She fell face-first into the pillow and made herself comfortable.
Golems, huh, she thought.
It had been years since she had seen a single proper golem, and here Q said he had seen four. It would have been impossible for a single mage to create and control four of them. Controlling a golem became tougher the further away it was to the mage, so if this mage created four of them, it was highly likely it was from inside Aliea.
She shook her head in confused frustration. There were too many theories, and not much evidence to support any of them. She laid her head on the soft, snow-white pillow, her mind still trying to calm down as she lulled herself to sleep.
Things were going to get interesting.
***
Q sat down next to Elizabeth and stared out the window above her headrest. The view from this high up was beautiful. The stars shone as brightly as they did a few hours ago. For no reason at all, they reminded Q of Kai and Chris. He wondered when they would come back from Moon Base.
His mind wouldn’t let him be at peace until they came back safe and sound. He drifted further and further into thought until he dozed off.
Q had a very awkward dream that night. Hundreds of images flowed through his mind. They shifted rapidly, lasting for a second at most. He hardly had anytime to register an image before it changed into the next one. After several hundred images or so, the roulette finally stopped on a blank white picture.
He felt the pure white rectangle call out to him, pull him closer and closer. He didn’t try to resist it and allowed himself to be swept away by the invisible force. Once he entered the picture, everything around him went white, like he was in a jar of breathable milk.
“Do not be alarmed,” a voice boomed.
Q looked around, but all he could see was a solid whiteness.
“Do not worry. I am not an enemy,” the voice said, in a much softer tone.
“What do you want?” he yelled, hoping the voice, wherever it was coming from, heard him.
“I’ve come to send you a warning.”
“A warning?”
“Would you wait?! I’m on a roll here, just let me finish my monologue.”
“Sorry,” Q said. He’d never met a supernatural voice with a personality before.
“The danger that you will confront is delicately dangling upon the derivative decorations of a demonic dynamo, who will not defer in detonating his dire defiance to destroy.”
“What in world did you just say?” Q asked, seriously confused. What was that? A riddle? A tongue twister?
The voice gave no answer. The white background retracted into a tiny spot on a dark canvas. The newfound blackness covered Q completely, suffocating him. He slowly opened his eyes. A blurry faced popped into his sight.
“Boy, were you knocked out cold,” Taylor said. “And I thought I was the tired one.”
Q rubbed his eyes. “How’s Elizabeth?” he asked.
“Fit as a laser blaster,” squeaked a voice.
Elizabeth jumped over to Q and gave him a hug, “Thank you for everything,” she smiled at him. The color had returned to her face and her eyes shone with her regular mischievousness.
Taylor started saying something but Q wasn't paying attention. He was still trying to understand what the voice had told him. What could it have meant? Of course such a dream didn’t necessarily suggest anything, the operative word being necessarily.
Elizabeth knocked on Q’s head, “Aliea to Q,” she said.
Q threw his hands up, “All right, all right!” he said.
“We’d better get ready for school,” Taylor said, lifting Elizabeth by her collar. She was freakishly strong for someone her size.
Elizabeth’s feet dangled a few inches in air. “Hey! No fair!” she complained.
Q couldn’t help laughing at the small act. He decided to get ready before Taylor confronted him as well.
He yawned all along the way to class, a sign that he really needed to catch up on his sleep. Of course, he did get plenty of time to sleep. The only problem was that half of that time was consumed by weird dreams filled with invisible voices, and dancing frogs (Don’t ask).
“You really need to sleep more,” Taylor scolded him, making Elizabeth giggle.
“Yeah, yeah,” he waved his hand as he walked beside them. He looked up at the sky, hoping the bright sunlight would drive the drowsiness out of his eyes. A small object caught his eye, slowly becoming larger and larger until it zoomed past him and towards Aliea’s hangar. Q charged behind it with amazing speed, hoping to catch it just as it landed. He was really excited.
It has to be, he thought.
He looked around the spacecraft-filled hangar until he spotted a ship that resembled the one he had just seen. A stairwell lowered from the ship’s side, urging Q to run faster towards it. Two people climbed down the stairwell, both of them not taking notice of Q.
“Hey guys!” He yelled out.
One of them, a boy of about the same age as he, turned to Q. The boy had a roundish face and looked to be of Asian descent. His black hair was messy, like he hadn't been able to cut it in a while. He swept the long locks that fell over his eyes, trying to see who was calling out to him.
“Kai!” Q said.
“My main man Q,” Kai jumped down and gave Q a bear hug, which probably wasn't anything like a bear hug because Kai was much shorter than Q.
A girl followed after him, her curly black hair flowing in the wind. Her dark skin emanated a kind of glowing aura. Her pointy face looked calm, her black-almond eyes cold and emotionless.
“Chris!” Q hugged her as well.
“Nice to see you too, Q,” she said, her voice a monotone.
“So how was Moon Base?” he asked. “Nothing happened right? You guys are okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Kai said. “The Moon Base was pretty cool actually. The weapons back there are really something. There’s no way anyone would be able to land a hit on the Earth without taking some serious damage.”
