by Rick Kueber
A strong and commanding voice of a child radiated through the room and all who heard it felt its power. “Make way!”
The semi-circle of glaring, sparkling eyes parted and then as the glow of the firelight escaped, the shadowy figure of a spindly, tall girl, with flowing hair, a simple white gown and brilliantly glowing eyes took my breath. Her figure was back lit with the dancing flames of the large hurricane lanterns. Every Taker within sight dropped to their knees and bowed their heads, unable to look into the all-seeing eyes of the child.
Chapter 9
The Titan War
“Quickly.” The child’s voice demanded. “Bring them to me before the others arrive.”
One person from each end of the divided arch of glowing eyes came to us and placing a hand on our backs, guided us forward and up a two step tier that lead to the platform, or stage, where the lamp-lit child stood tall and thin. I dared not to look into the eyes or the faces of those around us and focused on the floor and the steps that we were coerced to take. An inlaid insignia was built into the floor of the hotel’s ballroom, or whatever this room was. The lights and shadows swayed and brought the words in the floor to life. My heart exploded in my chest, pounding harder and faster than I could ever remember as I nonchalantly gestured to the letters on the floor. An audible gasp escaped Elle when she read the words:
‘THE WATER’S EDGE
RESORT AND SPA’
“I hope you never doubted that I would meet you here, at the water’s edge.” The child spoke softer now and though it had changed and grown less childlike, I recognized some part of it from our past.
“Maddie?” Elle said in a tearful whisper.
“Yes, I was Maddie.” Her words were a conundrum, but she continued. “I am now Commander Madeline, leader of the western revolution, and today is Genesis Day. A feast has been planned and prepared, but the black Titan will arrive in mere minutes. We have much to discuss and even more to do, but now, at this moment, we must ready ourselves for battle.”
“I...I...” Words could not express my emotions and a collective gasp and murmur arose and was hushed when I took Maddie in my arms and hugged her as if she were my own child.
Much to the surprise of many, Madeline returned the embrace and whispered to us. “I have missed you both, so much. We will talk soon, but now...” She raised her arms and her voice. “We must get to the Titans and arm ourselves. When this battle is won,” She reassured the crowd. “And we will win... we will celebrate our Genesis Day feast.”
***
Madeline was no longer a goofy little girl. Somehow in the past year, she had seemed to grow into an awkward teen, at least physically. Mentally she was intelligent and wise far beyond her years. She hooked her arms with Elle’s and mine and she led us down the steps and stopped a few feet short of the french doors. Two of her entourage rushed ahead and opened the door wide.
“TO THE TITANS!” Madeline shouted the command. “TO BATTLE!”
The Takers took to their feet and with a flurry of primal and guttural grunts, and a stomping of running feet, the masses scattered. Maddie pulled at us and we returned to the stage area where the lanterns still shone brightly. She released our arms and plopped down on the edge of the stage. With her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, she sighed. Elle knelt down before her and gently rubbed Maddie’s arm.
“What’s wrong?” She asked what seemed like a stupid question. “What I meant was...”
“I miss my mom...” Maddie cut Elle’s explanation short. “And... I’m dying. I don’t want to die alone.”
“Whadya mean, you’re dying?” I dropped to the floor, sitting on my butt and resting against the stage with one arm on stage, curled around the grown child.
“At first, I thought it was cool.” She began. “Was growing every day, and I was learning things that I wasn’t even being taught. I was so excited to become an adult without having to wait all those years, but then I came to the realization that my rapid growth was speeding up and I was not only growing up quicker with each passing day and week, but I would soon be exponentially growing old. I haven’t really noticed it with any of the others that have undergone the change, but maybe it’s because they are already adults.”
“I am not trying to avoid the topic, but shouldn’t we be headed to the Titan’s with the rest of... Everybody?” I was uncomfortable calling them Takers. Whether they were on our side or against us, that’s what they were.
“The Dune Tribe will assist them.” With a wave of her hand the others with their glittering eyes departed in the opposite direction from the french doors and the lake. “I’m not really the leader of the Western Resistance. I’m just a figurehead. I’m their mouthpiece, if you will. I’m an abnormality, a strange phenom, something for the masses to unite around and with my accelerated growth, it makes them feel like they have grown up with me and it didn’t take a lifetime.” Her eyes became glossy and the tears welled up and spilled over. “This isn’t what my life is supposed to be. I’m supposed to have fun, I’m supposed to go to school, have a childhood... I’m supposed to have a mom and a dad. I have nothing.”
“Hey...” Elle brushed back her satiny locks of hair and tucked them behind the woman-child’s ear. “You have us... Me and Tanner. We’re here and we won’t leave you.”
“Promise?” The child slipped past the adolescent’s lips.
