by Chris Harris
In the centre of the hangar bay was the Lord's ship; Watchman. Unlike the jagged angles and straight edges of the Xaosian Dominion, the Watchman was sleek and curved, shaped more like a flattened sphere than anything else. This disc-like ship could hold over one-hundred crew members, and it usually did so; most were guards trained in ship-to-ship combat made possible by the complex arrays of hidden weaponry hidden under panels in the ship. In combat, the panels would slide away after the weapon-bays became airlocked.
A Scaliman, yellow in colour, stood by the ship, waiting for Foton and Devilclash. Foton greeted him with a salute. “Nixiin, good to see you again.” Foton extended a hand, which Nixiin took and shook.
“And you too, Foton.” Nixiin smiled politely. “Ah, the Pyrkagias approaches! I've heard a fair bit about you, Devilclash.”
It took Foton a moment to remember that Devilclash had not actually left the Capital with Tahkshi before, so had not had the chance to meet Nixiin, who was in charge of this hangar.
“Only good things, I hope.” Foton liked Devilclash, but her flat and humourless drone of a voice irritated him whenever he heard it.
“Mostly.” Nixiin smiled and showed Devilclash her chambers on the ship's map. “You still waiting for Tahkshi?”
“Yeah, twit likes to keep me waiting.” It was no secret among Tahkshi's personal staff that he was, despite his media persona, a bit of a pompous arsehole.
Nixiin chuckled. “You realise he could've been right around the corner when you said that.”
Foton suppressed a natural smile at that. “I would have heard him.”
Nixiin considered this for a moment. “Yeah, you would've.”
Foton cocked his head. “Here he comes.”
Fast footsteps echoed down the hallway outside the hangar. “That's a damn good ear you got there, Foton.” Nixiin observed.
“Foton, Nixiin, get a move on!” Tahkshi strode into the hangar, escorted by two large Hak'i. He turned to them. “Go back to your posts now.” He continued walking, unbuckling his Lord's robe as he did so, revealing red and gold shirt and trousers underneath. “I'm going to my chambers, call if you need me.”
“We won't need you.” Foton said under his breath. “Nixiin, I'll see you in a day or so.” Foton walked briskly to the ship and up the ramp, which clanged beneath his steel soles; before coming to the hangar, he had changed into his light-combat armour. This armour consisted of the steel boots as well as a steel chestplate. However, his gloves and trousers were made from a metal fibre, creating a thick mesh which should stop oncoming blows and low-calibre bullets. At his waist, a holster held a small pistol with both a stun and kill setting. A knife was placed on the inside of each shin. Unlike the other guards, Foton also attached a retractable blade onto his wrist; these were technically illegal, but Foton chose to wear them to give him an edge in hand-to-hand combat. He didn't think anyone else knew about them, which suited him just fine.
When he got inside, he headed up to the ship's command hub. There he stood on a bridge overlooking banks of computers and their operators, both human and Irinian. “Everyone on board?”
A human near to him by the name of Jeok replied. “Life sign readings show that, yes everybody is on board.”
Foton nodded. “Excellent. Set course for Buun.”
Foton stood and waited for an Irinian – Foton thought he was called Wrotha – to respond. “Ready sir.”
“Call me Foton.” Foton abhorred being referred to as higher than the others, when they are doing more work than he. “Prepare for take off.”
He heard the hiss of the landing gear folding up and the airtight locks sealing. Then the engines thrummed louder and louder as they built up energy, before the hangar bay doors opened and the ship slowly manoeuvred out of them. As soon as it was out, the engines went silent; they were only loud when warming up. The ship angled itself towards the sky, and lumbered slowly upwards until it reached the upper atmosphere. The wall in front of Foton turned transparent and he could see the darkness of space outside. “Engage the L-Drive.”
Stars and space zoomed past the ship as it became faster than light itself.
Foton sat down in his chair on the bridge and logged on to his computer. While he was tempted to check for news on Raan, he knew he shouldn't; he was meant to be in charge. He checked the Watchman's structural integrity and found it at one-hundred percent, just as he expected. Surprisingly, he found himself bored; he was never usually bored. There was always something to do, something to check. But now, he had a team doing those jobs for him and his principle wanted to be alone. He knew why he felt uneasy though; Devilclash's disbelief about his time on Buun. He knew he should never have mentioned it; his past always led to trouble. The minutes passed in silence.
