An image flashed through Kira’s mind of the moment when she’d ripped the transmitter out of the wall of the Jelly ship. “Just hold them off,” she said, scrambling to her feet. Keeping her head down, she ran to the blocked entrance of the temple and put her hands against the cold metal.
Sweat dripped into her eyes as she loosened her grip on the Soft Blade—just a fraction—and reached out with the suit, stretching and spreading herself, like a rubber sheet pulled taut. Don’t lose control … don’t lose control.…
A bullet flattened itself against the metal above her head, spraying her with silvery spall. Kira hunched her shoulders and tried to ignore the constant, battering explosions of gunfire and grenades.
Her skin crawled as the Soft Blade tore open her skinsuit and formed a web of knotting tendrils between her fingers. The tendrils extended outward, flowing across the metal surface, seeking and grasping with millions of hairlike feelers.
“Thule!” Trig exclaimed.
“Might want to hurry,” Falconi said in a conversational tone.
Kira pressed inward with the xeno, driving it into every cranny and crevice and microscopic stress fracture. She felt the xeno—felt herself—burrowing through the bonded structure of the metal, like tree roots digging through hard-packed earth.
The metal was incredibly thick. Meters upon meters of it armored the entrance to the temple. What were they trying to keep out? she wondered. Then it occurred to her that perhaps the Soft Blade was the answer to that question.
Heat radiated from the surface of the metal as it began to give. “Get ready!” she shouted. The moment she felt movement between her various extruded tendrils, she yanked, hard.
With an anguished shriek, the metal parted. Glittering dust filled the air as the fibers of the suit pulled heavy, silver-grey chunks away from the building. A dark opening took shape before her.
Overhead, three more Jelly ships screamed across the sky, meteors trailing fire and smoke. From them fell scores of drop-pods: evil seeds planted throughout the city. Too late, Kira thought, triumphant.
She returned the Soft Blade to herself, and again she was whole.
4.
Bullets whined off the sides of the jagged metal, and laser blasts melted finger-sized holes—splattering molten droplets in every direction—as Kira pushed forward into the darkness.
Falconi followed close behind, then Trig, Nielsen, and the rest of the squad. The Marines activated flat, hemispherical glow lights, which they tossed around the perimeter of the space.
The room was huge and deep. Even with the crazed collection of lights, Kira recognized the sweep of the arched ceiling and the pattern of the tessellated floor. This place she had walked long ago, beside the Highmost, near the end of days.… A graveyard chill gave her pause, and she said, quietly, “Everyone be careful. Don’t touch anything.”
Behind her, Hawes snapped orders, and the Marines took aim at the ragged opening they’d entered through.
“Hold this spot,” said Koyich. “Don’t let a single Jelly past.”
“Sir, yessir!”
As Kira ventured deeper into the darkness, Falconi joined her, as did Koyich, Nielsen, Trig, and the Entropists. But they let her take the lead as she headed toward the back of the space.
Now that they were inside the temple, Kira knew exactly where to go. There was no question in her mind; ancient memories assured her that this was the right place and that what she sought was just ahead.…
Gunshots continued to echo through the cavernous chamber, loud and thunderous. How long had the place lain in silence? And now the violence of Jellies and humans fighting had shattered that peace. Kira wondered who the Vanished would fault most if they were still around.
Thirty meters from the entrance, the room ended at an enormously tall, thin pair of outward-curving doors. White and inlayed with fractal lines of blue, they were far more ornate than anything else she’d seen in the city.
Kira raised a hand. Before she touched the doors, a ring of light appeared near the height of her head, overlapping the seam between the two doors. Then they parted without sound, sliding into the walls and disappearing into hidden recesses.
Another room lay before them, smaller than the antechamber. It was heptagonal in shape, with a ceiling that twinkled as if with stars and a floor that possessed a faint, iridescent sheen like that of a soap bubble. At each vertex of the room stood a crystalline obelisk, blue-white and translucent, save for the one opposite her, which was red and black. It, like the others, had a stern look, as if watching over the chamber with a disapproving gaze.
But it was the center of the room that drew Kira’s attention. Three steps—too high and shallow to be comfortable for human anatomy—led to a dais, also heptagonal. From the dais rose a pedestal, and from the pedestal, a four-sided case that sparkled like cut diamond.
Within the diamond case there hung suspended seven shards: the Staff of Blue, now broken.
Kira stared. She could not bring herself to understand or accept. “No,” she whispered.
Then alerts flashed in her overlays, and despite herself, she looked. A groan escaped her, and it echoed in the mausoleum of the Vanished.
Fourteen more ships had entered the system. Not Jellies. Nightmares.
CHAPTER IV. TERROR
1.
They were surrounded. They would have to stand and fight, and they would likely die.
Kira’s mind whirled as the reality of the situation clamped shut around her, like an iron coffin. There was no escape this time, no trick or turn or hope of reprieve. They were too far from anywhere to expect help, and neither the Jellies nor the nightmares would show them mercy.
It was all her fault, and it wasn’t something she could fix.
“Is it supposed to be like that?” Falconi asked, his voice harsh. He indicated the broken staff.
“No,” said Kira.
“Can you fix it?” said Koyich, echoing her thoughts.
“No. I don’t even know if it can be fixed.”
“That’s not an acceptable answer, Navárez. We—”
BOOM!
The building shuddered. Pieces of the starry ceiling crashed to the floor, the heavens coming undone. The diamond case swayed and fell, shattered—sending the pieces of the Staff of Blue flying in different directions.
The Entropists bent to pick up one of the shards.
Through the doorway to the inner sanctum, Kira saw the front of the temple had been blown apart. The Jellies’ pillbug-like vehicle was parked outside, no longer incapacitated, main gun trained on their location. The Marines were retreating from the jagged opening even as they peppered the vehicle with bullets and lasers.
Sparks erupted from the side of the pillbug’s gun as the concentrated fire slagged it.
“Falconi! How far out is the Wallfish?” said Koyich, shouldering his gun as he moved to the side of the doorway.
“Fifteen minutes,” said Falconi, taking the other side.
“Shit. Get in here! Get in here! Move! Move! Move!” Koyich shouted at his men even while firing into the clouds of smoke and chaff, as precise as a machine.
“Pinned down!” said Hawes. “Got wounded! Can’t—”
The clumping thuds of Nielsen’s exo startled Kira as the woman charged past her, into the front area of the temple. Falconi swore and fired three grenades in quick succession to buy her some time.