Second Contact

by Guerric Haché, Keezy Young

  “Isavel, what the hell just happened? Did we just get hit by godfire?! ” His frustration at the gods was clear. “We’re supposed to be on their side! ”

  “I don’t know!” She hopped onto the hauler. “Dendre, we’re going too fast! If we keep pushing the ghosts will feel cornered fight twice as hard! Maybe that’s what the godfire is saying!”

  “ Maybe? That’s a big - gods, is that another fucking dragon?”

  Her eyes snapped to the horizon, to a pair of dark wings beating just below the rising sun. It was. “Gods damn it.” She shook Dendre by the shoulders. “Pull back!”

  “I can send a few people to rally and hold the lines, but you’ll need to tell Mother Jera -”

  “This is battle, who cares what she says?”

  Dendre threw up his arms. “Not my people! But she’s got the ear of -”

  A flash on the city’s tallest building quickly bloomed into a spray of massive shards of light headed straight for them. She reached out and fired a shield in the air to ward them off, but the hailstorm of shots was too heavy and too rapid for a single shield to handle.

  “Jump!”

  She grabbed Dendre and yanked him from the hauler just before the strikes hit, blasting the vehicle to pieces and sending gunner and gun flying. The noise still ringing in her ears, she grabbed the tripod gun herself and hauled it up, her hunter’s intuition telling her exactly how to hold it and her warrior’s strength giving her the ability to keep it steady. She trained the barrel on that distant rooftop jutting above the rest and fired, the hot lance of white cutting through the air. She saw a flash and plume of dust, and their heavy gun didn’t answer.

  “Get them to hold their distance!” She shouted to Dendre, tossing the gun aside, hoping it might get lost in the confusion. “I’ll find Mother Jera and - I don’t know -”

  She shook her head and ran off towards the inner ranks even as people streamed past her, a few glancing in confusion. She was used to them following her, after all, and so were they. She felt guilty, almost, defying their expectations of her.

  For a brief second she froze.

  Where was Hail?

  She shook off the thought - Hail would find her. She kept running, holding up a shield to catch any stray fire that got too close. Dragonfire crashed down near her, and she looked up. The dragon roared down at her, pointing with its scaly snout.

  “I will have you!”

  She fired angrily up at it, a blossom of floating shards to get in the way of its wings. Suddenly one of the tanks was firing at the dragon too, the beast’s bubble shield glowing gold under the strain. That seemed to finally shake its resolve; the dragon blasted down at the crowd then swept into cover behind a forested ridge.

  There was another cavernous howl from across the battlefield, then, one clearly not the dragon’s. Isavel turned and saw something incomprehensible, some lizard-like beast with absurdly thick arms, a vertical jaw, and a fiery glow under its skin barging wild across the battlefield. A demon of some kind, no doubt about it.

  She rolled her shoulders. She would have to deal with it.

  Wings on her back and lightness in her bones, she leapt into the air, drifting shields in arms over a sudden webwork of crystalline shots zipping back and forth. Bad idea - she quickly became a target, her shields taking more shots than she was comfortable with. Back down onto the ground - closer to the demon. She raced out to the fields, smashing one of the golems as she did, and fired at the creature.

  The demon was already in the fray, tearing someone apart and tossing them aside with its jaws, but when her shots struck it stopped and roared straight back towards her. A bubble of walk around it told her the truth - of course it was a demon. All around it was the extrusion of some fiery hell, and she had every intention of sending it back there.

  That fucking walker. She should have killed him when she had the chance.

  The demon bounded to the side, tank fire raking the ground in a vain attempt to hit it. Isavel charged, waving away the tanks. “Stop shooting! I’ll handle this!”

  A warrior on a horse rode past, standing on the saddle like a madman, howling and preparing to jump at the demon with sword and buckler glowing bright blue. Isavel raised a sword - she could always use the help.

  Before the warrior was even halfway through the air, the dragon descended on him out of nowhere, snatching him from the leap and tearing at his head with its jaws, tossing the body directly at one of the tanks behind it. The horse ran straight into the demon’s path and… partially vanished. Then it kept going, through the other side, as though half its body hadn’t just disappeared.

