Book Review: Metal Swarm and The Ashes of Worlds by Kevin J. Anderson

*Beware of Spoilers*

These are parts 6 and 7 of the Saga of Seven Suns.

The release of Anderson's sequel to the Saga of Seven Suns made me remember that I had actually forgotten to review these two. That is why they're bunched together.

These two books are different from the others. This series could have ended in book 5. Leave Margaret Colicos dead, and move on. Klikiss dead, their robots dead. The Verdani and Wentals happy, the Faeros content, and Rusa'h being just a maniac who thought the sun was his friend.

Boy, am I glad it didn't. Basil Wenceslas and his breakdown is one of the biggest driving forces here, as it has been all series, and it really pays off in The Ashes of Worlds in a giant space-standoff. The Faeros are cool, but are kind of depthless; why are they doing this? Because a random Ildiran tells them to? Nah, they just like killing shit. At least the Hydrogues tried to give motivations.  

But these books aren't really about the elemental beings. They are just a framework for a brilliant story; a human story. The Klikiss arrival, and their subjugation of colony worlds is proof of that; in the end, even they become humanised thanks to Davlin's sacrifice.

The ending is a work of art, pure and simple. Yes, many things are left hanging: Where are the elementals now? Where does this leave Ildira and Earth? There are others, and they do leave me excited for The Dark Between Stars.

Metal Swarm

8/10

The Ashes of Worlds

10/10

This series ends on the highest point it could. No disappointments. Buy this series now, and read them before June 7th. Failing that, read them anyway.

My next book review should (hopefully) be along the way next week with The Dark Between Stars by Kevin J. Anderson. Hope you enjoyed reading!

Emergence: Chapter 20

The clock struck past midnight and Tors cheered, waking Pandora from her shallow slumber. It was Evacuation Day at last. Tors walked over to the window, before he sat in front of it. At this time of night, he couldn't see anything, but he figured that any ships would have landing lights on.

“You're not seriously going to sit there for the rest of the night, are you?” Pandora's voice contained more than a hint of ridicule.

“Yes. Maybe. I dunno.” Tors shrugged. “All I know is, I wanna be ready when they come. Where's Emola?”

Pandora looked over at Emola. “Sleeping like a baby.”

“Surprised either of you could sleep after seeing that...thing.” Tors shuddered at the thought of it. He remembered its shriek, and remembered the grating sensation that passed through his body as it did so.

Pandora knelt down next to Tors. “Look. Maybe there was something. Maybe it was just our imaginations, or a natural phenomenon-”

“-there was nothing natural about that thing.”

“Well, even if it's alive, its natural.” Pandora rolled her eyes. “But maybe it wasn't real.”

“It really was, though.” Tors hissed. “You know it. Deny it all you like, you know it.”

There was a flash from outside, followed by sudden silence. The winds dropped again. Tors's scales shifted darker. “It's back.”

“What?” Pandora seemed irritated.

“The winds died before, and it came for us.” Tors was genuinely afraid, his scales shifting between various shades of dark red.

Pandora put a hand on his back. “Tors, calm down.” Her voice seemed both soothing and irritable. A green flash from outside took them both by surprise. Tors moved closer to Pandora and she reluctantly put her arms around him, like a mother with a child. “Maybe they were real...” Pandora whispered, more to herself than to Tors.

Outside, green wisps of wind formed together in the serpentine shape Tors knew the creatures to be. He leant towards the window, both afraid and fascinated by this being. Its...head?...opened up, as it did before, but this time it didn't screech. This time was more of a whisper, as if it was talking to something else. This was when Tors noticed other wisps in the air.

More serpentine figures formed around the original and converged upon it. The whispering grew louder, mixed voices overlapping. Tors thought he could hear words in the winds, but he knew that it was just his imagination.

“The hell are they?” Pandora asked, more of a rhetorical question than anything else.

“What's going on?” Emola sounded sleepy and was rubbing his eyes as he came to the window; obviously the sounds outside had woken him. Then he saw the beings. “There's more of those things? Damn.”

