Then the flock of flying Mythicals released clouds of gray powder that began to waft downward in a thick metallic fog.
The first curling tendrils of powder settled toward the wormhole, triggering a crackling of electrical discharge around the orb.
A technician burst from the barn, shouting, “Metal powder! They’re dropping metal powder! It’s destabilizing! The wormhole is destabilizing!”
“Launch!” exclaimed Christopher, and a wormhole pilot leaped for the ladder, beginning to climb through the surface of the wormhole, now alive with swaths of fiery electrical sparks. But Christopher grabbed the pilot’s arm and shouted something into his ear, before dispatching him through the hole.
Within seconds the wormhole began to lift skyward, but its movement grew sluggish, erratic.
“The metal is affecting the guidance magnets!” exclaimed Christopher. “Shoot down the creatures!”
Roberson signaled to the mercenaries, and Pilgrim soldiers began peppering the sky with a hail of automatic weapon fire. The bullets brought scores of fairies and angels fluttering to the ground, wounded or dead. Several of the mercenaries took up grenade launchers, firing grenades that burst among the flight, ripping into fairies and angels, bringing them also plummeting to earth.
The wormhole slowly became airborne. But instead of streaking skyward away from the assault, it abruptly veered sideways, aiming straight for a formation of Mythicals. Plowing through their bodies, it was the ultimate sword, its infinitely sharp edges slicing them apart, creating a bloody rain of wings, legs, torsos, heads, which littered the ground below.
“What did you tell the pilot?” demanded Nathan Clark.
“I reminded him that a wormhole is not only an aperture but a weapon,” said Christopher coldly. “We need to stop this attack so we can finish loading the equipment and carry out the Palliation.”
The wormhole sailed away from the flight of Mythicals, with sparks shooting from its surface. But its shape began to undulate with instability caused by the faltering magnetic field. Then it instantly reversed course, paused and swooped back toward the fairies and angels.
But as it bore down upon the creatures, its pilot failed to notice another squadron of the creatures plummeting from above. They pulled up above the wormhole, unleashing another thick cloud of the gray dust, and the wormhole sailed at high speed into the cloud. It abruptly lurched to a stop, beginning to wobble back and forth, its surface warping and contorting, no longer a perfect sphere.
The electrical sparks swirling around the sphere grew into lightning bolts that engulfed it. It began to deform into a series of malformed shapes, and to shrink down—smaller and smaller and smaller.
Then it was gone, leaving only the faintest swirling, colored aurora.
“KILL THEM!” bellowed Christopher, his face purple with rage, glaring at the point in the sky where his only passage to home had evaporated. “KILL THEM ALL!”
But even as the mercenaries reloaded their weapons and aimed them skyward, they heard a shout from within the barn.
“WORMHOLES! WORMHOLES! ALL AROUND US!”
Christopher, the Clarks, and Roberson sprinted back into the barn to find the computer tech, having leaped out of his chair, staring unbelieving at the security monitors.
“What do you mean wormholes?” demanded Christopher.
But the tech was speechless, able only to gesture mutely at the screens. They showed giant, glowing orbs surrounding the entire colony, floating toward the ground.
“You said you destroyed them!” bellowed Christopher, clutching Roberson’s jacket, shaking him. “Those are Mythicals wormholes!” he shouted, his face contorted in fury.
The mercenary tore the pudgy hands from his jacket and took up his rifle. “A setback,” he said coldly. “But one that can be remedied.” He touched his communication earpiece, speaking into it. “Form a defensive perimeter around the colony. Position the heavy ordnance. Any wormhole that comes within range, take it out.”
“Find him!” pleaded A’eiio. “Please find my husband!”
Jack hugged her reassuringly, as they stood among the assault team in the wormhole control room. He enfolded her trembling body, and steeled himself against the agonizing possibility that E’iouy lay dead somewhere in the forest, either shot down or killed by the marauding Pilgrim wormhole.
“I will. I promise,” Jack managed to choke out.
