by Nina D'Aleo
Ismail swam fast through a pipe and out into a larger desalination processor. The water here was hot and filled with the muted thud and clanking of cogs and rods. One slammed down right beside Eli’s head. He could feel the pressure building in his lungs and his panic rising. He grappled for Ismail and felt him increase his speed. They were definitely swimming upward now and they finally broke through the surface into darkness. Eli gasped in the hot, salty air. “I’ve decided I hate water,” he rasped. “Never going swimming again, ever.”
Ismail didn’t respond. He started clicking, using his echolocation to project out an image of their surroundings. They had surfaced in a large pipe, with rungs in one side leading upward. Ismail swam for them and Eli followed. They climbed to the top and cautiously opened the hatch there. Eli looked out at a desalination plant in full swing. They ducked back down as a group of workers bustled past. Once they were out of sight, Ismail carefully maneuvered out of the pipe and down onto a grid platform. He held the hatch open for Eli to follow and he scrambled out.
At the sound of more workers approaching, they dropped down behind some machinery. Above them, the light from the starfishes shone through the glass roof of the factory. Eli held his navigator up to a beam of light and found it had blanked out. The machine was water-resistant, but not waterproof. Thinking quickly, Eli blinked, engaging his front-core. The system was back up after its lapse in Duskmaveth. He sent a thought command to the implant to call Diamond and almost immediately her voice spoke into his ears.
“Eli, I’m here.”
“My navigator has shorted,” Eli whispered. “I need a copy of the portal map sent to my front-core – urgently.”
“It’ll be quicker for you to command the implant to harvest the image straight from your memory,” Diamond told him.
“It can do that?” Eli asked.
“Definitely,” Diamond said, then talked him through the process step by step. Soon he had the map open in front of his eyes, including their location and the best route to take.
“We’re close,” he whispered to Ismail, his hopes lifting. “Through that door and straight down the corridor.”
The scullion nodded.
They waited for a clear path, then made a dash for the door, bursting from the processor plant out into a long white corridor. They moved cautiously along it, keeping silent and pausing at every sound, until the walls started to widen out, white rock becoming glass as they entered the Superior Hall, a vast oval chamber with a glass domed ceiling and artwork covering every inch of wall space.
Distracted by questions of how to determine which painting was the portal, Eli started to step into the chamber without first clearing it. Ismail dragged him back into the shadows of the doorway. He pointed to a gathering on the other side of the Hall. It was the Johanian guards who had taken their weapons. Their leader was speaking with several other official-looking marine-breeds in uniform. They were standing around a painting, which was a mass of small pictures making a larger image. It reminded Eli of the painting in Englan Chrisholm’s cell.
“That’s it!” he whispered. “The portal.”
He turned to Ismail and saw a reflection of light flare in the darkness of the scullion’s eyes. He spun back around to the painting. The images had vanished into a blaze of white. Figures were taking shape in the glow, growing larger and clearer, until a group of men crashed out of the frame into the Hall. The light died, out leaving the portal blackened and destroyed. Firebird bloodline marks, deep brown skin, green eyes with flames flickering behind them – Omarians. Eli and Ismail shrank back as the fire-wielders gathered opposite the marine-breeds. There was a moment of eyeing off and staring down, and then negotiations began, questions and answers, intra-group conferring and outer-group confirming.
“They’re selling us,” Ismail whispered beside Eli and he nodded. He could see it from their gestures – one tall – one short – flapping motion, wings.
Soon an agreement was reached – an amount demanded by the marine-breeds and given the nod by the Omarians. The Johanian leader started giving directions, pointing the way to Eli and Ismail, but then one of the officials motioned for a pause. He made an unmistakeable Urigin gesture, holding out one palm and slapping his other palm against it – payment first. The Omarians shook their heads, their refusal met by a counter-refusal – no payment, no prisoner. The Johanians clearly had not the first clue of who they were dealing with.
Without warning, the Omarians attacked. With a flick of their wrists, they incinerated the marine-breeds into white ash, including all the guards and their leader with the silver and gold teeth. The air smelled like fried fish and Eli gagged before he could stop himself. The Omarians’ blazing eyes snapped in their direction.
