Wrath of Angels, page 15
part #4 of Sins of Angels Series
“We’re ready to fire,” Ezra said.
“Then do it.”
The ship jerked violently as the cannon discharged. It fired a stream that looked like an ion beam, instantly impacting the station. A cascade of antimatter explosions engulfed the outpost. And then, just as the power was completely draining from the pirate ship, the station imploded. The singularity core almost immediately began to merge with the greater black hole.
An almost imperceptible shockwave escaped the implosion, rippling through space, washing outward in a blast that made Caleb’s ears pop.
“Get us the void out of here,” he said.
“We’ve got minimal power,” Ezra said. But at least the pilot limped the ship away.
Something shrieked in Caleb’s mind, and he stumbled to the deck. Several other crewmen grunted, and the psych pilot, Laylie, sobbed.
Was that the death rattle of the station? Caleb pulled himself back over to the window.
The accretion disk looked like it was spinning faster. As if something had awakened it.
And Caleb couldn’t blink, couldn’t turn away from the maw of the beast. It was like an eye, watching him, looking right through to his soul, petty shriveled thing that it was.
And judging his sins.
39
“The angels are calling it the Empire of Returned Glory. But there is no glory. There is only apocalypse. I suppose that’s what Raziel sees. The things he spent six hundred years building are ablaze. And, at this rate, humanity will be back where it was three thousand years ago. Reeling from a brush with extinction.”
Dr. Rachel Jordan, personal message to Degana O’Malley
JANUARY 24, 3096 EY — MILKY WAY GALAXY
David dared not arrange more than a handful of Sentinel ships together. After the disaster in Andromeda III, he couldn’t risk someone informing the angels. Instead, he’d called only four captains together, into his war room on the Wheel of Law. Those in charge of four battleships—a commodity Sentinels were beginning to run low on.
Waller came—to David’s chagrin. Hertz was here, too, and having a heated debate with Captain Tong.
“Nice to see you survived a battle that killed thousands of our people,” John Tong said. “It’s not like it’s a Sentinel’s duty to defend his brethren at any cost.”
“Enough,” David said. “There was nothing Hannah could have done, and neither could you. The Ark let her escape so she could warn us—frighten us. Don’t let it work.”
“Too late,” Tong said. “Have you seen the men? Everyone is frightened.”
Aye, and so was David, but no one needed to hear that. What they needed was a new strategy. Something bold and unexpected. Something to turn the tide and sentiment.
“Look, now we’ve got QI on our side. And Raziel assures me they’re working on prototype weapons—state of the art—”
“Right,” Waller said. “So now we’re fighting the angels, and you’re working with one of them. And apparently you’ve had him for some time. Why does it not surprise me you’ve been holding out, MacGregor?”
David glowered. There had been no keeping that quiet, so he hadn’t tried. The moment an angel roamed free on the Wheel of Law, he knew his crew would spread the word to their friends and lovers on other ships. Forbidding it would have only weakened his authority by giving people cause to violate his orders.
“Raziel is here to help us against his own kind. He’s lived among humans since the Days of Glory. We have no choice but to trust him, and I could not afford to reveal such an edge until the time was right.”
“You mean until desperation forced your hand,” Waller said.
Aye. That was pretty much the truth of it.
The door opened, and Phoebe entered the room, her face a mask of uncertainty. “Sir, the Tabernacle has reappeared. The Shekhinah is making a broadcast.”
David balked. In six hundred years, the Shekhinah had never directly addressed the public. It had acted through the imperators, giving a human face to its rule. The imperators were all dead now, but if the Shekhinah had survived, David would have expected it to appoint new ones or arrange an election.
“Mazzaroth on,” he said. “Display Tabernacle broadcast.”
A digitally created woman’s face filled the screen. It was silver, clearly intended to mimic human features, while giving no illusion the speaker itself was human.
“This is the Shekhinah, final authority of the Mizraim Empire. All Sentinels are hereby ordered to submit to angel authority. All Sentinel ships are to return to the Tabernacle to await further orders. The angels, rightful lords of humanity, have returned. All action against their will is to cease immediately. I repeat—stand down and return to the Tabernacle. Coordinates will follow.”
The transmission cut off.
David stared at the screen, at a loss. The computer must have heard about the massacre at Andromeda III. It had decided its authority was lost in any event, and the best chance for its survival was to submit to its former masters. The cold logic of a machine, albeit one with sentience and emotion. And fear? Might it fear for itself? Or did it truly believe this was the best choice for its people? After all, the computer’s mandate was to bring order to humanity.
“I guess that’s that,” Tong said.
“I … I don’t know what choice we have now,” Hertz said.
David shook his head. “Of course we have a choice. The Shekhinah may have been the authority of the Sentinels in the past, but things have changed.”
Waller shoved him, and David stumbled back. “Listen to this treason! How many ways are you going to break your oath, MacGregor? You should have been spaced already, and now you want to act against the Tabernacle?”
