Lygalia’s song trailed off. “Oh, this one’s fake. I’ve heard of these but never seen one in person.”
“I take offense at that,” said Tara.
“Jyssa’s coming! I gotta go,” said Ryle.
“Go. I’ll hold this one off,” said Lygalia. She spun, heaving a knife so fast Tara couldn’t catch it. The knife stuck in Tara’s neck causing electronic circuits to squirt out. Tara extracted the knife, frowning but otherwise unfazed.
Ah, now I see, thought Ryle as he ran toward the open window and leapt out based on faith in his sister. As he hung in the air, the sound of a Havoc fighter screamed toward him. He let himself fall and the sound caught up to him. He put out his hands and powered his anti-grav boosters to lighten his landing. The fighter approached and slowed just enough for Ryle to land with an oomph. His boots suctioned onto the rear fins so he could lay flat on the hull behind the cockpit.
“Where’ve you been?” said Ryle into his helmet comm.
“I hit a snag. It took me a while to track your team, but Flaro gave me your location. I now have Z’s trajectory,” said Jyssa.
“Follow him!”
“That’s the idea.” Jyssa’s fighter raced after Zermal’s ship which was heading straight toward the mountain range. Snowcapped Mount Anecho loomed ahead.
“He’s going to his mountain bunker to get something for Aqtal.”
“Hang on!” said Jyssa as she banked the ship hard right, dodging a smaller mountain and weaving in between others.
Ryle clutched tight to another of the fighter’s upper protruding fins. Even with his suit on, the air this high up felt frigid. The faint rear lights of Zermal’s ship raced up the side of Mount Anecho in the distance and disappeared into a tiny opening.
“Entrance is…missing. I can’t find where he went in,” said Jyssa.
“Get as close as you can.”
She steered the fighter closer and closer to the mountain and landed near the last sensor reading of Zermal’s ship, but the bunker’s entrance was not visible. Ryle slid off the fighter onto the mountainside.
Jyssa popped open her canopy and jumped out. “Camouflage. Can you find the entrance?”
Ryle ran a quick wrist scan of the mountainside, pulled out his DLS, and fired. The cylinder struck a certain spot of the mountain turning it into imploded molecules, revealing a passageway with Zermal’s craft sitting there.
The bunker.
Pistols drawn, they ran inside. Ryle tossed a standard grenade into Zermal’s craft, blowing the tiny ship to pieces. A ceiling gun turret pivoted towards them but Ryle blasted it before it fired. They came to a ladder leading to a lower level. Ryle and Jyssa both jumped down about eight feet and found Zermal stuffing a hefty, sharp-edged, sparkling object into a backpack. A diamond? Ryle’s mind swirled.
They pointed their blasters at him. “This is your second chance to surrender or we’ll be forced to take you out,” said Ryle.
“Ah, another Gelibor,” said Zermal, nodding at Jyssa with a crooked smile.
“You’re going to pay for your crimes whether it’s now or later,” said Jyssa.
“You do not want to take me down. Trust me,” said Zermal.
“Why?” said Ryle.
“Because Jez’s life depends on me.”
Jyssa’s hands trembled. “What? What do you mean?”
“Jez’s activities have brought him...shall we say...heart troubles. If I do not repair his heart soon, he will die. And I am the only one capable of doing it.”
Ryle, incredulous, asked, “And why is that?”
Zermal adjusted his spectacles in order to stare Ryle right in the eyes. “Because I’m the one who installed his heart.”
Jyssa glanced at Ryle, bewilderment in her eyes. Her lips quivered.
“Where is Jez? What’s he been doing? Talk or die,” said Ryle.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you everything, Colonel,” said Zermal. “You’re going to have to just believe me for now.”
Ryle took aim in between Zermal’s eyes. “After we examine your body, we’ll send it back to Aqtal.” He began to squeeze his trigger.
“Wait!” said Jyssa. “Ryle, don’t.”
His finger eased up. “He’s a skilled liar.”
“But what if it’s true?”
“I have a mission to accomplish.” He took aim again, but Jyssa swung her gun toward Ryle and blasted his pistol out of his hands.
