Hearts of Darkness - Plague of the Void Seeds / 12

This is an original, write as I go, Steemit adventure

Post 12

Present

Sill looked upon a nightmare. From their vantage aboard the nest-mother, she was able to survey the dire situation on the ground. The shield domes of the ten cities were swarming with Void Seeds, all attempting to drain the shields. It was difficult to see past them to ascertain what was happening within the cities. The Void Seed not engaged with the shield domes were arrayed in ten monstrous, black rings, like gigantic oily moats, a few hundred metres from the walls. They were clearly waiting for the shields to drop because at that point the walls, impressive as they were, would fail to prove much of an obstacle. The situation was desperate. This might very well be the end of her home.

“Keeerrrroooooeeeeee!” She wailed mournfully.

Bulvodin, who had moved closer to the viewing panel in order to see the state of the invasion, placed a hand on her shoulder. He gently, but insistently, turned her to face him.

“We’re going to save them.”

“Lost.”

“No. Alive.”

“Fight.”

“Yes.”

Sill took Bulvodin’s hand, pulling him and along as they hastily made for the move room. It was at times like this that Bulvodin wished he had not lost his white bone blade. It was a beautiful and ancient piece, ground by one of Dagr’s distant Blodhur relatives. It was so old, in fact, that the bone had finally died and the blue blood-gift had crystalized. The result, an ash-white blade of five feet, slender, double edged, with a razor point and flare towards the tip. The hilt was rough and sure, guarded by two reverse spikes. A deep blue pattern of slightly radiating crystals wound along the blade. When he had wielded it in battle, it would sing to him. The blade had an ancient name, Banarak, reflection in Argantuan. It was a noble name that served as a reminder to always measure his actions. In a very real sense, the weapon mirrored the qualities of the wielder and he took the blade’s honourable legacy extremely seriously. He suspected he would have great need of that weapon shortly. It had been very difficult to tell Dagr of it’s loss in the battle for Llethilyn, a Valhalconin colony planet in the Genibr system. Bulvodin had vowed then to recover it.

They reached the moving room and Sill shot off to speak with a Ziff commander. To call it a room was misleading, it was more like a temple. Every race which attained the knowledge and technical capability to move instantaneously through time and space learned a deep and profound respect for the capability. All moving rooms had a sense of reverence about them, despite their differences. The Ziff’s was a great cavernous room. The walls were white and covered in precise golden drawings of Sserwellia, her stars, a variety of constellations and other similar depictions. It was beautiful. A contingent of Ziff, standing on the pearl-white platform in the center of the room, were about to move. A deep hum began and the platform changed from pearl to translucent to a mirror. One second the Ziff were standing on reflections of themselves, in the next, only the Ziff in the reflection remained. The hum began to subside and the surface of the platform changed back to pearl white.

“Bulvodin.”

Sill was back.

“We go. Serwellia. Not city. Behind Void.”

“So. We’re going to attack them from behind.”

They walked onto the platform along with a large number of Ziff and prepared to move….

Present

The humans had completed their move to Sserwellia’s surface from the Daxiste-agorian flagship. Three hundred men and women of the elite unit were standing around checking and rechecking their gear. Gary was moving among them, his mere presence a reassurance. Anna was feeling anxious. The humans were her responsibility and this would be by far the biggest engagement any of them had faced. They could very well all end up dead. No, don’t think like that.

The Daxiste-agori had requested Anna to lead the humans against the Void Seeds that were attacking the Northern capital Sserwessa. They would be dispersed among the companies of primarily Ziff and valhalconin, though there was likely to be the odd Shaddonos and Argantuan with them. It was a great shame that those powerful beings were becoming so rare.

Anna took a deep breath. She coughed slightly. The air was a very different mixture to that found on Earth. Without her genetic enhancements, she would already be dead. It tasted strange, like metal and dust. Her company would find themselves approximately sixteen percent less effective as a result of the air. Quite a difference when you might be fighting for your life. On a positive note, the light on this planet was stunning. Sserwellia was not a bad place to face death, if only because of the light. It was like standing in a rainbow with a thousand hues, only the quality of the light enabled you to see clearly for miles. The light seemed to dance across every surface, crisp, sparkling, yet warm. Beautiful.

The Daxiste-agori and the Argantuan Blodhur, Dagr had been working to improve the lethality of the humans. Each of her company had been issued a very special rifle. They were the only ones in existence, newly fabricated and almost completely untested. These rifles were effectively portable railguns, using electromagnetic forces to launch a projectile at very high velocities. The weapons were extremely primitive from the Dixaste-agorian point of view. What made them special was the projectile. They were fragments of white bone, around which, was packed a metal alloy. It was very important that the white bone was on the surface in places to ensure that the white bone would come into contact with the skin of the Void Seeds. Each of her company had ten projectiles. The rarity of white bone was such that no more could be made after these were used, even if they proved effective. Still it would be nice to hit them hard, even if it was just the once.

