I did the same with Vesta. Hunter and Dmitri helped Ben and Vesta sit down, giving them some of those orange-like pieces of fruit, while Elonora and I gave them our blood, to assist with their recovery. Kailani finished the spell incantation, and, within seconds, Mom’s phone was swallowed by a bright orb of light, as small as my head.
It shot upward and vanished into the sky.
“That’s it,” Kailani said. “We managed to cut seven hours off the spell’s original travel time. In up to five hours, GASP will get our message.”
“Let’s just hope it’s not too late,” Nevis replied.
“Hope is all we have at this point,” I breathed. “It’s better than nothing.”
Hunter came up to me, his brow furrowed with concern.
“We need to go look for Ridan,” he said.
“Yes. We’ll need to head northwest of the colosseum,” I replied. “That’s where I saw him… fly, sort of.”
My stomach churned as I remembered watching Ridan shoot through the sky after Araquiel’s devastating blow. He’d gone out at an impressive speed, as well. If I were to make a quick estimate, I would’ve said he went airborne for at least a mile, even two, given his size.
Vesta and Ben couldn’t stand very well on their own, so they relied on Hunter and Dmitri for support. Elonora, Kailani, and I led the way through the jungle, followed by the others. Nevis and Zeriel watched our backs.
“It’s a shame we don’t have any invisibility potion.” Elonora sighed.
“I know. I’m still hating myself for not packing some,” Kailani replied, shaking her head slowly. “How were we supposed to know we’d end up in this mess, anyway? I thought we’d just temporarily lost our grandparents or something.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle, despite our dire circumstances.
“I swear, you make them sound like senile old folks,” I said, giggling. “You know, the kind you visit at the retirement home in Florida.”
We all laughed lightly. We needed a dash of humor; otherwise, we would’ve lost our minds by nightfall. We were dealing with so much at the moment. We couldn’t let any of it get to us or kill our spirits. We’d been through enough already—they’d been separate experiences, but we were stronger together, especially if we were still able to see the funny parts.
A sad soul is much easier to crush.
Three hours later, Vesta and Ben were walking on their own, but Dmitri and Hunter stayed close, just in case. They were both still super drowsy from blood loss, and we fed them every hour, along with a hefty dose of vampire blood, just to help them replenish their own faster.
We found the four boats where we’d previously left them, on a small island near the lighthouse. Kailani performed a cloaking spell on each, adapting them for mobility. She scrawled symbols into the wood on both sides of each vessel, then motioned for us all to get in.
“This way, we can cross the waters without being seen. They’re slightly choppy, I don’t think there’s a chance of Perfects spotting the streaks that the boats would leave behind,” she said quietly. “Unless a Perfect bumps into our cloaking spell, we should be fine. We must be careful.”
Kailani and I kept Ben and Vesta together in one boat, while the rest of our crew shared the other three. We rowed across the turquoise ocean as the sun set in explosive pinks and oranges to the west, turning the sky into an ethereal masterpiece.
The cloaking spell had the ability to bend light, turning each boat into an invisible capsule that glided over the cool water. Elonora continued to scan our surroundings, looking for Ridan. At one point, we could see the lighthouse. Farther to its right was the colosseum island. Lights flashed and thundered above it.
“Perfects,” I whispered. “I wonder what they’re doing.”
“Practicing for genocide would be my guess,” Dmitri said lowly.
“They have our people,” I replied, pressing my lips into a thin line. “We need to find a way to get to them.”
“Once we get Ridan back, we’ll look for a way,” Ben said. “Unless our GASP fleets come through in the meantime and torch these suckers to hell and back.”
A heavy sigh left my chest, and I shifted my focus back to Elonora. “How’s it looking, Lenny? Any sign of him yet?”
The sad look on her face sent daggers through my heart. She shook her head slowly.
“It’s okay, Len,” Kailani said to her. “We’ll find him. I’m just bummed out I didn’t collect any of his personal belongings to do a tracking spell.”
