Sibylla of Earth

by A. D. Baldwin

  With the two of them distracted, Sibylla felt her mind freed. Light rushed in, and she sat back on her heels, coughing wildly as breath filled her lungs.

  Tilting her head back, she called out to the robed figure, showing her amusement with a bitter laugh. "You know what that sound is?”

  The creature glared back at her in anger, its eyes narrowing like slits.

  "It's the sound of your ass about to be handed to you."

  40

  Battle Above

  The Warhawk jet blew through the street with incredible precision, cutting past the plumes of smoke rising from the broken asphalt and sliding between the tops of ziggurats. Curving out to a stop, the jet's targeting systems locked onto the front of Sibylla's house and its barrels ignited with magnificent fury.

  Bullets tore through the cracked entrance of the house, chipping away at the door's frame. Wood splintered. Bricks exploded. The Robed figure jumped to the side as he was nearly enveloped in the onslaught. But the minotaur wasn't as lucky.

  It stumbled back as its muscled body was engulfed in a stream of bullets, whittling away its dark flesh. To Sibylla’s horror, though, it didn't die. It merely dropped to a knee and lowered its horns, braving the assault with a strained roar.

  “What the…”

  Grasping the moment, she reached for the scythe on the floor. It was light and finely crafted, the gold blade glinting in the smoke. With all her might, she swung it up at the robed figure, catching it beneath the arm.

  The figure roared out in pain as blood sprayed from its shoulder. It staggered back, fell to the side, clasping the stump of its shoulder, as it watched its arm twitch on the floor.

  Sibylla reached for her mother's hand. She wanted to touch it once more, to feel her skin against her own before she had to leave. It was still warm. Pressing it to her lips, she shut her eyes and gave it a final kiss, placing the moment in her heart forever.

  The robed creature rose to its feet, lurching across the foyer in a heated rage. Its black eyes were filled with revenge and it swiped at Sibylla with razor-like fingers. But Sibylla reacted quickly. She let go of her mother's hand, jumped to her feet and raced through the entrance, slipping just past the figure's grasp.

  The Warhawk jet lowered to her approach, and Sibylla jumped onto the wing, tugging herself up and racing for the cockpit. The hatch opened, and Sibylla saw a pair of green eyes looking past her somewhere into the street.

  "Hold on!" Anais screamed. She jerked the Warhawk to the side, nearly throwing Sibylla from the wing, and aimed her guns at the advancing horde charging to their right.

  The beasts were dashing through the smoke with incredible speed, leaping over wrecked cars, pouncing over dead bodies, furious in their advance.

  Flecks of muscle and bone flew through the air as bullets pierced their massive bodies, slowing them down just enough for Sibylla to climb into the cockpit.

  "How the hell did you find me?" Sibylla asked. She plopped in her seat and locked the safety harness across her chest, comforted by the familiar settings.

  "I followed the tracking device on your jet," Anais answered. "Nice neighborhood by the way."

  "We need to get the hell out of here."

  "Sure thing." Anais reached for the protective case covering the missile switch on the dashboard in front of her. "Just let me say goodbye." Opening the case, she flipped the switch up, and a pair of short-range missiles erupted from under the jet's wings.

  They bore through the crowd with a penetrative force, detonating the ground and sending the entire asphalt into an eruption of concrete and smoke.

  Sibylla stared into the cloud of destruction, waiting for it to clear. She wanted to make sure that they were gone, that there were none left to terrorize whatever remaining people there were. But as the smoke lifted and the growls returned, she realized that the missiles had failed.

  "They're not dead," Sibylla whispered. “We just hit them with everything we had. And they're still not dead.”

  "We're out of here." Anais tugged the controls back, and the jet lifted upward. The sudden momentum threw Sibylla back against her seat, and she felt the press of gravity as Anais steered into the sky.

  Thick smoke gave way to a raging battlefield, and Sibylla saw a fleet of Warhawk jets blazing across the sky in a tightened formation, the burn of their thrusters growing ever louder as they got closer. It was a relief to see so many fighters. But that solace was short-lived.

