by J. N. Chaney
Now, to do that holding ’em off for a few minutes thing. Staring at the looming wall of Deeper ships and mechs rushing toward him, Conover wasn’t even sure if that would be possible.
Conover flew the Pulsar harder than he ever had. He jinked, he dodged, he rolled, pitched, yawed, and wove through the maelstrom of battle. Missiles and torps flashed past. Explosions pulsed among the embattled ships, sending crashes of static across the comm. Dark-lances crossed beams with x-ray lasers. Nova-cannons pumped out streams of plasma bolts, mirroring the eruptions of fire from Deeper burst-cannons. Fighters wheeled in vicious dogfights. And all of it happened in deep, incongruous silence, broken only by the chatter of the comm, itself sometimes punctuated by shouts, even screams, that abruptly cut off.
The Realm fleet reeled under the hammer blow of the Deeper attack. The Realm ships fought desperately to hold the aliens back from the Wolfhound, which was burning as hard as it could away, although in a different direction than the Taffy had gone. Conover spared occasional, fleeting glimpses at the light cruiser, now clear of the battlespace and decelerating.
A torp detonated near the Pulsar, flooding the shield with energy. Kristin fought to clear it, while also trying to maintain a steady barrage of EW effects to confuse the Deeper scanners. Unfortunately, they were close enough to burn through most of the electronic clutter, but every bit of combat effect helped. Conover flung the Pulsar hard to one side, snapping out a dark-lance shot that punched straight through a Battle Prince. He took a barrage of x-ray laser fire in return and jinked hard to throw off the targeting. He was relying on JETS to do most of his shooting, combining fire with Jexin and Amy, who doggedly followed him as he wove his way through the chaos.
“Conover, over to your nine! It looks like the Deepers are making their play for the Wolfhound!” Amy shouted over the comm.
Conover flicked his attention that way. Sure enough, a compact formation of Bishops and Battle Princes had formed up around the imposing form of the Corruptor. Conover had tried several times to get something close to the Deeper leader, and twice had tried to take a run at him himself. But the Deepers had him well-protected and blocked every attempt.
Now, he was about to wedge his way through the scant Realm battle line and seize the Wolfhound and its precious cargo. Enough of the Deeper mechs had been equipped to infect their targets with their insidious nano-biological agent that the conventional ships had to be wary of them—particularly the fighters, which were especially susceptible. Several had already been infected, turning them into missiles, their pilots nothing but helpless, terrified cargo carried into punishing collisions with Realm capital ships. The Stalwart had already been hit twice, as had the battlecruiser Spearpoint. In the meantime, the Daggerfall had been swarmed by Battle Princes that couldn’t actually infect any of her Dark Metal-infused critical systems but could still beat the shit out of her. And they had, leaving her battered and without steerage way.
Conover desperately swept his focus back and forth across the tactical display. He’d already committed Lori’s mechs and had no more reserve. He simply had nothing left with which he could influence this battle.
“Let’s go see if we can help out,” he said, accelerating the Pulsar to intercept the Deeper mechs. It was literally just him, Amy, and Jexin about to face down six times their number of foes.
Yeah, this is gonna hurt, Conover thought, firing the dark-lance at the lead mech and plunging into the thick of battle.
He’d tried, but predictably, it wasn’t enough. The Pulsar, Talon, and Polaris had done their best to blunt the Deeper force, but they’d been battered to the point of losing critical systems, then almost casually driven aside. The Corruptor had sailed contemptuously past, his way to the Wolfhound open.
There was only one hope left, and to call it scant would be generous.
“Taffy, SITREP?”
“Almost done.”
“Sooner would really be better than later, Captain.”
“Hear you loud and clear, sir,” Ellsworth replied. “We estimate five minutes.”
Conover sighed. The Pulsar was barely in the fight anymore, half of its systems red, one of its legs smashed, one arm blown off at the elbow. All he could do was snap out shots from his remaining operable weapon, the dark-lance, and watch as the Corruptor closed up to the Wolfhound.
He would infect it. Seize it. Take control of it, take it away, through the gate, and the Realm’s war efforts would be set back by months, just like that. It was a blow they’d probably never recover from.
It was exactly what the Corruptor was supposed to think.
This was the moment they’d planned for. All of it had been intended to bring the pieces together at this point in time and space.