“Well, we were busy running for our lives at the time,” Elonora replied.
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, girls,” Ben said. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this. There’s no way these Perfects are going to take us down, and if we think otherwise, we’re screwed.”
“Easy for you to say. You came back from the dead.” Dmitri chuckled as he kept paddling across the turquoise ocean waters.
“This is a new and much more dangerous enemy we’re dealing with here,” Hunter interjected. “I think we’ll need more than good humor and self-confidence to survive what’s ahead.”
“GASP is coming,” Kailani murmured.
“Well, yeah, I know. But still, we have to be ready for every possible outcome. Including the worst-case scenarios, which I’m sure we’ve all been thinking about,” Hunter replied.
“No. I mean GASP is coming. Look,” Kailani said, prompting us all to look at her, then follow her gaze. My heart jumped in my throat at the sight before us.
High up in the sky, flashing bright yellow as they burned through Strava’s atmosphere, were two enormous starships. They were each at least two kilometers in diameter, and slim, like giant flying discs made of a combination of silver-and-black metals. Blue lights shone through the disc edges, flaring brightly every five seconds, like a steady pulse.
The air hummed—a faint echo of the starships’ engines.
It felt as though salvation had just come down from the heavens, in a most literal way. Relief washed over me, but the sensation only lasted for a few seconds. The worst-case scenarios that Hunter had just mentioned were still in the back of my head, even though I’d struggled to squish them.
There was a third ship, smaller, keeping its distance.
“Two big ones,” Dmitri observed, using his binoculars. “A third is staying behind, not entering Strava’s atmosphere. That’s probably the command center.”
“They’re most likely waiting to see how comms channels are affected between ships,” Ben replied, then pulled himself up into a sitting position as he narrowed his eyes at the sky.
“Do you think they got our message?” Elonora asked.
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “But they’ve come in large numbers. It must’ve been quite the mission to put those ships together and to rally the fighters.”
“Mom and Shayla had something to do with the ships, for sure,” Kailani said. “I recognize that blue power glow. It’s from one of Mom’s signature energy designs. She’s been working on them for a couple of years, now. I guess she finally got to implement them.”
“This is amazing,” Vesta replied, smiling as she gazed at the ships.
They were still hundreds of miles away, but they were here, on Strava. That was supposed to make us all beam with joy and relief, but I couldn’t ignore the concern gnawing at my stomach, either. It only got worse when the first sonic booms erupted in the distance, somewhere to our right.
“Oh, no,” I murmured, turning my head to find the source of that spine-tingling noise.
The sky lit up almost white as thousands of flashes shot upward like fireworks, shooting across the sky in an organized and symmetrical fashion. It looked as though thousands of missiles had been launched at once.
“Perfects... Holy crap, how many are there?!” Dmitri croaked, gawking at the light display.
White, glowing lines cut through the sky in a slightly arched trajectory, all headed toward the three ships. The sonic booms reverberated and made
my ribcage hum. I gripped the edges of the boat and braced myself for the worst.
They were shooting straight for our GASP fleet.
“Thousands,” Elonora whispered.
Dread gripped my heart and cut off my breath.
All hell was about to break loose.
Harper
It was record speed for deployment. Arwen, Lumi, and Shayla had gone to incredible lengths to gather all the forces in unprecedented time. We brought together all the fighters we had in Eritopia, Neraka, Nevertide and The Shade, as well as additional forces from Sherus and Nuriya’s planet, and the Witches’ Sanctuary in the Supernatural dimension.
We’d managed to put together a band of nine hundred GASP warriors in an extremely short period of time—Druids, incubi and succubi, witches and warlocks, fae, jinn, Maras and vampires, and werewolves, as well as the Hawk brothers, daemons, sentries, Imen, a handful of Manticores and Adlets, and a hefty load of fire and ice dragons.
