Elysium Shining
Page 41
The library was meant to be quiet, but this silence was as close to deafening as any that Dasos had heard in his life. The Peacekeeper pointed to the stairs going down, and Dasos nodded. Together they passed the first basement, leading their charges down when it appeared safe, and then entered the second one. A pair of Hulda’fi were down there, standing by a room with a console and adjacent servers. Their masks were off, and the two rebels were more preoccupied with one another’s attention than guarding the university’s inter-server. Dasos rolled his head and eyes.
The boy among the pair spotted the Peacekeeper to one side. He pushed himself, and the girl, back against the wall. Dasos expected the two of them to lash out, but they acted frightened. He had flanked the duo from the other side.
“No,” the girl said when she saw Dasos, “don’t hurt us.”
“Don’t move,” said Dasos.
“No one was supposed to come,” said the boy. “We only agreed to be down here because it was the two of us all by ourselves.”
“Meanwhile the others are hurting countless innocents all over the galaxy. Sorry, but I don’t believe that you, alone, are harmless.”
“You’re wrong. Our brothers and sisters aren’t so dangerous. Our Lord and Lady wouldn’t allow it,” said the girl.
“I don’t know where you’ve been, but your kind have been harming others for several revolutions.”
“No, hallowed are the pleasures of the flesh!”
“Get on the ground, face-down,” said the Peacekeeper, who came closer from his side of the bookcases that were full of reference books and back-up storage disks for the periodicals. “Do it, and you’ll only be taken somewhere cozy. None of us want to hurt anyone we don’t have to.”
The girl obeyed by holding her arms to the side and bending her legs so she was sitting on her ankles. Her partner bent one knee while facing the Peacekeeper, but then darted sideways towards Dasos. Dasos grabbed the boy’s hand and socked him in the stomach. With an open hand Dasos followed up the hit by grabbing the boy’s chest and pushing forward. He slammed the young rebel’s body against the ground.
“Please don’t hurt him,” said the girl. “Brother, why did you attack? This isn’t us. We are not violent. We’re not!”
“Shut up, sister,” said the boy. “We take what we want. The Hallowed Lady says so. Hallowed are the Tunderek.”
Dasos shouted back towards the stairs, saying, “It’s safe to come down. Tonny?”
The Peacekeeper said, “You don’t know that yet.” He bound the girl’s arms and legs, and propped her against the wall.
“It’s safe enough. Tonny, where are you?”
Seconds later the technician appeared, but not Tong-Chang. He said, “The young lady ran outside.”
“She did what?”
“There is a utility box outside that operates the electrical power to the university. She decided that shutting everything down that way might be easier.”
With a shallow gasp, the boy said, “No, she can’t. You can’t let her do that. We need the servers and relays running. You can’t do this to us!” He flailed beneath Dasos like a fish, but Dasos stared past the technician toward the stairs.
Something dawned on him. He got up and ran when he realized the likelihood of what was about to happen if Tong-Chang succeeded, or what it would mean for her if she failed. He knew that the rebels used the relays’ infected signal, plus their mindsets that had been addled by the drug, to teleport around the area. Tong-Chang had no way of monitoring whether or not anyone was mid-teleport. She had no protection against oncoming shooters or attackers beyond her own fighting ability.
The number of steps to every stair, the signs asking for quiet within the library, the distance he had to run; none of it mattered in the slightest. Dasos ran until he turned the last corner outside and heard a woman scream in agony.
Tong-Chang sat next to the utility box—a structure that had been painted green with two orange stripes at the top—and held her hands over her mouth as she looked in utter horror. A Hulda’fi lay across the ground, reaching out to her. Their mangled body appeared to be in the process of collapsing from a sudden loss of weight. Somewhere between the Hulda’fi on the ground and where they started was everything that they had lost in an instant.
Dasos walked to his best friend and took her into his arms. He tried his best to avert her gaze from the dying rebel. She didn’t need to see the grotesque display lying across the clover.
“I killed them,” she said. “I should have thought of this. I killed all of the rebels who were teleporting.”
“You did what you had to do,” Dasos said. “I’m so sorry, Tong-Chang.”
“I’ve killed one of them before, but how does it hurt this bad?” Her body quaked in his arms. “They’re horrible people, and it feels like this.”
“We’re not monsters like they are. We recognize the pain that comes with ending any life.” Meanwhile, the real monsters gathered in the distance. Several of them, more than he cared to count, stared right at them through their masks. He couldn’t see their faces, but he knew what to expect.
The Hulda’fi drew their weapons, some ranged and others not. Dasos took Tong-Chang and moved quickly. “Run,” he said. The first gun blast missed them and hit the utility box.
