by A. R. Knight
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” Hul hisses. “I’m too bored sitting out here by Solis to get surprised.”
Cacia ignores what they’re saying and heads to her own platform. Unlike the other two, which sit like Sax, Cacia’s platform billows out around her, letting the Oratus recline such that she’s almost lying on her back. It’s an incredibly vulnerable position, but once she’s in it, Cacia’s expression relaxes, her claws lie flat, and her eyes close.
“Sax,” Rav says after a moment. “Go on. Tell them what you told me.”
Sax isn’t much for speeches, unless it’s a battle-cry or an order to eviscerate his enemies. Here, though, he’s fighting for something more than himself, which lets Sax reach deeper into an oratory he didn’t know he had.
“We’re winning the war against the Sevora,” Sax begins. “Which is only the start. The Amigga brought us, the Oratus and the Vincere, into existence to fight the battles they never wanted to. We have done that. We have kept the galaxy safe from anything the Chorus has deemed a threat for a long, long time.”
Sax watches his audience as he talks; Hul is interested, Rav looks a little bored, and Cacia still has her eyes closed, as if she’s sleeping.
“What happens, though, when the threat is the Chorus itself?” Sax continues. “What happens when they decide we’ve served our purpose, when they decide we’re more trouble to keep around than we’re worth? Do we let them end us?”
“How?” Hul interrupts. “They’re a bunch of Amigga. Only the best of them can even wield a weapon, and they don’t do that very well.”
“I barely survived a mirrored Oratus that came for me on this ship,” Sax counters. The encounter with the light-bending Oratus, a version of Sax’s species bred to handle the sort of dark-edged, shadow missions regular Oratus had little taste or knack for, left Sax ruined and needing metal plates grafted across rent gaps in his scales. “It claimed the Chorus had branded me a traitor and that my only possible end was death.”
“As a traitor deserves,” Cacia hisses from her seat.
Sax takes another long, slow breath. He wants to take his claws and shake them all. He wants to tell them that, right now, his pair is on her way to sabotaging their entire race because the galaxy’s other species think the Oratus can’t be trusted. Anger, though, won’t work with these three - if Sax gets too dangerous, they’ll just kill him and move on.
So he tells a different story instead.
“As part of a mission, I delivered a Sevora specimen to an Amigga station, called Cobalt.” Sax says. “On this station, the Amigga was growing a new species. Ones they could control on their own. That had no free will.”
Hul laughs, a hissing snort. “Yes, yes, we’ve heard the rumors. We’re all going to be replaced by slime creatures from a tube?”
That’s unexpected, but just because the target’s discovered his gambit doesn’t mean it won’t work.
“They were more than slime creatures,” Sax hisses. “The familiars, as the Amigga called them, were deadly, and they were getting better. It was working on disguises, so that you’d never know if the Flaum beside you was real or an Amigga slave. How long do you think the Chorus will keep us around when it can crew its frigates with endless hordes of blind followers?”
“And how, Sax, can we stop them?” Rav says. “Even if we believed you - and I’m not sure we do - would you have us take our small fleet, leap to the Chorus and fight them? Die for nothing?”
Sax blinks. He’d been focusing so hard on persuading them to see the truth that Sax hasn’t spent any time on what to do when the other Oratus actually saw it.
“Help us,” Sax says finally. “There’s groups spread across the galaxy, working in small ways to grow our numbers, to find ways to take down the Chorus. Cacia, with your ship, you could help break the Chorus’ hold on the current batch of new Oratus. Hul and Rav, you could keep Cacia safe, keep Solis safe until the Vincere as a whole can be turned.”
Sax never planned on giving a speech in his life, but having his first and only, thus far, attempt at it greeted with a dull silence isn’t what he expects. Rav responds to the quiet with a slow look at the other two Oratus, judging their reactions. Which aren’t much: Hul takes a long breath through his vents, and Cacia keeps up her lounging. Not a word comes from either.
Silence heats quick to anger. Sax’s blood pulses. Why aren’t they talking? After all Sax fought for to get here, to earn a spot at this table, their reaction is to do nothing?