  Sibylla looked to where they were headed and saw a fleet of strange crafts approaching from the distance. Bronze, and sphere-like, they were a little bigger than a regular jet. But their movements were impossible to believe. They buzzed about the sky in a wild frenzy, dipping and rising, shifting and jerking. It was as if they could move in any direction.

  Sibylla activated the co-pilot console and readied for engagement. With a few exceptions, a Warhawk could only fly in one direction: straight. Facing an enemy that could move horizontally or diagonally put them at an extreme disadvantage. Hopefully, Anais would be good enough to get them through it.

  One of the spheres zipped past the jet, and it nearly scraped the canopy. Sibylla spun around in her seat and followed it with her eyes, her heart sinking into her stomach as she watched it curving out behind them, then speeding up to catch them. It was chasing them!

  "He's on us," Anais said, the bite in her voice unmistakable. She rolled the jet to the side, dropped a hundred feet, then righted it again, steadying out in a flat trajectory that took them straight ahead.

  Sibylla checked the monitor recessed in the back of Anais's seat and saw that it was still there. Are you kidding me? she thought. Looking back through the canopy, she studied it closely. Its design was archaic; rustic bronze, corrupted grey. No different than the armor she'd seen on the minotaur.

  Suddenly, the front of the sphere—a wide horizontal slit that stretched the width of it—opened up like a giant eye—and Sibylla saw a huge pupil glowing menacingly red. It was about to fire.

  "Anais!" Sibylla screamed.

  "I see it!" Anais engaged the reverse thrusters and slammed the breaks. The sphere shot right past them, flying over the cockpit and rounding out to a stutter. It was a simple move, but in the hands of a lesser pilot, it could've been disastrous.

  Anais engaged the thrusters again, steering them into a reverse somersault that made Sibylla nearly throw up in her seat. The jet rose and rose until it landed smack dab in a dogfight.

  Sibylla glanced up and around through the window of the canopy, catching frenzied glimpses of zooming jets fighting for their lives.

  Anais linked into the main com, and a crackle of static burst out of the speakers. "Computer, what the hell's going on with the communication channels?"

  "It appears that they're being jammed," the A.I. replied calmly.

  Anais's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, jammed'?"

  "They're blocking our coms,” Sibylla said, her stomach suddenly turning. By eliminating the communication channels, they could divide the U.S. forces. Sibylla let out a hiss of frustration.

  Beneath them, a jet roared past. It was rising at a seventy-five-degree angle, soaring desperately to outrun the bronze sphere on its tail.

  Anais switched to her weapons system and engaged her thrusters. "Hold on!"

  Sibylla's eyes narrowed as she watched the targeting reticules fill the control screen—a beautiful array of squares and triangles, overlapping together as they rushed to lock onto the sphere's heat signature.

  Anais held the control stick firmly in hand, waiting for her chance to fire. But strangely, the targeting system never locked on. It just stuttered nervously, then, all at once, separated along the screen, wandering aimlessly along the corners.

  "What's wrong?" Sibylla asked, noting the malfunction.

  "I…I don't know," Anais said. "It's as…as if the guidance system won't lock on, as if—”

  “There's no heat signature," Sibylla let out.

  She watched the sphe
re as its eye began to open, and a mini-atmosphere of sizzling light crackled around its shell. With a stinging pop, it released a wave of electricity at the fleeing Warhawk, sending a sizzling current through the jet’s internal systems and erupting the hull, wings, and thrusters into a fiery blaze.

  The pilot, in a desperate attempt, tried to eject from the canopy, but his body was quickly engulfed by the destruction and his body was blown apart like a fire cracker.

  "No!" Anais screamed.

  She lowered the jet and engaged the thrusters, hailing the bronze sphere with a stream of bullets. It was a bad move. The outer shell merely sparkled as the shells were deflected and the sphere quickly turned its attention onto them.

  The chase was fast. Anais rolled out, turned upward, bolting for the aerial battle up above. They needed to create distance, space that would allow them to get lost amongst the fighting.