  What in all the thousand worlds had just happened?

  The demon was bearing down on her with its fiery maw, obviously remembering where she had fired from even if it couldn’t see her. She kicked into the air, warding off the dragon with a heavy blast. The demon spun around blindly, the dragon swerved, tankshots crisscrossing between them in the wind. She roared back at the creature below her, bellowing golden-red dragonfire into its world and its face.

  The dragon’s shield took one too many hits from the tanks again and crumpled. Enough was enough, even for a dragon, and it swooped away faster than she’d ever seen one fly. For a brief moment, Isavel was floating in the air.

  Back down again. Onto the demon’s back. Into the furnace of a world it hailed from. She saw nothing beyond the endless smouldering cavern in every direction as the demon bucked and roared at the swarm of warriors around it, swiping out at them in rage.

  Heavy weaponfire suddenly slid into the world, zipping out again in a flash. It wasn’t safe here, her hunter’s intuitive grasp on the paths of projectiles thwarted by the walk. She stabbed into the demon’s back, her sword easily sliding through its crusty flesh, and jumped back into the real world, landing lightly and pivoting to face it.

  The demon was still on the attack, even with a gaping hole all the way through to its chest. There wasn’t even any blood. Isavel screamed at it and it screamed back. She would have to try something else.

  Stab it in the face.

  She charged, arms wound back and blades ready on both fists. The demon opened its maw, twisting its head, vertical jaws opening wide just for her.

  That was fine.

  She hacked at the lower hinge of the jaw, splitting the head apart, and she drew one blade back even as the demon reeled and howled and its chest thudded hot against her back, plunging it up through its alien skull.

  The demon crashed onto the ground, the heat of its body spilling out into the rocky soil of its homeland. It began to dissolve, the world around it disappearing through a lattice and giving way to the real world beneath, leaving behind only scorchmarks and carnage in its wake. A cheer went up, but the cheers left Isavel unmoved as she stepped away.

  More and more people were being cut down by weapons from the city walls. They had to pull back the army. This wasn’t working. She ran as hard and fast as she could back through the army, looking for Mother Jera this time. What had Dendre meant - whose ear did she have?

  She found the elder priestess, along with her two attendant priests and Elder Magan, standing in the crater where the godfire had hit. A sky abuzz with weapons and bursts of chaos had left enough wind to clear the dust, and they were standing in the epicenter, surveying the chaos and the melted spray of slag that had once been a tank.

  “Mother Jera!”

  Isavel shouted as she approached, and the elders raised their eyes to look at her. They did not seem relieved.

  “We need to stop! We can’t keep going - the gods -”

  Mother Jera’s expression shifted to anger. “The gods want the destruction of the ghosts, of the monstrous outers, of Ada Liu, and of everything else that stands in their way!”

  Isavel stood taller and stronger than the old woman. She didn’t need to deal with this. “They rained godfire on us, right here! Are you blind? ”

  Mother Jera raised a finger in accusation. “I was blind eno
ugh not to see that you were betraying us! Trying to delay our attacks, trying to lead us astray! Killing your own followers! Liberating the last ghost walker, rather than getting him killed!”

  Isavel was struck silent. Killing her followers.

  How did Jera know? Her blood quickly boiled away the chill of fear. Who had told her? “You have no idea what you’re talking about! I never killed anyone on our side, not a single -”

  “You’re lying! Look!”

  She followed Jera’s gnarled old finger to see a warrior stepping closer from the rim of the crater, one hand clamped firm around Hail’s wrists as she dragged the hunter along with her, a glowing blue blade to the hunter’s throat. Isavel’s heart dropped.

  “Hail!”

  Elder Magan snarled at her, shaking a bloodied turquoise armband in her hand. “Hail told us! She t old us everything! The devout you killed in the woods, your release of the walker, your plots with Ada Liu! Everything! ”

  Isavel’s world teetered on the edge of collapse.

  Hail looked panicked and afraid.