“He hasn’t answered radio calls since the raid!” she said. “And Wendy couldn’t find him afterward. And there was such—” She began to cry, unable to finish the sentence. Another female fairy embraced her, leading her away into the main fairy terminal, where crowds of fairies and their Allies waited for the outcome of the looming battles to come.
Jack’s heart pounded with his own soul-deep anguish. Not only would his dear friends face what would be a final battleground—the Pilgrim colony deep in the thick forest. But his parents were being held prisoner somewhere in the compound, as traitors who would no doubt be executed if they weren’t rescued.
Around him stood Sam, Mike, Steve, Wendy, and Vlad, readying for battle along with a troop of other Mythicals. Sam’s eyes were assuming a reddish glow. While some Mythicals wielded weapons, most, like Sam, would employ only their strength and agility. The teams also included Theran soldiers. Lacking the natural physical power of the Mythicals, like Jack they carried rifles, grenades, and shoulder-mounted missiles.
Together, they would face the Theran mercenaries and the Pilgrim soldiers, all heavily armed.
Other such Mythicals battalions had been formed from the varied species, under the strategy that each race had its own skills, its own powers, to bolster the attack. And so poised to deploy from other wormholes would be squads comprising fairies, pixies, trolls, ogres, goblins, vampires, leprechauns, demons, angels, elves, and gnomes.
Even a clan of reclusive bigfoot had volunteered—invaluable not only for their strength, but also for their ability to stealthily maneuver in thick woods. In fact, looming behind Jack was the massive creature who had rescued him from the werewolf—its pungent aroma now actually quite comforting. The bigfoot had first silently appeared at the Theran base to shadow him, seeming to materialize out of nowhere. What Wendy had said was true. He apparently had a friend for life.
Ryan, piloting the fairy wormhole, issued a warbling screech telling them that the aperture had reached the deployment point. It wafted down into a clearing far enough from the colony to be a safe launching point for their offensive.
The team exited, and the wormhole vaulted away into the sky to land near other Pilgrim bases throughout Thera. All the other Mythicals wormholes had done the same, deploying assault teams planet-wide. This would be a global battle to subdue the human invaders and Theran mercenaries who would decimate the planet.
Jack and the others crouched silently amid the thick forest, listening for any sign that their arrival had been detected. But he heard only the forest sounds he had become so accustomed to growing up in that same colony.
The faint whisper of wings, and the glimpse of white off to his left told him that Wendy had launched to circle high above them, to act as an aerial scout. He fervently hoped Wendy could also find E’iouy alive.
He touched the button on his earpiece, to contact the others.
“I want to find my parents. They’re likely being held in their house. It’s on this end of town. Can we do that?”
He received instant, wholehearted agreement over the radio and described the house. Sam sprinted away to scout ahead, deftly scurrying through the underbrush, keeping low. The rest of the group spread out, and made their way as stealthily as they could through the forest. Glimpses of the colony buildings appeared through the trees.
A rifle shot echoed from a thicket to the right, and a human scream, cut short.
“What happened?” asked Jack.
Mike answered over the radio. “Tried to shoot me. He’s a good shot. Or was a good shot.”
The shot wa
s followed instantly by more gunfire erupting from the town, and a fusillade of bullets began to rake the forest, tearing through the underbrush, ricocheting off trees. An explosion tore into a nearby tree trunk, and the tree cracked and splintered, plummeting toward Jack. He looked up to see falling death, but a massive arm reached out to stop the tree.
The bigfoot looked down at him, smiling slightly, as he held the tree just above Jack’s body.
Jack scrambled out of the way, and raced forward, hearing behind him the ground-shaking thud of the tree striking the ground, as the bigfoot released it. Behind him also came the crunch of footsteps through the forest, as the creature followed after him.
“I see the house,” whispered Sam through his earpiece. “There are guards posted outside.”
Another voice in his ear, this time Wendy’s. “I see E’iouy! He’s on the ground in a clearing to your left. He’s not moving.”
