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

by Lee Bond

  The Horseman remembered how excited they’d all been, back then, hearing from Lisa’s own lips that she would do them the courtesy of giving them a sneak peek at just how Kith Antal intended to destroy the Universe for his masters, the M’Zahdi Hesh. They’d been giddy as schoolchildren! Even wry and stoic Fenris had cracked one of his rare smiles, prompting Solgun –here, he’d been flirting with the visage of Bard that he wore all the time these days- to pen a quick and witty poem about stones cracking.

  Their minds had burned with a million possibilities. Antal, in his rage at deceit and in his turmoil –for surely, after thirty thousand years serving the Heshii, even mighty Antal had to be weary of servitude- had to’ve spent his exile across The Cordon using the weird tech to develop something … multiple somethings capable of ripping entire solar systems to pieces. Things that would change the course of the war very quickly if they remained unprepared, which surely had to be the reason why Lisa had finally, at long last, relented.

  What other reason could there have been?

  This time, when Stride laughed, it was full of brutal mockery. He nearly doubled over with even more hilarity when he felt Fenris’ wasp nest irritation at his reminiscences. The Horseman well understood his friend and leader’s annoyance at all these old thoughts bubbling to the surface, to which, Stride himself blamed this worrisome voyage. He’d undertaken it with no real thoughts on how dangerous it might be until he’d already set sail, and now there was nothing to do but continue onwards, both in mind and distance.

  For when they’d sat down for their visitation with the Starlight Lady –Solgun, quill in hand, ready to scribe the important bits, Nalanata disinterested as ever and Lokken, ah, Lokken had been in the middle of a torrid love affair with a Latelian woman, so had been more than useless- they’d all received the greatest shock of their long lives.

  The great and mighty Kith Antal would be using no earth-shattering weapons. No sun busters. No black hole cannons. No Singleslams. No Shrike and Fury Aggregate Weather systems, even though that last one was more for show than for serious Universal destruction.

  No, Antal was –at least according to Lisa, who’d been honest and earnest with them from the beginning- planning on doing things the old-fashioned way. Literally, storming the Universe, one solar system, one Galaxy, one Supercluster at a time. Crushing, conquering, dominating world after world after world, transforming everything he could lay his hands on into matter for the forges of his Galaxyship until he owned enough to make more of those daunting vessels.

  Then he’d move on to the next target. And so on and so forth until the End.

  Fenris … had not … dealt well with the revelation, had argued long and hot into the night that there were too many key pieces missing from Lisa’s Intelligence briefing. How were new ships going to be built? How did Antal plan on doing this to the entire Unreal Universe in anything remotely approaching a timely fashion? Even if he managed to acquire –or construct his own version of- Quantum Tunnels to fling his troops across vast distances, this was the entire Universe they were talking about here, not just a handful of scattered solar systems! If the goal was to destroy things before Garth N’Chalez popped his head out of the woodwork and started up with his particular brand of mayhem, Antal’s insistence on blandness would see him dead and buried before the first thousand years had gone.

  Fenris had pressed and pressed and pressed, grown reckless in his brutal dismay over such lame data. He’d demanded to know more of what passed for thoughts inside the mind of a monster that’d been alive for more than thirty thousand years, had insisted he be told the precise mechanism by which the Heshii intended on unraveling the Universe for their sumptuous feast.

  Another titanic groan pulled Stride from his reverie once more. The planet-sized orb of doom that’d ripped thirty thousand tons of top rock from his Asteroidship had finally burst, a bubble pricked by some unseen needle, causing an inconceivable amount of raw power to spew everywhere. As he watched, Stride noted with interest that the Storm behaved precisely as a body of water experiencing turbulence; wherever tendrils of the decaying disturbance passed, the overall body of the Storm –comprised of more stable yet still incredibly lethal gravnetic and quantum-forged lightning- swayed and dipped, just like an ocean.

