Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) (58 page)

The
Exodus
had made only a quarter turn when the three operational dreadnaughts fired another volley. Each projectile found its target, leaving a series of burning pockmarks from the port wing’s junction with the main hull to a section just behind the bridge. The sleeper thrashed. Nakvin clung to the rail to keep herself on the Wheel.

Amid the confusion, a message came via ship-to-ship sending. “Hello, Peregrine,” a familiar voice hailed. You know me.”

“Marshal Malachi,” Jaren said.

“I believe we met once,” said Malachi, “but you didn't recognize me. I almost didn't recognize you.”

Nakvin’s thoughts raced back to the Ostrith Guild house. She'd had her hands full smuggling Vernon out, but an image came to her mind: an Adept with dark hair and stern eyes who'd stood in the next line. Had he followed at a distance as they'd made their escape?

“Had I not let you go that day,” Malachi said, “this whole sad business might have been averted; but I knew that if I slackened your leash you'd fetch me an even greater prize.”

Nakvin noticed a change in the enemy formation. “The dreadnaughts are at a full stop,” she said. “The
Serapis
is still approaching at half speed.”

“I'm given to understand that you escaped from hell,” said Malachi. “I shall send you back there presently.”

“The corvettes are dropping into low orbit,” Nakvin said.

“Get us out of here!” Jaren cried. “Lay down covering fire.”

The
Exodus
had just begun to retreat when the
Serapis
closed to within a keel-length off the starboard side. Nakvin saw the Guild ship’s ventral pod start to glow. The
Exodus’
final barrage vanished into the light. Remembering how Craighan had fared against the man o' war's weapon, she threw herself under the bars that ringed the Wheel and jumped to the deck below.

In the next instant, Nakvin felt the hairs on her arms and neck stand on end as a powerful static charge flowed over the bridge. Instrument panels sent up showers of sparks, and the hidden light sources went dark. Nakvin's abandonment of her post was spectacularly validated when the entire surface of the Wheel erupted in white flame and shattered crystal.

The Steersman collected herself with an effort. The only light came through the single window framing half of Mithgar's blue sphere and the silver disc of its moon. For a moment, all was still. Then a storm of explosions and tremors signaled the dreadnaughts' renewed attack.

“Come on!” Jaren barked as he raced for the bridge doors.

Nakvin hurried after him. “Where the hell are we going?” she asked.

“We're abandoning ship.”

“How do you suggest we do that?” Nakvin asked. “That thing is suppressing every Working on board.”

“Listen,” said Jaren. “Those missiles are all hitting the port side. The secondary explosions mean that their Workings are unaffected. Malachi parked the
Serapis
off our starboard wing so the field would affect our Wheel but not his friends' weapons.”

Teg joined the running strategy session. “So we launch the
Shibboleth
from the port wing hangar,” he said with a grin.

Jaren nodded. “That's right.”

Deim sprinted into the hallway. “I can’t find Elena,” he said on the verge of panic.

Nakvin turned and cast a frantic look at the empty bridge. “She was just with you a second ago!”

Jaren tugged Nakvin’s arm. “There’s no time,” he snapped. “There might not be a hangar left if we don't leave now.”

“But Elena—”

“She can take care of herself,” said Jaren, his eyes as bright and hard as emeralds. “You
know
that.”

Nakvin sighed. Her heart breaking, she followed Jaren and Teg. Deim trailed behind.

The thunder of missile impacts grew more intense the farther Jaren moved to port, but at last he reached the hangar. To his relief, he found the
Shibboleth
whole. “Everybody get on board!” he said. “Deim, you take the Wheel.”

“One of the shuttles is gone,” said Teg.

“Elena probably took it,” said Jaren. “Now get on board or start walking home!”

A minute later, the
Shibboleth
burst from the
Exodus'
hangar.

“I think they see us,” said Teg, indicating the three dreadnaughts that continued to fire on the derelict ship.

Jaren's thoughts were elsewhere. He stared at the
Exodus'
titanic hull; the circles of fire that erupted across its surface evoked a sheet of black paper jabbed repeatedly with a cigarette.

Deim flew admirably. He evaded the incoming fire and put a short distance between the pirate ship and the dreadnaughts before inexplicably turning about and coming to a stop.

