Bane of the Dead (Seraphim Revival Book 1) (2 page)

The cannon finished firing, and Jack ran down the barrel, keeping his arm up. More damage registered on the
Scion
. Its launch catapults were gone.

A faint glow brightened ahead.

“Oh, no you don’t!”

Jack sprinted in. The shunts along his left forearm glowed brighter. Blue energy extended from above his wrist, forming a blade as long as he was tall.

Jack stabbed the chaos sword into the ignition mechanism. The spark vanished. Machinery melted and floated away. He cleaved through the back of the cannon, then let the sword fade into a dusting of winking motes.

Jack jammed his hands into the breach and forced the armor apart, exposing over a dozen of the dreadnought’s crewed decks stacked one on top of the other. Startled men and women in dark red pressure suits stared at him. The interior must have already been depressurized for combat.

“Surprise!” Jack swung a leg through the breach and stepped in, his shin crashing through three decks at the same time. Disciple warriors scattered out of his way as he smashed through the ship’s interior, crumpling the walls and floors of a dozen decks with each stride as if they were made of paper.

When he reached the bridge, Jack clawed the reinforced exterior aside. The Disciple captain stood in the center of a circular room ringed with tactical displays. Red messages flashed urgently on most, but the captain glared defiantly at the seraph, unwilling to retreat.

Jack pointed his arm cannon at the man.

“Heh. Nothing personal.”

He triggered the weapon. A fusion beam vaporized the whole bridge and everything behind it. Jack emptied his cannon with shot after shot, turning the dreadnought’s interior into a white-hot inferno. He spread his wings and flew out through the giant barrel. Behind him, the dreadnought drifted away, its armor bulging out.

Jack arced towards the
Scion
. The carrier was lacerated with glowing crisscrossed patches of superheated alloy, at least where it still had armor. Several molten holes laid its copper-hued internal systems bare to the vacuum. He opened the
Scion
’s internal diagnostics and took a long, thoughtful look.

He sighed.

“Good. Half the seraph bays are intact, two fold engines are still working, and my room is in one piece.”

The seraph said nothing.

“No need to be mean. It worked, didn’t it?”

The
Scion
sent him a navigational request. Its fold engines were finally charged for the next jump. His internal fold engines were also ready.

“Let’s see if all of this was worth it.”

Jack and the
Scion of Aktenzek
vanished.

***

They reappeared three light-years away, materializing near a Seeding world.

After fifteen years and more than eight hundred worlds, Jack no longer doubted his mission. Already he had found more Seeding worlds than anyone had thought existed, some with thriving human civilizations older than anything in Earth’s history. Humanity was everywhere in the galaxy, spread across countless planets. Many of those were primitive blasted wrecks from long forgotten wars, but even more flourished with life, art, and culture.

He had known for a while what he sought was somewhere out here amongst the uncharted Seedings. If nothing else, he owed the Disciples that small piece of gratitude. How else could they have recognized him? Why else would they have hunted him?

No, what he sought was out here, and it was close.

Jack turned to the planet.

The face of a sun scorched his vision. Hot needles of pain pushed into his eyeballs.

Jack gasped and jerked his gaze away, shielding his head with an open hand. In the cockpit, his true eyes watered.

“What the hell was that?” he muttered.

Like every other onboard system, the seraph’s scanners dipped into Jack’s ability to channel chaos energy. Besides a few tertiary fusion toruses, a seraph had no power generators. Instead, the pilot supplied everything the seraph’s drives, barriers, and weapon systems required.

A pilot’s very soul served as the connection point to a vast extra-dimensional sea of energy. The instinct to protect oneself resulted in the barrier field. The urge to move quickly drove the drive shunts. Without a compatible pilot, a seraph wouldn’t budge.

The chaos scanner worked in a similar fashion, amplifying Jack’s ability to detect other users of chaos energy, called chaos adepts. With a thought, he accessed the scanner and lowered the gain to one percent.

Slowly, he turned back to the planet and peeked through spread fingers.

