by J Hawk
6
Somewhere far, far away, a man in a black cloak stood icily still, his mind attuned to a laser like focus. A man whose eyeless, dark sockets would have made even the toughest man’s skin crawl with horror as they gazed into them.
Zardin was now standing in a completely new environment, one that was very different from any other place he had been to. This new place he was now in he was now in was scarcely illuminated by the faintest trickle of light. To any ordinary person’s eyes, it would have been too dark to see much at all. But to Zardin’s inner vision, which was his weapon of sensing his surroundings despite having no eyes, the picture of the place he was in was crafted to the finest clarity.
He had journeyed here, alone, for the one last task they needed to get accomplished.
And this was a relatively easy task … all he needed to do now, was to patiently wait. And everything would fall in place by itself.
7
After fighting force one and Vonayz, Ion had gotten to his hover bike and had zoomed off to the very opposite side of the planet, aiming to place as much distance as possible between them. The rest of the moon was almost as uninhabited as a planet in the outer spectrum, but Ion had managed to scout out a small city amidst the rough terrain. This city, though not entirely like the earlier one he had been to, had portions of it left stranded. Buildings left almost completely deserted. It was easy for him to find a small, unused apartment waiting for him in one of the abandoned buildings. The flat was a mere room, with nothing more than a broken bed and a table beside it.
Lying on the broken bed, Ion gazed through the glass door of the balcony opposite to him. Located on a higher floor than usual, he could see the wide expanse of black that filled the night skies out the balcony. The sky boded a tint of green, a lingering effect of the atmosphere of this planet.
His sword lay by the table on his right, sheathed. Ion was trying to wrench his mind from it. The heated meeting that had fallen between him and another unexpected nemesis of his, just minutes earlier on. Absently gazing out the balcony’s glass door the whole time, he felt his thoughts wheel back over the duel they had, and his deadly close escape. The old anger was still pulsing within him, driving fresh waves of enmity through him. But there was a different emotion, mingled with his anger and hatred this time.
He was surprised by what he had just learned…
Force one. Mystic hunters.
The fact that Vonayz, his deadly enemy, was now commanding an entire army of mystics was rather intriguing.
As Ion lay on the bed, fatigue gathered over hours pressed upon him. Hours of panicking, fighting and fleeing took a toll on his mind, so that it drooped with a slow drowsiness.
He relinquished everything, all worries, all tensions, as he rolled over on the broken cot, and fell into an unbroken, mesmeric sleep…
__________
For what could have been hours, nobody spoke. Every voice in the room was stumped by what they had just heard.
About fifteen suited men sat around the board table. Some of them had their arms folded, while others kept them over the table, their fingers flexing consciously in a display of anxiety. All of them wore grave, intense looks. They stared emptily for a long time before a voice cracked the stiff silence with a question:
“They blew up an entire cruiser?” asked a man in a black suit, spinning around on his chair to look to look at their leader. Standing ahead of the table with his arms folded in front, Evander nodded.
Another one drew in a deep breath and said, “And exactly where did the attack happen?”
“Somewhere at the border of cluster 32.” replied Evander, unfolding his arms and placing them on the table before.
“And this is the second attack in a row, you say?” said another of the suited men, his posture stiffening as he looked at Evander. “Did you say the first was an attack at the planet Tansof, to the Mech laboratory?”
Evander nodded again.
Another rigid silence fell over the room. The Naxim’s high council sank back to their grave ponderings. They all seemed to be quietly weighing the scale of catastrophe, their faces mirrors of the same dread and anxiety.
Just minutes back, news had hit Evander of a fresh attack by the same mystics responsible for the earlier one at Tansof … But this time, it was different. This time, it was far worse. They had blown an entire cruiser up.
Evander had immediately called a meeting of the Naxim’s high council, the entity governing the entire organization. For he had realised that the situation had soared well beyond limits.
Their world was now under attack.
Evander heaved a silent breath, bringing himself back to focus. “We have a picture of the mystic, from the video conference he held with the president of Dragor.”
He walked forward and tapped a central spot on the board table. A large sized holographic screen materialised over it, rotating slowly for the entire boardroom to see. A face stared out of the screen, frozen. It was the very same face Evander had seen in the earlier picture, taken at Mech laboratory. Only now, it was like having the face brought half to life on screen…
The man was standing right in front of the screen, with an evil grin upon his pale face. He seemed to be in one of the hallways of the cruiser, and lines of sleeping - or unconscious - passengers could be seen behind him. The man’s long black hair parted to reveal a colourless, pale face. With eyeless, blank sockets that gazed out. A set of razor like teeth were exposed as he smiled.