Zermal chuckled with a clinky metallic laughter. He hoisted his bag over his shoulder and ambled through a hidden doorway. Booming noise signaled a rocketship firing up its boosters.
The cigar-shaped rocketship emerged from a hidden exit in the mountain and blasted straight upward into the sky.
Before Ryle could severely rebuke his sister, the mountain peak exploded with light.
Chapter 21
Chunks of rock tumbled down the slopes of Mount Anecho. Billions of dust particles rained down outside the bunker, but mere dust and rocks could not block the blinding light which consumed every inch around Ryle and Jyssa. They huddled on the floor together, embracing.
“Are we dying?” said Jyssa, trembling.
Ryle felt the rush of the extraordinary yet familiar, fierce yet peaceful experience. They weren’t dead, and he knew why. Joyful laughter burst out of him. “We’re all right!” He squeezed his arms around her tight. Tears of relief and laughter poured out of Jyssa.
The second Light of Zoain was lit.
* * *
The light spread over Kudra, throwing Archon personnel into bewilderment. They had always been taught light was their enemy. Some cowered, hiding themselves from its brilliance. Others simply gawked at it in terror, ignorant of the events on Chrysolite’s Mount Phengos six months prior. What happened on Phengos had been suppressed from the top down, but that couldn’t stop the truth from leaking out among Archon soldiers stationed around the system. Enough of them recognized that this latest eruption of light portended doom.
Light enveloped the desert near the mountain. Puffs of steam popped up all over the desert, culminating in water geysers exploding by the dozens interrupting the daily training exercises. Sardonyx and Black Onyx warriors stopped their training and basked in the light, then rushed to the geysers and slurped up water. Archon troops tried to stop them but were mobbed by their invigorated captives.
* * *
A beam of light shot from the mountain into space and engulfed the moon, Alga. The green algae covering the moon flared brighter than a young sun; the light rippled across the algae causing it to burst with a shining fluorescent vigor not seen in millennia. At the same moment, the Archon Battleship Prowler was preparing to dock with the space station KL5 to refuel. The brightness of the algae consumed the command center, blinding the Prowler’s crew and disoriented them so that they lost control of the ship.
The Prowler crashed into KL5’s Delta Docking Pad, the starboard hull scraping through the entry port and smashing through the station’s upper section. Explosions ripped through KL5, causing the upper section to break apart and the lower half to drift into the moon and crash. The Prowler became enmeshed in KL5’s upper section where together they exploded and burned to ashes in orbit over Alga, the fiery bits glistening against the light of the shining algae.
* * *
Water gurgled up out of the ground near Prys and Edward. She had laid her head on his chest, drifted to sleep, and not moved since seeking help hours earlier. Water cascaded down Edward’s head and his back, and passed under Prys’s right hand which had been lying on the ground. Her eyes blinked open, squinting at the light. Shocked at all the water, she sloshed some into her mouth and Edward’s as she shook him awake. Together they shielded their eyes from the light of the mountain.
“Edward, are we dreaming?” she said. She remembered the old lady who helped her earlier. Prys looked around, but the lady was gone.
* * *
Word reached Chrysolite quickly. Ochuroma Palace buzzed with excitement. I
n President Prevwahn’s office, Yon Gelvan, his longtime trusted aide, ran to the secret entrance to the scroll room. He tried to punch in the code on the sensor panel but was so excited he kept hitting the wrong buttons. He finally got it right and the doors parted to reveal the Scroll of Apothena encased behind glass, displayed in its unrolled position with its container box resting underneath it.
A new word had appeared.
Yon practically jumped out of his skin with delight even though the ancient language’s translation still eluded him. He rounded the corner to get the president and nearly collided with him as Prevwahn was already heading that way. “Mr. President! I’m sorry. The scroll!”
“Yes, Yon. I know!” said Prevwahn, putting his hand on Yon’s shoulder and smiling ear to ear. “Let’s take a look.”
Together they gazed upon the scroll. A new word had indeed appeared next to the image of Onyx’s peak, Mount Anecho.
