Warden's Vengeance

by Tony James Slater

  So glad you did your nails, he sent to her through their telepathic link. Otherwise we might not have made that.

  He sensed the laughter in her response. You have no idea.

  Communicating via what Kyra called the Gift had been getting easier for Tris. Whether it had anything to do with his invasive treatment at the hands of Gerian and his Assessors he didn’t know, but ever since breaking out of the Tower he’d found his control of the Gift improving. Now it felt almost as natural as talking — and it was much faster. He no longer felt the need to wear the strange, psychic-blocking pendant he’d inherited from his dad.

  Although that did leave him open to all kinds of intrusions.

  Another voice entered his head, strong but smooth, unmistakably alien and kind of slimy. Your progress is impressive for one so tiny. It makes me so proud I want to sit on you.

  Luckily, the mental image accompanying that message was of a transparent egg being brooded over. Otherwise there could have been serious room for confusion. Conversations with The Empress were conducted entirely through the Gift, as her species wasn’t capable of human-like speech. Tris was getting used to that, as well…

  Mostly.

  We might need a hand — or a tentacle, if you can spare one, he sent back to her. We’re heading for the surface in an unarmed shuttle.

  I am aware of that. My compatriots are hastening back to escort you. Fear not! This is not the day you see your insides spilled out in front of you.

  I’m… I’m glad to hear you say that. I think.

  Kyra had overheard, obviously. She was chuckling quietly.

  “What?” he asked her.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just, you do that thing when you’re having these conversations; you close your eyes and scrunch your forehead up. It’s adorable. Only, don’t do it in the middle of a firefight, alright?”

  “As if I would!”

  “Yeah? Then don’t do it when you’re visiting the bathroom, either. I’m sick of cleaning up after you.”

  The squid-like Siszar nestships had been busy wiping out enemy fighters while Tris and the others prepared to launch. Now they arced back to swirl around the shuttle in a protective pattern. Sensor readings showed there were eleven of them now — definitely more than they’d started out with. Either they were breeding in mid-flight, or the Empress was getting more popular.

  More have joined our cause, she confirmed, and mating is far too dangerous to carry out inside a ship.

  Tris filed that away under ‘Too Much Information’, and concentrated on their destination.

  With fragments of the main docking bay swirling through the space surrounding it, Àurea pointed towards a crater in the planetoid’s barren surface. Tris guessed that the Pit had several different entrances; the one Kyra guided their shuttle into must have been built for the governor to come and go without having to hike through the entire facility. Cloaked in shadow beneath the rim of the crater, the narrow opening didn’t seem to have been noticed by the enemy. Kyra brought them in worryingly fast, given that she was relying on hand-signals from Àurea for direction.

  It’s called ‘combat speed’, she admonished him.

  Ugh! Stop listening to my thoughts!

  Then stop thinking so damn loud.

  Bare rock walls slid past, though thankfully with plenty of room to spare. Wayfinder would have been threading the needle at this point, so perhaps ALI had done them a favour by stealing her.

  I’d avoid mentioning that to Kreon, if I were you.

  Damn it Kyra!

  She chuckled again, and spun the shuttle 180 degrees before touching down with hardly a tremor.

  Hey! Not bad, he told her.

  Listen kid, if I want you inside me, I’ll ask for it.

  What? No, I was just…

  She unbuckled her restraints, pulling herself out of the seat in front of him. “Relax, Tris. I’m just messing with you.”

  “Yeah, I knew that,” he muttered.

  He wasn’t quite sure when Kyra had figured out precisely how to make him so uncomfortable, but he did know that it was fast becoming her favourite hobby.

  “Weapons hot,” Sera growled from behind them. She was already headed down the exit ramp, cradling another rifle from the Folly’s stores. On her back, a giant silver sword glistened like something from a fairy-tale.

  Tris had seen that sword do too much damage to dismiss it as an eccentricity.

  Kreon was last to leave the shuttle, bringing up the rear for a change. Àurea led the way, her mother close behind, with the rest of them forming a loose group behind them. The wide corridor was the nicest Tris had seen in the base; pale stone, glass-smooth and glittering, with veins of silver writhing through it as though alive. Light seemed to come from the walls themselves, not that he had spare time to test that theory.

  He almost missed a step when his comm gave a loud crackle, and Ella’s antique London accent came through the speaker.

  “Tris! I’m so sorry! ALI just took flight without warning, there was nowt I could do.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” he said, trying to project a confidence he wasn’t quite feeling. “I’m here with Kreon, Kyra and Sera.”

  “Okay,” she said, not sounding convinced. “If there’s any fighting, please stay at the back!”

  Tris glanced around, painfully aware that everyone’s comms were connected; the others could hear this conversation too. “I’ll, um… I’ll be fine,” he repeated, lamely.

  “Okay.” She still wasn’t happy, he could tell, but then neither was he. Why do we keep getting separated like this? It’s not fair!

  “I love you, Tris. Please come back safe.”

  “I love you too,” he said. And winced.

  Luckily, all he got was the inevitable eye-roll from Kyra. The others took themselves too seriously to break their focus at a time like this.