* * *
A single dead Hulda’fi lay on the concrete floor where the crowd of people had dispersed and the scream had sounded. Zoey looked at the body. The first thought to come to her mind was the transmat phenomenon that gave her the body she had now, and other thoughts gave chase through her mind, such as the many Hulda’fi teleporting around and the power going out without warning.
“Stay calm, everyone!” said Keft’aerak. He swiftly picked up his cell-comm and spoke into it. “We have some bodies down here that need to be moved due to the panic they are inducing. Material Transference One, can you take the one twelve meters from my position? Thank you. One more thing; we will have a few people transporting up to you momentarily. Please stand by.”
Zoey watched as a red sheen outlined the rebel body and the corpse was gone in a flash. She twitched in several places.
“Are you alright, Zoey?” her dad asked.
“I’ll be fine,” said Zoey.
“Good. My ship isn’t the gold standard of the galaxy like the Marslou, but we’ll be both secure and comfortable up there, aboard the Hav Svan.”
“O-oh, you’re taking me up there.”
“Of course. It isn’t safe for you down here. I’ll have Dasos and Tonny sent up as well when we find them.”
“I need to get my things.”
“They’re just things, Zoey.”
She shook her head. “They’re more than that. They’re keepsakes; my wallet and phone, Il’lyse’s computer. Besides, if we have time then I need to help find my brother and girlfriend.”
“I’m not sure I can risk that.”
“What about Tonny’s child?”
“Child?”
Bon’sinne set a hand on her husband’s shoulder. She took a moment to whisper in his ear, during which time Keft’aerak recoiled deflated. He hadn’t known about the baby until now, and this was one revelation he did not need amidst the discord all over the galaxy he was charged to explore and protect.
“So I see,” he said. He grabbed something from his side pouch and handed it to Zoey. “Find her, and use this. We’ll be able to calibrate the transmat to the three of you, her unborn child included.”
He pressed a box in her hands the size of her palm. She said, “I so hate the idea of transporting.”
“I’m aware, but you got this.”
Banging sounds echoed a distance away. Zoey looked in the direction that they came from. They were reminiscent of the guns that the Hulda’fi used, compared to the other ones that Zoey had heard in either life. Seconds later Bon’sinne flipped a pistol in her hands, activating it, and Keft’aerak checked his side where he had kept the gun. She looked out from the plaza where the Hul
da’fi could be seen chasing after two people.
Zoey recognized Dasos and Tong-Chang as the two of them ran to the side. The Peacekeepers and Bon’sinne fired their guns out at the rebels, but they were far away. More shots missed than hit. Yet they kept firing. The Hulda’fi broke off again.
“We should pursue them,” said Bon’sinne. “This suppression fire, alone, is going to waste time and ammunition.”
“Agreed,” Keft’aerak said, taking his gun back gently. “Charge the Hulda’fi; take who we can.”
The Peacekeepers ran after the rebels with Zoey’s dad among them. Zoey looked out in the direction that her brother and girlfriend had run. It was towards the building where she had General Complements. She ran after them.
* * *
They entered a space between the library and a pair of classrooms, conjoined by a hallway with a series of windows on one side. The Hulda’fi were no longer following Dasos and Tong-Chang where they stood, but Dasos wanted to keep on moving. He did not want to take any more chances today. What if the Hulda’fi changed their minds and went after them again?
Tong-Chang stopped him with a tug of the arm. Her breaths were shallow and exhausted. She said, “Stars beyond, I shouldn’t be running with this baby inside me. It’s really tiring. Come on, we need to head back into the library.”
“Why?” Dasos said.
“I’ve thought of something while we were getting away from those rebels. I need to find a certain book real quick. It has to do with Zoey’s transformation.”
“Now? We can do that later when we don’t have every last Hulda’fi in the galaxy gunning after us. None of us wants anything to happen to you or your baby, in case you didn’t realize that.”
“Don’t you see? It’s because of what we did, and because of this pregnancy, that I know what to look for. If I don’t look now, then there’s no telling when I’ll remember later on. Then it will bother me like some unseen pest buzzing around the room while I try to get anything else done. I know it sounds stupid, but I have to do this.”
“Das! Tonny!” said Zoey when she turned the corner and caught up with them.
“Zoey, my love.” They embraced each other.
“Why were so many Hulda’fi after you like that?”
“I kind of shut down the power to the inter-servers by doing the same to the rest of the campus. I’m trying not to think about it. A few of them died, Zoey. Maybe more.”
“Yes, I saw.”
“I want to grieve them, I want to rest, but we have to get to safety.”
