Just after the desks cleared our heads, Latchjaw raised his claw and the the desks swung upward. The coffee mugs that had been carefully balancing on their tops slid off and shattered on the ground. The upturned desks soon slowed and hung in the air for just a moment before falling straight down and crashing hard against the polished floor.
The robed monster reached toward us a second time with his claw, but this time, instead of pulling at a desk, he managed to grab hold of Rand at a distance. Rand began to slide forward toward the monster. He tried digging his boots into the floor, but the smooth synthetic marble didn’t give him any footholds.
I had to do something.
So I leapt to my feet, held up my left hand, and quickly summoned my orange stone’s up-tempo music. I imagined I had a claw of my own clamped onto Rand’s foot. I tried pulling him back toward me, but I only managed to slow his flight through the air.
I couldn’t lose Rand—he’d come this far with me and was part of the reason my crew was still alive.
So I imagined my claw growing larger until it was twice the size of Latchjaw’s claw, and clamped it around Rand’s waist. Rand jerked to a stop in the air between the two of us, and flailed as he hung there. I could see the strain on Latchjaw’s green face and, at the same time, the stone on his belt dimmed to about half its brightness.
I was pretty sure that whatever I was doing was somehow neutralizing the power of his stone. But how long could I hold on like this?
Latchjaw bowed his head and extended both arms to the side. I knew something bad was coming, but I had to keep pulling on Rand. Suddenly, the monster clapped his hand and claw together and two desks from opposite sides of the room lifted into the air and sailed straight for the flailing Rand.
“No!” I yelled.
I wiped the image of the claw from my mind and Rand was immediately jerked toward the monster. The two flying desks barely missed Rand and collided against one another, splintering into a thousand pieces. The only problem was—Rand was now flying directly toward Latchjaw’s outstretched metal claw.
Panicking, I scanned the room for something to inspire me. But only windows and standard-issue synthetic wooden furniture stared back at me.
My stomach sank. I looked down to avoid seeing Rand’s grisly death, and as I did, I glimpsed the handle of a coffee mug on the floor just ahead of me. Hey—that could work.
The purple jewel’s power burst into my mind as I pictured a giant curved coffee mug handle directly in front of Latchjaw, and gave Rand a quick push forward. Instead of sailing into the mechanical opening and closing of the monster’s claw, Rand’s trajectory immediately curved upward along the curve of the handle in my mind, just meters away from the claw.
He sailed over the monster’s head, lost momentum, and arced back toward the floor, where he landed with a hard thud.
Rand yet out a yelp, rolled onto his side, and held his right hip. He was hurt, but at least he was still alive and not in the metal clutches of a monster.
With Rand safe-ish and traces of the slow music still echoing in my head, I focused on the thousand splinters from the shattered desks that lay between the monster and me. If I was going to be branded as a fantasy-freak, maybe I should start embracing it.
I remembered a word my mother used when telling me about a fictional battle between elves and orcs and softly muttered, “Plindi.”
In my mind, each splinter became an elvish arrow. I imagined a tiny orc army standing across Latchjaw’s broad shoulders and quickly sent a cloud of little arrows flying toward him.
The stone on Latchjaw’s belt glowed a deep orange, and the flying splinters zoomed to the floor like they were magnetized to it.
Actually, he only pulled most of the splinters—a handful got through his defenses and sunk themselves into the blue, fleshy, scarred part of his chest. Latchjaw howled in pain.
A grin tugged at my lips. He could be hurt. Which meant he could be killed.
I quickly imagined I was in a giant catapult which I pulled back, aimed at Latchjaw, and summoned the purple stone’s heroic, brassy music. The moment I released my imaginary catapult and launched myself at Latchjaw, I started the chaotic music of tuning instruments to bring my rod-sword to life.
And as I sailed through the air toward the monster, cape billowing behind me, I saw his eyes widen in terror. No, not his eyes—Hiller’s eyes.
