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  She glared up at him. “Do I have a choice?”

  Chapter 8

  Darius stood on the wall, breathing hard as he used his sword to draw a molten circle at his feet. Once the glowing blade returned to its starting position, a severed chunk of wall went tumbling down the adjoining corridor with a thunderous clank and clatter.

  Standing on the edge of a hundred foot drop, Darius mentally prepared himself to jump. Even just standing upright was a challenge while resisting two and a half times standard gravity. Falling several dozen meters and somehow surviving the landing should have been impossible. But Revenants specialized in the impossible.

  “Ready?” he asked, glancing at Dyara. She was lying flat on the wall beside him to save her strength. She nodded wearily and heaved halfway up into a sitting position—then she appeared to think better of it, and began rolling like a log toward the hole he’d cut. Darius snorted and shook his head. “Creative.”

  She reached the edge of the opening and rolled straight through, falling in a clumsy butt-first drop which she managed to correct in the air. Darius sheathed his sword and stepped through the hole feet first. The walls of the corridor rushed by as he fell, faster and faster. Before he could pick up too much speed, he used the ZPF to slow his fall. Glancing down, he saw Dyara already waiting for him on the wall at the end of the corridor. His landing was coming up fast. Darius’s boots hit with a thud, and he bent his legs to further cushion the blow. Not wasting any time, Darius drew his sword and set to work the next wall.

  So far his plan was working. No one seemed to realize that they’d made it on board. Darius was using his concealment ability to keep the enemy Revenants from sensing them, but that didn’t hide them from the ship’s sensors and internal security systems. Either the ship’s security settings were unusually lax, or Kovar already knew they were on board. The question was, why wasn’t he doing anything about it?

  Darius finished cutting the hole. “Drop three,” he said, and this time he jumped through first. Air whistled by the external audio pickups in his helmet as he picked up speed. Just as Darius reached out to slow his fall, something happened: his precisely aimed drop down the center of the corridor shifted, and he slammed into what should have been the ceiling.

  He slid by exposed conduits until his foot hooked behind one of them and twisted his ankle before popping free. He cried out in pain and reflexively grabbed his ankle. His cry ended suddenly as he hit the frame of the blast doors at the end of the corridor and got the wind knocked out of him. His head spinning, he lay against the doors with his ankle throbbing painfully, listening to his own heartbeat and willing his lungs to suck in a breath.

  Dyara rocketed down toward him, going too fast for a safe landing. His diaphragm recovered, and he drew in a quick breath just as she hit the door frame. Her knees buckled, and she screamed in agony.

  “Where are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Knees. Ankles. Oh, fek, that hurts!”

  “Do you think you’ll be able to keep going?” he asked.

  She pushed up onto her elbows to glare at him from behind the faceplate of her helmet. “Can you?” she challenged.

  Darius tried rolling his injured ankle, but an explosion of pain left him shaking and sick to his stomach. “No.”

  Dyara snorted and shook her head. “Nice job, Darius. Now all we can do is surrender. You wanted to add Kovar’s fleet to yours. Now, thanks to your recklessness, he’s going to add ours to his! That includes me. You’ve single-handedly lost the war! How does that feel?”

  “It’s not over yet,” Darius insisted.

  “Isn’t it?”

  Just then, the crushing weight pinning them in place lifted. They were in zero-G again and floating up near the ceiling. Darius sucked in a deep breath, his ribs aching with the echoes of the force they’d been under a moment ago.

  Dyara raised her arms and fluttered her fingers in front of her face. “They killed the engines...”

  “Why would they do that?” Darius gritted out. The return to zero-G did nothing to fix the throbbing pain of his twisted ankle.

  “Maybe because we’re incapacitated, so now it’s safe to come and capture us,” Dyara suggested.

  A new voice joined theirs. “Welcome aboard the Nemesis, Darius, and... Dyara. Please stay where you are while I send a team to escort you to the bridge.”

  Darius had never heard that voice before, but he assumed it had to be Kovar. The voice was strange, gravelly and deep, thick with an alien accent that drew out the Rs and Ss. Darius guessed that Kovar might be a Sicarian, a species of reptilian humanoids.

