Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  Durn shook his head. "Doubtful. Most of us on this deployment are Forgiving."

  "The hell does that got to do with anything?" Ellerton demanded, applauding as the Twoesie -a spry lass by the name of Wincitt- clambered atop the gigantic metal guy's back, whereupon she immediately attempted to deploy her bore-gun. "I'm Righteous and I can't do the big thing."

  "Just sayin'." Durn tapped his much-abused prote with a fingernail, then started banging it on the bulkhead. "Most Righteous sis and sas fiddle around with all that newfangled Harmony stuff, and most Forgiving just do what we always been doing. My prote is fucked. It's picking up shadows."

  Down below, Brillz and Pendly dug themselves free of their walls and charged the Heavy metal guy, literally hauling sections of the bulkhead they'd been stuck in along for the ride. Their intentions were obvious, and while the Heavy was busy dealing with Wincitt -whose weapon, a repurposed climbing tool, had yet to find purchase in the shiny metal skin- and the sole remaining Onesie, they both swung their big chunks of metal like baseball bats. The Heavy chortled with a sound very similar to a sackful of aluminum cans being rattled back and forth and kept at it.

  Ellerton pointed a finger at Durn. "We're not done talking about this whole Righteous versus Forgiving thing, Durnsey, you understand?" When Durn rolled his eyes and quietly promised through Harmony that he'd be all ears once the dust settled, the Threesie started fiddling with his own prote. It was one of the newer ones, with the fancy -and mostly superfluous- shield that sprouted out the sides, so in theory, it's processes were that much better. "And what's this about sha… oh, yeah, hey. Look. Shadows. Up there on the walls. Well, that's weird. Does the Forgiving Threesie want to take a stab at using Harmony to bolster his prote, or should the Righteous take a stab at it?"

  "Oh, hardy har." Durn sketched out a bow. "By all means, Ellerton, take your stab."

  ***

  Iago watched Tanker as he dealt with the Goddies, profoundly impressed with all the skills being displayed down below, both from the invaders and by Tanker himself; it wasn't often that the metallized Heavy ran into something he couldn't deal with in very swift fashion, so the man was having to bust out some of his best move and work extra hard to keep from being overwhelmed by the honestly impressive God soldiers.

  Wraithgear, designed to aid and augment the wearer's inherent abilities in deception and espionage, was coming up with zero explanation for the Goddie's speed and other displayed talents, which was something Iago had never imagined possible. It kept spitting out the weird foreign sigils he'd learned typically meant 'zero zero zero', the same thing as 'no information available'.

  However the Goddies were powered up, they were taking the fight right to Tanker, enduring considerable punishment and coming back for more, always with the same look of grim determination on their broad faces. The camouflaged Heavy felt like there was more to what was going on down there, but couldn’t quite figure it out.

  Sudden motion drew Iago’s attention back to Tanker, back to the female soldier riding him around the staging area like a maddened bronco.

  The bitch Goddie on Tanker's back wasn't going anywhere and from the looks of things, whatever weird-as-fuck weapon she was using on his back was finally doing some damage, so Iago decided it was time to step up and give the beast an assist.

  The nearly invisible, Wraithgear-shrouded Heavy drew the first of his weapons and took careful aim. There was no way of knowing if the rifle would do any damage, especially when everyone down there were taking hits to the body that he’d personally seen crush buildings, but you just never knew.

  ***

  “Weapons hot.” Ellerton shouted the words, even though Durn was standing right beside him. “We’ve got weapons hot, do you see?”

  “10-4, Ellerton, I see the scope. Ah, shit.” Durn kicked the railing hard enough to dent it. Ignoring the squeal of metal as the rail bent, the Threesie started yammering through Harmony, using his powers to slow time down so that he could take care of this particular bit of bullshit news before Wincitt took a shot to the head, one that’d probably do her in if she wasn’t careful. “Does anyone in the vicinity have anything on Rittu? We’ve got an asshole here in a full Shroud and my fucking belt is coming up zilch!”

  All the Goddies in the region –and in practical terms, that meant every single Goddie within three hundred light years- responded in the negative.