“Quick, go!” Ismail barked, giving Eli a shove.
They broke out of the shadows and tore back the way they’d come. Eli glanced over his shoulder and saw the Omarians thundering behind them. It felt like a nightmare on rerun, except this time they had no weapons, no Luther and no spectral-breeds to save them. All they could do was flee. Their boots thudded, their breathing fast and ragged until they reached the door to the desalination plant. Ismail kicked it open and they crashed through. A processor worker ran at them and Ismail punched him across the face, knocking him flat, while Eli locked the door behind them. Ismail dragged over a heavy drum and pushed it underneath the door handle. They scanned the workspace searching for a place to hide, but there was nothing concealed enough, and all the steel vats looked like potential ovens. They heard clanking bootsteps on the grids around them as more workers ran their way, brandishing metal bars and shovel-like weapons. Right behind them, the door handle rattled, heat radiating through from the hallway. With both sides and all exits blocked there really was only one way to go.
“Climb!” Ismail instructed.
He clambered up onto one of the desalination machines, heading toward the glass ceiling. Eli followed, hands slipping on condensation-coated steel, his wings too damp to fly. Ismail leaped off the machine and grabbed hold of a ceiling support beam. He swung until he had enough momentum to wrap his legs around the beam. Then he let go, hanging upside down. He grabbed the Morsus Ictus off his belt and raised his torso in a sit-up, about to stab the glass.
“Wait!” Eli yelled out. “If you puncture it, the pressure will bring the roof down on our heads!”
“It’s still a higher survival chance than being burned alive!” Ismail responded.
He struck the glass, and even though it was heavily reinforced, the Morsus Ictus sliced straight through. He hit it again three more times in quick succession, and water started trickling through the cracks. Eli heard an ominous creak and groan and saw fracture lines spreading out across the ceiling.
“Not good. So not good,” he whispered, watching them spread. In a few seconds an ocean-load of water would dump down on them. Eli’s hands flew over his weapon belt and jacket, searching for something, anything, that might help them live through this. The gathering processor workers had started shouting and throwing their metal bars at Ismail, trying to knock him down, while the Omarians continued ramming the door, the drum rocking precariously, a second from tipping. An alarm, like a whale call, blared into life.
Still hanging upside down, Ismail stretched out his hands to Eli and gestured, “Come on! Jump!”
Eli buzzed his damp wings and made a leap for it.
Their hands clamped together and Ismail held him dangling over a long drop to a desalination pool full of machinery below them.
Eli yelled, “The pressure will be too much! We won’t be able to hold on!”
As he said it, an idea flashed into his mind. He grabbed at his belt with his free hand and pulled out a small transparent oval capsule. It was another project he’d been working on before the Skreaf attacked – a commission outside of his military work for a friend who’d wanted to start up his own company. It was a safety insert for transflyers to replace the largely ineffective air-tubes. Eli
had come up with an idea for something that was essentially a large bubble made of intelligent superfiber that was triggered on impact and expanded to form an exact-fitting protective layer around the person. He’d completed a few successful dummy runs, but hadn’t gotten to the stage of a live test. He’d only kept the capsule in his pocket because he liked clicking the lid on and off for stress relief. He hated to use something that hadn’t been fully cleared, but really their options weren’t extremely numerous at this stage.
“Ismail!” he shouted above the noise of the alarm, but before he could tell the scullion his idea, the ceiling collapsed and they started to fall in a gigantic gush of water. Eli clenched his fist to trigger the release of the capsule. It instantly blew out into a huge bubble that latched onto Eli and wrapped around him. It felt like diving into a bowl of cold jelly. He and Ismail’s hands were still linked, so the superfiber judged they were the same organism and encased him as well. The thing Eli hadn’t accounted for before then was breathing inside the superfiber. His mouth, nose and ears were completely sealed over by the transparent material and panic trembled through him. He couldn’t breathe at all.