Their entire supply of Dark Metal Two massed a few hundred kilos. The Wolfhound was meant to contain hundreds and hundreds of tons of cargo. That left a lot of empty space inside her.
As the Corruptor approached, the big hatches on the Wolfhound’s flank swung open. And out of the cavernous space, the Archetype rose like a specter of fire and death, the great power accumulators for the blast-cannon unfurling, rippling with iridescent, imminent destruction.
The Corruptor stood face-to-face with the Realm’s flagship, its most powerful weapon, maybe the most powerful weapon in existence.
“Surprise, asshole,” Dash said.
Then he fired the blast cannon at full yield, slamming its incandescent fury into the Corruptor at point-blank range.
Dash wore a dark, humorous smile as the Deepers were plunged into confusion. The Corruptor, wounded by the full fury of the blast-cannon, immediately flung himself away. Battle Princes and Bishops closed in, covering his withdrawal.
Dash leapt out of the Wolfhound’s hold and began methodically killing the enemy constructs. Battle Princes reeled and died under hails of rail gun fire from one of the Archetype’s mighty wrists, while Bishops were blasted open by superluminal missile shots from the other. The twinned dark-lances and grasers wrought fearsome carnage, tearing apart Deepers under their sledgehammer blasts. But Dash sailed into their very midst, letting JETS take over firing the ranged weapons, coordinating their fire amongst themselves and adding the weight of the nova- and distortion-cannons to the mix. He brandished his favorite weapon, the power-sword, then began laying about him, slashing, hacking, and cutting Deepers apart.
He didn’t want to fight the minions, though. He wanted to take out the big prize, the Corruptor himself.
But the Deeper leader had retreated behind a hastily formed battle line of warships and mechs, desperately rallying his still-fearsome forces. The battle wasn’t won yet, and even with the unexpected arrival of the Archetype, the result hung in the balance. Hits began to pile up on the Archetype, and Dash’s pursuit slowed as he started to jink and dodge, slamming the mech this way and that under the powerful thrust of the Blur drive.
“Conover, this is Taffy. We’re ready.”
Dash opened his mouth but bit off his reply. This was Conover’s show. He had to give the order. They’d left this moment as a contingency, a branch that, in one direction, acknowledged that the battle was lost and there was no point trying to push any harder. In the other, it would fully commit the Realm. It came down to Conover’s next words, and Dash would support him either way.
“Taffy, Conover. Do it.”
“Roger that.”
The Radiant Point the Taffy had deployed flared to life, linking with the one carried by the Herald, hundreds of light-years away. A gate pulsed open, and a moment later the Swift swept majestically through it, followed by the Herald, then the Victory, and then the rest of the Realm fleet.
Dash almost felt sorry for the Deepers. They’d won the day. Or at least that’s what they’d been meant to think. Or, more to the point, that’s what the Corruptor had been meant to think.
Sentinel had summed it up. “Bagration would have leapt at the chance to engage and destroy part of an enemy force, bringing about a defeat
in detail. He watched as it happened to his Russian faction when they faced the French faction under Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. Afterward, he wrote that it was one of the most valuable tactics available to a commander.”
Pavel Hu, the Corruptor, had done just that. He’d leapt at the chance, got to the very brink of triumph—
And then had it all taken away from him by two words.
“Surprise, asshole.”
Dash was a little proud of that.
As the Deepers desperately tried to rally and reorganize themselves to face this new threat, the rest of the Realm fleet, Dash smashed through their confused battle line and raced after the Corruptor. But even the Archetype’s fearsome acceleration wasn’t enough to stop him before he could vanish through the gate that had brought the Deeper fleet here. Just before he vanished, though, he spoke.
“The Queen will swath me in the folds of night.”
He flashed through the gate, which collapsed and vanished, trapping what remained of the mighty Deeper fleet. And now the Realm closed in, pouring fire into the alien ships and mechs.
Dash stared hard at the now empty and featureless space where the Corruptor had disappeared. Then he wheeled away, turned, and plunged back into battle.
Epilogue
“They really are cute, aren’t they?” Dash said.
Leira raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you had a soft spot for cuddly critters.”
“Like I keep telling people, I’m a complicated man.”
