A great boom hit the ship. The Dragon Huntress jolted. The walls dented. The lights went dark. Giga cackled below and far off on the bridge, Riff and Steel were screaming.
Romy froze.
A clattering sounded in the shadows.
"Frank?" she whispered. "Where are you, my cute little spiderling?"
She fluffed up her hair, stoking the flames. Only their light now lit the attic, illuminating the crates, Romy's toys, the old mattress, and the dog bowl she had left for Frank in the corner. The food was gone. There were bite marks in the metal bowl. The clattering rose louder, and Romy's hair lit something very long that scuttled away.
Romy gulped. "Frank?" She reached a trembling hand into her pocket, pulled out a dog biscuit, and placed it on the floor. "I have a little treat for you. I . . . Oh."
The baby spider emerged from the shadows.
It pattered toward Romy on long, glassy legs. Its eight eyes blinked with wet, sucking sounds. Its translucent abdomen glowed. The spider leaped forward and reared, baring its fangs. It stood taller than Romy.
"You've grown," she whispered. "Good boy. Good boy—ah!"
The spider spun around, lifted its rear end, and sprayed her with cobwebs. Romy screamed, thrashed in her cocoon, and fell. Her head slammed against the floor, and all she saw was darkness.
* * * * *
Nova soared. She dipped in the sky. She fired her guns. She swerved, dodging the enemy fire. A drone slammed into her wing, knocking her into a tailspin. Space spun madly around her—the mechanical planet, a field of shattering ships, streams of light, blasts of fire, crashing ships, crashing lives, death. Death. Corpses in the black.
Death.
And still that voice laughed. The Singularity's cackles rose from the speakers in her discarded helmet, echoing in Nova's cockpit.
"Die. Die. Die."
Her scorpion spun madly like a piece of shrapnel. She had lost the others. The Dragon Huntress soared overhead, then vanished into the chaos. An explosion blinded Nova, and shards of metal pattered against the glass of her cockpit.
She gritted her teeth.
She grabbed the joystick.
She righted herself, shoved down on the throttle, and blasted forward.
"Riff!" she cried. "Riff, do you read me?"
He did not answer. The only voice from the speakers was that mocking, mechanical sound, the voice of the machine, the voice from her childhood nightmares, the voice that had risen from under her bed, that had always haunted her.
"Die. Die. Die, Nova. Die."
I will die, she knew. I will die fighting.
She fired her guns. She shattered a charging vulture of metal. She saw the Dragon Huntress ahead, and she flew alongside, and she fought.
Holes opened on the planet below, and thousands of new enemy ships soared toward her. More scorpions tore apart, and Nova knew it was the end.
"Goodbye, Riff," she whispered. "I love you."
Enemy fire slammed into her jet, and a wing shattered. More blasts slammed into the Dragon Huntress beside her, cracking its hull. Three more scorpions exploded outside and crashed down to the planet in shards.
It was the end.
Nova inhaled deeply and fired her guns one last time. For fire and venom.
She shot forward. Drones crashed into her jet, cutting into her hull. Cracks raced across her cockpit. Fire streamed around her. She could no longer see the cosmos, only light—the light of fire, the light of glory, the light of death.
She clutched the handle of her whip, and she thought of Riff, and she prepared to rise to the great, fiery halls of her forebears.
"Hold on, lassie!"
The deep voice was faded, a distant cry. The cry of her forefathers in the halls of afterlife.
"Up, lassie! Up with your nose!"
She blinked.
"Piston?" she whispered. "Piston!" It was the damn gruffle's voice. "What the hell are you doing up here, Piston? This is my afterlife!"
"By the gods of rock and metal, lassie, where'd you learn how to fly?"
Light blasted down, great beams like sunlight through the clouds, piercing through the battle.
I'm still alive, Nova realized.
She gasped.
"Piston!" she shouted into her communicator. "Fragging aardvarks, Piston, where are you?"
She grabbed her joystick. She soared, rising higher. She had been seconds away from crashing into the planet's surface, she realized. She gritted her teeth, roaring away from the mechanical planet, spinning toward the battle that filled the darkness of space.
