Colony - Nephilim

by Gene Stiles

  “On the contrary,” Cronus replied, red embers simmering faintly in the back of his chipped-jade eyes. “I want you to step up your efforts. You know the Prophesy. If we are to save Atlantis, they must be destroyed. Find them.”

  “You have my oath, Lord Father,” the behemoth responded with a curt nod. “We are watching the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. If the stories are to be believed, they are in the company of Poseidon. I have increased surveillance on Hyperion already. He makes not a single move or communication we do not know about. When he cleanses his bowels, we know what color it is. If he attempts to contact Rhea, we will know.”

  “Good. Wherever that treacherous bitch is hiding, so, too, will her children reside. Hyperion is the key,” he concluded, hating the acidic taste of that foul name within his mouth. “I know how much he cares for my traitorous wife. It is only a matter of time before he goes to her and, when he does, we will have them all. We cannot give the rebels something to rally around. As distasteful as it may be, my scions must die. I should have killed them in the first place. Only then I will be truly free.”

  Phoebe stepped out into the hot afternoon sunshine, luxuriating in the warmth of the golden rays upon her pale, porcelain skin. Her platinum-blond hair caught the light and sparkled with a silvery luster. She held the hand of her stooped-shouldered husband as they merged with the pedestrians bustling through the city streets. Her mind was deeply troubled by the changes in the Lord Father’s demeanor. What had happened to him to cause such a radical shift in his attitudes?

  His words and tone sounded too good to be true as he and the council hammered out the details of his plans. Time and again, Cronus acquiesced to concerns and suggestions with calm detachment instead of his usual savage, hate-filled rants. On the surface, this was very gratifying thing to see, but it came too fast for Phoebe to accept without question. It worried her deeply.

  She opened her senses to the living city surrounding her, seeking tranquility in the routine of the everyday. Bakeries filled the air with the mouth-watering, aromatic scents of freshly made breads and sweets. Venison, pork and chicken cooked in exotic sauces or simply brushed with herbs and spices wafted along the sidewalks as they passed the multitude of eateries lining the smoothly paved boulevards. Music drifted through open windows and the doorways of taverns, their rhythms soothing and yet exciting. Merchants hawked wares from electronics and groceries to the newest styles of fashion to any passersby who slowed enough to be intrigued by their window displays.

  Phoebe listened to the joyous banter of the People walking by her or sitting at the tables that perched outside of restaurants and tea houses. The troubles rippling through other places did not touch the roadways or homes of the First City. For the most part, the People here were still filled with wonder and hope, happy and secure in the bright sunshine and blue sky. Of course, there were those who grumbled and complained, such was human nature, but the overwhelming majority were the good, compassionate, tolerant, peaceful people of Atlan long past. It was her love and belief in them that keep her here and filled her with the solace she now sought to ease her discomfort.

  “Phoebe. Phoebe,” Coeus repeated, cutting into her reverie, “Where are you, my love?” He squeezed her hand tightly, his dark hazel eyes twinkling as he looked down upon her. “You have not heard a word I have said,” he said, a kindly smile gracing his generous, tan lips.

  “I am sorry, dear one,” she replied, slightly sheepish that she had tuned him out so thoroughly. “I have been soaking up this beautiful day and our glorious city. Please forgive me.”

  “Always, sweet lady,” Coeus grinned, pulling her a little closer. “I often lose myself simply in the silver aura of your presence.”

  “Oh, stop! You are such a flatterer,” Phoebe grinned in return, a pinkish blush coming to her alabaster skin as she laid her head against his shoulder. “You already have me so there is no need for honey-coated words.”

  “And still I thank the Creator every day for His gift that has made me the envy of all men,” he said, touching her cheek with a slender-fingered hand.

  “And that is one of the many reasons I love you so,” she said, unable to keep a child-like giggle from her voice.

  “Tell me what takes you so far away from me,” he said softly, resuming their stroll along the walkway. Coeus knew his wife well. He could feel the concertation radiating from her and he was aware of her attempts to put the worries out of her mind.

