Ironically though, nothing happened.
Sure, bolts of lightning light up the sky, claps of thunder shattered the air, and the fuming wind howled like a one of werewolves heartbroken in love, but it didn’t really feel like a storm.
It felt like an illusion.
Then again, maybe storms on this planet were just much weaker than she’d expected. The whole ordeal spanned only few miles of sky, and soon they were out the cluster of gray, and this time the scenery was wildly different.
The urban houses were long gone, replaced by hills and valleys filled with luscious green terrain. A mountain range stood beyond the hills, and between it and the hills was a small river, almost like a natural moat. A faint fog lay over the river, slowly creeping onto the grassy land.
The most prominent part of the scenery, though, was the moon.
It was humongous, and rose from behind the mountains, its surface a clear, milky white. A blue tinge shone around it, surrounded by the stars; bright diamonds on a canvas of faint blue.
The spacecraft lowered towards the ground the closer it got to the mountains. It seemed like it was trying to head right at the mountains, which was probably not a good idea.
She heard a low hum come from ahead. Her suit picked up the sound and traced it to one of the larger, thinner mountains that looked like a wide, rugged pillar.
A section of the mountain opened up, large enough for about five similar sized ships to go in at once.
Elizabeth went back to lying flat on the ship’s top, trying to stay as hidden as possible. They headed into the mountain and the opening slid back, thudding to a close.
A few portable lamps, of primitive tech, hung from the walls, lighting up the room.
“Well, well,” a voice echoed.
A hooded face peeked out from the front of the ship, “So nice of you to join us.”
Elizabeth panicked and tried to make a break for it. She turned around and saw another hooded figure standing over her, a rocket launcher in his hand, his finger on the trigger.
***
3-2
Elizabeth felt a strain against her wrists. She opened her eyes, but all she could see was black. Not the kind of black one saw at night, or in a locked room. This one was the black a visor showed when a suit shut down.
Ugh, she thought.
She tried to swing her legs around, but she felt a strong hold on both ankles, restraining her from budging. She pointed her foot to the ground, trying to reach out as much as she could but she touched nothing but air.
She was definitely hanging from the wall, which was in turn confirmed by the strains on her limbs.
Cuffs, she thought.
Not the regular kind though. These were ‘C’ shaped cuffs with an open end that was directly drilled into the wall, making them extremely difficult to get out of. She remembered glancing at a figure looming over her, and then she remembered a rocket fire into her chest.
“Probably fell unconscious after that,” she muttered.
First things first, she had to get her suit up and running. It was vacuum sealed, which meant not only did it keep the air out, but the sound as well. The suit let in noise by receiving it from the nano-microphones integrated into parts of its surface and relaying through the speakers in her helmet.
And now with the microphones turned off, she was in complete silence.
Usually suits could go into a forced shutdown mode, but in those cases the visor would still be transparent. A safety shutdown would always make the visor black as her’s was now.
So she knew the suit wasn’t damaged beyond use.
That rocket must have been pretty weak, she thought, and then realized it was time to move on to getting out of this situation.
“Activate stealth mode,” she said.
The visor blinked a few times and then came back online, showing her surroundings in a light-blue hue.
Night mode, she realized.
Her suit was programmed to shift itself to night mode if it deemed the surroundings were poorly lit. She looked around her. Sharp, rocky pillars dropped from the roof and even larger ones, though fewer in number, rose from the ground about halfway to the roof. The roof was itself quite high up, easily about fifty feet off the floor.
“A cavern,” she thought.
She didn’t know if this cavern was inside the mountain, or if she’d been moved someplace else, but she decided to worry about that later on.
A translucent white dialog popped up on the upper corner of her visor, “Activating sound systems.”
She heard a small hiss come from the speakers, slowly humming louder as the system neared the end of its equipment warm-up.
The dialog changed color to green, “Activation complete.”
A terrifying scream exploded through the speakers in her helmet, a female voice no doubt, screeched into her ears, making her feel like her eardrums were going berserk.
Her suit auto regulated the noise and lowered the volume, making the noise a bit more bearable to hear. The screams kept coming, one after another, relentlessly attacking her ears. Elizabeth felt intense anguish. She could feel the pain in the screams.
Torture, she thought.
She heard the faint presence of sobs in the screams and all she could do was grit her teeth in frustration. Her hands and legs tightened and she pulled them away from the walls with as much force as she could, the sorrowful screams running through the sound system of her armor.
The cuffs budged a bit, but it was clear she wasn’t going to break out of her bonds with just her physical strength.
The screams had now become intermittent, as though the victim were losing strength.
She couldn’t take it any longer and tapped into her life force, imagining it coiling up into a sort of snake-like thread of energy and running into the wall behind her.
C’mon, she thought. Break.
The wall rumbled a bit and cracked in the sections behind her cuffs, loosening their hold on her. She tugged gently on her hands and legs and the cuffs came right out, softly landing on the floor with a dull ring.
