“Crystal meth,” he said.
Carlos tried hard not to laugh, and Taylor just smiled, which was probably an after effect of the drugs.
“What? We use it as a sedative,” he said.
“Oh god.” Carlos froze.
“Now what?” Dr.Haze sighed.
Carlos pointed to the giant, “You didn’t happen to give him crystal meth as well did you?”
“Like I said, we use it as a global sedative.”
One of the metal arms flew past their heads and broke through the partly broken glass wall.
“Ugh. That was some nasty stuff you gave me, doc,” the giant wriggled out of the limp metal arms.
“Crystal meth stimulates different parts of the nervous system depending on the being you administer it to,” Carlos said. “And in a Corein giant’s case, we just made his body trick itself into pumping all his energy into his muscular system.”
“But that isn’t supposed to happen with regular Corein giants.”
“It does once they’ve increased their size. The nervous system is rewired when they do that so the drug affects them differently.”
The giant threw another arm over their heads.
“I didn’t get word of that medical science jumble you just said but I do know one thing,” he lifted up the entire machine over his head. “I feel GREAT.”
The metal clump flew towards them like a cannonball.
“Get away!” Dr.Haze pushed Q and Carlos out of the way.
“Dr.Haze!” Q yelled.
“Elevesta,” he said, and the machine crumpled halfway through the air and dropped to the floor.
“Ooooh, a mage,” the giant said. “Nigel is going to turn you into a high-fi pancake.”
“Who’s Nigel?” Q asked.
“It’s probably his name. Most of his brain is shutting itself down because all his energy is going to his muscles. In a few seconds he’ll be as smart as a baby.”
Q figured Carlos and Dr.Haze were capable enough to take this guy down, but if they weren’t it’d be up to Taylor and him. He’d have to admit things were sort of in his favor because the giant wasn’t going to expect him to attack at all.
“I can’t hold out against him for too long,” Dr.Haze said.
Carlos seemed to be in deep thought. “We can’t make this a full-fledged battle. Not while the kids are here. We’ve got to try something else.”
Another pill shaped carrier crashed into the room, and slid to a stop.
Great, Q thought. Another giant. And ironically he was the first one to charge towards the pill.
The carrier opened up with a hiss, and although Q expected a punch to come straight at him, all he faced was a cold blast of smoke, and a small red circle of solid metal in the pill. There was a note next to the circle.
‘You know what to do. Have fun pinning the donkey,’ it said.
Q had no clue what that meant, and before he could ask anyone anything the giant charged into Carlos and Dr.Haze, and threw them out of the room.
“Oh god,” Q mumbled.
He didn’t know if his brother had just died and the actual possibility of his death did not frighten or bother him either, which was just plain freaky.
He looked around searching for Taylor. She lay, still limp, on the floor. She definitely didn’t seem like she could duel it out with the dude.
“Two peskies down,” the giant turned to Q, “Two more to go. Nigel is going to have fun.”
Ugh, he thought. When will this guy stop talking about himself in third person?
And that gave him an idea,
“You know, Nigel,” he said. “You’re really stupid.”
“Q what are you doing?” Taylor tensed up, “If you get him enraged his hormones build up and that gets him even stronger.”
“You’re puny!” he yelled out. “Just a weak little giant aren’t you?”
“NO,” Nigel growled, “Nigel isn’t weak. Nigel will CRUSH YOU.”
“This is bad, his brain has lost most of its functioning,” Taylor said.
“Isn’t that good?” Q asked.
“It means his body’s muscular system is on overdrive. Still think it’s good?”
Q kept quiet. Taylor obviously didn’t like his plan of action.
“STOP TALKING!” The giant ran toward Q.
He flung the red circle on the ground, sliding it through the giant's legs as far as he possibly could.
That still didn’t change the fact that he had probably five hundred pounds of Nigel heading straight at him. Q did the first instinctive thing he could. He jumped into the air.
He realized that was a pretty stupid idea because now the giant knew exactly where he’d land.
Another of those pill carriers shot through the already broken walls and rammed into the giant, sending him crashing through the wall on the other side.
“That was one big slip,” Q chuckled, and looked at Taylor. “Thank god you knew what to do.”
“You’re lucky I even had enough energy to pin the thing onto the giant. This is a standard targeting beacon, lets carriers or capsules known exactly where to land.”
“Yeah. Tagging a giant who’s charging at you. Pretty easy huh? Sliding that beacon to you wasn’t easy either I’ll have you know.”
“You threw it like ten feet away from me.”
“I’m so sorry you had to walk that far,” he grinned.
“You two coming or what?” A voice yelled at them.
Q turned and saw a large aircraft, or spacecraft, hovering in the air inches from the broken glass wall.
“Carlos,” he smiled.
“What? Did you think I’d die that easily?”
Q hopped on board. “Thank god no one got hurt this time.”
“Taylor?” Dr.Haze yelled out. That was when Q noticed she’d fallen to the floor.
She looked like she’d lost control of her body. Q didn’t know what was going on, she’d been fine just moments ago.
