Worlds of the Never: A book with Dragons, Faeries and Elves, mixed with Science Fiction and Time Travel, for Young Adults and Teens. (Tales of the Neverwar 2)

by CJ Rutherford

  The instrument of his escape was a pathetic excuse for a being. She worshipped a deity so unworthy of respect, it had different names on this one single world. The devil. Satan. Lucifer.

  Once, thousands of years ago, the universe had quaked at his name.

  Soon, it would again.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Zhibalban Space

  “Where are they?” asked the furious commander of the Tenybrist task force. “They were supposed to be here to give us final targeting solutions. Damn that coward, K’raad. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”

  He turned to the spherical holo showing the whole system, currently displaying only their ships. By now, it should have updated with the estimated positions of the enemy vessels.

  “Why is the display not updating? Where are those Zhibalban scum?”

  A frightened sensor operator turned in his chair. “Sir, it is updating, there just isn’t anything to display. Their ships have gone.”

  The admiral, a man called T’raat, stood still, but the reddening of his face told the operator he was about to explode. His temper was notorious throughout the small fleet of two hundred ships. More than one captain had been spaced on his orders since they had left Sanctuary to travel here.

  “Tell me, fool. Where would they go? Their planet may be an ember, but it’s still their home. No, they have the technology to repair the damage, even if it takes them decades.” He turned to the captain of his flagship. “Take us in system, Captain. They must be hiding behind the planet, like the cowards they are.”

  The captain looked around the bridge, but no one raised their heads to acknowledge his discomfort. “Sir, might I suggest we dispatch a squadron to scout the far side? If they are indeed hiding there, they have made a huge mistake. It will take hours for them to escape the gravity well, and build velocity to any sort of attack speed.”

  The admiral looked at the captain as if he was something he’d just stepped in. “And Captain, what do you suggest our ‘scouting party’ do then? All they will succeed in doing is warning the lizards we have arrived. Then, they will run for the horizon, and we’ll have lost the ships we need. Am I surrounded by imbeciles? Do as you were ordered, or you’ll taste vacuum.”

  The captain visibly gulped, but turned to the communication tech. “Open a channel, fleet wide, please.” The tech ran his fingers across the panel and tuned to confirm the connection with a nod. “This is fleet captain D’raan. All ships are to form on the flagship, and proceed in system toward the planet. We will fly past in high orbit, and transport our payload across to any ships we detect.”

  Their ‘payload’ was over a hundred adolescent Liberi, along with half a dozen more experienced handlers. When within visual range, they would portal across and rid the enemy ships of any unnecessary life forms.

  The ship vibrated as the engines came to full power, and they rapidly gained speed. It would be over twenty hours, however, before they would reach the planet.

  *

  “Captain, I have the flagship locked in,” said Zlotta quietly. There was no way for the enemy to hear them but the atmosphere on the bridge was so tense, a raised voice might break something.

  Zjokara nodded to acknowledge the Sub-Commander. She wasn’t about to question her statement. She trusted her. “What is their course?”

  Zlotta confirmed the reading before responding, “As anticipated, Captain; straight towards Prime, at maximum acceleration.”

  The captain smiled. The intelligence they’d gleaned from the wreckage of the Sanctuary ship, along with the information provided by their two ‘guests,’ had told them the planned point of translation to normal space of the task force. They’d had little over a week to prepare, but now the remnant of the Zhibalban Space Navy lay hidden behind the larger rocks in the huge asteroid belt, which lay in outer system orbit.

  “Why did they bring so few ships?” asked Zjannn. The weapons officer had master control of all the weapons across the fleet. Each enemy ship had over a hundred missiles targeted on them.

  Zlotta snorted. “They thought to find us separated and vulnerable. With their Liberi, they could swamp our defenses and take us out ship by ship.”

  Zjokara stood up and walked to stand in front of the holo with her hands on her hips. “We have the advantage. We will not squander it. Zlotta, how long to optimal firing range?”

