by James Harris
“You boys can come along with me,” he said. “The others will be topside any time now.” He waved the gun toward the rear portal. “Come on. Get going.”
“Screw you! You can’t harm us!” Joe said.
Without missing a beat, the man fired four rounds at the boys. The bullets fell to the floor at the boys’ feet, with the floor absorbing the sound.
The boys ducked instinctively, recovering themselves in one fluid motion.
“Just checking to see if your shield was really working,” the man said with a lopsided grin. “Say, have you seen this one?” He reached behind his back and pulled out a strange looking weapon. He fired at point-blank range.
Joe and Hawk fell back as the laser energy arched from the nozzle of the weapon toward them. It struck their shield like lightning, and for an instant it wavered and turned pale. Joe groaned.
“What is it, Joe?” Hawk asked. He had felt nothing.
The man nodded knowingly. “So it’s you who has the Aura power.” He addressed Joe. “Protecting your brother with your aura force is exhausting, especially if you are inexperienced. You are doing the work of two people. Protecting two people with energy intended to protect only one can be very taxing indeed. Time is not a friend.”
The man fired the weapon again and Joe groaned again. Sweat began to form on his brow. The shield wavered. Joe was losing control.
Sensing Joe’s distress, Hawk held up his hand. “No more! We’ll follow you.” He gestured to Joe. “Come on. Let’s take a break.”
The man waved his weapon and the brothers filed along the corridors and out of the portal into the desert. They stood outside, their backs to the spaceship. It may have been the light, but Joe’s shield was looking pale. The man walked toward the entrance, talking into a device. A group of people emerged from the doorway of the underground facility into the desert sun.
One of them swaggered over. He was carrying a black box. “Well, well. We meet again, my young sleuths.” It was Stell. He held up the somewhat-battered box. “Looking for this? Well, you’re too late. We beat you to it! Besides you wouldn’t know how to transition the crew now that your father’s dead.” He looked about him. “Or is he?”
Cringen suddenly appeared at Stell’s side. “I warned that these two would be trouble. Time for them to die.” He pulled out a pistol and fired several rounds at the boys. The bullets fell uselessly to the ground, but the boys’ shield was clearly continuing to weaken.
“Stop it, Cringen. Killing them proves nothing. They can’t hurt us.”
Ignoring Stell, Cringen gestured to the others, who also pulled out their weapons and began to rain bullets down on the boys. Joe felt his knees give way under the strain of maintaining the shield. Hawk reached out and held him up.
Stell turned his back and began to approach the spacecraft.
“Let’s go. That’s an order.”
“Help me, Hawk,” Joe said with a strained voice.
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold against these guys. Try something, anything.”
Hawk stood beside his brother. He concentrated hard. The force field strengthened marginally for a few seconds, then weakened again.
Joe reached out his hand. “Here. Hold on to me.”
Immediately the shield brightened, soared, and roared, holding strong.
Meanwhile the group, egged on by Cringen, was switching weapons. They substituted bullets with some kind of energy pulse weaponry.
The twins slowly backed away from the onslaught attempting to put some distance between them and their attackers. To no avail. The boys’ shield began to flutter. There was an odor of ozone in the air like the smell after a lightning strike.
Hawk turned Joe. “It’s no good. I can’t do the green shield thing as well as you can. I’m not much help!”
“Hawk, focus hard. You must have other powers. Try something else.”
Hawk tried to push but couldn’t focus properly. Both boys were on their knees. The shield had contracted around them, protecting them like a tortoise shell.
“Don’t worry! It will all be over soon,” Cringen said with a sneer.
Just then, the other assailants stopped firing and looked around. There was silence.
“I can feel him!” someone yelled. “Kor lives!”
“I thought he was gone from my life!” Stell moaned.
“How could he have lived through the helicopter attack?” another voice moaned. “How? Only a true prince could have survived.”
“Shut up!” Cringen said. “We can take him! Let’s fight him. We outnumber him!”