The low grumble of the giant emanated from the inner walls of the room. He’d probably recovered from that hit. Carlos ran back in to help Taylor, and that was exactly when Nigel blasted up from where he’d fallen. His body seemed even larger and he was clearly more enraged. Carlos picked Taylor up and charged for ship.
“GO GO GO!” He yelled from about ten feet away.
There is no way he’s making that jump, Q thought. His brother planted one foot at the edge of the room and lifted himself and Taylor smoothly into the air.
A glint caught Q’s eye a second after the jump; a white, cuboidal cannon that Nigel was holding above his shoulder. Before he could say anything Dr.Haze jumped out of the ship, his white hair flowing in the wind. The giant’s movements went into overdrive and he aimed his cannon.
Q could see Dr.Haze’s lips utter a word, and Nigel collapsed to the ground, but the cannon had already fired. A sphere of radiant purple light shot right towards Dr. Haze.
“NO!” Carlos and Taylor yelled.
The sphere hit Dr.Haze and strands of bright intense light covered him completely.
When Q opened his eyes again all that remained was a charcoal black body of the former Dr.Haze, crumbling into the dust and dissolving in the wind.
In half a second, life had been saved and life had been sacrificed.
Q took a moment to realize what had happened.
Dr.Haze was gone.
***
2-3
Carlos looked through the ship one more time, hoping something would change.
But no, the deathly silence prevailed. The survivors they’d rescued, about fifteen of them, were all teary eyed. He didn’t blame them. They’d just seen a man’s body charred to dust right in front of their eyes.
Carlos, on the other hand, was hardly affected by Dr.Haze’s death. He’d seen enough on-field death to know it was important to not lose focus and so he focused on the most glaring thing about the incident - Nigel’s white cannon.
That wasn’t supposed to be the
re, he thought. He diverted his thoughts and looked around for Q and Taylor.
Taylor was still asleep and he couldn’t remember if it was because someone sedated her. His face dropped at the memory of her screaming and flailing about as Dr.Haze’s body crumpled into nothing.
Q on the other hand seemed in control of himself. Carlos was relieved that he wasn’t affected too much, but that worried him as well, that Q seemed a natural at dealing with things like this. There was a certain downside to treating destruction and death as though it were your second nature.
He sighed. All those years of forcing himself to be an introvert were slowly becoming void and useless. His sole motivation then was to hide his little brother from a world he didn’t want him to see, and now that had finally happened. He frankly didn’t know how to react to any of this.
“Commander, we have enemy ships approaching our flanks,” a voice came out from the narrow corridor behind him.
He walked into the pit. The place was quite cramped with screens surrounding the pilot’s chair in a full 180 degree arc. The center section had clear glass which served as the pilot’s view screen.
A tuft of black hair peeked out of the top of a dark leather, swivel chair.
“What have we got Kai?” Carlos asked.
A young teen swiveled around on the only chair in the pit.
He pointed to the screens around him, “We’re not even out of the complex and we’ve got Level-Bs on our tail. They haven’t opened fire because they’re still out of range, but they’ll be in optimal strike distance in less than two minutes.”
Carlos scratched his chin. This was a tough situation to be in.
“Do we have rear guard ammunition?”
“I don’t think so,” Kai said. “This is only a passenger transport ship. But if there are guns at the rear they sure aren’t automated. The main module doesn’t have any records of rear guns being on the ship. Its mainframe isn’t even designed to accommodate the addition of automated blasters.”
“Ugh. What’s our course?”
“I’m just heading out of the line of fire and into space. The hospital is being massacred down there.”
Carlos groaned. His pool of options had just become smaller.
He took a deep breath, “Okay this is what we do. Head back into the line of fire. You can keep us out of it long enough for me to take out as many enemy ships as we can. We need to help any survivors.”
“I’m pretty sure anyone that’s left isn’t going to hold out before we get to them.”
Carlos stared at him. “Being ‘pretty sure’ isn’t good enough for us to run off into space.”
“But we’re not even sure if we have ammunition.”
“Does the rear have a hatch?”
“Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“If we don’t have guns I’ll head out there and personally provide the firepower. Head back into the wreckage. I’m counting on you.”
“Yes, sir,” Kai saluted and swiveled his chair back around.
Carlos walked back to the passengers’ cabin, where the survivors were all gathered. Most of them seemed to be patients. None of them were doctors or security personnel. Most of S.P.A.C.E’s personnel seemed to have stayed on the ground to fend off the attack.
“Q, follow me,” Carlos pulled him up by the arm and walked towards the rear end of the ship.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re going to take out a few enemy aircrafts.”
“Right. No seriously, what do you need me for?”
“Look around at everyone else. Do any of them seem suited for battle?”
Q got the point, “Fine. Where are we going?”
“To the rear of this ship. I need to find out if we can use some sort of weaponry to take out those spacecraft.”
“Wait, so you don’t even know if you have weaponry?”
A series of blasts came from the left wall. We’ve gone into the line of fire, Carlos thought. “We’re running out of time,” he said and rushed to the back, with Q right behind him.
