Disciple of the Dead (Seraphim Revival Book 3)

by Jacob Holo

Finally, Othaniel withdrew the whips.

  “Get this… over with… and kill me…” She sobbed, the taste of burnt meat in her true mouth. So many medical warnings blared in her mind that she shut them off entirely.

  “You took something precious from me,” Zophiel said, his voice now quiet and dispassionate. “And that deed requires repayment.”

  Zophiel took her head into his hands and pressed in with his talons.

  Suddenly a flash of light exploded within her mind. Vierj’s memories surfaced, stronger and more powerful than ever before, almost as if they had a conscious will of their own, as if they sensed her death and wanted out!

  Memories swept through her mind in an avalanche of color and sound. Quennin screamed until her lungs were empty.

  “What is this?” Zophiel asked. “What are these images? What’s going on?”

  On and on, the memories scorched through her mind. She saw a young Zophiel, his body wrapped in black whips of energy with blood pouring from deep wounds. She saw corpses on the ground, and Zophiel kneeling beside them, weeping. She saw Zophiel screaming, her finger pushing into his eye sockets as blood oozed out.

  On and on the memories went, one horrible crime after another. Quennin wept, not from pain this time but from the horror of these invading thoughts. She whimpered and with a weak voice said, “She… she tortured you…”

  The memories subsided. Once more, Quennin could see the world around her. Zophiel’s seraph hovered before her silently, his hands still gripping her throne by the head.

  But he’d stopped.

  “It must have been… I’m so sorry… I…” She didn’t know what she was saying, or what she was feeling. Words came out amidst the sobs, but she didn’t feel in control of them.

  Zophiel grabbed the throne’s mask and ripped it off.

  “I do not need, nor want, your pity,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion.

  “Zophiel… please…”

  “Mother, are you in there? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Perhaps you remember this.”

  Zophiel pushed his thumbs into the throne’s exposed eyes. In the cockpit, Quennin screamed as her corneas burned from the inside and then burst open. Boiling fluid ran down her face.

  “Now I will let you die.”

  Zophiel threw her into the plasma vortex. She struck the surface in a flash of light and vanished beneath the plasma rapids.

  Chapter 15

  Slayer and Tyrant

  Veketon fell deeper into the plasma vortex.

  His mnemonic skin shriveled and melted under the torrential heat. His flesh burned and charred, but this was not some crude seraph facsimile. Nor did it possess the biological majesty of the original seraphs. No, the throne was a biomechanical creature of Veketon’s own devising, and its resilience to conventional damage surpassed even the original seraphs.

  Despite all the hellish energy thrown at him, he remained.

  But not for long.

  Veketon’s true body took pained breaths within the cockpit. Slowly, he came to accept his imminent death. He had never fabricated another Choir after Zu’Rashik’s fall, and his mentality would die with this body. He contemplated the choices that had led him here and the alternatives that could have seen him to safety.

  But most of all, he thought of Quennin and how he had failed her.

  His throne-body shuddered as another current picked it up. The plasma streams carried him around like a leaf in a storm, and Veketon wondered how severely the vortex mechanisms were malfunctioning.

  Every part of his true body sang with pain. The constant background feedback cooked his skin anew, but his slipsuit worked feverishly to repair the damage. Nano-cilia had set his broken arms and legs and continued to reattach his torn ligaments.

  “Not that… it matters,” he gasped.

  The connection between Veketon and the throne faltered, and his barrier finally gave out. He opened his eyes within the dark confines of the cockpit. In a small way this was a mercy, since he no longer felt the plasma slowly consuming the throne’s flesh. Creaks and groans and loud pops echoed through the interior.

  Swift streams of plasma carried the throne deeper into the vortex. It wouldn’t be long before they plunged the throne into the hot core of this furnace.

  Veketon knew he was going to die. Anything he did in these last moments was pointless, but he grasped his composure firmly and refused to acknowledge death as anything but a minor inconvenience. He thought about what he wanted to accomplish and what he could accomplish in the time left to him.

