Nefarius

by Chris Fox

  “I’m good to go, Captain.” Davidson’s voice came back over the speakers. “You sure about driving a tank inside their flagship? Aren’t we going to reach some pretty tight quarters?”

  “Most likely,” Aran admitted with a nod. “We’ll leave it behind if and when we have to. The thing is, Ternus is known for their love of mechs. Skare will have some nasty surprises for us, and I want a nasty answer.”

  “Makes sense, sir.”

  Aran turned to the rest of the squad, and included Nara in his gaze. “All right, I’m going to get suited up and will follow you out. Rhea, Crewes, you’re on point. The rest of you deploy behind them. Nara, can you cover our rear?”

  Nara rested her rifle on her shoulder. “Can do. Do you want an invisibility sphere?”

  “Yeah.” Aran sketched a sigil before his Mark XI, then disappeared inside. When he spoke again his voice came over Nara’s internal speakers. “Keep us cloaked. That may or may not fool some of Skare’s troops, but it’s a small investment.”

  “Sir, I don’t have many spells left,” Rhea admitted. “I’m down to mostly fire, and I expect their tools to be resilient to such magics. Permission to focus primarily on melee?”

  “Do it. Get up close and personal. Crewes will support your advance.”

  Nara felt a pulse of strong fire and earth magic from Rhea, and immediately recognized it as a spell that would increase her natural attributes. Not just strength, but toughness as well. On top of her spellarmor it would make the Outrider formidable in close quarters. Perfect for the interior of a ship.

  “Let’s do this,” Aran said. He stepped through the membrane into the enemy ship. The section of the ship had been depressurized, and there was no sign of resistance.

  Nara waited for the rest of the company to follow Aran, then trailed after, just ahead of Davidson’s tank. As soon as she was through the membrane she cast an invisibility sphere, and drifted a bit forward to make sure it caught Rhea and Crewes at the front of their column. The squad rippled, then disappeared from sight.

  Kezia’s heavier armor clanked up beside her, and her faceplate hissed open, though Nara couldn’t see her with the invisibility. “Back there you said you know we don’t trust you.”

  “Yeah, and that’s okay,” Nara whispered back. “I wasn’t trying to guilt you. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t take it like that.” There was laughter in Kez’s voice, the kind Nara hadn’t heard directed at her in a long time. “I joost wanted to say that I do trust you. I understand why you did what you did. We are family, and you’re a part of that family. You always will be, even if we squabble sometimes.”

  “Thank you,” Nara whispered back.

  Kez’s faceplate hissed shut, and the pair continued forward in silence. It meant more to Nara than her friend would ever know.

  Nara focused on the combat, and scanned the metrics filling her HUD. It was reassuring to be surrounded by tech again, especially since her rifle was perfectly capable of casting any spell she needed to deliver offensively. Hardcasting was a great skill for all mages, but she valued it a lot less than Voria had.

  “Sir,” Rhea’s voice panted over the comm, “the area beyond this door is pressurized.”

  “I’ll maintain the seal,” Aran replied smoothly.

  Nara felt a flow of air snake over her shoulder, then form a thin membrane in the corridor right behind them.

  Rhea shoulder-checked the bulkhead with her armor, then Crewes did the same. They kept it up for several seconds before one of the sergeant’s blows caused the door to buckle, and he charged into the next room, with Rhea in tow.

  An explosion of flame washed up the corridor, and obscured Nara’s vision for several moments. When it cleared most of the rest of the company was already into the next room, and Nara rushed to follow, her invisibility sphere still in place.

  She sized up the combat as soon as she arrived, which was easy to do with Crewes and Rhea charging beyond the confines of her spell, and thus taking all the fire since they were the only two visible targets.

  They’d emerged into a large hangar, with some sort of magical reactor near the center, its blue flickering light dancing on the walls. Two dozen mecha, each ten meters tall, were arrayed at the far side of the room. A line of Inuran hovertanks, like Davidson’s, but a bit smaller, were parked in front of them.

