The battle had erupted into chaos. Void wasp riders seemed to lose control, and the star trees stopped firing. On the Republic side of the battle, many found themselves suddenly struck by skull-splitting headaches, and operations continued but became a grind, and Hunt had been shocked to see how many of his sailors had become nearly catatonic. Without warning, things had shifted again. Those who were formerly catatonic were now manic, and many of them were violent.
Hunt locked down the bridge, and spoke over the comms. “All personnel, please be aware that some crewmates have become dangerous. If you encounter aggressive shipmates, please attempt to restrain them without hurting them. Summon your courage and keep the ship operating. The Griffon Republic is depending on us.”
***
Jylik fired his thorn gun into the gaggle of insane tree priests who had turned on him as they recovered from their headaches. Whatever had driven the psychics on the surface insane had not spared his inner circle. The tree priests closed in on him, and he knew he couldn’t kill them all before they reached him.
Trilia laughed maniacally in the middle of the room, neither helping nor harming him for a moment. Then she snapped her attention towards the tree priests, seemed to reach out towards them and then crushed them all with a sudden burst of T-waves that collapsed inwards, so that their death crystals fell to the ground in one mangled chunk.
“Well, that was something,” said Jylik. “Care to explain what is going on here!?”
“Koo L’Koom is coming,” said Trilia with a laugh. “That fool brought him to us early with his amplifier. He could have spread the great cosmic shark’s aura throughout the galaxy, but if they stop him, Hoon-Kra will have to live with the consolation prize of breaking the most powerful military fleets in existence, instead.” She paused for a moment, as if listening to something. “If he lives at all. I should never have joined his little cult back then.”
“What was that?” asked Jylik, shocked.
“Oh, I have been working the Koomite angle for years, my Emperor, many years,” said Trilia casually. It was all coming together now, and she was too giddy to keep her plans under wraps any longer.
“This was all part of your plan?” demanded Jylik.
“Not all this, not exactly,” said Trilia. “I imagined consolidating power more completely. I should never have let Hoon-Kra slip through my fingers.”
“We’ll talk about that all later,” said Jylik, frustration clear on his face. “For now, we have to run. We get back to my tower. It should be complete now. The Republic doesn’t have the courage to come after me there.”
“We are not leaving, my Emperor,” said Trilia, pulling a small, one-shot thorn gun from a fold in her dress. “And you will never see that stupid tower.”
The shot was almost as deafening as the silence that followed. A split second later, Jylik’s crown, empty robes and death crystal hit the ground with a tinkling noise. His remains lay lifeless inside the crown that bore his forefathers, as though they had all taken counsel and turned their backs to him.
***
When the madness struck clayside on Gateway, Reclan found herself surrounded, with mad Astralbians before her and mad Shairet behind. Doc and Hrake were with her, along with Grepk, Keshri, Krum-Bahk, and Kwa-Kwa and her Scouts.
“What do you think?” asked Doc.
“The Astralbians are our enemies, not the Shairet,” said Reclan. “Whatever’s happening here, it’s not their fault. We take the tree, as planned, just with a little more reason to keep moving.”
“Well said,” said Hrake. “Let’s get moving.”
They fought like mad to get to the tree, but the Astralbians were confused, some appearing to be fleeing more than charging. It felt more like fighting a crowd than an army. A crazed Astralbian with a heavy saber charged them, and Hrake obliterated him with his hammer. Most of the other Astralbians seemed to steer clear of the advancing ground troops after that. When they had breached the tree, they slammed the door shut behind themselves, hoping the Shairet would be occupied by the fleeing Astralbians.
“Now what?” asked Grepk, holding his head. They had not been immune to the headaches that attended Koo L’Koom’s aura.
“We clear the building,” said Reclan. “Let’s go!”
***
Robots seemed less afflicted by the outbreak, and Grim took advantage of the moment, moving his fleet toward the FRF. By now, Crush should be dead. Hacksaw knew a good deal when he saw one.
Firing like mad as they approached, Ramshackle troop carriers slammed into the Liberty and the FRF’s other ships. Pirates spilled onto the deck, and Crush’s troops rushed to meet them.