Tors realised that Emola must be too half-asleep to care about these thing, especially as they did no harm before. Maybe, Tors thought, they come with all storms, but we can't see them. He noticed the creatures moving over to the decaying statue of Ardican in the town square. Craning his neck, he could just about see them as they separated and formed a circle around the statue. “There's eight of them now.”

“Yup.” Emola was still non-committal and vaguely dismissive.

Seven moved back, widening the circle, but one stayed in place. As Tors watched, it leaned steadily backwards, before lurching forward. As it did so, there was a flash of blue, like lightning, from its head. Tors looked away as it flashed, and when he looked again, the Ardican statue was cinders. Even in his shock, he felt Pandora's recoil. Her arms moved off of him and she stood up and stared outside. Even Emola was shaken out of his stupor. “My god...”

The offending creature shrieked, before decomposing into the wind. One other creature seemed to look at the cinders, before it lifted them into its own body. The others did the same, gathering the ashes into themselves. The ashes disappeared, but the winds grew darker, larger and somehow stronger. “Is this some sort of...feeding?” Tors asked, as if anyone else would know the answer.

“Looks like it.” Pandora was squinting, to try and see them more clearly. Her hair was wild, but mostly still.

As quickly as they came, the creatures disappeared, one by one.

The wind and rain returned, but not as strong as before. They sat for hours, barely speaking to one another, but just sharing a silent hope. Their hopes were answered hours later. Lights burned through the dark-grey sky, illuminating the battered house. In unison, they ran to the window and watched the giant cuboid-like evacuation ships land. Battling the winds, agents barged into houses and gently pulled people from their homes. Some people grabbed small items, mementos of a time gone. Neither Tors, Pandora nor Emola bothered to grab anything. As Tors ran up the metal ramp into the evacuation ship, he looked back out at Narcsia and his destroyed town. A pang of sorrow tugged at his chest; he remembered when it was beautiful, just months ago.

Putting that past behind him, he dragged himself aboard the ship, ready for a new and better life.

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!

Emergence: Chapter 18

The ship rocked and Devilclash was thrown from the thin-mattressed standard-issue bed onto the cold hard floor. Most of the bugs righted themselves and stayed in mid-air, but the Hive-Stone clattered to the ground. Righting themselves, the bugs swarmed around the Hive-Stone once more, picking it up and placing it in back in to its original position.

She heard shrieks coming from outisde her chambers. Her door slid open with a quiet hiss and she stepped through as a man ran by, straight into her arm. Panicking, the man flailed his own arms, trying to swat the bugs out of his way, before Devilclash was able to reform her arm. “Look where you're going.” Her voice did not lack reproach. The man looked back, but continued running away.

Gunfire, and the man was torn apart in front of her, bullets thudded into the walls.

Xaosians. Silver-skinned, scaled monstrosities. At first, they seemed similar to the Scalimen, but the Xaosians had no tail, no emotional tells, and their gargantuan hands were designed by evolution for violence only. In fact, the hands of the Xaosian were the only areas not covered by their black combat armour. When they saw Devilclash. They briefly aimed, and fired.

Attaching the Hive-Stone to two bugs, she decomposed herself, allowing the hive to become the swarm that it should be. Some bullets took out some bugs, and Devilclash felt not a pain, but as if part of herself was lost; she reeled with the feeling. Reaching the Xaosians, she had the bugs swarm onto them. They tried to swat the bugs away, but hundreds of tiny mouths ate through the Xaosian's armour, aided by a natural acid, before climbing inside and devouring the Xaosian. One was targeted in the helmet, his eye being a passage for the bugs to destroy his brain; the other had his chest targeted, heart devoured.

Taking on human form once more, she looked down at the two Xaosians. Obviously here to kill Lord Tahkshi.