They would wait for the initial engagement to occur, look for high impact opportunities and generally try to take out as many of the larger Void Seeds as possible. Only a shot to the heart would have any chance of taking one out.
Anna had once asked Click why they couldn’t do something like crash a huge ship into them he explained that they had once tried that very thing. After a colossal impact and massive devastation to the planet surface and despite the Void Seed being flung about a bit, when the dust settled they had grown and multiplied. He had described it as “a most dispiriting event.” He’d also explained that concussive force could be used to move the Void Seed, but ultimately, it only made them stronger, so was only deployed as a means of distraction and only when absolutely necessary.

Pity. It always felt like they were nibbling at the enemy rather than doing some great decisive damage. Imagine how the other races felt, those that had already lost so much to this endless war of attrition.

It was time.

“Right, could have your attention please?!” Anna called out.

The humans stopped what they were doing and stood.

“It has been a privilege to work with you. We will shortly be in the fight of our lives. I know you are under no illusions. You have been as prepared as it was possible to make you. We are part of an alliance that is standing against a might foe. The cost of failure is extreme. But today, we will bring the fight to the Void Seed and show our allies our commitment to our cause. Hit them hard. Until the bone drowns!”

“Until the bone drowns.” Roared back the company…

Present

Click entered the Daxiste-agori command deck on the flagship. It was like a cixl nest had been agitated. There were beings and viewing panels everywhere, all engaged in the co-ordination of thousands of defense units.
Ccceecccccquoccc had no doubt taken her position within the amplifier, an opaque sphere that would isolate occupants from all sensory information other than that which came from her feeds. She was the most powerful strategic mind in the Daxiste-agorian fleet and would be telepathically connected to several observers, analytics (both cybernetic units with Daxiste-agorian biology) and Daxiste-agorian commanders.

Joshua had departed for the move room only moments ago. He had insisted on joining the fight. Click could understand his eagerness to face his enemies. Joshua’s greatest fear was that the changes he was undergoing would turn everyone against him. His second greatest fear was that his transformation would continue until there was nothing left of him but a Void Seed. He was desperate to prove himself and to use his new found abilities to hit back at the enemy. Click could understand his fears perfectly well, though he tried to reassure Joshua that there was absolutely no evidence his mind was also transforming. So far all the effects were physical, including their latest discovery, which was that Joshua no longer required food. Some simple tests had revealed that he was unconsciously extracting all the energy he needed from the space around him. It was remarkable and frightening.
Clicked moved to a viewing panel where he could observe both the northern and Southern engagements. At this point in time, they were remarkably similar. Each city’s shield dome was covered in Void Seeds and ringed by hundreds of thousands more. Behind them, Alliance forces were positioned intermittently……they didn’t have the numbers to encircle them.

Then, without warning, something incredible happened. The Void Seeds standing at the pinnacle of the Ziff capital’s shield dome exploded. Click focused the viewing on the area and was utterly amazed to see a gaping hole where a number of Void Seed had been, with bits of them thrown all over the place. There was no evidence of what had caused the damage. He couldn’t believe it. Other than the white bone plasma canon, reserved for the giant Void Seeds, he’d never seen them take so much damage at once. At that moment, he saw them, three Ziff fighters, flying in formation at high speed. They were heading directly for the Void Seeds at the pinnacle of one of the other city’s shield domes. With incredible speed and precision, they slammed into the Void Seeds, obliterating them. There were three Ziff fighters using identical tactics in the South. How could this be? Click tried to focus on the fighters themselves. Realisation dawned. They had been modified. The entire front of the ships and leading edge of their wings had been lined with white bone. It was an extravagant use of so rare a resource but what an innovation. They were devastating.

The fighters continued to sweep through higher concentrations of Void Seeds on the shield domes. The Void Seeds were clearly dismayed and began to pull back from the cities, shield domes intact, to their surrounding positions. Having cleared the cities, the fighters began to target the encircling Void Seed. The fighters were getting close to their target when several void seed seemed to shoot across their path. The Void Seed were seeking to nullify the new threat by transforming into their spherical state and phasing into the path of the fighters. Two of the fighters flew straight through the attacking Void Seeds, turning them to vapour, but the third fighter was struck on a part of the wing that had no white bone. The fighter immediately spun in the air, careening out of control, to crash among the enemy.

Several Void Seeds surrounded the downed fighter and one pulled the Ziff pilot from the wreckage. He was still alive. The Void Seed rammed an appendage into his chest, froze his body, then threw it to the ground where the other Void Seed trampled the body.

Click felt helpless and enraged at the same time. He scanned the cities. The command to attack had been given and Ziff were pouring out of the cities, at the same time, the external units began to engage. The two remaining fighters, now under constant, heavy bombardment from phasing Void Seed, were continuing their attacks. How much longer could they last?