Nina could see the events unfold above her as she raced beneath the waves to intercept the scout ship, when she came to an abrupt stop and threw her hands up. A column of water erupted from the surface of the ocean and rose to the stricken vessel. The column formed into a tube and scooped the ship into it as it dropped from the sky.
Breeze was on his back and watched as the diamond Elephim disappeared into the clouds when the ship was engulfed in a hollow column of water. The opening collapsed and a waterfall descended upon the ship as it fell deeper into the column.
Breeze scrambled to get up when he stumbled and fell over a jagged tear in the ship’s roof. He looked through it and saw the stunned faces of Oslo and Sally staring up at him. Sally screamed his name as the deluge of water caught up to the ship.
The roar of descending water was overwhelming when it abruptly stopped, and then fell around the ship as if it were held back by an invisible barrier.
He reached up and felt electricity crackle around his fingertips. A shield had formed around the ship, but he knew it wasn’t his nor did it have the telltale signature of the light wave.
He pushed gently and it gave way, allowing his hand to slip through where he could feel the warmth of the water on the other side of it.
As the ship descended deeper into the ocean while safely cocooned within the bubble, Breeze wondered who could have created it when he saw a silhouette of a girl gliding through the clear blue water towards the ship.
It was Nina. She smiled as she pressed her body up against the bubble, then passed through it and fell towards him.
Breeze was there to catch her. “You sure know how to swim, but you can’t fly,” he said with a smile as he held her in his arms
“I knew you would catch me,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her head in his chest.
Sally watched them through the torn ceiling with a mixture of dismay and jealousy.
Breeze cradled Nina as the ship drifted with the current beneath the ocean’s surface. Holding her felt like time was standing still, but the moment was broken when they heard Ray shouting from the cockpit.
Breeze lowered Nina from his arms. “It’s good to see you again,” he said.
She stood and smiled shyly while he brushed hair away from her face, then crouched down and poked his head through the torn roof. “Everyone okay down there?” he said as he peered into the cabin.
Ray was standing in the aisle next to Sally when he looked up at Breeze. “No! We’ve lost power, we’re underwater and I don’t know—”
Breeze cut him off. “Sally? Oslo? Say something.”
Oslo smiled weakly. His face was haggard.
Sally stood up. “I...we are fine.”
Achilles stepped into view. “I do not understand how the water is being kept at bay. Whoever is generating that bubble possesses quite a power.”
“That would be me,” Nina said as she crouched next to Breeze. “Hello, father.”
Oslo seemed to come alive upon seeing his daughter. “Hello, Nina,” he said in a raspy voice.
Achilles looked up at her and tilted its head. “Young lady, you are quite formidable. Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” she said shyly while leaning into Breeze.
“If I may so inquire Nina, should you not be in Appalachia?” Achilles’ eyes glowed brightly as it spoke.
Breeze frowned at her. “Yeah, what are doing here? When did you arrive?”
Nina looked at him innocently. “I needed to come back.”
Ray interrupted. “Hate to break up the reunion, but we are busted up, broken down and the ship has no power. And what happened to the light wave? How come it’s not protecting us?”
Breeze shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t sense it anymore. It’s like it just faded away.”
“So how do we get out of here?” Ray asked.
“I will take care of that,” Nina offered. “Perihelion is not that far from here. I can tow the ship myself.”
A heavy thump followed by a vibration shook the vessel.
“What was that?!” Ray shouted.
Breeze and Nina turned and looked toward the stern.
The red striped Elephim stood next to the vertical tail fin of the ship as it dripped with water. His face swirled with pinpoints of light.
Nina gripped Breeze’s arm. He patted her hand and nodded, then stood up and walked across the top of the ship toward the stern, never once taking his gaze off the Elephim.
“What’s happening Breeze? Where are you going?” Sally cried out.
Nina looked down at Sally. “We have to go,” she said and stood up to head for the bow.
Breeze strode across the tattered roof of the ship as he side-stepped jagged metal that protruded from it,
while the Elephim stood his ground as electricity arced across his body and the hiss of static escalated.
Nina stood on top of the pilothouse and watched as Breeze came to a stop a few feet from the Elephim. He held one hand behind his back and made a gesture to Nina with it.
She subtly nodded her head.
Breeze quickly raised his shield and rocketed toward the Elephim in tandem with Nina, who leapt across the space between the ship and the bubble, bursting through it and into the ocean. She quickly swam away while towing the ship behind her as Breeze slammed into the Elephim and swept it off the roof and out of the bubble. He angled up and broke through to the surface, gripping the Elephim by the throat and choking his adversary with a strength fueled by rage as he ascended into the cloud filled skies.
In the entire calamity, he didn’t see a black streak swooping down from the clouds.
The diamond Elephim slammed into Breeze’s shield, sending him and the red striped Elephim tumbling through the air as he managed to wriggle free from Breeze’s death grip and burst through the weakened shield to fly away.
Breeze recovered and looped around, setting a collision course for the diamond Elephim who was barreling towards him. He looked over his shoulder and saw the red striped Elephim in hot pursuit.
