The Last Human IV - 58 - The Birthworld

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The Ark drifted through a field of shredded ships. Twisted hull fragments, mangled super structures, and shattered mega-repulsors spilled into the darkness, glittering as they caught the sunlight. Support beams trailed long wires which waved like kelp in the void. Shorn-off panels bounced against the Ark, scraping her hull and tumbling away as she swam through the clouds of dead drones.

But the Ark had not escaped unscathed. Talya heard that over a third of the the Ark’s sensors were broken—or simply gone. The Ark had sealed off passageways and decks (some of which still had people in them) due to lethal gasses. Talya could only guess how long the repairs might take. Months? Years?

The Sovereign’s constructs had even managed to burrow into the Ark’s hull, and set off kinetic explosives. One had almost reached the fuel bay, where the last two Light cells—already half drained—kept the Ark alive. 

But we are alive, Talya thought. Most of us, anyway.

 She clung to it, like a sea-lost sailor holding dear to driftwood, battered by the waves. After all, she wasn’t a god. Any help she could offer amounted to almost nothing, like pouring a cup into the sea.

So what? Talya told herself. I’ll pour as many cups as I can. Xenos crowded the halls beneath the Ark’s habitation deck. Avians with broken wings, redenites wrapped in bloody bandages, the stench of sweat and fear and fur and blood. Coughing, crying, gasping, and all the noises of life made the halls feel even more crowded. Picking through the masses, she made note of who needed attention the most. “Burns in the back rooms!” she shouted over the noise, “The doctors have salves and cures there. Head injuries go to the Canteen. You—” she pointed at a young cyran, who was holding a hand to his head, blood trickling between his fingers. “Canteen, now.”

“Have to … sit down …” the young cyran leaned against the wall, and started to slide down. Talya rushed forward, and caught him. “Wake up,” she slapped his cheek gently, until his drooping eyelids fluttered open.“You don’t get to sleep yet. Not you.”

“Why not?” he groaned.

Talya sighed, and took him by the arm. “Come with me,” she said softly as she guided him through the tightly-packed hallways. They shuffled over outstretched limbs, and turned a corner into a heaving crowd. At its center, a pair of avians were squawking violently as they wrestled over a box of foodstuffs—even though the Sovereign’s invaders hadn’t touched the city’s stores.

Though she was slighter than either of them, Talya stomped between the bickering avians, glaring at them both.  “Peace, idiots!” she growled, not meaning to channel Agraneia, but doing it anyway. Something about her stance made them stop, and gawk at her. “There’s more than enough food now that so many are dead.”

Sheepishly, they set the box down, and started dividing the rations between each other. 

The hallway to the Canteen was crowded with bodies, lined up on the floor, covered head-to-toe in rags, and not yet starting to smell. Nurses and aides shuffled through the hall, and nobody spoke here as they bent at their grim task. A cyran was kneeling in a corner, crying over a corpse. Nobody comforted her. There was too much work to do. 

Talya guided her cyran ward to the Canteen, and assured him he would be all right before handing him off to one of the nurses. Then, she went back to the maze of hallways. Some stretches had lost power, some had only flickering emergency lights. In one room, a blue liquid leaked from the walls, and smelled of sickly sweet flowers, and massive claw marks had gouged a drone-sized hole in both the ceiling and the floor. She tried not to think about the red liquid dripping from above.

Eventually, she emerged from the hollow quietness back into the seething chaos. On the way to the Bridge, crowds pressed wall to wall as people shouted for answers. 

“—could’ve outrun them. Why didn’t we run?”

“My daughter. My daughter! What happened to my daughter?”

“—senseless deaths. So many—” 

“This is the Queen’s fault! She made us get on the Ark. Our blood is on her hands!”

It made Talya’s blood boil. Don’t they know what she’s given up to get them this far? 

Don’t they know we’ve all lost people we love?

And before she could stop it, Agraneia’s face flooded her mind. You stupid, self-centered idiot. Go if you must. Wasn’t that the last thing Talya had said to her? Why? And now… Agraneia was gone. If not dead yet, then soon. No matter how hard Talya clung to hope, she knew she would never see her again. Why did I let her go?

Emptiness filled her. Made her hollow. Made it hard to breathe. Talya swallowed it down, and fought her way into the crowd. She ducked under arms, and weaved through angry crowds until someone’s elbow slammed into her chest and bruised her ribs, knocking her back a step. 

And it felt good. To feel something else. To let pain crash into her heart. To block out, just for a moment, the memory of her. 

One of Ryke’s falcyr guard must’ve caught sight of her, because a squad of them started to shove the crowds apart and brought her through. As the screaming crowd closed back up behind them, they guided her through the doors into the Bridge.

Here, a different kind of chaos reigned. Officers and technical staff buzzed around the edges, exchanging readouts and plans with each other. Commanders bowed their heads together, or shouted angrily across consoles, shaking fists or jabbing accusing fingers at each other.

But at the raised Command Deck was almost peaceful. A towering throne (or was it a pillar?) of that black, human-made metal sat at the center, where the console had once been. Wires draped from the ceiling and wrapped around the throne-pillar, like vines around a thick, rainforest tree. Odd, Talya thought. When did they put this here? 

Queen Ryke was standing in front of the pillar, and for a moment, Talya thought she was praying to it. Then, the Queenand turned, and her serious expression melted into a smile as she recognized Talya. And darkened again, when she saw Talya’s wing held over her torso.

“Talya, are you injured?”

“Only a bruise, Your Majesty.”

Relief broke on Ryke’s face like a warm sunrise. “Good. Gods, I’m glad you’re here. I feared the drones had…” Ryke shook her head, and said, “Nevermind. You’re here. And not a moment too soon. We are leaving, soon.”

