Chapter XLVI – Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Part Three

  “No more,” murmured Nova as she turned. “Please. No more.”

  A tear had opened up across Lai’s lower throat, her head hinging to the side, almost inverted, attached only by a little skin and sinew. From the gaping hole of her neck vines were uncoiling.

  She was smiling.

  “The Soloist will be here soon,” she said, her voice now sounding wet. “They will decide whether you are worthy of becoming Players in the Orchestra.”

  Kal wasted no time. He unslung his rifle and fired off several rounds directly into Lai’s chest, sending up a spray of blood. Yet she did not fall. Instead, more vines erupted from the holes where the bullets had struck.

  Kal just shook his head from side to side. “What is this bullshit?” he growled.

  Even as he did so, the vines latched onto his limbs. Lai’s body now seemed to be pulled by the vines, jerking about like a puppet on strings.

  There was a buzzing sound, and Nova turned to see that Jiwen had drawn his vibro-saw. He sprung into action, but he hadn’t gotten far when he was batted aside with incredible force. Nova herself was forced to duck under a whip-like tendril before diving for cover beneath a console.

  Kal roared in rage and frustration as more and more vines wrapped about him. The more Lai moved, the more her blood sprayed about the room; every surface was now flecked with it, the floor was increasingly slicked with it.

  Nova could feel the terror threatening to overwhelm her, to paralyse her. She could feel her mantra collapsing. Her strength of will was almost gone. “Just a little longer” was no longer enough. At every turn Luanyuan threw fresh horrors at her.

  There is strength in numbers, whispered a voice. Let us fight this battle.

  No, no, no! she cried internally, Don’t give in.

  But it was so much easier to imagine the soothing sweetness of the Eutric Blood than this ever-magnifying horror in the depths.

  She wormed her way deeper under the console as the vines reached for her.

  Kal was like a man wading against a fast-flowing river, his immense form struggling against the vines, his arms poised to dismember the enemy, if he could just get close enough.

  Jiwen leapt back to his feet and ran towards Lai. This time he ducked the blow from the vines and drove upwards with the vibro-saw, severing a length, which fell twitching to the floor.

  We have to get out, thought Nova. Maybe I can unlock the door, reach the others.

  Having a goal focused her mind.

  Kal gave the roar of a cornered beast and unleashed a fresh burst of strength and fury, surging forward through the thrashing tangle. A little further away, fresh lengths of vine fell away as Jiwen wielded his vibro-saw with desperate speed.

  This was it.

  She darted from her hiding place toward the door. Lai’s semi-detached head saw her and a moment later the vines were reaching her way. But Kal was not having it.

  “Don’t worry about her!” he yelled. “You’ve got me to deal with.”

  In that moment he reached the abomination of flesh and vine. His hands began ripping and tearing indiscriminately.

  Nova reached the door. There was a control panel there. Could she override whatever Lai had done from the console? She exerted all her effort to focus, pushing the horrific sounds behind her from her mind.

  The control panel, like the consoles, was bizarre.

  Who designed this fucking place?

  With shaking, unsteady hands, she tapped at the panel, flinching at every squelch and rip; anticipating the moment she would feel her limbs or midsection being ensnared.

  Even as she stared at the panel, a fresh spray of blood – a fine mist – spread across it. She tried to wipe it away, but her hands and gloves were so filthy already that they did little, but create a reddish-brown smear.

  “Aaaahhh!” she screamed out and slammed her fist against the panel.

  “Invalid command. Please input authorisation code or use biometrics.”

  “Just. Fucking. Work!” she yelled.

  But she could barely see the panel now and her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

  Let us in. Let us fight for you.

  Nova slowly sagged to her knees, now clutching the sides of her head.

  “Go away. Go away. Go away.”

  Zhao’s body had begun turning inside out as it split, the vines wrapping around it and forming something akin to a new ribcage, others extending out and weaving together to create new legs, lifting the growing monstrosity up to the maximum height permitted by the lab’s ceiling. Yet all along, Zhao’s very human head gazed at them through his round glasses, the thin smile never vacating his face.