The screaming cut off abruptly, and a loud sigh rang in the air.
“That one screamed a little too much,” a voice echoed off the walls.
She couldn’t make out how far off they were. The echo could have carried over a long distance depending on the structure of the cavern.
“Yeah,” another said. “We got what we needed though.”
“More than what we needed.”
She followed the sound, looking around in all directions to pinpoint the direction the echo was coming from. The men themselves helped her out by continuing their conversation and providing her more than enough echoes to track down.
“Still have to go dispose of her.”
“We can do that later. We’ve got a new shipment coming in.”
“Wow. That makes almost a hundred this week.”
Hundred of what? she thought as she inched forward.
She heard the sound of footsteps shuffling away from her. The men were leaving, and thankfully, they were going away from her. She picked up the pace and, in seconds, found herself at a bend in the path. A dull light came from the other end of the bend and she ran towards it. Her visor adapted to the new surge of light and reverted from night mode.
An error dialog flashed on her visor, “Communications line could not be activated.”
This place must have a signal jammer, she thought. I’ll have to get out of the cave and try again.
She looked ahead. The space in front of her seemed to be a smaller sub-cave in the cavern and was devoid of pillars, both on the roof and the floor. The center of the cave was the only part that was lit up, the source coming from the primitive lamp stuck to the ceiling.
She could see a dull outline of chairs in the dark on either side of the cave, and in the center, under the light, was a sleek, metal table that seemed completely out of place with the rest of the scenery. A cube shaped machine stood above t
he table, supported on inverted L-shape arm attached to either end of the table. Metal tentacles came from the machine, each one possessing a sharp needle on the end, and a wide tube extended out of it, running along the ceiling and into the darkness.
As she walked in closer she noticed something was on the table.
No. Not something.
Someone.
A girl lay there in a black full body suit, her legs and hands handcuffed to the corners of the table.
Elizabeth’s heart beat faster.
She hesitantly went to the upper end of the table.
And then she screamed.
She couldn’t hear herself scream. Her mind blocked out every pulse of sound she could’ve heard. Intense pain shot through her body, constraining her thoughts to one thing.
The girl’s colorless pupils looked right at her, lifeless and dead.
Elizabeth didn’t want to accept it, but her mind knew the truth.
This girl had been murdered.
And her name was Alicia.
***
3-3
Q sighed.
First Alicia, now Elizabeth.
It’d been nearly four hours since nightfall and they hadn’t come back yet.
Girls are so hard to deal with, he thought.
He figured the two of them had probably gone back to the hot springs. They’d apparently spent their first day on Armorica trying to go back to the hot springs over and over again, something that Idhren was against.
Q was worried about where those two had gone. His only solace lay in the fact that the castle was well protected by the force field. No way was an intruder getting in again. The recent intruder ordeal had caused security to double over the last few hours. If anyone even managed to shut the force field off, they’d have to face a barricade of trained guards before getting out.
There was a knock on his room’s door and Carlos walked in with Idhren. His brother looked around, and his face changed, “The girls still haven’t come back?”
Q shook his head.
“Oh dear,” Idhren mumbled and turned to Carlos. “It is as we had thought.”
“What’s going on?” Q asked
Idhren looked at him, “My intel has confirmed that another kidnapping went across the city a few hours ago. Five civilians kidnapped,” he said. “Definitely a Thanonian job. They must have kidnapped Elizabeth and Alicia along with the civilians.”
“But in order to kidnap those two, these kidnappers would have to have gotten inside the palace.”
“Not in this case,” Idhren sighed. “The security team told us that both Elizabeth and Alicia had gone outside the force field earlier in the day.”
Q’s eyes widened, “Oh god.”
Carlos sighed, “We have no other option than to believe the Thanonians kidnapped them.”
“What do we do now?” Q bit his lip. He didn’t like the way things were going, and he had a feeling it was going to get worse.
Idhren fiddled with his staff, pausing for a bit before finally speaking, “We can’t do anything.”
Q stared at the High Priest, “What do you mean we can’t do anything?”
“We have no leads,” he said. “Intel is as clueless as we are regarding the Thanonian kidnappers. They need more time to investigate.”
“Well, it seems to be getting worse by the minute,” he said. “If we don’t do something soon the kidnappings will only get worse.”
“We’ve got far more pressing problems,” Idhren sighed. “The Thanonian army has now tripled in size. Satellite data shows that people are aggressively joining the battle force. The civilians have probably been forced to join.”
“You’ve lost your own people as well two guests to a series of freak kidnappings, and that’s what you’re worried about?”
“My dear Q,” Idhren said softly. “We’ve already deployed a task force to search for the kidnappers. The victims’ families and neighbors are being questioned as we speak. Helping my people is of the utmost importance.”
Q fidgeted about, “I’m sorry for not controlling myself.”
“That’s quite alright. I understand how you feel. Your friends shall be found as soon as possible.”
“Thank you,” he smiled.