Stell seemed disoriented – yet somehow uplifted – to know that Kor was still alive. “I know Kor. We are not up to the task, especially if he has these two to help him.”
“But Prince Stell …”
“To the ship,” Stell said. “We have what we want. We have everything – both crews, intact. We have an army! We will deal with these puppies another time.”
The halt in the onslaught helped clear Hawk’s mind. He focused on Stell and the package he carried. Hawk slowly raised his arms from his sides, palms up. A mysterious breeze appeared from nowhere and the hair on Hawk’s head began to rustle. The hair on his arms stood on end.
“That’s it, Hawk. Use your power against them!” Joe’s breathing was labored. His hair also stood on end. He could feel the air crackle with static-electric charge. “Go Hawk!”
Hawk glared at Stell, focusing hard. Stell warily eyed Hawk as he gripped the side of the ship’s portal to enter. Then, as he was about to go through the doorway, he was thrown back, landing abruptly on his rear, throwing up a small clump of dust. He looked wildly at Hawk, then at Joe in disbelief.
“How did those savages do that?” he yelled. “They can’t do that!”
“Maybe we should go after all,” Cringen mumbled.
The gang scurried past Stell like rats heading for higher ground. He alone remained outside the ship. His body was sweating with strain and frustration. He got up, clutching his precious package of crypt-orbs, and moved again toward the ship’s portal opening. He was stopped at the threshold by some invisible force. “They can’t be doing this!” he screamed.
Realizing that the package was somehow being repelled at the doorway, Stell maneuvered himself so that only the package was outside the ship. Teeth clenched, he gripped it hard with both hands and tried to heave it inside with him. Sweat trickled down his forehead and into his eyes, but the package was going nowhere.
If Stell wanted to leave, he could do so. The package, however, would have to stay behind.
Hawk stood, gazing evenly at Stell and the package, with both his arms stretched outward, palms up. Stell appeared indecisive – confused and frustrated all at once. “I hate this body!” he moaned.
Suddenly they all sensed movement.
Joe’s ship, with Grayer at the helm, was approaching fast. It started as a dot, then quickly filled the sky. In an instant it had zeroed in on them, stopping abruptly a few yards away. Stell yanked frantically at the package. His crewmates were trying to pull him inside. He fought them off while trying desperately to pull the package aboard. “Don’t pull me! Shoot them!” he roared at his men.
Three men drew their weapons and fired at the boys. Once again, Joe jumped in beside Hawk and threw up the green shield.
The portal door to their nearby spaceship flew open and their father jumped out, firing a pair of weapons. Plumes of white light and thin smoke burst around Stell’s head. He threw up his strong green shield in time to deflect Grayer’s shots. The protective shield prevented him and his crew from firing back, so the attack was one-sided.
The firepower that Grayer threw at Stell was staggering. Quickly the shield was ablaze in energy. Stell was no longer visible. Clouds of energized smoke billowed from the portal door. Hawk held on to the package with his mind, Stell with his hand. Hawk willed that it not accompany Stell on board.
Then, without warning, it flew across th
e desert floor and skidded to a stop at Hawk’s feet. As Hawk looked back up, Stell’s spacecraft lifted from the ground.
Grayer rounded the twins up and shoved them roughly toward the ship. “Get aboard fast!” he screamed.
Hawk scooped up the package and dashed toward the ship.
The other craft banked, turned around, and came at the trio. The three covered the few yards to the portal in seconds. Joe dove inside headfirst, followed immediately by Hawk and the precious package.
Joe looked back in horror. “Hawk, Dad’s not going to make it!”
It was true. The silver wing of Stell’s ship was on top of their father. It struck him on the shoulder. Grayer tumbled to the ground in a cloud of dust.
An instant later, Stell’s ship smashed into their craft, bouncing it hard against the ground. Joe and Hawk were thrown down the corridor and slammed against the walls.
