Survive

by Vera Nazarian

  Yes, it is similar to your Earth oysters enveloping a pebble of foreign matter until it becomes a pearl, Arion remarks inside my head, even as I sing.

  My Logos voice echoes throughout the cavern, and everyone grows momentarily silent as they listen to me in awe. So much power . . . so much resounding power without an outlet, as the sound waves bounce around and collapse like the tide, finding no quantum-sensitive material, no orichalcum to latch onto inside the spheres.

  I sing a different sequence, then another. Then I “go wild” and attempt to key the actual pegasei inside the sphere—there are at least two or three “packed” in each.

  Help me, please, yes! An individual quantum being calls out to me.

  But it is not working. Not sure what I was thinking to even try.

  You cannot key us, because we are complex entities, Arion replies to my unspoken question or general feeling of frustration.

  “Then what do I do? What, What?” I cry out in my mind.

  I do not know.

  I look around desperately, listening to the pitiful clamor of voices, even as they sense my own despair, and beg me not to give up.

  Please do not abandon us! Do not . . . do not . . . do not. . . .

  “Five daydreams!” the captain tells me. He then points one of the troops to the nearest hover-light orbs the team brought with us. “Start packing up. Move them out to the tunnel—”

  So hungry, so weak! Please, at least let us have some of your light! The nearest imprisoned pegasus begs me distinctly. Indeed, as the orb floats by, sweeping the sphere with its light, the plasma being inside fluctuates wildly, and pulses brighter.

  “Any progress?” Brie asks, stepping in closer to me. She points at the sudden outburst of plasma in the sphere. “Did you do that? Poor bastard’s trying to break out—or not.”

  I shake my head. “It’s just very hungry, and needs the light to feed. All of them do—they’re all seriously malnourished and deprived here. Whoever’s been maintaining them here as their ‘sacred pets’ or whatever, has basically been neglecting them badly over the centuries.”

  “Centuries?” Brie whistles.

  “Yeah, centuries, eons,” I add. “Since Landing.”

  “Holy rotten crap. . . . They live that long?”

  “Longer. But, enough chit-chat. I have to think hard,” I say. “How to melt those dratted dimensional bubbles. Or at least leave them with extra light until we can come back to them later, maybe—”

  “Yeah, maybe install some decent lightbulbs in this hole.” Brie checks her gun holster. “Getting ready to move out.”

  “Okay. . . .” I sigh sadly, and the pegasei pick up my sorrow and echo it.

  “I’ll come back, I promise,” I mind-speak, addressing the cavern. “I am so sorry. We’ll leave you with some light to feed and warm you at least—”

  And then I stop.

  Warm you.

  How do you melt ice? You warm it. You heat it up.

  How do you warm a living being? You nourish it. Give it fuel to burn!

  And when things heat up, they expand.

  In my mind Arion suddenly laughs with palpable joy. You plan to pop the dimensional bubble—from the inside!

  “Light!” I exclaim loudly. “Captain, may we have light here!”

  “Imperial Lady Gwen?” He turns to me. “We’re done here. We are going now, no time—”

  “No! Just take a few moments! If it doesn’t work, I promise, we’ll go! Give me all your flashlights, your flares, anything and everything you have! Tell your people—turn them all on and shine them directly at all these spheres! Please, just do it!” I speak authoritatively, almost using a compelling voice, but hold myself back from that unauthorized level of power. . . .

  The captain meets my eyes and sees my determination. “All right, everyone, attention! We need more light here!” He barks out an order, and at once there is mayhem, as troops still remaining in the chamber double back from the exit, and start taking out their portable light sources.

  In seconds, the cavern lights up.

  Joy, joy, joy! The voices of the pegasei cry out from their confinement.

  Nourishment!

  In just a few heartbeats, the plasma contents of the spheres start pulsing wildly, glowing brighter and brighter, becoming incandescent, as they actively absorb all the light presented to them.

  Another few heartbeats . . . and then comes the first implosion-explosion.

