Shadows of the Gods: Crimson Worlds Refugees II (29 page)

“Alright,” she said, struggling to put volume behind her words, “all ships, load torpedoes.”

She could see the crew of her own fighter struggling under the crushing pressure. They looked sick, miserable, in pain…but they still manned their stations, still executed her orders. And she knew it was the same on the other ten ships still in the formation. She was proud of her people, and determined to somehow stay focused, to give them the best she could as their commander.

“All fighters report torpedoes loaded, Commander.”

She glanced at the display. They had just passed into firing range, long range at least. But Fujin had no intention of having her people fire from this far out. The Leviathan was a monstrous vessel, armored and powerful. If her people were going to do serious damage to it, they had to get close…and drop the torpedoes right down its throat.

Each second moved by with agonizing slowness as she sat there and forced air into her lungs. Then she saw a flash on the screen…another of her ships hit. She reached over slowly and punched up the readout. It was Lightning Two. A glancing blow, enough to disable the fighter, but it looked like the crew might have survived. She felt a tightness in her gut as she realized they were as good as dead. There was no way the fleet would be able to stop and rescue a disabled fighter. Not with the forces that were pursuing them.

“Arm all torpedoes.”

Her eyes dropped down to the screen, watching as the status displays on her ten remaining ships turned from white to green. The torpedoes were ready.

“Two minutes to launch,” she said into the master com unit. “Cut thrust in ninety seconds.”

She wanted every last bit of acceleration, anything that would shave off seconds, get her fighters there faster. But her pilots needed to be able to focus to make their final runs…they had to have control over the thrust to execute their approaches. And she would give them thirty seconds. Half a minute to clear their heads and get their bearings…and bring the ships on a direct approach vector, one that would allow them to plant a plasma torpedo right in the guts of the Leviathan.

“One minute to launch. Cutting thrust in thirty seconds. All pilots, you’re on as soon as the engines cut out.” It felt strange to be sitting idle, not to be hunched over her controls, taking her ship in for the final run. But she was getting used to command, embracing her responsibilities to her crews. She still longed to feel the throttle, to hold her finger, tense and rigid over the firing button. But she knew they needed her where she was.

She looked over at Wainwright, watched the young pilot staring at the plotting screen, looking sharp, ready…despite the brutal gee forces. The kid was a gifted pilot, a natural. People had said the same thing about her when she’d first sat at that station, and now she recognized it in another.

“Ten seconds to final attack run.” She sucked in one more torturous breath, imagining the impending relief of freefall.

“Five seconds…”

Her eyes darted over toward Wainwright one more time. He was leaning forward, his hands out in front of him. Ready.

“Cut thrust,” she snapped. “Pilots, begin your attack runs.”

She felt the wave of relief, the floating headiness of freefall replacing the crushing pressure in an instant. She twisted her head, closing her eyes for a second as she pulled herself back together, willed herself to focus, concentrate.

She looked at her screens again, watching her ten ships move in toward the enemy. The formation was tight, crisp, each vessel less than fifty kilometers from the one adjacent. Fujin wanted more than just ten clean hits…she wanted them right on top of each other, pounding away at the same spot, driving through the great vessel’s armor, and she’d designed her attack plan accordingly.

She felt a nudge of thrust, just for a few seconds. It was nothing like the crushing 8g…just a gentle 1.5g tap as Wainwright lined up for his shot. She glanced down at the display, watching the distance dropping steadily as the fighters closed. “Twenty seconds,” she said softly.

She heard the clanging sounds, felt the vibrations as the bomb bay doors opened and Wainwright moved the torpedo into the final firing position. She opened her mouth, about to say ‘ten seconds’ when she saw a flash on the screen. Another of her ships gone, obliterated by a close in shot from one of the enemy’s laser turrets.

She felt it like a punch in the stomach. She mourned any of her crews equally, but there was something about losing a ship a few seconds before it was able to strike that felt worse. Those five men and women had come all this way, evaded the incoming fire to bring their weapon within seconds of firing. It felt so wasteful, tragic in an even greater way than being killed a hundred thousand kilometers away.