  She had told them? Everything?

  Mother Jera shouted at her. “The gods made you their Herald, we named you our Saint, and you have betrayed both titles again and again - in the name of what, Isavel?”

  She turned and stared at them. Her mind was completely blank. Elder Magan shook his head. “What have you done? ”

  She looked back to Hail. “Why?”

  “She knows her place!” Jera shouted, and the warrior jerked the blade closer to Hail’s throat. “She saw Elysium, and she’s prepared to pay for her sins! Are you? ”

  Isavel looked at the blade, at the hands, at Hail’s palms impotently wrenched together. There was nothing she could do. At the turquoise armbands on all their arms, and the one -

  She froze.

  The winds drifted towards her, and she breathed deep.

  The armband was tattered, smelled of old blood and forest. Isavel and Hail had killed six people in the forest, blood scattered amidst moss and earth. It was night time. Hail had buried five armbands under a rock, under a conifer, an evergreen smelling of pine sap. Isavel had watched her - hadn’t let her out of her sight. Hail had never even picked up the sixth.

  Hail forgot an armband. Elder Magan had it. Who would give it to him , of all people?

  Who, if not a coder?

  Mother Jera shouted at her. “Explain yourself, and maybe the only price you’ll have to pay is the life of your treacherous bodyguard! You may yet find forgiveness. I need you to whip this battle into shape, Saint Isavel. ”

  There were people around them, Isavel realized. Coders with guns, looking nervously to Elder Magan, who in turn had his eyes on Mother Jera. She counted nine of them, firing angles stretching across the blast crater like a web.

  Zoa and Ren had followed the same path up to the tripod gun that she had taken with Hail. The sixth body they hadn’t cleared? It was along that path, she was sure of it. Zoa had asked who they were. Had asked whether there was any chance they were ghosts. Zoa had been sweating, but as the memories came back to Isavel, that sweat no longer smelled of pain and exertion - it smelled like fear, anger.

  Zoa knew.

  Isavel looked her bodyguard in eyes. There was no resignation there. There was…

  A familiar face, appearing just behind the warrior who held Hail’s hands pinned, a face nervous for a different reason. Isavel’s eyes widened, flicking from that face to Hail.

  “Hail. You disappoint me.”

  Hail shuddered. “I’m s-sorry, my -”

  She gave a weak smile. “I can’t believe you let yourself be caught by a warrior . Erran now!”

  She snapped out wings and electric palms all at once. The world dissolved around the ghost walker as he dove forward, enveloping Hail and the warrior in a foggy, electric dark. Shots erupted as Erran fell into the ground, swallowing the hunter and the warrior with him. Isavel let her wings grow bright and shatter, flinging shards of light in every direction.

  “Erran, Hail, run! ”

  She didn’t know if they could hear her. She turned and leapt, coders firing their guns wildly as she fled. She slammed a shield into one of them and blasted another off her feet as she ran, heading towards the city. The coders’ aim was laughably bad, but still a few shots rippled against her shields. She leapt into the air and spun around, flinging an explosive hexagon behind her to kick up dust and give her cover.

  One foot, other foot, one foot, other foot. Over the hills and the logs and the bodies, she skipped and jogged towards Campus in the distance. This was it - this was the end. Everything was collapsing around her and she had only one option left, one answer to her prayers. Ada.

  The tanks were almost at the city walls now, and Isavel dodged golem fire as she approached them. Ghosts fired desperately from the crumbling remnants of the walls, being picked off at a horrific rate. There were no more demons to be seen, nothing but -

  The sky groaned and roared, and something massive lanced from above, down towards the warriors and hunters around her, tearing up the soil, cutting people in half and sending dust and ash flying. Suddenly it was raining. It tasted like ocean.

  Isavel looked up.

  Chapter 18

  The Chengdu surged from the water, pulling a curtain of ocean up with it into the sky. Ada felt its bulk shifting through the changing hum of its flight and the way it distorted the soundscape, riding towards the city on levitation sigils she had etched on its underside. The warship soared overhead, saltwater pouring from its every surface and crevice, a shadow to blot out the sun.