  “It is Cronus,” Phoebe replied, her pale blue eyes dropping slightly, a tiny frown coming to her ruby lips. “I do not trust this change in him.”

  “But he gave us more compromises than I ever expected,” he said, a little startled at her apprehension. Coeus was amazed the concerns of the council had been so well received and he felt buoyant by the Lord Father. Yet he knew his love well. He learned quickly to heed her words. “He did not erupt in fury even once no matter how heated things got. What could be wrong with that?”

  “That,” Phoebe returned, a pit of anxiety swirling in her stomach once again, “is exactly what bothers me so. What happened to his passion, his agitations and his vehement rampages? One day they were there and today they are gone. His eyes did not blaze and neither frown nor smile shaded his lips. This is far from normal.”

  “I fear a storm is brewing inside of him,” she said, leaning against his bony bicep and looking up into the cloudless azure sky. “A storm unlike this world has ever seen and it terrifies me.”

  Coeus said nothing, feeling fingers as cold as an icy glacier encircle his heart. Her thoughts, good or bad, had a nasty habit of turning into fulfilled prophesy.

  Chapter X

  Poseidon sat upon a large boulder overlooking the skeletal remains of the Sea Dragon still locked against the rocks far from shore. He should feel forlorn at the sight of her rotting carcass, but he was not. Even stripped of her engines, electronics, sails, hardware and anything else salvageable, she was still beautiful in his eyes and would remain so forever. He was grateful for her strength and sacrifice that saw them all safely to this wondrous land.

  The small town near the limestone caves that gave them shelter upon their arrival nearly a year ago was built of rough-hewn hardwoods from the scattered forests nearby. The foundations of hard, smoothed stonework were softened with skins of the abundant and varied wildlife. Tethys taught them how to use wild berries and tree sap to create stains and paints to protect the raw wood from insects and to add a sense of style and color to their homes. Poseidon and his crew were skilled carpenters and engineers – a necessary trait to maintain and repair a ship at sea – and applied their talents to the constructions of home and community structures. The Nephilim used their prodigious strength to create a hedge of large stone walls around the village to keep the more dangerous predators at bay. Together, they created a simple, safe and happy haven from a land that could have been a prison.

  “What are you thinking about sitting here all alone, Poseidon?” Amphitrite asked lightly as she walked down from the knoll above the pebbled beach. Like always, her thin, pink lips were quirked up to one side in an enigmatic smile as if she carried a secret unshared by others hidden behind her twinkling sea-green eyes.

  “I was pondering our future,” he responded, unable to keep his lips from warming at the sight of her. “Poseidon,” he muttered, shaking his reddish mane slightly. “That name still feels odd and foreign to my mind. I have been Neptune all of my life.”

  “Yet it is the name your mother gave you. You should use it in her honor.” Amphitrite sat next to him on the flat-topped rock, enjoying the feel of the sun-heated stone upon her darkly tanned skin. She leaned against his brawny shoulder and sighed contentedly.

  “All of you seem to be bent on that,” he grinned, wrapping his arm around her and drawing her close. He loved the feel of her statuesque, hard-muscled body against him. Her long waves of sun-bleached blond hair, touched by a hint of green from so many years on the salty waters, felt soft upon his n
aked chest as he held her near.

  “So what have you decided for our destiny, my Lord Captain?” Amphitrite asked him, her sea-green eyes twinkling as she gazed into his handsomely sculpted face.

  “I am your captain, not your lord,” he chided her good-naturedly. “You are but a scullery maid in my service. You should learn your titles properly.”

  “Scullery maid? You would die if not for my culinary skills,” she said with a laugh, punching him hard on his unflinching shoulder. “And as a matter of fact, we are on land and have no ship. Thus, you cannot be my captain.”

  “I cannot be your Lord either,” Poseidon replied with a grin, tussling her hair as he would a child. “I doubt any man could ever lord over you in any way.”

  “Not and live for very long,” she assured him. “Now, back to what I asked. Where do we go from here?”

