Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (60 page)

Cheers broke across thela sector, ringing in Kharos' helmet com. He raised an armored fist and shouted, but there was another voice in his ear, almost drowned out by the elation of victory.

"What was that, Central?" Kharos said. He muted the connection to the rest of thela sector. "Come again."

"Commander Kharos, you've got more hostiles incoming to your position!" cried a raw female voice on the other end. "There are three more of those things coming into thela sector now!"

Kharos lifted his helmeted head to the sky. The clouds were turning stormy and dark overhead. Not clouds, he realized. Devourer swarm. Even the sun vanished behind them, sinking the surface of Axis into artificial night.

________

Maintenance lamps glowed along the narrow shaft, but pipes and walkways blurred past faster than the lights could reveal them. The Blue Phoenix' artificial gravity yanked against the planet's own and the ship lurched as Logan lifted it up a few meters to clear a thick conduit built across the disused shaft and then, just as quickly, he shoved the nose down to avoid a cluster of pipes jutting into the tunnel. Water streamed from the pipes down into the apparently bottomless shaft. The water sheeted alongside the ship as they hurtled straight down into the planet. Maeve's stomach clenched.

"Yeah!" Duaal shouted, a savage grin on his face. His hands raced over the computer controls, bringing up a rapid succession of layered plans and route information. Despite the grin, sweat poured down the young captain's dark skin. "Take this right… No, not that one… This one!"

Maeve wished she could share in Duaal's exhilaration. She had every confidence in Logan's piloting, but her thoughts were with the thousands dying on the surface of Axis so far above. And on the trillions who would never live if Xartasia succeeded.

"Hurry, Logan," she gasped.

Her hunter reached out and slammed the throttle down flat. The engines roared, shaking the Blue Phoenix like a trembling child.

________

Captain Soval leaned forward in his seat as his enemy came into view. The Stalwart's tactical displays had already acquired their target, but actually seeing it was something else entirely. A stormcloud hovered malevolently over the thela sector. Dark, thick columns of glittering darkness stretched between the cloud and the surface like funnel clouds. Soval watched in disbelief as one touched a starscraper. The glass and alloy turned a cloudy gray and then cracks suddenly shot across the entire surface. The huge building crumbled under its own weight. Dust hurled thousands of feet into the air, but the storm cloud seemed to drink it up. It only grew darker and larger. Red lasers shot through the blackness like bloody lightning.

Somewhere in the center of that mire was a ship, one of four now pouring lasers and alien black weapons down onto Level One. Somewhere out there were seven other CWAAF cruisers, but Soval could not see any of them through the black Devourer storm.

"All gunners acknowledge new targeting," Soval said into the ship's com. "Focus fire on the starboard side! Concentrate the nanite shield there. All fighter groups launch and swing around for an attack run on the port flank on my command."

One of the huge clouds turned toward the CWAAF cruiser, flattening into a rectangle of armor and weapons twice the size of even the huge Alliance battleship. Drifting black tentacles, vaster even than the starscrapers they tore apart, withdrew into the cloud as it lifted away from the surface to meet the Stalwart. Soval gripped the controls of the command chair. The ship vibrated as laser cannons and batteries of NI guns fired. The cloud darkened to glossy patches of armor to intercept the beams and rounds.

"Gunnery crews two, four and six," Soval ordered, "cover our fighters!"

Enormous, razor-sharp whips lashed at the squadrons of Alliance fighters as they arced around to the black ship's far side. Lasers strobed, targeting the limbs and forcing them to contract into reflective shields. The fighter wing streaked past the tentacles, but the cloud was reacting to the Stalwart now. Billions of balefully glittering nanites became massive spears that lanced out at the CWAAF battleship.

"Brace for impact!" Soval called.

Proximity sensors counted down rapidly but Soval could not tear his eyes from the viewports and the hard black lines streaking toward the ship. They struck hard, throwing the captain from his seat. Soval hauled himself to his feet as the howl of sundered fibersteel filled the Stalwart and a warning klaxon blared.

