The boat-bay doors crumpled as the primary hull twisted, suddenly torqued by a series of explosive blasts. Hadeishi dropped to the floor, crouching over Lovelace’s body, and felt the walls and floor ripple. Glassite shattered as the boat-bay windows tore from their frames. A second colossal impact followed as a shipkiller rammed into the gap torn by the particle beam. The missile vented plasma into the shipcore, immolating the dozens of Imperials still trapped within the secondary hull.
The concussive wave transmitted to the primary hull as well, tearing the bay doors away entirely. The old cruiser split open, though Mitsuharu knew only that he and Lovelace were thrown against the far wall of the compartment along with everyone else in the makeshift medbay. Cries of agony filled his ears, but the Chu-sa ’s attention was fixed on the violently glowing dust-clouds now visible through the gaping hole where the boat-bay had been. What tiny bit of atmosphere had remained in the management compartment now vented out into hard vacuum, crystallizing as frost on their suits.
Hadeishi’s suit visor flickered, trying to focus on the abyss outside, then suddenly picked out-and enhanced-the outline of a Khaid destroyer sliding past at ten thousand kilometers, a long black shape with a blue-white flare where the drive nacelles were burning at one-quarter power. The first thing springing to mind was the image of a missile hatch cycling open as he watched…
“We’ve got to get out”-he forced himself away from the wall, one arm snaking behind Lovelace’s shoulders to pull her with him-“of here.”
Before he could drag her away a stabbing white glare flooded the compartment, momentarily polarizing Hadeishi’s visor to black.
“What is-” someone shouted on the channel, before being drowned out by a tidal wave of static.
Hadeishi felt his skin burning painfully from residual heat the z-suit could not disperse and gasped, blinded by even the microsecond of exposure to the antimatter reactor annihilating itself. When his vision cleared, the compartment was filled with drifting corpses, the walls discolored by the blast of radiation.
“Report,” he croaked, “any survivors, report!”
For a minute, or more, there was silence-stunned, wordless silence-but he could hear someone breathing harshly. Then a handful of voices babbled back, reporting status of their teams and their compartments.
“ Chu-sa, what happened?” Cajeme’s voice was suddenly clear and sharp; and the thought of the little Yaqui’s survival released a tiny fraction of the bone-crushing despair Mitsuharu had been struggling to wade through.
“A Neshter -class destroyer,” Hadeishi managed to croak out, “blew to atoms within visual of us. I do not know why, or how, but nothing else has hit us in the last sixty seconds, so I claim victory.”
Gretchen flinched away from a sudden, titanic plasma blast. The air erupted with blinding flame and a whirlwind of shrapnel. She lost her balance, teetering at the edge of the platform. Both Piet and Hummingbird lunged forward, gloved hands seizing her arms. Only then did she realize the burning cloud was passing through the two of them without harm. Eons in the past, the technicians at the consoles were strewn about like matchsticks. The mighty Hjogadim Lord burned like a torch while the golden serpent suddenly, violently, escaped from its physicality. The great hall, to its farthest corners, boiled with unforeseen catastrophe.
Anderssen blinked tears from her eyes, trying to focus on the present. Meanwhile, Piet had torn away her utility rig and was digging through the pockets.
“I saw her stash it… back in the ship,” his voice rasped over the comm. “It must be here somewhere!”
“It is gone,” Sahane barked in amusement. The Hjogadim gestured towards the shaft. “Cast into the abyss.”
Piet glared at the alien. “Then you will serve in her place.”
Sahane nodded and rose to his feet, helped by one of the other Templars. To Gretchen it was plain that something in the Hjo had found surety at last, banishing his chronic fear. “What will you have me say?”
Confused, Gretchen eyed the Europeans, Hummingbird, and the alien. A message? To the dead? No… to those sleeping below? But they cannot hear us-not without a Voice-uh oh…
Piet paused, squaring his shoulders, and then recited: “That we await their coming and are prepared to aid, as did their servants of old. That we pledge true service, where so many failed them before. That we have need, for a great peril will soon return.”
Sahane’s snout twitched in amusement, but he nodded.
Out of the corner of her eye, Gretchen caught a glimpse of a thin blue-black furred shape shrouding the pilot like a ghostly cloak. How could anything have survived that plasma blast? She turned in amazement to get a better look. But the apparition was already gone. The ghost-world was fading now, consumed by the chaos of ancient battle. Too many fleeting events to leave a lasting mark on the substance of the consoles or the time-worn floor. Only one last glimpse of the Lord Serpent wicking through the air as a burning ribbon. Then it plunged into the cowering body of a still-living blue-black technician.
In a last burst of memory, the slim, now-radiant alien escaped over the edge of the pylon.
A vampire, Gretchen realized, falling back into the waking world, her limbs clammy with shock. A parasite of some kind, that… something like that was in the tablet! It was controlling me, guiding my mind! Xochitl was right-and there are hundreds of thousands more of them, down there, in the abyss… the deities of the Hjogadim.
“I will say these words, to the Gods,” Sahane announced, breaking her train of thought. The priest made an elegant, human-style bow. “If you give me leave to do so.”
The three Templars shared a glance and nodded, almost as one. Piet gestured with his assault rifle, pointing Sahane towards the nearest console. “Waste no time, then.”
Gretchen watched curiously as the Hjo paced deliberately to the largest, most centrally located console and then pressed fingertips to forebrain, a swift, mumbled litany on his lips. What is he?… Anderssen felt suddenly the fool. Her ghost-sight quickened, and she saw the air around Sahane come alive with flickering glyphs and signs. His masks are on overdrive and-spouting nonsense? They must be trying to decipher the control systems… but are too new to understand these older mechanisms.
Despite the confusion of symbols, the subaudible hum in the floor changed pitch. At once the consoles flickered awake, glowing with dappled green and gold. The air in the enormous chamber stirred. Long lines of lamps began to shine among the abandoned cradles. Anderssen crawled to the nearest panel and felt it becoming aware under her hands, waiting for guidance. She realized that despite the echoes of destruction reverberating in the ghost-world, the gargantuan machine around her was intact and functioning.
Automated maintenance, she guessed. Little bots or nanites always working to clean and fix and repair… gathering up the bodies of the dead, taking them away to be properly disposed of… A frown creased her forehead. But not by the great doors? Wouldn’t they… ah, but everything there is in a great untidy pile. Collected by the automated janitors, for something else, something larger to take away. But it couldn’t? Because the doors were locked tight, sealed… She suppressed an automatic reaction to look around the platform for the corpse of the last technician, the one that had sealed the doors, trapping himself inside, and then expired in due time. Not here, not here… some chamber where he’d cached a bit of food and water, until he knew the tomb was forgotten and no one would return.
So, treachery. Battle and slaughter in the midst of the great undertaking. Millions of stasis racks, all empty. Storage for the bodies drained of guiding flame. Waiting for their masters-their operators?-to return…