“Foton!”
He turned to see Tahkshi walking towards him. “What do you want?”
Tahkshi looked irritable at Foton's tone, although Foton thought that he should be used to it by now. “How long is it to Buun?”
Foton shrugged. “I don't know.” He turned to the crew beneath the bridge. “How long is it to Buun?”
Wrotha turned around and said, “About 10 minutes; it takes about 25 to get there from New Orbus.”
Foton was always amazed by how fast L-Drive travel was; a matter of minutes, or hours, from New Orbus to anywhere else in the Twelve, aside from Oblivion. Light from the Sol took only eight minutes to get to Rat'hak, and about three hours from Rat'hak to Buun. New Orbus was rather close to Buun, and it led Foton to think about how Orbus's climate may have been like before it was wiped out. He presumed that it was a tropical landscape like Buun's, complete with that sticky, uncomfortable heat.
“Good.” Tahkshi answered. “I may just stay here for a bit; I do like to watch the stars.”
Foton nodded; the one thing that they shared. “They are beautiful.”
“They are.”
Silence as they looked at the streaks of white and silver across the screen; the stars became distorted due to the speed.
Something hit the ship.
Foton tumbled out of the chair, which then fell on him. He threw it off of himself and located Tahkshi; he was still on the floor. “What the hell's going on?”
“Something's knocked us out of L-Speed!” One of the crew members had got back up into their chair.
Foton yelled into his com, “Everyone to battle stations!” Along the exterior of the Watchman, panels slid open, revealing an array of cannons around the entire rim of the ship. Foton looked out of the screen and saw a white ship dart by. He didn't recognise the design; it must be new. Without warning, the ship rocked again. This time, Foton grabbed a railing to support himself. Proffering his hand, he pulled Tahkshi to his feet. “What was that?”
Another crash, another hiss of the air-seal; a quickly forming gel which solidifies into an airtight solid is secreted from the walls when they are breached. A voice came over the com. “The white ships are crashing into the sides of the ship, take them out!”
“Boarding parties or kamikaze?” Foton called back over the com.
“Boarding-” The com was cut off: dead. Foton had no time to mourn.
“We need to get to the escape pods!” Foton yelled. “Everyone go!”
A door hissed open and two armoured Xaosians were revealed. They were flanking a white being, the species of which Foton couldn't place; it was humanoid, but with an ivory exoskeleton covering its body and distorting some features. Foton couldn't care less. He drew his pistol, set it to kill and shot at the alien.
The bullet stopped in mid-air between its fingers. The alien examined it briefly, before discarding it. It drew its own weapon from a holster on its side and shot back. The bullet narrowly missed Foton as he threw himself to the ground. Screams shattered Foton's wish for silence, but the Xaosians soon granted that wish, each bullet silencing one of the crew members. Foton dragged Tahkshi along the bridge to the other door. Tahkshi tried to keep up, but Foton easily outpaced h
im. There was a sound behind them. Foton twisted round. The alien was there, just a couple of standards away. Foton put his pistol up and shot the alien three times in the head. The alien slid to the left; the bullets missed. Nothing should be that fast Foton thought, before realising that his gun was useless. He ran to the alien, hidden blade primed.
The alien grabbed his arm and threw him off the bridge and onto the computers below. Foton recovered just in time to see the alien shoot Tahkshi three times in the head.
Dead.
He had failed.
Chapter 18
Devilclash 2
The ship rocked and Devilclash was thrown from the thin-mattressed standard-issue bed onto the cold hard floor. Most of the bugs righted themselves and stayed in mid-air, but the Hive-Stone clattered to the ground. Righting themselves, the bugs swarmed around the Hive-Stone once more, picking it up and placing it in back in to its original position.
She heard shrieks coming from outisde her chambers. Her door slid open with a quiet hiss and she stepped through as a man ran by, straight into her arm. Panicking, the man flailed his own arms, trying to swat the bugs out of his way, before Devilclash was able to reform her arm. “Look where you're going.” Her voice did not lack reproach. The man looked back, but continued running away.
Gunfire, and the man was torn apart in front of her, bullets thudded into the walls.
