Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1) (13 page)
Read Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1) Online
Authors: Patrick J. Loller
Chapter 29
Vincent
Vincent stumbled into the bulkhead, drowning in a wash of emotions. Grief, loss, and anger all vied to overwhelm him. His father's death, losing Derek, his inability to prevent either tragedy. He collapsed to his knees and tears streamed from his eyes as he curled his hands into fists.
Then it was gone, and only the soft echo of pain remained.
"What in the void was that?" he rasped, then wiped a sleeve across his face. He hadn't cried since the day he lost his father. This was no natural grief; some sort of magic had to be responsible.
The red washout of the battle station lights confirmed his suspicions, and Vincent took off running down the hall, leaping through the emergency hatches that split the hallway.
"Status report," he called between breaths.
Before the details even finished downloading into memories, Vincent was already activating his squadron sense, connecting his mental chip to theirs so he could sense their positions.
Tesla and Forge were in danger. Vincent doubled down on his speed, sprinting wildly through the corridors as if the fire were behind him.
"What... caused... the fire?" he puffed between breaths.
Vincent didn't waste his breath with further questions. He hadn’t appreciated the length of the ship until he was forced to sprint the distance. He didn't dare take the elevator, not if there was a fire.
He took far too long to get there—long enough for him to consider the worst possible scenarios. Then he heard them.
The distinctive spray of the firefighting foam packs was the easiest to hear; then, as he got closer, he heard the grunts and shouts of the crews themselves.
"Connect me to their bionet," Vincent ordered. His rank would allow him in. The connection was made and a flurry of communications came flooding in.
All the firefighters were launching off. Vincent was disoriented by all of their thoughts.
Ahead of them down the corridor, fire licked at the walls and ceiling. Closer to Vincent, foam coated the walls to stop the fire’s advance. Vincent knew firsthand how devastating a ship-wide fire could be. If it got into the life support line that pumped the atmosphere, it would get far worse. There were automatic cutoffs everywhere, but they could fail, and sufficient heat would find a way to spread.
The firefighters were gaining ground, but the foam only did so much. Force fields and oxygen denial were far more effective.
Vincent saw an extra pack on the floor behind the rearmost fighter, and he scooped it up and pushed his arms through the straps. He hadn't kept up on the training since the academy, but the principle was simple enough, same as with a weapon. Business end towards the enemy. He grabbed a respirator as well and fitted it over his face.
The corridor was only wide enough to support three men abreast, and five firefighters were already crowding for space. Vincent slipped in between the rearmost two and lifted the nozzle of his foam gun to arc it over the men ahead of him.
The tool churned in his hands as the foam blasted from the front. Flecks hit the three men ahead of him, but most arced over their shoulders to splash onto the flames. Between the six of them, they managed to press the fire further down the corridor, and then one of them broke off to access a panel on the wall.
Vincent pulled him back and stepped up. He was barely a foot away from the nearest flames. The view from his plummeting snubfighter filled his mind, forcing him to grip the tool with the same intensity as when he’d plunged into the fires on Bastogne.
<
Flareup!
>
It took Vincent a split second to remember what that meant. It was a split second too long. While the other two men around him twisted to shield their bodies, Vincent took the blast of heat full on. Every exposed inch of flesh screamed like a blanket of needles had pressed into it, and even with the respirator on, he could smell his own cooked flesh and singed hair. He screamed into the plastic of his mask, dropping back a step. The other two stepped forward to pick up the slack, but Vincent forced himself forward, still spraying everything with foam.
<
Keep moving.
> Some of his pain and fear had broken through. It hurt, more than he thought possible, and he was terrified that it was far worse than it seemed. What was it Derek had told him? The more pain, the worse it is? Or was it the opposite? He was always talking about one medical thing or another.
Vincent was starting to lose it. The wandering thoughts, the lack of focus. It didn't help that he knew. Didn't help at all.
<
Chamber to the right. Clear for civilians.>
Vincent saw the hatch in question. It was closed off to the fire. He turned his stream on it until it was completely covered. The foam would help to dissipate the heat so they could open it. He remembered that much.
