Bane of the Dead (Seraphim Revival Book 1) (17 page)

Twin beams of searing light bored down from the Grendeni frigates, missing by a few meters.

“At least four negator fields coming on-line!” Quennin said.

Seth looped above a half-finished dreadnought skeleton and aimed his fusion cannon on the lead frigate. He and Quennin fired as one. Seth’s beam punched into, through, and out of the vessel. Explosions snapped across its length, joined moments later by a second frigate’s death spasms.

The exodrones flew down at them, robotic and suicidal. Seth and Quennin fired their railguns, sending volleys of kinetic shells into their ranks. The shells exploded just before reaching the exodrone formations. Thick clouds of high velocity flechettes vomited out, ripping the exodrones apart like so much tissue paper. Staggered pin-prick explosions marked each kill.

“Come on. We need to move!” Seth said.

Every active Grendeni warship turned about and began lumbering towards them.

“Right behind you!”

Seth and Quennin flew underneath the facility-ring’s huge circumference, using the factories as shields. Beams lanced past them every time they darted from cover to cover.

“Epsilon! Renseki!” Seth said. “Begin your attack runs! Take out those negators! If we don’t find the factory soon, we’re aborting!”

“Confirmed, sir,” Jared said. “We’re on our way.”

“Understood,” Zo said.

Twenty fold points snapped open. Six seraphs materialized at the far end of the facility-ring, their fold points nothing more than momentary white specks. The silver Renseki seraphs pounced on a half-completed negator. They ignited their chaos daggers and sliced it apart from the inside.

Fourteen seraphs under Jared’s command swarmed a separate target. Beams exchanged, and Grendeni warships began to die in titanic eruptions.

“Seth, I think I found the factory.” Quennin relayed the coordinate data.

Visually, the factory looked no different than any other. Its boxy main body wrapped around the star strand, but the large plate extending from its side was packed with tight rows of archangels. Even at this extreme range, Seth could make out hundreds of those machines crouching like so many winged skeletons.

Two shapes broke off from the archangel factory. They ducked underneath the ring of factories and flew out at incredible speed. Far faster than any archangel, and faster than almost any seraph in existence.

Their course led them straight to Seth and Quennin.

“Quennin, we have incoming.”

“Yes, I see them…”

The two enemy seraphs closed. Seth received their request for a direct hypercast link. Hesitantly, he opened the channel.

“Seth, this is Jack. We need to talk.”

***

Jack had to wait almost half a minute before receiving a reply.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Seth said.

“Look, I understand you’re upset,” Jack said. “But we don’t have to fight.”

Seth and Quennin stopped beneath one of the
Valiant Artisan
’s factories. Jack slowed, remaining in the open. He had nothing to fear from the Grendeni warships above.

“Shall we kill them together?”
Vierj asked, halting next to him.

“Not yet,” Jack said privately.

“Your compassion for your former comrades is sweet, but misplaced.”

“It is mine to misplace,” Jack said. With a mental flick, he toggled back to his channel with Seth. “There is no need for us to fight, Seth. Call off your attack, and I will order the negators to stand down.”

“That is not an option,” Seth said. “Our battle will not end until one of us is dead.”

“Come on. Be reasonable, Seth. Neither of us wants to—”

“YOU KILLED MY SON!”

Jack opened his mouth to reply, but words failed him. The true price of his actions slammed home in his mind. He’d only been concerned with not harming Seth or Quennin. The possibility of a son or daughter among the pilots had never occurred to him.

Damn it! How could I have been so stupid?
Jack thought.
That flame-red seraph. Was he in that one? Oh God, what have I done?

“I didn’t know. Please believe me, Seth. I didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter if you knew,” Seth said. “My son is dead because of your treachery.”

“I… I swear I didn’t know.”

“There is no shame in fighting to win, Pilot Donolon,” Quennin said coldly. “But you have chosen your side, and it is not ours.”

“I only have one question for you,” Seth said. “Why have you betrayed us?”

“I…” Jack felt sick to his stomach. Seth’s son was dead by his hand. How could he have been so careless? He knew that this was a small sacrifice in the greater scheme of his plan, but the thought brought him no comfort.

