Chapter 6 Metal Rain #2
“Dammit! Well, if the Kryptoria is going down then so are they!” she cried.
The Kryptoria veered abruptly to the left as the Khul fighters followed, setting her in their sights, Thammah must have hit her eject control as the round globe of her escape hatch flew upwards while the two halves of the Kryptoria split apart.
Two of the Khul flew right into them. The Khul lost control of their fighters as the force fields sizzled and spat from the impact.
One of the ships veered into the other and both exploded.
Two left, he thought. And one minute out.
Green blasts flew all around him. Only the spin and roll he did stopped them from taking out his shields completely. The Exarch was only a few blasts away from joining the Kryptoria’s fate.
He dove and climbed, but he could not shake the Khul.
He could almost feel their hunger for him.
Laser blasts skimmed his shields, drawing them down lower and lower.
He should eject. But he doubted that his pod would be allowed to get away anyways.
Unlike when Thammah ejected, the Khul would have no other ships to go after.
His pod would be their only object. He doubted they would think the human aircraft a danger to them. Perhaps they weren’t.
Khoth gritted his teeth. He had no intention of going out in a blaze of glory. The Khul had come here long ago for something. They were back for it. Whatever it was they should not have. He would stay alive now to make sure that they didn’t get it.
He increased his speed then banked to the right as he loaded up the one skasha missiles that his craft contained.
Normally such weaponry was not on Paladin-class fighters.
It was heavy weaponry. But he always believed in being prepared.
So he had ceaselessly worked to increase the power of his engines to carry the heavy payload. He would get only one shot at this.
As the Khul fighters followed after him in a tight arc, he released the missile.
It hovered behind him for a moment. The Khul didn’t seem to see it at first. Then one of the fighters swerved to the right, but the other did not get out of the way in time.
The missile’s explosion caused the Khul fighter to turn into a golden ball of light and vanish altogether.
But Khoth felt no victory. The other Khul fighter was still there and about to fire at him. He felt his Xi and Xa become one as he realized that it was all over. Death was upon him. He hoped in that moment that the old religions were true and that he would see Daesah again.
Something hit the side of the Khul fighter. The blue force field flickered in and out then in and then completely out that was when another something hit the Khul fighter again and the whole ship imploded.
Khoth let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. A sleek aircraft flew past him and circled around until it was practically wingtip to wingtip. The image of the clear cockpit showed him a being wearing some kind of rounded headgear and mask along with eye coverings. The human gave him a wave.
“Jack?” Khoth asked.
“Indeed, the one and only. Captain Jack Parker to the rescue,” Jack said.
“Parker? Your surname is the same as that of Major General Diane Parker,” Khoth stated.
“Indeed, she’s my better half,” Jack said and the smile in his voice was obvious. When Khoth was silent, he amended, “My wife. Ah, life partner--”
“I understand,” Khoth said.
“She and Thammah--where is Thammah by the way?” Jack asked, alarm suddenly in his voice.
“She ejected. But the Kryptoria is lost,” he explained.
“Someone will have to go get her post-haste,” Jack said and Khoth heard him alert others in his unit to trace the Kryptoria’s eject pod. “Your bird looks a little broken there, Commander Voor. But our town is overrun with Khul and we could really use it in the fight.”
“What are they looking for, Captain Parker?” Khoth asked.
“The same thing they were looking for the first time they came here,” Jack said after a moment.
“One Colossus-class ship?” Khoth asked.
“She’s not like the others. She’s not like anything else according to Thammah,” Jack told him.
“She should not be informing you of that,” Khoth stated.
Jack chuckled. “Yeah, and she wasn’t supposed to know about the weapons that just saved your ass, Commander Voor. But she did. And she promised friendship if I helped you. Are we friends?”
“I am here to assist you--what is happening?!” Khoth hissed as the controls of the Exarch were no longer responding to his commands.
“Commander Voor, what’s wrong?” Jack asked.
“I do not know.”
The Exarch was suddenly swerving towards the center of the small town of Sunrise.
“Ah, Commander Voor, you are going in the direction I hoped, but--”
“Someone has taken over controls of the Exarch!” Khoth realized as he tried to regain control. But he was locked out.
“The Khul? We’ve never heard of them being able to take over Precursor tech!” Jack cried.
“They cannot. I do not know who is doing this,” Khoth stated.
His hands flew over the holographic controls, but to no avail. He was being taken to nearly the center of town. Jack’s aircraft flew alongside him.
“That’s… oh, god,” Jack whispered.
“What?”
“You’re going down near where my son works. There’s a Khul ship not half a block away,” Jack’s voice went hoarse. “I--I have to get down there! Goddamnit!”
The raw anguish in Jack’s voice actually hurt to hear. It was completely unveiled Xi. He remained silent as the man’s soul was on display. But then the Exarch was veering right to an area not far from where the Khul ship had landed.
