Alliance

by Bruce S Larson

  The other falcons soared higher. The arachnid hawks gave chase, but the falcons flew higher and faster. The simple minds of their combatants forgot what they pursued. The hawks broke into a buzzing mass. Many caught sight of the massive ground battle and dove to attack. The others made a confused cloud in the thin air. They exploded into falling pieces in the falcons’ shrieking counterattack. But an airborne web of legs and fangs caught some metal warbirds. They spun and tumbled attempting to shake their attackers.

  Other arachnid limbs and slasher tusks struck Aekos’ scales and Inaht’s armor. Together they had killed an army of monster spiders. More eight-legged beasts charged them. The two crushed and cut more slashers. Even more arachnid demons ran and leapt on the masses of hacked and stabbed predecessors as if ascending a horrifying castle wall. They would eventually reach the top and drown the two strong and swift warriors with numbers. Both knew this. Both fought on.

  The sun was high. The temperature, intense. The strength of Inaht and Aekos began, very slightly, to ebb in the carnage and heat. They felt waves of shade from overhead. They heard terrible battle cries in the sky and screaming spiders from the ground. Rapid reports from automated rifle fire followed. The onslaught of slashers died. Aekos next blow struck air. Only dead bodies spread before him on the ground. He and Inaht looked skyward to the war cries. They saw a sight that once terrified the galaxy. Waves of soaring demons killing everything that moved. This time the two warriors felt relief.

  “Inaht,” Aekos said with a salute of his spear. “My compliments on your fighting skill. But I must say you look horrible covered in spider blood, guts, and other pieces.”

  “On you, Aekos,” Inaht panted, “it is a pleasant, aesthetic adornment.”

  Near Bahl’s army, the hawks, slashers, and gliders formed a massive curtain the flowed from the sky and covered the arid land. As a mass, all the spider eyes glowed as bright as the Red Giant. Then the curtain began to rip. Slashers blew apart. Gliders and hawks fell in pieces. The rifle fire of Anguhr’s horde filled the air with countless rounds that cut down the arachnids. Their war calls and barks rivaled the gun reports. Solok lead the first wave that punched straight through the airborne enemy. The slashers not annihilated by demons fire scattered and ran over each other to escape, spurred by some vestige of self-preservation hidden in their genes.

  More hawks flew out of the new volcano, but this too came under attack. Just as Bahl’s forces were wondering if they should cheer and ancient enemy now joining and perhaps saving their battle, another flash of light cut across the sky. Anguhr had grown to like leaping and impacting while wrapped in a fiery sphere. This time his arc was toward Octuhr’s new mountain closest to Bahl’s army.

  Bahl had time to think the command to fallback! but no time to shout it. Anguhr hit the hawk-erupting summit. The impact and shockwave struck the phalanx. The force field collapsed as the seismic wave threw the warriors into the air. Bahl, Zaria, and the mix of Bandors and aliens fell among the bodies of slain arachnids.

  Cheers of Anguhr’s demons rolled louder across the dead ocean plain than the curses from Bahl’s army. They all recovered quickly and reformed the phalanx, while killing anything that moved beneath them with spider legs.

  “This Anguhr,” Bahl snarled as he leapt to his feet. “Likes the grand display.”

  “He likes the battle, true.” Zaria said, already standing. “But his horde is ever loyal. And can you blame him for enjoying his power?”

  Zaria and Bahl watched as Anguhr jumped over them from the shattered and now sealed mountain to the first volcano with sword drawn.

  “Yes.”

  Anguhr’s boots struck the volcano near its summit crater. He chopped and crushed waves of slashers that attempted to swarm him. Solok and a formation of demons joined their General and the spider-beasts began to blow apart from gunfire.

  Away in her silken dimension, the Great Widow added commentary to her observations that also held a sharp edge. “Your forces are horrific, Octuhr, but they are overmatched. Your only hope was to overwhelm them with numbers. Your new form of hellspawn could never win a strategic battle. They are weapons of terror. Your enemies, Bahl and Anguhr can fight wars. And now you have united them.”