In the distance, the hollow thunk of a grenade launcher sounded, and Jack glimpsed a projectile arcing toward them. This time, it was Steve who intervened to save them.
The powerful, squat troll scrambled forward, scooped up the grenade, and with all the power of his thick arms, hurled it back to its launch point. A scream and an explosion revealed that his throw had been accurate.
Now, Jack had a decision to make. Intense gunfire and explosions from the colony told him his friends were in the thick of battle in the direction of his parents’ house, and he had to save his parents. But he also had to save E’iouy. If E’iouy was not already dead, he was gravely injured.
“Guide me to him,” he instructed Wendy, and the angel began to give guidance on precisely where to find the fallen fairy.
Then Jack issued more instructions to the rest of the team. “Surround the house. Try to take out the guards. I’ll come back.”
A sudden searing pain in his arm told him a bullet had found him. He slumped to the ground, his head swimming from the shock. He managed to recover enough to roll onto his back, catching sight of an approaching mercenary, taking aim for a kill shot. But Jack was quicker, firing a burst that caught the mercenary in the chest, and he collapsed dead.
The familiar grunt of the bigfoot resounded to his left, and a body flew past his field of vision, slamming into a tree, the mercenary’s back breaking with the impact. He, too, fell to the ground, dead.
The shock of the wound was beginning to cloud Jack’s conscious, and he felt the bigfoot’s huge arms lift him up. He was being hauled back away from the battle, but he struggled to his feet, waving off the creature.
A fluttering of white wings told him Wendy had alighted next to him.
“Just bind it up,” he said to the angel. “Just stop the bleeding.”
“But you—” began Wendy.
“Please,” he said. “We need to find him.”
The angel nodded reluctantly, and bound a bandage tightly around the arm. Blood immediately began to soak through it.
Managing to recover himself, Jack signaled for the angel to resume her aerial guidance, and she vaulted upward, bullets tearing into the trees around her.
The rattle of gunfire from the direction of his house told him the assault team was attacking.
He and the bigfoot continued their headlong plunge through the forest, arriving at the clearing just as the angel was landing, bending over E’iouy.
Jack joined her, as she examined the frighteningly inert form. One of the fairy’s wings was sheared away, and incandescent red blood was oozing from his chest and mouth.
Wendy shook her head. “He’s barely alive. He must reach his people soon. I can’t carry him.”
“But he can,” said Jack, gesturing at the bigfoot. Then, to Wendy, “You try to contact the fairy Warden at their wormhole.” He instructed the bigfoot, “Take him. Follow Wendy.”
The powerful creature hesitated, and touched his translation medallion. The answer came. “You need me.”
“He needs you more.”
The bigfoot leaned down and gently lifted E’iouy’s limp body, cradling the fairy in his arms. Wendy flapped her snowy wings, sailing away to guide him. Peering upward at the flash of white through the trees, the bigfoot followed, pounding away through the woods.
Now to save his parents! His bleeding arm on fire, he stumbled through the familiar woods and toward the house that was now their prison.
As he ran, he was startled to see Vlad appear running beside him, as if materializing out of thin air.
“We have them cornered,” he said. “Your parents are in the house. Mercenaries are guarding them.”
Jack felt a shiver of fear. The mercenaries would do anything to save themselves; even use his parents as shields.
Jack touched his earpiece and contacted the heads of the other assault teams. They reported making major incursions into the colony, and were on the verge of overrunning it. But the house was still a stronghold.
He and Vlad clambered up a brush-choked hill to the back of the house, its stone walls rendering it a virtual fortress.
Vlad paused, laying a hand on Jack’s arm, cocking an ear toward the house, listening.
“I hear eight people,” he said. “Two in a small room in the back—”
“Probably my parents.”
“Two more at the front door, two at the back door, two in the main room.”
Mike appeared beside him, plumping his gray-green bulk down, picking a bullet out of his hide. “You’re hurt,” said the ogre, touching Jack’s wound. “You need Sam.”
“Where is she?” asked Jack.
