Chapter 6
The vote of the synod was very close. The opposition was strong. The "Grand Compromise" almost failed. Many considered it a monumental alteration in our core beliefs. In the end, though, we agreed to pilot the Emperor's warships directly into battle zones, nudging our pacifism just a little further than what some were comfortable with. Others saw little moral difference to our previous practice – linking up and using a non-combat ship to guide battle groups to just outside a star system, then allowing the so-called "combat navigators" to complete the short transit into battle. Either way, we aided the efforts of war, though in neither case did we participate in the fighting, simply ferrying the vessels to where the soldiers wanted to go.
And in return, the Emperor gave us dominion over all who would interact with the Void. No one was allowed to pilot a starship without our sanction. We became the official masters of interstellar travel, an imperial-sanctioned monopoly. This and the growing Umpala threat convinced the majority to vote in favor. Our growing inability to predict the Umpala’s actions and to peer into their secrets was becoming a more and more serious concern every day.
- Journals of Marcia XII, Sacrator Primus of the Sacerdotes Vacuum (359 to 373 P.D.)
The weapon scanners did not stop Malaran from coming aboard with her bracelets. Either the tech on the ship was too new and had never dealt with smart-metal before, or maybe it recognized and yet implicitly trusted the gear of the Emperor's elite guard. Or perhaps it even sensed the Anax-Hema, the genetic marker in her blood, and gave her a free pass.
About twenty soldiers remained with her, though, a platoon of the false Agema led by the smug officer from before, escorting her and the Calistites from the landing bay to the heart of the starship. She had never got a good sense of how massive the ship, the Menelaus, was until the transports had pulled up close as they approached the landing bay. Thousands upon thousands could live here. It almost took her breath away to think the old Empire had scores of ships even larger than this Achilles-class battlecruiser.
As she walked the narrow corridors with the Calistites and the enemy soldiers, she wondered when she should strike. Apparently, a large throne room had been constructed, and the Emperor would formally meet and welcome her there with much pomp and circumstance, cameras likely recording everything for the history books.
The throne-room would likely be filled with guards, but guards not too adept compared to her training and abilities, at least at close quarters. If she were to make her attempt there, though, then the Calistites might get caught in the crossfire or even just be executed on the spot, spoiling her contingency plan as well.
She knew she would have some alone time with the false Emperor if he planned on producing heirs anytime soon, but there was a chance that he didn't trust the whole pacifism thing. He did just murder her parents after all, and even an avowed pacifist might seek revenge. He might decide to drug her anytime she was alone with him.
She let out a little sigh as boot steps sounded off the hard plastic flooring, ten soldiers in front and ten in back. She might have to take her chances with the drugs. She did have some training in using the energies of the Void to bolster her immune system and her healing abilities, but it usually took a lifetime to master. She wasn't sure she could do much to neutralize drugs even a little bit at this point.
She glanced at her companions as they walked. The damn Calistites had ignored her attempts at formulating a coordinated plan. As she had tried to discuss scenarios, they had just stared at her blankly. She had almost detected a hint of amusement in Kalima's eyes. Malaran had never gone through Invocation and never progressed beyond acolyte, and just based on their age she suspected these women to have achieved great masteries. Yet, if the Calistites cared not for her schemes, then they should at least tell her what was expected of her so that she would not spoil their own plans.
The group stopped in front of the doors to a large freight elevator. "Just a moment please," said the smug officer from before that led the platoon of false Agema.
Malaran barely registered the blur of black robes as the Calistites burst out against the soldiers, a flurry of arms and legs twisting and striking, sweeping into the enemy.
She sprung forward to assist, but she could not keep up with the advanced battle forms they employed, elegant and graceful, pushing forward a shockwave of destruction. Some of the enemies simply collapsed, powerful blows striking nerves or organs. The smug officer just looked on in shock as one of the Calistites seemed to rip his larynx out of his throat effortlessly. Others shattered, bones snapping and cracking; flesh ripped apart. The sounds that would haunt her dreams, if she ever got the chance to dream again after today.
