by M. R. Forbes
What the hell was going on?
Her shield shattered, the fire of Shidel’s Gift overpowering it. She screamed as the flames reached her, eating at her flesh, burning her alive. She stumbled to the ground, curling up as the fire poured around her, destroying her flesh and leaving her in agony.
She was going to die, at the most unlikely time, in the most unlikely way. Whatever was attacking her wasn’t Shidel. It was something else. Had it come from the Focus? Was it another kind of Asura?
She couldn’t believe it was going to end like this. She had to get up. She had to fight back.
The flames continued to roll over her. Somehow her eyes still worked, and she could see her hands were nothing but bone and ash. She could smell her burning skin and steaming blood. She was trapped in a never ending inferno.
The floor shook beneath her, so harshly that for a moment she thought the Covenant had crashed into something. Over the roar of the flames, she heard another roar and a loud shriek that reverberated through her.
Then the flame was gone. It vanished from her as immediately as it had come. The Gift began to heal her immediately, leaving her in utter agony as it flowed around her, putting her back together cell by cell.
She forced herself over, trying to look back at Shidel with damaged eyes. Everything was hazy, but there was no way not to see the massive form of the dragon as it leaned halfway into the room, its head squeezed through the opening to the tomb.
Shidel was facing it, still on fire, lashing out at the creature’s face with the flame. It struck the scales to no effect, pouring against it as it opened its mouth, its head snapping down. It scooped Shidel up into its jaws, closing its mouth in a bright flash of fire.
When its mouth opened again, the Nephilim was gone.
It gurgled softly, the head sweeping across the room toward her. She couldn’t move. She could barely breathe. Her skin was melted, her muscles burned. The Gift was trying to save her. She needed the Focus now more than ever.
The dragon’s head was approaching her. There was no way she could get to the Focus before the creature got to her. Its body was trapped behind the entrance, but its neck was more than long enough.
She put out her hand, doing her best to summon the Gift, to use it to defend her from the Asura beast. It was no use. She closed her eyes as the massive jaws approached.
And opened them again when she felt the hard scales of the creature against her hand, nudging it gently. The dragon huffed and then whined.
She looked up at it, and it looked back at her. There was no malice in those eyes. She had saved its life, and now it had returned the favor.
There was no way the Rejects were going to believe this. She barely believed it herself.
It gave her another idea.
33
“Frag, Queenie,” Gant said. “I should have been with you. He couldn’t have hurt me.”
“I never expected he would be down there,” Abbey replied. “And I certainly would never have expected him to attack me like that. I fought him on Naqul; his Gift was hardly worth mentioning.”
“Then what the hell happened?” Benhil said.
“I don’t know. He changed, almost instantly. His voice changed, too.”
“What do you mean?” Jequn asked.
“When I used the Focus, I saw a face. A demon’s face. A real demon, I mean. A monster. It kept telling me I was going to fail, and that Hayley was going to become a Nephilim, a blood-sucking Venerant bitch like Emily Eagen. When Shidel said he was going to kill me, he had the same voice.”
“What did it look like?” Uriel asked. “The demon face?”
“A long face. Huge, sharp teeth. Horns. It was made of fire. It reminds of the form Pudding said I was going to take if the Light hadn’t stopped the change.”
“This can’t be good,” Uriel said.
“What can’t?”
“The face you saw,” he said. “I think it was Lucifer.”
“What?” Jequn said. “That can’t be possible.”
“I think he’s right,” Helk said. “The story goes that the Father’s love of his people was so great the inability to free them drove him insane with rage, so much so that he became a threat to himself and his followers. The Prophets, seeking to ease his pain, built a shrine to him and tricked him into entering. Once there, they forced him into stasis, where he has remained since. Their hope is that once they have returned to Elysium and defeated the One, he can be revived and freed from his grief by the glory of their victory.”
“That’s great, really,” Bastion said. “It’s an awesome story. What the frag is Lucifer doing in the Focus? Or in Shidel, for that matter?”
“I don’t know,” Helk replied.
“Does anyone want to talk about how Dog saved Abbey’s life?” Pik asked.
“Dog?” Erlan said. “You mean the dragon?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Wait a minute,” Benhil said. “I thought you didn’t want its name to be simple.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Okay, but you can’t name it Dog,” Bastion said.
“Why not? Queenie said I could name it whatever I wanted to.”
“Because Dog is already an animal,” Benhil replied. “And it isn’t anything like a dragon.”
“Then I don’t see the problem,” Pik said.
“It’s stupid. It’s like naming Gant, Fish.”
“That is stupid,” Gant agreed.
“I like it,” Pik said.
“Its name is Dog,” Abbey said. “Can we get back to the important shit, like why Lucifer was in the Focus, and how he used Shidel to almost kill me?”
“It has to be related to the Gift,” Keeper said. “Lucifer designed those naniates.”
“Do you think he can remote control them?”
“I would be remiss to state that he couldn’t with any confidence.”
“Dog is friendly,” Pik said. “Do you have any idea what that means?”
“Okay, I do,” Abbey said. “I’ll get to that.”