The rear of the ship was almost as large as the pit. It had a curved glass covering on a small section of the ceiling. In addition there was a door on right side and a striking lack of weaponry.
Carlos groaned. This was going to make his job harder. And now that he’d asked Kai to head back into the crossfire he’d have to do something, else the other ships would pulverize them.
“Okay, here’s what you have to do,” he looked at Q. “I’ll open up this hatch and get out. When I’m out you have to close it as fast as you can. Wait here and open the hatch back up when I ask you to.”
“But…”
Another blast sounded, this time rocking the ship as well.
“We have no time left. Questions are for later.”
Q nodded.
Carlos walked to a lever next to the door and moved it down. The door on the wall hissed open as air rushed through the gaps at it sides. He pushed it further and jumped straight out of the ship and into the sky.
“CARLOS!” Q yelled out from behind him.
Not his fault for getting worked up, Carlos thought. He closed his eyes, “Elevesta,” he said.
A small distortion occurred in a section of the air in front of him. He stepped onto the distortion and jumped back up onto the top of the ship.
Five enemy ships were trailing the craft, and they seemed to be making steady ground towards him. Outrunning those guys wasn’t an option, and based on the size of the blasters they had on their flanks, outgunning them wasn’t an option either.
He put both his hands up to the air, “Watentia.”
Power surged into his hands, and he focused his senses. He felt the air pressure around the closest ship increase, slowly becoming stronger and stronger.
The ship creaked and wobbled. This is the part where you go boom, he thought. The ship crumpled like a tin can, its entire body nearly collapsing into a pancake.
One down, four to go, he thought.
The crushing of a compatriot didn’t seem to make the other ships feel very comfortable. They opened fire, aiming for both the ship and for him.
“Elevesta,” he said, and the distortion appeared again, this time as a large rectangle that covered the entire rear of the ship.
The Level Bs fired, using all their weaponry but no blast could get past the distorted section of the air.
Let’s get this over with, he thought. He dropped the shield, and raised his hands into the air,
“Pyroidion,” he yelled out. A large ball of red collected over his head, and shot towards the ships.
The first one exploded, causing a chain reaction that completely destroyed all the other ones as well.
“Well, that was easy,” he turned back towards his ship. There didn’t seem to be any enemies ahead of them.
He heard a soft thud come from below him. He looked down and saw Q hold up a large piece of paper that read “We’re about to descend, you’d better come in.”
Carlos could see the ground about twenty or thirty yards below.
“Change in plan,” he grinned at Q and charged towards the front of the ship, running with his arms behind his back to reduce the air resistance.
His body crouched mid-step and pushed himself high into the air, “Elevesta,” he said.
The air below filled with small squares of distorted air and he used them as a sort of air bridge to jump into what used to be the third floor of the main building.
The whole place was filled with red hot flames, and there wasn’t a hint of movement anywhere.
Finding survivors in this situation wasn’t going to be easy.
He looked out of the broken glass walls. The entire premises was ablaze in a series of flames. Personnel seemed to have returned fire against the ships but slowly the only sounds in the air were of blasts coming from the Level-Bs.
The resistance is going down, Carlos thought. That didn’t make his job any easier.
He’d initially planned to use the surveillance system to figure out if any survivors were left, but that was nearly impossible now. If he couldn’t use the system it would be impossible to differentiate between the living and dead, and he had no time to go around shifting corpses to locate survivors.
The flames quickly crept towards him, each tongue of fire almost licking his clothes. He couldn’t afford to stay here any longer.
He turned around and dashed out the wall, using the distorted platforms to bring himself higher into the air. Kai brought the ship closer to him.
“Get away from here, at least thirty-forty yards away,” Carlos said. “And cover my back if you can.”
Kai didn’t seem to like the idea but he didn’t go against the order and in seconds the ship had pulled back. For now the Level-Bs seemed too busy on the ground to notice something going on in the air. Pure golden luck.
“Let’s do this,” Carlos muttered.
He closed his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could, until the shots and explosions filtered out of his mind.
“Watentia Elevesta.”
All of the glass walls of the building in front of him shattered at once, and a huge gust of wind headed to him, bringing the flames of fire along with it.
He jumped higher up into the air, avoiding the flames completely. When he dropped back down to the third floor, the fire had completely extinguished, but only half the job was done.
He raced around, running across floors and jumping between them, all in a desperate attempt to find survivors. But all he found were burnt, empty floors. Nothing else. His head throbbed, both in irritation and stress.
The ship pulled up next to the floor he was on, and Kai signaled to him that it was time to go.
I need more time, Carlos thought, but he jumped back into the ship in one swift motion. He’d hoped there’d be someone left to save, but no. The entire section had been annihilated.
They were the only survivors.
***
Q waited patiently for someone to say something.
Nope. Not happening.
Taylor was fast asleep, and from what Carlos had mentioned, he understood that the other survivors were all patients. He counted them off. Exactly thirteen patients.
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 8