Carlos hesitated a bit before speaking, “I think Idhren is right to worry about that army,” he said. “If we don’t look into that the entire planet might be in danger.”
“But we’re not even sure we’re the ones they’re building an army for.”
“They’ve been a prolonged enemy of the Getafixians. I believe it’s very justified to think they’re coming after Armorica.”
“Even if they were, there’s nothing we can do,” Q said. “The only attack plan would be to strike first, and all that would do is hasten the start of what you say is an inevitable war.”
Idhren smiled, “That is only if they knew we were the ones who attacked them.”
“What?” Q stared blankly. What in the world was his brother suggesting?
“The Getafixians are well recognized on Thanos,” Idhren said. “But the cadets of Aliea on the other hand have never been seen on their primitive lands.”
“You’re suggesting I go attack them?”
“I’m suggesting you and Carlos go sabotage their camp,” he said. “If we cause a mini-collapse of some kind, we can prevent the war, or at least set it back a few months.”
Q kept silent. To him it seemed completely wrong to go attack an army simply because their size was threatening. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. But then again, he knew Idhren and Carlos were right too. The Thanonians had already stated they were against the Getafixians and it was hard to argue they were getting ready to attack someone else. Especially considering that Armorica and Thanos were the only civilized planets in the star system.
“I guess we have no other choice,” Q said.
“I’m grateful to know you agree to our plan,” Idhren said. “I shall take your leave now. I hope to see you tomorrow morning, possibly with news of your two friends.”
“Thank you,” Carlos said as Idhren left the room.
“You really think it’s a good idea?” Q asked.
He hesitated, “I think it creates fewer casualties than if we did nothing.”
“You’re going to have to stop trying to mask your thoughts,” Q said. “You’ve done this time and again. You hid the whole Aliea Academy ordeal until I accidentally stumbled on it. And you know what?” he stared at his brother. “I’m just letting you know. I DO know how mom and dad died.”
Carlos’ mouth gaped open.
“And I know it wasn’t a car crash.”
His brother didn’t say a word.
“You may think I was too young to remember. But I do. Our house exploded into flames. I remember crying in my bed, not knowing what to do. I remember you carrying me out of the house. I remember seeing the faint shadows of mom and dad trapped behind the flames.”
“I….” his brother stuttered.
“I don’t care that you didn’t tell me,” Q said. “I’m fine with that. You did what you had to.” He leaned in, “But for even a second, if you think I’m still gullible enough to let you get away without telling me what’s really going on, you’re just plain wrong.”
“Now,” Q stepped back. “Are you going to tell me or not?”
Carlos smiled, his eyes a little teary. He nodded, “You betcha.”
***
3-4
Elizabeth’s mind went blank.
She mumbled Alicia’s name over and over, her eyes tearing up, hoping the pilot would wake up and tell her she was fine.
But this was reality. Things didn’t work that way.
She looked at Alicia, her heart thumping hard, her body feeling nauseous. Parts of Alicia’s face were blackened, as though she’d been beat up, and the black suit had miniscule holes in it, like the ones she’d have had if syringes had pierced her again and again.
She’d been abused. There was
no doubt about it.
Elizabeth didn’t know what to feel. She was a hurricane of emotions. She felt anger, sorrow, regret, pain. And yet she couldn’t choose a single one of them.
“Why?” she knelt to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. “Why did it have to be you?”
She couldn’t help but remember everything Alicia had told her that day. About how this was her last mission, about how she wanted to get away from all this and settle down, about how she wanted to live a happy, normal life.
And then this happened.
It isn’t fair, she thought.
The anger inside her welled up, masking all her other confused emotions. She felt the ground beneath her tremor a bit and immediately tried to calm herself down. A person’s control over an Elementa went berserk at times if their emotions were too extreme, and she wasn’t ready to pull off a level 10 earthquake in an underground cavern.
She would have loved to. But she wasn’t ready for it.
Voices echoed from a distance. Those people were coming back, and she could tell that this time there were more of them. She would have liked to send them to their grave, but she knew that would be a haphazard solution. She didn’t know who these men were, though she had a pretty strong guess that they were Thanonians, and more importantly she didn’t know what their combat abilities were. This wasn’t the time for her to bite off more than she could chew.
Right now, she had to focus on getting out of the cave and getting her communication lines back on. One message would be enough to get the High Priest to send her adequate backup.
She looked around her, searching for a spot to hide in. Of course, she could just go back to where she had been imprisoned, but these men would probably look there anyway. She glanced at the wide pipe that extended out of the machine and fixed to the ceiling. It ran into the darkness, into a path she couldn’t see. But she knew it was the only path she could take, her only way out.
She walked up to the table, her hands and legs trembling, and put her hand on Alicia’s face, her fingers feeling her still warm skin.
She bent down and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said.
ZeQuest: A Space Opera Mystery Novella (The Quest Saga Science Fiction Adventure Series Book 2) Page 5