  There’s no other way to describe it, as one brilliantly glowing sphere suddenly collapses in on itself even as it appears to explode outward—as the adjacent dimensions invert and then invert again, riffing off each other like oil and water, sending out gravity waves which are forced to travel in a paradox of opposite directions simultaneously. . . . At the same time, the living contents packed inside swell and expand and overtake their bonds, destroying them in the process—and are suddenly set free.

  The cavern hall is rocked by explosions of glorious light. . . .

  One after another, the spheres pop like fiery soap bubbles and disintegrate, releasing their pegasei. The plasma unfurls with rainbow colors—for the first time in more than nine thousand Atlantean years—as the newly liberated pegasei test their freedom, some cautiously, others flinging themselves like living bellows across multiple dimensions at once.

  Freedom! Freedom! they cry in exultation. Joy! Joy!

  Love!

  Their cries of torment have become ethereal song.

  The pegasei soar to illuminate the cavern ceiling, disappear, reappear, circle the humans below.

  Thank you, Gwen Lark who is Kassiopei! Thank you . . . friend!

  “Holy . . . unbelievable . . .” Brie mutters with her mouth parted as she cranes her head to look up at the fireworks overhead.

  “Mission objective accomplished,” Captain Siduaz says with satisfaction, looking up also, then nods to me. “Let’s head out immediately. Because the mission itself is not done until we make it back safely.”

  I nod, because he’s right.

  Remember us as we will remember you!

  As we enter the narrow tunnel at a jog, I turn around one last time to see the light show. The cavern expanse still sparkles with plasma, as the pegasei swirl and teem in place, bidding a strange, bittersweet farewell to their long-time home, lingering near the familiar rocky walls, craggy ceiling. But one after another, the quantum beings start to leave the cavern. Soon, all that will remain will be a few ancient, inadequate light sconces and the eerie golden mist on the ground. . . .

  We hurry through the tunnel toward the mountain entrance. As I jog next to Tuar, with Blayne flying on his board behind me, and Claudia, Brie, and Li Jie bringing up the rear, I feel a buoyant joy swelling inside me for a job well done, together with infinite relief.

  After all, we just freed the last of the captive pegasei. This is monumental. We are now this much closer to sealing that Earth rift and possibly solving our alien problem.

  Even as I think this, I hear the zing-zing sound of gunfire up ahead.

  Apparently, the hostiles are here, and the PRT unit has engaged them.

  “Ah, crap, here we go,” Brie says. As I glance behind her, I see her and others holding their various guns ready. Reluctantly, I reach for my own gun that everyone insisted I carry for this mission.

  Up ahead, I hear the captain’s hard voice issuing orders. Gunfire has gotten louder, and within a few more seconds it is suddenly all around us.

  “Helmet on! Secure your helmet!” I hear Claudia’s voice directly behind me.

  I realize I’m still carrying it in my arms like an idiot, and so I comply. Claudia gives me a crisp nod.

  Boy, is this different, I think. Claudia is different.

  We move at a run now, and I see more and more troops from our own PRT unit converge on us, as they abandon their lookout posts interspersed at intervals along the tunnel.

  Then, we’re at the entrance.

  Our troops have set up a small
hand-shield barricade, and are firing large caliber guns out at the nearest shrubbery. They are answered by volleys of return fire from invisible assailants. The locals are hiding nearby.

  “Down, down!” the captain issues orders to those of us as we arrive. “Stay close to the ground, move as one, at my command. Stay down!”

  I crouch down near to the ground, behind the shields wall, next to some unnamed PRT operative. He—or she—is firing with their back to me.

  Even as I remain down, I see Tuar come up behind me and unfurl a clear, additional shield over my head like an umbrella.

  Shades of the Games—day one, Stage One, in particular. Intense combat memories come to me.

  Aeson is really going to hate this situation I’m in—we’re in—right now, I think.

  If anything happens to me . . . oh lord, poor Aeson.

  No, stop, I tell myself. We’re getting out of here.

