by David Beers
The elevator door opened, and that was the only respite from the onslaught. The Ice Queen looked over her shoulder as Prometheus saw who was there.
Brillin’s and Relm’s faces were masks of terror as they looked at their leader.
Cristin turned to him again, and one more door opened. Servia stepped onto the roof, the AllMother leaning heavily on her shoulder.
The Ice Queen found Pro’s eyes and smiled. “Is this all of your family?”
Despite the pain, he knew Caesar wasn’t here. “There’s one more inside.”
The Ice Queen spoke softly to the comm in her ear. A moment passed with no one moving. Pro took a look at Servia, and she looked more frightened than Relm. The AllMother’s lids were heavy, her face slack.
“They’re bringing him, too,” Cristin called from a few meters away. “They can all watch you die. I think you’ll die a good death, Kane, and it’s something they should see. You’re not a bad leader. You just lack the coldness this universe demands.”
The woman had honor. Despite him being on the ropes, she’d give him this break for Caesar to get up here, though Pro had no idea what it meant that “they” were bringing him.
He took a knee and looked at his body. It was easy to understand his friend’s faces. His skin was savaged, muscles visible across much of his body. Even those were blackened from the burns.
The elevator opened on the other side of the roof. Two hybrids tossed Caesar on the roof, then stepped to the side. He hit it hard and didn’t even try to hold himself up. Nanotech was crawling almost drunkenly over the giant’s body. The gigante was still breathing, though shallowly. His eyes were open, and he stared at his burned leader.
Relm knelt by his side. He tried to raise the gigante, but Caesar fell back to the roof.
Prometheus saw the corvette behind the Ice Queen. Faitrin was here too.
Four light beams came from the corners of the building, and a massive holovid appeared above them. It was ten times the size of those it showed. No one in the city could miss it.
Jeeves understood. That was his work, and he knew it came down to this.
The Ice Queen looked up curiously, then shrugged.
She put her focus back on Pro.
“You’re a warrior. Now die as one,” the bitch said. She lunged forward once more and shot her blast. Prometheus didn’t move at first. His eyes took in everything, and his mind analyzed it. He could not just react here. He could not brazenly rely on his skills.
At the last moment, he moved, twisting on one knee. The blast dissipated behind him. He returned to his kneeling position as the next blast came. Again, he watched and moved. And again. And again.
He was fast enough to dodge these blasts, but he had to remain aware.
Prometheus rose. The beautiful specimen was gone, over thirty percent of his body badly burned. He felt his strength slowly ebbing, but he forced that down. The blasts kept coming, but he slowly worked his way forward. He spun here and turned there, always returning to look at his attacker.
Each blast missed.
Each step brought him closer.
The woman’s face was granite. No fear. No desire. Just the cool touch of iced-over rock.
Two meters out, he knew he was too close to dodge any longer and unfurled his Whip. He slashed through the next blast and killed the Whip, then brought it back to life. It was just fast enough to catch the next one. Again, the lasers were killed by the blue, and again they came back to life.
At one meter, the Ice Queen came forward. She was faster than any woman he’d ever seen, easily as fast as a man. His own ravaged body was slow. The discs were now bright blue, and her hands were so quick there appeared to be four of them.
She slapped his ribs three times, then bounced back. The substance was on him, though less. It started its spread.
No time to pull them off.
The time for observation was at an end.
She pounced again, but this time he met her. He wasn’t fast enough to get his Whip across her body.
A single, clear thought went through his mind. Fuck it.
He dropped the Whip and grabbed her bicep. She clamped down with her discs on his arms. Prometheus raised the woman into the air, his damaged muscles bulging against nonexistent flesh. He spun, gained momentum, and slammed her into the roof.
It cracked.
Her hands were vipers. They didn’t stop, delivering light slaps that allowed her to pull back and hit again much faster than any punch.
The blue was spreading.
Prometheus raised his right hand into the air as she slapped his face.
The fist fell. Facial muscles cracked.
The slaps kept coming, the blue almost covering him now. His fists rained down on her face.
It took five blows, but in the end, bone entered her brain. Her hands fell away as her pupils dilated. Prometheus stared at her for a moment, then slumped to the side, his body almost completely blue.
No one moved.
No one said a word.
Obs finally broke the stillness. He was the only sign that Pro still lived because he did.
He gave a loud yelp and bolted forward, getting to his master in seconds.
The drathe gently rolled Prometheus off the dead woman. The blue latched onto his nose and began its path of destruction, but the drathe didn’t move. His whimpers had nothing to do with his pain.
The giant holovid showed it all.
A low sound grew louder, increasing second by second. It started as a whisper of wind and within five seconds was the buzzing of a thousand beehives.
The nanotech rolled up the side of the building and curled over the top of the roof. It ran over foe and friend alike, heading toward the two people lying in the middle.
