For a moment static came back through before her earpiece squelched out the noise. They were only a few hundred meters from the ship, meaning whatever remained in the atmosphere from the attack was causing a massive amount of interference. She shook her head and after a moment spent gazing at the sight before her, followed her companion.
The massive crater Saturn slid down was almost two hundred meters in diameter. She avoided the largest rocks, descending the crater’s steep walls and using one gloved hand to help stabilize herself on the way down. Nix had made the drop with much greater ease. His long claws and scaled skin were made for rough terrain, whereas even with thick leather gloves and boots Saturn felt every pointy rock and chunk of debris.
Rising several stories out of the center of the crater was an impossible sight. An obelisk, untouched by time or the horrors of war, stood before her in all its glory. Its pristine stonework depicted dozens of the mythical beasts with which she’d become familiar. Emblazoned midway up the thick spire was a carving which seemed to span several meters high and wrap completely around the thick monolith. Its feathered wings and fiery eyes were unmistakable; the Garuda.
“It’s here,” Nix said, slowly moving toward the obelisk. “It’s really here.”
Saturn reached the bottom of the crater gracelessly, plummeting to her hands and knees. She rose and adjusted her respirator, ensuring the seal was still good, before taking another look at the stone marvel. At its base, a flat circle of stone extended outward, glyphs in multiple languages embellished on its face. It didn’t make any sense to her.
“If the Corsairs caused this crater, then this base would originally have been buried, right?”
“Perhaps,” Nix said, his mind clearly somewhere else entirely.
Saturn continued to follow her companion closer to the towering obelisk. She could feel the blood pumping through her veins, adrenaline kicking into full gear. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach she hadn’t felt since that moment in the desert several months before. Not since The Union.
A noise captured Saturn’s attention, emanating from her left. She stopped in her tracks and turned to face the ruined stone structure at the top of the crater. Saturn waited a moment more. For the first time in ages, fear gripped her. Her eyes strained against their sockets as she searched among the ruins for anything amiss; for signs of movement.
“What is it?” Nix asked, snapping her attention back in the direction of her companion and the obelisk.
As she turned her head she saw a fragment of rock fall to the ground out of her peripheral vision. Her head snapped back to the ruins.
“There’s something up there,” Saturn exclaimed, her muffled voice betraying her wavering confidence.
“We checked for other life signs before we left the ship. There’s no one else here.”
“No one else,” Saturn emphasized.
“It’s just us, Saturn. Come on.”
Nix approached her and took her by the upper arm, motioning with his other hand for her to keep moving. Saturn relented, though her attention remained split between the monolith and the rim of the crater. She could have sworn she saw...no, she thought, that wasn’t possible.
Saturn stepped over the outer edge of the obelisk’s base. Her footfalls echoed their dull thuds within the confines of the crater. The translation chip implanted in the base of her neck was hard at work deciphering the symbols on the ground. One of them simply read Death, another Evil.
“Nix,” Saturn said, tugging on the Dinari’s roughly hewn brown robes, “This doesn’t feel right.”
“Elder Bartle once told me about this place. Despite appearances I think it’s safe enough.”
“What is it?”
“It was created by the Sentinels,” Nix said, approaching the obelisk and placing his hand on one of the glyphs. “If I’m right, then...”
The rectangular piece of stone under Nix’s hand pushed itself in toward the center of the stone monolith. Blue light swirled beneath the symbols, beginning at the base and working its way up toward the top of the structure, which remained shrouded by gathering mist and cloud cover. The light grew in intensity until it escaped the clutches of the stone and shot out toward the ground, encapsulating the entire crater in its glow.
“What’s happening?” Saturn asked, fear gathering in her muffled voice.
“Wait for it,” Nix said eagerly.
The air around them seemed to fill with the light until it wisped together to form pictures. The shapes of a dozen Dinari surrounded them on all sides, but Saturn noticed them only in passing. She fell to the ground and used her hands and feet to push herself away. Her eyes quivered on the figure before her.