  Every last one fired at Rhea and Crewes, but Rhea vaulted over them and a brilliant latticework of blue and grey burst out from her hands. The ward surrounded her and Crewes, and while the withering volley discolored the surface the ward was still intact when the storm of death finished.

  Nara snapped her rifle to her shoulder, and sighted down the barrel at the tanks, which were probably the bigger threat even though there were fewer of them. If even a single tank got a direct hit the mage was unlikely to survive.

  She flipped the selector to four, the maximum the rifle was capable of channeling, and filled the weapon with void magic. Since her second trip to the Skull of Xal, her reservoirs felt nearly limitless, so she knew she may as well hit as hard as she could.

  Nara fired her spell, which appeared to go wide of the target. It arced into the air over the central tank, and then began to crackle and pulse. The micro-singularity quickly grew in strength, and all three tanks were ripped up into the miniature black hole. A moment later the spell winked out of existence, and the tanks were just…gone.

  “Man, I love having you back, Nara,” Crewes panted over the comm. “Come on, people, let’s do for the rest of them.”

  Crewes leapt forward and breathed a river of flame toward a pair of mechs that were advancing on him. Their legs heated to an angry orange, then began to run like wax. Both mechs collapsed, and their ammunition began exploding, which only spread the destruction to several more mechs.

  “Fall back to defensive positions,” Aran’s voice came over the comm.

  “Sir?” Crewes gave back incredulously. “We’ve got ‘em on the run.”

  “This is way too easy,” Aran said. “They’re luring us in. Davidson, Nara, keep picking off targets. Make them come to us. I want to see if we can spring this trap early.”

  Davidson’s tank kicked back a full five meters, and a spear of blue streaked into one of the surviving hovertanks. Sparks exploded out of the impact point, and a moment later the powerless tank clattered to the deck, inert.

  “Can’t disagree,” Davidson’s drawl came over the comm. “They haven’t even really fired back yet.”

  As if on cue, the enemy hovertanks bucked, and fired a volley of depleted uranium rounds. Aran stepped in front of the company and raised a hand. The rounds, all of them, just…stopped. Then they began to reverse course, and streaked back into the guns that had fired them, blasting the cannons to slag.

  Nara went numb, for a moment anyway. The casual display of power was utterly terrifying. Aran wasn’t playing on the same level as the rest of them, not any more.

  “I think it’s about to get a whole lot harder.” She pointed to the far side of the hangar.

  A suit of spellarmor flashed into view, then crashed to the deck in a perfect landing. It looked very much like the suit Kazon had given Aran, though this was larger and much bulkier.

  Her HUD put it at 2.2 meters tall, though that was the only information it displayed. The passive divination that would normally give her basic information came back with nothing. “That armor drinks magic. It isn’t like the others. This is going to be a lot tougher.”

  Another suit of armor crashed down next to the first, and two more sprinted into view after it. She could hear more of them up the corridor where the first had emerged.

  61

  Boss Fight

  Aran’s stomach roiled as their armored opponents lumbered into view. They were tall enough that they might be more mech than spellarmor, which made them larger and stronger than anyone in the squad.

  Worse, Aran felt nothing from them. No signals, and no magic. They had the same oily black
exterior as the black ships, and he realized that would make them terrifying opponents.

  “Focus on physical attacks and counterspells,” he ordered over the comm. “We have no idea what these guys can do yet. Crewes, Rhea, why don’t you give the first one a poke and see how they react?”

  “On it,” Crewes roared. He surged forward, bounding across the hangar with ten meter steps. “I dumped a whole bunch of fire into pumping my strength, and I really want to see what happens if I hit something.”

  Crewes dropped his spellcannon, and flicked both wrists as he charged the first enemy mech. A pair of gleaming silver spurs extended from each wrist, and the blades were coated in thick, undulating flames.

  The sergeant leapt into the air over his opponent, and the mech shifted its cannon to track his flight. The cannon bucked and a roar drowned out all sound as fifty-caliber rounds streaked into the sergeant’s spellarmor.