  “. . . Onyx 2, report on your location,” the captain is speaking urgently in his wrist comm. “This is Imeier 1, we are taking heavy fire at the cave mouth. I repeat, Onyx 2—”

  I exchange quick glances with Tuar, Brie, Blayne.

  “. . . Ten daydreams is insufficient, make it seven, we are under heavy fire here. We need you to create a distraction from the south-west. . . . Onyx 3 and Onyx 1, proceed to these co-ordinates and engage hostiles from the rear. Remain in sniper positions only.” And then the captain looks at me. “Imperial Lady, we are going to try to break through toward that tree line and proceed downhill toward the ship, but first we need to clear the way.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “My SPC orders are that your safety is priority one. If we cannot achieve the break safely in the next five daydreams, we will need an extraction. We will retreat back inside the tunnels and hold position until reinforcements arrive. I’m informing the Commander of our present status—”

  Oh no! I think, Aeson is going to go insane with worry! And, he’s in the middle of another crisis. Not to mention, he’ll never allow me to go anywhere on my own again and make me wear a cowbell around my neck. . . .

  Yeah, I know, not a good time to be funny.

  “Can you please hold off on that?” I ask. “Please don’t tell my husband just yet—”

  “Imperial Lady, I’m sorry, but I have my orders—”

  A long volley of fire interrupts us. There’s the sound of small pebbles ricocheting off the rock wall and collapsing near the right of the entrance. This can get really bad, really fast, and we could end up buried in the tunnel. . . .

  A crazy idea comes to me.

  “Captain, did I hear you say you need a distraction?”

  “Yes, we need to draw the hostiles away from our position long enough to move out,” he says, pausing to fire in response, then again glances at me.

  I take a deep breath. “I might have a distraction for you,” I say.

  And then I sing the frequency to call the pegasei.

  As I sing, I communicate the immediacy of our problem to the pegasei, sending images of us being surrounded, and the enemy firing at us. “Just need a little help,” I mind-speak. “So that we can go home.”

  We will help you, friend Gwen Lark who is Kassiopei!

  And even before I’m done expressing my thoughts, there are multiple disturbances in the air all around us. Flashes of brilliant, colored plasma erupt from different points in the small clearing around the mouth of the cave, and swell into a great single maelstrom of colored light. And they fall like meteors at the shrubbery and the precise areas where the local armed hostiles are hiding with their arsenals. Loud human cries are heard as the enemy stops firing in confusion.

  The day is not bright at all—partially overcast, and there’s still that drizzle—but there’s more than enough Hel daylight radiance to feed the pegasei. And they take advantage of every photon to fuel themselves brightly.

  “Nice! You did this?” Tuar asks, near my ear, still holding the shield over me.

  But the captain only nods at me and then exclaims to the troops, “Move out! Move out! Head for the tree line! Move now!”

  The troops ahead of us pick up their long hand-shields and race forward before us.

  Keeping as low to the ground as possible, we follow.

  We run along a gradual decline, past the tree line, then continue onward toward the ship, a small dark rectangle hanging in the distance, silhouetted against the pearl sky. The pegasei swirl in the air everywhere, and now shots resume as the hostiles realize this is only a distraction.

  “Thank you!” I mind-speak to the pegasei.

  Keep running! I hear them reply in my mind. Not safe yet, keep moving, friend!

  “Move, move!” The captain continues to direct the PRT unit troops, who now surround us in a tight defensive circle, with me, my guards, and the six pilots in the center.

  Laser fire continues to ring out from many directions, but all behind us. This elite unit is very well armored, and no one is seriously hurt, but I can smell the superficial burns on uniforms and outer armor layers. Noxious fumes and smoke rise all around, following us, as the wind tears at us in strong gusts.

  We make it back to the ankhurat in record speed. The captain drops the quantum plasma force field around the spacecraft, and the troops race up the ramp.

  Breathing hard, I run between Brie and Darius, with Tuar and Claudia behind me, followed by more troops, just as new hostiles arrive, and sudden new gunfire resumes in the vicinity.

  “Move it, move!” I hear Tuar exclaim, as he is hit from behind with a plasma weapon. Then I feel someone shoving my back, hard, and at the same time hear Claudia cry out directly behind me.