  Durn kicked the wall again, watched on as Ellerton, presently dealing with the Rittu-wearing asshat by bombarding him or her –or worse, if things had progressed to the point where the shroud symbiont was the one in charge, it- by spiralling a full boatload of hunter-seeker avatars in the general direction of where the Heavy had to be hidden; the nature of Rittu-symbionts, or Wraithgear as most idiots who laid their hands on the pretty fabric called it, made it difficult in the extreme to locate when they were cloaked. Luckily, that cloaking only extended about a foot from the host body.

  Weapons, specifically their targeting gear, were in no way covered by the superlative camouflage, forcing Ellerton to target a fairly broad section of bulkhead. Again, any attack delivered directly at the Wraithhole would only be so effective without properly dealing with the symbiont, but it’d be enough to delay the attack long enough for Intel to be pulled through Harmony.

  Durn dove deeper into Harmony, stretching his essence through that wonderful place in search of someone, anyone, who had any reliable Intel on the Rittu and how best to deal with them; Durn himself had only ever heard of the vicious, admittedly wraith-like Cordon-based Offworlders in story, and only ever from a broken Twoesie who’d died from ‘supplement’ overdose decades ago.

  Rittu his voice echoed through the Harmony. I need data on Rittu.

  Thousands of brothers and sisters clamored to his hungry spark, but none of them had the information he needed. They’d all heard of Wraithgear-wearing idiots roaming the Universe, but none of them had ever encountered someone that stupid. Dismissing demands for visual data of this rare Offworlder presence and insistent proclamations that he was wrong, Durn pushed further and further, hunting everywhere and anywhere he could. Out in the real world, time still moved forward, slow as molasses dripped through amber, but it was still moving; in short order, whatever weapon the Heavy was aiming at Wincitt –and there were solid odds that, like the shroud he wore, it’d be something deadly dangerous- was still sweeping ever upward.

  Soon enough, the shot would be fired.

  Rittu, Durn insisted, Harmony catching the word and spinning it off into the distant corners of Latelyspace. There were thirty million God soldiers in the solar system. There were sleepers who’s slumbered for thousands of years out there.

  Someone. Someone somewhere had the answers he needed.

  Durn shifted his attention to the flooring. If someone didn’t give him the answers –or at the very least some kind of information on how to either slow or stop the Wraith- he’d have to do something else that’d pretty much put a pin in everyone’s day…

  ***

  Saint Candall swam through Harmony, swift and sleek as a finned, underwater creature. He loved the peace and freedom, absolutely and unequivocally. There was nowhere else he’d rather be. The community of minds that connected everyone through Harmony was unlike anything he’d ever experienced while alive, leaving him to wonder how he’d ever persisted through the dull mundanity of life before reaching this most elevated plane.

  He laughed at himself, mocking the freedom he now enjoyed so much, reminded himself that right up until the very end, he’d denied himself the truth of what’d been happening. Insisted that the lights in his head and the music in his heart had been something else, a sign of grief or madness or, when attempting to convince himself otherwise had failed miserably, that it was all part and parcel of the damage done by traveling faster than a body could withstand.

  How wrong he’d been. Candall wanted everyone in Latelyspace to partake of the wonders that came from Harmony, but … they weren’t ready.
Very few ordinary men and women were capable of taking the leap, and of those that could feel the faint tendrils of Harmony stirring in their breast, perhaps one in a thousand were ready for it.

  And of those who were ready, none would take the leap. Latelians were logical. Latelians were rational. They’d been bred for thousands of years to dismiss anything that held the trappings of faith, the whisperings of mysticism.

  It was all too likely that Darkness would Fall and the Light would Rise before anything resembling a significant portion of Latelian people would embrace …

  Rittu

  Candall slowed his journey through Harmony, ears perking up at the faint, plaintive cry.

  Rittu. I need data on Rittu

  The first mortal soul to embrace Harmony stopped what he was doing altogether and focused on the plea, feeling all the information and history that made Threesie Durn who he was flood into him. Candall nodded, briefly. The conflict at the edge of the system, right beside the Storm. He wanted to go out that way to personally lay eyes on the source of the disturbance that was causing ripples from one end of the solar system to the other, but that very same disruption –combined with the haunting presence of the very men who were hunting him so relentlessly- made that journey so very dangerous.