The sudden halt recalled Jaren from his grim reverie. He rounded on the steersman. “Why aren't we moving?” he asked with barely restrained fury.

Deim's face was vacant as he stared at the abandoned hulk of the
Exodus
. “I want to bear witness,” he said.

“The last thing you'll bear witness to is a muzzle flash unless you get us moving
now
!” Jaren said. “We'll use the same trick they did. Circle the moon, and come back around for a strafing run on Malachi's ship.”

No one responded to Jaren's words. They were too busy gaping at the bridge canopy. Noting the look of existential dread on Nakvin and Teg’s faces, Jaren turned and beheld a sight that he knew would haunt the rest of his days.

The dreadnaughts had concentrated their fire on the intersection of the
Exodus’
port wing and primary hull. Countless scintillating punctures dotted the area, which had begun to bulge oddly. The huge lump continued to grow as the Guild ships fired. When the strange convexity reached the size of a dreadnaught, its glossy black surface burst, shaking the surrounding ships.

What Jaren saw through the breach wasn’t the steel skeleton of an ether-runner, but a pale glistening surface like the belly of a whale. The slick rubbery substance bore striations that expanded and contracted as the whole mass shivered and heaved.

“They broke the shell,” Deim said with a note of finality. “Elathan’s awake.”

Acquainted as he was with Peregrine's habit of slipping the noose as it tightened, Malachi had left nothing to chance. He’d exhausted every favor acquired since his Journeyman days, but seeing the
Exodus
scuttled under the guns of his fleet was worth the price.

From his lofty station at the Wheel of the
Serapis
, Malachi watched the dreadnaughts’ continued bombardment of the hulking wreck. Their motive wasn’t tactical caution, but ritual desecration.

Malachi tensed in anticipation when he saw movement at the leading edge of the port wing. A small craft was exiting the black ship's hangar. He identified the vessel as a Mithgar Navy shuttle lacking weapons and ether-running drives. Peregrine wouldn’t be aboard. Better to have Mithgar Customs detain it rather than risk chasing a decoy.

Malachi waited patiently for the Gen to play his hand. Minutes passed, and he considered the possibility that his foe had succumbed to the dreadnaughts' barrage. But a moment later, the awaited sign arrived.

A sleek black ship streaked away from the foundering giant, its sinuous lines immediately familiar to the Steersman. He’d been wise to ignore the shuttle. Peregrine would never abandon his father's legacy.

“Two vessels are fleeing the enemy ship, sir,” said the first officer—a Magus newly transferred to the
Serapis
. “Shall I lower the field and shoot them down?”

Malachi felt a pang of annoyance that a subordinate—fellow guildsman though he was—would show such presumption, but he let it go. After all, they hadn’t worked together long.

“Negative,” Malachi said, though with some regret. If not for the Working suppression field, he could vaporize the pirate vessel at a whim. However, with the
Exodus
still mostly intact, the risk of lowering the field outweighed the satisfaction of killing the Gen himself. Fortunately, Malachi had prepared for such a dilemma. The planetary forces were regrouping from their feigned retreat to cast an inescapable net around the rebels.

Malachi watched in wary amusement as the
Shibboleth
came about and slowed to a halt. Did the strange maneuver signal an unknown threat? Perhaps, but he had come too far to start questioning himself.

The rest of the Guild fleet was closing in on its beaten foes when a large bulge appeared on the
Exodus'
upper left side. Forgetting the
Shibboleth
, Malachi stared at the distended hull.

“Perhaps we should retreat slightly, sir,” the first officer said. “That anomaly may contain a pocket of superheated gas.”

“Thank you, Magus,” said Malachi. “Our current distance is sufficient.”

The giant ulcer burst with a shockwave that jarred Malachi’s teeth. He saw the pallid fleshy substance revealed beneath the
Exodus’
hull and recoiled. The dreadnaughts suspended their attack. When they resumed, they brought all their might to bear against the hideous anomaly.

Just as the chrysalis foretold the moth that would emerge, the
Exodus
proved an apt shell for the aberration that it hatched. Malachi’s stomach turned when a massive appendage resembling both wing and fin unfolded from the ruptured cyst and obliterated the lead dreadnaught with a single, vindictive blow.

