Chapter 13
King Trennon slept well that night – the first time in what seemed like forever. He had finally evacuated the last of his people to the artificial caves beneath Tibrus City. The farmers and other citizens who lived in outlying villages had been brought in as well, along with enough provisions to last for several months; Palandora had already built up a significant supply. If an attack did come, Trennon was confident that his people would fare well, at least in terms of safety. Maintaining freedom and preserving property was another matter, but Trennon was obliged to leave that matter primarily to Koral. Trennon had made sure that the shield generator and laser cannon were manned and prepared for battle, but other than those few measures, Palandora was at a tactical loss. There were no battleships to come to Trennon’s aid, no orbiting space stations to ward off enemy attacks. All there was beyond Palandora’s limited planetary defense was Koral Ralok and whatever scheme he could come up with.
Not that Trennon was afraid Koral would fail; everyone in the Empire knew that, as a Plasma Master, Koral was capable of a great deal more than most people. Or, at least he had been. Now it seemed that Koral’s power had been passed down to this Earth boy Nedward Simmons, and Koral seemed confident that the boy would prove equal to the task. Trennon was not so sure. Still, Trennon trusted Koral, and besides there really wasn’t much of a choice in the matter.
That being the case, King Trennon had endeavored to dismiss the matter from his mind and concentrate on what he could do. He had worked to inform his people of the situation without causing an inordinate amount of alarm, and then to move them and as much of their property as was feasible underground. The operation had gone efficiently, and the people seemed to be holding up well. Of course, Trennon had not given them the exact details of the danger they faced. Since there was nothing they could do about it either, the King had determined that it would be wise to maintain calm and fill in the details later.
The last of the people and provisions had been moved underground in the morning of the previous day. The King, his aides, and Jenara had made a last check of the city, making sure that everything was in order, and by evening of the third day since the first Imperial ship had arrived in the nebula the relatively small population of Palandora was safe underground. There was nothing left to do but wait.
When King Trennon awoke the following day the wait was over. He had barely sat down to eat breakfast with his daughter when the intercom beeped. “Sire!” shouted a voice, which seemed to belong to someone who was just barely fighting off total panic. “An Anacronian starship has just left the nebula and is approaching the planet! It identifies itself as Black Fang, and whoever’s on it wants to talk to you.”
Cold settled in Trennon’s stomach, and Jenara’s expression told him that she was feeling the same thing. “Wait here,” he told her. Quickly he arose and walked down the hall to his office. He wondered as he did so how the ship was able to send a signal from space with all the interference from the nebula. Viper’s resourceful. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me.
“Greetings, Trennon. It is good to see you again.”
The metallic voice sent a chill down the King’s spine. He could not see the face behind the yellow and black helmet, but he assumed it was Former Imperial Councilor Kayleen Rax – the Blast Master, as Koral referred to her. “What do you want?” He asked her, almost succeeding in his attempt to keep the anxiety out of his voice.
“Not much,” Rax replied almost casually. “You have something we want. More specifically, you have two people we want. Hand them over and we’ll leave you alone.”
“You expect me to just give you Koral and his student?”
“Actually I expect you to exercise that less-than-ideal intellect of yours and defy me. Then I expect to unleash the power of Black Fang on your pathetic little village and obliterate your insolent little colony from off the face of this sorry planet. Then we’ll just take the old man and the boy ourselves, if they’re still alive. Of course, if you’d like to cooperate, I’d be happy to leave you alone here to perish by your own incompetence. I guess it doesn’t really matter what you do, Trennon, but I’m not a very patient person.”
“Who do you think you are? You can’t just waltz in here and demand that I turn over two of my …” Rax deactivated the transmission while he was in midsentence, and the King was left alone with his daughter, who had been watching silently from the doorway. He looked over at her and arched an eyebrow. “Any word?”
She nodded. “X just showed up with Valkron. Koral wants you to tell Rax that Ned will meet with her in the valley south of Tibrus. I’ve got the coordinates here. I don’t know anything beyond that – I guess Koral’s ready for them.”
“I assume the defenses have been activated?”
“Shields are up and the laser cannon is fully powered. The laser won’t do much good against Black Fang, but the shields should hold, at least for a while. The starfighters are ready to launch, but we shouldn’t do that unless we have to. They’re…”
“I know. Six against Black Fang’s squadron isn’t very good odds. But how do I contact them? I don’t know how they got through to us, with all the interference. I guess we’ll just have to wait until they…”
A fierce tremor rumbled through the palace. “What was that?”
