Five Empires: An Epic Space Opera

by Steven J Shelley

  “Let’s chance the tunnels,” Jake said. “We may not need the climbin’ gear now that a heap of tunnels have collapsed.”

  Fusar looked fearful, but nodded anyway.

  The party climbed carefully over the stone column and were confronted with a steep drop to the base of the sinkhole. The shattered belfry overshadowed the depression, but Jake could just make out the entrance to more than one tunnel.

  “Mandie, gun ready at the rear.” Jake said. “I’ll take point.”

  The duellist slid down the treacherous dirt, the women following closely behind. Looking into the left tunnel, Jake almost failed to notice the body curled at his feet. It was Verity, clutching at her stomach and grimacing with pain. Her med gauze had come loose.

  Jake felt torn between familial loyalty and his commitment to Fusar. Verity thrust a finger at an object above their heads. A supply pack hung from one of the wooden beams jutting from the belfry wreckage.

  “Mandie, eyes up,” he said brusquely. “Fusar, eyes on the tunnel.”

  The beam was reachable from further up the slope. The duellist bent it so the pack could slide off. Mandie and Fusar kept watch while he administered battle chems and re-applied supportive gauze to Verity’s wound. Her pupils dilating, Jake’s sister stood and drew her blaster.

  “Friend or foe, Verity?” Jake murmured. He needed to know where he stood. The cybomancer’s eyes flashed fire. So she was still angry with him after all these years.

  “What’s your fucking mission?” he asked. “I’m not taking you down those tunnels unless I’m reasonably certain I won’t be knifed in the back.”

  “Extraction,” Verity said grudgingly. “Ajon Prime wants you to survive Tranda.”

  Jake failed to conceal his surprise. He had a thousand questions but now wasn’t the time.

  “Can I trust you?” he asked with a hard stare.

  “I’ve never lied to you,” Verity said evenly. “A virtue that hasn’t worked the other way.”

  Jake took the hit on the chin and looked at Fusar.

  “We can trust her,” he said. “Verity will stay behind you, Fusar.”

  It wasn’t a request. Jake approached the left tunnel without hesitation - there wasn’t anything to recommend one over the other. The smoke over the desolated courtyard was beginning to clear. Up in the musty corridors of the monastery the sounds of melee battle had been replaced by sounds of horror. Enraged that their colony had been flooded, the white worms were making short work of the monks.

  Jake ducked into the tunnel and almost retched at the rank, meaty smell. Assailed by darkness, he drew a glow tube from his utility belt and clamped it to his trench coat lapel. The cramped passage took on a toxic gleam by the pale green light. He advanced at a steady pace, hoping to clear the tunnels without stumbling blindly into danger. The footsteps of his companions were reassuringly close behind.

  “Any obs, Fusar?” Jake asked softly over his shoulder. The tunnel descended at a gentle gradient and began to curl slightly to the left.

  “It’s an artery,” Fusar said. “Judging from the mucus on the walls, I’d say well used.”

  Jake hadn’t spotted the viscous substance at first glance. Considering what he’d seen in the courtyard, it’d be foolish to touch it.

  The tunnel spiraled to greater depths. Every now and again they’d hear the shriek of an enraged worm. Jake tried to focus on the positives - at least they were heading in the right general direction.

  “Feel that humidity?” Fusar whispered. “The heart of the colony isn’t far away.”

  “Have you seen it?” Verity asked.

  “I think so,” Fusar replied. “I was drugged at the time.”

  No one felt the need to pursue the story. The tunnel constricted around Jake and he was forced to drop to his hands and knees. It was actually a blessed relief after stooping for so long. The others followed suit and the general pace slowed, especially as Verity was now forced to drag the pack behind her. The air was indeed quite warm. It was the kind of rotten, tropical air one might expect in a thick, languid jungle.

  “Here,” Verity said, tapping Jake on the shoulder and passing him a respirator.

  He put it on gratefully, realizing he’d been cutting his breath short to avoid the stench of worm.

