Slave Empire - The Crystal Ship Read online

  The task seemed impossible without a modern weapon. She asked the Ship if she could return to her metallic shell for a short while, just long enough to find a weapon. The Ship pondered this, clearly not enthusiastic about the idea. It feared that once free, she would flee in her metallic shell and leave it alone again. Rayne swore that she would return, because she had to kill the parasite, not only for Scrysalza’s sake, but for the people on the planet ahead, whom the Envoy would torture and kill.

  The Ship deliberated for several minutes this time, its thoughts hidden. What if, it asked, her weapon did not kill the Envoy, but merely enraged him? Did she have any idea the kind of pain he would inflict upon it then? She admitted that she did not, but hoped it would be the last time the Envoy hurt the Ship. Scrysalza did not find this sentiment particularly comforting, dreading the agony that would result from its disobedience.

  If she could not kill the Envoy, it said, but succeeded only in enraging him, the parasite would order it to kill her, and it did not know if it would be able to disobey. Rayne rubbed her arms to ward off an imaginary chill, for the Envoy’s chamber was like a sauna. Once the Envoy awoke, Scrysalza warned, he would be in charge, and he could even order its soldiers to attack her. The Ship could defy him up to a point, but not for long; it could not stand the pain.

  Rayne searched for inspiration. Another thought struck her, and she asked the Ship if it could transport more people into the chamber to help her. Again Scrysalza pondered, but she sensed its aversion to the suggestion even before it replied. It did not trust other people, it explained. They might hurt it as well. It had sensed their hostility already. Even now, it told her, those outside in their metallic shells planned to hurt it to stop it reaching the planet ahead, and if it brought them aboard they would be able to do grievous harm.

  Rayne explained that the Atlanteans wanted to kill the Envoy, but Scrysalza pointed out that it would have to import several hundred aliens, an infection its soldiers might not be able to combat if the people turned against it. Rayne was unpleasantly surprised to learn that the Ship thought of people as an infection, but to it that was exactly how it must seem. The Envoy and his females were like a sickness she was supposed to cure, but the cure, in too large a dose, could be more dangerous than the original illness. The Ship’s refusal dashed her last hope, and she eyed the Envoy, dejected.

  What about one man, she wondered, armed with a modern weapon? The Ship considered this, apparently unsure, although not as averse to it as it had been to an army. It wanted to know more about the weapon, and she tried to explain a laser to it. The idea of compressed light was a familiar one, for it used light in all its forms to do many things, but did not know whether such a weapon could kill the Envoy. This possibility had not occurred to Rayne, and she experienced increasing desperation. If it was immune to a laser, how could it be killed? The Ship could offer no help, since a ship had never been able to kill an Envoy.

  As she stood irresolute, the Envoy shuddered and heaved, unseating several females that lolled atop him. Rayne stepped back in alarm, treading on a female’s groping tentacle hand. The parasite squealed like a pig, unnerving her even more. The Envoy was waking up, and she still had no solution. How quickly did the Envoy awake, she wondered, and Scrysalza said, quickly. Her heart pounded as the massive beast rolled and squirmed, sloshing the seething sea. Several tubular appendages rose from the liquid to suck up blood beasts while slender tentacles scooped the writhing creatures into his mouths.

  Now that he was animated, she could make out more of his structure. He possessed many appendages, some of which spanned the chamber and vanished into tunnels. Breathing holes opened and closed on his flanks, and shiny feelers rose to wave like antennae. The iridescent nature of the feelers warned her, but there was nowhere to hide and little room to move amongst the knee-deep females. The Envoy possessed sight, and within moments it became obvious that he had detected her. The feelers pointed in her direction, and she backed away, shuffling through the throng. She fought an insane urge to run, knowing she would trip over a female and sprawl on the slimy floor. Then, like a splinter of glass thrust into her brain, the Envoy’s mind touched hers.

  Rayne cried out and covered her ears in a futile bid to block out the thoughts that tore through her mind. Nothing could defend against them, however, and her mental shields were, as Tarke had once told her, a joke. The gentle touch of the Ship’s mind fled the Envoy’s invasion, barely escaping detection, she sensed. The Envoy’s thoughts filled her head with a harsh, grinding moan overlaid by a shrill squealing, an alien language that could not be translated into anything resembling speech.