“I did it because—” Jack stopped. Vierj would be listening. Even within the untraceable security of hypercast, Vierj could listen. He dared not risk exposure now.

And even without Vierj listening, how could he tell Seth the truth? How could even
that
justify his actions? He doubted Seth would actually believe him, and the truth would only serve to forewarn the Choir and the Eleven.

No, silence was his only option.

“If you will not answer, then we have nothing further to say.”

Twin purple daggers exploded out of Seth’s forearms.

I knew this moment would come,
Jack thought.
Deep down I knew it, even if I thought I could plan my way out of it. It was inevitable that I would face Seth and Quennin in battle from the moment I set down this path.

Jack found his gaze drawn to Vierj’s shadowy seraph.
So be it. I will be neck deep in corpses before this horrid business is over and will have only myself to blame.

Jack summoned his chaos sword. It snapped vividly into existence and solidified as a bar of blue light.

“Stay out of this, Vierj. This is personal.”

“As you wish.”

Vierj pulled up and away. She landed one factory back along the ring and crouched like a vicious bird of prey.

Jack took a deep faltering breath, then expanded his blade-wings. Their edges blurred and ignited with blue fire. He swept in with deadly intent.

Seth flew up to meet him.

Jack swung in, and the two clashed in the snap-flash of meeting blades. Their energy weapons ground against each other, spewing showers of purple and blue sparks. Jack pushed forward, threw Seth off balance, and swung upward with the edge of his shield.

Seth blocked the attack. He dashed away and curved around to Jack’s side. Jack dodged back and raised his sword. Their weapons connected once again. Seth pushed in and tried to stab a dagger past Jack’s defenses.

Jack grabbed the incoming forearm. He pulled Seth along his intended path and threw him into the factory.

Seth spun wildly. He crashed into the factory’s outer hull and knocked it out of alignment. The star strand passing within the factory wavered for a moment before fountaining outward in a wild cone.

Seth tore himself free of the wreckage, pushed off, and flew out.

All the while, Jack had lost track of Quennin.

She looped behind him and fired her fusion cannon squarely into his back. The beam struck his barrier and exploded into a spray of energy.

“Gah!” Jack grunted.

Seth dove at him.

Jack dashed to the side, making Seth overshoot him. Jack thrust down, trying to skewer the black seraph’s back, but Seth spun around and knocked the blow aside with calculated ease.

Seth fell away with the white dwarf at his back and regrouped with Quennin along the closest factory’s star strand.

Jack flew down after them.

Seth and Quennin fired their fusion cannons, but Jack dodged out of the way. Both beams punched into the factory above and bored through, vaporizing metal and machinery. The factory listed uncontrollably, allowing the star strand to cut effortlessly through its side.

Jack approached along the star strand, flying by guiding rings that kept the plasma stream tame. Seth and Quennin fired once more, but not at Jack.

At first, Jack wondered if the archangel squadrons had activated, but he quickly he realized the true target. Both beams made precise hits on a guide ring halfway between Jack and the two seraphs. The beams weren’t strong enough to destroy the ring, but they did knock it out of alignment.

The thick cord of plasma changed directions as it passed through the maladjusted ring. A wild cord cut through the space, obliterating anything it touched.

Jack dodged frantically to the side. The nimbus of his arm’s barrier touched the the passing cord, and the short contact sent hot needles of pain dancing up his arm.

“Gnh!”

The seraph said nothing.

“I know! I know!”

Seth gave him no time to recover and charged along the undamaged portion of the star strand’s guides. He slashed in, and Jack was forced to block with his weakened shield. Its edges lost definition and wavered, but Jack forced it to hold. His arm burned with pain. In a sense, it actually was on fire. His barrier was not some piece of technology but rather a part of him magnified by the seraph’s influx amplifier.

However, as wounded and stunned as he was, Jack’s abilities dwarfed even Seth’s. His shield held, and he threw Seth’s attack back and thrust in with his sword.

Sword met dagger in a powerful flash of light. Jack pressed in. Seth dodged back sharply, and Jack’s blade stabbed through empty space. Seth and Quennin regrouped at a distance.

“Six seraphs are approaching our position,” Vierj said. “They are making a circuit of the facility-ring destroying negators along the way.”

