Star Angel: Prophecy

by David G. McDaniel

  Arguments rose in his throat, protests and demands, but his mind veered to the most absurd part of what she implied.

  “You’ll never get him to an arena,” he felt thwarted even to be taking this up. But it made absolutely no sense to even expect that, and yet Cee’s confidence was absolute. Why? How?

  And this, he realized, was what she’d been harboring.

  “I’ve discovered something,” she said mysteriously, and from the shift in her expression he knew at once he should be worried. He tried not to be as she went on: “We’ve completed our evaluation of you and your precious Horus,” she said and turned. She walked a little bit away from him on the bridge, talking as she went. Behind him on the screen the riders continued their race, converging on a spot that would now, quite likely, coincide with Horus and the girl. Meanwhile, Cee unveiled a nightmare. “I thought to tell you earlier, but until now I’ve not seen any reason to do so.” She stopped and turned to face him, now several pointless steps away. Still, it created the effect he was sure she was after. “We’ve found a wavelength and a type of energy that, when applied, will lock you both.”

  The Raza!

  He almost killed her right there.

  “It sends a conflicting set of impulses to your very cells,” she continued talking, “causing you, or Horus, to hold in place. Your muscles, in effect, become their own enemy.”

  It was the Raza, of course. He knew exactly what she described, and while he also knew he’d managed to overcome it when used by the Dominion, he had no idea to what degree the Kel had developed or even perfected it.

  He tried hard not show any reaction. Anger had passed from his expression, he knew, and he turned a flicker of doubt as quickly as he could to derision, hoping he managed at least to look unconcerned.

  “We had a field such as you describe. We called it the Raza. It no longer works on me.”

  Now Cee seemed taken a little off guard, though she, too, recovered. “I do not intend to use it on you,” she most probably lied. Then, mustering bravado she might not have felt: “But I will. Do not think I’ll not keep you in line by any means necessary.”

  It was a standoff, like so many before, only this time instead of intangible barriers, like what would he do if he simply killed the Kel before him and tried to strike out on his own, or how he would find his way to their respect and have them follow him, or what he would do against millions of them to get what he wanted … this time there was a very clear weapon they had at their disposal that could, in theory, stop him.

  He could tell the queen wasn’t bluffing.

  “As I said,” he repeated carefully, “it won’t work on me. They tried. On my homeworld.” Then, before she could argue the point: “But it might work on Horus. I’ve changed. He hasn’t.”

  For a long breath of time she was silent. No one else spoke. The sounds on the bridge were mechanical only.

  Cee drew herself straight. “We will see,” she summarized the moment. Then, as if with an unexpected change of heart, decided to remind him they were on the same side: “Either way you will have him,” she said. “If the field does not work, you will have him now. Finish your feud right here, on this world. If it works, I will use him to squeeze what I need from the girl. In that case you will have him after.

  “Horus will be yours.”

  Interestingly, it was enough.

  She turned to the crew on the bridge.

  “Prepare to land.”

  **

  Jessica’s skin was crawling. It had been since they caught sight of the massive Kel dreadnought, flagship of the Kel Queen—the very person Jess was now certain had been driving this competing quest to find the Codes. It was the Queen, Cee Ranok, who put the Bok in charge. It was she who brought them close under her wing, hoping to glean everything they knew. Expecting them to have clues. Obviously Cee had been after the same thing.

  The ancient Amkradus.

  Well, thought Jess, trying to muster fleeting confidence as she stared in wide-eyed terror at the monstrous black machine filling the distant sky, I won. She imagined the Kel Queen somewhere within those millions of tons of advanced metal.

  “Go back.” Zac was still trying. They were heading further from the city, now well clear, on the open plain, walking steadily.

  “Zac.” She stopped and turned him to face her, speaking rationally even as her mind screamed at her to just listen and what the hell was she thinking?

  Run!

  “This is the way this goes,” she told him, searching his eyes. “Don’t ask me how I know, but I do. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “Jess … ”

  “This is about to happen,” she gathered herself. “This is my destiny, my fate, and we will come out the other side.” She made herself believe it. It was getting harder by the second. This was just the next inevitable moment, but as it evolved and the ship drew close and the scrubby plain seemed to expand all around her into terrifying, vulnerable openness … Grand Destiny Aesha fought not to recede behind powerful flashes of fear—fighting the urge to turn it all over to Teen Jessica’s desperate plea for reason and just get the hell out of there. Listen to Zac for God’s sake!

  Run.

  She noticed his attention had been pulled to something else. Something out on the distant plain.

  “What are they doing?” His gaze narrowed. She followed, seeing nothing at first. Then … a thin line of dust, swirling along the horizon beneath the dreadnought.

  Galloping horses.

  Lots of them.

  Cheops.

  No.

  She and Zac turned as one to face that direction. It was at first hard to tell where the dreadnought was in relation to the riders, then, as the minutes unspooled, they could see the horses were out front, just barely, being tailed, in a sense, and in no time they’d closed the final distance and spotted Jess and Zac and were adjusting their approach and thundering up, Cheops in the lead.