  They knocked him about like a ship in a hurricane, but somehow Crewes stayed on target. He landed on the mech’s shoulder and dug the spurs into the thing’s neck. The mech raised an arm to swat Crewes off, but the sergeant seized the arm, and bent it back away from him. “Nnnnnghh…this thing is strong. Somebody give me a hand.”

  Rhea and Kezia sprinted together as one, each aiming at the mech’s legs. Rhea fired a stream of hip-shots from her spellrifle, each acid bolt melting the deck under the mech’s right foot, then she tossed her rifle into a void pocket and drew her spellblade.

  Kezia slammed her hammer into the left leg, and the mech toppled onto its back with a tremendous crash, its cannons spraying rounds all over the hangar. They clanged off friend and enemy alike, though neither side was significantly damaged by the conventional rounds.

  The remaining trio of mechs charged into the fray, and the first one shoulder-checked Kezia away. Her armor tumbled, but she rolled back to her feet, and grunted into the comm, “That one hurt. Joost popped my first two healing potions, and I still feel a little woozy.”

  “Careful, luv,” Bord pleaded. “I ain’t got much left if you run out.”

  Aran knew he needed to end this, and quick. Any direct magic wasn’t going to hurt these mechs, but while strong, they didn’t seem superhumanly so.

  He looked up at the bulkhead, then down at the floor. The exterior of the ship was some sort of magitech alloy, but the interior had been damaged by Rhea’s simple acid bolts.

  Aran extended both hands, and reached deep into his reserves of void, so deep that he barely heard his own yell. He used gravity, more than he’d ever tapped into. Aran began to tug at the bulkhead above, and the ceiling gave a groan of protest as the metal began to buckle.

  All four mechs glanced up, as did the rest of the company. That took their eyes off the floor, and Aran extended his rifle in that direction. He fired a level five void bolt, and disintegrated the center of the floor under the mechs.

  That whole area of the hangar buckled and collapsed down to the next level of the ship. In the chaos, Aran shifted his full focus to the ceiling, and yanked down with all his magical might. The level above tore free and toppled onto the mechs.

  The devastation was larger than expected, but the company quickly scrambled away from the destruction, then winked out of sight as Nara cast another invisibility sphere.

  “Rhea, Bord, do you have enough left for a ward?” Aran asked as he zoomed around the mess he’d created, and focused on the pulsing blue reactor at the far side of the hangar.

  “I can manage,” Bord panted, “but I ain’t gonna have anything left to heal.”

  The shoulders of Rhea’s armor slumped. “I have nothing left, sir. I am sorry.”

  “Bord get the best ward you can get, pronto.” Aran turned back to the light. “That thing looks really important. Sure would be a shame if someone hit it with a level four void bolt, wouldn’t it, Nara?”

  She laughed into the comm. “A real shame.”

  Aran couldn’t see her under the invisibility, but he could see her aura with the ability Xal had given him. Her rifle snapped to her shoulder, and a void bolt streaked into the reactor.

  An instant later a wave of magical, nuclear flame rolled out, melting everything it came into contact with.

  The squad all dove down to Bord’s position, where he already had his hands in the air, erecting a ward. The white latticework of sigils snapped into place just before the explosion impacted, and Bord sagged to his knees with a grunt.

  “Crewes.” Aran spun to face the sergeant. “Can you direct the flow of fire?”

  Crewes’s arms came up. “Can do, sir.”

  The wards began to discolor, and then break apart. By that time the sergeant had seized the explosion, and he hurled the river of flame down into the gaps in the wreckage over the mechs.

  The fire melted the metal, and it fused into one giant piece that covered their enemies like the lid to a massive sarcophagus.

  “Everyone okay?” Aran called, spinning to conduct a visual check. Everyone seemed okay, and a moment later a chorus of yes’s came back over the comm.

  Streamers of smoke pooled in corners of the room, and obscured most of the passageways leading to other parts of the ship. Sparks shot from exposed wiring, which had been ripped loose when Aran had torn apart the bulkhead above. All in all the destruction was rather impressive.

  “I should have known,” Skare’s smug voice echoed through the hangar, “that I would have to tend to this personally. I must admit that I am rather surprised at how quickly you disposed of my arcanomechs.”

