Authors: Greg Fish
Jumping to his feet, he snapped his back into alignment. A new team of spider robots surged from the maze-like hallways next to the vault where he was imprisoned. Laser fire carved deep gashes into nearby walls, narrowly missing Ace. Another direct hit sent the ship careening backwards and knocked out the main power, plunging the maze of halls and chambers into total darkness.
Reflexively easing his body into stealth mode, Ace slid further down the hallway and turned to face the squad of armed robots that were getting back up to their feet. All motion and all sound froze for a few tense moments until a faint clanking in the ceiling alarmed the robots who scurried away, seemingly no longer interested in trying to find the cyborg.
Ace maintained his position for another minute, feeling for any movement around himself. Certain that he was alone, he proceeded down a narrow hallway leading to an open vault. From his angle, this chamber looked small and empty. There was probably nothing inside but there was a chance that he could find a computer terminal which he could use to find out where exactly he was in the ships’ innards or how he could escape. As he reached the chamber, he took a quick look around. It was dark and empty.
Once inside the dark vault, Ace shut the door and tore apart the control panel which served as a lock. As soon as he was sure he was out of the robots’ reach, he focused his ears on the ceiling. He could hear faint noises too quiet to identify. Something strange alerted his peripheral vision and he took a glance at the chamber around him. It turned out that what he thought was a rather small room was actually a vast arena shaped to trick the eyes of whoever approached it.
“What in the hell is this?” he exhaled as he saw the sheer size of the chamber and what occupied it.
Almost a hundred crudely made Shadow Demon templates stood in neat rows, attached to the floor beneath them by wiring connected to ports under their sensory runes; three under each cheek, five under each chest rune and one on each ankle. The runes themselves were pealed back to expose the chrome, circular ports. This was not good. It was almost certain they had a brain ready to be imprinted and set to carry out whatever the Dark Gods wanted them to.
He had seen these before at the very dawn of the Nation. There was no way that ten cyborgs could ever spawn enough soldiers and civilians to start a civilization so these crude templates were ordered, refined and imprinted in a military factory to serve as the first army and the first breeding population. Within a few months, 17,000 were built and delivered, destined to become ordinary Shadow Demons. A large number of these factory made cyborgs were still alive. Seeing how future demons could be built via assembly line, Ace forbid their use ever again. Luckily, Mai was able to complete her work in what would become the demons’ and Children’s synthetic gametes and the next generation of demons was born rather than built.
“Ok, not good, not good, not good,” Ace chanted as he flexed his claws. “This is really, really not good.”
Suddenly, the eyes of a Dark God appeared above the templates of demons. The eyes flashed with an angry flame and the humanoid machines began coming to life. Their wires detached and sank into floor panels. Their sensory runes slid shut and their eyes ignited with faint bursts of red light. These templates may not have been ready to replace Shadow Demons, but they certainly could kill one or at the very least put up a good fight. Like zombies, they began to slowly and steadily move towards Ace as they armed their claws...
[ chapter _ 038 ]
On the outer hull of a paralyzed battle cruiser, a fierce battle raged. Accompanied by a squad of OctoBots and Guardians, Nelson and Dot were trying to tear their way into the craft’s innards. After their probes tracked the cruiser and its escorts to a place where they could attack with confidence, the Nation’s destroyers quickly tore its defenders to shreds and paralyzed it to safely retrieve their leader. Now, they were fighting their way through a vast horde of drones and spherical robot guards on the chaotic, bumpy surface of the craft.
In exercising caution and restraint, Dot and Nelson moved at an excruciatingly slow pace, cutting narrow paths through the swarms of enemy troops and using their machines and Guardians to protect them from surprise attacks and stray shots. But with the attention of every drone and guard on the battle cruiser focused on halting their progress, they soon found themselves stuck. Unable to kill enough of their opponents to advance and unable to use the powerful destroyers and fighters operated by Steve and Christine for backup without the risk of tearing the battle cruiser apart, they had no choice other than to endure a long, tedious fight.