Caesar stretched his hand out, the skin opening, and a trickle of mechanical insects came from his arm. Nero stood, putting all his weight on his left leg. He opened both hands, and his nanotech met the rolling wave.
The insects covered both bodies, even going into the woman’s mouth.
After a long minute, the nanotech lifted off the woman and moved to the man.
His eyes, his mouth, his nose—every centimeter was covered with them.
A small group found Obs and began healing him. The drathe growled and tried to shake them off, but they wouldn’t leave. He only wanted to look at his master.
Finally, the wave was done, every single one of them on the man who’d freed a planet.
Minutes that felt like hours passed with no one moving. No one spoke.
Finally, the insects started to disintegrate. Those on top fell off, then the next layer, and so on until only a naked man remained.
His eyes were open and his chest moved, but nothing else did.
Obs laid down next to his ribs, the insects on his snout gone. He rested his head on his master’s shoulder and lightly licked his face.
The shout came from below first. It was frail. Soft.
Then it came again, a little louder.
The noise spread to others. No one on the roof could understand it, just heard the noise.
Thoreaux stepped forward. He was the first to understand. The noise was growing louder, moving up the side of the skyscraper like the nanotech had.
“Ave, Prometheus!” he shouted.
It came again, and this time the words could be understood.
Thoreaux shouted in unison with them. “Ave, Prometheus!”
The next one roared like thunder over a prairie. Thoreaux looked across the roof, finally realizing what the man in the middle had done. His mind saw it all clearly, even as his mouth shouted the words. This roar wasn’t only from the gigantes below. It wasn’t only from the AllMother’s children. The fucking hybrids were screaming.
Everyone somehow united by what they’d just seen.
Ave, Prometheus.
The Written History of the Great Insurrection
After that victory, other things took place. The hunting of the remai
ning warlords, the few and short battles with those who wouldn’t join us, and a couple of other matters.
I want to take a few pages to discuss what happened on that roof and below first, though. I’ll get to the rest later.
I haven’t been alive for very long, not compared to some of those involved in this insurrection. I have not yet reached the end of Prometheus’ story. Indeed, I’m still living it as I write these entries. Perhaps the end will change things…
As of now, though, I’ve never seen anything as confounding, moving, and inexplicable as what happened on that roof.
I asked Prometheus why he hadn’t simply used his mental abilities to defeat the woman. He didn’t look at me as he responded but stared into the distance as if trying to see the Ice Queen again.
“She deserved a fair fight,” he told me.
I think, though he’s never said it, that he respected the woman. I think Pro comes to understand his enemies in a way I will never be able to. I think he hated her but also respected her.
The shouts supporting Prometheus were… Even as I write about this, I get chills. How did he do that? How did he change a war with one fight?
I’ve had the chance to speak to the hybrids and humans who fought for the Ice Queen, and I suppose I’ll write down what they told me as much for myself as for those who read this later. For me to fully understand it, I need to explain it concretely.
Jeeves, the artificial intelligence, should be credited for almost all of it. Had the battle not been broadcast so high in the air, none of the following would have occurred. He also put the fight on every screen in every room across the city. Everyone saw what happened. If he hadn’t done that, the chanting wouldn’t have started. The enemy had to see Prometheus defeat her, and that was something he hadn’t thought about.
That was Jeeves' genius. His insight changed so much.
Their willingness to scream those words after watching their queen die partly has to do with their culture. The place they came from, which I eventually saw with my own eyes, was a world unlike any other I’ve come across. How it developed, I’m still not certain. Once a world covered in water, it was now a rock covered in ice. In that cold, desolate place, the need to follow a strong leader must have been paramount throughout their evolution. To not follow someone who knew what they were doing would have meant certain death.
Thus, seeing their leader fall to someone like Prometheus…to not follow him might have meant certain death in some part of their minds.
I think culture had something to do with it.
Their Ice Queen did too.
I looked into her history. She made her bones in the ten-year war with the other warlords, and she was a deadly adversary. After studying her and talking to her former soldiers, I realized she would have never simply squared off against someone like that. Cristin de Monaham would have considered most opponents beneath her and killed them immediately or deemed them not worth her time.
To those that followed her, she’d honored Prometheus by fighting him.
Allowing those he loved to see his last fight? A great honor.
In her way, the Ice Queen had set him up as someone to be respected.
Other things come into play—the demoralization of their army, the new hope of our own. Perhaps the enemy understood the tide was going to change and they were going to die? No one ever told me that, but it probably played a part.
All those things were important for Prometheus to gain a larger army, but I think in the end, it came down to him.
Prometheus, Alistair Kane, is a uniter of people. I said at the beginning of chronicling this endeavor that I would follow him anywhere. Nearly everyone I love would do the same. The man brings people to him, then propels those people forward.
To watch what he did against a warrior like the Ice Queen? To watch a species freed because of him save his life? It would have been hard for anyone not to want to follow him. He was beaten. I saw it. Servia saw it. Everyone saw it. He was dying on his feet. Only willpower carried him through, and I think those watching knew that.