Within a few breaths, the Calistites downed all the guards and took their weapons. Malaran had never seen anything like it. On occasion, Kalima had demonstrated advanced techniques to her during her training, but this was so much more.
Four of the Calistites sprinted off in different directions while Kalima remained. "Follow me," said Kalima.
They sprinted down the narrow corridors, Malaran doing her best to move as silently as Kalima, who seemed to know where she was headed.
As the shock began to wear off, Malaran worried that the Calistites had just ruined her chance to kill the false Emperor. The only hope now would be if the Calistites could destroy the ship, something Malaran could do little to aid in. Just sit in the corner and watch.
They worked their way through crawlspaces and up more ladders, Kalima always seeming to know the direction. Malaran wondered if the alarm had gone out yet, or if everybody still sat in the throne room waiting for the freight elevator to bring up the bridal party.
Kalima came to a stop as they crawled down another tunnel, and then turned and kicked out an access panel that led out to a standard sized corridor.
Kalima shot around another turn and ran up to a door guarded by two men, each geared as the false Agema.
This time, Malaran remembered her bracelets and activated her weapons, but Kalima had already punched a crushing blow into one's larynx and was in the process of ramming her thumb through the other's eye, shoving it in deep as her old, wrinkled hand would allow.
She turned to Malaran as the guard's lifeless body collapsed to the floor. "Activate the hand scanner," she said.
Malaran stepped forward and looked around, unsure what was expected of her.
Kalima pointed to the pad near the door. "The Anax-Hema. It is a key to many things, including Imperial overrides."
Malaran wondered how Kalima knew all this. Apparently, she knew Malaran's family secret, knew about the Anax-Hema. She also knew about the Imperial overrides. She knew how to find this door. Could Sight reveal so much?
Malaran stepped forward and placed her hand near the scanner, and then looked back to Kalima to see if she was ready. Kalima had taken a dagger off each guard and held both in throwing-grips in each hand. The guards’ energy weapons were not true battle staff and shield, they used a back-mounted power cell rather than directly tapping the Void, and apparently Kalima thought those weapons less worthwhile than the daggers.
Malaran held out her weapons. "You could probably make better use of these."
“We need you alive,” said Kalima. “We can’t take command of the ship without the Anax-Hema.”
Malaran just looked at the daggers in Kalima’s hands. “Any idea what’s on the other side of the door?”
“The technology in the Pilot’s Chamber makes it easier to peer out with Sight, but tends to make it more difficult to peer in from the outside.” Then she looked at the hand scanner. “Enough talk.”
Malaran had raised an eyebrow at the mention of Pilot's Chamber but then placed her hand on the scanner, feeling a warm response as the panel lit up and analyzed her DNA. She wondered if it would work after all these centuries, but the ancient tech often seemed like magic anyways. Then a green light flashed.
The door slid open sideways, disappearing into the wall
, and Kalima shot forward.
Green energy pulses, stunners, slammed into their position, forcing Kalima to go cartwheeling and rolling off to the side. Malaran raised her shield and leaped into the fray.
A blast impacted off her shield as she identified the enemy's position. The false Emperor and three of his guards stood arrayed near the center of the great circular room. Almost like they had seen this coming. Two of his guards had already fallen and lay upon the black obsidian floor, a dagger hilt protruding from one eye of each man.
The room seemed to be another large version of the Oculus chamber. The Pilot Chamber.
Malaran fired and charged behind her shield, knowing she would have an advantage in close combat. As she advanced, a green pulse grazed her thigh and caused it to go momentarily limp, forcing her to stumble.
She forced herself into a roll and brought her shield up just as another blast of energy impacted against it.
She maneuvered her staff into position to fire just as Kalima crashed into the enemy group, a flurry of advanced combat forms. The remaining three guards collapsed beneath her onslaught, but in the process, the false Emperor fired from point blank range.
