Chapter Five

  Luminous blades streamed through the plentiful fronds overhead, illuminating expressions of shock. Sheng-Vei had cultivated a web of suspicion since being informed of the pirate's grand plan. It all seemed too convenient. Just wait for them to leave, and the galaxy will be free; no more pirate armada or Naval army from which to hide, no rules and regulations to follow, absolute freedom. Despite possessing all the hallmarks of a fanciful yarn, a lack of alternative narrative eased its acceptance amongst the galaxy's populace. The theory proposed by Naiiobe Zaiede had Sheng-Vei wishing it were true, wishing he had never landed upon Golgotha and unveiled the uncomfortable truth.

  "Why would we trust you? You are a pirate and a traitor. Your word is mud." Sheng-Vei spat at her feet, unable to control his disdain for her revelation. Naiiobe smiled, understating the hunter's skepticism.

  "If I'm going to answer any more questions, it will be far away from this place." Naiiobe held her chains before her, reveling in the power her information bestowed.

  "Fine. We have lingered long enough." Sheng-Vei replied begrudgingly. He summoned Nuqxug to take care of Naiiobe's restraints and retreated to the stairwell. His head swam with Naiiobe's words, visions of galactic annihilation plaguing his mind's eye. Everything he had ever known, everything that ever was, was coming to a catastrophic halt. And, for the first time in his life, he was powerless to affect the outcome.

  Before making their departure, Sheng-Vei examined the final gate. He peered through the viewing portal into the murky sludge that filled the chamber.

  "Don't think about it," said Naiiobe, placing herself between the hunters and the chamber.

  "Some things are better left alone. And what sleeps here, was better never existing at all." She looked at the ground as she spoke, ashamed of the fear that smothered her words and of a history she longed to forget.

  Sheng-Vei peered around her shoulder, a glint of mischief in his eye.

  "I'm not sure. Sun eater is not a title appointed lightly. After all this time, maybe we could convince it to join us."

  A barb of pain pierced the side of Sheng-Vei's face, an open palm connecting with his cheek. His mouth widened in outrage. It had been many cycles since someone had laid a hand upon him in anger, and a freed prisoner was at the bottom of the long list of people who deserved the right.

  "Fool-boy," Naiiobe spat, her calm demeanor shattered instantly.

  "What dwells within cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be talked around like an unruly child. Zonnetan is destruction, a being forged of ruin and madness. Massaron made many mistakes in his life, but this was his most egregious." Her words curdled with pain, and Sheng and his crew shuddered with terror at the impetuous sin they would have otherwise committed.

  "We leave this place. The next time the tower descends, it will never rise to see the light of day again," Naiiobe commanded, pushing through the gathered hunters and approaching the unconscious Soran. He was still lying peacefully on the cyclopean obsidian stair, his hair and beard obscuring his emaciated yet pleasant features.

  "What is this?" She asked with a curious tone. "Where did he come from?"

  "The Awakened boy?" Sheng replied. "Talas imprisoned him in the Sarchogoroth. As to the reason for that cruelty, your guess is as good as mine." Tugg stepped forward, creating a barrier between his friend and Naiiobe.

  "I mean the boy no harm, Accran. We have something in common, he and I." She smiled, removing her gaze from Soran and initiating the arduous ascent to the elevator platform.

  Grinding feet clawed at the earth, rescuing the tower from the boiling hell. After an arduous climb, ragged breaths of sulfurous smog subsided, replaced with the arid, sand-choked atmosphere of the surface world. A sliver of unease haunted the air; they all felt it, the uncanny intuition of something sinister on the horizon.

  "Put this on," Sheng threw Naiiobe a stealth-tech cloak that smothered her slender frame.

  "We thought you'd be, you know, bigger." Muttered Sheng-Vei. "The wanted posters really don't do you any favors." He added after catching an insulted glare.

  "Time changes us all, hunter. Rarely for the better." She activated the cloak's circuitry, folding into the unseen in a static mist. Tugg placed Soran's limp body into the folds of his own cloak, concealing him from the harsh gales of the outside. His friend had suffered enough.

  A charred metallic stench permeated the arrival chamber, the punishing weight of the desert heat quickening the decay of the ambushed pirates.

  "Phase out." Ordered Sheng-Vei. The hunter squad followed Naiiobe's lead and crackled into nothingness. A vague silhouette remained under the diseased sunlight, but once out amongst the constant waves of sand, no trace of them would remain.

  There was a stillness to the landscape that juxtaposed its nature. The unending storms were precious with their forks of light, grumbling thunder a constant reminder of their secreted ferocity. Sizzling with stored energy, the bountiful lawn of succulents hissed in anticipation, and even the pebbled surface of the blasted heath stilled its tectonic shuddering.

  Sheng-Vei held point at the towers entrance, stunned by his seeming lack of foresight. They were surrounded.

  Dozens of pirates, all equipped with plasma rifles, ion cannons, and a plethora of melee weapons that would shred the flesh from their bones. Some lay prone, camouflaged under sheets of earthy Plastrite. Others knelt, the bulk of their hulking munitions resting upon augmented limbs.

  "Out, now!" ordered the pirate Captain. He was a mangy thing possessing simian-like arms that fell past his knees. Ocular augmentations were punched into the sockets of his eyes, bestowing the ability to detect the band of infiltrators.

