Kol ran up the metal, spiral staircase behind Jaleel. The thin steps wound inside the building’s perimeter wall. Only feet of concrete and reinforced steel separated Kol from the unloading dock and his first unsupervised fresh air in weeks.
“I want to see how many guys are in the command room,” Jaleel called over his shoulder. “Maybe you can hang outside until I can give you the count.”
“How do you plan to let me know?” Kol asked. “And how many can you incapacitate, with surprise on your side?”
“I can shoot two really fast,” he said. “That’s also, I think, the end of my stun arrows anyway. Most of my other arrows could really mess up the controls, so if it’s more than two, I’ll just say ‘more’ a couple times and you can help.”
“I’m not sure…” Kol began, but gave up on his arguments when he saw sunlight.
At the final curve in the spiral stair, a wide window looked out on the unloading dock. The mountains appeared somehow larger from indoors, with the prospect of escape at hand. The angle of the view did not reveal the troops gathering at the perimeter, but Kol saw the sky filled with ships.
Saw-wings flew in concentric circles. And three larger ships were moving into position above them. Kol recognized the unloading vessel, but there were two more. These ships were also rounded like nautical vessels, but their guns were larger, longer, like the Naval destroyers he’d seen when he’d visited Max or those still assembled in Philadelphia.
“The unloading system won’t be very useful with those in the sky,” Kol said.
“Hmm.” Jaleel glanced out the window. “Nope. We’ll need a different idea with those.” He reached the uppermost landing. “Command should be the second door,” he whispered. “So let’s just do the thing for now.”
“Fine.” Kol came to stop between rooms, casual, back against the wall.
“Excuse me, sir!” Jaleel walked into the command room, bow in plain view. “I have a report of intruders—”
“What are you doing here, Private?” A gravelly voice spoke inside. “Private, where is your team? Explain yourself. I’ve been trying to reach Captain Daine on the comm.”
“Quartermaster, sir,” Jaleel said. “We ran into… We encountered more problems than I have time to talk about. There’s a prison break, sir. More prisoners...”
Kol rounded the side of the doorway, shield projection already formed at his left fist. Inside, he saw three Officers. They stood between complex control panels. A wide, curved window jutted out from the front wall, looking on the whole line of unloading stations.
All officers turned toward Kol when he came into view.
“I’m aware of the attempted escape,” the quartermaster said. “I am asking—”
An arrow took him at his armor’s thigh gap. Another one took the rightmost officer under the arm. Both fell twitching.
Kol raised a new projection before the other officer could draw his blaster. He slid the energy wall along the floor. He braced himself and kept his footing strong when the wall struck the officer, forced him backward, forced him against the far wall.
“Traitors!” The officer choked out the word.
“Okay.” Jaleel pulled a thin object from his belt, too shiny to be his stylus. “Lower the shield enough so I can stun him at the neck.”
“Why are you doing this?” the officer asked. He squirmed, white armor pinned between wall and projection. “Why?”
And when the man asked that question Kol no longer saw the unloading official, the obstacle to Max’s escape, to everyone’s escape. Kol saw a man in the armor he still wore, that Duncan had worn, and Brielle… So many he’d known and fought with, ate with, lived with. And now a trooper in that same armor was a nameless enemy to pin and toss aside, mowing through these forces with Orson Gregory and his crew.
“Hey.” Jaleel waved a hand in front of Kol’s face. “Lower your shield so I can stun him. You’re not having that thought seizure thing, now, are you?”
“Helmont will butcher you for this,” the pinned officer shouted. “You’ll feel his fire. Death to traitors!”
Kol lowered the shield, shrank it so it stretched only from the floor to the man’s neck. The officer raised his hand to the lip of the field, but before he could do anything, Jaleel jabbed the shining object beneath his chin. The man relaxed and fell, slack against the projection.
“Are you okay?” Jaleel asked again.
“I am.” Kol lowered the officer to the floor.
A rumbling in the earth began before he said more. The feeling of shockwaves in the ground made the breath catch in his throat.