Three meters tall and twelve meters long, its teeth bared and fearsome eyes staring right through her. Was it a cat? No, she thought, it was far too large and its skin was smooth and black as oil. Laser blasts had punctured much of its body, its feet slipping on pools of its own dark blood. The mangled bodies of several Dinari lay all around Saturn. The creature lunged forward. Its neck pulled against the gargantuan chain which held it there.
A shape walked right through the beast and extended a hand.
“It’s only a hologram,” Nix said.
Saturn’s eyes danced between Nix and the heaving beast. Finally, she took his scaled hand and rose to her feet, never letting her eyes leave the creature before her.
Nix pointed back to the obelisk.
He explained, “One of the historical records of the Sentinels.”
19
“Hold steady,” Eribus ordered. “Put away those lasers, it’s no good to us dead.”
The stalwart Dinari moved along the outer edge of the obelisk’s base, eyeing his prey with a fusion of curiosity and reticence. Behind him stood the immaculate structures of the Sentinels along with his prized ship. His robust frame was accentuated by strong cheekbones and a long, sloping forehead which bore a number of small scars. His yellowed claws were sharpened for battle, but those fearsome talons were nothing compared to the arsenal awaiting his command.
The Corsair fleet maintained their low orbit, waiting for what the commanders hoped would be the last Union needed to bring the Ansarans to their knees. Near the entrance to one of the nearby temples, Ansarans and Dinari alike watched in horror, unable or unwilling to interfere. Their peaceful demeanors were challenged with every passing moment. Eribus ignored them as best he could. He had his orders and he intended to deliver.
The mythical beast which stood before him was none other than the Kasha. The Sentinels should be thanking him. The beast was no god. It was the stealer of corpses and the meek. The cave it called home was littered with the bones of the dead, heaped so high and for so far, it was a wonder there was anyone left alive on the wayward moon at all. It had been called countless names throughout recorded history. Death. Evil. Eribus didn’t care. He only saw its raw power.
“Spears,” Eribus called.
The Dinari soldiers advanced hesitantly, brandishing their long metal spears out in front of them. One of the Dinari warriors prodded the beast in its hind quarters and the Kasha recoiled. It turned and lunged at the Dinari, pulling him by his arm toward the center of the obelisk’s base. In seconds it was over, the Kasha’s long fangs tearing through his neck and sending a mist of blood into the air. The Dinari’s head quickly disappeared down its maw.
“Maneuver it into position. This is what we’ve trained for!”
Eribus eyed the symbols beneath the Kasha. A faint purple glow illuminated the glyphs, ever growing in intensity until it became difficult to even maintain eye contact. The Kasha seemed to have noticed as well. It dug its claws into the stone and took a defensive stance.
One Dinari soldier was a little too brave for Eribus’ comfort and edged closer to force the Kasha farther back toward the obelisk. The beast let out a low growl which rattled Eribus’ ribcage. The lone Dinari soldier braced himself and pushed forward despite his comrades’ faltering confidence
. Eribus saw it coming too late.
“Animus!” he called to the soldier, his words cut by the growing wind and the whipping of the Aether.
The Kasha sized up the lone soldier, its eyes narrowing as the Dinari grew closer and closer. It leaned forward and roared, spittle flying from its oily mouth, teeth as large as the Dinari’s head bared in all their ferocity. The Dinari’s expression remained unchanged. He lowered his spear and continued his approach, one hand outstretched toward the beast in a calming manner.
The rest of the Dinari stared in stunned silence. Whispers passed between the men. The general consensus was that their companion had some sort of death wish. Eribus found his hand edging toward the laser pistol on his hip, though he knew a single laser would do little against the creature.
The Kasha backed away from the bold Dinari. A deep purple light illuminated its face and exaggerated its confused expression. The Dinari dropped his spear, letting it clank uselessly to the stone by his feet. He now held up both of his clawed hands, gradually approaching the beast. The chain around its neck had enough slack to drag against the stone, its colossal links each the size of the soldier’s head.
