Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (61 page)

"All stations fire, random targets," Soval commanded. "We're out of time! Launch whatever fighters we've got!"

The CWAAF cruiser circled the huge alien vessel, gun batteries roaring to life and adding their deadly energy to the already superheated air. Alliance fighters hurtled from the hangar bay and began a long loop across the enemy ship. The Devourer's lasers pivoted impossibly and raked down the Stalwart's port side. Soval called for a damage report.

"Main engines damaged. Gun batteries one, two, seven, eight, and ten are nonoperational."

"Captain Soval!" a young woman at the helm called out. "The enemy ship is on a collision course!"

The Starfire fell in huge, flaming pieces and the black ship hurled itself at the Stalwart. The angular ship's prow opened like a giant's mouth, complete with teeth the size of fighter jets.

"Full reverse!" shouted Soval.

The Stalwart fired massive thrusters, shattering glass for a mile across the city below, but too slow. The enormous black warship swept through the storm of laser beams and NI rounds. The nanite cloud deflected everything the damaged cruiser could throw at it. The fighters were still making their first pass, firing the last of their missiles in an effort to stop the alien vessel. Soval was dimly aware of someone telling him that the Shimako was firing all weapons, but it was too late.

The dark nanite cloud reared up until Soval could see nothing but darkness outside the forward viewports. And then the teeth came down, shearing through the Stalwart. Something slammed into the forward viewport and glassteel shattered into a thousand sharp splinters. Black tendrils crawled through the widening crack, splitting into smaller tentacles and fanning out. Soldiers scrambled for the bridge hatchway, but hooks and blades sank into their flesh and dragged the screaming crewmen from the shattered bridge.

Soval tore his sidearm free and leapt to his feet. He braced his weapon with both hands and held down the trigger, screaming his defiance. The Stalwart's captain was still screaming when the nanite blade cut both legs out from under him. Horrified, he watched his own severed limbs bounce and roll across his bridge. The alien smoke wrap around them, dissolving flesh and muscle and bone. Eating them. The black cloud descended on Soval and the universe exploded in raw red pain.

________

"Report."

"We have encountered much heavier resistance than expected, Commander Dhozo. Bizax, Chovvad, Khozan and Jarhav are dead. I have received no transmissions from Silex or Ulhizzar. Tekker has engaged three of the damaged Alliance vessels, but he has sustained heavy damage."

"Cannibalize his ship. All remaining units, converge on Tarno's position and hold the Alliance there. We have reached the planet's surface. This will be over soon and then we will never be hungry again."

"Life is worth dying for."

– Xia (234 PA)

With the rest of the Glorious assaulting Kahazzek far above, Dhozo and Xartasia met little resistance as they knifed down toward the planet's long-buried surface. While the sky of Axis burned with nanites and laser storms, they landed in an unremarkable stolen Starwind bulk freighter. The ship was slow and unwieldy, inferior in every respect but for its anonymity. And its size. The hauler was large enough to move twelve thousand of Xartasia's aerads, if not in comfort. But as their queen reminded them, pain now meant nothing. Soon, none of it would ever have happened.

As soon as they set down on a Starwind manufacturing block on Level Six, private security tried to stop the unwelcome
bird-backs
as soon as the hauler's door hissed open. The guards protecting their factory were numerous, but poorly prepared for what faced them now. Dhozo, Orix and Zhyress fed well. Now reaching Kahazzek's surface was a simple matter of their nanite swarms eating their way through the artificial upper crust of the old homeworld. Twelve thousand aerads flew down behind them, a blizzard of wings that sang their victory over the world that had rejected them.

Level Ten was a tangle of darkened streets, full of trash and humans that came closer when they saw the Arcadians – easy pickings – then fled screaming into the shadows when they caught sight of Dhozo. The Glorious engineer ignored them and consulted his cross-referenced maps. He pointed to a dark, dilapidated motel. Most of the windows were already broken, but a handful of frightened faces peeked out from behind the shattered, dusty glass.