The latter were perhaps the heaviest artillery in our ranks, as we’d been offered support from fifty dragons. With two hundred fae and hundred-body battalions from the other dominant species, we had enough to lay siege on those flashing creatures we’d seen by the diamond colosseum. We had, of course, worked on the assumption that there were more than the four we’d seen there.
I’d set up a command center in the third of three ships that Arwen and Shayla had helped build, aided by the Daughters of Eritopia and Lumi, and with plenty of technical support from Phoenix and Jovi, who’d gathered enough knowledge from Earth’s space missions to offer key insights on making these behemoths run smoothly across a distance of forty-five light-years.
Caspian and I were on this third ship, along with Arwen and Brock, Shayla, Lumi, Phoenix, Viola, and five other Daughters of Eritopia. Caleb and River had come along, as well, joined by Ash and Ruby, who were personally invested in this entire mission since Elonora, their daughter, was stuck on Strava with the rest of the search crew. Draven and Serena, Scarlett and Patrick, Grace and Lawrence, and Hazel and Tejus had also come on board. We’d even been lucky enough to have Fiona and Zane with us, accompanied by Velnias, since they’d been on Calliope for the past couple of days. Fiona had heard about our founders going missing, and she’d immediately insisted on being there with us as we monitored the situation. Varga had made it back from Neraka in record time, using the interplanetary spell. He’d dropped everything and had Mose keep an eye on the vampire-fae recruit.
Lenny’s brother had joined Jovi and Anjani, who’d taken the lead on the second ship, manning one half of the fleet, while Jax and Hansa had the first ship and the other half. Our starship was smaller and rigged with all kinds of communications equipment—both radio and satellite, as we’d done our best to prepare for the worst, given that Telluris didn’t work on Strava and we’d failed to get any signals back from the upgraded comms systems operated by Ben and Rose’s team.
We were also ready for the possibility that, once our ships breached Strava’s atmosphere, all communications would be down. That was the main reason we stayed back and let the fleet go in first, to see if any of the channels worked on the planet’s surface.
Arwen had powered our starships with a combination of magic and technology, based on some blueprints that she’d been working on for quite some time. She’d been encouraged by Corrine to keep at it, especially after they’d launched the ship that rescued us from Neraka. Arwen had done an incredible job with these ships. Not only had they gone smoothly through space, but they also sustained their own internal ecosystems, and had highly accurate manual controls, making it easier for a pilot to take hold of the vessel if the preset coordinates failed.
As we watched our fleet penetrate Strava’s turbulent upper atmosphere, my stomach tightened itself into a tiny, painful marble. Caspian stood by my side, along with the rest of our crew, as we monitored the entire operation through the enormous glass panels fitted all around the disc-shaped ship. Computers and holographic displays had been added to these panels, making it easier to pull up camera images and live video feeds, since each of the ships had also been fitted with high-resolution satellite cameras that offered a 360-degree view from each vessel.
“What do we know so far about the hostiles?” Grandpa Caleb asked.
“They’re humanoids. Extremely fast and strong. They were able to give Ben and Rose’s team a run for their money, so to speak,” I replied. “They also shoot fire. That’s pretty much all we have.”
Serena came up to me, pale as she held up a tablet for me to see. “Sis, remember we had to leave so fast that we didn’t have time to check the other telescope?”
I nodded. “Didn’t Field pull up footage from the second scan and send it over to us?”
“Yeah. That’s the problem,” she murmured. “I just got the video feed.”
She pressed play on a video—aerial footage of the second telescope that had done an updated scan of Strava, covering both hemispheres all around. My stomach, still very much the size of a marble, dropped, as if weighing a ton.
“Oh, no. What are those?” I croaked, pointing at the multitude of diamond colosseums built on dozens of islands, on a five-hundred-mile radius around Noagh.
“The fleets just entered Strava’s atmosphere!” Draven announced, keeping his eyes on the massive glass screens.
My mom and dad came around to check the video on Serena’s tablet, accompanied by Caleb and River. Everybody else stayed put, watching the fleet’s incursion while keeping their ears on our conversation.