"Gunnery crews five and seven, blast those things the hells off us!" Soval ordered. "All other gunners, keep firing. Lieutenant Karn, you're clear to make your attack run!"

The Alliance interceptors fell on the Devourer ship, loosing missiles on the unprotected port side. The spears puncturing the Stalwart thinned and then retracted like giant snakes, joining the shields protecting their ship. The black cloud shrank in on itself and Soval thought he could see the vessel itself now. The Stalwarts' batteries hammered the alien ship as it shifted resources to defend against the Alliance fighters.

Even the alien vessel itself seemed to be shrinking. Soval called for confirmation. The Devourer ship was consuming itself, cannibalizing its own superstructure to feed the nanite cloud. The Stalwart rocked from a flailing blow and then the tentacle dissolved as a spread of missiles attacked random points along its vast length. Flames vomited from ragged holes in the ship's armor and the alien craft began to drop.

Police craft swooped in, firing hundreds of grapple cables into the falling warship's sides to keep it from tumbling devastatingly to the city-world below. Its descent slowed and then halted.

"What is that?" the captain asked. He pointed out the viewport.

A slick black substance raced up the grapple lines. Nanites. The police interceptors jerked sharply. One by one, the Devourer vessel pulled them in. The shrinking cloud reached up for them as they drew close and swelled as it swallowed the police fighters.

"Tell the police to cut all grapple lines immediately!" Soval barked. "Gunnery crews, recommence fire. We'll have to let it fall! Coms, talk to those cops! Tell them to evacuate the crash zone!"

"Sir, there's no way they can move that many people–"

"Just get them out of there!"

________

Logan raced the Blue Phoenix down the tunnel at full speed, scraping noisily past obstacles. Constellations of red and amber lights lit up across the controls. Maeve heard a few oaths from the Arcadian knights in the hold echo up the corridor. There were louder ones from Duaal.

"Hey, that's my ship!" the Hyzaari captain cried.

"What are those?" Maeve asked, pointing to the lights flashing across the cockpit.

"Proximity sensors," said Duaal. He followed it up with some of Tiberius' favorite curses.

Logan remained silent, jaw clenched and icy eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. Other close scraps had already smashed out exterior running lights and snapped sensor spars, but the Prian handled the ship determinedly.

The shaft ahead bent sharply as it neared a sprawling factory district. Maeve clutched the back of Logan's chair, struggling to keep her feet as he pulled up on the yoke. The heavy aft of the ship bounced off the tunnel as it abruptly changed directions. The Blue Phoenix fell sickeningly down the ventilation shaft and then shot out of the open tunnel into the leveled old factory of the illegal landing field. The old freighter bounded across the cracked blastphault once and then came to a skidding halt.

"This is as far down as we can fly," Logan announced.

"Thank God," said Duaal.

Maeve darted back to the hold before the Blue Phoenix had stopped rocking. There were illegal landing fields as far down as Level Seven, she recalled. Which meant that there was still a long way to go before reaching the surface and Xartasia's Waygate.

Anthem already had his knights on their feet. They checked their weapons and tightened the cords of their glass armor. Maeve leapt from the catwalk and glided to the floor of the cargo bay. Anthem handed over her spear with a short nod. He raised one wing and formed the knights up behind Maeve. She clutched her spear nervously.

Heavier footsteps on the deck announced the arrival of the others. Maeve turned and saw Logan, Duaal, Xia and Gripper hurrying down the stairs. She turned to face her friends.

"We go now into battle," she said. "Gripper, Xia, you have already done more than I could ever ask. You have been better friends than I have deserved. You are not warriors and you need come no further."

Xia adjusted the strap of her medical bag to make sure it was clear of her laser pistols. "You said you're going into battle. That means people are going to get hurt. You'll need a doctor."

