Of course Egg wanted the same thing. She, too, wanted to go, to be with her father, to be part of the resistance, and suddenly it was all turning into more, much more than originally intended and Jess wasn’t sure where to draw the line.
In the end it made little difference. Galfar and Haz and Arclyss listened patiently as she alternated translations, speaking mainly to the others, letting Galfar and Arclyss know she would have them go back to the Necrops with the Codes and wait for her there. When she returned she would join them.
Nani would use the opportunity. She was preparing additional info for Drake and his team, for Jess to deliver, specifics concerning schematics of the Kel craft and their operation; her more advanced assessment of the operation specs and schematics on the four major Kel classes of warship, which equated roughly to Destroyer, Heavy Cruiser, Battleship and Dreadnought, as well as communications protocols that would be used in the coming assault. All this would take advantage of the situation to gear the Earth group ahead of time, so they would be even more effective when the invasion arrived.
Jess, however, could think of only one thing. She was getting Zac, and she was bringing him home.
CHAPTER 47: TRANSITIONS
“We’ve been studying what we know of Kang’s physiology,” Cee’s lead scientist stood respectfully before her, a little off to the side. Her bishop was with them. “We’ve been able to map that information to what we’re seeing, as we study him in action and at high exertion.” Collectively her scientists had been observing Kang on the world below as he laid waste vast swaths of countryside, futilely seeking his nemesis. “We’ve successfully captured readings on the larger instances of muscle output, and those have been key. Setting him free has actually worked to our advantage. We’ve been able to build a more complete model.” Her lead scientist hesitated, considering. “Of course, we can’t know if any event along his path of rampage has caused him to exert full strength, but the levels of his engagement have been high enough for us to establish a power curve.” Cee almost demanded he skip to the point, but she knew he needed to be allowed his explanation. “From that we’ve applied a few experimental wave formulas,” he paused, “and,” clearly biting back enthusiasm, “we believe we have it.”
She waited, then pushed. “What do you have?”
Her scientist straightened. “A way to lock his musculature.” Before Cee could question that, amazed at what it might mean, he explained: “We believe we can generate a wave, of a specific nature and frequency, that, if applied in a focused beam, would impede, if not completely hold him. The field would create a resistance loop within Kang’s own body, preventing him from moving.”
Intriguing.
“Are you certain this will work?”
“No, my queen. It would need a test.” He realized, of course, how dangerous that would be.
“What of the human?” she asked. “Horus?” If they could find him, perhaps that would give them their test.
The scientist nodded. “As a comparison we reviewed data from his time aboard your ship, and it would appear his physiology will respond to the same sort of stimulus. The same field should work on him as well. Were we to find him he should provide a good test.”
“How quickly can it be ready?”
“A prototype has been developed. It needs only a few more elements.”
“Finish it,” she dismissed him. He bowed and withdrew.
Could this finally be what they were looking for? A way to control these unreasonably strong beasts? Horus and Kang, no more a danger.
What a difference that would make.
When her chief scientist was gone she looked to her bishop. They were alone in her private quarters. The scientist had come with two bits of news; the welcome news he’d just delivered, regarding the possibility of developing a device that could act as a threat they could hold over Kang, and the frustrating news that his team had not yet determined a way to learn the connecting points of the mysterious ring gate. Not, at least, without breaking it. Neither could they activate it without doing the same. For the moment there were no breakthroughs.
Cee was certain the girl had used it. Maybe more than once.
Which meant she was likely on the other side. With the Codes, Cee was convinced, which meant if Cee herself could reach that other side …
“And the Earth resistance groups?” she asked her bishop. “Any clues?” The interrogation of the few captives from the refinery raid on Earth had led them to the safe house in the land known as Scotland, but, of course, the humans had not been stupid enough to stay there. When the Kel arrived and burned that pub to the ground the elements of the resistance cell were long gone.
Her bishop shook his head. “We have leads on what might be the new location of one of those cells, but nothing yet on which to act. We are pursing it.”
“Kill them where you find them,” she told him, unnecessarily. “Make examples. Uncover their network.” That campaign was well underway, and there would soon be few places for the humans to hide.
She debated something violent to flush them, perhaps threat of a massacre if the members of the cell did not turn themselves over, but it was more likely that, should she make such a threat, random martyrs would come forward claiming to be the ones responsible—the exact sort of human response she would expect—all the while the real minds behind this thorn in her side would continue to operate in the shadows.
Horus, however, might yet be drawn out in such a manner. There was no confirmation the superhuman was even still on this Earth; he might’ve popped off somewhere undetected. Perhaps he was with the girl.
Damn!
Like fleas, these humans were, moving about unseen, causing non-stop annoyance. She had a good mind to just gas the whole planet and pick up the pieces. Grudgingly, in that, at least, she knew Voltan was right. It would create more problems than it solved. And, in fact, might solve nothing at all.