  “Got any ideas?” asked Harry, he and Tavian backing away.

  Tavian slowly shook his head.

  The creature that had until recently been Dr Zhao now stood upon many gnarled and woody legs over a slurry of trampled gore that had once been the doctor’s internal organs. On the far side of it were the prostrate forms of Mu and Toghrul. Behind him, Tavian could hear an increasing frenzy of tapping upon the glass.

  Tavian murmured an invocation to Lady Anu for protection. Then he drew a pistol and took aim, right at the doctor’s face.

  What happened next, happened very fast. So fast that he didn’t follow the full order of events. The vines lashed out; he squeezed the trigger. There was the sound of a ricochet. Then there was a flash of light and the woody tendrils bounced away from Tavian, moments before they struck.

  Thank you, m’lady.

  “Your Resonance is strong,” proclaimed Zhao, “You will be a mighty weapon against the Hive. You shall sound such exquisite notes when the bow is drawn across your soul.”

  “Like hell I will,” said Tavian.

  He fired again.

  This time the bullet went through Zhao’s cheek and burst out the back of his neck. Tiny sprouts appeared and stitched together to cover the hole in his face.

  “Wish we had more guns,” said Harry.

  “I don’t know how much guns are gonna—”

  Tavian didn’t finish.

  Bright green light flared around the abomination. The vines went limp, then the whole form, with a hint of struggle, collapsed to the ground. Only when it did so, was Ostara’s figure revealed, standing resolute behind it, wreathed in emerald light.

  For the first time, Zhao’s expression lost its calm.

  “How are you doing this?” he snarled. “I carry with me the power of the Conductor.”

  “The Conductor is far away. I am here,” said Ostara, stepping closer.

  Zhao let out an inhuman scream. His face contorted. The vines twitched, but could do no more.

  “Argh, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “You are no match for the Soloist. You will all be Players soon when you hear the Music.”

  Once again, events moved quick.

  “No,” said a new voice, “The Soloist is no match for me.”

  A sword drove swiftly through Zhao’s head, the tip of the blade erupting from his mouth. In another motion it was withdrawn and came down on his neck, severing the head entirely.

  “Thank you, Mr Locke,” said Mu, “That was a good sleep. My head’s a lot clearer now.”

  “Glad I could help,” said Tavian.

  “You helped more than you could know,” said Mu.

  “You’re looking better,” said Harry.

  Mu’s eyes scanned the scene. “That was Dr Zhao?” she said, with a look of revulsion. “Wasn’t he killed?”

  Tavian shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t think this was the original Dr Zhao.”

  “The Orchestra?” asked Mu.

  “Apparently,” said Harry.

  “He talked about them when we were first arriving at Port Arthur… I wonder when he fell?”

  “Who knows? Though if I had to guess it was after he and his… assist—” Tavian interupted himself, “We should check on the others.”

  “He’s not dead,” said Ostara.

  Tavian glanced down. The severed head was sprouting more vines. Ostara continued to pin down the body, but the head now began scuttling away.

  “Harry, Mu: You go check on the others. Ostara and I will deal with this bastard,” said Tavian.

  Harry gave a thumbs up. He led Mu through the door the others had departed through earlier.

  Ostara extended a hand toward the head and a moment later it was frozen in place.

  “You have a plan, I take it, Tavian?” she asked.

  “Well, he likes music, doesn’t he?” said Tavian. He holstered his pistol and unslung his mandolin. “I’ve got some songs for him.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Kal saw Jiwen go flying away. He didn’t see what became of him, but saw a flash of sparks as the still running vibro-saw scraped against metal.

  He himself had been driven back, the damage he had managed to inflict only minimal, easily repaired by the rapidly altering form of Lai.

  With all his might he pushed forward, trying to close the distance between himself and Lai once more. The vines were uncannily strong. He could feel them not just holding him back, but pulling on his limbs, attempting to dismember him. Any ordinary person would have been dead by now.

  But Kal was not ordinary.

  He was a Pyrphoros.

  And he could feel the Flame stirring.