The world was lush and beautifully Earth-like. Vast oceans separated the many and varied continents. Deserts, jungles, and mountains filled its lands. Ice barrens capped the poles. Upon seeing the planet, homesickness tugged at his heart.

But that wasn’t all.

A point of light glowed near the equator, though it illuminated nothing around it. This glow represented a chaos adept of unprecedented power. After all the close battles, fruitless trails, and careful research,
here
was the very person he sought!

Jack turned the gain down even further.

His optical scanners picked out points of interest from across the surface. This world, like so many others, was embroiled in war. Vast fleets of metal ships plied the seas. Primitive propeller aircraft dueled in the skies. Legions of troops engaged in brutal trench warfare. The technology bore striking parallels to Earth’s Second World War.

These massive wars were not alone noteworthy. Jack had seen more than his share of such conflicts among the Seeding worlds, even before leaving Aktenai space. But the patterns were strange because no fighting occurred near the point of light.

In a radius of over two thousand kilometers, almost as if the peoples of this world were afraid to approach too closely.

His optics enlarged the area near the light.

“Oh, how quaint.”

The castle resembled something plucked from a romanticized version of Earth’s age of chivalry. A tall stone wall encapsulated the cathedral-like keep and its patchwork gardens. He noted the anti-aircraft batteries along the parapets and artillery cannons behind its high walls.

Perhaps an outside force had accelerated this world’s advancement. He’d seen situations like that before where more advanced Seedings had experimented on lesser cultures. Regardless of the reasons, its inhabitants would likely be armed as well.

The chaos adept he sought was indoors, so Jack could gather no further information from orbit. He linked a station keeping order to the
Scion of Aktenzek
and descended towards the planet.

Jack expanded his barrier into an aerodynamic wedge and powered through the upper atmosphere. He left a burning friction comet in his wake, broke through a layer of cottony altocumulus clouds, and slowed.

The surface beneath him was a range of rolling hills. He skimmed across them, following a winding paved road. When the castle came in sight, he dropped down and landed with feathery lightness in front of the drawbridge.

The outer wall barely came up to his knees. Rays from the morning sun shone off its smoothed walls. A checkered quilt of gardens in full bloom stretched across the interior, with a path cut through the middle. White-and-silver banners flapped in the wind along the flagstone path leading to the keep.

“Your move,” Jack said. He crossed his arms.

Men in black uniforms and white berets ran to their artillery pieces. Jack laughed when they struggled to bring their weapons to bear. Weapon barrels gleamed from meticulous polishing, but their rotating axes were rusted solid. Apparently, this castle didn’t see much action. Only one adventurous crew managed to turn its artillery piece around.

The shell hit with so little force his barrier didn’t even become visible. It ricocheted off, landed a kilometer way, and blasted a house-sized crater in the foothills.

Jack shook his head and wagged a finger at them.

The crew hesitated before loading another shell.

“All right. So you haven’t seen a seraph before. What about your guest?”

A dozen women in plain black livery rushed across the garden grounds, shouting urgently. After a stunned pause, soldiers aimed the lone artillery piece away from the seraph. They backed away from the gun and retreated indoors.

“Well, that’s encouraging. I wonder…”

Jack trailed off when he saw her.

She emerged onto the balcony of the keep, wrapped in the fierce glow of chaos energy. If not for that, Jack would have guessed her age at around eighteen.

Her flawless skin resembled soft cream. Silver rings clasped her silken raven hair in three places down her back. She wore black garments similar to the servants, yet trimmed with white and silver at the collar and wrists. Her hair swayed in a gentle breeze.

The woman looked up and beheld the seraph with a knowing gaze and a slender smile. Oh, yes. She knew exactly what it was.

The woman stepped inside and reemerged on the ground floor. She strode across the gardens giving orders. Whenever she pointed or spoke, the liveried servants hustled into action. Four of them brought a table of rich dark wood and set it out within the centermost garden. Two others placed high-backed chairs on either side. A dozen more followed, setting trays of food and drink on the table until it overflowed.

With her eyes affixed on the seraph, the woman gestured across the table with an open palm.