And I just couldn’t bring myself to kill something with Hiller’s eyes, even if it was monstrous. So, at the last moment, I twisted, pulled my flaming yellow rod-sword to the side, and slammed into the metal half of the monster’s torso with my shoulder. He fell backward off his short platform and landed on the synthetic marble floor with a loud clang.
I somersaulted a couple of times when I landed and quickly stood up, sword drawn and blazing. Kovac ran to the fallen Latchjaw, holding his activated vibro-hammer at his side, and with with one hand, and with the other, he fired his plasma rifle.
Latchjaw quickly turned on the ground so that his metal half was facing Kovac. My giant crewmate’s plasma slugs burned through the monster’s robe, but only flashed and made pinging noises when they hit the metal plates on his chest, shoulders, and legs.
From the floor, Latchjaw reached out his claw and used his stone’s energy to violently pull Kovac toward his now-open claw’s razor sharp interior. This unexpectedly forceful pull broke Kovac’s grip on the vibro-hammer and it dropped to the floor, cracking the synthetic marble floor.
I couldn’t afford to hold back anymore against this monster with Hiller’s face—not when he was about to kill one of my crew. So as Kovac sailed through the air, I hurled my glowing rod-sword at Latchjaw and used the purple stone’s power to send it spinning end-over-end toward his exposed blue chest.
The monster tilted his head slightly toward me. With his extended claw, he stopped Kovac’s flight in mid-air, and with his blue five-fingered hand, he made a quick downward motion. My rod-sword was immediately dropped and skidded harmlessly along the floor.
But what Latchjaw didn’t see was the still-activated vibro-hammer I’d grabbed and launched toward him from his other side. The hammer, with its blurry head, made a high-pitched humming noise as it streaked through the air and tore through the monster’s scarred chest in an explosion of flesh and metal.
Latchjaw’s eyes widened for an instant before he slumped over onto the pedestal. Kovac immediately fell to the ground with a thud, where he lay groaning. I staggered and fell to the ground, too, exhausted and absolutely starving. I looked over at Rand, who had dragged himself behind one of the secretary’s desks along the curved window and was nursing his hip.
Suddenly, the air above Latchjaw’s body shimmered, and a large, ghostly image of a yellow skull in a deep violet hood appeared and opened its toothy mouth.
“Latchjaw, you imbecile! Why haven’t you come to the smelter with your troops as I ordered?”
But the skull wasn’t looking at the dead monster—it was clearly busy working on something else.
The shrill voice continued distractedly, “The anchor is almost set. If you ruin this plan, I’ll dispatch you myself!”
And just as suddenly as it had appeared, the image shimmered and faded away.
31
AFTER THE GHOSTLY image of the skull had faded into nothing, there was silence. Well, mostly silence—Rand made a series of little whimpering noises as he examined himself. He touched a particularly sensitive spot and let out a yelp.
“It appears as though I’ve been significantly bruised.”
I reached a trembling hand into my cargo pocket and pulled out the rest of the dried synthetic meat slices and began shoving them into my mouth.
“Is it broken?” I asked between bites. “Your hip?”
“I’m not certain,” Rand answered. “However, I won’t know for sure until I have it properly examined.”
I took another bite. “Well, we’ll put that on the list of things to do after defeating an tyrannical skeleton wh
o’s trying to take over the universe.”
Kovac rolled onto his back and let out a deep groan.
“You okay there, big guy?”
He sat up slowly, glanced at Latchjaw’s dead body, then just past the body to his still-humming vibro-hammer. He crawled over to it, turned it off, and squinted his eyes as he carefully examined its surface.
“You dirtied it,” Kovac said unhappily as he used the sleeve of his fatigues to wipe it off.
I popped the last piece of synthetic meat into my mouth and deliberately chewed and swallowed before talking—just to spite Lopez, wherever she was. “Well, next time, don’t get caught in the air.”
