Chapter XLVII – Kleptoparasitism

  Mei Xuelan turned her eyes to the sky, gazing at the creation of the vines.

  “Fools,” she said softly, “They still think this world belongs to them.”

  She turned her eyes back to Mu and the others.

  “You have called a ship?” she said. “Good. We shall commence our mission to carry the Mimesis across the stars.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Mu.

  She glanced over her shoulder. A humanoid shape was forming at the ends of the strings of light. Her gaze returned to Mei Xuelan.

  Nova spoke up. “The Captain said we were supposed to protect her…”

  Mu shook her head, gazing at the young girl’s face. “There’s nothing left of the girl in there. Only the Hive.”

  She heard a sigh from Nova. “I know.”

  “If you will not yield and drink the Eutric Blood, we will destroy you and take your vessel,” said Xuelan. “Though it need not be this way.”

  “No,” said Mu, “It need not have been.”

  Bright light flared across the landing platform. Kal had opened fire. Mu leapt forward, sword in hand. She did not hesitate – aiming straight for Xuelan.

  I’m sorry, she thought, Sorry for what happened to you.

  There was no time for remorse, though. Besides, she’d already struck the fatal blow in her dreams. It was only now a matter of making that reality.

  Gunfire erupted.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the others go to ground as bullets flew overhead. Yet, Mu’s blade remained focused.

  A convict leapt in front of her strike, which made a deep incision across his chest. She lifted her foot and kicked the body back while yanking the blade free. She had little time to respond when she felt the warning of prescience. She barely moved her head out of the way before the bullets rushed by.

  The landing pad shuddered under the blow of a rocket. Mu couldn’t spare a moment to see what was happening though, instead she swept her blade up in a perfect arc. Tavian’s music still flowed out and she channelled the ever-amplifying Starflow into that sweeping blade. Flesh and bone yielded before Longque steel infused with the power of the Stars. The hand that had held the gun tumbled to the ground.

  She did not let her opponent dwell in any agony they were still able to feel. A second blow decapitated the convict – one of Gao Yunqi’s former followers. The body crumpled.

  Be free, my friend.

  To Mu there was no moment more calm, more uncomplicated than battle. She gave herself over to the Will of Nara Enduri, letting the Starflow guide her every movement. There was freedom in the surrender, but only because she could reclaim herself afterward.

  For her time slowed. Everything that happened had come to pass already in her mind. Her sword found every opening, her body moved to avoid every bullet or strike. To those beholding her she must have been a whirlwind of lethal steel; a dancer on the precipice of the grave. Yet for all her awesome power, the Mimetics continued to rush forward, calmly accepting their demise to defend their Queen.

  The Soloist was a being of wood and shadow, given a disquietingly human form. Its eyes were bright embers. It stood suspended on strings of light, held up from above, as if by the hand of an occulted god.

  In its hands it held a wooden flute.

  It raised the flute towards its mouth.

  Tavian was immersed in the Starflow as he played, and so he felt it immediately. The dark swell of power, like a roar from the Void beyond the Cosmos. The shadow of the great hand fell upon him.

  Yet he knew he had no choice but to continue playing. Something told him that if no music challenged that of the Soloist, then all present would succumb to its dark Master.

  Light flickered across the battlefield as rockets slammed into the hand above, yet the Soloist did not falter and it began to play, a beautiful yet eerie melody. All other sound seemed to dim as its plaintive notes sailed through the air. The shadow in the Starflow grew thicker.

  Lady Anu, give me strength.

  Tavian had composed and practiced this song in the quiet times ever since he arrived upon this world. He had poured into it both the horror and the beauty of the jungle, the wide river, the limestone karsts, the Heavenly Pits – all of Luanyuan, the dark and the light. Playing it had become his calming mantra in the worst times.

  It had given him the strength to never once feel like he might succumb to the lure of the Mimesis, to remain steadfast in his hope, even as all about them crumbled.

  Yet now, as he played and he sung, he felt the Soloist’s melody creeping in. Almost unconsciously he found himself altering his composition to align with the music of that inhuman flautist. He redoubled his resolve, upping the tempo of his own music. He began to compose on the fly, his hands flowing freely across the strings, altering the key, the metre, everything he could do to ensure that between his song, and that of the Soloist, there was only Discordance.

  The flute was gentle, mournful, slow. It seemed to be building a musical narrative methodically, gathering ever more of the Starflow to it. Tavian instead began to play a perpetuum mobile, each string plucked in rapid, relentless fashion. He gave up on his song, instead focusing all his effort on the instrumentation. He did not stick to the perpetuum mobile for long – only by constantly shifting his playing could he avoid giving into the lure of the Soloist.