  Slipping through a thick cloud, Anais slid behind one of the erupting jets, blanketing their exit under a wave of fire and debris. There was no way they were going to defeat these things, Sibylla realized. They needed a new plan.

  Sibylla looked to the west. The sky was empty. "That way!"

  Anais looked. "And leave the battle?"

  Sibylla hesitated as she glanced at the countless number of jets rupturing around them. As technologically advanced as the Warhawks were, they were still no match for the enemy spheres, which seemed able to fly in any direction. If she could've, she would've accessed the com and pleaded with the other pilots to follow. But it was useless.

  "I'm sorry," Sibylla said.

  Anais let out a hiss of frustration. "But we're Blood Eagles," she pressed. "From high we fall; with hell we bring, remember?"

  "If we stay, we die." Sibylla said simply.

  Seeming to understand, Anais banked the jet to the side. But through the reflection canopy, Sibylla could see the regret in her friend's eyes.

  "I'm sorry," Sibylla said, resting a hand on her friend's shoulder.

  Anais proved her mettle then as she led them to freedom. She used the jet's speed and thinness to slice through the thin corridors of explosions. It was something to behold. She’d drop hundreds of feet at a time, then right herself at the last second, only to repeat the process all over again. It was like traveling through a dangerous maze of twists and turns.

  Finally, as they broke free of the onslaught, they lowered below a bed of smoke and escaped into a clear patch of sky.

  The open desert stretched out for miles. And Sibylla could see the endless patch of rock, dirt, and cacti passing beneath them. As they neared the Franklin Mountains, Anais lowered the jet, landing them carefully against the ground.

  When the safety light activated, and Anais opened the cockpit, Sibylla unlatched her harness and rose from her seat, staring out at the burning city in silence.

  Dark smoke rose to the sky, a sky so black and red that Sibylla thought she was looking at the side of a ruptured volcano.

  She stared at her hands and saw that they were still covered in blood. Closing her eyes, she thought back to her mother’s lifeless body, remembering how the wretched figure had gloated over it so arrogantly.

  It was then that a hate she'd never known filled her heart, and she found herself, for the first time in her life, wanting to kill.

  "What are these things?" Sibylla asked.

  "Gods," Anais answered, her eyes glued to the destruction of the city. "Or at least, that was what I was told. Long ago when I was a child, the leader of the Ascended spoke about an ancient race, beings who used to walk the earth before man.

  “I always thought that they were just scary stories, fables no different from what the Catholics told their followers about hell. But now, as I look at this…” She waved at the burning horizon, its columns of smoke rising ever higher against the darkening sky. "I guess they weren't pulling my leg after all."

  "The file," Sibylla said. "What did it say?"

  Anais shook her head. "Not much. Only about the origin of something they referred to as the Messenger. It landed somewhere out here." She turned her gaze to the wide desert and mountains around her. "But aside from that, there wasn't really anything else that could help me."

  Sibylla thought to herself. If what Anais was saying was true, then it meant that this invasion was led by aliens. Was that possible? Could this actually be happening? As crazy as it sounded, Sibylla couldn't deny what she'd just seen. Her former city, the house where she’d grown up in, her mother…. Sibylla shut her eyes as she felt a deep ache in her chest. Fighting back the tears that so desperately wanted to come out, she took a hard swallow and crossed her arms, shivering against an unexpected breeze from the south.

  "What now?" Anais asked.

  Sibylla shook her head, sighing as she was filled with hopelessness. They were alone now, separated from the rest of humanity and lost to the open desert. There wasn’t much they could do. "Your guess is as good as mine."

  Then, suddenly, a beeping noise sounded from inside the jet, and Sibylla and Anais turned.

  Anais was fast. She ran toward the jet and leapt for the wing, lifting herself into the cockpit where she quickly turned to the controls and examined the monitor with careful eyes.

  "What is it?" Sibylla asked.

  "It's a signal," Anais replied, her eyes growing tight. "And it's coming from somewhere nearby."

  41

  A Hole in the Ground

  The signal beeped faster as they traveled deeper into the desert, leading them along a stretch of land that showed no sign of life. Sibylla's nerves had settled under the weight of her exhaustion, but the sounds of battle still followed.