He would not forget that feeling. He’d felt the ground shake with the oncoming march of Thunderworks automatons, marshaling outside Philadelphia. But then the tremors intensified, like the beginning of a real earthquake.
“What the hell is that?” Jaleel yelled. A clipboard clattered down the control panel and fell to the floor. Pens rattled in a cup on the far side of the room. A mug also crashed to the floor, shattering, sending coffee running along the tile.
“Do what you’re going to do,” Kol said. “It’s getting worse.”
* * *
Orson sheathed the sword before the shellcraft escaped.
Earhart hesitated only once, before she tore free of her cell. She stretched her face out toward the platform that still held the prone form of Dr. Velye. She pushed it aside, shoved the walkway back toward the balcony.
“Fire on the enigma!” Sir Lezander shouted. “Fall back to supported positions. Prepare and—”
Orson had just enough time to guide the kazoo’s earplugs into his ears before Earhart sent a gout of neon green liquid from her face. It was a torrent, a blast like a broken fire hydrant and it stank. Even through his mask, the smell burned his nostrils.
Orson was still tightening the rebreather at his mouth and nose when the screams began.
The screams were short, a single peal of pain and terror.
And the last voices were drowned out by the rumbling. Orson didn’t know whether the acid had weakened the building around him. He didn’t know if this was the noise of the massive shellcraft, fighting to escape.
Even with ears plugged, Orson was overwhelmed by noise. Earhart rumbled as she flew, an odd bass wub-wub like overloud dance music. And she howled more as she worked. And the walls howled back as she broke them and broke free.
INCOMING DEBRIS – NONLETHAL FINE PARTICULATE MATTER – RESPIRATOR SEALED FALLING PROJECTILE – CHANCE OF COLLISION – 10% FALLING PROJECTILE – CHANCE OF COLLISION – 15%
Orson was engulfed in noise. The disintegrating ceiling burst down in clouds of dust that obscured everything but the rising form of the shellcraft. Orson braced himself, arms over his head. He pressed himself against the curved wall.
He waited through the thrumming and crashing and howling. He waited until the dust cleared and noise ceased and the scrolling warnings came to an end.
Then Orson looked up and saw daylight.
Everything was gone. Most of the upper balconies were gone. The long tunnel back to the central antechamber was melted through. Orson saw clear to the white roof of the main room.
He saw no motion. The only heat he saw came from the still-dripping and half-melted walls.
He drew his sword again and walked to the balcony’s edge.
Far above, there was only a hole where the concrete ceiling had been. Beyond that, he saw clear, open sky.
* * *
“Something’s happening,” Melanthymos said. “Something very large is tearing free of this building. Something alive.”
Enoa saw the older woman’s feet actually flex against the floor, veins and muscles bulging at her calves and her toes.
“Something alive is doing this?” Sergeant Hale asked. “What’ve they got in here, a herd of elephants?”
“Bigger,” Melanthymos said. “Much, MUCH bigger than elephants.”
“I think it’s best if you stay inside there.” Dr. Stan leaned over the open cart. “I’m very sorry, Captain Maros. We will have you much more comfortable once the Aesir arrives here.”
“I’d rather have control of my own movement,” Max said. “Whatever is making that sound could very easily keep us from leaving. It feels like an earthquake.”
“What could cause this?” A prisoner shouted.
“Every now and then I’d sense something massive living here,” Melanthymos said. “I think it flies. And when it leaves, we will have our chance to fight. Prepare your forces, Sergeant. We take the perimeter when it escapes.”
She wheeled toward Enoa. “Do you know Bullet Rain?”
“I do,” Enoa said. She tried to feel out toward the shaking. She could find the source, hundreds of yards along the massive building. But was it alive? How many Hierarchia experiments gone wrong could cause the earth to shake that way?
“Get the Cloud girl one of those water jugs you’ve been carrying.” Melanthymos snapped her fingers at the gathered prisoners, standing beside one of the open carts. “She’ll make better use of it than you will.”