After another second passes, Sax slaps the metal table with his midclaws. The metal from his claws makes a ringing noise that echoes around the room, and it’s weird enough to draw the eyes of Rav and Hul. Even Cacia cracks a single iris.
“I’m not giving you a choice,” Sax hisses. “You either agree, now, to save our own species and the galaxy in which we live, or Rav and I will end you and find someone more willing.”
Threatening a five-letter Oratus. An instant death, at least by Vincere protocols. Sax, though, isn’t in the Vincere anymore. This meeting, in fact, is about as far from the Vincere as he can get. The question, now, is whether anyone else in the room feels the same way.
“Sax, I didn’t—” Rav starts before Sax issues a loud growl to cut her off.
“I’m asking them,” Sax hisses. “Accept, or die here.”
Perhaps Rav realizes she’s gone too far to take any other course but Sax’s, as she stays quiet. Her claws are tight, as are Hul’s, though the latter’s keeping his gaze on Cacia. Whatever course the five-letter takes, he’ll follow.
As for Cacia, she finally decides to make a move. At a twitch from her tail, the platform beneath her folds back into the ground like melting snow, leaving Cacia standing tall on her talons. She swings her head towards Sax and bares her teeth.
“I will not be led by a three-letter,” Cacia says. “Your argument has merit. Your plans have none.”
Sax has been in enough fights to know when he’s in one, even though this is being fought with words instead of claws.
“It is what I have,” Sax says. “We’re reacting, now. Trying to stay alive until we can strike at the Chorus.”
“That might have worked when you were in hiding. When your only members were of lower species,” Cacia gestures a foreclaw towards the Flaum guards at the back of the room. “Now the Chorus knows you exist, and as soon as they finish with the remnants of the Sevora, you will become the Vincere’s sole target.”
“I already know the situation,” Sax says. “Either help us find a solution, or don’t.”
“If the Chorus is removed, there will be a vacuum,” Cacia says. “New leaders will be necessary. New commanders.” Cacia’s tail begins to swish back and forth, making a scraping noise as it glides along the metal floor. “I’m tired of sitting around this planet, Sax. I long for bigger, brighter things. I can begin to pull the levers that will bring the Vincere itself into our grasp, and in exchange, I would lead it.”
Sax has no right to make the promise, no power to give it. Cacia’s words, though, hint that they think Sax must be a high-ranking member of this resistance, that he must have some sway. So Sax says the words and gives Cacia what she wants.
Bas always says he needs to become a better liar.
3 Deadly Arrival
I climb the rope ladders for my shift, making it to the top and into Ignos’ light on another clear, windy day. Snow drifts, growing thicker as the seasons trend towards winter, gather in the gray rock crevices, burying sprigs of grass. In the distance, beyond the smaller foothills arrayed in front of me, I can make out the slightest shade of green on the horizon.
My true home. Somewhere in that deep jungle, my parents might still be alive. My tribe, my people might still struggle. The Sevora took that area first, with the refugees fleeing to the Lunare and their mountain shelters to survive. Many of my own former subjects made the long trek too, crossing plains and desert before the woods.
Many more did not.
So n
ow I stand with unfamiliar allies, wielding bows, spears, curved kukri knives and flintlock rifles. Nothing compared to the arms I’ve seen, the weapons I’d made in Damantum, lost in the rapid escape. Yet for all their primitiveness, these tools have served us so far.
“That’s not usual,” Viera points up and I see what she’s looking at.
The Sevora normally send a few shuttles through the atmosphere, buzzing down and hitting our cliffside position with plenty of laser fire. We duck and cover, using the rocks for protection, then burst out and engage in a sloppy melee that lasts until the Sevora decide they’ve had enough and retreat.
This time, though, instead of four shuttles, there are dozens. Behind them, too, greater shapes are descending through the clouds; larger spike-like shapes, coming towards us with their round bottoms shimmering as reflected light bounces away.
“Looks like they’re done playing with us,” I say, then turn towards one of the warriors. “Send the signal - we need everyone ready to hold here, and the city needs to empty.”
