Battle Across Worlds

by Dean Chalmers

  He looked to Taxamia. “Your wrists are small and your cuffs aren’t as tight as they could be, Princess.”

  “If we were to get loose,” Taxamia asked, “could the cannon still be fired?”

  “There is a compressed ambia reserve chamber,” he explained. “But it will take several shots of the cannon to charge it, and any shot will require a sympathetic aon reaction. Would require you both remain right here, in other words. If you were to … umm … become uninstalled before the reaction occurs, the cannon could never fire, and there would be no reserve at all.”

  Telnon looked around nervously, blinking rapidly in his fear. “I must go now. She will be waiting.”

  “Thank you, Telnon,” Taxamia said. “You have helped us greatly.”

  He nodded to her, then grabbed up his ambia lamp and scurried nervously from the chamber. They were left in darkness.

  “It is something,” Ralley said when the man had left.

  “It is, yes,” Taxamia confirmed.

  Ralley could hear her grunting as she twisted her arms in the manacle cuffs.

  “They are not as tight as they could be,” she told him, “but they are still secure. I need help, love. I need your strength. It is dark, and I am afraid.”

  “You shall have everything I can give,” Ralley said. He closed his eyes—though it made little difference in their pitch-black prison—and began to hum.

  A simple melody of low notes came to his lips. It was the Leitmotif from “Ordeal of the Thundergod,” the theme of an angry god imprisoned deep in the earth. Everyone assumed the god dead, but his power was only sleeping …

  Ralley let the music fill his mind as he willed his own power to rise up.

  #

  The heavy crystal door slid aside, and Telnon stepped onto the bridge of the great flying fortress.

  From the inside, the walls and floor were almost transparent, just a slight haze indicating their positions. This particular trick of aon technology had always made Telnon very uncomfortable.

  He could see the floor of the landing pit thirty feet below, and stepping forward onto the near-invisible floor, he felt as if he would fall. Technicians worked at the various consoles, the men and the crystal-studded control podiums all appearing to stand suspended in space.

  Lanaya turned from the console at which she’d been working. She narrowed her eyes at Telnon and nodded. “Are they prepared?”

  He kept his head bowed as he replied: “Yes, Pai General. Their bodies should act as shells for the sympathetic aona in their heads. The ambia should flow around them, not through them. Theoretically, they should survive the convergence.”

  She nodded. “Good.” Turning to another technician at a console nearby, she said: “Activate the lofting aon cells. Prepare for flight.”

  Looking out through the front of the bridge, Telnon could see the massive, inward-sloping stone wall of the pyramid looming over them.

  How were they going to get out?

  He felt the unseen floor vibrating under his boots. Then, the pit below them started to drop away as they rose ten feet into the air, twenty …

  Lanaya motioned him to the left side of the bridge, towards an array of clear crystals which now flickered with ambia energy.

  “Monitor the conduits,” she said. “And prepare to fire the main cannon.”

  He looked at her, not understanding.

  She smiled back—not angry now, but looking rather amused at his confusion.

  “There’s a wall in our way,” she explained. “A waste of my holy fire, perhaps. But the weapon must be tested, yes?”

  “Yes, Pai General,” he replied, trembling. “I am preparing for convergence of sympathetic aona.”

  Princess, he thought, both of you back there—forgive me.

  #

  Ralley closed his eyes and breathed deeply as the fiery state flowed over him. He fought to focus his strength, will it towards Taxamia …

  She grunted in the darkness as she struggled to slip her hands from the manacles, and he could sense the pain of her effort.

  “I may have to break some bones in my hand,” she said. “Don’t be alarmed if I cry out.”

  “I am with you,” he whispered. The Dameryan words came easily to his lips: “Yao tuaed ka tuaed, yao obed ka obed.”

  Your pain is my pain, your strength is my strength.

  She had been struggling for a minute when Ralley noticed a faint glow in the darkness.

  His eyes were still closed, but he could see the light behind his eyelids. It began to grow in intensity …

  He opened his eyes and saw that Taxamia was also bathed in this pale radiance. She’d stopped moving and was staring at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “You’re moving closer to me,” she said. “But … we’re not really moving. It’s space around us …”

  He watched and saw that it was true. Her body was sliding closer to his, and there was a wavering in the air, like the distortion he’d sometimes seen over a hot stove.

  Suddenly, there was an intense burning in his head, just between and behind his eyes—as if there, the fire inside him was growing too hot, focused on the spot like sunlight through a lens.

  It was joined by the pull, the same anxious magnetism that had compelled him to seek to Taxamia in the first place, the force that had tugged at him from across a gulf of worlds.

  This time, though, the tension of their link hurt fiercely—as if his brain was enflamed, and about to be sucked out through his ears.

  “Is it … convergence?” he asked, trying to brace himself against the pain. “The cannon?”

  She nodded. “It’s starting! We must try to fight it!”

  As she spoke, the light flared brighter, and a dancing beam of white brilliance sparked between them.

  Only then did the sounds begin. There was shrill whistle humming in his bones, and he felt lightheaded, unable to focus.

