by C H Gideon
As the crowd slowly dispersed, Reynolds and the council went back inside, the bots sealing the door behind them with a loud thump.
Reynolds turned to the emperor, who looked pale but stood tall in the glow of his triumphant return to power.
“I cannot thank you enough, Reynolds,” Krol Gow said.
The AI smiled. “We will sit and talk soon, Emperor, but now I need to concentrate on repairing my ship.” The two shook hands, and the AI gestured to Jiya when they broke apart. “My first officer here will return you and your people to your compound, and we are only a call away should you need us.”
Both sides said their thanks and goodbyes, and Jiya escorted them off the ship and back to the royal compound.
Once she returned, the SD Reynolds launched into an orbit around the planet, settling in for a long stay.
There was much to be done, and much to be learned.
Xyxl had promised to share the technology of their instant transportation system in exchange for the entirety of the code that would keep the cult from invading the Gulg systems again, as well as a ride back to their home planet once everything was said and done.
Reynolds thought that was a damn good deal.
He could only imagine the things he could accomplish with an ally like the Gulg in the fight against this new generation of Kurtherian threat.
Together, he and his crew would bring the war to Jora’nal and Phraim-‘Eh and destroy the cult that had plagued them since he had begun his mission, which had since become about eliminating the cult and all that it represented regarding Kurtherians long gone.
Bethany Anne would be proud, he believed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Voice of Phraim-‘Eh stood at the back of the cathedral staring down the long, red-carpeted aisle that led to his master.
He regretted the news he had to share.
Members of the church sat in the pews and stared at the master as he perched upon his throne, praying to him with every ounce of devotion they could muster. Murmured praises filled the air as the Voice swallowed the knot in his throat and started down the aisle.
His master did not reward cowardice, only obedience.
The crowd’s heads were bowed in reverence, so no one noticed that the Voice walked among them.
He was grateful, because now was not the time for the people to rise up and beg to hear the voice of their god. No, there would be only regret and recrimination in such words, and the Voice could not bring himself to speak such before his lord.
As he strode forward, he felt the eyes of his master fall upon him, a weight as if a tomb door had closed at his back.
The Voice knew fear then. Abject terror, but still his feet stroked the blood-red carpet as he approached the dais where his master sat. He marched forward without slowing.
He could feel his heart thundering in his chest, his life’s blood scalding his veins under the gaze of his god.
Then, before he could think to draw a breath, the Voice stood before the steps of the dais. The quiet prayers of obeisance behind him faded into silence; the Voice had ears for no one but his lord.
The barest whisper of a wave summoned him.
He made his way up the steps of the low dais and prostrated himself at the feet of his master, but he knew better than to beg forgiveness or spit subservient words to no purpose other than to spare himself his god’s wrath.
“My lord, I have failed,” he said plainly, not mincing his words. “The mission on Muultar has failed, and we have lost the planet and the system’s resources.”
Phraim-‘Eh sat back, his throne creaking under the weight of his fury.
“The Federation AI Reynolds found his way to the planet and interfered with our plans, forcing us to enact them before we were ready. We no longer have a foothold there, and the minion of Bethany Anne remains behind to spread the word of her Federation.”
A wave of fetid heat washed over the Voice as his master snarled his disappointment. The Voice blinked away the moist warmth that pecked at his eyes, but he kept his gaze firmly planted on the floor at his master’s feet.
He dared not raise his head and meet his lord’s naked rage.
There was a moment of silence as the Voice waited for the condemnation of his deity, each passing second an agonizing eternity as he waited to be struck down, but no blow came.
He waited in terror a moment longer, then he found his voice once more. He swallowed hard so that his words did not tremble as they fell from his tongue and asked, “What would you have me do, Master?”
Phraim-‘Eh rose from his chair and stood before the Voice, the ground trembling beneath him.
There was a sharp clap above him, and the world stilled in its wake. Pressure coalesced an instant later, and hell seemed to rise into the room.
He screamed as he felt his blood boil and his eyes pressed hard against their lids, desperate to escape their sockets.
Then he heard a storm.
Where there had been silence, there was now a maelstrom. Where there had been prayers, he heard shrieks.
Thunder rumbled all around, and the Voice could smell fire and sulfur and taste the coppery tang of blood and ash upon his tongue.
He resisted the urge to curl into a fetal position and beg the forgiveness of his lord. Instead, he held strong against the coming apocalypse, his ears ringing from the harpy shrieks of wind and his bones rattling in his flesh.
When it seemed he could no longer stand it, that he would bleed out his very essence and be left a pool at the feet of his deity, silence returned.
A breeze washed over him, and he felt warm rain patter on his cheeks and forehead.
A powerful hand settled beneath his chin and raised him to his feet.
The Voice screamed inside; begged himself to keep his eyes closed and remain strong in the face of his god, but a single word drilled into his skull.
“Look.”
The Voice’s eyes flew open, and he beheld his god.
