Chapter Two

  Shredding winds of shrapnel maimed the shell-shocked hordes. Sheltering behind their thrones, the Lord’s were spared the blast’s fury. Talas rose, unafraid. Hull fragments passed through his ethereal form in ghostly puffs of emerald smoke. With one hand on Atlazar and the other at arm's length, he summoned an invisible wall to protect his kin, absorbing the metallic hail like pebbles swallowed by water. The grand hall devolved into a chaotic maelstrom of flame, debris, and human detritus; hundreds of souls promptly annihilated.

  The auxiliary power kicked in moments after the initial explosion. Extractor fans siphoned the toxic smog from the hall, balancing the atmospherics to restore a breathable environment. Talas peered into the immense sinkhole the hull had become. Incinerated in the blast were nineteen of the Siren's thirty levels, staring deep within the vessel's bowels, the excavation was alive with coruscation, major power lines flailing from their shattered housings.

  "Uninvited guests. You assured me all precaution had been taken, Maldreska," said Talas. Maldreska heaved the rubble from her throne, immediately analyzing her Tasipur ensemble for imperfection.

  "Yes, my King." She coughed the words, her lungs stained with soot. "I assure you that we took every precaution." A stampede of footsteps and whump of plasma fire echoed from the ship's damaged innards.

  "Snapdragon," Maldreska hissed, the culprits unmasked by the signature of the archaic rifles.

  "Deal with them, you fools!" She screamed at the disheveled mound of half-living pirates littering the ground. At her command, the survivors in fighting shape surged to their feet, collected their weapons, and dove into the maw of destruction. On jets of pressurized air, they sailed down the aperture, unleashing a torrent of hellfire into the insurgency below.

  "I want Tanda alive. I will extract his secrets, and we will find where the rats have been hiding," Talas said. The Lords saluted and followed their crews into the roaring hollow to the thunderous battle below.

  "It seems fate is on your side, Ravias." Talas pulled Malig from the rubble. Gliding his hands over the protruding bones and torn flesh, he reversed the blast's damage and gave his Lord a second chance at life.

  "Do not take this gift as forgiveness. Return to me in failure again, and I will kill you myself. Now go; you have vermin to catch." Malig bowed before his King. Knowing better than to utter a single word, he leaped to the lower levels, his mind clouded with dreams of redemption.

  Planet Golgotha

  A fierce static bubbled on the planet's surface, a portent of the apocalyptic sandstorm brewing beyond the horizon. The blackened sheet of succulents crackled hungrily, awaiting the next lighting feast proffered by the inbound chaos.

  Plowing through the unwelcoming climate, a scout ship weaved between the jagged claws of earth that speared the heavens. With visibility at almost zero, the auto-pilot had to be trusted to avoid the constant threat of explosive collisions. Through the blemished sky, the pilot clocked the solitary landmark of the blasted landscape — the obsidian tower. Taking the controls to manual, he fought against the elements, slamming down the deceleration breakers and righting his vessel's angle of descent. With a splintering crack, the lance-like ship collided with the broken earth, skidding over the sandy pebbled surface for the better part of a kilometer before grinding to a halt.

  "Well, that was shit." said a bullish bearded man, breaking free from the collision-foam that had cushioned his landing.

  "On the way up, I'm driving." Added his unnaturally tall and gaunt accomplice.

  In total, four men occupied the slender vessel, each heavily tattooed with pirate allegiance and clad in the achromatic fashions and questionable jewelry typical of narcotic peddlers or weapon smugglers.

  "We're all alive. And we made it in time for the switch. So if the next thing out of your mouth isn't a 'thank you kindly,' then keep it shut." The balding pilot replied, undoing his straps and exiting the vessel to the raging gales outside.

  Immediately, the meager offering of oxygen and stinging atmosphere stabbed at their lungs. Breathing became a trial in itself, the unforgiving climate offering respite to no one. Not wanting to spend more time in the punishing winds than was necessary, the men unloaded their gear and supplies and headed for the entrance of the foreboding tower. Flashes of violet lightning illuminated the many-faceted surface of the obsidian creation. As it did once each cycle, it had risen to rotate the squad of wardens who had been selected personally by Talas. Whether through exceptional contribution or widespread renown, these individuals had won favor with the Pirate King and been awarded the privilege of guarding his most precious assets.