“What was wrong with the weapons system anyway?”
“The missile’s auto-launch sequence was going haywire. It might have fired at Earth if it hadn't been fixed in time.”
That seemed really suspicious to Q. What was it that had caused those sequences to go haywire in the first place? For a weapons system that advanced and powerful, those sequences should never deter on their own.
“Noo way!” a voice yelled out.
Elizabeth ran over to Chris and Kai. Taylor took the more sophisticated ‘walk’ approach.
Everyone was all smiles and laughs. Hugs went all around as they chatted. Q felt good to have the group back together again. But they were still missing two more people.
“Oh, looks like you got here before I did,” A man walked up to Q.
It was his brother Carlos, and next to him stood small-sized Ruby. Carlos’ brown hair was neatly trimmed and his face clean shaven. He had tried growing a beard but gave up almost instantly. ‘Too much work’ he reasoned. His brown eyes looked at everyone, the wide smile on his face showing how excited he was to see everyone together again. He was Aliea’s Commander, meaning he always had a defense meeting or something else to attend. So he hardly had any time to spend with them, and he didn’t like that.
“It’s nice to see you again, Carlos,” Kai held up his hand and Carlos high-fived him.
“Glad to see you’re finally back,” Carlos said. “Someone had gotten a little paranoid about the trip.”
Everyone turned to Q with smiling faces.
“Hey!” he complained.
Not a minute had passed since their happy reunion, when sirens went off.
Q didn’t think much of the alarms, and neither did the others. Things like this happened all the time on Aliea. Just a few weeks ago, the Academy initiated a complete lockdown because one of the cadets had accidently launched a nuclear missile. Instead of blasting through forty feet of solid steel, like the Academy had expected it to, the missile dropp
ed dead to the ground. Turns out the cadet had forgotten to arm the missile while he set up his station, so the missile was completely unarmed when he launched it. Go figure. One blunder corrected by another. But the point was, a lot of silly things caused complete lockdowns, so this warning was probably not life threatening.
“Commander,” a young man ran up to Carlos and whispered something in his ear.
Carlos’ expression changed. He kept glancing up at the sky throughout the conversation. He whispered something back and the man ran off, twice as fast as he had arrived.
“Anything wrong, Carlos?” Chris asked.
“It’s not a big deal really,” Carlos shrugged. “Some ship is heading towards Aliea. It’s probably trying to get through the barrier.”
Everyone stared at him in stunned silence.
“I hate to break it to you, Carlos,” Taylor said. “But that is kind of a big deal.”
“You guys have never seen Aliea’s full power in action have you?” He grinned at them.
Though everyone seemed skeptical, Q thought Carlos’ confidence was well founded. Aliea had a massive barrage of weaponry. Given that the force field could hold up for a day, even if under attack by the strongest of ships, the defense system would have enough time to blast the enemy to rubble before they broke through the dome. So there was really nothing to worry about.
“Oh look, it’s here,” Carlos said, his voice almost gleeful with excitement.
Q’s eyes widened. Everyone looked in astonishment as a monstrous ship approached the dome. It had a shell of sleek black metal with lines of glowing purple running along its surface.
Twenty streaks of smoke rose from around the dome, curling in the air towards the huge ship.
“Plasma missiles,” Carlos said. “They-”
“-release plasma that latches onto its target and burns through everything,” Kai said. ”It buries itself deep inside the ship before finally exploding like a bomb,” his eyes glowed as he looked at the weapons in complete awe.
The streaks of smoke soon disappeared, signaling that the missiles had released the plasma onto the ship. Carlos counted down with his fingers.
“Three-Two-One, and BOOM!” he threw his hands up in the air, a satisfied grin on his face. The air was still silent, the ship was still advancing, and there were no explosions at all. Nothing had happened.
“What’s wrong?” Kai asked.
Carlos became a bit fidgety, but he still seemed calm. “I don't know,” he said. “The plasma ought to have blasted through the ship by now.”
The ship inched closer and closer to the barrier, its looming figure threatening to attack Aliea. A hundred missiles launched from the ground next to the rim of the dome, a piercing whistle in the air as they headed for the ship. Q could immediately tell these missiles were different.
“The regular defense missiles have been activated,” Carlos said, and diverted his attention. “I should really get R&D to take a look at those Plasma Missiles,” he mumbled.
Q though, kept his focus on the streaks heading towards the ship. He was sure this barrage of attacks would obliterate the target and Carlos seemed to have decided that he had won already. He and Kai had already started listing reasons for the plasma missiles’ failure.
Meanwhile, a multitude of explosions detonated on the surface of the black ship, filling the air with spheres of light. Q could feel the air inside the dome vibrate from the sheer strength of the blasts. There was no way anything could survive that attack.
“The fireworks display is over, guys,” Carlos smiled at them.
Q glanced at the sky, beyond the force field. A huge dark silhouette sat inside the thick smoke, lurking like a beast that had just awoken.
“On the contrary,” Q said. “It’s just getting started.”