  “Why do we have to go anywhere?” a booming baritone voice replied. Oceanus strolled down the rise behind them, brushing loamy soil from his big hands. The late-morning sunshine glistened off the top of his darkly burnished, brown, bald dome as he walked toward them. His buckskin breeches and loosely laced vest were stained with soil as usual when he worked in the gardens where he spent most of his time.

  “When my wife and I left Atlantis,” he said, pulling up a twisted log of driftwood to sit upon, “it was with the intent of establishing our own community free of the strife that sickens the empire. We have that here.”

  “You well may have something there,” Poseidon agreed readily. “When we first arrived, I was consumed with continuing on to Nil and then reuniting with my family. Now I ask myself why.”

  He looked out at the turquoise waves rumbling against the shoreline, finding peace and serenity in their frothy, white caps that lapped against the beach. He loved their salty scent and the taste of the temperate breeze upon his lips. The air was filled with the fragrance of growing things and the songs of the seabirds flocking in the sky and upon the rocks. He knew in his heart he was happy.

  “The electronics and comlinks we retrieved from the Sea Dragon were far too damaged by salt and water to be repaired without proper parts and tools,” Poseiden said. “The mere fact that we managed to get them to receive, but not send, is a minor miracle. As always, public broadcasts are spotty and rare. The People are far too busy to sit in front of a comlink. However, private communications and those from Atlantis are difficult to decrypt. Those we have intercepted do not paint a pretty picture. The rebellion grows, Cronus continues to hunt us and the Twelve are more splintered than ever – as you know well,” he said, glancing over at Oceanus.

  “However,” Poseidon continued after a deep sigh, “my crew and I were born on the sea. I ache to be aboard ship once again.”

  “We may not have a choice,” Kiranimis said, hurrying toward the trio. His dark brown skin was damp with perspiration and his barrel chest heaved as he sucked in the salty ocean air. His full lips were drawn across his round, rock-like face and his mahogany eyes were narrowed beneath his bushy, black eyebrows. “We found something you should see, Neptune…I mean Poseidon,” he said, allowing a tight smile to touch his dour countenance. “Please come with me, Captain. We could have a serious problem.”

  “What is it?” Poseidon asked, seeing the concertation on his First Mate’s usually jovial face. He rose quickly, brushing the dirt off of his deerskin breeches as he followed his friend back up the grassy rise, Oceanus and Amphitrite fast on his heels.

  “We found a Bird,” Kiranimis replied, his voice hard as he wiped away the strands of thick chestnut hair that matted his high cheekbones. “An Atlantean surveillance Bird.”

  By the time they reached the wreckage about a mile inland from their town, most of the residents were crowding around a pile of twisted metal laying within a scorched circle burnt into lush, green meadow. Tethys knelt on the parched piece of earth and carefully examined the cooled debris, turning parts over with a stick. The larger sections were laid out a couple of feet away, the tangled sections of wiring looking like multicolored entrails.

  “What have we got?” Poseidon squatted next to the woman, ignoring the worried murmuring surrounding him.

  “It looks as if it was caught in a violent storm,” Tethys replied, searching the rubble for the power source and comlink. “The metal is bent and warped by powerful winds. See here,” she said, pointing to a charred portion of the shiny blue metal. “This looks like a lightning strike.”

  “I concur,” Miko interjected from the other side of the Bird. The Quartermaster nodded his block-like head and lifted a burnt piece from the pile. “Multiple strikes, I would guess.”

  “The real questions are was it blown off course or was it near us on purpose,” Kiranimis said, standing behind Poseidon. “How long has it been here and what did it broadcast before it crashed?”

  “From its condition and the condition of the grass,” Tethys stated, “I would guess it hasn’t been here long. The last storm was a week ago and there is still a puddle of wet mud beneath the Bird. The burn pattern looks fresh and grass does not show any new growth.”

  “As for its course and what it might have sent, I may have a few answers after I get it back to my lab,” she said, a terse smile of satisfaction upon her lips. Tethys lifted a black, hardened box from the bottom of the pit and sat it next to her. “This is the power pod and the comlink. If I can retrieve the data inside, it will tell us much.”