  Don’t let it ignite.

  Yet with each fresh surge forward, with each yell, the wrath of a distant Star stirred within him. Every new reserve of strength he accessed seemed to be fed from that well of divine fury, his accursed birthright. He knew that if it awoke, Lai would be destroyed, surely enough. But in such a small space, there was little hope for his companions to survive his rampage. Even if they survived, it would hopelessly delay their escape from this place and from that which was coming.

  I must resist, he told himself, his eyes spying Nova on the far side of the room. I cannot let her hurt any more.

  The abomination meanwhile recognised his body’s uncanny reserves of strength. He felt a new vine begin to wrap around his throat. Against the vines already grabbing his arms he pulled upwards hard, reaching the constricting tendril and wrapping his fingers around it. Even as it coiled tighter, seeking to strangulate or perhaps decapitate him, he pulled it away, keeping it just loose enough. Yet even with his enormous strength, he was straining, the muscles of his arm bulging, the veins pressed tight against his skin.

  Ahead of him, there was little sign his opponent was struggling. Lai was continuing to disfigure and mutilate her own body. There came the sound of ripping tendons and cracking bone and then her right arm shot off in a shower of blood, now being swung around at the ends of a length of vine.

  It reached.

  For Nova.

  “No, you don’t!” he attempted to yell, though his increasingly constricted throat meant it was no mighty war cry.

  With all his might, accessing the last reserves of strength that didn’t come from the Flame, he grabbed hold of the vines ahead of him with his mechanical hand, and pulled.

  Lai stumbled slightly. Only slightly. But it gave Kal a window. He stopped that severed hand reaching Nova. And in the fractions of a second that Lai was put off balance, he managed to push forward, closing the gap. She was almost in reach.

  Her inverted, partially severed head, dangled in front of his face. Its hair hung down low and was matted with the blood that drizzled from the gaping hole at the end of the neck. Likewise, the face was stained red. Lai’s glasses had long since fallen off, but the whites of her eyes stood out brightly from the crimson of everything else. Several vertebrae stuck out of the stump of the neck, ending at the point where her spine had been snapped during her initial transformation.

  “You will be a mighty gift to the Orchestra,” it leered at him, “And you will struggle no longer, once you hear the Soloist’s music.”

  Kal bared his teeth at her, emitting a bestial growl. He felt a warmth inside him, like his blood was beginning to heat up. Sparks of Cosmic power erupted in his straining muscles, bringing with them fresh reserves of might.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “I may… not have… all those fucking… vines,” he said, pulling hard at the vine around his throat, “But… I have… these two arms… and when I reach you… they will be… more than enough… to rip you… to fucking shreds.”

  In response, a fresh vine wrapped itself around his throat. They began constricting even tighter. Kal felt it getting harder to draw breath.

  The dangling head spat blood in his face and burst out into manic laughter.

  But Kal could see what was behind it.

  It continued to laugh, even as the sound of a vibro-saw activating filled the air. Even as the vines that connected it to Lai’s body were rapidly severed. It only stopped laughing when it fell to the floor.

  “Who’s laughing now, bitch?” yelled Nova, trembling.

  She paused only a moment, before plunging the vibro-saw into Lai’s body. Again and again and again, she hacked and slashed and stabbed and screamed with utterly unbridled, cathartic rage.

  “Fuck you! Fuck your Orchestra! Fuck this planet!” she shouted.

  The vines slackened and Kal wrenched the one constricting his throat away. Next, he freed his hands and now grabbed a bunch of vines together. He swung, with all the strength he had, then let go of the vines. The mangled corpse of Lai went flying across the room and smashed into the wall, the vines falling limply about her.

  Nova was left standing before him, vibro-saw still whirring. Like Lai before her, only the whites of her eyes now stood out from the sanguinary drenching. Every part of her was soaked in blood, old and new.

  As she stood there, her shoulders heaving, she spat out a pink globule.

  “Is it over?” she said at last, panting.

  “Not yet,” said Kal. As the now severed head of Lai began scuttling away, Kal directed one mighty blow from his robotic arm into it. The skull exploded and the vines fell limp.

