Tales of the Sun Eater, Vol. 1 by Christopher Ruocchio

Author:Christopher Ruocchio [Ruocchio, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sort1
Published: 2021-04-15T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

As Above, So Below

“Step away from the console with your hands above your head, sirrah,” came a smooth voice from the space behind Halford. “And drop the plasma burner. You’ll not be needing it.”

Halford did not move. He stayed hunched over the command console. Turned out his paranoia was not misplaced. Those noises he’d thought he’d heard inside the rack room had come from inside the rack room.

Vwaa-vwaa! The alarms wailed. Lights red and white flickered and flashed. He could pretend not to have heard his attacker, though what good that would have done was a mystery to him.

“I said turn around with your hands on your head!” the other man shouted.

There was nothing for it. Halford turned, plasma burner still in his hand, and faced the strangest creature he had ever seen. If it was a homunculus, it was of a different stock and race than those Lord Marlowe had dispatched outside hydroponics. Where those creatures were bulky, this man—if man it was—was thin as a rail, his torso cadaverous beneath shoulders too wide and arms too long and gangling. What was worse, the creature’s torso was too short by a third, the legs too long like the arms, giving the impression of a man stretched as if on one of the Chantry’s torture racks.

It wore no helmet, and the only feature that hinted that it was a man and no woman was the voice. That had been deep and commanding. The face was androgyn, bleach-white and hairless, reminding Halford of nothing so much as the alien Cielcin he had seen in war holographs.

But this was no Cielcin. Cielcin did not speak the tongues of men—and at any rate, the Cielcin had horns and eyes large as a man’s fist. They had no nose, no ears, and wore black armor of organic style, evoking the shape of muscle and bone. This creature wore a tattered green coat over what looked like a scratched suit of combat armor that might once have been mirror-polished and smooth.

“Are you Ryude?” Halford asked, recalling the name of the captain Gann and his lot had mentioned.

The creature brandished its weapon, a high-powered phase disruptor. “I said hands up, sirrah!”

Halford raised his hands, forgetting that he was shielded and so relatively safe.

“Drop the weapon!” the stranger said.

Panic gripped him, and he said, “I am Commander Roderick Halford, captain of this ship.” Perhaps that information would give the creature pause. Halford’s eyes flickered from the monster’s face to the blue slit gleaming at the muzzle of its phase disruptor.

“Captain is it, commander?” the fellow sneered. “Then surrender! Step away from the console, and you’ll not be harmed.”

“Who are you?” Halford asked, hands still in the air. “What are you?” He had to do something. Without him, Marlowe and the security team would be at the mercy of the pirates. He had no way of knowing if Kessan and Yuri on the bridge had access to the security cameras given the ship’s current state. He had

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