The two ships collided and recoiled in a cloud of dust. Stell’s craft reversed. Just as the enemy ship was gaining momentum to strike again, Grayer jumped through the portal door. At his voice command, the door instantly shut behind him. He raced down the corridor, limping and yelling, “To the bridge, boys.”
A voice warned of an energy attack and raised the appropriate magnetic shields to deflect the force. There was a slight shaking, like an earth tremor, as the bursts hit. Their ship was under the giant dome of a near-invisible force field. With each energy hit, the field wavered like heat shimmer above the desert floor.
Just inches above the fuselage, great bursts of lightning ricocheted off the protective field. Grayer gained control of the panel and activated all of the screens at once. While the enemy’s ship was airborne, theirs was still exposed, flat on the desert floor. A distinct advantage to the enemy craft.
Grayer commanded a liftoff and the ship leapt almost vertically from the desert floor into the air. The other craft swooped in for another attack. Their ship repelled the onslaught with a fireworks display of sparks.
Grayer lined up the craft for a retaliatory shot. He fired, and a burst of energy struck like lightning against the silver fuselage of the enemy ship. The air seemed to wiggle at the strike-point as the enemy shield held off the attack.
That was only the beginning. Both ships lined up for attack after attack. Since both crafts were identical and had healthy shields, neither sustained any damage.
Stell withdrew first. One moment he was there, and then the sky was empty.
The three Grayers searched the sky in anticipation of the next attack, but there was nothing. In the meantime, Grayer requested a damage assessment. The ship self-diagnosed and provided a status report. All was well. Bio-recharging was ongoing.
“Let’s chase them,” Joe said, baring his teeth.
“Joe’s right, Dad. We can’t just let them get away. Not now.”
The Grayers’ spectacular silver spacecraft stood frozen above the desert floor, poised for battle.
“Getting away?” Grayer asked. “Away where? There is no place he can hide. Now Stell is the fugitive, and we are the hunters.”
He communicated with the computer and then turned to his sons. “They’re gone. We could spend time trying to find them, as I have done for many years. Or we can prepare for the battle that is ultimately to come.”
He looked at his sons. “Now is the time for healing, for mending. Think of our family – we have found each other again. We have fought hard to overcome the fracture that Stell has brought into our lives.”
Grayer continued. “The time to nurture your extraordinary skills has come. There is much training ahead. I need you strong. I need you prepared. I need you enlightened.”
Grayer voiced a soft command to the screen, and, in the blink of an eye, they were gone.
PARTTWO
RISE OF THE ABISHOT
IT IS SAID THAT THIS PLANET MAY BE ANOTHER PLANET’S HELL.
CHAPTER20
Kor and Stell were brothers once. Inseparable friends. As he piloted Alpha III toward northern Michigan, Kor’s mind drifted back to the time soon after his falling out with Stell. It seemed like so many years ago, and yet it could have been yesterday, the memory was so vivid.
In his mind’s eye, Kor, once again back on Sargon, strode briskly into his Spartan Learning Annex. He glanced over at his teacher, the wizard Asunda, with a quick gesture of right hand over left breast. “Master,” he said, nodding almost imperceptibly as he approached.
Kor flicked his hand and the monstrous palace’s empty halls disappeared from sight with a soft hush as the doors closed behind him.
The respondent answered from across the room with a slight, mechanical, bow. Kor’s royal office – he was Prince of the Realm of the House of Narok – required the bow. They were both clothed in luminescent blue jumpsuits that hugged their spindly bodies from head to toe like a second skin. Their outfits were constructed from a programmable synthetic material that automatically maintained their interior body temperature at ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit.
Unlike the hallway, which gave off a sweet, artificial, fragrance of sandalwood, this room smelled like dusty books and paperwork. It was also an artificial fragrance because books had not existed for millennia. The opulent palatial floors, made of synthetic white marble, glistened. The sparsely decorated blue-and-white walls reflected the highly polished floors giving them the appearance of shimmering water.
