Chapter 84: A Betrayal Among Gods (Patreon)

Eron rushed to the command deck doors inside the mothership, which floated above the bioresearch facility. Two soldiers opened the doors for him, and he entered the command deck. A floating monitor hovered in the center, displaying a live feed from the facility below, specifically the Operator resting in a hallway outside Level B-13 with her group. The screen kept her position in view for everyone to see.

The room was large, walled in gray stone that caught the light and threw it back, the surface almost wet with its shine. Along those walls hung five winged ones, strapped in place. A single cable ran into the third eye of each one, buried deep in the center of the forehead, the flesh around it grown over and sealed to the metal until the two were one. Thin lines of fluid ran down from where the cable went in. Their two lower eyes were closed, and their chests moved slowly, the only sign left that they were alive. They were the navigators, the five who ran the ship and kept every part of it breathing, and whatever they had been before, there was nothing of it left in them now.

In the center of the deck stood some of the winged ones, men and women both, gathered in silence. Their faces were grim and funereal, and none of them spoke. Every one of them turned to look at Eron as he entered.

“Where were you?” Tessron moved towards him and halted in front. “I thought you were more interested in watching us catch the Operator.”

“I was looking after the Kanryx. It isn’t safe to leave them in the bioresearch facility any longer,” Eron said.

That was when he felt it. He’d been so deep in his own plans that he had closed off the bond with his winged brothers and sisters. Now that it was open again, all of it came into him at once. Grief first. Then the pain beneath it, the hatred, and a rage that had nowhere to go. It can't be.

“So you can feel it now?” Tessron asked. “You cut yourself off from us. We needed you here.”

“I was angry that you took control of capturing the Operator. I didn’t want to show weakness or share that with all of you, so I disconnected.”

The others stopped looking at him and returned to their mourning for the loss of one of the wisest of the winged ones.

"How did he die?" Eron asked.

“Your little science experiment turned out to have talents none of us saw coming. You were right about her. She’s the answer to everything we’ve been chasing for centuries.” Tessron exhaled slowly, keeping his gaze on Eron. “And she’s why Mordran is dead. He brought her into his world of shadows, and the two of them disappeared. Moments later, she returned with his head severed, hanging from her waist like a trophy.”

Eron felt Tessron’s fury as he spoke about Mordran, his closest ally and friend. Eron’s head began to throb with the anger flowing through the bond. “Damn it, calm down already,” Eron snapped, gradually easing Tessron’s pain.

Eron turned his head and spoke to the navigators. "Show me the recording."

On the monitor, the recording played. The Operator appeared out of nowhere on Level B-13. The creatures came at her. She threw Mordran’s body out as a distraction, threw grenades to put them to sleep, and climbed to the second level.

The five navigators spoke together: “Access to the cameras and audio in the Kanryx hybrid’s room is unavailable.”

Tessron looked at Eron suspiciously. “Do you know anything about that?”

"Not now. What happened after that?" Eron asked.

“Resuming playback from an alternate camera,” the navigators announced.

In the recording, the Operator set a worm on the floor.

Eron’s voice trembled with panic at the sight, asking, “Why does she have a Herald?”

Twice. A Herald has only been sent twice in our entire history, and both times something was ending. Why does she have one? What did Mordran see in there?

"It's coming," someone said.

The feeds changed. Outside, on the cameras beyond the hull, a small figure emerged from the darkness, rushing toward them at high speed, slicing through the thin air without pausing. It was a Herald. Eron recognized its shape instantly, as all winged ones did, and its appearance transformed the ship’s silence into something even more unsettling. 

After it arrived, down in the bay of the ship, a soldier took the Herald the moment it landed and broke into a run, carrying it through the ship toward the command deck. The mothership was vast, the distance long, and up on the deck there was nothing to do but wait for him.

“A Herald.” One of the winged ones said it in a low voice, staring at the doors. “None of us were even alive the last time one appeared.”

“Navigators.” Another turned toward the five strapped to the walls. “Keep the channels open with all the colonies. Do not close a single one.” The fluid ran down from the navigators’ third eyes, and they gave no sign they had heard, but somewhere in the ship, the order was already in motion.

“Why is it taking him so long?” A third paced a short line, then turned back. “How long does it take to bring one animal up here?” Nobody answered. Eron watched the doors with the rest of them, and the monitor feed kept showing the Operator resting far below. Every second the soldier didn’t come made the room tighter.

The doors swung open, and the soldier rushed through, carrying the Herald, folded and exhausted, in his arms. He quickly crossed the deck and handed it to Tessron. He took the animal in both hands, set his thumb against its eye, and pushed until the eye broke. From its tail, a needle emerged. Tessron drove it into his third eye.

What came through the bond then put every winged one on the ship on the edge of their feet.

It was fear. Mordran’s fear, still intact within the warning, what he had felt at the very end. It poured out of Tessron and into all of them at once, and it didn’t weaken as it spread. Eron’s whole body locked up. He had lived through the fall of worlds, yet he had never felt anything like what Mordran had put into that message. The warning itself was simple. Something was coming, and it was the end. It didn’t say what. It didn’t need to. The fear said enough.

Tessron opened his eyes, and for a moment, the coldness faded from his expression. He felt fear, something rare for him. Throughout Eron’s long memory, Tessron had never known fear. But now, a dead friend’s fear seeped into him. He quickly pushed it aside, and his voice remained steady.

“Full alert. Highest order.” He did not raise it. He did not need to. “We pull everything. This world and every holding in this galaxy. All of it, now.”

