East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ferdous Dhanapal thoroughly enjoyed fighting orcs. He’d liked fighting before the Fall, competing in boxing and martial arts but only if the pain circuits were dialed down. He just enjoyed beating the hell out of a tough opponent.

And these orcs weren’t exactly easy. The full suit of armor made them clumsy, but with their long halberds pushed forward, it was hard to get down to the suit. He’d flicked a magnet at them, fending off the halberds with his light buckler, but the suits weren’t magnetic.

He blocked one of the halberds up with the buckler and ducked under it, pushing another to the side and pinning two of the orcs against the back wall.

“Berghaus, get in here and pound these sons of bitches,” he snarled, pressing into the crossed halberd with both hands. “Puncture their armor.”

“Think you’re smart, do you?” Tur-uck muttered, snatching a halberd away from one of the Durgar. The Blood Lord had Garack and Purdop pinned in the entryway, but while he was doing that he couldn’t defend himself. The spearhead of the halberd darted in and out like a snake.

“Aaaaarrrr!” Ferdous shouted, reaching up to clamp a hand over his left bicep where the halberd head had slipped past the armor. The wound was spouting red into the vacuum faster than he could stop it and he could feel his arm going numb as blood pumped out through the small cut. The suit gel was spurting out as well, creating a small cloud in the entryway. He let go of the cut and reached for his mace, slamming the spike into the armor of the orc on his right as he stumbled backwards. His left arm was useless, he couldn’t even feel it anymore, and the air in the airlock was filled with a red cloud.

And his heater system was failing as well, he was getting cold…

Manos Berghaus didn’t like his situation at all. As his triari sergeant stumbled backwards, his mace buried in the helmet of the left-hand Durgar, the halberd dropped way from the right-hand one and more started flooding through the human-sized hole in the airlock door.

The Durgar had mostly dropped their halberds and drawn their short, broad, curved swords, which were far more useful in the tight confines of the airlock. The swords were about as long as the gladius the Blood Lords carried but much heavier, almost like cleavers.

Berghaus blocked the blow from the first Durgar through the door as he slammed his mace into the right arm-joint of the right-hand Durgar’s armor. It didn’t pop the seal but the articulation was cracked and the Durgar at least couldn’t use that arm.

He backed up to give himself room and swung overhand at the Durgar on his left as Line Sergeant Nasrin slid into place beside him. Two more Durgar had forced their way in and Nasrin took the right-hand one as Berghaus fought the left.

There wasn’t much room to swing the mace but there was enough and Berghaus flipped it around so he was striking with the spike end. He caught the next blow from the Durgar’s sword partially on its buckler but it slid off, skittering across his lorica in a shower of sparks. Berghaus slid up under the Durgar’s arm and swung upwards, slamming the spike into the underside of the Durgar’s arm and then working it out with a back and forth motion like a can opener.

However, before he could get the spike all the way out, the Durgar whose arm he’d damaged proved he could work with both hands, slamming his cleaverlike sword into the Blood Lord’s extended arm. The heavy hacking blade chopped right through the grieve on that arm and sliced open his suit.

“Herzer, Berghaus and Ferdous are down,” Cruz said, panting. “It’s pretty tight in here.”

“Just hold on another second,” Herzer said, watching the group of techs retreat. “Then turn around and run like hell.”

“Will do,” Cruz replied. “We’re faster than they are, that’s for sure. Give me the word when you’re ready.”

“Any sign of the scorps?” Herzer asked.

“None,” Cruz admitted. “I don’t think they want to mingle them with the Durgar.”

“Or they’re somewhere else,” Herzer said as he looked over his shoulder. The entire group of techs, and Megan, had already cycled through the far airlock.

“Going somewhere, Councilwoman?” Reyes said to himself as the group of Blood Lords climbed out of the airlock onto the hull of the ship. He’d gathered his six remaining scorpions and now waited in ambush. “Fire,” he said, gesturing at the scorpions.

“Bloody hell,” Sergeant Yamada said as the line of scorpions squirted at the Blood Lords. The scorps had been low to the hull and he hadn’t actually seen them until he was fully emerged. The viscous fluid seemed to drift through the microgravity at them and he ducked so that most of the material passed overhead. But from the screams on the net, some of it had impacted. And the scorpions were charging the suddenly broken line of Blood Lords.

Megan lifted herself out on the far side of the hatch from the Blood Lords, her eyes still closed. Using the energy from the engines was getting easier, she could feel when she had hold of something solid. Of course, she’d probably done some damage to the ship finding those solid holds, but that was the price of trying to stop it plummeting to the Earth.

