Henning failed to convince Tredd. This was still one small base, and Vorlar had practically infinite resources he could throw against them. ‘Fighting the DAN is madness,’ he said, as a dozen young men and women in white marched in through the door. ‘We would be better off taking Aino with us and leaving the site. If you have an escape route, let us use it.’
Henning seemed to consider Tredd’s suggestion. He rose up from the seat as the white-clad Avalonians sat themselves down on the five chairs on each side of the centre and connected simple wires onto their temples. Henning seemed thoughtful as he looked at the screen. The timer was counting the last few seconds. ‘Looks like our time is up.’
Tredd rose up, and looked up at the tactical map. The navy fleet was still floating steady and calm a few dozen kilometres away from Avalon, but as he watched, the first wave engaged their engines, and started zooming towards Avalon. The dozen Avalonians sitting each side of them closed their eyes.
‘They will be here in under thirty seconds,’ Henning said, before Tredd could ask about the sleepers. ‘Engage active defence capabilities in full. Issue code red, we need everyone underground!’
Outside, in the Garden, a siren started wailing as red lights flashed around the enclosing wall. The white-clad people outside looked up to the skies and scrambled towards the buildings. Above them, a dark grey force field activated, securing the airspace inside the wall above the Garden. Outside the force field, on top of the walls, a number of hatches opened and turrets rose up from them. As the last inhabitants hurried in to the buildings and down underground, the huge gardener robots, which had all been sitting still, activated and stood up. The robots replaced their ploughing gear with laser cannons and harvesters with missile launchers. They started patrolling the Garden, scanning the grounds and the skies.
Evie tapped Tredd on the shoulder, and stared at a screen with a pulsating red frame. ‘What happens now?’
Tredd leaned against the railing in front of the screens, and found himself clenching and unclenching his sweaty fists. It pained him to stay put in an underground bunker while a battle was starting above them. This was Henning’s playground; he was in charge. The more Tredd thought of it, the more anxious he grew. ‘We must get out of here,’ he muttered.
Evie nodded. ‘I agree. Hey, where’s Eddie?’
Damn, Tredd thought, and turned around as if to see if he was at the command centre. ‘He went to the presence room… Blast, he’s still there.’
Outside, the first wave of assault fighters neared the walls of Avalon. The turrets on the walls locked on to the fighters and shot bursts of small missiles at them. The assault fighters shot their heavy missiles at the walls. There was a surge of explosions in mid-air as few of the missiles hit each other, then in just a few seconds five assault fighters exploded in the air in a sequence, followed by another two circling down in flames. As they plunged to the ground, the first wave of heavy missiles hit the walls of Garden.
The muffled rumble shook the command centre. Aino snuggled behind Evie and held her hand, but Henning stood tall and confident. ‘Their missiles are like wooden spears to my energy plates. You haven’t seen anything yet,’ he said.
The screens ran live-action video of the battle outside, as well as a radar map with numerous small dots representing the fighters, moving around the compound like swarming bees. There were more than Tredd had expected, at least double the amount. Vorlar was not pulling any punches. Looking at the force they were up against, Tredd became more and more convinced that, even with the firepower Henning seemed to have under him, the navy would run them over. He needed to get out, but he was not going to do it without Eddie.
Tredd went up to Henning, who was fully focused on the battle. ‘I need to find my pilot. He was escorted to the presence rooms—’
‘Of course,’ Henning said, without even looking at Tredd. ‘Leanna, could you please connect Captain Bounty with Mr Parkes in the quest presence rooms?’
‘Certainly, sir,’ replied a young lady with a long brown ponytail. She turned around on her seat and beckoned Tredd to come and look at the screen in front of her. She flipped around some views, and then stopped to stare at one and frowned. ‘The presence rooms are offline. Actually, all of section 12 is offline, because of the damage sustained to the hub above.’
‘Are the rooms all right?’ Tredd asked.
She swiped over to a different kind of a map view. ‘The presence rooms are right below a missile hit – the connection is gone, the rooms… I don’t know.’