  Candall knew he had power. He knew he could do nearly anything the original God soldiers could do, but had no desire to do so.

  He also knew that if he stuck his head out right now, there was a very good chance they’d chop it off.

  But … he could find information out about these Rittu. He was plugged in at the source, and in his time as a Reclamation Specialist, he’d discovered a very good talent at gathering important information.

  Saint Candall dug in, spreading wafer-thin tendrils of himself throughout the endless sea that was Harmony, thin enough to be missed by any of Fenris’ watchdogs –there weren’t many out there, but there were a handful of Goddies here and there who wanted nothing to do with either the Vengeful or the Glorious- but strong enough to withstand the turbulence.

  Rittu. Show me the Rittu.

  The Harmony answered, digging up memories from fallen Goddies. Candall watched on, dismayed at the power these Rittu had once commanded. Whole worlds, whole systems, whole Galaxies under the sway of the mysterious, shroud-like symbionts, dominating the hearts and minds of trillions of peoples without effort. He watched as even God soldiers fell to the power of the Rittu.

  There. Successful campaigns. Not the simple stuff. Not destruction of worlds, but dealing with individual Wraiths.

  “Here you go, brother Durn. Enjoy. I wish I could be there with you.”

  ***

  Ellerton cocked his head ever so slightly to the right, eyes widened just enough to betray shock at the moment; he’d felt Durn slip into Harmony right away, felt the massive expenditure of energy that’d allow his brother Threesie to operate at a terribly high cycle rate so that he could uncover whatever he could about their invisible enemy before Wincitt got seriously injured, but this …

  This was something else altogether. This was …

  “Candall.” The word escaped Ellerton’s lips as a whisper. As he watched his friend receive the information directly from the being who’d galvanized them all in a way that Fenris could never understand, glimmers of illumination weeping from his eyes, Ellerton felt awe.

  Durn blinked and he was suddenly back in the real world, operating in real time. There wasn’t enough of that most precious resource to protect Wincitt from the Wraith’s deadly attack and neither was there enough time to speak of what needed to happen, so he wordlessly communicated the entire project to Ellerton through Harmony. An entire conversation flooded out from him and into the other Threesie’s mind.

  The two of them went to work.

  ***

  Wincitt could hardly believe the Heavy they were all fighting. It was like something out of a children’s horror story. Whatever agony this Heavy had endured to transform into this … this … gigantic metal beast … it couldn’t have been worth it.

  Nothing was. She could see –even as she reapplied the modified bore-cannon to the wound that was slowly growing in the beast’s back- that they’d had to modify the Galyssian craft to allow this monstrous Heavy passage into and out of the ship directly through the hull. What kind of life was that? She’d always felt uncomfortably awkward being just a titch over ten feet tall, thick and slow and just so cumbersome. No matter that it wasn’t the truth, that, like all Goddies, she was fairly nimble and lithe, especially during combat when all cylinders were firing, but the perception remained.

  To be trapped in a giant metal body for the rest of your life … it was a horror story.

  Sparks and odd-smelling smoke flooded Wincitt’s senses and as the energy drill dug into metal once more, the Twoesie nearly lost her grip when the shiny flesh rippled in response to pain.

  “I’m sorry.” Wincitt whispered as she pushed down with both hands, driving the tip into the wound. She hated that she was thankful that the beast’s insides weren’t made of metal. “I’m sorry, but you won’t stop and we need you to stop, so I’m sorry.”

  The beast beneath her bellowed, grabbed … Brillix … by the head and threw him straight up into the air. The look of morbid embarrassment on his blocky face as he flew by her was damned near the funniest thing she’d seen in a century, and she flashed him a wild-eyed smile of appreciation before he disappeared somewhere above her. A faint clank reached her ears a few seconds later, followed by a hearty round of cursing.