“She went to help with a battle by the big control building.”
Despite his knowledge of Sam’s prowess, Jack had to force himself to quiet his worry over her fate.
“We need to go in,” he said. “We need to figure out a plan.”
“Well, there’s one way in,” said the ogre. He pointed at the roof of the house, where Steve the troll crouched, scratching himself, waiting. “He’ll take care of the guards at the front door.”
Jack smiled, despite the gravity of the situation, at the idea of the squat, ungainly troll doing battle. But he knew that trolls were adept engineers, so this one would know how to un-engineer a roof.
“Good,” he said. “Vlad and I can take the back door. But my parents will still be in danger.”
“I’ll take care of them,” said the ogre.
“How will you get into the house?”
With that the ogre shrugged, hauled his bulk to his feet, took a deep breath, grunted loudly, and launched himself at full tilt toward the back wall. He struck with a resounding crash, penetrating the solid stone wall and disappearing inside.
“Well, I guess the assault has begun!” declared Jack, leaping to his feet, and with Vlad beside him, sprinting toward the back door of the house.
He glanced up in time to see the troll tear a gaping hole in the roof and leap through it. The explosion of gunfire sounded from inside.
Jack and Vlad reached the back door, and Jack kicked it in. The guards’ attention had been diverted into the back room by Mike’s bursting through its wall. The guards stood down a hallway, glaring into the doorway to the room that held his parents.
They unleashed a spray of gunfire into the room, just as Jack brought up his rifle and fired, killing them.
Behind him, he heard a sharp snap, whirling around in time to see a mercenary collapse to the floor, his neck broken by a powerful twist from the vampire.
He rushed down the hall to the room holding his parents, overcome by a gut-wrenching panic that they might have been hit, even killed.
But he had neglected to take into account Mike’s presence. When he reached the doorway, the ogre’s broad back was to him, his hide pocked with the marks of bullets that had ricocheted off. The ogre stepped aside to reveal James and Louisa, crouching in the corner.
When they saw their son, their fearful expressions were replaced with relieved smiles. They embraced each other, and relished the moment of re
lief from the trauma that had enveloped them.
Vlad appeared at the door, a grim expression on his face.
“What is it?” asked Jack.
“There was a battle at the control building.” Vlad stopped, his voice faltering.
“What happened? Vlad, what happened?”
“The leaders are captured. The mercenary Roberson was killed.”
“Good. Great.”
“But . . . he killed a pixie.”
Jack lay in the bed, his body totally spent, his soul seeming to waft from his body—as if it needed time to recuperate from the wrenching emotional ups and downs of the last two days. He had suffered utter, gut-wrenching panic, followed by profound relief, then utter bliss.
The panic had overwhelmed him during the battle, when he had faced the prospect of Sam’s death. At first, he had staggered against the wall of the house, overcome with fear. He had managed to will himself to action, dashing headlong across the village, even as the tumult of last-ditch battles raged around him.
He had reached the control building to see a blood-soaked scene—scattered, broken bodies of mercenaries, of Theran soldiers, and of some Mythicals. And to his horror, he had come upon pixies sobbing over the body of one of their own, lying frail and small and still on the ground.
With a soul-searing anguish, he had rushed over to the group, crouching down, dreading that the body would be Sam’s.
But it was not Sam! The body was of another pixie.
Then came relief and utter joy when he heard the familiar voice behind him. “You are injured,” Sam said simply, her eyes still showing a tinge of red. “You need help.”
He had leaped up and embraced her, and she returned that embrace, her warm body against his.
They had been inseparable during the whirlwind of events that followed.
They learned the blessed news that E’iouy had made it to his planet, with A’eiio beside him, where his life had been saved. He was now healing. They would see him soon.
They learned that the Pilgrim colonies all over Thera had been captured, and any threats to the planet neutralized. And that casualties among both Mythicals and Theran soldiers had been minimal, thanks to the ability of the Mythicals to instantly deploy their wormholes to the battle.
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