Worlds Without End: The Mission (Book 1)

by Shaun Messick

  Celeste eased on the pressure with her gun. “So, that is what he has planned. Well, he should know that I would kill him rather than marry him.” Celeste then gave Sartel a questioning look.

  “What?”

  “Last night, I was able to listen in on the conversation Dorange had with my father by placing a small listening device underneath the table. Tell me, Captain … Dorange mentioned that you failed to deliver the documents to my father that proved a secret rebel force murdered my sister. Why did you not deliver those documents?”

  Sartel laughed again.

  “What is so funny?”

  “Dorange has both your father and you fooled. You know as well as I do that there was never a secret rebel force that killed your sister. Dorange was an abusive and overbearing husband. Your sister knew something that Dorange did not want your father to know. He killed her and made it look like an accident.”

  Celeste felt her face flush with anger. She jabbed her gun into Sartel’s ribs again. “What did she know that Dorange did not want my father to know?”

  “You think Dorange would tell me. That supposedly is only something he and your sister knew. But, I’ll tell you what … Your Highness.”

  “What?”

  “Your father won’t find out about this conversation, either,” Sartel said as an evil smile spread across his face.

  Celeste looked down just as Sartel began to raise his right hand. She tried to dodge the deathblow to her heart, but she didn’t move fast enough to avoid the blade altogether. Sartel jammed a dagger deep into her left shoulder just below her clavicle. She screamed in pain and fell to her knees.

  Celeste looked up at Sartel and raised her gun to shoot. He quickly dove out of the way as the plasma flash from her gun hit the underside of her Chati. Sartel tried to scramble to his feet, but he slipped in the wet snow.

  She tried to fire again. However, Sartel noticed her taking aim and threw a side kick right into her injured shoulder. She dropped the gun, grabbed her bloodied shoulder, and fell onto her back, gritting her teeth in pain.

  When Celeste opened her eyes, Sartel was standing over her with her gun pointed right between her eyes. “Nice try, Your Highness, but you can’t beat me. It looks like you won’t be able to warn your rebel friends about the attack.”

  Celeste grabbed the dagger in her shoulder and began to pull it out, but as she pulled the blade from her shoulder, Sartel placed his foot on the dagger and pressed down. She screamed in pain.

  “Don’t even think about it, Your Highness! Let’s just use this dagger as motivation,” Sartel said as he tossed the gun into the snow, straddled Celeste, and grabbed the handle of the dagger with his right hand. Celeste pierced her lips as the pain shot down her arm. She felt the movement of the razor sharp blade cutting away at her clavicle as he moved the dagger slowly back and forth.

  “Wha … aah … what are you doing?” Celeste asked, struggling to wiggle out from Sartel’s straddle.

  Sartel, still holding the dagger’s handle, leaned in within a centimeter of Celeste’s right ear and whispered, “Let’s just say that I am going to enjoy this before I kill you.” And then, he kissed her ear.

  Celeste tried to resist, but she was weak and getting weaker by the minute as blood poured out of her shoulder.

  He continued to kiss her on the face and then down her neck. She was repulsed and nearly vomited. The more she struggled, the tighter Sartel’s grip became on the dagger. Finally, after a few seconds of struggling, she relaxed. She now knew what she had to do, but the question was – could she?

  “That’s my girl. Don’t fight it.”

  Celeste ignored his comment and continued to force her body to relax, even though she felt her body shivering from the cold because of the blood loss. She needed all of the energy she could muster now. For years, her father had been teaching her how to do it, but she could only move small objects with her mind. She could never move anything bigger than a small boulder; especially another living Gnol.

  Sartel was getting more aggressive. Nevertheless, Celeste forced her body to relax and pictured what she was going to do over and over in her mind. Finally, when she felt like she was ready, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  She slowly felt the weight of Sartel’s body being lifted from her.

