Dekker's Dozen: The Last Watchmen

The Finger of God

Dekker's Dozen #011

Dekker slammed the chamber shut and locked both cartridges into the reliquary. He pointed the barrel at the surface of the Osix moon and fired, clutching the artifact tightly against the bucking, shuddering recoil.

A thin ruby beam shot out and stuttered. Wreathed with winding, silvery lightning, the beam grew in width and potency. The reliquary's constant recoil pushed harder against the force of the blast and the beam bucked and shook Dekker as it slammed against him like a hammer drill, thrusting its fierce energy beam deep into the surface of Osix. Vesuvius ran to Dekker and helped steady him so he wasn't flung from the open edge of the landing ramp.

Mounds of blackening soil swelled and rose like superheated blisters across the Osix crust; they crumbled and shot flames skyward as they suddenly imploded and burst open at other random locations. As the beam grew in width and intensity, a shrill cry rose up from the very moon itself.

The sky darkened momentarily and the air crackled; pockets of ribbon lightning upwards from the ground and dissipated as the godlike energy released from the reliquary dissipated. The electronics on the Rickshaw Crusader flickered and momentarily faltered before the EMP failsafe circuitry cycled the power-loop back around and restored functionality.

Finally, the smoke cleared from the hole blasted by the weapon. A massive crater smoldered and burned miles deep into the face of the moon.

The groan rose again as the crust cracked and split. Giant tendrils crept from the crevices and crawled like giant, hungry worms across Osix's surface. Like carnivorous fronds of some massive Venus flytrap, two of them reached out and swatted the air in their general vicinity.

"This is more than just a moon," Dekker whispered to himself. "Matty! Get us out of here, and fast!"

The Finger of God

Salvation hung closer to the orbit of Mars than to Earth's. Cut off by their enemies, battered and bruised, the ship had proven herself. As the last remaining Earth battleship, she represented mankind's last chance for defensible survival. The weight of that notion carried enormous burdens.

Dekker looked out the viewport. The red planet rotated in the distance, reminding Dekker of the futility of human occupation on other planets without the support of Earth. Down on the surface of Mars, old colonization structures still remained from humanity's early attempts at off-world population, centuries ago. Without the advances in space travel, they'd been left to try and sustain themselves in the unsuitable Martian environment—the sparse supply drops weren't enough and entire colonies died slow and miserable deaths, even despite terraforming which had given Mars a sustainable atmosphere and ecosystem. While habitable, it was no Earth and the stigma of past failure had been enough to dissuade future colonists from settling there.

Without the blue planet, Dekker could not see the future survival of his race. The ease with which all the other human colonies fell only reinforced his point. Earth and the human race were intrinsically linked; humanity was made for her and could not truly live without her.

Dekker sighed. Nearly a day had passed since they'd fled Osix. The moon had somehow corrected its close orbit so that it wouldn't destroy the planet under tsunamis caused by a close proximity. It fell into a nearly synchronized revolution opposite of the moon. Only a few arbolean ghost ships remained alongside a couple Valkyrie units; the real threat was Osix.

The Mechnar forces hung close to the moon, using the Earth as a barrier. While their numbers had also been substantially depleted, they still outnumbered the arbolean space forces. But the moon still posed far too great a threat; its full power remained a largely unknown factor.