Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

One mechanicae came at him with its steel rod pistoning the air between them, and firing a pistol with the other hand. A second before the pistol fired, Lyokh lunge-stepped out of the line of fire, parried the rod with his sword, and skewered the enemy through its chest. Gouts of purple nanite-infused mucus pumped out of its chest as he withdrew the blade and turned to the next enemy.

  A mechanicae’s foot slammed into his chest.

  Lyokh fell backwards over a desk, his STACsuit helping him recover to kneeling position, and fought against two more mechanicae as he struggled to keep his footing. He scythed the air, smashing into their weapons, the plasmetomagnetic discharges screwing with their rifles’ electronic parts. He head-butted one, skewered the other, then withdrew the blade and lopped the head off the first.

  The hosts of mechanicae did not relent. Some of them were coming through the windows, down the stairs, crashing through walls and ceilings, pushing him away from the fighting going on in the streets. Whatever they were fleeing from the Dexannonhold, it had them behaving like mice in a flood, or cockroaches when the lights came on. They were not thinking, only retreating, running out of room in the streets and pouring into buildings, looking for any vein of escape they could find.

  They found him waiting inside this particular vein. And as they found him, they attacked him. Lyokh sawed and hacked and skewered, following the progress of several at once by watching their translucent HUD ghosts move behind their more solid friends. He parried a thrust, shuffle-stepped backward through someone’s conference room, took a shot that his armor deflected and lopped off the arm of his next foe before kicking his body into the ones behind him.

  He grabbed up a tinzer rifle, one that had been clutched in the dismembered hand, and fired one-handed at all those rushing the conference room. Those that came too close got the business end of his sword.

  Heeten.

  A name and a face from ages ago. A face lying beside him in bed in the briefest of romantic trysts. He recalled what she had said, less than a full day ago. “Hey, when you get back to your bunk, make sure all your clothes are off and you’re all washed up. And…tie a bow around it.”

  She had winked.

  A thousand years ago.

  Other images came to him. The enormous wyrms from his dreams, for instance. How one of them had swallowed him whole. And the image of the planet he had never been to before, with the three moons, two suns, and a planetary disk that dominated the sky…and constellations he had never seen before…

  And Timon…

  His mother and father…

  The tinzer rifle boiled four more of the mechanicae alive, and then it was spent. He threw it at the next one coming at him, then impaled him against the wall before ripping the plasmetic blade free and cleaving the skull of the next enemy. One of them wrapped its arm around his neck in a chokehold. His STACsuit was a match for its power, and Lyokh ignored it for a moment while he swept the barrel of the next rifle away, beheaded its owner, and eviscerated the mechanicae coming up behind him.

  Then Lyokh ran backwards, until he smashed through a window and was back on the street. His HUD’s prediction screen had told him the window was there, as well as the parked vehicle, some kind of a hovercraft still resting on its repulsors. He sandwiched the attacker on his back against the vehicle and his STACsuit, did a reverse head-butt, then performed a hip-throw to slam him to the ground, where he delivered the killing blow by shoving his blade down the man’s throat.

  A split-second later, Lyokh’s blade was up and at the ready, hewing limbs and skulls. He deflected their pistoning rods, side-stepping, shuffle-stepping, and lunge-stepping out of the way. He dropped to one knee several times, letting their own thrusts sail high. Their pistoning rods punched through anything they made contact with, and he made sure to steer clear of them.

  As he defended and attacked, Lyokh felt himself sinking lower and lower into a state of no-mind. Performing the actions, letting himself be swept up in combat. The enemy could not keep up with him. He was in a flow state, they were not.

  The trick was not to acknowledge it, Herodinsk had said, just let the flow happen. So he did.

  “THE WALL!” someone cried.

  Behind him, a trio of Gold Wingers opened fired on the horde coming through the building at him. The enemy was spilling out of the windows on all floors, some of them hitting the ground running and coming right at him, swinging their steel rods and coming dangerously close. Many of them dropped before they got to him, killed by the barrage of bullets. Their bodies danced in the fusillade of his friends. The rest Lyokh met head-on, his mind going to far-off places, at times believing wholly that he was back on Kennit 184c.