“And Mordran’s Orsa, my lord? That woman has it,” the commander asked quietly. “His succession. We can’t begin it without…”

“We leave it.” The deck grew quieter. Leaving one of their own dead below, his Orsa uncollected, and the succession unstarted, was unthinkable. Tessron’s firm, unhesitating words revealed how far this had gone beyond everything else. “There are more important matters right now. We can recover it later, or we do not. Move.”

Everyone started to act, reaching out to their respective houses in other worlds and notifying their close allies here, all of them feeling scared and anxious. Mordran was known for being reliable, so if he issued that warning, it meant that something serious was approaching.

Eron didn’t move. He disconnected his mind from the winged ones. What does the Operator have to do with any of this? Why can’t they see how important she is? Damn idiots. 

Eron was also scared, but he was analyzing what he shouldn’t do. The solution was with her; letting her escape was not an option. Mordran’s head on her waist, what is approaching, the perfect mutation she possesses. Everything is linked to her. She is mine. 

Eron observes everyone runs from one place to place. Run, then. All of you. I'm not leaving her.

The city lights went dark. All of them, across the face of the world below, blinked out in waves. Then the red came. It bled into the clouds where the lights had been, spreading. City by city, coast by coast, the red climbed into the sky and swallowed everything beneath it. The clouds thickened and pulled together until they covered the planet, and the whole world turned red.

The winged ones stood frozen, watching. Not one of them moved. They had crossed a thousand worlds and seen things die before, but none could comprehend what had suddenly appeared below.

Tessron’s voice cut across the deck. “We’re leaving. Now.” The ship began to climb, pulling away from the world and the thing that had arrived in it.

Eron walked out of the command deck. The moment the doors closed behind him, he broke into a run, then ran faster.

Two soldiers saw him coming down the corridor. "Lord Eron, we have orders. No one is cleared to reach the ship bay." When he didn't slow, they stepped forward to stop him. His third eye opened, turning red. The two soldiers turned toward each other, each driving a dagger into the other's heart.

His communicator crackled. Tessron’s voice came through, shouting. “Eron, get back here. Now.” Then, to the soldiers across the ship, he shouted, “Stop him.”

“Get back here, you stupid bastard.” Tessron’s voice rose. “You want to know why Mordran didn’t include what he saw in the message? My guess is that if we knew, something worse would come for all of us. We’re connected. Stop thinking about yourself for once in your life.”

Eron reached the mid-sized ship in the bay. Soldiers came at him from all sides.

Tessron ordered loudly over the comm, “You leave me no choice, brother. Kill him. You have my permission to kill a winged one. Bring me his eye.”

Eron was ready to open his eye and turn them on each other. Before he could, his body seized. His veins swelled thick under his skin, turning green as the color crawled out from his chest and down his arms. His legs gave out. He hit the floor hard and started to convulse. He couldn’t move, couldn’t stop it, couldn’t do anything but feel it spread through him.

A ship descended and touched down on the deck, its door opening to reveal a woman stepping out. Unlike the others, she wasn’t dressed in ceremonial robes or bearing the winged marks; instead, she wore casual clothes from the lower world, with her black hair loose and face makeup typical of that world. She moved onto the deck at a relaxed pace, as if nothing on the ship could harm her.

Her third eye was open, green, and fixed on Eron the whole way. "Tessron, I've stopped Eron," the woman said. "Now I need you to tell me what the hell is going on."

We’re about to leave soon. Make sure Eron is killed. He’s become something that could pose a threat to all of us.

"Understood," she said.

She crouched beside him. “Sorry, little brother. It seems you gave Tessron the reason and opportunity to bring you down.” She then stood up. Eron was now crying out in pain, with swollen veins and blood starting to seep through his skin.

"Put him out of his misery," she said.

Then came the sound of the wind.

The woman began to turn toward it but never completed the motion. Her head detached from her shoulders, fell, and rolled across the floor. Simultaneously, the soldiers over Eron also dropped, their heads gone, and their bodies folding where they stood.

The swelling in his veins went down. They settled back to normal, and he pushed himself up off the floor, slowly. He looked at the woman’s head on the ground. She was still alive, her eyes locked on him, her mouth working, but no words came out.

“That hurt, sister.” He kicked the head, and it went over the edge, dropping into the dark.

Tessron’s voice tore through the comm. “Eron, what have you done?”

“What you were about to do to me. And didn’t you call me a coward for not going down after the Operator myself? So that’s what I’m going to do.” He went back to the mid-sized ship and started it up. When the door opened, the Kanryx were inside, frozen in their tubes.

Tessron shouted over the comm. "All hands. Do not let him leave the bay."

Out of nowhere, two creatures appeared at Eron's side. Seven feet tall, humanoid, their skin a smooth white with no hair anywhere on it, naked and without any reproductive organs, as if they'd been made rather than born. Their eyes were red. Their teeth sat black and bare in their mouths, always showing. Their nails ran long off their fingers, shining like blades, and blood still dripped from the ends of them.

"We've sealed the exits and shut down the ship's attack systems, my lord," one of them said.

Eron gave each of them a nod. "Time to go."

The two of them vanished, gone back into the air the way they'd come.

Eron started toward the ship. Behind him, Tessron was still shouting over the comm. "I'm sorry, brother." Eron didn't stop walking. "I'll bring her back, and all of this will be forgotten."

The door sealed behind him, and the ship lifted off the deck and was gone into the dark.