  She heard the dense rupture of jets exploding in the sky, the random burn of pods dipping into the atmosphere, their pyramidal bodies ripping the air like fiery blades.

  I wish it would stop, she thought, her hands rising to cover her ears.

  Anais hovered the jet over a plot of flattened land, and a rush of dirt and tumble weeds lifted under the backwash of the jet's thrusters.

  "Why are we stopping?" Sibylla asked.

  "The signal," Anais replied. "It's coming from somewhere around here."

  Sibylla glanced over the side of the jet at the ground below. There was nothing. Only a flat piece of land, speckled with rocks and cacti. Looking closer, though, she began to notice the distinct markings of tire tracks leading across the ground, seeming to lead to the same place: here.

  Sibylla narrowed her eyes in confusion. There had to be a reason for this. What was down there?

  Suddenly, without warning, the ground began to pull apart. It yawned open slowly, like a giant mouth, and Sibylla saw a shadowed entrance that seemed endless.

  Anais tugged the controls back, trying to pull the jet away, but the controls were unresponsive. The jet was frozen somehow, caught by some invisible force that was reeling it in like a fish on a hook.

  "What's happening?" Sibylla asked, frightened.

  "I don't know." Anais checked the overhead console, hit a couple of switches, then logged into her comm. "Computer, what's keeping us in place?"

  "I am not sure. It appears that something is interfering with my…" Before it could finish explaining, its voice suddenly warped away, as if something had gripped its processors and was shutting it down. After a few seconds, the warping stopped, and a new voice returned.

  "Good evening, Private Vega," a woman said. "I'm glad to see that you could make it."

  Anais's gaze turned to the sky as she tried to determine where the voice was coming from. "Who is this?"

  "Mainframe host, call sign: Morgana."

  Sibylla fell back in her seat, slapping her face in annoyance. "Ah, crap. Not this bitch again."

  Anais glanced back at her. "You know her?"

  "It," Sibylla corrected. "It's an A.I. And yes. Unfortunately, I do. Its the reason why I'm here, the reason why I got suckered into this whole crap in the first place.”

  "Sibylla?" Morgana asked, seeming genuinely
excited to hear her voice. "Is that you?"

  "No," Sibylla said, motioning for Anais to stay quiet.

  "Forget this," Anais said. She switched to her guns and aimed at the growing chasm.

  She was about to fire when Sibylla gripped her by the shoulder. "No! Wait! Whatever's down there. It's got to be one of ours, right?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "The monsters came from out of the sky, remember?"

  Anais hesitated to answer. "So, what do you want me to do?"

  Sibylla took a deep breath. There wasn't really an option. "Just go with it," she said. "Let's see where it takes us."

  Sighing, Anais engaged the jet's lighting system and disengaged the flight system, allowing whatever force holding them in place to steer them downward.

  Sibylla looked around as they lowered into the dark chasm, suddenly realizing that they were in some type of vertical tunnel.

  Metal walls came into view, and she saw a number of large yellow numbers written along the sides, measuring their descent in yards. It wasn't until they passed the one-hundred mark, that Sibylla realized with a start how deep they’d traveled into the earth. It was astounding.

  Below, a bright light gradually lifted around them. They were landing now. A bottom level. Sibylla squinted as it came into view.

  Bright lights hung from the ceiling of the foreground. They beamed her in the face as they glided across the cockpit. She had to use her hand as a visor just to see.

  In the distance, a group of mechanical figures was approaching, their bodies growing more distinct through the overwhelming blare.

  "Military?" Anais asked.

  Sibylla wasn't sure. She looked around, then sighed, as saw the letters, G.P.T.O., written along the sides. "No," she said bitterly. "Something worse."

  When they landed, the jet was assailed by an army of machines—humanoid robots with arachnid arms. Twice the size of a man, they quickly set about the jet, checking the tires, inspecting the wings, performing every type of diagnostic process a regular tech could perform. But the robots were much faster, more efficient, and before she knew it, they’d already disassembled most of the frame.