  People were even shouting “The wall!” over and over again, which lent the illusion more credibility.

  Occasionally, Lyokh popped out from behind the curtain of this illusion and understood fully who he was and where he was. And other times he felt it was better to disappear again, back behind that curtain, where he was standing outside of himself, watching his body do all the work.

  Once this batch of mechanicae was slain, he turned his attention back to the rest of the street, where the battle was being carried out on all levels, using all manner of weapons and artillery. It was a tangled throng of panicked and bloodthirsty killers. Impossible to tell who was winning. More likely they were all losing equally.

  The slaughter could not be defined as anything but that. Slaughter.

  It was obvious that all semblance of order had been lost, and it had to be regained. Too many wing leaders had died, people were confused as to who ought to be calling the shots. Radio chatter was filled with screams of the dying and the desperate alike. Order was broken. It needed to be reestablished. Lyokh needed to find a spot, or some object, around which to make a rallying point, an objective that was neither retreat nor the attainment of the Dexannonhold, something more local, more easily understood in the fog of war.

  Lyokh led the Gold Wingers that had saved him into the fray. He went headlong, rarely seeking cover, ramming the enemy and knocking them to the ground, skewering those he could spare time for.

  Even though the power was out on all streets, the night was bright, for two of the moons, Dor’fahn and Ruz’th, were gibbous, Rah’zen was a bloated red sack in the sky, and Honagher was a bitten-off fingernail. Along with the stars, they gave plenty of light to see the next enemy.

  When he came to the only remaining Ravager, Lyokh found two warhulks still standing and defending it. They were doing so beneath the baleful gaze of a demon, chiseled in stone, thirty feet high and looming over the street. Hordes of mechanicae were climbing atop the Ravager. Lyokh leapt atop the tank, slew the foes with his sword as those following him picked off a few of their own.

  “Hoy up! Rally to me!” he screamed. “Converge on my coords!” He sent waves to all wings, hoping that some of them would see clearly enough through their own fear, despair, rage, and pain to recognize the significance.

  The Ravager blatted its guns at the enemy. A Mantis picked up on Lyokh’s message, and followed the order, climbing up the demon statue and posting on its head to get a shot from high ground. Sniper shots were coming from somewhere, tagging all mechanicae that tried to approach the Ravager—Lyokh imagined it was Takirovanen, but couldn’t be sure. Two more warhulks fought their way over to the Ravager. There were four of them now, forming a wall around the tank, upon which Lyokh stood.

  “To me!” he shouted. “Rally to me!”

  They gathered their numbers bit by bit, man by man. Three launchers joined them, and laid down suppression fire. A medic and two med bots hobbled over to them. Mechanicae tried to overrun them, but the warhulks did their job sufficiently.

  Lucerne.

  “To me!”

  Lyokh leapt down off the tank when he saw two riflemen moving towards him. They were running backwards, firing short controlled bursts at the enemy trying to follow them. One of them was limping, and Lyokh helped them to cover behind the Ravager.
At that moment, an explosion rent the air. Looking up, they saw Thrallyin, bloodied and with holes punched through its wings, tearing through an enemy starfighter. The wyrm had a good chunk of it still clutched in its fangs. That gave Lyokh an idea.

  “Gold Wing Actual to Thrallyin Tamer! Come in!”

  A voice came through loud and clear. “There you are, doyen! Thought we’d lost you!”

  “Artemis, can you drop what’s left of that starfighter in front of the Ravager?”

  “Say again, Actual?”

  “Have Thrallyin drop that starfighter in front of the Ravager! We need the cover!”

  Artemis did not query again, he only obeyed. Thrallyin arced backward, curling in midair, its vanes pulsing even as electrical currents rippled through its scales. It swooped down low, the wind off its wings kicking up dust and bending the flames that were licking out of windows all around. The wyrm dropped what was left of the Ascendancy starfighter in front of the Ravager, but it landed awkwardly, not in a way conducive to cover.