  Kal felt the fire receding. In its place he felt the exhaustion begin to spread through his body.

  But it was still far from over.

  “Is Jiwen alive?” he asked, his eyes scouring the trashed room.

  He saw Jiwen lying against a wall, slumped.

  Nova ran over. She put a hand to his wrist.

  “He’s alive,” she said.

  She gave him a gentle shake. There was a groan.

  “You doing alright, man?” asked Nova.

  “Urgh,” replied Jiwen.

  His eyes opened. His hand went up to his eyes. One of the lenses of his glasses was gone. The other was cracked.

  “I’m… alive,” he said.

  Nova looked up at the ceiling as she spoke, “That’s about the best we can hope for at the moment.”

  “Can you walk?” asked Kal, kneeling beside him.

  “I think so—” said Jiwen, but his words caught in his mouth, “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

  They turned around.

  “Oh, just stay down!” yelled Kal.

  The body of Lai was beginning to move again. The remaining flesh sloughed off onto the floor, so that all that was left was a seething mass of vines. Bloody flowers were blooming across it.

  “I am so sick of this planet,” snarled Nova, rising to her feet and activating the vibro-saw again.

  “Give me the saw, Nova,” said Kal.

  Nova shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’ve got some stuff I need to work through.”

  With that she advanced on what had once been Lai Leizu.

  Mu and Harry raced down the corridor.

  “You really do seem a lot better,” remarked Harry.

  “A few things have become a lot clearer for me,” said Mu.

  “Could be a new tourism campaign,” said Harry, “Find yourself, on lush, beautiful Luanyuan.”

  “I’m not sure I’d recommend it,” said Mu. “Is this it?”

  Harry shrugged as they came to a stop before a closed door.

  “I just saw them head this way, I don’t know where they went.”

  Sounds emanated from behind the door.

  “Something’s happening in there,” said Harry. “Sounds… not great.”

  “They’re fine,” said Mu. “They’ve just got to open the door.”

  Harry pressed the panel beside the door. It made an unobliging sound.

  She took a deep breath, released it slowly, and closed her eyes. Doing her best to calm her mind, she probed the immediate future. Horrific things danced in and out of her foresight, threatening to break her concentration, but she pushed them aside.

  The door. What is the future of the door?

  Nova. A terminal.

  The sounds inside stopped.

  “Hello?” yelled Mu. “Can you her us?”

  A muffled voice called out. “Mu?” it said in a surprised tone.

  “It’s me,” Mu confirmed. “Is that you, Nova?”

  “Yeah. How--?”

  “I’ll explain later. You need to open the door.”

  Unbidden, Mu felt a dark future pressing in on her awareness.

  “Quickly,” she added.

  “I—Okay, I’ll try,” said Nova.

  “Do you—” began Harry, but Mu lifted a hand to silence him.

  She closed her eyes again.

  “Okay then… I’ll just wait and stay out of the way,” said Harry.

  Her foresight was becoming clouded. Puppets. Puppets and bees. She tried to direct her gaze away from them, probing their current course of action. She pushed back the veil of the future. There would be a crash. They would rush back to the front room. The door would be caved in. The mob—no, the Hive—would arrive. There would be too many.

  She tried a different path. There had to be one that led to escape. They searched the facility. As the door broke in, they found it: a rear entrance, leading to a stairway. Things got vague beyond there, but it was something. She pushed further.

  Please be a way out.

  And there it was. The Soloist.

  And there would be no ship waiting for them…

  Unless.

  “Nova, can you send a message to the Amrita from in there?”

  Another voice replied, “She can’t hear you. I’ll ask.”

  Jiwen?

  A moment passed.

  Quickly.

  There came some loud noises, wet splatting noises and loud bangs.

  Then another voice spoke.

  Kal.

  “She’s trying now.”

  “That you, Big Guy?” asked Harry. “All, um, all going well in there?”

  “All good. Just had to kill this thing again.”

  Harry swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, they’re stubborn.”