  “Well,” Darius said. “That saves us the trouble of finding a way to reach Kovar. He’s going to bring us right to him.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing!” Dyara roared. “We’re injured, and we’ll be surrounded by enemy soldiers. What exactly do you think you’re going to be able to do to Kovar like that?”

  Darius didn’t have an answer ready for her. His veins were burning, his brain buzzing with the indiscriminate need for violence and bloodshed. It reminded him of what it felt like to take control of a Cygnian. He was becoming like the monsters he sought to destroy.

  Chapter 9

  Six Revenants came for them, all wearing matte black suits of power armor with four glowing red eyes, and four arms.

  “Cygnians?” Dyara whispered.

  They walked on two legs, but several of them stood head and shoulders shorter than the rest, making Darius think they must be Banshees.

  Darius and Dyara floated above them, watching their approach in stunned silence. Darius reached for his sword, but one of the Cygnians gestured to him, and the weapon flew from his back into the Cygnian’s waiting hand. Dyara’s sword followed, and then so did they, carried down from the ceiling by unseen forces. The Cygnians glared at them in silence for a long moment, holding them frozen in mid-air, with their feet dangling just above the deck. Darius didn’t bother trying to resist. Defeating these six wouldn’t help them, but they were a means to an end. He had to get to Kovar.

  “Well?” Darius prompted. “Are you going to take us to the bridge, or not?”

  One of the Cygnians hissed at him. That was the only reply they got before the Cygnians sent Darius and Dyara drifting down the corridor ahead of them.

  “I hope you’re not planning some kind of suicidal last stand,” Dyara said over their comms. “That’s not going to change anything.”

  Darius said nothing to that. He wasn’t going to win an argument with her right now, and he didn’t need his mind filled with negative thoughts right before his battle with Kovar.

  They reached the nearest elevator, and one of the Cygnians waved it open. It was only big enough for two of the Cygnians to squeeze in with them. The other four took a second elevator. One of the two in Darius’s elevator leaned over his shoulder to press the button marked C18. The alien could have done that telekinetically, which made Darius think that he was goading him.

  Sensing that Dyara was tensing for action, Darius caught her eye and gave his head a slight shake. Don’t, he thought at her. She subsided, but he could feel resentment radiating from her in waves.

  The elevator doors opened, and they floated down the corridor to the bridge with the six Cygnians once again clomping along behind them. As they arrived at the bridge, another pair of Revenants greeted them. They wore the same matte black suits of armor, with the same four arms and glaring red eyes. A suspicion formed in Darius’s gut. Revenants were made up of all different species, so why hadn’t they seen any other than Cygnians?

  The doors parted to reveal a familiar-looking bridge. Holo panels lined the walls, floor, and ceiling, giving a perfectly uninterrupted view of surrounding space—uninterrupted but for the four-armed Ghoul who stood in the center of the dimly-lit space, waiting for them. The Ghoul wore nothing but a pair of overlapping sword belts that formed a black X over the brown skin of his chest. Four short swords dangled within reach of his hands, and ma
ssive jaws gaped open in a jagged grin of nine-inch gray teeth that shone like knives in the starlit gloom.

  “At last, we meet face to face, Darius. I am Kovar, but you may call me master.”

  Darius gaped at Kovar as the Ghouls behind them used the ZPF to send him and Dyara floating into the bridge. Darius swung his feet down and activated his mag boots to plant him on the deck. He was determined to stand before his adversary. The lack of gravity made that possible despite his throbbing ankle. Following his example, Dyara planted her feet on the deck beside him.

  “You’re speaking in Primary, not Cygnian,” Darius pointed out.

  Kovar nodded slowly—a human gesture. “Surprised?” he asked.

  “I am,” Darius admitted.

  “I was trained by a human—the Augur himself, in fact.”

  Darius arched an eyebrow at that as he glanced around the bridge. Chairs turned in unison to face him, revealing that the bridge crew were all Cygnians, too. “Where are all the other Revenants?”