“Right. My dad handed me this box, whatever it is.” Zoey held up a device that was smaller than her fists. Dasos recognized it the second he could see what it was.
“That’s a transmat beacon. It can make a perfect matrix around the holder and let someone teleport you to them. Why would he hand you this? Wait, why is he here?”
“His ship, the Hav Svan, is one of several vessels up in orbit right now. He knows about your pregnancy, and handed me this so we can both be brought up safely. I don’t know. I hate transmats.”
Dasos said, “Then we should go. His crew will be expecting us.”
“I still have to grab my things. They’re inside the classroom over here. Did you see anyone go in or out of it?”
“I don’t think so. Tonny says she has to grab something from the library. I’m not a fan of either of you going anywhere.”
“Then let’s meet back here in ten minutes, or somewhere close by if this spot is too dangerous by then. Tong-Chang and I will head up together. Das, are you able to contact Dad’s ship to have them bring you up?”
“I think my cell-comm is running low on battery power, but I can do that. This doesn’t seem like the best idea.”
“Let me know when a ‘best idea’ comes along.”
Zoey kissed him on the forehead, followed by Tong-Chang on the lips. She ran off without another word.
* * *
A team of Hulda’fi, the last of the Kroke Team, was running toward the plaza from the northeast, where the student lounge sat. Soror Valide asked herself what she was if not one of them. She sat in a tree, concealing herself in its bare branches, as her former brother and sisters came closer.
Lord and Lady Tunderek will hear of this. They will know everyone turned on me. They will accept me with open arms.
She jumped down upon one of the girls after they passed the tree. A few of them turned, but she was a beast to their mice, an armed ship to their shuttles, and a neutron star to their protostars. Soror Valide punched, kicked, and grappled her former brother and sisters in a fury matched by the force of a planet colliding with all of its moons and satellites.
For every one of them that fell, she felt for something, anything, within herself. There was nothing. This wasn’t enough.
The few Hulda’fi who had made it as far as the lounge met with a hard-hitting fate of their own. A single Aelf woman in a gi dealt some blows to them until the final boy and girls were all on the ground writhing in pain. Soror Valide saw her mom’s face and knew there was no more running away. Fear grabbed for her heart, but she kicked it as hard as she had done to her kindred. There was only one way to end this.
“That’s an impressive level of skill you have,” Bon’sinne said. “Who are you?”
The sole answer that Soror Valide gave her was by entering a fighting stance. She was a fourth level, the highest among the Hulda’fi as far as she knew. Her mom was a sixth level, Bon’sinne had once told her, many revolutions ago.
“Oh, it’s you,” Bon’sinne said. “Soror Valide.”
“Enough talk, and no more running,” Soror Valide said.
Her mom ran for her, and Soror Valide charged as well.
* * *
Zoey entered the classroom. The two rows of desks toward the front had all been knocked forward as if aimed at something that stood in front of the table, which stood where it was because it was stationary.
Her jacket and book bag sat further back, and on the other side of the room from the entrance. She took another step into the room before looking to her left.
Bu was aiming a gun right at her, as well as her wicked smile.
[ 48]
“I knew you would be coming back for your shit,” said Bu.
Zoey said, “Why did you take Il’lyse?”
“It was my job. Woo the troubled youth, run away with them, and take them to Lady Tunderek to be blessed by her. It’s what I do.”
“Your brother blames himself for letting you turn out the way you are.”
“So, you’ve met Ren’baek? That pretentious ass never did know where his reach began and where it ended. I guess I’ll no longer need my alias. When my kin are done wreaking havoc across the alliance territory, we will be able to take anything from it at any time. I’ll be able to enjoy more of those blessings instead of working all the time to add to our numbers.”
“But why Il’lyse?”
“She was troubled. She still is, though I understand she’s too broken and out of control. Now we have our eyes on someone better to replace her with. All you have to do,” Bu stepped down from where she sat and approached Zoey, “is say yes to joining us. Be our new sister, Zoi’ne.”
“I have a family, thanks.”
Buska laughed. “Some family. A father who is always away for work. A mother who was the same until she cracked and slew innocents, ending her dream career with the military. A brother who distances himself because running is easy. His twin sister who will die today, because the Lord and Lady have willed it. I understand two of your so-called family are fighting to the death as we speak.”
Her obnoxious laugh resumed.
* * *
Her mom was testing her. Soror Valide wasn’t giving the fight her all as of yet either. She wanted to find a weakness that she could use while the two of them fought. But no matter how much she tried to extract from her mother’s fighting stances, Soror Valide could only see that Bon’sinne was holding back.