Relief was such a wonderful feeling; underappreciated, really.
The pain was returning to my ankle, the throb intensifying and expanding to both my foot and lower calf. I could still put pressure on it but not without limping. I removed my shoes and struggled down the hall barefoot. I was still a bit dizzy, my heart pounding out of my chest.
If the demons take Ezekiel, then Lucifer would learn that I had surrendered to Qaira.
If the demons destroy Ezekiel, then I go down in flames with the angels.
If the angels keep me hostage, my future is uncertain, but its outcome was likely bleak.
Warm tears stung my eyes as alarms rang out, a deep and slightly muffled voice announcing over the speaker that the hull was compromised. All soldiers to the hull.
There was a strange pressure in the air, pushing lightly against my temples. My skin tingled against my clothes, the way it does in the presence of static.
The hallway was abandoned in every direction. Just me, alarms, and static.
I leaned against the wall and limped on, hoping to find a lift. Eventually the pain became unbearable and I was forced to use my wings for more resistance, which barely fit within the width of the passage.
Finally, a lift.
The sight of it resuscitated my hope. It was deactivated as well, but I could move up the shaft and perhaps find access to the outer-ship.
There was a breeze and the doors slid open.
I froze.
Yahweh stepped out of the lift, folding his wings.
I was practically on my knees at his feet. And, for some reason, he appeared terrified.
“You’re not supposed to be conscious yet,” he said, and knelt.
“What’s happened?” I stammered as he lifted me to a stand. “Have you lost?”
“Not yet,” he murmured, guiding me toward the vacant, vertical tunnel. “I’m here to get you to safer quarters.”
“Why is the Commander of Heaven manning an evacuation?”
“We’re a little understaffed at the moment.”
*
The shaft was blocked several floors above. Judging by Yahweh’s expression, this was a new development.
He led me down another door-lined hallway, red lights flashing on and off. His grip was rough and he pulled me too quickly. I stumbled, and yelped.
There was a repetitive bang from the other side of the hall. Yahweh stopped. He let me go and I fell to the cold floor.
Surprised, I stared at his back, watching his gloved hands curl into fists. There was something inside of him that he was battling. I didn’t understand.
The door at the end of the sector hallway blew open, dented and charred. A group of armored demons poured through the newly-formed passage. Four kneeled, the others stood behind them, blocking the door and raising their weapons.
They demanded that Yahweh show his hands.
He remained still, fists clenched. His coat displayed no weapons for any form of defense. His stance showed conflict.
And then he raised his hands, slowly.
My heart sank.
I had placed my bets on the wrong side, and now I would be executed with them.
But…
I closed my eyes and concentrated, choking on the traitorous guilt that maimed my insides.
Nothing. Their minds should have been mush.
My only weapon—our only weapon—had done nothing.
Why?
I had no time to contemplate. Yahweh’s hands exploded, bits of blood-splattered glove and flesh painting the walls and my face. Black scythes slid through his shredded sleeves and he blurred out of sight.
Gunfire erupted and I cowered, shielding my head. My heart throbbed in my ears.
I felt the heat of sparks as bullets flew. I waited for the sting of their bite but never felt it.
Then, silence.
After several seconds, I unfolded.
Yahweh stood within the group of demons, all of them reduced to mangled body parts and slices of metallic armor. A stream of their blood ran toward me.
He looked my way from over his shoulder, motionless. Shadows covered his face and I couldn’t make out his expression.
I remained still, breathing hard, staring back at him.
Yahweh retracted his scythes and looked down at the corpses, waiting for his hands to heal. I watched them reform, mesmerized.
“You… You’re one of them.” My voice was barely louder than a whisper.
Yahweh said nothing, shaking out his new hands. I could see his face now, and he stared at his regenerated limbs in both confusion and awe.
“That’s against the terms. You’ve violated the rules,” I rasped.