“Promise.” Elle reassured her, but I was reluctant and could not look at either of the girls. I knew that I had broken every promise I had made.
“What happened to your baby?” Madeline asked innocently as she reached out and touched Elle’s flat belly.
“Someone took him.” I said, detached from my emotions.
“We were on our way to find him when we crashed in your lake.” Elle defended our having lost our only child. It was little comfort to the parentless Madeline. The building trembled and through the expanse of windows, the lights of the distant Titan grew closer. Its black form loomed several miles beyond the lake, but that distance would disappear in only a few long strides.
“We should retreat and take shelter in our Titan.” Madeline urged us to vacate the resort.
“We should fight along side of the Takers. This is our war, even more than it is theirs.” I disagreed with the child leader.
“BUT...” Elle turned toward me and her eyes grew wide. I knew I was in big trouble. “We promised we wouldn’t leave her.”
“You mean you promised...” I spoke before I took the time to think and I had just sealed my doom. I had to make a quick recovery, or those four words would haunt me for the rest of my life. “but... I will stay with you.”
“Come.” She sounded like such a wise adult when she spoke, but she looked very much like any other fifteen year old girl. “We can observe the battle with relative safety from above in the control center of my Titan.” It almost gave me a chill, the way she called the massive, alien beast her Titan.
Madeline stood and faced away from the lake. She closed her eyes for only a second and when she reopened them, there was a thunderous boom that shook the entire resort. We extinguished the lanterns quickly and took them with us as we followed Madeline from the ballroom, through the lobby and to the main entrance on the opposite side of the resort. Through the glass entrance I could see the foot of one of the Titans had landed in the parking lot outside, dangerously close to the valet pick-up. Just a slight variance, relative to the enormous size of the Titans, and we would have easily been crushed. A buzz of Takers and hybrids scurried about packing guns of very shape and size. It looked like some nightmarish scene from a zombie apocalypse- horror movie, but this was no movie. This was what the world we called home had become.
Pushing the door open and strolling out into the open like a royal on the field of battle, Maddie held her head high and kept her tears hidden. Elle and I remained two steps behind and were stupefied by the sounds of the hybrids and Takers calling out to each other, trying to find some sort of orga
nization in the chaos. Madeline never took her eyes off of the Titan, but raised her hand in acknowledgment of those who were risking their lives for our cause. A few feet from the enormous metallic beast and she waved her hand, palm out, between her and the Titan and an exterior section of the Titan’s foot seemed to vaporize and Maddie sauntered in without hesitation. Elle and I were a bit more apprehensive, but followed her anyway.
Like the other crafts I had been on board, the interior was gray, self illuminated and the opening resealed itself as soon as we were aboard. Madeline walked ahead and never looked back. I took Elle’s cold, sweaty hand in mine and trotted across the open space to catch up with our young friend. At a specific point, about two-thirds across the area, she stopped abruptly and turned around to face us.
“Take my hands.” She held her hands out and Elle and I took her hands in ours, forming a small circle of friends.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Our feet tingled and rabid butterflies fluttered in our stomachs. A high pitched frequency screeched in my head and caused a stabbing pain deep inside my brain. I wanted to break the chain, let go of their hands and run, but I couldn’t. The pressure in my head, behind my eyes, made them feel as though they would pop out of their sockets and I wanted to scream out loud, but I didn’t have enough control to even manage that. I watched as Maddie and Elle stretched unnaturally and became thin and transparent. Then, a concussion in my head and a flash of light, like being shot from a gun, we traveled from the base of the Titan to the control center in a microsecond. When we arrived, I fell to my knees and fought to keep from vomiting.
“You okay?” Elle had a genuine concern in her voice as if she had not been affected by the teleportation in the least.
“That gets me every time.” I spoke slowly and my mouth still watered with nausea.
“So you’ve done that before, huh?” She asked and I sensed that she wondered what else I hadn’t told her.
“Yeah... A few times.” I was beginning to regain my composure. “It doesn’t get any easier.”
“Never bothered me that much.” She recalled her time on the Titan with Tory and the others.
Again, Madeline didn’t speak, but simply walked away from us and assumed we would follow her, which we did. When she approached the nose end of the oblong, egg shaped space, she held her hands up in front of her and waving them apart, like she was opening a curtain, she caused the wall to become transparent and the view was spectacular. I had seen the view from the control room before, but it wasn’t the sort of thing a person would get used to. I walked up to the edge of the transparent wall and gazed out. Straight ahead of us, only a few miles away, stood the black Titan. It appeared to have stopped. Low-lying clouds hovered between us and I looked down to the earth below. Takers and hybrids all appeared like tiny ants, scurrying about haphazardly. From this height there was no way to tell them apart and a thought reentered my mind... We were all the same. We may have different thoughts, ideas and maybe even our DNA was slightly different but overall we were all living, breathing beings and we all mattered.