Just as the cyborgs were hitting their stride, a holographic screen with Christine appeared.
“Dot, Nelson, we have an enemy gunship,” she warned, her voice coming through on an intercom that resonated in the cyborgs’ ears. “We’re not sure where it came from, but it’s coming around the battle cruiser and headed towards you. It’s too close to the ship for us to try and hit it. You might be caught by the beam.”
“Shit!” growled Dot. “What the hell are they doing?”
“No idea,” replied Christine. “I’ll see if I can chase it off with a bomber.”
As the holographic screen vanished, an explosion shook the hull of the battle cruiser and a wave of red spirals surged into space. The blast turned dozens of drones and guards into shrapnel which struck the wave of robots attacking Dot and Nelson, damaging them beyond repair and taking them out of the battle as well. Another wave hit the robot squad headed to replace their damager comrades, clearing just enough space for the Nation’s war machines to wrap around Nelson and Dot, securing more of the cruiser.
“Is that Ace?” asked Nelson. “Because that looked like a wave from his sword.”
“I hope so,” nodded Dot.
A dark, caped figure warped into focus behind the defensive line of Guardians and OctoBots. Surrounded by a faint red aura, it held a scythe alight with a turbulent corona. The cyborgs instantly recognized the Grim Reaper and assumed their battle stances as he stepped towards them, casually twirling the scythe in his hand.
“What do you want?” asked Dot, adjusting the grip on her blade. “And where are you holding Ace on this ship?”
“Relax,” replied the Reaper. “I’m just here to help my student.”
“Why?” asked Nelson.
“Because he’s my responsibility,” the Reaper answered. “If anyone takes his life, it should be done with some respect.”
He looked around, tapping the handle of his scythe on the crystal and carbon hull of the battle cruiser.
“Now where do we look for Ace”
As if in response, a few feet past the OctoBots and Guardians, the cruiser’s armor was torn apart and a number of Shadow Demon appendages shot out, followed by arcs of blood and mechanical parts from deep inside cyborg bodies. A number of the activated Shadow Demon templates jumped out, some bearing terrible scars across the torso or the face. Ace followed them out of the gash, his claws soaked with blood, his forearms and sides scratched in battle. He roared at all of the crude, half-finished demons around him just like he did on Rexx Prime, the deep, inhuman, vicious roar reflecting his fury, vibrating in the escaping air from inside the ship.
“Ah, there he is,” smirked the Reaper.
He produced a sheathed sword from beneath his cloak and threw it through the wall of the Nation’s machines. Feeling the incoming sword with his sensory runes, Ace warped out to grab the blade after knocking down a demon template which stood in his way. Relaxing his claws, he firmly grasped the weapon’s handle. Brought to life by a Shadow Demon’s touch, the sword shot out of the side of the black marble sheath decorated with gray runes and milliseconds later, went through the body of a demon template, guided by Ace’s hand.
After slicing through the demon template, Ace followed through the slash by embedding the dark blade more than a foot into the torso of its adjacent clone. Igniting the sword’s aura and freeing the blade from the template’s torn innards, he sent out a devastating spiral of energy which scattered the dozens of his eerie attackers and cracked the topmost layer of the cruiser’s dense hull.
“Just like I taught him,” affectionately remarked the Reaper. He turned to Nelson and Dot. “Well come on, the drones aren’t going to kill themselves now.”
“Right,” they nodded.
The defensive wall scattered and once again became an attacking force, tearing through the drones and guards in their way. No longer worried about doing too much damage to the cruiser, the OctoBots and Guardians let loose with terrifying laser fire and piercing spines that minced any stray robot in range.
