The Starchild

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

But they also say that a mother can hear the screams of their child dying in wars on the rim of the tenth sphere expansion hundreds of lightyears away, if only in her dreams.

And this is no ordinary child. Its psychic cry as it tore into being like a lance into the soft underbelly of a pig was heard throughout the universe. It was strong enough to pierce the isolation nest in the nose of the ship and give the Starseer, Rulf, writhing nightmares, wracking him ever more violently as they passed by the planet. Until finally he came to the feet of Lord Valdor and begged him to investigate.

Valdor didn’t need much convincing. He could feel the cry himself, squeezing at his hindbrain. He’d dealt with many a witch that had tried to allure and befuddle him, many an alien that had tried to enslave him, and many a renegade priest who had tried to dominate him, all across the nine spheres. But never before had he felt a cry like this. Deadly, yet desperate. A warning, yet a plea. So he ordered Sparra to take them down. 

It would have been easy to identify the source once they had made planetfall even without Rulf’s guidance. It was at the epicentre of a seven-kilometre exodus of citizens from the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Valdor wasn’t happy that it had turned out to be a temple. Religion, in his experience, was too often twisted to nefarious purposes. This one was dedicated to the Hanged Man, a cult from the crucible worlds that had somehow survived the seed ships and taken root once again, especially in the seventh sphere. A statue of its patron, with its pierced feet and hands, dangled from the steeple in place of a bell. 

Alonsé paused at the threshold.

“I shall stay ‘ere,” she said. Valdor raised an eyebrow, and she waved her multi-articulated fingers at him. “Ze sanctuary field is still operational, and I will be in some discomfort with all of my augmetics.”

Valdor scowled and tugged at his beard, but he could not compel her. She followed the quest of all Praxis Monks, to try and discover a truer purpose to their creation than merely the battle they constantly felt drawn to. She had attached herself to Valdor’s retinue without any explanation, and could unattach herself without notice. Though it was confusing and mysterious, it was also an honour to have her with them, and she was a comforting presence when things started to get hairy.

Which they would. They inevitably did. But here, in particular, Valdor already had a nagging sense of foreboding. 

“Just you and me then,” he said to Godric, weaponmaster of his house. “It’s times like this I wish Orinn hadn’t gone chasing bounties.”

“I thought he went chasing girls?” said Godric.

“What’s the difference,” growled Valdor. 

Godric slung his pulse rifle across his back, its energy blasts little more than a bad sunburn when nullified by the sanctuary field inside the temple – if he could get any shots off at all. Instead, he drew a short blade, and a pistol of a strange design. It was bronze, with the thinnest pipe of a barrel Valdor had ever seen. 

“What’s that?” he said.

“Projectile-based revolver,” said Godrick, grinning through his greying goatee. “It launches actual, physical shells, can you believe it? Picked it up in an antique store.”

“So long as it works,” said Valdor, drawing his heirloom mace.

He broached the temple with Godrick in tow. It was an ancient building, the plaster peeling away to reveal rebar that was so rusted it gave it the appearance of wooden beams. The autolights flickered then failed to engage, leaving only the light of the votary candles in sconces along the wall, which all added to the pastiche. 

Valdor stopped short of the step up to the chancel. The nave was full of pews, but they had not been aligned at regular intervals. Something like a great gust of wind had pushed the ones at the front to crowd those further back. Valdor could feel himself right on the threshold of that force.

“The prodigal father returns!” cried a voice, causing Valdor and Godric to whip around.

A woman was standing at the pulpit. She was wearing an old-fashioned wedding dress, complete with high collar and veil that all but masked her face. But when she smiled, they could see that her teeth were rotten and missing, and the lines to the side of her mouth were deeply creased.

She had ripped the front of her bodice, and then some. The deep gashes on her stomach wept thick, greying blood.

“Who are you?” commanded Valdor.

“The Mother,” said the woman.

Godric scoffed, which earned him a look from Valdor, but the woman grinned.

“Born through me, but not of me,” she said. “See for yourself.” 

She gestured towards the altar. A carrier was sitting atop the stone slab, a small metal rectangle draped with a thick purple cloth.

“Do you want me to do it?” said Godrick.

“No,” said Valdor, waving him off. “But watch her.” 

Valdor stepped up and around the altar. There was nothing remarkable about the box, barring a few dents in the sides. The woman could have picked it up from the back of any store. Nothing squirmed or chattered beneath the cloth. The psychic scream piercing Valdor’s brain was the only indication the woman wasn’t lying to them. Valdor reached out and, with some finesse, grabbed the corner of the cloth. He only meant to peel it back just a little, to see a hint of toes, or a heel. 

