They all looked – sawthe Human pull a knife out of the weapons officer’s head. The fearflowed strong as the deck rumbled with gut wrenching harmonics.
The outboundrounds, destined for Unity, tumbled from the bits of wreckagescattered into the rails from Hennessy’s fighter. Already at ninetypercent of full velocity, they formed cones of vapor, tearing out alarge chunk of the ship’s bow, roughly equivalent to theeffect of animperial-standard nuclearwarhead.
Everyone on the bridgegrabbed for support as the deck beneath them was slammed backwards afew strides.
Hennessy wasn’tthere. He reappeared on the other side of the bridge, aiming a thrustat the helmsman who was still frantically trying to correct theconstant imbalance that threatened to crash the ship.
The Deathstalkerrolled as Hennessy aimed a thrust at the Quailu’s chest. His armswung up and dragged to the left, accidentally severing thecreature’s TC-1 artery.
Left alive butnow cut off from the flow of its species’ emotions, the helmsmanfell backwards, one hand clasped to his neck. He mewled in terror atthe utter loneliness of feeling as if he werethe last of his kind in the entire Universe.
His crewmates,seeing one of their kind but feeling nothing more from him than theywould a corpse, recoiled witha horror he couldn’t even sense anymore.
They saw, in him, afate even worse than death. Already keyed up to a fever pitch by thebattle and a subsequent incursion from a supernatural enemy, theyfled the bridge.
Hennessy saw theone officer still screamingat the crew to standto their posts. Memnon!
The officerstaggered under the ferocityof his name being thrown at his mind like a challenge. Hennessywas in his mind, making his rage known, demanding satisfaction. Heturned to look at the demon unleashed on his ship.
Hennessy removedhimself from the helm station and reappeared halfway toward his foe.He wanted Memnon to see his doom approaching. A quick death was toogood for anyone who’d bombard the innocent citizens of Unity.
Memnon stood rooted tothe deck, his mouth opening and closing in shock. He shook his headas the demon appeared closer, toying with him.
His body swayed as theship rolled again. Suddenly Ereshkigal was there, grabbing hisshoulder and shoving him toward an exit hatch.
The spell broken,Memnon ran as if Nergal himself werebehind him. Fool! heberated himself. The creature could simply appear in frontof me.
Not that hestopped running. Give the gods what entertainment you canand maybe they’ll grant you a different fate...
And Then ItAll Went Bad
The Deathstalker, falling to Ragnarok
Gabriella tugged on therestraint straps for probably the thirtieth time, at least. She’dplanned on riding out the battle in this pod but hadn’t planned onbeing so damned scared.
There had been a fewstrafing runs on the Deathstalker that must have come quiteclose to her hiding spot. The rumble of destructive forces had beenenough to rattle her bones as she cowered in her escape trunk,desperately wishing she could be out there in a fighter, in controlof her own destiny.
Only a few weeks’ training and I think I’msome hotshot fighter jock, sheberated herself. How much good am I even doing by takingout one cruiser?
There was toomuch that she didn’t know. How many ships has Memnonbrought? Where, even, did he bring them in the first place? Babilim?Ragnarok? She put her hand overher heart, scratching her hand on the harness release clasp. Earth?
All is in motion now,a voice told her mind. You will come close. So veryclose...
Gabriella shivered.“What the hell?” she said aloud in English. She’d had Scyllaspeak to her mind a few times and this didn’t feel like her. Whocould be...
She was suddenlyweightless followed by a general trend to fall against her harness.Her arms were dragged up above her head, her hair streamed up pasther face.
There was a strong,sudden rotational motion, slamming her right ankle against theemergency survival kit in the middle of the pod’s floor.
She winced in pain butexulted at the sound of an alarm klaxon. She’d been through theirSOP’s. Something was going very wrong for a Quailu crew torisk sounding an alarm.
If she had heraunt’s abilities, she’d probably be able to feel the rush ofterror that would be building now, fedby the sound. Someone on thebridge was definitely having a brown pants moment and she was prettysure it was mostlyher doing… Probably...
The Quailu onlyresorted to alarms when things were really bad.
Gabriella knew she wasmaking the right call. There was no guarantee it would make enough ofa difference but it was all she could do at the moment. Killing thatfirst crewman had been on reflex but she understood that it had beennecessary.
Barfing in his face might not have been theright move, she thought wryly,giving the restraints another tug and searching for the eject button.
Killing the secondcrewman had been deliberate and she’d even tried to preserve hissuit but time hadn’t been on her side. Her most deliberate act ofall was now at hand.
She’d kill everyoneon the damned ship.
She could hear a faintwhisper of atmosphere beyond the outer window of her pod. She cranedher neck to get a look at where they were but, short of releasing herrestraints, there wasn’t much chance.
She could see a stretchof coastline but it was hiding in clouds. Is this Earth orRagnarok? She looked up at the gauge-line which was starting totrend from red to green.
When the line wasmostly green, it would be safe for her to hit the button and leavethe Deathstalker to its fate.
The ship rolled again,slamming her back against the thinly cushioned restraint seat. Shereached up to rub the back of her head but another sudden change inpitch slammed her arm against the wall.
“OK!” she shoutedat the Universe. “I get it. I’ll keep my arms folded until thevehicle comes to a complete stop at the terminal!” She giggled, inspite of the stress or, perhaps, because of it.
The gauge-linebegan to change very quickly as the noise outside grew. Thered line that bisected it was already in the safe-zone because theship wasn’t dropping rapidly enough to develop a layer of ionized,high-temperature air.
Itmight have been just the opposite, with her tinkering putting asteady downward pressure on the ship. Some clever bastard on thebridge had worked out that rotating
