Erebus Risen (Through Darkness Book II)

Chapter Two: A Forest Dark

Chapter Two

A Forest Dark

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Inferno, Dante Alighieri

'Down.'

Jagan's yell sliced through her head like a blade, reverberating around the silver helmet.

Aliya pressed the trigger on her left arm and there was a loud hissing noise as she dropped suddenly into the watery abyss of the ocean. Something tore over her head, the shockwave pushing her down even further. She sucked in the thin air circulating around the deep-sea suit as she twisted in the water.

The Shark missile disappeared into the inky black, leaving a trail of taunting bubbles behind.

'It's coming around,' came Jagan's voice again.

Aliya could just make out his silhouette fifty or so metres away, his arms spread wide as the automated buoyancy unit responded to his thoughts via the synaptic neuron relay. The emergency triggers on the suit's outer armour plating were for the sharper manoeuvres, controlling the small pencil thrusters fixed on their heels and wrists.

The dark shadow of the missile swerved round and shot back towards her.

'My thrusters are still charging,' she cried in panic, flicking the trigger back and forth to no avail. The buoyancy unit just wasn't responding fast enough as she soared upwards again, the compression systems whining furiously.

'Don't move,' Jagan roared. She locked her arms together, desperately trying to overcome the surge of panic as the torpedo raced towards her. It was metres away when Jagan fired the deep-sea cannon.

The spinning projectile collided with the Shark missile, and it exploded. Aliya was cast backwards through the water, dropping her rifle as the shockwave jarred her to the bone. The silver plasma rifle was swiftly claimed by the shadows.

'Thanks,' she stuttered. It took them about six seconds to reach each other, gently firing their pencil thrusters.

'We need to get back to the Orb ship,' Jagan said quickly as they guided the suits through the water. They had been separated from the stolen Imperial vessel piloted by Major Vanorra Sandyx when one of the lead ships of the surviving Atroxan factions had mounted a surprise attack. Atrox, the largest of the former slave colonies, a writhing ocean planet second closest to the sun, had been clutched in global civil war for all of the two and a half months since the Eversor missile had destroyed Caelum and shattered the Empire.

The slaves had, at first, begun the attempted conversion of the vast underwater prison complexes into functioning, self-sustaining societies, but the ex-Enforcers had rallied their deserting legions within days and launched an endless series of raids. Naturally, they wanted the Arcanum. But when the Ghost Armada had arrived to oversee the liberation, it had merely exacerbated the situation.

It was an identical story all over the system.

Guerrilla warfare raged across all levels of the new interplanetary 'grand democracy' in General-in-Chief of the Ghost Armada, Caradoc Aquila's, supposed 'Aquilan Dynasty', the successor of the two-millennia old 'Validian Dynasty'.