The water collided with the machinery below and he and Ismail struck down, protected by the bubble, before being dragged into the flood. The pressure tide sucked them upward and when the bubble finally stopped rushing and spinning, Eli stared down at the ruined facility below. The Omarians were nowhere in sight. He couldn’t believe he and Ismail had made it out alive. He felt the scullion’s hand squeeze down on his, and thinking it was a gesture of encouragement, he squeezed back, but then something hit them hard from the side. They were shunted through the water, the bubble spinning, giving Eli a glimpse of something speeding their way – a massive set of open jaws full of, sharp, ragged teeth. A razor-fin shark. It struck, biting down on the superfiber and bursting it. The sudden release catapulted Ismail and Eli upward through the water, while the fiber started to encase the razor-fin instead, which would have saved them if the rest of the vicious predators weren’t rising in a shadowy mass just below them.
The closest shark rushed in and Eli saw a flash of light. He blinked, blinded for a moment, then spotted the motionless forms of Ismail and the razor-fins all sinking downward into the darkness below. After a second of confusion, Eli realized Ismail must have released his stunning electro-pulse. It had halted the sharks, but knocked him out as well, as he had said it would. Eli swam downward, pushing himself after the scullion. He kicked desperately, finally managing to catch up and grab Ismail’s shirt. Eli’s lungs had started screaming for air and every inch of progress toward the surface took immense effort. It became agonizingly clear that they wouldn’t make it. Eli thought fast and, remembering what had happened when the superfiber burst, he snatched the distress flare off his weapon belt and broke it open. The kickback of the ignited charge ricocheted along his arm and through his chest, but he held on tight.
The flare exploded, rocketing them upward with a massive whooshing rush. Eli clung on for his life’s worth, swallowing several lungfuls of sea water and almost blacking out. Ismail’s shirt started to rip. Eli clutched desperately at him, trying to get a new handhold, and seized one of his ears. It was going to leave a mark, but better that than the alternative. They broke the surface, riding the explosion high into the air, then slamming back down into the water. Eli gagged, coughing and gasping through his raw throat. He wrapped an arm around Ismail, trying to keep his face afloat. The lights had blacked out at the surface in an imitation of night and all Eli could see were the shadows of waves, larger than buildings, rising up all around them. He felt them lifting up and grasped Ismail tighter, shouting, “Help! Help us! Is there anyone there?”
He heard a whistle above the crashing water and glimpsed the silhouette of a boat on the peak of a wave just beyond them.
He waved frantically, and the boat waved back with an enormously long arm and paddle hand.
It skimmed down the wave and rushed up toward them, snatching them out of the water as a monster shark lunged up. Eli screamed and tucked his legs in, just seeing red teeth and a dark hole below him. Spikes shot out of the boat creature’s skin, making it entirely unpalatable. The creature swatted the shark away with a huge hand and thumped the surface of the water in warning.
Eli felt himself slipping out of the boatman’s grasp. He fell and landed in its warm boat body.
“The portal. It’s gone,” Eli whispered and collapsed, out cold.
Chapter 28
Diega
Praterius
Rambeldon Forest (The Hive)
Diega and Sesame crept along the wax tunnels back toward Queen Alphra’s chamber while her thunderous snores roared around them. They reached the entrance and crouched low. The queen’s resting guards covered the floor and walls.
Diega turned to the drone and whispered, “Stay here.”
“I have to come,” Sesame insisted. “They won’t believe you.”
“Then keep behind me,” Diega ordered.
She took a deep breath and stepped into the room, silently picking her way over the sleeping guards to where the drones kneeled, staring at the ground. Diega tapped one on the shoulder and he buzzed with fright. Sesame slapped a hand over the drone’s mouth. The guard closest to them stirred and Diega held her breath. It buzzed something, then lapsed back to sleep. The sounds of the queen’s snores ripped through the air. Sesame whispered to the drone, then removed his hand. The two of them alerted the others. Diega gestured to the door and the drones nodded, rising to their feet with difficulty after being forced to kneel for so long. They hobbled out of the chamber, but Diega paused, spotting Copernicus’ weapon belt and her own, along with Shawe and Caesar’s stuff, lying in one corner in a pile of offerings to the queen. She inched her way to them, stuffed the gangsters’ belongings into the belts, then fastened both of them around her waist to free up her hands.
