Impasse

by Andy West

 

Mortality mortality,

evolution’s reality.

 

Swift Might blundered through mires of black sludge and castellated wastes of umber crystal. He shattered impeding formations of ancient minerals with prodigious fists or great gouts of fire. His course ploughed the surface as straight as a furrow, but in truth he was going nowhere. Occasionally he paused to hurl fury and frustration at the indifferent stars.

No matter how fast his progress, harrowing nightmares still trailed the edge of his awareness: bitter betrayal embodied in the guise of Steel Rage, the astonishing ferocity of Eye of Storm’s attack, the ignominy of defeat and flight, the wreck of his fatally damaged craft. Behind all these and other torturing visions lurked the ultimate nightmare. Its scarcely acknowledged names pushed their way into his consciousness; The Nothing, The Dissolution, the greatest failure of all.

Swift Might redoubled his pace. He, who had always taken whatever he wanted and scorned the hope of inferiors, now chased that tiny light to the limit of his strength. Though the odds were against it, he assured himself that somewhere on this forlorn rock there had to be a prospecting team or a raider’s lair, maybe an automated processing plant or a navigation beacon; anything that would enable him to claw his way back to civilisation and plot his revenge.

Pain was Swift Might’s constant companion. Not just from his ragged wounds. He’d tried to isolate the nerve circuits around those, though needling messages of hurt still found their way through. But there was no possible isolation from the aching confusion that riddled his ageing mind. In addition to swelling rates of error, the many extensions and peripheral upgrades, greedily acquired to maintain supremacy, threatened to submerge his faltering core.

Sorely injured and robbed of his high status among the Au-Sek, the great burden of creeping dysfunction was much harder to bear and more difficult to control. Although Swift Might refused to acknowledge the fact, the speed of his action was dulled and his might was no longer so mighty.

His concentration wandered and his urgent scanning of the desolate horizon at all frequencies lapsed. The loss of his fortress home on Ceres sapped him like a physical blow. Standantima, ‘Stands against time’, had been the looming symbol of his dominance. Its soaring blue-black battlements, sibilating shields and massive armament demanded the greatest respect. Traders and raiders from the highest of the alien Worlds had humbled themselves before him, earning mercy or hard judgement at his whim.

Irony gripped Swift Might. Standantima still held back the march of time, but no longer from him. No doubt Eye of Storm ruled there now, while The Dissolution pursued a once-feared chief across this puny asteroid.

His anger was the only force keeping him going. He contemplated the balm of revenge. But spells of dizziness swept across him like violent gusts of wind, bringing a more impenetrable blackness than the spangled dark of space.

Then he was on his hands and knees. He didn’t recall how. His palms pressed against something smooth and flat. He gazed downwards. A glimmer of reflected starlight met his eye. He released some Sonics and a little Ultra-Violet, overlaying their returned waves: methane ice. His perception descended into a pearly domain of refracting planes and scintillating crystals. This entire universe of interacting geometry was utterly at rest. Yet a cold, opaque heart seemed to shift, beckoning….

Swift Might abruptly cut off his signals. Pale vapour had enwrapped his arms. He recoiled, then rose and hurriedly restarted his trek. He chided himself. Above all he had to maintain discipline! Why did those bizarre tales from the primordial people of Earth, so amusing back on Ceres, have to creep up on him now? There were no wraiths beyond The Dissolution. Such a notion was ridiculous. Beyond was just endless nothing, and to fall into that pool of absence was heinous failure.

Yet only minutes later he was falling. He recovered from another lapse in concentration, just too late to avoid breaking through a crumbling ledge. His instinctively outstretched senses revealed a wide ravine and a considerable drop, though this wasn’t a concern in itself. Gravity was too light for a harmful impact. But metallic objects on the floor below triggered a spark of hope, which was quickly doused by a flood of fear.

Swift Might landed flat on his back, yet with a true warrior’s reflex he rolled and leapt up in a split second, shoulder weapons blazing and fists swinging. If his opponents were surprised, they didn’t show it. With impressive speed four Aumons ducked his fire and sprang at him as one. His chop crushed the chest of the first before the other three were upon him. He was ignominiously felled, unable to bring limbs or weapons to bear. He bucked and heaved, but acting like a single entity the remaining Aumons formed an efficient net that clung ever tighter, pinning him fast to the ground.

It was physical impasse!

 

...the rest of this story is available in the anthology disLOCATIONS. To read it order your copy here now!