‘Any sign of my pilot?’
Leanna shook her head. ‘Not since he entered the presence room. They’re private, you see. He might still be there, but he can’t connect anywhere.’
With all this equipment, they are unable to tell where Eddie is or whether he in alive. Whoever shot that missile sure hit the sweet spot.
‘We have to get there,’ Tredd said, as another rumbling sound came from above them and something beeped urgently on a console beside them. ‘I need a map.’
Leanna raised an incredulous eyebrow. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘I’m not leaving him.’
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea—’
‘Leanna, it’s OK,’ Henning said. He had appeared beside her and rested his hand on her shoulder. Turning to Tredd, he said, ‘You can download the map of non-restricted areas. I suggest you take the northern passage until you reach the edge of Gamma area, and then take the stairs up. You’ll end up a bit away from the presence rooms… just in case.’
Tredd stared into his grey eyes and found the same concern he had: the possibility that Eddie was buried in the rubble of a collapsed tunnel. He brushed the thought away with a deep breath, and said, ‘Thank you.’
He pulled up his terminal, and noticed Leanna had just uploaded the map. He turned the map around, zoomed in, and pointed at an intersection of corridors. ‘So, going up from here – and around this way to the presence rooms here?’
Leanna nodded.
‘Wish me luck,’ Tredd said. He took one more glance at the map in his terminal and pushed it back to his jacket. He hurried towards the door.
Evie caught up with him, and said, ‘If you’re going, I want to come too.’
‘No. I want you to stay with Aino. And keep an eye on Henning… Make sure he doesn’t do anything funny. I’ll be back soon.’
Evie looked like she was about to say something, but then only nodded and stepped aside.
She was a smart one, Tredd thought as he opened the door. She would be all right. Aino would be safe with her.
The explosions rumbled up above as he entered a dark, greenly lit corridor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
AS THE OTHERS went up to meet Aino’s father, a young man escorted Eddie down to the Garden. His name was Yonatan, and he was a head taller than Eddie, skinny, and by the looks of his smooth jaw, still in his teens. Eddie had descended with him in an elevator to the ground level, which was much lower than it was outside the walls. They walked across the meadow on a gravel road, towards a block of white dwellings. A man and a woman, both in loose white trousers and shirts, walked past them, greeting them with a smile as they passed.
Eddie responded with hesitant smile. ‘You all wear white?’ he asked Yonatan, trying to make conversion.
‘Yes, sir, we do,’ Yonatan said, nodding to Eddie. Walking, he held a graceful posture, stomach in, chest out, and chin up. He continued, ‘White is the purest of all the colours. It is because we, the Children of Light, think our souls as pure as the stars they come from, and the white outfit we wear is a reflection of this – it reflects the purity of soul.’
Showing off the purity of one’s soul, Eddie thought, is a form of vanity. ‘You must be very pure, because all I’ve seen is people in white. Except the lady who let us in, Adessa, she wore green. Is she not pure?’
Yonatan chuckled. ‘Sir, it is the hostess’s formal outfit. She will wear white when she’s off duty, for sure. The
green reflects the natural life, and it is the most calming colour. This is why we use it when welcoming visitors.’ All the time he spoke, his face held a holier-than-thou smile, which almost seemed sincere.
The way we were welcomed, Eddie thought, made me miss the colour of her outfit, but each to their own… As they neared one of the white buildings, Eddie marvelled at how big the whole complex was. The walls were barely visible between the trees, despite their huge size, and the view to the blue sky above was only disturbed by the small crackles of leaves or birds passing through what seemed to be a selective force field. ‘This place is huge.’
‘That’s right, sir, and from here we can only see a part of it.’
‘Only a part?’ Eddie spun to view the multi-storey walls around the expansive greenery.
‘Yes, sir,’ Yonatan said, and pointed down. ‘There’s more below the surface. More than half of our compound is below ground. It’s a very stable area to build underground.’
‘Really?’ Eddie was surprised that there was this kind of a site in Eura. He had thought he knew everything worth knowing about his home planet. ‘So, how many of you live here then?’