“Easy,” the soldier said, his uneven voice betraying his fear. “You’re a magnificent thing, aren’t you?”
The Kasha snarled as it took another step back.
“We all have our burdens to bear, friend. In this life and in the next.”
The cat-like creature snapped once more. Its already tested patience was wearing thin. The Kasha took another step backward and the purple light grew excruciating for Eribus to witness. The beast’s eyes squinted at the glyphs and then angrily back at the soldier. It lunged forward, its movements quicker than the eye could parse. The Kasha locked its jaws around the soldier’s torso and flipped him up into the air. Falling several meters, the Dinari landed before the creature, bleeding profusely but seemingly little fazed. Slowly, he rose to a kneeling position and grasped for air.
Eribus spotted something amiss.
“The Union,” he said. “It’s not working.”
He grabbed the nearest soldier’s uniform and brought the man in close.
“Why isn’t it working?” he barked.
“It’s in position,” the frightened soldier replied. “It should have happened already.”
The Kasha circled the Dinari soldier. It could have killed him in an instant, but it didn’t. The beast brought its nose right up to the Dinari, sniffing him up and down. The soldier’s puncture wounds bled freely, the flowing blood wetting the creature’s nose, which it promptly licked away with its long pink tongue. The Dinari’s face was growing pale. He used his hands to put pressure on his wounds.
Eribus shielded some of the light from his eyes in order to get a better look at what was happening. His golden eyes widened in horror.
“What’s it doing?” he asked no one in particular.
The Kasha rubbed its cheek against the Dinari’s shoulder. From somewhere deep inside it, a grumble began emanating from it, disjointed at first, but growing more rhythmic with every passing second. A purr that might have been subtle if it were a far smaller animal, but one which reverberated within each of the soldiers with a haunting rumble that was anything but delicate in nature.
A noise behind Eribus startled him back to the present. The Corsair’s engine had hummed to life. Its curved underbelly gave way to a falling piece of debris, seemingly torn right from the bulkheads. The piece of metal lodged itself in the soft dirt beneath the ship so that it stuck upright at a slight angle.
“It’s time,” Eribus said, motioning for the other soldiers to get out of his way.
He strode over to the metal fragment and gripped it by a rounded piece at the end, bringing it up out of the ground. The opposite end had an intricate design which spiraled around the tip like the disjointed pieces of a puzzle. Eribus’ demeanor remained as serious and stolid as ever. He would take no pleasure in what needed to be done. It was as his soldier had said. They all had their burdens to bear.
Eribus approached the edge of the obelisk’s wide base, which stretched out in a circle all around it, littered with glyphs of the ancient text. He squinted his eyes and found the slot. The Kasha stopped rubbing against the kneeling Dinari and regarded Eribus with the kind of hatred only a mother protecting her children could know. He ignored the beast and inserted the metal shard, twisting it as he went until it finally reached the bottom and clicked.
The edges of the circle projected a ring of purple light up into the air. The ground shook violently. Eribus struggled in vain to maintain his balance. The Kasha reared up and roared, then curled itself around the Dinari soldier protectively. Little by little the Kasha’s flesh burned with the Aether until its eyes were branded with the blinding light. Animus reached up and gripped the creature’s muscular leg, the Dinari soldier holding on with everything left in him.
The ground beneath Eribus’ feet gave way. The Corsair burned its vertical thrusters and rose off from the ground, no pilot visible through the cockpit’s windows. A shockwave blew particles of dust and dirt in his direction, its power so great it was all he could do to maintain his position on the ground. The purple light altered its form, incorporating a golden color, swirling up the column of violet until the eye could no longer make out where one color began and another ended.
