by Reiter
“Brace, saytrah!” Saru cried and placed one foot at the small of Danatra’s back, pushing off her shoulder. The arc of her jump carried her over the swordsman who swung up at her and missed. Saru landed in a low squat and swung her staff out in a full circle, tripping three of the five Tohgrunn. She rolled backward to avoid the downward swing of the swordsman who only barely missed her. The female Vinthur sprung up to her feet and jumped over to the only other standing Tohgrunn, landing on his chest and hammering her staff down on his face.
“Nyaka!” she cried allowing the staff to remain against the creature’s flesh as she put her feet back down to the floor. Screaming in great effort, she pulled on her staff, slinging the stunned Tohgrunn toward the swordsman who easily avoided the intended collision, sliding underneath the hurled body. He drew back his blade to send it through Saru’s prone body. Dungias landed on the swordsman’s back, driving him to the floor.
“Nyaka,” Saru gasped.
The stealth field dropped from the incredibly hard contact and Dungias kicked one of the blades up to his hand. He stood up, turning and hurling the blade into the leg of a rising Tohgrunn. He charged another, kicking him in the crotch. The third rising combatant clawed for Dungias’ face, but his arm was caught, trapped and quickly separated from the shoulder. Dungias threw him to the floor and spun around, looking for another opponent. The Tohgrunn with the wounded leg was reaching for the knife at his side when Dungias made the sword heavier. The warrior screamed and fell to the ground, clutching at his wound.
Saru used her staff to silence the screams. Panting, bleeding, and beginning to cry, the Vinthur woman looked up at her mate for a moment, leaning heavily on her staff. She moved Danatra to take hold of it and left them both to run to Dungias. The young Traveler thought better of reminding his wife that he had told her to leave and protect their child.
“It is often said that all young Travelers are always late,” she whispered as he lifted her from the floor in his embrace. “You have aged nicely!” Dungias chuckled as he hugged his wife, but then put her down to face his Vi-Prin.
“Can you feel me, Danatra,” he thought. Danatra’s body shuddered suddenly and she reached out for him; Dungias ran to take hold of her.
“She saved my life,” Saru testified. “She was doing very well against them, but she saw me fall before one of the powered suits. Her shield absorbed its missiles but the effort struck her deaf and blind!”
“Backlash,” Dungias whispered, holding his Vi-Prin close. Another lesson learned from the Shadow Corps, and a technique they had trained to create in their opponents. With any good light, the regenerators would restore both of the ladies of his life and he took hold of Saru to teleport to the infirmary with hopes it had not been destroyed.
Realization often offers little comfort in the throes of conflict. The condition of the medical facilities was, at best, disappointing. It appeared that a charge had been set off in the middle of the room. Saru closed her eyes as her hold on Dungias tightened. He quickly rubbed her back to console her.
“Easy, nyaka,” he said softly. “Kiaplyx could only destroy what he knew to exist. Tell me, when you rescued my Exemplar and my Vi-Prin, did you leave their ship behind?”
“We wound up having to use their ship to make our escape,” Saru advised and Dungias smiled teleporting to the hangar. As he expected, the regenerators on board were still functional, and he had additional power brought through the moorings to improve their ability.
With Danatra tucked away in one regenerator, Dungias kissed his woman tenderly before lifting her from the floor. Closing the door on Saru’s unit, one more shared smile was exchanged before she was anesthetized. “Rest now, my glorious war–”
“Dungi, you’d better get back here and fast!” Nugar called over the speakers. Dungias had to leave the ship in order to use teleportation.
“I have already prepared my fastest ship that will make the range,” Nugar said as Dungias appeared in the room. “Though at this point, with what I am reading, even if we were to use Jump-Stride, we would still be too late!”
Dungias walked around the main console to look at the screen and nearly screamed when he did. “Wh-wh-what… what is that?”
“Do not argue your eyes because they see what you do not wish to,” Nugar said, making his final calculations. “That is eight streaming tunnel-like bridges all pointed for Quantia Prime. And… on each bridge… there is nothing but Grenbi!” Dungias stepped back from the console. He drew in a deep breath and started to pace.
“At their rate of speed, they will achieve Quantia Prime in thirteen tonki,” Nugar announced. “Even a military fleeter-ship can’t move fast enough to get us from here to there in time.”
“Here to there in time,” Dungias repeated as he stopped pacing. “Master, ready whatever ship you have that has a weapons array similar to that of the domicile!”
“That would be a battle shuttle,” Nugar said, slightly confused. “She can take it, but she’s slower than a dead vermisar!”
“As long as she does not fire like one, we’ll be fine… in theory.” Dungias stopped for a moment and looked at his mentor. “And Kwinsoah, I must go alone!”
“Have you finally taken leave of your senses?!” Nugar barked. “Alone against the Royal Palace and the Grenbi?”
“Someone has to see to the domicile and the wounded,” Dungias said before looking at the very quiet Tohgrunn. “Besides, it seems you have a new student to teach.” Dungias looked up and started to speak. He was quickly pulled into a powerful embrace.