  His raw, cruel emotions horrified her, an insatiable bloodlust and a hunger for pain that made her cringe. She sensed his interest in her as a source of pain that could bring him some amusement before he reached the planet and basked in the glory of billions of screaming minds. He did not even need the Ship to broadcast his torture; he could do it himself, first hand, a novel experience. Warned by his thoughts, she waded faster through the females, heading for the nearest tunnel. Her resolve to face and kill the Envoy shrivelled before the unimaginable horror of his sadistic plans.

  The Envoy perceived her only as a beast useful to torture, a source of the mental suffering he craved. To him, she realised as she tried to swallow the bile that heaved into her throat, she was like a cat cornered by a bunch of sadistic boys who planned to set it on fire and watch it die screaming, just for the fun of it. Or perhaps he was more akin to the laboratory technician who dripped acid into rabbits’ eyes and listened to their screams with detached, clinical pleasure. Humans had done to animals what he planned to do to her, although his pleasure was more of a metabolic necessity. She deduced his need for pain as a sexual stimulant that aging Envoys required to keep their procreation levels high.

  Rayne struggled through the females, which squealed and flopped at her touch. She clawed at them, climbed over them and even stepped on them in her desperation to get away. No wonder Scrysalza was so afraid of the Envoy. The first touch of his mind had filled her with terror, and it only grew worse with prolonged contact. The tunnel ahead of her pinched shut, and she veered away, heading for another. A tentacle reached up through the throng and whipped around her waist, almost squeezing the breath out of her. He lifted her, his painful grip forcing a wail from her.

  The Envoy raised her almost to the roof, as he basked in the pleasure of her pain. She clawed at the tough tentacle, trying to tear it with her nails and prise it away, but it was as strong as a steel hawser. She sensed Scrysalza hovering on the edge of her mind, too timid to intrude, cowering from her pain, and cried out to it for help. Something sharp, she begged, something to cut him with. Her empathic ability mixed the Envoy’s pleasure with her agony as the tentacle dug into her, somewhat diluting his enjoyment. The weird mixture stretched her sanity, making her writhe in a futile attempt to escape it.

  A razor-edged shard of crystal thrust down from the roof, just within her reach. She grabbed it, ignoring the stabs of pain as it sliced her palm. It snapped off easily, and she slashed the tentacle. The Envoy’s flesh parted like butter, and she plunged into the seething ocean as the Envoy bellowed. The warm fluid closed over her head, and a million blood beasts churned around her, pushing against her as she struggled towards the surface.

  Breaking into air, she sensed the Envoy’s rage. His reaction was that of a lab technician bitten by the rat he had been torturing, an instant urge to stamp out the life of the creature that had harmed him. A dozen massive tentacles flailed the fluid in search of her, sending giant waves rushing to shore. She dived as one crashed down mere metres away, wriggling through the blood beasts. She still gripped the crystal shard, and, as she surfaced again, she raised it. A tentacle lashed over her head, and she lopped it off.

  The Envoy squealed, writhing as he sought the source of his pain. The tentacle had ripped the crystal shard from her grasp, and it splashed into the liquid somewhere off to her right.
Her hands were cut to the bone, but she had no time to heal them. She dived again as a tentacle lashed at her, trying to swim down to retrieve her weapon. Another appendage uncoiled in the fluid, whipped around her ankle and dragged her backwards. She fought to reach the surface as her air ran out. The tentacle lifted her and whirled her around like a broken doll, coughing fluid.

  It dropped Rayne back into the ocean with a huge splash, the impact driving the air from her lungs. Swimming to the surface again, she spluttered and gasped, wiping her eyes as she turned to find the Envoy. Several dozen soldiers clambered over him with spindly, claw-footed legs. Weird fangs protruded from their lower jaws, which they thrust into him, injecting their venom. Rayne half swam, half crawled through the roiling blood beasts towards the shore, touched and gladdened by the Ship’s courageous aid.

