Emergence - Chris Harris (beach read .txt) 📗

the Sol took only eight minutes to get to Rat'hak, and about three hours from Rat'hak to Buun. New Orbus was rather close to Buun, and it led Foton to think about how Orbus's climate may have been like before it was wiped out. He presumed that it was a tropical landscape like Buun's, complete with that sticky, uncomfortable heat.

“Good.” Tahkshi answered. “I may just stay here for a bit; I do like to watch the stars.”

Foton nodded; the one thing that they shared. “They are beautiful.”

“They are.”

Silence as they looked at the streaks of white and silver across the screen; the stars became distorted due to the speed.

Something hit the ship.

Foton tumbled out of the chair, which then fell on him. He threw it off of himself and located Tahkshi; he was still on the floor. “What the hell's going on?”

“Something's knocked us out of L-Speed!” One of the crew members had got back up into their chair.

Foton yelled into his com, “Everyone to battle stations!” Along the exterior of the Watchman, panels slid open, revealing an array of cannons around the entire rim of the ship. Foton looked out of the screen and saw a white ship dart by. He didn't recognise the design; it must be new. Without warning, the ship rocked again. This time, Foton grabbed a railing to support himself. Proffering his hand, he pulled Tahkshi to his feet. “What was that?”

Another crash, another hiss of the air-seal; a quickly forming gel which solidifies into an airtight solid is secreted from the walls when they are breached. A voice came over the com. “The white ships are crashing into the sides of the ship, take them out!”

“Boarding parties or kamikaze?” Foton called back over the com.

“Boarding-” The com was cut off: dead. Foton had no time to mourn.

“We need to get to the escape pods!” Foton yelled. “Everyone go!”

A door hissed open and two armoured Xaosians were revealed. They were flanking a white being, the species of which Foton couldn't place; it was humanoid, but with an ivory exoskeleton covering its body and distorting some features. Foton couldn't care less. He drew his pistol, set it to kill and shot at the alien.

The bullet stopped in mid-air between its fingers. The alien examined it briefly, before discarding it. It drew its own weapon from a holster on its side and shot back. The bullet narrowly missed Foton as he threw himself to the ground. Screams shattered Foton's wish for silence, but the Xaosians soon granted that wish, each bullet silencing one of the crew members. Foton dragged Tahkshi along the bridge to the other door. Tahkshi tried to keep up, but Foton easily outpaced him. There was a sound behind them. Foton twisted round. The alien was there, just a couple of standards away. Foton put his pistol up and shot the alien three times in the head. The alien slid to the left; the bullets missed. Nothing should be that fast Foton thought, before realising that his gun was useless. He ran to the alien, hidden blade primed.

The alien grabbed his arm and threw him off the bridge and onto the computers below. Foton recovered just in time to see the alien shoot Tahkshi three times in the head.

Dead.

He had failed.

Chapter 18: Devilclash

The ship rocked and Devilclash was thrown from the thin-mattressed standard-issue bed onto the cold hard floor. Most of the bugs righted themselves and stayed in mid-air, but the Hive-Stone clattered to the ground. Righting themselves, the bugs swarmed around the Hive-Stone once more, picking it up and placing it in back in to its original position.

She heard shrieks coming from outisde her chambers. Her door slid open with a quiet hiss and she stepped through as a man ran by, straight into her arm. Panicking, the man flailed his own arms, trying to swat the bugs out of his way, before Devilclash was able to reform her arm. “Look where you're going.” Her voice did not lack reproach. The man looked back, but continued running away.

Gunfire, and the man was torn apart in front of her, bullets thudded into the walls.

Xaosians. Silver-skinned, scaled monstrosities. At first, they seemed similar to the Scalimen, but the Xaosians had no tail, no emotional tells, and their gargantuan hands were designed by evolution for violence only. In fact, the hands of the Xaosian were the only areas not covered by their black combat armour. When they saw Devilclash. They briefly aimed, and fired.

Attaching the Hive-Stone to two bugs, she decomposed herself, allowing the hive to become the swarm that it should be. Some bullets took out some bugs, and Devilclash felt not a pain, but as if part of herself was lost; she reeled with the feeling. Reaching the Xaosians, she had the bugs swarm onto them. They tried to swat the bugs away, but hundreds of tiny mouths ate through the Xaosian's armour, aided by a natural acid, before climbing inside and devouring the Xaosian. One was targeted in the helmet, his eye being a passage for the bugs to destroy his brain; the other had his chest targeted, heart devoured.