She turned as she heard the screams and her control dropped away at the sight of the line of scorpions. And the ejected acid from their tails.

“Mother!” she called, hoping against hope that they were inside the area of the protocols.

“Holy shit,” Nicole said, backing away from the Blood Lords and ducking to let the spittle fly by. The scorpions had fired as they would in gravity and the majority of the fluid went past overhead. But she was not about to stick around to get hit with the next firing. She grabbed the bar by the opening of the airlock and ducked back in, huddling by the inner door. Most of the techs had climbed back in for that matter. Better than being out where the scorpions could get them.

“Megan,” she snapped, “get out of there.”

“Yes, Megan,” Mother said.

“Personal protection fields on all our people,” Megan said. “Right now. Use the ship power I have access to. Can you?”

“No, Megan,” Mother replied. “The field is attuned to you and is specifically locked out from my control. If you were closer, I could override that. But from here, I cannot at this time.”

“Shit,” Megan said. There were only five Blood Lords standing and the scorpions had closed with them. Reyes was standing behind with three of the Durgar, watching the fight. “Herzer, we need help here,” she said, dialing the airlock shut and stumping “downward” on the ship. Reyes was probably after her. Let him chase her and leave the others alone.

“Move,” Herzer said, looking at Van Buskirk’s team. “Cruz, pull back. Megan’s getting hit on the far side.”

He turned and flat out ran to the far airlock, keying the inner door open and then the outer door, overriding the safeties to clear the way fully.

He entered the lock and grabbed the overhead grab-bar, swinging himself up and onto the surface of the ship.

The only Blood Lord still standing when he got there was Van Krief and she was battling three scorpions, using her gladius in one hand and mace in the other to keep them at bay. Two of the other three scorpions were stuck on the deck, unmoving and presumably dead, while the area above the deck was littered with the desiccated bodies of the dead Blood Lords. Since the ship wasn’t accelerating, they were drifting slowly along with it. As his feet hit the deck, he saw her lean right to avoid a shot of acid but then the right-hand scorpion slipped past her guard and got its claw on her arm.

The metallic claw closed silently, from Herzer’s perspective, but he could hear the crunch and shriek of metal in his mind as Van Krief’s arm dropped, hanging by a thread of suit and tissue and blasting fluid into space. She writhed for a moment, the mace and gladius floating away from her, stuck in place by her mag-boots, and then stopped moving, standing still as a statue in the eternal void.

The three Durgar with Reyes had stumped forward as well and Herzer suddenly found himself facing six opponents. He lifted his buckler to catch a shot of acid and then tossed it to the side, slinging the material towards one of the scorpions. It hit and stuck and began to burn. As he blocked a claw with his mace, he saw the back of the scorpion explode outwards in a rush of vapor and internal parts.

The Durgar had retained their halberds and poked them forward at him as the scorpions spread out to either side. He ducked another shot of acid, batted away a claw, but couldn’t close to do any good.

He backed up, slightly, edging around the open airlock, then quickly flipped out a safety line, tossed it to the deck where the magnet, fortunately, stuck, unclamped the magnets on his boots and jumped off over the heads of the Durgar and scorpions.

One of the scorpions shot at him as he went overhead but they were still having trouble adjusting to microgravity. The jet of acid sailed well past him.

As he reached the end of the safety line, Herzer let himself stretch out to full extension, then slowly adjusted his body position so his feet were down, but pointed in the opposite direction, back towards where the magnetic clamp was still holding.

He hit on both feet, one boot momentarily coming loose but then he got it clamped back down. When he was solidly planted, he bent at the knees, bringing the safety line down to the level of the deck and pulling it sideways, hard.

The two scorpions had spun in place as he went overhead and as soon as he landed had started for his position, spreading out. Thus the line only caught one of them. The feet on one side sprang loose easily, but the others held for a moment. Herzer lifted up on the line, though, and the scorpion was kicked free to fly upwards into the deeps of space.

The Durgar were just starting to turn around as he got the line untangled from the scorpion’s legs — it was trying to clutch at it — and brought it back down. This time he stepped to the left, bringing the line along and knocking two of the Durgar flying. The third managed to get a hand on the line and disputed his control just long enough for the scorpion to close on the Blood Lord commander.

Herzer flipped a loop in the line, which managed to tangle one of the scorpion’s claws. He jerked on it, hoping to pick the arthropod up off the deck, but instead he popped his own boots free. He pulled down, dropping back to the deck as the partially entangled beast closed, but managed to get both boots clamped before it got to him.