She opened herself to the Swarm and relayed these memories to the rest of the Pyrkagia. As she did so, she felt the shock and horror of the others who could see it. A visualisation of the Swarm, which she held in her mind, flashed a dark red as the shock turned to anger; how could the Xaosians do this? Curious, she tried to find the Pyrkagias she had detected on Raan before, but she found no sign of life. She delved deeper, swimming through the memories and eventually found the one she was looking for; while the body was gone, the memories remain forever.

Buildings fall as the ground shakes; an aftershock of the Xaosians mega-weapon. Crevasses open and swallow a building. My building. We fall for an eternity, but some of us live when the building stops. Then come these...things. Silver skin, always shifting. They're on us now. Fighting is useless.

Devilclash detached herself from the Swarm, breathing quickly as she did so. Creatures in the core of Raan? Silver shifting skin? She thought she knew what they were, but they were all dead, surely. She put it to the back of her mind for now; I'll discuss it with the Primary when I get to Buun.

She dissipated herself once more and made her way to Tahkshi's chambers; protecting him was her first priority. When she reached the chambers, alarms around the ship were ringing and red lights were flashing in the corridors. Luckily, she didn't bump into any more Xaosians. She gently pushed the door to his chambers open. It was very similar to Devilclash's, just slightly larger and with a rail-desk in the corner; the Lords were supposed to have plain, nondescript rooms so as not to make it obvious where their chamber was. “Tahkshi?” She called; it looked empty, but he could have been hiding. When she received no response, she realised that the only logical place that he would have gone to would be the bridge.

So she reformed her human self and ran to the bridge to the sound of squealing alarms and gunfire.

Emergence: Chapter 17

Hangar bays in any building are usually rather drab and dreary; they don't need to be fancy and the only thing that cleans up the dust and dirt from the floor are the boots of the pilots walking that short distance from the door to their ship. The Lord's Hangar, however, was rather extravagant. To match the Lord's robe, the walls had spiralling patterns set in red and gold plating atop polished walls. The lightbox-ceiling replaced the strip lights in the standard hangars, and the light reflected off of the polished walls and the heated floor tiles.

In the centre of the hangar bay was the Lord's ship; Watchman. Unlike the jagged angles and straight edges of the Xaosian Dominion, the Watchman was sleek and curved, shaped more like a flattened sphere than anything else. This disc-like ship could hold over one-hundred crew members, and it usually did so; most were guards trained in ship-to-ship combat made possible by the complex arrays of hidden weaponry hidden under panels in the ship. In combat, the panels would slide away after the weapon-bays became airlocked.

A Scaliman, yellow in colour, stood by the ship, waiting for Foton and Devilclash. Foton greeted him with a salute. “Nixiin, good to see you again.” Foton extended a hand, which Nixiin took and shook.

“And you too, Foton.” Nixiin smiled politely. “Ah, the Pyrkagias approaches! I've heard a fair bit about you, Devilclash.”

It took Foton a moment to remember that Devilclash had not actually left the Capital with Tahkshi before, so had not had the chance to meet Nixiin, who was in charge of this hangar.

“Only good things, I hope.” Foton liked Devilclash, but her flat and humourless drone of a voice irritated him whenever he heard it.

“Mostly.” Nixiin smiled and showed Devilclash her chambers on the ship's map. “You still waiting for Tahkshi?”

“Yeah, twit likes to keep me waiting.” It was no secret among Tahkshi's personal staff that he was, despite his media persona, a bit of a pompous arsehole.

Nixiin chuckled. “You realise he could've been right around the corner when you said that.”

Foton suppressed a natural smile at that. “I would have heard him.”

Nixiin considered this for a moment. “Yeah, you would've.”

Foton cocked his head. “Here he comes.”

Fast footsteps echoed down the hallway outside the hangar. “That's a damn good ear you got there, Foton.” Nixiin observed.

“Foton, Nixiin, get a move on!” Tahkshi strode into the hangar, escorted by two large Hak'i. He turned to them. “Go back to your posts now.” He continued walking, unbuckling his Lord's robe as he did so, revealing red and gold shirt and trousers underneath. “I'm going to my chambers, call if you need me.”

