At the rim of the great crater in which this temple resided, she paused and looked sheepishly at the steps winding down to the basin. After feeling what should have been unmovable and solid rock beneath her feet turn to Jell-O, Sara hesitated to make the trip down these rock stairs to the awaiting temple doors in fears of falling; it was more than two or three stories down and she was still shaken from earlier.
After much debate in her mind, Sara started the climb down towards her “bed” of sorts, so she could rest her head and lose the woozy feeling. It seemed like an eternity to descend the stairwell; one by one she carefully took each step until she was all the way at the bottom. When she looked up, her head swam again in a wave of dizziness and she quickly looked down and rushed inside to lie down. Whatever was going on had to be linked to the alien craft that was speeding towards them, but her head was far too fuzzy to even begin to solve this mystery. Her best option was rest and to leave this for tomorrow.
Lyarran Vessel Amarra, Southern Pacific -
Three Months and Twenty Six Days until Arrival
He sat there in the darkness in a mild state of shock. The energy his body had expended left him feeling weak and lightheaded. His heart beat slowly and steadily, and he began to feel calm once more. The ceramic like plating of the reactor chamber was still warm; he could feel it on his skin. The troubling part was that Aen sat four feet away from his own body, lying face down at the bottom of the chamber!
Looking at his hands, he could see that he was almost ghost-like; there but not really there. The pressure of the chamber on his physical body was constant, something he could even feel from within this ethereal form—somehow he was still connected to it. Closing his eyes, he began to concentrate on being back in his body, but to no avail. For some reason he was on a different plane, he just had to figure it out.
“Do not panic my child, it is not permanent.” A female voice sang to him from the darkness. It was instantly recognizable as the one he had heard leading the Grand Council meeting; it was the Empress herself.
“Your body was pushed to an extreme and in doing so you thrust your essence right out of its host.” She continued as she began to appear from the dark; looking like an apparition as he did. “But you have yet to even tap into your potential and you have so far yet to go to realize it.”
“I have no time to study and learn, your majesty; there is a war coming to our front door, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Yes, Terra Sol will burn, but it will not fall. But you sit on the precipice of a new life—you are no longer human and yet not of Lyarran dissent either. What sits before me is a creature unlike any the universe has ever seen; you, my dear Aen, are unique.”
“And how does that uniqueness help me now?” Aen retorted in anger. “My life is gone; my family stolen from me. How does this help me?” He motioned to the body lying before him.
She let him spill his anger out and looked at him with kindness and love. Her intense beauty began to soothe his frayed nerves; a trait she had perfected over time, no doubt. Smiling, she glanced down upon his form and began to answer.
“This is only the beginning,” she said as she bent down and touched the cheek of his empty body. The sensation of her touch sent shivers through his projected self! “This is what happens when you fight your true power; you chain yourself to a mortal form. Before you lay the universe and all her wonders, but your human mind ties you to this planet and her troubles.”
“So you are saying I should let the Earth fall and join you amongst the stars?”
“No.”
“Then what do you mean? Why is this the beginning?”
Once again she simply smiled, disarming his growing aggression and calming him down in an instant. “I am saying that you are defining who and what you have become by the form you have chosen. Soon, you will arise whole again and join the fray outside, but in this battle you will realize your true potential and begin to see how terrifying its implications may be on the Empire of Sol.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“I speak of what is to come, not the truth as you see it. Your emergence into this universe has been foretold, but so has the impact you may have on future events. You are a weapon of untold power, Aen—a weapon many will seek to obtain at any costs! Imagine what that holds for those on Terra Sol; imagine what it may mean to those you love if you stay true to your old life.”
Aen was silently horrified—the whole picture began to unfold before him. She was showing him how vulnerable his family would be if someone would stop at nothing to hold him in sway. His heart filled with sadness; he realized that once this was over that Earth could no longer be his home.
“We are similar beings; you and I; we will outlive our worlds of birth. But where I was born as a child like this, you have been thrust into the limelight as a science experiment gone wrong. I had teachers and spiritual guides to mold me into what I am; you awoke into a new life alone. Aen, you have been given a rough start,” she continued. “But it is the coming days that will truly create and shape the man you will become. Your destiny and that of Terra Sol part ways when this is over, but you have to be willing to see that.”
“How will I protect them?” he whispered softly. “How can I watch over them if I am no longer here?”
“Those are questions I cannot answer; only you can.”
“So what happens to me now? What does the future hold?” He hung his head; his words laced with regret. “There was so much I wanted to see and do, but fate is not my friend is it?”
The Empress began to fade away; her time was obviously over here. Aen could feel the pull of his body as it began to reclaim its missing core self. He didn’t fight it and closed his eyes as he began to feel his limbs as his own once more. As he opened his eyes, he heard her voice echo in the darkness to answer his query.
