Ereshkigal’s War (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 5), page 17
Unable to speak without risking the barrier collapsing, LeBoeuf sent a telepathic message to Maxwell, asking him to tell the others to stand near her. She also whispered into his mind that maintaining the shield ahead was affecting her brain and that she couldn’t verbally communicate.
Maxwell spun to the computer station. “Penelope, come stand with us quick!”
Penelope trotted ahead, pistol raised, and stood with the group.
“So, uh, we’re going to be teleported back to the Kepler, right?” she asked.
LeBoeuf sent another telepathic message to Maxwell, asking him to tell Penelope that she needed to focus.
“LeBoeuf is trying to focus,” Maxwell transmitted. “She’s gotta keep this psionic shield up and teleport us simultaneously. Not an easy task.”
LeBoeuf echoed into his thoughts that there were too many fuckers shooting at her psionic barricade. Each shot forced her to spend more mental energy on maintaining it. Maxwell’s voice echoed in her mind. He wanted LeBoeuf to iris the psionic barricade enough so he and Chevallier could stick their rifles through it and take some pressure off her.
LeBoeuf liked the idea. Two small gaps appeared in the purple shimmering force field, one for Maxwell’s psionic rifle, the other for Chevallier’s assault rifle. The two moved toward the holes, pushed their guns through, and opened fire. Their aim wasn’t anything to write home about, understandable since their weapons were in a fixed place and only shooting at what was in the way. Thankfully, the heat from Maxwell’s jet of white flames was enough to send most of the enemies scattering backward and a few flailing about with arms and legs set ablaze.
Then something blew the remaining enemies out of sight, along with ash, bits of debris, and mangled bullets.
There was one armored enemy soldier left, and they dashed toward LeBoeuf’s barrier. The soldier wasn’t shooting at them. In fact, he didn’t even have any weapons in his hands. He raised his arms and waved them like he was trying to get their attention. Like he had something to say.
Maxwell and Chevallier stopped shooting and looked at the enemy trooper, their puzzled faces unable to decipher its intentions.
“Is he trying to communicate with us?” Penelope asked.
20 TETSUYA
Jade Hook, Mid Decks
High Apolnar Orbit, Uelaria System
September 21, 2121, 16:22 SST (Sol Standard Time)
The airlock finished cycling and its doors slid apart, allowing Tetsuya to board the distressed corvette, known as the Jade Hook to the Primates who operated it. There were a lot of dead Primates in the corridors. Someone had shot several of them to death with small arms fire, while something else much bigger, an assault rifle probably, killed the rest.
He aimed his beam rifle forward and cautiously stepped through the hallways of the ship, moving past the unmoving dead. The hostile forces were still aboard, and Tetsuya was all alone. He approached a doorway where suited Primates and a few Amphibians battled with the intruders who had barricaded themselves inside the ship’s main computer core chamber. The Primates and Amphibians were charging past the ruined door, one by one, then got mowed down by the hostiles inside.
Tetsuya sighed. Now he understood why Jainuzei asked him to deal with the problem on the ship. The idiots ahead were just throwing themselves into a meat grinder, and if Tetsuya didn’t get the situation under control, he’d be the one to answer for it. That would only throw a monkey wrench into his plans to escape Ereshkigal’s cult, escape with Pernoy in his arms, alive, breathing, and able to smile at him again.
Tetsuya approached the clustered group of idiots, waiting for their turn to pass through the door. “What the fuck are you doing?”
A pause came after Tetsuya spoke. His helmet automatically translated his words to the idiots ahead, who gave their response in their language. Seconds later, Tetsuya heard their reply, and his helmet’s communication headset translated it into English. “The enemy is inside!”
“I can see that,” Tetsuya said. “Now why are you throwing yourselves into a chokepoint like this?”
The lead idiot, a seven-and-a-half-foot Primate with arms broad enough to take down a football player with one elbow, glared at Tetsuya. “Chokepoint?”