The prisoners looked between Melanthymos and Sergeant Hale.
“You owe me about forty-some answers if we both live through this,” Hale said. “Do as she says. Give the young lady one of the waters.” He nodded to Enoa. “Do you do water, Miss, the way she uses rocks?”
“Not exactly,” Enoa said. “I make the water explode, like little bombs.”
Hale might’ve said more, but the rumbling intensified. Explosions joined it. The sirens changed pattern around them and started a desperate, repeating three-note pattern.
“Once this begins, I’ll need to get around your barricade and begin my work.” Melanthymos closed her eyes. “It’s happening soon…”
“Mother of God.” One of the watchmen yelled at his portable periscope. “You have to see this, Sarge.”
And then the world exploded with noise, landslides, falling stone, energy fire, screaming.
There were new sounds too, a deep howl that Enoa felt as much as she heard. It was a living sound. It was the sound of something very much alive breaking free of the Pinnacle and bursting out into the sky.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Time to leave.” Melanthymos smiled.
* * *
The rumbling stopped with an explosion far down the building. The shockwave threw Kol sideways into the command room’s front control panel.
“Hey!” Jaleel sat dead center at the controls. “Watch out! I need some of those.” He leaned around Kol to reach a lever. The room’s hallway-side door sealed beside them.
Kol slide aside but did not reply. He saw then the source of the tremors.
A huge, living, flying creature rocketed out from the Pinnacle. It skirted the circle of mountain peaks, spewing long trails of neon green that melted ship and stone alike.
Three Saw-wings spun out of sight, careening toward the valley far below, holes visible in their curved wings.
And Kol also saw the mountain’s peaks steaming. He saw the craggy edges smoothing away, melting down like butter, from the creature’s discharge.
“That must’ve been what caused the rumbling.” Jaleel clapped. “Look at the size of that thing! This has to be an Orson!”
The creature took another long loop, spewing green. One whole Saw-wing squadron, all in tight formation, took a stream of the corrosive. All melted. All fell, down to the growing graveyard on the valley floor or smashed to ruins among the melting mountain peaks.
One Saw-wing rammed directly into the Pinnacle, far to Kol’s left, sending out another immense shockwave.
“I haven’t even gotten started,” Jaleel cheered. “This is just way too good. The whole base is trashed now and everyone’s escaping and we robbed them blind. It’s like Baron Helmont’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day – you know, like that kids’ book.”
“The creature in the sky is useful,” Kol said. “But only to a point. Whatever that behemoth is, if it decides to stay here, we’ll face the same problem we had before. Worse. We know what Saw-wings are.”
One of the larger Liberty Corps battleships moved in, firing its heavy cannons at the creature. What looked like stone chipped away from the dark blur, disintegrating under the heavy heat. The creature roared and twisted, end-over-end, 180 degrees and flew back toward the large ship.
“Don’t get too worried.” Jaleel tapped one of the readouts on the monitor. “Looks like more things are taking off, and it’s looking pretty weird.”
“What now?” Kol listened. He tried to hear without hearing, to look for Shaping. But it was too noisy. He felt nothing more until he saw the other crowd of escapees, streaking across the sky.
Kol couldn’t follow them all.
More creatures flew away from the base. There were winged shapes, some as small as birds. Some looked almost human with fleshy arms and legs despite their feathered wings.
One of the human shapes had eyes that glowed red. It seemed to bring a shadow with it, a haze that shrouded everything around it.
The flying figures dove down into the valley, avoiding acid and Saw-wing fire. Some of the Saw-wings gave pursuit. They peeled away from their wide maneuvers and swung low through the valley.
“Look!” Jaleel nodded. “Their cannons aren’t firing.” He didn’t glance up from the controls. “Probably another Orson.” He laughed again.
But Kol did not answer him. A long, undulating thing flew past their wide window. It was like a sea serpent, but swimming through the air. It shot straight up, through the battle, ascending like a rocket at liftoff. More of the Liberty Corps fighters shot skyward after it.