The ship shook again, a blast of thrust lasting a second, perhaps less. A final adjustment. Then she heard the snapping sound of the torpedo’s locking clasps releasing…and the familiar shudder as the ship disgorged its parcel of death.

The fighter lurched hard, the merciless 8g thrust back again, as Wainwright maneuvered to keep the fighter from slamming into the Leviathan. Fujin looked up at the display and, for a passing instant, she thought they weren’t going to make it, that the pilot had miscalculated, come too close. But then the fighter sailed by the enemy battleship…and off into the clear space beyond.

She sucked in a deep breath as the engines again disengaged and the relief of weightlessness returned. Her eyes snapped back to her screen, zeroing in the on the launch readout. Wainwright had taken the fighter to 631 kilometers before he’d launched. That was the closest Fujin had ever heard of a fighter coming to a target, certainly moving at the velocity her ships were. She sat in stunned silence, staring across the cockpit as the back of the pilot’s head. Then she opened her mouth and said, simply, “Nice shot, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir,” came the reply. The cockiness was back in Wainwright’s voice.

“Alright, people,” Fujin snapped, “let’s get some damage reports in here. How the hell did we do against this thing?”

Chapter Nineteen

Excerpt from the Screed of Almeerhan (translated)

Alone. I have been so long alone. And yet longer must I endure, for I am the last of the Watchers. A hundred of us there were in the beginning, when we shed our mortal bodies to begin the long wait, to stand the vigil for the New Ones. We were of the warrior class, all of us, and we harkened back to the early days of our race, a time of vibrancy and honor. We swore to stand our long, silent guard…to wait for the seeds we had planted to bear fruit, to seek us out and find us that we might pass on that which had so long ago been prepared for them.

But even warriors, those who have sworn on all that is sacred to stand forever if need be, can endure only so much. Millennia passed, and gradually, slowly we began to lose something of ourselves. As electronic reserves of data, we could not forget any knowledge, at least not literally. But the endless ages without the feelings of a body, without the emotions so natural to our native forms…without warmth, the touch of another…it wears upon that place where our true strength comes from.

Slowly, one at a time at first, those among us began to lose their resolve, their very sanity. In the end, each of those who had stood with me, my friends and comrades from life eons before, begged me to release them. Immortality, that goal so long sought, has proven to be unattainable in actuality. The crushing weight of time itself destroys us all. And so it was that over five thousand centuries, I have destroyed all of my fellow Watchers, acceded to their repeated requests for deletion. Destroyed them.

There is little to killing when it is not killing at all, but rather the erasure of data. For I have come to realize that is all we are…were. Have been. The beings we were are gone a long age, and all that remained were vestiges, tools left behind. And now, I am the only one of those still to endure. I, too, ache for the peace of non-existence, to join my people, wherever they are now, even if only in the shadows of the past. But I must continue on, I must stand my post. Until one of the New Races arrives…and I discharge my final duty.

X48 System – Planet II

Beneath the Ruins of “New York City”

The Fleet: 127 ships, 29411 crew

Cutter sat on the edge of the cot, transfixed as the disembodied voice spoke the memories of Almeerhan and the ancient lore of the First Imperium. He knew there was danger here, that he had to find the rest of his people, that the enemy warbots might return and renew their attack. But all of that had fallen away, along with the anger he’d felt toward his host. Hieronymus Cutter was a man of learning, he craved knowledge above all things…and he sat now and listened to things no human being had ever heard before.

“Long ago,” the voice of Almeerhan said, “ages even before I was born, before all that has since befallen us, my people rose up from the swamps and shores and prairies of our home world. As animals at first we came to learn to hunt in packs, and then to grasp at the beginnings of true sentience. We grew and learned—and fought amongst ourselves. For uncounted thousands of revolutions of our sun, my ancestors grew and developed…and then they turned their eyes outward, began to understand the universe around them. Finally, they took to the stars.