They had no idea what a chokepoint was and couldn’t figure out why they weren’t making any progress. Either those words got lost in the translation or Ereshkigal’s army consisted of a bunch of idiots with powerful weapons.
“Everyone, stop!” Tetsuya shouted. His auto-translated words halted their next advance. Dozens of helmets turned to face him. “Do we have any explosive devices?”
“Yes,” one idiot said, a short and lanky Amphibian. “Right here.”
The idiot Amphibian gestured to the side where another one removed their combat backpack, then unzipped it. Several silver sphere-shaped devices rolled out across the floor, their stash of handheld explosives. The idiots around Tetsuya gave him a quick rundown on how to use the spheres. The explosive devices had a hardcore adhesive that allowed the user to stick them to most surfaces. With a command in their multi-suits, one could remotely detonate the devices and create an explosion powerful enough to slag anything within the blast area, especially if you stacked multiple devices on top of each other. Why they didn’t just roll a bunch of those into the room was a good question. Maybe they were saving it for an emergency because only one person had the spheres. So supplies were limited.
Or maybe they didn’t want to blow a hole through the hull into space. It sounded like one could use the charges to breach an enemy ship’s hull then climb through the newly slagged hole.
Whatever, he thought. Time is wasting.
With the bombs planted on the walls to the left and right of the mangled sliding door, Tetsuya ordered the idiots to fall back. Using his neural link, he ordered his multi-suit to send a detonation command to the spheres stuck to the walls. Kaboom didn’t begin to describe the explosion that blasted the walls into melted metal and toward the hostile targets in the computer core chamber. He predicted that the blast alone should catch the enemy off guard, send some of them backward, and maybe even kill some of them. The idiots around Tetsuya probably felt the same because before he could say anything, they all rushed in and started shooting—
Then a few died when the molten slag moved in reverse, killing them. The explosion should have hurled the slag inward into the room, not outward. A psionic was in play.
The violence resumed, only this time the idiots had more space to work with. They didn’t have to pass through a mangled door single file, just rush into the room with the door and walls turned to shit. Tetsuya peeked around the corner and looked at the attackers.
There were four of them, three wearing UNE combat gear and one in an EVA suit clearly crafted by people from Earth. One UNE personnel unleashed psionically charged plasma at the idiots, while another protected the four with a psionic force field. These were the people from the Johannes Kepler Jainuzei wanted to find, LeBoeuf, Maxwell, and two others. Foster lied. She had EDF-1 as part of her ship’s security detail, and they did indeed have two psionics. He wasn’t angry that Foster lied. No, he was happy that she did. The psionics ahead were his ticket out of Ereshkigal’s cult. If only he didn’t have to act like he was on Ereshkigal’s team.
“Everyone, fall back,” Tetsuya shouted over their channel. “These are psionics, they—”
Nobody listened.
“Fall back!”
He got nothing but static on the communication line. His helmet’s HUD reported that a third party was jamming his communication signals. Someone from the Johannes Kepler’s security team also specialized in cyberwarfare and hacked into their communication equipment. The situation was getting better and better.
Tetsuya abandoned the idiots and sprinted to the pack full of explosives. Nobody saw him, and even if they did they had no way of reporting what he was about to do. He returned to the compartment’s entrance, shut the door, and repressurized the area. After his suit confirmed that the environment had returned to normal, he ran to the wall at the far end of the hull. If memory served him correctly, the vacuum of space was just outside it. He stuck every explosive globe onto the wall, then ran back to the action, found a cooling pipe, then hung on. Then he remotely detonated the explosives.
The compartment depressurized again, blowing everything, every weapon, every piece of equipment, every idiot out into space. Tetsuya hung onto the pipe for dear life, his legs dangling as the vacuum pulled. The Johannes Kepler’s team was fine, of course. That psionic force field protected them.
Tetsuya sauntered forward when the decompression finished. There was a gaping hole in the wall behind him, letting in the dazzling spectacle of Omega Centauri’s stars where tumbling bodies blown out into space corkscrewed aimlessly, their damaged suits leaking air into the void.