“The Contest tossed its rules long before me,” said Yahweh, laughing sadly. His face and coat were decorated in blood. The contrast of colors made his eyes appear bluer, more intense.
“How long have you—?”
“I died when Praetor Delvori invaded the ship.”
I looked away, trying to process this.
“Hell has won, Samnaea. But you and I both know that that can’t actually happen.”
Disbelief quickly turned to fury. We’d won long before I’d defected in fear for my life; long before I’d questioned Commander Raith’s ethics.
“You horrible, cheating wretch,” I hissed, shaking. “The rules of the Contest can’t be broken. The Celestial Code is the only thing we have left. You’re a liar!”
Yahweh said nothing.
“You never meant to free us! You never meant to release us from this prison!” I was sobbing now, unable to see through my tears. “We were never meant to be given a chance, were we? Were we?!”
He inhaled, looking down.
“Answer me, you fucking beast!”
Yahweh’s eyes met mine, and they narrowed. He walked toward me, slowly. “Would I have risked exposure to evacuate you, a demon, if I am how you think?”
I fumbled for a response. I honestly had no idea why he’d come for me.
“The past haunts us, Samnaea. It doesn’t haunt me, but it haunts mine.” He paused, smiling weakly.
I flinched as he jerked me up. Yahweh allowed me to regain my footing before he led me down the cleared hallway. We gingerly side-stepped the bodies.
“I’m useful to you, surely,” I finally said. “I’m leverage against Lucifer. Well, I’m sorry to inform you that I doubt he cares whether I live or die anymore, hence my being here.”
“Which also raises the question as to why I’d go out of my way to be so diplomatic when I could easily just fast-travel to Judas and kill my father outright.”
I glared at him.
He shrugged. “The evidence is obvious if you stop and think about it.”
“Just get me to safety. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to someone who stands against four counts of treason at the Celestial Court, five if you include jumping ship from your own race.”
“The Celestial Court is dissolved. It was filthy and corrupt anyhow. It was nothing but a farce that kept my kind oppressed.”
“That is somewhat true.”
“You won’t execute Lucifer because you know your angels wouldn’t be able to live with the idea that they’d won dishonestly. Archaeans with their rules, their suffocating structure. They would sacrifice themselves before living with that kind of guilt.”
Instead of replying, he tapped his head set. “I’m returning to central command. The inversion seems to have been a success.”
He paused, listening.
“Not yet.”
There was a whir, followed by a chorus of beeps that signified the systems control had been restored. All the panels on the doors blinked green.
“Confirmed. I am bringing General Soran to the bridge. Please have someone ready to escort her.”
He badged into the panel; the doors to the lift slid open, a glowing disk now hovering before us, awaiting our departure. “We can sit here and argue
politics or we can survive. The choice is yours, Miss Soran.”
XXII
A VISCERAL HOLOCAUST
Qaira Eltruan—;
WITH ADRIAL HEADING TO THE ENGINES ROOM, I was running out of things to do. Michael’s team had swarmed the deck, overrunning the enemy soldiers guarding the ship’s halo. But he was on foot. I was riding bitch with Belial on our last aRAVE.
“Move to the halo,” I shouted over the roaring wind and flames.
“Why? This thing’s out of artillery!” he shouted back. “We need to get the others and figure out an exit plan. I’d say this ship is about to sink.”
“If this thing still has power, it still has bombs!”
“Then what do you suggest we do? Run our bird into the halo?!”
“Just get me close enough.”
“Qaira, we need to get the fuck out of here. Have you forgotten the King of Exo’daius is bloody-who-knows-where on this ship and probably very, very angry at us?!”
No, I hadn’t.
I also still couldn’t tell for certain if Ezekiel had a method of protecting herself yet. “If we leave before deactivating their weapons, our flagship is done. We’re done.”
Belial said nothing, battling that thought. My viewpoint won out and he steered the craft toward the colossal, crimson hoop. It flickered intermittently, revealing damage already sustained.