"This is the thinnest spot near the old Projector," Dhozo grated. "Cut through here."

Xartasia's Arcadians filled the filthy street, standing wing to wing, but they found room to draw back as Orix and Zhyress tore the building and its inhabitants apart to carry out Dhozo's order.

________

Duaal led the way, following some sense that Logan did not understand. He pointed to one road and then another. They raced down spiraling ramps that led further into the ancient megatropolis. They were on Level Eight now, searching for a way down not closed off for repairs.

Logan turned their stolen car down another descent ramp. There were glowing barriers set up on this one, too, warning of some far-future resurfacing endeavor. Logan drove over the warning lights. Gripper looked back once, but did not complain. The Gallex bumped and shuddered over the uneven road. It really did need work, Logan reflected. Sparks flew and metal squealed in protest as the road scraped along the car's undercarriage.

Logan spared a glance at Anthem. The knights flew a mobile perimeter around Maeve, soaring above and laboring to keep pace with the stolen car. What would Sir Anthem do when they confronted Xartasia? Could he bring himself to fight or kill the woman he still loved? If their positions were reversed, could Logan do the same to Maeve? He did not think so… It would damn him and a hundred years of history, but without Maeve none of that had any meaning at all.

The ramp let out into the dark, filthy streets of Level Nine. A group of even more dented cars raced past, completely ignoring the red traffic signal. Duaal told Logan to keep going straight. Finally, the strange young mage shouted, "Stop! Stop here."

Logan yanked the brake and jumped out of the car, pocketing the keycard. Chances were slim that he would have much use for it later, but Logan Coldhand always planned ahead. He whistled to Maeve. The Arcadian queen landed, surrounded by her knights in glass.

"This is it," Duaal told her. "Now we just need to find a way down through to the surface."

"Gripper?" Maeve asked.

The Arboran pulled out his computer and shook it a few times. "Mainstream signal is pretty weak down here. Just give me a minute…"

"We may not have it," Maeve told him. "Please, work quickly!"

Gripper chewed his lip and did not waste energy on an answer. He turned the screen this way and that, then pointed down the street. "This way, I think. There should be an access shaft… According to the mainstream, it's left over from some old construction."

"Move," Logan said.

They sprinted the way Gripper had pointed and finally found the pitted metal hatch half-buried by trash and generations of lumapaint gang tags. Logan and Gripper strained to lift the rectangular metal door, but if it had been so easy, the hatch would have been pried up long ago. Logan waved everyone back and set the Talon-9 on a continuous beam. He drained half a battery cutting through the thick metal. Ballad and Anthem grabbed the still-glowing edges of the hatch in gauntleted hands and heaved it free. There was a slimy ladder built into the side. Logan slid over the edge and climbed down.

It was a long descent through the yards of metal that made up the floor of Level Nine. It was more than a little eerie, Logan admitted to himself. Every level of Axis felt huge and stable, a world unto itself. But they kept moving down deeper and deeper. How long would it take to reach the surface? Would Xartasia already be done by the time they finally felt dirt beneath their feet? A war raged up on Level One, but down here, it was impossible to tell. Was that CWAAF commander, Kharos, still alive?

They climbed through long-abandoned maintenance ducts, tunnels of pipes and wires and ancient, darkened computer terminals. Stinking, slimy things grew in the darkness that did not invite closer inspection. The Arcadian knights hummed uncomfortably, unable to use their wings in the tight confines, but did not complain. Gripper curled his blunt claws around a cover painted over in peeling yellow warnings and lifted the heavy grate out of the way. Duaal crawled to the edge and peered over into the pitch-black emptiness.

"We have to get down there," he said. The mage's voice echoed faintly.

Logan cracked a chemical light in his glass hand and dropped it. The pale green rod tumbled a hundred feet or so and then stopped. It glowed like a tiny wound in the absolute darkness.

"We'll need to fly," Logan told the others. "And watch your footing when you land. I'm not sure what's down there."