“Find others that can help with the gate,” she said. “Task them. We will go to Kel. It’s time we restore order to the home front.” She inhaled. “And step up the scouring of this world. Find the human resistance where it lives and eliminate it.”
“Yes, my queen.”
“I want to hear no more of them.”
Her bishop bowed and made to leave.
“And locate Kang,” she said. It was time to move things along. The beast had had his free play. “We go for him.”
**
As with everything else to that point it was a bizarre combination of people and events Jess faced, a goodbye like no other. She, Egg and Darvon, standing on the drawbridge to a fairytale castle, surrounded by apocalyptic Vikings, saying farewell to Nani and Bianca who were about to board a starship bound for another world. At the heart of it, though, it was like any other goodbye that ever was.
“I just hope we make it through this.” Bianca glanced to Nani. The two of them were about to go back to Anitra and prepare for war. Very soon their lives would be on the front lines, and Jess hoped they made it too, and as she stood there trying to be strong she worked hard not to conjure images of chaos and destruction. So imminent was that future.
Bianca gave her a thin smile. Jess wore the armor, sword at her back, Icon harness set for the coordinates on Earth. The field was adjusted to take Egg and Darvon with her, and return with Zac. She glanced to her right and left, making eye contact with Egg and then Darvon. Behind them on the drawbridge, just beyond the gate, Cheops stood with a full guard, more up on the walls, come to see these travelers off to the stars. Their curiosity was palpable. It was another beautiful day, a perfect day for this, the air over the chasm sweet and cool, the nearby waterfall hammering up a fine mist that drifted from below and could be felt on the skin. Its roar lent dramatic power to the moment.
“We’ll make contact in a day or so,” said Nani. She’d given Jess a tablet, like the other, which they would use to communicate, along with a suite of scanning devices for Jess to evaluate the Codes. Earlier that day
they’d bid another goodbye to Arclyss, Galfar and Haz, who took the case with the Codex Amkradus and returned to the Necrops, riding off down the trail on horseback.
It felt strange to let them go.
Jess looked to her two friends. “You guys be careful.”
Then hugs, lots of hugs, some tears and several more goodbyes and Bianca and Nani were walking the distance back across the bridge to the Reaver and, with a few more waves, going aboard. Minutes later the ramp retracted and the ship thrummed to life, barely perceptible over the pound of the waterfall but definitely there, filling the air, drumming the bones, a million times more powerful than a bunch of falling water, and it was rising into the air, a massive black beast set free from the earth, too fluid, too smooth to be real. The landing gear retracted with solid metal clunks, the only real sound, and the Reaver’s surface was entirely sleek once more, no breaks in its form, and it was rising. Higher. Jess waved again, imagining Bianca and Nani looking down from their controls and waving too. Higher it went, being cautious with the delicate humans on the ground, then it slid sideways dramatically and held, then turned, arced around and up, accelerated away and gained speed. Dramatic speed; dwindling all at once, a dark shape fading to a dot and ...
Sonic booms. BOOM! Breaking back across the land, striking with enough force to make Jess covered her ears—everyone did—all the Fist behind them as well, giant biceps holding fearful hands to the sides of their multi-colored, mohawked heads.
But all was fine. The Reaver was gone. Jess turned to face Cheops and his wide-eyed men. Slowly they lowered their arms and unscrunched their bearded faces.
“I’ll be back,” she called to them.
She turned to Egg and Darvon.
Time for her own dramatic exit.
“Ready?”
They nodded that they were.
She put her arms around them and drew them close.
CHAPTER 48: ON TWO FRONTS
Kang stood on the plain straining his keen vision as far, as absolutely far as he could toward the horizon. In all that distance there was no change. It was like this cursed land went on forever, mile after mile of wasteland, nothing out there at all, nothing in sight, and as he demanded more and more focus from his eyes, pupils prickling with the effort … nothing. The land was unchanging all the way to the limits of what he could see, the edge of it lost beyond the curve of the planet; like looking at an ocean, only not of water but of scrub and the occasional rock or broken tree. Through the atmospheric distance he could just see into space where he lost the land below the curve, and as he peered hard in level sight, straight ahead, looking flat across the ground from the height of his head, not up but precisely forward out to infinity he saw nothing in front of him, so flat, so featureless, yet there were things beyond the sky, in the vast distance, in orbit around the planet’s sphere.
It was useless.
He’d begun to realize how futile, how impossibly huge a planet—any planet—truly was. Analytically he was smart enough to know a planet was big, to describe it in terms like miles or acres, but never did he have an appreciation for what those numbers meant.
Now he did.
Nothing could stand against him, nothing could destroy him, and yet, faced with an entire world he was useless. There was so little real impact he could make. Punch a whole through a mountain? All the way through and out the other side? Of course he could do that. But what would the result be? After all that? A tiny pinprick hole through something that was miles high? Ravage a town? He could do that too—and had, to the small ones he’d run across on his scathing rampage across this empty land—but a town was just a town, in the end, one of many, and he was no closer to Horus. Now he no longer even knew where he was. Incredible vertical leaps told him nothing, even from rocky ground, where he could propel himself so high as to lose the very air, the whole world spread out before him. The whole, brown, featureless world. Curving away to the edges of the horizon. Wherever he’d ended up was no-man’s land.