“We are?” Talya said, shocked. “Your Majesty, the Hospitals are overflowing. The injured outnumber the healthy, and there aren’t nearly enough—”

“We do not have time,” Ryke said softly.

“But we won,” Talya said. “The Swarm is dead. Surely, you can let them rest for a few hours—”

“The Swarm cannot be killed.” It wasn’t Ryke who said it. This new voice thrummed from behind the Queen. And from above. And from all around the room. And when it spoke, the entire Bridge went silent as all stopped to listen. “We will have no rest.” 

There was someone embedded inside the throne of metal. Cords and tubes and wires wove in and out of Yarsi’s like external veins, so that Talya could barely make out her reptilian face. Two milky white eyes stared back at Talya. Through her.

“The Sovereign does not yet know of our power,” Yarsi said, “We may strike. Or we may run. Either way, the Sovereign will find us. And extinguish our light.”

“You’ve seen this?” Talya asked.

“All paths lead to a slow, quiet death. But one path … Where it leads is beyond my sight. I see where the first steps lead. I see the Sovereign and the Light. And then … nothing. I would take the unknown over certain death, any day.”

Mutters erupted from the Bridge below. But when a new image appeared on all the screens, their arguing voices went silent. A milky streak of galaxy, so thin and distant it was almost invisible, expanded slowly into view.

“How many more times?” Yarsi asked, her voice so powerful it vibrated the floor of the Command Deck. “One more? And then, what?”

Beneath layers of wires, Talya could see the lassertane’s eyelids drooping. Not quite closing. Then, they shot open, white and empty except for the bloodshot veins. Except the veins were wrong … They glittered, black as obsidian.

“One more!” she screamed.

And existence jerked out of place. The Ark, and everyone in it, moved without moving. Talya felt as if her soul, or something like it, had been speared out of her body, not quite ripped away. Only after a long moment did her body catch up, and fall back into place. 

Talya found herself on hands and knees. Groaning, she pushed herself back to standing. “Where?” Talya asked. “Where are we?”

“Hark, for it is written,” Ryke fell to her knees, and clasped her hands together, “‘One day, shall the children of the Makers return to the Old Home. A world so perfect, it gave birth to all life. And it is called Earth.”

A dull planet appeared on the screens, nothing like the paradise the priests always talked about. Grey clouds swirled above endless miles of metal, which stretched from shore to polluted shore. The home of the Makers was beyond infected. Vast islands of grease swirled into sick oceans, and machine-carved canyons, encrusted with industrial machinery, made deep wounds down to the Earth’s glowing mantle. 

But nobody was watching the planet. Commanders, officers, techs, lords and religious leaders and civic captains—all were afflicted by an unsettling silence. They were staring at a glitch on the screen. At least, Talya thought it was a glitch, until she looked more closely.

Two vast wedges hovered over the Earth. She could not see where the wedges ended—only where their tips faced each other. Twin fleets. Two hosts of drones, attack craft, and colossal warships so large, they blotted out the stars. 

“My Queen,” Talya’s throat went dry. “Look.”

Movement, in one of the fleets. A sliver slipped off the main wedge, and one of the screens focused on it. The sliver resolved into a squadron of ships, easily as large as the one that had nearly destroyed the Ark. 

“Fear not, my wingmaiden,” Ryke said. “For we are exactly where we are supposed to be.” 

“But there must be millions of them!” Talya whispered. 

“Far more than that.”

“How can you be so calm? Our ship is damaged. The Ark can’t handle—”

Finally, Ryke lifted her feathered head, and turned her gaze on Talya. A fire burned in the Queen’s golden eyes. Righteous. Divine. 

“Talya, sit with me.”

She’s lost her mind, Talya thought. Suffering for so many years must’ve broken her. On screen, a squadron tore away from the opposite wedge. These ships were bulkier, hardier, and wielded cannons so large, Yarsi was certain they would punch through the Ark in a single strike. How many minutes until they reach us?

“Sit,” Ryke commanded. “And add your prayers to mine.”

“And who will answer?” Talya said, “The gods are gone, my Queen. We are reduced to animals, alone in the dark. Who will hear us cry out?” 

“Do you not see the Maker among us?” 

Mad, Talya thought. Utterly mad. Gods, pity her. And pity us all.

But Ryke’s smile was blissful radiance. She turned her razor beak toward Yarsi’s prison-throne, and bowed. “Vul, and behold with your own eyes, my wingmaiden and friend, for one among us has risen. A mortal, become Divine. She has brought us to the very heart of death, and through her, we will find the Way.” 

“Your Majesty,” Talya choked. A quiet horror filled her throat, making it hard to speak. “She’s the one who damned us. She could have saved us all, but she brought us here. What hope do we have, against the machine that killed the gods?”

“Hope,” the Ark’s speakers thrummed, “Is down there. On the Earth.” 

“What?” 

And when Yarsi spoke again, her amplified voice was quieter, and came only from the pillar-throne. “She’s down there, too.” 

“Who?” 

“The one who made herself worthy. The one who has your heart.”

“A—” Talya choked on her name. Dizzy with the impossibility. She swallowed hard. “Agraneia’s alive? She’s down there, right now?”

Ryke reached out, and squeezed Talya’s hand. And started to walk through her prayers. “Asaiyam, open our eyes. Maxhim, bless us with patience. Kanya, give us strength.” 

As she prayed, tiny pinpricks of light erupted from both the Sovereign’s fleets, as if two halves of the universe were each giving birth to a billion stars. Then, the lights became streaks. Missiles. Uncountable masses of them. But the Sovereign’s twin fleets did not aim at the Ark. They fired at each other.

Gods above, Talya thought. The Makers heard our prayers.

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