THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Chapter 40: The Devourers
“Death is just your body running out of ammunition. So slam in a fresh battery and keep fighting!”
– Victor Kharos (234 PA)
A squadron of shining silver Alliance fighters screamed through Axis’ atmosphere toward the great black Glorious warship. Bizax hung suspended at the core, his nanite swarm linked out to the warship’s weapons and sensors. The massive black ship was just an extension of his armor, a huge and devastating extension torn from the corpses of Alliance space stations, ships and fringe colonies, deconstructed and reconstructed by nanites to serve this purpose: to feed its Glorious masters.
Bizax’s swarm raked the starry skies of Kahazzek — or Axis, as its new inhabitants called it, according to Xartasia — with huge midnight tentacles longer and thicker around than the buildings below. The approaching Alliance fighters broke formation and fired a wide spread of red lasers. Bizax saw it all without eyes, visual data transmitted directly from hundreds of thousands of sensors straight into his implanted computer. The defensive subroutines reacted at once, pulling the nanite armor into a glassy obsidian shield that refracted the lasers. And then Bizax sent the ravenous nanomachines after the Alliance pilots.
A tower of nanites split as it missed a starfighter, hooked around and lashed out at the retreating craft. It seized one wing, slicing into the quickly crumbling fibersteel, and then tore through the ship in search of meat. The pilot ejected as his fighter collapsed into fragments. He fell through the air for a moment before a twisting spear of nanites tore the human in half. The swarm pulled both pilot and ship apart and drew the dissolving matter back into Bizax’s ship.
Another squadron of CWAAF fighters wheeled and swooped in for another pass, strafing Bizax’s ship with another energy weapon: electromagnetic pulses. A wide grin split Bizax’s gray face. These primitive evolutionary accidents were trying to disable the Glorious nanites with EMPs. They weren’t the first species to try such tactics, but even the microscopic machines of the Glorious were hardened against all radiation. The Alliance’s swift response was unexpected and useless, but it whetted the appetite.
The CWAAF ground forces massed on the surface of Level One. Lasers flashed far below Bizax, lending his black nanite swarm a hellish crimson glow. Bizax’s ship compensated instantly, hardening the underside of the hull against the assault. The Alliance concentrated their fire on the front of Bizax’s ship, trying in vain to overwhelm the black armor. Heat rose from the Glorious ship’s hull in shimmering waves.
“Commander Dhozo,” Bizax reported. His swarm transmitted the words across Axis. “I have encountered resistance.”
Resistance wasn’t part of the plan. There were only fifteen of the Glorious, each in the center of their own huge and hungry ship, all across Axis. The approach had been flawlessly silent, every Alliance spaceship and satellite transmission countered and jammed. The Glorious ships consumed the signals as greedily as flesh and metal. The unsuspecting population should have collapsed into panic and fear, just like millions of planets before them. An organized defense — however futile — was unexpected.
“Resistance?” Dhozo asked. “Details.”
“Several thousand armed beings have amassed in my sector,” Bizax said. “They’re armed with lasers and EMPs.”
“Can they damage you?”
Bizax hesitated.
“These are better prepared than the humans on Prianus,” he admitted. “And there are many more. My swarm reads just over two thousand meat, three hundred ships and vehicles. Enough to overwhelm personal armor…”
A pair of Alliance starships lifted off from a walled landing field. Bizax slashed them from the air with an arcing blade of nanites two hundred feet long. The serrated black blade sawed through the hull and then slithered like shadowy roots through the terrible gashes, tearing the ship apart from within. But as Bizax consumed the two ships, one of the CWAAF fighter teams raced along his hull, raining down concussion missiles. Impacts rippled through Bizax’s great nanite swarm, absorbing the explosions with minimal loss of materials. But there was loss…
The warship shuddered around its Glorious master.
“And perhaps a ship,” Bizax admitted.
“Tarno, you’re closest to Bizax’s location,” Dhozo ordered. The commander’s voice fed directly into their brains. “Move in to reinforce him. Rhozan and Jahav, prepare to follow.”
“Yes, sir,” came the hissing, growling replies.
“Our primary infiltration has met little resistance,” Dhozo said. “Continue the surface assaults. Destroy and consume everything in your path. The Glorious have waited long enough. Eat well.”