  “Hulks! Prop that thing up proper! We need its cover!”

  Two Untamaks broke from firing to do as he commanded. Once the ground troops were behind adequate cover on both sides—sandwiched between the Ravager and the starfighter—the warhulks returned to their firing lines.

  They gathered thirty more men. Now forty. Now fifty. Men and women from Devastator, Fierce, Ares, Everest. The warhulks covered their mad dash to cover, and the ground troops returned the favor by laying down suppression fire while the warhulks dropped their massive mags and reloaded with their equally massive ammo hoppers. The Ravager brought down another low-storey building, and two grasshoppers went with it. There were two Mantises supporting them now, climbing on the sides of buildings around them.

  Lyokh kept behind cover, looking at the helmet vids of different soldiers, directing them to the rallying point beneath the demon statue. Miraculously, Ziir’s EyeSpy was still in play, and he used its overview to help guide his people to safety.

  In the middle of all the mayhem, Meiks appeared beside him, covered in the nanite-infused gel that was the blood of these subhuman-metahumans. He plopped down beside Lyokh, panting heavily, and said, conversationally, as though there had been no interruption since the last time they were together, “Hell of a day.” Not even Meiks could find a sliver of humor here.

  As their numbers grew, they used the dead husk of a grasshopper, as well as a few convenient piles of bodies, to form a larger camp. As a few mechanicae snuck inside, Lyokh dealt with them coldly and shortly. The Nova ships were obtaining dominance in the sky again, and as more of Lyokh’s people fled to the safety behind their makeshift rallying point, it left the mechanicae out in the open, easier to tell apart from the friendlies, so the Novas could really open up. So could the Ravager, and the Mantises, and the warhulks.

  Paupau showed up, carrying two wounded men, one over each shoulder. Abethik was right behind him, limping but moving.

  They were gaining a footing again. Growing roots in the streets. Lyokh checked in with survivors over an open channel, looking for the most senior men and women, determining who was in charge of each wing and letting them know it was time to take charge. They organized well enough to define clear boundaries.

  As the night wore on, they held their ground. It was working. The gunfights were lessening. Men were screaming under the ministrations of the medics, but at least they weren’t dying anymore.

  Before Lyokh knew it, the first rays of light were coming up over the horizon. Morning was coming.

  Had they really been fighting that long?

  As the stars began to fade, Lyokh began to lift himself out of a bloody haze, and realized he had a message that had been waiting on him for hours. A message from the War Council. The Visquain. He eye-flicked the message and read it:Friendly allies have arrived. BROTHERHOOD OF CONTRITION has entered the system and is assisting. Anticipate a few contrite-brother ground troops soon.

  But where? he thought. And how soon is soon?

  Lyokh sent the query up to Lord Ishimoto, knowing full well he probably wouldn’t receive a reply. At least, not one that mattered.

  He looked around at the wings left to him. Before the onslaught, they had numbered nearly a thousand. Now there was less than four hundred of them: 387 to be exact, according to his HUD.

  Lyokh looked around at the assembled men and women who trusted him to get them out of this. He looked at the dead bodies of those that had trusted him to do the same. Heeten’s face came unbidden to him. He put her out of mind, along with the guilt and the fear. There was a chamber in his brain where those things went, and once he had flung them inside, he shut the door and locked it.

  Now that he had a moment to think, and all wings were accounted for, Lyokh looked around at his brothers and sisters, their armor coated in viscous oils and blood. All of them were panting, and staring at different things in a daze. He looked back up the street, southward, toward the Dexannonhold that stood blasphemously against the sky. And he wondered, What made them all flee in such a panic?

  Even now, they could hear the fighting going on near that giant fortress, and could see lances of lasers and particle beams and missiles. A high-pitched scream rent the air, one that could surely never be made by a human throat. Lyokh looked up, into the evil-looking face of the demon looming over them, and wondered what secrets this city held. And for a moment he drifted far, far away, going to that phantom planet in his dreams, with the greatwyrm swimming through the sky, and three gorgeous moons. Funny…he now saw Heeten there. And Lucerne. And Egleston and Eulekk. Everyone he had ever known…

  “Hey, guys,” he muttered.