“Your life is not ending; it is just about to truly begin. We will meet again, this I can promise. On a throne of ice denser than rock, you will wait as the right hand of the Goddess kneels before you.” She said with a smile. “That is where I will find you after all this is done and that is where our paths cross once more. Good luck Aen of Terra Sol, fight hard and true.”
Then there was nothing but the sound of his breathing and the steady thump of his heart in the darkness. Slowly lifting himself up, Aen began to wonder if it was a dream or not. He was about to dismiss it when he caught the slight scent of an exotic perfume that lingered in the dark sphere; a last nudge to his tattered psyche that it was real. From the depths of space she had come to him; the Queen of Heaven had descended from her throne upon high to lift him up!
A sound of a metal hinge moving and the bang of the door breaking loose from its locked position snapped him to look upwards. The first real speck of light in a few hours peered into the dark chamber followed by the hologram of Caretaker. It floated down to his eye level and began to scan his healing frame.
“It has been fourteen days, two hours, twenty-eight minutes, and fifty six seconds since any readings of life were detected in the reactor core. I was worried that you had expired with your efforts to achieve jump space.”
Aen chuckled softly. There was actually concern in the metallic tone that was Caretaker’s voice; the tin man had a heart after all!
“I am still here; at least I think I am.” Aen struggled to speak as his newly reformed vocal chords strained to vibrate for the first time. “I guess I’m harder to kill then you thought.” He turned over to rest on his backside; legs outstretched and arms holding him in an upright position.
“Actually, I figured eventually your life signs would flash again, what I did not calculate is that two different life signs would appear in here. May I ask what caused that abnormal reading Harbinger?”
Aen thought silently on the repercussions of sharing details of his visit. Obviously, the Caretaker was to be debriefed at the end of this, and the
Empress’s visit may be viewed as interference of some sort that could be frowned on in the Council. Obviously, him being alive had greater implications than the here and now and she had seen his teetering on the edge of failure. Deciding that it was a conversation between two kindred souls that had no reason to be shared with others, Aen looked up at the construct and shook his head.
“I woke up alone; the overload of power I created must have messed with the sensors.”
It hesitated for a second; running what Aen thought to be a diagnostic of some sort. “That is logical; the immense energy and heat you let loose would make it impossible for anything to have survived in here. I will close the file as a glitch. Come, let’s get you dressed and brought up to speed, much has happened already.”
A ladder appeared in the once smooth surface of the sphere which led up to the door and Aen rose to begin his climb. His body was tired, almost overworked, but he steadily ascended the steps to the hatch. Light streamed through the opening, far brighter than the dullness that held the room when he entered the reactor. Reacting from memory rather than functionality, he raised his hand to shield his eyes.
Aen re-entered the world he had left, but it was hardly the same as before. Instead of one half-alive reactor core both hummed at full capacity. The entire room was lit brightly and all the panels and displays were lit and running diagnostic routines. The dead had been resurrected; the Amarra had been reborn!
“What’s our status?” he asked as his feet hit the metal walkway with a dull thud and grabbed his armour to dress once more; the under layer felt odd on his reformed skin.
“Systems running at two hundred and fifty-three percent; the power surge brought most of the ship back online. Life support is active in all stations, with hull breaches in this section and four others. Shields are at twenty one percent and weapons are…..inactive for the most part.”
“For the most part?” Aen quizzed as he clicked his chest plate on. “Explain.”
“Plasma cannons are all unresponsive, save the aft turret which has shown a minor power draw. I have sent a drone to diagnose and repair if possible.”
“You don’t sound convinced it is salvageable.”
“I am unsure if anything that is not functional on the Amarra can be restored to working order; the ship has been underwater for two thousand years and I am unable to determine from its records the last time the cannons were even used.” Caretaker paused. “As far as the Plasma Accelerator goes, the coils are intact and there are three rounds available, but it is unknown if it will fire properly. Again, I have a drone clearing the baffling to make sure the weapon is clear. It is sufficient to say, we have the proverbial knife in a rather large gun fight.”
Aen laughed, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. Days upon days of anger and foreboding doom had worn on him, but a slight hint of humour from a machine of all things was exactly what he needed! It seemed to be the exact spark he needed to get going again.
“Didn’t know you would be capable of sarcasm, Caretaker?”
“And I was unsure that you could light the reactors with that heart of yours; marvellous bit of evolution. I would love to study it sometime.”
“Not the time or place for that, I’m not in the least bit interested in being a lab rat again.” Aen said with annoyance as he began to descend the ladder to the main reactor. “I need to be in the control room and get up to date on what’s happening!”
“Indeed, there is much to catch you up on. The jump in atmosphere created quite the shockwave that dispersed across the entire planet; the results of which are quite interesting. As well, the message to General Patterson was sent and received and I have hacked the new military network as you asked and have a live feed for you. Their plans are quite….interesting.”
“Good.” Aen said with a smile. “Let’s have a look and get to work then, shall we?”
