Gods and the Stars
Gods and the Starways series, book 2
by Steve Statham
Table of Contents
The First Lesson
The Minds Against Us
Chapter 1:The Long Climb
Chapter 2:Duties and Codes
Chapter 3:From On High
Chapter 4:A Wolf in the Night
Chapter 5:Tell the Large One
Chapter 6:Sharpening the Sword
Chapter 7:Flag of the Admiral
Chapter 8:War Vessel 84
Chapter 9:To Name a Thing
Chapter 10:From the Fire
Chapter 11:A Voice From the Deep
Chapter 12:Chains of Obedience
Chapter 13:Between Gods
Chapter 14:Out in the Open
Chapter 15:A Lord Rises
Chapter 16:A Man Apart
Chapter 17:Sky Above, Dirt Below
Chapter 18:The Reluctant God
Chapter 19:Scouting the Enemy
Chapter 20:In Fading Light
Chapter 21:The Wolf Snarls
Chapter 22:The Burning World
Chapter 23:The Flush of Coming Battle
Chapter 24:Gravitational Forces
Chapter 25:Battle Stations
Chapter 26:Boarding Party
Chapter 27:Blood on the Deck
Chapter 28:The Mad God
Chapter 29:God and Demigod
Chapter 30:Small Blue Globe
Chapter 31:Life or Legend?
Chapter 32:The New World
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Also by Steve Statham
The First Lesson
(A verse for children)
Tower guards The City
Grey Wolf prowls the night
Apex builds the worlds to come
Apollo burns with might
Triton swims the clouds with giants
Far'way scans the rim
Great Maelstrom rides the ties that bind,
and holds us close to him
The Minds Against Us
From the introduction to The Book of Otrid by the god Triton, as transcribed by the Radiant Acolyte Hestias in the year 112 ADE (After Destruction of Earth).
The most important thing you must remember about the Otrid is that they perceive the universe in ways we cannot fathom.
Their intelligence is the product of a group mind, but not in the sense of a hive, or colony of robotic beings. To the best of our knowledge, they are joined together in a very personal way, a fusion of four distinct species.
The second thing you must remember is that they see their nature as the summit of evolution, and view themselves as the highest form of life in the galaxy. They take it as an affront that we mere solitary beings dare spread throughout the universe, especially when we employ technology they do not possess and cannot understand.
When encountering "singleton" species, as they call us, they do not seek peace through political solutions, or negotiated settlements, or other tools used to arbitrate conflicts between equals.
To them, we are an aberration, lesser vermin to be destroyed.
And in our first encounter with them, they very nearly succeeded.
Chapter 1
The Long Climb
The cities in the sky where calling out to North Wind Following again.
He could see them dimly, great structures floating among the clouds. His eyesight was poor, as was typical of incomplete stalk segments, but the magnificence of the cities of the Otrid Lords was not a thing that required eyes to perceive.
Soon he would take his place in those colossal cities of joy and purpose.
For so long he’d existed as a mere single, a low thing, unfinished. But North Wind Following had recently added his second member. The two were now one, and halfway toward becoming a complete being.
North Wind Following rejoiced in the change. Ever since Silent Shadow had joined with him, attaching to his back and unfurling like a stubby sail, North Wind Following could perceive smells, sounds and temperature variations that he’d never before experienced. He felt smarter, too, sharper of mind, with Silent Shadow's deep pool of experiences to explore.
How small we are alone, he thought, barely thinking creatures at all.
Joined as they now were, North Wind Following could tell that his feelings were shared by his new companion. The sail segment marveled at the strength and ease with which North Wind Following moved across the land. Silent Shadow was a Rock Wraith, a plant-like, flesh-eating predator that lived in the stony deserts of the equatorial regions. Known for the utter and complete patience with which they hunted their prey, a Rock Wraith was a living sensor, attuned to the movements of every creature within its territory. A Wraith could remain motionless for days and then strike at its prey with explosive speed and ferocity.
One thing a Rock Wraith was not, however, was terribly mobile, and so every day riding on the back of a stalk segment was a journey into a new world for Silent Shadow.
North Wind Following's steady footfalls added a thumping rhythm to their travels. The two had been heading west for days now, strengthened by their union and lured by the call of the cities above.
There was wisdom entwined in the call, wisdom that, until their joining, the two segments had never been able to perceive.
The primary wisdom: they would not be worthy of the palaces of the Otrid Lords until they joined with two other segments. Their quest was one undertaken by every complete Otrid before them, the quest to link four minds and thus become one.
The Otrid Lords had long ago abandoned the surface of the planet for the cities in the sky, leaving the untamed world below to the four sentient species that had evolved on the homeworld.
Only the singletons that could successfully join into the holy unit of four, thus uplifting themselves to a higher form of life, could ascend to the Otrid Lords in the clouds.
And beyond.
