Heretical Edge

Fahsteth’s ship wasn't completely unarmed, of course. It had more than its share of cannons and the like, as well as heavy shielding. Jacob may not have had most of his memories, but something deep inside him said that the man wouldn't have been caught without weapons if he was naked in the shower. Which, to be honest, was an image he seriously didn't need. And yet, he would have traded being forced to watch that for an entire afternoon, and take studious notes, over what he was looking at right now. Seeing that Fomorian ship looming in front of them made his breath catch with terror. For a brief moment, he thought this had to be a nightmare. And it was, but a waking one. This particular nightmare was really happening.

So yes, they weren't completely helpless. They had weapons. But not enough. Not nearly enough. Jacob didn't know exactly why he had such a strong certainty about that. He just did. Maybe it was from simple survival instinct. Even with his memories being thoroughly broken, his brain was so aware of how dangerous these creatures were that it wouldn't let him forget that. They were simply so much of a threat that it stuck in his memory even when everything else was erased.

If he hadn’t already been terrified of the sight before them, that realization would’ve done the trick. The danger of the Fomorians transcended even his lost memories.

“Gaia,” he snapped immediately without thinking, even as the Fomorian ship began to turn more fully in their direction like some sort of curious sea creature that had just noticed lunch arriving, “ask the ship if we have energy to make another jump right now! It doesn’t matter how far or how dangerous it is, just away from here!” They had been heading for the nearby gas giant to dredge the atmosphere for what they needed to fill up their tanks, but obviously, that wasn't going to happen now. The Fomorians weren’t about to simply stand by and wait politely for them to get what they needed. And more were probably already on their way. They would immediately act to deal with this incursion into what they saw as their space. Not that there was any space in existence that they didn't see as theirs.

On the screen, the Fomorian vessel was already rapidly approaching. They were still too far away to start attacking, but it wouldn't take long. The thing was about three times the size of Fahsteth’s ship (they really did need to come up with a new name for it at some point when they weren’t about to be attacked by some of the most dangerous monsters in the universe), and didn’t look at all like any ordinary vessel. As Gaia had noted, it looked like something that belonged in the ocean, a mix between a giant whale and a squid. The front half had the whale shape, complete with an actual mouth large enough to literally eat other vessels, and a series of a dozen eyes on long stalks sticking off of its face that could bend around to peer in every direction. The rear half was the squid part, with ten or so enormous tentacles slithering about through empty space, clearly eager to grab and rip apart anything they could. The main part of the ship/creature was about three hundred feet long, and about half that amount wide. Each separate tentacle was another hundred feet long, though it appeared that they could retract to about a third of that size or extend to almost twice if they wanted to. They varied in width between about six feet for the smallest, most brittle-looking one, to twenty feet wide for the thickest. Maybe they inflated and deflated as needed? All of them had what were very clearly incredibly sharp metallic spikes or spines sticking out of them. Jacob was willing to bet they were capable of punching through the hulls of most ships with those things. They would drive right through the metal and tear them open like a can to get at the biological material within.

Gaia took barely a moment before shaking her head. “We used everything we had to get to this point. The vessel says we need to at least scoop the bare minimum of gasses necessary to make another jump.” Before Jacob could even ask how long that would take, she had already anticipated the question. “Five minutes once we get close enough to start taking what we need. There's no other way around it. I'm sorry.”

The news made Jacob exhale. He looked at the screen, where a warning had popped up that the Fomorian vessel would be within firing range in just over sixty seconds.They didn’t have time to get away, to put anything all that useful into motion, hell they barely had time to think at all. “Five minutes after we get past those guys. It’ll take us ten minutes just to reach the gas giant in the first place. Fifteen minutes. We have to survive for fifteen minutes.” It was a daunting prospect, to say the least. Still, he wasn’t about to panic, not now. Panicking wouldn’t accomplish anything other than getting himself and the others killed. Or worse, taken alive. If they were going to have even the slightest chance of getting through this, he absolutely could not allow that fear to take over.