At the end of the corridor, a force field shimmered. They were close to extinguishing the blaze completely. The fighters they had left behind to exchange foam packs had returned, and with the combined effort of all six, they pushed the blaze inexorably back. Vincent dragged behind and moved for the door.
He grabbed the handle—it was cool enough to open. He twisted and pulled. No fire came rushing out to meet him. As he pulled it open, it occurred to him just how dangerous that choice could have been.
He looked inside, and found his pilots and Ele huddled in the corner.
"Jiminy Christmas!" Tesla yelled. "You got it out?"
"Do you not see, Tesla?" Forge cried. "It is the Kapitan!"
"Are you wounded?" Vincent called, and just moving his lips made his nerves scream again.
"Ele was burned."
"Give her to me. I'll take her to medical."
"All respect due, sir, but vape that. We will take you," Forge told him, and then pulled the foam nozzle from Vincent’s hand and lifted his arm over his shoulder. Vincent opened his mouth to argue, but sank silently into the support instead.
"What were you thinking, dude?" Tesla muttered.
Vincent didn't give an answer. He didn't have one. He hadn't stopped to think about it.
Chapter 30
The Exile
The Exile had little time. She had not wanted to fight the other Psykin, had intended to keep hidden until she could find more intel, steal a shuttle, and continue her mission. But no matter how tight she’d held her Web, no matter how much of the ship was between them, the other had kept following her. The Exile hadn’t had a choice.
Now she had several problems. The ship had lurched into a warp jump right before they battled. So the Exile was trapped inside the ship until they exited the bubble of space-time wrapped around the ship. The second problem was the death scream. The kill had not been clean, in more ways than one. The Psykin’s chest was torn open from the inside out, as though both her hearts had erupted. The Shadow had taken over, had twisted the Exile's emotions with its power and forced her to go further than simply ending the other's life.
The Shadow—or was it her?—took sadistic pleasure in murdering the other. Exile was having trouble deciphering whose emotions were whose. She felt like laughing and retching at the same time. Only the knowledge that she had little time kept her from unraveling.
The ship would know of her presence now. She needed a plan. Already the red lights washed across the room. She tuned out the distractions and focused on the task at hand.
Tension causes panic, panic breaks control,
came the mantra,
though the Exile knew she was well past tension. The ingrained teachings were the same as the Psykin before her: dead, useless things that came from an organization of fools.
Focus
, she told herself.
Don't lose the edge. Make a plan
.
The ship would be on high alert. They would take a muster and discover who was missing. Then armed marines would move through each deck until they found her. She couldn't blow up the compartment to get rid of the evidence, and she wouldn't be able to clean up the mess that the Shadow—that she—had made.
She looked around. The cargo containers on either side were large. Far too large for her to move, even with the assistance of her Shell.
She was out of options. Save one.
Her stomach churned. Every time she leaned on its power, it seemed harder and harder to separate herself. But she had no choice. Time was short and any minute they would discover her. She pulled the blade from its sheath, and the hunger filled her.
There was not much left in the dead Psykin’s chest cavity, so she could not plunge the dagger into the heart. Instead, she pressed the metal into the soft area beneath the jaw. There was almost no resistance, but she could still feel the scrape of every bone scraped the splitting of each muscle. Hunger screamed inside her, as though she had been starving for months, and she sank the dagger in to its hilt.
Darkness blossomed from around the pommel, growing branches towards the skull. Each one pierced into the Psykin’s flesh, creating green bruises on the bluish skin as blood vessels burst and were shoved aside. The darkness slithered over and into everything it touched until a head of darkness remained.
Like wax dripping from a candle, the Shadow descended. First in drips and drabs, but then faster, pouring down from the skull as though it were a wellspring to fill the chest cavity beneath. The Exile had hoped the Shadow would eat away the flesh, that it would focus the hunger and take everything.
Then the chest cavity filled, the ribs pulled back towards the center, and the Exile realized her mistake. She tried to pull the dagger back out, to stop the Shadow before it was too late, but the very instant her fingers brushed the leather hilt, she was overwhelmed by a pain more excruciating than anything the Shadow had inflicted upon her before.
The head of darkness twisted around to look up at her, and the jaw clacked together, though no words came out. The swirling, dripping darkness was still pulling the chest back together, and spreading down to coat the dead Psykin’s arms and legs.