Valdor had once had the unfortunate experience of being in a tightly pressed corridor engagement aboard ship when someone had the bright idea to lob a phosphorus grenade without warning. Valdor had taken it straight to the face. The blinding white light had felt like it had wrapped itself halfway around the back of his eyeballs.

That didn’t have anything on this. It was less than a single speck of sand in the deserts of Ilorush compared to this.

A great golden light, something like a tentacle or maybe a stream of water, rushed out and smacked into Valdor, blowing him out of his body, grabbing him, then ripping him back through his own corpse and into the void within the carrier. There he fell for three years, with no sense of direction. The golden light was totally encapsulating.

At first the light was warm, the way hot water felt on your hands when you’d been handling snowballs for too long. All too quickly it began to burn, but not consume. Valdor was somehow stuck forever in the process of the very top layer of skin cells combusting. 

He heard himself screaming, but couldn’t remember starting, or even feeling like he had to. He felt disconnected from himself. His eyes burnt out, his mind liquifying. Would he die with it, or be forever trapped in the child’s golden embrace?

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the light shut off completely, and Valdor collapsed onto the cold concrete of the floor. Godrick was fumbling with the cloth while keeping his eyes covered and his face averted. Then he knelt at Valdor’s side.

“Godrick,” said Valdor. His voice came out rasping, strained. “What did you see?”

“See?” said Godrick. “Nothing, milord. You seemed captivated. Mesmerised. You were just standing there, eyes glazing over, but I didn’t see any reason why. Thought it best if I broke the connection.”

“That’s all?” said Valdor. “You didn’t see… a glow? A golden light pouring forth?”

“Milord?”

Godrick shook his head, confusion and worry playing across his brow. 

“But you saw, didn’t you,” said the woman. “The one we’ve waited for.”

Her grin was sickening, her laugh more of a throaty gurgle.

Godrick kept furtively glancing at the carrier, too shaken to engage with it fully, and then back at Valdor. As a loyal member of House Valdor, he knew he was supposed to believe, to make a sign at the mention. But he was also lowborn, pulling himself up from the worst depths of a hive city to serve Valdor, and that kind of bootstrapped upbringing didn’t much lend itself to relying on prophecies and ancient spirits. But his lord had that look upon his face again

“Is it true, Milord?” said Godrick.

“Yes,” said Valdor. 

He had seen. That unassuming metal box was somehow containing a god of world-ending power. 

“Yes, Godrick, I believe it is. The Starchild. I believe it.”

“Val,” Alonsé called from just outside the vestibule, slender finger pressed to the receiver bead in her ear. “Sparra is reporting three ships inbound. Troop carriers.”

“They want to take my child!” the woman cried. “You must not let them.”

“Milord,” said Godric, in a voice that was only half his own.

“The holy ghost!” screeched the mother, abasing herself before Godric. 

Valdor looked over. Rulf’s face hung like a semi-translucent sheet in front of Godric’s, lips and nose and eyes aligning. Godric moved and spoke, but it was the projection of the starseer through the void that directed him like a suit.

“She is right, Milord,” said the two in one. “You will not be able to destroy the child, no matter what you try. Nor can we allow it to fall into the hands of those who now approach. We must take possession of the child. We must take it home. My fellow seers will help us with what needs to be done once there.”

“You told them all?” said Valdor. “The whole galaxy knows now?”

“You know my connection with them,” said Rulf. “Our knowledge is shared. Milord, have I made a mistake in my counsel? You know what we must do.”

The projection faded, and Godrick staggered and shook himself. Valdor looked at the carrier once again. Rulf had been right, of course. But why him? He would never have volunteered for a burden such as this. He had just been passing by. He was too old to be playing at Father. Probably too old to be playing at lord of his house, had been for a long while now, and what a moment to choose to finally come out of his denial. Old wounds throbbed in every part of his body. He heard the adjustments of his exo-plate compensating for the weakness of the flesh beneath.

“Landing,” came Alonsé’s report. “Contact in three.”

Valdor roared in frustration. But he grabbed the carrier, his powered gauntlets working to take the weight in one hand, and strode for the double doors, Godric at his heels.

“Take me with you!” cried the woman. “You wouldn’t separate a babe from its mother, would you?”

“Your role in this is now complete,” Valdor called over his shoulder.

The woman didn’t like that answer. She rushed from the pulpit and jumped at Valdor’s back. Valdor spun, bringing his great mace around. Her body bent around the head, then was sent crashing into the wall of the temple. She fell, breaking at the waist over one of the pews. Valdor did not feel sorry for her. He suspected there was nothing within her to break, that she had been a model and he had been caught up in a great, farcical play. But he didn’t have time to check.