  When a heavy airlock-style door presented itself, he took a tighter grip on his rifle and turned to scan the corridor behind them. He had to get his mind back in the game. There could be anything beyond that door. The biggest problem with wearing a fully armoured suit, he decided, was not being able to wipe your palms when they got sweaty.

  A muffled clunk came from the door, and it slid open.

  Àurea led them into a decompression chamber with an identical door on the far side. She cycled the chamber, closing the first door and allowing air from inside the Pit to fill the space, before opening the second one.

  Beyond it was a foyer, the deck and ceiling lined with metal.

  “This is it,” Àurea said. “There are no more barriers between us and the invaders. Whatever soldiers the Church sent in here, we will encounter them shortly.”

  Tris swallowed and checked the power level on his rifle. It was an unconscious habit, but no-one seemed to have noticed.

  “Still air in here,” Kyra commented, as they moved off.

  This foyer was familiar, Tris realised. The door on the far side was the entrance to Àurea’s quarters, where she’d revealed her identity to them one at a time.

  “When they breached the docking bay, they left the magnetic shield functioning,” Kreon predicted.

  “That’s good, right?” Tris said. “At least if we get a hole in our suits, we won’t suffocate.”

  “Your optimism is misplaced,” the Warden replied. “Soldiers of the Church operate in fully-sealed armour, much like our own. Lack of atmosphere would be to their advantage.”

  Whatever. Tris had always been a big fan of having air around him.

  They reached the Atrium and stopped.

  It was in ruins. Bodies lay strewn like rag-dolls in all directions. Weapons and rubble littered the ground; smoke billowed from a dozen fires, including the central forest which was blackened and smouldering. Ash drifted in the air, settling on their armour and floating down to coat the blood-soaked pathways.

  The shock of it was too much. When Tris had last seen this place, it had been a lush green parkland, wi
th happy couples strolling hand in hand past groups of children taking lessons on the grass.

  Kreon was the first to speak. “We’re too late.”

  “No!” Àurea shook her head frantically. “That’s not possible! The battle outside is still underway. Over a thousand of my best fighters were stationed here — the Church cannot have overcome them so quickly.”

  Kreon lifted a gloved hand and pointed. “There is your answer.”

  A short distance away, the naked torso of a man could be seen, his sweat-slicked muscles gleaming in the Atrium’s artificial sunlight.

  But he had no hands.

  And no face.

  Instead, curved blades protruded like talons from the stumps of his wrists.

  The front of his head was a piece of curved black steel, with a single hole bored in it for a sensor feed.

  Another body lay beneath the first, with huge spikes protruding from its chest. Not the cause of death; those spikes had been surgically implanted, whilst the recipient was still alive.

  “Transgressors,” Àurea breathed.

  Tristan’s heart skipped a beat. His stomach was clenching, and a sliver of cold slid down his back.

  “They killed them all…” the resistance leader stared around, her horrified expression revealing the scared girl within.

  Tris felt sick.

  A dull clank echoed around the Atrium, followed by a series a clicks, like the tapping legs of a mechanical spider.

  “We are not alone,” Kreon said darkly.

  And with a roar like an avalanche in a junkyard, the Transgressors came for them.

  2

  When the mass of mutilated bodies boiled out of the nearest tunnel mouth, Kyra was already moving.

  She had to get clear of the others, if only by a little way.

  She knew Kreon would be hanging back to cover Tris, the pair of them pumping shot after shot into the approaching horde in the hope of thinning their numbers before they arrived.

  It was a futile tactic, but Kreon would know that. The wily old bastard had fought these things before and lived to tell the tale; he should have some kind of game plan.

  Hopefully it’s not me, she thought.

  She fought best alone.

  She instantly abandoned any thoughts of using her own rifle; sheer instinct told her there were too many, and they moved too fast for it to make a difference.

  Better by far to be ready when the wave broke.

  Her Arranozapar swords were coiled around the waist of her suit, and they reacted to her mental command to loosen. If she’d still been a beginner with the blades, operating them by the subtle pressures of her hands on the hilts, fighting in armoured gloves would be impossible.

  Luckily, Kyra was an expert.

  Her fighting style was unique, a throwback to the earliest days of her people. At one time, mastery of the flexible, ribbon-like swords was considered the highest expression of devotion to the ancient star-gods they worshipped.

  These days the art was all but extinct. Kyra had trained one last class of youngsters before leaving her homeworld, and had a vague hope that some of them had learned enough to pass it on — but it wasn’t like she was going back there anytime soon. Eventually the art would die out, unless she found a person worthy of truly teaching it to.

  A daughter? She snorted at the prospect.

  Not much chance for procreation. I’ll be dead in the next five minutes.

  The screaming, seething mass of flesh and metal thundered closer.

  Shots rang out, as her friends began their desperate defence.

  It wouldn’t work.

  But they were good people. Good people to die with.

  Then again, if anyone can pull this out of the fire…

  She cracked half a smile. She’d fought with a lot of different teams in a lot of different places. Not everyone in the group behind her was here by choice, but between them they had enough skill and raw power to end civilisations.

  And they’ll need it.