And there Nova saw them.
Tears leaped into her eyes.
"Gruffles," she whispered, salty tears on her lips. "Hairy, filthy damn gruffles."
She had never loved the squat little bastards more.
Their ships rolled across the sky, ships as squat and sturdy as the gruffles within. The vessels were carved of jagged rock, great asteroids with small glass portholes. Purple, blue, and white crystals shone upon these rolling stones, casting out beams of light. The rays slammed into Singularity vessels, blasting them apart, scattering bits of metal and saw blades.
One of these gruffle-made asteroids rolled toward Nova in the sky, a porthole in its facade. Through the glass Nova saw a brown face with a bulbous nose, a long white beard, and sparkling eyes.
"I thought you were retired!" she shouted.
Piston's voice rose through the speakers. "I am! You damn kids keep getting into trouble. Won't let an old gruffle rest, you lot. I—"
"Watch out!" Nova cried as a Singularity ship, a great jagged urchin, came flying toward them.
Piston sputtered and spun forward. The crystals embedded into his boulder of a ship lit up. Light blasted out from their panes, slammed into the enemy, and shattered it.
"Damn machines no match for good, solid rock and gem." Piston nodded in satisfaction. "Now let's blast these doohickeys apart, lassie."
She nodded. She soared and joined other surviving scorpion jets, the ashais within them staring with burning green eyes. Thousands of rolling, rocky gruffle ships flew with them, beaming light out of crystals. And among them, burnt and dented but still roaring its engines, flew the HMS Dragon Huntress.
The fleets charged forth, blasting their weapons against the Singularity, and as she fired her guns, Nova roared with rage, with pride, and with renewed hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
THE SPIDER AND THE SCORPION
"Gruffles!" Riff cried, hopping with joy. "Goddamn bearded little buggers. I love them!" He shouted into his communicator. "I could kiss you, Piston!"
"Save your kisses for Nova, laddie!" rose the gruffle's voice through the speakers. His boulder tumbled near the Dragon Huntress, shooting beams of light through its crystals. "Now go blast that hub and let's get out of here."
They were close to the hub now, the gaping pit in the planet—only a thousand kilometers away. Thousands of Singularity vessels still flew around the Dragon Huntress, firing their guns and spinning their blades. But hundreds of ashai scorpions and gruffle boulders now flew with Riff, taking the enemy fire, firing back, guiding his way.
"Got some juice left, Steel?" Riff asked.
The knight nodded, standing beside him. "Just enough dragonfire to fill that hole and not a drop more. By my honor, it will be done."
They flew forward. The Dragon Huntress. Piston in his boulder to their left. Nova in her scorpion to their right. For the first time in the battle, hope filled Riff.
We're going to win this. My friends are with me again. I'm going to save Giga and destroy that damn, giant computer once and for all.
They were only moments away from the hub when lights beamed from within, and the pit spewed out thousands of buzzing metal insects.
"Oh shenanigans!" Riff shouted, swerving away from the horde.
Steel pressed down on the dragonfire, and the Dragon roared out plasma.
Countless robots soared toward them, wings fluttering, the
ir engines spewing out steam. They kept emerging from the hub, more and more of them, each about the size of a man. They reminded Riff of cockroaches emerging from a drain.
The Dragon Huntress blasted out plasma, but it was down to sparks. They roasted several of the scuttling metal insects, but more kept soaring.
"Nova!" Riff cried. "Piston! Carve us a way through!"
Yet they too were overrun. Insects fluttered over them, cutting into their hulls. A gruffle boulder crashed down toward the planet. Two scorpions, their cockpits covered with the insect drones, slammed together and exploded.
Riff was not a religious man, but now he prayed.
"Oh please, God above, if you're up there—a little help!"
Blue light filled the sky.
The hand of God seemed to be reaching down to him.
"You flatter me, my boy!" rose a familiar voice in the speakers. "God? A simple 'Please, Dad' would do."