  Kovar tilted his giant head to one side. “Other Revenants? They’re here, all around you.”

  “The other species,” Darius clarified. “You can’t have crewed your entire fleet with just your own people. I was told that Cygnian Revenants are rare.”

  “Rare is a relative term, but there are other species on my other ships. I find there are fewer internal disputes when each ship is crewed by just one species.”

  “I see... Are you the only Luminary who followed us through the Eye, or did the others join forces with you?”

  Kovar offered another gaping smile and took a few steps toward them. “Why do you want to know?”

  Dyara caught his eye. Her gaze was wide and terrified behind the faceplate of her helmet. “Darius,” she whispered over their comms. “If you don’t surrender now, he’s going to kill us.”

  Not if I kill him first, Darius thought at her.

  “Darius... don’t.”

  “I want to know so that I can figure out who I have to kill before I can take control of your fleet.”

  Kovar stopped approaching. His smile faded dramatically, and his jaws clamped shut. All four of his eyes pinched into thin, angry slits.

  Then his shoulders began to shake, his lips parted, and a hissing laugh whistled out between his teeth. “I like you, Darius. I’m almost sorry that I have to kill you. As for the whereabouts of the other luminaries, you’ll be going to join them soon enough.” Kovar drew all four of his swords, and they began glowing brightly in the light of a shield.

  “They’re all dead?” Darius asked, blinking in shock as he backed away from Kovar. “How do you know?”

  “Because I killed them,” Kovar replied.

  Chapter 10

  “You killed them?” Darius asked, still backing away. His twisted ankle screamed in pain with every step, but he didn’t care.

  “Oh, yes. I picked their bones clean,” Kovar replied with a flash of his alloy-enhanced gray teeth. “If only you had arrived an hour earlier. I’ve already eaten. I may have to eat you more slowly than the others. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Won’t I be too dead to mind?”

  “I prefer my meat fresh.”

  Darius nodded agreeably as he back into one of the curving holo panels running around the bridge. He reached out to the guards who’d escorted them and snatched back his and Dyara’s swords. They sailed into his waiting hands and glowed to life as he summoned a shield to envelop himself. Drawing on the ZPF to suppress the pain of his twisted ankle, Darius sprang off the deck and sailed over Kovar’s head.

  The Ghoul tried to pull him down, but Darius resisted and unleashed a kinetic attack that sent Kovar staggering backward. Darius landed behind Kovar, his mag boots thunking loudly as they clamped him to the deck once more. Advancing steadily on Kovar, he swung both of his swords at the same time. Kovar blocked with two of his own blades and swung his remaining ones in a scissoring motion toward Darius’s neck.

  Darius leapt back and slapped the swords away before they could slice his throat. Kovar hit him with a kinetic blast, and Darius pushed back, but it still staggered him.

  They were evenly matched—except for the fact that Kovar wielded twice as many swords. This was going to be harder than Darius had thought.

  Dyara looked on from the entrance of the bridge, radiating concern and a faint, desperate hope that he might somehow succeed.

  “Is there something else you’d like to try, human?” Kovar asked, while twirling his swords.

  Darius feinted left, then dashed right and thrust one sword straight at an opening between the Ghoul’s arms. His blade kissed Kovar’s ribs with a flash of light and a burst of fiery ashes. Kovar spun away, hissing in pain, his side now black with charred flesh.

  Darius gave the Ghoul a smug look.

  Kovar replied with another telekinetic blast. It was much stronger than the last, and Kovar followed that attack with two more. Darius went flying as the mag lock of his boots gave way. He tried to push back and regain his footing, but he had too much momentum, and Kovar continued hitting him with kinetic attacks. Darius hit the far wall of the bridge hard enough to crack the holo panel. He lay there, pinned in place by Kovar’s fury.

  “How shall I punish you?” Kovar asked, while striding casually toward him. “What do you fear the most, human?”

  Darius felt Kovar’s mind pressing against his, probing and questing from all sides at once, like some tentacled monster. He struggled to resist, even as he reeled with shock. “That’s not... possible,” he gritted out. “I’m immune.”