He drew his mace and blocked both claws, looking for acid. It didn’t seem to be spitting so he thought it might have run out of juice, at least temporarily. After sparring with it for a moment, he drew his gladius, flipped the weapons around and held out the mace invitingly near the beast’s left claw.

The beast grabbed the mace, shaking it back and forth and trying to sever the steel shaft. Herzer drew the mace further to his left, bringing his body outside of the claw that held the mace, and cut downward with the gladius, hitting the joint seal of the claw, hard.

The joint immediately spouted fluids and popped open, releasing the mace. The scorpion started to spin in place to bring its tail into play but Herzer was having none of it. He slammed the released mace down on its brain-pan and the forward part of the scorpion opened up like a flower, gushing fluid into the vacuum.

The last Durgar was standing by the open door, watching him carefully, when a hand came out of the opening and grabbed it by both legs. Before it could react, the hands had lifted it off the deck and spun it off into the void.

Herzer looked around and realized that Reyes was gone. He spun fully around and spotted him. The Key-holder was using hand clamps to move along the hull, fast, headed downward.

“Megan, honey, where are you?” Herzer said, calmly.

“On the bottom, rear quadrant,” Megan said, breathlessly. “There’s supposed to be another hatch into Environmental down here. I think Reyes is following me.”

“He is,” Herzer said as Van Buskirk’s team clambered out of the hole. “Bus, change of plan, again. Cruz, you holding?”

“We’ve got it licked,” Cruz said, breathlessly. “Three guys in the airlock and they can’t get past.”

“Wish we’d figured that out at the beginning,” Herzer sighed. “Bus, cross the hull and attack the Durgar from behind,” Herzer said, unclamping his boots.

“Where are you going?” Cruz asked.

“After Reyes,” he said, bending at the knees and leaping upward.

“Megan Travante,” Reyes muttered. “I am so going to kill you. I’d like to kill you slow, but I’ll settle for killing you quick and taking your Key.”

He’d watched the tide of battle turn and decided that chasing the council member, whom he’d seen turn tail and run, was a better use of his time. He’d skirted the fight to the rear of the hatch and now was closing on the slowly walking Megan quickly. And she didn’t have a shred of help anywhere to be seen.

“I am so going to kill you,” Reyes muttered. “Maybe I’ll figure out a way to do it slow.”

The bound carried Herzer thirty meters towards Reyes, forward of the line he was taking over the curve of the hull. Herzer hit more softly this time and took his second line out, clamping it off and jumping off again.

It was a fast, and dangerous, way to cross the distance. If the clamp let go he’d go spinning off into the depths with no way home, a “flying Dutchman,” doomed to die when his air, or more likely icepacks, gave out.

The second line got him most of the way to Reyes and he pulled out his third and last, figuring the crossing speed of the council member and his own position, then pushed off, one last time.

Reyes felt himself pushed into the deck so hard he nearly lost his hold on the clamp, but his gravity protection field activated instantly, pushing away whatever it was that hit him.

Herzer spun off to the side, completely out of control, one hand on the safety line and the other scrambling for a magnet. As he spun past the deck he clamped the hand magnet to it, stopping his spin and nearly wrenching his arm out of its socket. Whatever Reyes had for protection, it wasn’t a personal protection field. It was very reactive to impact that was for sure.

He got to his feet, using the light line on the hand clamp as a safety line and confronted the council member, who was also standing. Reyes had pulled out a short sword like the Durgars and seemed fully prepared to use it. Of course, he also was covered by a sparkling field of… something. Herzer had previously fought people in PPFs and even energy-draining nannite fields. This one, though, hit back.

“It’s a gravity field you ignorant sword-swinger,” Reyes said to himself, reading the mind of his opponent as Herzer pulled out a mace. “Good luck getting through it. We’re back in Mother’s control area.”

Herzer stepped forward, swinging the mace cautiously. He closed, step by step, to the council member and then swung the mace in, lightly. It bounced back, hard and to the right as the field swirled more brightly, seeming to spin in a tornado of sparks around the armored figure of the council member.

Reyes followed up the blow with one of his own, the sword darting out like a striking cobra only to be blocked by Herzer’s buckler. It struck off the buckler in a shower of sparks and Reyes circled to the “downward” side in the direction of the retreating Megan.

“Don’t think so,” Herzer said, taking a couple of steps back and contemplating the dilemma. He couldn’t penetrate the field, but he didn’t really have to. All he had to do was take Reyes out of play. He wanted to know what he was facing, through, so he keyed the communicator for an open frequency broadcast. “Reyes, you hear me?”

