Warden's Vengeance

by Tony James Slater

  “Damage aft, lower levels,” a crewman called out. “Multiple hull breaches, all sealed off.”

  “Sydon’s Name!” Àurea rarely cursed using the god of her own people, not wanting to be seen as an outsider, but her time with her parents had brought old habits crashing back. “I want more missiles in the air. Empty the racks! Give them something else to shoot at besides us. Pass that along to the fleet. We might as well sell ourselves dearly; if we don’t get through this blockade, spare missiles won’t make a difference.”

  “Seventeen ships launching spreads,” the comm officer reported. “Twelve ships now fighting boarding actions, but still on active comms. Five more have gone dark.”

  “Damn it! What of our own boarding situation? Where have—”

  “Ma’am!” the young lady called to her. “It’s the Folly… it just grav-jumped away.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Unknown, ma’am. They were taking heavy fire from the second fleet, holding it away from the rest of us. The damage may have been too much for them.”

  “Askarra wouldn’t retreat without warning us. And even Ella would…” she trailed off, as the answer dawned on her. There was only one thing which both women cared about enough to abandon her mid-battle.

  Tristan.

  Somehow, somewhere, that boy had gotten himself in trouble.

  And the strongest ship in her fleet had just vanished to go and help him.

  Àurea wanted to rage and curse, but she managed to keep it under control.

  Just.

  Be calm. Confident. Professional. Like mother…

  Mother!

  Her eyes flicked to the secondary monitors, searching them for a sign of the battle raging inside the ship.

  It wasn’t hard to spot; the corridors on the starboard side were littered with the eviscerated remains of her crew. Cycling through the views on the monitors, she finally came across what she was looking for.

  Sera stood firm amidst a sea of attackers. Her great silver sword flashed back and forth, carving through the mob as it seethed and writhed towards her. Blasters built into her gauntlets blazed, blowing heads and limbs apart with equal ease. Still the mass of twisted bodies came on, heedless of their losses. Sera cut each fresh wave apart, replying on laser fire only when they got too close for her to swing the sword. Even as Àurea watched, a lone Transgressor leaped toward her mother from atop a piece of machinery. Sera caught the monster’s head in her armoured fingers and crushed it like an eggshell.

  Àurea felt her fists tightening in triumph, but the creature’s impact had thrown Sera off balance. Her armour would be equipped with all sorts of stability enhancers, but the horde surged forwards forcing her to give ground. She stumbled on a body behind her and went down, the Transgressors pouring over her like a wave.

  “NO!” Àurea couldn’t stop herself calling out.

  But a shockwave rippled out from beneath the mass of bodies, throwing them back violently. Sera hauled herself back to her feet, bloody but unbowed. Àurea couldn’t see well enough to analyse her injuries, but several sections of her armour had been torn away, the others slashed and buckled. Whatever exotic weapon her mother had just unleashed, it had bought her the time to right herself but nothing more.

  Àurea was forced to tear her gaze away as a fresh contingent of monsters closed on her mother at breakneck speed.

  “What is it?” she snapped at Lantz, whose waving arm had caught her attention.

  “Ma’am, more skiffs have launched on both sides of us! We’re flying through a storm of them!”

  “Gunners?”

  “Too many targets,” one hissed through gritted teeth.

  “We’re hit! Another one has latched on.” Lantz was tapping his display frantically, as though refusing to believe what it was telling him. “Make that two!”

  Àurea’s gaze flicked up to the main viewscreen. They were so close; only a handful of seconds from breaching the blockade. The enemy capital ships were now to either side of them, their fire more sporadic as they concentrated on the ships following her. Still, alarms were flashing all over the ship and damage reports were coming in faster than the bridge technician could plot them. They were in bad shape, no doubt about it — but they were almost through, with a clear run to Helicon Prime…

  And then her eyes found their way past the flotsam and jetsam of battle debris and landing craft, to the two circular patches of pure darkness dead ahead. A stray flash of laser light illuminated them briefly, winking off the tips of weapon batteries already deployed.