“Travelers don’t say goodbye,” Nugar whispered, fighting the urge to cry. “We say, ‘Trek Well’ … because in this Light, or the next, kommis, we will see each other again.”
“I have no doubt of that, Kwinsoah,” Dungias replied before stepping back from Nugar and giving the command to teleport to the hangar. He stepped aboard the shuttle and quickly initiated the procedure to take off. He was not clear of the hangar when he went from maneuvering thrusters to the main drive. He just missed nicking the edge of the bay doors and put the shuttle into a tight turn the moment he cleared the domicile.
“You have a plan, Dungi?!” Nugar radioed in.
“It would be difficult to say yes to that question,” Dungias replied as he powered up the shuttle weapons. “There are many who would have the most difficult time calling this a plan. A good number of them I would consider to be credible sources of reason and tactics.”
Nugar chuckled for a moment. “Sounds like the best plan to execute then. Trek Well!”
“I trek in the shadow from the Light of my Master,” Dungias declared as the weapons array fired several bursts. Dungias made an aperture into the Realm Astral. “Using what he taught me, well is the least I will achieve!” The shuttle sped through the aperture and Dungias could hear his Master howling. With everything that was pressing on him, Dungias smiled.
** b *** t *** o *** r **
Nugar howled, as was sometimes the custom when faced with the most dire of circumstances. The Vinthur argued the right of life, and the wailing was their strongest contention that life was deserved. As long as the Stars could hear them, they were alive and they would strive on into whatever faced them. Nugar howled as the aperture, created by his student, carried the young Traveler off into the Realm Astral. Nugar had yet to tell his Dungi of his travels there and why he would not be surprised to hear that Dungias had suffered a fair amount of trouble after being identified as a Traveler. He howled against the lunacy that his student had fathomed the means to do something that Nugar had had to steal a device in order to mimic. A device he had never understood the working functions of, and eventually lost due to the ways of the Traveler. He howled as his sensors recorded the aperture and cued another program, one which had been quarantined by the security programs of the domicile… a program that had not gone active until it was supposedly secured. Doors opened and closed throughout the domicile, but none that could be seen or heard by the living e
ye or ear. A construct was assembled and sat quietly and ever so still… waiting for another trigger… as the Old Traveler howled.
** b *** t *** o *** r **
The tunnel of light was more turbulent than Dungias had expected, but Nugar had not sold the spacecraft short. The shields barely registered any trouble at all as the ship pressed on toward the Astral Universe.
“The Grenbi,” Dungias whispered as he verified his dimensional anchor. The last time he had been in the company of Berylon, the thought had come up in the mind of the Lord of the Radients, and Alpha had read the impression thoroughly. The emphasis of this anchor was stressed on holding not only a dimensional marking, but one of time as well. If Dungias was remotely successful, this gambit would not cost him the time he would need to hopefully intercept the Grenbi before they could make planet-fall on Quantia Prime... though he had no idea how he would go about even trying to achieve that objective. The shuttle soared into the Realm Astral and Dungias cut his engines.
“My apologies, Borsidia,” Dungias said softly. “It seems I cannot remain from your territories for even seven tonki! And if that damned machine were not already dead, I would kill it again!” Dungias hissed as his hands descended to the sensor controls. “Have to remember to sweep every circuit of the computer, every tram of that station, for whatever that insane Kiaplyx might have planted.
“But in its haste to be powerful, it has again acted in a manner that is impractical,” Dungias smiled as he called up the logs from the domicile sensor sweep. “It is doubtful that Nugar saw this, but it is an energy signature, and it started from inside the domicile – that has to be The Campus!
“Kiaplyx set himself to make The Campus unachievable from the perspective of my dimension. He was so set on that objective that he forgot all dimensions touch upon the Astral! All I have to do is–” Dungias’ sensor board starting receiving readings, but in response to a communiqué he had received, not the sweeping of the sector. Someone was sending him the information he needed: readings of the tell-tale energy signature; the when and where it brushed along the Realm Astral.
Dungias confirmed the validity of the data and found the points within the shuttle’s scanning range were accurate. He marked the source of the information for a later date, and looked at points in the sector where the next events had been predicted to occur. It did not take Dungias long to see the math behind the predictions. While the dimensional jumps might have seemed random, especially from the perspective of anyone at The Campus, there was a clear pattern from the viewpoint of the Astral Universe. If Dungias could pilot his shuttle to one of the listed points, he could attempt a dimensional jump to The Campus.
Pressing the shuttle for speed, Dungias set his course for the closest point – now three occurrences down the listing. The fourth through the end of the list showed the event happening much too far away for Dungias to reach in the times stated. It had not escaped the young Traveler that the occurrence times and placements showed the events as leaving Centren. Only ten more occurrences were on the list he had received. While Dungias was sure that the skipping through dimensions would continue, it seemed as if whatever party was behind the information was telling him that his transit out of Centren was something ill-advised. Taking only a moment to decide, Dungias nodded and set his course. The third next event was his best opportunity.
“Of course, there is another way,” he thought, considering the Jump-Stride. “… though I have trouble dealing with targets that are not moving. The Campus is certainly moving, and very fast, through multiple dimensions, and the chances that will affect the Jump-Stride I cannot begin to calculate. It is an option, however, simply not the most immediate one.”