  The damage control systems announced that the eastern hemisphere of the Peloponnese was experiencing an egregious amount of radiation, poisonous and deadly and in concentrations so high that it was more than likely that that entire section of the Asteroidship would remain off-limits for longer than the Universe had time left.

  “Daisy, flip the ship.” Stride waited, ears long accustomed to the sounds his vessel made easily detecting the telltale hum and rattle of equatorial positioning engines firing up. Of course, he personally felt absolutely no motion, no disturbances as the Peloponnese spun on its axis, but it was being done nonetheless. Off in one section of the huge Screen, a geo-positional icon representing his vessel pulsed, indicating his command had been followed, and with success.

  The radiation warning –not to mention the other machines monitoring the physical health of the ship- dwindled down to nothing, allowing the command center to fill once more with the curious sounds of the Storm raging just outside his window.

  “No Weapons of Ridiculous Destruction.” Stride lamented. “No furious battles fought atop strange, world-spanning machines of unknown yet nefarious purpose. No dogfights in swift battleships above supermassive suns destined to be turned into quasars, black holes, or worse. Nothing more than the bog-standard slog from one world to the next. I’m sure it’ll be quicker than it seems, more savage than we imagine, but … even Garth will be disappointed when he learns of what you plan to do, Antal. For shame.”

  It was no way to run a war destined to destroy Creation. No way to pull down the Firmament. As then, still today; all of them felt as if there was something else going on, that they were missing something quite obvious and even though they could see they didn’t have all the answers, they could by no means figure out what those pieces might be.

  It was aggravating, true, but more than that, it was worrisome because it was Garth N’Chalez they were dealing with here, making anything that arose the kind of situation that’d rapidly spin wildly out of control.

  Garth N’Chalez wasn’t to be trusted. That was a given. Words from Lisa Laughlin’s own lips, in point of fact, and while she’d been talking about her own personal experiences with the man –the largest highlight of which had been his confident expectation that she’d remain conscious during their slumber inside Alpha and his insistence they go along with the plan anyhow- Fenris insisted they prepare themselves as best they could for anything.

  Stride snorted. Fear Garth, yes. Prepare for his shenanigans, so much yes that the word ceased to hold any special meaning. Ready yourselves for anything and everything, obviously. The man could and probably would show up on the battlefield wearing a bright pink toga riding an armored wooly mammoth, hauling along in his wake historical figures from Earth’s long distant past. Somewhere in the mix there would also probably be live music and refreshments, but there was one thing you had to admit about the man.

  He was worthy of respect.

  A single man had identified, located and planned to deal with an enemy that beggared the imagination. Stride and Solgun were admittedly the deeper thinkers in their coterie of Horsemen, and whenever they got together to discuss the nature of things, they eventually settled down to a heavy conversation about what it must’ve been like, all those millennia ago, realizing that there was a group of entities out there that were not only capable of destroying the Universe to feed off the resultant surge of energy, but that they’d been doing it for so long that actual measurement of time was pointless.

  Mindboggling in the extreme. Also, and this was from Solgun, so very lonely. How could you actually explain to anyone the gravity of a situation like that? How could you even hope to address the greatest minds on a single planet about the urg
ency? Where would you even start?

  For all that they had to be on their toes around N’Chalez, Huey and, to a certain degree –though he’d proven capable enough to step off on his own- Herrig DuPont, Stride and everyone save Fenris admired Garth Nickels. He’d identified the problem and promptly proceeded to engineer a method of pushing the Heshii out of the central Universe until he was ready to do what needed doing, and he’d done that as well; they didn’t –couldn’t- know the precise method by which Garth intended on popping the Universe like a wayward soap bubble, but they had Lisa Laughlin’s ironclad promise that it’d work, and work well.

  Stride paced for a time, mind spinning. “Daisy, how are the projections coming?”

