Dimension

by Shay Zana

  “Alright,” Mazayus begins. “This time we stay together. Major, once we’ve established short-range communications with the Fire Blade, offer assistance and enquire about Deo.”

  Neal nods and wastes no time by moving over to the comms station.

  “Kitera, I need you on tactical. Scan for hostilities and keep us updated on that distortion.”

  “Nai,” Kitera replies subconsciously in her own tongue, rushing over to Altair’s tactical station.

  “The rest of us can split to each airlock.”

  The Paragons and marines head out down the hall, grabbing fresh shards and grenades from the armoury and replacing weapons. Once Altair slows its velocity below the sound barrier, Mazayus opens the portside airlock and takes a look outside at the approaching temple, the harsh winds stinging his face before he morphs his helmet back up. He can see a UEU Dagger hovering on one of the southern balconies, but the nearby Fire Blade does not appear to be treating it as a hostile, in fact it is covering it, and so are the many Nymph gunships attempting to secure the area.

  Nymph gunships are similar to the UEU’s Daggers, but much smaller and even more nimble with wings that curve forward from the stern and a sharp, point-like forward section that dips downward, giving the windshield a long, triangular shape. On the tip of each wing protrudes cannons, complete with protective nikita plating. Nymphs are powered by star energy and are able to morph their armour plating much like a Spartan warship, except the transition is much quicker due to the craft’s more petite size. Although slower, a Nymph can out-maneuver a Dagger adversary with precise turns. Its nikita armour plating is much more resilient than a Dagger’s titanium plating, though star energy consumption is centred into the morphing armour, therefore a Dagger’s shields are thicker.

  “That distortion is closing in pretty fast,” says one of the marines, Reed, from the other airlock.

  Mazayus peers up and watches as the fiery tornado drones mere kilometres away from touching down right into Babylon, its funnel of fire sweeping around the air viciously. Above, any of the surrounding cosmic dust is eaten up and sucked into the fire, creating a daze of angry hues. Both Serenity and UEU forces are scattering from its path.

  “Whoever set the course for the city is an idiot,” Boone mumbles from somewhere behind him, though the wind is making his voice sound even more distant.

  “Or an alignment course was set intentionally,” Natheus suggests darkly from the other airlock.

  “Meaning the UEU has the control centre,” Mazayus concludes. “It’s too late to change course. We need to get Anzac out, now.”

  Just now, a stray arc of plasma impacts Altair’s entity-encased hull, flinging the men violently, Boone nearly crushing Pelevin in a backward slam.

  “Kitera!” Mazayus barks. “Status?”

  “We are targeted. A Cerberus anti-air signature. I am encouraging Altair on evasive maneuvers to deviate its course from the temple and avoid any more unwanted attention. Are you wounded?”

  “We’re all fine.”

  “Wait,” Kitera cuts in abruptly, a brief silence filling their comms link while her fingers can be heard working the tactical panel. “We are pursued by a Spartan. Weapons are powering up. Brace yourselves.”

  “Aw shit,” Boone croaks, right before another impact sends him crashing fully upon Pelevin this time, the squashed marine uttering a dry squeal. “My bad, man, come on,” Boone offers along with a hand up.

  While the soldiers decide it will be safest back inside, Altair coils up its fins and channels its star energy through its augmented atmospheric thrusters, pushing its speed again with a bright burst of cyan, leaving the Spartan warship in its entity dust. But the warship will continue to track them, and Altair will not be able to approach the temple unscathed.

  “Did we lose them?” Boone asks Kitera as he rushes in ahead of the others back to navigation.

  “For now,” she replies stonily. “Though we are currently tracked by scout drones deployed from the Spartan.”

  Boone scrunches up his features in thought. “Why would a Spartan bother attacking an ikamanu in the middle of a warzone? We aren’t much of a threat.”

  “Rockland’s negotiations may have been unsuccessful,” suggests Mazayus. “They’ll be on the lookout for us.”

  “Point,” Boone shrugs. “So if the old man couldn’t convince the fleet to cease the attack, how are we gonna stop this?”

