The captain was by no means slow in giving his order, Jav was simply that much faster. Jav continued through the remaining guards and their ineffectual shooting. The captain backed away and spoke into the collar of his coat.
Over the PA system, his voice came loud and insistent, “All available personnel to section twelve, we’ve got a hostile. Repeat, all available personnel to section twelve, we have a hostile.”
Gun barrels erupted all around Jav. He had to be more careful now, but no one here was as fast as he was, and no one seemed to mind if crew members fell to wild shots.
The captain saw this from his relatively safe distance and gleaned a strategy from it. He lowered his weapon and fired through one of his own crew. Jav saw the captain behind the man, and as the deadly beam ripped through the poor hapless sacrifice, Jav disappeared. The captain gawked, but only for a moment. Seeing Jav a short distance away, already resuming his one-sided fight, the captain simply resolved himself to the fact that it would require more than he expected to kill the stranger.
Throngs of men fell before Jav’s implacable hands, but more men, all armed with the same heavy pistols, were always coming. In addition, the repair workers had joined their fellows in their fight against Jav. As the compartment became more and more choked with corpses, prone bodies and active crew, viable destinations for Jav’s displacement technique were fast decreasing. Acutely aware of his confinement, Jav worked harder hoping to see an end to the conflict before he was really trapped or caught by one of those nasty pistols.
Always circling, through the fringe of the crowd at a safe distance, the captain patiently stalked Jav and eventually chose once again to fire his weapon. This time Jav’s back was to him and there were two crew members between them. The searing line of rabid light tore through the two crewmen and finally into Jav.
Jav lurched. The blast had expired as it blew out a hole in his chest, spraying blood and heart meat onto the steel-plated floor. He staggered two steps forward on wobbly legs and the men backed away, as if afraid of getting his blood on them. A coughing spasm covered those nearest him with a fine scarlet sheen regardless of their efforts.
“There,” the captain said self-satisfied. “Nothing a good Farmington can’t handle now, is there, boys?”
Jav looked down at the gore that had come from inside him. He was aware of a pain like wet fire, and though it felt far away, it niggled, frustrated, and impeded everything from taking a simple step to thinking a clear thought. It was like fighting sleep.
“You. . . you shouldn’t have. . .” Jav clutched clumsily at the hole in his chest with one hand as blood pumped and streamed unchecked through his fingers. With his other hand he sought to wipe away the tendrils of bloody spit that were making it even harder to talk. “You. . .” He bent over and started to shake.
No one said a word. In the relative silence, the crew realized with mounting horror that the stumbling corpse before them was laughing. Jav threw his head back with blood spewing arcs from his red-stained mouth as waves and waves of tortured laughter shook him like a broken, stuttering machine. Due to laughter, pain, regret, or something else entirely unknown, Jav said plaintively, almost in a whine, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Then his body was racked by violent convulsions. Blood gurgled in his throat, and he threw his arms wide. Every muscle was taut, making veins and arteries stand out in relief. Jav started to tear away his shirt and a blinding corona limned his face. Cracks of golden light appeared all around Jav’s head and the corona shone brighter. There came the sharp sound of something shattering and the corona light flared, filling the compartment for an instant and blinding all with its brilliance.
As the crew members began to regain their sight, they were appalled at what stood before them. Upon the intruder’s face was a smooth mask of wholly unblemished, immaculate bone, with but creases for eyes. The aura of power and dread and simple mind-numbing presence would have sufficiently dazed all in the compartment, but even more fascinating was the gaping hole with tatters of meat still ragged around its edges and how it mended itself before their eyes.
Now Dark, Jav was hunched over, heaving out husky breaths and allowing his chest to heal a little more before acting. And why not? There was plenty of fresh food close by. Then he was moving impossibly fast in his peculiar fashion. It was like watching someone moving through a strobe light or watching a reel of film with random bunches of frames missing. His clawed hands lashed out and wherever they touched, skin, muscle, and bone gave way in a bloody riot. Farmington barrels erupted, filling the compartment with more chaos. Chance alone allowed a number of the beams to fall upon Jav, but none could penetrate his hide, and those that sought the Ritual Mask were bent harmlessly away into new courses. Red sprayed in copious amounts and fell upon the ever-pristine surface of the Mask, for just as soon as any quantity fell there, it was immediately absorbed. The Mask drank and with each new drop, its appetite grew until finally its phantom gray shadow eyes sprang to life, signaling the inevitable.
A droning wail built up and resonated throughout the entire ship. No one was safe. Most of the crew had come down in response to the captain’s order. That left the emergency crew workers who hadn’t been able to join in the fighting and those who couldn’t leave their posts, running necessary systems on the bridge or in the engine room. The Ritual Mask hadn’t fed in a long time and it would not be denied once aroused. Besides, the damage done to Jav’s body demanded a prompt and complete feeding.
Blood rose from open wounds and filled the compartment with red mist that was slowly being drawn into the Mask. With his unyielding fingers, Jav continued tearing meaty ruts into anything that lived until a pattern within the suspended spray defined itself, spiraling around the Mask like a great red hurricane. Within the incessant drone, a rolling repetition of bass implosions pulsed with greater and greater intensity—the Mikai Curse had been initiated. Though the Mask drank insatiably, it remained spotless. With each pulse, blood was wrenched from eyes, from ears, even from pores until all that was left of the entire crew was a collection of desiccated, brown husks, sucked completely dry of lifeblood.