“Why not?” Jack said. “I didn’t come all this way for nothing. Right, buddy?”

The seraph was silent.

“I know, but don’t worry. I’ll be careful. I’ve got you to back me up.”

Jack focused on the distinction between his true body and the seraph. The connection between man and machine lessened to the point where he no longer was
the seraph. The cockpit walls spread into a spherical chamber and the outer hatch opened. Light played against his real eyelids. He took in a deep breath and opened them.

The first thing he noticed was the scent in the air. It was rich with the aroma of flowers and evoked a sense of nostalgia for Earth, even if the plants were of alien origin. Each garden patch used a different design. One had checkered patterns of blues and greens. Others spiraled outwards in swirls of crimson or traced angular shapes in purples and yellows.

Jack brought the seraph’s hand towards the cockpit and stepped onto the giant armored palm. He lowered the hand to the flagstone path and walked off.

White banners crossed with silver diagonal bands flapped in the breeze. Jack kept his gaze fixed on the woman, but the seraph’s scanners remained vigilant, their input flowing into a corner of his mind.

Jack stopped a few paces from her. She appraised him with strange eyes that possessed brilliantly silver irises. Despite her youthful face, her exotic eyes held no fear, only a powerful sense of confidence and comprehension. This was no ordinary human. But then again, neither was he.

He spoke in the Aktenai tongue. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

The woman tilted her head to one side as if thinking, then nodded solemnly.

“It has been a long time since I used this language,” she said, her words thick with a peculiar accent that emphasized harsh consonants.

Jack recalled hearing that accent before. It was somewhere on Aktenzek, but where precisely or from whom escaped his memory.

“My name is Jack Donolon.”

The woman smiled and bowed her head at the neck. “You may address me as Vierj. It is what my family used to call me.”

Vierj clapped her hands. Two serving girls sprinted out from the keep and hurried to the table. In moments, his plate was served and his drink poured. The girls retreated, positively oozing fear, both of him and of Vierj.

“Please sit,” Vierj said. “Eat something. Consider yourself my honored guest.”

“Thank you.” Jack pulled out his chair.

Vierj sat down across from him and leaned forward onto her elbows.

The seraph’s scanners detected no trickery in the food. Much of the food smelled too spicy for his tastes. He selected a bowl of zesty vegetable soup, took a spoonful, and blew on it.

Vierj made no move to eat or drink, but merely observed him with a calm demeanor.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

Jack put the spoon in the bowl. “You don’t seem surprised that I’m here.”

“I knew someone else like me would eventually come searching. It was only a question of time.”

Jack grimaced. “Someone like you…”

“You and I are the same,” Vierj said. “I am sure that is why you have come. I can feel the change beginning in you, as it did once in me. You must have at least suspected this.”

Jack nodded slowly. He sighed, leaning back in his chair.

“Yeah, I guessed it.”

He had so hoped to find someone different from this woman, someone different from
himself
. But, the truth was too obvious now. All he had left was his original plan.

But how to set it in motion?

“What is the matter?” Vierj asked.

“I guess I expected someone different,” Jack said, stirring his soup absently.

“This is not an uncommon response for someone educated by the Aktenai.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Perceptive woman
, Jack thought. It was strange, hearing such statements from her. She looked about half his age. But however young she appeared, Vierj’s words betrayed her wisdom and experience.

She leaned closer. “Tell me, what do you know of the Gate?”

So we are coming to this already. She isn’t wasting time.

“Not much, I fear,” Jack said. “The Aktenai say it’s a way of escaping this universe to a paradise they call the Homeland. They have the Gate and very few of them know where it’s hidden. I know the Grendeni also want it. The Gate is one of the reasons those two civilizations continue to wage war.”

Vierj nodded. “It sounds like not much has changed. I myself tried for a very long time to locate it. The Aktenai hid it well.”

“What do you want with the Gate?”

Emotions flashed in Vierj’s silver eyes. Jack briefly saw something horrible and disturbing in them.

“To pass through it, of course,” she said. “There are old crimes that have long gone unpunished.”