Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Watson All rights reserved. The author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text, including without limitation technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as this publication. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
Peter looked up and through the expanding cloud of debris around him. Through it he could see advancing ranks of multi-limbed machines, lit dully by the distant sun of Godsend, marching down the outer hull, casting vague shadows. There were too many of them. As he watched, the Redemption’s slugfests picked off the hull walkers farthest from him, tearing out chunks of the station’s outer hull in the process. Peter couldn’t recall how many hull walkers had been built for the station proper, but he had a sense that it would be a depressingly large number if he remembered it. And then the rest were just suddenly there, launching themselves into space.
“The damned things are flying!” Peter said. “I know the originals weren’t designed for that.”
Fuumbral and Peter arranged themselves to fight back-to-back. The weapons built into Peter’s suit, and fire from the ship, saved them from being immediately overwhelmed. Debris rebounded from the hulls of the ship and the station, and they dodged as often as they fired. The hull walkers came on, some scuttling down the outer hull, others flying. Just when it seemed they would hold their own, a shout of warning came over the comm from Lt. Engler. At the same moment, Peter saw a section of the hull explode, and from the hole created by the blast emerged a swarm of hull walkers, all of which raced to the access containing the all-important link to the Redemption’s systems.
Peter couldn’t track the flying mechs and this new threat at the same time. “Redemption, priority targets are the flying mechs. Keep them off our backs.”
“They’re too close to your position for safe…”
“Just do it!” Peter was firing all the while, frantically trying to keep hull walkers from reopening the panel concealing Fuumbral’s link.
Light flashed and flared, much too close for comfort, but the spaceborne threat was dealt with; enemy icons in his HUD flickered out by the dozen, leaving him free to target the increasing number of walkers appearing from within the torus. This is more than we built. A lot more. Debris sailed past him, the smoothness of its flight belying its speed, and therefore its kinetic potential. There was so much debris, too much to dodge in the mere seconds they had before it was right on top of them, that collisions were inevitable. A broken walker leg hit Fuumbral straight on. The Hroom’s suit remained intact, firing thrusters in frantic bursts to stabilize Fuumbral, who did not reply when Peter shouted its name.
Distracted, he didn’t react in time when his suit flashed a proximity alert. Something crashed into him from behind. All the readouts in his helmet blinked off and then back on, awash with orange warning lights. He heard Rebecca shout his name, and the fear in her voice turned his blood cold. What had she seen? What had happened to him? He couldn’t feel any pain, and he could breathe, but it must have been bad because he was graying out. Peter pointed his rifle at the hull walkers nearest the location of the link to the ship. Or tried to; for some reason, his arms and fingers weren’t working. He couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do with them in any case.
Strangely, the hull walkers still attached to the station seemed to have paused to watch what was going on. One launched into space toward Fuumbral, who drifted, apparently helpless. Peter tried to shout a warning, but wasn’t sure anyone heard it over the ringing in his ears. It seemed odd to Peter that no one aboard Redemption reacted to what was happening. Not that he would ever really know what was happening, he realized, as a mech appeared in his fading vision, claws extended and moving straight for him.
* * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * ** * * * *
The Godsend Incident
The Children of Rost’aht, Book One
Coming soon!
The Godsend star system was lost to the rest of the galaxy at the end of the Faceless War, its link to other systems severed when the Faceless disrupted space and time to make its final assault on Humanity. Within that star system may be clues to how the Faceless came to wield its awesome and destructive powers.
When the way to Godsend is finally open, twenty years later, two expeditions are sent to investigate. One seeks to understand their defeated enemy, the other to exploit what the Faceless left behind.
Nol’ez Jaxi and her friends grew up together studying anything and everything to do with the Faceless. They seek an understanding of the enemy that took so much from them as children, while seeking a resolution to the fragile relationship they have with each other.
Peter Harrans and Ander Handy once called Godsend home – before the Faceless appeared. Each man is plagued by demons from his past. Both are seeking closure – and redemption.
Not all of them will find what they seek. All will be lucky to leave Godsend alive.
Under Desert Stars 