.”

  The youth and Sarena were both rocked from their feet when Benny was hit again. Benny brought up a display showing a small tick-like vessel that attached itself to the hull of the ship.

  “Damn it.” Kyp asked.

  “It’s the burrowing ships again.” Serena said, almost as though she wasn’t there. Something was pulling her mind again and again to the alcove.

  “It’s only one. Want me to go check it out?” Kyp asked.

  “Yes, go and check. I’ll be right here.” She then shook her head. “Kyp,” she shouted out to him as he went running towards the archway. “Be careful, please. Pieter would be angry with me if something—”

  “Yeah, yeah, Sempai will probably kill you. I’ll be careful,” he said with a small smile. He gripped his wooden sword, gave her a small salute with the pommel and started to head down the hallway.

  Serena looked at the alcove again. She felt drawn to it. Something was calling to her. There was a voice, just outside her hearing. It was calling her she was sure of it. She looked around and found herself closet to the alcove than she thought she was.

  “Please…” the voice said.

  “Please? Please, what?” Serena asked, moving a bit closer.

  “Please…”

  Serena thought she heard more but it was garbled. Her hands reached out to the back of the commander chair. She had moved closer still, “What is going on?” she asked herself, not sure what to do with her feet. She looked down to see them moving again, her hands let go of the chair of the commander seat and reached out to touch the edges of the alcove.

  “Safe…” the voice said, stronger, deeper. Serena could hear more when she moved a little closer. “Please…safe…”

  She moved another foot closer…

  Sarena found herself in darkness. She felt something holding her up. Looking around, she was in the æther. She looked down and she was naked. Alone, naked and nothing between her and the æther.

  “You are not alone, Sarena. I am here.”

  “Who said that?” she looked around. Though, there was a part of her that knew that it was Benny. “Benny, is that you?”

  She felt a presence behind her. “A crude way of saying my name,” Benny said. “Yet, it works for the moment.” The voice had a deep and rich baritone. Sarena felt a warm spread around her, embracing her more and more. It was strong and reassuring. Something that was familiar. And for a moment, she was in the void before, trying to escape from Lightman and the Vesh.

  She looked closer and she could see that there was a slight black outline of the ship. The long gnarly tip of the prow, the sweeping lines on either side, marking the various knots and seams of Benny’s outer bark hull. She turned to look behind her and saw a long branching outline of lights in various colors that hurt her eyes. She turned quickly back to the front. Beyond the line of Benny was the æther, and the two black Ilvan slaveships. And the war galleon of Harkness.

  “Where am I, Benny?”

  “You are in the pilot’s seat. Again.”

  “Toth always said—"

  A sickly wan green light shot towards them and struck in front of the outline that was Benny’s structure.

  “We don’t have time for all of this right now, pilot. There are two of my brethren, they are sick and mad. They are firing at us. I need an order. Those were test shots; they know you are in control again. We need to return fire.”

  “What?” When she spoke, she saw the two slave Ilvan ships moving towards her. She saw the sickly green of their weapons powering up. “Can we return fire?”

  “Of course, I was waiting for your command,” a form moved in the darkness and a brilliant multihued light moved from behind her, along the seams of the outline of Benny. The light all focused at the tip then erupted from the prow, shooting forward and struck one of the Ilvan ships. The starboard side was raked by the blast of energy, and she could see black bits and yellow, green and blue pieces of the Ilvan’s interior start to flake and fall away.

  Was Pieter and Toth on that ship? Sarena bit her lip. She wasn’t sure. She had no idea.

  “Focus pilot. We still have two other ships. It wounds me to know I hurt one of mine, yet they are sick. We should destroy both.”

  “No, Benny. Fire at that ship,” Sarena said, pointing at the thick, high-prowed war galleon of Harkness. “That is the controlling ship.”

  “Yes pilot,” Benny said.

  Sarena felt something different this time. She felt, then saw the outline of Benny turn towards Harness’ ship and fire. The light was more intense than the first time. There was a heat that drained from her when the ship was struck, the energy piercing through the hull of the ship and shooting through the other side. There was a large explosion and the ship split into the prow and stern.

  “We hit one of the cores,” Benny said.

  “You know what a core is?”

  “I am a giant sentient flying tree, pilot. Give me some credit.” She heard the grin in the voice.

  “Can we fire again?” Sarena asked.

  “No. That was the best shot we had. It will take some time to collect the energy needed to fire again.”

  “How long?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “What about those slave ships, they were firing more than—”

  “They are using power directly from their own pilots’ souls,” Benny said. “That is a reason I said they were mad. They will wither and die within a cycle.”

  “What do you mean pilots’ souls?”