North Wind Following remembered his first steps toward perfection. He had awakened one morning, troubled by an emptiness he could not understand. He’d spent his entire existence in the same small section of forest in which he’d been spawned. Like the rest of his kind, he stayed rooted for long periods, only occasionally moving to new plots of ground. That life had been sufficient, for a time. He drank in the breezes that circled the globe, tasting the hints from far-off places. He observed the ceremonies of his kind, chanting the prayers of thanks while embracing the gravitational tug of the four-moon conjunction.
He’d watched the lights in the sky, wondering at their purpose.
His thoughts were slow, but he had no shortage of time.
And then a barren mood descended upon his thoughts.
The emptiness bothered North Wind Following for many cycles, until one day a thought drifted up from the depths of his mind.
What more?
The notion excited him. The world was immense, larger than he could even imagine. What lay beyond the horizon?
Some ancient imperative grasped this thought and nurtured it like a breeze upon a spark. A flame of ambition filled North Wind Following, a wondrous new purpose.
And so North Wind Following had left the needled forests of his home and headed south in search of answers. The giant stalk had a vague idea of what needed to be done but no clear plan for how to make that happen. But the drive within him proved an inexhaustible fuel. He trudged on for many moon cycles, his four stumpy legs plodding tirelessly, his long body stretched upward to catch the highest breezes.
It was not until the giant stalk had reached the equatorial highlands and Silent Shadow had released his spores, a call from one kindred spirit to another, that North Wind Foll
owing began to understand the nature of his calling.
And when Silent Shadow merged with him, the world opened up to them both.
They were on their way to becoming a complete being.
Neither understood how it knew, but each instinctively grasped the necessity for completing the transformation. There were two more members to find, and the need for it was like a desperate hunger.
North Wind Following emerged from the pleasant trance of this memory. There was a different texture beneath his feet. He stopped, digging his stubby toes into the ground, tasting the soil. He sampled the smells and sounds that flowed from Silent Shadow's pulsing sensor array.
They had crossed into a different territory.
This was a good thing.
Another segment would be here, some deep instinct promised.
They hurried now, almost recklessly, excitement rising. North Wind Following leaned into the wind, muscles flexing as his stout legs churned through the soft ground covering.
Forward!
The soil beneath his feet grew even finer, and new sounds radiated down from the sail of the Rock Wraith—a distant roaring, rhythmic and deep.
North Wind Following crested one last hill and nearly tumbled down the other side, so great was his astonishment.
A swirling ocean stretched to the horizon like an inverted sky. The water seemed to go on forever, the sight broken only by great towers of gnarled stone rising from the shallows just offshore. These columns jutted upward in blunt defiance of the power of the sea, monuments to an eternal battle. The waves pounded against the pillars with furious purpose, exploding into angry spray and then receding down channels in the shoreline like sullen predators after an unsuccessful attack.
At first, North Wind Following and Silent Shadow could only watch and listen, nearly struck dumb by the raw power on display. It was as if the world was at war with itself, sending the overwhelming force of the sea against the immovable soldiers of rock, all for some unfathomable purpose.
New wisdom crystallized inside their shared mind—the ocean heaves and thrashes so because of the pull of the four moons that orbit our world. Those sacred bodies fling the sea upon the shore.
They contemplated this wisdom, watching in awe as the waves crashed and swirled around the stone pillars.
There was more.
Up and down the length of these towers of stone was movement. The duo focused, gathering all the observational power at its disposal, and perceived fast-moving creatures darting in and out of small caves in the upper reaches of the rocks. These unfamiliar shapes scurried down to right above where the water met stone. They froze, poised above the spray, staring into the sea. With shocking speed they sent whip-like limbs into the waves, and pulled forth wriggling creatures. On thin, many-jointed legs they raced vertically back up the stone tower to the caverns with their prizes.
This time, the wisdom from the cities of the Otrid Lords struck them like a thunderclap.
These are Segment Brothers! They are part of the holy union of four!
This knowledge sent North Wind Following racing toward the shoreline. He stopped, his thick legs digging into the fine soil when he reached the water's edge. The power of the crashing waves nearly overwhelmed his senses yet he remained in place, his hunger for uplift bolstering his courage.
He stretched to his full height, making himself as visible as possible. Silent Shadow unfurled to his maximum extent and, with an undulating motion along his length, released a cloud of spores. They whirled crazily in the air as the breezes from the sea fought with the inland air currents.
At first, none of the scurrying, long-legged beings noticed the strangers on the shore. But before long, one of them ceased its constant motion and slowly turned to face the newcomers. Its knobby round body sparkled in the sunlight as it studied them for long moments. When it started moving again, it locked its rear legs onto the stone surface and stretched its spindly forelegs and whip-arms outward toward shore, waving the limbs in slow, deliberate movements, as if tasting the air.
North Wind Following received a trickle of understanding from Silent Shadow—the multi-legged creature they were watching was "reading" the spores that the sail segment had released.
