by Erica Rue
Bel was still downloading the datacore when she arrived.
“Bel, come on. We’ve got to go. We’re in the air and we need to get to the escape pods,” Dione said. “Sam’s going to destroy this ship with the Icon.”
“Not yet. This is taking forever because of my stupid manumed. I bet your fancy next-gen model is a lot faster. You could download the rest in no time.”
“Brian’s got my manumed. How much have you gotten?”
“Almost sixty percent,” she replied.
“You’ll have to hope you got what you needed, because we’re out of time,” Dione said.
“I’m not leaving, Dione,” Bel said, raising her voice. “The answers are here, I know it. Why they kill everything they come across, why they won’t negotiate a real peace. I’m not leaving without answers. Leave without me if you have to.”
“What are you doing? Let’s go,” Dione said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Bel shrugged her off. “Don’t touch me.” Her brown eyes glared up at Dione.
Dione took a step back and put up her hands.
“Okay, fine.” What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t call the professor for back up, and even though Dione was a few centimeters taller and probably weighed more, Bel was strong. More than that, she was fierce. Dione wasn’t a fighter. She was a thinker. What had Zane told her? Don’t try to brute-force your way through things.
“Bel, Professor Oberon is expecting us to be at the pods, ready to go. Once he leaves the controls, we’re going to start falling back to the ground and Sam will either have to destroy the ship with us on board or risk a transmission from it. I know which one she’ll choose.”
“Then I’ll tell Oberon to stay at the controls until I’m ready,” she said.
“Listen to yourself. This information is not our priority. You’re willing to risk the lives of these colonists for data.”
“This data could save lives,” Bel said. “On the Rim, no one looks out for them. If I don’t do this, no one will.”
“If you do this, we might all die. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but Sam is getting a little worn out. She will happily blow this ship out of the sky with us on board because she has an obligation to the people here on Kepos. You’ve got to hope what you need has already been downloaded, because we have to get out of here.”
Bel’s manumed buzzed. She ignored it. A call would slow the download.
“That’s the professor, isn’t it?” Dione asked. “He’s probably wondering where we are. Please, Bel, come with me. If we leave you to die on this ship, then the people on the Rim get nothing from you.”
Bel turned around, but Dione had already seen the tears in her eyes. She was getting through to her. “I have to go. I have the holo interface for the translator. I was supposed to bring it to Brian. Come with me.”
Bel didn’t respond. Dione turned to leave. Bel would follow. She had to follow. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that getting sixty percent of the datacore was huge.
Dione made it to the end of the second corridor, and still Bel wasn’t following. She began to doubt herself, hesitating at the next intersection. She should go back and drag Bel out of there. If brute force was the only thing left, then—
Footsteps. She turned to see Bel racing down the corridor.
“It’s a left,” she said, running past Dione, who followed, keeping pace with her.
Soon they reached the professor and Brian, who returned her manumed.
“Where have you been?”
“The download wasn’t finished,” Bel said.
The professor frowned at her. “There’s not much time. Sam says we’ve only got minutes until we’re out of her range,” Professor Oberon said, holding out his hand to Dione. She gave him the holo interface, and moments later they were deciphering the directions. Luckily, the emergency directions were designed to be crystal clear. Once they got a few symbols translated, it became apparent what to do.
“Two to a pod,” the professor said, herding Bel into the pod in front of him, following her in like she might run off.
This, of course, left Dione to share the next pod down with Brian. She closed the hatch, strapped in, and Brian entered the release sequence. They were falling, faster than she thought they should be, but she trusted the fully-automated pod to land. It was probably a good thing that their descent started at such high velocity, because less than a minute later, an explosion thundered in the sky above them.
They had done their part, leaving Sam to do hers. Kepos was safe from more Ven ships for now. At least, whatever was left of the colony.
39. LITHIA
Lithia couldn’t find Zane or Evy in the fray, so she joined up with a nearby team that looked like it could use some help. The Ficarans and Aratians were working in mixed groups now. Maybe Lithia’s hope was making her delusional, but she thought she saw a difference. When the Vens charged forward, the Ficarans fired and the Aratians moved in. Someone had given the order to go for the legs. The Vens were pressing in from both sides, but they were falling more quickly and staying down. The battle wasn’t over yet, and Lithia allowed herself the tiniest hope that they might prevail.
This strategy worked for a while, but the Vens soon caught on and began swarming areas, overwhelming the Aratian bladesmen, offering the Ficarans too many targets to hit.
In the chaos, she was separated from her momentary allies, but Zane found her.
“Where’s Evy?” Lithia shouted over the din of battle.
“I sent her to hide in the houses,” he replied. “Can’t be more dangerous than it is here.”
Lithia sighed in relief. Evy might survive the night, whatever the morning brought.
The Vens were pushing in, and Aratians and Ficarans alike were losing men and closing ranks. Then, a new cry bounced among the soldiers.
“Out of ammo.”
“Me, too.”
“That’s the last of what we brought.”
Despite their careful use of ammunition, whatever the Ficarans had in the guns was it. There may have been loaded weapons on the ground or more ammo on dead Ficarans, but they were surrounded with no way to get to it.
