Recessed wall lighting glowed white as the power made its way around the room, and soon our suit lights were unnecessary. Mine turned off automatically, and I saw Slate’s do the same. My friend was grinning ear to ear, and he stuck his fist out for a bump. I happily obliged.
“You’re amazing, Suma. How long before…” I stopped asking the question as the huge crystal began to glow from the center out. It was like watching the sunrise from a high vantage point. One moment it’s dark, the next a soft glow, and in a while, you’re covered in all the sun’s glory. We stared at the stone for five minutes, feeling the energy vibrate off of it. A series of cords glowed from underneath it, snaking out toward the city, the clear fiber optics blue with energy. It was a brilliant sight. Eventually, we had to avert our eyes to avoid damaging them.
“Time to see if our building is up,” I said, making for the exit. “Great work, Suma. Your parents will be proud of you.” Her pace slowed at this, and I put an arm around her short shoulders.
“Thank you, Dean,” her translator said after a small squawk.
We headed outside and could already see the effect of the power being on. Buildings started to light up floor by floor, until we were covered in the soft glow of a long-dead city block. Street lights I hadn’t even seen before were on, lighting our way back to the tower.
“That’s better,” Slate said, casually walking with his rifle slung over his shoulder. “We should be able to get back up and to the room in twenty minutes.”
I was happy with that timeline. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been gone, but it hadn’t been more than a couple of hours yet. Given the circumstances, that was a win.
The sounds of the city had changed when the power turned on. There was a constant hum as things turned on for the first time in centuries. In a few lower buildings, which appeared to be stores of some sort, I spotted screens playing advertisements.
“Hold on,” I said, walking over to one. A thin alien, with a tail as large as its legs, talked to the audience, his language silent through the glass window. His face was long, with no visible nose and a slit of a mouth. His eyes were deep-set and marble-sized, black as the night was now. He pointed up, long arms extended to a sky that was still partly blue but in the middle of a lightning storm. “I think this was before they left. Before things got too bad here.” The video was short, ending and repeating on a loop.
The constant hum we’d been hearing accelerated, and the ground shook violently, almost enough to send us sprawling. I grabbed the wall, and Slate caught Suma, steadying her.
“That can’t be good,” Slate said, looking around for a sign of trouble.
“Who knows what happened when we fired it up? Maybe we caused an explosion in a building’s power system.” I was going to say more, but a loud screech cried through the air, causing us all to cover our ears.
When I looked up, five small drone-like ships were hovering near us. They were each only about a foot across, but the red lights flashing on them made me think they weren’t there to guide us home.
A series of robotic commands came through the front one’s speakers, and Suma’s translator automatically relayed the message. “You are trespassing. Drop any weapons. Place hands on your heads.”
The message repeated twice before we caught it all. “What happens if we don’t?” I asked quietly, hoping Slate was on the same page as me. Our eyes locked, and his finger twitched, ready for a trigger. I spun, pushing Suma behind me, and fired my rifle in quick succession, hearing Slate do the same thing. The unsuspecting drones didn’t even move as we blew four of them out of the air, scrap metal falling to the ground in a clank. That left one, which flew away spewing out commands Suma’s translator didn’t pick up.
“Run!” I said, keeping Suma in front of me. The drone was following us, and we were only half a block from the lift to bring us back to the platform where we’d started this city walk. Small blasts hit the ground between us as we zigged and zagged down the road, Slate firing back over his shoulder as we ran.
Just as we neared the lift, Slate turned, stood firmly, and took aim just as a red beam fired at him. He let off a volley of shots, being rewarded with a small explosion. He jumped to the side to avoid the red beam, which ended up hitting the ground at my feet. “Yeah!” he cheered.
“Let’s get out of here.” I moved to the lift and we all got on, Suma hitting the pedal again. The sooner we got back, the sooner we’d get the hell out of this abandoned nightmare. The lightning seemed to be flashing more often now, and after having been below, walking the city streets, I could see why a race would want to leave this place. It was unnerving.
The lift carried us upward, my knees holding firm against the sudden change in trajectory.
“What’s that noise?” Suma asked, moving to the side of the lift.
I hadn’t heard anything, but when I concentrated, there was a constant hum again, this one getting louder by the second.
Suma pointed, and Slate and my gazes followed along to see a cloud moving to intercept us.
“What the hell is it?” Slate asked, his voice panicked, but it only took us a few more seconds to answer that. It was a horde of drones.
EIGHT
“We have to get inside!” I yelled as the lift stopped short of the platform we needed to get to. “Suma?”
“It’s stuck.” She pressed the pedals, but nothing happened. “Maybe they jammed it.”
We were only five feet from the ledge, and Slate jumped, pulling himself up with a grunt. I saw the cloud of drones coming in fast, and at this distance, I could make out individual units, rather than a clump of them. We were running out of time.
Slate’s hand reached down, and Suma grabbed it. He pulled her up with ease as I jumped, grabbing the ledge myself. I worked at pulling myself up, the months of training having done wonders for my upper body strength. The first laser fire hit as I rolled to my side on the platform, Slate and Suma already running for the doorway. I chased after them, smoking holes appearing on the walkway around me as the hundred or so drones fired away at us.