  “You are my pilot, we are connected. I could tap into your soul for more power
. But, it is dangerous. Causes madness, decay, or death.”

  Sarena looked back to the other Ilvan ship. The light was starting to get brighter, yet the color was a sickly green. “Is there any way to shield us from that blast?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Sacrificing the lower decks. It will hurt, but they will regrow.”

  Sarena looked around. She felt her eyes moving along Benny, seeing what he was talking about. “Do it. No, wait, Kyp is there.”

  “Yes, I feel them. It would be better to jettison all of them. A few dying cells excised to save the whole.”

  “No. Kyp is a friend.”

  “Then, brace yourself.”

  The blast struck Benny in the starboard section near the prow. Sarena felt a heat welling up on her neck.

  “We need to fire back, or something.”

  “Not yet. No power. Hmmm.” She felt Benny look around, and felt her own head drawn to a section of the æther on the other side of Harkness’s galleon.”

  “What is it, Benny?”

  “I am sensing several burst nodes opening.”

  “The Ilvan are coming to help?” Sarena asked. There was a swell of hope. “We can fight back with—”

  “I think not,” Benny said.

  “Why?” Sarena gulped as five pinpricks of light scattered the æther around Harkness’ ship, and five black clad Ilvan ships appeared.

  The sense of Benny faded. “I must show you.” He appeared next to her, a humanoid tree creature. “They all have the same madness as those two.” The form pointed to the five ships, touching them and Sarena felt her senses extend outwards towards the other Ilvan. All of them were black. From two of them, Sarena could sense a cackle emerging from them that caused chills to run down her spine.

  “They are worse, far worse, than the two we fight.”

  Two of black Ilvan flanked Harkness’ crippled ship, while one bore towards Benny. The light of the prow was a rich purplish black that Sarena swore she heard crackling from where she was. It shot out towards them in a thick ball of black and purple that vaporized the æther as it touched it, setting the surrounding area on fire. In her mind, she sensed the mad cackling grow louder.

  “We are here to eat you, little human thing. Eat you all up.”

  “Benny, evasive maneuvers. And cut communication to those ships.”

  “Pilot, it is—”

  “I said do it,” Sarena said.

  “Aye aye.”

  She felt the mass of Benny move again. The purple crackling energy skidded by them, yet the boiling æther erupted around them, and Sarena felt the heat sear her skin. She looked down at her arms and her skin had turned to a bright red that faded. “We have to run.”

  “We can’t,” Benny said.

  “Why not?”

  “You said, we have to hold them here. We can’t run. If we do, they will sweep through and destroy the Archive and even attack Ilvan itself.”

  Well, who wanted to live forever. “Benny, return fire.”

  “Pilot we can’t—”

  “We have to. Do what you need to do to fire now.”

  “Aye pilot.”

  Sarena felt something stab into her back, burrowing into her deeper and deeper. She thought she would see it emerge from her chest. Instead, it found a place deep inside her. And then she felt something being pulled from her. A pain that she had never felt before burned through her. She gritted her teeth.

  “Which one?”

  “That bastard that was laughing at us. Him first.”

  The light that emerged from around Benny’s ghostly image was brighter. It didn’t hurt her eyes to watch as it erupted and struck the attacking Ilvan ship head on. The ship shuddered for a moment and then a rippling purple fire emerged along the hull. The ship that Benny had first injured moved to block any further shots.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  There was a strange buzz in Pieter’s head. He pushed it away, focusing on trying to track down the core of the strange slaved-Ilvan ship. The corridors were twisted and bent, unlike Benny’s which had a beauty to the way they grew and formed. The hallways he walked looked forced and warped. Something wrong had created these twisting bent corridors. And the odor. The air was flavored with a sickly sweet rotting stench. It made Pieter’s nose twitch, even while he tried to shut it out as best he could. His sword held ready, yet he didn’t dare embrace the Void. He wasn’t sure if Tellish or Samuel were close. He tried to focus on the sensing of the those attuned to the Void.

  Two things foiled him. One was the buzzing in his head. Even with all his training, he couldn’t block it completely. Two was it felt as though the very ship itself could embrace the Void. The very idea made him laugh. Yet having seen the way the Ilvan slave ship fought, and the way the Ilvan on the planet had healed Benny, it could be true.

  A doorway to where, in Benny’s case, led to an auxiliary room was on his left. Pieter looked inside and saw a wide flat deck. He felt a twinge of something inside. Something tugged at his mind. Come inside, a voice said. Rest.

  Pieter pushed it away, yet he felt compelled to enter. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he whispered to himself before plunging inside.