There were too many fliers, too many for the divided Saw-wings to chase them all, even with the creature still trading blows with the lead battleship. Kol didn’t know where to look, his eyes drawn everywhere.
He saw the totality of the madness. Then the human escapees joined the fray. Airships of multiple kinds, helicopters, and what looked like World War II era bombers all flew from the Pinnacle, strafing the Saw-wings and the bellies of the larger vessels before they too took to the valley.
One of the main artillery batteries did fire then, one further from the base. It struck an airship. The craft exploded on contact, a single burst of heat and then nothing. But others fled on.
“How ready are you with your arms?” Kol watched the two other larger vessels sink low through the sky. They angled away from the dogfighting and toward the Pinnacle’s roof. “We will need them very soon.”
“I won’t be too long,” Jaleel said. “If we’re gonna be on the same side, you have to learn not to rush me. We haven’t even heard from the others yet. They might not have left the building with all of this going on.”
The unloading ship opened fire toward the base, toward the perimeter ledge beneath them.
It got off three shots before something responded. Five gray blurs the size of cars flew up from the ledge. Four exploded into dust against the ship’s particle shield. But all struck in the same spot.
The last projectile broke through the shielding and through the vessel’s hull, a jagged break. Even from that distance, Kol could see the torn hole leaking thick steam.
The unloading ship continued to fire, but it reversed course, back toward the line of mountains.
“I think they’re making their move now,” Kol said. He couldn’t see much from the lower level, nothing but blue flashes from blaster fire.
Kol also heard the sound of Enoa’s Shaping. And then he saw another blur, a translucent stream that reflected sunlight. Kol knew it was her Bullet Rain.
“We have an advantage with their larger ships too.” Jaleel set both hands on the controls. “They don’t want to open fire on their own base, even at close range. So they’re not using their big artillery. Okay. When our friends give me something to throw, I’m ready.”
Another wave of aircraft flew from the Pinnacle. There were more of the vintage planes, another hovercraft, and several people in bright jumpsuits, piloting retro jetpacks, full body rocket packs as big as they were. One of these was struck by a bolt from the second battleship.
But the exodus came and came, and it was simply too much in too many directions to stop. The Liberty Corps divided and divided, and they were too few to fire on the perimeter.
The acid-spitting monster finished with the first battleship, sending it crashing down onto the inoperative artillery emplacements. By then, only a half-squadron of Saw-wings remained to defend the final battleship.
The creature howled another bellow. Then it also shot straight upward, far, far higher than Kol could see, even when he leaned across the controls to watch it ascend.
Kol was still leaning close to the window when the woman in the lab coat flew by, arms clutched around the neck of a winged lizard – dragon and pterodactyl at once. They soared past the unloading area and swooped low through the valley. One of the operative cannons fired at her. Another two Saw-wings peeled away to stop her, but Kol could not see if they escaped.
“Hey, take my comm,” Jaleel said. “Please. Let’s see if they’re ready. If weird rock lady had trouble with the shield on that bulk cruiser, she might not manage their frigate. We’ll need both of us to bust it up, even with it flying this close.”
“Right.” Kol leaned back and took the comm from Jaleel’s outstretched hand. “My division didn’t have anything this complex. We were still working with radios. It might be a minute before I manage a message.”
“That’s okay,” Jaleel said. “The Aesir’s not even here yet and their ships are two-thirds gone.”
Kol heard something else then, an unheard sound. It was Shaping, but not Enoa. It was like walking, immense walking, huge like some of the creatures that had just fled the Pinnacle. And the sound was getting closer.
He looked for the source of the noise and saw the first of the bipedal mechanized suits crest the perimeter ledge. It climbed up from the sheer mountainside. It stood easily as high as the unloading arms.
“Don’t celebrate now.” Kol pointed. “Here’s something new to worry about.”
* * *
Orson fired his repulsor and flew up to the mouth of the passage back to the antechamber. Most of its ceiling was gone, melted clear through to steel mesh and misshapen concrete.
