by M E Wolf
Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at the devastation believing that no one could survive this. All colour was gone from her face as she flew closer to the scattered corpses and landed on the ground. Turning over many dead bodies she could not find Mhekah among them then she thought to lift one or all of the Fenshian corpses that were on a good number of the soldiers. The ten thousand soldiers that she had checked already were dead.
Digging her claws into one of the Fenshians she struggled to fly and only strained her wings. She budged it only slightly in the many hours she had spent trying to lift it from the ground. When she was about to give up she finally lifted it with one big heave and got it away from the soldiers. All of the soldiers were dead and Mhekah was not with them, but Richard was and he was also dead. Immediately she proceeded to the next Fenshian corpse and lifted it off of the soldiers.
All of the soldiers were dead including Shiantara. At the last one she noticed a soldier in a great deal of pain. His legs were under the last Fenshian. He must have tried to get out of the way of the falling beast. It was Mhekah and he was still alive. With renewed strength she lifted the last Fenshian corpse off the ground and tossed it aside. Going to Mhekah’s side she checked his vital signs and healed him with her touch. The last fifty years of war had aged him greatly, but she was glad that he was alive.
Any longer under the weight of the Fenshian corpse, even though it was only his legs, would have been the end of him. They were both glad that he was still alive after such a gruesome battle that had destroyed all of his men and only he had survived the devastation. In the brightness of the sun in a cleft of rocks on the side of the cliff where they spent the night after Alexandra flew them there, Mhekah described what had happened in the devastating battle and what their plans would have to be changed to,
“It takes a minimum of fifty men to hold up those great spears that we have collected to defeat the Fenshians. We lost so many in the fire and when the beasts fell to the ground.
“They fall so fast and hit so hard we don’t have even enough time to scramble out of their path. Thus, we die if we keep all of our soldiers concentrated in one spot. I suggest that we split our soldiers up and have fifty each on the spear.”
Alexandra interjected,
“Could we not salvage what is left of our ballistae and our catapults to make enough of them to fire upon the Fenshians as well as split the soldiers up to minimize our losses?
“I can also take on a Fenshian in the air with my bow and could use a spear or my sword if needed.” Alexandra waited for his response while he appeared to be thinking intently upon what she had just said.
They would risk everything dear to them to make this work. Only two Fenshians left and the population of the planet still faced extinction.
Mhekah made his decision and then spoke,
“You are right. Let us go to what is left of our army and salvage the war machines. That is the only solution that may give us a fighting chance.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Alexandra and Mhekah were able to get one hundred and fifty ballistae and fifty trebuchets working satisfactorily. Setting up a perimeter of eight hundred thousand feet, a four hundred thousand square foot area, the two hundred war machines were set up with an equal distance between each and had fifty soldiers to man them and fifty soldiers to guard them with the twenty foot long spears.
All they had to do was wait for the Fenshians to arrive and their battle would begin. It already took twenty days to set the field of battle up and many had feared that the Fenshians would arrive right in the middle of their preparations. Soon most were edgy and wished that the battle would commence very soon and others wished that it would never start. On the third day of waiting the Fenshians came from the east, the side of the area with the fifty trebuchets that pointed east.
As Mhekah ordered the trebuchets to fire upon the Fenshians, evasive maneuvers were being carried out to wheel the ballistae around so that they were now pointing at the target. The first forty nine trebuchets missed their targets as the Fenshians dodged the flying boulders and the fiftieth trebuchet’s boulder bounced off one of the Fenshians and looked to have only bruised its ribs. They were still at long range from the beasts.
Alexandra was watched for her signal to the men that manned the ballistae, while the soldiers watched as the beasts got closer and closer to medium range. She signaled the men at the ballistae and their bolts were let loose. To a humanoid the bolts were huge, but to the beasts in the sky they were like arrows were to man. Fifty of the bolts struck the Fenshian on the right. The momentum of its flight took it halfway across the area before it began to plummet to the earth.
The beast only crushed one thousand soldiers instead of the so many before when nearly all of an army was destroyed by thirty Fenshians falling to the ground. Zhexa dodged all of the bolts but one, which had grazed his head. He was a little dazed, but it soon passed even though he felt a little trickle of blood where the bolt had grazed his head. Swooping down towards the ground he rained fire upon them. It did not burn many of them because they were so widely spread out.
Forty of the ballistae did catch on fire as he passed over the area. The trebuchets’ boulders nearly struck him down as he passed over them. Forty nine boulders missed him and one grazed his already bruised ribs. Zhexa saw a shadow out of the corner of his left eye and dodged to the right just in time to let one hundred and fifty arrows pass by him. A few minutes later he had to veer off to his left dodging more arrows.