Instead, he looked at Gaia. “The ship should have defensive maneuvers programmed into it. Tell it to protect itself and keep heading for the planet. The only way we're getting out of here is if we get what we need.” With that much said, he turned to the nearby console, fingers dancing over it. He’d spent enough time exploring the controls of this ship, with help from Gaia’s own technomancy to make sure he didn’t do anything wrong, to at least know how to do this much.

A second later, even as the sound of the ship’s weapons powering up filled the bridge, a brief flash of bright light resolved itself into the other Necromancer, Laein. The tiny figure jolted in surprise, spinning with her arms up defensively while snapping, “The screams of your souls as I tear them from your limp flesh shall become the chorus of my inevitable victory over the mourning children you’ve left tending your--” She stopped short as she saw Jacob and Gaia, blinking in confusion. “Oh?” Then her gaze moved past them to settle on the screen, seeming to shrink back in on herself, eyes widening as the same word escaped her, this one much more subdued as she immediately grasped the actual situation. “... oh…”

“Yeah,” Jacob agreed, “oh.” The countdown showed less than fifteen seconds before they would be in range of the Fomorian vessel. “You gonna help fend these guys off or stay in your cell? Five seconds to decide.” It wasn’t exactly fair to throw that at her, but they didn’t have time for fair.

And, to her credit, Laein didn’t hesitate. “They’ll kill all of us,” she snapped immediately. “I’ll help.” The words came without her usual bravado. She was clearly terrified, but knew there was no other choice. The Fomorians didn’t take prisoners, and they weren’t about to let the girl go just because she didn’t actively oppose them. If they overran this ship, she would be torn apart, her biological remains used to create more of their creatures in order to kill even more people. Those monsters saw everything that wasn't part of them as abominations to be torn apart, melted down, and used as building blocks for more of their armies.

That did raise the question of whether they should release Fahsteth and see if he could help. After all, he would have a vested interest in getting through this alive and unFomorianized. But something told Jacob that the risk wasn't worth it. If they let him out, he might do everything he could to survive, but what he did could very well involve throwing them to the wolves. He would get himself out, that was all.

No, if Fahsteth was going to end up surviving, it would be because the rest of them had as well. He could sit in his cell and wait. This whole situation was dangerous enough without needing to worry about what kind of knife that bastard would shove in their backs.

“Gaia, keep the ship doing its job,” Jacob instructed, moving to stand in the middle of the bridge while staring at the incoming Fomorians. Already, several dozen holes had appeared in that whale-like creature, revealing what appeared to be fleshy missiles that were preparing to launch. “Laein, I’m handing off forty ghosts to you. Split them into two teams and have them patrol the ship. If any of those weapons break through the hull or attach themselves, push them back out. And uhh… try to deal with anything they release. The ghosts don’t need atmosphere or anything, so it should be safe for them to be there while the ship locks down those areas.” He was speaking quickly, while already focusing on his own work. While Laein was doing damage repair, he was going to do what he could to minimize how much of it happened in the first place. Which, granted, was going to be… complicated.

Trusting the other two to focus on doing their part, Jacob closed his eyes and summoned forth every ghost he had. Besides the forty he was passing off to Laein, that meant he had over two hundred spirits at his command. At the head of those spirits was the man who called himself Manakel. That was all he knew about himself. When Jacob’s memory had been wiped, so had that of all his ghosts, aside from their names. They knew what they were called, and that was all. Well, almost all. This Manakel, whoever he was, did seem to know a fair bit about Necromancy. They had speculated that he might have been Jacob’s former teacher before he died. But either way, whatever and whoever this Manakel really was, he was clearly experienced. So, Jacob put him in charge of this small army of ghosts. Directly behind him were the four human ghosts, Jason, Chas, Emily, and Kaleigh. None of them remembered anything more than their names either, but they did have their own powers. Actual non-ghost powers. That in itself should have been impossible, but Jacob’s testing over these past few days had proven it beyond a doubt. And it wasn’t just them. More of his ghosts were capable of utilizing gifts they would have had in life, but should have vanished with their deaths. Ghosts, as a rule, couldn’t use the powers belonging to their living selves. But Jacob’s could. Somehow, they retained those powers. Those four in particular had a wide assortment of the gifts, proving they had almost certainly been part of what Gaia said was the Crossroads organization. They had been Boschers. And now, they were ghosts. Obviously, there was a whole story there, a story neither they nor Jacob remembered. But for the moment, the only thing that mattered was that they could help fight these monsters.