The sounds of ships and battle were now unmistakable, clear through the open roof. He heard Saw-wings’ shrieks cut short, drowned out by the shellcraft’s bellows. He heard the sound of engines, other aerial propulsion. The sky was full of more than Hierarchia fighters.
Orson turned away from those sounds when he heard the nearer screams and howls from the antechamber. He didn’t follow the hall toward the noise. He flew instead, up through the broken ceiling. He looked down on the open antechamber from above.
Fallen cages and broken tanks lay everywhere. Some of them had tipped sideways, treads still moving. Almost all living animals were gone. He saw several small, motionless forms and one larger body in a lab coat.
A line of the apelike pithecus stood along the far wall. One held another scientist piggyback. They stood still.
All watched the floating man, the ‘former human’ Orson had seen before.
The escaped prisoner’s legs still dangled, useless, but he had no clear need of them. His tight helmet was gone, revealing his shaved head and a tracery of scars along his skull.
As Orson watched, the floating man raised his left arm, pointed straight out toward one of the taller pithecus. He waved the outstretched arm and the creature flew, skidding sideways. The man released the pithecus as he slammed into a curve of the wall.
“Hey, Parade Balloon!” Orson landed in the midst of the fallen containment units. “Let them go.”
Both the scientist and the pithecus crowd turned toward the sound of Orson’s voice, but the floating man only glanced from side to side, his dazed eyes unfocused.
“Yeah, you,” Orson continued. “Who else would I mean by ‘Parade Balloon’? I’m talking to you.”
The floating man twisted around in midair, craning his neck back to see Orson. The unfocused eyes scanned around him, from broken pen to shattered tank. Orson waved.
“Listen, I’m gonna give you just the one chance,” he said. “Those folks are trying to leave, just like you and me. So you let them go or I’ll be seeing how good you really are at flying.”
The eyes finally focused on him, the man’s brow furrowed. But then the eyes, now intense with rage, settled on Orson’s own. The floating man did not speak, but he raised a hand, one long finger pointed at Orson’s chest.
Orson felt as if hands suddenly pressed to his sides, like actual fingers were grasping at the outer fabric of his coat.
But the hands found no purchase. They clawed at him as if trying to grasp a great, smooth stone. They found no way to grip him. The floating man’s eyes widened even further.
“Not used to that, are you?” Orson took a step toward him. “Most T.K. aren’t. Even your skill ain’t the be all and end all, buddy.”
The floating man raised both hands, stretched them straight out. He clapped them together. A broken pen and transparent glass wall rose from the floor, lifted by no physical touch. They lifted on Orson’s either side and flew toward each other. The debris hurtled together to crush him.
When the metal bars shattered what remained of the glass, Orson was already fifteen feet in the air, held steady by his repulsor.
The floating man looked up at him. He opened his mouth and let out short gargling sounds. Then he fled, flying toward another of the round room’s far doors, arms pinwheeling.
Orson watched him until he passed through the door. Then Orson returned to the floor several feet from the pithecus and the scientist. Two of the pithecus helped their fallen fellow rise back to his feet, embracing him and holding him upright.
“Are you okay?” Orson nodded to the scientist.
“Thank you,” she said. “We all thank you. Mr. Kesey, after what the baron did to him… To him, everyone and everything is a threat. I… Oh my God, where’s Maurice? What happened to him?”
“One of the knights shot him while we were freeing Earhart,” Orson said. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have left him alone to comfort the shellcraft. If I was with him I might’ve done something. But I don’t even know how he planned to get her out of there. I doubt he had this level of destruction in mind.”
“You have no need to blame yourself,” the scientist answered. “He would have preferred his own death to leaving her here. If he’d survived, this would have been contained. Maurice had some influence on her aim and her target. But without that influence…” She gestured to the wreckage. “We couldn’t recover them all once they’d been freed, but we took those we could. I hope the airships escaped.”
“Just you here?”
“I am leaving with the pithecus,” she said. “Other than some specimens that are now gone into the main building, I believe we’ve done as well as we can.”