He accelerated and with precious space to spare, arced upward and the two Elephim collided into each other.
As he hovered and watched them tumble like wounded birds to the ocean below, he noticed the wake created by Nina as she towed the scout ship underwater. He scanned ahead of the direction she was heading. Off in the distance, he could make out the faint outline of an island. It was Perihelion.
He wondered why the usual cloud cover was not hanging over it, as the island seemed naked and exposed. A flicker of movement caught his eye. He looked down and watched in horror as the diamond Elephim had recovered from his free fall and dove into the water to chase after the scout ship.
Breeze streaked down to give chase when he was sideswiped by the red striped Elephim and sent tumbling through the air from the turbulence. He recovered in time to watch him hurtle across the sky toward the island.
Breeze was in anguish. He was torn between helping Nina and chasing after the red striped Elephim. I can’t be in two places at once, he thought, but Perihelion is under attack and it’s the only refuge we have left. He grimaced. Achilles and the others will have to step up and defend themselves.
Breeze howled in anger and frustration as he raced toward Perihelion.
Raza, Excort and Xenthan stood on the roof of the dormitory as they watched the battle in the skies above. “Breeze is doing his best to defend the island, but we are exposed here,” Excort said to his son. “Your brothers must get the auxiliary generators online to raise the shield and regenerate the fog. There may be more Elephim lying in wait to attack.”
“Why don’t you launch a transport to go and help them?” Raza said. “What if the shield is raised and they can’t get through in time?”
“Knowing your daughter like I do, Nina will be able to get through. She’s probably towing the scout ship while Breeze covers for her by fighting off those two Elephim swarming around him. We all saw the water column that erupted from the ocean and swallowed up the ship. That was her doing.” He took Raza’s hand. “We can’t afford any more attacks. We have to seal off the island. But they’ll make it through in time.
They better, he thought to himself.
Nina was straining with all her might. She had never created a bubble this big before and towed it with a ship inside. In the past, she dove alongside her whale companions into the deep as they hunted for fish. If one of the whales was too weak to make it back to the surface, she formed a bubble around it and helped it ascend. But she had never tried with something this large.
As she drew closer to the island, she sensed that the fog had not been raised and a sense of dread rushed over her as she raced through the channel that fed into the bay. Her plan was to beach the scout ship onto shore, then leave to go and help Breeze, when she heard the sound of something diving into the ocean behind the ship.
She hoped it was Breeze, but her instincts were telling her it was something far more sinister.
They were all huddled together in the passenger cabin as the battered scout ship glided silently beneath the waves.
Ray looked up through the torn ceiling and nervously watched the blue ocean flow by outside the bubble.
He knew he had done nothing significant since they escaped the platform, as the ship had run on auto-pilot, and that just made him just another passenger. Breeze was the one who protected them during re-entry with his shield.
Now he found himself underwater and inside a broken ship cocooned within a bubble, and towed by a frail girl back to dry land. It was more than his pride could bear.
He came to Perihelion not long ago with a sense of superiority and triumph. He arrived here with Sally, a girl he had always cared for and assumed that one day they would marry. Everything was going his way. Now he had to face the truth that he lost her. It dawned upon him that in the end, she was all that really mattered.
He slumped into his seat and sighed. He closed his eyes for a moment when he felt heavy footsteps coming up the aisle. He sat up and twisted around to see who it was.
An Elephim was striding toward them. He had a diamond symbol on his chest that pulsated.
Ray leapt to his feet and fired a bolt of energy at him.
The Elephim stumbled back as he absorbed the blast, then recovered and continued marching.
Ray fired again as the others ducked for cover. The Elephim sidestepped the blast, then leapt up and flew across the cabin toward Ray.
Ray fired wildly into the air as the Elephim uncannily slithered past every bolt. He landed behind Ray and grabbed his wrist in one swift motion, then began dragging him toward the stern.
Ray struggled like a wild man to free himself while indiscriminately firing bolts of energy without regard as to whom he might hit. The Elephim stopped his march to raise a fist and subdue him when Achilles grabbed it.
The Elephim emitted a scream tinged with static as Achilles crushed his fist, forcing him to lose his grip on Ray. Then the robot jerked him off his feet and flung him across the cabin where he hurtled into the pilot house and crashed into the cockpit’s center console in an explosion of broken glass from the smashed vid-screens.
The Elephim scrambled to his feet just as Achilles flew into the cockpit and rammed him. Together they shattered through the windscreen, out of the bubble and into the aqua blue ocean.
Nina watched in amazement as Achilles rocketed past her with an Elephim in its grip. She looked back at the ship and saw Sally staring at her through the shattered cockpit windscreen.
Nina couldn’t hold back her despair as she looked away. She was hoping that Breeze had returned from his battle with the Elephim that he swept off the ship. She wanted nothing more than to hurry up and dump the burdensome vessel on the beach so she could go search for him.
She closed her eyes and let her senses roam free as she scanned the ocean searching for any sign of him. Finding nothing, she shifted her scan to the surface and searched the skies where she saw a brightly lit star descending from high above.