  Sanctuaries…

  Two of them.

  In the chaos of the battle, she’d forgotten just how badly they’d been outnumbered. Fear of the Folly may have driven them off, but with the deadly battle station out of the picture, these two had slotted themselves into backstop position.

  And from what Àurea knew of their capabilities, either one of them had enough firepower to end this revolution for good.

  Or for evil.

  She couldn’t help it. As the full hopelessness of their situation revealed itself, her eyes drifted down to the monitor where her mother fought alone against impossible odds. The sword was gone, but defiance was evident in every move Sera made. Her armour spat sparks now as well as laser blasts, but still she hosed the corridor ahead of her with fire.

  A fresh group of Transgressors had shown up behind her, and Àurea felt the urge to scream a warning. Sera was not some green cadet however, and she turned to face the newcomers just as they struck. The blades on her gauntlets punched in, ripping the first pair of bodies in half, before laser blasts flashed out to finish the rest of them. In seconds, she had taken out half a dozen of the creatures — but Àurea knew that many more were incoming. It was a losing battle; a war of attrition against a single person.

  Her gaze returned to the main viewscreen, where the Sanctuaries had grown large enough that more details could be discerned.

  Their weapon hatches were open, with missiles already in the air.

  Her gunners had switched targets, wiping out the closest munitions before they could detonate, but at the expense of shooting the boarding skiffs. Another two of these had latched on, the tac display warned her; one perilously close to the bridge.

  The inner battle was lost as surely as the outer. It was just a matter of which one finished first.

  Squeezing her eyes tight shut against the pain of loss, she drew breath to shout an order.

  Abandon ship.

  It was their only hope of survival.

  Perhaps some of them could still make the escape pods…

  But the words stuck in her throat. Tears sprang into her eyes and she swiped them away. They distorted her view; for a second she’d thought they were facing three Sanctuaries, not two.

  But as she blinked the moisture away, the third silhouette refused to disappear. It was more ragged than the others, the sleek black coating stripped back to reveal great silvery sections of hull. And from one side of it extended a long, slender barrel…

  And as she stared at it a bright white beam lanced out, skewering the Sanctuary next to it with a power unlike anything she’d ever witnessed.

  “The Folly!” Lantz cried. “They must have micro-jumped all the way around the battlefield!”

  The beam erupted from the opposite side of the stricken battle station, shooting out to stab into the second one. For long moments both spheres hung on that incandescent spike, transfixed by the energy boring through them.

  Àurea’s jaw fell open, even as her heart pounded in her chest. That single shot had accounted for not one, but two of the most powerful ships left in the battle. Already the first Sanctuary was listing, internal explosions sending tongues of flame and showers of debris out into space. The second was turning to bring its weapons to bear, but with every degree of rotation the massive beam carved further into its hull. A great jet of plasma arced out as something went critical inside, and the whole sphere collapsed in on itself, consumed in a fi
reball so bright she had to shade her eyes.

  “Call from the Folly,” the comm officer announced, as the first Sanctuary went the way of its compatriot.

  “Yes, yes!” Àurea was breathless with an agonising mix of hope and fear.

  A pale, red-headed girl appeared on the viewscreen, the wide expanse of the Folly’s bridge behind her. “Hello there,” she grinned, not sounding nearly as smug as she deserved to be. “Did you miss me?”

  Àurea forced herself to appear calm before replying. “Good to see you, Eleanor, and thank-you! I was afraid you’d been forced to withdraw. That the Folly was too damaged to fight.”

  “We’ve taken a few licks, but the old girl is holding on,” Ella said. “I had to keep schtum about the disappearing act, in case the Church was listening in.”

  “Then I’m grateful for your cleverness as well as your lasers! But I’m afraid Tenacity has taken a lot of damage, and we have boarders running rampant inside.”

  “I know what you mean,” Ella frowned. “There’s a lot of that going around.”