The door was there, and Slate got it open, ushering Suma in first. When he turned to let me in, I felt the shot hit. It burned into my leg, nearly causing me to fall, but Slate grabbed hold of my collar and threw me inside like a bouncer tossing a drunk onto the street. He slammed the door shut behind us, pulse fire hitting the outside of the building like rain on a tin roof on a hot summer day.
“Will it hold?” I asked no one in particular. My leg was bleeding, but it looked more like a graze than serious damage.
Suma was moving down the hall to a touchscreen on the wall, which was lit up in glowing green light.
“If I can…” Her mask was off her face, and her snout was straight forward, the ends of it mechanically moving back and forth. The gesture seemed a mixture of concentration and nerves. Her thick hands fluttered across the screen deftly, and in a minute, the firing ceased.
Slate was activating the window screen on the access, which had been black before we had the power on. It now showed us what was on the other side. The hundred or so drones had stopped attacking and were slowly moving back the way they’d come.
“Great work, Suma. How did you do that?” I asked.
“I knew they would be linked to the network somewhere. I just had to break through their clearance settings. It was basic. We’ve had this technology for centuries.” She made it seem so easy, and I stumbled toward her, throwing my arms around the small alien girl.
She didn’t seem to understand the gesture at first, but soon I felt her four arms wrap around me, and Slate was there, picking both of us up.
“Quite the team. You did well, little buddy.” He patted the girl on the shoulder, and she beamed, her big black eyes wide. “You too, boss.” As if I needed the motivation. My calf was burning up, but I knew we could get back soon if the device would work. Slate slipped some water out of my bag, and we all drank, relishing the refreshment. I realized just how tired I wa
s; the exhaustion of the day started to take its toll.
I found a bandage inside the pack, and after rolling up my pant leg and painfully washing the wound with a liberal amount of water, I placed the cloth over my calf. It stung but already felt better. They evidently had improved the bandage, because if I didn’t know better, it was healing me on contact.
“Time to go home, Suma.” I got up, and we started to walk back the way we’d come. The place was lit now that the power was on, making it much easier to see our surroundings. I could see the signs of centuries of vacancy, even in the sealed corridors. Our footprints were still on the floor, evidence we’d been the first people to tread on the floors in a long time. When I closed my eyes, I could feel the echo of a race that had once lived vibrantly in a technologically advanced society. I prayed they still lived and thrived on a new world, much like we would on New Spero.
The trip was fast, and soon we were walking past the room I thought of as the boiler room, the stones glowing blue, energy thrumming out into the halls and rooms of the high-rise. We kept moving, arriving at the Shandra, the room we’d started our adventure in.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, approaching the door. My heart pounded in my chest, my face getting flushed as I worried the room would be dark, dead. We’d be stuck forever on this horrible empty world.
The door slid to the side with a hiss, and Suma let out a tweet her translator didn’t relay. The room was dim, but as we entered it, the hieroglyphs came to life along the walls. So many places to see, so many worlds out there. I couldn’t let my brain think about it, because it made everything I knew seem so small and insignificant. If there were hundreds of known worlds with rooms just like this, that meant the universe was so much larger than even the corner we’d seen, travelling faster than light and traversing wormholes.
Suma led us to the center of the room, where the table stood.
“Which world do you need to go to?” she asked.
Slate and I looked at each other. The sickening feeling that had finally started to subside was back.
“Proxima. We call it New Spero.” My own voice sounded distant to my ears.
She looked at the icon options. “Which one?”
“We don’t know. Until a couple of hours ago, we had no idea what a Shandra was, or that we could use them to travel between worlds,” I said, trying to keep calm, but failing.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know where your home is.” The squeaks came out softly, and I could tell that Suma was upset she couldn’t help us.
“Your father is a Gatekeeper?” Slate asked, showing more common sense than me.
“Yes. My world’s finest, and we come from an ancient lineage of gatekeepers.”
“Then he’ll know how to get us home.” Slate slid his pack and rifle off his shoulders and nodded to the table. “Take us there.”
“I can’t. If I bring strangers through, he’ll be very upset. I wasn’t supposed to be using it. I’ll never be allowed through again.” Her squawks rose in pitch.
“Suma, he’ll understand. I’ll take the blame,” I said, hoping the rest of her race were as sensible and kind as she’d been.
“Okay. I do want you to make it home. I like you both.”
I smiled at this, and Slate’s face stayed intense and impassive. I wondered to what lengths the big man would have gone to twist her arm into helping us. I pushed it away, since we weren’t going to have to find out.
“Are you ready?” she asked. We held our belongings and said that we were.
She used the console on the table, tapping an icon with four arrows crossing over each other like a compass. A mountain range stood behind the symbol. Soon the rock lit up, and the room went so brilliant I had to close my eyes. This trip was far less startling, since we hadn’t been moving and were expecting it, but I still felt nauseous as the light dimmed, and we found ourselves in a totally different place.