  It took him only a moment to decide. He linked with the onboard hypercast array.

  “Damaged. Curse it.”

  Veketon accessed the throne’s repair systems for its artificial components. Currently, one hundred percent of the available resources were reinforcing the armor membranes. He diverted all of them to hypercast array repairs.

  And then he waited.

  The throne dipped into a deeper, faster current, and a loud creak echoed through the craft. Something had broken loose. It didn’t matter what. Not anymore.

  Veketon took a long, calming breath and continued waiting.

  Forty-eight seconds later, hypercast functionality came back online. He opened a channel.

  “Quennin? Are you there? Can you hear me?”

  Silence.

  “Quennin?”

  He opened a diagnostics report in a corner of his mind. The hypercast array had successfully connected to her throne, but there was no other response.

  “Quennin, please answer me if you can hear this.”

  Silence.

  His throne descended further into the vortex’s depths.

  “Quennin? Please?”

  Cold, heartless silence.

  The hypercast channel closed. His neural link received an alarm: equipment failure detected at the destination array.

  “Goodbye, Quennin.”

  Veketon rested his head back into the pilot alcove. The air in the cockpit grew hotter, and he awaited his death quietly. A part of him wanted to shout his defiance at the universe, but what good would that do?

  “I wish I had listened to you more,” Veketon said. He shut his eyes, believing those to be his last words. The cockpit air prickled his skin, and sweat beaded on his brow.

  But then something struck the throne with tremendous force, and suddenly Veketon had a vague sense of changed direction followed by rapid motion. Almost immediately, the cockpit’s environmental systems regained control and temperatures returned to a livable norm.

  “What?”

  Veketon checked his available systems. Sure enough, navigational data showed he was now moving out of the plasma vortex. Even stranger, his craft was being shielded from the plasma.

  “What’s going on?”

  Most of the throne’s auxiliary scanner blisters had been vaporized by the plasma vortex, but two remained functional along the throne’s right shoulder. Veketon opened one of them and watched the image form in his mind.

  The entire world roared with white heat, but a winged shadow stood out against the inferno. It couldn’t be an archangel. There was no way one could survive in this.

  Suddenly, the white fury of the plasma vortex vanished, replaced by the black of space and the detritus of the broken Ziggurat ring. The Gate was gone, and the blister’s meager equipment could not locate it.

  The black shadow came into focus, and Veketon’s jaw dropped when he saw it.

  It was an Aktenai seraph!

  Worse, the pilot was Jack Donolon!

  His hypercast array registered an incoming message from the Vengeful Ascendant. He let it through.

  “Venerable master, are you there?” Fuurion asked.

  “Yes, I’m injured but stable.” Veketon studied the Aktenai seraph carrying his throne and added, “For now.”

  “Oh, that is excellent news. We had feared the worst.”

  “What is going on here, Fuurion?”

  “First, I must offer my dee
pest apologies for acting on your behalf without permission. But, I assure you, decisive actions were necessary if we were to save your life.”

  “And Quennin’s?”

  “Ahh… that is… I am not sure. Keeper Elexen has retrieved her throne, but it is in even worse condition than yours.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “I simply don’t know, venerable master. We cannot establish a connection with her throne’s onboard systems.”

  “Yes, of course you can’t. But you said Keeper Elexen pulled her out of the vortex?”

  “Correct. Allow me a moment to explain. Shortly after the battle began, our fleet detected an intra-gate large enough for a seraph, but we failed to detect any craft passing through.”

  “Pilot Daelus.”

  “Yes, that was our analysis as well. It was clear Keeper Elexen’s group was observing the battle’s progress. You were preoccupied with more immediate issues, so I did not inform you.”

  “I see…”

  “After your thrones were disabled and cast into the plasma vortex, the two Disciple seraphs and those creatures fled through the Gate. Shortly after that, the Gate became unstable and broke free of the Ziggurat ring. We are attempting to track its location, but it has accelerated beyond the speed of light. At about the same time the Gate left this star system, Keeper Elexen and several other Alliance seraphs folded into this system.”