Jacob had not summoned his ghost army into the bridge, or anywhere else inside the ship. They had instead appeared on top of the vessel. They were still within its shield, so they were carried along with the ship as it hurtled headlong toward the incoming Fomorians. With Manakel at the front, those four teenage humans assembled directly behind him, and the rest spread out from there, the summoned ghosts stared that way just as the first missiles were launched from that enemy ship-creature. Even now that they were technically within firing range, the Fomorian vessel was still barely visible. It was little more than an oblong-shaped dot in the distance for most of them, though a few possessed powers allowing them to see much further. In that case, being able to see what was coming a bit better wasn’t something they particularly enjoyed. But they did use it to track those first missiles. The weapons were each about fifteen feet long and two feet wide, with deadly blades at the tip that were capable of punching through ship hulls. Within those missiles, the ship’s computer had already determined, were dozens of Fomorian ‘eggs’ that would hatch apart and grow into dangerous beasts meant to rip through any living creatures in their way.

There were, in that first volley, fifty missiles. The ship’s cannons came to life immediately, shooting down three of them just like that. But it wasn’t nearly enough. Another round of cannonfire took down two more, even as the incoming weapons took their own evasive actions. They weren’t simple straight-forward missiles. They had brains inside those things, brains that were capable of seeing and reacting to being attacked. These missile things weaved through the laser fire, seeming to anticipate where the counterattacks would be quite effectively. The third round of defensive fire only managed to take down one more. Three rounds of shots, and they had taken out six of the fifty missiles. Worse, another round with just as many had already launched just behind the first. There was enough time for perhaps two more defensive volleys before the first round would reach their target. Not nearly enough to actually stop the weapons. In a few moments, dozens of the things would tear through the ship and disgorge their eggs.

Or they would have, had this ship been operating only within its own capabilities. But that was when the ghosts on top of the hull made their own first moves. The lead missiles were close enough for them to see, and act. Chas, a boy who was clearly Latino despite the blueish-gray coloring of his ghost self, extended his hands and summoned a large ball of ice, just a bit taller than his own body. As soon as it was formed, he grunted and sent it flying that way.

That, of course, would have been far too slow to do much against the missiles, which were easily evading actual laser fire, let alone a relatively small frozen orb. But the moment it began to float away from the ship, Kaleigh focused her own attention on it. A bit of effort made the ice ball vanish from where it was, reappearing directly in the middle of the largest clump of biological missiles, barely ten seconds before what would have been their inevitable impact.

Once she had managed that, it was Jason’s turn. His own gaze centered on the ice ball, as he instantly expanded it to five or six times its initial size. Instead of being about six feet in diameter, the thing was suddenly almost thirty-five feet, without any warning at all. Instantly, four more missiles were caught in that ice, frozen in place before they could go any further.

But that was hardly enough, and it wasn’t the end of the Boscher ghosts’ defense. Because then it was their last member, Emily’s turn. In that exact moment, just as the ice ball became so much larger, she made the thing explode. It burst apart like a popped balloon, forming a wide mist that filled up the entire space that the first missile volley was flying through. A mist which she and Chaz both focused similar gifts on. Those gifts allowed them to take a single physical property, in this case the mist’s ability to slow down things moving through it, and greatly amplify its effect. All of the missiles immediately had their momentum vastly reduced, moving along at a crawl. Too slow to evade what would have been the final round of cannonfire. But in this case, those lasers all found their marks, and that was followed by another round, and another, all before the missiles could escape that mist that was keeping them almost stationary.

