⫸ [ TIME: 23:35 LOCAL PLANETARY TIME ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: HORIZON SEEKER – EXTERNAL HULL ]
⫸ [ STATUS: DEFCON 1 ]
The jungle was no longer dark.
The Horizon Seeker was a beacon. The floodlights mounted on the hull cut through the magnetic fog like solid beams of white matter. They illuminated the iron-bark trees and the violet mud and the carnage of the previous battle.
Elian stood on the roof of the fuselage. He was exposed.
He wore his patchwork armor of brown insect chitin and grey starship titanium. His skin shimmered with a faint heat haze from the thermal-lattice mutation. He held his titanium spear in one hand. In the other he held a heavy remote detonator wired to the external speakers of the ship.
Below him the Tribe waited.
Grom and his one hundred and forty giants formed a shield wall around the airlock. They held slabs of hull plating. They wore scraps of metal tied on with vines. They looked up at the sky with terror. They knew what was coming. The Sky-People were not legends to them. They were nightmares who burned the forest.
[ Contact in 60 seconds. ]
[ Analysis: The enemy vessels are utilizing a localized anti-gravity field generated by the wood itself. ]
[ It is not technology. It is biology engineered for flight. ]
Elian watched the radar. Five kilometers out. Three kilometers out.
"A.R.C.," Elian said. His voice was tight. "Status on the Fabricator."
◤ FABRICATION STATUS ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Project: The Arbiter (Mark-II)
⬢ Type: Sonic-Combustion Railgun
⬢ Progress: 14%
⬢ Time Remaining: 12 Minutes
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"Twelve minutes," Elian whispered. "I have to hold off an army of wizards for twelve minutes with a spear and a loudspeaker."
He looked at the sky.
The fog parted. The enemy arrived.
They were beautiful and terrifying. Three wooden ships floated over the treeline. They were not aerodynamic. They looked like ancient naval galleons carved from gold and red wood. They had no sails. They moved on clouds of shimmering light.
On the decks stood rows of figures in crimson robes. They did not look like the starving scavengers of the Tribe. They looked clean. They looked well-fed. They looked arrogant. They stared down at the crashed ship not with fear but with greed. To them the Horizon Seeker was not a machine. It was a metal cave filled with treasure.
The lead ship drifted forward. It stopped fifty meters above the crash site. It blocked out the violet moons.
A man floated down.
He did not use a jetpack. He stepped off the deck and walked on the air as if there were invisible stairs. He wore robes embroidered with golden flames. He held a fan made of white feathers.
He stopped ten meters above Elian. He looked down at the wreckage. He looked at the reactor glow. He looked at Elian.
He spoke. His voice was amplified by unknown means. It boomed across the clearing.
[Translation Matrix: Active (Confidence: 58%)]
[Input:] "Demon... Iron Cave... Heaven's Will..."
[Synthesizing Meaning: He calls you an Iron Demon. He claims this metal cave belongs to the Heavens. He demands submission.]
Elian tapped his throat collar. The vocal synthesizer whined.
"A.R.C.," Elian muttered. "Give me a translation. Keep it simple. Their dialect is unknown."
[ Translating... ]
[ Warning: Output will be mechanical and broken. You will not sound eloquent. ]
Elian raised his hand. He pointed at the floating man.
"UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT," Elian's synthesized voice ground out. It sounded like rocks being crushed in a compactor. "YOU VIOLATE AIRSPACE. LEAVE."
The Floating Man blinked. He looked offended. He snapped his fan shut. The crude mechanical voice clearly disgusted him.
He spoke again. This time the tone was sharper.
[Input:] "Insect... Ancestor... Fire..."
[Meaning: He claims status of 'Ancestor'. He designates you as 'Insect'. Threat: Incineration.]
The Leader raised his fan. He waved it casually.
A wave of fire erupted from the fan. It was not a fireball. It was a sheet of flame thirty meters wide. It rolled down toward the ship like a liquid curtain.
◤ THERMAL SPIKE DETECTED ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Type: Exothermic Plasma Projection
⬢ Temperature: 1,400°C
⬢ Impact: 2 Seconds
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Elian did not move. He did not dodge.
"Physics lesson number four," Elian whispered. "Thermodynamics."
He pressed the button on his remote.
"DEFENSE GRID: VENTING."
The Horizon Seeker had atmospheric scrubbers designed to purge toxic gases from the engineering deck. Elian had rerouted them. He had connected them to the external vents on the fuselage.
PHOOOOOM.
High-pressure blasts of nitrogen gas exploded from the hull. It was the fire suppression system of the ship turned outward.
The gas hit the incoming fire.
Fire requires oxygen to burn. It is a chemical reaction. The nitrogen cloud displaced the oxygen instantly. It starved the reaction.
The massive sheet of flame didn't hit Elian. It vanished. It suffocated in mid-air and turned into harmless black smoke.
The Leader froze. He stared at his hand. He stared at the grey demon who had just commanded the fire to die. He did not understand chemistry. He thought Elian had used a counter-spell.
[ Psychological Impact: High. ]
[ He thinks you are a water-affinity sorcerer. ]
Elian raised his spear.
"MY TURN."
He signaled Grom.
On the ground the Giants roared. They didn't charge. They pulled ropes attached to a pulley system.
Concealed in the wreckage behind the ship was the Main Comms Array. It was a massive dish antenna. Elian had rigged it not to transmit data but to transmit Noise.
"SONIC CANNON: ENGAGE."
The dish swiveled. It aimed at the lead ship.
It emitted a focused burst of white noise at 160 decibels.