“What’s going on, Sis?” Phoenix asked.
I heard my mom gasp. I replayed the video a couple of times, zooming in and out on the multiple diamond colosseum structures captured by the second telescope.
“Those definitely weren’t there before,” I murmured. “How many in total?”
Serena shrugged, looking downright terrified. “I don’t know, but there’s at least eighty from this feed alone,” she replied. “I have a feeling the number will be a lot higher at the end of the scan.”
“What the…” Caleb pointed at several flashes on the tablet’s screen. “Are those the same things that attacked Ben and Rose?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but that’s a different diamond structure. This one’s at least ten miles away to the north.”
As we continued to watch the video, it all became horribly clear.
“Sis, talk to me,” Phoenix called out to me again, his gaze fixed on the fleet ahead. “What’s going on?”
“Phoenix, we might have a problem,” I said to him, my voice trembling as I struggled to keep my cool. Everybody relied on us to stay calm and focused, given that we hadn’t been 100 percent sure of what we were getting ourselves into when we’d left Calliope. “That diamond colosseum wasn’t the only one erected overnight. There are more. Many… many more.”
“Define ‘many’, please,” he replied, frowning. “We’ve got about eight hundred fighters out there, plus the hundred on this ship, which we’ve already agreed not to bring into a fight unless absolutely necessary. Don’t tell me they’re not enough.”
A couple of moments passed in chilling silence, as Serena and I looked at each other, then at River, Grandpa Caleb, and the rest of our crew.
“I’m not sure, Phoenix,” I finally said, swallowing the invisible knot jammed in my throat, as I broke into a cold sweat. “We’ve seen more flashes, too, but it’s impossible to estimate how many hostiles are out there.”
Draven cleared his throat. “Either way, the fleet is in. We need to check comms first,” he interjected, then pressed several buttons on the command panel in front of him. “Jovi, Anjani, can you hear me?” he called out.
All that came through the speakers around us was static. It only made me feel worse.
“Jax, Hansa? Do you copy?” Draven tried another communications channel, but still, no answer from the other two ships.
Serena rushed back to his side and flipped several switches on the comms board. Som
e lights turned red; others flashed green. Phoenix looked at me again, and I could see the concern in his eyes. We were all feeling the same mixture of anxiety and dread, not to mention the crippling fear of the unknown.
We’d fought unknown hostiles before. I’d had my share on Neraka, and he’d battled through Eritopia, but neither was as dangerous and with stakes as high as this one, mainly because our founders were missing, and because those flashing creatures seemed more powerful than most. None of this felt right.
“Jovi! Anjani! Do you copy?” Serena raised her voice. When no answer came through, she flipped to the second channel again. “Jax! Hansa! Anyone there?”
A couple more seconds passed. Nothing happened. We could all see the two ships about fifty miles away, both gradually descending and headed for the larger islands on that side of the planet.
“None of the comms are working,” Phoenix said. “Something’s really off about Strava, well beyond those hostiles. It’s completely cut off from the outside world.”
“At least it’s still accessible, physically speaking,” Grandpa Caleb replied. “We’ll have more boots on the ground in the next half hour or so.”
Just then, a flash of light caught my eye.
I held my breath as I looked up and out into the vast openness, through our ship’s glass screens. I could see the two ships slowly descending, but that wasn’t what made my heart skip a beat. Lights burned bright about two hundred miles east from their location.
At first glance, it looked like an electrical storm.
But then it grew bigger, unnaturally fast.
“Hold on, what’s that?” River said, staring in the same direction.
Heat burned through me. We all stood at once and moved closer to the glass scenes, in order to get a better look. My breathing went haywire. Caspian clutched my hand and held it tight, both of us staring at the light phenomenon.
That wasn’t an electrical storm.
Those were thousands of flashing lights. Phoenix cursed under his breath and fiddled with the camera controls, zooming in.
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