A new chapter for Descent is here! Bathory leads IKaggen deeper into the dead star cluster and further into the lair of the Shrikes, who are only too happy to greet these intruders, though they might not fully understand what it is they’re up against… not that that will stop them. In territories where Naiads live, an unspoken rule becomes known to those crews who ply the stars. ‘Don’t listen to the songs’.
Where the Shrikes roost, you could also be warned not to follow the dead lights… if they weren’t already following you.
Below is an excerpt of just such a situation as Bathory and her companion attempt to elude their pursuers, unfortunately aware that it’s a futile effort. For the full chapter, check out the link above and enjoy!
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<that won’t last> Bathory advised her companion. <the deeper we travel along the path, the more aggressive they’ll become> The scouts were waiting for them to cross into the Current in order to pull their vector and warn the next system. She itched to round on them, accelerate into their midst and show them what a true void predator was rather than some filthy flesh-born carrion wraiths…
…but her pack hadn’t avoided the Speakers’ Stars for this long without good reason. The insubstantial contacts might only be sentries, but they were dangerous enough. The Shrikes had never been strong enough to challenge Naiad supremacy like the Parasite or others once had, but Bathory was neither fully grown nor a warsinger and she was quite glad for the Mute Intent’s presence.
+awaiting nav data+ Eight informed its companion. +shift system operational in ninety seconds+
<uploading> Bathory affirmed, sending the next set of coordinates to the Spear. The target system was seven light-years away, a cooling main sequence star. Not as close to death as this one, but all of the systems here were old, their stars fading one by one. The Naiad kept a careful eye on the circling contacts, wary of them trying to rush the pair. There were two moments when a starship was most vulnerable; when it was entering the Current and when it was exiting it. Though they’d reduced the window of opportunity on the latter to mere seconds, there was nothing that even the most advanced technology in the galaxy could do for the former. Not without making a trade that her companion, with a wealth of knowledge on aphorisms, metaphors and other extraneous information on insect lives, would have called a devil’s bargain.
+confirmed. sixty seconds to shift system restoration+
The contacts were at six million kilometers and closing, fainter now that they had stopped circling. They were coming in to get solid sensor readings on the intruder’s delve. Naiads could pull that data from further away and with more accuracy than anyone else, but the Shrikes were a surprising second place. They’d know where Bathory and Mute Intent were going, but there was nothing to be done about it. Straying from the path was even more dangerous than arriving in a system forewarned of their presence.
+thirty seconds+
Bathory counted down as one of the Spearmakers’ Herd might have. <this system is a pale shadow of what the Speakers were> she told her companion as the counter approached zero. <a dying echo of the heights they once attained. under the next star’s light, │┘┴, you’ll soon see more of what they were> We both will.
With those words, reality tore and Bathory and IKaggen were gone. Then, cutting through the silence that followed, voices called out through the darkness.
“Wandering animals. Like the others.”
“More keep coming. They are encroaching.”
“Pulse line plotted. Initiating now.”
“Summon a hunt. Dismember them and feed.”
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