“First, we explored our own system, the other planets, the asteroids rich with mineral wealth…the comets and debris of our star’s creation. We studied, learned…grew wealthy, strong, and then we reached for ever greater heights. And one day we discovered the portals, the phenomenon you call warp gates.”

Cutter sat and listened. He tried to stay focused, to pay close attention, but his mind wandered, longing for details, struggling to visualize it all. The story of the ancients, of the great race that had lived among the stars when men were still mere animals…it was more than even his gifted mind could absorb.

“My clansman—for I can trace the ancestry of my house even back so far, into the lost roots of time—were of the warrior caste. My ancestors stepped out into the stars, the shield and sword of our people. We found world after world, planets similar to our own, yet also different, wondrous. Our brethren of the other castes, the scientists, the spiritualists, the industrialists, the loremasters…they all followed. We learned to manipulate the new worlds, restructure their environments to suit our people. We colonized hundreds of planets, thousands. And then we encountered the Enemies.

“The wars that followed were the golden age of my caste, and our ships and warriors went out across space, facing all those who would threaten us. We sought not conquest, and we offered peace to those who would co-exist with us. But the Enemies were rigid, xenophobic. We struggled to avoid war, to find a way to live together. And when that failed, we destroyed them…utterly. That time is renowned for its great stories, the tales of my ancestors and the others of the warrior caste, and the battles they fought across the galaxy. Alongside us stood the scientists, who with each passing moment seemed to propel our science and knowledge ever higher. And the industrialists, who fed a war and built an empire at the same time, so inexhaustible was their productivity.”

Cutter tried to imagine how long ago Almeerhan spoke of, but he wasn’t even sure the shadow of the long-dead alien even knew any more, save that it was in the deepest depths of the past. He’d come to X48 in search of information of the First Imperium…but he couldn’t have imagined he’d find such a treasure trove of knowledge. It took all his discipline, every iota of his self-control to stay focused, to understand what he was being told.

“What happened after the wars?” Cutter was deeply engrossed. He could barely keep the flood of questions from pouring out of his mouth.

“As with all such things, in the fullness of time, the vines of decay are planted by the seeds of victory. My race was utterly triumphant, and in all the vastness of the space we had explored, there was no one who threatened us, none who could stand against us. Those who had insisted on war had found defeat…and death. And those who allied with us became our friends, allies. Part of the empire.

“But with our external enemies gone, my people became the source of our own decline. Where we had been explorers, we fell back, failed to move deeper into the unknown universe. Where we had been warriors, we became lethargic, timid. Where our scientists had torn into every challenge the universe could offer, they became mired in academic dogma, debating endlessly yet achieving little. Where our workers had once rejoiced in the miracles of our economic development, production slowed, efficiency declined.

“For centuries, the rulers of my people had urged them forward, leading by example, and blazing a trail into the future. They were driven by honor and duty, those who led in the early days, and they were revered by all the people. But after the wars, they became corrupt, sodded. Where they had once considered their power a sacred stewardship, they began to seek it for its own sake, for personal aggrandizement. And the rest of the people became too apathetic to intervene. Corruption was rampant, and those who led became ever more despotic and cruel. We became focused on personal pleasures, and we not only stopped moving forward; we began to forget the knowledge of those who had come before. Eventually, even those who ruled lost interest in their power, and they sought only to escape all effort and obligation. And so my ancestors built the Regent.”

Cutter winced slightly at the mention of the Regent. He had long wondered what artificial intelligence had directed the forces of the Imperium, what machine—for he’d had no doubt it was a machine—was so resolute in its quest to destroy mankind. Man had fought against himself throughout his history, but there was something about a non-biological enemy, a relentlessness that Cutter realized was utterly terrifying. He knew they had all felt it—Compton, the Marines…every human being. He shivered as a coldness moved through him when Almeerhan spoke of it.