Just like, the entire first volley of incoming egg-laying weapons had been torn apart before they could reach their target. Unfortunately, the second round was right behind them. By that point, Gaia had taken more direct control of those cannons, and her own keen mind allowed her to better anticipate where the missiles would try to evade. With their next round of cannonfire, twelve of those next fifty were decimated, with enough seconds remaining to shoot several more times. All before the Boscher ghosts had even become directly involved in that next volley.

Unfortunately, the missiles weren’t going to just let themselves be destroyed. Instead of waiting to impact the ship itself, twenty-five of the remaining thirty-eight weapons instantly released their contents. Hundreds of Fomorian monster eggs burst forth, filling that open space. And they didn’t stay there where they could be shot down. About a quarter of those eggs immediately burst apart, exploding with enough concussive force to propel the remaining ones forward.

The ship’s defensive cannons did what they could, but in the end, over a hundred eggs landed against the hull and broke apart. Fomorian minion monsters burst forth, growing to their full size almost immediately. There was a wide assortment of creatures, of all shapes, spread all across the ship. Several looked like Earth Praying Mantises, though they stood almost eight feet tall. Two more appeared to be warthogs with spider-like legs and crab pincers. There was a ten-foot tall bear creature with heavily-armored skin and the trunk of an elephant it could use to grab and yank targets toward its wide, yawning mouth full of several rows of dangerous teeth. And so on it went, every Fomorian beast seemingly worse than the last. Half of them immediately began to try to rip through the hull of the ship, while the remaining ones focused on attacking the ghosts. Specifically, they targeted the Boschers, intent on making sure the next volley of missiles, already on its way, could make it through their defenses.

Fortunately, the Boscher ghosts weren’t alone, and protecting them was largely what the remaining contingent was for. Even as the Fomorian monsters tried to descend upon Chas, Emily, Jason, and Kaleigh, the rest of the ghosts fought back. They, led by Manakel himself, would defend them, while those four focused on stopping those new missiles.

As the fighting continued furiously outside, Gaia continued to work with the ship’s computer, her power working to boost its own ability. It was quite capable on its own, but the Fomorian missiles having living and vaguely sentient brains inside her gave them an edge over automated defenses. Gaia made up for that, and linking herself into the system that way made up for her normally slower thought processes. She and the ship's computer were basically one, her creativity and ability to adjust to the missiles' own actions combined with the computer’s processing speed.

In a way, it was similar to how the Fomorians combined things, but not nearly as obscene.

Between the ghosts outside, and Gaia working with the ship’s defenses within, they were effectively holding off the vast majority of the potential intruders. One small group of eggs managed to break through a spot in the lower decks, but Laein was ready for them. As soon as one of her pairs of patrolling ghosts found the hatching eggs, she immediately warned Jacob. Then she sent the rest of her small army that way to slow them down before they could attack any vital ship systems. They had immediately begun to head for the engine room, but the ghosts harried and blocked them at every turn. There had been five creatures initially, but two were killed by Laein’s squad, while a third was heavily injured.

Normally, the ship would have used internal weapons to finish the job, but all of its power was being diverted to the outside weapons and shields. Rather than risk allowing more to get through by taking any of that energy away from those efforts, Jacob made his way there himself. He couldn't use the onboard teleportation system for the same reason that they couldn't activate the internal defenses. All of that power was needed outside. Fortunately, the ghosts had managed to keep the intruders busy just long enough for him to run there, including a quick drop through the lift shaft before using his concussive staff to slow his descent right at the end.

Once he was there, the two remaining intact monsters and the half-dead one dragging itself behind didn't stand a chance. He obliterated them before they could adjust to the fact that they weren't simply dealing with ghosts anymore.

All of that was well and good, obviously. Unfortunately, that was merely the first few volleys of long range missiles. They had not yet come within close-range of the Fomorian ship, with all the vast dangers that presented. And they were going to have to. There was no other way to deal with it. The Fomorian vessel was faster than they were. Even if they wanted to turn and run to find another gas giant they could fuel up at for a jump, the monsters would overrun them first. No, their only chance was to get to this planet and take the few minutes it would require to scoop what they needed for a new jump.

