The Antithesis- The Complete Pentalogy

by Terra Whiteman

  “ETA approximately ten minutes. Are you still in a position to defend?”

  “We are set to confront Gomorrah in five minutes.”

  “Slow down, Commander. I won’t be able to make it there in time.”

  “I will stave them off until you do.”

  I severed the call before he could protest. I then ordered our deck defense to regroup and prepare to board the enemy warship. Aerial defense was picking off the last of the enemies that had until recently been fed to us in a steady stream from the northwest. I ordered their commanding officer to prepare for a final strike and they too regrouped, forming lines across the front of the ship.

  But what I saw as Ezekiel cleared the wall of cinders and smoke made my stomach churn. Gomorrah had already been laid to waste; only spatters of their aerocraft remain amid the groans of failing engines, fire and smoke billowing across the deck, and—;

  Pain ripped through my head as the groan deepened, intensified.

  I cried and fell to my knees, evoking alarm from the others in the room. Attenyau left his post and knelt at my side. I shrugged him away and stood, watching the magnetic shift warp time and space, casting latticed green and blue lines across Gomorrah and the basin below.

  It brought me back to Sanctum. The fear was palpable, my child-self trembling as I watched the sky mold in an identical way.

  And then, Eroqam collapsed.

  A jet that had been flung from its trajectory from sheer electro-magnetic force hit our shields, exploding in front of the observatory glass. Everyone flinched, even me.

  “What is happening?!” shrieked Samnaea, covering her ears. “What is happening to the sky?!”

  “Attenyau, prime two rescue transporters now. Pull our forces back from Gomorrah.”

  “Are you cancelling the attack, sir?” Attenyau asked, confused.

  “Gomorrah needs no attack. Those who are still on her need to be saved.”

  Not to mention any of our forces who got too close to the shifting fields would meet their untimely demise. This was a signature of nobles converging.

  Everything in my body screamed for me to lend myself as well, but that would only worsen things; complicate things.

  I could feel their fury, their sorrow, their fear and even physical pain as the onslaught ensued, forced to bite it all back and stand idle. I called to them numerous times through telepathy, but no one responded.

  This only made me insist Attenyau prime the transporters faster.

  ***

  Qaira Eltruan—;

  Several minutes in and I was nearly down for the count.

  My jaw clicked whenever I moved it. Blood trickled down my chin from a split lip. I couldn’t see out of my left eye, and I had to drag my leg behind me because my ankle was broken.

  I couldn’t flee either. Zira had me pinned by the wings with a jagged piece of metal. I had to tear one in half to put some distance between us. Through all of this I had to avoid his scythes; they would leave permanent damage.

  “Forfeit,” instructed Zira, walking toward me as I kept backing up. “We’re not under order to kill you. Only her.”

  I spat blood at him, raising my scythes. “What would you do if someone was ordered to kill your noble?”

  Zira tilted his head, saying nothing.

  The fight continued. We blurred across the ruined, flaming scenery, exchanging blows—him more so than me. Just as I was no longer able to stand, Adrial appeared. He attacked Ziranel, and both of them clattered through debris across the ship.

  I knelt and clutched some scrap metal, waiting to regenerate.

  Adrial was a tougher fight. I wheezed through the hot and cold pricks as my body stripped the metal of its particles, regurgitating and re-forming them as mine. Vision was returning to my eye, albeit the scenery blurry.

  And then it cleared, and I was able to focus on the unfolding scuffle.

  Calenus had Oran by the neck.

  He pinned her, ramming his scythe at her head in blurred, frenzied lunges. Over, and over again.

  “No!” I cried, starting toward them. My wing hadn’t healed so I was still flightless, limping pathetically toward a scene I would surely be too late to stop.

  Oran moved her head fast enough for Calenus’s scythes to miss each time. She pulsed him off her, and the communications satellite they fought on bent against the force. They teetered over the edge, dodging armies of wires and circuitry.

  Both of them held back, immensely.