The Exile shook with a mixture of revulsion and terror, helpless as the Shadow did not destroy the remains, but became them. The screech of tearing metal assaulted her ears as the Shadow’s fingers dug into the floor, and then, without warning, it sat up and turned to look at her.
Every second that passed, the monster took on more and more of the features it had consumed. The twin horns along the head, the bluish tinge to the skin, the glint of anger in the eyes.
"This body will serve for now," it rasped, then it coughed violently before it spoke again, but in the Exile’s mind this time. <
I had forgotten that your species is too weak to properly communicate.>
It was the deceased’s voice, tinged with the monster’s horrible inflection.
It reached up and pulled the dagger from its lower jaw. Drops of Shadow fell from the wound before it cinched itself closed. The monster twisted the knife around and held it out, hilt first.
Chapter 31
Rodrom
Rodrom's eyes fluttered open. A light bounced above him. As his mind sharpened against the fog of an unnatural sleep, he groaned. A fear stemming from the unknown buffeted him as he looked around fervently through unfocused eyes. Physical pain awoke as he did, and it was all that stemmed the terror. His head and back were aching, too much for him to be dead.
Rodrom, think. What's around?
He could just make out the vague colors of the inside of tree shelter above him. The smell of wet dirt and foreign foliage filled his nostrils. He was lying on a nest of woven branches and leaves, which were still green. Groaning again, he pushed himself up into a seated position.
"Don't strain yourself, DerekRodrom, you've been in the dreamscape too long to be moving so swiftly," Lorelei said from beside him. Rodrom turned towards her, slowly, his eyes finally adjusting enough to make sense of the room. Lorelei was seated on a similar nest, her legs tucked under her body with her customary staff resting on her thighs.
"Wha..." Rodrom began, his voice cracking. Lorelei lifted a pitcher towards him and he struggled to grasp it, his nerves still deaf from the long sleep. Lorelei leaned forward to cup her hands around Rodrom's and lift the jug enough for him to drink.
The cool water splashed down his parched throat, a flood through a dried riverbed, and though Rodrom drank hurriedly, he tasted the undercurrent of something too bitter to be water. If they wanted him dead, they would not have nursed him back to health, so he swallowed the last gulp and nodded slightly, wondering what sort of Verdantun magic they had infused into the water. Lorelei lowered the empty pitcher.
"How long?" Rodrom asked, not trusting his throat with a longer sentence. The headache he had felt so acutely upon waking was beginning to diminish. A healing draught, he concluded.
"I am unsure of how your people measure time," Lorelei explained. "However, the sun on this world has crossed our camp twice since the attack."
The average day on the unknown planet was roughly Earth Standard. "Two days," he muttered, knowing Lorelei would not understand the words. "You healed me."
"I did."
"Why?"
"Your efforts on Dirus prevented his passing. The healers consented to my treating you before those who suffered less fatal injuries." Lorelei extended her arms outward, palms up, to emphasis her point.
He knew all too well that when priority of treatment came up, it was easy to overlook enemy combatants in favor of friendly forces. "Leaving him would have been rude," Rodrom snipped, unsure of what to say.
"Wars are rarely fought against an enemy that is uniformly evil. It would seem your actions are proof of that. We underestimated you."
Rodrom remained silent. What was Lorelei getting at?
"Your blood is different from the other iron-bloods," Lorelei said. She gestured to a handful of broad leaves soaked with blue. Rodrom looked down at his arm where he had been injured, and found only the white pucker of scar tissue.
"I had it replaced when I was young," Rodrom said, knowing he would not be able to explain synthetic blood any better than he could explain the leukemia that had necessitated it. Lorelei seemed to accept that answer. She remained silent for a time, staring at Rodrom with her oversized emerald eyes. She ran her fingers absently over the white stone on the end of her staff as she swayed to unheard music. Rodrom thought she was humming, though the low sound continued as she spoke.
"I do not believe we should be fighting this war," she whispered. "In every battle the wounded are dragged or limp back, only to be healed and sent back to the fight. You see us as monsters, we see you as metal demons." She paused, looking out of the shelter with her eyes unfocused. "You could have run."