Which meant surviving not only a direct pass through the worst these creatures could throw at them, but continuing to survive for as long as it took to get what they needed. Jacob might have lost most of his memories, but he retained enough to know that this was a very bad position to be in.

A quick check with the nearby monitor after he had killed those last couple intruders revealed that they were about thirty seconds away from being in close enough range for the enemy ship to start using its other weapons. Which was a thought that made him grimace. These living missiles full of monster eggs were bad enough as it was. They were barely holding those off even with everything they could do. How well were they going to hold out against more direct attack? He kept having flashes of images and thoughts about what sorts of things those monsters could do. If nothing else, the tentacles could grab their ship and completely stop it in place.

And if it came down to an actual living Fomorian making a physical appearance on the ship, he honestly wasn't sure if they could survive more than a moment or two. Worse, this was an entire Fomorian ship. It was likely there would be more than one of the bastards making an appearance. If the thought of finding one by itself was enough to give him doubt, the prospect of more completely erased any confidence he might've had. No, they could not handle fighting a Fomorian like that in close quarters, let alone more than one. And even if they could, the second they diverted their attention toward doing that, the ship's defenses would fall and they would be ripped apart.

No, they couldn't let it come to that. If it did, the fight was already over. They had to get around the monster vessel, had to slow it down. They needed to distract the monsters on board. But how could they do that? How could they give it something else to focus on while they slipped past? It wasn't like there were any other ships out here. It was just the two of them, and all those living missiles.

Living missiles.

It was a stupid thought. It was a crazy thought. It was an absurd thought. But it was a thought, and right now, they needed any of those they could get.

As soon as it occurred to him, Jacob gave a soft gasp. He straightened up, and looked down at the dead creatures spread through the corridor. Quickly, even as the timer counted down the last twenty seconds before they would be in direct range, he closed his eyes and focused as hard as he had ever focused in his life.

At least, he assumed there had been no other times when it was this important. But for all he knew, he did the sort of thing all the time.

With his Necromancy, Jacob reached out past the confines of the ship. He felt for death out there in open space. There it was, one of the incoming missiles that a laser had cut through. It was drifting off out of the way. Then there was another, and another. He felt them. He felt their deaths.

And that meant he could use them.

The missiles began to move again, this time under his direction. Inside, he could feel the creatures nestled in their eggs. They were still alive, quite capable of surviving the vacuum of space. But even as the missiles serving as their cradles began to reorient themselves, he deliberately withdrew the nutrient-carrying umbilical cord from each of the eggs forceful enough to make them crack a bit.

Soon, no less than thirty-five of the dead Fomorian biological missiles had been redirected toward the monster ship they had come from.

Jacob could feel the Fomorians, or their lackeys on that ship, trying to take control of the missiles once more. They were sending biological directives to the brains somehow. But the brains were dead. The brains didn't listen to them anymore. They only listened to him, and he was telling them to attack the place they had come from.

The vessel itself was far from helpless, of course. It immediately defended itself, sending out a wide spray of explosive stinger quill things from its mouth while deploying some sort of gas from pores along its body. On top of that, bursts of superheated plasma erupted from other parts. Between all of that, three quarters of the repurposed missiles were annihilated.

But a few did get through, colliding with the vessel that had birthed them (probably literally). They tore into its side, disgorging their eggs. That in itself would've meant nothing, given the eggs would hatch into Fomorian monsters who listened to their creators. But Jacob had intentionally cracked the eggs and began the birthing process early. They were intended to hatch after making it onto an enemy vessel. Now, as they were partially born already, the impact was enough to kill them. Helped, of course, by the fact that the missiles were already heavily damaged. They couldn't shield the eggs within as well as they normally would have.

All of which meant the monsters, as they fell out into the interior of the Fomorian vessel, were already dead. Even now, Jacob could feel them. He took control, ordering them to follow their normal directive in doing as much damage as they could, but this time to the ship that had created them.

They probably wouldn't do very much damage, honestly. But they were a distraction. And he had already taken control of another volley of dead missiles, sending them out as well. The Fomorians had to split their attention between those incoming zombie missiles and the ones that had already penetrated. Which meant that Gaia and the ghosts outside were able to be even more effective at stopping what new missiles did come toward them. And that gave Jacob more ammunition to play with.