The green energy of the stunner slammed into Kalima, and she collapsed like a sack of dirt where she stood.
"No!" shouted Malaran as she twisted and fired, shock and anger at seeing her mentor fall.
The false Emperor threw himself away from the shot, but the dark energy pulse blasted through his stun rifle, scattering debris and knocking him down and forcing him to roll for cover.
Malaran leaped fully to her feet, forcing the feeling back into her stunned thigh muscle, and advanced on the fallen enemy. Excitement shot through her, so close to victory.
As she prepared to fire the final shot and reap her revenge on the monster, coils of smart metal erupted from his wrists.
The shock slowed her response, and her energy blast just grazed the false Emperor as he spun around away from the shot. Upon completing his turn, the smart metal had finished forming into weapons. But not the ancient weapons of the Agema.
He bore a round shield, not elliptical, and instead of a staff, his forearm bore affixed to it a short rod adorned with several metal spikes pointing away from his arm and a big curved blade functioning like a bayonet up nearing the firing port. A kubastan, a weapon of the Umpala.
Apparently, the monster's insanity knew no bounds. Bearing Umpala weapons seemed practically obscene.
He smiled at Malaran, his eyes as eager as ever. "Ah, foreplay," he said.
Malaran shouted and charged. If he wanted to pretend to be an Umpala, she would slaughter him like one. She focused her mind, summoning Fore-Sight and True-Sight, and the ghostly virtual images quickly spawned in her vision, the technology embedded in the Pilot Chamber assisting her Sight and making it much easier to invoke.
For fifteen years Kalima had trained her to fight the Umpala, taught her the strengths and weaknesses of their weapons. She doubted the false Emperor had trained as well or as long to fight the weapons and tactics of the Agema.
She slashed her shield towards his throat, forcing him to bring his shield up to defend.
He fired the kubastan, but a moment beforehand one of the ghostly Fore-Sight images had suddenly become crystal clear, the probabilities coalescing, and Malaran side-stepped the energy pulse of dark energy. The pulse flew wide and impacted the wall, causing a reverberation to ring through the Pilot's Chamber, a room designed to amplify the forces and energies of the Void.
The kubastan didn't have as much physical reach as a staff, but it often proved easier to point and fire energy pulses while in close combat.
Malaran jabbed the end of her staff forward and pressed the attack. Fore-Sight revealed the false Emperor's most likely moves, a faint overlay and conglomeration of his possible future maneuvers, the most probable one revealing the most detail and contrast. True-Sight alerted her in real-time to which were feints and which were real strikes.
As she gave herself up to the energy of the Void and the flow of the ancient battle forms, her strikes got closer and closer to scoring a decisive blow. The enemy was forced back to a purely defensive posture, narrowly evading slashing blow after slashing blow. Panic filled his eyes now.
"You don't have to do this," he panted. "We can still rule the Empire together. We need each other. You’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg of what is to come."
She smashed down a two-handed strike, crashing down his shield and sending it tumbling across the floor.
In a last frantic act, he fired the kubastan, but she had already yanked her shield into position.
As the energy pulse rattled off her shield, she brought the end of her staff up and with both hands and her full body thrust forward with all her strength -- the battle form called the Dragon Slayer. The tip of staff shoved the imposter against the wall and punctured right through his chest.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he whispered as the life seemed to drain from his eyes.
She twisted and yanked the staff, pulling it free from the false Emperor's standing corpse. His body crumpled.
Exhilaration shot through her for a brief moment, but then she remembered where she was.
She ran to Kalima. She had no idea what Kalima's plans were or what Kalima intended of her. "Kalima! Kalima!" she said, gently slapping the old woman's face, but getting no response.
She needed Kalima to regain conscious and soon. Damn Calistites would not discuss plans or strategy ahead of time. She put Kalima's hands around her staff while she also grasped it, and then she opened up the pinprick into the Void, letting the dark energy run through the staff and through their hands.
Kalima jerked, and her eyes sprung open, though her eyes and her head seemed to sway a bit.
