Page 59 of Broken Triad

I’m ripped into pieces, my mind fracturing, bright lights and colors exploding in my vision. I keep my eyes shut, as tight as I can, not wanting to see the place between reality, but the dread fills my bone, the deep dread thatsomethingis watching us, something that is hungry, and I find my resolve.

That thing is real. That darkness that hungers for every sentient being is waiting out there, and one day, it will come.

If we do not put Obsidian on the throne, it will devour the universe.

I force my eyes to open as the shift completes, flawless, the loading bay doors already opening and Krazak piloting us out of the bay and into the clear blue skies. There is no defense to be seen. We took them completely by surprise, shifting under the orbital defenses. Huge, blue-black Orb-Beams strike down on the city below. It’s a city with tall buildings packed in tight, but the blasts hit the coordinates where our spies told us the barracks are. My fists clench on the Orb-Beam gunnery, because I can see the image of Aurelians training in the barracks, with no chance to defend themselves as they are turned to ash.

Krazak dives us downwards at full speed. Anti-air batteries start firing, AI faster than human reactions, waking up before the guards even know what’s happening. Frack shatters against our window, but the reinforced glass holds. We pass through the hailstorm of anti-air shrapnel, striking downwards like a hawk, then hover ten feet above our strike point, a barracks that our spies said had full energy shields protecting it.

We open the side doors, and the four triads dive out before us. We run after them, leaping out of the Reaver and onto the ground as panicked humans run screaming. A fruit cart is upturned, and oranges spill to the ground, one crunching under my foot.

A blood orange. The juice is red and fragrant. All my sense are at full alert, as Krazak points forward. “Now!” he yells, and the four triads charge forwards towards the brutally constructed barracks, their Orb-Beams activated and ready to cut down the front gate as gunfire starts.

I see a flash of white, and alert my triad with my aura, tensing, and we turn to face three Aurelians, in their pale white robes, one with red wine stains on his toga from where he dropped his glass. He was on leave nearby. His triad is deep in drink, their pale cheeks flushed red, but their blades are in steady hands as they dive towards us. There is a screeching sound as my blade parries the first of their men, and I counterattack, cutting only his robe.

“Back,”the three of us telepath in unison, but it’s more of a feeling than a word as the triad dives forward towards us, but meets only air. The right-hand man of the triad is their weak point, with sloppy footwork. He has not been at war in eons, and it shows, and he goes slightly too far forward, all three of our blades slicing him apart. It’s easy work to dispatch the remaining two men, simply surrounding them, pressing them back against the wall, and ending their bloodlines forever.

As I take the head off the man, I expect to feel the berserker rage, the ultimate focus, the weight of prophecy fulfilled, but I feel nothing. This is only death.

Human soldiers drop their guns and run when they see us kill a triad. They scatter like ants, and we do not follow.

Rubble slams to the ground as Reavers dart in to the south wall, blasting the ramparts where humans sit with turrets. A huge piece of rock slams down five feet from us, and a chunk grazes me. It sends a shockwave through my jaw, and I taste blood as I bite my tongue. It irritates me. My robe is sticking to my body as I sweat in the smoking city.

The front gate of the barracks is already broken down, the four triads lost to sight. We should follow, but something stops us—the priority was to attack before they could mount a defense, and already, it’s been broken down. Another three triads rush past us, blades covered in blood, and it should be enough to take the point easily.

Khra grabs me, pulling me into an alley as machine gun bullets rain right where I was a moment before. I gasp for breath. Are my instincts failing me? Or was it always like this? I think back to the thousands of times I nearly died in combat. I never felt horror, my arms moving by pure instinct before I even had to think, and I felt nothing until the next day, when my muscles ached and my wounds healed.

Now I have this irritation, this frustration as I stalk with my triad deeper into the city.“We bolster the shield room defences,”states Krazak, completely in control.

We leave the alley into a blood-stained street. The corpses of Elite Aurelians lie butchered on the ground, their heads severed, the Orb-Armor unable to protect them. A waste. Such a waste. We are meant to forge the Aurelian race into a shield to protect the universe, but all I see is death.

“With us!” yells Krazak, and a triad of young Fanatics, the second brand on their head, fall in with us as we march into the city, our hands stained with blood, our robes slick with sweat, and press on the attack.

“What do we do? Our commanding officer died!” says the youngest. He can’t be yet two hundred years, a young man not yet complete Academy who escaped. There’s panic in his voice, fear in his eyes, as he tastes war and finds it is not what he expected. I look for the other two younglings that should be with him, but there’s no one by his side. So young, and already the last of three.

Other triads are milling about, taking cover, when Krazak raises his blade. “To us! We defend the shield facilities! In line, now, for Obsidian!” He yells it out, and only I can feel the coldness of his aura that is the opposite of the fire in his words, strong words that rally the triads to us.

We’ve never been leaders of men, by choice, preferring to act alone and only commanding when promoted into brief leadership roles, but now we have twenty triads behind us, all waiting for our orders. Krazak takes the role effortlessly, leading us at a sprint deeper into the city, when we face an equal wall of Aurelians in white robes, some wounded, hungry for blood.

Hour after hour, we kill, until my arms are aching and sore. I’ve got three bullet holes through my black robes, but the fates protected me. I used to think it was the prophecy. That I was invincible until I fought on Colossus, until I died in glorious combat.

Now I just think it’s luck, and one day, luck runs out…

But not today. The black flag is raised on Elsinor. It is the first strike into the Aurelian Empire, but it will not be the last.

I see the years, the decades of brutal combat in front of us, as I deactivate my Orb-Blade. Krazak spits. His saliva is bloody. One triad got in close to us, and Krazak knocked his sword out of one of their hands, only to take a fist to the mouth before dispatching him. Those were a young triad. Perhaps this was their first assignment after their hundred years in Academy.

It makes me sick. I look down at the ruined streets from the perch at the top of the shield controls that we protected from a fierce counterattack.

We did our part. Now Elsinor belongs to Obsidian.

Strange, but I thought it would feel as if it belonged to me.

23

LOLA

Ichew on the herb-infused chicken. Well, drowned in herbs would be more accurate, to try to give some flavor to the dry, stringy meat. It’s the one dish in the Longhorn worth eating, and I’ve tried them all. Four days, I’ve been chewing on this chicken until my jaw aches, my eyes peeled to the window. I’ve spent every waking moment waiting, hoping, terrified.

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