Jenara brought up an image on the computer screen. It showed flames billowing out from what was left of a massive metal structure several miles away from where they sat. “The shield generator!” she exclaimed in horror. “It’s gone!” Jenara and her father held onto the desk as another tremor shook the palace, and again Jenara searched through the short-range sensor readouts. “They’ve taken out the laser cannon, too! How could this happen? They didn’t fire a single shot!”
Then Kayleen Rax’s face again appeared on the screen. “Made up your mind yet, Trennon? Your shields are down and your weapons are gone. If anyone – and I mean anyone – shows the slightest sign of resistance, I’ll wipe you from existence in the blink of an eye.”
King Trennon glared at the yellow and black helmet on his viewscreen. “Nedward Simmons is in a valley a short distance from here. I’m sending the coordinates now.”
“You’re a fool, Trennon,” Rax replied, and then she cut the transmission.
Trennon exhaled sharply. “I hope Koral knows what he’s doing. In the meantime, let’s get those auxiliary shields up.”
Markan Dren’s pulse quickened as he read the coordinates the Palandoran King had uploaded. Just a few more minutes and the last Plasma Crystal would be in the hands of the Empire. Dren closed his eyes and concentrated. In his mind he could feel the emptiness of space surrounding Black Fang, and the mass of the planet below. His energy was somewhat depleted from his trip down to the planet to eliminate Palandora’s shield and laser cannon, but he was still strong enough to complete his job. As his mental image focused, Dren could make out mountains, then trees. He focused on a valley just south of Tibrus City and smiled. There was definitely someone there. Someone who commanded the Plasma. “I’ve got it,” he informed Rax, keeping his voice devoid of inflection. “Let’s go.” Rax stepped up beside him, and he opened the vortex. He saw in his mind the streamer of Plasma streaking away from him toward the valley Trennon had indicated. No one else saw it, since it did not exist in normal space, although Rax sensed its presence. Then the streamer touched down, and Trennon began to open it. The Plasma vortex grew in power and cohesion, and after just a few seconds there was a rippling of purple light in the air around the two Plasma Masters. The light deepened until nothing could be seen beyond it, and Rax and Dren stepped through.
Ned Simmons inhaled slowly in order to calm himself. The various scents from the surrounding plants and fresh air would have been a pleasant contrast to the anxiety he felt if he had been able to smell them. As it was he had his helmet on internal air circulation, just in case Rax and Dren tried an airborne virus or something like that. Ned looked down at his hand. Nothing about the metall
ic glove suggested that anything out of the ordinary lay beneath, but Ned could feel the Plasma pulsing inside his body, aching to be released. He knew it would have its way all too soon.
Koral was nowhere in sight. After waking Ned he had gone over their plan one last time and then disappeared. Koral had contacted Ned via the battle suit’s communicator and informed him of the destruction of Palandora’s defenses and Rax’s conversation with the King, which Koral had been able to intercept, but since then Ned had been alone. Now he stood in the middle of an open field on the sparsely-forested valley floor, waiting.
The vortex closed behind them, and Kayleen Rax took a step toward the blue-clad figure standing several yards in front of her and Markan. Rather than use words, she introduced herself by bringing up the fist that held the multifaceted, glowing stone and sent a beam of yellow Blast Plasma streaking outward. It caught Ned full in the chest and he took a step back, but the blue energy field that erupted around him completely deflected the blast, turning it aside to scorch the ground around him. “Power down your suit and hand over the Crystal, boy! And tell me where Koral is! Do it now, or I’ll kill you where you stand!”
Waves of Plasma surged through Ned’s body. The feeling was invigorating, stronger than it had ever been before. If he had not trained so long with Koral, there would have been no way he could have extended his shield so far. Rax’s blast would have ripped apart his armor and he would have been thrown to the ground. He might have even lost consciousness. As it was now, though, Ned felt more than ready. He had practiced too long and hard to be daunted by a single attack, no matter how powerful. Striding toward Rax and Dren, Ned extended his arm and splayed his metal-gloved fingers. Throbbing tendrils of blue light sizzled out from his hand and streaked toward his attackers.
The beam of light disappeared halfway to its target in a flash of purple. Dren’s Vortex Plasma had completely swallowed his attack.