  Sheng-Vei pondered the extent of the pirate's perception, taking a step to the right to test his acuity. The rock before his foot hissed with the impact of a pincer round, answering his question in a most visceral manner.

  "I said out!" He yelled, causing his platoon to initiate ammo ignition. One by one, the hunters and Naiiobe deactivated their clocks, shimmering back into reality in a ripple of electric waves.

  "Safe you said. No hiccup, you said." Nuqxug chimed in from Sheng-Vei's left, perturbed at the ease with which their plan had been scuppered. Sheng retained his response, analyzing the number of armed bodies and calculating their chances of a counterattack — four percent. Not the most uninspiring odds he had ever had to face down, but considering their valuable cargo, he would err on the side of caution.

  "You got us." Sheng-Vei consented, raising his arms in surrender.

  "Zaiede and the other prisoner come with us. The four freaks die." The pirate ordered bluntly.

  Before his comrades could capitulate, Sheng-Vei summoned a piercing whistle and his Holo-con spat out a light-woven image. The pirates twisted their weapons toward the sound, but it was too late. Lances of light burst from the ground beneath them. Projectiles exploded amongst their crowded bodies, rendering them a crimson cloud before they could loose their weapons. As if reacting to the massacre, the sky crackled with a violence to compliment the scene playing out below. A deluge of bullets hailed down upon the pirate platoon with all the fury and precision to fell a unit ten times their size. Without firing a single shot, Sheng-Vei stood victorious. With a whip of the wind between his lips, he had beckoned forth a destruction from which there could be no escape. On this day, amidst the endless storms, death had eaten his fill.

  In the charnel aftermath of the kill site, the outline of the hidden terror rose from a mist of spent ammunition. The hunters — who until this moment had been huddled in a quivering mass of fear — raised their heads from the ground, picking out the details of their veiled savior. The roar of engines and hiss of pneumatic pistons erased any semblance of mystery. A crown of eight-pointed wings slid elegantly through the smoldering haze, her tarnished midnight hull blending with the blemished sky she sat against. Although missing a few of the engraved letters from her starboard side, the Horizon was as magnificent as she had ever been. Tugg watched in wonder as his ship sailed over what remained of their aggressors.

  Once freed from the bondage of slavery and interned into Sheng-Vei's crew, he had begged for the retrieval of Ranna's ship from Boreus, eschewing many months' pay and instantiating himself as a pillar of the Hunter King's entourage. Eventually, there came the need for such a ship, capable of out-pacing even the most aggressive of the pirate armada. Heading up the operations, it had taken Tugg many days to excavate the frozen wreckage and return her to her former glory. Her lustrous coat of fiery summer had dulled due to years of neglect, and the clandestine nature of their mission required her garbed in hues of nightshade. What was strange was that Tugg couldn’t remember burying her in the desert, not descending through the sandy skies above. Hadn’t the Cornucopia shepherded their voyage?

  "Death-trigger!" Sheng-Vei hissed, slapping his leg for being so foolish. Saith cooed a lengthy rhythmic reply, which, by the look on her Captain's face, was rather scathing 'I told you so.' He had used the failsafe on numerous missions. A vital monitor was attached to each member of his crew, which would notify a central mainframe if any of them were to meet an untimely end. He looked up at the orbital towers that circled Golgotha, curious why his informant had failed to warn him of such a catastrophic upset to his plan. He shelved the thought. He had his prize, and his crew remained uninjured. For him, the mission was nothing less than a resounding success.

  Naiiobe turned back to face the tower, anger disturbing the peace of her speckled eyes. She plunged her clawed fingers deep into the steaming black sand and began to pray. Each word was a plea of forgiveness to her goddess. She had vowed never to use her power to destroy, for to pervert the ability to grant life was, for her, the gravest sin. But this thing, this abomination, could not be allowed to exist. Monstrous, crackling tendrils burst forth from the black stone, skinned in a sea of thorns. They strangled the obsidian structure, tightening their grip until fragments of shimmering black were sent raining to the earth. The tower cried a death-song of shattered glass as it was pulled beneath the surface, overtaken by the grasping vines, and swallowed into the molten hole from which it emerged.

  "Never shall you rise again," Naiiobe decreed, finishing her repentance with palms placed an inch apart.

  The exit ramp to the Horizon sprang open, and Naiiobe boarded with a solemn weight in her step. She was followed by the still-shaken hunters, desperate to depart the corpse-strewn expanse.

  "Yes, yes, time to leave." Sheng fumbled his words, clamoring to maintain the illusion of his control.

  On a tail of blue flame, the Horizon tore over the blasted landscape, escaping the atmosphere on the planet's dark side and disappearing into the endless midnight of deep space.

  Tugg passed into the living quarters, placing Soran's body on the Plastrite couch he had frequented when first spirited away from the Hyacinth. He pulled a blanket from one of the storage lockers, wrapping his friend in the warmth of frayed fibers. The disheveled man stirred from his slumber, blinking away the haze to take in his surroundings.

  "Home?" Soran asked, the word tainted with doubt. He never imagined he would see the ship again, fearing her lost to Boreas' icy clutches. Yet, here he was. Tugg nodded and watched as a sliver of joy passed Soran's lips before he sank back into sleep. Brimming with memories of his lost ocean world, Tugg reclined onto a nearby bunk, thoughts of unending waves lapping his mind into fathomless slumber.