"Kalima, what was your plan? What should I do?" Malaran asked.
Kalima looked around as though trying to get her bearings. "We intended to capture the vessel," she said, voice still raspy from the stun effects. "Pilot it near the sun and let radiation kill most of the crew."
Malaran nodded. It made sense. When fully energized, the Pilot Chamber would protect the occupants from most of the radiation.
Kalima groggily prodded herself up onto her elbows. "It's not over, though. There's still the pilot. She was able to shroud much from Sight. Be prepared."
A roar echoed through the chamber, and a blast of dark energy sliced through Kalima's upper arm. She fell back with the loss of leverage and then rolled away, but not nearly with the speed and agility she had demonstrated earlier. Most of her arm remained on the floor as she vacated the spot.
Malaran swung her shield and staff into position and fired all in one smooth motion.
The shot deflected off the enemy's round shield.
Malaran's heart jumped a beat. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A large creature stood several feet taller than her, his big, muscular body reminding her of a gorilla from the storybooks, though covered in a very light fur of dark grey. Much of its head was covered by an ornamental dark metallic helmet inscribed with unfamiliar symbols, but there was not a faceguard to obscure his strange face – something like a cross between a gorilla and a lizard -- round and relatively flat jawed, but with scales and huge reptilian eyes. An Umpala, a destroyer of man, in the flesh, here in the middle of a human battlecruiser. What madness was this?
The pilot. That's why she hadn't been able to sense a Priestess here. There wasn't one. Then she remembered about the helmet. The battle-shaman, elite warriors well versed in the ways of the Void, wore that kind of helmets.
A blast deflected off her shield as she shifted into a crouch, keeping as much of her body as she could behind her shield.
She felt no fear, only anticipation. Eagerness to slaughter and destroy the ancient enemy. She had prepared for this moment her entire life.
The Umpala grunted out some strange noises as he maneuvered, cautiously probing. As far as she knew, nobody on Nuevo had ev
er been familiar with their language, and Malaran didn't know if he spoke words or just grunted.
As Malaran maneuvered about looking for an opening, she wondered what changes and improvements the Umpala had adopted over the last five hundred years.
She glanced over to the other side of the room and saw Kalima lying collapsed on the ground, a crude tourniquet on the stump of her arm.
Malaran let out a silent scream attempting to invoke once again Fore-Sight or True-Sight, to summon whatever advantage she could get to avenge the Fall of Man. But she perceived only shadows.
With a shrieking grunt, the Umpala charged, firing his kubastan as he bounded towards her, forcing Malaran to focus on her shield work.
As he neared, she sprung forward with her shield, performing an advanced kata, feinting a jab before swinging the staff around to fire at his ankles.
Their shields crashed together, but he ignored the feint and shuffled his feet away from her maneuver.
Malaran wondered once again if the Umpala had spent five hundred years reviewing their failures against the Agema in personal combat.
The Umpala crashed his shield against hers and tried his moves at firing at her feet, but she had spent many years practicing to evade the blasts of a kubastan in close combat. With shield and staff, she controlled his firing angles.
As she struck back with her shield, she twirled the staff behind her body in a maneuver to confuse and disguise the next strike and then struck fast with staff towards his head.
He countered both the staff strike and the almost simultaneous quick kick at his legs.
Then he immediately counter-attacked, slashing with his kubastan, almost catching her off-balance and forcing her to shuffle away.
Malaran became concerned. The battle-shaman was using Sight against her, predicting her moves, but Sight wasn’t working for her. Malaran tried to remember her training, the parts about dealing with an opponent using Sight. She had no idea what advanced techniques this battle-shaman might be employing, but the basic technique taught to lowly acolytes was to put one’s mind into different realities so that the opponent’s Fore-Sight would become filled with conflicting images.