Phraim-’Eh was crimson of skin, and gleaming obsidian eyes sat above the ledges of his cheekbones, which looked to be carved from granite. Long dark hair waved gently in the breeze, and the Voice could feel the power emanating through the palm of his master’s hand as it held him aloft.
Phraim-‘Eh adjusted his grip so the Voice could stare into the endless wells that were his eyes, and the Voice felt his sanity slipping away.
“Do nothing,” Phraim-‘Eh told him, his voice a whisper and the roar of an erupting volcano all at once. “I will handle this Reynolds myself.”
Phraim-‘Eh released the Voice and he tumbled to his knees, not feeling the cold granite as his bones ground into the stone.
His eyes shut of their own accord, and by the time he could force them open again, his lord was gone.
He knew not how long it had been since he’d entered the cathedral or how long he’d spent on his knees in supplication, but now it was time to gather himself and be away until his master called upon him again.
The Voice rose on shaky legs. He turned, his mind in a blur, and staggered down the steps.
The whole of the cathedral had been wiped from existence.
Where pews and stone walls and arched ceilings and people had been, now there was nothing but dust and the constant patter of the rain that fell from above in warm spatters.
It wasn’t until the Voice was nearly free of the cathedral’s ruin that he realized the rain was blood.
The End
Author Notes - Craig Martelle
January 29, 2019
Thank you for reading this book, and you’re still reading! Oorah, hard-chargers. I really hope you liked this story.
We will have one more Superdreadnought to wrap the series and then we’ll be off to tell the next story. I had originally planned for eight books, but plans change as a series unfolds. These are different stories than what people were expecting—it is space opera and character driven. I know that a vocal group wanted more of Reynolds kicking ass a
nd less living-creature interference, but I wanted a Star Trek the Original Series vibe. I think we got that, and it resonated from that perspective.
It’s all good—a story to entertain, as the next will, but even better:) We try to get better with each new word, new sentence, and new story.
Metal Legion is destroying its opponents. I am pleased with how that series is running away with the readers. We’re bringing more and more on board with each new volume. And we’re growing the world – in the Metal Legion universe, you’re going to see Battleship Leviathan. That series will take the lessons we learned from Superdreadnought and the good feedback from Metal Legion and deliver a hard-hitting, great-reading series about space battles and one ship against many.
I look forward to delivering the new series and enjoying your reaction. It is going to be exceptional.
Here in the sub-Arctic, we’re in the throes of the cold/hot exchange. It went from -40F to +25F in the course of three days. I’m good with the +25, especially since that is Phyllis the Arctic Dog’s favorite temperature. She is a pit bull, but her hair is as thick as a sea otter’s (Darwin’s evolution in a couple years living in the Arctic within a single generation). At 50F she starts to pant heavily. We get outside as much as possible when it’s this warm in the winter. We’ll go six months without temperatures getting above freezing, so any days in the 20s are bonus days and shorten the winter considerably.
I’m home for a while. My next trip will be to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for GaryCon XI – a convention in honor of Gary Gygax and his invention, Dungeons and Dragons. It’s a total bash as we play games and BS for four days straight. We eat way too much at the buffet, but it’s only once a year:) This will be my third in a row. I caught the flu last year, but I have high hopes of staying healthy this time around.
I hope the Arctic blast in the Lower 48 that’s ongoing right now doesn’t hurt anyone. My brother (lives in Illinois) told me that he spent two hours plowing half a foot of snow from his long-ass driveway and big parking area and that wind chill was -50F the entire time. It did a number on his truck’s plow hydraulics. Have to wait for it to warm up to fix it, just like I had to with my tractor. I blew the snowblower belt and had to wait for all the snow to melt off of it before I could put on the new belt. I was victorious, despite the mean machine trying to rip skin off my knuckles. I’ll take it for a test drive today to make sure everything is working. But I have a heated garage and that’s what it takes to work on my tractor. We’re on a first-name basis because of how much time we’ve spent together, my tractor and me.
That’s it – I have Superdreadnought 5’s outline to dig into. and then the final draft of Mystically Engineered 2 to review and get to the editor.
Peace, fellow humans.
Superdreadnought 5
Book 5
Chapter One
The end was near.
After months of tracking down leads and talking to the disgruntled cultists left behind on Muultar after their defeat, Reynolds had located his target at last.
He knew where Jora’nal and the Pillar were.
An imaginary chill ran down Reynolds’ android spine as he imagined what he’d do once he got his hands on that bastard.
He chuckled as he thought about it.
This wasn’t the exact mission he’d had in mind when Bethany Anne had sent him out into the universe to hunt down Kurtherians, but he knew she’d be pleased once he reported his findings and wiped the would-be Kurtherian offshoots out of existence.
They might well only be descendants of the original scourge, but they could easily be as much of a threat, given time to better organize and prepare and spread farther across the universe.
Reynolds wasn’t going to give them that opportunity.
He and the crew of the SD Reynolds were taking the fight to Phraim-‘Eh and his minions.
“We’re Gating into the Asparian System now, Captain,” Ensign Ria Alcott reported from the helm, her voice steady and strong.