With the section exposed to space, Tetsuya moved as fast as he could to the Johannes Kepler’s security team. He was the only one left alive by the looks and strapped his rifle to his back. Tetsuya returned to the chamber and noted that one of the Johannes Kepler’s psionics was idle and in a deep trance, likely trying to perform a teleport. No, they couldn’t do that yet. They had to take him with them!
Tetsuya entered the chamber and waved his hands, hoping to get their attention. He’d take off his helmet and yell, but that’d be suicide right now with all the air in the compartment blown out into space.
He ran toward the psionic—
Blue light consumed the four, and they dematerialized before his eyes and hands in a please-take-me-with-you motion. They teleported out at the last second. They left him.
He wished they had taken him with them, even as a prisoner of war.
Tetsuya’s Shuttle, Ereshkigal’s Fleet
High Apolnar Orbit, Uelaria System
September 21, 2121, 17:01 SST (Sol Standard Time)
They left without him.
Feeling utterly defeated, Tetsuya returned to the shuttle he used to board the Primate corvette, Jade Hook. The sight outside was utter chaos. At least seven ships making up Ereshkigal’s fleet started shooting at one another for no reason. He spotted the debris field of four more vessels off to the side. The hacker on the Johannes Kepler’s security team was good; they even deleted the IFF table from his shuttle’s computer system. His shuttle registered every ship, even Kur, as a hostile target.
To be on the safe side, Tetsuya cut the shuttle’s engines and powered down the vessel, even its life support. The lights dimmed, and the environment grew cold. His rifle floated in microgravity, and he breathed in the air provided by his multi-suit. He eyed a trail of floating body parts adrift in space. It was the remains of the idiots, no doubt. After the decompression had blown them into space, the hacked ships opened fire on their vulnerable bodies, destroying all evidence of his betrayal.
His communication systems came back online an hour later, and the face of Alisha appeared as a projection floating before his helmet’s internal HUD.
“Ishihara? Are you there?”
Her voice forced him awake. He had dozed off during the hour-long float through space. “Yes . . . Captain,” he transmitted to her, holding back a cringe.
“What happened?”
He paused and wove together what he hoped was a believable explanation. “Hashmedai from the surface infiltrated the ship,” Tetsuya lied. “They killed my men then hacked into our network. I think I’m the only survivor.”
“I see.” Alisha smiled. “It would seem Jainuzei selected the right person to be his apprentice.”
“Is that so?”
“You survived while the others didn’t.”
And if Ereshkigal’s predictions for the future were correct, Tetsuya would continue to survive until he turned to their side for good. He felt that failing to get the Johannes Kepler’s team to take him captive was the first step toward that.
“And that includes Jainuzei,” Alisha continued.
“What?”
“Jainuzei is dead.”
Sunlight from the nearby star beamed into his cockpit. A ray of hope. Ereshkigal’s predictions might be wrong. Perhaps his actions created a new future where he could save himself.
21 FOSTER
XSV Johannes Kepler
High Apolnar Orbit, Uelaria System
September 21, 2121, 15:41 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster crossed her arms and leaned back against the desk in her office. Jainuzei had the audacity to board her ship, insist on having a one-on-one meeting to negotiate a surrender in her office below the bridge, then put her on hold to take a call.
Then make a second call, which Foster listened to with intrigue.
“Tetsuya, where are you?” Jainuzei said, speaking into his communication headset. “Return to the Jade Hook at once. We lost contact with it, and I want to know why. Yes, but none with my apprentice onboard who will become our great general. A man who will survive every conflict as per the Goddess Empress’s predictions.”
Chevallier and the others were making progress. Foster looked at the window ahead, giving her a slight glimpse of the fleet pointing guns at the Johannes Kepler. Somewhere out there was the crew of a ship having a terrible day at work.
“My apologies for that.” Jainuzei spun back and stepped toward Foster at her desk. “Now, where was I?”
“Hopefully getting off my ship,” Foster said. “Sounds like you got some trouble on your hands.”