  The Envoy seemed to contract, his long appendages, buried deep in the Ship’s flesh, sending a flood of pain into its highly developed nervous system. Rayne’s suffering was nothing compared to the mind-bending agony that suffused the Ship, and it vocalised its torment in a huge, musical bellow that rushed through it on the warm wind of its breath. Scrysalza’s agony transfixed Rayne, whose back arched and limbs stiffened in helpless spasms. The Ship’s suffering seared into every corner of her mind, burning it with a white-hot fire of mental torment.

  Luckily the blood beasts kept Rayne’s head above the surface for the several minutes the Ship’s agony lasted. When it ebbed, she lay gasping, her mind scarred by the unbelievable pain that had burnt through it. After several minutes, she rolled over and paddled for shore. The Envoy seemed to have forgotten about her. The soldiers lay twitching in the red sea, some sinking into it. Scrysalza had retreated. She could not sense its mind at all, which worried her. She was going to need help that only the Ship could provide.

  Rayne pulled herself onto the shore, breathless and shaking, her limbs as rubbery as cooked spaghetti. The slimy fluid streamed off her, running back into the sea. The shore seemed oddly empty, and she realised that the females had fled into the many tunnels. The Envoy remained acquiescent, perhaps a little sickened by the soldiers’ venom. She did not doubt that he would recover soon, however, and his next attack would kill her. Hoping he was too distracted to notice her, she crawled towards a tunnel.

  The Envoy was anchored in this chamber, so if she could escape it she would be safe. She was halfway to a tunnel when a tentacle snaked around her ankle. The Envoy dragged her backwards, and she turned to try to prise the tentacle loose with bleeding hands. The appendage tightened, and she gasped, receiving a wave of pleasure from the Envoy. She opened herself to it, using his emotion to overpower her pain, and reflecting it back at him.

  The Envoy squealed in distress, and the pain in her ankle increased, which heightened his pleasure. The circle closed, locking her into a destructive spiral of ever increasing mental distress. Her pain brought him pleasure, but he had never before encountered an empath, it seemed, for his pleasure, reflected back at him, brought him great anguish. His only way out was to release her, but his sadistic nature would not allow him to. His craving for the pain of others drove him to inflict it, but his reflected pleasure could, she sensed, destroy him.

  Not fast enough, she realised, as he dragged her towards a bunch of toothy maws near his beached forepart. If he used them on her, she would be dead before he came to any harm. She needed another weapon, but the Ship did not appear to be listening. Like a beaten dog, it cowered in a safe corner, unwilling to earn another reprimand. Rayne called it again and again, but received only silence in reply. The Envoy reeled her in like a fish, her struggles too puny to bother him.

  Help me, she begged Scrysalza. If you want to be free, you must help me now. Bring me a weapon, and I will defeat him. Otherwise, he will kill me, and you will be his slave forever.

  Rayne sensed a distant distress, as if Scrysalza heard her thoughts, but was too afraid to act upon them. She also sensed another mind, and puzzled at it. Someone else was involved in this weird battle, but she was too filled with pain and the Envoy’s pleasure to perceive it clearly. Scrysalza’s mind brushed against hers, searching for the weapon she craved, then it was gone, flitting away from the Envoy’s presence like a frightened deer. He had dragged her almost within reach of the toothy maws now, and she dreaded the first touch of their sharp fangs. The escalation of the pain-pleasure trap would be an unbearable mind-bending experience she hoped to survive, if she lived. Distantly, she wondered what Scrysalza had seen in her mind, and what, if anything, it would do to save her.

  Chapter Eight

  Tarke glared at the Crystal Ship, his dislike for it growing with each unexpected blow it struck. Minutes ago, a wave of intense agony had flooded from it, making him wince despite the strength of his shields, which he had snapped into place at the first touch of mental pain. It had been the same agony that had tortured his people, so long ago. The same psychic torture had reduced them to writhing, twitching, pain-racked creatures, beyond the aid of even the most skilled healer. He had sensed it then, distantly, but now he had experienced its true power. The Atlanteans would be worse off than him. Few people possessed iron-hard mental shields like his, cultivated and strengthened over the years. The white-hot searing had left him shaken, but others would be stunned or comatose from the shock.