  Mazayus replies with silence, glancing around the room to join the exchange of sombre expressions. “There’s nothing we can do at this point. Our main priority is to secure the king, get Deo, and continue with our mission as quickly as possible. I know you will want to stay and aid in the battle,” he regards Neal and the marines. “We will take you to your specified location. But we must stop these distortions.”

  Neal hums thoughtfully. “So you’re on a mission to stop all this? You know how to?”

  Mazayus nods. “We do. Our Cipher is guiding us.”

  Kitera nods, giving Neal and the marines a respectful incline of her head.

  Stunned, the major stares at the Cipher. She had been among them for a while now, and he had thought her to be a Spiritual Native due to her elegant attire and deft way. But a Cipher! Despite the stereotypical stature of the Ciphers, she seems just as human as himself. A little different, with a strange aura to her, and lacking somewhat in the social department, but human. To be standing with a Cipher, words cannot describe the honour.

  Not sure what else to do, Neal bows to her awkwardly, the gesture foreign to him. The other marines copy him, thankful for their faceplates to hide their flushed skin and bulging eyes.

  “It’s an honour, my Lady,” Neal says with surprising smoothness, holding his bow until she responds.

  She suppresses a smirk at their obvious awkwardness. “Please, be at ease. The Zodiacs favour you greatly for your assistance...” She frowns and gives a slight grimace of frustration. “They slip from my mind... but I ask that you spread knowledge of our purpose, and give hope to all people, no matter their beliefs.” As Neal exits his bow slowly, followed by his marines, Kitera smiles to them warmly before turning back to her station, glowing motes of translucent panelling fluttering about her fingers.

  “I’ll give it my all, Lady Cipher.” Regaining his composure, Neal faces Mazayus again. “Well, now...” he clears his throat, “I made brief contact with the Fire Blade before we left range again. Your Deo is inside the temple extracting the king, currently on his way back out to be transported by that Dagger there, commandeered.”

  “Good,” Mazayus says. “Kitera, can you track that Spartan?”

  “I cannot, but I can track its drones.”

  “Alright. Bring them up on the stargrid.”

  By his command, Kitera transfers her data to the levitating stargrid. The image takes on a brief moment of static until a marked grid appears, with three red dots in hot pursuit of a large cyan triangle, symbolising Altair.

  “How are we gonna handle them without weapons?” Boone ponders aloud.

  “Altair has its own weapon,” Mazayus replies.

  At the feeling of three hostilities tailing it, Altair decreases speed in order to channel its energy into its entity, wrapping itself in a bubble of light that spasms at the rushing air and builds up lashings of electricity. As the three drones pour in closer, Altair releases a shockwave, wafting into the drones like crashing water and utterly obliterating them.

  “The drones have been neutralized,” Kitera announces placidly. “But I am picking up a closing signature on the scanners... the Spartan returns.”

  Mazayus snorts with amusement. “It seems we’ve grabbed their attention. Let’s hope Altair can handle this.”

  Pivoting around elegantly to face its attacker, Altair again charges its entity in a cocooning shield, protecting itself from an opening salvo of electrically charged missiles. The element is absorbed into its entity and expelled outward in a dangerous fury, but its proximity is inadequa
te, the Spartan looping around unimpaired. The ikamanu slips past the warship as it morphs its form and attempts to slash at it head on. With both vessels rounding for another charge, the Spartan opens fire, this time not giving the ikamanu enough time to manipulate its entity. The missiles impact along its hull with horrid pain, dotting its portside and rupturing its hide, causing it to utter a brain-curdling wail as it stoops lower to dodge more incoming fire.

  The inside of the organic vessel quivers, causing Kitera to abandon her station and kneel to the floor, placing her hands down to its metallic flesh, as if to comfort the vessel and alleviate its pain.

  “Hull breach on the portside, and the core is compromised,” Boone announces.

  “Anti-grav fluctuating in the core,” Neal extends.

  “Inertia dampeners failing,” Natheus joins in, and just as he finishes speaking, Altair lurches hard to port to dodge an incoming missile, sending everyone sliding, most losing their footing on the way.

  “I’m thinking maybe this was a bad idea!” shouts Boone, splayed across the deck.