David rose to his full height, and though he was a tall man, Waller still dwarfed him. But he looked his former captain in the eyes. “It’s not treason, Captain. It’s revolution. The Shekhinah has been forced to capitulate. It feels a return to servitude is better than risking the further wrath of the angels. I do not. I am not willing to surrender all we’ve made for ourselves to accept them as our masters once again.”
Rachel had shown him the error in that way of thinking. The angels were arrogant, violent. They refused to see humanity had grown in their absence. And if mankind simply submitted, they would never stand on their own. The angels would ensure an eternity of servitude. Even Raziel felt they had gone too far—and that was all the proof David needed Rachel was right.
Maybe it was time to fetch Raziel to end this argument personally. If they wouldn’t listen to David or the angel, there was no salvaging the alliance.
Waller pointed a finger at his chest. “You will get what’s coming to you, MacGregor. And I, for one, am leading my ship back to the Tabernacle. I truly hope they send me to bring you in for trial.” The anak stormed out of the war room.
For a split-second David considered having his Sentinels restrain the man. But that would violate the spirit of these talks and only lead to a shooting battle with the Logos. The Wheel of Law could never win such a fight, given the damage the angels and the Conduit had inflicted.
“Waller’s right,” Tong said. “It’s over. Sorry, David.” The other captain departed as well.
David frowned and shook his head, then looked to Hertz. “Hannah, please.”
“David … I saw the Ark destroy a thousand Sentinel ships. I witnessed the biggest disaster in Sentinel history.”
David wanted to dispute that. She hadn’t been there for New Rome, to watch the Sanhedrin and their homeworld annihilated.
He could understand her fear, however. Hannah had as much reason as anyone to want to submit. She had witnessed the undeniable power of the angels. She had felt their total lack of remorse. He couldn’t blame her.
But he needed her. He needed every ally he could gather. “If you give in now, what do those deaths mean? Is it enough that those hundreds of thousands of men and women died to prove the angels’ point? Is that the message?”
“So you would have us fight to the last, whittled away to our own extinction? You would have us all die in futile defiance?”
David thumped his chest. “What does this uniform mean, Hannah? We protect mankind from any threat. We walk in the dark of space to guard against foes within and without. We do not bend. We do not break. We are the first and last line of defense against the night.”
Hannah sighed. “All right, David. But you know it may mean fighting some of our own people, now.”
He knew it. He would need to act fast, to sway as many Sentinels to his cause as he could. If they submitted, it would be too late.
Mankind was fast running out of chances for freedom.
40
“Urkish, located in the Andromeda I Satellite galaxy, is sometimes erroneously categorized as an ice planet. In actuality, temperatures often remain just above freezing. Nevertheless, the planet does house a significant population of horim. While the planet has only minor economic or strategic value, it does hold some claim to fame in the form of underwater crystal mountains, visible through perfectly clear oceans. These mountains were the subject of extensive studies from 3012 through 3015 EY.”
Mizraim Imperial Encyclopedia
JANUARY 27, 3096 EY — URKISH, ANDROMEDA I
The planet Urkish lay in the Andromeda I galaxy, well within Mizraim’s domain. Or at least what was once Mizraim’s domain. All prior borders and affiliations had become meaningless in the face of the angels’ merciless genocide. Rachel had never visited the planet before, though she’d certainly heard enough about it.
Despite the chill wind—just above freezing—the waters were so clear one could see straight through to the bottom. The city lay on the shore, but a network of translucent piers stretched out over the ocean, creating a stunning boardwalk. The ground gave way not far offshore, dropping off a continental shelf. From the deeper waters below jutted up mountains of white crystal, shimmering and opalescent.
A plethora of rainbow-colored fish swam among those alabaster mountains, creating a surreal paradise that had long been a tourist destination throughout Mizraim.
Father had planned to bring them here, once. Before the Balthazar incident. Before he changed.
Now, Rachel walked along the piers, wistful, and unable to quite push away the feeling that she should have had this as a child. That, had Father never joined the Redeemers, so many things would have been different. Maybe she would never have begun her crusade.
But such musings were pointless. Rachel had started this, and people were dying. This planet was just one out of millions facing imminent threat from numerous sides. She blew out a long breath.
This was why they were here, after all. They had flown from system to system, visiting planets like this. Those who were undecided on whether to follow the Shekhinah’s orders and submit to the angels. Those whom Redeemers would have called khapiru.
On the shore, David stood among a crowd, trying to calm them. Trying to placate a mob with reason and logistics. Ever the soldier, David. Rachel clucked her tongue. These people didn’t want logistics.
They were scared out of their fucking minds.
Their fear resonated along the pier, over the waters, and perhaps, infected the entire planet.
But Rachel wasn’t about to let it infect her.
Her mind was her mind.
Instead, she strode to David’s side, put a hand on his shoulder, and then raised her other. She was nowhere near a strong enough empath to project her emotions over such a large crowd—there had to be a thousand people gathered on the shore. On the other hand, a display might work. She just had to get their attention, break through the fear, and replace it with something else.
With hope.