  As they approached the tower, they noticed that only three men awaited their arrival.

  "Where's ya fourth?" The large bearded pirate bounded up to the previous wardens, leaving a cautious gap of a dozen paces.

  "Took the rope out around five months in. Couldn't handle the heat." The center-most figure replied, a sullen, gold-studded grin all that was visible under the shadow of his cowl. All three wore matching hooded cloaks patterned with the circuitry-laced fabric standard for stealth-tech apparel.

  "Where's the gear?" The pilot questioned, suspicious the wardens had emerged from their stint with nothing but the clothes upon their backs.

  "You ask an awful lot of questions for a dead man." Replied the hooded leader, lifting back his cowl and unveiling his face.

  "You!" yelled the spindly cohort. Each of the new arrivals went for their weapons, but, as informed, they were dead before their fingers could graze the trigger.

  From a mist of crackling static emerged a Goliath. Wielding an energy blade in each of its giant hands, one of oily, shimmering skin and the other a rarefied prosthetic of metallic midnight. A punctured chest felled the first two victims with astonishing swiftness, the third losing his head in a sweeping decapitation. The final man, portly and crippled by drink, made a poor attempt at escape but was picked off by a rifle bullet that severed his spine before he could reenter his ship.

  "I heard that the Accran were savage, but that display was a little much, even for me," said the gold-toothed man as he sheathed his still-smoking weapon. To his right stood a squat alien around three feet in height. He unfurled his hood to reveal large, saucer-shaped eyes, pure white and reflecting the assassination's aftermath like scrying pools.

  "One each, you said." Said the stumpy alien, his vocal gills vibrating the complaint in a grumpy purr.

  "Enough with the belly-aching Nuqxug. After we pull this off, every pirate in the galaxy will be after us, and I give you permission to kill your fill," replied the leader as he approached the still-warm corpses. Inputting a set of commands into his wrist-mounted scanner, he pulled the genetic code from each man, sending the DNA sequence into the circuitry of his cloak.

  "We won't get far without this." He said, distributing the information to his crew and veiling them in the guise of another as they entered the concentric gates of the glistening tower.

  Deactivating his energy blades, the Accran followed his three accomplices, the silvery scar tissue that dominated his face and arms glistening in the blooms of lighting.

  The giant marble statues of the founding Admirals occupied their salute position, the elevator raised to its highest point. Decorating the feet of the immense sculptures were the four bodies of the previous wardens, silenced earlier that day. After finishing the grueling cycle in the depths of the monstrous prison planet, they had emerged not to the relief they were expecting, but to their doom. Hidden with stealth-tech cloaks, the intruders ambushed the unaware pirates, taking their place and awaiting the arrival of the replacements. The simultaneous occurrence of the great pirate gathering and the rising of the tower had been a fortuitous opportunity indeed. For the past seven cycles, the Accran waited patiently for his moment to strike, but never once had the stars aligned so perfectly. Although it had cost him everything, acquiring a temporary crew was the best he could have hoped for. Though they had their own motivations for delving into the volcanic depths, payment for the service remained steep, and the Accran could only hope it would be worth the sacrifice.

  "Shall we?" The golden-toothed man invited his comrades to take their place on the platform. Activating the descent protocol, they were scanned by the defense grid. An installation ordered by Talas to avoid infiltration, he had not counted on the well-informed and financially capable bounty hunters of the Cornucopia to be the ones that would come knocking. Sheathed in the circuitry-dense fabric of the stealth-tech cloaks, the hunters remained motionless as inquisitive beams of light probed their bodies for traces of deceit. After several nerve-wracking moments, the beams ceased their investigation, and the platform jerked into motion, plunging into the scorching depths.