  It became ever harder. He heard voices, chanting from the abyss where the light of the stars had never shone. The Soloist’s melody became louder.

  And another voice sounded. It spoke directly in Tavian’s mind.

  “Surrender, Bard. Your Goddess will not avail you, for I am but a conduit of the Cosmic Music of the Great Maestro. You witness but one small strand of His Symphony, yet you feel yourself breaking before it. Flesh and vine, matter and energy, the Starflow itself – all that exists will be woven into the Symphony, it is merely a matter of time. It has been so ordained ever since He was called forth to cross the Obsidian Gate.”

  At those last words, Tavian felt himself faltering. The chanting grew louder.

  Please Lady Anu, he begged, Let me see your Light.

  And he felt a hand upon his shoulder.

  A kind voice now spoke, “You are not alone.”

  “Thank you, m’lady,” he murmured, never ceasing his playing.

  “I’m no lady, just the First Mate,” said Ostara.

  Yet he felt the light flowing from her touch, shining against the Soloist’s ominous dark.

  Kal could see his assault upon the colossal hand was doing little. Whatever that thing was, it hung unmoving but for the subtle gestures of its fingers. It certainly did not heed, nor appear harmed by whatever he threw at it.

  Fine.

  He blasted through the air, flying about in a wide arc and came to a halt, hanging there, and gazing down at the battle being fought below. The convicts had now almost surrounded the rest of the crew.

  If they could extricate themselves… he thought.

  But it was no use. The crew would never be able to put enough space between themselves and the Mimetics for him to properly unleash.

  But perhaps he could do something about that damned monster behind them. It had almost claimed him back at the crash site. Without Tavian and Ostara’s intervention, perhaps it would have. And Kal didn’t like that. It was time to bring home the scope of its failure.

  He loosed two rockets, the pair spiralling downwards and vanishing into the dark passage from which the Hive had emerged. There was an infinitesimal delay, then a bright flare of light erupted. Flame rolled out of the passage and the alien monstrosity recoiled. More of its formed rapidly emerged from the tunnel, its plethora of eyes turning Kal’s way.

  “How’d you like that, you overgrown bastard?” snarled Kal.

  In response the creature opened its mouth and let out its strange and undulating call. Kal felt it for just a moment, until he shut out external audio. He didn’t wait to make his next move, multiple lances of light striking the entity.

  This time Xixi writhed about in response. Kal’s assault was relentless, a continual shower of brilliant, burning light, searing chitin, and flesh. He felt the frustration, the confusion, the uncertainty abating with each passing second of the ceaseless barrage; in their place was a glorious fury, a righteous rage. Pure catharsis.

  Yet his opponent was not downed. It threw back its head and opened its mouth wide. An immense cloud of golden dust erupted from its form in every direction, and Kal watched as the blasts of directed energy abated in that cloud, before ever striking Xixi. Now, from its back, innumerable wings began to unfold and with a great, concerted flap it took to the air, metre after coiling metre of it rising towards him.

  Kal didn’t wait for it to reach him. He engaged the thrusters of the power armour and shot up higher into the air. He queued up the rear view on the HUD as he went, allowing him to track his pursuer, even as he flew away from it.

  That’s right, you fucker: the farther you get from my crew, the more I can unleash on you.

  Reaching a height of several hundred metres above the landing platform, he spun around once more, coming to a hovering stop, hanging amongst the swirling, low hanging clouds of the jungle. Below him, the green expanse of Luanyuan periodically appeared and disappeared, whisps of clouds rapidly flowing by below him.

  Kal primed more rockets and all of his directed energy weapons. He took careful aim, adding a sequence of attacks to the suit’s action queue. It was time for an all-out assault with everything he had. No quarter would be given. He’d destroy this damned thing.

  It entered what the suit’s onboard computer had calculated as the perfect kill-zone. No evasion was possible, yet it still placed Kal himself outside the blast radius. And he’d be able to spring forth to deliver the coup de grace before the enemy could even react.

  He launched.

  Six simultaneous beams of energy shot forth. Four focused on a single spot on the head of the enemy. Two others moved in a slicing pattern, aiming for the rows upon rows of wings. And at this same moment the first of two rockets sprung forward. Before they’d even struck their target, the next pair were launched and the third loaded up, creating a rain of destruction.