  The Crystal Ship possessed a unique defence that would deter most enemies, if not all, but that the Envoy had adapted to its own use, and enjoyed. The Ship shared its pain with those around it, and any harm done to it would be broadcast to its attackers with such telepathic power that even one who possessed no psychic abilities would receive it. In this case, the Envoy had inflicted the pain, but Tarke knew that if the Atlanteans attacked the Ship, they would share its agony and be defeated by it.

  The Envoy’s sadistic nature fed on the Ship’s pain, but more, he used it to torture others, and fed on the psychic agony he inflicted through the Ship. The alien’s bizarre and barbaric nature defied any to defeat him, for his enemies brought about their own doom by harming the Ship in which he dwelt. The Ship was his slave and his tool, feeding him with the pain of others. The wave of agony told Tarke that Rayne was doing something inside the Ship, and Shadowen had reported that her biorhythms were agitated.

  The space line chimed, and he activated it. Tallyn’s pale, taut visage appeared on it, his eyes brittle. “Any idea what the hell that was?”

  “The Crystal Ship’s defensive mechanism, activated by the Envoy, I should imagine.”

  “That’s how it’s going to torture my people?”

  He nodded. “That’s how it tortured mine.”

  Tallyn looked haggard. “And if we attack it...”

  “We’ll all suffer.”

  “It’s diabolical.”

  “You just have to hope Rayne succeeds. If not, you’ll have to wait until the Ship’s within Atlan’s atmosphere, then bomb it.”

  Tallyn’s rigidly controlled expression twitched, betraying the strength of his emotions. “If we do that, most of my people will die.”

  “As mine did. But rather a quick death than weeks of agony.”

  “Why is it weaker in an atmosphere than it is in space?”

  Tarke shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps its defences are weakened by its need to keep itself from colliding with the planet’s surface. Or maybe the Envoy’s torture prevents it from defending itself. It might even be that it welcomes death as an escape from the pain it suffers when the Envoy forces it to torture people. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “You have a lot more theories than I do. I’d like to get to that damned Envoy and kill it. That seems to be the only way to defeat this thing. But there’s no way to get aboard that ship, is there?”

  “No.”

  The Atlantean commander nodded, and Tarke broke the connection. The Atlanteans’ willingness to co-operate, even to ask his advice, was a measure of their desperation, and he pitied them. The fate his people had suffered was something he would not wish
upon his worst enemies, and he did not consider the Atlanteans to be his enemies. As the space line screen slid back into its slot, a voice spoke beside him, making him start and swing around to face empty air.

  “Do not be alarmed, Shrike. My name is Endrix. I am the Golden Child’s guide.”

  Tarke’s hand rested on the laser at his hip as he scanned the gloom. “The girl told me about you.”

  “I know. I intended her to.”

  “I’ve been calling you for hours. Where are you?”

  “Several light minutes away. You can’t detect me.”

  “Can you get me aboard that ship?” Tarke nodded at the crystalline entity that filled the screens with its weird light.

  “No. Not directly. However, the Golden Child is in some distress, and her victory is not assured. The battle has escalated to a dangerous level, and she is in physical peril. You are her guardian, self-appointed and predestined. It’s your task to help her. She has begged the Ship for a weapon, and the entity now searches for the man it saw in her mind: you.

  “In a matter of minutes, it will find you and transport you into its central chamber, where the Envoy dwells. There you must protect the Golden Child until the battle is won. My warning will allow you to act swiftly upon your arrival. You will need to use edged weapons in the battle; your laser will be useless. Compressed light will not harm the Envoy.”

  The Shrike jumped up and strode along the short corridor to a cabin, where he shucked his coat and donned a suit of torso armour. Yanking open a locker, he plucked a long sword from its bracket, pocketed a number of throwing stars and tucked several glass daggers into his belt. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled out a weirdly shaped weapon with a razor edge and an arm clasp, which he slung over his shoulder by its straps. As he closed the locker, Endrix’s voice spoke beside him again.