Something rammed into the side of our aRAVE.
Belial swerved; a blurry form soared by, missing us by an inch.
I looked back, just in time to see Avarice Delvori somersault mid-air, changing trajectory. Her black, razor-clad wings expanded as she lunged for us again.
I let go of Belial and fell off the aRAVE, having had quite enough of Lucifer’s lab experiment. This time I would make sure there was nothing left to revive.
Belial’s worried cries echoed into the distance, the aRAVE dissolving in the clouds of black smoke that emanated from Gomorrah’s slow demise. My own wings expanded and I dove from another of the Praetor’s aerial attacks. Before she could recover I rammed her and we both crashed into a pillar, sprawling across the flaming hull.
That hurt. A couple of my ribs had broken for sure.
I staggered to my feet. Avarice did as well.
“I don’t get it,” I spat. “Any smart piece of shit would have retreated at the chance. You keep coming back, begging for another beating.”
Avarice said nothing, flickering her wings, unsheathing her ion blade. She lowered her head, narrowing her eyes.
I smirked at her lack of response, and lunged.
To my surprise, she dropped the blade and opened her arms. This happened too soon to retract, and my elbow rammed her gut. It dented her armor and she whipped backward twenty feet, sliding through a pile of charred bodies. I cleared the distance in half a second, grabbing her by the neck and making her kneel.
“What kind of game are you playing?” I snarled.
Still, nothing. Avarice hung limp in my arms.
“Fair enough. I’m not your therapist.” I unleashed a scythe, raising it over her head. “Anything you wish to express before joining your friends?”
“W-Wish,” she rasped, and then gave a throaty laugh.
I hesitated, thrown by her reaction.
“The dead don’t wish,” she said, struggling to breathe against my grip. “The dead don’t speak.”
Her eyes raised to mine. Silver to silver, gleaming with malice.
“I died in Yema Theater,” she whispered.
My expression must have changed, because her stare intensified.
“You died there, too.” Avarice’s gloves clutched at my fist clenched around her neck. “You are me, and I am you. So, do it.”
I was frozen as memories came flooding back; some of which I wasn’t equipped to handle at the moment. I let her go and backed away, disgust and empathy battling for control. It was the kind of empathy I didn’t realize I’d had until now.
Avarice dropped to her knees, enraged.
“Do it!” she screamed. “Kill me now! I can’t go back to him after this!”
I stayed silent, conflicted.
“I should have died in Sanctum! Correct your mistake! Correct your mistake!”
She was about to scream that again but was snatched up by an invisible force. Avarice’s squirming form was lifted fifty feet into the air. She clutched at her throat as if being strangled, and then was wringed in half at the midsection like a cloth. Her warm insides rained on me and I flinched at the macabre spectacle.
Both halves of her body hit the ground in a wet thud. Disconnected bits of armor clattered around her, settling in a growing pool of blood around Avarice’s remains.
My eyes moved from the corpse to a shifting figure in my peripherals.
Oraniquitis stood idle, watching me. She bore no expression.
“She was damaging your mind,” said Oran, having sensed the look of disgust and accusation in my eyes. “I felt your will crumble. It made you weak.”
“And why would you give a fuck? You haven’t even been here this whole time.”
Oraniquitis shoved her hands into her coat and only looked past me.
I turned, following her gaze.
Calenus and Zira stood next to the fallen communications pillar. Their faces were decorated in bruises and still-healing wounds. I hadn’t felt either of them coming.
“Qaira, back away,” cooed Oran. “It’s not you they’re after and I can’t afford your death.”
I glared at her, insulted. “Lady, I don’t walk away from fights.”
Oraniquitis frowned, but conceded nonetheless. Her attention shifted to the Silver King. “I let you leave once, but twice is where I draw the line.”
Calenus stood tall, unflinching against the surrounding battle. The halo was still intact, but the ship was tilting and smoke was rising from beneath it. Adrial must have found the engines room.