“Have you called Qusam?” asked Prevwahn.
“Yes, as soon as I heard the news, but he didn’t answer. I think he left the planet recently.”
“Keep trying.” Prevwahn pulled out his secure comm. “General? Contact Exla. Time to return to action.”
* * *
Ryle risked looking up. The light had dimmed only slightly, enough for them to move about the bunker without being blinded. He took Jyssa’s hand and helped her up.
They returned to the bunker entrance and found their Havoc fighter perched high in the branches of a freshly sprouted spruce tree. The fighter, impaled by the tree’s trunk, swayed back and forth in the high-altitude wind. Ryle wished he hadn’t blown up Zermal’s ship, but it did give them time to admire the view of the city bathed in new light. The Light on Mount Anecho was lit! Ryle could hardly believe it. He had no dreams to predict this. None.
A sleek stealth ship lowered in front of them so silently they almost didn’t notice—just the way it was designed. Jyssa waved to the Arrow IV as it opened up its lower hatch. They hopped aboard and the ship soared away.
Chapter 22
The order came to Exla, as if the sight of the light striking Alga and Space Station KL5 crashing wasn’t enough. Within seconds, the Azurite, the Fizer, and their surviving escort ships powered up from their hidden, unpowered states and lifted up off of Onyx’s smaller, egg-shaped moon, Byga. The combined fleet group moved away from Byga and blasted toward Onyx. With Zermal gone, KL5 knocked out, and the unexpected light now lit, the Archon fleet was in disarray.
Exla’s fleet ambushed and disabled an Archon battleship in its path and headed for the planet’s surface. As the Azurite and the Fizer reached the skies over Kudra, their cargo hangar doors opened and released the payload—a thousand of them.
* * *
In the Arrow’s aft cargo hold, Ryle took a moment to catch his breath. Jyssa did the same, sitting quietly on the deck with her knees bent upward to her face. Ryle contemplated yet another failed objective—but was this a failure? What just happened? He didn’t probe Jyssa for answers because he knew she wouldn’t have them. How did Jez get so mixed up with Zermal? This is worse than I thought.
Ryle got up and found Peex lying on the injury cot in the Arrow’s medstation with half his armor stripped off and his upper body covered with bandages. Peex’s shoulder had taken a sharp blast, and another nasty shot grazed his left side while he was defenseless. “You okay, Quan?”
Peex gave him a thumbs up.
Bao came over from the cockpit. “Rik’s taking us to our makeshift headquarters in the hills outside of Kudra. Ryle, whatever you did up there, nice job.”
Ryle ran his hand through his ragged hair. “Well, I think it was Jyssa.”
She came over, fell into a chair next to Peex’s cot, and put her head in her hands. She abruptly looked up. “We have to go get Jez.”
“I know,” said Ryle. “Where’s Lygalia?”
Bao pointed to the opposite corner. A seven-foot-long body lay sprawled on the floor next to the engineering section. Lygalia hunched over it holding a wrench into the body’s neck, twisting some bolts inside.
“That must be Tara,” said Ryle, wondering how he did not notice them sooner.
“I figured we could use a wizbot,” said Lygalia, setting her wrench down. “Got rid of her cape. Didn’t care for the red. Glad to see you back, Colonel. Well done!” A rare, quick smile spread across her face.
“Thanks.” Ryle concluded she should smile a lot more because, for a second, it transformed her face from that of a tough warrior into a stunning, almost angelic, woman. She was smart too; reprogramming Zermal’s wizbot, if that’s what it was called, was a brilliant idea.
“We’ve got incoming!” said Bao.
Ryle ran to the side viewport. A thousand objects—no, people—descended from the sky. “Those are ours! Paratroopers.” Full of pride, Ryle watched his guys—he trained many of them—falling all around them like rain and without parachutes. Hundreds of them plummeted toward the city, dodging anti-aircraft blasts which spurted upward in defense. The troopers moved together like black clouds over various parts of the city—southern, western, and into the capitol district. Other groups fanned out to the surrounding areas.