  The tunnel’s spiral eventually petered out into a long flat section. The mucus on the walls was thicker here, and gave off a faint light on its own. Jake pressed on, glad for the extra illumination but more concerned than ever about the toxicity of their environment.

  At length he saw an intersection up ahead. It was a cross-tunnel, slightly smaller than the one they inhabited.

  “Fusar?” Jake said, pausing.

  “The truth is we need to reach the queen’s cavern,” she said. “That cross-tunnel is just a connector. The larger tunnels branch from the cavern.”

  Jake took a deep breath. “Just as I thought,” he said. “The cavern it is.”

  At that moment a worm’s shriek set everybody’s nerves on edge. It was loud and immediate - one or more of the creatures was approaching. Jake looked left and right - it was hard to determine the origin of that hideous noise. Hustling the other three through the intersection and straight on, he took the rear position, pistols at the ready.

  The party had gained twenty yards before Jake dared look over his shoulder. His hunch proved to be correct. A bulbous, grotesque worm slithered into view at the intersection. For a moment Jake thought it would continue through the cross-tunnel, but it pulled up and reversed with a few convulsions. Turning its maw in Jake’s direction, it accelerated at alarming speed.

  Despite the nerve-shredding attack, Jake had instinctively created two favorable conditions. One, he was expecting the attack, and two, he had a little space to work with. He flicked open the little red canister at his utility belt and produced a scarlet pellet.

  “Get down!” he yelled, flinging it at the worm.

  The pellet landed perfectly - right at the base of the worm’s maw. The creature’s pale, transparent body was engulfed by flames. Jake would’ve smiled in delight if it wasn’t for the rolling flame heading his way. The mucus on the walls was apparently highly flammable. He, Verity and Mandie were wearing heat-resistant utility suits and would be OK. Fusar, wearing just her loose shift, was vulnerable.

  Jake swept her in his arms, lifting her from the floor. The flame scorched past, leaving a few smoke trails at his heavy boots. Fusar was heavier than he’d anticipated. He could only imagine what the larger males weighed on average. She smelled of dirt and something zesty, like orange peel.

  “Will that flame reach the queen’s cavern?” he asked hopefully.

  Fusar shook her head. “Too far,” she said.

  On cue the fire fizzled out, filling the tunnel with wispy smoke. Behind them, the worm had collapsed to the floor. Most of its segments were charred to a crisp.

  “Good to know,” Jake said brightly before realizing he still had Fusar in his arms. She looked at him quizzically.

  “Just to let you know,” she said, “Jaj skin doesn’t burn easily. It’s like armor.”

  43

  Jake set Fusar down sheepishly and resumed his position on point. Mandie gave a low, ridiculing snort.

  “I’m glad someone’s enjoying this,” he snapped. “Let’s keep movin’. Could be more of them slugs around.”

  “That’s what the monks started calling them,” Fusar mused. “Only behind their backs.”

  There was ample scope for exploring the comment but nowhere near enough time. Jake pressed on, his knees protesting loudly.

  The tunnel launched into a second spiral, only this time it widened considerably. The party was able to walk again. The stench of worm was intense here, as was the collective screech. A steady pulse, possibly a giant heartbeat, permeated the soil.

  “We’re in luck,” Fusar said. “This’ll bring us onto one of the upper ledges.”

  “Would the queen have sent most of her worms to the mo
nastery?” Verity asked.

  “There’s every chance,” Fusar replied. “The colony is usually quiet but when agitated they patrol the entire valley.”

  Jake had a nagging sense of unease as the tunnel widened and dipped. He rounded a corner and felt a hand tugging at his trench coat. He’d very nearly stepped off a ledge and fallen twenty feet into the queen’s cavern. His savior was Verity. She pulled him down beside her and pointed across the cavern.

  Jake muted his glow tube and squinted through the gloom. There were several holes in the opposite cavern wall, with subtle movement at one of them. Verity’s eagle eyes had spotted two figures peering out from the passage. One was Sweet Jean. The other was hunched over and made very little movement - Nobblar. The pair had made their way down an alternative tunnel.

  The rest of the hollow was difficult to make out. There was a dark mass in the center of the cavern. The sound of water was loud in here - it looked as though the stream way above them was now seeping into the cavern.