***
1-3
The deep, dark sky was painted in exquisite brushes of brown smoke. Q could see distinct shades of purple light dim through the thick clouds of smoke. A vague shadow lay dormant inside the cloud like a hunter in wait. The ship hadn't gone down yet.
A low, bassy tone ripped through the sky, making the air inside the dome vibrate violently.
“Get Down!” Elizabeth yelled.
A monstrous beam of purple energy burst through the smoke and hit the force field. The whole of Aliea Academy trembled in the power of the beam. The ground shook, and people stumbled to the ground, frightened and confused.
The tremors lasted for a few seconds. Nothing seemed to have been damaged though. The ground held together, and the people, though scared, seemed uninjured. The force field around Aliea was still intact and at full strength, not a scratch on it. That was expected, since a force field was very difficult to shut down.
More lights appeared through the smoke, brighter and fiercer than the others. The ship charged out of the smoke and towards the force field. Its sleek black body didn't show any signs of the powerful attacks Aliea had launched at it. There was something about the whole ordeal that didn’t make sense to Q. That purple beam hadn’t made a single scratch on the force field and yet the ship was charging right at it.
And then it hit him. His eyes widened, “Run!” he yelled.
He only managed to take a few steps forward when a loud crunch rang in his ears, a sound that felt like bones were being ground to pieces. He looked up at the sky, both afraid and curious to know what happened.
Aliea Academy used a force field; the strongest, most impenetrable defense in the Universe. And that warship had charged right through it. A large section of the force field shut off, leaving a wide gap for the ship to head through. The emergency system activated immediately. Patches of the ground opened up and clouds of gray shot into the air. Q looked a little closer and saw that the grey clouds were actually swarms of nanobots.
They flew to the gaps and fixed themselves as a sort of force field glue. In an instant they dissolved away leaving behind a completely functional force field. But a brand new force field didn't solve their problem just as yet. The ship was inside Aliea now, and it was rocketing toward the surface.
“Go, go, go!” Carlos pointed towards Demon Riser. All of them hurried away, occasionally turning to glance back at the ship.
The warship didn’t ‘land’. It just crashed into the surface, crushing everything below it. Skyscraper and ships alike were crushed into pellets by the monstrous entity. A shock wave from the impact shattered the glass buildings in a five mile radius. The air was filled with the sound of large explosions accompanied by the terrified screams of the cadets of Aliea.
Q stopped and turned to face the ship, everyone else looking at him quizzically. “Running away isn't going to solve anything,” he said. “We have to take the ship down before it takes us out.”
The ship had finally touched down and most of the destruction seemed to have ceased. Then a section on the ship’s side opened.
“That can't be good,” Kai said.
A swarm of white and black drones emerged from the ship. They travelled in a perfect arc, scanning all parts of the ground. Their triangular bodies had dark blue spots that seemed to act as cameras. For a moment they kept moving as a group, surveilling everything around them.
And then they opened fire. Those dark spots were not cameras. They turned to a shade of bright blue and fired purple spheres of energy at everyone and everything in the vicinity.
“Stun projectiles,” Elizabeth said.
“They’ll temporarily paralyze you for a while depending on the blast’s strength,” Taylor added.
Q clenched his fists. Just who were these people who were attacking them? Were they even people? For all he knew, there could be some rogue artificial intelligence in there controlling the entire attack.
“Stun projectiles,” he muttered and took a step forward, looking at the drones. “Let’s see how they like a taste of their own medicine.”
He focused on the drones. He felt his body hum along with every thought in his mind. He focused on his i
nner life energy and pushed it towards his hands. He imagined a river of energy overloading his hands, soaking them in power. His hands glowed a dull shade of gold. He grinned. He raised his hands into the air, and a bolt of lightning hit the first line of drones. The machines blew apart instantly and dropped to the surface as charred debris.
The attack couldn’t handle the overwhelming number of drones though. More and more drones flew out of the black ship, but this time they all headed towards them.
“Umm guys?” Elizabeth said. “Time to run.”
It was too late. A few hundred drones surrounded them, their laser blasters trained at their chests.
Q threw his hands up into the arm and a storm of lightning struck the drones around them.
“RUN!” he yelled and they all ran helter-skelter, each one taking a random direction.
Q ran as fast as he could, stopping only when he couldn't see the drones. He turned around to see Taylor and Elizabeth right behind. He looked further back but he couldn't see the others.
“I hate helter-skeltering,” he said. He took a deep breath and turned to face Taylor and Elizabeth. “What do we do now?” he asked.
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen an attack like that.”
“Even the Dark Knights don’t have a ship like this one,” Taylor said.
Okay, now Q was tense. One of the most powerful organizations in the world, if not the most powerful one, didn’t have a ship like this. That said a little too much about the people who were attacking them right now.
“We need to find a place to hide. Now,” Elizabeth said.
“Fine,” Q muttered and turned around. His eyes widened. Around twenty drones floated in the air, all their stun blasters activated and ready.
“RUN! NOW!” he yelled.
And that was when the drones opened fire.
AcQuest: A Space Opera Military Technothriller (The Quest Saga Science Fiction Adventure Series Book 3) Page 3