  His face was set with a foolish grin as he closed.

  “Ho, priestess!”

  His horse came to a snorting stop, hooves beating the ground in place for a few more steps after the terrific run. Jess stared up at him in disbelief; all around at the others, arriving and gathering near.

  This couldn’t be.

  “Why did you come?”

  Cheops glanced at the ship high in the air, still half a mile away and hundreds of feet up. Due to the immensity of it, from that perspective it looked close enough to touch. “We assumed they are your enemies.” His horse shifted nervously, snorting and moving, flanks heaving from the rush to get there. The entire group of horses and men were moving in place, pumped from the charge and ready for what came next.

  “They are,” she said. “But there’s nothing you can do. Go back.” Would the Kel even let them? She had the idea the queen had simply followed Cheops and his men, seeing if they might somehow lead her to her prize. As a result the Fist had sealed their own fate. Jess cursed their ignorance. Because of their exuberant effort to help or to warn her they were going to die.

  “You’re in danger, my priestess.” Why was he now so eager to help? His allegiance had swung entirely the other way and now, as a result, he and all the rest were ready to face an impossible foe. As if to confirm this he said proudly: “We are here for you.” Chest out and sitting tall, incredible muscles and intimidating visage on a mighty horse of war, black armor and massive, bludgeoning weapons that could crack a skull in one swing, unafraid and ready to take up the fight in her name and yet so pathetically nothing, all of them; just more lives to be lost as he continued valiantly: “You formed us long ago to protect you. We are here for you, my priestess. We stand at your side.” She was getting such a sense of fulfilled honor from him, from all of them, and it made her want to bawl. They were so glad to have made it, to have simply made it, in time, to be there, by her side, to be able to be there and execute their ages old promise for their priestess. Whatever the con
sequences.

  It was killing her.

  “You don’t understand,” she tried to make them, any within earshot, knowing she never would. Knowing it didn’t matter anyway. Not now. “You can do nothing against this.”

  Then, to her surprise, Cheopses’ expression shifted and he was more human than he’d ever been. As if, until then, he’d just been talking from behind a veneer of bluster and forced bravado. Being the primitive warrior he pretended to be, big muscles and booming voice, hearty tales of feats of power, sporting enough facial hair to scare children, living the role, and as he smiled his eyes sparkled within that visage and he spoke as honestly as he ever had.

  “You think we don’t know that?” The smile that turned his lips beneath that jutting forest of a beard held real humor in it. “We die here today. But there are things that must be done. Think.” And his eyes sparkled impossibly more, like they’d come alive with little lights. “If we hide, what then? Maybe we live. But what would our days be like? Ah. But here,” he looked around, at his men, primed and straining for action, at the great black mass in the sky that just kept getting bigger, “here we die with purpose. Filled with it! Our lives, our whole existence, brought into being in one glorious moment. History is made by such deeds. Such days, such courage as this. One day we die. That much is inevitable. Everyone dies. But do you die on your knees? Or do you die on your feet? In the saddle, fully alive and facing your enemy.

  “We do this with full intent,” his horse shifted closer, responding to the subtle body language he was broadcasting. “We will protect you,” his voice was unyielding. “We will give you every second of our lives, and in so doing send you forward to your success. Your day does not end here, my priestess. Ours may. Ours likely will.

  “Yours does not.”

  He shifted around, pulling a little away, casting his gaze high and holding it, eyes locked to the destiny before them. “I ask only one thing.”

  The moment stretched. Zac knew nothing of what they said, speaking as they were in Kel, and when no more words were spoken she caught the silence and said, voice dry:

  “Anything.”

  He looked down, that same, wry smile shaping the hair of his face.

  “Tell our story.”

  For a still longer moment she couldn’t respond. How many more must die because of her? With a heart-rending ache, one that could never be healed, she despaired that everyone just be left alone. The Fist, Galfar, Arclyss and the people of the Necrops, Earth, Anitra, Zac and all who had suffered and had yet to die and everyone and … just let it fall to her. Let her be the one. Like Jesus or something, and for a flash of lucidity, stark in its intensity, standing there on that field of imminent death, she understood what that meant. Preached at her throughout her whole life, that story of ultimate sacrifice, never really getting it, and now she finally did. It overwhelmed her. The point of that thing she’d so often failed to understand, why a god—and she was no god but for that briefest of instants she had the insight of one—why a god would sacrifice himself so fully, so utterly, giving all of himself so others could be free. So others would not have to suffer. And here, now, if she could do just that, if she could take the place of everyone, of anyone who’d already died or would die this day, here or on Earth or anywhere in this fight, if she could die for them instead, she would. And as the comprehension of it blew her out of her head she understood at last what it meant to make that sacrifice. And how readily she would do it. The love she felt for her fellow man in that instant was transcendent, and it nearly made her weep. There was nothing she could do.

  This was her fate. She made this moment, she alone, and the fact that others must be hurt because of it was suddenly more than she could bear. She looked at Cheops and his band of merry men, big beards puffing in the wind, hard-eyed and ready to die. For her.

  It was too much.

