by James Somers
“And our Aija is the last prophet; a forerunner of Elithias’ return in order to establish his kingdom!” said Juli with sudden insight. “It’s beginning to make sense to me.”
The pair continued searching other references together. The puzzle pieces of Aija’s words were beginning to take on the form of a clearer picture, at least in part.
☼
Emil had wondered to another portion of the library, away from Kale and Juli. He actually did want to find some information, but not with them present. Emil sat at one of the computer displays running through his own set of references. On the screen, were subheadings for the Vorn clan and for the Horva clones. All of the references were old. Apparently nothing beyond the time of the war was to be found in the system.
Emil was stunned to see all of the information referring to his people having been created as clone mutations of the Vorn for the purpose of fighting their battles for them. His father had never explained their origin and it had never been a subject he had been taught about while in school on Castai with Kale.
The commentary was telling him that the origins of his people were as slaves; highly adept warriors, but nonetheless, made to be slaves. There was also listed under the Horva subheading a commentary on General Grod. Emil tapped the screen and a record of his father’s wartime exploits were laid out before him. There was an obvious bias against his father in the wartime commentary. Emil supposed that was to be expected from someone who was on the opposite side of the conflict. He knew from Kale’s father that he and his father had been sworn enemies at one time, but that through events taking place during the conflict with a clan called the Baruk, the king and his father had become allies and eventually the greatest of friends.
Emil was glad that so much had changed between the two men. The thought that he and Kale might have been mortal enemies otherwise was very unpleasant. The commentary showed the Vorn clan native to the planet Demigoth. This was evidently where his father and the other Horva clones of the first generation had been created. Someday I must visit this planet Demigoth, he thought. Emil commanded the computer to turn off and he sank back into his chair. He closed his eyes and let the information soak into his mind. All of that is in the past, he reminded himself.
☼
“Gentlemen, having explained all of these things regarding the nature of this conflict, I do hope we can count on your support,” said Tiet as he stood addressing the other rebel leaders by video conference.
“I think I could speak for my fellows in this—we are worried about the numbers we are going to have to face in comparison with the number of capable soldiers we have,” said Commander Jarac. “It’s certainly not that we disbelieve the prophet you mentioned or the prophecies—I am personally a devoted follower of Elithias, but how do we know that this is the proper time to face this enemy?”
“Men, I can give you no assurances. I can only speak from what I know and believe, and I firmly believe that Elithias has commissioned me to lead the people of Draconis against this gathering army. If you do not face them now, openly, you will only prolong the inevitable, and end up running for your lives as they grow even stronger. And besides all this, how can we hope to obtain the blessings of The Eternal One when we are not willing to trust him?”
This was a cutting blow—it was immediately apparent on their faces. It was not anger, but guilt that Tiet saw in their expressions. But he had told them the truth and he felt good about it. If it was indeed Elithias’ purpose to have him lead these rebels in battle, then he would certainly be leading them.
Alec stepped in before the silence became awkward. “My brothers, may we take a vote to confirm?” he asked as he stepped before the viewer next to Tiet. “All those willing to follow the will of Elithias in this matter and lend us your assistance in this struggle, please signify by the uplifting of your right hand.
Excellent move, thought Tiet. Now, they were cornered somewhat by their convictions.
Slowly but surely, all hands went up.
“Excellent, gentlemen. With the enemy forces already massing nearby, we will need you to bring your troops to our location as soon as possible and—”
Suddenly the transmission was cut and the lighting flickered and went out along with all power. Emergency lighting quickly came on, but it was pale in comparison and no other power appeared to be operating.
“Power is out,” said Grod.
“Something is wrong,” said Alec. “It would have to have been done deliberately—our systems are completely separate from the city and hidden.”
“We may need those reinforcements sooner than we thought,” said Wynn.
Tiet’s communicator pin beeped to life. “Tiet, what’s happening?” asked Mirah.
“We’re not sure. Standby; we may need to evacuate the complex.”
“I’ll get prepared just in case. I may need the boys to help me get my patient Ramah to the ship.”
“Affirmative.”
☼
Kale and Juli were holding hands at the computer console. They were still looking through information; at least they were pretending to look through the data. Juli had placed her hand on top of Kale’s as it lay on the tabletop. Kale hadn’t taken his eyes off of the screen, but he had turned his hand over to take hers and hold it.
The power flickered several times and then the computer and all of the lights went dark. A lone emergency light pod switched itself on in the far corner of the room. Juli squeezed Kale’s hand tightly, “What’s happening?!”
“I’m not sure, but it can’t be good,” said Kale.
The pair got up from their seats and crossed the room, trying not to bump into the furniture. “Emil?!” shouted Kale as they searched for their friend.
