The empire had never considered pursuing them. The worlds the Unmind attacked were always ones on the edges of Substrate space, mostly thrall gardens with only a token number of overseers. The planets were always left habitable, and there was always more thralls to repopulate them with. When the Unmind arrived in a system, the Substrate simply left. It wasn’t worth the expense to fight them.
“A portion of the fleet is breaking off, my lord,” said the thrall installed in the sensor suite. Their arms vanished into the wall next to it, nerves fused to circuits within. Like most thralls, they had pallid grey skin. Whilst the Substrate had thralls from every world they conquered some species were just more popular. Either they were more easily made compliant or bred quickly and cheaply. “They appear to be moving to intercept us.”
“Prepare, the main cannons. What’s our antimatter status?” Abberax was standing, gesturing with his talons as he spoke. He was so close to his quarry, but the universe seemed to be conspiring against him.
“Sixty-three per cent of reserves remaining, my lord,” replied another thrall, one manning the weapon controls. Abberax didn’t know the name of their race, and he didn’t care. Each dreadnought as the sole property of the Lord who commanded it, crewed with thralls from their own estates, the rock that formed its hull hewn from their own lands. Abberax had chosen this particular grey-skinned species to form the bulk of his thralls due to the ease they could be cloned, supplementing his stock’s natural growth. Consequently, they all looked near identical.
“More than enough. Prepare the main gun to fire.”
“Yes, my lord,” the weapons thrall said. Like most space-faring cultures the Substrate mounted the considerable firepower of their ships facing forward. The travel time inherent to weapons fire in space meant that evasive manoeuvres were highly effective. The easiest way to combat them was to get as close as possible. Most space battles came down to two fleets flying directly towards one another, beams dancing across the darkness.
“My lord, the ship who messaged us, the unarmed one, is moving to place itself between the station and the oncoming fleet,” the sensor thrall said, shifting the hologram in the centre of the chamber to show the movement of the strange ship. Its size marked it as a capital ship, easily a counterpart to the dreadnought, but it hadn’t fired. Abberax respected the bravery it took to taunt him as they had, even as he laughed about the futility of it.
“Bold.” Abberax drummed his talons onto the metal railing that ran around the central hologram, his stony fingers ringing as he tapped the hollow steel. “Something isn’t right. That ship is unarmed, correct?”
“Yes, my lord.” The sensor thrall brought up the image of the ship. Behind them, the corpse of the communications thrall had been removed, a new body in the process of being wired into the connections. “No identifiable weapons.”
“Identifiable weapons is very different from no weapons.” Abberax’s voice was like boulders tumbling down a mountain. He was not pleased.
“There are projectors across the hull, but they don’t match any known weapon configurations, and they have limited arcs. They would make for most ineffective weapons. We also did not move when the ship was trying to intercept us. I would assume that if they were weapons, they would-”
The thralls head imploded. The remnants hovered above a small silver needle protruding from within the thralls exposed neck. The blob of blood and skull compressed further, glowing brilliant white as the energy projected from the needle took effect. There was a clink as a tiny diamond struck the deck, carbon pressurised in an instant.
“I like this one,” Abberax said as he bent down and picked up the diamond, the tiny fragment squeezed between the tips of his claws. “Send my regards to the artificer who made it.” He placed the diamond onto his torso. It sank into the stone, forming part of his being. “Set a course towards that Council ship. Fire on anything that gets in the way.”
“The bulk of the Unmind ships are on course for the station,” Mellok said. “Some have split from the main fleet and are headed towards the Shield and the dreadnought.”
Aileena allowed herself a smile. The Substrate lord in charge of the dreadnought hadn’t taken the bait, he was smart, but he was still heading towards an Unmind flotilla. At least he was going down with everyone else.
“Good, I’m bringing us between the fleet and the station. Get Orson’s ship on the line, tell them to get behind us.” Aileena was inputting instructions to the ship as she spoke. The ship was responding quickly, normally a vessel of this size was sluggish, slow, the thrusters struggling to move its mass. The Sword was different, dancing like its namesake, cutting across space.
“I’ve commanded the bots to take up positions throughout the ship, should I take damage,” Clive said. Referring to the Sword in the first person was new, but no-one had the time to acknowledge it.
“This is the Shield,” Nguyen’s face appeared before Mellok, projected from a small green orb in his console. “Make it quick, we don’t have time to be messing around.”
“Oh, yes. Fall in behind the Sword. Our ship. We will cover you.” Mellok’s feathers shimmered as he spoke, drifting through a rainbow of colours.
“No offence, but that thing has no guns. You should be getting behind us.”
“You’ll find that the Sword isn’t undefended. Rather the opposite. We can cover you and the station, for a time, if you get behind us.”
“Enough time to jump away? We’ve still got hours left on our drive.”
“Enough for you to pick up the Knower and Orson and set an escape course certainly,” Mellok said.
“I think you’re confused,” there was another voice, a second face appearing on the hologram. It was covered in thick hair. “Orson is the Knower.”
“A discussion for another time!” Aileena was shouting, not bothering to turn on her own channel. “Look we can jump out right away if needed. If things get too much we’re gone. The longer you’re arguing over religious theory the less of a time window we have. One Knower, two Knowers, whatever, it doesn’t matter.”
“Two Knowers?” the fur-covered alien said. “There is only one Knower. Perhaps this other person you speak of is the Teller of Lies? A false prophet.”
“We don’t have time, Kalk. We can discuss this later. You better be telling the truth. Good luck, Nguyen out.” The hologram shut off.
Orson and Brekt each had one arm around Michael as they helped him down the ramp. He had grown weaker with every moment, each step sapping his strength.
“Come on, our ships are right there, time to go,” Orson said. The hangar was a mess of ships fighting to get past each other and out through the doors. Two had collided together, destroying a third as they had crashed. The fires had been put out, but it meant the hanger was thick with smoke, the same field keeping in the air preventing the cloud from dissipating.
“I’ve seen better-organised festival car parks. Just leave me here,” Michael’s voice was faint. It was as if even speaking was draining what little he had left. “Come on, it’s obvious. The Unmind has to be tracking me, or reading my thoughts, or who knows what else? It has to be. I can feel the machines inside me winning. Just being closer to those ships is making them stronger.”
“We’ll get you back aboard the Sword and top you up,” Brekt said. “You’ll be fine then, right? Michael? Michael!?”