Bram could barely maintain his corporeal form as he struggled to type in the codes to initiate the sequence to break the platform out of its orbit. His plan was to send it plummeting towards the Earth while following the same trajectory as the scout ship’s to Perihelion. The platform would strike the island with tremendous force and level it. Then, he would dig through the rubble and retrieve what was rightfully his and what he had been seeking to regain for so long: his body, entombed deep within the sub-basements of Perihelion. Back inside his own flesh, he would be whole again and not the half-man, half-ghost that he was now.
The two Elephim he assigned to follow the scout ship and retrieve Ray would rendezvous with him later. If he could determine without a doubt that Raymond was not of his seed, he would eliminate him and renew his quest to find his son. And his wife.
Kera, why did you betray me? What have I done to frighten you so? He shook his head. He looked like a haunted spirit from a bygone area. If I find her, then perhaps I will find my son?
The engines shuddered awake and pushed the platform from its orbit, allowing Earth’s gravity to drag it down into the atmosphere.
He floated towards his exoskeleton and slipped inside. Its energy supply and armor would be his body for now, giving him the needed shape and form to complete his tasks. He looked down at his mechanical arms and feet, turning the hands palm up and palm down while he carefully lifted and tested each leg. Everything to him felt heavy and unnatural after being in his astral form for so long.
No matter, he thought to himself. It would do.
He stepped awkwardly to a control panel on the wall and pressed a glowing icon on the screen. The airlock door of the chamber opened and the rapid depressurization blew out everything not bolted down into space. Bram let loose a malevolent grin as he recalled the reason why all platforms were equipped with airlock chambers on the detention level. If there was ever a riot from the prisoners, what better way to quickly get rid of them?
He released the magnetic locks that kept his feet firmly to the floor and was sucked out with the rest of the debris. He then activated the propulsors in the exoskeleton’s boots to escape the gravitational pull of the falling platform and navigated amidst the wreckage of patrol ships and debris to a higher orbit, where another cylindrical platform was maneuvering into position. A patrol ship escorted by a squadron of Elephim emerged from it and headed toward him.
As he waited for the patrol ship to rescue him, he turned to watch the platform plummet in a streak of fire into the atmosphere.
With a fiery arrow from the depths of space, I begin my conquest of this world.
A wicked smile appeared on his face. It was a smile that was undermined by the tint of sadness in his eyes.
Racing toward Perihelion, Breeze caught up to the red striped Elephim and gritted his teeth as he dove to strike him.
The Elephim sensed his approach and rolled hard to the right, forcing Breeze to overshoot his target. He looped around to re-engage and was met by the Elephim slamming hard into his shield. He could feel his body resonate like a bell from the impact as his shield dropped.
His vision was blurred as he fell helplessly from the sky when the Elephim grabbed him by the leg and began spinning in an arc, slowly at first, then faster and faster until the circular motion became a whirlwind.
He blacked out into what felt like a dark oblivion.
Excort reached up to his earpiece and cupped it to better understand what Xenthan, who had returned to air traffic control, was saying over the wireless. He pivoted to look up and saw a gigantic fireball falling from the sk
y and toward the island.
“By the gods, how is this possible? Are you telling me that a platform is descending upon us?” Excort shouted. He then switched frequencies to contact his sons who were repairing the generators, and informed them of the impending catastrophe.
Excort knew that they were doing their best to restore power so the shield could protect the island, though he had his doubts it would be strong enough to fend off something that immense.
We can be seen from above, and they are taking advantage of our lack of cloaking to strike us. Excort grimaced as he watched the fireball plummet toward them.
Xenthan contacted him again. Sensors sown at the bottom of the bay detected a life form being followed by a large metal object, he reported.
Nina, it has to be her, Excort thought, and let loose a brief smile. Finally, some good news.
He called out over the wireless. “Raza, your daughter will be here shortly, with guests.”
He jumped into his rickety hover and sped off.
Achilles propelled at breakneck speed underwater with the diamond-chested Elephim in its grip.
The Elephim was twisting his body violently as he tried to break free, but the robot held him in a headlock and angled to the surface, bursting out of the water and high into the brightly lit sky.
Achilles spotted the shores of Perihelion and raced towards it while tightening its grip on the Elephim. The robot knew it needed to neutralize this black clad monster quickly so it could help Nina and the others, but if it were to destroy him now his death cry would alert his comrades to come and avenge him. The Elephim always recovered their dead.
Stay your hand Achilles, and destroy this abomination behind the fog of Perihelion to better muffle the death screams, Raven advised.
Achilles responded. A brilliant course of action, but there is a discrepancy in your plan that must be addressed; why is the fog not active?
Raven groaned. I had a suspicion as to why we were able to approach the island with such ease. Security obviously has been compromised. Let us find a way to rid ourselves of this burdensome Elephim so we may then discover the reason why the fog has apparently dissipated.
Breeze Corinth (Book 1): Sky Shatter Page 66