Emergence: Chapter 19

Groggy from his fall, Foton shook his head to clear the mist. Gunshots sounded around him, instantly killing their victims thanks to the unwavering aim of the Xaosians. Foton grudgingly admired their skills. He looked around at the corpses around him; he was lucky, the Xaosians obviously thought that the alien had killed him.

Wrotha stared up at him. Dead.

He felt a pang of guilt; he might have been able to save some of them if he hadn't been so preoccupied with getting Tahkshi out of there. And now he was dead anyway. He had failed to protect the principle.

But he could try and avenge him.

The alien was still on the bridge, surveying the Xaosians' work with a look of what appeared to be disgust in its barely-visible eyes. As a Xaosian passed Foton, he leapt up and jammed his hidden blade through its helmet; the diamond blade easily plunged through the Xaosian's head. Aware that the other Xaosian would probably be bringing his gun up to fire, Foton pulled a knife from his right shin and threw it in its direction. He heard a thud as the Xaosian went down. Seeing a Xaosian X-46 gun on the floor, Foton picked it up and swung it in the alien's direction. He set it to projectile-stun and swung it round to aim at the alien; even if it could evade bullets, it shouldn't be able to dodge the static-charges.

He became aware of a soft clapping from the bridge. “Well fought.” Part of the alien's exoskeleton shifted and pulled itself back, revealing red skin around its mouth.

Foton fired at the alien.

One shot. The alien jerked to the right, and the static-charge crackled as it hit the wall behind.

Second shot. After sliding to the right, the alien brought its pistol around and shot it down, before briefly aiming at Foton's weapon and firing.

Foton dropped the gun as it sparked and emitted smoke. The alien holstered its own weapon and leapt from the bridge to the control room below. Foton sized it up; it was about half a standard taller than him, and a little bit broader too. He knew that it was much faster than him, so he assumed that it would be stronger.

It lashed out, fist connected with Foton's shoulder. Foton stumbled back a few paces. His shoulder felt cold and numb: dislocated. As the alien swung another fist, Foton jerked out of the way, grabbing his dislocated arm and shoving it forcefully back into its socket, biting back the pain.

Foton fought back now. He swung his fist at the alien, drawing his hidden blade as he did so. But the alien saw the blade's reflection, even in this dull lighting. It grabbed Foton's wrist and squeezed. “A diamond blade...” The alien smiled. “Unbreakable, diamond, isn't it?” Its exoskeleton seemed to shift slightly, before taking on a shinier tone. Without warning, it brought its free hand down on the blade, cleaving it in two. “Only diamond breaks diamond.” Foton looked at the blade, stunned at what the alien had done. “And we can be anything.” It looked into Foton's eyes. “Remember that, Assassin.”

It released Foton, who stumbled away from it. “What are you?”

“The name is Otor,” Foton listened to the voice; masculine surely, “and my kind built this Empire-”

“-And destroyed it.”

Foton looked around to locate the voice; Devilclash was by the door, walking in slowly. “I thought your kind was dead. Adjeti.”

Foton's eyes widened at this; of course this alien was an Adjeti; he'd read about them before, studied them even. How could he be so blind? He finished his brief berating, remembering that the reason he didn't recognise it straight away was the fact that the entire race was wiped out. Or so the history books said. Obviously a few survived.

“Pyrkagias.” Otor spat the words out. “We both know that the Adjeti didn't destroy Orbus.”

Devilclash's bugs arranged themselves in an obscure way, as if they were confused. “The Swarm says you did. History books say you did. Are we to trust the word of a murderous outsider?”

“Murderous?” Otor gestured to the corpses around him. “You think I would do this if I had a choice about it? No. Your kind has driven me to desperation; I work for the Xaosians for one reason only: to restore my race.”

“They're all dead. Oblivion was burnt to a crisp.” Foton interjected forcefully; everyone knew the story of Ardican, the human who sacrificed himself to use the World-Burner to destroy Oblivion, the Adjeti homeworld, after their attack on Orbus.

“Are they?” Otor smiled, as if humouring them. He turned back to Devilclash. “When my kind return, you will pay for what you've done. Show the Swarm what I'm saying, and let them fear the days to come.”

“I could kill you right now.” Devilclash hissed, anger breaking her usual monotone. Foton knew this was bad; the two species were always enemies, but Otor's accusations only forced the tension higher.