Everything about him seemed unnatural. Twisted.
“Do we have any idea where they are now?” asked one of the councillors, after the sharp effect left by the picture had faded.
Evander heaved a deep sigh, and then shook his head. “We thought we did. But we’ve been proved wrong. We had not a clue of where they were, and of where they are as of now.”
Derigor, who sat opposite to where Evander stood, tapped on the table gently.
“Now we know they’re after something.” he said, looking about the room. “These attacks - the one at Mech laboratory, and the cruiser … they are carrying these attacks with some intention behind them. They’re after something and we need to need to know what that is.”
“But the more important question,” said another of the councillors, his voice heavy with foreboding. “is what next?” He brought his gaze to the picture hovering over the table, with the eyeless man.
“That’s very right.” Evander said quietly. “I don’t think this is the last of what we’re going to see of them. And we need to arm ourselves in preparation of what’s about to come next.”
A few of them nodded, while the rest of them continued to gaze at the picture rotating in the middle of the table, visibly unnerved.
“The first thing we need to do,” continued Evander. “is to tighten all security parameters in the inner spectrum. We need Naxim ships patrolling each cluster, and conducting checks on all as many passing ships as possible.”
“Agreed.” said Derigor. “And in addition, we need to bring in high security protocols. In every cluster.”
“We’ll have to inform all of the planets of this threat,” said the man sitting beside Derigor. “And we have to get them alerted.”
Evander gave a firm nod. “Absolutely. The entire spectrum will need to be rigged into a state of high alert. We’ll need Naxim ships patrolling space inside each of the clusters, conducting checks on each passing ships. They’ll need to check every ship for mystical energy before letting them pass.”
“In that case,” said Derigor. “Every patrol ship needs to be armed with a mystical energy detector. To conduct checks on all passing ships.”
“That will be have to be arranged.” said Evander, nodding. He held his gaze over the pale face on the screen, as it rotated towards him…
This was the worst possibly situation any Naxim leader could have asked for. And it had found him. Evander steeled himself, shaking off the thought. Whatever happened, Evan
der would not yield to self pity … he had far more important things to weigh on his mind.
He looked about the boardroom, nodding.
“Gentlemen,” he said, with the air of bringing a stern, impacting closure. “We are now at war. The worst threat we have faced in centuries … possibly even millennia, has risen once more, to haunt us again. And we need to arm ourselves in preparation of whatever lies ahead. Because if we don’t act now, nothing will ever be the same again.”
As the council disbanded, Evander and Derigor hung back in the large room. Evander had a printed copy of the black faced mystic produced, which he handed to Derigor.
“When you return home,” he told Derigor. “try to pitch in a call to all the intelligence networks that we’re in contact with. And get them working on this.”
Derigor surveyed the picture, which hadn’t lost an inkling of the menace it held on him.
“All right,” he said, looking up at Evander again. This was the most massive threat the spectrum had faced … and the man standing in front of him was single handedly bearing its weight. A silent respect for Evander welled within Derigor. Smiling, he gave the high council’s admired leader a gentle pat on the back.
“Don’t worry, old friend.” he assured him. “We’ll get through this.”
Evander smiled back, and some of the tension seemed to ebb from his face. “I sure hope we do.
__________
Derigor hover car glided serenely across the clouded skies, passing the large towers that rose to this height. Never in all of his days in the top ranks of the Naxim, had he faced something that seemed so overwhelming. Something that seemed to threaten the very order of the world itself. Since its beginning eight thousand years back, the Naxim had striven tirelessly to bring stability and peace to the world. By fighting off all the enemies of peace and justice. And mystics were their foremost and most deadly enemies in this regard. For eight thousand years, the Naxim and the states of the spectrum had worked together to cast out their most lethal threat, and ensure that it never arose again…
And now, it seemed that all of their efforts were going to come crashing down over them. They had arisen once more. Mystics had returned once more to stir evil in the world once more.
And the squirming Derigor felt at the pit of his stomach told him that they hadn’t seen the worst of their veiled enemy yet…
He felt a twinge of concern for his wife and son. Martha and Garen. Serving the Naxim had forced him to live away from his family, who resided in the planet Venijor, in cluster 43. It had been almost a month since he had last visited them.
The hover car neared a large residential tower, bringing Derigor back to attention. As the car went streaking towards the tower, Derigor gradually slowed down. This was where he had found accommodation since working for the Naxim. The car gently floated in through one of the balconies and landed on the polished marble ground right outside the door to his apartment.
