Blood of the Cosmos (60 page)

His craft careened into one of the armored branches, and a verdani thorn tore his second starboard engine, making the craft shudder. Sparks flew into space, and spilled fuel vented into the vacuum. Damage reports scrolled across his control screens, and an automated distress beacon pealed out, but Rod'h knew none of the Solar Navy vessels would come to rescue a lone person.

Using sensor enhancements, he occasionally succeeded in breaking through the static. He saw a brief, clear image of the big warships battling the Shana Rei. A giant Solar Navy warliner tumbled, seemingly lifeless, though it did not look damaged, simply deactivated—perhaps knocked out by the full force of a Shana Rei entropy blast. He hoped it was not Gale'nh's vessel.

When the CDF Juggernaut and the other warliners launched their sun bombs, the multiple detonations overlapped like exploding stars that rippled out, multiplying, washing out Rod'h's view. He shielded his eyes from the glare just in time, which saved him from being blinded, but the intense pulse overloaded the scout ship's systems. Though he tried several times, he could not restart his engines, and he drifted aimlessly. With a long slow screech, the ship scraped against a verdani branch, but the momentum was not enough to split open the hull. The distress beacon kept pulsing, grating on his nerves.

Shock waves from the distant sun bomb explosions swept over the unprotected verdani battleship. Outer branches splintered away and drifted like frozen meteor shards above the endless gulf of the Dyson sphere below.

Rod'h worked the cockpit controls, determined to restart the engines, but he was not an expert mechanic. There had always been engineer kith to fix any damaged systems. Nevertheless, he tried to bypass the damaged components himself.

A swarm of angular robot ships erupted from the hex cylinders and stormed in to engage the Solar Navy. The sun bombs had clearly hurt the Shana Rei, and now their hexagonal vessels were stubbier, physically diminished.

But the robot battleships attacked in a chaotic, destructive fury. They soared in, weapons blazing. Rod'h watched them target the helpless drifting warliner whose shields were down, weapons deactivated. And the Ildiran ship was blasted to debris.

Meanwhile, the shadow cloud skated across empty space, making its way toward the Dyson sphere. As it approached the black shell, the shadow cloud blossomed, swelled, as if it intended to draw a dark energy from the material contained there.

Rod'h's comm system flickered back on, and he heard a cacophony of conflicting orders, distress signals, damage reports. In addition to the warliner that had been destroyed, two severely damaged ones tried to limp away from the battlefield. Rod'h was relieved to hear Gale'nh's voice, still shouting orders, driving his warliner in to continue attacking the robot vessels.

Adar Zan'nh and General Keah issued conflicting commands as the surviving warships continued their free-for-all, but they were battered by the unexpected ferocity of the black robots.

Above the Dyson sphere, the shadow cloud extended a hazy pseudopod, and Rod'h felt a lurch inside his mind and his heart. This did not come through the
thism
, but from a back channel, a hook that latched onto the bond he shared with his halfbreed siblings. It felt like cold hard claws in his mind.

Next, the shadow cloud came
toward him
. It had spotted him.

Shocked, he clutched his head, tried to clear his mind. A lightning bolt of adrenaline shot through him. Was this how the shadows had found Gale'nh aboard the
Kolpraxa
? This time, his brother was aboard a heavily armored warliner, but Rod'h was in a tiny, unprotected scout ship. Were the Shana Rei seeking some new specimen to study? Another
halfbreed
?

Alone in his damaged craft, Rod'h felt vulnerable. Too late, he realized that his automatic distress signal was still pulsing, calling out for help—drawing attention. The Solar Navy ships could never respond in the midst of battle … but the black robot ships did. Six angular vessels broke away from the main group and hurtled toward him.

Rod'h managed to get one of his engines functioning again and retreated into the dubious shelter of the dead verdani vessel. The armored branches around him acted as a protective barbed fence, but he doubted it would last long. He finally succeeded in silencing the distress beacon, but far too late. They had him now.

The armored hulk of the tree trunk was like a small moon beneath him, offering no shelter. Rod'h limped along, seeking some kind of opening, but he could see no way to enter, no place to hide.