  Calenus I understood, but not Oran.

  She faltered, clutching her chest, heaving up a stream of blood that ran to the deck below. Calenus lunged but an antennae beat him to the punch, skewering Oran through the midsection and she was vaulted from the tower.

  Forcing as much pressure on my healing ankle as it could bear, I sprinted toward the toppling tower. Gomorrah tilted and dropped a hundred feet.

  The remaining structures collapsed.

  Angels and demons toppled off the ship, screaming into the abyss.

  I searched the chaos for Adrial, but found him nowhere. Zira was missing too.

  As I reached the scene, Ezekiel broke through the cloud-cover, hovering above Gomorrah. Its light illuminated the dark, fading demon ship—which we were on, about to sink.

  Michael was trying to defend Oraniquitis, blasting Calenus with over a dozen rounds of plasma. The assault didn’t even break his gait, and he continued to order Michael to step aside. Oran lay sprawled at his feet, and Michael kept dragging her backward as she lurched and vomited more blood. Calenus had almost reached them when I intervened, knocking the Silver King off his feet.

  I screamed for Michael to get Oran to safety, and he obeyed, carrying her off toward the transporters that launched from Ezekiel’s hangar. I was left to fend against Calenus alone, still wounded.

  So, I fled.

  By now Gomorrah had become practically vertical, and I climbed up the deck, dodging bodies and chunks of debris, all the while kicking and chucking whatever I could to keep Calenus behind me.

  It was a futile measure, as he seemed capable of making himself weightless, levitating objects to leap upon in his pursuit.

  I flapped my wings, praying for the moment they healed.

  They did right as Calenus’s scythe would have torn off my leg. Instead I felt the breeze by my boot as I lifted off and soared toward the transporter. I looked back, watching as Calenus ran out of falling objects to climb; his eyes were wide, furious. They never left mine, even as he fell.

  And then he sank with Gomorrah, disappearing into the black abyss of the Anevhin Basin.

  ***

  Lucifer Raith—;

  Deceiver, receiver—;

  You’ve been crowned to become its keeper.

  Jehovah’s words always came back at times like this; they would cut deep, fracturing the cold, unmoved façade I struggled to perfect for so long. They weren’t true—at least, back then. Now I wondered whether the ramblings of a mad-man were actually an accurate prediction of the future.

  There was no sadness accompanying these thoughts. I’d dealt with that a long time ago. Only curiosity, confusion.

  “Sir,” Caelis urged, “please advise.”

  On my left, screens showing Gomorrah crashing over Orias’s Anevhin Basin were on loop. To my right, a radar displayed Ezekiel’s accelerated advance toward the Orias-Junah border.

  Everyone in Judas’s command station stared at me, expecting orders.

  Instead, I stood. “Everyone out of the room, except for Dr. Jonarr.”

  That was not the order they expected. Control analysts and senior engineers shuffled out quietly. Caelis remained still at his podium, looking to me in question.

  When the door closed I slid open the drawer beneath my desk and pulled out a package of malay cigarettes. I removed one from the package and then threw it at Caelis.

  He caught it with one hand, lifting a brow.

  “Tell me you don’t need it,” I said, lighting mine.
r />   “You’re an enabler,” he muttered, lighting his own.

  I smirked in response.

  For a minute we just sat there, smoking. The control room lights cast an eerie red glow across our bodies, flickering on and off like strobe-lights.

  “We’ve lost,” I said with a slow exhale.

  Caelis’s eyes shifted to their corners, at me. “Have we?”

  I hesitated with a response, watching Gomorrah’s demise once again across the televised screen. “Yes, and I am sorry. I’ve failed us.”

  “Well, we did our absolute best,” said Caelis, somber. “It was hardly fair from the beginning; not much we could have done against Commander Koseling and her godkillers, but…” He flicked the finished cigarette into a half-drunk cup of water. “You don’t seem as upset as I expected.”