He searched the ground for the archers and had to fly towards the ground as many more arrows flew high in the sky above him. It dawned on him that the Dochani must have been firing arrows on him when he saw something coming towards his position with extreme speed. He tried to out maneuver the Dochani, but the spear was far too long and his maneuvering only made it so that she struck his wing instead of his heart. Zhexa was falling fast and could not get any flight in to fly off and knew that he would hit the ground as he spiraled out of control towards it.
Alexandra was off balance and falling to the ground with him so he threw a strange black dart at her, it pierced her breastbone and she lost consciousness. Just as he hit the ground and she was about to, a bright light flashed around her and she disappeared. The black dart fell to the ground.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Alexandra was not sure where she was. It was dark and void of any type of atmosphere and she could not understand why or how she could breath without air. On closer inspection of herself she had no form in the place that she was in. All that she remembered from before was being struck in the chest by the black dart and disappearing into thin air.
She did not know how long she had been in the vortex she currently was in. It was like she was in between time. She was not certain if she was alive or dead. The fact that she had no body and only consciousness totally puzzled her. Alexandra felt enlightened as though all knowledge was available to her and yet the accessibility of that knowledge was limited to the knowledge that she already had.
Darkness was all that she could see, but she knew not what she saw that darkness with. Naked is how she felt, but felt as though she had no true form like a body. If she ever got out of this place she knew that she would be different than when she was on the planet that she was fighting the Fenshians on. For some reason when she thought of the Fenshians she could not feel them actually existing now or anytime in the past, but like all things they could either be hiding or just out of the reach of her senses.
It was like they had been gone for thousands of years, but felt that that could not be right as it was only a moment ago that the dart had hit her in the chest, or was it. There was something else that was a greater evil that she felt had destroyed many other civilizations. It was persistent in her mind. She started to have visions of creatures named Mechanaar, which were humans meshed with molten metal. These were mostly made out of machine, monsters to Alexandra.
To her they had no name because all sh
e could do was know where they came from and what they would do to countless galaxies and universes. They did with machines what she could do with her mind. Although she could do nothing in the place that she was in now, she was sure that that would not be the case once she was out of wherever she was now. Time could not be measured where she was because she was not hungry nor thirsty, she only knew that time was passing.
It was like she was there and was not there, sort of like existing and not existing at the same time. Alexandra wondered if the secrets of the universes and galaxies could be had in a place like this. She realized that what she thought of as secrets of the universe was not necessarily the secrets of the universe, but what she did not already know about the universe. A map of the universe unfolded in front of her or she thought it did for the physical did not touch this realm.
The map showed the nearly dead worlds, dead worlds and worlds still active. With time on her hands, Alexandra could figure out how to use the map to travel faster than she had been traveling and it would not matter that she had not been there before. She knew not how she knew that only one place on the map was open to her from this place and that was Geh because all of the other worlds she had been showed up as dead planets or were just not available to her with her current knowledge. The place named Geh was its root name or true name and she did not know the current name.
Alexandra knew that the enemy came from Nem and strangely she felt that that name was the only name that the planet had ever had. Mechanaar, she thought must be long lived too. Just as she was thinking about her mother, her biological one, a surge of information washed over her being and she was pulled into the map where Geh was just as she lost consciousness and flashed out from the inbetween time and into time.
Faster than the speed of light she was sent spinning into the earth of Geh. She was unconscious and naked, changed from what she was before. How much she had changed would be found out once she awoke.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Sir Jacob Matthews was now one hundred and thirty eight years old. It was the year 2150 on earth and he had done many things in his life to make his father proud. Two years had gone by since his father’s death and he had taken it hard. One thing that made him proud of his father was his strength and longevity, since his father did live to a ripe old age of one hundred and seventy-eight. It was also good that he had been the most celebrated writer of his time in the Province of Ontario and discovered that humans had been here during the time of the dinosaurs.
It was all based on fringe science but it was being picked up by famous scientists. His father wrote the famed “Earthling Chronicles” and the even more famed “How to Catch an Alien Spy”. It was fully revised and it is the 5th edition that finally made his father very popular. He was not use to being in the hospital with all of the nurses complaining that he was drinking too much water. Jacob did not like all of the tubes that were stuck in him and he did not even know what half of them were used for. It was the intensive care unit of the cardiac ward of the Toronto League hospital.
The valve replacement surgery was successful and he did not understand why he was still in there. Being a five-time winner of the world martial arts championship, he was not use to being weak. It hurt when he breathed, but it hurt more that no one visited him. As a fifth dan in karate, second dan in Kobodo, a master in Jeet Kune Do, a fencing instructor, a fourth dan in Kendo, a second dan in Iaido and sixth dan in Aikido, he felt completely useless lying on his back and not being able to do things for himself.
When he considered all that he had been through, he was at the resolve that he at least had his wits about him. With four PhDs to his name, Physics, Chemistry, Philosophy and Anthropology, he was well known as a scholar for the Institute of Cosmic Travel and Exploration. He had hoped that one device that he was working on in particular would prove viable enough for him to get the long delayed recognition of a Nobel Prize.