Like someone’s idea of a joke, shrunken leathery dolls sat at key stations on the bridge. In engineering, too, grotesque shriveled figures littered the compartment as if a child had abandoned his game of “spaceship” halfway through. There was no more blood to be had. From a veritable hill of bodies, Jav cried out, raised his arms, and roared to the heavens beyond the confines of the ship that held him.
• • •
Like waking from a dream, Jav slowly began to gain awareness of his surroundings. The loud and vibrant sound of his own heartbeat thrummed in his ears, his head, his being. Though a common enough sound in itself, what Jav felt and heard was really the characteristic, guilt-provoking power of the Ritual Mask—he was still Dark. He looked at his fingers, all caked with blood-drained, dried, fibrous meat. He looked around the compartment, at the innumerable dark, stunted bodies, and dropped to his knees, nauseated by what he saw and the fact that he was responsible. There was no question that he had done this, and though at first he had no memory of it, flashes of explosive violence came back unbidden, sparked by the sight of a curled twist of arm or a hardened, contorted face. And then, accessed in some unknown fashion, he knew that he had consumed the blood of three hundred and fifty-seven men, the entire crew of this vessel plus one who had been his own pilot.
Jav gripped his head and tried to block the rapidly returning images. It made him sick with despair to think that he had had no control, but then he remembered what had set everything into motion. He traced his fingers gingerly over his chest where the Farmington pistol had left its mark, but all that was there was one more scar, lost among the rest.
Wearing the Mask frightened him. He thought that now he would be able to control it, but for how long and to what degree he refused to speculate. There was nothing he could do here for any of these men, but he would need the power of the
Mask to dislodge the jump ship.
He jumped easily to the craft’s tight berth and set about to folding back girders and snapping cables. Though impact had jarred some of the ship’s systems, the exterior was indeed largely, if not wholly, unscathed by the crash. Jav guessed the dead below him to be outlaws or pirates, and though he wasn’t necessarily pleased they were dead, he was glad that they would not benefit from the technology of the jump ship.
Halfway through his work, it occurred to him that he needed a way out. He turned his attention to the emergency seals and peeled them back and away one by one. While Dark, he had no need for oxygen and as he pulled the last of the seals away a great rush of the precious gas spilled out into the vacuum. Fixing his position with AI to resist the current of escaping air was a simple task with the boosting power of the Ritual Mask. Jav hovered at the cusp of the breach, looking out into black space, watching with enhanced senses the last of the oxygen pour out into the void. He shook his head, amused that the Ritual Mask, with all its horrible power, could be used to witness something so simple and so beautiful. But then he realized that while beautiful, the fleeing oxygen would have had much the same effect on the crew has his Mikai Curse had.
Returning again to the jump ship, Jav gave it a great tug and pulled it free. He would still need to carry it to the outer hull.
Carrying the jump ship wasn’t difficult for Jav in his Darkened state, but maneuvering it back through the holes it made was. He considered taking a different route but since he didn’t know the layout of this ship and didn’t want to take the time to learn it, he persevered. Eventually, he reached the outer hull and pushed the jump ship through, holding onto it as it slipped out beyond the Kalnia’s artificial gravity and into open space.
• • •
Jav climbed to the hatch and let himself in. He made his way to the front of the ship and sighed heavily when he saw what was left of the pilot. He removed the shriveled, leathery shape and took the pilot’s seat. As he expected, most of the systems were still working—at least the ones he would need to get back.
Get back. . .
Where was he anyway? Where was the Vine? He couldn’t remember a time when the Vine wasn’t visible somewhere in the black sky. He ran a scan for the nearest jump deck or relay station and waiting almost interminably, he finally found a broken, intermittent signal. Nearly all communication throughout the Empire was routed through jump decks and relays so if he couldn’t find one, he was most likely lost for good. Riding along the weak signal was an audio message garbled with static.
“Jump. . . ip. . . ele. . . even. . . thr. . . ease. . . re. . .”
Jav tried himself. “This is jump ship 1287-003. I’m having trouble reading you. Please boost signal.”
After a few more tries, the broadcast signal did indeed grow stronger and before too long, Jav locked onto the source. Setting the appropriate course, he sat back and relaxed. He put his hands on either side of the Mask and gently removed it. It took on the consistency of smoke and faded away to nothing.
When Jav reached the source of the signal, he was surprised by what he found. There were free-floating work crews milling about among high-intensity lamps and all manner of other equipment. Jav was relieved to see the workmen were wearing the familiar Imperial environmental suits and not some alien approximation. What left Jav uneasy was that there was still no sign of the Vine. But, upon closer inspection, Jav saw that that wasn’t entirely true—a small floating island of the dark, olive-green Vine was visible through the crowd of workmen.
The head of the work crew contacted Jav, “Mr. Holson! We’re glad to see that you’re all right! The Transit Division reported the loss of your ship just as we discovered the shift in the anomaly.”
