Humanity Rising (The Skyward Saga Book 5) by A.R. Knight

Author:A.R. Knight [Knight, A.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Key Books
Published: 2019-02-08T22:00:00+00:00

15 Moonfall

The lift opens into a top level entryway that may have been beautiful at some point, but that is now a wreck of shredded furniture, with a great, broken hole where I think a door once stood. The colored walls - bright blues and yellows - of the rounded atrium are pocked with scorch marks, and the light above, a bronzed flavor coming from a full, somehow whole sphere dangling from the ceiling, washes the scene in a hazy cast, as though we’re stepping into a memory and not the full, deadly now.

“Looks like we’re a little late to this party,” Viera says as we leave the lift.

“Unfortunately,” Gar adds.

“I prefer not getting shot,” I say. As soon as we’re all out of the lift, its doors shut behind us and the thing starts its descent. Soon we’ll have prisoners and more Sevora arriving up here. “Let’s keep moving, before this gets complicated. Viera, Gar, you two take point.”

Which leaves me with Malo, and Lan bringing up the rear guard. I figure an Oratus on either side is going to keep us safest, especially as we move on from the atrium into a wide hallway - big enough for the four-clawed lizards - with plenty of side rooms. There’s more evidence here of a crawling battle, with miner burns etching staccato patterns into the sides, floor, and ceiling around us.

Something larger detonated not far ahead either; its orange plasma burns marking a halo around our path and leaving a once-molten groove across the ground.

“Jel’s forces came with firepower,” Lan hisses as we go, slowly. “Be cautious. One explosive thrown back our way could kill us all.”

“They’re fighting for their lives,” I reply. “They’ll use everything they have.”

I know I would. I know, if I was fighting for the last bit of humanity, I would throw every weapon, every soul I had into the battle even if there was no hope of winning.

The hallway ends in a full-width door, one that’s also been forced open. Apparently Nasiya’s forces weren’t able to use the tight quarters to finish the fight. We stalk up close, bunch up and look through into the vast space on the other side.

Big enough to be the other half of the sphere, with the neat translucent wall effect going on through the entire ceiling and along the downward sloping side away from us, Nasiya’s private docking bay has plenty of size. And plenty of bodies.

We’re too late to see most of the action; like the lobby, smoking corpses litter the ground both directly in front of our doorway and at the boarding ramp of the ship, a great diamond of a thing with a hull that shifts colors even as we stare at it. At first I think the changing is random, but then I realize that it’s playing to the surroundings, and the yellow-orange streaks appearing are the result of the ship catching the flashes of the Vincere bombardment outside.

“Beautiful,” Malo says softly.

“Sure,” Viera replies. “If you want to call it that.

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