“Technical issue. We assembled many of these ships using components plundered from the lost Hashmedai colonists.”
“We noticed that upon our arrival here. I take it these are Nergal’s forces?” she asked.
“Some were, yes. With the murder of Ereshkigal’s consort, Nergal, She had no choice but to add his navy and army to Hers.”
“So that is what this is about? Ereshkigal is pissed off that her man is dead because of us?”
“You are earning quite the reputation as a slayer of Gods, Foster. You are responsible for the deaths of Marduk and Nergal and prevented the resurrections of Marduk and Tiamat. Ereshkigal cannot allow these transgressions to continue further. Each fallen God makes people question their faith.”
“Probably because they ain’t real deities,” Foster snorted. “They’re just overpowered psionic aliens.”
Jainuzei frowned. “Ereshkigal plans to rectify this situation. She plans to make an example of you, proving that you are not as powerful as you are. And while doing so, Ereshkigal is constructing a prosperous future for all spacefaring civilizations. A galactic utopia for everyone.”
“Ereshkigal’s the new deity you’re worshipping,” Foster said, eyes narrowing. “Okay, I figured that part out. You went from praying to the three Radiance Gods to Marduk, now Ereshkigal. Why all the switching, Jainuzei? What’s Ereshkigal offering that the others aren’t?”
“Do you remember what happened in the Hallowed Nebula?” Jainuzei asked, smirking.
“Yes, you led the Soldiers of Marduk into Kur with plans to resurrect Marduk.”
“And then you and your crew interfered with that operation. But . . . I do not hate you for that, Foster, for it opened Alisha and my eyes to the truth.”
She slapped her left palm on her face and sighed. “Oh boy . . .”
“For you see, Alisha, Byikanea, and I died that day,” Jainuzei continued, ignoring Foster’s facepalm. “However, to redeem herself for past transgressions, Byikanea offered her body to be the host of Ereshkigal, in which the Goddess Empress offered mercy to myself and Alisha and restored our bodies whole. Unlike other Gods, Ereshkigal is real, alive, and performs miracles you can witness. She called us forward and only asked that we help fix our splintering galaxy from the endless wars that have ruined countless systems and ended billions of lives.”
“Save the galaxy from a war by starting a bigger one.” Foster chuckled and lowered her facepalming left hand. “Real smart plan there.”
“I admit, our methods seem unnecessarily violent at times but are necessary,” Jainuzei said. “The annexing of Apolnar is the first major step toward seeing Ereshkigal’s predictions come to light. The Hashmedai there knows how to establish peaceful communications with the Draconians.”
“We already know that.”
“And, with that knowledge, we will find their homeworld, convert their lost and troubled souls to Ereshkigal’s cause, and exterminate the ones who refuse us. With the Draconians neutralized, the conflict they started in the inner Milky Way worlds will end, and the peoples of the United Nations of Earth, Radiance Union, and Hashmedai Empire will have Ereshkigal and the united species of Omega Centauri to thank for that. In time, they will accept Her teachings as we encourage the three nations to contribute to the Goddess Empress’s utopia. Ereshkigal will be the key to ushering in true co-existence with aliens. But only if you hand the Johannes Kepler over and lend us your tattoo’s power.”
Foster glared at her hand decorated with the blue, glowing alien symbols. She looked back at him. “Why?”
“You possess one of the three pieces of the tablet of destinies, the source of Tiamat’s power. They are sophisticated cybernetics that allowed her to use the Draconians’ most advanced weapons and battleships. Separated, the tablet’s power is limited. Together, we can unlock the Draconians’ power and use it to neutralize them.”
“I have a copy of the tablet,” Foster said, wincing. “Alisha has the other, and the Dragon Maiden has the last.”
“It is possible to remove the tablet, but the process will kill you. However, if the three of you were to work together as a team, it would still be possible to wield the Draconians’ secrets. Alternatively, two of you working together, while the third has their tablet extracted from their body and installed into another is also a viable option.”
