Beast
With a gasp, Rasso came back to his body. The implant at the back of his neck felt white-hot from exertion, and it took him a second to understand he was back in his flesh.
A moment before, he’d been flying through space at speeds faster than the human mind could track. At least, one not augmented as his had been—mentally interfaced with a Seraphim drone. He’d been working with a squadron of six Sanctorum knights, Chevaliers, piloting Seraphim and the larger Mikkel drones to bring down a group of Syndroid Harpies. When the warning sirens blared, he hadn’t even noticed them. His mind was elsewhere, picturing his wife and young son—long lost to the Syndroids.
On the bridge of the Kavach, Shepherd-class battleship, smoke poisoned the air and made Rasso cough. Sweat ran from the tight curls of his pigmentless hair to his pale eyes, reddened by strain. Alarms rang out unceasingly. Blaring alerted the crew to hull breaches in multiple locations. Chirping warnings of the decks where Syndroids had boarded the Kavach. Buzzing for the numerous enemy weapons locked on parts of the ship, ready to tear chunks out. But Rasso’s trained ears had no trouble discerning the cacophony.
The massive domed ceiling displayed the ongoing battle around them. Small explosions in the deep dark of space occasionally blinked into existence—small and weak like a glow worm across a vast cavern.
But Rasso didn’t let himself be fooled. There was nothing small or weak about those explosions. Most were fusion cores going supernova from well-placed magneto-beam shots. The actual blast zones would be larger than the Shepherd battleship he was on. The detonations were so energized they completely vaporized the drone they were attached to and created their own atmosphere as a medium for destruction.
Something must have taken out some of the ship’s sensors. Usually, the prime targets and mission objectives would flash onto his retinas as he stared into the dome. But there was only basic camera footage.
Where’s the Ravager? Rasso wondered.
One explosion was surprisingly close to the ship. Close enough for bluish-green light to paint his nearly-translucent, white face. Similarly, the Vessel they’d been charged with protecting shifted hues. Its sleek metal shell glowed like gold for a brief second, looking more like a sculpted piece of art than an ancient starship carrying the fate of billions. Minds for reincarnation, souls for the afterlife, simple planetary data—whichever of a million belief systems was correct, the future of a Federation planet depended on the Vessel’s continued existence.
Then the Ravager appeared, slowly edging in from the bottom of the domed ceiling to fill the screen like a sump monster rising from the cavernous lakes of Rasso’s home world. Contrasting with the Vessel, the Ravager was boxy and utilitarian. But the hull shifted and flowed angrily except where chunks of the ship had been ripped out by the Kavach’s weaponry. And magneto-cannons like pincers sprouted from the surfaces that remained undamaged.
Apparently, the grav-mine blockade had finally failed.
Rasso would have taken satisfaction at the sight of the damaged Ravager a few months ago. And maybe he still did just a bit. But times had changed. And the understaffed Kavach had taken far more damage than the enemy Syndroid ship.
It wouldn’t be long now.
I’m coming, my love.
Rasso extended his mind—seeking out one of the few remaining Seraphim Drones to continue the battle when a hand on his shoulder stopped him.
Looking up, he met the kind old eyes of Captain Maharaj. His dark skin was crinkled at the edges of his eyes—scars of many lifetimes of love and happiness. His mouth set in a straight line, moated by a trim black beard. Somehow, he was still calm in the face of utter chaos.
Those around Rasso seemed to relax a degree in the Captain’s presence. He’d been the rock of the Kavach longer than Rasso had been assigned to the ship. Through countless battles, Maharaj had been the one constant for the crew—the fearless and just leader who ensured they would always return to their families.
But Rasso’s family was gone. And this battle was hopeless.
Captain Maharaj’s fist, armored in the pinks and turquoise of his homeworld, squeezed Rasso’s shoulder. “I need you to get to a lifeboat. The Council and the Federation must know we failed our mission. This Vessel is lost.”
“I—” Rasso started but stopped when he saw Maharaj’s expression. He’d never seen the man display anything other than confidence and cheer.
Now, the Captain’s calmness showed cracks as he wiped a tear from his eye and stifled a neck tremor. “I’ve never lost a Vessel before,” Maharaj confessed. “I was cocky. Told the Council we could spare some of the crew for other ships. This is my doing... All those souls… my responsibility.”
Rasso wanted to comfort the man but knew Maharaj wasn’t the type that would find relief in words. “I want to stay and fight. You should send someone else.”
The Chevaliers around Rasso had connected to new drones and their attention was elsewhere; otherwise, he was sure half a dozen would have jumped at the opportunity.
“I have a feeling about you,” Maharaj said. “You must evacuate. Tell the Council of our defeat. They must be ready for the enemy’s strength to grow. And there’s something else—it’s probably just the fog of battle.”
“What?” Rasso asked.
“I’ve received a couple of reports of Chevaliers facing Syndroid Harpies that aren’t affected by the magneto-cannons.”
“How is that possible?”
“It shouldn’t be, and with the ship sensors down, I can’t confirm the reports. But the Council must be ready to make preparations.”
More sump monsters, Rasso thought. Stories told at night on his planet to keep children in bed. He’d even occasionally used them to frighten his son into not exploring the deeper, unmapped caverns near their home. But enemy Harpies were made from the same nanite technology prominent throughout the Federation. There was no inoculation against magnetic weaponry—only a Chevalier’s irrational reasoning for the losing battle.
Grudgingly, Rasso accepted. He hated the Syndroids, and despite the preordained outcome, he was ready to dive in and kill more of the bastards.