The other two pale blue Titans took labored steps forward, skirting around the lake and leaving us behind. The Titans had made their way half way around the lake when the black Titan began to move again, turning to the west. I had to admit, it was a fairly brilliant move. By stalling, the black Titan would be able to take on our Titans one at a time instead of being outnumbered.
“We’ve got to move!” I pleaded with Maddie. “If they take us on one at a time, we might lose, but if we can outnumber them, we’ll have the upper hand.”
“That makes sense.” Elle agreed. “Do they have any advantages we don’t know about?”
“Elle?” I spoke again, without thinking. “If we don’t know about them...” I received a hard punch to the shoulder which was better than the slap to the face that I probably deserved.
“I am only aware of their intent and that alone frightens me.” Madeline spoke with the fear of the child that was buried deep within her rapidly growing body and intellect. “Some have been armed and others have not. Either way, none have surrendered. Once under the control of the darkness, they lose their free will.”
“What about our army?” Elle asked the hard questions. “Do they have free will? Could they surrender if they wanted to, or desert the cause if they wanted to?”
Madeline gave Elle a sorrowful look and then turned her attention to the scene that played out before us without giving her an answer. When Elle was just about to pose the question again, when we unexpectedly began to move. I studied the movements of the two opposing Titans as they drew closer to each other. Our craft moved in the direction of the upcoming confrontation and though the first steps were slow and staggered, our speed grew and we closed the distance quickly.
“What about our...troops?” I asked hesitantly.
“We are nearly five thousand strong on the ground, but aboard our three Titans we are nearly ten thousand.” Madeline spoke the numbers as if that’s all they were, and not lives.
“And you manage to feed and take care of fifteen thousand people?” I was floored at the size of the rebel militia.
“We do our best to make sure all are fed and cared for, but it has not been without some unavoidable losses.” She answered coldly.
I was too distressed at what had become of our innocent little Maddie to even respond. Instead, I turned my attention to the world outside and to the battle that was about to ensue. The Titans stood nose to nose, like some alpha-male standoff. This seemed to be almost ritualistic as their beaming lights danced about and then meshed together and stared at each other for a minute as we drew ever closer. Then, as if their fight might end before it began, both giants took one step backwards in unison, mirroring one another and then proceeded to collapse flat against the earth. The moment they touched the ground, openings appeared and the opposing sides rushed from the two Titans like grains pouring from a box of rice. It was an obvious race to see which would empty first and the black Titan was not willing to lose that race.
While the Takers still spilled out of the black Titan, it began to stand back upright and the remaining troops plummeted to their deaths, crushing some of those below. At first it did not seem like a very wise move, but I was soon proved wrong. I had never seem a Titan move quickly, but this one nearly leapt to its feet and in one quick bound, it landed its font appendage heavily on the control center of our ally Titan, crushing it effortlessly. We were almost close enough to engage when it took a small step forward, planting itself on top of a large number of our troops. It was a vicious and cruel move that I had not counted on.
“If we release those on board with us, won’t they just crush us too?” I asked, wondering what our options were.
“It is a possibility.” Maddie turned to face Elle and I. “That is a risk I am willing to take.”
“You’re insane!” Elle shouted at the girl and nearly brought her to tears.
“You think this is easy?” She shouted back, balling her hands into fists and stomping her foot. “You think I wanted this? Not even for a second!”
“There has to be another option!” I joined in the argument as I watched the scenery outside flying by. We were collapsing to the ground to release the thousands of rebels on our Titan and we had instantly gained the attention of the black Titan. Unfortunately, When we hit the ground, we were facing down and could not see anything but the earth directly beneath us and the troops running from our craft with their guns ready and a passion that I felt proud to be a part of. The Titans had a way of controlling gravity. No matter how we moved or what direction we faced, the force that held us always seemed to come from beneath our feet. It also insulated us from the sounds and tremors of the outside world. With the entire body of the beast flat on the earth we could feel a slight vibration when the black Titan stepped closer. When the foot of the Titan landed so close that it sent an intense tremor through our entire craft and cast a shadow across our cont
rol center, my heart sank and I pulled Elle close and held her tight in my arms.
“This can’t be how it ends for us.” She whispered and kissed me hard on the mouth as if it might be our last moment together.
The Convergence Saga begins with The Pale Titan by Rick Kueber.
Book One
The Pale Titan Complete Book
The Pale Titan Pt. 1 The Pale Titan Pt. 2 The Pale Titan Pt. 3
Stellium Books is releasing this epic Sci-Fi adventure as a serial with a new part coming out each month. The Pale Titan Part 1 released in November 2015.
Follow Rick Kueber’s author page here.
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