Lethia ducked low beside Ferral's back and tightened her grip on his belt. He squeezed the throttle, and the sparrow shot down the hill toward the ruined buildings.
Things passed in a blur - walls, old machinery, Cabal war tanks and artillery, and a few aliens, themselves, who roared and gestured. Lethia had the impression of traveling down a canyon, with the structures creating walls on either side.
"First checkpoint," Niki said in her head.
He barely said the words and they were through, flashing beneath the gate and leaving the guards bellowing behind them.
"They're on the alert, now," Niki said, sounding worried. "I hope we can make it."
The buildings parted up ahead. All they could see was a vague curtain of blowing dust.
"Almost to the airfield," Niki said. "Stay down and - "
Something crashed into the sparrow from above, landing squarely on both Guardians. The sparrow, already delicate from being splinted together, cracked into pieces that spun off in various directions. Lethia hit the ground face-first, crushed under the huge boot of a Cabal centurion. Impact. Pain. The taste of sand and blood. A cracking sound.
Then - nothing but deep, quiet darkness.
Ferral slowly crept back to consciousness. Banner's resurrection Light filled his body, melting away the pain of many serious wounds. A groan escaped him.
"Ferral," Banner whispered. "I'm ... I'm so sorry. We're in a bad way."
Ferral opened his eyes, squinting and blinking. He and Lethia lay against the wall a few feet apart in a small, concrete cell. Both of them were chained to the wall and floor with short chains that held them motionless. Ferral's arms were stretched painfully above his head.
The last thing he remembered was blasting through the ruins at top speed on his sparrow. Then ... somehow ... they crashed.
"What did I hit?" he said groggily.
"Nothing," Banner said. "A Cabal centurion landed on us from above. He was using his jet pack, the way they do."
"Stupid aliens," Ferral muttered. "Why did they bother capturing us? Cabal don't take prisoners."
Banner's fear reached him through their bond, cold and paralyzing. "They killed you and Lethia. Then the Centurion picked you up and carried you into their base. There's a whole area dedicated to the Hive. Thralls and acolytes everywhere. A wizard came out, talked to the centurion. It was pleased to see two dead Guardians." Banner's voice broke. He paused to regain control. Ferral's heart sank.
"They said - they said -" Banner hesitated. "Oh, Ferral, they're going to torture you to death over and over for information on the Last City and the Traveler. And then the wizard has a ritual planned to send us to our final deaths. You were right - they've been tracking us since the ship went down. And they destroyed that Vanguard base, too. The Cabal made a deal with this Hive brood to collect extra power. It all has to do with Oryx."
This was worse than Ferral had imagined. He struggled against the chains. They were too short to allow him much leverage, or he could have broken them.
"Ferral?" Lethia said from nearby. Her ghost had resurrected her, too. "Niki says they're going to torture and kill us."
Ferral looked at her. Lethia was dirty, the Light beneath her blue skin flowing sluggishly. Her hair was plastered flat with drying blood and mud. Her blue-green eyes were bright with alarm.
"I'm afraid so," Ferral said. He strained against the chains. "I'm sorry, Lethia. This went really badly."
"How will they torture us?"
"I don't know. Tasers and knives, probably. The Cabal aren't subtle."
"Will they touch us? With their hands?"
He suddenly realized what she had in mind. "You want to Voidwalker them?"
She nodded. "I can kill anything that comes near, but I have to be touching it."
"You think they'd take precautions," Ferral said. "Here's hoping they underestimate us."
Niki appeared in a sparkle of light. "I'm going to sneak out and eavesdrop on the aliens. Maybe I can find a way to help you escape."
"Don't get caught," Ferral warned him.
"Niki, be careful," Lethia implored.
The ghost bobbed in midair. "I'll be so sneaky, they'll never notice me. Be right back."
He vanished. In Ferral's head, Banner groaned softly.
"What?" Ferral thought.
"Niki's trying to impress his Guardian," Banner muttered. "But he's taking risks. He'll get himself killed, at this rate."
Ferral gazed anxiously at the room's single door. So did Lethia.
After several minutes, Niki reappeared. "This is bad," he told them. "The wizard is going to do the interrogating, for one thing, and he won't have to touch you. He's going to sing one of their foul songs to make you tell them everything."
Ferral shuddered. The very worst Hive magic was performed through song, accomplishing everything from mind control to tearing the soul from the body.
"Will that kill us?" Lethia said.
"Depends on the song," Ferral said grimly. "Seeing as they intend to kill us over and over ... it'll probably hurt. A lot."
