Chapter 4

  Goodbye

  -Daxia’s Farewell note to the Devil

  Space warped before them. A spiralling, scintillating pattern of light unwound and brought forth a monster from tales of the second age. A dragon, though this one was completely wrought in steel, a space ship. It had a long body like a snake, armored plating in sections, and a facsimile of a dragon’s maw for a head. The armored sections rolled and twisted through space in individual course corrections that gave it the same lithe grace of an eel moving through water. Zara stood close to her mother on the bridge, her breath caught in her throat, her hands clenched in fists behind her back. The captain sent a soothing wave through the minds of the crew, “steady…” she spoke into their minds. “Wait until it gets closer.” The dragon ship sped through space towards them, twisting in small, circular patterns like a serpent about to envelop its prey in a death grip. “Steady…” she repeated again. The ship was upon them now, circling them.

  “Now!” The command came at once, Zara pushed her own will alongside her mother’s to make sure everything happened in perfect cohesion. The thrusters burst to life and their ship roared with a desperate fury. Everyone on the bridge lurched and struggled to keep their balance right as their prow slammed into the head of the dragon ship. Zara saw a flicker of fire and a ghostly warrior appear just where the impact site was. A groan of metal echoed throughout the hull, but it held, and the ship shot past into the abyss of space. In that same moment, a distress signal pinged out from the ship. Who knows how long it would take for help to arrive, but it was better than no chance at all.

  The hive mind of the crew focused on the hull status: 100% integrity, not even a fraction of a percent of damage. It looked like the Ignited was right, his shaped soul had protected the ship just as he promised it would. All that was left now was to have the journeyfish take them away.

  Something slammed into the hull. External cameras showed that claws from the dragon ship shot out like harpoons towards their ship. The dragon ship was beginning to give chase to theirs. Yet each of the eight claws were rebuffed by other flickering apparitions. Now that Zara could see them more regularly, they had the same silhouette as Theo, armor clad and shield out personally blocking each and every strike. Hull integrity was still at full. They were going to get away. Excitement bubbled through the odinrazum. The Journeyfish’s tank began to crackle with electricity, space in front of them was starting to distort. Then a bang echoed throughout the hull.

  The cameras had picked it up. The dragon ship had fired a cannon from one of its sections. It wasn’t a drop pod or a missile or any other ordinance. It was a man. A single, man. The ghostly apparition of Theo flickered once more into view but the man outstretched his hand and crashed into the apparition. White fire flared in space in a glorious explosion of light before the apparition flickered and snapped into nothingness. The man, Power, had now landed on the ship. He looked down at the hull, then brought one hand up, claws flexed, and brought it down onto the steel. Another apparition appeared. Fires flared in a violent gout as his claws met this ghost blocking his path. It did not hold. Power’s claws tore into the section of hull atop the ship like a hot knife through butter.

  Alarms flared. Hull breach detected, one screen read. The captain ordered for the section to be sealed off and for the zhuk to mobilize. The monitor watching Power showed him peeling back the steel of the ship and slipping inside with a blur of speed that only let them catch his sinuous tail before it too was gone. Zara was stunned, how was that possible? Unless… Shaped. The word bubbled up in multiple heads. They were dealing with another shaped, possibly even a Defined, some thought. The captain turned towards Zara and gripped her shoulder. “Escape pod. Now.” She hissed

  “But–” Zara tried to argue. On the cameras, more armored figures were arriving, more longshi most likely.

  “We might lose the ship, and I will not let the Empress’ foolish love of the Order take my daughter too,” she snapped. Zara didn’t even have time to gasp at her mother’s denouncement of the empress before both she and her father dragged her out of the bridge with a command. The crew was to get to the escape pods.

  The hallway outside was chaos, red lights flashing, sirens wailing, and the sounds of screeching metal in the distance. Several zhuk in bulky armor ran past. There was already the majority of a squad at the breach point. Zara could see them all through the odinrazum. Power looked… small, against the zhuk. Yet he didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. The movement of his shoulders made it look like he was laughing even. Zara didn’t even have time to blink before the vision of that zhuk was filled with glowing red eyes and a terrible sound of bones crunching and leaking viscera. She was forcibly snapped out of that zhuk’s view and clutched her chest to feel her heart hammering. “D-dead, they’re dead.” She began to panic, tearing herself from the odinrazum just as a second scream tore through the hivemind. Her mother ushered the group into the lift that began to carry them down to the lower end of the ship… slowly. Something crashed in the distance and suddenly the wall above them gave way to the monster that now peered down at them. Power spoke words that she could not understand, but he sounded too happy about it. This was it, this was how they were all going to die.