FIFTEEN
Lyarran Vessel Amarra, Southern Pacific -
Three Months and Five Days until Arrival
Although he had not left the Amarra in two months—other than visits to various bases worldwide—Aen had kept quite busy with preparations and study. At this point, he felt he knew as much as possible about the Husk invaders, but still held Lyxia’s point in his mind, that they would be unpredictable when they arrived. These things learned as the years went by, and the ship that approached—although similar to other Husk ships catalogued by the Lyarrans—held no recognizable markings to say it had ever been encountered before by the Imperial Fleet, which meant that they could very well use unknown tactics.
Still, Aen made sure that the plasma rifles were distributed to militaries around the world and the soldiers had been trained to use them. Sadly, in the training there had been some deaths along with various degrees of different burns. The weapons were not without risk and were meant to be used by Ifierin warriors with battle armour that could withstand the immense heat output, not human men and women with cloth battle fatigues that burned frighteningly easily from it. But all in all, the weapons were well-received and the training drills were fruitful; Aen had also used the visits to learn more about the battle plans themselves too.
The front lines—or the ones picked to stand against the first wave of the attack—had been briefed well, and other than a few isolated incidents, they had maintained an air of secrecy to prevent the rest of the world from finding out the true horrors yet to come. There were those who couldn’t deal with what they’d learned, and used their sidearms on themselves; most of them from heavily religious backgrounds, unable to accept life from outside Earth. Other incidents involved those who felt the need to slip warnings to friends and families, who were dealt with in a rather frightening manner. A soldier and those warned quickly disappeared; although Aen didn’t agree with this sort of tactic, it did serve as the perfect warning to others who thought they might do the same.
Drills and training stepped up in number and intensity all around the globe, but the use of any ammo had stopped, as the need to stockpile and save every bullet became paramount. Weapon and military vehicle production was increase to produce as many tanks, jets and guns as possible in the next two months. The enemy was close now; soon the secret couldn’t be kept, not from a world that shared everything through the internet.
Aen figured the mass hysteria was only days away—the Husk Harvester was just beyond Jupiter’s orbit and would be unavoidably visible in the night sky as soon as it past the Jovian giant. At the moment, it was not as visible as one would think and those who did spot it mistook it for one of Jupiter’s many moons—but in no time there would be no doubt of what it was and where it was heading. He wondered how the world would handle this, the news not coming from world leaders, but from the internet. It would go from one person to millions in seconds and to billions in minutes. The only foreseeable result would be chaos and confusion; those who had resources and money would use them to try and buy their safety, and those without would trample each other in attempt to find their own safe havens. Everything that life on Earth had become was teetering on the precipice of destruction, and all this would be done before the Husk arrived.
Aen had wondered why they slowly made their way in to Earth, but soon realized that the long and very visible trek had a dual purpose. First was to gather information and devise the perfect strategy to best deal with what would be a brief but violent fight against the humans; second was to create the disorder and anarchy that he could see coming, himself. Social convention could not hope to withstand such a shattering revelation as this. But the military might of the planet was ready and planning its own ways to deal with the incoming visitors. Aen had to admit that Patterson and the others had devised a few strong and sound tactics, ones that the Husk wouldn’t expect. The most surprising of these was the tunneling in the flatlands and deserts around the world, a weapon used historically only by accident was being produced en masse.
It w
as the counter-attack idea that intrigued him, as the Thunderwell was not a well-known project. In 1957, Bob Brownlee used a nuclear weapon to detonate at the bottom of a 500 meter shaft—partially filled with water—in the Nevada desert to launch a steel disc into space. The immense heat from the explosion turned the water to steam that shot up the shaft and flung the disc into space at approximately six times the needed escape velocity of Earth’s gravity. It was arguably the first manmade object sent into space, but because of the power of the blast and the speed it was travelling, it was never found! Now it was being reproduced in the scale of hundreds, a literal blast of high impact buckshot to throw at the enemy.
All military communication around the world was either coded in obscure and unwritten languages or done in Morse code. The enemy was listening, but both would be the perfect way for all plans to remain secretive, although there were bursts of normal radio chatter to disguise the rest as simple noise. They were doing what they could to fight the best they could, but it would be a short fight at best. Aen figured that once the Husk arrived, Earth had enough resources and willpower to last seven to ten days; after that, resolve would quickly fade and the enemy would start to assert its dominance over them.
But they hadn’t counted on him and the Amarra, which was surrounded by a light-bending shield as it hovered above a small desert island in the South Pacific. Neither friend nor foe knew it was there and Aen wanted to keep it that way as the drones worked feverishly to repair what they could to make it somewhat battle-ready. But he knew full well that the Amarra was a short-term help and a last-ditch effort to buy one or two more days for the Dark Light to arrive; the pressure of the sea water and the corrosive effects of the salt in it had taken a massive toll on the once-proud ship that carried the Lyarrans across the galaxy, and left it a shadow of its former glory. Other than three rounds of the PAC and defensive turrets, the Amarra wouldn’t stand up to more than one or two volleys of Husk fire.
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