Derigor exited the car and strode over to the door, which slid open automatically to let him through. Pausing at the room’s entrance, Derigor flicked on the light by the side of the wall.
And his eyes locked onto something that stood calmly in the middle of his room, apparently in wait of him.
“Hello there,” said Zardin, smiling. “I’ve been so eager to meet you, my good man.”
For a second, Derigor felt as though two words had just clashed … real and illusion. And he was now grappling to separate the two of them … for the evidence suggested that the creature they had seen in the picture earlier, the one responsible for the attack on the cruiser, was now standing right ahead of him in his house…
Zardin slowly walked over towards him, his smile unfaltering.
Raw horror and panic clutched Derigor to the spot. His brain gone numb, he stared as the man walked over to him and stroked his chin with his long, black fingernail.
“What do you want?” he breathed, backing away towards the door.
The man threw his head back and laughed.
“I want the age,” hissed Zardin. “And in return … I give you a new one.”
Clutching both sides of Derigor’s head, Zardin rammed his forehead onto the man’s, who staggered and hit the floor.
Zardin’s gaze settled over the Naxim official’s unconscious body for a few seconds. Then, he pulled the man’s body over his shoulder and strode out the door, which shut itself behind him as he walked through it.
8
Tragedy upon tragedy…
With his hands behind his back, Mantra stared out the window of his room. The usual magnificence of the greenery outside seemed to hold no charm for him all of a sudden.
A few minutes ago, word had reached him that Vestra and Qyro had failed. But more than the mission’s failure, it was the fate of their two young members that left Mantra stricken. A fate which he was responsible for. Vestra and Qyro were gone, because of his presumption. He had failed in his judgment.
The dead weight of guilt knotted around his insides, twisting them painfully. he knew that the consequences of this wrong decision was far more deadly, and more far reaching that it seemed … the failure of Qyro and Vestra now left them in a terrible state. Terrible, and precarious.
Mantra focussed on his breath as he walked, ensuring that his agitation was kept under check. We cannot lose control now … not now.
The door of his room slid open, and a pair of feet scuttled inside from behind. Mantra knew who the entry was before he’d even turned around to face him.
“There’s something huge that’s just come up.” panted Galinor. His two short horns went amiss in his maroon hair, which lay slightly tousled from what looked like a mad sprint.
“What is it?” asked Mantra, raising an eyebrow. “Just in case you haven’t noticed, we’re facing something huge by itself now. Vestra and Qyro failed … you have heard of that, I presume?”
“Forget that, Mantra!” said Galinor, a rush in his tone. “We’ve just got word of something that’s far bigger, far, far more important for us to attend to! And we’ve gotta attend to it now!”
Mantra stared. What could possibly be that important? “What is it?”
Galinor heaved a deep, steadying breath. And then he told Mantra…
Mantra was not the type of person easily swayed by circumstances … but this was a circumstance that made a clear exception.
“It can’t be…” he whispered, feeling stunned by what he had just heard. What Galinor had just told him.
Galinor gave a sharp nod. “It is … and we need to attend to it now, Mantra.”
Mantra erased all else from his mind, gathering himself. Galinor was right … this really was big. Bigger than anything else that lay before them now. And it needed all their attention. Right now.
He closed his eyes and took a split second to gather all the focus he had.
“Well, what’re we waiting for?” he said, opening his eyes and looking at Galinor. “Let’s go, then.”
The two of them turned and bolted towards the door, which slid shut by itself as they passed.
9
The screeching sound of his z-com was the one thing Ion hated most in the world. Especially if it interrupted him in his sleep. With a groan of displeasure, Ion sat upright slowly. He gave himself a second to let the haze of drowsiness clear. Then, digging his hand into his robe pocket, he produced his z-com that screeched relentlessly, with an incoming call.
He tapped a spot on the metallic black skin of the small device to answer the call. It was a video call: A holographic screen grew out over the space over the z-com, staring out of which was a man.
“The name’s Eryx,” said the man.
“And you’ve got the wrong number.” cut in Ion. “There’re only a couple of people who know I exist, and you ain’t one of them.”
His finger moved over the button to disconnect the call –
“The Zelgron know you exist, though.” said Eryx. “Carcasar, th
eir warlord, has known that you exist for quite long now. And he’s sent his Zelgron after you. They’re heading for you as we now speak.”
__________
The words took a few thick seconds to register in Ion’s mind.
“The Zelgron?” he spat.
“The Zelgron.” Eryx nodded, smiling. “I trust you remember the name … Carcasar?”
Ion felt something flip within his stomach.