  Durn’s disembodied voice flooded her senses, momentarily obscuring her efforts to deliver to the beast a wound sufficient enough to convince him to lay down and be a good boy. She –like all of them dealing with the Heavy metal monster- had felt the Threesie’s entrance into Harmony, kind of like a gentle pressure on the back of your neck, but had dismissed it because … well, because there were more important things going on.

  You’re targeted by a Wraithgear-wearing Heavy. Durn’s voice whispered in her head. Behind the words, a flood of information. You might get hurt, but we’re working on the plan.

  “Just fucking do it already.” Wincitt ground the words out. Now she’d been informed, her skin could feel the targeting beam coming from somewhere above and to the right of where she was. No thoughts were spared for worry or concern that she’d missed the sensation before being informed; this ‘fight’ was taking all of her concentration and then some. “Do it and do it now.”

  Copy

  Wincitt holstered the weapon and then took firm grip of both sides of the ragged wound she’d carved into her opponent. Through whatever kind of battle-hardened senses her foe possessed, the Heavy’s stance shifted in preparation for something unknown…

  ***

  Brillix and Pendler both ducked underneath two fists that came swinging at them at a speed that felt like it was just under the speed of light, giggling and snorting; they were out of breath, Brillix was pretty sure he was actually just the tiniest bit broken inside and Pendler was bleeding from both ears and one nostril.

  “How was the fall?” Pendler shouted breathlessly.

  “Not nearly as fun as I’d hoped.” Brillix huffed, then jumped forward, beneath the fist that was coming his way. He wound up right in front of the Heavy’s mouth, so he picked up speed and moved to the left because there was no fucking way he was going to get eaten. This was like fighting those fucking gigantic, armored Gunboys that’d been deployed to deal with those terrorists, only they had no bloody clue what to do. “How’s your brains?”

  Pendler poked his head with a free hand; the other was currently engaged in making certain his grip on the gigantic forearm he was holding onto didn’t let go. “Mmm. A little squished. First thing I’m doing when we’re done with this bullshit is …”

  “Right? Learning the Big Thing Trick seems kind of important, now, right?” Brillix paused as Durn’s voice whispered in his head, an act that earned him a punch to the side of the head. More o
r less prepared for this kind of treatment –how could you not be, when every attack from the huge asshole had a tendency to send you airborne- the Onesie relaxed his body.

  This way, when he hit the wall, it might hurt a little bit less. Plus, he kind of had an itch he couldn’t reach through his armored shirt, so, two birds, one stone.

  “Hey, Pendler!” Brillix shouted at Pendler. “Have a nice trip! See you next fall!”

  Pendler stopped trying to move up the arm towards an eyeball –he’d been planning on seeing just how metal a metal eyeball could really be, but now Durn’s plan was echoing through him, it seemed like a better idea to just hang out- and held on to the wrist he was attached to for dear love.

  The Heavy metal Specter trumpeted a shout that shook the rafters.

  ***

  “Firing.” Ellerton targeted three locations down below and the multi-headed rocket launcher –hastily assembled from four of his individual weapons- announced that all targets were locked. He depressed the trigger and the three warheads spiralled off towards their destinations, arcing in different directions, leaving behind thin but incredibly white trails of smoke.

  The Threesie felt and heard the round fired from the mostly invisible Wraithhole’s weapon a scanty second after that, but it was too late; multiple explosions ripped through the cavernous storage area, and everything down below jumped nearly a dozen feet in the air. They all heard Wincitt’s bitter shout of pain as the Heavy’s bullet tore into her side, leaving behind a hole big enough to put an apple through her, and then …

  And then everything fell down.

  ***

  Iago cursed most violently in the language that his Wraithgear whispered to him at night while he slept. These fucking God soldiers were impossible to get a grip on! And now they’d launched heavy munitions inside the ship.

  “Fucking Marker’s head’s going to fucking explode when he learns of this.” Iago watched on with dismal interest as Tanker and his enemies fell through the shattered bay floor, pulling down along with them nearly eighty tons of shattered scrap metal. The sound was terrific, an orchestra of clangs and crashing and above it all, Tanker’s hilariously loud, booming voice going on about how he’d forgotten to eat a proper lunch before the fight.