The Vens had whittled away at their numbers, but so had the colonists. There were maybe a hundred Vens left and nearly twice as many humans still standing. Those sounded like decent odds when Lithia said it to herself, but standing was a loose term. They were wounded and exhausted, and couldn’t maintain the level of exertion needed to fight off the Vens for much longer.
The Vens showed no such weakness, vicious in spite of their wounds. For the first time since the battle began, Lithia truly believed she was going to die. Before, it had been only a fear as others died around her, but now, with death closing in on all sides, she could see no other future.
She readied her pila blade and planned her attack on the nearest Ven. As she approached, a bright flash in the distance caught her eye. A loud boom reverberated through the sky. Even if the flaminaria mines hadn’t been prematurely triggered, they wouldn’t have made that kind of sound.
“What was that?” she said out loud.
“Lithia, look,” Zane said. Every last Ven was staggering. Several Aratians took immediate advantage. Five Vens fell simultaneously. This was it. Their last chance. Already the Vens seemed to be recovering.
Two more Vens fell, and Lithia, just like the fighters around her, felt reinvigorated by their progress. For the first time since the battle began, the colonists reclaimed ground. The Vens pulled back a little and began growling.
This was not like the ominous growling before a battle that struck fear into their prey. This was different. Discordant. It came in shorter bursts, with varying pitch and tones.
Lithia wasn’t sure what was going on, but she pressed forward, bringing a Ven to its knees so another pair could cut off its armor and slide the pila blade into its brain.
The Vens were in chaos. Before they had been methodical and bloodthirsty; now, they wer
e utterly disorganized. Their attacks grew more conservative, and they began to cluster together. They did not react as quickly.
This was it. This was their chance to defeat the Vens.
No sooner had hope swelled in her heart than she saw him. The black Ven. He emitted a shrill growl that sent shivers down her spine. Its effect was immediate. The Vens were regrouping. The black Ven was imposing order on their chaos.
If the Vens reorganized, the colonists didn’t have a chance. Already Lithia could see her companions’ burst of energy waning in the face of renewed organization.
She got on her manumed and called Victoria and Benjamin. “The black one. In the middle. Take him down.”
“I don’t have a shot,” Victoria said. “He’s surrounded and at the edge of my range.”
“Then get in range,” Lithia said. “He was calling the shots at the Field Temple. He’s the only thing keeping them together.” They had to see that.
“We can barely fend off the Vens coming at us,” Benjamin said.
It was true. Any ground the colonists had regained in the confusion had been lost. The Vens were closing in. Soon the colonists would be backed up against the town’s wall with no escape.
“Help me out, Zane. What do we do?”
“There are two bullets in this gun I found,” he replied, holding up a high-caliber handgun. “But my aim sucks.” He handed the weapon to Lithia.
“This Ven is bigger than all the others,” she said. “It’s going to take more than two bullets.”
“Pila blade?”
“I’m not fast enough. Plus, he’s in the middle of the rest of them. How do we even get to him?”
“Get Victoria to clear a path,” Melanie suggested, appearing next to Lithia. “I’ll come with you.”
“The three of us can’t take that thing alone. You saw him, back in the square in front of the Field Temple. He’s faster and more powerful than the other Vens,” Lithia said.
“Once the path is clear, we rush him. As many of us as possible.”
“That’s suicide,” Zane said.
“The alternative is the same result,” Melanie replied.
A few minutes later, everyone was in position. Everyone not actively engaged in holding off the Vens, at least, which was a smaller number than Lithia liked. Benjamin was a part of their group, pila blade in hand. For all his failings, he at least had the integrity to stand beside his people. Lithia respected that.
Victoria and her crew were no longer in the tower but had taken up position on the closest roofs. Their vantage point was not good, but it was the best they could do.
Victoria’s voice came through Melanie’s communicator. “This is going to consume the rest of our ammo. You can’t afford to fail.”
“We understand,” Melanie replied.
Shots began to ring out in quick succession, and nearly every bang was met with an angry growl. The group of colonists pushed forward into the crowd of Vens as the injured monsters momentarily stumbled.
The crowd of colonists thinned as they were pulled into combat with the Vens around them. Then the gunshots stopped.
Victoria called. “That’s all we can do. You’re close.”
“We’re not going to make it,” Zane said.
Lithia looked around. Even though they were close, he was right. The black Ven was still too protected. There weren’t enough colonists left in their group, and behind them the gap they had hurried through had closed again. They were surrounded.
“There’s only one way we can go,” Lithia said. She raised the gun Zane had given her, took careful aim, and fired at the pale green spot on his chest that she had noticed at the Field Temple. Maybe it was weaker than the rest of his plating.
Lithia’s shot hit the edge of the discolored patch, and the black Ven howled, focusing his slitted eyes on her. Perfect.
If she couldn’t get to him, she would force him to come to her. And her allies. She was not alone. She had help, but that meant she had something to lose. Zane. Melanie. Those were her stakes. The strangers around her were fighting for home and family.