‘We are about ninety thousand. Just like myself, over 95% of us have been born here. The rest are immigrants, and these days we get very few new ones. This is because we are reaching capacity, and very few want to leave.’
‘Perhaps that’s the reason I haven’t heard of you.’
‘Excuse me, sir, what do you mean?’
‘I was born on this planet. I grew up in Initia, but I’ve never heard of this place.’
Eddie had expected a response, but Yonatan said nothing. Instead, they walked silently to the entrance of the sleek white building, their destination. A man in a white outfit rode past them on a graceful grey rhengo. It had been a while since Eddie had seen one, and he had to admire the six-legged animal’s graceful stride as it passed.
As they entered through the automatic doors, Yonatan broke the silence. ‘This is the guest house. You and your friends will be allocated rooms in this building, and the reception will be pleased to organise a presence room for you. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?’
‘That’s all,’ Eddie said. He just wanted to get to a presence room to connect with Cass and the boys.
Eddie strode up to the reception’s long white desk in front of a marine-blue wall. Like in the fancy hotels, instead of a bot, the receptionist was a human, and again dressed in an all-white outfit. She wore no make-up and had her mid-brown hair down. She greeted Eddie with a warm smile. ‘Good day, sir, checking in?’
‘I’m just visiting,’ he said, leaning against the counter. ‘I was told I could use a presence room.’
‘Of course, sir. Let me organise one for you.’ The clerk brushed her hair back, pressed a few buttons, and confirmed Eddie’s identity from the Dawn Network. Once everything was confirmed, she said, ‘You now have the access to the presence rooms on the lower ground level.’ She pointed towards the elevators.
Eddie thanked her and walked across the hall. He was eager to call his family, but at the same time it was going to be difficult – explaining the things they had done against the Dawn Alliance was easy, they had been cleared, after all, but how was he going to explain why he had not been in contact? He could not explain it to himself either. But he was certain he was going to keep his mouth shut about Star Bar. It never happened.
Once he entered the presence room, it took him only a few minutes to get set up and connected. It was midday in Bella, and the grey room around him morphed into the living room of his home. He loosened his collar.
Cassandra appeared, sitting on the couch in front of Eddie. She was as beautiful as ever, tanned in her golden flower summer dress and with her shiny black hair pulled back. The only thing missing was a smile.
‘Cass,’ Eddie said as he sat down beside her. ‘How are you?’
‘Good.’ She pursed her lips.
‘That’s good.’
For a moment they sat in silence.
Eddie put on a smile.
Cassandra looked daggers. ‘How do you think I am?’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘You left without a trace, and I don’t hear from you for days. Then the Dawn Alliance officials come over… I thought you were dead, but they start asking all these questions—’
The government visited our home. Blast it! ‘What did you tell them?’
Cassandra knitted her brows. ‘What have you gotten yourself into, Edmund?’ Her voice was calm, but cold.
She never called him Edmund – unless she was mad at him. Eddie took a deep breath, and said, ‘It’s a long story… We escaped crashing stars and pinched to an uncharted space to help a little girl home, but it’s all good now. I’m in Eura, and once we’re done here, I will head back home.’
‘I can’t live like this,’ she said shaking her head.
‘I know,’ Eddie said. He meant it. FIST had cleared him with the Dawn Alliance, and now that Aino was home, they were ready to go. ‘If it all goes well, I’ll be home tomorrow.’
‘Make sure you are,’ Cassandra said, pointing at him to accentuate the message. ‘The boys—’
Without warning, Cassandra and the brightness of their living room disappeared. Eddie found himself stumbling in the middle of a cold grey presence room. He heard a muffled rumble, and felt the ground tremble. Then the lights flickered, and in a moment the grey room faded to black.
‘What the…? Computer, reconnect.’
There was no reply. The green emergency lights came on, and the standard console at the side of the door woke up.
‘Computer?’