  “What are you doing?” Sartel shrieked as he gripped the dagger and pushed it deeper into Celeste’s shoulder. Celeste ignored the intolerable pain as she felt the point of the dagger penetrate her shoulder blade and exit her skin on the other side.

  There is no pain. There is no pain. Lift him! Lift him! she thought.

  Sartel was now an inch above Celeste; then two; then three.

  Sartel, however, still had a hold of the dagger and tried to force his body back onto her’s, but she held him in place.

  Celeste held her right hand up with the palm open and mentally pushed Sartel upwards. Sartel shot up another five feet into the air and pulled the dagger out with his ascent. The pain Celeste felt as the blade exited her shoulder caused her to lose focus. She opened her eyes and saw Sartel beginning to fall back on top of her. His eyes were wild with fear.

  Quickly, Celeste pulled her knees to her chest with her feet ready to catch Sartel. She caught him in the abdomen and smelled the stink of his breath as air rushed out from the blow. She shot her legs forward and sent Sartel hurling through the air. She heard the crack of his back when he hit the wing of her Chati.

  Celeste rolled over onto her stomach. She could hardly hold back the tears because of the pain. Staggering to her feet, she realized she had made a mistake by turning her back on Sartel. She quickly turned around and saw Sartel charging at her with the dagger raised. She quickly raised her right arm and extended her hand and fingers.

  Sartel reached out and tried to grab Celeste’s arm, but he was too late. She had regained her focus and lifted him to about ten feet in the air. Sartel wasn’t scared this time, however. He instinctively flipped the dagger around, catching the point of the blade between his thumb and index finger and threw it toward her chest.

  There wasn’t enough time for Celeste to move out of the way. So, paying no heed to the throbbing pain in her left shoulder, she quickly and painfully raised her left arm, while still holding Sartel in place, and mentally caught the dagger. The dagger stopped with the point of the dagger a centimeter into her thick black coat. With a push of her left hand, she mentally withdrew the dagger from her coat, flipped it around, and sent it speeding through the snow-filled air toward the center of Sartel’s chest.

  Sartel’s face was no longer angry. It was now filled with terror as he saw his imminent death fast approaching. He tried to move, twisting his body, circling his legs, and moving his arms frantically in a swimming motion. But his efforts were useless. Celeste held him in place until the dagger penetrated his chest and ripped through his back by the sheer velocity with which she projected it.

  With a downward thrust of her arm, Celeste sent Sartel crashing to the ground. She heard the crack of his kneecap as his knee hit a small boulder below.

  Celeste dropped to her knees in the snow. Her wound and mental concentration on moving Sartel had exhausted her beyond consciousness. She looked up and noticed that her vision was blurry. Just before her eyes shut and her head hit the cold, wet snow, she thought she saw Sartel’s body move.

  CHAPTER 10: THE RESCUE

  20 miles from the hidden rebel base …

  The warmth of the sun shining on Celeste’s head woke her. She painfully forced herself up to her knees and looked at her left shoulder. Her shoulder had stopped bleeding; but from the red snow surrounding her body, she knew that she had lost a lot of blood. She didn’t dare move her arm and slowly forced herself to stand. She walked forward about fifteen feet to where she had thrown Sartel’s body.

  Sartel wasn’t there, but Celeste could tell that he had lost a lot of blood as well because of the blood-soaked snow. She was in too much pain to care where Sartel was. She
knew, however, that he wouldn’t have survived very long with the wound she had inflicted upon him.

  She stumbled to her Chati, opened the canopy, and nearly burst into tears from pain as she climbed into the cockpit. She pushed the ignition button. The hovercraft rumbled for a few seconds and quit. She pushed the button again – again the same result. The third time she pushed the button, there was nothing.

  Frustrated, she remembered what had happened just after Sartel had stabbed her. She had fired a shot at him and missed, hitting the underside of her vehicle. She managed to climb out of the cockpit and looked underneath her Chati. The snow had melted underneath, and she figured out why. Looking at the underside of the Chati, she noticed a hole, about five inches in diameter. She could see all the way to the cockpit. Surrounding the hole were damaged wires and jagged pieces of metal of what used to be the hover engine module. She moved her eyes to the right and saw that a piece of metal had penetrated the fuel tank. That was why the snow had melted underneath the Chati. All of the fuel had leaked out.