  Kitera clutches at her head and writhes in a tight curl. “I feel its pain!”

  Mazayus rolls across the deck and reaches for her, hand clutching hers to comfort her shared sensation with the vessel. “What can we do?’

  “Pray.”

  Again, impacts clatter into Altair’s hull, this time its prow as it loops in an attempt to dodge fire. Its outer skin burns and stings with the shard elements eating into its flesh. It can attempt to morph its naturally occurring nikita armour plating, but it may injure its passengers as its internal structure will shift to draw out the material. Altair must focus on strengthening its entity if it is to survive and protect its humans.

  With sharp streams of thought patterns, the vessel angles itself for the Spartan, its forward starboard fin in direct alignment for its next plan of attack. As the two battling ships dive for each other, Altair executes its plan, unlocking its foremost wing from its side and spreading it out lengthily, the sheeting of nikita plating almost like scales protruding from its leathery skin. As they make contact, its fin slices into the warship’s hull like a razor meeting another razor, jarring and splintering as it latches itself in deeply. Before any of the UEU crew have the chance to comprehend, Altair bunches up its entity, surrounding the two locked vessels, and lets rip, continuously pounding the Spartan with eruptions within the sphere of power, hugging it close and beating it to death. With the multitude of raw power ripping into the hull, the Spartan ruptures, lightening up the dusky sky with a parade of flaring oxidation, a momentary holocaust stretching over Babylon.

  THE FALL

  Deo watches the king’s six as he and his family hasten through the crumbling temple walls, through chambers littered with dead guards and maids, ruptured statues and ornaments, and the gagging smell of charcoaled flesh. He sweeps his rifle in every direction, down every adjacent hall they pass, through every doorway until eventually the red light of a Kronos dusk filters their vision.

  “Keep moving,” he urges huskily as he pivots around, backing up quickly as the sounds of incoming footsteps ring in his enhanced eardrums. Just as the royalties round a corner safely and fall out of sight, a unit of troopers emerge, giving Deo the chance to target them and open fire with deadly accuracy.

  They simultaneously scatter to cover and return fire, but before they can land any decent hits, the Paragon is gone behind the corner, leaving in his wake a small present.

  As they rush their way to the end of the hall, Deo hears a satisfying searing splash and a scream. His acid shard has just erupted in someone’s face. Grinning in dark amusement, he continues to cover the royalties until they reach the balcony, Rahna’s Dagger hovering automatically. She covers their advance with snappy one-shots from her precision rifle, warding off passing gunships.

  “You didn’t knock down the temple, after all,” she greets teasingly, waving Deo and the royalties aboard. “Load up!”

  Deo converts to her position in covering as she runs for the Dagger. “Not enough room in that Dagger for all of us, I’ll catch the next ride.”

  “Roger that,” Rahna replies from the cockpit. “The Fire Blade will extract you once we’re clear.’

  Waving her off, something else far more magnificent catches his eye. At first it simply looks like a corral cloud formation common with Kronos evenings, but as he utilises his magnified optics, he discovers a swiftly descending twister breaching thick cloud cover to reveal its fiery dimensions. He gazes at it wordlessly, causing the others to follow his gaze.

  The flames ignite on impact with a fresh gust of atmosphere, blaring in a momentary aurora that summons a pickup of wind speeds and a haunting howl. The temple shudders to the change in pressure, and surrounding vessels careen. Stray flames from the rapid oxidation whip out of the widening tornado, cracking the air like lightning and causing stunned observers to flinch.

  In a blast, it finally makes contact, touching down on the edge of the city, crunching through its layers and grinding it to a halt.

  A young male gives a sudden shriek, and before Deo can react, shards bayonet through the air from above, pounding into multiple shields, and somebody’s flesh. Nymph gunships immediately react to neutralize the kamikaze Gladiator, rendering it a ball of fire within seconds, but the damage it caused is beyond repair.

  “Hadar!”

  Rahna provides covering fire from her Dagger while Deo rushes over to Anzac kneeling on the ground, cradling a blood-spattered Hadar in his arms. He had obviously leapt in the line of fire to protect his father, offering his life in exchange. The whine of passing Nymph’s drown out Xania and Eldad’s cries of sorrow.