Xaosians. Silver-skinned, scaled monstrosities. At first, they seemed similar to the Scalimen, but the Xaosians had no tail, no emotional tells, and their gargantuan hands were designed by evolution for violence only. In fact, the hands of the Xaosian were the only areas not covered by their black combat armour. When they saw Devilclash. They briefly aimed, and fired.
Attaching the Hive-Stone to two bugs, she decomposed herself, allowing the hive to become the swarm that it should be. Some bullets took out some bugs, and Devilclash felt not a pain, but as if part of herself was lost; she reeled with the feeling. Reaching the Xaosians, she had the bugs swarm onto them. They tried to swat the bugs away, but hundreds of tiny mouths ate through the Xaosian's armour, aided by a natural acid, before climbing inside and devouring the Xaosian. One was targeted in the helmet, his eye being a passage for the bugs to destroy his brain; the other had his chest targeted, heart devoured.
Taking on human form once more, she looked down at the two Xaosians. Obviously here to kill Lord Tahkshi.
She opened herself to the Swarm and relayed these memories to the rest of the Pyrkagia. As she did so, she felt the shock and horror of the others who could see it. A visualisation of the Swarm, which she held in her mind, flashed a dark red as the shock turned to anger; how could the Xaosians do this? Curious, she tried to find the Pyrkagias she had detected on Raan before, but she found no sign of life. She delved deeper, swimming through the memories and eventually found the one she was looking for; while the body was gone, the memories remain forever.
Buildings fall as the ground shakes; an aftershock of the Xaosians mega-weapon. Crevasses open and swallow a building. My building. We fall for an eternity, but some of us live when the building stops. Then come these...things. Silver skin, always shifting. They're on us now. Fighting is useless.
Devilclash detached herself from the Swarm, breathing quickly as she did so. Creatures in the core of Raan? Silver shifting skin? She thought she knew what they were, but they were all dead, surely. She put it to the back of her mind for now; I'll discuss it with the Primary when I get to Buun.
She dissipated herself once more and made her way to Tahkshi's chambers; protecting him was her first priority. When she reached the chambers, alarms around the ship were ringing and red lights were flashing in the corridors. Luckily, she didn't bump into any more Xaosians. She gently pushed the door to his chambers open. It was very similar to Devilclash's, just slightly larger and with a rail-desk in the corner; the Lords were supposed to have plain, nondescript rooms so as not to make it obvious where their chamber was. “Tahkshi?” She called; it looked empty, but he could have been hiding. When she received no response, she realised that the only logical place that he would have gone to would be the bridge.
So she reformed her human shape and ran to the bridge to the sound of squealing alarms and gunfire.
Chapter 19
Foton 3
Groggy from his fall, Foton shook his head to clear the mist. Gunshots sounded around him, instantly killing their victims thanks to the unwavering aim of the Xaosians. Foton grudgingly admired their skills. He looked around at the corpses around him; he was lucky, the Xaosians obviously thought that the alien had killed him.
Wrotha stared up at him. Dead.
He felt a pang of guilt; he might have been able to save some of them if he hadn't been so preoccupied with getting Tahkshi out of there. And now he was dead anyway. He had failed to protect the principle.
But he could try and avenge him.
The alien was still on the bridge, surveying the Xaosians' work with a look of what appeared to be disgust in its barely-visible eyes. As a Xaosian passed Foton, he leapt up and jammed his hidden blade through its helmet; the diamond blade easily plunged through the Xaosian's head. Aware that the other Xaosian would probably be bringing his gun up to fire, Foton pulled a knife from his right shin and threw it in its direction. He heard a thud as the Xaosian went down. Seeing a Xaosian X-46 gun on the floor, Foton picked it up and swung it in the alien's direction. He set it to projectile-stun and swung it round to aim at the alien; even if it could evade bullets, it shouldn't be able to dodge the static-charges.
He became aware of a soft clapping from the bridge. “Well fought.” Part of the alien's exoskeleton shifted and pulled itself back, revealing red skin around its mouth.
Foton fired at the alien.
One shot. The alien jerked to the right, and the static-charge crackled as it hit the wall behind.
Second shot. After sliding to the right, the alien brought its pistol around and shot it down, before briefly aiming at Foton's weapon and firing.
Foton dropped the gun as it sparked and emitted smoke. The alien holstered its own weapon and leapt from the bridge to the control room below. Foton sized it up; it was about half a standard taller than him, and a little bit broader too. He knew that it was much faster than him, so he assumed that it would be stronger.