“I’m here,” said Emil as he made his way across the room toward them, “I guess you two didn’t turn out the lights to kiss, huh”
Kale would have blushed, had it not been a dangerous situation they were in. “Let’s just get out of here and see if this power outage is everywhere,” said Kale.
The group made their way through the dark maze of tables and printed books on shelves and out into the corridor in from of the library. “Looks like the power is off everywhere,” said Emil.
“We need to get to your father,” said Juli.
“Let’s make our way back to the war room,” said Kale. He and Emil pulled their weapons and kept them at the ready. “Keep your senses sharp, Emil,” said Kale. “There’s no telling what kind of surprises we might find in the dark.”
☼
Power conduit control boxes, sparked out their anger over the attack by the aerogores. The cables were severed that supplied power to the base and the junction boxes were destroyed. All the lights in the corridor were out except for a few lone emergency lights here and there.
The group of aerogores moved quickly to the end of the maintenance corridor. The door clicked as a manual release switch engaged through the actions of someone on the other side. The door opened and a man with a hand held light moved just inside the door. As his light illuminated the group of aerogores in the corridor, he tried to scream, but he wasn’t allowed the time.
The aerogores pounced and the first kill was made. They were inside the main compound now. The group of reptilian predators surged forward in great numbers. There were people everywhere, all waiting to be plucked by the deadly beasts, but to feed was not their purpose. They moved swiftly into the populace. Screams began to flood the corridors of the underground base as the aerogores spread out in every direction they could.
☼
Alec was at the north entrance to the conference room trying to finagle the manual door control to get it open. Two soldiers acting as his personal bodyguards were with him as the door unlocked and slid open under the manual release mechanism he had activated.
Suddenly, as he stepped into the doorway, a gaping maw snatched him up ferociously. Rows of hot knives pierced his body as he screamed and then the reptilian beast rent him
in two, tossing the remains across the room. Alec’s bodyguards immediately fired at the nightmare as it stepped into the room, barely visible in the low emergency lighting.
Tiet and Wynn had their blades drawn—Grod activated his plasma glove. The beast launched a burst of flame at one soldier as another of the monsters sailed over the first into the conference room, pinning the other man to the floor and tearing away his life in an instant. A spicor from Wynn’s hand caught the first animal in the side of the head; disintegrating a large enough portion to drop it dead. Tiet deftly carved an arc of light into the second as it was busy dismantling the bodyguard pinned under its foot.
Multiple screeches coming from the room beyond the open doorway were cause enough for Tiet to back away from his kill. There were more of them; a lot more.
“Aerogores!” shouted Grod. “Just like the ones we faced out in the city.”
“Or those same ones have tracked us down here,” said Wynn.
Behind them, an ellipse of light carved through the other locked doors. The piece fell into the room and Kale and Emil entered.
“Not these things again!?” said Kale
More of the creatures were beginning to move into the room; sniffing at their dead ones and glaring at the burning corpse of the first bodyguard that had been attacked.
“Tiet, I don’t think this is a fight we want to have right now,” said Wynn.
“We’ve got to get everyone out of here!”
Tiet tapped on his communicator pin. “Mirah, evacuate the facility. You’ve got to get to the ship now and get out of the base.”
“I can’t leave. My patient, Ramah, is too weak.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sending the boys down to help.” He turned to them. “Boys, get down to the Med-lab and help her get the girl to the ship. Tell everyone you come across to get to the ships and evacuate the base immediately.”
Grod blasted one of the beasts standing in the doorway with his plasma glove. It writhed in agony and after a few seconds, moved no more.
“And be careful,” said Wynn. “They may have entered the base through more than one entrance.”
“Come on guys!” said Juli, terrified, from just beyond the portal they had cut to gain entrance.
They obeyed without any argument; stepping back through and heading away quickly into the darkness.
Flame erupted from one of the aerogores as it peeked inside the room from behind the two dead in the doorway. The men could hear many more writhing and screeching in the darkness beyond.
“Maybe we can hold them here,” suggested Tiet as Grod fired more bursts of plasma energy at the creatures trying to enter through the doorway.
Pounding from above drew their attention. They looked up only to find another aerogore smashing its way through the mesh grille that covered the ventilation conduit in the ceiling. It fell by its own weight into the room, just in front of them, and recovered quickly; springing into action against them. Tiet was the closest and bounded away from its lightning fast strike as Wynn hit it broadside with a spicor disc. It howled and fell over going wild from the pain of having a quarter of its abdomen obliterated by the resulting dispersion burst.
Heavy steps were heard again from above as more of the monsters filed through the conduit and headed into the room. Tiet leapt over the one still writhing on the ground and followed his companions out of the conference room using the portal cut by the boys. There was almost no emergency lighting visible at all in the corridor. They hoped they were alone for the moment. The lack of light gave the animals a definite advantage.
“I don’t sense anything out here,” said Wynn cautiously.