  One of the first things he’d done when preparing to endure the stormy seas against Huey’s Shield had been to program his Asteroidship’s controlling personality to scan the entire region, across all spectrums, as far ‘down’ and as high ‘up’ as his hytech sensors and scanners were capable of digging. This was to gain as much insight into the nature of the Storm as possible, for future maneuvers through it; the Asteroidships –with careful piloting and foresight- should be more than able to navigate through the disturbance with little or no difficulty, but in the future, when they had more time to chart the epic tear, it would be in smaller ships, with more sensitive equipment.

  And, frankly speaking, men and women who were a great deal more expendable than one of the Horsemen.

  “Still charting, sir.” Daisy’s prim voice was a modulated echo of Lisa’s own recorded words, just different enough not to tug at his heart strings every time she spoke, but also similar enough so that every now and then, Stride was filled with a delicious woe at her passing. “I have enough raw data now to accurately predict sixty-five percent of all the larger, most damaging gravnetically charged quantum swells and rollers. The more subtle and longer lasting curls and whips are taking more time. There seems to be no pattern to the birth and death cycles yet, and I am having difficulty digging into the lower substrate levels.”

  “Keep at it, love.” Stride flicked a finger and the Screen flipped to images being broadcast by the Goddies. Excitement trilled through him. It was glorious to see their brothers and sisters tearing through the enemy forces with such ease and expertise; when they’d lost their combat contract with Trinity just over a hundred years ago, the Horsemen had despaired for their lesser brethren, and had –more than once- come to violent blows over their truly despicable treatment.

  It’d taken promises from Lisa –backed up with actual, physical proof- that their insufferable treatment would last only so long, and that when the time was right, they’d be brought back to their old selves and then shoved down a path that would transform them into the kinds of warriors that the End demanded. Then she’d gone on to show them how to expand upon the small Harmony they’d created for themselves, tirelessly –and as Lokken pointed out often, cruelly- training them in the methods necessary to invite each and every God soldier into that shared space.

  Difficult days, those. Learning how to manifest that Harmony properly, so that it was more than just a meager communal domain through which they could communicate with each other, to share thoughts and experiences … melodramatic Nalanata had accused their Starlight Lady on more than one occasion of attempted murder, a deplorable allegation that’d done nothing save elicit bright peals of luminous laughter from their very own goddess.

  They’d stuck with it, though, because without the thirty million-strong God Army at their beck and call, bracing Kith Antal in his den would’ve been the very definition of insanity. Giving birth to Harmony, fully and properly, something quite, quite different than the twisted echo burning brightly with poisoned ex-dee essence had taken fifty years to effect and another forty to perfect and as they’d all witnessed more than once, and quite recently, there were still aspects that confounded their deepest efforts of comprehension.

  Like the Storm he surfed through now, boldly forging forward until he reached the other end, their Harmony was mercurial. More than any of them wanted, and certainly more than Fenris enjoyed, and their leader’s temper on the matter was and probably would remain as wrathful now as the moment they’d all realized their creation was now fully and forever out of their hands.

  “Saint Candall the Righteous and Victorious.” Stride ordered the ship to skip a particularly large and dangerous-looking shelf of replicating gravnetic ripples; on the smaller Screen –the big one still displayed footage of the Goddies doing their thing- the collection of undulations didn’t look terribly imposing, but … instinct said otherwise, so around it they went. Somewhere in the background, Daisy chimed out with some statistical values that meant little to Stride at the moment. “A polarizing element that might have been necessary, aye, but hot damn does Fenris hate you with a passion.”

  It was painfully easy to recall their reaction to the spontaneous Harmonic alignment. Stride didn’t like dwelling on that particular moment in his recent past, but there was something … hypnotic … about floating through this chaotic space-ocean that literally demanded he be moody and introspective.

  They … hadn’t dealt overly well with the news that their Harmony ­–their Harmony- was suddenly home to an ordinary man who’d died right on the cusp of his induction into the wellspring that melded all the God soldiers into a single-yet-disparate entity.