I walked slowly to Latchjaw’s body. I stared at the gaping hole in the right side of his chest, with its bits of bone, metal, blood, and strange wiring. I heaved and my hand shot up to my mouth, but I managed to hold my food down. I quickly looked away from what was left of the monster’s chest and down to his thick metal belt.
The belt’s deep orange stone pulsed dimly above the engraved crossed bones and the familiar sound of drums and electric guitars echoed softly in my mind. I could feel my own orange stone also begin to pulse in time from its place inside my glove, so I quickly removed it and held it in my left palm. With each pulse, the stone vibrated softly to the beat of the music in my mind and glowed a little brighter.
With my right hand, I reached out and held my orange stone above Latchjaw’s stone, which was still pulsing on the monster’s belt above the crossed bones. Once again, I heard a single, clear note in my mind and felt a tingling begin in my hand and run up my arm as I easily plucked Latchjaw’s stone from the belt and set it next to the other orange stone in my palm.
The two stones pulsed in unison and began to tremble—slightly at first, then violently. Suddenly, they sped toward each other and collided with a dazzling orange flash. I closed my eyes. The up-tempo music of the orange stones played loudly inside my head, but its beat was much more distinct now.
When I opened my eyes, a single stone of deep orange—practically amber—now sat in the palm of my hand.
“What was that?” Kovac asked.
“Um . . . I’m not sure. But I think it was a good thing?” I replied.
What wasn’t a good thing was the sound of boots echoing outside the still-open door to the president’s office. Which, by the way, was a total mess and I was probably going to get sent to a political prison for trashing the president’s very own room. I sighed, tucked the amber stone back into my left glove, then stood.
“Hey, guys—get up and grab your rifles. We’ve got company.”
Kovac rocked to his feet and stood. He quickly tucked his vibro-hammer into its holster, found his plasma rifle, then rushed over to help Rand stand. He took a step, but his face scrunched in pain.
Rand looked over at me and shook his head. “I’m a liability to you now. You should leave me here and return to Lopez.”
I pursed my lips and shook my head. “For someone so smart,” I said, “you can be really stupid sometimes. No one gets left behind.”
I looked back at Latchjaw’s broken body. This was the second time I’d had to look at Hiller’s dead face. But was it Hiller? What was going on here?
I shook myself from my thoughts and looked back to Rand. “Can you still fire a rifle?”
Rand smiled slightly, then nodded. Kovac handed Rand his rifle and jogged to pick up the other, which lay a few meters away next to the large splintered section of what used to be a desk. He returned to Rand, who put his arm around Kovac’s giant tree trunk of a waist and the two took a few halting steps forward.
Strained voices and bending metal sounded from the other room. “Okay,” I said as I picked up my rod-sword from the floor. “Let’s get back to Lopez.”
The senate floor was crawling with troopers, most of whom were down in the center of the room, trying to free their comrades from the metal section of the flooring I’d trapped them behind. Another group was rounding the upper perimeter of the senate floor, heading toward the president’s office. When they saw us enter the doorway, the lead trooper put a finger to the side of his helmet, raised his crossbow, and fired. The troopers behind him let loose a volley of arrows, too.
Only, these arrows weren’t flaming red anymore—just silver. Just as I’d hoped.
I quickly raised a faintly purple force field and sent the arrows bouncing off and clattering to the floor. I then threw the edge of my force field forward and knocked the group of troopers backward and onto the ground.
Kovac and Rand fired off a series of shots at the troopers around the room, connecting with several of them. The others fired back at us with regular metal arrows, but we ducked behind the upper row of senator’s desks and the arrows thunked into the wall behind us.
A chirping noise came from my breast pocket and I brought out the comm unit. “What?” I said after squeezing it a little too hard.
“Um . . . are you guys coming back?” Lopez said. “I’m almost finished with this issue of Sol Weekly, and I only brought this one.”
Rand smirked and Kovac shook his head.
“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll be in touch.”
I dropped the comm unit back into my breast pocket.
“What’s our exit strategy?” Rand asked through clenched teeth.