The Archon had previously sucked all the water they could out of Kudra, but Aqtal’s lust hadn’t yet penetrated the reserves under the surface. The stored up waters decided it was time to burst out. Newly-born rapids, bursting from the desert slopes, formed into a river and overran the Archon’s Scorpion Base in South Kudra. The waves picked up dozens of parked Havocs and washed them away into a nearby canyon. One Havoc squadron managed to take off before the deluge but an ambush of blaster cannons cut them down from above. The Azurite and its cruisers passed over the desert and descended over the city, dropping Neon missiles on strategic targets.
Anti-grav-equipped paratroopers touched down on the Scorpion Base’s rooftop. They smashed in the upper windows and took control of the upper levels, a task made easier by the bewilderment of the enemy troops. Gushing water flooded the lower levels, carrying with it people and equipment into a muddy morass of a river.
The Archon officers and warbots of the desert training exercises had been overrun by the fanatically energized Onyx captives. The revitalized Onyx warriors did not hold anything back in their rebellion—they killed Archon troops with no remorse and with whatever weapon or piece of scrap metal they could find. There was no capturing or questioning. Dozens of other Archon troops were carried away by the growing water current empowered by the spewing geysers.
Hundreds of paratroopers landed in the streets of Kudra. The Archon garrisons were bested by the skilled and robust paratrooper teams who, backed by air support, advanced rapidly through the streets and back alleys. Chrysolite Hydro-4 and Hydro-5 fighters swooped in and with precision-bombing knocked out tanks and roadblocks in their path.
Chrysolite troops surrounded the capitol building. After stiff Archon resistance, the Chrysolite troops broke through the main entrance and captured the interior. With the RadShield down, several paratrooper teams infiltrated the upper floors and worked their way down.
The space fleet held the Archon fleet at bay long enough for the ground forces to secure their successes, but several squadrons of Archon fighters broke away from the space battle and headed toward Kudra where they met fierce opposition from not only Chrysolite fighters but also from Sardonyx and Black Onyx pilots who had been yearning for just such a confrontation.
In the neighboring city of Wyndoke, Archon troop reinforcements loaded onto transports and departed with the intention of assaulting and retaking Kudra but were halted by a spirited battalion of Sardonyx resistance. Once air dominance tipped in their favor, Chrysolite fighter-bombers aided the resistance troops by picking off Archon transports that strayed into the open.
Both the Black Onyx and Sardonyx, stirred by the shining light, pulled themselves out of their hidden bunkers, emptying them down to last man and woman, and engaged the Archon with newfound energy. However, because
the factions refused to fight together, a coordinated defense did not materialize. As a result, the Archon still held Wyndoke and even Chrysolite bombers couldn’t penetrate its local deflector shields. Most of the Hydro’s eventually got rerouted to other assignments.
Despite the bickering between the factions, the capital was taken and for the first time in decades, Archon power was broken on Onyx.
Chapter 23
The Arrow landed at the hastily built Chrysolite headquarters, essentially a series of tents concealed by the hills. Booms echoed from continuing combat across the sky. Though the capitol building was taken, pockets of fighting persisted in the city along with scattered dogfights in the skies.
Ryle and Bao carried Peex to the medstation and carefully set him down on a padded cot. Bao waved over a medic while Ryle took stock of the “base.” A few tents, sensors, and portable tables with analysis screens would do for now. Ryle wasn’t staying long anyway. His view became filled with an old wizard approaching, hands outstretched and face beaming with enthusiasm.
“Ryle, I am speechless!” said Qusam. “Even I did not expect this for a moment. What did you do?”
“I’m not sure,” said Ryle, rubbing his sore shoulder, noticing the pain for the first time. “It’s good to see you, but I wasn’t expecting you here so soon.”
“Well, I was on my quest, you know, and coming here became a prudent course of action. And I, uh...brought someone.” He stepped aside.
Aphiemi stood fifteen feet away, speaking to two Onyx military officers—one in red armor and one in black.
A cold bead of sweat ran down Ryle’s forehead as he stared at her, paralyzed by surprise, joy, and uncertainty. She finished her conversation and their eyes met.
The Topaz Operation Page 9