Reap the Whirlwind

“Trying to flush us out,” Nassir said. “Crude search-and-destroy tactics.”

“Crude but effective,” Ilucci said. “Time to brainstorm, people. No idea’s too stupid. Whatever you got, let’s hear it.”

Most of the time, Torvin was content to let the others formulate the plans. He was the youngest, least experienced member of the crew. It felt presumptuous to him to think that he could suggest something they hadn’t thought of, but the notion that he’d been toying with since returning to duty after the crash was too compelling for him not to share. He raised his hand and haltingly said, “I have an idea.”

Ilucci made a broad gesture and said, “The floor’s yours, kid. Whatcha got?”

“The dampening frequency we used in our shields when we entered the system,” he said, looking around at the others, who watched him with patient expectation. “It worked for a while, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Shedai from coming after us. But what if it was more concentrated? We could set the phaser emitters to the same frequency. We’d only get one shot before burnout, but a really good dose might back them off.”

Captain Nassir nodded and smiled approvingly. “The best defense is a good offense, eh? I like it. What do you think, Master Chief?”

“I think it sounds like a plan, Skipper,” Ilucci said. “Sayna, Sorak, Razka—you’ll do the honors. Cahow, reroute the battery power from shields to phasers.” He clapped his hands. “Move with a purpose, people! Clock’s ticking!”

Everyone snapped into action. Sorak, zh’Firro, and Razka went forward toward the access crawlspace for the phaser systems, and Cahow went aft toward the battery power taps. As Torvin turned back to help Threx finish co

Threx’s knees trembled under the burden of holding the half-secured plasma conduit, and fat beads of sweat rolled down his scruffy face. “Proud of you, Tor,” he said through a voice pulled taut with effort. “Now get this thing secured before my guts end up on the deck.”

Sharp cracks of breaking stone surrounded Theriault and the Apostate as they traversed a long enclosed passageway. Outside, massive slabs of the city’s ramparts and towers slid away into the yawning chasms between the steeply sloped structures, like icebergs calving from a glacier. Inside, fissures spiderwebbed across the massive arched ceilings, raining fine gray dust on Theriault’s red hair.

“The city’s falling apart!” she said, ducking stone debris.

Several heavy chunks of the ceiling were deflected by a nimbus of energy that sprang into being above the Apostate. Only belatedly did she realize that he had enlarged himself and now towered mightily over her. “The Colloquium contracts,” he said. “Something terrible has occurred.” A malicious gloating darkened his aspect. “I warned them not to underestimate your kind.”

“You mean my shipmates?” she asked.

He signaled her to follow him as he continued down the rib-walled passage toward the dome-shaped structure he had called the First Conduit. “No. Others like you, on a planet far from here. Many thousands, and several of your starships.” She jogged along beside his enormous but ghostly form, grateful for the shelter he offered from the jagged boulders of broken obsidian that fell from the crumbling ceiling. “A great commitment of power was made there, to serve as a warning…and an example.” Again, that cruel amusement. “It does not appear to have produced the result that the Maker intended.”

The Apostate halted without warning. Theriault stumbled to a stop beside him. “What’s wrong?”

“Others draw near,” he said. “Your presence has become known to the Colloquium.” As if summoned by his words, eight hulking black shapes separated from the walls behind and ahead of them, as if shadows had been transmuted into stone. They were the deadly killing machines that Xiong had warned them about.

Watching the dark crystalline giants lumber forward, Theriault instinctively drew her phaser. As she did so, eight more identical obsidian sentinels grew from the floor, even closer than the others. Her finger tensed in front of the firing stud. Then she held her fire—the newly arrived sentinels moved to intercept the others. She looked up at the Apostate, hoping for good news. “Are they with you?”

“They are me,” he answered as the battle was joined. Shards of crystalline shrapnel filled the air as the sentinels mercilessly hammered one another to pieces. Every few seconds, one of them shattered and fell to dust, only to be replaced by another from the ceiling or walls. It was a brutal stalemate. Then the tide of the melee shifted, and the attackers began losing ground; the circle of safety around the Apostate widened.

Huddled in his penumbra, Theriault watched the struggle with wonder. “You can control multiple bodies at once?”

“Several limbs, several bodies,” he said. “One mind. It is a difference not of kind but of degree. They are the Nameless, limited to one form at a time. I am Serrataal. I am legion.”

A tremor-inducing rumble drew swiftly near. At the far ends of the passage in which she and the Apostate stood, hundreds of sentinels emerged from between the ribs of the passageway’s sloped walls. “Um, I think we have company.”

The Apostate stretched one spectral hand ahead of them and the other behind. His fingertips glowed bright red, and his eyes burned with the same infernal hue. “These are not avatars of the Nameless,” he said, his voice of thunder even more ominous than before. “One of the Serrataal has come…. The Warden.”

She tried to flash an ironic smile, but her fear turned it into a faltering grimace. “All this for little ol’ me?”

“He has not come for you,” said the Apostate. “He has come to face me. It has begun.”

“Whoa, hold on,” she said. “What’s begun?”

“The war,” he said. “For control of the Shedai.” He thrust his hand toward the nearest wall, and a beam of indigo fire shot from his palm and cut a wide, round tube that reached through to a parallel corridor. He looked down at Theriault and hushed his voice. “Flee, little spark. While you can.”

Fearful of leaving his circle of protection, Theriault took another look at the battalion of faceless sentinels closing in on them. Then she did as he said and ran as fast as she could.

Pe

Shapes were animating out of the façades of the structures all around him. Some were vaguely humanoid in form. Others adopted insectile bodies, and some were simply bizarre—wild amalgamations of multihinged limbs and undulating trunks that crawled across vertical surfaces; diaphanous clusters that rode the wind and trailed violently snaking translucent flagella; serpentine coils of glowing vapor that turned solid in flashes of motion and struck with enough force to obliterate anything they hit.

His first sight of them had carried a rush of terror, which persisted even though it had become apparent that the bizarre beings were paying no attention to him. He dodged for cover from the fallout of their battle, which dislodged towering blocks of crystal and stone from the walls and catapulted them in a variety of directions. Despite his best efforts to capture video of this fantastic place with his portable recorder, he couldn’t stay still long enough to get a steady shot of anything. Every few seconds he was forced to sidestep or duck another rolling, falling, or ricocheting hunk of debris.

Under his feet, the flat surface of the promenade that ringed the central cluster of buildings was changing. Its surface was shifting color, veining with cracks, and becoming translucent. The change in its structure spread in front of him faster than he could hope to run; he looked back and saw that it was retreating behind him just as quickly. The transformation was a metastasizing cancer, creeping across walls and bridges, turning everything pale and brittle. It’s spreading like an infection, Pe