It was silent to the human ear because the frequency was too high. It was ultrasonic.
But it wasn't silent to the ship.
The wooden hull of the flying ship resonated. The force that held it aloft relied on precise vibration frequencies.
The sonic blast shattered the harmony.
CRACK.
The lead ship groaned. The golden light under its keel flickered and died.
Gravity took over.
The ship dropped. It fell fifty feet and crashed into the treeline.
CRASH.
Wood splintered. The Humanoid Hostiles screamed as they were thrown from the deck. They fell into the dark jungle below.
The Leader hovering in the air lost his focus. He wobbled. He dropped a few feet before catching himself.
He looked at the crashed ship. He looked at Elian. His arrogance evaporated. It was replaced by hate.
He shouted a command to the other two ships.
[ Warning. Hostile fleet engaging. ]
[ They are launching ground units. ]
Hundreds of figures jumped from the remaining ships. They glided down on swords and glowing artifacts. They landed in the mud outside the perimeter.
They were an army of glass cannons. High damage output but low armor density.
"Grom!" Elian shouted over the loudspeakers. "SHIELDS UP."
The Giants slammed their hull-plate shields into the mud. They locked them together to form a wall of titanium.
The Hostiles unleashed hell. Fireballs. Ice spikes. Wind blades.
The energy attacks slammed into the shield wall. The metal groaned and heated up but it held. The Giants screamed as the heat radiated through their shields but they did not break formation.
Elian checked the Fabricator status on his HUD.
◤ FABRICATION STATUS ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Progress: 45%
⬢ Time Remaining: 7 Minutes
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"Seven minutes," Elian cursed. "Hold the line!"
He ran along the fuselage. He acted as a sniper with his spear.
A Hostile tried to fly over the shield wall on a sword.
Elian calculated the trajectory. He threw the spear.
THWACK.
The titanium rod pierced the chest of the man. The kinetic force carried him backward and pinned him to an iron-bark tree.
Elian reached into a crate of spares. He grabbed another spear. He had printed ten of them.
[ Commander. The Leader is moving. ]
Elian looked up.
The Leader in the gold robes was not attacking the Giants. He was flying higher. He was chanting. A massive ball of energy was forming above his head. It grew brighter and hotter with every second.
[ Analysis: Solar Concentration. ]
[ He is gathering ambient light to create a plasma lance. ]
[ Target: The Ship's Reactor. ]
"If he hits the reactor," Elian realized, "he breaches the containment. The ship explodes. Alara dies."
Elian looked at his spears. They couldn't reach that high.
He looked at the sonic dish. It was overheated and recharging.
He was out of options.
"A.R.C.," Elian said. "The Emergency Thrusters on the fuselage. The ones we used to vent the fuel."
[ They are dry. Only fumes remain. ]
"Fumes are explosive," Elian said. "If I ignite the vapor trail inside the thruster cone while he is above it..."
[ You would create a shaped charge. A cannon made of the ship itself. ]
[ But you have no igniter. The electronic ignition is fused. ]
"I have Thermal Skin," Elian said. "And I have a flare."
He grabbed a red emergency flare from his belt. He cracked it. It hissed with magnesium fire.
He ran to the rear thruster port. The Leader was hovering directly above it and charging his sun-spell.
Elian looked at the open vent of the thruster. It was dark and smelled of hydrazine.
[ Commander. The blast will rupture the thruster housing. You will be at ground zero. ]
"I can take the heat," Elian said. "Calculate the angle."
[ Angle optimal. ]
Elian threw the flare into the thruster.
BOOM.
The remaining hydrazine fumes ignited instantly. The thruster cone acted like a gun barrel. It focused the explosion upwards.
A pillar of fire and concussive force shot out of the ship. It was a column of blue flame fifty meters high.
It hit the Leader.
He didn't have time to scream. The concussive force shattered his concentration. The "Solar Sphere" he was holding collapsed. It detonated in his face.
The sky turned white.
The Leader was launched upward like a ragdoll. His robes disintegrated. He vanished into the clouds.
The explosion rocked the ship. Elian was thrown backward. He slammed into the radar array. His thermal skin glowed cherry-red as it absorbed the heat of the blast.
He lay there for a second. Smoke poured from the thruster.
[ Target Neutralized. ]
[ The Leader is gone. ]
Below on the ground the Hostiles froze. They saw their leader vanish in a pillar of ship-fire. They saw the "Iron Demon" invoke the breath of a dragon from his metal cave.
Their morale broke.
They retreated. They fled back to the two remaining ships. The ships turned and accelerated away into the fog.
Elian stood up. He was smoking. His armor was scorched.
He looked at the fabrication timer.
◤ FABRICATION COMPLETE ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Item: The Arbiter (Mark-II)
⬢ Status: Ready for Retrieval
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"Too late," Elian whispered. He watched the ships disappear. "But next time... I won't be late."
He climbed down from the roof. Grom and the Giants were cheering. They banged their weapons against their shields. They chanted a new name for him.
"Iron-Star. Iron-Star."
Elian ignored them. He walked into the Engineering Bay.
The glass door of the Fabricator was open.
Lying on the rack was the gun.
It was heavy. It was blocky. It had a railgun barrel and a sonic chamber. It was beautiful.
Elian picked it up. He felt the weight.
"A.R.C.," Elian said. "Scan the wreckage of the ship we shot down."
[ Scanning... ]
[ Survivors detected in the treeline. ]
Elian racked the bolt of the gun.
"Good," he said. "We need prisoners. I need to know the name of this planet."
[END OF CHAPTER 10]