“Oh. All right. Sorry, Queenie.”
“If Lucifer can use the Gift from his prison or his lair or his temple or wherever the frag he is, we’re in deep shit,” Bastion said.
“Not only because of what he can do with it,” Gant said. “If he did attack you through Shidel, it means he’s lucid enough to understand what’s happening out there. And he’s trying to stop you.”
“Good point,” Abbey said. “I thought he was supposed to be crazy with rage? A violent lunatic monster who could only think in words like kill and die.”
“He’s had a few thousand years to cool off,” Uriel said. “Maybe he’s calmer now?”
“Frag,” Bastion said.
“Let’s say he did attack me through Shidel,” Abbey said. “That still doesn’t answer how he got into the Focus. The Blood of the Shard is pure.”
“Are you certain?” Trin asked.
“Yes. I was the one who did it, remember?”
“I’m sorry to put the question out there, Queenie, but the naniates are incredibly small. A few million could have slipped through, and it would be very difficult to tell.”
“Optimization, fifty-percent,” Jequn said.
Abbey looked at her. “No. Do you think?”
“It has to be possible, doesn’t it?”
“The Shard’s naniates attack the others,” Abbey said. “Why would they leave some of them alone?”
“Unless they couldn’t recognize them?”
“I have a feeling somebody is going to ask me to do something scientific,” Gant said.
“We need to know if the Focus is as pure as I thought it was. If it isn’t, that means-”
“That one of the Archchancellors had the Nephilim Gift,” Uriel said. “And poisoned the Focus with it. A traitor.”
“Because this shit wasn’t complicated enough already,” Benhil said.
“I can do the study,” Phlenel said. “I have ext
ensive experience with microscopic organisms. I would venture that I can determine the difference between a proper naniate and a damaged one.”
“Yeah, just look for the horns,” Bastion said.
“Pudding, do it,” Abbey said. “Gant, provide whatever support she needs.”
“Aye, Queenie,” they said.
“Let’s move on. Keeper, how long until Azul’s assault on the Liliat Empire?”
“Six hours, Queenie,” Keeper replied. “The Prophet Azul’s Gloritant will be leading an attack on the planet Jumol. Sixteen battleships, including three brigades of ground troops.”
“His Gloritant will be leading the battle?” Abbey asked.
“Aye, Queenie.”
“Is that normal?”
“It is nowadays,” Helk said. “They don’t have much else to do with the cease-fire, and he’s probably itching for a fight.”
“Three brigades. How many troops is that in Nephilim terms?”
“Five to ten thousand.”
Bastion whistled. “That’s a lot of bad guys.”
“Do we have any idea what Rezel will be throwing up in defense?”
“Three brigades would probably be half her military,” Helk said. “It has to be less than that, and if she doesn’t know they’re coming? Probably a lot less.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Herschel said. “What’s your goal in all of this, Queenie?”
“I want to fight off Azul’s forces, and free Rezel’s armies.”
“All of them?” Herschel said, laughing. “How in the name of the Dark One are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to ask Rezel to release them.”
She hadn’t mentioned that part to any of them before. The entire room fell silent.
It stayed that way for what seemed like hours. Then Bastion piped up.
“Uh, Queenie?”
“Yes, Imp?”
“Why would she ever agree to do that?”
“Because she’s the weakest, and she’ll always be the weakest unless she allies with someone stronger.”
“You mean you?”
“I mean us. We save her world, we promise to send resources back from Shardspace and to kill Thraven, and in return she lets her slaves go. Her slaves don’t know how to do anything but fight, so I’m guessing most of them will stick around if we pay them. They’ll also become pretty loyal to the Free Liliat Empire, I think. Once Thraven is dead, the other Prophets will start fighting over his holdings, but her former liability will quickly become her greatest asset.”
“Word of a free empire spreads, the other slaves start revolting, and the next thing you know, Rezel is in charge of the Nephiliat,” Benhil said.
“And she’s still allied with Queenie,” Gant said.
“You know, it sounds ridiculous,” Helk said. “But I can at least picture how it might work.”
“Good enough,” Abbey said. “That’s the simplified version. First, we need to show Rezel that we’re strong enough to be worth siding with.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Herschel asked. “I’ve got five hundred good people who want to fight, but that’s not even close to being enough.”
“We’re good, Queenie,” Benhil said. “But we aren’t that good. Even with you.”
“I’m not convinced that’s true once you factor in the Covenant and the Focus,” Abbey said.
“Are you sure you want to use the Focus again?” Jequn asked. “It might be dangerous, all things considered.
“It might. I already drank from it, or I’d still be a burned mess on the floor of the tomb. With that said, I’d like to avoid it as much as we can, because using it also weakens it until it can regenerate. It dropped to twenty-three percent after Naqul.”
“So where are you going to get a few thousand soldiers from?” Uriel asked.
“Which brings us back to Dog,” Abbey replied.
“Queenie, you cannot,” Keeper said. “I forbid it.”
Every eye in the room turned to Keeper.