  “For what possible reason?”

  “Apparently, Keeper Elexen planned to rescue Quennin S’Kev from the vortex.”

  Veketon shook his head. “Of course. I should have guessed.”

  “I opened a dialogue and proceeded to do what I do best: negotiate.”

  “That was… very quick thinking.”

  “Thank you, venerable master. I am humbled by your praise.”

  “But how did you convince them to help?”

  “I spoke with Keeper Elexen directly. He named the price: the cessation of all hostilities between the Alliance and the Fellerossi. He would also retain you as a prisoner for return to Aktenzek, and there would be no rescue attempts. Given that you had little time to spare, I accepted his terms.”

  “Understandable.”

  “To buy you additional time, I had the fleet open fire on the vortex mechanisms and the gravity rings feeding it. This helped reduce the vortex’s intensity. Venerable master, I hope that you see we did the best we could. Surely imprisonment is preferable to permanent death.”

  “It is, and I commend your actions. Thank you.”

  “It is my pleasure to serve.”

  Jack carried his melted and warped throne into a formation of ten other seraphs. Swords and rail-rifles were out and ready. Seth’s black seraph came into view, and Veketon saw for the first time the remains of Quennin’s throne in his arms.

  It wasn’t even recognizable as a throne anymore, just a charred hunk of the torso with five shriveled extremities that might have once been limbs and a head.

  A metallic gray Earth Nation seraph approached and lit a red chaos dagger. It aimed the blade carefully to the right of his throne’s mangled stomach, then executed a quick, precise thrust. The blade turned his hypercast array to slag, and the connection with Fuurion vanished.

  “Of course,” Veketon said quietly. “You pilots are no fools.”

  Seth raised his portal lance, and the intra-gate snapped into existence. One by one, the seraphs flew into the white disc with Jack carrying Veketon through last.

  The Keeper’s Judgment came into view: a sleek mirror-finish vessel that looked more like a Fellerossi dreadnought than an Aktenai carrier. The seraphs flew underneath and let the ship’s rail catapults connect and raise them into the bays.

  Jack and Seth positioned the thrones underneath bays near the rear of the ship. Robotic arms unfolded from the rail catapults, latched onto each throne’s deformed body, and raised them slowly.

  “What am I going to do?” Veketon whispered to himself. “What can I do?”

  He took a deep breath in an attempt to clear his mind of distractions, but every time he neared a state of focus, an image of Quennin’s dead body appeared.

  “Does any of this matter anymore?”

  Veketon shook his head sadly. He couldn’t concentrate until he knew her fate. He needed to know if she still lived. Nothing else mattered to him.

  He arrived within a bay just large enough to hold the throne. Soft lighting shone across its twisted body and useless extremities. Mnemonic hatches opened along the ceiling, and scores of slender robotic arms descended, each tipped with saws, laser cutters, manipulators, and a plethora of tools for working both mechanical and biological systems.

  Saws switched on and cut through the throne’s internal armor membranes while manipulators pealed back its charred flesh. One by one, the arms severed nerve connections at the neck, in three locations down the spine, and at the base of each appendage. They then inserted thick mnemonic plates into the cuts, separating the neural cables.

  Even if the throne finished regenerating, it would be completely disabled.

  The robotic arms next destroyed the scanner blisters on the right shoulder, removed the half-melted remains of the fold engine and hypercast array, and disabled the two fusion toruses that powered those systems. The cockpit went dark, and ventilation clicked over to backup capacitor power.

  Veketon waited within total darkness, cut off from the rest of the universe, alone with his own tortured thoughts. The imaginary vision of Quennin’s charred body played within his mind over and over again.

  Minutes passed. He did not know how many.

  Suddenly, he heard a muffled hiss. A moment later, brilliant blue light filled the cockpit. Veketon shielded his eyes. The point of light appeared at the top of the throne’s cockpit hatch, then arced around, forming a rough glowing circle.