This was frustrating, but Ned had expected it. The key here was not to overpower his enemies with superior force – there was no way he alone could do that. His job, for the moment, was simply to weaken them, tire them. He continued to advance, occasionally firing bolts of blue energy at Rax or Dren, but each time the bolts disappeared as Dren’s vortices swallowed them up. Rax fired back at him a couple of times, but he either dodged her shots completely or deflected them with his Shield Plasma.
When he was just a few feet away, both Rax and Dren glowed purple and vanished. An instant later Ned was enveloped in yellow light as Rax, now standing directly behind him, struck him across the back of the head with her glowing fist. The attack threw Ned to the ground, but he instantly rose to one knee and fired his own Blast Plasma – into thin air. In the time it had taken Ned to recover from Rax’s attack, Dren had teleported her away, once again placing her behind him. This time Ned tried something else. He sent trails of Plasma through the ground beneath him, and caused them to erupt out of the ground under Rax’s feet. At the same instant that she unleashed her next blast of yellow fire she was caught from beneath by Ned’s Blast Plasma. She was thrown to the ground, but her suit protected her from the damage the blue light would have done, and Ned was again hammered to the ground. This time the attack had been so strong that he lay still for a moment, trying to regain a measure of his power.
This is bad, he thought suddenly. I know they can’t beat me, but I haven’t even scratched them, and they don’t even have Shield Plasma. What am I supposed to do? Determination rushed in to replace his pessimism, and Ned bounded to his feet, narrowly escaping a series of yellow Plasma blasts. Stretching both arms out, Ned sent several bolts of energy lancing toward both his opponents. They missed, but Ned was again on the offensive. Another beam of yellow light flew at him, but he smashed it apart with a wave of his arm and sent several streams of light back. Dren can’t possibly block them all! Dren blocked them all. Where is he, anyway?
Ned saw him on the other side of the valley at the same time he heard a shrill yell from somewhere out of sight. Mrandor! His eyes narrowed. All right, phase two. Ignoring Rax for the moment, Ned fired several blue energy bolts at Dren, hoping to distract him. Dren first simply teleported to a new location, but Ned kept after him. Rax hammered into Ned’s back repeatedly, but he gave her just enough attention not to lose balance, concentrating on Dren and on moving steadily toward an outcropping of rock on one of the valley’s slopes. Then, just as Dren was vanishing to dodge another of Ned’s attacks and as Rax was powering up her Blast Plasma for another strike at Ned, a huge blur of dark blue scales came thundering over the rock formation and barreled toward Kayleen Rax. Dren was just coming out of his vortex, so he didn’t have enough time to teleport her to safety. Mrandor opened his huge mouth, and searing red flames lashed into Rax’s battle suit. Dren teleported her to safety, but the damage was done. At the same instant heavy laser fire erupted from a stand of trees near Dren, causing him to again momentarily lose track of Rax.
But she was more than able to take care of herself. The instant she regained her feet she enveloped the dragon Mrandor in a cloud of burning yellow light. It shrieked in fury and wheeled away, seeking to escape. Her intercom clicked.
“I’m sure there are more on the way,” Markan said. “This kid’s a real pest. I assume that was Koral who just tried to hit me with a laser cannon – should we just take him and leave? We could hold him for ransom.”
“I’m not leaving. That dragon’s coming back for me. Get rid of him, will you?”
Mrandor was just about to divebomb Rax again when he was enveloped in purple light. When the light cleared he was headed straight for the rock formation from which he had come. There was no time to turn. Mrandor slammed into the rock with such force that he dislodged several boulders, which tumbled to the ground on top of him. He stumbled to his feet, but he was not anxious to gain the Vortex Master’s attention again.
Ned tried to keep Rax off him by flinging energy bolts at her, but Dren, wherever he was, whisked them all away into oblivion. Bringing the Blast Crystal above her head, Rax sent several quick pulses into Ned, hammering him to his knees, then onto his back, and then melting away the dirt on which he stood. Ned began to sink. He tried to right himself, but all he could see was yellow light. Whenever he stuck out a hand or foot to gain his balance, it just became lodged in the molten soil. And during it all the Blast Plasma burned, tearing away at his shield.