“What happened?”
“A wormhole, sir. It flexed, you might say, and happened to swallow this relay station. Since there was no receiver within conceivable range on the other side of the wormhole and because of the interference from the wormhole itself, the warp field broke down and you got shot out into unknown space. You’re lucky you didn’t get caught in the warp field indefinitely.”
“I guess so. Has anyone else gone through?”
“No, sir. We’ve shut this station down and rerouted traffic. Now that you’re back safely, we can carry out our plans for an S-Bomb detonation.”
“I need to contact the Locsard Psychic Academy as soon as possible.”
“No problem, sir. A temporary relay has been installed at a safe distance. Please proceed through the wormhole and once on the other side communications should operate normally.”
“Thank you.”
Jav navigated through the weird hole in space and then began his transmission. He spoke to seven different people before reaching the person he sought.
When Mont Cranden’s round face came on the screen, Jav hesitated. Cranden’s brow furrowed and he read Jav’s troubled face easily.
“What is it, Mr. Holson? What’s happened?”
“I. . . I need your help, sir.”
“My help?”
“Yes, sir. The seal, it’s broken.”
Cranden took a deep breath. The fact that his seal had been broken was remarkable, but not, in his mind, an emergency. However, the dark, haunted look in Jav’s eyes was enough to move the retired Shade to action.
• • •
The temporary relay station was big enough to accommodate standard jump ships and had been required to bring in necessary equipment. Now Cranden’s ship arrived there.
Jav asked Cranden to come aboard his own ship where he explained everything that had happened. Cranden listened patiently until the end, but when Jav asked him to reseal the Ritual Mask, the older man sighed.
“Mr. Holson—Jav—I told Laedra. . .” Again he sighed, then continued, “I told your teacher that there would be some things that my vault might not be able to seal. You’ve broken it once, and, make no mistake, I’m glad that you did, but I don’t know if I see much purpose in. . .” He shook his head, shrugging.
“Please, sir. Please, Professor Cranden. I don’t want it free. I couldn’t control it. The pilot was already dead, but look at him. I could never forgive myself if something like that happened on 1287. Besides, I’d have an unfair advantage at the final competition.”
“You may still,” Cranden said gravely.
“Please.”
Cranden stared at Jav for what seemed a long time. He finally agreed to reseal the Ritual Mask and to keep Jav’s little adventure a secret. The official story would be that, upon breaching the warp field, Jav and his pilot crashed into an asteroid; the pilot was killed on impact, and once Jav regained consciousness, he piloted the jump ship back to the affected relay station.
Sealing the Ritual Mask took little time, but during the process, Cranden thought that something had changed since the last time. What that something was he could not determine, though, and eventually he forgot all about it.
When finished, Cranden sealed the pilot’s body in a portable vault that no one but he could see. Jav thanked him repeatedly and the two parted company.
• • •
It had been dark for several hours when Jav finally reached Planet 1287. Everyone, including Gast Froster, was waiting to greet him and everyone was surprised, if not shocked, when Hol herself embraced him. She didn’t let him go for some time, fawning over him like a lost child finally found. Mai was a little jealous at first. She wanted to touch him after being apart for so long and comfort him herself after such a harrowing experience, but then she simply smiled to herself, satisfied that Jav was hers and that they had their whole lives ahead of them together.
Mei was disgusted by what she saw. To her it seemed that Jav was blessed in all imaginable ways and it simply wasn’t fair. She had done well putting him out of her mind in spite of the number of times he came up in conversation, but now that he was back, ignoring him would be impossible. How could their teacher degrade herself like that? Didn’t she have more pride,
more sense, than that? And didn’t Jav have enough of everything already?
It was late when everyone settled down and went to bed. On his first night back, Jav made no pretense of his need to be with Mai. She was his best friend, everyone knew, and even if the others did suspect that something more existed between them, after his experience earlier that day, it was natural that he would want to talk to someone about it.
Leaning against the jamb of Mai’s open door, Jav said goodnight to each of the girls that passed him as they retired. As the still of sleep fell over the villa, Mai took Jav’s hand and led him into her room. Within the privacy of those walls, he told her the truth of what happened, how he’d encountered alien pirates, and maybe even died before the Ritual Mask swallowed his reason and turned him into a vampire butcher.
She stroked his face with soft, light fingers. “Jav, you didn’t hurt anyone who didn’t need hurting. Any of those men would have killed you if they’d been able to. It sounds like the Ritual Mask did what was necessary to keep you alive, and for that I’m very, very grateful. You should be, too. Those were extraordinary circumstances. And you said yourself that you were in total control in the end.”
“After everyone was dead.”
She shrugged. “It was satisfied. It wasn’t hungry anymore. You were whole again.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m sure that’s it. I’m sure that under different circumstances you’d be able to stay in control. You’ve worked so hard. You’re so much stronger than you were before. And the Mask is weaker, right? It has to be. In six months it won’t matter anyway. You’re going to win the competition and get those creepy Kaiser Bones and become a Shade. My Shade.”
The Artifact Competition (Approaching Infinity Book 1) Page 19