He was nowhere.
Every direction he started in, moving as fast as he could and realizing both how little ground he was actually covering and how much he was potentially missing by moving that fast, drove home the reality that he would never find Horus. Not this way.
He heard a noise. Far off, the movement of something large through the air; an accompanying hum. The hum of power.
He knew that sound.
He looked to the sky, casting his gaze in all directions, turning in place and there, coming at him, just alongside the glare of the cold sun, a Kel starship.
He watched it come closer. He was definitely its objective. While he waited he sized it against the setting and recognized its form. It was a giant, a dreadnought, and it was Cee’s flagship.
She’d come for him.
**
All the beast’s clothes were gone and he was splattered in dried muck. His eyes were clear, though, as clear as Cee had ever seen them, and as she stepped from the wide, extended ramp and onto the soft ground, pacing herself toward him, she felt a tingling thrill.
Finding it hard to believe she’d actually missed him.
“I did not signal,” were his first, gruff words.
She finished her approach and stopped a scant pace or two from him. They were alone. The dreadnought loomed darkly behind, its presence somehow visible, tangible, due to its sheer mass—it was hard not to feel it, an artificial mountain on the ground—though with her back to it and from this angle she could see no actual part of it. The sun cast its giant shadow in the other direction, and in fact was now casting Kang’s shadow directly over her. She squinted her eyes.
Responded to his statement:
“Your ‘signal’ was your failure.”
Briefly he bared his fangs; a snort, and she made herself be still.
For this encounter she’d debated showing the new waveform device, the thing that could supposedly lock Kang’s musculature, though it was barely experimental at this point. She’d thought to tell him of it, at least, so he might fear what she could do, be wary of her, but there was as yet no proof that it would in fact work, and though she antagonized Kang with her words she would wait to antagonize him any further. There was no need, yet, to show her hand.
“Have you gotten it out of your system?” she asked. “There is no way for you to achieve your end this way.”
Kang was silent. Breathing his heavy, impatient breath.
She pulled herself straight. “Come. We go to Kel.”
“But Horus is here!” She could see he wanted to be done with this foolish enterprise, and was probably even reluctantly glad she’d come, but the pursuit of his chosen enemy was too strong to just walk away. It had festered so long it could not be ignored, no matter how irrational.
“We don’t know that for sure,” she said. “We no longer know anything for certain. By now he could be anywhere.” She decided to throw him the sort of ambiguous promise that would unstick his resolve: “I want you with me when we find him.”
And she turned and walked back the way she’d come.
Kang followed.
**
Egg almost threw up, but she didn’t, and they made it, and it was the freakiest thing. Way freakier than in the starship. Her dad was standing beside her with his hands on his knees, also trying not to hurl, but she recovered faster than him and was looking around, amazed with the effects of the transfer.
“Ho-ly shit!” one of the people in the room was saying. There was a crowd in there, she saw that now, and all of them were reacting in some way, shocked by the sudden, dramatic arrival of the trio. As bizarre as the open-air transfer felt to Egg, with the feel and the smell of the air on her skin on that other world, the mist of the waterfall, shifting through whatever science the transition involved and changing to this new air, this new feel and temperature, this new place … however weird that all felt to her, it must’ve looked really weird to these people watching, to see three people just pop out of nowhere.
“That was close,” said Jess beside her.
Those first instants while Egg got her bearings and Dad tried not to puke everyone was disoriented with the shock of it all, both the arrivals—who knew it was coming—and the witnesses who did not; at least not exactly when. It created a mild chaos. Now that moment was past and there were enthusiastic shouts and the whole place was suddenly alive and loud and …
There he was.
Zac! It was Zac, Egg recognized him at once—of course she recognized him; total heartthrob—and she caught her breath as he was right there beside them, so tall, dark haired and bearded as promised, grabbing Jess in a hug. Egg had never seen Zac up close and God was he handsome! Everything she knew him to be and he and Jess were so perfect together, and as they kissed it was magic and Egg just stared and stared, at some point realizing she should probably look away but there was no way she was missing this.
The two of them were so dreamy.
Never had she imagined such love could be real. And as they paused in their embrace to take a breath her dad was there—lots of people were suddenly there, crowding close—and Zac was saying Hi to Darvon—Egg knew they’d met, Dad told her all about it (a story she had him repeat more than once)—and then he was introducing his daughter, her—me!—and she was blushing, she knew she was, and she was shaking Zac’s big hand and immediately he pulled her in for a hug—he’s hugging me!—and why was he hugging her but he was, and he was so happy to see her and she had no idea why anyone should be that happy to meet anyone for the very first time and … she nearly cried.
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 53