In the end, I can list the reasons I think Prometheus is capable of doing the things he does, but even knowing those reasons, I can’t do it.
Only he can.
In the end, Prometheus is the reason—the reason I follow. The reason this insurrection is heading back to Earth for a final confrontation. The reason for all of this.
I can’t know for certain how he united those people with ours. I can’t know for certain how he does what he does.
I can only be thankful for it.
Prometheus Ascends
The story continues with Prometheus Ascends available at Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited.
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Also available in Audio
The Great Insurrection Series is also available in audio. The series is available as unabridged audiobooks narrated by the talented John Skelley.
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The series is also available as a full cast audio recording with cinematic sound effects from Graphic Audio.
Start the Dramatized Version today from Graphic Audio!
Author Notes - David Beers
August 3, 2021
I didn’t know where this note was going when I started—just sorta free wrote. Turns out, this is an Ode to Alistair Kane (without the poetry or talent of Greek poets, go figure). Now, given that I’m the author of this series, it may seem it’s an ode to me. Trust me, that’s not the case. I can’t explain it any better than this, but I don’t create or direct any of my characters. I give them space, then they show me who they are. My job here is to give them space, then sit down at the computer long enough to write out what they show me. That’s it. I’m merely dictation to these folks. Without further ado, let me sing of my love to Alistair—LOL.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King is in my top three favorite series. I like badasses, but I don’t want them to be too badass. I need to think they can die. As a kid, I couldn’t play video games on god mode. It was just too boring, and that’s the way I feel about fictional characters (don’t get me started on Superman, and if you’re a fan of his, don’t email me to curse me out either).
The main character in The Dark Tower, Roland Deschain, is just that type of a character. He’s a badass, but he’s not unstoppable.
The other thing I need is growth. A static character that doesn’t learn anything…Well, it’s a bit too much like some of the people I see in real life (I know you know who I’m talking about). They repeat the same mistakes over and over. That movie gets old quick, but growth? Now, growth is something I can get behind.
Roland Deschain grows throughout The Dark Tower, turning into almost a different man by the end.
As a writer, I write what I’d want to read, and I think I’m achieving it. That’s not to say I’m in the realm of Stephen King, but I know when writing this book, I wasn’t even sure how Alistair would get himself out of the obstacles thrown at him. That corvette crash? I didn’t see it coming until you did, which is when it happened.
I almost cursed Alistair. Seriously. Like, “FUCK, MAN! I can’t have you die in book five when there are four more to write. Figure out how to live, because you’re really messing things up right now.”
A malleable mind is an important thing, and I love the way Alistair changes as this series progresses. He moves from a Subversive killer, to wielding their war banner. Alistair isn’t necessarily stubborn; he’ll listen. He just needs to be punched in the mouth first. I like both of those things, because it’s a man who believes in himself, but eventually, recognizes his own limitations.
Let the AllSeer consider himself godlike. I want my heroes knowing they can be better…and working toward it.
However, despite all that growth, Alistair’s goal hasn’t changed. He’s going home. He’s going to his wife. Perhaps that why I like him most. On the surface, this is a science fiction series. A space opera. At its core? This is a love story. M
aybe I’m a hopeless romantic, but tell me that you wouldn’t swoon for someone willing to burn worlds and fight across galaxies just to see you one last time?
We all would.
Don’t tell Mike that hopeless romantic stuff. Or Steve. I’ve got a reputation around LMBPN, and it must be kept intact.
All the best,
db
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
August 4, 2021
Thank you for not only reading this hopelessly romantic love story—sorry, space opera—but these author notes in the back as well.
(Did you see how I didn’t mention anything about Steve reading those last lines yet?)
I am going to touch on the following quote from David in my author notes:
I almost cursed Alistair. Seriously. Like, “FUCK, MAN! I can’t have you die in book five when there are four more to write. Figure out how to live because you’re really messing things up right now.”
I believe most authors will resonate with this comment. When the characters are their own people, the human brain has this wonderful ability to inhabit other personalities simultaneously.
Fortunately for us authors, they don’t stick us in the mental ward for this trait. Given enough fans, society actually applauds our ability to have multiple personalities. I have no idea how close we authors are to allowing this to become a problem, but there are plenty of examples in history where authors didn’t clamp down on this talent well enough.
My most grievous example has nothing to do with dying a few books short of the end (seriously, David? NOW you tell me this?)
Rather, compared to David’s, my story is rather lame.
At the end of one of the Kurtherian Gambit books, a main character is going to propose marriage to a lady in the next book. At the end of the book I was working on, he starts to get down on one knee, and as I am typing this, I’m having that feeling of “What the HELL are you doing? This wasn’t where you were supposed to ask her to marry you. This is in the middle of a damned military base air hanger!”