“I order you, as King of Exo’daius, to return to our place of origin,” he said, calmly. His gaze trailed to me. “All of you. Enough is enough.”
“You are not the King,” Oran rebuked, moving past me. “You are a derelict King of a usurped dynasty led by my sick-minded son. I am giving you one chance to kneel before me and acknowledge my rightful title as your Queen.” She stopped mere feet from Calenus and his guardian. Neither moved. The ship jolted and a groan rippled the sky as another engine failed. Oran’s gaze never left Calenus’s, and she smiled. “Time is of the essence.”
“Time is nonlinear,” Calenus rebutted, mimicking her cool demeanor. Zira and I stared daggers at each other. “You are Queen of Nothing, Oraniquitis Loren. Even when you sat on the throne as Zaylafon’s whore. Every failing Aipocinus experienced was because of you and your monstrous ilk. You seek to destroy; we seek to build.”
Ouch.
Oran had felt the burn. I’d never seen her angry.
Even in her most violent of moments she’d worn a gleeful smile. Now her face was twisted and her eyes gleamed red. The air changed, growing heavy. Gravity shifted and another groan rippled the sky; this time it was not from Gomorrah’s demise.
I had felt this before.
And so had Zira, because he snarled, unleashing his scythes.
Oran’s face had contorted into a cruel sneer that spread from ear to ear. Her expression resembled one from a demented jester’s mask, porcelain and wicked.
Calenus released his own resonance, pushing against Oran’s.
My mind felt compressed and I about doubled over, clutching my head. Fortunately Zira was scathed in the same manner, or I would have been taken off guard.
One thing for certain was that I had to get out of here. Fighting in the proximity of nobles was a dangerous thing, even for guardians. All of their powers were area-affected; they were unable to aim and damage was sustained within a mile radius, minimum.
As the two nobles blurred toward each other, initiating a battle that would surely destroy the demon warship within minutes, I took
off to the other side of Gomorrah with Zira close on my heels. He would not let me escape.
***
Yahweh Telei—;
“Shields!” I shouted, and my navigator crushed the button that initiated the boost system.
Bringing the anti-matter shield online had been a success; however flying through a world containing nothing but matter with an anti-matter shield proved more challenging. For one, it created a shell of fire from the heat of antiparticle collision. To an onlooker we were a flaming meteorite, sailing horizontally through the darkness.
The drawback was that the shield could not hold for more than five minutes, as the heat would intensify to surface-of-the-sun levels if time exceeded that. We would melt our ship and just about anything in the vicinity. The timing of the bombs could not be predicted, but sirens from somewhere beyond Ezekiel made my senses prickle with warning. I could see the gamma rays, like squiggles of blinding confetti, moving rapidly toward us.
The rest of my team could not see what was about to hit them. They were drawn to the battle around our ship and its fiery haze.
Samnaea sat in a vacant chair, strapped with a safety harness, gripping the edges of her seat, white-knuckled. Her wide, golden eyes absorbed everything from the observatory glass.
I stood in front of the glass, back to my audience. As the bomb hit I only looked away, closing my eyes.
There was a blinding flash of light. A roar of angry waves.
The lights went out; Ezekiel’s command room shook.
Everyone screamed.
Everyone but me.
The lights flickered on; the whir of back-up systems returning online was drowned out by cheers from my analytical team.
The sky was clear. No fire, no enemy jets.
They’d been swallowed by their own weapon.
“Sir,” Seyestin patched through, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of his voice. “I don’t know if you can hear me but—”
“I can hear you, General Trede. Our halo is within forty-five percent of self-repair.”
“All targets on the southern border have been eliminated. Returning to defend Ezekiel.”
“Anti-gravity shield is online and a success. I am cancelling our retreat and pressing on.” I eyed the systems monitor. “Ezekiel is heading southeast, back on course at 250 ceta.”
The Antithesis- The Complete Pentalogy Page 98