  A larger black mech jumped from the level above, and crashed down into the floor not far from the company. It was a good three meters tall, the better armored version of the mechs they’d just faced.

  “Be careful, Aran,” Nara whispered over the comm. “That thing is a lot scarier than it looks.”

  “A good deal scarier,” Skare’s voice echoed over the deck. “Yes, Captain, I have been monitoring your communications since your arrival in the system. Virkonna’s assault…Ternus’s capitulation. Each was merely a piece in my plan. And now, I will execute the final phase of that plan. Before Nefarius arises you will be dead, and I will present the corpse of her rival’s guardian as proof of fealty. I can feel your strength. She will enjoy feasting on you.”

  “What makes you think you can pull all that crap off?” Crewes demanded. He stalked forward. “You know what I think? I think we’re about to paste bits of your smug face all over the inside of this ship.”

  “Do you?” Skare asked mildly. His hand came up, and a spear of void streaked out from each finger. All five twisted through the air like living things, and Aran realized in horror that they were identical to the tendrils the ships used.

  As the tendrils approached Crewes, each broke into a dozen, which broke into a dozen more. Hundreds of tendrils streaked from his fingers, entire clouds of them moving to envelop Crewes. The sergeant inhaled deeply, then loosed a cloud of flame. The tendrils cried out beyond hearing, but not in pain…more in pleasure. They greedily drank the flame, and continued on toward their target.

  Black, ropy tendrils wrapped around the sergeant, and yanked him toward Skare. Crewes gave a hoarse roar of agony, and pulses of fire flowed up Skare’s tendrils into the armor, as Skare began to drain Crewes’s magic.

  62

  The Cost

  Kezia stood frozen in the middle of the battle, and squandered several precious seconds. Sarge had charged this guy and was getting his ass kicked. Behind her Bord stood half hunched over in his armor, clearly running on fumes.

  Her superior officer was about to die, and her only choice was to go in without her support. Bord had kept her alive through things that had killed planets, and her heart thundered as she charged into combat without him.

  She wasn’t alone, thank the gods.

  The captain glided forward, his spellblade everywhere at once as Aran slashed through any tendrils that Skare whipped in his direction. There were so many, but somehow the captain twisted aro
und those he was unable to sever. She’d never seen anyone, not even the captain, move like that before. He left afterimages as he flowed around them, literally too fast for the eye to follow.

  She might not be a god like him, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t help Sarge. Kezia focused on the combat. She trotted to an area outside Skare’s vision, and then charged the bastard from behind. Kez had plenty of time to pick up speed, and she coaxed her heavy spellarmor into a full run.

  Kezia’s breathing quickened, and fire magic boiled out of her into the armor. It increased the suit’s already considerable strength, making the massive hammer she hefted all the more dangerous.

  Skare had some sort of spell immunity, but she wondered how he’d handle a massive hammer to the back. Physical force, in sufficient amounts, was pretty hard to ignore.

  Kezia charged, and at the last moment flung all of her strength into the swing. The hammer hummed through the air, far faster than a weapon of its size should have been capable of.

  All that stored kinetic energy slammed into Skare’s back with a tremendous crack, and flung the smug bastard fifty meters into the wall at the opposite side of the hangar. The sergeant clattered to the deck, and quickly began scrambling to his feet.

  “Ugh,” the sergeant muttered. “I don’t feel so good.”

  Skare began doing the same on the opposite side of the hangar, but Davidson’s tank bucked and a spear of ice knocked him to the ground again.

  Crewes lobbed a ball of napalm onto Skare’s arcanomech, but while the flames clung to the metal they didn’t seem to damage it in the slightest. Kezia froze, and tried to decide what the next move should be. How did they hurt this bastard?

  “Nice work, Kez. Looks like this is going to be about physical force, people. Bring this bastard down.” Aran’s confident voice filled Kezia with resolve. The captain had gotten them through every scrape, but this one was more important than all the rest put together. It wasn’t just one planet on the line, but theoretically the whole sector.