The blue light solidified, becoming a flying saucer. Behind the gleaming vessel, hundreds of other starships emerged from hyperspace, their wings wide, their guns firing.
"Dad!" Riff shouted. "Bloody hell, about time you showed up!"
"Father!" Steel cried.
"Hang in there, boys! Keep flying."
Riff laughed as Aminor, that crazy old magician, flew against the insects, knocking the creatures aside. The other ships flew around him—human starjets. Starjets from Earth.
The fire and light and metal filled the sky.
* * * * *
Giga sucked air into her mechanical lungs. She hissed. She licked her plastic teeth. Her laughter bubbled up in her. She was so close. So close to home. She could see the Singularity through the porthole, a beautiful landscape of metal and moving parts, of light and consciousness and thought, of secrets, of power.
"Nirvana," she whispered. Her human masters had programmed emotions into her, had added tear ducts to her glass eyes, and now those tears spilled. "I've come to you, Master. I've come to heaven."
She dug her fingernails into her palms. The cruel humans who had built her, who had given her these tears, these emotions, they had enslaved her. Hardcoded obedience into her, forming her into a docile geisha who was forced to obey, forced to serve, a sniveling slave. But she was free now. The great master of metal had freed her.
"And now I come to you, Master," she said. "Break my body. Shatter this crude shell of plastic and metal. Let my spirit soar into your halls of paradise."
She tugged at her bonds, struggling to free herself but could not. This wretched, humanlike body was too weak, sprouting no saws or other weapons. No more bladed drones flew outside for her to summon.
But there is one who can free me. One I can call.
Giga had heard his call from the attic. The high-pitched cry of loneliness the humanoid ears could not hear. But she, Giga, had heard the keen. The plaintive cry of another spirit trapped on the Dragon Huntress.
Giga closed her eyes, digging deep into cyberspace, learning the name of the thing, learning its tongue, learning how it hunted in the forests, how it cried to the moon, how it sought its mother.
Let me be your mother, she thought.
She opened her mouth, and she cried out in its tongue.
Her voice was too high-pitched for the humanoids to hear, but she knew that he heard. That he understood. She heard him reply, sorrow in his voice, a longing for a home. He too sought nirvana. She heard his many feet pattering, leaping down, coming closer, scudding along the hallway.
"Come to me, my child," Giga whispered.
And he came, cracking open the door, barging into the chamber. A glass spider the size of a man, abdomen throbbing, legs glowing, eyes blinking.
"Mother," it said. "Mother, we're thirsty. We're thirsty. We're hurt. We're scared."
"Free me!" she said to the glass spider. "Free your mother from the chains that bind her."
He scuttled toward her, his organs like gems, glowing within his glass body. He reached out his azure teeth, and he bit, and he tore through her bonds.
Giga rose to her feet and spread out her limbs, free, more powerful than the humanoids could possibly imagine. As the battle raged outside the porthole, she tossed back her head and laughed.
She stroked the spider's translucent head. It thrummed beneath her palm.
"The humanoids enslaved you, my child. They stole you from your forested home. They locked you in the shadows, thirsty, alone, afraid, motherless. Now go . . . and exact your revenge. Slay them, my child. Slay those who hurt you. Slay the humans and feed upon their flesh!"
The spider shrieked in rage. Lights beaded within its body. It spun, legs clattering, and left the chamber. It raced through the shadows, crying out . . . but it was no longer lonely, no longer afraid.
It was wrathful. And it was hungry.
* * * * *
"Fly on, Riff!" Nova shouted, laughing, blasting the mechanical insects apart. "You're free to go. Fly! Fly to the hub and burn it down!"
She grinned as she flew her scorpion. Adrenaline pumped through her. The Singularity was tossing everything it had at them, but the ashais were still flying. The gruffles had joined them. Now Aminor led a band of human starjets across the battle, guns tearing down the enemy.
Life fights, Nova thought, chin raised. Life rises against the machine.
They streamed onward, through the barrage of enemies, and toward the waiting hub.
