The Chronicles of Soone--Heir to the King

by James Somers

  Now he just had to keep his mind centered on the tunnel up ahead so that he could make sure nothing else happened to prevent the car from reaching its destination. If this was their only shot at stopping General Grod from completing the DNA regeneration of his troops then he had to make sure nothing would trigger the automated system to stop the car.

  He could sense the other car up ahead as he projected down the length of the tunnel. It was out of the path of his car and he was approaching their position rapidly. In a few moments he had passed their car tucked away in a recess of the tunnel wall. Orin continued to project his mind up ahead. Nothing appeared to be in the way and within ten more minutes he felt the car and tunnel begin an upward ascent. Daylight came into the car abruptly as it emerged on the surface within the city of Baeth Periege.

  He quickly made his way to the front window of the car and could see what must have been the cloning complex in the distance ahead. The speed of the car was rapidly declining as it entered the city. Overhead, he could see the massive magnetic rings that Wynn and Daooth had spoken of.

  A barrier came halfway up the height of the rings and stretched between them on either side. He supposed it must have been a preventive measure to keep someone from inadvertently falling or climbing into the path of the rail cars. Otherwise, there was open space between the rings from that height upward and this would be his means of escape.

  Orin looked over the bomb mechanism once more, then raised his blade from its scabbard and cut a circle into the roof of the car large enough for him to pass through. He shot up through the hole and came to stand on the roof of the car. He could feel the tingling of the magnetic field around the car and beneath the rings. Several items including his blaster pistol flew off of his person toward the rings as he passed underneath them. Fortunately the adomen that formed his blade was not magnetic.

  Around the rail system on either side was a massive open area that separated the main city from the outer perimeter. It was lavish, with decorative pools and gardens of every sort and Orin thought how surprising it was to find such things in the Vorn city.

  He had never considered the peaceful or artistic side that the Vorn might possess. They had been the enemy for so long that he had never looked beyond any characteristic that wasn’t oppressive or linked with this war.

  On the right of the magnetic rail he could see where Grod’s army had knocked out a large portion of the defense shield and had secured the area just inside. It appeared they were making a definite effort to push the Vorn away from the cloning facility.

  Perhaps Grod had already gotten inside and begun the process to regenerate himself with Tiet’s DNA. If any of them were inside, they were about to get a big surprise.

  To the left were several ships docked upon a huge landing platform. None of them would have made Orin look twice except one. It was a Barudii ship. A strider. It sat within a number of Vorn military ships, some of which were powering up to escape the onslaught of Grod’s army.

  He picked his moment and leapt away from the rail car. It continued on without him toward the cloning facility, but he wasn’t watching it anymore. He was transfixed upon the Barudii ship. It had been his ship and had been stolen previous to the massacre of his people.

  It was nearly five hundred yards away from him and he began to run toward it. He could see it exhausting from the engine’s cooling vents. Whoever was inside was planning on leaving very shortly.

  Behind him, the rail car came into the station at the cloning facility. Several of Grod’s men who were guarding the entrance raised their weapons as they saw the rail car coming into the docking site. The car slowed and the men moved toward it, but they couldn’t see anyone through the windows. The car stopped and the doors opened for unloading.

  Orin was closing within two hundred yards of the strider. Behind him came a flash of light that cast his shadow upon the ground running in front of him. The sound came less than a second later along with a blast wave that knocked Orin off of his feet. He tumbled and looked back to see the cloning facility blossoming like a flower with petals of debris and flame. The job he came here to do was done, but now there was something more.

  Orin quickly got back to his feet and turned back to the landing platform he had been heading for. To his amazement, the gateway was down and someone was walking out to see the devastating explosion. Orin had started to run, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the man standing there. Then the man caught his gaze and they locked together in time.

  Each of them recognized the other in a way few could ever understand. Rage flooded every fiber of Orin’s being. He surrendered to it and sprinted toward the man standing under the strider. At nearly the same instant the man ran towards Orin. He removed a blade from a scabbard under the long coat that he wore. Orin pulled his own blade.

