Bane of the Dead (Seraphim Revival Book 1) (28 page)

“Ouch! Damn it, that stung!” Jack sucked on the back of his hand.

“You have made a grave mistake today,” Vierj said.

Another technician aimed his weapon at Jack and fired, but this time he was ready. He dashed aside with inhuman speed, let the bolt fly past, then rushed his attacker. With a brief grunt of effort, he formed a dagger of blue energy in his left hand and cleaved the man’s head off. Blood spurted out of the stump, and the corpse flopped limply to the ground.

Gurgella put his back against the wall. “W-w-what are you people?”

“Didn’t anyone tell you?” Jack gave him a frigid grin. “We’re monsters.”

“Drop your weapons,” Vierj said. “Or fight and die. Either way, you cannot harm us.”

“Help is coming,” Gurgella said.

“It will not be enough.” Vierj walked towards him. “Make your choice.”

“You’d better do as she says,” Jack said.

“D-drop them,” Gurgella stuttered.

The technicians threw their weapons to the group and hurried out of her way.

“There. We’ve done as you asked. We’re completely at your mercy.”

“You were defenseless before you dropped those toys.” Vierj stopped in front of him. “Nothing has changed.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Gurgella asked.

“This.”

Vierj stabbed Gurgella with her bare hand. His ribcage provided all of the resistance of wet tissue.

“Gah!” Gurgella gasped and looked down, unbelieving. He grabbed her arm with shaking hands.

Vierj twisted her wrist and pushed in further.

“Nngh!”

Tendrils of black energy spread from Vierj’s hand, running across his chest and up his arms.

Gurgella’s eyes bugged out and he screamed. It was a sound of absolute, indescribable pain. And when he finished screaming, he filled his lungs and screamed again, lips foaming with spittle and blood.

One of the technicians dove for his gun. Jack grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him into the wall. The technician hit with a wet thunk and crumpled to the ground unconscious.

Gurgella sucked in a gurgling breath and cried out again. The tendrils of energy spread further, enveloping his chest, running down his legs, and sliding up his neck. They reached his mouth and poured down his throat.

His eyes were the last part of him still visible, frantically turning every which way before the black liquid encased him.

Vierj slid her hand out of his chest.

The darkness dispersed, and Gurgella reappeared, locked in his last pose. Vierj tapped a finger against his forehead, and he crumpled into a pile of glittering, frozen dust.

Vierj closed her eyes, spread her arms, and manifested her wings.

“Now hold on,” Jack said, reaching for her.

Her black seraph arrived at the transport, clutched it with both hands, and broke it in half. The technicians cried out and fell to the factories below.

“Whoa!” Jack shouted, only to be buffered softly to the seraph’s open palm. A thin barrier formed around him, sealing in a portion of breathable air.

Vierj floated backwards into the seraph’s cockpit.

“You don’t have to do this!” Jack shouted.

From within the seraph, Vierj held Jack aloft, then stretched out the seraph’s free hand. A ball of black energy appeared. She cast it into the factories below, linking herself to it with a thin strand of darkness. The ball hit the surface and rushed across the factories in two directions until it met above, forming a continuous ring around the schism’s interior.

The black ring parted down the middle, then began moving in opposite directions. It engulfed the entire factory zone, the space dock, and pushed into the northern city. Chilled debris spat out the other side.

“Vierj, stop!”

“You are too soft, Jack Donolon.” The voice reverberated from the barrier around him. “You must harden yourself if you are to survive, for you are still vulnerable to attack. Even this vacuum I shield you from is deadly to you. Do not show these lesser creatures pity, for they deserve none.”

The twin rings expanded out faster, consuming the forests, mountains, lakes, and quaint villas within the schism’s cylinder. It ate through the southern city in seconds, then enveloped the southern factories and space dock.

When it was over, a ragged field of dark, cold debris was all that remained of the
Righteous Anger
, its two cities, and millions of inhabitants. His seraph floated amongst the wreckage, completely unaffected by the attack.

“There, it is done.” Vierj spoke those words with an air of boredom.