***
Vanbrook’s head felt as though it was about to split wide open. He couldn’t imagine what the others must be going through, given that the aura seemed to hit psychics first and worst. He heard a commotion and realized that Hoon-Kra must have heard Raivyn cry out in pain. One of Hoon-Kra’s goons came around the corner, spraying bullets from an automatic rifle. Vanbrook pulled his pistol in a smooth and steady motion. One shot was all Vanbrook needed to put the cultist on the ground.
Unfortunately, more cultists were on the first one’s heels, and Vanbrook knew his luck and skill couldn’t hold out against superior numbers for long. There was a roar from beside him and Darvik charged past, saber drawn, throwing himself into the enemy. Unable to shoot without endangering his ally, Vanbrook ran headlong into the battle as well. The two fought side by side, cutting down the seemingly unending flow of cultists who rounded the ship to confront them. Darvik scooped up one of the fallen cultist’s rifles and fired into the enemy.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
When the small army of cultists had been exhausted, Hoon-Kra walked calmly into view, and Darvik trained the rifle on him, but the high priest of Koo L’Koom had a powerful telekinetic shield surrounding him. The bullets bounced off his shield, harmless lumps of misshapen lead falling to the ground all around him.
“Darvik!” he said with enthusiasm. There was something wild in his eyes that Darvik hadn’t seen before. “You survived! Bizarre! And so did Vanbrook. Darvik, I thought I killed you and here you are. You said you killed him and here he is.” He pointed to each of them in turn, his eyes bulging in a kind of psychotic exuberance. “I suppose we could call that even and part ways on amicable terms, but I have the strangest feeling that you are here to stop me.”
Vanbrook raised his revolver and put a nova round into the shield right between Hoon-Kra’s eyes. The cultist’s head snapped back, but he recovered quickly, staring at Vanbrook and sending a sharp wave of psychic energy into his head. Vanbrook fought back against Hoon-Kra’s attack, but the same aura that was giving Vanbrook a splitting headache seemed to be giving the mad psychic a boost in his abilities. Vanbrook soon found himself under Hoon-Kra’s control, unable to stop the psychic from controlling his movements. Darvik was Hoon-Kra’s next target. He’d never trained to fight psychics, and was an even easier mark than Vanbrook, who remained under Hoon-Kra’s control.
“Now you finally get to do it, Darvik!” said Hoon-Kra. He puppeteered Darvik into throwing down his rifle and drawing his sword. “You get to kill Vanbrook! Then I’ll kill you, obviously.”
Hoon-Kra grinned a wide and horrible grin as Darvik’s hand came back at his command, his sword pointed at Vanbrook’s chest and ready to plunge. Hoon-Kra threw his hands up in wild theatrics, ready to kill one marionette with another. Suddenly his eyes went wide and he stumbled back as if he’d been punched in the face. Vanbrook and Darvik fell like ragdolls. Vanbrook looked over to see Raivyn stumbling around the corner of the Swamp’s Pride.
“I knew you couldn’t keep up a shield and control two puppets,” she said, staring Hoon-Kra in the eyes. “Now tell me… are you ready to fight someone who can fight back?”
Hoon-Kra snarled and balled up his fists, firing a shotgun-like spread of T-bolts at his enemies. Vanbrook and Darvik rolled out of the way and avoided serious injury. Raivyn blocked the attack psychically and returned fire, a steady stream of T-bolts ripping through the air, keeping Hoon-Kra on his back foot.
“Go!” shouted Raivyn to Vanbrook and Darvik. “Take out the amplifier!”
“No!” screamed Hoon-Kra, spittle flying from his lips. “You won’t take this from me now!” Putting half of his effort into a shield and the other half into a hail of T-bolts, he tried to take out Vanbrook and Darvik. The two duelists scrambled around the Swamp’s Pride, running towards the amplifier. Vanbrook fired a nova round into the box, but it didn’t penetrate the outer shell.
“He built it better than that,” said Darvik. “We’ll have to try and crack it open, then we can shoot the guts and that ought to do it.”
A T-bolt fired over their heads and slammed into the antenna, denting it badly.
