The Creator of the Rakkar, Lord of Fire, Master of Igneous Islands, furiously bombarded the ships with long streams of fire. He tried erecting a wall of flame to contain them. Each time, the starships were surrounded by a net of yellow-white light that looked like it had been woven by some enormous spider. The flames popped and hissed over the net, extinguishing almost as fast as Arthel Rak could conjure them.
Helsim Breaker summoned layers off of Nexus, armored himself in them so that he appeared to be made of the green energy. Only the blurred dark form at the center indicated otherwise. He gathered more and more of Nexus into himself, enlarging until he towered in the sky before the alien ships, twice the size of their largest. With green gauntlets, he pummeled at the nearest Yu’Nyun vessel. The ship was knocked about by the strikes, bobbing in the air wildly under each blow. Helsim Breaker threw a right hook, then a left. He tried a two-fisted smash from above, then followed with a strike from each side, clapping the ship between his hands. The ship bounced as if he’d slapped at a toy on the surface of water.
Yet none of his attacks touched the immaculate shining surface of the ship beneath its shields.
Talis felt a knot in her gut. It seemed impossible that the barrage of heavily armored strikes could make no dent, no scuff on the shining ships. Even if they could not wield Nexus as a weapon, a barrage like that should still do damage. That the alien weapons could hurt the gods—kill them—she knew. But despite what she’d been told, she had not imagined that their powers would be so ineffective against the invaders.
Turning from the retreating Veritors, Lindent Vein gathered up the entire ocean in a single enormous bludgeon and sent it crashing into the alien ships. They were tossed, at least, disappearing momentarily into the depths as the waters passed over them. But as the ocean receded, pulled once again into orbit around Nexus, the invasion fleet righted itself and continued to fire.
The air was split by a low tone, like the call of an impossibly large horn. It washed over them like a physical thing. Talis felt a tremble in her bones and vibrations in her aching joints. Sophie covered her ears and hunched her shoulders. Tisker craned his neck to see out from under the wheelhouse. Dug remained genuflected in front of his goddess.
Talis looked around for Scrimshaw and finally spotted xin beside the engine house. Xe stood tall, xist back pressed against the structure, staying out of sight of Onaya Bone and the alien ships beyond the railing. Talis wasn’t sure she knew how to tell for certain, but xe didn’t seem frightened. Just cautious, guarded. Xe caught her watching xin, and xist mouth opened as though xe was trying to convey something, but she couldn’t read the immovable lips.
Nexus shifted, changed shape. Formed layers of concentric partial spheres, slipping and separating along the geometric markings along its surface. It rotated, expanding. The layers spun at different speeds and angles, their edges crossing each other again and again. Talis’s headache increased in intensity. Her teeth hurt. The bones of her feet hurt.
Sophie collapsed to her knees on the deck, gripping her head.
Beneath the spinning layers, in an open cavity at the center, an unruly mass of swirling green light pulsed. Instinctively, Talis knew this was the source of their pain. Her jaw clamped shut, sending spikes of agony into her head. It seemed as if her heart was trying to push its way out of her and would split her open like a dried cocoon in order to be free.
Lindent Vein, Helsim Breaker, and Arthel Rak retreated behind the first layer of Nexus energy. But even that crackled under the constant alien fire, absorbing the yellow energy. The attack’s power dissipated along the contour of the shield, but Nexus overall looked more jaundiced than it had before. The shield would only protect the gods, and the swirling core of energy within, for so long.
Nexus held Peridot together. If it was breached, destroyed, harvested.…
Onaya Bone did nothing. She only watched, exultant, as Meran protected Wind Sabre against the assault of energy beams cast by the nearest ships. In the body that the aliens had provided.
Three more of the alien ships broke formation and turned their attention to Wind Sabre. Bursts of yellow-green light lit the deck beneath Onaya Bone, strafing across the ship. The aliens began an attack from the bow, sweeping across to the stern. Concentrating on the lift envelope, trying desperately to find a weak spot.
The goddess laughed, and the sound echoed around her. She lifted her chin high, stretching her bejeweled neck. Her chest expanded with triumphant laughter. Her arms straightened, fingers spread at her side. As though she was enjoying the sensation. As though any of it was her doing.
Meran’s power, which still limned the ship with glowing blue capillaries, rippled and sent a shockwave of energy across the deck. Talis felt it in her stomach. Nauseated, she stumbled as she tried to rise to her feet. The breath she had recovered after Hankirk’s assault on her windpipe caught in her chest again as her stomach lurched in response to Meran’s pulses.
A sphere of blue light enveloped Wind Sabre, extending up around the lift envelope and underneath the hull. Within the sphere they were becalmed. Tisker relaxed at the helm, his chest heaving. He leaned one hand against the console, his head dipped in exhaustion. Kept the other on the wheel.
The alien fire no longer passed through the deck. Instead it reflected, burst off the blue dome with a flash, and ricocheted off in a new