Six robot ships fell upon the petrified verdani battleship with wanton destruction, as if taking revenge for a never-forgotten vendetta. Energy weapons blasted into the dead branches, shattering huge boughs and smashing parts of the tree into splinters as they worked their way in to get
him
.

One blast tore into the armored trunk of the dead treeship, cracking open the swollen wood—and the frozen bole split apart like a long-sealed hangar being blasted open to space. A cloud of small humanoid bodies spilled out like seeds from a burst pod—Onthos! Thousands and thousands of them, long dead, but packed into honeycombed chambers of the enormous treeship.

Rod'h stared. This was not just a verdani exploration vessel nor even a battleship, as he had expected. This huge, swollen tree had been filled with countless Onthos, like a hive of burrowers or spores in a ripe ball fungus—it was an escape ship! As their star system was englobed by the impenetrable black plates, the Gardeners must have tried to flee in the only way possible, packing as many refugees as possible into a lifeboat … which had ultimately been killed before it could escape.

Rod'h stared in horror, still evading the robot attacks. As the blackened trunk cracked and split wider, more of the hapless alien bodies spilled into space. The evacuation treeship had never gotten away from the system. All of those Onthos had been doomed, floating far from their extinguished sun, sealed inside their verdani graveyard.

Just as he would be, and all the Solar Navy ships, unless they could get away.

Outside, the shadow cloud kept extending closer. Rod'h could feel the Shana Rei screaming in his mind, poking and plucking at his thoughts. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his palms against his skull, but he could not silence them.

The robot ships blasted at the dead treeship, tearing apart the protective briarpatch until they finally exposed his vulnerable craft. Rod'h saw the predatory black vessels looming in front of him and was sure they would destroy him at any instant.

Loud bursts of static came over his comm, then a familiar voice, a flicker of Gale'nh crying out to him. “Rod'h! I am coming for you!”

The burst died into a squelch of louder static that sounded like electronic laughter. The robot ships hung in front of him, their weapons activated … but then scattered off to continue the main attack against the Solar Navy and the
Kutuzov
. Leaving him alone.

For the barest instant, Rod'h thought he had received a reprieve, that he might survive after all. But the shadow cloud swelled closer, blocking out the stars and the flashes of weapons fire from the space battle, encompassing everything with suffocating nothingness.

He screamed both aloud and inside his mind, crying out from the bottom of his soul. He couldn't escape, couldn't even self-destruct his ship to prevent the shadows from taking him. He reached through the
thism
and through his sibling bond with Gale'nh, Tamo'l, Osira'h, and Muree'n. He screamed.

Then all was silenced, in complete darkness as if his very soulfire had been smothered in pitch black … just as the Onthos star had been.

 

CHAPTER

102

TAL GALE'NH

The battle was lost.

Tal Gale'nh realized that as he watched the damaged Solar Navy ships and saw the superior number of black robot vessels brought into the fray. He had never expected the enemy robots to have so many battleships. And the designs seemed even more powerful than the attackers at Hiltos.

General Keah kept shouting over the comm, encouraging her soldiers to open fire with every possible weapon they had. At first, Gale'nh had thought the expeditionary force might succeed in driving the Shana Rei ships back into their shadow cloud, but now, against all comprehension, the shadow vessels seemed to be rallying, even after the tremendous sun-bomb detonations. The
Kutuzov
had suffered severe damage, but General Keah refused to withdraw. She had no place to go.

Two warliners were completely destroyed, and one more—piloted by Septar Dre'nh—so damaged that it could barely maneuver, but its stardrive still functioned, so Adar Zan'nh commanded Dre'nh to escape back to Ildira. Gale'nh was sure the other four warliners would need to do the same—if they were able. Countless distress signals flickered through space.

Meanwhile, Gale'nh could sense Rod'h alone in his trapped scout craft … and he knew exactly when the deadly enemy detected him. Like vicious animals, the robots blasted through the branches of the dead verdani battleship, tearing their way through to Rod'h.