  The whistle became a piercing scream.

  The shuffling, whispering noise accompanying it flowed around them, sounding like a million dry leaves in the vortex of a whirlwind.

  Grinding his teeth, Ralley fought against the pull. Trying to push aside the fiery pain in his head, he willed himself to remain where he was …

  The effort was incredible and he was soon trembling and wanted to scream—but it was no use.

  The pain in his head burned and the ambia flared even brighter.

  He turned his head to look at Taxamia. A brilliant veil of ambia cascaded over her flesh. The white fire streamed over the braids of her hair, and her eyes were illuminated with it.

  “I love you, my Princess,” Ralley said—though the effort to move his lips was tremendous. “I am sorry, but I can’t fight it anymore.”

  Space was compressed, and her face came closer and closer to his own, ambia radiating out from her head like the corona of a white sun.

  Now, in Ralley’s mind, he could see the sympathetic aona in their heads: two infinitely tiny particles surging with energy, flickering in unison as they were forced together, their lights becoming one …

  And then everything was light and pain. The agony of it was too much, searing away all other thought and feeling—

  Until everything exploded.

  #

  Jarlus watched as the last of the smaller flyers took off, the fighters shooting towards the exits in the pyramid’s ceiling. The technicians and other personnel had already cleared out of the landing pit, leaving the place eerily quiet.

  As he prepared to climb down into the chamber using the ropes, a deep rumbling shook the stone of the pyramid.

  Jarlus looked up, watching in horror as the great dark crystal ship suddenly rose into the air. Static tingling played over his body as the thing lifted from its resting spot, rising ten feet, twenty …

  Too late! he thought. Have to get over there, before they’re gone.

  He wasn’t sure just how the massive vessel would exit of the pyramid, but he expect
ed some trick of aon science.

  Grabbing a nearby rope, Jarlus swung out into the vast chamber. Then, he snatched one of the silvery cords, which was slippery in his grip. He transferred his weight to the silver strand, while his other hand was already reaching for a rope nearby.

  Working hand-over-hand, he climbed across the chamber. He had to make it before the ship left, taking the da’ta se with it.

  He couldn’t lose them!

  The great ship had levitated to a height of about fifty feet above the pit floor, and now hung suspended there.

  Jarlus had almost reached it when an ear-splitting whistle pierced the air of the chamber, so loud and sharp that he nearly missed the rope he was about to grab.

  The sound grew louder, accompanied by a low shuffling rumble now …

  And then a great gush of white flame spouted out from a depression in the bow of the ship.

  It wasn’t the usual narrow beam of ambia; more like a wave of energy, churning and spreading as it shot outward. It became so bright that Jarlus had to close his eyes and turn away, while his eardrums felt like they would burst from the noise.

  When the sound had finally faded, he looked up. The stone of the pyramid wall in front of the great ship was gone, as well as most of that side of the pit.

  In the sunlight that streamed in from outside, he could see that the beam had dug a trench through the ground at least fifty feet deep and a hundred across.

  It stretched forward as far as he could see, a giant, red-brown wound in the jungle floor. Everything in the path of the weapon—trees, plants, earth, rock—had been completed disintegrated, wiped from existence.

  There was no debris. Not even a cloud of dust remained in the beam’s wake.

  The ship was rising again now. Jarlus had no time to ponder what he’d seen; the da’ta se were on board, and he had to act.

  Grabbing another cord, he swung out so that he was directly above the huge flyer, then released his grip and dropped down ten feet onto the midsection of the blue-black crystal hull.

  As the ship began to move forward, sailing slowly towards the opening in the pyramid, he scanned the hull for someplace to hide and brace himself. Flyers moved very fast, and he didn’t want to be swept off …

  He saw a projection near the rear, an arrowhead shaped wedge of crystal about ten feet long, set low near the hull and pointing towards the front of the ship.

  Jarlus sprinted to the projection, and had barely scurried underneath when the ship cleared the cover of the pyramid and tilted upwards, rising quickly as it gained speed.

  On hands and knees, he braced himself under the projection as the wind buffeted him, howling around him now, threatening to pry him from the hull and send him plunging down to the forest hundreds of feet below.

  #

  On the bridge of the great ship, Lanaya leaned over her control panel, laughing in spasms as the forest dropped away below them, the mass of green rushing by as they picked up speed.

  Bracing himself on the conduit console, Telnon tried not to look down.

  “Telnon, you serve me well,” Lanaya told him. “Holy fire indeed! It’s more than I ever thought possible.”

  It was the first time Telnon had ever seen his mistress in such a state, manic and practically drunk with the power of the flying fortress she now commanded.

  When the great ship had steadied in its flight, Telnon took a deep breath and turned to his mistress.

  “I … I should check on the da’ta se,” he suggested. “Make sure they got through the convergence all right. We’ll need them again.”

  “No,” Lanaya said. “I need you to watch these conduit indicators in case of a surge. I’ll send one of the soldiers to examine them.”

  “Yes, Pai General.” She didn’t want him going back—and she was looking at him closely now, as if gauging his reaction.

  Did she suspect that he’d aided them?