  “Can you help the other ships? Break that blockade!”

  Ella ran a hand through her fiery locks. “Between you and me, that last shot squeezed every drop of juice out of this place. Two-for-one is a good price, but I don’t know as it’ll ever fire again.”

  Àurea’s face fell. “So you can’t…?”

  “We’ll do what we can, milady. But much as I’d like to, I can’t win this battle for you.”

  Àurea straightened, feeling the hands of Fate on her. “You don’t have to. Just keep them off us long enough for me to hit the Temple.”

  “Alright then, I’ll see what I can do. Nice chatting with you!”

  And the call cut off.

  “Helm!” Àurea shouted. “Get us to Helicon Prime, now!”

  “I’ll try,” called the pilot, “but our engines have been hit pretty bad.”

  “Tactical!” Àurea yelled, choosing to ignore that warning. “Status of the fleet?”

  “Yes ma’am.” Lantz’s tone was bleak. “Only twelve ships remain. All but two are formed up behind us, but all have sustained heavy damage.”

  “And their fleet?”

  Lantz tapped his console. “Debris and derelicts are too widespread to be accurate, but at least thirty vessels destroyer-sized and up remain. The second fleet is still behind us, coming fast; their count is close to double that size.”

  Àurea’s heart skipped a beat. “We can’t win then.”

  Ensign Lantz shook his head. “I’m sorry. Not a chance.”

  Which means we can’t survive. We just have to hope we can take the bastards with us…

  Àurea turned away from him. Despair washed over her, and she hung her head.

  She was so preoccupied with her shattered dreams that she almost didn’t see her mother fall.

  But she’d glanced down at the monitor, while her mind reeled with thoughts of how close she’d come to victory.

  And on the screen, she saw a nightmare of mutilated flesh stalking her mother from behind. Sera was heavily engaged, her weapons obviously depleted, fighting hand to hand. The monsters swarmed in, a fresh load from one of the newly-arrived skiffs. Sera met them head on, her blades flashing, and for a moment it looked like she would prevail. But then the nightmare struck her back, some kind of powered spear stabbing into her so hard it came out through her abdomen. Àurea saw her mother roar with pain, even as she killed the massive creature on her backswing. But the momentary gap in defence was all that was needed. The Transgressors in front leapt on her, bearing her to the ground. Their hideous blades rose and fell as they scrabbled around on top of her, flashing up coated in blood.

  The wind left Àurea’s lungs. She didn’t even have the breath to cry out, as another huge monstrosity with a flamethrower embedded in his torso staggered into view, blanketing the whole corridor with a sheet of fire.

  Àurea stared on horrified, willing her mother to struggle up, to somehow fight her way free — but no.

  The flames engulfed the writhing forms in their moment of triumph, incinerating everything in sight.

  A second later, the camera lens exploded, plunging Àurea’s screen into darkness.

  Along with her soul.

  Shock hit her like an avalanche.

  The bridge noise swelled up, deafening, as her vision blurred. She was falling, endlessly falling, and the cold blackness of space reached out to claim her.

  A dull thudding grew inside her head, drowning out all rational thought.

  Her pain throbbed in time to it.

  Shaking, pulsing…

  Heartbeat? The word came to her unbidden. Her eyes were open.

  I can see… She blinked. I’m still alive then.

  And the loss hit her again, a fresh wave of grief that threatened to drown her.

  Gone… she’s gone… And I’m alone.

  Her mind rebelled against the thought.

  “Ma’am? Ma’am!”

  In a rush, the world snapped back into focus.

  The comm officer had risen from his chair and was shaking her.

  She was on the bridge of a starship. Alive, but not for long. Alarms warbled, and the thudding of her heart still drowned out everything else.

  “MA’AM!” It was Lantz this time, the young ensign pushing the comm officer aside. “Ma’am we need you.”

  She followed his gesture, to see Captain Nikolau curled up in the command chair, his head between his knees as he rocked back and forth, crying softly.