“We’ve got to go, dove,” Logan said. “Maeve, come on!”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her away. Every nerve in her body sang to fly, to fight back against the Devourers. But Logan was right. The black ship sitting at the center of dozens of raking, blade-tipped tentacles and red laser beams was not the reason they had come to Axis.
“Yes. We must reach the Waygate before Xartasia does,” Maeve agreed reluctantly. She turned to her people. “Find shelter now, my brave Arcadians! You have done what I asked of you and more! We have given the Alliance some chance against our enemy, however small.”
She gestured behind her with one wing, up toward the Alliance fighters circling the Devourer ship, raining ordinance down on it. Flames bloomed and then were swiftly swallowed in black storms of nanites. The two thousand CWAAF soldiers that had surrounded Maeve and her Arcadians just minutes before were all shouting and scrambling to move in on the new threat. Transports swooped out of the sky and skidded across the road. Armored men and women leapt inside before they even landed, team leaders gesturing urgently to pilots in the direction of the spreading jet-black storm of the Devourer warship.
Maeve looked at her knights. Ballad and Anthem crouched low, spears gripped tightly as they stared after the scrambling Alliance warriors. Even during the fall of Arcadia, they had never faced such monstrous horrors. But each of Maeve’s knights was ready to fight for Axis. She waved Panna over.
“Take our people and find somewhere safe,” Maeve instructed over the noise of engines and boots on the pavement. “I wish to see no more Arcadian blood today. Duaal, we must reach Axis’ surface quickly.”
“Way ahead of you, Your Majesty,” Duaal said. He grinned and jerked his thumb back at Haven Field. “Remember those ventilation pipes that went down to the illegal landing fields? The ones that Tiberius wouldn’t let me fly?”
“Let’s go,” Logan said.
“There’s no time like the present,” Duaal agreed.
“Yes, there is!” Gripper said. His voice cracked with stark terror. “There’s later! It’s just like the present only… you know, later!”
Maeve laid a hand on Gripper’s elbow, as high up his long arms as she could reach. “We must go.”
There was no more time. Maeve glanced back once at her gathered people, but Panna was already shouting and organizing them much more efficiently than she ever could. Duke Ferris stood at her side. He scowled at the wingless girl, but didn’t argue with her. Sir Anthem caught Maeve’s eye and saluted, one wing folded across his chest. The other knights repeated the gesture.
“We are with you, my queen,” Anthem said. “To whatever end awaits us.”
Maeve saluted in reply. They ran back across the road, through Haven Field’s gate to where the Blue Phoenix squatted on a gray blastphalt strip. Duaal opened the ship’s cargo ramp with a wave of his hand and sprinted up the steps to the main corridor. Logan was right behind Duaal, taking the stairs two at a time. Maeve flew up to the catwalk and followed them while Anthem arranged the knights in the Blue Phoenix’s cargo bay.
Duaal jumped into the old pilot’s chair. “Let’s fly!”
Logan buckled himself securely into the copilot’s seat and then toggled control of the Blue Phoenix to his station.
“This isn’t a game, Duaal. Sit down and strap in,” he said. “Just give me the location of those vents.”
“What? Oh, come on!”
“Now!”
The Blue Phoenix rose, angling up into the crowded sky. The Devourer ship hung in the air above them like an inky hurricane. Its massive swarm blotted out the sun. The smoky clouds solidified into immense chains and ropy limbs, snatching ships out of the air and punching through formations of Alliance soldiers.
Maeve clung to the door frame, spreading her wings for balance as Logan banked the Blue Phoenix sharply. Her wings banged into the walls and Maeve staggered. Logan rolled the ship away from a tentacle as big around as a building, but a long, jet-black offshoot barb knocked the old freighter into a spiral. Logan fought to steady the Blue Phoenix.
Outside, Commander Kharos’ soldiers fired up at the Devourer warship in regimented groups, coordinating their blasts against the boiling banks of dark armor. The Alliance had called out heavier weapons, too — laser canons and huge null-field rail guns, but they had little effect. The ordered fire was too predictable, too easy for the Devourers’ computers to forecast and block. The hungry black warship didn’t form lasers of its own, instead sending a black cloud of nanites into the streets that dissolved soldiers like acid. The CWAAF fighters above had switched from EMPs to lasers and null-field cannons, but their perfectly executed strafing runs met the same impenetrable defense.