  There came another loud noise, but not from the room, from behind them.

  They’re here.

  “Hurry!” yelled Mu. She knew it was unhelpful, but she couldn’t stop herself. She felt the nerves begin to fill her once again.

  Will she come?

  Will the Hive Queen come?

  “We’re coming,” announced Kal from inside.

  The next moment there was a much louder bang. The door bulged outwards, causing both Mu and Harry to jump backward.

  A second strike and a metallic fist came straight through the door.

  “Hey, there’s our guy!” said Harry. “I’d shake your hand, but it looks disgusting right now.”

  Several more blows followed, then Kal’s hands tore the hole open wider.

  He stepped out into the corridor.

  “They here?” he asked, looking back down the corridor.

  “Yes,” said Mu. “How’s Nova doing?”

  “Tip top,” replied Nova, stepping through the wreckage of the door.

  Mu took a moment to recognise her. When she did, she was no less startled. She looked like someone had spilled a bucket of red paint on her.

  “I look that bad, huh?” said Nova.

  “It’s not a great look,” said Harry, a dubious expression upon his face.

  Jiwen stepped out.

  Another loud noise sounded from the front of the lab.

  “You signal the Amrita?” asked Mu, though she had already turned her mind to the future once more, and before Nova had replied, she was probing their options once again. There was hope.

  “There’s a stairway further along this corridor,” she said. It will take us to a landing pad above.

  “Will the Amrita be able to find us?” asked Harry.

  “I set the comms equipment Kang gave us to broadcast on a specific frequency and gave Sera instructions on how to upload a brief code to lock the lander’s nav program onto the frequency source,” said Nova. “Once the Amrita deploys it, it should auto-pilot to our location.”

  Harry gave a thumbs up. “Let’s hope that makes more sense to our witchy friend than to me.”

  “We have to be at the landing pad by the time the lander gets here,” said Nova. “Otherwise, it might try and pilot straight into the ground.”

  “Then we’d be screwed,” remarked Harry.

  “Correct,” said Nova.

  At that moment Ostara appeared. She glanced around. “It appears everyone is alive,” she said, “That is excellent news. However, our convict friends are presently in the process of breaking down the front door.”

  “Nova’s contacted the Amrita,” said Harry, “And according to Mu, there’s a stairway to a landing pad back there.”

  “Great,” said Ostara. “Kal, would you mind grabbing Toghrul?”

  “He’s been out for a while,” said Harry, “Are we sure Kal didn’t just kill him when we were escaping the ship?”

  “Tavian was able to sedate him anew,” said Ostara. “He will probably not feel wonderful when he eventually comes to, but he shouldn’t have any permanent damage.”

  “Good,” said Harry, “Because if we killed him, I’m not sure how I’d deal with having gone through all this for nothing.”

  “Well, there’s still time for him to get killed, so we should hurry up,” said Mu.

  Kal dashed back to the front room. He soon returned, Toghrul in his arms, Tavian at his side.

  Tavian had no sooner seen them, smiling in greeting, when he paused.

  “Wait,” he said. “I have an idea. It’s… probably a good one. Kal, I need that rifle.”

  Kal didn’t seem to have any problem with his, shrugging his shoulder to allow the rifle to slide off. Tavian took it.

  Mu and Ostara exchanged glances.

  Moments later they heard a burst of gunshots, then smashing glass. Screams echoed out through the facility.

  Tavian came running back.

  “What did you do?” asked Mu.

  Tavian grinned. “Set up a welcoming committee for the Hive.”

  Mu tilted her head to one side, giving him a confused look.

  “Let’s them fight each other – Orchestra and Hive,” said Tavian.

  Kal did something unusual in that moment. He smiled.

  “Nice,” he said.

  Tavian gave a small nod that was some combination of surprised and self-satisfied. He handed back the rifle to Kal, assisting in supporting Toghrul as Kal slung the rifle once more over his shoulder.

  “Let’s go,” said Kal, his tone returning to normal. “You know the way, Mu?”

  “Sort of?” said Mu, and set off down the corridor.

  It didn’t take them long to reach the door.