Avril’s going to wake up to a thrill, but better that than not waking up at all.
“Cover positions!” Viera shouts as the first shuttles scream closer.
Everyone, myself and Viera included, dive into carved out niches in the rock. Some hang over the hole’s edge back towards Marilo, resting their feet on notches made for the purpose. A hundred fighters disappear in a moment, and good thing too, because the Sevora start shooting in the next.
Lasers don’t make noise when they scream down. There’s no crackling, no whistling from an arrow’s feather. There’s only a flash and a spray as rock fractures and bursts. The hiss as snow vaporizes. Explosions, like when the Lunare use their cannons, don’t erupt - rather, small fires start as the ground literally melts.
I see several fighters on the unlucky end of a near strike - the laser superheats the air around where they are enough that their fur-lined armor bursts into flame, prompting a frantic roll-around. My own shelter, beneath a thick slate slab, keeps Viera and I safe, and I try to ignore the screams of others less lucky than us.
“Think this is the end?” Viera says as the flashes continue.
“I don’t think we’ve come all this way to die here,” I reply.
“Hope you’re right,” Viera says, and I see her glance at her pistols. “There are so many cool weapons out there I haven’t used.”
I can’t stop the laugh.
The fire dies away as the shuttles get close. Once the flashes stop, it’s a sign to burst out of our hideaways, and I go, black-glass spear in my right hand and a kukri looped at my waist. Viera has her pistols ready, a more conventional Lunare sword hung over her back.
“For Malo?” Viera says as we leave cover.
“Always!” I call back.
The spirit of my friend, who fell getting us off of the Sevora’s home planet what feels like years ago, guides my spear as I rush towards the first quartet of Flaum dropping from the shuttles overhead. Their boots flare and catch each of the furry creatures, about my height, though of slighter build, as they land.
My first target sports clotted amber fur, which blows across its face as it’s exposed to the mountain wind. Those distracting strands offer me the opening I need to slip the point past its guard, which amounts to a thrown up arm with a small hand wrapped around a miner’s trigger. The stab connects and I start to pull back for a second jab when the Flaum pinches the spear into its side, pressing the point in further.
It’s a move that has to be incredibly painful, but when you’re being controlled by something else, something that can ignore your suffering for its own ends, such maneuvers become viable. I’m not expecting it, so when the Flaum twists away from me, the spear’s torn from my grasp.
I draw the kukri, a knife that bends along the blade, ending with a heavier, flat point ideal for the more mundane tasks of life like chopping fruit or clearing leaves. Here I use it to perform a slashing cut, one that doesn’t so much hurt the Flaum as force it back, giving me a meter’s space to adjust.
On either side of me other warriors engage with the rest of the Flaum, using our numbers to drive them back towards the cliff’s edge. Viera works her pistols, along with other Lunare marksmen, to keep other Sevora shooters from picking us off from the shuttle doors. This is the instant stalemate I’ve come to expect, and one that gets thrown awry as more Sevora shuttles blow in above and behind us.
The amber-furred Flaum makes its move, ignoring its wound and the spear sticking out of it to aim the miner towards me. In that instant, though, I jump forward, kukri swiping at the Flaum’s weapon-wielding arm while the rest of me barrels into the lightweight creature.
I’m not a large person either - most of the warriors on this cliff face have me beat handily in height and weight - but Flaum are more fur than anything. The kukri’s swing gets the Flaum backpedaling, and my left-shoulder charge hits its chest, knocking the Flaum into a falling stumble. With my left hand, I grab the handle of my spear as the Flaum chitters out a panicked screech, and draw back my weapon.
The Flaum, and the Sevora inside it, tumble over the cliff. There’s a chance those boots it has can find enough metal in the mountainside to stabilize its fall, but I’m willing to live with that risk; there’s more pressing targets.
“This isn’t working, Kaishi!” Viera’s yell cuts above the madness, and I see her wielding her sword in her left hand, a pistol in her right.