  She shook her arms, the Arranozapar continuing the motion to ripple like flags, and smiled again.

  She had a fair bit of skill herself.

  The first group of monstrosities cleared the trees and raced towards her. Kyra braced herself, one leg back for support, and swung the sword in her right hand. As it came up its length tripled, then doubled again, becoming thinner as it extended until it was closer to wire. As she swept it up, the razor-sharp point sliced into the chin of the closest Transgressor, meeting no resistance. The blade travelled on up through the creature’s brain, killing it instantly, before telescoping back to normal size as its sister blade swung in to replace it.

  The group didn’t hesitate for a second. Like wolves scenting blood they threw themselves forward, covering the ground at a dead run.

  She lashed out again, with both swords this time. At closer range she couldn’t miss; two heads came off and rolled, their bodies crashing to the earth and tripping up the creatures behind them.

  The others were on her in a flash.

  They reached for her with claws — with shiny steel talons, with rusty blades, with knives for fingers. She leapt back, conceding a few feet to get more space around her.

  Damn it!

  She’d misjudged their speed — Sydon’s Name these things were fast! They came on without pause, without any semblance of thought for their own protection. Without any thought at all, as far as she could tell. Even her Gift, which had kept her alive in many a battle by telegraphing the intentions of her foes, was silent. Rage, hatred and pain boiled out of these creatures; she’d had to tune it out, but could get no thoughts from them beyond their overwhelming desire to kill.

  Tris was another matter entirely.

  The heat of his Gift was like a roaring flame burning a hole in her brain. Adrenaline fed his mind the way it boosted his muscles, the result being a barrage of sights and emotions he probably didn’t realise he was transmitting.

  She gritted her teeth and did her best to ignore him as she strove to enter the flow-state she needed. The monsters gave her not a second to spare, and she slashed at them as she sprang away again, killing two more in the blink of an eye.

  They moved as one, more akin to a pack of rats than individuals, but she’d managed to gain the breathing room she needed. One sword flashed up, its tip carving through a Transgressor’s chest; the other swept back, in perfect balance…

  And it was on.

  She’d performed this dance a thousand times, a ritual that had been with her since childhood. Well, since the abrupt end of her childhood, anyway. The sequence of movements flowed seamlessly from one to the next, her swords a lethal blur around her. Every angle was addressed in turn; the millennia-dead master who conceived this form could not have imagined such a perfect scenario for it. Arranozapar whipped past her face, swirling outwards in spirals, shredding her attackers as fast as they came.

  Any normal enemy would stop, would back up, would try to block one of her attacks or wait for their opportunity to strike. The Transgressors showed no such inclination, racing forwards onto her blades as though they’d rather die than wait one more second to strike.

  And die they did, in droves.

  But it was not enough.

  Even though her execution of the form was perfect; even though every move she made was flawless.

  It was after all, a training exercise. Meant to demonstrate all the possible attacks, and how they meshed together indefinitely.

  But keeping it up indefinitely was impossible.

  After a few short minutes, Kyra was breathing heavily. Sweat soaked her back and dripped into her eyes. Her shoulders burned from the effort, as her attackers scaled the pile of bodies to come at her from above. She was forced to break flow, to dance back a few metres into open ground…

  And a cyborg monstrosity with hammers for hands threw itself at her from atop the mound.

  She brought both arms up to protect herself, killing the thing in mid-air, but noth
ing could stop the weight of it from bearing her to the ground. She gasped in pain as she landed badly, her helmet smacking off one of the permacrete walkways.

  The dead thing on top of her still writhed, its trap-like jaw snapping as she struggled to heave it off her. It was heavy, and in all her years of combat she’d never chosen to be augmented. Strong as she was, she was limited by her build; the man on top of her must have weighed twice what she did, even before some sick bastard filled him full of metal.

  She drew her legs under her, making the tough choice to abandon her swords. The body’s bulk was protecting her for the time being, but it wouldn’t last. She needed this thing off her now.

  Tris! She sent out, not bothering to hide the panic. Little help?

  We’re pinned! His reply was frantic. In a flash she saw his predicament; fighting more conventionally than her, he’d been forced to give ground. He was now backed up against the Atrium’s soaring rock wall, with Kreon and Sera either side of him.

  But where’s—?

  And with a yell, someone wrenched the body off her.

  Kyra squinted in the sudden light, groping for her swords with both hands.

  A towering form clad in black armour stood over her, chain-weapons already weaving back and forth too fast to follow.

  Retracting her swords, Kyra rolled up onto her shoulders and flipped to her feet.

  Àurea’s attack had thinned the herd of Transgressors, biting into them from an unexpected direction. Kyra glanced at her sideways and did a double-take; the girl’s head had been replaced by a nightmarish hologram of decomposing flesh.

  “Spare Ingumen uniform,” she explained, as though she’d felt Kyra’s questioning gaze. “Boosts strength. Boosts everything! Plus, it’s comfy in here.”

  Kyra shook her swords out, facing off against the next knot of attackers. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Mum sent me to my quarters. She wouldn’t let me fight.”

  Kyra couldn’t help grinning. “No offence or anything, but that woman is insane.”

  * * *