“We won't need you.” Foton said under his breath. “Nixiin, I'll see you in a day or so.” Foton walked briskly to the ship and up the ramp, which clanged beneath his steel soles; before coming to the hangar, he had changed into his light-combat armour. This armour consisted of the steel boots as well as a steel chestplate. However, his gloves and trousers were made from a metal fibre, creating a thick mesh which should stop oncoming blows and low-calibre bullets. At his waist, a holster held a small pistol with both a stun and kill setting. A knife was placed on the inside of each shin. Unlike the other guards, Foton also attached a retractable blade onto his wrist; these were technically illegal, but Foton chose to wear them to give him an edge in hand-to-hand combat. He didn't think anyone else knew about them, which suited him just fine.

When he got inside, he headed up to the ship's command hub. There he stood on a bridge overlooking banks of computers and their operators, both human and Irinian. “Everyone on board?”

A human near to him by the name of Jeok replied. “Life sign readings show that, yes everybody is on board.”

Foton nodded. “Excellent. Set course for Buun.”

Foton stood and waited for an Irinian – Foton thought he was called Wrotha – to respond. “Ready sir.”

“Call me Foton.” Foton abhorred being referred to as higher than the others, when they are doing more work than he. “Prepare for take off.”

He heard the hiss of the landing gear folding up and the airtight locks sealing. Then the engines thrummed louder and louder as they built up energy, before the hangar bay doors opened and the ship slowly manoeuvred out of them. As soon as it was out, the engines went silent; they were only loud when warming up. The ship angled itself towards the sky, and lumbered slowly upwards until it reached the upper atmosphere. The wall in front of Foton turned transparent and he could see the darkness of space outside. “Engage the L-Drive.”

Stars and space zoomed past the ship as it became faster than light itself.

Foton sat down in his chair on the bridge and logged on to his computer. While he was tempted to check for news on Raan, he knew he shouldn't; he was meant to be in charge. He checked the Watchman's structural integrity and found it at one-hundred percent, just as he expected. Surprisingly, he found himself bored; he was never usually bored. There was always something to do, something to check. But now, he had a team doing those jobs for him and his principle wanted to be alone. He knew why he felt uneasy though; Devilclash's disbelief about his time on Buun. He knew he should never have mentioned it; his past always led to trouble. The minutes passed in silence.

“Foton!”

He turned to see Tahkshi walking towards him. “What do you want?”

Tahkshi looked irritable at Foton's tone, although Foton thought that he should be used to it by now. “How long is it to Buun?”

Foton shrugged. “I don't know.” He turned to the crew beneath the bridge. “How long is it to Buun?”

Wrotha turned around and said, “About 10 minutes; it takes about 25 to get there from New Orbus.”

Foton was always amazed by how fast L-Drive travel was; a matter of minutes, or hours, from New Orbus to anywhere else in the Twelve, aside from Oblivion. Light from the Sol took only eight minutes to get to Rat'hak, and about three hours from Rat'hak to Buun. New Orbus was rather close to Buun, and it led Foton to think about how Orbus's climate may have been like before it was wiped out. He presumed that it was a tropical landscape like Buun's, complete with that sticky, uncomfortable heat.

“Good.” Tahkshi answered. “I may just stay here for a bit; I do like to watch the stars.”

Foton nodded; the one thing that they shared. “They are beautiful.”

“They are.”

Silence as they looked at the streaks of white and silver across the screen; the stars became distorted due to the speed.

Something hit the ship.

Foton tumbled out of the chair, which then fell on him. He threw it off of himself and located Tahkshi; he was still on the floor. “What the hell's going on?”

“Something's knocked us out of L-Speed!” One of the crew members had got back up into their chair.