  “Yahweh has surprised me. My feelings of contempt are conflicted by my feelings of pride. To know my son has surpassed me…”

  I looked away, not quite able to verbalize any following thoughts.

  “You feel deserving of this,” Caelis mused.

  “I feel redeemed, actually.”

  Caelis tilted his head.

  “I’ve lost sight of everything,” I sighed, rising to a stand. I peered out of the Judas command center observation glass. “What began as an honest attempt to vindicate my people has devolved into a show of pride. Until now I would have gladly crushed my own with an iron fist if it meant showing my son that I was mightier.” And that reminded me too much of someone I never thought I could be; someone whom I’d hated for centuries.

  “Lucifer…”

  “I am placing you in charge of the Judas. Take her back to the Junah-Akkaroz border. I will be issuing a layer-wide evacuation of the seventh precinct of Hell.”

  “Lucifer—!”

  “Deactivate all cephalons to and from Akkaroz. I will be there, waiting for them at the end of the line, but they’ll have to work for it.”

  “I am not Commander material,” warned Caelis, unnerved.

  “Then surrender. Do whatever you must. Yahweh won’t harm you or anyone aboard this ship if you lay down your arms.”

  I began for the door. Caelis started after me. “But what of you?”

  “The rules of the Contest still remain; what’s left of it, anyhow.”

  “Why not surrender with us? Surely Yahweh would spare you as well.”

  I lingered in the hall, looking back at my Central Command Officer with contempt. “I will never surrender again. Ever.”

  The door slid shut before Caelis could argue any further.

  I began down the hall toward the hangar, ready to initiate the final phase. Unbeknownst to Caelis and just about everyone else, I’d known our loss was imminent since Tehlor. This had all been an act of biding my time; allowing all the pieces to fall into place. And so here I was, meat dangling on a stick, leading the ravenous beasts down a rabbit hole from which they would never escape.

  My king had left his place of safety upon the chessboard. It was a final act of both desperation and courage. Atone for my sins—;

  And they will atone for theirs.

  XXIII

  HIS BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE

  Adrial Trisyien—;

  I’D LOST CONSCIOUSNESS SOMETIME BETWEEN GOMORRAH’S descent and the return to Ezekiel’s hangar. I’d been losing consciousness a lot lately; repeatedly getting my skull bashed in by Vel’Haru tended to do that.

  I wandered out of the hangar and onto the deck, disoriented. I had no idea how much time had elapsed since the battle. Flashes of Zira chasing me across the collapsing antennae and towers as the Demon flagship capsized ran on repeat through my mind.

  Engineers and maintenance crews swarmed the upper-ship in droves as repairs commenced. Enough time had passed that the Archaean forces were regrouped; the sky was quiet. Hours, perhaps days. Hopefully not days.

  A crowd of low-ranking soldiers moved scrap metal across the southern bow. Beyond them, Belial and Michael were shooting at what appeared to be a curtain with black circular drawings on it, attached to fallen flagpole. Naberius sat on the rail, appearing bored. Belial turned and met my gaze.

  “He lives!” exclaimed the demon, holding up a liquor bottle three-quarters drunk.

  “What happened?” I shouted, approaching. “I don’t remember getting here. Do you have a cigarette?”

  “I rescued you,” said Belial, reaching into his coat. He threw me his pack. “You hit five beams going down with the sodding ship and practically landed on my aRAVE.”

  “And then you just dumped me in the hangar?” I grimaced.

  Belial shrugged. “You’re a godkiller; figured you just needed to sleep it off. Half your head was missing.”

  “Where’s Oran and Qaira?” I asked, lighting a cig.

  “Not sure,” said Michael, taking aim at the curtain. “Oraniquitis was carted to the infirmary under Commander Telei’s orders. She wasn’t looking so well.”

  “And by not looking so well he means blood was spewing from her mouth,” added Naberius.

  I said nothing, taking a drag and glancing across the bow.

  “Stop being so glum,” said Belial. “Come and play with us. Enjoy yourself; we won a battle that surely should have wiped us off the map.”