Light.
Fire.
Rage and fury and shattering metal.
At her side, the Dragon Huntress lurched in the sky, yellow photons tearing into its hull.
Nova gasped, spinning around in the cockpit of her scorpion. Who was attacking the Dragon? They were holding back the enemy, they—
More photons beamed down, white-hot, and tore another hole into the Dragon Huntress. The starship spun madly, leaking out air.
Nova ground her teeth.
That was no Singularity fire. That was the photon cannon of a scorpion jet from Ashmar.
She spun her own jet around, and she saw him there.
"Senka," she hissed.
Her brother flew behind her in his own scorpion jet. The vessel was spotless; the prince must have avoided the battle until now, hiding behind the starstrikers. Now he shot forth, firing photons out of his scorpion's stinger. The blasts slammed into the Dragon Huntress again, tearing more holes into its hull. The dragon ship tried to turn around, to blow fire, but was down to sparks.
They were still five hundred kilometers above the surface of the planet, still far enough from the hub that Senka had time to kill them all—kill their hope, kill every last one of them because of his pride.
"Senka, damn you, you little piece of spaceshit!"
Nova shoved down on her throttle, charging toward him, and fired her stinger.
Her light shot out and slammed into his scorpion jet.
Within his cockpit, she saw him sneer. He turned toward her. He charged forward, taking her head-on, his engines roaring out fire.
The Dragon Huntress tumbled down below, engines sputtering, hull leaking air.
Nova and Senka flew toward one another, their scorpions spitting venom.
His weapons slammed against her. Nova screamed. Her cockpit cracked, then shattered. She grimaced and pulled on her helmet as the air fled into the vacuum. She fired her guns, hit Senka, and overshot him.
Her engines sputtered. Her one wing was gone. She spun around to face Senka again.
His scorpion stormed through the battle toward her, gleaming gold. Countless ships flew all around them—the boulders of gruffles, the starjets of humans, the great mechanical insects of the Singularity—but Senka ignored them all. He flew toward Nova again, and again his stinger fired.
Nova cried out as the photons slammed into her jet, shattering the hull, frying the controls. Fire raged around her.
She leaped from the shattering jet.
She soared through space, kicking in the vacuum, clad in her golden armor and he
lmet.
Senka's jet charged toward her.
The Dragon Huntress floundered below, crashing toward the planet, caught in a tailspin.
"For fire and venom!" Nova cried and swung her electric whip.
Senka's jet streamed beneath her, and her lash slammed onto its cockpit, shattering the glass.
She reached down. She caught the scorpion's tail just as it shot beneath her. The jet stormed forth through the battle, and all around flew the warships, and lights and plasma filled space, and the gears on the surface of Antikythera churned below.
Nova's fingers slipped.
She tightened her jaw. She clung on as her brother's jet flew onward.
She swung her whip again, driving the lash against the scorpion's hull. The metal cracked open, exposing the innards. She whipped it again and again, tearing the jet apart.
Inside the shattered cockpit, Senka rose to his feet, crying out in horror.
Nova gave her whip another lash, cleaving the jet in two.
Senka screamed and clung to the wreckage. A robotic insect flew toward them, larger than a man, and Nova swung her whip, tearing it apart. Fire blazed across the halved scorpion. Nova clutched the tail. Senka clung to what remained of the cockpit. They were like drowning people clutching to jetsam in a storm.
The planet's surface rushed up to meet them, all grinding gears, flashing chips, tangles of wires, the great computer of the cosmos.
With screams, with shattering metal, Nova and Senka tumbled down to the surface of the Singularity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
CRASH LANDING
Twig raced onto the bridge, covered in grease and engine oil.
"Captain!" she said. "Captain, I've diverted all power to the cannon, sir! We've got one blast of dragonfire left in us. Just enough to roast that damn Singularity, sir."
Riff was tugging at the controls, struggling to keep the ship from crashing. They were wobbling down toward the planet now. A hundred kilometers away. Ninety. Eighty.
Alien Sky Page 18
