Gods and the Stars

by Steve Statham

  So he was fully alert when the peaceful crossing came to an end.

  Human space was aflame.

  The ship’s sensors picked up chaotic inputs from every direction. Beams of exotic energies, gravitational waves, and conventional missiles ripped across the blackness. The sensors revealed starships cracked open and spilling their contents into space. The clouds of the yellowish gas giant planet boiled menacingly as if reflecting the clash of forces around it.

  But one object dominated. The globe of the large one’s ship lay before War Vessel 84 like an onrushing moon. Kwed’s calculations, using data harvested from the deceased large ones, had placed him close to his target, although not quite as close as he’d hoped.

  Kwed wasted no time and adjusted course to intercept. His subcommanders could handle the straightforward bombardment and destruction of the human outpost. Capturing this great prize was a matter that required more finesse.

  But he would have to board it to take it.

  Behind him, as the last of his ships passed through, the second portal faded from view. It would sit inert until reactivated by one of the command ships. If all went as planned, he would soon be piloting the large one’s ship back through into Otrid-occupied space.

  Kwed’s ships spread out into their attack formation. Half the ships moved forward, the others dropped back to defend the assault team in case the feeble singletons attempted a counter-attack.

  Almost immediately, the humans aboard the large one’s sphereship began firing the smaller weapons housed along the ship’s equator. Few of the shots did any damage, which is what Kwed had expected—as close as his war vessels were, the human ship would not be able to use its more destructive weapons for fear of scorching its own hull.

  Kwed gave the order to open fire. Like the human defense, this phase of the operation was no display of overwhelming force—he was using precision targeting to disable just enough of the ship that he could execute a boarding.

  The beams from War Vessel 84 sliced across the surface of the human ship. Methodically, his weapons burned off the smaller cannons and sensors lined along the gap separating the two hemispheres, until he had a dead zone large enough to approach for docking. War Vessel 84 and three other ships drew close in a rectangular formation. They were near enough now that Kwed could make out patches on the hull where the large one’s ship had been recently repaired.

  Kwed turned over the next moves to his bridge crew. His number two subcommander had trained for this exercise for countless watches. Kwed observed, silently evaluating the officer’s performance, as the subcommander extended the grappling arms that would secure War Vessel 84 to its prey. The three other ships followed 84’s lead. The exotic materials that made up the outer shell of the large one’s ship were difficult to grasp, but once the arms latched on, the subcommander activated a cutting beam that punched through the hull.

  After the beams had cored a tunnel into the interior, Kwed activated the boarding conduit. It shot across the distance, rapidly solidifying into a rigid tube.

  Kwed gave the order for the first wave to board the human ship. He turned over War Vessel 84 to the subcommander, and marched the short distance to the boarding platform where he would meet the eight-squad that would board with him. Normally, an Otrid Lord would not be a part of a common boarding party, but the secrets contained within the large one’s ship were too great to leave to underlings to discover.

  When he arrived, he found his soldiers already waiting. They were armed with wide-angle fragmenters and surge lashes, ideal weaponry for close-quarters—devastatingly effective against flesh and blood aliens, but not so destructive as to cause significant damage to their prize.

  Kwed allowed himself a ripple of pride along his sail segment as he addressed his squad.

  “Exterminate any singletons you find. They are smaller and weaker than any of you, but be wary of tricks and deceptions that lower creatures often hatch. Preserve the integrity of the ship to the best of your ability. If we encounter another large one, leave the abomination to me.”

  As he entered the boarding conduit, he hesitated for a second as he heard a burst of frantic comm chatter between several of his war vessels on the other side of the target moon. One of the commanders was shrieking uncontrollably, incomprehensible orders mixed with pleas for help.

  Kwed nearly turned back to the bridge to oversee the problem, but he shunted it to lower on the priority list. His attack fleet should easily be able to handle any human ships. If the humans had, indeed, formed an effective resistance, it would be crushed when his next wave arrived. Barely half his fleet had transited the gateway. The capture of the large one’s ship required his full attention.

  It was disappointing, though, that one or more of his subcommanders was losing his nerve. After this action, he might have to perform a disciplinary reassignment of segments. Such a display always horrified a crew, but the positive effect on discipline was undeniable.

  Kwed moved forward in the conduit, surrounded by his troops. The body language of his squadron was easy to read. Sail segments stood rigid, whip arms brandished weapons with lethal ease, legs stamped in a disciplined cadence. They were eager to begin fighting, and as he passed through the still glowing hole into the large one’s ship, he found that he was swept up in the war fever.

  He released special spores he’d created using the command tools function of his Harness of Lordship. They drifted through the enclosed space, and his troops shivered as they ingested the particles. Designed to amplify bloodlust, they had an immediate effect. He felt it too.

  Snarling, Kwed raced into the helpless chambers of his enemy.

  ****

  Like everyone else, Vance been mesmerized by Apollo’s speech. All else had fallen away as the god painted the picture of their escape to the new world. Vance had even allowed himself a moment to daydream about what it would be like to walk under open skies with an entire planet to explore. Maybe he’d build a home with his own two hands, teaching his children the skills he’d acquired as a craftsman. He’d already started instructing Brent on the secrets of fabricating hand-made furnishings. His oldest son was a tall, strong boy and the thought of working next to him constructing a house warmed Vance’s heart.

