Rebel Sword

by Peter Bostrom

  Then, his nostrils flared and his eyes shot open. “Ow!” Kovac yelled.

  The hammer had melted through the synthetic fiber of his pants and the smell of it filled the container. But now Kovac was holding the glowing blue hammer out in front of him, wide-eyed.

  “Yeah!” I yelled. “You did it!”

  Kovac gave me a big, lop-sided grin. He started to swing the hammer, leaving a streak of blue that hung in the air for a moment before fading away.

  Now I was smiling as wide as Kovac. Maybe we did have a chance, after all.

  I held out a handful of Venetian nuts. Kovac frowned.

  “If you’re going to use one of those rocks, you can’t do it on an empty stomach. Trust me.”

  He slowly took the nuts, looked at them for a moment in his giant palm, shrugged, and then popped them into his mouth.

  All of a sudden, our tilted container lurched forward and slammed down so it was now completely upright. We leapt to our feet and waited, not knowing what to expect next. After a few more seconds of moving forward along the track, the container came to violent stop.

  We’d finally reached the top. The front wall of the container swung open, and instantly, my muscles tightened.

  Standing at the end of the track were a handful of Dominion troopers—in salmon armor this time.

  Damn. Their armory had a wider selection than Cosmart. And I had a sinking feeling that their bright red light-swords weren’t just for decoration.

  35

  THE SPACE BEHIND the rapidly approaching troopers looked a lot like the building’s exterior. Pretty much everything was made of dark metal, except for the waste containers, which were pale green. Automated anti-grav lifts sped around the metal grated floor, moving containers from one track to another. Thick rafters crisscrossed the tall ceiling, from which hung a few dim light fixtures. The room had a reddish-orange look to it—not from the lights above, but from the giant vats of heated metal below. It was pretty loud. And godawfully hot.

  But I wasn’t too concerned with my surroundings at this point. I was more concerned about us not getting slaughtered by an elite group of Dominion salmon soldiers.

  Now that Kovac’s stone-powered hammer was shining a deep blue and each of the approaching troopers held a bright red sword, I was the only one in the room without a glowing weapon. And I wasn’t about to be left out of the party.

  As soon as I reached behind me to draw my rod-sword, I summoned its music, so that it was already glowing a bright yellow when I brought it down in front of me. With glowing hammer and sword in hand, we ran toward the group of five sword-wielding troopers.

  At first, I was worried that Kovac would need me to stay close and protect him. Boy, was I wrong.

  When we were about five meters away from colliding with the troopers, Kovac dropped his plasma rifle and let out a primal yell. He shot forward with a surprising burst of energy, swung his glowing hammer with two hands in a long arc, and connected with the swords of three different troopers.

  These three were knocked backward by the blow, but each of them landed on their feet in a cat-like crouch and twirled their swords in a circle as they resumed their attack. The salmon Eggheads were clearly no ordinary troopers.

  And Kovac was no ordinary Peacekeeper private on maintenance duty. He twirled his hammer in reply, then leapt forward to the trooper on the left, swinging his glowing hammer at his stomach. The trooper brought his light sword across to meet Kovac’s hammer and just barely deflected his giant-sized blow in an eruption of purple light.

  However, Kovac simply redirected his hammer’s momentum and steered it toward the soldier in the middle, who wasn’t prepared for another blow so quickly. Kovac’s hammer tore into the trooper’s stomach and left a large, smoking hole in the trooper’s side. He fell to the metal-grated floor, dropped his sword, and slumped sideways.

  Seeing what Kovac could do, the two troopers who were circling me stopped their forward movement and quickly took a defensive posture. I thought about using my Power Glove to throw them around and make short work of our enemies, but decided I needed to save all my energy for if—no, for when—I faced Craniax.

  I gripped the handle of my glowing yellow rod-sword with both hands and sprung forward. I aimed my arcing blow to slice through the two troopers diagonally. However, they met my sword with an upward stroke at the exact same time and at the same angle.

  There was a bright burst of orange, and by the time the light had faded slightly, I was pushing my sword downward against theirs with crackles and pops of energy. With the element of surprise from my first strike gone, the two troopers quickly regained their footing and began to push my sword back up toward me.

  The locked swords were now so close that I could feel their heat on my face. I pushed down hard before quickly pulling my rod-sword away and jumping back a step. The troopers’ momentum carried their sword upward, exposing their midsections, so I shot forward and sliced through both of their chest plates like artificial butter on synthetic salmon. They staggered backward, dropped to their knees, and then collapsed on top of each other.

  Kovac was now on the defensive against the other two troopers. Since his strength was his best asset, he was able to hold his own against their attacks, but the troopers were smart enough to keep their distance and took turns striking at him. I thought Kovac would appreciate it if I evened things up.

  As I ran toward Kovac, a waste container cut between us, pushed by an anti-grav lift.

  Instead of stopping, I summoned a quiet, brassy prelude and focused the purple stone’s power on my legs as I pushed away from the floor and leapt toward the top of the container.

  I meant to jump onto the thick upper ledge of the container closest to me, but I guess I overdid it a bit. My stone-enhanced jump sent me flying over the ledge I was aiming for and almost over the entire thing.