And to that, she’d had Phoebe upgrade her suit. “GD on,” she said under her breath. The gravity dilator would allow her to scale buildings with almost the same ease as Knight. Rachel picked the tallest building she could see—four stories—and ran for it. She kicked onto the wall, and her suit immediately dilated gravity around her, helping her bound upward. Her boots stuck to the wall and allowed her to finish the ascent before resuming normal gravity.
She turned.
Some of the crowd had watched her little stunt, true, but most remained focused on David.
That was okay for now.
She was about to be a bit bigger than the captain. She set the holo display and then flipped it on. A twenty-foot-tall hologram of herself projected across the sky.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rachel said. “May I have your attention please.”
Yeah. Now all eyes were on her.
“My name is Rachel Jordan. I’m one of you. I was born on New Rome. I grew up a citizen of Mizraim. I come from where you come from. I know what you’re feeling. These past weeks are like nothing we have ever faced before.”
Rachel paused for emphasis, barely resisting the urge to pace as she did while lecturing. “Nothing we have faced. But our ancestors did. In Eden. They faced an apocalypse, caught between warring factions of angels. Now I know what you think—that the angels saved us from the Adversary. You think that because your parents told you so, it was true. And you trust your parents. And they trusted their parents. And so on and so on … back right until you get to the angels.
“We trust the angels because, in the end, the angels told us we should trust them. They wrote our history for us, told us what to believe, and punished us if we refused. Like we were children. And now, when they find us unwilling to bend our knees once again, they again punish us. But we were not children then, and we sure as void are not children now!”
The murmurs in the crowd had begun to agree with her.
“I have been to Eden! I have seen the records. I have felt the pain of the eight billion who died there. Murdered by angels. One side of angels fighting another for the control of human destiny. So then, how do we know which side to choose?”
She spread her hands, as if awaiting an actual answer.
People shouted answers at her, in fact, though she couldn’t hear them.
“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. It doesn’t fucking matter. Choose whoever you’d rather be enslaved to.”
The collective gasp did reach her.
“That is, unless you want to be free? Free from the threat of punishment by aliens calling themselves our parents. Free to determine our own destiny. Well, if that’s what you want … if that’s what you want, then all you have to do is find a side not willing to bow to the angels.” Rachel pointed down at David. “And it’s easy. Because there’s such a side right here, on this planet. And all you have to do—”
Her psionic senses flared an instant before camouflage melted away from a lizard-like gog standing a few meters away from her. The creature moved with uncanny speed, closing the distance.
It wrapped a scaly hand around Rachel’s neck and hefted her off her feet.
41
“Whatever they may have once been, the angels have made themselves our enemies. They will not compromise. They will not even consider us equals. They know only domination. And to that, we can have only two responses. Submit or fight. I am tired of submission.”
Dr. Rachel Jordan, speech on Urkish
URKISH, ANDROMEDA I
“Rachel!” Knight raced for the building where the creature was throttling her.
He and Phoebe had been walking along the piers, reveling at the strange beauty of this world. Wasting time when his people were in danger.
He pushed his muscles as hard as he could, but the winding, slick docks prevented him from reaching his top speed. Too many turns. Too much water lapping the plasteel ground.
Rachel was turning pale.
A graviton pulse impacted the gog.
The creature flew backward. It dropped Rachel.
No!
He’d never get to her in time. He’d never—
A pair of nearly invisible gog bounded out from behind a building as Knight reached the shore. They had chameleon-like bodies, with short tails and extended snouts.
Hard to believe this species had ever been human.
The nearest launched itself at him. Knight ducked under the flying lizard thing and came up swinging. His fist impacted the jaw of another.
A third leapt off the building and a fourth.
They were fast. Preternaturally fast, with reflexes almost as good as Knight’s own. He ducked and twisted and dodged. Knight leapt over a sweep kick and bent backward to avoid the snap of a tail.
Damn it.
He didn’t have time for this shit.
He jumped to the wall, kicked off it, and flipped around, drawing his pulse pistol.
Another gog impacted midair and knocked the gun from his hand. The weapon hit the ground and spun off into the ocean. Knight collided with the ground, kicked up, then stumbled as another gog latched onto his back.
The creature bit down on his shoulder, but its teeth didn’t quite pierce the nanomesh of Knight’s suit. The gog’s weight threw Knight off balance, though, driving him forward.
Knight jerked an elbow back into the creature’s ribs.
He twisted under the arm of another and slapped both hands on the monster’s temples. That gog dropped like a stone.
The one behind him wrapped an arm around Knight’s throat. It was stronger than he’d expected, actually pulling him off his feet. Everything immediately blurred around the edges of Knight’s vision.
A graviton pulse whizzed by centimeters from his head. And then the gog’s grip went slack. Knight slipped down to the ground, gasped for air, and rose almost in one motion. He caught the wrist of another attacking creature and twisted, flipping the gog around. Knight flung the creature into a building.
Then he charged forward, caught it, and smashed its head in.
Another graviton pulse fired, and blood spattered the white streets.