  “I am pleased, horde mother.” Octuhr allowed himself a moment of laugher at the mocking title. “My strategy is working. My arachnid demons are simple chains to bind both forces. And there will be more living chains. I gave my horde the ability to reproduce without machines. Not sexually. That takes too long. They generate more of their awful kind almost instantly.

  “Essentially, they are all born pregnant and capable of birthing others of their kind before death. When they sense horde losses, the arachnids at the rear make more hordlings. One individual can make four or more in a few moments. As it charges on, those four make sixteen or more. Those birth thirty-two. Sixty-four—”

  “You adapted parthenogenesis into spiders.” The Great Widow hissed. “I loathe that you made twisted copies of my kind and turned them into aphids.”

  “Needs must, old one. Especially when making a horrific plague to wipe out warriors of stellar empires. And demons. I had the good sense to start my self-generating horde in the many thousands. How enormous a horde do you think they will birth during this battle?”

  On the first volcano, Anguhr continued to crush Octuhr’s creations at their source. He swung his sword and cleaved great chucks off the summit that toppled into the crater and sealed it with thunderous echoes. Demons roared adoration.

  Bahl was shocked that cheers also rose from his army.

  “It was never a popularity contest,” Zaria smiled at Bahl.

  “He has sealed our means to end this war, swiftly.” Bahl said with a cold stare at Zaria.

  “I’m not sure this war was ever to be ended, quickly.” Zaria said as a new shacking came through the ground.

  The falcons circled the second mountain and began to cry warnings. Barks from airborne demons came as quickly. Solok flew high and saw what his forces reported. A new horde of slashers ran across Hell from the east. It was seemingly the size of a continent. A cloud of hawks equal in vastness flew above them. In answer to Octuhr’s question, there were millions of them.

  Anguhr knew with his ship, he might stand a chance. But this many of the new spawn of Hell may even overwhelm him, his, horde, and the new allies. Nevertheless, they had come to fight Hell. Anguhr charged down the mountain and ran by Bahl’s army. It felt odd to see so many beings near his own, great size. Yet, charging into epic battle felt like homecoming. He was sure they would follow. If not, his horde would, no matter the potential of death.

  The roar of demons vibrated ears and the ground covered in carnage. Bahl took in a deep breath and let out his own battle cry. His diverse forces did likewise, and followed him as he raced around the second volcano after Anguhr.

  “So many.” The Great Widow was actually impressed by the astonishing number of monsters Octuhr had generated in Hell’s machines, and who then made even more on the battlefield. “Indeed you have eclipsed you mother in some nefarious ways. But have you eclipsed your enemies? Your mindless warriors pile and die for you. Bahl unites an army of powerful aliens. Anguhr’s demons fight for him through loyalty, not fear. The difference is the rent flesh of your dying horde.”

  “Oh, you doubt for sport. Thoughts are your means of combat.” Octuhr laughed, but from pride not a cunning barb. “Warriors are chains for enemies. Each is a link to my victory. Or, stamp them another way, warriors are coin. And I spend them, all. In the end, a dead Khan, a dead demon, a dead spider, are all equal if I win the war. And I will. My power reaches beyond a battlefield or its planet. My horde is a mere delaying tactic.”

  “Delaying tactic? You protect your ego by changing your previous plan to a lie.” The Great Widow scoffed.

  “You lied to me, I lied to you. Symmetry. But my plan was ever to crush my enemies, literally. I knew my arachnid hordes would either kill Bahl's army, and
then assault Anguhr and his demons, or perhaps concentrate both forces onto one plane. The later occurred. The only sorrow is that now I need only one display of my power to destroy them all, and a large part of the planet’s surface.

  “Hell will take a glancing blow. But it’s a glancing blow from another world. Bahl, Anguhr, and all their warriors will be nothing more than a smear mixed with the shattered boot I call forth, and some fragments of Hell torn away from its impact.”

  “What boot? What world?” The Great Widow did not hide the anxiety in her voice.

