by James Somers
The guns were still trained on them. It was an unexpected turn of events for the Agonotti scout team, but Vock would know what to do. One by one they dematerialized, reforming the mist they traveled in, and began to move away—back toward the place where their leader was waiting to hear news of the transport chase.
☼
Kale awoke upside down, still strapped into his flight chair. He looked over to find Emil stirring to consciousness also.
“Do we have to end up like this every time I visit this city with you?” asked Emil sarcastically as he unbuckled his harness and rolled out to a standing position.
“I’ll let you drive next time.”
Kale got out of his harness and climbed through the smashed windshield opening, stepping into the street beyond. Emil was close behind him, wiping glass and debris off of his clothes.
A low hum could be heard rising in intensity as its source approached. They recognized it immediately.
“Pods!”
Just as they began to run away from the transport wreckage, the pods appeared from multiple directions; thirty in all. “They’ve spotted us!” shouted Emil.
“Keep moving to cover!”
The young men moved through the wreckage strewn through the streets like water, fluid and quick, navigating around every obstacle without delay. The pods began to lay down heavy gunfire, but it wasn’t very accurate. The pod guns could only fire in the direction of its flight path, and the boys were moving erratically on purpose.
“Head for cover!” shouted Emil as he outpaced his friend toward a nearby shell of a building.
Kale followed him inside ducking and weaving around debris that hung from the ceiling and that which was piled high on the floor. They regrouped while the pods remained outside. Gunfire erupted through the dusty, burnt walls they had just found a way through. The boys hit the floor together as the pulse laser fire scattered all through the room they were in, sending more debris showering down upon them.
After a moment, the gunfire stopped. They could hear the pods powering down their engines outside.
“They’re coming in,” said Kale as he shook off the dust in his hair.
They looked around. There wasn’t much in the way of cover. Then they spotted a staircase behind them—it was completely dark beyond.
“A basement?” asked Emil.
“I don’t know, but it’s got to be better than here.”
Kale and Emil got to their feet and quickly ran toward the stairs. Outside, they could hear footsteps; no doubt the symbyte soldiers from back on Castai as they shuffled through the debris looking for a safe way to go in after the two youths. Kale wondered for a moment if he might know any of them. It was so horrible—all of their friends and associates taken over by the vilest enemy he could imagine.
The boys stopped at the head of the stairs when the odor hit their nostrils.
“What is that?” whispered Kale with a sour look on his face.
“I’m not sure. Maybe people died down there.”
“That’s not it,” said Kale, “The city reeks of death. I can handle that, but this is—”
“Do you want to stay up here or what? Breathe through your mouth like me.”
Emil led the way down with his blade in hand—just in case. Kale followed reluctantly, trying out his friend’s advice on breathing. He could see the lights mounted on the soldier’s rifles sweeping into the room as they began to cautiously come inside.
Kale and Emil descended completely into the darkness. They could here the creaking of the floor above them as the soldiers proceeded into the large room upstairs looking for them. The boys moved cautiously in the pitch black all around them. The foul funk was worse down where they were and it was surprisingly warmer. Kale could feel sweat beginning to roll down his face due to the humidity.
The boys were doing their best to sense all around themselves; mentally maneuvering through the darkness. Something wasn’t right in the vast room around them. Kale could sense life all around, but it was so indistinct. He couldn’t locate any one being. It was like the whole room was alive around them.
The stomping sounds were growing in intensity as more and more of the pod soldiers moved around above them. They would be coming after them down the stairs any moment. There appeared to be no exit and no way to find something to hide behind.
“Looks like we’re going to have to fight them,” whispered Emil from somewhere in the darkness, beside Kale.
“At least we’ve got better odds down here. We can sense them, but they’ll have a hard time seeing us. Just don’t ignite your blade.”
“Something’s not right down here,” said Emil.
“I feel it too. But I can’t figure it out. It’s like the whole area is alive or something.”
The soldiers were coming down the stairs behind them about a hundred feet away. Their lights were sweeping across the steps as they descended.
Suddenly a hand clutched onto Kale’s arm—it was Emil.
“Kale,” he whispered almost in a panic.
“I know—they’re coming.”
“No. I just remembered where I’ve smelt this odor before.”
“What?”
Their pursuers were headed right for them now. The sweeping lights began to fill the room and as those lights played across the ceiling above them, Kale and Emil could finally see what their senses had been telling them all along.
“Aerogores!!” shouted Emil.
Mass hissing erupted all over the room as the great lizards sprang to life at the intrusion of the soldier’s lights. Guns began to spit fire all around the room as the pod pilots panicked at the sight of the aerogores, cast as horrible apparitions in the chaotic movement of their rifle lights.
