Reap the Whirlwind

He had almost forgotten that the subspace cha

Closing the cha

“Never an option,” Qui

Nodding, Terrell said, “I know what you mean. I couldn’t leave either if my best friend was in there.”

“He ain’t my best friend,” Qui

Ancient seals had been broken and eldritch bonds sundered by the fires they were made to contain. The Apostate beheld the ire of the Kollotaan and saw not the savage race they had been aeons past but the sentient beings they had become and the fury with which they rejected their renewed bondage. They were united in one proud temper, strong in will, by nature opposed to the burden of the yoke.

With every Voice the Apostate parted from the First Conduit an avenue closed. Across the distant light-years, throughout the former possessions of the Shedai, Conduits recently awakened went dark, robbed of the Voices’ inspiration. Flee, he warned his partisans. While paths of choice remain.

Another Voice twisted and fought even as the Apostate sought to end its enslavement. These were creatures too fierce to be tamed, he was certain of it. How could the Wanderer have believed such as these would ever submit? Space-time folded and reshaped itself to fit his will, and instantly the great mass of imprisoned Kollotaan from the Conduit’s core were returned to their ship, along with two of their number who had been bonded to the nodes. More than a score continued to await their freedom.

Through the nodes that remained, an exodus began. Dozens of his allies among the Serrataal heeded his admonition to abandon this world; some, perhaps, even sensed what he intended to do.

At first he heard the jubilation of the Maker and her host, rejoicing at his partisans’ retreat, erroneously believing that it signaled their victory. Only too late did they realize what was being set in motion and converge upon him in numbers.

Of his faithful battalions, only the Myrmidon and the Thaumaturge remained at his side, awaiting the coming onslaught. The Apostate prepared to release two more Kollotaan from their nodes. Take these roads, he counseled his brothers. I will close them behind you.

We would remain, countered the Myrmidon. If we go, who will stand with you against the Maker?

The Apostate assured them, She will not stand. Where I am going, she will not follow…. Go.

His brothers obeyed, shed their avatars, and bade him farewell. Their subtle bodies passed through the nodes and made their transit across the cold gulf of space-time, to worlds ready to receive them with splendors befitting their stations. As soon as they were away, he released those nodes’ Kollotaan and shifted them back to their ship.

The Maker and her battle-wearied host surrounded him in the Conduit chamber. Their collective animosity had taken on a presence all its own; it was a radiant anger, glowing like an ember in the endless night. Yield, commanded the Maker.

I will not wear the colors of a penitent, the Apostate declared, punctuating his defiance with a flaring of the Conduit’s fire. When it receded and the flames banked themselves in the machine’s core, all could see that four more Kollotaan had been freed. Sixteen roads remain, he warned. Take them now.

A flood-crush of attacks assailed him. Most were of little consequence. The Sage had no weapons equal to him, and the Adjudicator and the Herald—though fearsome to the Telinaruul—were not warriors born. The Avenger and the Warden, however, existed to destroy and mete out punishment, and the Wanderer was a potent adversary in spite of her youth.

None, however, was on a par with the Maker, the oldest of the Serrataal and the only one older than the Apostate. Her power was plenary, and her touch alone could unmake any of them.

She struck in a flash of thought, an action of pure will. The attack was unstoppable, its effect irreversible.

Her loyal host recoiled in shock and horror. The blow had found its mark—and the Apostate was unbowed.

You ca

The Maker trembled with rage at his heresy. Then she cast off her avatar and passed through the Conduit into exile.

So began the second exodus.

Legions of Serrataal abandoned their shapes of the moment and followed one another in panicked flights, seeking safe havens under distant stars. The Apostate permitted them to escape, knowing even as they renounced this world that one of their ranks would not follow them, spiteful to the very end.

Brash beyond her years, the Wanderer burned with hatred and held her ground. This battle is not over, she pledged.

But the war is, decreed the Apostate. And you have lost.

26

“Eight hundred thousand qelIqams and closing,” Tonar reported. “Disruptors ready.”

Captain Kutal eyed the tiny Starfleet ship on the main viewscreen. Hardly a prize worthy of us, he lamented. But that doesn’t mean I plan on letting her get away. “Arm a volley of torpedoes,” he commanded. “Wide dispersal. I want that ship captured, not destroyed—understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Tonar replied.

Recalling the beating his ship had taken during its last two sorties into the Jinoteur system, Kutal eyed the fourth planet’s trio of satellites with suspicion. “BelHoQ,” he said, summoning the first officer with a jerk of his head. “Any activity on those moons?”

“None, Captain,” BelHoQ said.

From an auxiliary tactical station, second officer Krom reported, “The Starfleet ship has begun evasive maneuvers.”

“And the hunt begins!” Kutal bellowed with a sharp grin. “Helm, stay with them. Full ahead.”

“Full ahead,” Qlar responded as he pushed the ship’s sublight drive to its limits. The hull of the Zin’za vibrated with the rising pitch of the strained engines.

Kutal surveyed his bridge crew and was pleased. Despite the overpowering and surprisingly persistent stench that infused the ship as a result of its septic sabotage on Borzha II, his men had pushed the foul reek from their thoughts and focused on the mission. It’s all about good men, Kutal reminded himself. You have to have good men. Good warriors.

“Four hundred thousand qelIqams,” Tonar a

“Hold for optimum firing range,” Kutal said.

On the main screen, the diminutive ship twisted, rolled, and vanished off the bottom edge of the viewer. “Agile at sublight,” BelHoQ observed.

“Very,” Kutal agreed. He barked at the helmsman, “Qlar, if they get away, you’re dead.”

The Zin’za’s engines shrieked with the effort of a high-impulse turn coupled with a corkscrew roll. Motivated by the threat of imminent execution, Qlar was discovering a new level of mastery over the battle cruiser’s flight controls. Less than six seconds later the Starfleet ship bobbed and rolled back into view, almost close enough for Kutal to read its markings.