Ned activated the gravity plates in his the boots of his battle suit, and they propelled him out of the pit into which he had been sinking, but Rax’s yellow light followed him all the way. She can’t keep the fire going forever! When is she going to stop? Rax did not stop. She must have been energizing herself during this whole battle, waiting until the right moment, and now she had decided to strike. As the seconds slipped away, Ned could feel his strength ebbing. The Plasma was everywhere, and it was all hers. The Plasma was everywhere… the Plasma… her Plasma…
But why is it hers? Plasma is Plasma, isn’t it? Why should she be able to use this when I have every bit as much of a right as she does to use Plasma? The question flashed on in Ned’s head as if someone had turned on a light. What exactly was the difference between Blast Plasma and Shield Plasma? Ned had used both, and he had not noticed any difference at all. Why should it be any different now? It’s Plasma, right? Ned’s mind took hold on that fact. Plasma. It’s all the same. Ned reached outward, striving with all his might to gather the yellow light and make it his own, to make it stop tearing into him and start protecting him. It’s Shield Plasma, Ned insisted to himself, demanding that it become true. Shield Plasma.
And then it was.
Bit by bit, Ned stopped deflecting Rax’s relentless attack and started absorbing it instead. He could feel it in his mind, reacting as it always did. It was not easy, since Rax still had some control over the Plasma even after she released it, but Ned was learning. He did not know if Rax realized what was happening, but he doubted it. It soon got to the point where he wished she would neve
r stop. Whatever he could not absorb he could now repel with ease, and when Rax finally stopped the energy stream he found himself gasping in anticipation for more. Then he looked up at her, and there was fire in his eyes.
Rax had sensed it. Her strength had finally ebbed, and she cut off the blast and told Dren to teleport her away. Something was very wrong, and she knew it. Yes, Ned had the power to withstand anything, but he should not have been able to maintain consciousness for that long under such a strong attack. The energy she had thrown at him would have been enough to incinerate the entire Palandoran palace, but even all of that focused sharply on Ned’s body had failed to overpower him. For the first time, doubt crept into her mind.
Ned looked around. Rax had vanished from sight, but Dren was standing fifty yards off. He was holding a laser carbine, and it was aimed at Ned. Dren fired a couple of shots at Ned as he approached, but Ned ignored them. They might have been gnats, for all he cared. The power throbbing inside Ned demanded to be released, and Ned had no desire to deny it that. When he had closed to a range that satisfied him, Ned raised his hand and brought forth the flames.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Dren must have sensed the power Ned was bringing to bear, because he wrapped himself in a Plasma vortex and teleported well out of Ned’s range before Ned could even get the shot off. At the same instant Rax decided to attack, appearing from behind some trees to Ned’s right. Ned turned and fired at her. He did not release everything he had, but the blue energy wave that hit her lifted her off the ground and threw her against a tree, shattering it and spraying wood fragments everywhere. Rax’s battle suit buckled inward slightly where the blast hit her and nearly split open in a few places, but she managed to regain her feet in time to see what happened next.
Markan Dren exited his vortex on the opposite side of the valley just as Ned’s Plasma blast hit his partner. He was about to contact her to find out what he should do when the shriek of a dragon brought him about. Mrandor was swooping toward him, but Dren was not concerned. He teleported to another spot in the valley, where a blast from Ned convinced him to teleport again. Mrandor instantly wheeled on him, and as he did so Dren heard the calls from several other dragons not far away. He teleported again, this time into a stand of trees where the others would not be able to see him. He was about to contact Rax when he realized what had happened. Ned and Mrandor had been herding him toward this stand of trees. But why?
“Give it up, Markan. You couldn’t beat me before, and you won’t now.”
“Koral!” Markan turned around, but there was no one there – just a speaker box hung in the branches of a tree. Dren blasted it with his laser gun, and then the shrill call of the approaching dragons reminded him of what he was doing. “Rax, what do you want to do now? We’re not getting anywhere.”
“I’ve got an idea. Keep your com channel open and step out into plain view.”
Dren did so. He quickly spotted Ned, and the boy seemed to be moving toward him. Why?
Ned’s first instinct was to burn Rax’s battle suit to a crisp with the energy she had tried to use against him and then knock her senseless. When she was out of the fight, he would help Koral round up Dren, if the Vortex Master chose to stick around. But after Ned unleashed his absorbed power that first time Koral contacted him. “Ned!” Koral had said. “Help me get Dren over here by this stand of trees! If we don’t take him out you’ll never get another shot at Rax.”