She looked at Gripper, the huge alien that had become the little brother she lost so long ago. Gripper wrapped his arms around himself, rocking back and forth on callused feet. "Maybe we'll all die trying to stop Xartasia, Glass. Maybe I'll never even be born. If this is all we have left, then I just want to be with my friends at the end. I'm coming with you," he said.

"Your knights stand ready, a'shae," Anthem said.

Maeve nodded without speaking. Glass armor chimed as her gathered warriors came to attention. Duaal pounded the button and the cargo ramp lowered. The landing field outside held only a few ships and a few people milling around near them. Maeve wondered if they knew anything of the war raging thousands of feet above. A lean Lyran stalked across the blastphault toward the Phoenix.

"What kind of landing was that?" he barked. "Who the hells are you people? Your ship is leaking all over my field!"

"I am sure that we can work some sort of–" Anthem began.

Logan strode past him and launched his glass fist into the Lyran's snout. Blood spurted and the Lyran fell back. He cupped his hands over his nose and curled into a whimpering ball on the blastphault.

Maeve turned to her tiny army. "We must find the Waygate before Xartasia."

"I think I can feel it, Maeve," Duaal said. He squinted his eyes and cocked his head, trying to hone a sense that relied on neither sight nor hearing. "I'm the greatest expert on the Waygates in the galaxy, remember?"

"How far away are we?" Xia asked. "Axis is a big planet, even this far down."

"We'll need a car," Duaal answered, eyes still closed. "We're four or more sectors away and up."

Logan crouched over the fallen Lyran and pulled a keycard from the man's pocket. "Which one is yours?" he asked.

"Get bit!" the Lyran snarled weakly.

Logan brandished his glass fist again. It was still smeared in red. The Lyran whimpered.

"The… the red Gallex behind the office."

Maeve thanked the Lyran, but he did not seem to be listening at all. She sighed. If any of them managed to survive the next few hours, Maeve hoped that they could return and make amends, but she was not hopeful. She turned to Duaal.

"Show us the way," she said.

Logan brought the dented red Gallex around the corner. Gripper, Xia and Duaal jumped inside. Maeve and the rest of the Arcadians spread their wings and leapt into the air, beating their wings hard to keep up as Logan raced down the dirty streets of Level Seven.

________

Captain Soval ordered the Stalwart back, circling in a holding pattern with the Starfire and the Shimako. He hated to give ground, but the fleet needed time to rearm and refuel. CWAAF had destroyed three of the monstrous black ships, but their missiles and ammunition were at critical levels and Central just notified them of five more Devourers closing in on thela sector. Two other CWAAF battleships and their fighters had taken down another one in carce sector, but the Thalion, Vanguard and the Vanoran Pride had been destroyed.

The Vanguard still smoldered below, the remaining black Devourer ship crawling over it even now, tearing the Alliance battleship to pieces and rebuilding itself from the corpse before Soval's eyes. Kharos' ground teams poured across the blasted and burnt cityscape to suppress the downed ships, but they were taxed to the limit and too far away from the Vanguard.

"Hold fire and conserve power as long as you can," Soval commanded.

Outside, the ominous black cloud rolled over the remains of the Vanguard and he had to suppress the urge to call down to the hangar deck for another status check. The other ship had already restored thirty percent of its lost mass. The air around it shimmered with heat and toxic gasses, by-products of the rapid metal processing. Black nanites billowed out like an inky fog bank and then the ship was in the air again. Dark patches solidified across the surface of the ship.

"Sir," a young Lyran lieutenant called out. "They're targeting the Starfire!"

Ten tons of nanites assembled a battery of laser cannons. Molten red fire lanced out from a hundred emplacements and filled the air between the two ships. The Starfire shook as Devourer lasers boiled away ablative armor and found the vulnerable points beneath. The Shimako swept around in a sharp arc, but could not bring enough weapons to bear. The alien black vessel was on the Starfire like a pouncing cat, wrapping unbelievably huge appendages around the other ship like great fingers. Crushing it.