  He’d felt an overwhelming urge to be back in The City with his family, instead of patrolling the empty corridors of Faraway’s godship.

  Then the Otrid ships spilled through the first portal, and that bright future evaporated.

  The next minutes passed in a coordinated frenzy as Vance mobilized his warriors.

  “Primary defensive formations! Prepare to repel boarders. They stole this ship once, they’ll come for it again.”

  As he directed his troops, Maelstrom fed him a running feed of the battle out in space. His implants allowed him to absorb the information and play a graphic representation of the action in a corner of his vision when he had the rare free moment. He couldn’t stop to analyze it dispassionately, but it seemed as if The City’s fleet was trading ships with the Otrid invaders.

  That was not a rate of attrition that could be maintained.

  Vance felt the godship moving under his feet as Maelstrom powered up its engines and sent it on a new course toward the fighting. A pair of adaptive missiles arced away from the godship and raced toward an Otrid ship that had broken through the lines.

  When the second portal opened, it was close enough to see through the transparent portions of the godship’s hull. Alien war vessels spilled through. They were far too close for Maelstrom to employ the most potent of the godship’s weapons. Smaller caliber guns and basic laser beams swung into action, their shots streaking through the darkness like living things.

  The Otrid ships moved closer, guns blazing. In seemingly no time, the defensive fire from the godship dwindled to almost nothing as the Otrid weaponry found its mark.

  Vance tracked the movements of four ships that were approaching in formation.

  “Gold squad, move to sector eleven,
double-time! Red squad, sector fourteen. Blue group, monitor sector nine, but be ready to move.”

  He turned to face his primary squad and the pack of Granth behind them. Vance had delegated a lot of authority to his sergeants—his lieutenants were mostly stationed in The City—and felt comfortable they could do their jobs without direct supervision. But the Granth were a different story. They were trained by him, and they accepted only him as their leader. He didn’t like the idea of having to babysit them in a fight, but he also knew that they would be far more effective if he was giving the orders.

  “Marek, we’re taking sector two,” he said to his squad leader.

  “Aye sir, sector two.”

  Vance walked past his men to the collection of Granth behind them. He grabbed hold of the senior Granth’s leathery, thorny foreleg.

  “G1, the day I promised you is here. The Otrid have returned to kill both our peoples. Now is the time for revenge. Are your fighters ready?”

  Behind the tinted lenses of its goggles, Vance could see the swirling patterns in the Granth’s eyes pulse as it considered his words. G1 raised its forelegs and extended its sheathed claws. It clacked them together as if sharpening them. The other Granth followed their commander’s lead. Soon the hangar was echoing with the sound, like a single angry beast chomping its jaws.

  “Take us to the giant piles of dung who invaded our world,” G1 said. “We will slice them into pieces and use them as bait for bexshar fishing on homeworld.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Vance said. “Follow me.”

  They raced through the passageways of the mostly-empty ship. The updates Maelstrom fed him showed the Otrid warship was drifting toward a spot just above the equator, where a series of large chambers lined the interior.

  On most of Faraway’s private godship, the functions of the various chambers was indecipherable, known only to the god. But the purpose of these large spaces was known—they were hangars where Faraway had created and tested construction bots and other large pieces of equipment. Massive passageways branched off the hangars so Faraway could move her creations about the godship.

  From the looks of it, the Otrid were going to force their way in and then disperse through the many passages leading from the hangars.

  The Otrid had captured this ship before, so Vance knew they had a clear understanding of the layout. He looked at it from an invader’s perspective; boarding through the warehouse-like chambers would allow large numbers of the bulky Otrid to offload quickly, and the numerous connecting passages would allow them to spread throughout the ship rapidly.

  For Vance, this provided opportunities. Holding the passageways would give him the advantage of several effective kill zones, but it would be difficult to defend them all simultaneously.

  He received a message from Maelstrom with a tactical update. “Four ships attempted to latch on and board,” he said. “Three succeeded. I repelled the fourth, but expect another ship to move in and take its place.”

  “Understood.”

  “I’m sending servitor robots out onto the hull to attack the attachment points of the Otrid ships. It’s probably too late to make a difference with the ship you’re tracking, but maybe it will keep them from fully unloading.”

  “We’ll handle them,” Vance said.

  His squad sprinted through the avenues leading to the cargo hangar. For a moment, as they tore across the massive city at the heart of the godship, it felt like he was on one of the quests he’d organized as the founder of the Affiliation of Seekers. The impression was fleeting. The weapon in his hand, the tromp of boots from his men, and the sound of Granth legs scurrying along the deck told of a more serious mission.

  It took longer than Vance would have liked, but they arrived at the chamber before the Otrid had made their final cuts through the hull. He dispersed his troops to cover the other exits and hurriedly dragged a decommissioned construction bot into the passageway to act as cover for his field of fire. He launched an axis flyer, sending it to one of the support beams along the ceiling where it would be able to relay images to him of the entire area.