  “Two minutes, Captain.”

  Optimal range was slightly before the closest convergence point between the two forces. For over a minute, the Tenybrists would rush into a missile storm at their maximum velocity before they detected them. They would return fire, of course, but the attackers would already have moved. The Enemy’s forward velocity and mass would prevent them from avoiding the gamma and neutron radiation lashing their hulls.

  This, however, wouldn’t be the cause of their demise. The newly-promoted Commander of Tactical Weaponry had excelled herself. The makeshift mines she’d designed had been refined, and now littered the enemy’s probable evasion course.

  Zjokara pressed a stud at the back of the comms set on her ear. “Jira, are you ready? Are you sure you want to do this, child? You can stay where you are. We will collect you when it’s over.”

  The reply took over 50 seconds. Jira and her friend, Priss, were in an unpowered life pod, nearly two million miles closer to the taskforce than she was.

  Zjokara smiled as she anticipated the response. She and Jira had become close over the last week. She was proud of her courage, but the captain worried for her as if she was her own hatchling.

  “No, ma’am, we need to try and save those kids. They have no idea what they’re doing. Someone needs to tell them.”

  Zjokara’s chest swelled. “Very well. Be safe, Jira.” There wouldn’t be time for a response. Jira and Priss had a very special mission goal: To link with the children aboard the Sanctuary task force, and try to show them what was happening; to convince them they were being used as cannon fodder in a war they would never choose to fight.

  “Captain, firing in five seconds. Missiles away, Captain.” Zlotta relaxed. There would be a few minutes of calm before the enemy picked up the launch. Zjokara sat down to wait.

  *

  The alarms blared across the ship, but T’raat stood holding his fleet captain by the throat. “You idiot, what have you led us into?”

  D’raan pushed himself backwards and tore the hand away, gasping for breath. “You led us into this. Your stupidity has killed us all. Your orders won’t even allow the other captains to take evasive action. You piece of sh....”

  The insult was cut off as T’raat drew a blade. The captain’s head flew across the bridge, passing through the holo and hitting a bulkhead.

  “Take evasive action,” T’raat shouted at the shocked crew, “Get us out of here, you incompetent idiots!”

  In their panic, the crew missed the icons of the ships appearing in front them, but worse, they rushed toward a trap. The fear of their admiral forced them to flee the missile storm, up the elliptic into death.

  The mines had been gathered together in groups of five and buried into a rare form of asteroid, found on the outskirts of the system. It was a rock which was incredibly dense, but the force of five warheads exploding at its core shattered it.

  Fragments of sun rock lanced through the weakened shields, decimating the ships. By the time it was over, twenty hulks floated in space. The rest were just debris.

  “Did you get them, Jiri?” Zjokara asked.

  “We...we have five. We have five, Captain. The rest...we couldn’t save them.” The voice broke with emotion, and a silence settled across the bridge.

  Another voice came on the comm. Priss’s voice was thick with grief. “Captain, you need to come and get us. Jiri...she’s not taking it well. It wasn’t pretty. Please, just come and get us.”

  A tear flowed down Zjokara’s cheek as she turned to her Sub-Commander. “Zlotta, set a course to pick them up. Maximum speed.”

  Zlotta nodded
and, with heavy soul, plotted the interception. ‘Five. Out of over a hundred,” she thought. Tears welled in her eyes as well, as she obeyed the order.

  Five.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  The Forest

  Caron sat atop his steed. The horn on the majestic head moved from side-to-side as the unicorn shook her head in refusal. Caron looked left and right along the line of advance, seeing similar behavior among the other five mounts of the advance party; not that he didn’t understand their fear, as he peered into the murk ahead of them.

  They had been travelling for over a week, through peaceful and bright forest, but at last, they’d arrived at the edge of the darkness. The stories had been passed down from above, of the girl Gwenyth’s encounter with the demon of the pit, as it had become known. Ahead, as far as his sight could reach, he saw no light reach the forest floor, as if the trees themselves swallowed it. Accompanying the gloom was a palpable aura of evil and fear, as if the very forest hated them.