Alonsé had retreated to the nave. As Valdor and Godric came around the partition, several bursts of bright blue plasma smacked overhead and instantly ate away the ornate stonework. Valdor crouched against the doorframe opposite Alonsé, unclipping his helmet from his belt and slamming down the visor. He growled as the tactical display took a moment to flicker on.

“Seventeen?” he said. 

“Honestly, Val,” said Alonsé. “When are we getting zat resupply from the munitorum? You’d be better off using your own, old man eyes.”

“Sorry we’re not all super advanced battle androids like you,” Valdor growled. “Just tell me how many.”

“Twenty-three,” said Alonsé. “But honestly, zey are all merc, mere rabble. I would be disappointed in you if any of them succeeded in zeir task.”

“They’re not going to retreat based on your Praxis battle honour,” said Valdor.

“It’s not about honour,” said Alonsé. “It’s a matter of battle sensibilities. They are woefully outmatched. They should leave knowing they are already defeated.”

“They’ve been paid all the same,” said Valdor. 

“But zey will die, and never see the coin,” said Alonsé. “Here, hold zis for me, would you darling.”

She took off her robe of deep maroon and hung the hood on Godric’s equally bald head. The hem draped on the ground, causing Alonsé to purse her lips in ever so slight a frown.

“Don’t give me that look,” Godric grunted. “I’ll trade legs with you any time.”

That caused Alonsé to smile and stretch to her full height. Her naked body of silvery-blue, alien metal was a thing of lithe, dangerously efficient beauty. Her calves were barely a hand in length, serving as an articulation between the coiled springs of her thighs and the curved blades of her achilles down to a small balancing spike that served as her foot. The plates of her forearms flexed in and out, cooling the mechanics beneath, as she stretched her multi-articulated fingers.

“You go left,” she said.

Valdor drew his pulse pistol, another heirloom of his office. It was heavily modified beyond the intricate inlay with double wide-bore barrels and an extended underslung battery. He nodded at Alonsé.

They crossed at the doorway, sprinting for opposite sides of the square adjoining the temple. Pulse rifle fire lit them up as they ran. Valdor took three in the breastplate, and one each to the pauldron and to the hip. His exo-plate deflected the charges, but the kinetic energy threw him off slightly, so that he had to extend his left arm and coat hanger the man he had been aiming for. Valdor brought an armoured boot down on his head, then stepped forward and delivered an uppercut to the next man with his mace. He dived into the alleyway they had been occupying as shots smattered around him. His own pistol barked back, plasma shot sending their ambushers ducking for cover.

Godric’s pulse rifle reported from the temple doorway. The armour of their enemies was not as well-made as Valdor’s, and the shots felled two more of them. Valdor desperately wanted to make sure of it with his mace, as even the most advanced armour could do little to deter a kinetic weapon, but he was now pinned in the alley, even as their enemies were caught in a deadly crossfire. 

“Sparra?” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, Milord,” she said. The hum of engines on high rotation and the thump of rail rifles firing came through with her words over the comm-link beads. “Despite what Alonsé thinks, they’re not totally without a clue. I’ll be there soon.”

None of the shots fired in Alonsé’s direction had found their mark. She twirled around and between them, balletic. It had been a long time since she’d been in combat. She had not even partaken in sparring aboard the ship. She’d thought, for a little while, that was the right path, to try and overcome her instincts for battle. Now that she had returned to the arena, she saw that was misguided. She relished the fight. 

All that time spent in meditation and inaction had recharged her. She reached down within herself and crunched one of three batteries like a glow stick. Power surged through her. Time slowed for her comprehension.

She hit the first man before he had even come around from firing at the doorway. The heel of her open palm broke his sternum and sent him crunching deep into the concrete of the wall behind him. Alonsé flowed back to centre, then reached out again, breaking a man’s clavicle before flicking a heel tap to his temple.

When they went low, she went high, leaping off a standing start to drive both legs down and through a man and deep into the road below. Then, as the next man still had his pulse rifle above forty five degrees, trying to hit her in the air, she launched and took him at the horizontal with a shoulder charge, shattering his pelvis.

She ripped through the rest of the ambush before the first power surge was even halfway dry.

The three of them met in the middle of the square, Godrick holding the child’s bassinet. 

“More are coming,” said Alonsé.

“Then we’re leaving,” said Valdor.

Engines throbbed overhead. The Creed dropped in low over the square, front gattling pulsers rotating, scanning for enemies. The drop doors opened wide, and House Valdor used their grav chutes to ascend into the ship’s belly. 

Sparra met them on the gangway to the bridge. She took one look at the bassinet and crossed her arms.

“Doesn’t this ship have enough wayward orphans?” she said.

Valdor grimaced.

“None like this.”