As she stood, her eyes were drawn back to the monstrosity of flesh that was Queen Alphra. Her body lengthened then scrunched with every snore. Diega felt like grabbing one of the guards’ spears and stabbing her through, but then a million Neridori would be on their backs and escape impossible. That was what separated her from Shawe – logical thought before action – unless someone laughed at her. That was the one thing that made her lose all reasoning and set her off every time.
Diega turned toward the exit, catching sight of movement on the other side of the queen. Immediately Diega dropped to the ground and peered around the edge of the sofa. A large group of Omarian warriors stood watching the sleeping monarch. Diega made a split-second decision and yelled as loudly as she could. The queen woke with a start. She saw the intruders right in front of her and released a deafening buzz that shook the whole hive. The room erupted into movement and sound. The Neridori guards swarmed around the Omarians, stabbing with stings and spears. The Omarians struck back with light-form and blasts of fire. Diega didn’t pause to see who was winning. She lunged from the chamber and out into the corridor.
“Go! Go! Fly!” she yelled at Sesame and the other drones as she overtook them, racing back to where the others waited. She saw the gangsters supporting Copernicus up ahead.
“The Omarians are here!” she shouted to them. Shawe cursed and Caesar growled.
Sesame buzzed behind Diega and a swarm of the drones massed around the group, grabbing hold of them and the other non-flighted creatures rescued from the cells. Diega felt Sesame clutch her around the back and chest, holding her with both sets of hands. The drone beat his wings frantically, struggled a moment, and lifted them off the ground. They swooped upward through a skylight into the cool forest air and purple dusk of the setting Anvil.
Diega had a brief aerial view of the Hive courtyard below her, now a battlefield where writhing masses of black and gold concentrated around patches of red and fire. Omarians and Neridori clashed on the ground and in midair. The fierce insect-breeds released buzzing screams, attacking the fire wielders, plunging their s
tings into them without hesitation, even though it meant their own death as well. The Omarians were greatly outnumbered, but they were also more powerful. The battle looked as if it could go either way.
One Omarian looked up and spotted the group escaping. He leaped onto a Neridori guard’s back and forced it, with his dagger to its throat, to take flight. He pointed in Diega’s direction and the guard hurtled toward them.
“Sesame, fly faster!” Diega yelled up at the drone.
Sesame gasped, beating his wings desperately, but he was an unpracticed flier and weak from starvation; the Omarian on the guard caught up with little effort.
Diega felt a blast of fire at her back. Sesame screamed and crashed into the treetops. A branch ripped Diega out of his grasp. She slammed into a heavy trunk and ricocheted off. Knocked breathless and half-senseless, she scrambled trying to get hold of something to stop herself falling. She grappled with a bunch of leaves, but they ripped and she plummeted from the sky. Sesame swooped in, trying to catch her, but another fireball scorched his hair and sent him scattering. Diega had a moment to think that this was it, this fall would kill her. She braced for impact and saw the ground racing up at her.
Caesar dropped from the void above and snatched her out of mid-air. He landed solidly on his feet on the forest floor. The drone carrying Shawe dived down beside them. As they zoomed past, Shawe grabbed Diega’s hand, yanking her off her feet and back into the air, her legs dangling below. Another drone picked up Caesar and the pair sped them through the forest, keeping low and out of sight, dodging the black tree trunks as they flashed in front of them. Diega’s stomach churned, the wind shrieking in her ears.
With a crash of leaves the Omarian and Neridori guard burst down right behind them. Shawe’s drone shrieked. It zigzagged faster through the trees, trying to avoid the inferno blasts singeing their backs. Trees on all sides went up in a blaze, and the fire started to spread rapidly through the forest. The Omarian managed to steer the guard in beside Shawe. His Neridori slammed into the drone and the Omarian snapped his poisonous bone blade out of his wrist and stabbed it into Shawe’s arm. The gangster yelled a curse, but didn’t release his grip on Diega. She clung on desperately, digging her fingernails into him and trying to climb up his arm. She could barely see with the wind rushing in her face. The Omarian came back in for another try. He raised his blade and Shawe punched him across the face with his free hand. Hot blood spurted from the Omarian’s nose. He sent a fireball into Shawe that would have incinerated most people, but Shawe’s tough skin didn’t burn so easily.