Kale drew his blade as the whole room came alive with the beasts. The indeterminate life they were sensing before was now leaping at them from every aspect of the room. Emil’s blade flashed as he seared reptilian flesh, striking down one of the beasts. Kale sliced quickly as he sensed a predator lunging for him from the dark. He divided one of its arms in a quick duck and roll maneuver as the lizard swept by.
“Don’t hit the jaw area!” shouted Emil from nearby. “The glands contain an acid; part of the ignition fluid they spray!”
Good advice. Kale certainly didn’t want to get hit with stuff like that. Then it occurred to him—what Emil had just told him. “They spray fire too?!”
“Didn’t I mention that?!”
Emil took down another one with lightning speed. Everything was happening so fast—an eruption of pure chaos. The soldiers were spraying everything in the room with gunfire. Many were screaming as aerogores took them down; tearing their victim’s limb from limb in seconds.
Another one flew at Kale from behind. He reached out and half caught it in a mental grip, using its momentum to hurl the creature over his body as he rolled away and back to his feet. The soldiers beyond got a nasty present instead as the aerogore landed among them and caught the first it could get a hold of in deadly, vice like jaws.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” shouted Kale as he realized the stairs were now blocked by more of the reptilian creatures.
Emil drew a couple of spicors off of his vestment and flung them into the ceiling. They struck the same spot consecutively, vaporizing the matter between them and the next room above. The hole was just big enough. Emil wasted no time and rolled into the spire of light piercing the darkness. He immediately sprang upward through the hole. Kale took the hint and followed, clearing the frenzy just before one of the winged predators could seize his legs.
No sooner had Kale’s feet touched the floor above on the other side, before it buckled upward, sending the young men backward in a heap. Successive blows to the floor followed very quickly, and a hideous triangular head peered through the widening hole and fell back again.
“Let’s go!”
They both turned and with their combined mental force, they burst the wall outward into the debris strewn
streets beyond and ran with every ounce of speed they could muster. Behind them, the last of the soldier’s cries faded into oblivion and the horrible screams of aerogores on the rage grew in intensity. The flooring gave way and the creatures shot upward through it and the stairway opening nearby.
The aerogores flooded out into the street in a rage of bloodlust, screeching to one another as they sought their prey.
Kale and Emil ran into another nearby hollow of a building as the aerogores flew after them. Surprisingly, the glass entryway was still intact—no way in but to go through it. A thought was all that was sent to smash through one of the large panes ahead of them, allowing the boys to proceed inside unhindered. A staircase led upward from the left. They took it—leaping over whole flights at a time, trying to put as much distance as possible between predator and prey.
The brownish scaled aerogores smashed through the entire entryway to the building in mass numbers, each several times the size of a man and winged at mid-body, sending glass and metal framing in every direction inside the building’s huge lobby. Those leading the reptilian pack quickly spotted the boys and hurled streams of flame upward at them. They were just beyond range of the searing chemical spray that mixed and ignited in mid-air just beyond the aerogore’s faces.
☼
Tiet watched the display nervously as the technician adjusted the settings on the orbital satellite. Their group had successfully made it to the Sector City base and had found it to be enormous in comparison with what they had already seen under the rebel’s control. Tiet had not been able to reach his son or Emil through their collar pins and he was terribly worried.
“I think I’ve patched into the Maxus uplink,” said a rebel technician. “I should be able to get a live feed of the city now.”
Seismic disruptions had been picked up from the sensors throughout the city and were all available through their base computer systems.
“There!” said Alec as the image zeroed in on a commotion in the city.
Relief and panic hit Tiet all at the same time as he saw two young men in Castillian uniforms leaping from rooftop to rooftop, but they had heavy pursuit.
“What are those things?!” said Tiet.
“Aerogores,” said Alec. “They’re very deadly flying versions of the larger teragores.”
“We’ve got to get the boys out of there fast.”
“What about a transgate portal?” asked Wynn.
“I’ve got something better,” said Alec. “You could use one of our recall transmitters—you can teleport in utilizing a localized gate and then once you’ve got a hold of them, hit the recall and it will bring you directly back here.”
“I’ll go,” said Wynn quickly.
“No offense, but you’ll never catch the boys on foot, Wynn,” said Tiet.
“Well, you’re still suffering from your injuries,” he countered.
“To get them back, I’ll weather a little discomfort.”
“I’m in too,” said Grod, walking into the room.
They smiled; glad to see their old friend had arrived safely at the base.
“Then let’s go.”
☼
Streams of flame poured out of the sky at the boys as they leapt to another rooftop. Their only shelter was the various chimney stacks that jutted up out of the buildings. Kale and Emil ducked and weaved through them as they fled from the vicious airborne raptors dogging their steps.
A flash of light caught Emil’s eye to their right. Two men were emerging out of thin air onto the rooftop of one of the buildings nearby—one light skinned and one dark.
“Father!” he shouted, drawing Kale’s attention to them as well.
Both pairs of warriors were running across the rooftops in parallel.
