Page 50 of Destinies of Diamond
Hylonome laughed and didn’t even try to fight me off. “Oh, is that really what you’re going to do? Good luck with that. I look forward to seeing you cooked alive.”
“That won’t happen,” I replied, although I had no such certainty.
My body couldn’t contain all the energy I was taking from her, especially since she was making no attempt to stop the transfer. In fact, she actively fed more of her power through the link I’d been forced to open. It was a good strategy, based on the belief that I’d succumb to the unavoidable long before she was in any way affected. But I had a strategy too.
Tartarus energy had to go somewhere. I thought about the drones lying dormant in the walls and pushed.
I was no technopath, but courtesy of my implants, I did have a better feel of how machines worked and where they were at any given time. I’d also had a personal hand in designing and monitoring the drones, as they’d formed an integral part of the defense of Tartarus Base before the generator failure. But even with all that, I expected it to be harder to connect with the machines.
It wasn’t. The drones responded, stirring awake from their induced slumber and already scanning the base for intruders.
I knew better than to believe they’d make a big difference in a battle against chimeras, but even the slightest distraction could help us. Besides, the point of fueling the drones hadn’t been to resort to their aid for anything. I’d just needed a convenient place to deposit all the energy I was extracting from Hylonome, and the drones had provided it.
My method was successful enough that the Centaurid faltered in her previous approach. “W-What…? What are you doing? Stop it.”
“I won’t. You were warned.”
“So were you,” another Centaur said, manifesting by my side. He was older and larger than all the others, and he was clutching a burning spear in his hand. Most likely, this was Cheiron, the leader of the Centaur Herd. “Die, you—”
A blast of power struck him before he could finish the phrase. It wasn’t Tartarus’s Gift. It had an entirely different glow and that made the source easy to identify. August stepped closer to me, his body surrounded in a shield of photons almost as bright as the Sun’s corona. “Oh, I don’t think so. Go away.”
“Or better yet, stay here, for all eternity,” Prince Archibald corrected him.
I knew what that meant and I shut down my biological eyes, all the while making sure August, Pollux and Brendan weren’t facing Archibald. I had no idea if Archibald’s skill would even work on the Centaurs, but he definitely wouldn’t have any problems with flesh and blood humans.
It worked beautifully. The chimera didn’t have any physiological processes Archibald’s deadly gaze could stop. It didn’t have skin or a physical body to turn to stone. But when he pushed it, Archibald’s attack went beyond that. It originated from the power of the gods too and it shattered the tenuous link the Centaur Herd had created between themselves and reality. And so, over five Centaurs simply vanished, like they hadn’t been there at all. Hylonome was among them, although Cheiron managed to look away and avoid her grizzly fate.
Unfortunately, there were reasons why Archibald hadn’t tried this earlier. As soon as the Centaurs were gone, he collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut, blood dripping out of his ears and nose.
Brendan caught him before he could hit the ground. When more Centaurs appeared, he was there to protect his uncle.
August and Pollux helped, and the room came alive with a combination of tachyons and photons, all directed at the chimeras. Brendan’s eyes glowed as he took a blast that almost hit his uncle. The gash it created healed under my very eyes and fumes left his pores, filling the room with greenish smoke.
The fumes didn’t seem to affect the chimeras, but I suspected we wouldn’t be so lucky. I wanted to tell Brendan to tone it down, but I didn’t think it was something he could prevent.
My systems screamed, confirming my worst fears. “Levels of toxicity increasing. Red alert. Evacuate space at once to prevent temporary or permanent incapacitation.”
That dreaded voice showed up when things were most dire and I knew I had to follow its instructions. But the problem was that the blasted voice only ever appeared when a situation was hopeless and I could see no rational way out.
Right now, we were fighting impossible odds. Prince Archibald had earned us a mild reprieve, but his actions had also made the Centaur Herd angrier. We might have been able to push the Centaurs back with a final concentrated effort, but the toxic fumes removed that possibility.
To give Brendan credit, he was obviously trying to control the emissions, straining so hard against his own power that his complexion turned green. But it was still not enough, and Pollux had to move away and drag his mother aside.
August wasn’t as vulnerable to the gas as Pollux, so he tried to compensate for Pollux’s absence. But half-apsid or not, he was still just one man, and he couldn’t fight off a horde of rampaging Centaurs on his own.
Just as August blasted away two Centaurs, a third lashed out at him and hit him in the chest with its massive hooves. August went down like a rock and didn’t move again.
If August had been human, that blow would have killed him. It would have caved his chest in and possibly made his heart explode. A quick scan told me that his alien biology had saved him. But no sensors or implants could offer me a way to give him first aid when we were surrounded by foes. Somehow, I doubted his half-apsid nature would be enough to naturally heal him.
“August!” Pollux cried out, obviously as aware of the problem as I was.
Brendan cursed, a whirlpool of angry crimson light dancing around him, feeding on the Centaur who had attacked August. “Don’t touch him!”
The method worked and distracted the chimera from his original target. It also exposed Brendan to yet another enemy, making it even tougher for him to control his emissions.
Fuck. We were going to die here. I prayed to Tartarus that at least it wouldn’t be for nothing, that Selene and Knox would live and escape.
At the last moment, just as I thought all hope was lost, another blast of power swept through the room, targeting all the Centaurs in sight. It didn’t kill them, not like Archibald’s gaze had, but it did push them away from us.