He left his seat to make an adjustment to the engines of the shuttle. He removed a safety factor to the feed lines and then set the generators for what could only be considered self-destructive limits. The machine could indeed deliver what was requested of it, but the repercussion Dungias gambled against was the loss of his engines… by way of explosion! Before returning to his seat, Dungias inserted Alpha into the engine frame.
“Help the engines contain the energy as much as you can,” Dungias directed before he went back to the controls. He deactivated all alarms from his board. He needed to concentrate on piloting and his link with Alpha, as his mind started considering that Alpha would be of greater use in such a matter if the engines had been formatted differently. Such as things were, Alpha would do all it could.
“Even at this speed, we will not be in position when The Campus skips along the Realm Astral,” Dungias realized as he looked at the console and checked his math again. “We will barely be in weapons range!” The brow over his left eye lifted for a moment as an idea struck him. Dungias’ eyes squinted as he started powering up the weapons. “Weapons range!” Accessing the weapons, the young Traveler started changing the format of the iro-form emission for each battery. “Then we will have to extend our reach! Open an aperture within an aperture!”
When his sensory readings indicated the event was beginning, Dungias readied the weapons and then started changing the emitter relays for the shields. He kept his eye on the scanning readout, waiting for the signal. The breach-way flashed open, glowed for five tanku and started to close. Dungias fired the outer wing battery laser cannons which emitted a constant beam instead of bolts of photonic mass. The iro-form resembled Force Energy, and Dungias attempted to take hold of the frame of the aperture. The inner battery cannons were then fired and Dungias tried to make a doorway into the rapidly shrinking aperture. The ship was jostled and sparks flew from the main console, burning at Dungias’ arms as he lifted them to protect his face. He absorbed the influx of current as he called for Alpha. The moment he felt Alpha reach his hand, Dungias extended his senses beyond the hull of the shuttle… and he could feel a tunnel… one that was very long and was being crushed.
“But this is not the Void!” Dungias remembered as he maintained his view of the tunnel. He leaned and pressed forward, phasing through the hull of the shuttle. He then used Alpha, channeling the power he had absorbed from the power surge, converting it into a gravity pulse. He established the shuttle as his launch point, pushing himself ahead of the ship as it rocketed into the iro-form shaft. Just as his body entered the tunnel, the engines of the shuttle gave and Dungias quickly expanded the focus of his gravity field, pushing off the explosion. His speed increased and Dungias shot down the center of the tunnel as he saw the sides of the tubular path beginning to diminish.
“The rate of erosion is too great,” Dungias estimated. “If I do not clear the physical aperture before it closes, I will be scattered across the dimensions.
“But wait,” Dungias remembered. “… the masters of the campus are caught in backlash because they are linked to the pocket dimension. The Radients are a creation of Beta-Elder, and while they are a part of him… they were the trigger to mending the Beta Forms!”
“Sai-Eg!” Dungias called out as he projected his thoughts.
“Brother!” Berylon replied and the tell-tale circular ring started to form inside the crumbling tunnel. From the flash of light that was the Radient-crafted aperture, Berylon, glowing brighter than Dungias had ever seen him, streaked from the portal and took hold of Dungias and quickly turned to fly them home. Dungias thought of using Alpha to see if he could maintain the integrity of the iro-form structure, but the rod grew cold and heavy in his hand at the thought of the application. Instead of carrying Dungias beside him, Berylon took hold of his friend and pushed him ahead of his body.
“Aaarrrgh!” Berylon screamed as the portal closed across his waist.
“Sai-Eg, no!” Dungias cried as he dropped toward The Campus. “NOOOO!!!!!”
Using Alpha once more, Dungias slowed himself before reaching the grounds. He landed and rolled, opting not to stand as he came to a stop. He pounded the ground and cried at the loss of a good friend.
“Why do you despair?” a voice called out to him and Dungias noticed
how he was suddenly enveloped in shadow. “I haven’t started killing you yet!”
“Please, just leave me be!” Dungias begged. “… I just lost my Star Brother!”
“Then rejoice,” Vaysh quickly replied, drawing his sabre-sash. “Per Kiaplyx’s instructions, you’re about to join him.” Dungias roared, pushing from the ground, diving toward the source of the voice.
Hominoid in form and slightly taller than the Dungias, the creature had been especially picked by Kiaplyx to combat Dungias, should he somehow find the means to attain The Campus. He was a prisoner who had to be kept in stasis due to his prowess in combat and his incredibly savage nature.
He was Nithalian, a very proud race who believed that the grace of birth had given each living soul a calling. The Nithal spent their lives looking for their Life-Call. Vaysh knew he had found his the moment he stepped into his first self-defense class. By the time he reached puberty, he had already mastered three forms and had started hiring his skills out to the highest bidder. Ten years later, his presence was the very definition of fear! Tracking a target through three star-systems, he had finally cornered the elusive woman, only to be banished to the Astral Realm as he landed the killing stroke. That had been three years ago, and Kiaplyx had promised a door back to his home dimension if he could kill this Traveler.