“We’ve got to intercept them!” said Emil.
The young men adjusted their path and began to head for their fathers who were doing the same, several buildings away. The aerogores were a dozen strong in the skies overhead; reigning down their lethally combustible chemical mixture. A trail of singed asphalt and burning debris was left in the wake of the two young warriors as the flying predators sought to catch them.
The aerogores were several times the size of a man and had great leathery wings and four legs. They were rare to find anywhere near civilization, but extremely lethal and nasty tempered. The various obstacles the boys were ducking and weaving through presented some problems for their aerial attack, but they weren’t going to give up.
Kale and Emil were only two buildings away from their approaching fathers now. As they approached another ledge and began to make the jump across, an aerogore swooped up from between the buildings trying to catch a meal. Emil sailed into the air toward the beast, adjusting his flight just enough to dodge the stream of chemical flame that erupted toward him. He bounded off of the top of the creature’s head and cleared to the next rooftop.
Kale was right behind, sending his blade whirling ahead as the creature appeared. Just as Emil’s foot touched off of the great lizard, Kale’s blade sank into its head. Kale cleared the predator as it began to fall out of the sky; screeching in agony all the way to its death.
As the boys ran across the rooftop, Grod appeared from behind one of the structures—it was a small building labeled hazardous chemicals. Kale looked for his own father, who quickly appeared on the other side of the roof. They ran for each other as more streams of flame came splashing down on the roof after them.
Seeing their prey regrouping, the aerogores began to land on the building with their wings folded back to enable short fast sprints for the prized meal.
Grod and Emil ducked into the small building as the reptiles closed in on foot. Tiet noticed the warning written all over the structure.
“NO! Grod get out of there!!”
The aerogores spat flame at the structure which quickly erupted with tremendous force; killing the predators near it. Tiet grabbed his recall pack as the other aerogores closed in for the kill. They were so close—Tiet grabbed his son and leapt out over the side of the building, tapping the recall as they left the ground with aerogores lunging for them. But the beasts caught only air as the pair dematerialized out of their grasp.
PETS
Lucin stood in the desolate streets of Sector city. Nearby were the pods that he had sent to bring back the pilots of the troop transport that had killed quite a few of his soldiers three hours earlier. The ship was found demolished in the street a few blocks away, but no blood or bodies were found.
Several of his men were running back out of the building in front of the abandoned pods, toward him. A few of the men were deathly pale and two more were leaning against the devastated building vomiting into the street.
“Well, Lieutenant?”
“They’re—they’re all dead, sir,” he said gasping for breath. “Some sort of flying reptiles. It looks like they stumbled into a nest of them. Some of the creatures are dead inside and all of our people are scattered in pieces everywhere.”
Lucin did not pretend to feel any loss for his human soldiers. They were completely dispensable as far as he was concerned. “And what about the pilots of that ship, are they among the dead?”
“It’s difficult to say, but I don’t think so—only our men, sir.”
“Then they are still alive,” he said as he began to pace. “I want them found, immediately.”
“We’ll begin a search of the surrounding area, sir.”
“The entire city will be searched if need be, Lieutenant. I want them. No one is going to be allowed to insult me this way.” He turned and looked back at his Lieutenant. “Is that clear?”
“Crystal, sir,” said the Lieutenant and then he spoke into his communication link, barking orders for the deployment of more troops. “I want pod squadrons ready in ten minutes. I want continuous sweeps of the city by section until the pilots of that transport ship are found.”
Lucin scanned the skyline. Something moved on a high building ledge a block away—it was
watching them. He called out mentally to the creature and it perceived his call—the creature leapt away from its perch into a dive toward the pavement. As the reptilian sailed toward their group, gun bolts began to lock into place.”
“What is it?!” asked one.
“It’s one of those things that killed our men!” said another.
“Hold your fire,” commanded Lucin.
The beast landed fifty feet away and stood still, glaring at them as Lucin calmly approached without fear or reservation. It screeched into the air, but as he got nearer to it, the creature began to lower its head in submission as though a lapdog returning to its master.
Lucin extended his hand and touched it; stroking it like a long lost pet. He and his astounded soldiers heard others screeching and looked up to see more of the beasts perched on the edges of the rooftops around them.
“There, now. You know who I am, don’t you? What is it that you have been up to today?” Lucin asked the creature, with more affection than he had ever shown toward his troops. “Have you been chasing after our prey?”
The great beast, easily three times his size, seemed to acknowledge his words with understanding—it bellowed out a low moan. Lucin’s troops lowered their weapons, but despite his influence on their minds, they were still in awe of his power and fearful of the beasts.
Lucin appeared to be in a deeper communication with the creature as he pressed his hands around its great head as though searching its primitive thoughts. The other reptiles remained upon their perches, watching without any perceivable malice toward what normally would have been a smorgasbord.