  But there was no time for that now. The crisp edge of the dreadnought’s shadow finally crept across them, covering the ground with its irregular outline, far and wide, blotting out the sun as it began to descend.

  She pulled herself tall. Reached and drew her sword, glinting blue in the last of the sunlight. Taking a deep breath she looked up at Cheops, sitting ready on his horse.

  And told him what he wanted to hear.

  “I will.”

  CHAPTER 58: OVER

  Eldron was trying to stay out of the blow-by-blow calls of the chaotic starship battle. After Voltan’s removal he’d been kicked back to his usual position, making him once more commander of his heavy cruiser and nothing else, no collateral responsibilities, but communications among the fleet were flying and he was engaged in his share of coordination. At least among the rapidly changing formations in his zone of action.

  The humans were giving them a run for their money.

  Perhaps it had to do with a new way of thinking. For generations the Kel had no outside enemy, since the Fall, after the Great Wars, fighting only among themselves, concocting scenarios with no real objective view of what might be, nothing on which to base their staged conflicts. Now here were adversaries, somehow and quite obviously trained on the use of the Kel ships, learning better as each instant of battle progressed, injecting wild variables into the Kel’s suite of tactics and creating a form of combat that was at once reckless and, Eldron had to admit, challenging.

  His attention was in constant motion. Trained on the main screen, back to the smaller screens at his station, showing a slew of readouts, then back to the main and around again. None of the engagements had yet dropped to atmospheric, all fighting so far taking place in orbit or, in some cases, where the chase was engaged, ranging farther into space, into the black of the void, the bright dots of stars and the brilliant local sun flashing round and round in twirling madness, all craft maneuvering for position, the criss-cross of powerful beams, incinerating energy that laced that psychotic backdrop with a web of destruction.

  Ripping among them, the greatest danger, outmaneuvering them all … the ancient Kel ship continued to tip the balance. The other, human-commandeered ships held their own, their was no escaping that harsh reality, but if it weren’t for the other, the ancient anomaly, things would be going much differently.

  Despite what Eldron believed to be the inevitable certainty of the outcome, despite his belief the Kel would prevail in the end, the warrior in him could not help but relish the challenge of the conflict at hand.

  Admittedly he could not escape his fascination with the other possibility. He did not wish it, but the thought of it was, almost treasonously, intriguing.

  That maybe, just maybe, the Kel would not prevail at all.

  **

  Three massive ramps lowered. Jess watched them in racing anticipation, extending to the ground beneath the dreadnought in perfect unison. Right before that the landing struts, folding open, themselves the size of buildings; large, metallic actions, smooth yet gigantic and therefore generating a heavy, oppressive sound that blanketed the open plain. Then the warship was on the ground, settling, sinking into the soft earth as the drives that held it released its titanic weight and the Queen’s dreadnought had arrived.

  After that silence, horses whinnying, men waiting, until …

  The ramps. Breaking free of their seals and lowering. Spaced evenly along the middle section of the dreadnought’s keel, three slabs of metal as wide as a house, intimidatingly huge when you looked at only them; small against the overall dark mass they split from.

  This was the end of the line. The Kel would try to take her. It was why they landed so carefully, so methodically; why the dreadnought had not simply laid down a barrage of destruction, destroying both city and castle. The queen was with them, and she did not simply want Jessica’s death.

  She wanted the Codes.

  As the ramps locked in place columns of Kel soldiers started down, small figures beneath the impossible, hanging bulk of the colossus; black-armored bodies, wicked profiles; dark elves, white and black ponytails swinging a
t the backs of their helmeted heads, rifles ready in both hands but not aiming. There in such force, Jess was sure, merely to mop up the tiny resistance and capture the prize.

  Me.

  But they would not have her. They had no idea how this battle would turn, no idea what she’d become, and with Zac at her side she would fight them. She would have the queen, not the other way around, and as the crushing weight of the thing before her pressed hard against that willpower, as the sheer number of troops impressed upon that insane notion, she began once more to fade. A dangerous thing at that critical juncture, and she reminded herself of the more esoteric, driving impulse behind her actions; the understanding that this had to be. The Prophecy is not done yet. Absently she wondered if she would make it long enough to see the destruction Zac would unleash.

  And as she thought of this, as the hundreds of Kel reached the ground and began their slow march toward the waiting horsemen, the thought struck her, paralyzing in the first instant of its realization … they must surely have recognized Zac. They could see Zac was with her, and they knew what he was capable of.

  Which meant their tactics should have been much different. They should not have been marching out to obvious suicide. The recognition of which spun her, hard, and made their obvious disregard of Zac’s presence suddenly, alarmingly, terrifying.

  Why don’t they fear him!

  He stood beside her, waiting on the open field. She gripped her sword tighter, with both hands, holding it up and before her, ready for whatever might be coming.

  “They shouldn’t be coming out to face you like this.” Her voice sounded so small in the vast, open space.

  Zac must’ve sensed it too, for his focus had also changed, and with a tight glance at him, looking directly at his profile, she saw the change in his stance, the bunch of his fists as he said:

  “It’s him.”