  When he entered, the door irised shut behind him with thick black decaying vines and black wood that gave off a strong smell of rot. For a moment, he was in darkness. Then, a wan illumination bloomed in the center of the room. It silhouetted a blocky man with a thick sword in hand.

  “Welcome, soon to be Brother of the Khal.”

  Pieter embraced the Void and felt its power ripped from him.

  “Trouble?” Tellish asked with a smirk. He charged at Pieter, a nimbus of red swirling around the blocky Cerberi.

  Pieter threw himself into a roll, his mind slamming into the shield that had been set up around him. He shouldn’t be able to do this and move so fast. What in the hells—

  Pieter stopped when Tellish slashed at him. “Without the Void, your death shall be quick. And painful.” The thick sword sliced the air an inch from Pieter’s face.

  “What are you doing, Tellish? Why join Harkness? Why join these creatures? They are Reavers, taking and consuming all in their path.” Pieter brought his sword up to block a wild swing, the reverberation that traveled up his arm from the impact caused him to grit his teeth.

  Tellish grinned at Pieter. “Why?”

  “You are a Cerberi, an Emissary of the Void. What desires do you have?”

  “What about the prize you took from me?”

  “The Blade? All of this for that? A title and a bit of fame?”

  Tellish swung again, harder. Pieter backpedaled, keeping out of reach. He didn’t block the blow. Tellish was strong. Stronger than before. Whatever the Khal had done to him gave him strength. More than the Void could do safely.

  “Yes. A bit of fame that should have been mine. You took it away from me. You have always been a thorn in my side. And I will pluck you and throw you away. With the Khal’s strength, I will succeed.”

  “You gave in to the Khal?”

  “No. I didn’t ‘give in’ to the Khal. I allowed it willingly.” Tellish smiled. Then, in a different pitched voice, he said, “Finish him quickly. We still must crush the other Ilvan ship.”

  Pieter reached out to embrace the Void. The shield held firm. He hoped the strike would be enough. With all of his strength, he slammed his blade home into the chest of Tellish. “You will never—”

  Tellish grabbed the blade and pulled himself up it. “There is no pain with the Khal. There is no rage, with the Khal. No fear.” He cocked back his fist and punched Pieter across the room. The Hunter hit the ground, bouncing and skidding across the deck. He hit the far bulkhead of the chamber, his head swam and his entire body hurt.

  “Scared Hunter?” The Cerberi asked as he stalked towards Pieter.

  Pieter tried to push himself up, his free hand out and trying to hold onto the bulkhead for support. “No. I am not scared of bullies.”

>   Tellish stopped.

  “That is all you are Tellish, a bully.”

  “How so?” Tellish asked, moving forward with a slow distance eating gait.

  “You never sought any position that challenged you. You always went for the easy position. Even now, you fight from a position of power. You lie to yourself, thinking you are better, when you are weak.” As Pieter spoke, he slammed into the shield again. It was weaker than before.

  “How dare you,” Tellish bellowed. “You think you can beat me? Even with the Void?”

  “Did it before,” Pieter said with a grin.

  Tellish was on top of him. He let out a bellow and charged.

  When the Cerberi charged the shield fell. Pieter embraced the Void and yanked his sword free from Tellish’s chest. It came free with a shower of black and green gore. Pieter watched as the thick hole in Tellish’s chest started to knit up as soon at the witchwood was out of him. He brought up the gore covered sword in time to meet Tellish’s blow. Had he not already been against the bulkhead, the strike would have driven him back a step.

  He then slammed his own weight against Tellish, the other man’s witchwood sword, infused with iron, caught Pieter’s blade and staggered Pieter.

  “You will not win, pitiful thing,” Tellish said.

  Pieter felt the buzzing in his head grow thicker and louder. He looked at Tellish seeing the red of his eyes starting to grow. The rim of red around the whites of his eyes were starting to turn red. Pieter stumbled back, grabbing on to the railing with one hand. “What are you doing?”

  “I am letting power fill me. What does it look like?”

  “I thought there was no rage with the Khal?” Pieter asked.

  “I am what he should have been, I am what you could never be,” Tellish said, in the deeper pitch.

  Pieter shoved himself backwards as Tellish brought the sword down where he was a moment before, causing a crater to appear in the wooden deck of the ship. Pieter rolled backwards hoping to find some place to protect himself. Yet, he came up in a crouch and found Tellish bringing the sword down again. Pieter brought his own up to block it and felt the weight of the blow press him down into the deck. He felt the deck give way, and he fell through it, slamming into the deck below and letting out a grunt of pain. He took a breath, yet felt the edge of his rage starting to pull at him. He thrust the emotion away hard, pressing the Void to the center of his mind as Tellish fell upon him.