Jack knew he alone was to blame for awakening this sleeping beast. If he had not set out on his fool’s errand, the Bane would still be in hiding. But Jack had suspected when he set out what he was becoming, and the terror of that revelation drove him to act.

He had found the Bane. He had earned this murderer’s trust. And now he stood on the cusp of helping this creature return to the place she was banished from.

But Jack could not let that happen,
would
not let that happen. The Gate, his goal and the Bane’s goal, remained the key. Even now, as powerful as he was, Jack could not harm her. No one could. But near the Gate’s dimensional rupture, this creature’s powers would weaken.

She would be vulnerable to attack.

So many had died to provide Jack this one opportunity, and no one, not even Seth, would stop him. He would kill anyone who stood between him and his goal. In the end, at the very edge of this universe where the Bane was at her weakest, Jack would finally kill her.

***

Seth slipped his arms through the i-suit coat. A wall screen in his quarters displayed the black silhouette of Imayirot, transmitted to the
Resolute
by surveillance exodrones. Lines of white light lashed back and forth around the dead world, signs of the growing battle between Grendeni ships and Imayirot defenders.

Quennin stared down at her clasped hands. “Seth, I want you to reconsider.”

“I don’t have a choice,” he said, sealing the front of his i-suit.

“Of course you do. There’s always a choice.”

Seth stopped. After a long pause, he nodded slowly.

Yes, you’re right,
he thought.
I do have a choice, especially after all that’s happened.

The reality he knew was disintegrating before his eyes. Jack, a trusted ally and friend, had killed their son. The Choir, their eternal and indivisible leadership, had splintered. The Original Eleven, founders and masters of the Aktenai, had betrayed them.

The Bane, a being of incomprehensible power and malevolence, had returned.

And we’re all attempts to recreate that abomination,
Seth thought, then pushed the fact away, burying it beneath layers of resolve.

Quennin came beside him. “And?”

“I’m still going.”

She smiled sadly. “Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

“My duty remains clear, even after all that has happened.”

Quennin picked up his gloves and handed them over. When he finished putting them on, she placed her hands around his.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “But everything we’ve fought for is a lie. You don’t have to go.”

“But I do,” Seth said. “We cannot let the Bane pass through the Gate. I will not throw away what little purpose we still have.”

Quennin sighed. “I suppose there’s no way I can change your mind.”

“You know I have to do this. My blade lies at Aktenzek’s side, now and always.”

“You cannot stop them.”

“Maybe.” Seth let go of her. He picked up his sidearm and set it firmly into his holster.

A thin smile slipped onto Quennin’s face. “You have always been the stubborn one. There’s no reasoning with you sometimes.”

“You would know best.”

“I won’t be able to watch your back. I think that’s why I’m so scared for you this time. Even with the holes in my mind, I don’t think I’ve ever been afraid like this. I want to be out there with you, protecting you even as you protect me. Instead, all I can do is sit here and wait.”

“Quennin, I understand why you don’t want me to go.” Seth picked up his sidearm and set it firmly into his holster. “But I cannot deny who I am, nor deny my path when it is so clear. The Bane must be stopped.”

Quennin placed a hand on his cheek. “Then I will not ask again. Fight well today, beloved, and come back to me.”

“I will.”

Seth stepped up to Quennin and looked long into those beautiful green eyes, recognizing all the tumultuous emotions behind them. Perhaps his beloved’s injuries had not changed her at all. Now that she could no longer be at his side, actively confronting her fears, those long denied emotions had surfaced.

Perhaps she merely hid her fears for my sake, just as I hide mine from her. We are not so different, my beloved.

Seth brought her close and kissed her gently on the lips. Quennin wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tight. They stayed like that for what they both wished could be an eternity, both afraid that this might be their last moment together.

After more than a minute, Seth broke away, and they looked into each other’s eyes.

“I will come back.”

Quennin only nodded with moistening eyes.

“You will see.” Without another word, Seth left for the seraph bays.

He took the lift down to the bay shelf and looked up at his seraph. Two Grendeni swords were docked against the wing clusters. All the seraphs onboard the
Resolute
now possessed refitted arms for using the Grendeni weapons. Seth was the only pilot who would carry two into battle.