  More than anything right now, she wanted to do the same.

  But seeing his example spurred something inside her.

  Her mother had just died a hero.

  There was no way she was going to dishonour her memory.

  “Helm!” she called out, her voice ragged. “Position?”

  “Coming up on orbit ma’am.” Relief flowed through the man’s voice. “But I’m not sure we can manoeuvre well enough to fight when we reach the Temple Mount. Their air defences will—”

  “We won’t fight them,” Àurea said, the words burning in her mouth. “When we reach the Temple, we’ll ram this warship right down their throats.”

  No-one spoke for a second, though the sirens and the pounding continued.

  Then the crew sprang into action as though waking from a dream.

  Àurea glanced around at them, feeling a sudden surge of pride. Every one of them had signed up to fight for their people’s freedom; now, without a single question, every one of them had agreed to die for it.

  We do not fear the darkness…

  Because through it, we will bring new light.

  “And what the hell is that banging?” she asked, turning to look at the doors.

  Only to realise, with a sickening clench of her stomach, what the source was.

  Transgressors…

  They were right outside.

  Which meant her handful of guardians were dead.

  Already the bridge doors were bowing under the onslaught, as repeated strikes from the far side made them tremble.

  We’re not going to make it.

  Thrusting that thought aside, she did her best to regain control. “Fleet status?” she rasped.

  “Two more ships down,” Lantz told her. “The second fleet is closing in. At this rate, they’ll reach us before we hit the surface.”

  Àurea shrugged off the news as irrelevant. They were all going to die anyway. Only one thing mattered.

  “And what is that?” She pointed at the viewscreen, where two structures had appeared in front of them, outlined in red by the tac-display.

  Someone gasped. “Orbital guns! It’s the planet’s defence grid!”

  Àurea stared at the viewscreen, her mind frozen solid. How had she forgotten? All the Prime Planets had a defence network.

  No, I didn’t forget, she corrected herself.

  But she’d been a little busy…

  And honestly, truly, she’d never believed they would
get this far.

  “Weapons!” She called desperately.

  “Offline, ma’am!” a gunner apologised. “The damage we’ve sustained is too great to…”

  Àurea didn’t hear him.

  Her attention was fixed on the end — on the picture on the viewscreen, of two enormous defence batteries, the muzzles of their gigantic barrels pointed right at her.

  She wondered if she should close her eyes.

  And then the guns exploded.

  Not firing; just exploded.

  One went first, detonating like a bomb went off inside it, then a moment later the other followed.

  Àurea blinked.

  Where a second ago there had been two massive, space-borne guns, now there was only an expanding cloud of gas and debris.

  What the hell just happened?

  “Ma’am?” The comm officer’s tone was disbelief. “Message from… something called ‘Loader’? Shall I—”

  “On screen!” Àurea yelled at him.

  The view didn’t change; obviously there was no vid or holo component to the signal.

  But the audio was music to her ears.

  “Apologies for the delay My Lady,” Loader drawled, “but I stand ready to assist you.”

  “What did you do to those guns? Was it sabotage?”

  “Negative. But rest assured, I will do the same to any ships that continue to threaten you.”

  “The fleet!” she croaked. Her voice had gone hoarse from emotional overload. “Save the fleet!”

  “As you wish.”

  And the signal cut out.

  Hope flared within her; that against all odds, they could really achieve this. Whatever that thing was out there, it was controlled by her father’s quirky talos. That had to mean the man himself was close, and when that happened, anything was possible.

  The tactical display flared with updates, and one of the bridge crew brought up a different feed on the viewscreen. Behind them, ships were exploding like firecrackers at a wedding. Some kind of glittering blue missile could be glimpsed in between explosions, pausing now and then as though choosing between targets, before blasting off to smash through yet another Church warship. Already, half the enemy fleet was in flames. But much as she would have loved to stay and watch, Àurea didn’t need to see any more.