Foton yelled into his com, “Everyone to battle stations!” Along the exterior of the Watchman, panels slid open, revealing an array of cannons around the entire rim of the ship. Foton looked out of the screen and saw a white ship dart by. He didn't recognise the design; it must be new. Without warning, the ship rocked again. This time, Foton grabbed a railing to support himself. Proffering his hand, he pulled Tahkshi to his feet. “What was that?”

Another crash, another hiss of the air-seal; a quickly forming gel which solidifies into an airtight solid is secreted from the walls when they are breached. A voice came over the com. “The white ships are crashing into the sides of the ship, take them out!”

“Boarding parties or kamikaze?” Foton called back over the com.

“Boarding-” The com was cut off: dead. Foton had no time to mourn.

“We need to get to the escape pods!” Foton yelled. “Everyone go!”

A door hissed open and two armoured Xaosians were revealed. They were flanking a white being, the species of which Foton couldn't place; it was humanoid, but with an ivory exoskeleton covering its body and distorting some features. Foton couldn't care less. He drew his pistol, set it to kill and shot at the alien.

The bullet stopped in mid-air between its fingers. The alien examined it briefly, before discarding it. It drew its own weapon from a holster on its side and shot back. The bullet narrowly missed Foton as he threw himself to the ground. Screams shattered Foton's wish for silence, but the Xaosians soon granted that wish, each bullet silencing one of the crew members. Foton dragged Tahkshi along the bridge to the other door. Tahkshi tried to keep up, but Foton easily outpaced him. There was a sound behind them. Foton twisted round. The alien was there, just a couple of standards away. Foton put his pistol up and shot the alien three times in the head. The alien slid to the left; the bullets missed. Nothing should be that fast Foton thought, before realising that his gun was useless. He ran to the alien, hidden blade primed.

The alien grabbed his arm and threw him off the bridge and onto the computers below. Foton recovered just in time to see the alien shoot Tahkshi three times in the head.

Dead.

He had failed.

Emergence: Chapter 16

The city of Sutib was very similar to Tapal in its north/south divide, as well its skyline and structure. However, it was a much smaller city and many Raanians probably wondered why Raan needed such a city so close to Tapal, as if it was acting like a little brother. Right now, no-one cared about that.

Ilisa watched Strom's eyes close as she cradled his head. She felt her face fall and her shoulders droop backwards as she collapsed to her knees. Her red eyes tingled, but she could not cry; her tears had all been spent on her brother. Instead, she buried her head in Strom's chest with her eyes closed, desperate to be close to him for the last time.

A crowd was forming a circle around them now, keeping back at a respectful distance. Ilisa paid them no mind; she couldn't care less whether they were Raanian or Xaosian. Her hand found his and she held it tight. She opened her eyes suddenly.

There was a pulse.

Disengaging herself from him, she tore his shirt off and placed her hand on his heart; a slow, but definite beat. “Please, I need a doctor!” She called to the crowd, relieved to see that they were Raanians rather than the enemy.

One man came running forward and took Strom's pulse. “He's alive, but only just; he's gone into a comatose state; his body is near enough dead, but his mind is very much alive.”

“Is there anything you can do?” Ilisa feared the worst.

The doctor took a deep breath, before hesitantly saying, “I'm sorry my dear, but the hospital is full to bursting point; we literally cannot help him.”

Ilisa stood, slowly and deliberately until she looked into the doctor's eyes. “You cannot help him?” The doctor shook his head, brow furrowing in confusion. “He helped you! All of you!” She gestured to the crowd with one hand as her voice grew louder and more shrill. “My brother died for you! I fought for you! And now Strom here has to die too?” Many members of the crowd began to look uncomfortable. “I didn't have to fight today! They did, but I didn't; I, as a woman, fought in the air and in space, alongside my male comrades to try and save you all! And now you damn him?”

The doctor backed away from Ilisa slowly. “We're not damning him, but we're not damning anyone else either. Especially with the quakes.”

“Quakes?”