  He looked overhead and behind him. The sun was close to setting, but ahead, it looked like night had already fallen. There was no way he was taking his small party in there after dark.

  He raised his voice to be heard. “Let’s go back to the clearing we passed ten minutes ago. We’ll make camp there for tonight.”

  The elf to his right sighed. “Wise decision, my friend,” said Tallar. “I was not looking forward to camping on the edge of this gloom. It feels, tainted, somehow.”

  Caron turned his mount around. “Well, we have to go in there tomorrow. Let’s make the most of the last of the sunlight.” He kicked his heels in and sat down in the saddle as the unicorn broke into a gallop. Caron heard shouts and laughter behind him as the others followed suit.

  They reached the clearing in less than five minutes, and began to set up camp. A fire was lit in the middle of the clearing, and as the sun set, the flames cast flickering shadows against the surrounding forest.

  Tallar sat with Caron while they ate their trail rations. “Should we not wait here, Caron? I don’t feel confident travelling any further with just the six of us.”

  Caron gave his friend a wry smile. “We’re the advance party for a reason, Tallar. It’s our job to spring any traps before the main force does. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were scared.”

  Tallar hung his head slightly. “I am ashamed to admit I may be, my friend. I do not want to go in there tomorrow. I fear what awaits us. Caron, I have lived for six hundred and nineteen years, but I fear if I go in there, I will not see my next birth day.”

  Caron slapped his friend on the shoulder. “My friend, if you are to die tomorrow, I will raise a toast in your honor upon our return to the Citadel.” He smiled at his friend’s stunned expression, before Tallar realized he was the butt of Caron’s odd sense of humor, and smiled back.

  “And what if you die with me, Caron?”

  Caron grinned. “Well, then the drinks in our honor will make a mighty party, won’t they?”

  Laughter came from the others around the fire as the tension released, but just as quickly, it ramped up again. The fire sputtered as a cold wind blew around them. The unicorns, which had been released to graze on the grass of the clearing, screamed in fright and ran off into the trees. The wind bit into the party of Magisters.

  Caron began to cast a spell of shielding, but a gust picked him up and slammed him into a large oak, knocking the air from his lungs and rendering him senseless.

  Tallar began to scream as an oak lifted a root and smashed it down on top of his friend. There was an all too brief cry and a crunch as Caron’s chest was crushed. All around them the trees were moving, advancing inward towards them. Tallar tried to recall a spell of fire, but the terror seeping into his soul ruined his concentration. One of the others sent a bolt of lightning into a group of trees closest to him with no effect. Seconds later, the trees reached him. He screamed, as he was picked up, and torn apart by two of them.

  Within two minutes, the clearing was silent again. Body parts littered the ground, and blood covered the limbs of every tree. The wind died. At the heart of the darkness, the shadow emitted a scream of glee, as the souls of the departed were added to its cloak. The vague outline shape inside the cloak surrounding it solidified, gaining a more defined form as it drank in the energy ripped from the dead.

  With just a few more souls, it would walk on this world for the first time.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Dranis IV

  Katheryne probed the building with her extended consciousness, searching for who she needed to find.

  “He’s in the Quorum chambers. We’re not too late. He’s just launched into his appeal to surrender to Sanctuary.” Katheryne snorted. “You wouldn’t believe the load of crap he’s telling them.”

  Derren laughed. “I’ve met the guy. I can believe it. He always was overly fond of the sound of his own voice.”

  “Well right now, he’s in full flow. I think Chran was right though, he can’t have many followers here, or else he’d be taking a more direct route to controlling them.” All of them knew she referred to the takeover of the Quorum by violence.

  ‘He might still resort to this action. We must act before he does so.’ Chran used his magic to locate Krista and Toshi. ‘We are ready to move, Katheryne.’