  Mu stopped.

  “Um, how do we open it?” she asked.

  “Oh, shit,” said Nova.

  “Can’t you hack it open or something?” asked Tavian.

  Nova just shook her head.

  “Here,” said Kal, handing off Toghrul to Tavian.

  Mu watched as he walked toward the door, pulled back his cybernetic arm and smashed it into the door. It made a dint, but it was not nearly as effective as it had been on the last door.

  “It’s much thicker,” remarked Kal, examining his underwhelming results.

  “Probably why our friends out front haven’t broken through yet,” said Harry.

  Then, with a dark note in her voice, Nova spoke, her words coming out slowly.

  “I think it accepts biometrics.”

  “Bio—”

  “Would Lai’s fingerprint work?” asked Kal.

  “Sure…” said Nova. “But her body…”

  “Not all of it,” said Kal, “Give me that,” he said, grabbing the vibro-saw from Jiwen who had once again been carrying it.

  With that he set off back down the corridor at a sprint.

  When he returned, Mu grimaced and felt her stomach wretch at the grizzly trophy he was carrying. She’d managed to mostly avoid looking at the previous carnage after the initial adrenaline of battle had worn off. This had caught her unprepared.

  And it was twitching, grasping.

  Kal put it against the biometric scanner.

  “Goodbye, Researcher Lai,” announced a cheery voice as the door slid open.

  Mu shivered.

  They headed through into the dark beyond.

  “Better not leave the key behind,” said Harry.

  Kal nodded. As Mu watched on in fascination and horror he snapped the wrist. The fingers stopped moving. He tucked it away in his pocket and went to grab Toghrul. The door closed behind them once he had stepped through into the tunnel. There came a loud crash almost at the same moment.

  “Sounds like good timing,” said Harry.

  And with that they began to climb.

  It was hard work. Mu prided herself on her fitness, but it was a supreme struggle. The stairs were steep, and Luanyuan’s unusually strong gravity made progress even more challenging.

  She tried to distract herself by searching the future again. The different outcomes were difficult to distinguish. The difference between each was on a knife edge. And the puppet constantly loitered at the fringes of each realm of possibility.

  She was disturbed from her thoughts by a loud crash behind them.

  “Guess my welcoming committee didn’t last long,” said Tavian.

  “Hopefully the door lasts longer,” said Harry.

  “It won’t last long,” said Mu.

  “Thank you for that cheery insight, Princess,” said Tavian.

  She glared at him, but he wasn’t looking.

  They hadn’t gone far when Nova stopped. She was leant against the wall, bracing herself with her palm. She was panting heavily.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, between heaving breaths.

  “You can,” said Mu, rushing to her side. “Not too much further.”

  “You… didn’t see… how far we came down,” replied Nova.

  There was another loud bang below.

  “But I can see ahead.”

  “I’m tired. So tired.”

  “And you can rest soon,” said Mu. She glanced behind them, but she couldn’t see anything but the shadows. “You just gotta go a little further.”

  “It’s too much.”

  “We don’t have time,” grumbled Kal. Mu looked up at him. He adjusted Toghrul so that he was slung over one shoulder, then with his other arm, scooped up Nova who emitted a surprised shriek.

  “No!” she protested.

  “Just go with it, kid,” said Tavian.

  Mu could see the resignation flow across Nova’s face.

  “C’mon,” said Kal as he set off.

  The others followed him.

  Mu understood a little of what Nova was feeling. Her every muscle was screaming in agony as she climbed, each step ascended a small victory in itself.

  “Why don’t they have an elevator?” asked Harry, his breathing heavy.

  Do they have an elevator? thought Mu.

  She hadn’t really looked.

  Don’t say anything.

  The ascent continued. On and on, up and up. The tunnel was dark, the lighting dim. Each corner they rounded revealed more of the same. And it was hot and foetid, the humidity itself feeling like a blanket of filth.

  Everyone talked less and less as they went up, saving their breath for the endless stair. The nervous energy was palpable. And it was about to get worse. Before the moment came, Mu had heard it already. The great crash down below. Their pursuers were through the door. Despite all her exhaustion, she quickened her pace. The sound of many feet came from behind her.