Something flickered in the corner of Maeve’s vision. She leaned over Logan’s shoulder and squinted through the Blue Phoenix’s old glassteel viewports. A monstrous black shadow loomed up on the horizon, long and predatory. Another Devourer ship was closing in on Kharos’ position.
“Logan!” Maeve gasped, pointing.
“Damn it,” he growled. “Duaal, I need the ship’s com.”
Duaal threw the switch to turn on the Blue Phoenix’s intercom. “You’re on.”
“Gripper, I need you to do something. Those Alliance troops are wasting time they don’t have,” Logan said. A broken piece of fibersteel cracked against the Blue Phoenix’s hull and then bounced away before a glittering whip of black snatched it from the air. “Can you get into the military mainstream? Send them everything we learned about the Devourer’s nanite armor and how to fight it.”
“They wouldn’t listen to us on Mir, Hunter. I don’t think they’re going to now,” Gripper said.
“Then tell the computer you’re a general or something!”
The curving rope of nanites finished its metal meal and then shot through the smoky air toward the Blue Phoenix again. Logan dove under it and between a pair of starscrapers. Debris rattled on the hull as the Devourer’s huge tentacle slammed into and then through the building. Concrete, glass and thrashing bodies flew in every direction. The black swarm plucked struggling coreworlders from the wreckage and tore them to bloody rags. Maeve felt ill.
“Here!” Duaal said. His voice was strained and he stabbed one finger at a scuffed display. “We need to get down this vent!”
Maeve was Arcadian, born to fly, but even her stomach flipped as Logan banked sharply around a huge, shining pyramid of glass and steel, rolled the Blue Phoenix and then angled the nose down toward the ground. They plunged through the shadows between starscrapers, straight down through one of the layered skyways that connected Axis’ levels. Null-inertia vehicles blared their horns and swerved around the starship diving between them.
A bridge suddenly rose up in front of them. Duaal gasped and Logan yanked the controls, jerking the Blue Phoenix to the side. He angled around the bridge and gaping pedestrians clutching the rails, then dropped again.
“There!” Duaal shouted.
Steam and swirling gasses billowed from a circular opening in the floor of Level Two. Logan nodded. His glass hand left dents in the yoke as he arced the Blue Phoenix up over control and security pylons, and then plunged down into the ventilation shaft. Darkness swallowed the Blue Phoenix.
Panna could still taste Ballad’s kiss on her lips. Be careful, dove, he had told her. She really hoped that was still an option.
With Duke Ferris’ help, Panna managed to get the other Arcadians back into Haven Field. Logan had paid the Lyran manager a fortune in phenno and now a pair of wolfin technicians slammed the gates shut behind the retreating fairies as the street outside filled with running, screaming people. Panna didn’t have the heart to tell the techs that their gate wouldn’t help at all, but she grabbed the sleeve of the nearest Lyran.
“We need one of your hangars,” she told him. Panna shouted to make herself heard over the noise. “The biggest and strongest that you’ve got.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the jumpsuited Lyran answered. “Hangar A. It’s over there.”
He pointed distractedly to a huge hemispherical building on the other side of the main runway. Panna nodded.
“Gather everyone you can and get in there with us!” she said.
“What?” the tech asked. “Why? CWAAF is out there, lady. We’ll be fine.”
“The Alliance has no idea what they’re facing out there,” Panna said. “Those are the Devourers, the aliens who destroyed the White Kingdom and Arborus. And this is their homeworld!”
A vast black shadow fell over Haven Field as the Devourer ship rose up, tentacles spreading like colossal snakes preparing to strike. The Lyran stared.
“Arianna won’t like that,” he whimpered.
“But she’ll like being torn apart and eaten alive even less. So get everyone into that hangar!” Panna shouted to the tech. “And bring your welding gear. We’re sealing ourselves in until this is over… one way or another.”
“Where the hells are the ships?” Kharos bellowed into his com. “We need bigger guns!”
Military lasers were exempt from the sound generator laws, but the explosions of missiles and the shriek of tortured metal as the alien ship tore starscrapers apart into shrapnel more than made up for that. Even through his helmet’s filters, the cacophony of battle was deafening.