The entropy disruption from the Shana Rei rendered ship-to-ship comm systems useless, except for intermittent clear spots. Gale'nh desperately tried to contact his brother, but received only static in response. Rod'h's scout ship was helpless as the black robot ships dismantled the briarpatch sheltering him. With a great weight in his heart, Gale'nh remembered how the shadows had trapped the
Kolpraxa
.

He yelled to the helmsman. “Change course—back to the verdani ship! We must rescue Rod'h.”

The pulsing shadow cloud grew like a nightmarish black amoeba, and Gale'nh froze with a terrified flashback of seeing the same thing from the command nucleus of the
Kolpraxa
. In order to survive that horrific ordeal, Gale'nh's own mind had shut down. He remembered nothing from the terror of that timeless captivity, but the creatures of darkness had surely studied him, learned from him … perhaps even tainted him permanently.

Rod'h was an even stronger halfbreed than he was, and the Shana Rei would definitely want him—to study him, dissect his mind.

“I am coming for you, Rod'h!” The warliner raced toward the splintered remnants of the verdani battleship, the countless thousands of spilled Onthos bodies tumbling like spores into space. When he saw that the robot vessels had surrounded Rod'h's scout ship, he demanded more speed. Tears burned on his face.

His helmsman struggled to wring all possible energy from the warliner's engines. Unexpectedly, the robot vessels withdrew from the exposed scout ship and dashed toward his oncoming warliner, opening fire. Tal Gale'nh had to deplete half of his weapons banks just to fend them off—but this was Rod'h's chance, if he could get away! He succeeded in wiping out one robot ship and damaging two others.

But it was too late for his brother. The Shana Rei were coming for him.

Gale'nh watched in horrified disbelief as the shadow cloud enveloped the tiny scout ship and swallowed Rod'h. He felt an outcry in the
thism
, and he shouted aloud himself. The rest of his crew could feel it, but not with the same intensity. Through his special sibling bond, he remained connected with Rod'h—and as the swirling pseudopod of darkness retreated with its prize, he knew that his half-brother was still alive, a prisoner of the Shana Rei.

In the space battlefield above the Onthos system, one more warliner was damaged, and Adar Zan'nh commanded its captain to escape to Ildira. Finally, he transmitted a retreat to the three remaining ships in the septa. “We are an exploratory force, not a full battle cohort. We must withdraw!”

Twelve robot battleships converged on the
Kutuzov
in a cluster, using their surprising weaponry to wear down her dwindling shields. Gale'nh could see that General Keah would not last much longer; nevertheless, the Juggernaut continued to fight.

And then, separate from the main firefight, he saw the damaged Shana Rei hex ships do something unbelievable, and Gale'nh groaned in dismay.

When the extending shadow cloud touched the ebony Dyson sphere, the trillions of interlocked hexagonal plates shuddered. Cracks appeared between them, and the hex plates detached, breaking apart like spilled mosaic tiles in an ever widening gap. The components drifted loose, hovered motionless, then spun back into the shadow cloud and reattached to the ends of the giant black hex cylinders. Hundreds and then thousands of hex plates flew away from the Dyson sphere and rejoined—
rejuvenated
the creatures of darkness. The damaged ebony cylinders began to grow, assimilating as much material as they had lost from the sun bombs and laser cannons. The Shana Rei ships swelled like parasites gorging themselves with black blood, until they were even larger than before.

“We must depart,” Adar Zan'nh cried over the comm. “All warliners, retreat!”

Gale'nh still felt his brother's despair, lost in the shadows. How could he leave Rod'h?

The beleaguered CDF Juggernaut kept fighting, and losing, but General Keah had one last trick to play. Her voice cut across the comm line. “Swallow this, you bugbot bastards.” The
Kutuzov
launched one of its remaining sun bombs directly into the group of attacking robot ships, then retreated at full speed as the sun bomb detonated.

The nova explosion was more than enough to obliterate all twelve robot ships that had been harassing the Juggernaut. With a weary tone of celebration, Keah transmitted, “I think that's all the fight I've got left in me, Z. Time to exercise the better part of valor.”

Her damaged
Kutuzov
limped away, while the reeling robot ships chased after it, infuriated by the loss of their comrades.