It lashed out, fist connected with Foton's shoulder. Foton stumbled back a few paces. His shoulder felt cold and numb: dislocated. As the alien swung another fist, Foton jerked out of the way, grabbing his dislocated arm and shoving it forcefully back into its socket, biting back the pain.
Foton fought back now. He swung his fist at the alien, drawing his hidden blade as he did so. But the alien saw the blade's reflection, even in this dull lighting. It grabbed Foton's wrist and squeezed. “A diamond blade...” The alien smiled. “Unbreakable, diamond, isn't it?” Its exoskeleton seemed to shift slightly, before taking on a shinier tone. Without warning, it brought its free hand down on the blade, cleaving it in two. “Only diamond breaks diamond.” Foton looked at the blade, stunned at what the alien had done. “And we can be anything.” It looked into Foton's eyes. “Remember that, Assassin.”
It released Foton, who stumbled away from it. “What are you?”
“The name is Otor,” Foton listened to the voice; masculine surely, “and my kind built this Empire-”
“-And destroyed it.”
Foton looked around to locate the voice; Devilclash was by the door, walking in slowly. “I thought your kind was dead. Adjeti.”
Foton's eyes widened at this; of course this alien was an Adjeti; he'd read about them before, studied them even. How could he be so blind? He finished his brief berating, remembering that the reason he didn't recognise it straight away was the fact that the entire race was wiped out. Or so the history books said. Obviously a few survived.
“Pyrkagias.” Otor spat the words out. “We both know that the Adjeti didn't destroy Orbus.”
Devilclash's bug
s arranged themselves in an obscure way, as if they were confused. “The Swarm says you did. History books say you did. Are we to trust the word of a murderous outsider?”
“Murderous?” Otor gestured to the corpses around him. “You think I would do this if I had a choice about it? No. Your kind has driven me to desperation; I work for the Xaosians for one reason only: to restore my race.”
“They're all dead. Oblivion was burnt to a crisp.” Foton interjected forcefully; everyone knew the story of Ardican, the human who sacrificed himself to use the World-Burner to destroy Oblivion, the Adjeti homeworld, after their attack on Orbus.
“Are they?” Otor smiled, as if humouring them. He turned back to Devilclash. “When my kind return, you will pay for what you've done. Show the Swarm what I'm saying, and let them fear the days to come.”
“I could kill you right now.” Devilclash hissed, anger breaking her usual monotone. Foton knew this was bad; the two species were always enemies, but Otor's accusations only forced the tension higher.
“What's stopping you?” When he stopped speaking, Otor's exoskeleton snapped back around his mouth; a defence mechanism.
Devilclash leapt at him, the bugs squealing. Foton felt a primal fear rise up inside him, but he ignored it. Otor darted to the side and raised his hand. The exoskeleton covering his wrist twisted around and extended, forming a cone around his hand, with a thin cylinder sticking out the end of it. Like a barrel of a gun.
The bullet of the organic was a pellet of compressed blood, forced into a rock-hard state. It smashed into Devilclash's Hive-stone, knocking it out of formation with the rest of the bugs. Foton grabbed Otor's organic-gun-arm and wrenched it forward. Otor stumbled slightly, losing his balance. Foton drew his other knife and stabbed it into his eye. With no exoskeleton other his eyes, the blade went in deep, spewing thick red blood over the ivory around it. As Foton pulled the blade out, Otor fell to his knees, before falling face-first onto the metal ground.
Devilclash reformed herself, but Foton could tell hat she was in pain; he didn't know how he knew, but he did. Maybe it was some sort of instinct. “Nice one.” Her voice was distorted from the norm.
Foton ran over to one of the still-functioning computers and ran a check on the personnel aboard the ship; everyone was registered just like the bodyguards were in the Spire. Running a ship-wide search, he found only two; his and Devilclash's. He felt no grief at this, just a pang of annoyance; evidently the guards weren't trained well enough. He quickly checked the engines and found that they had been severely damaged by the Xaosians' attack; the Watchman wasn't going anywhere. Next, Foton ran a life-form scan on the ship. Twenty-seven recognised life-forms were aboard the ship; twenty-five Xaosians. From the image on-screen, he could see that they were retreating back to their ships.