“Me too.” Orson still heard the Saw-wings outside when he listened. And when he stopped speaking, the scientist and her friends joined him in the quiet.
Then Orson could also hear the cacophony of many firing blasters. “Since you missed your airships, do you need some other ride out of here?”
She shook her head. “We’ll take the mountain pass. Once we leave the grounds, they will not find us. But thank you.” And the pithecus raised their hands to their chins. Some grinned at Orson. “They are also thanking you.”
“You’re all welcome. Hey, is there a quicker way out of here, or should I just take the enormous hole in the ceiling?”
“That’s likely the fastest,” she said. “In fact, would you mind showing us the way? We need somewhere to climb out.”
“Not at all,” Orson said. “It’s past time to get out of here.”
* * *
Baron Helmont was in his personal storeroom when he felt Sir Lezander die.
He kept his space neat, all shelves organized. Most were filled with small, identical boxes, labeled with chemical compositions and elements contained within.
Helmont had briefly returned to his work, examining his stores of iron ingots. Then he’d felt Sir Valdemar join Lezander in death. Then their Shapers had joined the dead. Then their troopers vanished from his maps.
Helmont felt their entire platoon wiped out, lives literally melted away.
He felt the shellcraft escape. He intimately felt the details of the destruction. He knew the fear from the dying troops. And he knew the fear from his pilots, his gunners, his crews outside. Terror and panic consumed them. It flooded them, adrenaline and cortisol – all of them now useless, useless to panic.
And of course, the unmistakable fire of Thousand Destiny burned amidst the wreckage.
“I am afraid I have more troubling news to deliver.” Lieutenant Greenley entered the storeroom. “Report from the terminal squad, sir. Gregory used Inventory Captain Daine’s Card Key. He accessed information on Knightschurch, our Pacific surveys, our suppositions about the key holders, among other data.”
“Unsurprising,” Helmont said. “Thank you, Greenley. Now, I have a few messages before we adjourn this session.”
“I am prepared, sir.” Greenley held his datapad.
“First, interrupt Captain Davard. We have need of the Manifest Destiny.” Helmont finished collecting iron and then tungsten ingots, cobalt and carbon samples, and bottles of oxygen, hydrogen, and helium gases.
“Next, redirect all my knights and Shapers to the surface. Sir Lezander and Sir Valdemar will not be joining us. Their trap has not succeeded.” From a mahogany case, he retrieved a sample bag containing a firm block of ash wood encircled in several strands of silvery translucent thread or hair.
“Communication failure, sir.” Greenley set the datapad aside. “It appears there is now some manner of interference being transmitted from our own comm hub. We cannot reach our remaining capital ships or any independent squads.”
“Did any of my instructions transmit before this outage?” Helmont collected several vials of blood from a temperature controlled case that hissed with steam when he opened it.
Greenley retrieved his datapad. He turned it so Helmont could see the rows and rows of text, highlighted in red.
“No, sir.”
“You will leave then, collect three squads and reclaim what remains of our communications network.” Helmont found the pouch at his belt, a device of his own design. Eight vials of blood could fit neatly inside it, secure until he needed them, until he needed most detailed maps of very particular targets.
“Of course, sir.” Greenley asked. “What of you, sir?”
“You know, I have a piece of the shellcraft’s hide in this very room.” Helmont walked to the far side of the narrow closet. Two objects stood there, unboxed. They were Hierarchia design, matte black – knee-high boots. “If this attack weren’t from within, that beast would be in my grip. It would not currently be fleeing the Earth’s exosphere. If my forces weren’t scattered, they would rally alongside me. I would instruct them in neutralizing the prisoners.
“But now, Orson Gregory’s chaos has taken us. His true weapon has claimed many lives. ” Helmont laid his bare hands on the boots. He felt the copper and aluminum, manganese and the layered cavorite filaments that lined the boots’ repulsor units.
“My tasks remain the same,” Helmont finished. “Contain the remaining enigmas and kill the Aesir crew.”