  Something pulled the circular section back, its edges dripping liquid armor. Jack Donolon raised the thick slab of armor over his head as if it weighed nothing. A sword of blue chaos energy glowed in his left hand.

  “Hey, Vek.”

  Veketon nodded curtly. “Bane Donolon.”

  Jack stood on a thin gangplank connected to the bay ledge. He tossed the armor slab effortlessly away, and it clattered to rest somewhere below in the catapult pit.

  “You know, it’s funny,” Jack said, the sword glowing at his side. “I almost miss hearing you say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “How I don’t have any real power over you. How you’re actually in complete control of the situation. Come on. Say it again, for old time’s sake.”

  “I would, but we both know it’s not true.”

  “Right you are, Vek!” Jack grinned impishly. “So, shall we get straight to the fighting?”

  “Why ask such a ridiculous question?”

  Jack nodded at Veketon’s side.

  Veketon looked down to find his hand clenching the hilt of his sword. He didn’t remember doing that. Slowly, he detached the sheathed sword from his hip and dropped it.

  “There’s no need to fight.” Veketon kicked the sword towards Jack. “I surrender.”

  “Now that’s a bit disappointing.” Jack knocked the sword into the catapult pit. “Are you sure you can’t at least act a little hostile? You know, so I have an excuse to snap your neck like a twig. Seth said I could if you misbehave.”

  “I’d rather you not.”

  “If it’s any encouragement, I’ll make it quick. Honestly, after what you’ve been through, it’d probably feel like a massage.”

  “All the same, I’ll pass.”

  Jack sighed heavily. “Oh, fine. Take all the fun out of this moment.”

  “Would you like me to apologize then? Because your ‘fun’ is clearly so important.”

  “Eh.” Jack shrugged. “Well, let’s get you out of there. Come on out. Slowly.”

  Veketon pushed out of the pilot alcove and put weight on his legs for the first time. His knees gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
>
  “Wow, Vek. Not looking too good there.”

  “I will manage!” Veketon hissed through clenched teeth. He hauled himself upright. “Gah!”

  “Let’s go. Keep moving.”

  Veketon followed Jack across the gangplank and limped onto the bay ledge. A robotic arm approached, the tip covered with bug eye clusters of lenses and scanners. It made two quick loops around him.

  “He’s clean,” a technician behind Jack said. “No weapons detected.”

  “Is Quennin alive?” Veketon asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “And really, I don’t care. We’d be better off with both of you dead. Be glad Seth’s the one in charge and not me.”

  Veketon nodded weakly. He bent over and rested his hands above each knee. “So, what happens now?”

  “Now we decide your fate,” Jack pointed his energy sword at the airlock to the next bay. “Start moving.”

  ***

  Seth hurried out of the medical ward, shaking his head and feeling sick to his stomach. Quennin’s wounds mirrored those her throne had received, and her face had suffered the worst of it. He tried to banish the image of her blackened body on the medical slab, robotic arms moving too fast for the human eye to focus, each swiftly mending flesh that was so mutilated it—

  Seth forced the thoughts away.

  Tesset walked up to him and placed a hand on his arm.

  “Seth?”

  “We have to see Veketon immediately.” He swallowed down some of the rising bile. “Come on. I’ll need you to tell me if he’s lying.”

  “All right,” she said softly.

  Seth led the way down the corridor, and Tesset jogged to catch up before the lift closed. They took it down to the seraph bays where a crowd of technicians, medics, and pilots waited. Veketon stood in the middle of a rough ring of people, his face pale and posture slouched in obvious pain. Jack stood behind him, chaos sword glowing brightly at his side. The giant form of Seth’s seraph towered behind the crowd.

  Jared and Yonu were present on the bay ledge, but the rest of Knight Squadron remained outside the Judgment, fully armed and ready for an attack. Seth doubted a hypercast array had slipped through; Jack hadn’t detected any foreign signals since landing, but Seth wasn’t going to take chances. Words were cheap, especially from a Fellerossi mediator.