CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Serrated talons clasped the delicate skin of her neck. Though El knew better than to struggle, the discomfort forced her limbs to twitch defiantly. The masked children gathered in a crescent around their leader, pleading with her for the privilege of the kill.

  "Allow me, Lord Neraka." A young girl chirped, struggling with the weight of the oxygen tank.

  "She's already had two this week. It's my turn." Said an impish young man as he prodded at El's dangling legs.

  They tussled with one another, vying for their Lord's attention. Beyond any sane impulse, a blood-lust bit at their heels like a rabid hound. Their young flesh itched with murderous desire, only to be satiated with the extinguishing of life.

  "Enough," Neraka whispered, her voice barely audible. Her subordinates reacted like they had heard a ferocious scream. They fell to their knees, arms crossed over their skeletal chests in submission. Her authority was absolute.

  "You break for me, and you keep breathing," Neraka said, gently letting El down. A maddening complexity of defensive systems bestowed Terabus the title of the unbreakable fortress. An Armillary cipher, similar to the one she had just broken, would be installed at each threshold of significant importance. El's technological prowess was the single tether to which her life clung.

  Neraka sauntered off, diligently followed by her loyal minions, who quickly returned to the shadows. Smoke rose from the contracting pistons of their stealth apparatus. The metallic disks that ran the length of their spines disappeared into an electrical mist. All that remained were the sounds of ghostly footsteps and ghoulish laughter, fading off into the distance of the verdant corridor.

  El grabbed her suit from the barrel, redeploying the protective film as she stumbled after her new employer.

  Grinding echoed through the halls as the surrounding vaults shifted from place to place. No one object remained stationary for long, preventing any fore-drawn scheme from being successfully carried out. Neraka had managed to circumvent this inconvenience, intent upon extracting the information from whoever was unfortunate enough to be in charge. Now, with her newfound code-breaker, the complexity of her task significantly decreased.

  The labyrinthine nature of Fort Terabus was the lead architect's most prestigious achievement. He had designed the structure in a manner that even the employees would be unaware as to the location of a given object at any particular time. Only through the highest clearance could a particular room be located, that of a Captain or Admiral; the men and women that staffed the facility acted more as caretakers than defenders. This excess in security was of the utmost importance. Many of the treasures stored in the vaults were enough to tempt even the most loyal to stray in the pursuit of power and wealth.

  Silence fell in the moss-addled hallway as the vaults came to a temporary standstill. Neraka stopped. Bulkhead doors slammed shut mere inches from her face. Unfazed by the development, she turned to El and pointed at the obstacle. As if dragged by the collar, El pulsed forward. She unlocked the outer hatches and revealed a set of twin Armillary ciphers. The complexity of the break startled her, its complexity unfathomable. Her conclusion of impossible would have to be set aside as Neraka's expectant glare burned into her neck. The simultaneous break of two spheres was unheard of, but what did she expect? Her naive notion of walking in and out with her prize was becoming more embarrassing by the second. The creaking of the irrigation pipes pulled their attention as the walls began to weep. A thick caustic fluid poured from grilled vents, oozing toward them, its marbled surface speckled with spores, assimilating all in its wake.

  "Guile-tar," sneered Neraka, her expression unaltered even as the liquid pooled around them. Their meddling had triggered Terabus' core defense, and before long, they would all be consumed by the unyielding tide.

  El's hands sprung onto the spheres. Her mind fragmented into two separate realms, each processing a separate string of equations, coordinating the precise movement pattern of her fingers. Neraka's crew reappeared and crawled skittishly up the walls, hanging from the ceiling bars to avoid the gluttonous tide attempting to ingest them. It stank of burning rubber, and the pungent aroma of the pervasive moss only worsened the situation. El's feet rose from the ground, hoisted up by the shoulder straps of her suit. Three children dangled from the ceiling above, lifting her from danger. She somehow managed to retain her focus, both spheres reduced to a single glowing ring. The stinging heat rising beneath them intruded on her focus as dainty fingers tugged with all their strength to keep her from falling. Despite their efforts, El could feel their fatigue setting in. They may have been soldiers, but their meager strength neared its limit.

  With a pleasing chime of success, the doors swung open like a burst dam, dispelling the Guile-tar into the adjacent corridor. The defense protocol subsided, and the excess liquid poured into the drainage vents along either side of the corridor. El looked up from the dim spheres only to see the assemblage of yet another impassible barrier.