  Will they even feel exhaustion?

  At last, they reached the top. Kal put Nova down and withdrew the horrifying key, opening the door. Each of them staggered out onto the flat ground beyond. Mu’s legs were like jelly, her muscles offering up a chorus of protest.

  Harry was bent double, his hands on his thighs. “What…” he began between breaths, “Is… that other door?”

  Mu now finally examined their surroundings. They were on a flat metal platform, circular in shape. It seemingly sat elevated above the surrounding jungle’s canopy, giving a sweeping view of the Cang Teng Valley, of the tributaries, undulating green of the jungle, and the towering limestone karsts. Around the platform were high fences, flickering light of a reddish hue spanning the gaps in the fences. And across the platform was another door.

  “Probably not a lift…” murmured Mu.

  She turned her eyes to the sky. She had half hoped the Amrita’s lander would be there waiting for them. She knew it wouldn’t be. But she had hoped.

  “They’re almost here,” she remarked, now turning back towards the door, taking a few steps backwards.

  Kal put Nova down, who promptly took a seat on the platform, her legs straight out, her arms behind her, propping her up.

  Mu grimaced as she willed the exhaustion away. Unless the lander arrived in the next minute or two, they would have to fight. She had to be ready.

  There was a screaming sound from above, then an almighty thud. Everyone spun around. A smoking crater had appeared in the platform.

  “What is that?” asked Jiwen.

  “A gift from our friends,” said Kal. He placed down Toghrul and his rifle, then strolled over to the crater. He bent down and lifted up a metal cube.

  Mu was puzzled a moment. She hadn’t seen this.

  But glancing around, she caught sight of something else strange. Nova was grinning.

  In a moment, she understood.

  It’d been a while since she’d seen it. But last time, it had left an impression.

  Kal pressed a button and in mere seconds his body was encased in metal, a helmet unfolding about his head. Lights flared up. Spider-like appendages unfurled from his back. And his feet lifted off the ground, a shimmer of heat haze below them.

  Nova squeezed her hands into fists. “Sera and the Cap are on their way.”

  Mu turned back towards the door. She drew her sword. Harry stepped forward at her side, Kal’s rifle now in his hands. She heard the whirring of Jiwen’s vibro-saw activating. And then Nova was beside her, holding a pistol, her exhaustion hidden beneath renewed determination.

  She glanced at Nova, then behind them. Tavian no longer had a pistol. Instead, he was holding his mandolin.

  He winked her way. “Allow me to play us out,” he said. With that he began strumming. “I call this one Vines.”

  Mu turned back towards the door as a great thud sounded against it. It crumpled outwards. Another thud and another bulge appeared in it. As she watched, Tavian’s voice began to sing, and she could feel the Starflow gathering in strength around them. She drew it to her. She felt her exhausted muscles draw new reserves of strength from it, felt her mind sharpening and focusing.

  So it was, that when the shadow spread over them, she knew she wouldn’t look up to see the lander. She turned as Ostara took several steps in that direction, green light shimmering around her. Ostara’s gaze was directed up.

  From the jungle beyond the platform, thousands of vines were rising up into the air and weaving together. More and more endlessly reached up from below the canopy. And soon it was apparent what they were forming into: an immense hand, looming over the landing pad.

  “The Soloist,” said Ostara as strings of light began to descend from the fingertips.

  There came a screeching and snapping of metal. Mu spun to see the door rupturing. A young girl stepped forward with a calm smile, as convicts poured out behind her.

  And behind them was the face with innumerable eyes and feathered antennae. The chitinous monstrosity began to emerge from the dark.

  “Form a circle!” yelled Ostara, light flaring brighter around her. “Defend Toghrul. The Amrita is almost here.”

  From up above Mu heard Kal’s artificially modulated voice, deep and powerful. “I am done with this fucking place. I hope all you freaks are ready to burn.”

  She returned her attention to Mei Xuelan and raised her sword.