  The floor was faintly luminescent. Things were moving down there - smaller shapes writhing across the rock. A wet plop preceded the fall of a tube-shaped object, though this one didn’t move at all.

  The dark mass was suspended in the air by long, thin, fleshy appendages anchored to the walls. The closest of these was ten yards below them, just out of reach. Fusar seemed particularly apprehensive.

  “That’s her,” she whispered, pointing to the mass. “That’s the queen.”

  “Is she giving birth?” Jake asked, trying to ignore the horrible smell.

  “She drops a wormling every half hour or so,” Fusar said. “Some survive by eating other wormlings, some are dead on arrival.”

  Jake nodded, feeling hot bile rise in his throat. He ripped off his respirator.

  “Any lower tunnels?” he asked, trying to focus on practical matters.

  “On the other side of the cavern,” Fusar said.

  “Then we need a game plan,” Jake said. “How alert is that thing?”

  “Sensitive to movement and sound, I think,” Fusar said.

  “Maybe we could create a distraction?” Mandie suggested. “Glow tube, tossed over the other side.”

  “That would put the others in danger,” Verity pointed out.

  “Is that a bad thing?” Jake asked her pointedly.

  “They’re on our side, Jake,” Verity said with a sigh. “The sooner you realize that, the better.”

  Jake pursed his lips and looked down over the ledge. “Think we can get down there?”

  Verity pulled a smart cable from her pack.

  “Charged and ready,” she said.

  “Make it happen” Jake said approvingly.

  “Now there’s a better attitude,” Verity said, uncoiling the cable and inserting one end into the hard clay ledge.

  “Stealth is the key,” Jake said quietly to his charges. “If those wormlings make any noise, just follow me. We can fight from the cover of the next tunnel.”

  The others nodded in assent. Jake wasted no time in lowering himself down the cavern wall. The clay substrate was hard granite by the time he touched the ground. The lower tunnels must’ve been carved over several centuries.

  Which meant that the queen was potentially hundreds of years old. The huge, fleshy mass now hung over him, a revolting lump pulsating with the effort it took to give birth twice an hour. The floor was slick with ichor. He picked his way through the grotesque wormlings, hugging the southern wall as much as he was able.

  Occasionally a wormling hissed and spat in his general direction, but they weren’t developed enough to pinpoint his location.

  “We can do it,” Jake urged his crew. “Just a little bit further and we’re home free.”

  Which wasn’t quite true, of course, but Verity was on the verge of fainting.

  A figure dropped in front of Jake. He lowered his pistol when he saw it was Nobblar.

  “You’re a pain in the ass, Le Sondre,” he said, smarting from all the indignities he’d been made to suffer since trailing the duellist. “This has been the worst job of my life.”

  Jake resisted the urge to laugh out loud, instead patting the cybomancer on the back.

  “If we survive I’ll give you a big cuddle,” he said jovially. Something in the cavern, possibly mucus or some other substance, was making Jake feel light-headed and reckless. He took a moment to slow his breathing, collecting himself.

  Nobblar kept his cable steady while Sweet Jean climbed down. The tall duellist gripped Verity in a fierce embrace, whispering in her ear.

  Signaling for a tight line, Jake continued west along the cavern wall. Another meaty squirt from the queen suggested a fresh birth. There was something rank about the methodical delivery, something that disturbed Jake’s sense of what nature was all about.

  Sure, these things had evolved and survived for hundreds if not thousands of years - no small feat in itself. But he couldn’t admire the way they’d established their grimy little niche. Surely if the valley had been less remote, Mother Nature would have found a way to control their worst excesses.

  “Fashon?” came Verity’s voice from somewhere behind Jake.

  “Separated when the belfry fell,” Sweet Jean said. “Hopefully heading this way.”

  The cavern wall pushed them within thirty yards of the queen. The massive worm seemed oblivious to their presence, pulsing with quiet industry as she pushed out her children. A cluster of tenderizing sacs hung from the beast’s underside. Jake didn’t want to know if the occupants were worm or monk.