Ned’s blast had thrown Rax so far into the trees that he couldn’t see her anymore anyway, so he had turned his attack on Dren. After his and Mrandor’s attacks had maneuvered Dren into the trees where Koral was waiting, Ned started walking toward them himself. There was no way Koral could handle the Vortex Master alone, Ned knew, and he hoped that Koral was certain of what he was about to do. Ned was not even a third of the way there when Dren appeared from out of the trees. Rax was still nowhere to be seen.
What’s that boy doing? Dren wondered, but his thoughts were interrupted by the laser shots hitting his suit from directly behind him. He was about to teleport away when he realized who it must be. He spun around abruptly and teleported Koral’s blaster away in a flash of purple. Koral was far away and ducked out of sight when Dren turned but knew it was too late. Dren grabbed Koral in his vortex and drew the man to himself. When Koral materialized in front of him, Dren fastened his hands on the aging man’s shoulders and shook him. “You worm. Do you really think you can beat me?”
Koral was wearing a space suit, so Dren couldn’t hear him contact Ned. “Ned! I can only distract him for a moment! Attack now!”
“But I’ll hit you! Can you get away from him?”
“Now, Ned! Destroy him!”
Koral’s plan was plain enough. As a former Plasma Master, Koral would be able to hold Dren’s attention like nothing else would. In theory, Koral would hold the Vortex Master still long enough for Ned to unleash the power he had absorbed from Rax and destroy him, or at least hurt him enough that he wouldn’t be able to escape. Rax would then be a sitting duck, which X and the approaching dragon force would be able to hunt down at their leisure. The problem, of course, was that Ned was afraid of hitting Koral in the process. “Hold on! I’m going to try to extend a shield around you.”
“Hit him now!”
But then Koral’s plan went dreadfully wrong. Ned had barely formed a film of blue shielding between Koral and Markan Dren when a bolt of yellow light tore into both of them. Ned tried to strengthen the shield, but he couldn’t sense where Koral was, so the shield he made was too diffuse to do much good. Rax’s power did not die. Ned strengthened his power, sending Shield Plasma in a wide blue beam to where he hoped Koral was still lying on the ground, but he could see nothing beyond the yellow light. Then Rax, maintaining the Blast Plasma with her left hand, extended her right and unloaded her battle suit’s missile launcher into the yellow blast. Her last two missiles she aimed at Ned, and Ned ceased his Plasma stream for the shortest instant as he flinched at the incoming projectiles. As he did so the yellow light that was enveloping Dren and Koral flared violently as a purple cloud of light exploded outward.
Ned tried to rush over and see what had happened to Koral when five consecutive torpedoes from the approaching starfighter exploded into him. They did no damage, but the smoke obscured his vision. Blindly, he tried to reestablish the shield he had been maintaining around Koral. There was the loud roar of thrusters as the starfighter landed and then took off again, and by the time Ned had made his way out of the flames and smoke the fighter’s torpedoes had caused, Rax and Dren were both gone. Where Dren had been standing was a wide circle of blackened soil. In the middle of it lay the scorched body of Koral Ralok.
He was still breathing when Ned reached him, but just barely. Ned deactivated his own helmet and looked down at his mentor with tears in his eyes. Why did you do this? Why couldn’t I stop them? The questions screamed in Ned’s mind, but the words would not come.
“Ned, you did it.” Koral managed a tight smile, although by the sound of his voice he had just a few minutes of life left. “You did it. The Vortex Master is gone.” Ned still couldn’t bring himself to speak, but the look on his face told Koral that even now his mind was plagued by questions more than anything else – anything but Koral’s welfare. “It seems … that Kayleen Rax valued my death … more than Markan’s life. She destroyed us both. The purple flash … I … the Vortex Crystal … destroyed.”
“Koral! Why did you do it? Why did you attack him?”
“The Vortex Master was your obstacle. You can’t defeat what you can’t hit, and as long as he was around … he would prevent you from doing what was … necessary…”
“But I need you! You have to hold on until X gets here! My shield protected you – it must have, or you wouldn’t still be here! Hold on, Koral! I can’t finish this without you!”
Koral just smiled. “Ned Simmons… You can do anything… You are… the Plasma Master…”
“Yes, I know I’m t
he Shield Master, but I still need you! You know so much more than me! I could never have made it this far without you!”
“You are … the Plasma Master.”
“Koral! Koral, wake up! Koral, please!”
But there was no response.
Koral was dead.
The Plasma Master Page 21