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  Yet his opponent had reactions far faster than any human. Once more a cloud of glimmering golden particles radiated out from its elongated form, filling the air around it. The energy beams flickered. Kal sent an instruction for the suit to reroute more power to them.

  They struck the creature, but were far too weakened by the time they did so to have the desired effect. The rockets did better, striking and shaking it in flight, but they did not do nearly enough to end its forward momentum.

  But Kal was ready.

  He had his contingency. As he clenched his fists, two brightly shining blades erupted from his wrists. He reversed power routing, this time directing it from the energy weapons to the boosters, and darted forward with the speed of a bullet.

  As he entered the dust cloud, he felt his whole world shimmer, his mind’s entire sense of place shifting. Yet he still had the wherewithal to respond. He triggered the suit’s venting and air shot out in all directions. The cloud of golden dust dispersed. He continued his dive, blades outstretched.

  He made contacted and plunged the blades in, simultaneously grappling with the creature with his legs to grab on. In response, Xixi writhed about and before his eyes, tendrils began push through its chitinous carapace. Its form seemed to shift in other ways too, with the many arms that lined its body moving about on its surface, so that alongside those tendrils, they could reach out to grab hold of him.

  Sparks, meanwhile, erupted about him as he stabbed at that carapace repeatedly, pushing forward with all of his unnatural, augmented might. He felt the tendrils and arms grabbing at him, but he struggled against them, even as he plunged the plasmatic blades deeper.

  Xixi’s immense form writhed in the air, surging higher into the sky, up through the veil of clouds. The battlefield below them vanished. Everything became grey. Soon Kal had no concept of up or down, his entire world spinning about on all axes, a turning gyre in a featureless void of cloud. But none of that mattered: his only concern was driving the blades deeper.

  He would slay the beast.

  It was clear that Mu would have to carry out an unprecedented slaughter, to reach Mei Xuelan. No matter what she did, more and more of the Mimesis-fallen convicts leapt to fill the gap between her and the girl, no fear for their own lives now troubling them.

  But there were other things she could achieve, that would enhance their chances. For all their, numbers, the convicts had few guns. Nonetheless, they outnumbered the crew. It was only a matter of time, in this open place, before someone copped a bullet to the head. There was no cover. The only way to avoid this outcome was to draw all the fire toward herself.

  No matter how precise the enemy’s shooters were, she knew where their bullets would fly before they ever squeezed the trigger. And even the thugs who had once followed Ma Jinhai had nothing like the years of careful, elite combat training that Mu had.

  “Stay away from me,” she yelled to her comrades, as she plunged towards one of the gunmen.

  He saw her – or some pair of the Hive’s eyes did – and spun her away. She ducked and weaved with precision and quickly closed the gap with him. His flesh yielded to her sword and he crumpled.

  No time to pause.

  She resisted the now screaming urge to surrender to her exhaustion – both physical and mental. Not only was she moving ceaselessly, but her mind was continually scouring the near future, tracing ever vector of attack and moving her body before any blow or bullet fell upon her. Even with the power of Nara Enduri flowing through her, she could not go on indefinitely.

  But she could go on for now.

  So, she did.

  She was closing on the next gunman when she sensed the imminent attack from her side. Yet she sensed it too late, her movement was constricted. A buzzing vibro-saw came towards her. She twisted in an effort to avoid the place she knew the blow would fall, even as she attempted to avoid the shots that were coming her way.

  She was halfway through that twisting motion, when she felt the lurch of a shifting future. Sure enough, moments later, a series of small eruptions spread across her attackers’ chest, little flowers of blood, as each of Harry’s bullets struck. Her attacker’s momentum shifted, his body – already dead – still moving. But Mu had her opening now.

  She swept towards the gunman before her.

  His eyes gazed back at hers impassively as her blade fell upon him. He died without every showing the slightest of concern for his own fate.

  Tavian felt as if he could visualise the Starflow pouring down towards Luanyuan, pulled in many directions at once by competing powers. It had seemed to be wavering, increasingly bending towards the Soloist. Before the Soloist’s power, he felt as if hope and light were fading from the Cosmos, that this duel was merely a microcosm of something far larger than himself. Yet, with Ostara’s touch upon his shoulder, he felt fresh resolve: despite the Soloist’s boastful words, the course of things to come was far from resolved in favour of its Master.

  He guided Ostara’s light into his music, letting his fingers find a hopeful melody. It was clear now: to merely shift to ever more unorthodox sounds was merely to run from the Soloist. To challenge it, he needed to offer a counter to its melody, to its narrative.