The kubastan's main blade sliced just millimeters from her face as she jerked back at the last instant. Malaran took a deep breath and tried to bring a younger, less experienced version of herself forward in her mind, summoning her memories of her first training lessons years ago. Her conscious mind considered the basic fighting moves first taught to new students, while at the same time she let her instinct, her subconscious mind and her muscle memory, do the actual fighting.
It was pretty difficult to do while someone was trying to kill you, especially an Umpala battle-shaman, and she wasn't sure it was really helping any. She blocked another slashing strike and fell back once again. The Umpala still seemed to easily counter everything she threw at him, and always came back with a well-timed counter-attack. It felt riskier and riskier to attempt any offensive moves, and she found herself always falling back on the defensive.
The Umpala roared again and lunged forward with his shield, trying to use his mass advantage to knock her down, and she just barely spun out of the way in time. She felt she could have taken the false Emperor pretty handily even without the aid of Sight, but now the shoe was on the other foot. She was just an acolyte and might be overmatched by the Battle-Shaman even if he wasn't using Sight. But he sure seemed to be using Sight, and she was at a severe disadvantage. One she didn't think she had the speed or skills to overcome. She was far from being the master that Kalima and the other Elders were. Had she stayed in the Order it would have likely taken four to five more years just to become Sacrator and a lifetime to become a Sacrator Superiore.
The Umpala pressed the attack, barely missing on several slashes, forcing her to use her superior agility against the massive creature.
She had trained her whole life for this moment, to stand against the Umpala, and here she was one-on-one. And failing. Such an embarrassment to the Order. To herself. To Calista. Calista was her aunt, able to rip a fleet of starships from the sky, yet Malaran was failing to defeat a single Umpala.
And then the realization came to her. There would be more than just one Umpala. The Umpala were coming. She didn't know what kind of scheme brought this battle-shaman here on a human starship, but the Umpala must be on the move again. Coming again to wreak havoc on humanity. And she must stand against it. Here and now, to do her part to stem the tide. She would whatever she could to defeat the Umpala.
Like Calista.
In her moment of need, in this great chamber designed to enhance the powers of the Void, she finally once again was able to force open a bubble like she had to save Leela. A small bubble in space-time began to blossom.
The Umpala hesitated, seeming to sense the disturbance in the Void.
Malaran leaped forward and crashed into him as the bubble swelled forth and engulfed them both.
There was a sense of euphoria as total silence and total darkness descended on her as she suddenly floated in the small Void separated from gravity, separated from normal space-time. She had done it. In the darkness, though, she could sense the battle-shaman flailing around like a drowning swimmer, not knowing what was happening to him. She needed to destroy him before he got his bearings.
Malaran shifted her concentration and through the pure exertion of will, she manipulated the bubble to increase the distance between her and the Umpala. She found she did have some control of the bubble, to shift it and move about within it.
She summoned Sight and peered back into the normal space-time of the Pilot Chamber to get her bearings. In her mind’s eye, she could see outside the bubble, but the scene was strange, ripples and distortions ran through the peripheral imagery while the colors constantly shifted. And there in the middle of the chamber, twisted, distorted images of the floor and ceiling jerkily moving about the outer shell of the bubble, like the matter inside the chamber didn’t know how to act in the presence of the bubble. It was an awesome sight.
Since that day she had first produced a bubble she had often wondered about its nature, wondered if it was more like a shield that she had wrapped around herself, or if she had truly exited the normal universe, perhaps something like starships do when they transit the Void. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing revealed much in this regard, not sure even if an outside observer would even see the bubble, but for whatever reason the bubble did seem to be affixed or attached somehow to the reference frame that it was created in – it still seemed to travel through orbit in the Pilot Chamber of the Menelaus. She didn't understand it, and she wondered if perhaps there were some unknown forces that held it here or if perhaps it was her mind that held the bubble here in the Pilot Chamber. Which made her mind race with the possibilities? Could she transit the Void? Could she suddenly return to Nuevo? Could she move the bubble about at all?
She focused her mind and willed the bubble to move a few feet. It felt like pushing a boulder with her mind. She felt no change, but in her mind's eye, she saw the transition with Sight. It moved.