  “He’s dead!” Deo barks at the king, any emotions currently shoved down as trained. “We need to move!”

  But Anzac stays, oblivious to everything around him, the Paragon’s harsh yelling and the sounds of war merely distant echoes to his ears as his eyes remain locked to his dead son’s face. His hands tremble as he brushes at Hadar’s bloody cheek, expecting him to open his eyes and come back to him, but deep down he knows his son is gone.

  “King! We gotta go!” Deo yells again, going in to grasp Anzac, but he lashes him off fiercely, standing on his own with Hadar limp in his arms.

  “Get off me! You’ve done this!” he shrieks maniacally at the Paragon, veins popping out, eyes red and flaring with advanced disgust. “You failed to protect my son! You monster! You machine! You are no Paragon!”

  Deo glares at the king for a brief moment, his infuriation concealed by his reflective visor. A mixture of guilt and rage at both himself and the king’s words shoots directly to his chest, but he says nothing and roughly ushers the king into the Dagger, watching as they lift off and ascend steeply from the city, escorted by the small Nymph gunships.

  It all happened so fast that his mistake barely sinks in. The king’s words continue to echo in his head. Monster. Machine. He is no Paragon. He just let a young prince die on his watch. What his father saw in him, and what Mazayus has inherited from his father to share that view, he will never know. Why the Zodiacs chose him, he will never understand. No wonder she hates him.

  Scowling at his own incompetence, Deo slings his rifle back over his shoulder and approaches the railing around the edge of the balcony, staring into the tornado as it approaches a little too quickly for comfort. He should be tense inside at its approach, his nerves should be tingling at the howls of its wind, his blood should be broiling at the sight of the destruction and death of its wrath, but a damp despair numbs him. A despair at the ravenous barbarity his own race inflicts upon itself, a despair at the reason for the barbarity. Differences in beliefs, from religion to a way of life, are enough to cause war and death? Humanity disgusts him, but is he himself any different?

  “We’re coming to you, Paragon,” Remington announces through horrid static. “The distortion is mucking up our instruments, but we’ll get to you. Just stay put.”

  Deo peers up, s
eeing the silhouette of the Spartan swaying through the tormenting winds with difficulty, its shields still acting as a barrier to the temple from incoming orbital strikes. As he waits, he alternates his senses between watching the tornado, and listening to the creaking groans of the doomed temple. As he stands perfectly rigid, head cocked slightly in listening concentration, all else is silent to him. No more can he hear the never ending sounds of war, distant weapons fire, the sizzling of the fiery distortion, or the heaving sea of Kronos beneath the massive hovering city. Almost making him jump out of his suit, a mighty crack shakes him from his concentration and pours the reality of the situation into his brain all at once.

  The Temple of Anzac gives a great grind and teeters forward, making Deo lurch uncontrollably and lose his footing, nearly flipping over the railings. Saving himself at the last second, he grips the railing tightly while something in the temple beneath him gives way, sending another thundering jolt up through the building. And just like that, the building falls silent again, leaning dangerously, but still standing.

  Staying in a frozen stance, grip still welded to the guard railing, Deo suddenly gives a triumphant laugh, standing up straight as if he has just won a battle with the Demons. But again, the building retaliates, knocking the laughter out of the Paragon and instead inducing him to swear. Ill prepared, he rolls right over the railing of the balcony, failing at catching his fall on jutting stone panelling on the way to the next balcony down. His worst enemy. He catches himself in a roll as he lands, reducing the jarring impact to his legs, but as he lifts up his head, he can see debris flung out in the aftermath of a collapsing level.

  Instantly, the Paragon bursts into survival mode, sprinting powerfully across the balcony, aiming to reach the opposite side. Foundations crack and separate beneath his boots, but he leaps and bounds and rolls over and under obstacles at full speed until he reaches his destination, the floors slanting upward. His thighs moan in the struggle of just making it up pavements as gravity fights his every step, but once he reaches the wall and presses his back against it, he sighs. His tilting environment slowly increases, his weight pressing more and more into the wall, hopelessly relying on an extraction that he realises will not reach him in time.