"He was injured. I could not leave him in agony," Rodrom said, though he wondered all the same why he had done what he did.
"Your orders are to attempt to escape when presented the opportunity, are they not?" she asked.
"Derek Rodrom, Social Security number 046-72-8754 of the 82 Fleet Medical Corp," Rodrom recited. "I am to ensure the continued care of wounded fleet soldiers in any capacity. Hoo-ha and roger. I have not been following fleet regulations up until now. Why muddle things worse by escaping? I may also have been wounded," he admitted.
"You had strength enough to lift a"—Lorelei trilled out a musical name in her native tongue—"who weighs more than a full grown Verdantun. You had strength enough to run."
Rodrom's mind was slow, still clouded from the probable concussion. After a moment, he understood. His decision to help the fallen wolf-guard, Dirus, was not something she could comprehend. His actions had become a catalyst for something greater in Lorelei’s mind—a pebble tossed into a pond, whose ripples were wreaking havoc on her view of the war, and of humanity and its allies.
He took a moment to compose his thoughts. He could recognize her disbelief and fragile new thoughts because they closely mirrored his own. It was not uncommon for soldiers in a war of such proportions to demonize an enemy. Killing someone who was someone else's father, son, or brother weighed heavier than killing a faceless monster, killing an idea.
Men who grew up surrounded by computers and machines fighting against a people who changed their bodies into animals—it was no wonder each side demonized the other. Rodrom steadfastly refused to believe the Verdatun or any other race’s “magic” was anything more than technology misunderstood, but when faced with something so foreign that it made the aliens that comprised the Joint Fleet seem normal, he himself was swept up in the biased mindset that the Verdantun were an enemy beyond reproach.
His time in the camp had changed that. Each day he spent with them, he recognized more of the familiar, more of himself—and though the differences were staggering, he could no longer blind himself with the idea that they were a faceless evil that deserved to be destroyed.
"You took us prisoner," Rodrom said after careful consideration. "You could have killed us."
"You were unarmed, you were not a threat. Why would we attack?"
"Because I am so fearsome?" Rodrom muttered. “Unarmed opponents did not stop what happened on earth,” he spat.
Lorelei’s expression grew even more distant. “Not all Verdatun are of one mind. My leaders did not agree to what the”—Another incomprehensible name—“did to your world.”
“You have separate goverments?” Rodrom pressed. Lorelei did not answer. It only made sense. Earth had spawned as many governments as there were planets, and all the unions post-contact had only slightly lessened that number.
He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his neck, the combination of physical and mental exhaustion forming a knot between his shoulder blades. In the silence that stretched between them, Rodrom could just make out the lilting of Verdantun voices. Healer songs weren't loud enough to travel that far across the camp. He looked past Lorelei to the entrance of the shelter, and found that night had fallen. The Verdantun had never allowed him or any of the other refugees to leave the holes they were kept in at night.
Considering the state of the camp when Rodrom last saw it, the singing seemed out of place. Lorelei had said that two days had passed. The realization gave him a sobering jolt. Anything could have happened in that time. Perhaps they had something to celebrate.
Rodrom broke the silence. "My own people have similar rules when it comes to war. They never told us that your people had similar conventions."
"We had our assumptions, though our leadership and yours do not share the greatest trust. Your leaders seem to think we can bewitch them into some sort of agreement that would be less than beneficial for them."
"You are saying you cannot?" Rodrom asked, eyebrows raised. "I have seen your healers do some pretty incredible things with their… abilities."
"Our weavers can do a great many things, as can the ferals. Changing the minds of your human leadership is not one of them."
Rodrom tried to concentrate on the pain in his shoulders to maintain composure. Lorelei had never been so candid about anything with him. His scientific curiosity screamed questions in his mind: How did their magic work? What powered it? But his military training shouted other questions: What were their offensive capabilities? And how could fleet intelligence exploit them? He was torn between his two disciplines, but regardless of what he asked, he would need to tread carefully, lest he reveal his intentions and gain nothing.
"I have seen your soldiers take on the shapes of animals, as well as create fire and lightning from nothing." Rodrom hoped that by revealing something he already knew, he would lure Lorelei into explaining more.