Jaren stood enrapt as the giant hatchling shook off its shell. The beast resembled the freakish offspring of a whale and a stingray, with pale wings and a blubbery body tapering to a rhombus-tipped tail. Even more obscene, a lone bulbous eye leered above its grinning maw. The loathsome horror swelled until it dwarfed its empty cocoon.

“So were we living inside that thing?” asked Teg.

No one answered. Probably, Jaren thought, because no one liked what the question implied. He certainly didn’t.

“It swatted that ship like a fly,” Nakvin said in awed tones when a dreadnaught exploded under the beast’s massive wing. Its two sister ships began a lumbering withdrawal.

Jaren’s tactical nature wrested control of his mind from the primordial fear that had gripped him. The beast had crushed a dreadnaught while leaving the larger and more dangerous man o’ war unmolested.

Because the
Serapis
didn’t fire on it.

A blasphemous plan entered Jaren’s mind. “Deim,” he said, “Move us behind the
Serapis
. Get a line-of-sight on Elathan that avoids the disruption field.”

The steersman only stared through the bridge canopy as if entranced.

“Deim!” Jaren snapped.

This time, Deim blinked and faced his captain. “Understood,” the steersman said.

“Why are we flying toward the god of shipwrecks?” Nakvin asked when the
Shibboleth
started accelerating.

“So he can hear my prayer,” said Jaren.

Deim brought the
Shibboleth
around in a smooth arc, weaving between potshots fired from the dreadnaughts in their slow retreat. Jaren held his breath until the steersman positioned the ship abaft of the
Serapis
. The lights stayed on, meaning they were clear of the field.

“Fire at will on Elathan,” Jaren said.

Malachi witnessed reason’s defeat through the Wheel. He saw the
Shibboleth
change course to circumvent the
Serapis
, but cause no longer had any relation to effect. The Guild Master watched impassively as a torpedo streaked from behind him and struck the beast’s back.

The monster turned. Malachi stared in disbelief as its serpentine tail swept the last two dreadnaughts from the stars. He judged that he and his crew got the worst of the bargain when the giant’s face filled the bridge canopy.

Malachi felt his sanity ebb under the glare of the monstrosity's single eye. The great slick ball wider than a Guild courier shone with a pale green glow. Its double-slitted pupil dilated and contracted in motions so alien that Malachi tasted bile rising in his throat. The cavernous maw gaped, revealing row upon row of hooked teeth like those of abyssal anglerfish.

Panic consumed the bridge. Someone was shouting; begging the captain to issue orders. To Malachi, the clamor seemed distant—a crisis befalling someone else.

It's will that drives the world.
Malachi found new meaning in those words, or perhaps he finally understood what Narr had meant. In either case, he felt no shame at having been used by a will that could bind such power.

“Full reverse!” Jaren said as Elathan charged the
Shibboleth
. As Jaren had hoped, the god turned his wrath on the much larger ship that stood between them. Elathan’s jaws closed upon the
Serapis
amidships; one giant fang shattering the bridge canopy. The angry god shook the man o’ war like a dog worrying a shoe and tossed it sidelong into Mithgar's gravity well with a violent motion of his stubby neck.

“Malachi was good,” Teg said with monotone sarcasm. “I hope we see him again.”

“Only if it’s in hell,” said Jaren.

His anger appeased, Elathan took flight toward a growing light in the starry sky which Jaren mistook for the rising sun until he noted its northerly position.

Deim brought the ship to a stop. “It's the gate,” he said, his voice reverent.

Teg sighed. “Another one?”

Deim's dark eyes, once filled with pious wonder, now burned with malice. “He's getting away!” he said with startling rage. The
Shibboleth
darted into the god’s wake.

“Deim, stop!” Nakvin said. Her younger colleague ignored her plea.

Jaren watched the chaos over Mithgar. The navy and Guild fleets had merged into a confused swarm. Fleeing ships on both sides pelted each other with friendly fire or collided. A few vessels belonging to the rebel faction changed course in a desperate attempt to escape through the coruscating portal.

One of the latter ships caught Jaren’s attention. The craft was so small that human eyes would have missed it, but Jaren thought he recognized the shuttle that Teg had reported missing from the
Exodus'
hangar.

“Stay on that shuttle, Deim,” Jaren said.