“What's stopping you?” When he stopped speaking, Otor's exoskeleton snapped back around his mouth; a defence mechanism.

Devilclash leapt at him, the bugs squealing. Foton felt a primal fear rise up inside him, but he ignored it. Otor darted to the side and raised his hand. The exoskeleton covering his wrist twisted around and extended, forming a cone around his hand, with a thin cylinder sticking out the end of it. Like a barrel of a gun.

The bullet of the organic was a pellet of compressed blood, forced into a rock-hard state. It smashed into Devilclash's Hive-stone, knocking it out of formation with the rest of the bugs. Foton grabbed Otor's organic-gun-arm and wrenched it forward. Otor stumbled slightly, losing his balance. Foton drew his other knife and stabbed it into his eye. With no exoskeleton other his eyes, the blade went in deep, spewing thick red blood over the ivory around it. As Foton pulled the blade out, Otor fell to his knees, before falling face-first onto the metal ground.

Devilclash reformed herself, but Foton could tell hat she was in pain; he didn't know how he knew, but he did. Maybe it was some sort of instinct. “Nice one.” Her voice was distorted from the norm.

Foton ran over to one of the still-functioning computers and ran a check on the personnel aboard the ship; everyone was registered just like the bodyguards were in the Spire. Running a ship-wide search, he found only two; his and Devilclash's. He felt no grief at this, just a pang of annoyance; evidently the guards weren't trained well enough. He quickly checked the engines and found that they had been severely damaged by the Xaosians' attack; the Watchman wasn't going anywhere. Next, Foton ran a life-form scan on the ship. Twenty-seven recognised life-forms were aboard the ship; twenty-five Xaosians. From the image on-screen, he could see that they were retreating back to their ships.

“We've gotta get to the escape pods.” Foton announced. Devilclash agreed, following his long, fast paces through the corridors. “So, what do you tell the Primary when you get to Buun?”

“The Xaosians have waged war on the Empire, and an Adjeti was helping them in return for their help in somehow restoring the Adjeti.” Devilclash paused. “You said “you”. Don't you mean “we”?”

“No.” Foton shook his head. “There is nothing I can do on Buun that will help in the war. I'm going home, to Prauw. I'm not a bodyguard, really. I'm an assassin, and I'm almost certain you suspected that. I can rally the other assassins to fight, take down Xaosian leaders. You can do the same for the Pyrkagia.”

Devilclash was silent for a few seconds, until they reached the escape pods. Only two had been ejected, which made Foton feel a little better; at least two people had escaped. “So, your journey to Buun was for an assassination?” Devilclash asked warily.

Foton gave an affirmative; he remembered Buun. Smuggler. Fifty-thousand Credits. “Had you figured it out?”

“I had suspicions. Your hidden blade gave it away.”

“And yet no-one else paid attention.” Foton gave a small smile in spite of himself. He moved over to the first escape pod and opened the hatch. “I guess this is goodbye then.” He extended his hand to her. She looked confused at first, before she took the hand and tried to shake it. “Nice try.” Foton commended her on her effort.

She gave a small smile. “Thanks.” Her voice took on a solemn tone. “Goodbye, Foton. I hope we meet again.”

“So do I.” He climbed into the pod, and reached for the door.

Something smacked into his hand and he was immediately in pain. He looked around to see Otor, running along the corridor. Foton's heart stopped; how is he still alive? Then he saw Otor's wounded eye; it was growing back even as he watched. Devilclash looked at the Adjeti, before slamming the hatch down on Foton's escape pod.

Otor ducked under Devilclash's wild attack, and grabbed the Hive-stone. With his free hand, he ejected Foton's escape pod and threw the Hive-stone out after it, casting Devilclash into the unknown void. Foton could only watch; there was nothing he could do for her now. He had read somewhere that the Pyrkagia could survive in space by turning the bugs to stone. He hoped that was true.

Out of the small window, he saw the disc-like structure of Watchman being pummelled by missiles, before it fell apart in space. No sound, no flames.

He punched in co-ordinates for Prauw and the pod changed course. Looking at his hand; he found that, while it felt fractured, it seemed to be fine. The only strange thing he noted was that it was shaking violently.

Locked in an airtight box, drifting in an airless vacuum, after being attacked by a long-dead member of a genocidal race and having his principle killed, Foton felt more scared than he had his whole life.

But under that fear, he felt a rush; the thrill of the fight, of the chase, still made his blood rush with excitement: this was something new!