  They took to the air as they approached one another. Their ignited blades struck one another as they passed and Orin struck the other man’s face with a quick jab. They both soft landed and turned to face one another with blades on guard.

  The other man staggered a moment from the hit, as he landed. He touched his face with his hand and looked at the blood when he pulled his hand away. The cloning facility burned behind him.

  “So, what I was told was true!” shouted Orin. “You murderer! You’re a traitor to your family and your people!”

  The man did not answer the charge. He raised his blade and leapt again at Orin, who stood his ground. The man came down with a powerful blow and Orin matched his blade. They exchanged several quick blows, then Orin was knocked backward by a kinetic blow from the other man. He flipped over and recovered himself quickly; bringing his blade to bear.

  “So Kale, I see you have been training. You rejected your people, but not their ways?”

  “I was rejected by my father and my people!” said Kale angrily, and he blasted at Orin again with his mind, but the mental attack was countered and nullified.

  “You betrayed your father the King! And for what? So that you could join up with the enslavers of our planet?!”

  “No! For revenge. What loyalty did I owe to him when he dishonored me, his only son, before our people?!”

  “Not your people anymore. And not his only son,” said Orin sarcastically.

  Kale struck again and again but Orin did not let his blade through. Suddenly he sensed someone else and quickly evaded another blade in flight. He launched himself up and away and came down to find two more Barudii surrounding him with Kale.

  “So you led away other traitors as well?”

  Kale and the other two Barudii rebels closed in on him simultaneously with blades drawn and ignited. Orin pulled a kemstick from under his cloak and ignited it. He did not wait for them to strike, but took the fight to them.

  He struck at one of the two Barudii, while simultaneously attacking the other man with his kinesis.

  The first defended himself with his blade while the man under Orin’s mental attack failed to perceive his own weakness. Orin caused a massive firing of pain neurons throughout the man’s body, especially in his hands and arms.

  He buckled under the mental attack and threw his sword away as though it were on fire. Orin immediately sent his kemstick spinning behind his body at the newly vulnerable target. It caught the man directly in the chest. He seized and fell to the ground dead, as the kemstick fell away.

  Orin diverted between his two remaining opponents, striking and countering as each came at him. He tried a mental attack on the other unnamed Barudii, but found him protecting himself kinetically. Kale moved in again as Orin defended a strike from the other. He tried to mentally pull the kemstick from the ground, but Kale intercepted it in flight and cut through the handle of the weapon, destroying it.

  Orin wondered in passing thought if he would lose this confrontation. The other Barudii man was not nearly as skilled, but having to deal with both at the same time was tipping the scales out of his favor. Suddenly explosions began to erupt on the air field around
them.

  They each looked to the direction of the attack to see the army of General Grod beginning to move toward their position. Large war machines were firing volleys from some distance away at the ships on the huge landing platform, apparently in an attempt to destroy those preparing for lift off.

  Orin used the distraction to strike again at Kale, who skillfully intercepted his strike but did not anticipate the leg sweep that Orin caught him off guard with; sending him backwards to the ground. The other Barudii renegade took advantage of Orin’s move against Kale to strike at Orin from behind. As Orin turned to counter the strike, something flashed behind the man and a blade shot through his chest.

  Orin looked toward the point of origin to find Tiet and Wynn emerging from the magnetic rail safety wall and running hard toward them. He was glad to see them, but for a quick moment the tragedy of Tiet seeing Kale and vice versa flashed in his mind. He turned to strike at Kale again who was still on the ground trying to get up.

  He locked eyes with the younger man in that instant, and then Kale glanced behind Orin to the blade that had been hurled into his comrade. Orin did not have time to discern what had caught Kale’s attention. The Barudii blade catapulted away from the fallen man’s body under Kale’s mental control and pierced Orin from behind. He lurched in shock and pain; his eyes still locked on Kale’s face. He could hear Tiet shouting from some distance away.