With one last twitch of its whip-arms it raced to the top cave in the rocky pillar with a speed that was hard to follow.
The others crawlers then also noticed the strangers and moved up the face of the tower of stone, clustering together around the dark opening as if guarding it.
At the edge of the water, North Wind Following waited, expectant. He experienced a sensation he had never before encountered, an electric feeling of destiny, a coming change in the world that could not be denied.
The long legs and whip arms of another rock-dweller emerged from the cave. The body and the trailing limbs moved into the light at the lip of the opening. But something was different about this one. It was larger.
And it was not alone.
Atop the rough oval body of the many-legged segment brother sat another shape, a dark mass, blunt, yet clearly a living thing.
This creature was wedge shaped, with four eyes that wrapped around the leading edge of its face.
Neither North Wind Following nor Silent Shadow had ever seen such, but both instantly, instinctively, understood what it was—a member of the fourth and final species needed to complete the transformation into a complete being.
It was an incredible stroke of luck, more than North Wind Following had ever dared hope—the two missing pieces of his foursome together in one location!
As they observed, transfixed, the many-eyed segment seemed to grow and then alter its shape. Wings, nearly transparent, unfolded from its sides and unfurled in the wind.
And then the two segment brothers lifted off from the cliff ledge and soared toward the shore.
The Stalk and the Rock Wraith watched, amazed, as the joined segments landed gracefully on the sand. The eye segment's wings immediately folded against the sides of its body as if they had never existed.
The duo circled, appraising them. Both the complex eyes of the top segment and the posture of the lower leg segment exuded a cool intelligence that both terrified and excited North Wind Following.
Then one of the whip-arms lashed out and coiled around North Wind Following's foreleg.
The connection was immediate, an even stronger link than that shared with Silent Shadow. A new voice spoke within.
Do you seek perfection?
Yes!
Across this link, North Wind Following perceived the minds, and the strengths, of the two. The many-legged segment possessed a piercing intelligence developed by its species over ages of hunting the diversity of sea creatures that lived in the shallows. Its touch was so sensitive that it could detect things that could not even be seen. Just from the link through this one whip arm, North Wind Following could discern the movements of tiny creatures buried in the sand beneath his feet.
The flying eye segment was an even larger surprise. Its kind lived on far isles, where it was a fearsome night predator. As the sun fell below the horizon these singletons emerged from caves to strike at prey from the sky, carrying off their victims to be shredded and consumed by the multitude of small leg-mouths on its underside. This one had flown across the vast ocean in search of new prey and had homed in on the call of its segment brothers in the stone towers.
Its eyesight was so well-developed that North Wind Following, looking through the segment brother's four eyes via the whip-arm link, could see himself and his Rock Wraith companion as never before, every detail so clear that the vision had an air of unreality about it.
There was sadness here too, because the eye segment knew that its wings, evolved to carry only its small body and even smaller prey, would be of no use once the four segments were joined together.
Yet the excitement of joining and becoming complete radiated from it too, overpowering all other thoughts and emotions.
There was no longer any need for
contemplation. The many-limbed segment crawled up the front of North Wind Following and settled on the top of the stalk. A burning sensation flooded through its length as the spindly legs wrapped around the bulk of his body and down his back to the sail segment. Fine hairs on these legs burrowed into the stalk segment's skin, strengthening the mental and physical bonds between them. The whip arms hung loosely in front, new grasping limbs that all four segments could now share.
New sensations, memories and ideas flowed between the segments, melding together the quick intelligence and linking ability of the many-legged segment, the vast physical strength of the central stalk, the hyper-sharp senses of the Rock Wraith and the astonishing visual acuity of the eye segment.
The four were now one—a complete being. They discarded their singleton names. He would have a new name now.
He called out to the cities in the sky, unified at last, a triumphant blast that felt strong enough to turn back the sea itself.
I am ready!
The cities of the Otrid Lords answered. Their song was glorious, a song of joy and purpose.
A beautiful song of war.
Chapter 2
Duties and Codes
"Let me get this straight—you're naming me admiral?"
"Yes," said the demigod, the new protector of The City, and also the woman that Mik had pursued for so many orbits.
"Admiral of a one ship navy?"
The military title was such an archaic term that Mik had had to data-dive into the archives when Talia first broached the subject. An admiral was a strategic commander for a fleet of ships, or even multiple fleets, or so the records claimed. But Mik was a Fixer, by the gods! All he had ever commanded was a toolkit and a handful of trainees. His life had been spent repairing the small breakdowns and performing the necessary maintenance on the underground systems that sustained The City, a blessedly solitary occupation.
A Fixer he had always been, and a Fixer he would always be. The lone deviation from that predictable life had been his frantic race across the galaxy to retrieve one of mankind's seven gods and then the subsequent battle against the Otrid invaders. So he had, in fact, captained a ship, however briefly. But for large parts of that operation Mik had felt like a passenger, a spectator to the larger forces at work.
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