Kor was there to continue his studies and meditations under the wizard Asunda. Asunda was the king’s favored wizard and well seated on the council. He was also versed in the history of the planet and studied the enormous secrets of the universe. “Only some of the secrets,” he would say with humility.
In truth, Asunda was Kor’s only real contact with the world outside the palace. He was also, almost by default, his closest friend.
Prince Kor lived in a subterranean city, referred to as the royal palace, with his parents, the ruling monarchs of the House of Narok, and a smattering of lords of the realm, and their military and financial advisors. It was not a democracy, as we understand it. It was a benevolent monarchy based on military might.
At his young age, Prince Kor was a figurehead without power. It was understood that all worldly possessions of the crown – the palace, the wealth, and the power – really belonged to the people. Over time, democracy had expediently evolved into a form of monarchial rule.
Kor selected a Romanesque-style settee and draped himself over it in a theatrical slouch. “What shall we tackle today, my Master?” There was that lingering hint of sarcasm, of haughtiness. It belied the youth’s fragile esteem and self-doubt.
The distinguished teacher’s large black eyes twinkled as he approached his youthful protégé in a thoughtful pose. His long pale arms were crossed behind his back. “Let’s learn something more about our ancestry today, shall we?”
Kor rolled his eyes. “What? What’s left to learn?” His fingers fidgeted exploring the texture of the upholstery.
“Besides humility, there is much to learn.” Asunda’s onyx-black eyes focused on his reluctant student. “We will begin today with contemporary history.”
“I took that learning pod already, Asunda. I’ve taken countless history pods.”
“I realize that. But what you absorbed from the pod was merely knowledge and facts. And these are fleeting, digital images. Understanding is not the same thing. Comprehension cannot be digitalized, Kor. It is part of intelligence, not data. I am here to coach you on two important habits. Can you recall what they are?”
“We’ve been over this.”
“Obviously not enough.” Kor’s lack of attention was annoying the tutor.
Kor absently tugged at the fabric of the settee, loosening a few strands. “I am to learn how to learn,” he recited. “How to think in a rational, sequential manner.”
“And …”
He can be so infuriating at times, Kor thought. “I am here to learn why things happen.” He made a motion to rise and then thought better of it.
“Although the what is interesting, Kor, the why is the tool necessary either to prevent or promote an event’s reoccurrence.”
“Yes, Master Asunda.” Kor looked about the stark room for something to amuse him. Then a thought occurred to him and his eyes lit up.
“Asunda, let’s take a break and go to the Music Museum.”
“Break! We’ve just begun. Let’s review, and then we can undertake to learn why history evolved the way it did.”
Asunda closed his eyes in concentration. The computer scanned his brain patterns and read his intentions, and a 3-D image appeared, floating by his left ear. Within it were abbreviated words stacked in columns, accompanied by small images depicting parts of the words. To an observer from our planet and our time, the characters would have appeared similar to those used in Chinese writing.
Asunda began. Not with his usual gusto, but with a forced enthusiasm. He was distracted with personal issues about his family. Issues that he kept secret from everyone, especially the Royal family. He didn’t want Kor to pick up on his distraction so he raised his voice enthusiastically to compensate.
“Millennia ago, what caused the collapse of societal structure and world order?”
“Genetic over-engineering.”
“Yes, but what really caused the slide into the chaotic societal meltdown?” Asunda gestured to the 3-D image. “Kor, do pay attention.”
“Man had genetically engineered himself to be almost biologically perfect. The human body, a near-perfect biological machine, would function for three hundred years before bio-implants. A thousand years was not uncommon after several implants. There were rumors of immortality.”
“And why was this bad?”
“In theory it wasn’t. Not in and of itself. But in practice, the effect it had on society was catastrophic. Striving for bodily perfection and longevity led to a societal breakdown and ultimately, madness.”
Asunda was pleased with the rhythm of the discourse. “Madness? Explain further.”