  With Ostara, he found that.

  We ain’t gonna simply yield to you. We will fight you to the very last moment of time.

  As he played, he felt a tingle through his whole body, a prickling upon his skin. Emerald light flowed down his arm, around every part of him. The Starflow began to bend back his way. He almost felt as if he could see the smiling face of the Goddess.

  From his native Cáerthand, to the war-torn frontline worlds of the Eleftherian League, to the most deprived slums of the Empire’s industrial wastelands, Tavian had seen and dwelt in many dark places – places where it was foolish to hope for anything better or brighter. And yet, without fail, in each and every one of these places, he had found one thing to be true: hope abided, the eternal condition of humanity, irrational though it may be. And it was drawn from the stories people told, the songs they sung.

  He had heard those stories and songs, in many places, in many voices, in many languages.

  “The Cosmic Music is not a single Symphony,” he said, a broad smile upon his face. “Here – let me show you.”

  He began to sing once more. He sung in the Seanchaint of Cáerthand, in Imperial Standard, in Jaril, and in many languages besides. He could not evoke all the many musical forms and their instruments, yet he could offer a hint, a hint of the dizzying multitudes of the Cosmos’ voices.

  “Noise, noise! Discordant noise!” came the voice of the Soloist. “There must be unity of purpose. Great Sarcos commands it.”

  But Tavian was unperturbed.

  He played on.

  He knew that the moment he stopped – when those present heard the sound of the Soloist’s music go unchallenged, their minds would succumb.

  Locked in mortal struggle, high in the air, the two combatants burst through the clouds, erupting into the brilliant light of the azure sky above. The sun’s unobstructed radiance now fell upon the carapace of the Eutria, refracting in a dazzling array of colours, colours which danced as the two fighters spun in the air, each striving to gain dominance over the other.

  As Kal’s blades at last penetrated, he was answered by an even more brilliant eruption of colour as the Eutric Blood spilled forth, flecking his armour and drizzling from the beast, descending like confused rain towards the clouds, dwindling away below.

  “So keen to spill your blood?” he cried, “I’ll spill all of it for you. Every last fucking drop.”

  With the opening in the alien’s armour now made, he set to widening the incision, the searing blades slicing and burning away ever more of the carapace, seeking some vital thing within. Yet the wound never cauterised before the burning heat of the plasma, the Blood never once so much as changing in consistency, never anything more than warm honey, dripping in ever greater abundance.

  Then Kal heard it. His suit was blocking out all internal sound. But it didn’t seem to matter. This time that bizarre, otherworldly call filled the inside of his helmet, piercing the walls of silence he had erected. Bells, chimes, choirs as if remixed by some virus-ridden computer program, sounded powerfully. He felt as if his very brain was trembling before the sound.

  A fresh haze of shimmering gold spewed forth from the creature and even the sunlight took on a distinctly golden aura. The metallic taste of blood entered his mouth, even as he felt his nostrils moisten with its flow. A pain began to pulse in his skull.

  Many voices spoke as one.

  “The Blood of the Eutria is given freely and relieves all burdens. Drink of it and you shall never again need bare arms in this futile struggle.”

  Gritting his teeth, Kal growled: “Futile struggle is my whole thing.”

  He stabbed with ever greater vigour, the plasma blades tearing through inhuman flesh. Yet, that flesh seemed simply to dissolve into the unending flood of the Eutric Blood, now pouring like a tropical deluge from his opponent.

  “Your struggle merely nourishes this world with the Water of Mimesis.”

  The cry went up once more. It sounded wrong, like no sound should or could. He felt his vision dimming, but with every ounce of strength and willpower within him, he continued to slash.

  “Yeah?” he yelled, “Well I’m gonna keep on cutting till you shut up.”

  Hold it together, Kallistos.

  He felt the moment that his blade broke free – the moment it penetrated so deep that there was nothing left to penetrate. So, he began to carve. He plunged the second blade in and then directed beams of energy into the gaping hole he had now carved in his enemy.

  Even as his consciousness ebbed away from him before the relentless sonic assault, he continued with his butchery, his determination unshakable.

  It happened with one final, tremendous push. A giant eruption of the Blood, the then the back half of the Eutria tumbled away, tumbling towards the surface of Luanyuan.

  “Gotcha!” said Kal.

  With his task accomplished, he felt the darkness creeping in. The last thing he saw was the silvery streak that darted through the deep blue of the sky, catching the sunlight momentarily in a brilliant flash.