The Dinari soldier’s golden eyes burned with a hidden fire, his wounds projecting the same poignant light. He rose to his feet, using the Kasha as his support. The beast’s black coat sizzled with the purple and golden light until the tiniest fragments began to blow away like ash being carried away from a fire. Together, the Kasha and Animus became the flames, transmogrifying into one, inexplicable, beam of multispectral light.
For almost a minute their forms wasted away until the massive column of light bent, its swirling patterns taking hold of the Corsair and inhabiting its every nook and crevice. Eribus marveled at the sight, a fear he’d never known gripping him tight and refusing to abate. Soon, the light faded until only the glyphs remained, sparkling with a certain dwindling energy.
When the winds had calmed and the lights had faded, Eribus gazed around, shock stunting his breath. The obelisk and its base had drilled down into the surface, the force of The Union causing a crater where there hadn’t been one before.
One of his men sat up a few meters off to Eribus’ left.
Shaking dirt off his uniform, he turned and asked, “Was that supposed to happen, sir?”
Eribus choked on his words.
“T—hat,” he began, voice quivering. He pointed toward the Corsair and continued, “No, that’s never happened before.”
•
The hologram faded and Nix fell to his knees. He traced the outline of one of the glyphs with his fingers, tears falling from his eyes and into the grooves of the stone.
“What in the hell was that?” Saturn asked, a mixture of fear and anger overtaking her muted voice.
“The death of honor,” Nix solemnly replied.
20
Saturn found herself staring at the inert obelisk, imagining the massive chain links which once held that formidable beast. It was a thing of nightmares, yet within it she’d seen a placidity which confounded her. Her cheeks tickled and Saturn realized she was crying. The salty streams found their way along the outer edge of her rubber breathing mask and collected underneath her chin, where droplets periodically plummeted to the ashen soil.
Liam wasn’t the only person to become one with a Corsair. She could hardly fathom what that actually meant. That soldier, Saturn thought, he’d been incredibly brave. Either that, or incredibly stupid. The line between the two was always so trivial.
“Nix,” Saturn said, watching him continue to trace the outline of a certain glyph.
“It was him,” he said, visibly shaken.
“Who?”
“Eribus, my father.”
Nix wiped his eyes and regarded the ground at Saturn’s feet, unable or unwilling to l
ook her in the eye.
“It’s one thing to hear the stories of how the Corsairs were made, and another entirely to watch it unfold before your eyes. The atrocities...”
Saturn approached the Dinari and gripped his rough robes at the lapel, pulling him violently to his feet.
“You watched it take Liam,” she yelled in his face.
“He was already dead,” Nix reasoned, “There was no bringing him back and nothing to lose. The stories told of the legendary beasts...they—they didn’t prepare me for this.”
“What do you mean?” Saturn asked, trying to make out every twitch of his face through streaming tears and failing.
Nix hung his head.
“We were told they were evil, that by performing The Union we were putting their power to good use. A purer use.”
Saturn tightened her grip on him until her knuckles grew white.
“It didn’t look very evil to me. It looked like a frightened animal lashing out.”
Nix murmured, “I didn’t know, Saturn, I swear.”
She released him and walked off a few paces, hands squeezing her hips in an attempt to burn off her frustration. Liam was somewhere inside that ship with no way of escape, imprisoned with a creature so powerful it inspired the name a colony and a planet. She tried in vain to organize her thoughts through her rage.
“Every story I’ve heard about the Corsairs varies,” Saturn began, then continued in an accusatory tone, “What’s the truth? What do you really know?”
Nix’s golden eyes found Narra in the waning night sky. When he replied, he spoke simply as though tired of concealing a secret from a friend.
“Elder Bartle said there were fifty Corsairs in total. The one we just saw was the last one made. After the attack on Ansara only two remained. Nobody knows what really happened to the other forty-eight.”
“And what of the two that survived?”
“The Garuda is the only one the elders knew about for sure. They ensured it was kept close throughout the years. There were stories of another, but nothing for certain.”
The Lost Corsair (The Corsair Uprising Space Opera Series Book 4) Page 8