But he was also ready to see his family again.
More than likely, the Ravager would ping the lifeboat, and a squad of Syndroids would be sent after him. Rasso would grant the Captain some measure of peace that his message might be delivered—even if it was a false hope.
Maharaj grabbed a couple of Chevaliers who had just lost their drones, pulling them out of their chairs and handing them magneto-rifles. “Protect this man with your life,” he instructed, pointing to Rasso. “The fates of Chevalier Sanctorum and the Federation depend on it.”
They saluted. “Yes, Captain.”
Rasso departed the bridge with the two Sanctorum knights in tow. As he moved, his clothing transformed, shifting from the lightly padded pilot’s jumpsuit to heavy armor. The nanomaterial grew in size, bulking up to protect his limbs from impact hazards while reaching up to cover his face and head. A moment later, he was a hulking juggernaut with the colors of his homeworld—earthy tans, grays, and reds of the subterranean planet.
Behind him, his guard detail was similarly changed until they became a trio of lumbering boulders painted a myriad of colors.
As he reached the outer door of the airlock that separated the bridge from the rest of the Kavach, Rasso felt his suit pressurize. Without hesitation, he mentally commanded the door open and stepped through.
He’d expected the corridor to be filled with smoke and chemical fires, yet it was crystal clear—only a few flickering lights indicated the ship was in danger.
This is bad, Rasso thought as he ran down the corridor towards the lifeboats. The reason for the clarity could only be the vacuum of space. The Syndroids have breached the hull so close to the bridge.
“Damnit,” one of the guards whispered, coming through Rasso’s implant directly into his brain.
The Kavach should have been able to fill the breach. Like Rasso’s suit, the ship’s skin was composed of nanites that could shift to the needs of the craft. The fact that it hadn’t been repaired this close to the command room meant too many nanites had been sheared off during the battle.
Or…
“We’ve got incoming,” one of the guards said, dropping to a knee and aiming his H-shaped magneto-rifle down an adjacent passage.
Rasso caught a glimpse and wished he hadn’t. Half a dozen Syndroid boarding drones. Compared to the parent Harpy drones, the boarders were small—barely the size of a toddler. Their dark metallic shells glittered like insect carapaces in the flickering light above blue-glowing thrusters. One pinned a squirming Chevalier in place while the others brandished glowing, saw-shaped cutters.
A crimson mist sprayed the air around the squirming knight and the drones. Rasso noted with dismay the nanites in the man’s suit were racing to cover a spurting stump where his arm had been.
Then Rasso’s implant picked up communications between the Syndroids and the man whose comm line was open.
“Say the words and all this misery goes away,” the drones said.
“May the Winged One feast on your dead metal heart!” the Chevalier spat back.
As one of the drones hovered towards the man, cutter glowing brightly, Rasso noted an egg-shaped device floating on the far side. The kneeling guard beside Rasso fired while the egg leaped back in synchronized movement. The drone exploded, peppering the others with burning metal shards.
The second guard pushed Rasso forward while the kneeling one exchanged magneto-beams with Syndroids. “We have to keep going!”
Rasso sprinted forward. His suit sensed the urgency and bounced off the ground like a spring. Thank the Great Forager, we still have gravity.
As if the Kavach was reading his mind, the next step Rasso took forced him into the air as the ship’s gravity generators cut out. The guard, quicker to react than Rasso, pulled him to the ground, where his suit took over and gripped the floor.
Rasso trudged on down a series of ramps—his running slowed to a jog with each heavy footstep snapping to the metal floor. Why is the Kavach so damned big?
Then he was there, standing at the entry to the lifeboat launch. Pod after pod after pod of empty lifeboats sat empty in neat little rows—none had been launched.
A warning buzzed in Rasso’s mind from his implant—a communique from the ship’s captain. Emergency protocols had been activated. They had only moments left.
Rasso bounded into the launch room but stopped when he didn’t hear footsteps behind him. He spun around and saw the guard standing in the entryway, facing the way they came. The direction of the man they’d left behind.
“What are you doing!” Rasso screamed. There was no sound in the vacuum, but his implant transmitted the urgency. “You got the message. Maharaj is going to detonate the ship!”
The guard looked over his shoulder. “Your orders are to escape. Not mine. I got a girl back home. I’m going to distract these rusty fuckers as long as I can. Maybe I kill the one who someday would have gotten to her.”
With that, the guard disappeared, running down the corridor with his rifle pressed to his shoulder.
No time to think, Rasso ran into the nearest lifeboat.
It wasn’t much as far as spacefaring vessels went—a two-person sprinter lifepod, it was the variety that could enter jump space to bring back help for larger lifeboats with more robust life support systems. As Rasso climbed into the captain’s chair, he noted that the ship was already prepped for launch—just awaiting a full-fledged Chevalier to grant permission for launch.
Rasso granted it.
Skreeeee!—The engines flared to life. Immediately, Rasso was shoved back into his chair as the pod raced down a tunnel out of the ship. His suit melted into the seat, locking him in place. But still, it felt as if the skin all across his body was stretched taut.
A second later, he was out of the belly of the Kavach, and the force of acceleration lessened as the pod readied for jump space. He heard a clatter from the small storage space behind the seats, followed by a “Gahhh!”
Rasso swiveled around and found a girl lying in the storage space behind the seats. She struggled to sit up as her ocean-blue armor resisted her pulling away from the stability of the ground. She brushed the pale hair out of her eyes, displaying cerulean-hued skin that made her look as if she had spent too long in an artic sump reservoir.
“About foaming time someone showed up,” the girl said.