A siren emanated from beyond the door at the far side of the space. This room was massive, at least twenty times the size of the last one, and the pillars stood a great distance apart. The floor was white, like pristine marble, not a speck of dirt evident to my gaze. The walls were adorned with pictures on screens, reminding me of my favorite section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York suddenly felt like a lifetime ago. I looked up, but the light coming from the ceiling was too bright for me to see how high the room went up.
“Tell me this is your home,” I whispered to Suma, who gave a lift of her snout, which I was starting to associate as a smile.
“It is home.”
The doors opened, and a dozen beings entered, their thick legs and torsos looking a lot like Suma’s, but they were at least twice her size, dwarfing even Slate. “Oh boy,” I said under my breath as Suma stepped between us and the quickly advancing entourage of her people.
“Stop,” she said, twitching at how loud her own voice came out. She fiddled with something on her sleeve, and when she spoke again, the translator was turned off. It was a private conversation, and she didn’t want us to be part of it.
A man at the front of the group knelt as he arrived at Suma, wrapping his four arms around the smaller alien. He squawked at her, his voice much deeper and more threatening than hers. She visibly shrank at his admonishing, and I instantly knew the sight of a daughter being disciplined by her father. A minute later, he rose, lightly pushing Suma behind him, and he stepped forward until he was only two yards from us. I saw Slate tense beside me, so I reached a hand out, setting it on his arm. “It’s okay,” I said, hearing my words translate through Suma’s father’s suit.
“It is not okay. You should not be here, hoomans.” The last word came out wrong, and it felt all the more ominous for the misnomer.
“We agree. We just want to get home,” I said, adding a hint of supplication to my voice. “Suma is an amazing child, and we can’t thank her enough for helping us get out of that city.”
“From the sounds of it, she wouldn’t have been able to get back without you two either. I suppose I owe you some gratitude,” his deep bird-like words translated.
“We really just want to get back. We don’t want to waste any of your time, sir.”
He motioned for the rest of his crew to relax, and a few of them left the room, their heavy steps echoing in the large open chamber.
“You now know of the Shandra, and I cannot allow you to leave,” he said, pausing, and Slate reached for his gun, “without being trained how to use it properly.” Slate lowered it, giving me a side glance. At least I knew he was always ready to survive. I needed a guy like that at my side.
“Come, we will take refreshment.” He turned, leading us away.
“You sure this is a good idea, boss?” Slate asked when we were a good ten yards behind Suma’s father.
“If we’re going to win a war against the Bhlat, I have a feeling we’ll need every trick in the book.”
Slate’s eyes lit up, and I could see him already beginning to calculate how we could use the Shandra to our advantage. I had an inkling and hoped the training we received would be enough to implement it and change the tides of the inevitable war that was coming.
NINE
“Goodbye, Suma,” I said, hugging the small Shimmali girl. We’d learned a lot about their people in the short couple of hours on her world. I promised we’d be back, and she was excited to meet my mate, as she called Mary. “Thank you, Sarlun.” I stuck a hand out to Suma’s father, who, once you got to know him, was a strong and intelligent man. It made a lot of sense to have this man guarding their portal to other worlds. Shimmal was a small tropical world, with lush green trees rising hundreds of yards in the air as far as the eye could see. They lived on a fruit-like diet, and though they had an abundance of amazing technology, they elected to stay grounded and close to nature. It was a prime example of an elevated society.
Suma and Sarlun left us at the table, now having confidence we could get back home. I slid the tablet into my pack. It contained
the star charts for every Shandra planet out there, and with it, we could go anywhere. There were also notes on each civilization from each planet they had on record. There were some that remained unknown, and Sarlun urged me to avoid many more. When he handed me the tablet, I swore I would.
I waved as the door closed, and Slate and I were left alone in the bright white room.
“What do you think, boss?” Slate asked.
“I think knowledge is power, and we’re a lot smarter after today. I also think I need to go back and make sure my fiancée and Magnus made it out safely.” If they or my sister were hurt based on our disappearance, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Sarlun assured me some beings were drawn to the stones like a Slil to a flame, which I assumed was something akin to a moth. When I’d told him about my near out-of-body experience when I first found New Spero’s portal, he just gave what could only be a knowing smile.
I tapped the table, like I’d been taught, and found the symbol we determined to be that of New Spero.
“Ready?” I asked, and Slate nodded his assent. The icon glowed as I touched it, and the room went bright once again.
When I opened my eyes, we were inside the cavern, the etched hieroglyphics glowing softly. I now found myself recognizing some of the symbols and felt the power this new tool at our disposal had.
“Quick, let’s see if we can find any signs of our friends.” I ran for the doorway, Slate following behind, his rifle at the ready. We hurried through the caves, back the way we’d come, and at the entrance, elected to go the other direction, deep into the mountainside. Cold air filled the halls, the smell of decaying meat mixing with the stale breeze.
“This way,” Slate said, taking the lead. We emerged in a large room, where the signs of a battle were evident. I saw dozens of dead animals and a lot of blood. Scraps of human clothing lay in tatters across the floor, and I knew there was no way everyone had made it out alive. The urge to cry out for Mary was strong, but I didn’t want to draw attention to the deadly animals if they were still lingering around a corner.
The Survivors: Books 1-6 Page 50