  “Immune?” Kovar asked. “Not to me.”

  “Luminaries are immune to each other,” Darius insisted.

  “Oh yes, we are. I can’t take control of you, or override your will, but reading your mind is not the same. If you were stronger than I, perhaps you could resist me, but you are not.” Kovar fixed him with an ugly sneer.

  “Get out of my head!” Darius growled.

  “Leave him alone,” Dyara said. “We surrender.”

  Darius was surprised to hear her arguing his case.

  “Your daughter...” Kovar said slowly, his fist-sized black eyes closing to slits as he concentrated on beating down Darius’s mental defenses. “She’s sick... poisoned. She’s... on board the Harbinger? Yesss, your flagship, of course. You thought she’d be safe there.” Kovar’s eyes snapped open. “You thought wrong. Elder Tokara, instruct our fleet and our allies from Hagrol to focus all of their fire on the Harbinger.”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  “No!” Darius screamed. He shoved back against Kovar with every ounce of strength he had. The Ghoul went flying into the opposite wall of the bridge. Holo panels shattered with a noisy crash. A cloud of jagged fragments glittered, drifting and spinning through the bridge. Kovar stepped away from the wall and shook himself, as if to recover from a daze. Darius didn’t give him that chance. He launched himself across the bridge and landed just a few feet away. Unleashing a frenzied attack, he pinned Kovar to the wall. One of his swords slipped by and hit Kovar’s wrist, slicing straight through. The Ghoul’s hand vanished in a cloud of glowing ashes, and Kovar howled in pain.

  “Catch!” Darius said while mentally sending Kovar’s sword toward Dyara.

  Kovar pushed Darius back physically by shoving against his swords. “Kill him!”

  “Darius look out!”

  The other eleven Cygnians on the bridge drew their blades as one and began advancing on him from all sides. They hammered him with kinetic assaults, staggering him first one way, then the other. While he was distracted fending off the attacks, Kovar reached for Darius’s swords and ripped them out of his hands. Both blades stopped glowing as soon as they left his control. He couldn’t shield them if he wasn’t touching them. Darius reached for his weapons, trying to pull them back, but Kovar ran in and shattered them with a single swipe before he could.

  The kinetic attacks continued, forcing Darius back one shove at a time. After just a few se
conds, he was pinned to the wall again.

  Kovar walked up to him and shook his cauterized stump in Darius’s face. “You took my hand. So I will take your arm.”

  “No!” Dyara cried. Darius saw that a pair of Cygnians had her pinned to the holo panels on the other side of the bridge.

  Darius struggled to free himself, but it was no use. He watched helplessly as Kovar swept one of his swords down with agonizing slowness. The weapon passed through Darius’s outstretched arm, just above the elbow.

  His shield resisted for the briefest instant, flashing brightly and roaring with a violent exchange of energy; then a searing heat tore through Darius’s arm, and the smell of charred flesh filled his nostrils. When his eyes recovered from the blinding glare, he realized that his right arm was missing all the way up to the shoulder, vaporized in a cloud of fading orange embers.

  Agony and rage hit him at the same time, drawing streams of tears from his eyes. “There,” Kovar said, his mouth gaping open in another grin. Hot, fetid breath piled on Darius’s face. “But we’re not even yet. Elder Tokara? What is the status of the Harbinger?”

  “They are taking heavy fire, my lord. They’ve turned to flee, but they will not escape.”

  “Magnify the ship on the forward screens.”

  “Yes, master.”

  “Look,” Kovar intoned in a throaty whisper, as he pointed to the forward holo panels with his severed stump. “There it is—your daughter’s tomb. Say goodbye, Darius.”

  Darius’s eyes blurred with tears to the point that he could barely see. He blinked rapidly to clear them and watched in horror as thousands of red and golden lasers stabbed the Harbinger from all sides. Fiery explosions roiled along its length, and the light of its shields faded steadily. Just then, hundreds of tiny silver specks jetted out from the ship, riding on long blue tongues of fire. Escape pods. The crew was abandoning ship. They were abandoning Cass.