“The defense fleet is mobilizing now. Estimated arrival in seven minutes,” came the barely audible response.
“We’re not going to last seven minutes!” Kharos shouted.
“I’m sorry, sir! Those things are all over Axis and most sectors weren’t as prepared as yours.”
So far, Kharos and his soldiers had managed to contain the vast black ship inside thela sector, but the ship itself seemed invulnerable. The dark clouds that swathed the vessel hardened into glossy black shields under laserfire and CWAAF had yet to score anything like a critical blow. The dispatcher was right. It was the same all across Axis and the body count was rising swiftly. But not as high as it could have already been… It was lucky that Kharos had such a large force already assembled when the aliens attacked, able to get eyes and sensors on the threat and send information back to Central Command.
No. Not luck — the so-called Arcadian queen had known. She had lured CWAAF to arms.
A huge, glittering black spike plunged down from the sky and slammed deep into the side of an already buckling starscraper. The sharp limb spun like a drill into the building’s side. Humans and Ixthians in expensive suits streamed from inside, many bleeding, and ran screaming toward the CWAAF soldiers.
The black spike — easily twice as long as Kharos was tall — fired out streamers of smoky darkness at the fleeing civilians. A pair of the shadowy tendrils seized a Mirran around the neck and waist. They began pulling the shrieking woman back. Kharos shouted an order and Ground Team 288 opened fire on the long black spine. They raked laserfire across the tendrils holding the Mirran woman. There didn’t seem to be anything solid enough to damage, but the tentacles dropped their prisoner and snaked instead toward Kharos and his team.
“Shit!” he shouted. “Concentrate fire!”
Lasers burned through the air and into the black needle, but the thing’s dark surface coalesced into smooth, glossy black armor.
A flagged report flashed up on Kharos’ display. He almost waved it aside, but something there grabbed his attention. Targeting information, but not the sort of strike orders that the commander had ever seen before. It was a report from Central, stripped down to its essential information: these Devourers’ ships and armor were made up of nanites controlled by a central computer, which could be confused by randomized and rapid fire. Enough unpredictable shots could open gaps in the otherwise impenetrable defenses.
“What the hells?” Kharos growled.
He didn’t recognize the name tagged on the report — Admiral Anandrou Gripper — but it was something. Kharos snapped orders to the rest of Team 288. They spread out their fire across the black spike’s glossy surface. The nanites swirled like oil, struggling to be everywhere at once, to predict the suddenly erratic laserfire. Kharos held the trigger down on his rifle and cut a wild zig-zagging pattern across the uneven armor. The lashing tentacles withdrew, retreating to cover the weapon’s main body, but there weren’t enough. Team 288 sliced the massive, writhing harpoon into several large chunks that fell to the ground in a seething, half-liquid form that burned deep into the concrete before finally going still.
“Spread out your fire!” Kharos ordered into his com. “Teams one through sixteen, randomize your attack patterns. Teams seventeen through twenty-five, take out any targets you can find!”
The unit commanders relayed orders to ground and air forces. Concentrated laser beams diverged and spread out over the ship. CWAAF fighterss fanned out, ignoring their automated targeting systems. Razor-edged limbs whipped up from the huge black ship, cleaving a fighter in two before its ruptured engines exploded.
But the remaining Alliance fighters loosed their payload as they streaked past. The storm cloud of nanites condensed into a shield here and another there. Missiles exploded harmlessly against the slick black plates, but others flew into the cloud to detonate on the hull, scorching the metal. The giant blade of the Devourer battleship began to list and sag, red and orange flames blazing from inside like divine fire.
Cheers broke across all 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 asked. He muted the connection to the rest of thela sector. “Come again.”
“You’ve got more hostiles incoming on your position. There are three more of those things flying into thela sector now!”
Kharos lifted his helmeted head skyward. The gathering clouds were turning stormy and dark overhead. No, not clouds… Devourer swarms. 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 and the ship lurched as Logan lifted it to clear a conduit jutting out across the disused shaft and then, just as quickly, he shoved the pointed nose down to avoid a cluster of broken pipes. Water streamed from them, out into the apparently bottomless shaft, and splashed off the ship as they hurtled straight down into the planet. Maeve’s stomach clenched.
“Oh yeah!” Duaal shouted, a wild 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 up on the surface of Axis so far above. And on the trillions who would never live if Xartasia succeeded.