The computer remained silent. Eddie sprang to the door, and pressed the manual override to open it. As the door opened, he felt relieved, but as he peered into the corridor, lit with the emergency green, he felt his heart pounding harder. Perhaps it was just an electrical outage, but the rumble made him nervous. It reminded him of a battle in Nohadon, but this was no war zone. Must have been a euraquake, but in the middle of a tectonic plate? Unlikely. Something’s going on. He ran to the elevator.
The elevator was out of operation – of course, the building had gone into a safety mode. Right beside the elevators he could see an emergency stairwell. He reached for the handle, and at the moment when his hand touched the cool metal, the ground shook again, harder than it had before. Eddie squeezed the handle to keep himself balanced. Whatever had caused the ground to shake was much closer now.
Eddie opened the door to the stairwell. He heard a loud rumble, and saw the corridor’s ceiling come down behind the elevators. Stony rubble, metal, glass and plastics came crashing down with a wave of dust. Just before it caught up with Eddie, he entered the stairwell and quickly closed the door behind him. His training took over, and he started running up. He could not run far – the stairwell above him had also collapsed.
Chemical stench filled the dusty air. Eddie ducked his nose inside his elbow.
What in the name of the Shades is happening? There was no way to go up, and by the looks of it, it was not going to be long until the upstairs collapsed even further. If there’s no way up, I must go down, Eddie thought, hoping he could access another exit from a lower level.
He turned around and ran down the stairs, moving deeper underground.
There was no door where Eddie thought the floor below the presence rooms was, so he continued down, down and down. It must have been at least five floors before he finally came to a door. He heard a low rumble and felt a tremor, but it was softer, further away now. He opened the door and peered out to another silent, green-lit corridor.
Looking left, Eddie felt relieved to see that this one was intact, and continued far, so there was a chance it was connected with another stairwell – a potential exit. Turning his head to the right, he was startled to see a little girl in white running towards him.
‘Are you all right?’ Eddie asked as she approached.
She stopp
ed two metres before him and said, ‘We must hide. They are coming, and we’re all still here.’
That didn’t make any sense. Eddie was just about to ask her what she meant, but as the girl came closer Eddie realised she looked very familiar. Wearing a whole white dress made her look different, but as she looked up at Eddie with her large pink eyes, he realised it was Aino.
‘We must go now,’ she said, beckoning Eddie to join her.
Eddie took a slow step forward. ‘Aino?’
She nodded. ‘Yes?’
Eddie remembered the others were going to the tower. How can she be here? I wasn’t in the presence room for that long, was I? ‘Where are the others?’
She sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘They are all asleep. You must help me now.’
This was getting even weirder. Surely it wasn’t that long. ‘How can they be asleep?’
She made a face and shook her head. ‘We don’t have the time! Just come on. We must wake them up and find a way out.’
‘We can’t go up.’
‘Why?’
Eddie pointed up. ‘There was a euraquake. The stairwell is collapsed.’
‘There is another one from where I came. Come on, let’s go and wake up the others.’ She turned her back to Eddie and started walking. Her eyes reflected a fearless determination that Eddie hadn’t seen there before. He knew about her gift, but for the first time he could really feel that there was something truly special about her.
‘All right,’ Eddie said, and started after her. ‘Where are they?’
Aino glanced over her shoulder and said, ‘Follow me.’ Then she started running.
Eddie followed her through the dimly lit green and black corridors. They passed a few nondescript doors, and took a few turns. She ran surprisingly fast and Eddie had to exert himself to keep up. So this is what Yonatan was referring to, Eddie thought. There were so many different directions to go, so many endless corridors. He had thought Yonatan was exaggerating, but now running down the corridors, passing arrow signs such as ‘Sigma 3400–3500’, he realised this was truly an enormous underground building. Nobody’s around… How did she find me? It was completely silent except for their muffled steps on the soft flooring and the low hum of ventilation. The longer their trip took, the louder Eddie heard his heartbeat thumping in his ears. Did something happen to Tredd and Evie? Or did something happen to me? It felt like he had descended into another world. He slowed down to walk, shook his head, and blinked. It felt so unreal. He was panting. ‘Aino, wait!’
Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1) Page 34