Niki flew to the staples holding Lethia's chains to the wall. He scanned each one. Then he examined the shackles on her wrists. "These are sealed with an electronic pulse," he announced. "Banner, we might be able to hack them."
Banner appeared, a tiny sphere with an eye in it, and examined Ferral's shackles. "You're right. Read the profile and take it into phase - it's not safe to stay out." Banner followed his own advice, scanning and disappearing.
Niki stayed out, playing different beams over the left shackle - sometimes a wide, thin beam, sometimes a concentrated beam like a laser. Lethia watched him, chewing her lower lip. "Niki, how long will this take?"
"I don't know," he replied. "This is an encryption loop. I have to find the right frequency to open the loop, and it'll take time to dial in. In fact, I - " He froze, looking toward the door. Then he vanished.
The door opened to admit a Cabal centurion, eight feet tall, and so broad in his armor that he barely fit through the doorway. He was followed by a Psion - a small, lithe humanoid alien the Cabal had assimilated into their culture ages previous. The Psion carried a data tablet. The small room suddenly felt even smaller.
Last of all, a Hive wizard floated into the room. Its body was swathed in either chitin filaments or layers of floating cloth, it was hard to tell which. Its three green eyes glowed with malice.
The centurion rumbled at them in his deep voice. The Psion translated in heavily-accented English. "You Risen have fallen into our hands at an opportune time. There is much we wish to learn from you. You will tell us what we ask, or it will be stripped from your mind. At the end, when little remains of your precious Light, you will be consumed for the glory of the Logic of the Sword."
Ferral muttered, "At least they're honest about it."
The wizard's green eyes fixed on him. It floated toward him, but the centurion held out a massive hand, gesturing to Lethia instead, giving Ferral an evil look. Despite the lack of translation, it was obvious what he had said. "Work on the female first. The male will comply more readily."
"Oh no," Lethia whispered as the wizard turned to face her. "Ferral, I don't know anything to tell them!"
"That's not the point," he said. "They'll torture you to make me talk."
Disconcertingly, the Psion muttered in the background, interpreting this for his superiors. The centurion grunted and nodded at Ferral, as if approving that Ferral caught on so quickly.
The wizard stooped toward Lethia and began to chant softly. She cringed and shut her eyes.
Ferral's limbs were restrained, but his Light burned fierce and angry. He had taken responsibility for Lethia, and he would not stand by and watch them destroy her. Beneath this noble thought were others that he didn't want to analyze - thoughts of her glowing eyes, her smile, the way the sunlight glinted on her hair.
"Banner," he thought. "Standby."
He sensed his ghost studying the room, the relative positions of their enemies. "You can kill the Psion, but the centurion and wizard will be harder. You have to land two head shots at once."
Ferral studied their positions, estimating distance. His Void Light enabled him to create daggers of pure energy, which he had learned to hurl outward like bullets. Such feats were normally only performed by Solar hunters, but Ferral had practiced with friends until he could manipulate slippery Void daggers the same way. The trouble was trying to throw them without using his hands. He had done it before, but only one dagger at a time.
He mentally constructed three daggers, their blades sharp enough to divide atoms. He turned them over in his mind, testing their balance and weight. Then he mentally connected each blade with the head of each alien in the room. The knives would go where he intended, as long as he held his focus.
"No," Lethia moaned, her head tossing back and forth. "I don't know anything about the Traveler! I've only been a Guardian a few days! I've never even been to Earth!"
The Hive wizard leaned closer, his chant growing louder and more angry.
Ferral's mental knives all focused on the Hive wizard - and Lethia. He wrenched them back to their original targets. Void knives were unruly this way - the slightest shift of focus would send them the wrong direction.
Lethia struggled against the chains. "I told you, I don't know! What Tower? I swear, I've never been there!" But her eyes flashed toward the wizard, calculating.
The wizard snarled its song in her face. Lethia headbutted it with all her might. Void light flashed. That split second contact had enabled her to steal energy from the wizard, which reeled backward with a screech. The centurion and Psion swayed toward Lethia, ignoring Ferral.
It was the perfect shot. Ferral lined up the knives.
Then Lethia's ghost appeared and opened her bindings.
Ferral glanced at the ghost just as he loosed the shadow knives. Two blades found their marks in the heads of the Psion and centurion. But the third knife veered away from the wizard and passed through Niki's core.