  Both of them stagger after me, followed by a least five more troops, all of them variously hit.

  Crap! Crap!

  My heart is pounding as I regain my own footing and stare wide-eyed at all of them, at their conditions. . . .

  Once inside, they quickly seal the entrance, and four pilots sprint to the four corners of the ship to take their flight positions. This time, Darius and Brie take the front corners, while Yana and Li Jie take the rear.

  “All right! Take this Ankh out of here!” Captain Siduaz commands loudly, occupying his chair in the center. And then he adds into his comm, “Pegasei Retrieval Khenneb Mission, this is Imeier 1, primary objective achieved, we are heading home.”

  The four pilots begin to sing the flight sequence.

  Temples pounding, and breathing laboriously from the long, adrenaline-fueled run, I drop in one of the chairs, and see Tuar and Claudia both sit down across from me. Claudia is holding her left arm, and there’s blood on her uniform. Tuar has a large scorch line running down his right shoulder and back, but I see only molten viatoios and no blood.

  “Are you okay?” I ask worriedly.

  Tuar nods. “Clean surface burns. Not a big deal. Buckle in, Imperial Lady Gwen.”

  “And you?” I turn to Claudia with a frown.

  She nods. “Yeah, fine, it got cauterized . . . Imperial Lady Gwen.”

  Seconds later, Blayne slips off his board and sits next to me, looking grim, and stashes his compact board on the floor at his feet. He appears unharmed, but is soot-covered like the rest of us.

  “Looking a little smoky, Blayne,” I whisper with a little smile—even as I feel the ship taking off and the pull of gravity flattening me in my seat.

  “Oh, yeah.” He pushes back some unruly hair from his forehead and there’s a spark of amusement in his blue eyes as he too holds on against the g-forces. “Add some chicory barbecue sauce and I’m your dinner.”

  “Me too,” I reply.

  The ankhurat rises hard.

  Safe now! the voices of the pegasei sound in my mind, and then in a corkscrew of surreal notes their double helix song recedes.

  “Goodbye, my friends,” I think-say gently in their wake.

  And then my gaze returns to Claudia. Her face looks tense with pain, but her arm is showing no additional bleeding, so the laser
burn must have cauterized her wound indeed.

  “Speaking of dinner, I could use some barbecue chicken about now,” Claudia says through gritted teeth.

  Suddenly it occurs to me, she pushed me hard from behind—just as she got hit.

  And it wasn’t a bully thing.

  Claudia took the gunfire intended for me.

  Chapter 90

  When we get back to Atlantida, it’s close to third hour of Khe. The ankhurat lands in the Imperial airfield in Poseidon and I say my thanks to the captain and the PRT unit for their incredible support. Then, surrounded by Tuar and my guards, I head for the main Palace building.

  Here is where things get really crazy.

  We exit the elevator on our floor. My guards are dismissed at the doors—to take their well-deserved shift break—while I enter the Prince’s Quarters. I don’t bother changing out of my sooty uniform and head directly for the workroom to inform Aeson that everything went as planned.

  I half-expected the SPC command center to be filled with people. What I did not expect was for it to be packed with daimon, other SPC officers, and Imperial Executive Council members.

  Aeson is standing in the middle of this crowd in his usual spot before the largest hovering screen, arms folded, a grim expression on his face. Conversation is subdued, and everyone is watching the scene unfolding on the screen.

  They are looking at Tammuz. The planet is a large, rust-red sphere in the viewscreen, vaguely reminiscent of Mars in color, though closer to Earth in size, according to the display grid values.

  A brightly shining metallic object in the now familiar X configuration is superimposed against the reddish surface background. It is the Tammuz Station. On the other side of the view, a portion of another immense object is visible, the oval end of a spacecraft, most of it off-screen. I know enough now to recognize it as War-8, the battle barge posted at Tammuz.

  “. . . energy fluctuations are . . . now spiking . . . strongly discernable on the x-ray range . . . passing to gamma ray range . . .”