  An adult worm cruised the wall above them, heading for an exit tunnel. Jake watched it slither with sick fascination. Those things could secrete enough sticky bile to stay on the walls. Jake was just about to observe that the worm hadn’t seen them when suddenly it charged in their direction.

  “Back!” Nobblar snarled, dropping to one knee. He fired several shots from a brutal-looking semi-automatic pistol. The worm’s maw literally dripped from its body and splattered to the cavern floor. The rest of it remained attached to the wall, twitching in the half light.

  “More on the ceiling,” Verity warned, looking through her optics. Her eyes were cool rectangles of ice-blue light. Jake could just make out a clutch of squirming bodies approaching from the higher reaches of the cavern.

  “Coming in from the holes,” Nobblar muttered, squeezing off several rounds at the lower tunnels.

  With the addition of several bright worms, the heavy gloom was a little easier to see through. The queen was rocking from side to side, her wail rising in pitch. The sound took Jake right to the edge of vomiting. Mandie couldn’t resist, spouting thick bile.

  Sweet Jean grunted in alarm as the queen began to move. Incredibly, she was detaching herself from the fleshy support struts that held her in place. With each pop she came closer to dropping to the cavern floor. Jake’s stomach became a hard knot of fear. The queen was secreting some kind of pus that sizzled on contact with the air.

  “Spread!” Jake managed to croak before shoving Mandie and Fusar against the wall. Nobblar, Verity and Sweet Jean went the other way and continued to fire at the worms sliding in from above. Jake signaled for Mandie to also start firing. While the mercenary kept the circling adult worms at bay, he kicked at the filthy wormlings surrounding them at ground level.

  He managed to clear a few yards’ radius and stole a look at the queen. The bulbous matriarch would soon be close enough to cause real problems. She swept her huge torso from side to side, spraying them with foul pus. Wishing he had a helmet, Jake collected his friends and gestured to the south west corner.

  “The lower tunnels!” he shouted over the queen’s howl.

  Perhaps sensing his intent, the queen completed her controlled fall. She now blocked escape to the south.

  Nobblar drew the field machete he had sheathed at his thigh. He rained blows on the queen but her tissue looked surprisingly hard. The monstrous worm extended her maw and lifted the cybomancer into the
air. The veteran wore a stunned expression as he was sucked into the digestive tract.

  Gelatinous saliva stripped the flesh from his face as he disappeared into the fetid hole. Jake watched, mesmerized as the cybomancer reappeared, trying valiantly to climb free of the queen’s mouth. He was almost unrecognizable, acidic saliva carrying out its grisly work.

  Jake took a half step forward, half expecting Nobblar to spill from the worm like one of those disgusting wormlings. But that huge, ulcer-ridden mouth closed over and the old man disappeared for good.

  “Nothing you can do,” Mandie said from somewhere behind him. It was a timely reminder to focus on the living. It was time to shoot their way out, if that was remotely possible. Jake fired Lust and Love indiscriminately, hoping to clear a path through the approaching worms on the western wall.

  His customized pistols were powerful enough to tear flesh and stop some of the worms in their tracks, but the creatures had been whipped into a frenzy. For every worm that curled under the weight of plasma, two more headed their way.

  Jake studied the queen, her hideous body convulsing as it digested Nobblar’s body. She needed to be taken down. There would be no escape as long as she was alive. That high-pitched wail was a call to arms, a telepathic call. The very skill that drew Van and the other monks here in the first place.

  It was one thing to recognize the danger, another to formulate a workable plan. Even if the five of them could fire continuously into the beast without harassment from above, he doubted they could weaken this abomination.

  Mandie was now standing against Jake’s back, having retreated from the advancing worms. Looking like she’d kill for a blaster, Fusar was crouched by the wall. Unfortunately the queen had swallowed Nobblar’s weapons whole. A worm to Jake’s right squealed and curled, ichor pouring from its maw. Verity and Sweet Jean took the opportunity to join Jake.

  “I’m maxed out,” Sweet Jean muttered, barely able to hold her smoking blaster. “We won’t survive much longer down here.”