“Do you see all those Khul? They’re surrounding that house! That’s… oh, God, that’s Walter’s house,” Jack whispered. “Jace may be there. He’d go there to try and help Walter and the kids. Goddamn!”
“My sensors show over a dozen heat signatures inside,” Khoth stated as the controls allowed him to see that much.
Khoth heard Jack calling on his people to come to a certain address, telling them that Khul were targeting this residence.
He was not wrong. The amount of Khul was astounding.
It looked like 30 pods worth were converging on the one small home.
Khoth’s fingers curled around the triggers for his weaponry, but he eased off of them without firing.
The spray of his weaponry on the Exarch would be too wide.
He would be just as likely to hit the home as the Khul.
“They have to get there! Goddamnit!” Jack hissed as he spoke of the people he had called to get to his son. “I can’t land here! I can’t do anything!”
Khoth’s ship hovered over the Khul about a block away.
It did not lower. It was as if he were being given a bird’s eye view of the destruction that was about to happen.
Were the Khul controlling the Exarch? Did they want him to witness this?
Show him how powerless he was in comparison again?
That was not the Khul’s way. So why was he here?
Whatever the reason, I will not sit by and watch civilians be killed.
Khoth unstrapped himself from the pilot’s seat and swung around to face the back of the vessel.
He got up and put his palm against the weapon’s locker.
The locker opened and the rahir--his long-bladed weapon with its cutting laser edge--and the draagves--the laser rifle with ability to launch mines--slid out.
He grabbed both. He slung the rahir over his back and checked the sight of the draagves.
The Exarch was hovering low enough that he could jump and his exo-suit would easily cushion the fall.
The Khul were so focused on the house that none of them seemed to notice the ship down the block.
He would fight his way to that house. The people in there had no other chance.
Khoth went to the Exarch’s door and used the sensor to request it to open.
The door remained stubbornly shut. He requested the door to open again.
Nothing. He brought the draagves up, thinking to shoot the door’s controls to get them to open.
But that wouldn’t work. Altaeth technology had safeguards to stop just such a thing from working.
He glanced at the screen which showed the Khul surrounded the house now.
Khoth raised the draagves, aimed at the sensor. He fired.
Nothing happened.
He fired again.
Nothing happened.
The weapon was not responding.
Khoth slammed the butt of the draagves into the sensor. It didn’t even crack or chip. The door remained closed. There was a ting from the cockpit. Khoth’s head snapped towards it. The screen flickered and changed to show him the desert that surrounded the town of Sunrise.
They wanted me to see something. They wanted me to see this.
Something punched through the sand. It glittered as it rose up into the air.
“What is that?” Jack asked as he circled the town once more. “Fuck it. I’m taking it out.”
“No, do not!” Khoth cried.
His statement was illogical. His ship had been turned against him by some unknown technology that was keeping him here to witness a massacre.
This thing that had risen from the sand was unknown technology.
So why was he urging Jack not to take it out?
He didn’t know and that should have caused him to question his sanity. But he was certain nonetheless.
Like Daesah...
“What is that? Goddamnit, Voor, what is that? My son is down there and--”
“I do not know,” Khoth whispered.
Daesah, have I lost my mind?
The glittering thing streaked towards the center of town, towards him, towards the house.
It then stopped and hovered at the same level as the Exarch.
The thing was cylindrical in shape until it unfurled its petals.
A golden glow began in the very center of it.
The glow grew so bright that Khoth had to hold up his right arm to shield his eyes.
There was a high, singing sound that pierced to Khoth’s bones and then…
then the light dimmed though it did not go away. He blinked to clear his vision.
The Khul…
… all of the Khul…
… were dead.
Khoth felt hot air blast him from the now open door of the Exarch.
The door to the house that the Khul had been surrounded opened, or more like toppled over, and a human stepped out.
He was swaying and there was blood dripping from his nose, eyes, and ears.
He was staring up at the something that still glittered and glowed.
He reached a hand up and the cylinder’s “petals” retracted and hid the golden glow.
They wanted me to see this. To see him…
“My God, they’re all dead! It’s like a carpet of Khul! Is that my--my son?” Jack asked.
Without further thought, Khoth stepped out of the open door and landed on the ground with the exo-suit taking the brunt of it.
He landed in a crouch and slowly got up.
Without pause, he jogged towards the young man who was standing there, swaying, with his hand still raised upwards to the cylinder that glittered and slowly turned.
More humans were gathered in the doorway behind the young man. They were staring out at the devastation with huge, shocked eyes and open mouths. They would not forget this. But then they saw him and they retreated with murmured cries.
The young man turned towards Khoth. His eyes, bloodshot and filled with unbearable pain, widened too.
But not in fear. In fact, for a moment, there was awe in them and a smile played over his mouth.
But then he grimaced and his hands went to his temples as he swayed a final time and nearly collapsed on the ground.
But Khoth caught him. The young man was terribly light in his arms. Those lips parted.
The young man rasped, “Gehenna. Get me to Gehenna.”