  It was a strange gathering of individuals. Aliens to each other, a more bizarre collection of hunters there had likely never been. The aforementioned golden-toothed man was human. He was average height with a slender, athletic physique, his long black hair strangled in two thick braids that began at his hairline and ran the length of his spine. The prominent jaw and youthful skin accompanying his fox-like, narrow eyes gave him the desirable profile. After years of refusal from other hunters of renown, the Accran had found the only man who didn't dismiss his desires as suicide outright. His name was Sheng-Vei, known throughout Valaterra as the Hunter King. With the arrival of Talas, the regal title was reserved for one man and one man only, forcing Sheng into the Seethe with all those who would not kneel, refusing to join the ever-expanding ranks of the pirate armada. The chance to strike a blow at Talas was one he could not refuse.

  To Sheng's flank stood his most trusted and valuable associates. Nuqxug, the squat creature to his left, was as unassuming in purpose as it was possible to be. His race was known as the Ngangrul. When the humans first discovered the poisonous atmosphere of their swamp-drowned world, it was immediately designated Ngangrulus by the Navy captain in charge. He later commented that such a hideous planet needed an equally hideous name. Their haunting eyes, slitted mouths and ears, and pungent odor did little to assuage the title once they joined the alliance of galactic races. The Accran had assumed his stature was useful for going undetected or excavating areas unaccessible to beings of regular size. Despite this presupposition, he was yet to witness the creature do anything but complain and gurgle foul curses from behind the breathing mask that covered the many unpleasant orifices of its face.

  Though the Ngangrul may have been displeasing to the eye, at least its features could be easily described. That was more than could be said for the other member of Sheng-Vei's crew. Saith was a gaseous being born of the gas giants in the galaxy's outer rim. Contained within a humanoid suit, its form was in constant motion beneath the glassy exterior of its dwelling. It was a member of the Mnar race, named after their host planet. Initially nothing more than an atmospheric sample collected on a routine expedition, the crew were shocked to find the dense cloud conversing with them through their ship's communication relay. After possession of the many service automata grew troublesome for the Navy, the Mnar were offered permanent homes in pressurized suits used for vacuum tasks, which they humbly accepted. With no information of what abilities or inherent skills the strange beings harbored within their ethereal body, the Accran would trust the Captain had assembled the correct crew for the job.

  Settling with a crunch of scorched earth, the elevator came to a standstill.

  "This is… unpleasant," announced Sheng-Vei. Discarding his cloak, he stepped from the platform, examining the cyclopean stairway they were tasked with descending. The Accran pushed past the Hunter King, making light work of the giant stone slabs, eager to reach the base. The transparent casing that housed the liquid of his respiratory apparatus perspired in the humidity. He feared his only means of breathing would boil away before completing his task. The Ngangrul had no such issue. The breathing pack strapped to his chest brimmed with the toxic sludge of his home planet, itself being intolerably warm. The four of them tackled the descent with as much grace as could be expected, slipping over the smooth surface of the obsidian and sustaining various injuries from the shards of blood crystal that protruded from every surface.

  Bathed in the ominous red glow, they reached the deepest pit of Golgotha and were presented with the triad of doors.

  "I always imagined they would be… bigger." Commented Sheng, not impressed with the portals through which lay the most dangerous beings in the galaxy. Saith responded with a series of coos and whistles from the vocalizer unit in its throat that only the Captain seemed to understand.

  "Yes, I know it's a prison, but they could have put some effort in," he retorted.

  The Accran raised its prosthetic arm, pointing at the central door, which seemed to be a more recent construction than the others. Although he had never previously set foot on the planet, the information he had extracted from his years of scouring the galaxy had persuaded the Accran what he sought dwelt here.

  "Yes, Yes. I am a man of my word. What you desire shall be yours. Nuqxug, if you please." Sheng-Vei bowed before the Ngangrul as he waddled toward the reinforced frame. The alien placed its hands against the metal and secreted a gelatinous substance from its palms, burning through the barricade with surprising swiftness.

  "And now, we wait," said Sheng-Vei, pulling out a stack of cards and dealing them between himself and Saith. The Accran was mesmerized by the gradually eroding portal. When the door finally opened, he knew what dwelt within its confines would change the galaxy. Today, his debt would be repaid.