One of the tentacles did swing their way as they came within range, but Jacob directed the latest volley of zombie missiles that way. Five of them collided with the large appendage, the impact carrying it just far enough out of the way for their ship to slip past with a slight graze. Even then, that tiny blow was enough to knock half their shields out. A direct, forceful hit would have completely destroyed them.

Apparently the tentacle held eggs as well, because that glancing blow managed to deposit a handful across the top of the ship. The ghosts up there took care of most, though a couple made it in and were dealt with by Laein. She assured Jacob over the ship’s intercom that she could handle it, and that he should continue focusing on whatever he was doing, because it was clearly working.

The Fomorian vessel was thoroughly distracted by then. Over a dozen of their own redirected missiles had collided with it and sent out zombie versions of their monsters. Zombies that were attacking them. True, they didn't really stand a chance once the Fomorians involved themselves directly. Jacob could tell that much well enough by looking through his controlled zombies’ eyes as they were easily ripped apart. But the distraction gave their ship the opening it needed to slip past and head straight for the gas giant.

That tentacle that had tried to grab them wasn't done yet, however. Recovering from those last missile strikes as its own built-in defenses destroyed the zombie creatures that had been deposited within it, the thing reoriented itself before lashing out once more. It was clearly angry now, stretching to grab the passing ship before it could fully escape the thing’s range.

Fortunately, there were no more incoming missiles for the moment. So, Gaia was able to direct all of the laser cannons against the tentacle as it came toward them. Shot after shot collided with the thing. Most barely singed it, but a couple shots made it through. And, thanks to what he had learned through the zombie creatures that had landed inside the tentacle before they had been destroyed, Jacob knew something else. He knew where this tentacle’s brain was. So, he used the intercom to the bridge and told Gaia exactly where to aim.

That did the trick. It took eight more shots, and the tentacle was almost within range of grazing their shields once more, but that last laser cut through its brain and the tentacle immediately went limp.

Or rather, it briefly did. Then Jacob had it. The Fomorians loved using living creatures so much. Their entire society was built around that. Every bit of technology they used was biological. Their ships, their weapons, their tanks, everything was alive.

Which meant that when those things were dead, a powerful enough Necromancer could turn them against their makers. That was what Jacob did yet again at that moment. The dead tentacle immediately swerved around and slammed with all its strength into the whale-like front half. It collided so hard with itself that the vessel reeled to the side. Jacob could just imagine the alarms going off in there.

Immediately, the tentacle reared back to strike again. But three more of its brethren intervened. Soon, they were all struggling, the Fomorian ship twisting this way and that, rolling and writhing like an animal as its own tentacle struggled to keep attacking the very vessel it had extended from.

Jacob couldn't help himself. Baring his teeth a little, he snarled, “Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself.” If there was a way he could've figured out to get his zombie tentacle free enough to give the Fomorian vessel a noogie, he definitely would have.

As it was, he would just have to be satisfied with the fact that they had managed to pass right through its range and come out the other side on their way toward the gas giant. He could feel his power over it slipping. He didn't have unlimited range, after all. Soon, he lost the last bit of control he had. But by that point, they were far enough away that the Fomorians could only send more missiles at them. Which they weren’t about to do, not now that he had shown how easily he could turn those missiles back on their source.

Obviously, that wouldn't last forever. They were already regrouping and turning to give chase. And this time, Jacob was pretty sure they would be more careful about how they attacked. They would have realized what was happening and would find ways to hit them that didn't involve giving him more ammo to work with. He wasn't sure what that would be, exactly, but he did remember enough about these monsters to know that they wouldn’t be beaten that easily.

But that was okay. They just had to survive long enough to scoop what they needed, now that they had managed to get through the part where they had to go directly past the monstrous ship. If they could just stay as far ahead of it as possible, there was a chance they might actually survive all this and escape.

Which, naturally, was the moment the ship’s computer began to sound the alarm that two more Fomorian vessels had arrived in the system and were closing in.