  Zhilik stared at it, eyes and ears wide. “What in the name of all the human gods -”

  By now her own response delighted her. “ Magic! ”

  The code on the ship’s underside flared with energy from the Chengdu’s engines as it passed and reached the city. Ada smiled. “All right, Chengdu , fire! Fire at will! Except not at Isavel. Gods, I hope you know who I mean.”

  The ship didn’t respond. She began to wonder if she would have to start manually calling targets herself, but then a cavernous voice rang across the shattered city. “ Dǐng yìng shàng! ”

  Suddenly lances of light poured out towards the army. Ada whooped and yelled, pumping her fist in the air. It worked!

  The colonial shuttle was taking off now that the Chengdu was out of the way, and tankfire cut through the air trying to reach it. Ada slowed time down and reached out with code, trying to deflect the shots out off their path, but they were too fast and too numerous for her to catch them all. A few sliced through the air above the heads of the outers still cowering on the ziggurat, and they screamed and ducked.

  Ada shouted. “How long till that last shuttle lands?”

  Jhoru was scrambling with the communicator, ducking behind cover. “I think - I think they said - one hour? Maybe less if they hurry?”

  The Chengdu soared over the city, drenching buildings and washing away clouds of dust, and the dragon swept through the air to take cover behind it. The walls fell as the remaining tanks chewed away at them with their guns, the ghosts were falling back, and a roil of angry shouts was flooding the city.

  “Why wouldn’t they hurry?” She looked out on the chaos, muttering. “Isavel, you’re not giving me enough time!”

  She remembered Isavel, the second time she had seen her, dancing in a ballroom in Hive. Isavel had looked her in the eyes and spoke. “You like like you can manage just about anything.”

  Ada smiled. Maybe she should take Isavel up on those dancing lessons, but right now there were a great deal of other things she needed to manage.

  She’d created golem sigils only a few times, but she had traced the ones she had over and over again in her mind, engraving it there so she could now call the dark code up from her mind straight in front of her. Just like in the cherry grove - a human-level intelligence filled with her own simple directives and the ability to code. It was born over subjective hours squeezed into actual se
conds. Such complexity, but even in time dilation Ada felt she was getting faster at this, and a glacial smile carved its way up the corners of her lips.

  The finished wraith floated in front of her, dark chaos and code, and nodded.

  “Go!” She pointed out towards the army. “Slow them down!”

  The wraith flowed outward, but it was only one. She could keep making them, one at a time, but she would get exhausted. She needed energy, and time, and -

  She turned her eyes to the rising summer sun.

  She reached up with code and began weaving floating sigils of light and heat absorption, each entwined in tendrils of dark power feeding straight into the back of her neck. She felt frantic energy flow into her and crackle under her skin her as she squeezed time near to a standstill and set to work.

  This wraith didn’t need to move or think - only to code.

  Another wraith, but this time she gave it a more complex directive - all her memories of code, all her impulses and instincts, all her dark sorcery. Take everything I know. Build more. She transferred some of the power tendrils from the sky to the new wraith, and even as she felt the wraith scouring her own memories she let time flow.

  The sun was partially blotted out, the outers shouted in fear, and the wraith she had just created was a frantic, seething cloud of power. After a second it spat out a fully-formed wraith, an angry cloud of black that swept through the sky towards the army.

  Then it spat out another.

  And another.

  “Ada!” Zhilik was crouching behind her. “What are you doing? ”

  She turned around as wraiths swept past her, black dust devils out of the raging core of the code. In the corner of her vision, wings of dark tendrils rose from her spine to the sky rippling black. She grinned. “Buying you time!”

  Tank shots kept flying through the air. She couldn’t pick them all out - but there was a better way. She flung her arms wide, ground time to a halt, and started throwing code out in every direction. Seeing eyes in the sky that showed her the battle from every angle, a swarm of force sigils to enshroud the peak of the ziggurat, levitation sigils around the edges of the building to keep anyone from running in. And code to code more code.