  “I don’t think there’s much battle left,” said Naberius with a grin. “That was Lucifer’s hardest hit. The rest should be easy.”

  “Right,” scoffed Belial as Michael handed him the gun. He took a swig from the liquor bottle. “This coming from the demon who hid in a utility closet, pissing in his pants the whole time.”

  Naberius frowned. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “He only fights with girls,” said Michael, “and only when their backs are turned.”

  I couldn’t help but smirk.

  Naberius cursed at both of them and stormed off. Belial and Michael goaded him to come back until he disappeared below deck.

  “I think we were a bit too hard on him,” chuckled Belial.

  “Maybe he should learn to pull his weight,” said Michael, not amused.

  Belial’s grin fell. “He gave us Lochai and all the intel we needed to skirt through two layers; he’s paid more than you and your gun could ever give us. He’s a pansy, but loyal.”

  “So loyal he executed his partner and turned on his race,” muttered Michael.

  “He’s loyal to me.”

  Michael and Belial stared daggers at each other. I cut the tension by ripping the gun out of Belial’s hand.

  “How does this game work?”

  “Shoot the middle circle. If you miss, you have to drink,” instructed Belial.

  I watched the curtain flap violently in the wind. “The target is moving.”

  “It’s only moving as much as any real target would.”

  “I think this game is just an excuse to drink.”

  Belial winked. “One never needs an excuse to drink.”

  Just then a line of armed guards marched across the deck, heading back from whatever drill General Trede had put them through. They dispersed, leaving Seyestin alone, watching us from the Command Center entrance.

  Belial waved. Seyestin frowned.

  “Care to join us?” he called, pointing to the bottle in his hand.

  “How about you put the toys away and help us repair our ship?” Trede rebutted, folding his arms.

  “No thanks,” said Belial, nodding at me to take a turn. “I think I’ve helped enough for one day.”

  “Is that a privacy curtain?” Seyestin shouted angrily.

  Belial pretended not to hear him.

  With a shake of his head, General Trede receded into the command center.

  “Twat,” said Belial.

  Michael laughed, and I took aim.

  ***

  Yahweh Telei—;

  Qaira loomed in the doorway of the infirmary, watching as Oraniquitis lay across a gurney in a quiet corner. The area around her was sectioned off by translucent curtains, as I�
��d been unable to find the privacy variant previously attached. Other injured soldiers were placed as far away as possible—for their safety.

  The injured toll this time had reached catastrophic levels. Those with non-fatal wounds had been patched and sent to the residential quarters, on-call medics made rounds there every four hours. Still the infirmary sector was teeming with soldiers on the brink of death. Among this sea of agony and suffering, Qaira’s eyes never left Oran.

  “I don’t understand,” he whispered. “It was working. She was fine.”

  “We’ve had this conversation before,” I murmured, offering him a hot drink. He waved it away.

  “I don’t think we did.”

  “I think we did.”

  Qaira said nothing, coming to terms.

  “Delaying the process isn’t a cure,” I said. “It’s simply delaying the process. Any organism belonging to a chrysalis life-cycle needs to reach the chrysalis stage.”

  He turned away. “So that’s it then; there is nothing that can stop this from happening.”

  “I don’t think she’s gone yet, and perhaps we can delay the process a little longer, but it’s ultimately inevitable and we need to speak about what happens next.”

  Qaira’s eyes narrowed.

  I tried to soften my gaze. “I will increase the dosage of the juvenile hormone. Her latest test shows that it’s depleting, even with our treatment. Her body is rejecting it, as is expected. However, if and when she turns, then—”

  Qaira pushed past me, walking off down the hall.

  I stared after him.

  Something pricked my senses, and I adjusted my attention to the infirmary window. Oraniquitis was still laying on the gurney, but now her eyes were open—;

  And she was looking at me.

  *

  Seyestin caught me on the mezzanine of the hull. At my expression, he slowed.

  “Is everything alright, Commander?”