And then she suddenly realized something else. She had been so excited about forming the bubble; she hadn't realized what effort it took to keep it up. The same effort required to move the bubble was also required to keep it intact. She felt it wanting to collapse.
She needed to do something about the Umpala and quickly.
With some mental effort, she shifted her and the Umpala's orientation within the bubble. She floated above, and he floated below. She decided she would move the bubble downwards, through the floor, half above the floor and half below the floor, and try to release the bubble so that she would land on the floor of the Pilot Chamber while the Umpala would drop to the deck below. She could then hopefully seal the chamber with her overrides.
She struggled to position the bubble and hold it intact at the same time. As the bubble descended through the floor, it seemed to shrink as her mental strength fatigued. Sudd
enly she could sense the Umpala's flailing grow closer. She wondered what would happen if she released the bubble while the Umpala was occupying the same space as the floor.
Then she tried it.
Malaran dropped and fell on top of the Umpala as gravity returned, and then quickly sprung away. He failed to catch hold of her, his elbows and much of his body having become implanted into the obsidian floor when the bubble collapsed.
He roared and screamed as he tried to free himself, but over half his body seemed encased by the floor.
Malaran couldn't help but wonder if parts of him had totally fused with the floor. He wouldn't live long then. But she wasn't taking any chances. She jumped up and grabbed one of the stun rifles the guards had been using and shot the Umpala in the head several times with the green energy beams until he seemed to go unconscious, and then she shot him a couple more times for good measure.
She ran to Kalima and propped her up. The bleeding had stopped -- much of the wound had been cauterized to begin with, and the tourniquet had taken care of the rest. She could tell from her eyes that she was in deep concentration. Probably trying to keep her body from going into shock. Malaran lifted her and carried her to the pilot's chair.
After Malaran had sat her down in the chair, Kalima seemed to become more aware of her surroundings. She still looked dazed, but with her remaining hand, she pointed to a panel on the consoles near the chair. "The override," she said in her raspy voice.
Malaran placed her palm over the panel, and the consoles all lit up.
Kalima reached forward to work the controls on the consoles, and Malaran had to help prop her up and lean her over.
Kalima leaned back when she was done and said, "I've locked down the Pilot's Chamber." She sighed. "Romina and Charvi fell while creating diversions, but the others should be here soon."
"And then what?" Malaran asked.
Kalima glanced at the Umpala stuck in the floor. "I wonder how many people on this ship knew that they were allied with the Umpala. Maybe you can convince the crew to stand down. Show them the folly of their ways." Then she looked Malaran with one of her looks. "Surely you learned something about politics from your father."
"A little," said Malaran. "But I had seemed to be on a different path."
Kalima's expression altered slightly, only Malaran's fifteen years of experience enable her to detect it.
"You have saved Nuevo, for the time being, conquered a tyrant, captured a starship, and defeated an Umpala battle-shaman, the first in almost five hundred years," said Kalima. "You must've had a good teacher." And then she murmured, "I think she'd be very satisfied with your progress."
Malaran didn't know quite know how to react -- embarrassed, proud, and startled, at a minimum. She bowed her head and said, "I will be eternally grateful for all that the Order has done for me."
Kalima practically snorted, jolting Malaran further. "Don't think that we're done with you yet."
Epilogue
Whoever is guiding the Umpala remains shrouded. Sight has always predicted disarray, yet the Umpala continue forward united. Key elements of the Umpala are well versed in the ways of the Void, but this appears to be something different. It is possible that they are simply too alien for our human minds to digest, but in the thirty or so years since first contact, this does seem to be something new. The possibility exists that they attained this new ability naturally, perhaps conflict with humans spurring forward their efforts, but I and several of the synod suspect that an outside force is directing the Umpala.
- Journals of Marcia XII, Sacrator Primus of the Sacerdotes Vacuum (359 to 373 P.D.), recorded 364 P.D. (3 years prior to the Fall of Man.)