Behind them, multiple aerogores were pounding away at the locked doors. The cut portal was much too small for any of them to fit through, but they were denting the door noticeably and it was quickly giving way to the abuse.
“They’ll be through that door in seconds,” said Grod.
“Come on, we’ve got to warn everyone we can to get out of here before the place becomes overrun with those things,” said Tiet as he ran off into the dark corridors ahead with the others taking up pursuit.
☼
Kale, Juli and Emil moved quickly through the darkened corridors of the base. They entered one of the junction areas with a larger chamber and other corridors heading off in different directions from it. It contained a service hall that normally would have had people eating inside, but the place was abandoned at the moment.
Emil’s foot bumped into something as they made their way through the area. He lowered his ignited blade and saw the upper portion of a woman’s body lying on the ground at his feet. He stepped back in disgust; her lower body was nowhere to be found.
Juli screamed up ahead, next to Kale. It was another grisly discovery. As he joined them where more clusters of emergency lighting pods made the visibility better, Emil could see that there was a great many more people slain in the area.
“It smells terrible in here,” said Juli.
“Yeah, unfortunately we’ve smelled it before,” said Emil.
Then they all heard screeching echoing down the corridors. It was hard to tell which direction the noise was coming from, but it was getting louder.
They were standing next to a large fountain with a base and a tabletop style edge. The water was no longer flowing due to the lack of power. Kale led Juli over to it and said, “Get down here under the edge.”
“What’s happening, Kale?!” asked Juli fearfully as she crawled down beneath the marble top and scooted in next to the base.
Kale squeezed her hand and said, “Trust me. I won’t let anything harm you.”
The screeching seemed to come from all directions and then the aerogores were in the chamber with them. Kale and Emil brought their backs together. “Keep safe, my brother,” said Emil.
“And you don’t take any chances,” said Kale.
They each leapt away as chemical fire came down on their position. Juli screamed from beneath the fountain pedestal. She couldn’t see what had happened to the boys when the flame came down where they had been standing.
An aerogore came down near the fountain and spotted her under the pedestal. It screeched and rushed for the girl. Kale came across over the fountain’s bowl of water and swiped his ignited blade across the top of the aerogore’s head. He landed behind the beast as its legs folded under its body and it skidded dead across the floor under its previous momentum. A quick glance at Juli reassured them both that the other was still alive.
There was more screeching and Emil sailed through the air behind him dispatching another one of the reptilian predators in flight. Kale leapt away again as the boys took the fight to the creatures. The two warriors were deftly moving back and forth across the room trying to disorient the attackers and disorganize their pack-like patterns of killing.
Kale landed on the ledge of the fountain and an aerogore surprised him. The beast snapped at him as he sliced across its face. It reflexively knocked him away with a heavy paw as it felt the sting from Kale’s weapon across its mandible. The blow sent him flying back into the water. The aerogore jumped up on the ledge with its upper body and let go of a chemical spray that ignited in the air on its way toward Kale. His thoughts brought the majority of the fountain’s water volume up to shield him from the fiery blast, and then he sent the water into the aerogore, carrying the predator away in the flood across the floor. Emil came down on the beast as it washed up near him.
Another one of the aerogores shot down at Emil from the sky. He seized it in flight with his mind and sent it reeling away through the glass wall of the service hall. As the creature recovered, Emil pulled up the glass shards and pieces of steel supports with his mind and sent them as deadly projectiles at the aerogore.
Kale’s kemstick flew into another of the beasts heading for Emil and pierced its breast. When it fell to the ground dead, the boys realized they were alone in the area again.
Kale recovered his weapon and walked back th
rough the aerogore bodies to retrieve Juli from her hiding spot. When he knelt down to where she was, he found her shaking uncontrollably with her hands over her ears to drown out the screeching of the aerogores. She jumped when he touched her, but she practically leapt out from under the fountain ledge to reach him when she opened her eyes and realized it was over.
Juli wrapped her arms around Kale and kissed his face, happy to see him. Tears were running down her cheeks—she was scared to death.
“Are they all dead?” she asked through trembling lips.
“At least the ones in here,” said Emil.
Kale asked Juli, “Are you alright?”
She nodded, but the experience was traumatizing her.
“We had better get moving toward the med-lab,” said Emil. “We’ve still got to get Ramah and your mother out of here.”
Another quick glance at the damage they had done and the trio headed away through the adjoining corridor leading to the medical facility.
FLIGHT
They had managed to set off the alarm system along the way to the med-lab, sending out an evacuation order throughout the entire base. Hopefully everyone was on their way to get out by now. Juli and Mirah were in the front office getting supplies together that might be needed. Fortunately, Ramah was the only bedridden patient in the facility. The others had already left under their own motility. The Hangar was very near, with an access corridor right off of the med-lab into the main departure area in case of medical emergencies that might be arriving.