  She crawled out from underneath her vehicle, slowly stood, and scanned her surroundings. To her right was a snow-covered hill. In front of her was the wooded area where she surprised Sartel. And to her left, she saw Sartel’s Chati and his lifeless body lying next to it.

  Celeste stumbled her way to Sartel’s vehicle with the hopes of taking his to warn Adrian. However, her hope turned into despair when she saw what was clenched in Sartel’s lifeless hand. He must have known that Celeste was still alive, so he crawled to his own Chati and ripped out the starter module.

  She shook her head and sighed. Without tools, there was no way she could fix the vehicle.

  Glancing down at her timekeeper, she noticed that it was just after noon. She was about twenty miles away from the rebel base, injured, and almost eighteen hours away from a surprise attack that would certainly kill or enslave the people she truly cared about.

  **********

  Underground Rebel Base …

  Jake was exhausted. He had been training new Terrestrian pilots the entire day. Most of them had never flown before, let alone operated a mechanized vehicle. Nevertheless, he was amazed at their intuition and ability to fly. He was especially impressed with his younger brother, Bantyr. Bantyr had learned how to fly from their father, but he impressed Jake even more because of his instincts and ability to fly without depending on the computer system.

  Jake yawned and looked at the clock on the wall in his quarters. 12:30 a.m. He desperately wanted to crawl into bed, but he couldn’t because his father would arrive shortly. Jake stretched his body onto his bed and decided that he would get a little shut-eye before his dad arrived.

  He was about to drift into a deep sleep when the buzzer at his door sounded. “Come in,” he said as he quickly sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  Adrian walked through the door, and it slid shut behind him. “Oh … sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “No, Dad … I just thought that I’d get a little sleep before you arrived.”

  “It’s okay. I can come back in the morning, and we can talk.”

  Jake stood up and pulled the chair that was across the room closer to his bed. “No, Dad. Stay. Please. Since our last discussion, we haven’t had a lot of time to talk.”

  Adrian smiled. He walked to the chair, sat down, and leaned forward, smiling at Jake. “So how did the training go today?” he asked.

  “It went great. These Terrestrians are amazing, Dad. I haven’t seen a group of people work so well together.”

  “Yeah, they are amazing. How did Bantyr do?”

  “I think Bantyr takes after you. His instincts are amazing. When I tested each pilot’s skills on manual control without the use of the computer, he was the best, hands down.”

  Adrian smiled, obviously proud of his youngest son. “From the sounds of it … he takes after you.”

  Jake gave his father a questioning look. “How do you know?”

  “I talked with Skip about five hours ago just before he left for the temple ruins with his team. He told me about how you outran two Gnol ships when you got here. From what he told me, it sounds pretty impressive. Gnols are skilled pilots and very intelligent. I’ve only been in an aerial battle once with them, about five years ago. They destroyed my ship and wiped out my squadron of twenty ships. Only three of us pilots survived.”

  “Wow,” said Jake, feeling a little proud of his accomplishment. “How many Gnol ships were there?”

  “Four,” Adrian said in a whisper.

  Jake was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. If these Gnols were as skilled as his father said they were, then how was he able to out fly two of them?

  Adrian sat back in the chair. “So, are they battle ready?”

  “Who?”

  “Your squadron, of course.”

  “Oh yeah. I don’t think so. Even though they impressed me, I don’t think they’re ready for a mission, especially with what you just told me about the Gnols’ ability to fly.”

  “Well, you better have them ready in three days.”

  Jake looked at his father and shook his head. “I don’t know, Dad. What’s in three days?”

  “In three days, I plan to have you lead an attack on the Gnol town of Ciminae.”