The doctor briefly looked down, before looking back up at Ilisa. “Yes, the quakes. There have been a bout twenty earthquakes across the continent in random areas; we could be next. Tapal has been hit pretty badly; the North at least has been levelled.”

The doctor continued talking, but Ilisa heard none of it. The North was where Strom had lived; his family and friends were likely dead. Ilisa's friends, mainly in the South, may be okay, but she wasn't going to head back to Tapal just to see them. She looked down at Strom at her feet and, with a tugging feeling in her chest, realised that he was all she truly had anymore.

She turned to the doctor. “Are there any interplanetary ships I can use here?”

The doctor shook his head. “I'm sorry, but we're using all that we've got to evacuate the coasts.”

Ilisa had almost forgotten about the burning Sea of Oil. “Damn it...” She clenched and unclenched her fists in frustration; she had never felt so helpless.

There was a bustle in the crowd. “Excuse me”, “hey”, “watch it, you”. One man stepped to the front of the crowd and approached Ilisa. “You looking for an interplanetary craft?” He asked Ilisa.

Her heart began to beat faster again. “Yes, I am.”

“They got some ancient ones up on Viran. We don't use them because apparently they're structurally unsafe,” Ilisa heard the implied quotation marks around the words, “but they still fly. I reckon you could get as far as New Orbus if you're a good pilot.”

The Viran; Raan's moon. The Stinger could take her that far, or she hoped so anyway. “Are you sure about these ships?” Her heart was still racing.

“Certain, yeah.” The man nodded.

Ilisa picked up Strom and carried him to her Stinger, where Olaf's corpse was waiting. She placed her hand to her mouth at the sight; she had forgotten how disfigured it was. Setting Strom down, she opened the cockpit and pulled Olaf out, placing him gently next to Strom. She turned to the doctor. “Do you have a morgue nearby?”

The doctor nodded. “Is that your brother?”

Ilisa looked down at Olaf's thin and once-tan features. Now they were gaunt and pale, a ghastly incarnation of her brother. “He was my brother. Olaf Cahdun.” She looked up again. “Please keep him in the morgue until I return.” Her voice took a more pleading tone, and it wavered as if she was going to break down. But she had to be strong; for Strom's sake.

The doctor nodded. “We will, don't worry.”

“Thank you.”

Without looking at the crowd, who were slowly backing away, she carefully placed Strom's body into the back of the Stinger, bending him into a slouched seating position. She climbed into the pilot's seat and closed the cockpit, signalling to the crowd to back away.

And with a throaty roar, the Stinger lifted off and shot into the night sky. Her heart raced; there was still a chance of saving her lover.

Emergence: Chapter 15

“T-1, come in!” Nothing.

“T-2, come in!” Static.

“T-3, come in!” A brief hiss.

Trexor strode across the wreckage of the skyscraper, not knowing where to start digging. At the ruins' high point, it would still be about half the size of the monolithic structure it once was; Trexor could not search through the entire mountain, and his infrared readers detected no life, or they could not penetrate through the thick rubble. He continued walking, sensor pointed at the ground. Bricks shifted and clattered beneath his feet as if he was walking on snow, and, more than once, he nearly lost his footing. The screams of those elsewhere in the city were alien to him; his first priority was to those in this building, that was his job. All around, other skyscrapers were still falling. Looking up, he saw one building shaking, before breaking in half, the top half carving a deep gash through the adjacent building as it fell. He saw people fall to their deaths, flailing like ragdolls as they fell. But he felt nothing for them. He felt nothing for anyone right now, just the emptiness of failure.

To his right, bricks moved and he heard a muffled cry. Throwing himself down, he tore bricks and wreckage away from the source of the sound, jagged edges reaping blood from his palms. Bricks, plaster, metal, wood, before finally skin. A hand. It clasped around his own, and he pulled up hard. He clenched his teeth and grimaced; he was using his left hand to steady himself and his right to pull, but this twisted his right side and made the blade inside him pain him again. With a roar of pain, he pulled a black-haired woman out of the ruins. In her other arm was what Trexor thought was a bundle of blankets, before realising that it was a small child. The woman looked at him, blood pouring down her face from a gash across her forehead. At least one leg was broken; she couldn't stand. The shirt she wore was torn across the back; obviously she had bent over the child to shield it from the debris.