  As she expanded her consciousness, and looked down from orbit, she knew Chran was right. Two of the ships currently passing over the capital city were under the command of Koron’s supporters. It would take a short signal to draw their fire on the Quorum building if it came ‘under attack’.

  Derren turned to look at Chran. “I think it’s time for the distraction we discussed, my friend.” He looked heavenward. “Perhaps an attack on those two ships might just be what we’re after. Do you think you can manage that? You are still a baby, after all.”

  Derren’s smirk disappeared as Chran began to glow. He and Katheryne had to shield their eyes as he became as bright as the sun. Seconds later, however, they opened them to perceive the most magnificent sight either had ever seen. Chran had grown to over one hundred feet tall and, as he spread his wings, they reached over four hundred feet apart at the tips.

  With a mental laugh of glee, Chran launched himself skyward. ‘I shall show you how much damage an infant dragon is capable off, Derren. Prepare yourself for action. I shall be within range in a few seconds.’

  Derren and Katheryne watched as the huge form rushed upward, faster than any rocket or craft they’d ever seen.

  “I’m amazed anything so huge can move that fast,” said Derren, shaking his head.

  Katheryne took his hand and kissed him on the cheek as he enveloped her in an embrace.

  “We have work to do, Derren,” she said, giggling, as she disengaged from him. “I don’t know; you really pick your moments, don’t you?”

  Derren looked around at where they stood, on a hill overlooking the river that flowed through the distant city.

  “Sorry, love. I just got caught up in the moment. Plus, this is the first time we’ve been alone in days.” He sighed. “But, unfortunately, you are correct. The universe needs us...again.”

  A flash in the sky overhead drew their attention. Katheryne shifted her perception back to the Quorum chamber, just in time to see Koron receive the communication from his subordinates. They had broken orbit, and were attempting to flee a dragon! The look of shock on his face made Katheryne chuckle, but it was time to make their move.

  Toshi and Krista had spent the last few hours infiltrating the city. The scramblers were still operating so they’d been forced to walk most of the ten miles or so, but they were in position now. The Quorum chamber had always been well-guarded, but since the attack on Chran, it had become impregnable, at least to mundane forces. Liberi were anything but mundane. Toshi and Krista spent the last hour channeling the thoughts of the various guards back to Katheryne. They now knew who to be gentle with when they launched the assault.

  Which was just
about...now.

  *

  Katheryne held Derren’s hand and transported them to the entrance hall of the chamber. The scramblers were ineffective against her, and the shock was evident on the faces of the security personnel as they appeared out of nowhere.

  There were four guards by the door and a dozen more in the adjoining security room. Derren didn’t give the four in front time to breathe, as he flew through them in a blur of motion. All were dead within half a second of arriving, and none of them raised any hint of alarm. The cameras, however, couldn’t be bluffed, and Katheryne sensed the alarm arising in the room. Derren did also, and readied himself for a fight which never happened. Katheryne stood motionless as she sent a blast of mental energy into their minds, instantly rendering them senseless. Nine of them would recover after a few hours. The other three, who she’d identified as being Koron’s subordinates, were now vegetables.

  Derren looked at her with the lopsided grin on his face. “Now that was unexpected. But utterly, utterly amazing.” He took Katheryne in his arms and kissed her quickly.

  “Unexpected and quite frightening,” said Katheryne. “I had no idea I could do that on such a scale.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll come in handy again.” He smiled before gesturing to the door. “After you, ladies first of course.”

  Katheryne chuckled. “Oh, how gallant.” She pushed the doors open.

  *

  Downstairs in the lobby, bodies littered the ground as projectiles flew though the space previously occupied by Krista or Toshi. The coppery smell of blood and human feces mixed with propellant, but the guards were too busy dying to notice. Katheryne’s scan had indentified only twenty four of the 200 guards as truly being the enemy, but discriminating between them, with this much firepower being directed at them was impossible. So, while Krista and Toshi didn’t deliberately set out to kill, accidents were happening.