A pair of knights took Xia by each arm and flew her down. The rest helped those without wings, one by one. Six of the knights labored to bring Gripper to Axis' distant surface. Duaal simply stepped into the dark opening and drifted down as gracefully as if he had his own wings.

Logan drew his Talon-9 and a flashlight, holding it parallel to the long barrel and sweeping the narrow yellow beam over Axis' long-abandoned ground. Maeve and a few of the knights sang brief charms that conjured a pale, sourceless illumination that suffused the darkness. Whatever the Devourers' ancient homeworld had once been – jungle or grassy plains or mountains like Logan's own planet – there was little left of it now. The ground beneath Logan's feet was bare, parched brown dirt and stone utterly devoid of life. Was it the Axials who had done this? Or the Devourers before them?

Logan turned a searching circle, peering through the darkness. "Which way?" he asked.

Duaal pointed into the shapeless shadows, Anthem gestured with his wings, giving the knights the sign to move out. Logan followed, keeping close to Maeve. He felt their time ticking by, counted out by the measured metronome of his heart. Was Xartasia still on Level One with the Devourer's immense ships? Or was she already down here on the surface? As he wondered, Logan found himself staring uselessly up at the distant floor of Level Nine.

"Stop," Logan hissed, just loud enough to be heard over the sounds of their footsteps and wingbeats.

Anthem whistled softly and the knights extinguished their lights and landed. Maeve leaned close to Logan. "What is it?" she asked.

He pointed. There was a large, ragged hole torn or melted through the floor of Axis overhead. The opening let in a weak but broad shaft of light from Level Nine. But that was not what had arrested Logan's attention. Even the faint light sparkled off glass and lit white wings. Dozens of armored Arcadians perched in the shadow of a fibersteel stanchion so vast that several shining Level One starscrapers could have fit comfortably inside. They crouched among heaps of rubble and bare gray stone. At the edges of the rainbow reflections was a dark blot of swirling darkness. A Devourer.

"Duaal?" Logan asked.

"That's the way we need to go," the mage confirmed.

"Xartasia is not with them," Maeve said.

"This can't represent her entire force. She recruited thousands of Arcadians for their memories. This is her vanguard," Logan whispered. He looked at Maeve. "We need to get you and Duaal through to the Waygate. If this thing has already begun, only you two have any idea how to stop it. We cut through as fast as we can and we don't stop."

"Can't we just go around?" Gripper asked plaintively.

Logan shook his head. "Not without losing time we don't have. They're covering Xartasia, which means she's nearby. By the time we avoid this group, she could be done unmaking half of Alliance history."

"Those knights outnumber us three to one," Xia gestured to the flat, dry ground. "And they'll see us coming."

"No," Duaal said, "they won't. Is everyone ready?"

The young mage did not wait for an answer. He fell to one knee and slammed both palms into the cracked ground. Dust rippled and then rose up in a tidal wave, racing through the shadows toward Xartasia's waiting knights. Logan sprinted behind the moving wall of dust.

"Go!" he shouted.

Maeve beat her wings and leapt into the air. Ballad and Anthem flew at each side, the rest of the knights arrayed around their queen. Duaal, Xia and Gripper ran after Logan as dirt billowed before them. What lay beneath was not entirely flat. There were large, geometric shapes in the ground. Mostly squares and rectangles, but Logan saw circles and large tetrahedrons, too. The tops of buildings, he realized. They were running over the ancient, buried remains of the Devourers' city.

And then there were other shapes in the dust – Arcadians jostling and struggling to rise above the rolling brown-gray cloud. Logan held down the Talon-9's trigger and raked the dirty darkness with the molten red laser beam. Xartasia's knights were armored and even helmeted in glass, but their wings were spread wide as they readied to fly. Logan caught eight of the Arcadians in his burst. The laser sheared through their wings and set feathers on fire. Crimson light splashed off the glass as it passed over their armor and the other Arcadians quickly scattered away from the bloody red light.