“Forbid it?” Abbey said. “You take orders from the Chosen, remember? That’s me.”
Keeper turned to face her. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“No offense, K,” Benhil said. “But Queenie’s been doing a pretty awesome job so far, while you and the Seraphim have accomplished what, exactly? Besides self-genocide and utter failure?”
“Joker,” Abbey said. “Cool it.”
“Sorry, Queenie.”
“I don’t need to know what I’m doing,” Abbey said. “I’m going to take one step after another until Thraven is dead, and I’m not going to quit until then. Whatever happens in the meantime happens.”
“That’s a dangerous attitude,” Keeper said. “The Asura are dangerous. If even one of them remains on Jumol, if only a single ounce of Darkstone is buried there, they will find it, and more will come.”
“To a Nephilim planet?” Bastion said. “Color me not worried.”
“Color me thinking about leaving one of those things behind on purpose,” Uriel said.
Keeper lowered its head. “None of you take the threat they pose seriously enough. Entire galaxies have fallen to them. Countless worlds destroyed.”
“What choice do we have?” Abbey asked. “What if I used the Focus again and it killed me? Or worse? What if Lucifer were able to use it to take control of me?”
“I don’t think that would happen.”
“Do you know it wouldn’t?”
Keeper hesitated before shaking his head. “No.”
“Then we go with the lesser of two evils. I don’t love the Asura either, but judging by how Dog treats me, I think I can keep them under control.”
“Let us hope you are right, Queenie.”
“Yes, let us,” she said. “What about the slave ships we captured? Can we do anything with them?”
“I have initiated resource collection,” Keeper said. “I will have time to generate three new configurations, using the schematics provided by your synth.”
“My name is Ruby,” Ruby said.
Keeper didn’t even look at her. He was like a jilted lover, upset because she wouldn’t let him have her operating protocols.
“Which schematics?” Abbey asked.
“The Apocalypse starfighter,” Keeper said. “I cannot match the design exactly, but I will come close.”
“Minus the software that allows Thraven to disable it, I hope,” Gant said.
“You will assist me with the software?”
Gant looked at Abbey, who nodded.
“Yes,” Gant said.
“First!” Bastion said. Then he looked at Queenie. “Can I?”
She almost laughed at his eagerness to fly one of the ships. “Yes. Pudding and Ruby, you have the other two.”
“Aye, Queenie,” they said.
“This is going to be off the hook,” Pik said. “I can’t wait.”
“You don’t have to,” Abbey said. “You have six hours to get the Freejects into fighting shape.”
“Freejects?” Bastion said. “Ouch. That is lame.”
“It is lame,” Abbey agreed. “But we have to call them something, and it was the first thing that came to mind.”
“You’re killing me, Queenie.”
“You should hope not. We’ve got six hours, let’s make the most of them. Cherub, Uriel, Void, you’re with me. Let’s see if we can sign up some new recruits.”
34
Abbey turned the corner, reaching the compartment where the Rejects had marked the largest gathering of Asura soldiers. She scanned the room with her eyes, catching sight of a few of the frog-like creatures hiding in the dark corners, shrinking further into the darkness when they thought she could see them.
Then she brought the Phase Blaster forward and turned it on. While there was no obvious indication the device was working, the rest of the Asura gathering slowly faded into view, unable to remain between this universe and what they called the Veil.
They backed away from Abbey as they appeared, docile and fearful.
“I think we’ll have better luck with the Freejects,” Uriel said.
“They lost their General,” Abbey replied. “They’re frightened and hungry and trapped here without a leader. But you fought them. You know what they can do.”
“What I don’t know is if the Asura can be controlled. What if all you accomplish is to piss them off and get them aggressive? There are too many of them on the ship to manage if they all went berserk.”
“I don’t think that will happen. They’re looking for someone to shepherd them.”
“That’s you, Queenie,” Void said. “The shepherd of the poor and huddled masses.”
“Leading them right into war,” Abbey said. “Not an enviable role.”
“But a necessary one,” Jequn said. “This isn’t only about the Republic or even this universe. Let’s not forget that Thraven’s Elysium Gate is complete. All he needs is to power it, and he’ll be able to bring his attack directly to the One.”
And even if the One is an asshole, it would still mean the deaths of millions of innocent Seraphim.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Abbey said. “That’s why we have to do this.”
“I’m with you, Queenie,” Jequn said.
“As am I,” Trinity said.
Abbey took a few steps toward the Asura soldiers. There were close to two hundred of them gathered here, and they bumped into one another in an effort to escape her. They could sense the Gift. They knew she was different.
She didn’t try to speak to them. She didn’t know the Asura language, and she wasn’t even sure they had one. King had spoken to her in her mind and her language.
Instead, she held her hands forward, cupping them together as if she were offering a gift. She called on the Gift, letting it flow through her, out and into her palms. A speck of light appeared there, growing quickly until it filled her hands, spreading over them and tumbling to the ground like an illuminated fountain.
The soldiers reacted to the energy, stopping their retreat and remaining still. Their eyes shifted from the Gift to her face and back, the fear and desire obvious.