  “The most important thing we must know,” the Captain said, his words grim and anxious, “is are we compromised? Does Cronus now know where we are? If so, we will have to move and move quickly. We are not well-armed and we are very vulnerable. We would never survive an attack by the Black Guard.”

  “What have we got?” Zeus asked as he stepped into the com center. “Your message sounded important.”

  “We picked up a garbled transmission from an Atlantean Bird,” Benzinarius replied as he adjusted the frequency bands on the equipment before him. A long, hexagonal crystal glowed sky-blue, the light passing through it swirling like a living thing and grainy, distorted images appeared on his monitor.

  “It appears the drone was caught in a typhoon and swept far from its course,” he continued, his deft fingers sliding across the digital board in front of him. The pictures managed to solidify somewhat though they remained distorted and incomplete. “Most of what we were able to recover were nothing more than shots of turbulent seas and blinding lightning flashes.”

  “Then why am I here?” Zeus bristled at being pulled away from his work in the armory. He and Lelantos were almost finished with their new weapon that harnessed electrical discharges and he was anxious to see if their theories would prove to be true.

  “It is this,” Benzinarius replied as he pointed at his monitor, aware of the flashes in the golden eyes of Zeus. He paused the scrolling images and enlarged a single frame. The picture appeared to be taken through a cracked lens and was warped and askew. Still, what it showed was clear enough to sweep the irritation from away from Zeus’s mind as if it never existed.

  An azure cove materialized, the shoreline scattered with flotsam and seaweed. The rotting carcass of a mighty ship rested against a jagged, rocky outcropping a few hundred yards from the coast. It lay battered and broken by the pounding waves, but her sheer size, graceful lines and the faded, peeling turquoise paint still visible made the vessel easy to identify. The Sea Dragon.

  “Do you know where this was taken?” Zeus asked, leaning in, one hand on the oaken desk, the other stroking his long, curly, red beard. He studied the image intently, searching for any landmarks that might hint at a location.

  “We were able to cross-reference recent storm patterns, wind velocities and landscapes to come up with a probable position,” Ben told him, “but the area is wide and we were unable to narrow the search area by much. Our best guess is that this was taken somewhere along the southern Aseabaen coast.”

  “That is a massive landmass,” Zeus replied, his wide brow furro
wing as he stared at the screen. He pursed his full, tan lips, his bushy, yellow-red eyebrows dipped toward his straight, narrow nose.

  “I know, my Lord,” Ben responded, nodding slightly. “I wish I could be more specific, but the tracking data on the Bird was fried by a lightning strike. This was the last thing it sent before it crashed. He hated disappointing Zeus, but what he had to say next would be even harder. His oval face was tense as he glanced over at his friend and Lord as he spoke. “There is another thing.”

  “What?” Zeus could sense the concertation in Benzinarius’ deep voice and knew he would not like the answer to his question.

  “The transmission burst was directed at Atlantis,” he said glumly. “They, too, have this information.”

  “How much time do we have?” Rhea sat on the edge of the plush, beige leather sofa in Zeus’ office leaning forward upon the elbows that lay on her thighs, her hands gripped hard together between her knees. Her sky-blue eyes sparkled in the brilliant sunlight shimmering through the thin, leaf-patterned, green curtains, damp with unshed tears.

  “I do not know,” Zeus replied sadly, knowing how important it was to his mother that she find her last remaining child. He reached out and cupped her white-knuckled fists in his hands. “Benzinarius tells me it was only by pure luck that he found that single image among the damaged pictures of the probe. It is possible that Cronus’ people have not even seen it yet or if they did that they recognized its significance.”

  “Our network tells us Cronus has stepped up his search for us and for the Sea Dragon,” Hestia said commented as she sat her green tea on the long, low table in front of the couch. Her long locks of lush, auburn hair hung over one shoulder, held away from her sea-green eyes by a simple red leather headband. In those eyes, crackles of angry energy matched the tenseness of her tightly drawn, thin ruby-red lips. “If the rumors are true – which I believe they are – not only is our brother the Captain, but the Nephilim who attacked the Black Guard are onboard. He wants them both.”