Taking on human form once more, she looked down at the two Xaosians. Obviously here to kill Lord Tahkshi.

She opened herself to the Swarm and relayed these memories to the rest of the Pyrkagia. As she did so, she felt the shock and horror of the others who could see it. A visualisation of the Swarm, which she held in her mind, flashed a dark red as the shock turned to anger; how could the Xaosians do this? Curious, she tried to find the Pyrkagias she had detected on Raan before, but she found no sign of life. She delved deeper, swimming through the memories and eventually found the one she was looking for; while the body was gone, the memories remain forever.

Buildings fall as the ground shakes; an aftershock of the Xaosians mega-weapon. Crevasses open and swallow a building. My building. We fall for an eternity, but some of us live when the building stops. Then come these...things. Silver skin, always shifting. They're on us now. Fighting is useless.

Devilclash detached herself from the Swarm, breathing quickly as she did so. Creatures in the core of Raan? Silver shifting skin? She thought she knew what they were, but they were all dead, surely. She put it to the back of her mind for now; I'll discuss it with the Primary when I get to Buun.

She dissipated herself once more and made her way to Tahkshi's chambers; protecting him was her first priority. When she reached the chambers, alarms around the ship were ringing and red lights were flashing in the corridors. Luckily, she didn't bump into any more Xaosians. She gently pushed the door to his chambers open. It was very similar to Devilclash's, just slightly larger and with a rail-desk in the corner; the Lords were supposed to have plain, nondescript rooms so as not to make it obvious where their chamber was. “Tahkshi?” She called; it looked empty, but he could have been hiding. When she received no response, she realised that the only logical place that he would have gone to would be the bridge.

So she reformed her human self and ran to the bridge to the sound of squealing alarms and gunfire.

Chapter 19: Foton

Groggy from his fall, Foton shook his head to clear the mist. Gunshots sounded around him, instantly killing their victims thanks to the unwavering aim of the Xaosians. Foton grudgingly admired their skills. He looked around at the corpses around him; he was lucky, the Xaosians obviously thought that the alien had killed him.

Wrotha stared up at him. Dead.

He felt a pang of guilt; he might have been able to save some of them if he hadn't been so preoccupied with getting Tahkshi out of there. And now he was dead anyway. He had failed to protect the principle.

But he could try and avenge him.

The alien was still on the bridge, surveying the Xaosians' work with a look of what appeared to be disgust in its barely-visible eyes. As a Xaosian passed Foton, he leapt up and jammed his hidden blade through its helmet; the diamond blade easily plunged through the Xaosian's head. Aware that the other Xaosian would probably be bringing his gun up to fire, Foton pulled a knife from his right shin and threw it in its direction. He heard a thud as the Xaosian went down. Seeing a Xaosian X-46 gun on the floor, Foton picked it up and swung it in the alien's direction. He set it to projectile-stun and swung it round to aim at the alien; even if it could evade bullets, it shouldn't be able to dodge the static-charges.

He became aware of a soft clapping from the bridge. “Well fought.” Part of the alien's exoskeleton shifted and pulled itself back, revealing red skin around its mouth.

Foton fired at the alien.

One shot. The alien jerked to the right, and the static-charge crackled as it hit the wall behind.

Second shot. After sliding to the right, the alien brought its pistol around and shot it down, before briefly aiming at Foton's weapon and firing.

Foton dropped the gun as it sparked and emitted smoke. The alien holstered its own weapon and leapt from the bridge to the control room below. Foton sized it up; it was about half a standard taller than him, and a little bit broader too. He knew that it was much faster than him, so he assumed that it would be stronger.

It lashed out, fist connected with Foton's shoulder. Foton stumbled back a few paces. His shoulder felt cold and numb: dislocated. As the alien swung another fist, Foton jerked out of the way, grabbing his dislocated arm and shoving it forcefully back into its socket, biting back the pain.

Foton fought back now. He swung his fist at the alien, drawing his hidden blade as he did so. But the alien saw the blade's reflection, even in this dull lighting. It grabbed Foton's wrist and squeezed. “A diamond blade...” The alien smiled. “Unbreakable, diamond, isn't it?” Its exoskeleton seemed to shift slightly, before taking on a shinier tone. Without warning, it brought its free hand down on the blade, cleaving it in two. “Only diamond breaks diamond.” Foton looked at the blade, stunned at what the alien had done. “And we can be anything.” It looked into Foton's eyes. “Remember that, Assassin.”

It released Foton, who stumbled away from