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  A scream of jets echoed through the halls and another armored man, Theo, his cloak billowing around him, clashed against Power’s ready claws. “I’ll hold him off!” he cried. The door dinged and the bridge crew landed in the bottom level where the cargo bay was. All of the livestock were crying and buzzing loudly in a chaotic cacophony. To the side, the two Shaped came crashing from the level above them down with Power atop Theo. The two rolled and Theo smashed him into another wall, a flickering apparition appearing behind against the wall that kept Power stuck between them with a crunch of chitin and a flare of fire from an unknown source. Zara was dragged away once more. “We have to keep moving, go!”

  More invaders arrived. The bridge crew had made it to the cargo bay proper now. The zhuk squad down here was fighting them all, but every single one of the invaders fought with the grace only an ignited could have. Yet the zhuk were faring much better than those that had ended up against Power. The soldiers moved as if they were of one mind, making up for their lack of speed with coordinated strikes and solid formations.

  Daxia was there, she was not armored, she did not have a weapon, yet still she fought. She was squared off against one of the other tailed armored warriors, another longshi, Zara was sure. They had support from someone in an exo-suit and a bow. Daxia deftly dodged the strikes and struck out against the armored foe who couldn’t keep up. It ended with the longshi woman latched onto the man, opening her mouth wide like a snake, and letting loose a billowing torrent of white fire. The armored figure screamed, trying to wrestle her off. The soldier with the bow shot and Daxia twisted herself. The bolt landed right in the neck of her enemy and she kicked away. The exo-suit soldier panicked for a moment then convulsed as if being electrocuted.

  Zara managed to shake off her stunned mind and shouted, “Daxia! Escape pods! With us!”

  That got her attention and unfortunately, also the attention of the other invaders. All of the invaders began to converge and fire rained down from a winged invader in an exo-suit up above towards the bridge crew. Zara screamed in terror and Ana put herself in the way of the shots. Daxia was running over, having to dodge swiping blades and claws. She sprang upwards, her cloak flared as she twisted through the air to face them. A burst of flame roared out before her and made them all retreat momentarily, giving Daxia enough time to reach the bridge crew.

  “I am so sorry–” Daxia said quickly but was hissed at into silence by the captain.

  “Move!” She said and pointed down a side hallway containing the escape pods. The crowd moved warily trying to wave away the attackers with sweeps of a large sword in one hand and cracking shots from a massive energy pistol in the other. Despite this, the invaders managed to dance around the arcing energy blasts and fast strikes. It did what it needed to however, getting the bridge crew to the hallway with Daxia and Zara being the first to cross the threshold.

  The Shaped battle, unfortunately, had reached them. Theo broke through the retaining wall separating the hallway from the cargo bay. His back smashed into the kuzne communications specialist against the opposite wall in a splatter of gore. Theo didn’t have time to catch his footing before Power was upon him like a savage animal. Zara would have been crushed too if Daxia didn’t pull her ahead mere moments before. The rest of the crew was stuck on the other side, now trapped between the oncoming longshi invaders and the Shaped battle ahead of them. Daxia kept dragging Zara towards the nearest escape pod. “Code, now!” She shouted.

  Zara entered it in a panic, the doors hissed open before them, and Daxia began to pull her inside, “Wait– the others.” She quickly snapped her gaze back to the others, all looking terrified. She could see her mother and father looking pleadingly at her. Go, their eyes said, go now.

  “There’s no time!” Daxia said, but the words came just as disaster struck.

  Everything Zara saw happened in the blink of an eye, such was the speed of the Shaped. The motion was so casual it had to be accidental. Power had been pushed towards the crowd. His tail swiped behind him to balance himself, but the sheer strength and speed of it was enough to bisect those in his path, her parents.

  Zara screamed and the world around her became dark. Time seemed to slow. Daxia tried to pull her into the escape pod, but Zara’s mind screamed at her to go to her parents, to not leave them there to die. Power wheeled Theo around in a tight grip and sent him through more cramped bodies, killing them in the process. “No, no no no!” Zara cried.

  Everything in her senses focused on the tugging sensation of Daxia and the shaped fighting before her… and a pair of eyes watching her from on high at the edges of her vision. A choice. Daxia and safety? Or the remaining crew and the slimmest chance of survival.

  Her body made its choice and in an explosion of sudden strength and a child’s warcry, Zara tore herself from Daxia’s grip. Her hand slammed against the pad, closing the door and sending the escape pod out into space.

  Power had Theo against a blooded wall now, a massacre around him. He did not see Zara’s fast approach, his claws were too busy digging into Theo’s neck and tearing out his throat in victory. The crew was all dead, Zara ran through the pooling blood of her parents on the floor. She brought a fist back, aiming at the back of Power.

  Then his hand snapped out and she was lurched off her feet and into the air. His grinning visage turned to look at her. There was a pause, a struggle, then a low purr, “Jamun, Nazexia.”