  Almost. Instead of clearing the container, I was headed for the upper ledge on the far side. I came in at a funny angle, so when my boots landed on ledge’s inner lip, my glowing rod-sword carved flailing circles in the air as I tried to right myself on the top of the container.

  I immediately summoned the up-tempo music in my mind and used just enough energy from the orange stone to attract the soles of my boots to the top of the ledge and steady myself.

  I perched there like a gargoyle on top of the container for a moment before dropping down just behind one of the troopers who was attacking Kovac. I brought my sword down and sliced through one of his arms. He managed to hang onto his light sword with his good arm, but as he twisted around, his helmet snapped to the side and looked down at his now-smoldering stump of an arm.

  This hesitation cost him his life, because I had already started my next thrust and quickly plunged my glowing rod-sword into his exposed breast plate. The sword fell from his remaining hand, and when I pulled my smoking sword from his chest, he fell, too.

  Now that Kovac was only dealing with one sword-wielding trooper, he was back on the offensive. He lunged forward with his hammer and the trooper leapt back to avoid the blow. Again, Kovac lunged with a mighty swing of his bright blue glowing hammer and again the trooper leapt just far enough away for the hammer to miss.

  A waste container glided across the floor behind the trooper. Kovac pulled his hammer back and crouched like he was preparing for another lunge. In response, the trooper started to leap backward yet again. But instead of lunging, Kovac threw his hammer in a straight line.

  Sailing through the air, the trooper looked helplessly at the glowing hammer as it sped toward where he was about to land. He raised his sword, but without any leverage, it didn’t do much good. When the trooper landed, the hammer blasted him backward. He slammed into the side of the passing waste container and then slid down to the floor, lifeless.

  The automated anti-grav lift kept moving the container along, unaware of what had just happened, and Kovac walked over to retrieve his still-glowing hammer, which had left a large rectangular scorch mark on
the metal floor. He looked at me with a smile and spoke loudly over the noise of the facility.

  “I’ve never felt more power and freedom in all my days,” he said.

  “No problem, big guy,” I yelled back. “Now, if you’d like to add at least a few more days to that, we need to find Craniax.”

  I looked past the traffic of constantly-moving containers. There was a large room at the far end of the metal-grated flooring that looked out onto the largest vats of molten metal far below. The room’s dark gray, windowless walls stretched all the way to the ceiling and on the side facing us, there was a single dark doorway with something large standing inside.

  “There!” I yelled, pointing my rod-sword at the room.

  We dodged a few moving containers, and when we had cleared the final one, we sprinted to the doorway, which I was sure opened into the control room. A massive Dominion commander in dark gray armor stood there, unmoving. He had black boots, a black breastplate with a large red bat in the center, and, like the other troopers up here, a crimson cape with black lining hung from his shoulders. His angular helmet was bone-white with a slanted red visor, large pointy ear-like fixtures on the side, and a thick collar of silver bones that wrapped entirely around the back of his head and came to a point just above the helmet.

  As we approached, this commander stepped forward to meet us. We now saw that he held a long silver staff with two handholds and a red bat-like figure at its top. After another two steps, the staff snapped to life with a bright red glow.

  Kovac raised his glowing blue hammer and stepped forward to meet the commander. They were roughly the same height, but the silver boned ridge behind the trooper’s helmet gave him a slight edge.

  “You go on,” Kovac said loudly, nodding toward the room beyond. “May your battle be swift and may the wings of victory enfold you.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. “Um— thanks?”

  With that, Kovac let out another primal yell and lunged at the gray-armored commander with his hammer. The staff and hammer collided in mid-air with a crackling noise and a bright flash of purple.

  If anyone could handle this massive trooper, it was Kovac. So I slowly stepped around the two fighters, leaving them to it, and ran to the door. I fished out one last handful of Venetian nuts from my pocket and finished chewing them by the time I reached the door.

  This was it.

  I placed my Power Glove on the access panel, but nothing happened. I tried again, but nothing happened. So I used a little of the purple crystal’s power to pull the door open just far enough for me to slip my fingers into the crack.

  I used a bit more of the stone to help me quickly slide the door wide open, and was practically blinded by the light that poured out at me from within.

  36

  I HELD UP a gloved hand to block the bright red light shining from the other end of the mining facility’s control room, but it was still impossible to see clearly. I could barely make out the rectangular shapes of control panels and the rounded edges of chairs in front of me, so I extinguished my rod-sword and ducked behind the closest piece of equipment that could hide me. Then I pulled the door shut as quickly as I could, using the orange stone’s power to try and keep the noise Kovac was making from alerting whoever was inside of our presence.

  I looked down at the metal-grated floor. I could see the vats of metal below and definitely felt their heat. It couldn’t have been their full heat, though—there would have been a low-grade force field protecting the bottom of this room, but that didn’t stop the heat from coming in every other direction.

  I sat completely still, listening for the faintest sign that I’d been spotted. It was difficult to tell, since the noise from the facility was so loud. That same loudness had probably kept anyone in here from noticing my entry.