  Jake stood, walked to his sink, and splashed cold water on his face. “I don’t know, Dad. I just don’t think they’re ready. Besides, why are you in such a hurry to attack?”

  “Because the city of Ciminae is where the Gnols produce their war ships, battle cruisers, short range attack ships, and reconnaissance ships. If we can cripple their manufacturing, we can begin to plan for more offensives.”

  Jake shook his head, trying to fight sleep.

  Adrian frowned a little. “I’ll let you get some sleep, son. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” Adrian stood up and began to walk to the door, but Jake grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t go.”

  Adrian turned and looked at Jake. “You’re exhausted and need some rest. It’s okay. I’ll talk with you in the morning.”

  Jake, still holding his dad’s arm, looked his father in the eyes. “You know, Dad, if I would have known that all you wanted to talk about was how my squadron was doing and what mission you have planned, I would have gone to sleep hours ago.”

  Adrian returned to his chair and asked, “What do you mean?”

  Jake sighed. “I mean, we didn’t quite finish the discussion we had before. … You know … about you being a prophet or something like that on this world?”

  Adrian smiled at his son. “Ah yes, we didn’t … did we?”

  Jake shook his head.

  Adrian continued. “I didn’t want to finish because I wanted what I told you before to sink in a little. I know from what you told me about your life that you lost your faith. Sometimes people who lose their belief need to be brought back into the fold slowly. If you put too much pressure on them, then you may just lose them forever.

  “The Gospel is very simple. Yet, at the same time, it can be very confusing if your heart isn’t in the right place.”

  Jake listened intently to his father. With everything he had experienced since crash landing on Terrest, he was beginning to understand. “I think I am beginning to understand, Dad. After you left my room the other night, I began studying the scriptures. I found a lot of references to other worlds and how God has created many worlds. I even prayed about it.”

  “And?” questioned Adrian.

  Jake let a small smile spread across his face. He knew his father wanted so badly for him to regain his faith. “Well, I know that the scriptures are true. And … I think I am beginning to build a testimony again. But …”

  “But what, son?” Adrian said as he scooted his chair a little closer to Jake.

  Jake looked down at the floor, searching for the words. When he looked back at his father, tears were streaming down his face. “But … Well … why would the Lord take you away from me when I was only five? I mean �
� I have been so angry at him for years.”

  Adrian placed his hands on Jake’s hand. “I know, son. I can’t imagine the pain you must have gone through all of those years, not knowing what had happened to me.”

  Jake looked down and nodded.

  Adrian sighed and said, “Jake, we never know what the Lord has in store for us. I mean … look at where I am now. I never would have imagined being the military and spiritual leader of our brothers and sisters on another world.”

  Jake allowed himself a small laugh. “Yeah, and who would have thought that I would be here too?”

  Adrian smiled and placed his left hand on his son’s right shoulder. “Jake, I want you to know that not a day went by that I didn’t think about you. My heart was broken. I missed you terribly. The guilt I felt every day for leaving you to go on the Mars mission was, at times, unbearable. The only way I made it through each day was knowing that we would one day be reunited.”

  More tears streamed down Jake’s face. He needed to hear his father say these words. Yes, it was true he was mad at God for his father’s disappearance, but he was also bitter with his dad for leaving.

  His father continued. “Jake … please don’t be angry with God for leading me to Terrest and away from you. Be grateful because He has led you safely here to be reunited with me, your new family, and new friends.”

  Suddenly, it hit Jake like a lightning bolt. He had never thought of it in that way before. He had been so concerned about his own feelings that he failed to realize the great blessing the Lord had provided him with. He had a family again and new friends. And what intrigued him the most was Celeste. Why did he feel such a connection when, in his own mind, he couldn’t possibly fathom being with a woman from another planet, especially one with so many abilities and powers.

  Jake didn’t realize he was smiling when he opened his mouth and was about to speak.

  Adrian beat him to it. “You’re thinking about Celeste, aren’t you?”