  Then he fell – whether it was in actuality or merely sensation, he didn’t know.

  Many things happened in rapid succession.

  The Hive flinched – collectively, in perfect synchronicity.

  In the next moment a shrill scream pierced the air. It was Mei Xuelan.

  “XIXI!” she cried.

  But Mu was already looking up. Two golden meteors were tumbling towards the landing pad.

  And as they fell, a third came streaking after them, even faster, quickly closing the gap with one of them. This was a thing of pure shadow, blacker than any natural thing.

  Yet, when it caught up with one of the falling meteors, purple light flared up all around it. It lifted some part of that meteor away, then floated up into the air once more, the remainder continuing its rapid descent.

  The two halves of Xixi struck the landing pad with an impact that caused it to quake.

  The shadow descended more slowly now. It lay Kal’s form prostrate upon the ground, beside Toghrul. Then the shadow weaved itself into a human shape.

  Seraphina floated just above the ground, her cape and dress fluttering in the light breeze, an amethyst aura shining about her.

  Her appearance was then followed by the emergence of the lander from the cloudy pall above, making an orderly descent before halting just behind her, a few metres off the landing pad.

  “My apologies for the delay,” announced the witch, her red eyes surveying the scene.

  The Hive’s momentary inaction did not last. They surged forward once more. Yet even as Mu readied her sword once more, a wall of purple flame sprung up between the Mimetics and the crew. A few of the convicts didn’t stop their advance in time and stepped into the weird flame which rapidly wreathed their bodies, burning them away with horrifying speed. Yet even though it was right before her, Mu felt no heat coming from it.

  “Everyone to the lander now,” came Ostara’s voice. “Seraphina, take Kal and Toghrul aboard.”

  “Alright,” said Seraphina.

  Mu and the others ran toward the ship. Even as they ran, the bottom opened and a platform lowered to the ground.

  As she ran, Mu spied Tavian, still playing, standing before the humanoid figure of the Soloist. Looking up she saw the great hand tremble. Then the vines began to reach out, un-weaving from the hand and straining towards the ship.

  “I will deal with it,” announced Seraphina, “I have contended with its kind for many years.”

  Even as she moved toward it, the forms of Toghrul and Kal floated through the air behind her, vanishing inside the ship.

  Across the landing pad, the strings of light retreated back into the great hand. The wooden pieces of the Soloist collapsed to the ground, the shadow that wove them together dissipating.

  “Tavian!” yelled Mu.

  He turned, saw her, and it was as if he was awakening from a trance. Mandolin in hand, he ran towards the ship.

  She reached the ship and leapt up. Even as she did so the wall of flame behind her was faltering and the Hive began to advance toward them once more. The others clambered in and the lander began to close. Bullets now streaked by. Tavian reached them and Mu grabbed his hand, helping to haul him up before they were ensconced inside. The last thing she glimpsed was the twin pieces of Xixi beginning to stir.

  Thud after thud sounded as more vines latched onto the hull. Mu could hear them slithering about, binding the lander. In response, bright flashes of light lit up the interior from outside.

  “What about Seraphina?” asked Harry.

  “She’ll join us,” said Ostara. “Nova, get us moving.”

  Nova was already at the controls. “Hold on,” she said, “I’m gonna break away from all these vines.”

  Even though Mu knew it was coming, she almost didn’t react in time as the acceleration kicked in. She heard the tearing of the vines and with an uneven lurch, they shot up into the sky.

  As the acceleration tapered off, she let her firmly braced muscles slacken once more. She allowed herself to sag to her knees, her sword clattering to the floor. She exhaled. She felt weak.

  Raaark!

  She glanced up. Matthias, the six-winged raven hopped along the floor of the lander.

  His next call sounded more troubled. Then he bent forward, opening his beak wide, and vomited up black sludge in a continuous stream – far more emerging than could seemingly fit within his small, feathered body.

  The sludge formed into Seraphina.

  She gave a slight cough and a feather fluttered out of her mouth, before gently wafting to the floor. Matthias glanced around as if displeased with having suffered such indignity.

  Then Mu heard it.

  Laughter.

  Tavian.

  Harry joined in.

  She looked from one of them to the other.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked, irritation and exhaustion blending in her voice.

  Tavian had to regain just enough control to respond. “I don’t know,” he said, then laughed even harder.

  Mu glared at them.

  Idiots, she thought.

  But when the laughter came, she couldn’t resist it.

  They soared up into the sky, Luanyuan’s oppressive gravity slipping away.