  As I waited, my eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness of the light. Almost everything in the room was bathed in red—a red that was both brighter and deeper than the light that came from any stone I’d seen. But there were two items that the red light didn’t affect—the orange and purple stones that were mounted on my Power Glove.

  In this light, they actually shone more brightly in their own colors. I could feel them growing warmer through the glove, even though I wasn’t trying to summon their power. Something in this room was triggering them.

  And that scared me.

  Finally, I could see clearly around the room. The walls went all the way up to the transparent ceiling, which explained the pillar of red light I’d seen earlier. The walls in this room were covered in complicated-looking equipment and control panels of all sizes were arranged in rows across the room. And, like the communication relay tower, I had no idea what any of it did.

  Between two of the larger banks of controls, I could see bright shapes hovering in the air. I crouched low and ran quickly to another control panel to find a better view.

  A few meters above the floor were the ghostly—but still somehow very vivid—shapes of several different people and creatures arranged in a circle. Of the faces I could see from my hiding place, there was a man in a suit with a bald decrepit head, crazy eyebrows, super pointy ears, and two sharp, crooked teeth that hung grotesquely over his bottom lip.

  Beside him loomed a dark figure in charred metal armor, topped with a long, angular metal helmet culminating in a crown of knife blades. In the next spot was something in a green, full-body robe that looked mostly human, except for the lack of any hair at all and the two slits where a nose should be on his very pale face.

  Then there was the really big thing with huge bulbous eyes and lots of tentacles coming out the bottom of its head that hurt my head to look at. Next to this monstrosity leaned an over-sized person-like shape with a boxy torso, a long cylinder mounted to its arm, a clunky helmet, and pupil-less eyes that glowed red. And at the very center of this ghostly semi-circle of terrifying creatures presided an ominous form in a black hooded robe, its face hidden in shadow.

  There were other figures present, but I could only see the half of them facing my hiding place. Below these haunting images I saw the back of a muscular man-like shape with light lavender skin, shirtless, but with two thick straps that crossed his broad shoulders and held in place a dark purple hood that was pulled over his head. In his right hand, he held a staff with what looked like horns at the top which curled outward and downward.

  This had to be Craniax.

  And, finally, I found the source of the light. It was a small, brightly-glowing sphere that swirled in different shades of red, about a meter in diameter and hovering in front of Craniax’s chest.

  The figures above were talking, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I moved from the control panel I had been hiding behind to another one that was closer. But I was so busy focusing on my destination that I didn’t notice a small metal cylinder on the floor beside me.

  When my boot brushed the cylinder, it tipped over with a soft clang and rolled a little ways along the floor until it came to a stop.

  I froze.

  There was so much other noise coming from outside the room that I hoped nobody would notice such a small sound. I held my breath and counted to five. Nothing changed—the ghostly figures above kept talking and the purple-hooded man below kept nodding.

  I began to take another step when a massive feline head slowly came into view from behind a long bank of control panels just to the left of Craniax. Its deep plum, velvety skin looked even more menacing in the scarlet light of the sphere as it rounded the corner.

  It was another one of those damn robocats.

  I moved as silently as I could back toward the entrance where the control panels were closer together. It was my only hope for an advantage here.

  I squeezed between two very close banks of panels and held my un-activated rod-sword in front of me. I could hear the sharp clinking of the cat’s metal nails against the floor as it padded toward me, and just in case I hadn’t sweat enough already, now I broke out in perspiration as
I waited for the cat to approach.

  When I could tell it was only a few meters away, I darted out from my hiding place, past the cat, and squeezed between another set of panels. I heard the cat snarl—just barely—over the facility’s noises and ran down an aisle between two long rows of panels.

  The cat ran after me, leaping over the first set of panels I’d dodged between and then bounding down the aisle, gaining on me with every stride. I ran back toward my hiding place, and as I approached the two close-set panels, I could feel the cat’s breath or exhaust or whatever came out of its sharp-toothed mouth on the back of my neck.

  I dove between the panels and the cat’s head followed after me, snapping its mechanical jaws shut just after I’d left the space. The cat tried moving forward after me, but its massive body wouldn’t fit through the gap. But before it could reverse its direction and pull its head back out from the tight space, I raised my Power Glove. The amber stone flared to life and as I made a fist, the top of the two panels pressed against each other. I squeezed my fist tighter, and the metal of the panels created an inescapable collar that held the mechanical cat in place.

  The cat snapped and snarled and its claws scraped against the other side of the panels, but the quarters were too close for it to get much leverage. I made the fiercest face I could muster and, because this room was already so loud, I growled back at the cat before returning to eavesdrop on Craniax and the ghostly figures who were apparently part of his council. Luckily, their meeting was still in session, and I wound my way silently between the maze of control panels and seats.

  Now I was close enough to actually hear noises from these figures, but was still too far away to make out individual words. I was going to have to risk running across a large gap between control panels if I was going to hear anything.

  I took a deep breath, exhaled, sprang forward. But as soon as I’d started moving, a piercing metallic, catlike cry came from the other end of the room and I froze in the middle of the walkway. Immediately, the ghostly figures of the council dissolved. Craniax craned his neck and slowly turned around.