“Hurry, Logan,” she said.
Her hunter nodded. He reached out and slammed the throttle down flat. The sub-light engines roared, shaking the Blue Phoenix like a trembling child.
Captain Soval leaned forward in his seat as his enemy came into view. The CWAS Stalwart’s tactical displays had already acquired their target, but actually seeing it was something else entirely. A storm cloud hovered malevolently over thela sector. Dark, thick columns of glittering darkness stretched between the cloud and the surface like funnel clouds. Soval stared in disbelief as one of them touched a starscraper. The glass and alloy turned gray, and then cracks shot across the entire surface. The huge building crumbled under its own weight. Dust hurtled into the air, but the black cloud seemed to drink it up. It only grew darker and larger. Red lasers shot through the blackness like bloody lightning.
Somewhere in the middle of that mire was a ship, one of four now pouring lasers and alien weapons down onto Level One. And somewhere out there were seven other CWAAF cruisers, but Soval couldn’t see any of them through the black Devourer storm.
“All gunners acknowledge new targeting instructions,” Captain Soval said into the shipwide com. “Focus fire on the starboard side! Concentrate the nanite shield there. All fighter groups launch and come around for an attack run on the port flank at my command.”
One of the huge clouds turned toward the CWAAF starcruiser, flattening into a rectangle of armor and weapons twice the size of 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 guns fired. The nanite cloud darkened into glossy patches of armor to intercept the beams and rounds.
“Gunnery crews two, four and six — cover our fighters!” Soval ordered.
Enormous barbed whips slashed at the squadrons of CWAAF 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 gathered into massive spears that lanced out at the Alliance battleship.
“Brace for impact!” Soval shouted.
Proximity sensors counted down rapidly, but Soval couldn’t 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 scream of sundering fibersteel filled the Stalwart and a warning klaxon blared.
“Gunnery crews five and seven, shoot those things the hells off us!” Soval ordered. “All other gunners, keep firing. Lieutenant Karn, you’re clear to make your attack run!”
The smaller Alliance interceptors descended on the Devourer ship, firing missiles on the unprotected port side. The nanite spears puncturing the Stalwart thinned and then retracted, joining the shields that protected their ship. The black cloud shrank in on itself and Soval thought he could see the vessel itself now.
The Stalwarts’ artillery batteries hammered the Devourer ship as it shifted resources to defend against the CWAAF fighters, and even the alien vessel itself seemed to be shrinking inside the nanite cloud. Soval called for confirmation. The Devourer ship was consuming itself, cannibalizing its own superstructure to feed the dark swarm. The Stalwart rocked from a flailing tentacle blow and then the limb dissolved as a spread of missiles attacked random points along its vast length. Flames vomited out from ragged holes in the ship’s armor and the alien ship began to drop.
Police spacecraft 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?” Soval 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 as they drew close and then swelled as it swallowed the police fighters.
“Tell the police to cut those 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 through the tunnels of Axis at full speed, scraping noisily past jutting 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 shouted.
“What are those?” Maeve asked, pointing to the lights flashing across the cockpit.
“Proximity sensors,” Duaal said. He followed it up with some of Tiberius’ favorite curses.
Logan remained silent, his jaw clenched and icy eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. Other close scrapes had already smashed out exterior running lights and snapped off sensor spars, but the Prian didn’t flinch.
The shaft ahead bent sharply as it neared a sprawling factory district. Maeve clutched at 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 cargo freighter bounded across the cracked blastphalt once and then came to a skidding halt.
“This is as far down as we can fly,” Logan announced.
“Thank God,” Duaal said.
Maeve sprinted back down 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 the knights up on their feet. They checked their weapons and tightened the knotted 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 announced the arrival of the rest and Maeve turned to find Logan, Duaal, Xia and Gripper all hurrying down the stairs.
“Now we must fly into battle,” Maeve 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 that it was clear of her laser pistol. “You said you’re going into battle. That means people are going to get hurt. You’ll need a doctor.”
Maeve looked up at Gripper, the huge alien that had become the little brother she lost so long ago. He wrapped his arms around himself, rocking back and forth on callused feet.
“Maybe we’ll all die trying to stop Xartasia, Glass,” Gripper said. “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.”
