Invoking Darkness Read Free

could lessen the terrible tragedy that he foresaw.
     
    NOVEMBER 2260

C HAPTER 2
    With cries of joy, Anna and her sisters swooped toward the planet. The Eye had told them what they must do: strike quickly, with overwhelming force. They each had their assigned targets, and they separated now, plunging eagerly toward battle.
    Her sisters had triumphed in many recent raids, destroying one target after another. Anna had been unable to join them, relegated to Z'ha'dum until her passengers needed her to carry them once again. At last they had, and even better, their requirements had brought her into this raid. Once again she could do what she was meant to do.
    As her sleek body penetrated the upper level of the atmosphere, Anna stopped her descent. At this elevation she would deliver from their confinement great balls of destruction. Though the surface was swathed in clouds, she easily located her targets: a primitive city that ran along a curving section of ocean coast; the crude open-air spaceport beside it; and on the hilltop above, a grandiose structure where the head of government resided. She surveyed the site eagerly, calculated the most efficient pattern of attack. Over fifty thousand of those native to the planet lived here. There must be no survivors.
    She opened her orifice and wheeled over the area, shrieking in exultation as she expelled one ball after another. Elsewhere, her sisters did the same, and their shrieks merged in an oratorio of evolution through bloodshed.
    The balls plummeted through the atmosphere, and far below, structures exploded in great waves of annihilation. Buildings burst into dust, spaceships melted to slag, inhabitants flash-bummed to ash. A vast haze of dust shot up through the clouds and spread out below her, testament to the chaos she had wrought. The city was reduced to random particles, the destruction pure, absolute. Not a single structure stood, not a single being lived.
    Then it was time for the second stage of Anna's attack. Her sisters had a different duty. They were to land in some of the smaller towns and allow the Drakh to round up inhabitants for transport to Z'ha'dum. What use the pathetic, weak creatures could be, Anna didn't know. Her duty carried more excitement.
    She dove rapidly downward, hungry for challenge. The greatest excitement is the thrill of battle, the Eye had taught her. The greatest joy is the ecstasy of victory. It was true. She preferred to strike where she faced some opposition, some enemy to engage and utterly destroy.
    Even where they did not fight back, though, she could take joy in the dizzying delight of movement, the red rapture of the war cry. And the ecstasy of victory. Only once had they ever been defeated, months ago, when many of her sisters had been lost.
    Anna had not been there to fight the hated Vorlons. But she hoped she would soon have the chance. She had no fear of death. If she had to die, she only wanted it to be in the blazing heat of battle. Yet she didn't believe she could be defeated. The machine was perfect, and it was part of her. She could not fail. As she plunged downward, the dust and mist enveloped her, and moisture ran over her beautiful black skin. This next attack must be surgical, precise. Her target was a small town not far down the coast.
    She slowed as she neared ground level, and the mist finally thinned. Amidst fields of high grasses and wildflowers stood a collection of simple structures made from stacked stones. This was all as the Eye had explained to her. The white-haired inhabitants had been drawn outside by the sounds of the city's destruction. They stared up into the darkening mist. When they saw her, they began to scatter.
    Anna scanned the town for the tracking device. It had been planted on the one being she was to spare. There. It emanated from an unremarkable structure on the far side of town. Only a single being took shelter within. She would spare that one building and that one being, while destroying all the