Viera ducks under a Flaum firing as it descends to land near her, then sweeps with her blade, taking the creature’s legs out from under it. A quick finishing shot at the tripped Flaum buys my friend a breath, which she uses to tell me to run.
“There’s too many!” Viera calls.
I rush back to the line, which now is more of a circle around the long hole back to Marilo, getting pressed in on all sides by the Sevora forces. Miners flash their bolts and our warriors fall, the Sevora forming a defensive line and allowing the ranks behind to lay down covering fire.
I’m passed back, Viera pulling me along. I try to turn, to stand with my own forces, but my friend won’t let me, until I shake her off, twist away and look in the faces of the creatures gunning us down.
“Kaishi,” Viera protests over the screams, the shouts and rings of metal-on-metal. “We run now, or we die!”
I’ve run before. Left my people to fend for themselves against a hostile galaxy, and I’m not doing it again.
“Then I die with them.” I push back, get back to the front when the warrior in front of me, a bulky man in a white-furred fassoth cloak, bursts into flame and collapses.
The fighter’s death reveals a grim line of Flaum with their buzzing blades drawn, the edges glowing with the same laser-light shooting from their miners, and behind them, aiming weapons, are the true killers - the Sevora gunning us down.
There’s not enough of us to win, but there are enough of us to buy Marilo a little more time.
“Together!” I shout, thrusting the black-glass spear high, where it catches the light of Ignos.
And the shuttle above our heads explodes in a shattering boom, the shockwave sending all of us, human and Flaum alike, to our knees. Shrapnel rains among us, scattering burning knives into the crowd. That first boom is quickly followed by two more; another pair of shuttles immolated out of the air.
Before I fully process what’s going on, the Flaum in front of me are erased as rock explodes and a great ship - larger than the Sevora shuttles, with a pointed, glimmering front - drives into the side of the mountain. The sides of the vessel slide up and open, and creatures I never expected to see again leap out.
Oratus.
Four of them, followed by more furry Flaum and slug-like Whelk, though the latter species are accessories to the brutal show the Oratus put on. The three-meter tall lizard-like monsters, with their four clawed arms, two jagged talons and long, whipping tails deliver mortal punishment to the Sevora force at a speed I can barely comprehend.
The
Sevora shuttles continue to detonate from a series of fast-moving slivers shrieking by and delivering concentrated fire. The aerial squad travels in a line, each in sequence firing at the same spot on their way by, eventually boring a burning hole in the Sevora ship until it explodes.
The response to the events comes in flavors - there’s my numb, stunned analysis of what’s going on, there’s my soldiers, who alternate between cheering and retreat, and the Sevora, who abandon what composure they had and resort to panicked flight. They leap from the cliff, diving off the mountainside and running away.
They don’t get far - the Flaum and Whelk that came down with the Oratus set up their longer miners and clean up the cowards, leaving us, after a frantic series of moments, in a blood-soaked, burning battlefield bereft of enemies.
“I don’t believe it,” Viera says, and I’m thankful she’s found her way back to my side. “They actually came.”
All I can do is nod and turn my eyes upward, at the light show continuing in Earth’s upper atmosphere as the Sevora force that’s haunted our every waking moment since I came home burns in systematic, fatal fashion. Like watching flowers burst into bloom on a spring day, the gray-black ships pop into oranges and whites against the blue sky.
I wonder if Ignos, the Sevora that once lived inside my head is up there.
I’m surprised to find I hope it’s not.
The clean-up goes by quickly, with me spending most of it watching as the Oratus go about their bloody business. Our warriors quickly find their own efforts outmatched and settle back, watching their enemies both nearby and up above obliterated by these new players.
“Stay back!” I shout eventually. “Don’t engage. These are...” ‘Friends’ seems the wrong word, but I need to say something, so I go with, “Allies!”.
One of the Oratus, with glinting green scales and looking cleaner than the others after the carnage, finds its way to me once the Sevora threat is eliminated. I’ve forgotten how tall the creatures are - this one is nearly twice my height, and it stares down at me with its teeth visible, those vents lining its chest opening and closing to suck in the air.