  “Telnon,” she asked, “If the precious da’ta se do … expire … would we have enough reserve ambia to fire the cannon again?”

  He nodded. “If they survive one more reaction, yes. After two shots are fired, we will have enough residual ambia for one additional shot. We won’t need a convergence for that—but at this rate of compression, we can only retain that extra charge for a few hours.”

  “That’s hardly a problem,” she laughed. “I want to use this weapon, not sit on it! For now though, make sure that we are prepared for a second shot soon, and that the conduits will hold.”

  “Yes,” he answered, bowing low.

  She turned to address the other technicians on the bridge. “The time of fire has come,” she announced. “Our first target: the Tomb of Oberkion.”

  -31-

  As the sunset’s red glow filled the late-day sky, Technician First Class Tesha Vaug strode across the fortress’s landing platform towards the damaged Hummingbird flyer, a coil of silver aon linking wire in one hand and a satchel of tools in the other.

  But someone else was already there.

  The craft had been braced upon wooden blocks, so that technicians could work underneath it during the repair process.

  Someone was under the flyer now. That person’s feet were sticking out from under the craft, shod in odd, brass-buckled, black leather boots.

  As Tesha approached, she saw the scarlet-clad legs emerge as the man slid out.

  Before she saw his face, she knew—

  It was him.

  Her first impulse was to rush over and pull him away from Jael’s flyer. But then she remembered what she had heard. This stranger—

  His name is Jack, you know that.

  —this stranger had saved Panna Jael’s life and was to be made a member of the royal Flying Squad.

  He would be stationed here at the cliffside fortress of Xai Kaor and, technically, he now had the right to touch the flyers.

  She still wasn’t comfortable with his presence, but she’d have to put those feelings aside …

  Instead of walking forward, she stood in the sunset shadows behind a parked flyer, watching him as he sat up. He still wore his silly plumed hat; apparently he’d kept it on, even while under the flyer.

  On his knees now, he ran his hands along the side of the Hummingbird, as if caressing it …

  She was curious about him. She had to admit that much. He seemed to have a genuine fascination with the flyers, and a real respect for them. That was a great contrast to pilots like Jael, who seemed to think that they themselves were far more important than the craft which allowed them to fly.

  She watched as the stranger—Jack—moved to the damaged left wing, gently probing the tattered edge with his fingertip, scrutinizing the silver wire and the remnants of the destroyed aon cell inside.

  “We’re going to replace the entire wing,” she said, stepping forward from the shadows. “They’re banding the new wing with iron right now; we’ll put the aon cell and the conduits inside after it’s assembled.”

  Jack saw her and smiled. He made as if to stand, but she shook her head and waved him down. “Don’t bother,” she said. “I accept your greeting.”

  She nodded to him and tried to smile, hoping she didn’t look too tense.

  Just being civil, courteous … A matter of diplomatic relations.

  “Miss Tesha, lovely as always. I am honored,” he said. She didn’t know the words, but she understood that his tone was one of polite interest.

  And he’d remembered her name …

  He was still kneeling, but he removed his plumed hat and nodded to her, smiling broadly, watching her with those damned electric blue eyes.

  She turned to the flyer, gesturing towards a panel on its side. “I’m going to check some wiring. Would you like to see?”

  He nodded as if he understood, and she knelt beside him, taking a tool from her satchel with which to remove the bolts that held the panel in place. She struggled with the first bolt, twisting and tugging with the iron tool.

  He noticed her frustration, an
d tapped her shoulder, then pointed towards the tool.

  “Go ahead,” she said, moving aside to let him try. He leaned forward, squinting at the bolt, then applied the tool to it, twisting and prying while contorting his face into a series of comical grimaces.

  Tesha laughed.

  The sound escaped her mouth before she could stop it, and she clamped her hand over her lips, embarrassed.

  This caused Jack to laugh in return. He chuckled as he leaned back, applying leverage to the tool—

  —and the bolt flew loose with a loud pop.

  She watched as he removed the other bolts, which came off easily. Then, he swept his arms towards her, indicating that she should remove the panel and proceed with her demonstration.

  She did so … and he was still watching as she ran her fingers over the silver wires inside, making sure they were secure.

  Oh well, she thought. She might as well explain to him what he was looking at …

  He wouldn’t understand a word of it, but at least it would give her something to do, something to take her mind off those blue eyes and the broad smile on that bearded face.

  “The wire is the aon conduit,” she said. “It carries impulses from the control rods to the aon cell in the wing, here. The central aon in the cell is tuned to support the craft at a fixed distance from the plane of the ground, but there is a buffer around it which is affected by the impulses to adjust the relative height when the rod is … What are you doing?”

  He’d gently placed his hand over hers, moving along with her as she slid her fingers over the aon mechanisms. When she looked up at him, he was staring at her, his eyes wide with gentle admiration.

  She trembled as he slid his fingers up her arm, across her shoulder and up her neck to her chin, which he cupped lightly. With his other arm, he pointed to the glow of the setting sun, the disk of which was just disappearing over the wall of the fortress as it sank towards nightfall.