  “The massive, round boot I call from the Iron Work. You know it holds chambers that contain worlds, real and artificial. I can use one or more—as many as I want—for a truly apocalyptic salvo. I would give Buran credit for the idea, but he's dead. That was also by my plan. Death is the fate for all enemies of the Omniurge.”

  “Octuhr—!”

  “Now, now, spider! You cannot stop it with words or acts. But take heart, one as long as your own beating near the arch of your abdomen. For this is also your legacy. Watch as worlds are used as—”

  “You will kill us, too!” The Great Widow blasted her thought across her web with naked fear.

  “Of course not,” Octuhr remained calm. “Well, I won't die, anyway. Now watch, spider. My boot is coming.”

  Demons and falcons soared together as Bahl reached Anguhr on the opposite side of the mountain. The two titans tensed to renew their charge as Bahl’s forces came up behind him. Zaria opted for a faster method of travel and descended on a nimbus behind the two leaders. The three faced the approaching arachnid cataclysm and scanned for the best spot to attack the formless wave.

  “They make no formations.” Anguhr noted.

  “They have no tactic but to overwhelm.” Bahl said. “It is as if their commander is the tide.”

  “This Octuhr is either a lover of carnage over strength, or has yet to reveal his full plan.”

  “We needed access to Hell to stop this,” Bahl growled.

  “The battle, this war, is clearly not over yet.” Zaria said.

  “With my ship, this sea of monsters would be vapor.” Anguhr replied.

  “And where is your ship now?” Bahl asked.

  “Coming forth to battle, as it heals and escapes the Red Giant.” Anguhr said.

  “Then it is useless, here and now.” Bahl restrained his tone, but his anger was clear. “We need to reform the phalanx if we are to survive.”

  “Survival is not victory.” Anguhr countered. “Yes, we must breach Hell, but a horde must move. And mine will. My demons and I will fight these mockeries of demon-kind. We will have enough energy to outlast the enemy until my Ship Master arrives. This will free you and your army to locate a breach and enter Hell. Find and destroy whatever machines spew forth these mindless fighters.”

  “And the Dark Urge?” Bahl asked. He knew they were at war with the being, or her issue, that also had a direct role in their creation. Bahl wanted clear idea how Anguhr felt about her fate.

  It was Zaria who quickly answered. “She sleeps. It is Octuhr whom you fight. She must not be awakened, lest she stokes the Forge and we all burn, as did Sutuhr.” She pointed at the mace Bahl held.

  “I will kill Octuhr.” Anguhr said and raised his sword. “The first General’s weapon will bring death to the one who was intended to be the last. But I am the last General. I will close this loop. Kill the Dark Urge if you must. Octuhr is for me.”

  “Kill her and kill us all.” Zaria said with a grim tone contrasting her luminous aura. “Her unconscious mind is the only thing mitigating the Forge. Uncontrolled, it could flare as a nova. Even with egos as they are, no one here could withstand that. If her fate is death, then it will come in time. But not now unless you seek to join her. Octuhr has grown more and more powerful. Destroy him if you wish so stop a new age of Hell.”

  “Then our strategy is decided.” Anguhr said. He looked at the arachnid horde now near the base of the mountain. He charged down its slope to meet them.

  Some distance from Anguhr’s charge, Octuhr concentrated on a spell of complex code. The technical incantation was abstract information. Information gave rise to power. Some technological species could record all the information of a solar system and reproduce it as code. Each star, every world and stray atom became copied data, free of physical state. Existence reduced to pure analysis.

  For the Builders, it became as easy to scan and analyze anything, nanoscopic or celestial, as storing the real object inside an astronomic-scale machine. Add to such power the traits of nostalgia and whimsicality. Such facets had lived in the minds of the Iron Work’s engineers. Their acts of preservation made elements of solar systems into cosmic souvenirs.

  Octuhr knew of these souvenirs. Such information in the wrong mind was potential, dark power. Ethics mitigated use of power, if one had ethics. Octuhr had a desire to bring apocalypse upon Hell, and the power to tap Builder machines. Their complete control still eluded him. That required beings that looked back across galactic eons as mortals remember days. But Octuhr could reach into the Iron Work to retrieve a cosmic souvenir as his boot. In scale, the act equaled many creation myths, for he brought forth a world from darkness. However, his purpose was not to create. Octuhr shared his family trait for destruction.