  Not one of them, though of them all, effusive Solgun had perhaps offered the most cogent of perspectives on the matter. Prior to the unwanted intrusion, the only thing keeping the soldiers moving towards the End had been Vasily, a surrogate father figure-turned nearly blasphemous spiritual advisor to which the Goddies showed unrestricted faith and respect. They’d hung on his every word, interpreted every single gesture into something profound, had displayed a willingness to do whatever he asked, whenever he asked, regardless of benefit to the Falling Dark or detriment to themselves.

  At least now, with the polarizing elements of the dual-faced entity lurking through Harmony, they had their reasons for continuing onward. ‘Father’ Vasily gave them hope and offered an understanding ear when they confessed doubt and shaky fears while ‘Victorious’ and ‘Righteous’ had gifted them with focus.

  The Victorious Path filled adherent Goddies with burning passion to be precisely that: victorious. There was no greater goal for them, no brighter purpose. They would do what needed doing no matter the course of the war, all in service to that moment when the sham that was their lives disappeared.

  The Righteous Path elevated devoted God soldiers to the point where any and all of their choices made right up to the moment the Unreal Universe disintegrated into a soup of energy destined to become a new Reality were proper, necessary, and without stigmata. No such thing as war crimes for them, no blame, no indictments of cruelty. Success at the cost of all else was all that mattered.

  “You’ve got to admit it, Fenris.” Stride frowned moodily at the destruction of yet another Trinity vessel. He didn’t necessarily care one way or the other at the loss on a personal level, but resources were resources. “They’re perfect now. They are propped up and ready to swan dive into the Falling Darkness with their eyes wide open. We couldn’t have given them this kind of internal preparedness. Not in such a short amount of time.”

  Begrudging admission mingled with distraction over what was happening inside the Trinity Army ships filled localized Harmony. Fenris drilled him with a sharp spike of purely aggravated irritation, an unsubtle warning that their leader was getting good and tired of his rambling thoughts and that he'd be better served paying more attention to the swirling storm that surrounded him on all sides.

  Stride relented, reluctantly, with a wolfish grin on his face that was better placed on Solgun's scrawny mug; their leader was in a mood today, as every day, and brooked no probing into his own personal Harmony. So it was with this in mind -and the fact that Fenris had recently taken up the fine art of the extravagant hissy fit- that Stride pushed his thoughts in other d
irections.

  Unlocking the true methods behind Ute and Tomas' implausibly earth-shattering escape was of unfathomable importance, even more so than the construction of and most recently successful firing of their Quantum Cannon. Without Huey to shut down his goddamn Shield, any steps they made towards convincing Trinity's forces into joining the right side diminished step by step; the more comfortable the Trinity soldiers that'd seen the light of day became with the Latelian lifestyle, the harder -most likely impossible, in point of fact- it'd become for those same soldiers to convince their brothers in arms that they hadn't been brainwashed, cloned, tortured into compliance or otherwise manipulated.

  No, no. It was of utmost importance that they get through Huey's Shield and in contact with the new Commander of Trinity's Military Services.

  But that wasn't the only…

  A moaning groan that sounded for all the world like a million tin cans being run through the dry cycle of a clothes dryer drowned out all but the highest-pitched blips and bleeps from the Peloponnese's instrumentation, forcing Stride to listen with every fiber of his being for telltale signs that his glorious ship had suffered something beyond it's abilities to endure.

  Nothing. Well, no, obviously not nothing nothing, but … nothing too worrisome; from the sounds racketing to and fro, whatever was going on outside the safe confines of a hundred thousand tons of solid rock braced by the finest duronium support struts was pretty exuberant, but not specifically destructive.

  "Daisy," Stride addressed his ship, curiosity burning, "would you kindly tell me what in the hell is going on?"

  "Assessing." Daisy's warm voice evoked a swift and thankfully brief longing to see Lisa once more. None of the others voluntarily set foot on the Peloponnese, precisely because of how his AI sounded. The Horseman was unashamed to admit that it was intentional. The older they all got, the closer they grew to the time when their candles burned out altogether, the crankier they became. It was a side effect of a deep-seated and ingrained dread that they'd perish before the Darkness Fell and the Light Rose.