Will these weapons be enough? Or do I go to my death?

Seth knew he had to stop Jack and the Bane, but he was no fool. Only the crucible of battle could judge now.

I must try to engage Jack alone if I am to have a chance. Either these swords will grant me the edge I need, or I will die trying.

Seth accepted his helmet from the waiting technician, donned it, and boarded his seraph. He leaned into the pilot alcove and let the cockpit close in around him. The ethereal connection with the seraph surfaced in the back of his mind.

Seth closed his eyes, letting the sensations of his physical body fade until they constricted into a small pearl of consciousness. The seraph’s senses supplanted them, growing in strength and clarity. The white lights of the bay, the restraints of the catapult system, the heft of the swords and conformal pods, all this filled Seth’s mind.

Seth didn’t pilot the seraph. He
was
the seraph.

He let a trickle of power flow into his chest cavity’s arterial pump. Pressurized fluid pulsed through his body, carrying raw chaos energy to his arms, legs, and wings. Shunts on his armored skin blazed to life, burning hotly with purple fire.

Clamps descended on rails and latched onto his wings. A catapult shutter snapped open beneath his feet, and the clamps thrust him downward. He cleared three shutters and flew out into the emptiness of space.

Seth unleashed the full yield of his talent. His barrier shimmered with tiny sparks of purple electricity. He spread his wings and filled them with power. Their edges burned with light and he shot forward, clearing the cylindrical bulk of the
Resolute
.

Eighteen other seraphs launched and joined him. All six Renseki and all twelve of the pilots in Jared’s squadron stood ready for his orders.

“Epsilon squadron at full readiness, sir,” Jared said. “Fold engines fully charged and calibrated.”

“Renseki standing by,” Zo said.

Seth called up the probe data from exodrones near Imayirot.

Nearly four hundred Grendeni warships fought against the automated defenders with more ships folding every minute. The Grendeni would pour every available ship into this fight. They had to know the Aktenai fleets were out of position and weakened by civil war. Already, they had succeeded in driving a wedge through the orbital defense grid, though they had paid for it with over sixty smashed warships.

The Aktenai fleets would attack regardless of the skewed odds, and Seth led only a fraction of the two hundred seraphs committed to the attack.

A hypercast message carried the Choir’s orders to all seraph squadrons.

Seth started a squadron-wide countdown. “Fold on my signal. We’ll come in directly behind the Grendeni formations with our fleet in tow. Do not engage the defenders unless absolutely necessary. Focus on the Grendeni ships and watch for archangels. They’ll show up shortly after we do.”

“Confirmed, sir.”

“Understood.”

The countdown reached zero. Nineteen seraphs folded to Imayirot.

***

Space exploded around them.

Hundreds of beams crisscrossed between dense formations of ships and the orbital defenders. Thousands of fusion torpedoes and tactical seekers blossomed into white-hot suns wherever they hit.

Seth oriented himself with the Grendeni fleet ahead. The enemy ships flew towards Imayirot and away from him, beams converging on their formations from all sides. Grendeni frigates and dreadnoughts died by the dozens, smashing themselves against the weakening orbital defenses.

The great black shade, a disc thirty thousand kilometers across, no longer rested between Imayirot and its sun. It now orbited the planet, slowly approaching the weakest part of Imayirot’s defenses. Cannons all across its circumferences fired on the Grendeni ships.

Light caressed Imayirot for the first time in millennia, illuminating its lifeless landscapes. No atmosphere hung above its barren surface. No ocean washed up along its cold shores. Cities that once stood tall and opulent now existed as rubble and debris. Domes lay scattered about its surface, some cracked open, revealing dilapidated cities and long tunnels leading deep into the planet.

Far below the orbiting weapons, yet hundreds of kilometers above the planet, was an incomplete patchwork of reflective mirrors and metal canopies. Like the domed cities, these had been Imayirot’s attempt to stave off the brutal forces of entropy while its inhabitants tried to live without a sun.

Somewhere within the long, endless tunnels of Imayirot, the Choir hid the Gate,
Seth thought.
And the only people who know the exact location are the Original Eleven.