  “Hey, handsome,” Heeten said.

  “Hey,” Meiks said.

  Lyokh blinked. He looked over at Meiks. They were both coated in the blood of friend and foe. Meiks’s expression was blank, devoid of hope and yet not hopeless. Determined. His face reflected how Lyokh felt.

  “Hoy up, doyen. All of us are already dead. She knew it, too.”

  Lyokh nodded.

  It brought him out of his reverie.

  “We need to build up these defenses,” he said, nodding at the wall of debris and corpses that was accruing all around them. “We need proper fortifications. We need to see if the other wings’ Ravagers survived, maybe lost on another street when they fled, and get them to converge here. Let’s build a wall!”

  Someone must have misheard him, because they screamed, “The wall!” as they fired at an approaching enemy.

  Others took up the call.

  Lyokh almost laughed at the misunderstanding. He had a new perspective on war now. He saw them as a series of walls. Building them up and tearing them down. One army on one side of a wall, the other army on the opposite.

  Heeten.

  Lucerne.

  Egleston.

  Eulekk.

  Ruvio.

  A wall separated Lyokh from all those people, too. But it was a wall he would also cross over one day. He found himself partially hoping today would be that day, yet still addressed his duty out of stubborn habit.

  As Meiks and the others held back the enemy, Lyokh started searching for debris to use as cover, while calling out over all channels for any surviving Ravagers to join them. It was back to work. Back to leading an army of the already-dead.

  : SDFA Voice of Reason

  Moira figured it was about time she shared this with Kalder. She found him, after some questing through the halls of the Saber-class starship, on Deck 3, sitting in an office that had been granted him by the ship’s captain. It was a converted eight-by-twelve closet space, and still had a few mops and cleaning supplies in it. Windowless and with dull lighting, it did not look like the type of room from which a great Crusade would be commanded. It looked more like a room in which you would wait to get called into the doctor’s office.

  She knocked once on the door, and heard a voice say, “Come in.”

  The door shunted open. When she stepped ins
ide, Moira was not surprised at all to find Kalder and his creature Julian going over some bit of business with faces hovering in front of them in holopanes. He was chatting with a man and two women in uniform that Moira had never seen before, but from their background environment it looked like they weren’t even on a ship. The rocky walls said it was an asteroid of some kind, perhaps Monarch. They were speaking to Kalder using QEC transceiver/receivers.

  Kalder was saying, “Well, let’s not look at personnel allotments too closely right now.” In the corner, Julian waved Moira to the only other chair in the room.

  Moira stepped inside and waved Pritchard on in. The door hissed closed behind the dog, and she pointed to her heel as she sat in the chair. Pritchard took his seat beside her.

  Kalder acted like she wasn’t even there. “We have plenty at the moment, and pressuring the Senate for more would only raise their eyebrows about budgets. The Corporatists would ask how much the extra manpower is going to cost, and if resources might be better spent in mining, which makes the Liberators panic, which means it exasperates the Committee on the Continued Crusade, and makes them more likely to mothball our operation altogether.”

  “What do you suggest we do?” asked a woman in a gray uniform with an attache’s insignia. “They’re going to ask about specific jobs for each member of personnel.”

  “Tell them we have enough for now, which we do. Enough to keep us going. That’ll mollify them at least.” Kalder glanced over at Moira. “My friends, I have to go now, something else demands my attention.” Without waiting for formal goodbyes, the Zeroist waved the panes into nonexistence. He looked back at Moira. “Yes?”

  “We might have a Romulus and Remus Problem,” she said, getting right to it.

  Kalder shook his head, and opened his hands to her, requesting more information.

  Moira pulled out her personal holotab and slid it over to him. Tiny panes shot out of it when he activated it, and they showed a network of curved lines, following orbits of large bodies around a miniaturized Milky Way. He tapped one of the panes, and it doubled in size. The pane was showing images of an industrialized world.