Getting this would give him the funds he needed to extend his research beyond even his expectations. He estimated the Nobel Prize to be at about two million and six hundred thousand dollars. It was just enough money to carry out his research as efficiently as he desired. Jacob was brought out of his deep contemplation when he heard the nurse’s footsteps approaching his bed.
“You have a visitor. I would have had him not come in, but he insisted that he had to see you. Are the scientists at the Institute of Cosmic Travel and Exploration always so pushy and arrogant?” Nurse Cratchet said with outward contempt.
She was usually a pleasant lady and he wondered why she was so uptight about this visitor. As the nurse left his room before he could give her an answer, he could now see why she was so upset. Dr. Ghoranin usually had this effect on most people. He was the kind that felt that he was superior to all. Jacob could feel it for the first time in his association with the man.
Knowing his recent illness made Dr. Ghoranin feel that he was even superior to him, but Jacob knew better. Jacob, even in a sick bed, was far more intelligent than him. Why else would Dr. Ghoranin come to him during work hours?
Dr. Ghoranin sat beside Jacob’s bed for a moment and then produced a device from his inside jacket pocket,
“Government officials have asked us to identify this.” He held up the object for Jacob to see. To Jacob it looked like an ordinary solid black sphere. Dr. Ghoranin continued.
“This device was discovered in a confiscated space ship. A saucer of some sorts that has a power source that we are still puzzled about and this device is the strangest of all.
“We did many tests on it and all have come up inconclusive. It is believed that it is some sort of traveling sphere, but we are not sure.”
Ghoranin handed the device to Jacob and continued.
“We were wondering if you could shed some light on the situation. It never did that when any of us touched it. That is quite strange.” The device shimmered in Jacob’s hands and in fact so did Jacob. A few moments later the device fell onto Jacob’s empty bed and he was gone. Dr. Ghoranin wearily sat at the edge of the bed and did not dare touch the device.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Delaigda was on Primordia and did not understand why society did not want anyone to be using his or her own brains. Everyone still did not understand that they were on a planet and content with just a little piece of land. It made perfect sense to use your brains against a creature that was far larger and stronger than one’s self. The beasts that they had to contend with were dumb, even though they weighed more than thousands of people.
She liked hunting, but society forbade that as well. Women were not allowed to do much in society and this made her feel like leaving. She had a loving family, but they were wrapped up in the politics of the society. Her father was even on the council and disliked the fact that his only daughter of ten children, did not act like a daughter. Being his tenth child it did not hurt him much in the eyes of society, but it still hurt.
Delaigda did not like hurting her father and it hurt her inside when her father winced when anyone came with news about her doing this or doing that. It got to the point where she would get punished no matter what they came to see him about. Most men had at least sixty percent more muscle mass than her, even though she had more than any other woman in the society that she lived in. Most men despised her due to this fact, including her father.
It was obvious that her physical prowess was not gotten from her mother’s side of the family, but from her father’s side. Even though this was so, she was just as beautiful as her mother. The men in her society liked women who were frail and had to depend upon their man to take care of their needs. Delaigda was sad sometimes, actually most times, that she would not marry anyone of importance.
Those of any import were entwined deeply into the web of the council and any attempt to move around against the faction who led them would bring exile. Rumours of the waste were always brought to the lush green lands where her society lived. It was always said that stranger beasts lived there than an
y of those that roamed into the society. The waste was a place where nothing grew and only promised death.
Delaigda took to this the same as she took to the idea that women were useless in a society of men that hulked up to a height of nine feet and sometimes weighed over six hundred pounds. The average woman in her society reached up to a height of five feet and most times weighed less than one hundred and fifty pounds. Delaigda was six feet and four inches tall and weighed one hundred and seventy pounds.
She was not chubby like most women, but actually appeared to be slim and well toned with a very feminine figure. It was completely away from the normal chubby look that the men of society preferred. This is what made her choose to venture into the Waste. Never in her entire life had she taken things that were not hers to take, but now it was necessary. If she were to survive the waste, she would have to take the necessary things from others. Delaigda thought about taking weapons, but decided taking something that was so necessary for the society to survive would be terribly wrong.
Her father’s armour and weapon master taught her the workings of weapon making and armour making in secret for the last fifteen years of her life. Delaigda's weapons and armour needed a few more years of honing, but they would have to do. She could always work on it. So, she took her tools as well as the small anvil that she worked with and put them in a reinforced pack. Wearing the armour and the sword was more practical than carrying them.
Also taking a whetstone, she left for the kitchen to see what she could find for provisions. Filling a large sack with two loaves of day old bread, a pound of soured cheese seasoned to last at least a week without being kept cold, a skin of fermented goat’s milk and two skins of spiced water. From there she went to the Fletcher’s hut to get her composite bow and her fletching tools.