"You have treated enough Verdantun to know the difference between our two peoples, DerekRodrom," Lorelei said with a wave of her hand, a gesture she had learned from him. "The ferals could no more change yours, or your leaders’, minds as they could mend a battle wound, and the weavers, though powerful, cannot affect the minds of one another, let alone an outsider. Though the Verdantun are not without allies..." She trailed off, likely realizing that she had said too much.
Rodrom had already assumed that the Verdantun military had a two-caste structure, but he had not heard it so clearly defined, or known that the shape-shifting caste could not use magic the way their amber-skinned cousins could.
"Humans are unaccustomed to the abilities you and your kind display. Before the portals opened we had never seen anything like it," Rodrom offered.
Lorelei opened her mouth slightly and hummed a quick melody. Rodrom's sudden confusion cleared when she said, "You think my people are strange because we can sing trees into shapes and call upon the elements. Yet you come to battle in impossible metal beasts with black sludge for blood. You hurl beams of light, and thorns of metal from thunder weapons, and yet our taking one form over another is considered impossible." By the tone of her voice, Rodrom understood the melody to be the Verdantun version of laughter.
Rodrom smiled, finding that despite his situation, he was enjoying this new side to Lorelei. He found that he had nothing to counter her with, and reached his hand up to rub at a sore spot behind his neck. As he massaged the lump there, he became aware once again of the music beyond the root walls of their enclosure. Perhaps Lorelei was unaware of the music, concentrated as she was on him and his reactions? But no; as the music ebbed and flowed, she swayed her upper body in time. She suddenly seemed so different from the rigid-backed, no-nonsense healer who had been so adamantly opposed to him performing surgeries.
All of her actions seemed different now, almost dreamlike. Had she indulged in some sort of mind-altering drug? If the celebration outside the shelter was any indication of the other Verdantuns’ mood, perhaps hallucinogens were commonplace in victory. His curiosity won out, as it often did, and despite his better judgment, he asked, "What are your people celebrating?"
Lorelei did not react to his words immediately, though her slight swaying stopped after a moment. "I believe I am mistaken of the word
celebrate
," she said.
"It means to express joy and praise for events people consider good. Such as a holiday or victory in battle," Rodrom explained slowly, the last words difficult to say.
"Tonight is no different from any other day. They are not... celebrating. Why would you think tonight is special?"
"I hear singing," Rodrom explained. "After all the fighting and wounded in the last battle, it seems out of place."
"Of course some are singing. They are not all painters or builders. Do some of your people not sing during their awakening?"
"What do you mean by awakening?" Rodrom asked quickly.
Lorelei looked at him. "Do all of your people enter the dreamscape each night?"
"Do you mean sleep? Humans have to sleep every night, or they do not function well. It is a time when our bodies heal damage and recuperate. I have seen Verdantun do the same. Your soldiers all sleep after they are wounded."
"Well, of course the ferals sleep." Lorelei waved her hand again. "They are connected with their beasts, and beasts enter the dreamscape. Surely not all humans are connected with beasts."
"So your weavers do not enter this… dream state?"
"The weavers do not enter the dreamscape, but the weaveroot is not the reason this is so." Weaveroot? Rodrom mentally filed this term away for later.
"What do the Verdantun do when they are not asleep... in the dreamscape?"
"For a healer you do not seem to know a very fundamental thing, DerekRodrom," Lorelei stated, but her tone was light. "They are awakened, of course. They spend their nights in song or with paint. It is a time for creativity and experiments. When else would our shapers and builders have time for music or art? Surely your world has art."
"Yes, we have art," Rodrom said absently, his mind wrapping itself around the concept of creatures without the need for sleep. The Verdantun were not so different biologically; their muscles and nerve connections worked similarly to if not exactly like humans’. Therefore they must have some need for a period of rest or recuperation.
Even the best engine needs maintenance
.
Dolphins did not sleep, though—not like humans did, anyway. Rodrom had entertained a fascination with marine biology in his grad school days, and could not help but draw the parallel now. Perhaps Verdantun functioned similarly, using unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, only shutting down a portion of their minds at a time. That could possibly explain Lorelei's behavior shift—if a different part of her mind was in control at night than during the day.