“Or we can just let him do it himself,” said Vanbrook, cracking half a smile.
Hoon-Kra ran towards them, with Raivyn close behind. Despite the Krauqian’s naturally long legs, he was soon winded and Raivyn overtook him, forcing him into close quarters combat with another psychic. He was accustomed to battles of the will and of the mind; battles of the flesh were not something he excelled in.
Raivyn pushed out with telekinetic force against Hoon-Kra’s head while dropping down and sweeping his legs with a kick. He fell flat on his back. Furious, he fired a spike of T-waves into Raivyn’s mind, trying to put the battle back on a field he was comfortable with.
***
Raivyn was caught off guard by the sudden change in the battle’s rhythm, and Hoon-Kra’s attack was a success. A stab of fear ran through Raivyn, but she refused to let it weaken her resolve, instead purging his presence from her mind with an explosion of telepathic power.
Meanwhile, Vanbrook and Darvik were trying in vain to break open the amplifier.
“Alright, stand back,” said Vanbrook in annoyance, pulling his revolver again.
“That’s not going to-”
The gunshot and reverberating metal cut Darvik off mid-thought, and a small crack appeared in the case of the amplifier. Darvik shoved his blade into the opening and pulled back on it, using his saber as a crowbar.
Hoon-Kra pushed Raivyn back, once again changing tactics on a dime. Roaring in his madness, Hoon-Kra blasted the most devastating T-bolt he could summon at Darvik.
The case of the amplifier was beginning to give way, and Vanbrook slipped his saber into the increasingly wide opening, pulling along with Darvik. The case popped open, and Darvik and Vanbrook fell back. Just as they did, Hoon-Kra’s T-bolt ripped through the air and slammed into the amplifier. There was a fiery burst, and when it subsided the amplifier lay in scattered, smoldering pieces. Vanbrook noticed his headache was gone, as well.
“I told you we could just let him do it,” said Vanbrook, smiling wide.
Darvik was lying on the ground, unmoving. Vanbrook looked around in panic to see the others were as well. Something had taken the psychics down when the amplifier was destroyed. He ran to Raivyn’s side, checking her breathing and pulse.
“Rai! Rai! Wake up!” he cried, shaking her by the shoulders.
Raivyn’s good eye fluttered open and she looked around, confused. “V- Van? Oh, Van, did we do it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “The amplifier’s destroyed.”
“Must’ve been some kind of psychic backlash when you destroyed it,” said Raivyn. “I think I’ll be alright.”
“You better be,” said Vanbrook with a smile.
She smiled back at him.
“I know my timing is awful here, but, uh, can I take you out to dinner when all this is over?” he asked. “Look, I know I’m a jerk and everything, but please -”
“Yes,” said Raivyn, looking up at him, her one good eye tired and misty. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Vanbrook beamed and stood up suddenly, taking Raivyn by the hand and pulling her into a long, deep hug.
“You’re the coolest person I’ve ever met,” said Vanbrook.
“You’re the kindest man I’ve ever known,” said Raivyn.
***
Hoon-Kra stood up, dragging himself from the ground, wheezing quietly as he tried to remain unnoticed. He pulled a knife from between his robes and stalked towards the embracing couple. Their eyes were closed. Just a few more steps. Suddenly a blade was thrust through his brains. Darvik stood beside him, looking on grimly as he pulled the sword back out of Hoon-Kra’s skull, letting his body slump to the ground, lifeless.
He wiped the gore from his blade and sheathed it again. “Scheme your way out of that, you monster.”
***
Something bothered Crush about her surroundings. They were at once familiar and alien. She stood on a black plane, a glowing red mist all around her. The mist seemed dangerous, but at the same time powerless. She pushed back against it, and it fled.
“I believe it’s time to wake up,” she said.
When she opened her eyes, though she hadn’t been aware they were closed, she found herself kneeling on the deck of the Liberty, a massive battle going on all around her. Across the deck she saw Admiral Grim cutting through her soldiers like so much tissue paper. She rose and charged in, gun at the ready. Hacksaw strode up beside her, ready to die by her side.