Trexor bent over to catch his breath again and rubbed his side; he'd have to get that checked out. “Do you know if any others survived?” Trexor panted, barely able to get the words out.

“None on my floor, no.” she said softly, unable to pry her eyes away from her son's scared face. “I was in the hallway with one of your troops and a few other families. Then the ceiling came down and...and...they're gone!” She looked at Trexor now, before she said, “And I would be too, if it wasn'' for you. Thank you.”

While the words sounded sincere, Trexor knew that the woman did not want to praise him, but wanted time to grieve. “Can you stand?” he asked.

She nodded. “Jus' abou', I think.” She tried to stand, using one hand to steady herself, but her legs faltered as she cried out in pain. Trexor caught her before she fell and put her arm around his shoulders.

“Hold onto me and use this,” he passed her his sword, “As a crutch for the other side.”

Holding the child with one hand and supporting the mother with the other, Trexor walked slowly and carefully back down the mountain. The son watched him with wide blue pools of curiosity, but gave away no other emotion. “What's his name?” Trexor asked; it's a long walk, he thought he may as well try to interact normally with someone.

“Cane,” she said, “After his daddy. And I'm Disa.”

“General Trexor,” Trexor said, acknowledging the hidden question in her upwards intonation. “Shame we couldn't meet in better circumstances.” He dreaded to ask the next question. “And where is the father?”

“He went to Narcsia to get some real money for li'l Cane. Got caught up in the storms, and can't leave the planet yet.” Disa forced a weak smile. “Probably for the best.” She coughed; the dust must be getting to her.

“General!”

Trexor recognised that voice, but he knew that it shouldn't be there. He turned to see a slender man dusting himself off. “How are you still alive, Trem?”

The hatred was obviously clear in his voice, because the assassin put his hands up when he walked over, before he pointed at a vial of green liquid on his belt. “This is some good shit from Prauw; heals you right up.” He took a blade out of his pocket. “This is what you left in me earlier and this,” he turned and showed them a faint scar on his shoulder, “is what's left.” He nodded to Disa and proffered the vial. “Here, take it; two drops is all you need.”

Disa dropped Trexor's sword and took the vial, before unscrewing the cap. Under the cap was a dropped-like opening, and she squeezed two drops of fizzing green liquid onto her tongue. Trexor faced Trem. “Why are you helping? Doesn't seem like you.”

Trem took the vial back and smiled encouragingly at Disa, who thanked him. “I'm helping because I don't want to see these people die. Despite what you may think, I have morals. I just put them aside for the money that keeps me alive. I'd like to think that we could work well together, you and I, Trexor.”

Trexor thought about for a bit, until Disa supported herself and moved away, taking Cane back. “Thank you, Trexor. For everything.”

Trexor nodded to her in recognition of her thanks. “I guess we are kind of even, even if you could just heal yourself up. But we could use all the help we can get, by the looks of it.” He turned to Disa. “Get somewhere safe. I don't know where, probably the fields on the Tapal border. Now go.”

Disa looked at both Trem and Trexor. Her face was covered in dust and scrapes. Her clothes looked as if they had been mauled and blood covered most of her skin. And yet she smiled thankfully; not a happy smile, but one of relief; she and Cane had both survived. “Thank you.” She spoke softly, almost a whisper, before turning and walking away.

“Do you think she'll be ok?” Trexor asked.

“I do hope so.” Trem replied solemnly.

Silently, they ran towards the next building. On the ground, there was silence aside from the moving debris. In the sky, buildings scraped against one another and fell, but not near Trexor; those had already fallen. He looked up and saw none of the skyline that he had once despised, only a gaping void where nothing would live.

When they reached the next building, they began to dig.