  For many intelligent minds, the Iron Work’s vastness was hard to fathom. The width of single bands of the star cage was wider than planetary diameters. There were many bands. One seen by Zaria held a great slot to store entire worlds. Its depth was greater than the space between some planets and moons. Entire worlds rested in a neat and evenly spaced line. There were black spheres like Tectus that might hold worlds in protective sheaths, or be other libraries once intended to travel between stars. Others were natural worlds tucked away for safekeeping.

  One dusty, grey world had governed tides on oceans sailed by the Builders’ distant ancestors. It was the world where Humanity first made footprints, other than Earth. The Moon looked out from the slot, perhaps missing its blue and long vanished partner.

  Octuhr cared noting for history. Yet he spared the Moon in favor of a black world beside it. The solidity of the dark mass made it a better weapon. The black world left the slot at his call and began a course for the battle on Hell.

  In a more traditional attack, Anguhr charged over Hell’s surface. His soaring demons followed him. Bahl watched as Anguhr wrought instantaneous annihilation when he collided with the slashers’ leading front. Fragmenting battalions of the spider beasts blasted into the air as Anguhr swung the black blade through the spiders. Solok led several airborne formations into the massive cloud of arachnid hawks. A few squadrons joined their General and swirled around him to pick off spiders that tried to stab and bite his skin and armor.

  Back across the space, other scenes created different astonishments.

  “This region of the system is rich with shocks,” Gin said as he and Proxis watched the black world Octuhr stole from the Iron Work appear to roll across the main screen on the hellship.

  Proxis analyzed telemetry. He became grim. “Its trajectory is toward Hell.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Proxis focused on the main screen as he struck keys on his dais. Three-dimensional data arcs appeared along with the image of the black world gaining speed to strike Hell.

  “Was it summoned, somehow?” Gin spoke through true confusion. “Why would Hell need a new moon?”

  “I fear it is no future satellite,” Proxis said. “Its path collides with the surface. This is a weapon.”

  “Ah! Then we must destroy it before it kills our allies!” Gin said as if hit by surge of energy.

  “Agreed. Altering course to follow at all available speed.” Proxis spoke and tapped.

  “I suggest we power the main batteries and annihilate it before it nears Hell.” Gin said with wide eyes aimed at Proxis.

  “Spoken as a demon might.” Proxis almost smiled. “Our structural integrity permits such an action. We a
re closing to maximum effective range. Main batteries are charged.”

  Both Gin and Proxis looked at the black world dead center of the main screen.

  “We fire.”

  The bridge brightened as the main guns near the bow fired powerful, twin beams. They instantly appeared to lance across space on the screen and collide with the black world. The image became a sheet of intense, white light. The brightness ebbed. The vast energy from the beams rolled as a smaller sphere on the black world’s surface. The energy ball spun and tendrils tore from it and rolled to the black world as a star is pulled into gasses and plasma by a black hole. The power then released as a second explosion. The intact, black world held an aurora as the only sign of the attack that could sunder planets. It sped on toward Hell.

  “So, this then obeys Builder physics, not those of spacetime.” Gin sighed. “We need to warn Zaria and Anguhr.”

  “If you can, do so. Ship communications are still inoperative,” Proxis said as he calmly tapped his dais. “I have another attack in mind.”

  “Missiles and the main battery?” Gin asked.

  “No. In the system where Buran assaulted us with planets and celestial objects—” Proxis paused as he recalled the battle. “And a gas giant, he first broadcast a signal of complex code. This, I assume, altered the gravitational dynamic of the worlds.”

  “And you recorded that signal.” Gin smiled and nodded.

  “Of course. I record all data. I dedicated several computation banks to deciphering the code style.”

  “I did not see this subsystem.” Gin recalled his direct integration with the hellship. “Did it—”