  G1 was hissing and clicking in his native language as he stabbed the air with his forelimb. The senior Granth turned to Vance. “Let us rush the tunnel they dig and kill them before they enter!”

  “Patience, G1. We want to lure them in, catch them out in the open. Divide your warriors into two groups; hold one back here hidden down this intersecting passageway and place the other group in the servitor robot storeroom over there,” he said, pointing to a sub-chamber down the hall.

  Vance keyed his comm unit over to his squad leader, who was setting up a flanking position to his left. “Marek, when I give the word, open fire with everything you have. Push them toward us. We’ll lay low until they’re close enough to smell, then unload on them. Be ready to move quickly—don’t let them escape down one of the other passageways.”

  The inner hulled glowed as the Otrid made their final cut. A twenty-foot disc of metal clanged to the deck, and clashing air currents warred as the two environments opened to each other.

  Long, slender tendrils of some sort emerged into the hangar, as if sniffing the air, followed by the shadowy bulk of a massive Otrid warrior.

  Gods! They’re even bigger than they looked in the vids.

  Vance crouched behind the frame of the construction bot and watched the Otrid drop their large bodies onto the deck.

  From their hiding spots, the Granth hissed and clacked their claws.

  Vance gritted his teeth. Any tactical use of the Granth in this fight was going to have to happen up front, or not at all. Stealth warriors they were not.

  The Otrid began gathering in formations of four. Despite their bulk, the Otrid moved quickly. They weren’t foolish enough to all collect in the chamber before dispersing—the flow of warriors was orderly. As the first of these quad-groups made a move toward the central passageway leading out, Vance gave the order.

  “Marek, light ’em up.”

  The response was instantaneous—the dull molten glow of suppression beams lit the chamber as his squad leader opened fire. Joining the scorching crackle of the focused beams was a series of thumping concussions. The other troops were wielding short-range projectile guns, the design of which Talia had retrieved from the archives and put into production. Their guided slugs would bore holes through flesh and other soft matter, but were designed for contained environments and would fall inert before puncturing the hull.

  A roaring cacophony of alien voices shouted as the first Otrid fell from the human assault. One group of four turned toward Vance’s troops and provided covering fire for the rapidly retreating larger group, which was crowding toward the far end of the chamber.

  Through the relay from the axis flyer, Vance could see his men ducking for cover as the Otrid blasted their position with some sort of gun that dispersed a cloud of glowing fragments. They handled their weapons with the thin tentacles that cascaded down from high up the lumpy and misshapen neck that rose above the main body.

  His men responded by tossing stun grenades from their concealed emplacements, and the covering group of four Otrid stumbled and scrambled away as the ordnance detonated around them.

  Vance tightened his grip on his suppression beam rifle. Already the Otrid boarding party was being funneled toward him. The stamping of their ponderous feet reverberated through the deck plates. From his fortified position behind the heavy construction bot, Vance watched the first of them scramble into the wide corridor that was his kill zone. They never moved alone; three others quickly followed.

  Vance let them advance about half-way to his position, then opened fire. The beam sliced across the thick neck of the lead Otrid warrior, ripping open a ragged gash. It tumbled forward, shrieking in pain. The strange sail membrane that ran along its back puffed out some sort of mist as bruise-like colors flashed along its length.

  He aimed at the next one to the right. Still unsure of the most vulnerable point on an Otrid
body, he targeted the bulbous joint from which the slender tentacles descended. His beam bored a hole in the segment. The alien’s tentacles dropped to its side, limp, and its weapon clattered to the deck. The massive creature slumped against the wall, gore oozing down its neck.

  Two more of the Otrid invaders pushed aside their fallen comrades and charged down the corridor, firing their frag-weapons wildly as they advanced.

  Vance fell back from his position and ducked around the corner to the larger chamber to his rear, drawing them in. He nearly backed into the Granth contingent waiting there. He turned and located G1. The Granth leader was practically vibrating in anticipation of the coming fight.

  “G1—attack now! Maelstrom, open the doors to the bot storeroom!”

  With joyful snarls, the Granth spilled from their concealed positions and swarmed over the bunched Otrid invaders. They doubled up on each Otrid, wrapping their long legs around the bulky bodies and then stabbing and slashing them with their claws.

  Vance wasn’t sure how much of their training guided their actions and how much was pure instinct, but he marveled at their ferocity. Watching them unleashed, it brought back a memory of the night of the invasion, when he had organized resistance and taken up arms against them. He could see how they had been able to temporarily incapacitate Tower’s physical form.

  The Otrid advance stalled as the Granth swarmed over them. The invaders began backing toward the larger chamber. Even so, they were not panicking. Their fragment guns were largely useless in such close quarters, but the Otrid also carried some sort of energized belt that they brandished with lethal accuracy. They snapped them like whips, and more than one Granth limb was lopped off in the process.

  The traffic on his comm link confirmed that his other squads were engaged with three other boarding attempts. As Maelstrom had expected, the landing craft he’d disabled had been quickly replaced.