Page 25 of Doom

“No need to thank me,”Wrath said casually.“They were next on my list, AND Victoria is our sister now. We all have to look after her until that smug bastard is back, finally looking ‘pretty’ like the rest of us.”

I chuckled as Wrath’s mind disconnected from mine. “Let’s fuck up some bugs,” I added for my companions.

We followed the trail of death brought about by Doom and Stran, and then later only by the Creckel as he continued to lure the Drone Swarm further south. The two other chasers carrying the free Soulcatchers caught up with us just as the silhouettes of live Drones finally showed up ahead. Thankfully, our scans didn’t pick up any humans left in the neighborhood. Although I knew better, I wanted to believe the majority had managed to escape, and that they had not all served to feed and fatten the Drones we were about to slaughter.

“Stran, brace yourself,”I mind-spoke to Doom’s companion.“We’re about to bomb the bugs.”

The Creckel psychically nudged me to express his assent. Then a somewhat blurred image of a circle appeared before my mind’s eye. It took me a second to understand his meaning. Unlike Doom with whom he entertained a special bond, the rest of us didn’t speak often with Stran who had a rather introverted personality. The touch of his mind against mine felt alien, but not unpleasant.

“Thank you,”I replied. An image of a Xian Warrior surrounded by Drones then appeared before my eyes.“Doom is fine. Wrath’s Soulcatcher got him.”

Stran gave me another psychic nudge, this time laced with a bright sense of joy, right before he severed the connection between us. I smiled, feeling slightly ashamed for the spark of envy for the strong bond between my brother and the Creckel. Rage firing the first bombs at the Swarm snapped me out of my musing. I joined the battle, giving in to the pleasure of unleashing my fury on the bugs for all the loss and pain we had endured.

As he had communicated to me via imagery, Stran lured the Swarm in a circle, balling through them along the path of a ring, keeping them in a centralized area while we fired away, trying to target behind the Creckel to reduce the jarring impact for him.

A part of me wished I could go down into the fray, to hack and slash at the creatures with my scythed blades, hear their screeches of agony and feel their life’s blood splashing over my scales. But it would be foolish. Not only was I running on fumes from lack of sleep and rest, but my Soulcatcher wouldn’t be able to rescue me should I fall as she was already carrying the soul of one of my brothers. And I wouldn’t even talk about our Shell situation. With the Valiant and the Paragon destroyed, I didn’t have spare Shells in the vicinity.

A thought suddenly crossed my mind, turning my blood to ice.

“Shoyesh, how many Shells does Doom have?”I asked his Soulcatcher.

The wave of sorrow that struck me through our psychic link had my chest constricting with despair.

“We only brought six since he’d never needed any in the past five years,”Shoyesh said in a tortured psychic voice.“There were two on the Valiant, two on the Infiltrator, and the last two on the Paragon. All three ships have been destroyed. I have sent out an urgent request to find out if he has a Shell remaining on Khepri or at least some of his DNA samples… Legion, it doesn’t look good.”

I felt numb as her words sank in. Six Shells had been a large number for Doom who rarely traveled with more than two. The only reason he’d brought so many was because of the great distance from Khepri. Of all the times this tragedy should happen, why did it have to be now? Had we just saved his soul in extremis only for it to forever remain dormant in Jennuo’s psychic vessel? How long would his soul even survive in that form of stasis without a body to be reborn into?

“Keep hounding whoever you can on Khepri,”I said at last, wondering how many more blows we would sustain today.“Think back on places where he might have been and gotten wounded, left traces of blood on a weapon or armor, anything that might have a pure sample of his DNA.”

“Yes, Legion,”Shoyesh responded.

I disconnected from her mind, unable to bear the aura of despair that emanated from her. My mind racing, I watched as my brothers switched from bombing to targeted fire to take out the straggling creatures. Switching out of his spherical form, Stran resumed battling the bugs on all fours.

“Doom has no Shells left,” I said out loud. My brothers’ heads all jerked towards me, the same horrified expression reflected on each. “We need to find his remains and see if we can get a clean DNA sample.”

“The Drones ate him,” Rage argued in a pained voice.

“They don’t eat most of the bones,” Fury countered. “We could for sure recover his skull.”

“Using his skull would require demineralizing the bones, which will not provide us with pure DNA,” Rage said. “If we attempt to create a Shell from that, it will likely be deformed. And assuming it isn’t, there’s a high probability it will reject Doom’s soul.”

“So, you’re saying we do nothing?” Fury asked, his temper flaring.

“Calm, brother,” I said in an appeasing tone. “You know he loves Doom as much as the rest of us. His arguments are sound, but we are still going to try. Let’s find the skull, but let’s especially look for his femur. If it isn’t shattered or fractured, his marrow might be intact. That would be pure DNA.”

My brother’s faces lit up with the same hope that had blossomed in my hearts.

“Stran, can you show us where Doom fell?”I asked.

The Creckel gave me a psychic nudge in agreement. After quickly dispatching his current foe, he began rolling at high speed back north towards the stadium. I telepathically instructed my brothers on the other two chasers to complete the cleanup and eradicate the straggling Drones while we went on to our rescue mission.

It took my brother Orion a couple of minutes to find a large enough spot for us to land the chaser at an intersection three blocks from Victoria’s makeshift hospital where Doom had performed his last stand. The amount of Drone corpses was mind-boggling knowing only Doom and Stran had done this carnage. Orion, Rage, Fury, and I fanned out, carefully wading through the mounds of severed limbs and mutilated carcasses that had been further damaged by the stampeding Swarm trampling them.

In their feeding frenzy, the Drones had torn Doom to pieces, scattering his remains over a wide radius. Without our scanners set to detect Xian DNA, we never would have stood a chance of finding him. To my dismay, both of Doom’s femurs had been contaminated; one being fractured, the other having been partially eaten by acid, exposing the marrow. Still, we picked up every piece we could find, including his skull, hipbone, tibia and sternum.

“We have enough, Legion,” Fury said, approaching me carefully through the slippery obstacles underfoot.

“There are still more scattered around,” I argued.

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