They’d come a long way since she’d joined the crew, and given all she’d experienced, she’d flourished in her role as pilot of the ship.
They had all changed a lot.
Reynolds nodded to the ensign and glanced around the bridge.
The faces staring back at him were eager and ready to finish the fight.
Asya was positioned at Reynolds’ back, overseeing the bridge operations. Jiya sat in the first officer’s spot, examining all the incoming data the scanners were pulling in. Maddox was stationed in Tactical’s spot, he and the AI personality conversing in low tones so as to not distract from the ship’s operation.
“We’re parked at the edge of the system,” Ria went on. “Gravitic shields are up and all weapons systems are charged and ready, but I’m not detecting any obvious threats nearby. Deploying long range scanners now to see if anyone’s lurking about.”
“Report,” Reynolds called. He wanted to get on with it.
There was a bug to squash. A big one.
“There’s only one habitable planet in the system,” Jiya explained, “which makes things easy. Designated as ‘Aspar,’ the planet is just as active as we were warned it would be, despite its distance from any other inhabited system.”
“This is about as far on the edge of the galaxy as you can get,” XO stated. “It’s a good thing we were informed of its location, or we’d never have found it.”
“That’s what bothers me about the whole thing,” Reynolds answered with a snarl.
“I’m picking up several dozen ships in orbital docks around the planet,” General Maddox stated. “Freighters mostly, cargo ships, but there are a number of smaller warships drifting about, although it’s clear that even the smallest of the ships are packing weapons.” Maddox tapped his console and zoomed in on the large viewscreen so everyone could see what he was looking at. “The Pillar is there, too.”
Reynolds snarled as the enemy ship came into focus.
Just seeing it pissed him off.
He wanted nothing more than to Gate right up to it and unload, blowing the piece of shit into a million motes of dust and sending Jora’nal to his master in pieces.
But he knew he couldn’t.
Not yet, at least.
“Continue scanning the planet and the ships around it,” he ordered. “I want to know everything about our surroundings before we move forward.”
Reynolds wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip away.
“As we’d heard, this is clearly a haven for less than legal pursuits,” Asya jumped in.
“A pirate sanctuary,” Tactical clarified, adding a snarled, “Arrrrr.”
“A well-defended one, too,” Jiya stated. “The planet has a powerful defense system in place, with a clear equal-opportunity mindset.” She zoomed the screen in on the system. “There are hundreds of obvious railgun emplacements along the docking struts, and scanners are picking up energized weaponry hidden from sight within the frame. That’s not counting the dozens of weaponized satellites in orbit around the planet. The system is set up to defend both against outside aggression and the ships in dock.”
“The best defense is a bunch of guns shoved in your face,” Tactical muttered. “They don’t want anyone stirring up shit here.”
“Means we can’t just stroll up behind the Pillar and start putting holes in it without consequences,” Maddox stated.
“This is the type of place that would protect its own from any sort of outside aggression,” Asya agreed. “We wouldn’t just be fighting the Asparian defense grid, but every damn pirate craft parked there, too. We can’t just go in swinging, or we’ll trigger a full-on war with us at the center of it.”
Reynolds nodded as he examined the information spilling across the screen, confirming what his crew was reporting.
“That’s why they brought us here,” the AI noted.
“You still think it’s a trap?” Jiya asked, bringing up a conversation they’d had before leaving the Quadrain System.
Reynolds shrugged. “I think we were handed this location too easily, despite the circumstances,” he admitted. “Sure, we defeated the cultists soundly and left them little choice but to cooperate, but they were too quick to give up the Pillar. You’d think having a master who fancies himself a god would make the help more reluctant to spew sensitive information as fast as they did.”
The captive cultists had started spilling their guts immediately after the battle ended, a number of key Phraim-‘Eh disciples disclosing everything they knew about Jora’nal and the Pillar. They’d apparently known little to nothing about Phraim-‘Eh himself, though.
The information seemed suspect, but it was the only real lead they had.
“Maybe they’re more afraid of you than Phraim-‘Eh,” Maddox suggested. “You did park a superdreadnought above their homes and threaten to blow their asses to oblivion.” He chuckled. “It was damn intimidating.”
“Maybe,” Reynolds answered with a nod, but he had his doubts.
Not that those doubts changed anything.
He’d come to deliver an ass-kicking to Jora’nal and follow the prick back to his master, and nothing was going to keep him from doing just that.
If it were a trap, however, it would change how Reynolds approached the Pillar and its captain. Reynolds wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
“Lots of traffic in and out of the system, Captain,” Ria warned. “We’re outside the standard travel lanes, it appears, since none of the ships are swinging our way, but we’ve been pinged a number of times since we arrived. We’re not invisible, even this far out.”
Reynolds hadn’t expected to be. “Any movement at the Pillar?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Ensign Alcott replied. “She remains docked, shields and weapons at rest, and I’m not seeing any ships going to or away from the other superdreadnought.”