“Your knights stand ready, a’shae,” Anthem said.
Maeve nodded without trusting herself to speak. Glass armor chimed as her gathered warriors stood at attention. Duaal pounded the button and the cargo ramp lowered. The landing field outside held only a couple of ships and a dozen people milling around near them. Maeve wondered if they knew anything about the war raging high above. A lean Lyran stalked across the blastphalt toward them.
“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 out 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 blastphalt.
Maeve turned toward her tiny army. “We must find the Waygate before Xartasia. Somehow.”
“Maeve, I think I can feel the gate,” Duaal said. He squinted his eyes and cocked his head, trying to focus on 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 several levels too high.”
Logan knelt 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 and the Lyran whimpered. “The… the red Gallex behind the office.”
Maeve thanked the Lyran, but he didn’t seem to be listening to her. She sighed. If any of them managed to survive the next few hours, Maeve hoped they could return and make amends, but she was not optimistic. She turned to Duaal.
“Show us the way,” Maeve said.
Logan drove 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. They had destroyed three of the monstrous black ships, but their missiles and ammunition were down to critical levels and Central Command 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, the Vanguard and the Vanoran Pride had been destroyed.
The Vanguard still smoldered down below, the remaining black Devourer ship crawling all over it even now, tearing the Alliance battleship into pieces and rebuilding itself from the corpse before Soval’s eyes. Kharos’ ground teams poured across the blasted cityscape to suppress the downed alien ships, but they were taxed to the limit and too far away from the Vanguard.
“Hold your fire and conserve power as long as you can,” Soval commanded.
Outside, the ominous black cloud rolled over the remains of the Vanguard and Soval had to suppress the urge to call down to the hangar deck for yet another status check. The Devourer’s ship had already restored thirty percent of its lost mass. The air around it shimmered with heat and toxic gasses, by-products of 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 Devourer’s craft.
“Sir,” a young Lyran lieutenant called out. “They’re targeting the Starfire!”
In the blink of an eye, ten tons of glittering black nanites had assembled themselves into a battery of laser cannons and molten red destruction lanced out at the Starfire. The CWAAF ship shook as the Devourer lasers boiled away ablative armor and found the vulnerable points beneath.
The CWAS Shimako swept around in a tight arc, but couldn’t bring enough weapons to bear in time. The eerie alien vessel was on the Starfire like a pouncing cat and wrapping huge appendages around the other ship. Crushing and consuming it.
“All stations fire, random targets,” Soval said. “We’re out of time! Launch whatever fighters we’ve got!”
The Stalwart 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 their bombing run along the enemy ship. The Devourer’s lasers pivoted impossibly fast and raked all down the Stalwart’s port side. Captain Soval called for a damage report.
“Main engines damaged. Gun batteries one, two, seven, eight, and ten are nonoperational.”
“Captain Soval!” a woman at the helm called out. “The enemy ship is on a collision course!”
The Starfire fell in huge, flaming pieces across Level One 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!” Soval shouted.
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 null-inertia 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 monstrous teeth came down, shearing through the middle of the Stalwart.
Something slammed through the viewports and glassteel shattered into a thousand sharp splinters. Black nanite tendrils crawled through the widening cracks, splitting into smaller tentacles and then fanning out. Soldiers scrambled for the bridge hatchway, but hooks and blades sank into their flesh and dragged the screaming crew from the shattered bridge.
Soval tore his sidearm from its holster and leapt to his feet. He braced his laser pistol with both hands and held down the trigger, bellowing his defiance. The Stalwart’s captain was still screaming when the nanite blade cut both legs out from under him. Horrified, Soval watched his own severed limbs bounce and roll across his bridge. Alien smoke wrapped around them, dissolving flesh and muscle and bone. Eating them.
The black cloud descended on Soval and the universe exploded into raw red pain.
“Report.”
“We have encountered much heavier resistance than expected, Commander Dhozo. Bizax, Chovvad, Rhozan and Jarhav are dead. I have received no transmissions from Silex or Ulazzar. Tekker has engaged three of the damaged Alliance vessels, but has sustained heavy damage.”
“Cannibalize Tekker’s ship,” Dhozo said. “All remaining units, converge on Tarno’s position and hold the Alliance there. We have reached the planet’s surface. Soon, this will be over and then we will never be hungry again.”