The ghost fell out of the air, struck too suddenly to make a sound. Lethia didn't see, her whole attention fixed on the wizard. Her feet were still chained, but her hands were free. She hurled a ball of Void light straight into the wizard's torso. The energy tore the wizard into burning halves that sizzled away into nothing.
Ferral was the one who cried out - in the shock and anguish of killing her ghost. "No! Stupid, dark-cursed knives!"
Banner appeared and swiftly opened the shackles on Ferral's hands and feet. He said nothing, but horror and anger radiated from him like heat.
Lethia was sitting up, panting, rubbing her wrists. "Niki, can you undo my feet?" She looked around in confusion. "Where'd he go?"
Ferral couldn't even answer. As Banner opened Lethia's shackles, Ferral stumbled across the bodies of the aliens and picked up Niki's fallen shape. The ghost's eye was cold and dark. The ethereal blade had passed through him without leaving a mark.
Ferral handed Niki to Lethia, then slumped against the wall, hands over his face.
"Niki?" Lethia gasped. "What happened to him? Did they shoot him?"
"I did," Ferral whispered. "With a void knife."
Lethia stared at the motionless ghost in her hands. The light beneath her skin died away. Her eyes stopped glowing. For a moment, she looked like a corpse sitting there.
Banner appeared in front of Ferral. "Pull yourself together," he snapped. "Our enemies heard the explosion and they're coming. We have to run."
Ferral couldn't face Lethia. He had just committed an unspeakable atrocity against her. He held out a hand to her, looking only at the door. She took his hand, and hers was cold and clammy. Ferral towed her out the door.
"I should kill you," she whispered.
He didn't answer, because he certainly deserved it. When they returned to the Tower, he'd face a Vanguard inquiry and possibly a court-martial. Ghosts were sacred, and if a Guardian killed one, the penalty was permanent death. He only knew of two cases when it had actually happened. Both culprits had been executed - not by the Vanguard, but by other Guardians delivering justice.
They emerged in a wide hallway. Three Cabal legionnaires rushed them, brandishing long knives. Ferral reached for the weapons he no longer had.
Lethia pushed Ferral aside, ran at the aliens, and whirled among them, stealing life and turning it to void explosions. She fought one-handed, Niki clutched tightly against her.
Ferral trailed behind as Lethia killed everything in their path. He moved in a haze of horror, and it wasn't until they neared the airfield that he realized what Lethia was doing. She wasn't only taking out her rage on the aliens. Every time she absorbed energy from one, her free hand dropped to the ghost. She was pouring him full of Void Light.
Maybe Niki wasn't dead, yet. Maybe there was still a chance. But Ferral hardly dared hope. His shadow blades were simply too lethal.
Banner spoke to him as little as possible. He existed in phase as a spark of rage. He did the bare minimum required to keep his Guardian standing, and that was all. Ferral was too busy running and fighting to do anything about it. Maybe he didn't want to. Maybe he deserved his ghost's wrath.
I'm a ghost killer. I mortalized a fellow Guardian.
They ducked beneath one of the Cabal warships. Banner emerged from phase to communicate with a terminal, lowering a gangplank to allow Ferral and Lethia to board. They clattered up the gangplank and through the ship to the cockpit.
Everything in a Cabal ship was a size bigger than on a human ship. The chairs were too large, the instrument panel at chest-height, the viewport above their heads. Banner interfaced with the ship, but Ferral and Lethia had to rush back and forth, pressing buttons and pulling levers at the ghost's direction.
The aliens surrounded the ship, firing at it, but Banner loaded the ship's energy cannons and fired back. It provided them enough cover to take off and roar into the dusty brown sky.
"This ship is equipped with a jump drive," Banner announced. He hesitated. "Shall I set a course for Earth?"
"Do it," Ferral replied.
Banner faced the instruments, but didn't activate his beam. "Lethia, is there any hope for Niki?"
"I don't know," she said, still clutching the dead ghost.
"Because," Banner said, very slowly, "if he's truly dead, then they'll execute Ferral. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, but ..."
Lethia looked up and met Ferral's eyes. He gazed at her in helpless despair. She held his life in her hands, and he had zero defense. He'd made a mistake and cost her the life of her ghost. There would be no mercy for him in the Tower.
"Set course for Earth," she said.
Banner obeyed.
Ferral slowly climbed into the pilot's seat and strapped himself in with the weird Cabal harness. Lethia took one of the two copilot seats, where she drew in her knees and bowed her head over her ghost.
The ship jumped to near light speed. Ferral watched the alien instruments without seeing them. In a few hours, he'd face his final death. If he was lucky, they wouldn't kill Banner, too.