They stood on a grav-sled, enclosed in a protective force field, to prevent them from contaminating the biome around them. It was one of the more benign ones, the apex predator being something similar to a terrestrial fox but able to camouflage itself almost perfectly with chameleon-like color blending. Unfortunately, the adorable little rat-like creatures chittering away at the base of a tree clad in bark as smooth as glass were among its prey. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it was how things worked. You were the predator, or you were prey. It was harsh, but a biome’s gotta biome, as Freya put it.
Predator or prey. It didn’t only apply to fuzzy little creatures.
“Dash, I’ve got a final list of casualties worked up, along with a SITREP on the fleet,” Benzel said over the comm.
Dash opened his mouth, but Harolyn, who, along with Jexin, had accompanied them on this little foray into the Arkubator, cut him off.
“Dash’ll get back to you, Benzel. He’s kinda busy right now.” She winked at Dash as she said it, and he smiled back.
“Oh yeah? He’s with Leira, huh? I’m telling you, those two. You know I heard they—”
“Sorry, Benzel, gotta run, Harolyn out!”
Leira scowled. “Why’d you cut him off?”
“Did you really want to hear what he was going to say that he’d heard about you two?”
Leira exchanged a glance with Dash, then they replied in unison. “Well, yeah.”
A sudden eruption of fierce chittering pulled their attention back to the critters. One seemed put out about something, loosing a barrage of irate chatter at two smaller creatures.
Jexin bared her teeth. “I know a scolding mother when I hear it.”
They laughed. But Dash’s laughter died as he thought about the Corruptor. He hadn’t managed to destroy him, but he had proven he could be defeated. The dreary uncertainty that had plagued the Inner Council had cleared ever since, like clouds parting on a sunny sky.
“Messenger?” Custodian said over the comm.
“Sounds formal. Yes?” Dash answered.
“I need a moment. This is only to be revealed at your discretion, and even then, the other AIs and I do not recommend it be widely known.”
“You have my attention. Go ahead.”
“We have discovered a Dark Metal mesh, of sorts, in the remains of S. Lavarovna.”
Dash stood in utter silence, letting the possibilities percolate through his mind. “How did you find this?”
“A trickle of energy that we confused with brain activity. It would appear that the Deepers, or someone, altered her body via experimentation, not unlike the Bishops. She is wholly human, but—”
“But what?” Dash asked, his voice taking on a note of iron. Leira was frozen, listening with every cell of her body.
“We believe she may be saved. If the neural net is, in fact, a copy of her mind, then it may be time to implement Unseen technology intended to save wounded fighters who were too valuable to lose. Before you ask, no, this is not immortality. It is an opportunity to reclaim her personality and experiences in a body of our making. The body will be biological, tank-grown, and at the absolute limits of our ability. We only need your permission to do so,” Custodian said.
“What if she never wakes up?”
“That is a possibility, and we have no idea of a time frame. But she was murdered, and she is a direct connection to your species that predates the war. I leave the decision to y—”
“Do it.”
“It will be done,” Custodian said.
“Need-to-know basis only. We have other concerns right now, but—just keep me in the loop.”
“Understood.”
But there were more clouds, dark ones. The Corruptor was still a dangerous foe—more so now that he’d not only be defeated, but also humiliated in the process. He wouldn’t easily fall for any deception again.
And then were his parting words, The Queen will swath me in the folds of night.
What did that mean? And who, or what, was the Queen?
Dash knew they were going to find out.
But not today.
Leira came back to life, taking Dash by the hand. “I think we’re getting close to the end of this. At least, I hope we are.”
Dash watched as the scolding mother chased her young into a burrow.
“The end?” He nodded. “But it’s not going to be our end. It’s going to be the Corruptor’s. It’s going to be Pavel Hu’s.”
DASH, SENTINEL, LEIRA, VIKTOR, and CONOVER will return in INFINITE CROWN available to preorder now on Amazon.
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About the Authors
J. N. Chaney is a USA Today Bestselling author and has a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He fancies himself quite the Super Mario Bros. fan. When he isn’t writing or gaming, you can find him online at www.jnchaney.com.
He migrates often, but was last seen in Las Vegas, NV. Any sightings should be reported, as they are rare.
Terry Maggert is left-handed, likes dragons, coffee, waffles, running, and giraffes; order unimportant. He’s also half of author Daniel Pierce, and half of the humor team at Cledus du Drizzle.
With thirty-one titles, he has something to thrill, entertain, o
r make you cringe in horror. Guaranteed.
Note: He doesn’t sleep. But you sort of guessed that already.