“Yes,” Reyes said, frowning. He didn’t know how Herzer had gotten his frequency, but he didn’t really care. He knew it was the Blood Lord commander from the markings on his suit. The security on the Icarus group had been unusually tight, but Chansa’s people had been able to get that much information at least.

“There are four shuttles full of Blood Lords going to be landing in about ten minutes,” Herzer said. “You gather your people and get out and I’ll let you leave. Let bygones be bygones. You know the ship’s crashing, right?”

“I know that,” Reyes replied. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll let you live. With Megan’s Key and the power from Mother, I can kill all your Blood Lords and take the fuel. Before the ship crashes.”

“But you’ll have to get past me,” the Blood Lord said, calmly. “And that ain’t gonna happen. Just go home.”

“I don’t think so,” Reyes snarled, stepping forward cautiously and swinging his sword back and forth. “All I have to do is nick that pretty suit of yours and you’re history. Time to die, Herzer.”

“One question,” Herzer said, backing away again. “That’s not a personal protection field, is it?”

“No,” Reyes replied, smirking and pausing to savor the moment. “Celine’s little toys can take those down. This is a grav field priority tied to the full output of the Samarian reactor. Anything impacting on it, just makes it get stronger. There’s no way through it. So why don’t you just step aside and let me go… play with your little girlfriend.”

“Don’t think so,” Herzer said, backing up steadily and sheathing his mace. “But thanks for the information…”

“… you stupid motherfisker,” Herzer continued, with the communicator shut off. He pulled off one of the thigh magnets and extended the cord, spinning it around and then tossing it to the right of the council member.

The cord was five meters long and there wasn’t more than three meters between them. So when it got to the end of the tether, the magnet swung to the left until the line hit the field around the Key-holder. At which point, the magnet started circling him in a “degrading orbit,” spinning faster and faster as the gravity field, which was pulling to the right and increasing the spin, got brighter and brighter.

When the magnet finally impacted on the field it bounced and started to rewind only to be wound tighter by the gravitic impulse. As soon as it was tight, Herzer planted his feet and leaned back and sideways, pulling the Key-holder off his feet and spinning him around in an arc, letting go when Reyes was well off the deck and drifting towards the rear of the ship. As Reyes passed, Herzer gave him an added little tap outwards. Best to be sure.

Reyes flew away soundlessly, his thrashing arms entrapped by the field and the cord that wrapped it. Well, he was probably screaming, Herzer thought, but it wasn’t as if anyone could hear it. Herzer watched as the Key-holder drifted rapidly towards the rear of the ship and then walked in that direction to make sure he was really gone. He could think of about four ways Reyes might live, and he wanted to make sure none of them happened.

Reyes continued more or less to the rear of the ship, drifting outwards slightly. The ship generated a very small gravity field, thus the term “microgravity,” and it was possible he could still be pulled down to the deck. The “upward” vector had slowed noticeably as Herzer watched. That was, until he passed the protective guards around the ion cannons. Those extended out a meter from the hull and Herzer had been slightly worried that Reyes might figure out a way to snag one. Once he was beyond the guards, he was very much in deep space. Of course, he might still call on Mother for help. Couldn’t have that.

“Evan, you in Engineering?” Herzer asked.

“Yes,” Evan said. “The Durgar are gone. They all just left, even before Captain Van Buskirk could get to them. He says they’re headed towards the control room.”

“Much good it will do them,” Herzer said, watching the rapidly dwindling council member. “Evan, do me a favor.”

“What?” Evan asked.

“Hit the main engine start,” Herzer replied.

“You’re serious?” Evan asked.

“Yep,” Herzer said. “Can you start it?”

“Easy,” Evan replied, curiously. “I’ll do it right now. But why? It’s only going to send us that much faster to Earth.”

“I just want to see what happens,” Herzer said, standing about a meter behind the blast shield.

“Engaging… now.”

The space behind the ship was suddenly lit by a blue glare, so fierce that Herzer quickly dropped his solar goggles over his eyes. The council member, however, was noticeable even in the glare. The edge of the field had impacted the grav field around the council member, which had brightened even beyond the glare of the excited ions exiting the rear of the ship.

Herzer felt himself very slightly pushed to the rear of the ship and stuck one hand out to brace against the blast shield. He kept his eye on the council member’s bright figure, though, until with a final blast of fire, it winked out.

“Kill it,” Herzer said a second later, blinking his eyes.

“Done,” Evan said as the blue glare of the drive dissipated. “What was that all about?”

“A physics experiment,” Herzer replied. “Megan, honey, you okay?”