  A platoon of rifle-wielding Naval officers filled the hallway, six rows of four men stretching into the distance. Dropped by her juvenile saviors, El landed in a less-than-graceful fashion. Neraka stepped down from her perch, followed by her soldiers, who swiftly formed a human shield around her, presenting fierce snarls toward the officers.

  Trapped as the soldiers closed in, El knew the meeting would likely conclude her involuntary excursion. Surrendering to her situation, her mind strayed from the danger, death, and helplessness that surrounded her. Instead, her thoughts wandered to the faces of her crew. Whenever she had stared into the eyes of hopelessness, they were with her. Even though she now stood alone, the Horizon crew's uncanny ability to avoid even the most certain of things had given her something she would never lose — belief in possibility.

  ---------

  Soran's breaths grew heavier, his eyes struggling under exhaustion. The interior lights of Teege's ship reduced to a soothing sliver and then, without warning, raised to a blinding radiance. Kaligan had been experimenting with nonphysical means of punishment, passing his time with cruelty as they sailed through the cosmos to their next undisclosed location. He was currently enjoying increasing the volume of the speaker to deafening levels, humming triumphantly along with the seasoned melody and taking great pleasure in the weary expressions of his disheveled prisoners.

  Soran examined the crushed fingers of his right hand. Each had a unique break and splayed from his knuckles like twisted branches from an ancient trunk. Their desperation had instigated foolishness. This wasn't some pirate grunt or fresh-faced ensign; Kaligan was a Pirate Lord.

  Ranna lay frozen on a mountain of guilt, head in his hands. His expression lay vacant, only visible in bruised slivers through the cracks in his figures. He had retreated again to a place they couldn't follow, a quagmire of loathing where only he wandered.

  As Soran studied the blank gaze of his Captain, he thought back to his first night on the Horizon. On waking up to the muffled sobs and muted wails that crept from Ranna's lonely bunk and first learning of the Negessen Visor and its ability to muzzle the nightmarish apparitions that clawed their way from the past, offering the wearer a brief suspension to his torment.

  Had it been days? No. More than a week had to have passed since losing the Horizon and leaving behind the only reprieve Ranna had in his life. Now, burdened with whatever cruel memory chose to haunt him, each fresh hell was unimpeded in its assault. Watching a man repeatedly broken by his history was terrifying, and Soran knew that if he continued down this path, he might be looking in a mirror.

  Navigation systems fired off a notification tone.

  "Ten minutes to arrival," The AI informed Kaligan. He sat up straight in his chair, attempting to get a better view of their destination.

  "Finally, our time is upon us. I hope you gentlemen are prepared for the single most meaningful and critically important moment of your lives. The Hive welcomes you." He motioned over to the Holo-screens on either side of the room. Both displayed the dwindling remains of what was once a great moon. Large chunks of valuable sediment were absent, mined away over hundreds of years by a mixture of the galaxy's most cruel and unfortunate convicts.

  They were not alone. Another vessel had already arrived and was laying waste to the facility's orbital security towers.

  "Our Lady Maldreska seems to have proceeded without us." Kaligan's eyes beamed with delight as he spoke. The destruction was almost too sweet, whisking him into frenzied elation. He pulled himself back, a deep breath refocusing him on his target.

  The Hive had only a single entry point: a cylindrical gate in constant orbit, a revolving eye that gazed in on the tortured souls it harbored. Not only was this the sole entrance to the moon's surface, but the resonance field it produced created an invisible barrier that encircled the Hive in its entirety. It functioned as a near-impenetrable defense from would-be attackers, doubling as an artificial atmosphere for the inmates.

  As the last of the towers fell to the might of Maldreska's Dreadnought, the gate commenced its opening procedure. Thousands of individual machine parts operated in unison to peel back the lattice of paneling that covered the entryway. The immense construction yawned, its metallic teeth spiraling inward to reveal the portal that the pirates so deeply desired. Kaligan's spree of joyous exclamation ended abruptly. Although he was now free to enter, the gate had revealed something hidden. Horns of pure shadow tore free from the shimmering threshold of the gate, pulling behind them a gargantuan mass of military excellence. She shallowed light, stars cowering in her presence. Even the unending revolution of the cosmos seemed to slow in reverence for the fearsome apparition. It was a ship that was to Kaligan death incarnate: the Citadel class vessel, Dios Toro.