I flexed my left glove, which was starting to glow orange again.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said with a grin. “But you’re going to want to stay down.”
As soon as the last volley of arrows lodged themselves in the wall behind us, I leapt up and held out my glowing hand toward the center of the room. With my previous orange stone, I’d only been able to affect objects that were within a few meter’s radius. Based on the volume of the music that was growing inside my head now, though I had a feeling I could do better than that.
But this was a problem that felt way too big for elvish arrows or anything else from a fantasy story I could remember. I fished around for something—anything—useful.
Maybe science would need to come to the rescue.
I cast my mind back to the hellish days in primary school, when I was teased mercilessly by the other kids for drawing witches and wizards on my data pad. I remembered the day when my astrophysics teacher showed us an image of something so gigantic and so scary that it gave me nightmares for years. Now seemed like as good a time as any to dig it out of my memory graveyard.
I imagined a small black hole in the exact center of the room—a pitch black sphere with a swirling ring of light circling it. The moment I clenched my hand into a fist, everything that was loose in the room was pulled toward the center. My cape pressed itself against my back as the ends fluttered toward my imaginary black hole. A moment later, everything slammed together in a massive, rounded heap that was suspended in the air about ten meters above the floor. I silenced the up-tempo music that had been blaring in my mind, and let the heap fall to the floor with a loud crash.
Some of the troopers, their weapons, and loose stationary from the senators’ desks scattered onto the floor, but most of them stayed clumped together.
Kovac and Rand looked cautiously over the desk and their eyes grew wide.
“Unbelievable,” Rand said.
“Are they alive?” Kovac asked.
I looked down at the pile of rubble and could feel my energy draining. “I don’t care,” I said in a strained voice. “Let’s get moving.”
After quickly disposing of another squadron of troopers with de-powered weapons, we reached the elevator. The ride back down to the kitchen was much smoother this time, but when we neared the bottom, I stopped us a little too quickly, buckling Kovac and Rand’s knees so suddenly that they fell to the floor. They both looked up at me and glared, but I just shrugged my shoulders and used the purple power to open the doors.
I pulled the comm unit back out and called Lopez as we hurried back through the kitchen.
“What?” Lopez said distractedly.
“Sorry to
interrupt your vacation, but we could sure use some eyes in the hallways back to you.”
She exhaled loudly. “Fine,” she said with the sort of annoyance that only Lopez could manage so consistently.
I spotted an industrial-sized container of Venetian nuts on one of the counters as we moved cautiously through the kitchen. I paused for a moment to open the container’s lid and shoved a couple of handfuls into my mouth before dumping some more into my cargo pockets.
In another moment, Lopez was back on the comm and led us quickly through the hallways until we were back at the security center. I wrenched open the doors to let us in, and saw Lopez sitting with her feet up on a console, languidly browsing through her magazine.
“What took you so long?” she asked, without bothering to look up.
Kovac lowered Rand onto a chair.
“Where’s a medipack?” Kovac said.
Lopez glanced up, startled, but went right back to her reading when she saw that Rand looked stable. She pointed listlessly to a clear panel set into the wall beside her terminal. Kovac pulled out the medipack and started treating Rand’s injury.
I dropped into a chair, wrapped the ends of my cape around me for a blanket, leaned my head back, shut my eyes, and tried to rest. But the moment my eyes closed, my mind’s eye saw Hiller’s face transforming into Latchjaw’s face and back again. Beneath these shifting faces was a glowing orange stone that pulsed with life, and then a glowing purple stone dancing in and around it, like a kaleidoscope. These images finally faded, but as they did, another came into focus—Hiller’s black and silver command glove.
Only it was different than the one I had with me. On the back of the glove, just below each knuckle, was a glowing jewel above a central stone set in the middle of the hand. Each of these stones was a different color of the spectrum—ruby, orange, lemon, green, azure, and purple. The stones glowed brighter and brighter until I finally had to open my eyes to escape from the intensity of the light.
Rebel Sword Page 17