The Ven growled, but didn’t seem to be bothered by his wound. He made his way toward them. Lithia took stock of her surroundings. The firm ground was littered with metal bars and broken boards. Some small building had once stood here, though she didn’t know what. By now, most of the colonists, including Benjamin, had broken away from her group, but there were still a few left.
An Aratian man charged forward, aiming for the black Ven’s armor straps, but the man was reckless. The Ven knocked him down in seconds with a swift swing of his club. The rest of them, including Lithia, took a step back.
“No one goes it alone,” Melanie said. Their small group took turns making attacks. First one armor strap went, then the other, though it cost a Ficaran her life. The Ven cast off the useless armor, exposing the plating on his head and back.
Lithia hoped she was right, and that this Ven was the one keeping the others together. Melanie made a feint while she and Zane charged. Using the pila blade, she aimed for the first plate gap. She hit her mark, but the blade went nowhere. The Ven whirled, whipping the blade from her hands before she scrambled away.
“The first plate is fused!” she shouted over the noise.
Lithia was panting. Her heart thrummed in her ears with the effort of her exertion. They were so close. A few more attempts, and someone would take him down. They had to.
The Ven killed another Aratian in the charge. She didn’t need to look around her to see that the progress the colonists had made was rapidly vanishing. They were exhausted. Slow. Doomed. They had to end this now.
She grabbed an abandoned pila blade from the ground to replace the one she’d lost and charged again with Zane and Melanie. Zane’s blade found its target, the gap between the second and third plate, but it didn’t go anywhere.
“Second plate’s fused, too,” he groaned.
“Move!” Lithia shouted, but it was too late. Zane was too slow and took a club to his arm. Lithia heard the crack over his scream as he fell to the ground. The Ven was about to make his finishing strike when Lithia pulled the gun and shot the monster straight in the back of the head. He flinched, but didn’t stumble.
Both plates fused? That hadn’t happened before.
“Do we try the third plate?” Melanie asked.
“I don’t think the pila blades have enough reach to sever the neural connections from that entry point.”
“Then what do we do?” Melanie’s eyes were wide.
“Watch out,” Lithia said, pushing Melanie to the left as she dodged right. Lithia rolled on the ground, losing her pila blade again. She couldn’t even hold on to her only working weapon. She scoured the ground for a gun with even one bullet left in it, but there was nothing. Only the rubble from a destroyed floodlight. Her fingers wrapped around a thin but sturdy metal pole. There was nothing else.
She heard another gunshot and looked up. Melanie. Her last bullet. Lithia could see the exit wound oozing. It was a small hole, black on black and hard to see, but it was her only entry point. Wait. No, it wasn’t. She had shot him in the back of the head. That was the closest she would get to his neural connections. A bullet to the head couldn’t stop him, but maybe a metal bar could.
She needed a plan.
“Victoria, if you have even one more shot, I need it. The black Ven’s plates are all fused. I’ve got a plan, but I need him distracted.”
“Tell me,” she replied.
“I’m going to jam this metal bar into its brain through a bullet hole, but it’s a small target. Can you stagger him?”
“Yes, but you’ve got only one chance. This is my last round.”
“Understood,” Lithia replied.
“Get ready,” Victoria said.
Lithia focused on the black mass in front of her. He seemed to sense that she was up to something and began to turn…
Crack.
He stumbled. In that moment Lithia leap
t forward and thrust the metal bar at her target. It struck the edge of the hole, and with a slight movement, Lithia plunged it into the hole and levered down with all her might. The Ven howled then collapsed as she levered the bar in the other direction.
Melanie grabbed another piece of debris, a shorter metal pole, and drove it into another hole on the Ven’s back. He wasn’t moving, but a few nearby Vens growled and moved toward them. They needed to get out of there, but Zane was still on the ground.
Lithia got into a protective position over Zane and another Aratian who was barely alive, and Melanie and the few remaining colonists of their group joined her. Before they got within striking distance, the approaching Vens broke off. The chaotic growling from earlier resumed. She watched the Vens get separated and dissolve into disarray around her. It was gradual, but they began to fall. They failed to work together in groups as she had seen them do earlier.
The colonists pulled energy from somewhere, scraping the bottom of the barrel, and began to take down the Vens, one at a time, until the Vens pulled back. In a short time, fewer than twenty Vens remained, grouped together and marked by discordant growls. They fled into the woods. Lithia couldn’t believe it. She must be delirious from her exertion. Victory was theirs.
Zane moaned on the ground and wiped his mouth with his good hand. The pain was enough to make him vomit.
“Let me find you some help,” Lithia said.
“It’s just my arm. I can make it to the Temple on my own. Get him help,” Zane said, nodding to the Aratian coughing next to him.
Melanie was already on it, waving down some weary soldiers.
“All right, but be careful,” Lithia said. There was still so much to do.
A few of the more vigilant colonists replaced the gate, propping it in place, as if it would offer some protection. Many fell down from exhaustion, but others cried out, suddenly gripped by the pain of wounds and grief. An Aratian woman cradled an Aratian man, a husband or brother or friend, and wailed into the night. A translucent cloud dulled the moon, and a shadow passed over them in the darkness.