“Nothing I can do about that, Vierj.”

“But I can. Do you need assistance?”

“No, I’ve got this.”

“Then I think I will have a little fun. These fake seraphs should provide ample amusement.”

“Don’t give anything away.”

“Naturally. I will restrict myself to basic attacks. Let us see how they fare.”

Vierj took off from her factory perch, spun slowly around, and sped towards the Renseki.

Seth and Quennin flew in. Jack accelerated and met their attacks.

***

Jared Daykin surveyed the archangel factory’s defenses with a vastly accelerated mind. Chaos energy circulated through his body, greatly enhancing his reflexes and intelligence.

Unlike other facilities in the nebula, the archangel factory possessed considerable defenses in the form of thick mnemonic plating, dozens of seeker ports, and hundreds of laser blisters and railgun turrets.

But none of these stood a chance against the fourteen seraphs bearing down on it.

Like most EN seraphs, Jared’s was configured for maximum ranged firepower. He carried an eighteen-shot fusion cannon on his arm and three tactical seeker pods, one on the other arm and two on his wings. This gave him a total of ninety archangel-killing tactical seekers. His two leg conformal pods were stocked with sixty ship-killing fusion torpedoes, half of which he’d already pumped into three now-dead negators.

In addition to this already massive arsenal, every EN seraph carried an MR2-X rail-rifle into battle. Back when the Alliance first formed, Earth Nation scientists and engineers had provided a fresh perspective on seraphs and their miniaturized fusion cannons, and they wondered what really limited a device connected to a seraph’s barrier.

A seraph’s power output always equaled “as high as required” within the pilot’s individual limitations. So theoretically, a device connected to a seraph’s barrier could draw almost limitless power. Development and experimentation between combined corps of Aktenai and Earth Nation engineers led to the development of evasion pods and rail-rifles.

Jared leveled his rail-rifle at the closest weapon blister and fired. Armor superheated and vaporized in the exchange of kinetic force. White-hot debris exploded from the defensive railgun battery.

The rest of epsilon squadron rained kinetic bolts and fusion beams upon the archangel factory. Its defenses withered under the fusillade, and the main body cracked open. The star strand blew out of the factory in an ugly cone of white-hot plasma. Grendeni guns fell silent.

“Recon the factory,” Jared said. Six Aktenai seraphs swept towards the factory’s large rectangular plate. Eight seraphs waited, rifles and cannons ready. Yonu held formation with Jared.

This close to the factory, Jared detected a transit system running through the plate’s topside that connected to each of the archangels.

That must be how they get pilots to the archangels,
Jared thought. If pilots were in the factory, they didn’t have a lot of time.

Before the Aktenai seraphs reached the factory, twenty archangels powered up on Jared’s chaos scanner. The archangels pushed off from the cargo plate and faced oncoming seraphs. Long swords ignited with yellow fire, and they flew out to meet their foes.

“Open fire,” Jared said.

The EN gun-line unleashed a round of rifle fire. Seven kinetic bolts slammed into the archangels. One exploded when a bolt tore through its stomach, but the rest shrugged off the impacts.

Another salvo hit home, splattering five into clouds of broken metal and yellow goo. The surviving archangels approached without fear or hesitation. Only six seraphs met them, but these were some of the best pilots in all of Aktenzek, and they were ready.

The Aktenai seraphs lit their daggers. They charged in, parried the archangel swords, and cut them down with killing strokes.

Another group of archangels began to power up.

Jared spotted an archangel tumbling out of the melee. He lined up his rail-rifle and fired. The kinetic bolt struck the archangel’s shoulder, flared briefly yellow against its chaos barrier, and punched through. The archangel blew apart, its appendages spinning away.

More archangels launched from the factory plate, glowing red in Jared’s thoughts. His accelerated mind played the battle out to its conclusion.

Act quickly or be overwhelmed,
he thought grimly.

“Gun-line, keep up the pressure,” Jared said, flying out of formation. “Yonu, cover me.”

“Following!” Yonu pulled in behind him.

Jared looped around the growing melee. Aktenai seraphs continued to cut through the archangels, and EN seraphs poured volley after volley into them. But the archangels kept coming.