The Reaper joined Ace in clearing out the demon templates and the drones that came to their rescue with their rail guns. Working as a team, they sent elegant spirals of raw energy in majestic, swirling patterns that devastated their opponents’ formations. Watching them fight was like watching a carefully choreographed dance where true artists effortlessly switched positions and moved in perfect harmony, showcasing their mastery at a level that could only come with over a millennium of practice and access to the best mentors in alien martial arts dating back to the primeval past. Drones and the spherical, spidery robot guards were trying to outflank them, withholding fire until they assumed position. All of their attempts to hit Ace or the Reaper seemed to be in vain as their quick targets had enough time to warp out of range or deflect their shots.
Using his scythe more like a bo staff than a blade, the Reaper hit his opponents with broad shockwaves, throwing them back, clearing out the flanks. Following his sweep, Ace would carve a path through the remaining drones and templates with short, powerful slashes of his sword. At times, they would mix up their attacks with Ace doing a half sweep and the Reaper generating a column of energy, bringing the tip of his scythe down like the blade of a guillotine.
Finally, the remnants of the battle cruiser’s defenders retreated to the interior of the craft, bolting down the air locks, barricading hallways and chambers with whatever they could find. The OctoBots and the Guardians didn’t follow them inside, deeming their missions to be completed. Nelson and Dot watched the last of the drones seal themselves in, hoping to survive the attack in the bowels of the ship. The fight was over.
“Ace, are you all right?” asked Nelson as they walked up to their friend and the Reaper.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” nodded Ace. “Just a few scratches in the usual places.”
Rather than ask questions, Dot simply hugged Ace, resting her head on his chest. He gently patted her on the back and kissed her on the top of her head. He turned to the Reaper and nodded towards him with a grateful smile.
The Reaper’s gunship floated side by side with a destroyer. His pod sat in the destroyer’s docking bay where he stood with Ace admiring the planetary nebula of the ancient star. As far out as they were, they could see it swirling from the solar winds. Somewhere inside these majestic jets, the fine crystalloid dust which used to be battle cruisers and gunships was being scattered across an area several light years across.
“I’d like to come back here when this star goes hypernova,” said Ace dreamily. “It’s about 100 solar masses so it should really light up the galaxy when it blows.”
“And then collapse into a black hole,” added the Reaper.
“Yeah, then there’s that... I wonder if there’s a solar system there or if it’s already fried.”
The Reaper just shrugged.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” smiled Ace.
“My pleasure. If anyone gets to kill you, it should be me.”
“True. You would actually appreciate it.”
“I still remember when I tested you. You were the only alien to tie me in a one on one match.”
In the distance, a beam of white light shot out of the star, setting the nebula alight. Wisps of white and blue gas began seeping out into deep space, looping around each other in magnetic coils.
“We haven’t done this for too long,” said the Reaper.
“Done what?”
“Just stared at the stars. At first I wasn’t sure why you like to do it so much. But when you were gone, I started stargazing myself and understood why. They’re... well... interesting.”
“Yes they are. I wanted to be a physicist to study them. Actually living among them and seeing them so close still feels like a dream if I stop to think about it. When I just watch the stars, I’m not worried about anything. I just look and let my imagination fly and feel their light surge through me... It’s almost magical, like I feel connected to the rest of the universe, absorbing its energy. Whatever’s out there is calling out to me, begging me to keep exploring, keep traveling.”
“So that’s on what you founded the Cult of the Immortals? The urge to known the unknown?”
“You can say that.”
Another solar flare rippled across the nebula. As the star slowly died, more and more flares surged across its surface when it inflated into an ever bigger blue giant. It was wheezing its last breaths, only a few thousand years to go until it collapsed, mere moments if viewed in astronomical terms.
“Are you going to get in trouble for bailing me out?” asked Ace.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” replied the Reaper. “The Dark Ones have no idea what they’re doing. After they withstood a full on assault of your armada and caught you, they were expecting to return their lost outposts with the same momentum with which you secured them. In the last few days they’ve been getting desperate. Sure, they were able to recover maybe half of them, but the other half were held by your forces and there was nothing they could do. They fanned out to blockade their territory but they’ve fanned out too much. There’s just too much space to defend, even if they use a few cruisers and gunships at a time to serve as scouts and a preliminary warning system.”