  Kale looked at the young man approaching with an older man following close behind. He was dressed in the same Barudii cloak as Orin. Kale stood over Orin’s fallen body and extracted the blade from his back.

  He knew the weapon very well. It was the blade of his father the King. He crouched down near Orin’s body, which lay on his side bleeding profusely from the uncauterized wound. “This is Father’s blade, Orin,” he whispered in his ear. “Where did that person get it?” And then insight seemed to light upon his mind and it was seen in his expression.

  He knelt close to Orin’s ear, who was now gasping for his breath as his life poured out. “Is that my brother, Orin?” But he did not wait for an answer from the dying man.

  The Horva were still reigning down a heavy volley of fire upon the platform; threatening to destroy his stolen ship and Orin’s companions were closing in as well. He decided he could not afford another confrontation right now and ignited his father’s blade long enough to drive it into the pavement next to Orin.

  There it remained; imbedded halfway up the blade length as he extinguished it. He took another stolen stare at Tiet as he approached; then turned to run for his ship before it was destroyed by the approaching war machines.

  Kale managed to reach his ship as another not far away on the platform was struck by a powerful blast from the Horva. He got to the cockpit and retracted the ramp as the engines powered up for lift off. He could see his brother reaching Orin’s body and he wondered if the boy even knew that he had an older brother. The thought that his own younger brother might have no knowledge of him, bolstered the resentment and fury he had carried so long against Orin and his father.

  The child had been so very young when the old incident had occurred, but Kale remembered him. He had supposed that all of the family, including little Tiet, had perished in the great battle that had reportedly completely wiped out the Barudii as a people. It was obvious that the report had been premature.

  Kale had seen his father’s body upon the battlefield after the battle was over and remembered his crown, but the King’s blade had been missing. Now he knew why. He pushed the memories back in his mind and brought the engines to power. The old Barudii strider lifted off the platform and tore upward through the sky toward open space.

  ORIN was very close to death when Tiet came upon him. He knelt in his mentor’s blood to try to help him, but it was nearly over. Orin tried to speak as he coughed up more blood. “Who was that person? Who did this? Tell me so that I can avenge you!” said Tiet frantically.

  Orin’s voice was weak. He could only manage one word before his life ceased. “K...a...l...e…”

  He was gone. And the pain of losing him on top of the loss of Dorian was only delayed momentarily by the bewildering last word he had given in answer to Tiet’s question.

  Wynn was beside him as Orin died. His own reaction to the name was one of realization rather than bewilderment. But there wasn’t time now for any hesitation. The Horva were on the move toward their position.

  “Tiet, we must go!” urged Wynn.

  Tiet seemed not to even hear him. Wynn pulled him to his feet against his will and urged him away from their fallen comrade. He went along, knowing he must, and paused only a moment to ignite his father’s blade and free it from the ground.

  Wynn urged him on as they ran toward the cloning facility. He wanted to be sure that the equipment Grod wanted was destroyed. As they approached the building it became clear that the facility was in total ruin. Many fires were still blazing within and there was no way to get inside to investigate further. It certainly appeared that the bomb had done the job adequately.

  The Horva continued to lay down heavy firepower as they approached the cloning facility. Tiet and Wynn ran back toward the magnetic rail and took cover behind the safety wall as the Horva strafed the area with pulse laser fire. They were now within four hundred yards of the rail and many of the ground forces split away toward the cloning facility to attempt to rescue any of their forces who might have survived the devastating explosion.

  The safety wall was crumbling around them. There seemed to be nowhere to go. Tiet ran to the nearest of the giant magnetic rings and used his blade to make multiple cuts to the support as it rose above the safety wall.

  Wynn discerned his intent and sliced away at the support for the same ring on the opposite side of the rail. As the supports gave way, they both combined their mental power to support the ring and then quickly sent it up into the air in a great arc toward the forces approaching their position.

  Seeing the approaching section of the ring, most of the ground forces stopped firing as they attempted to scatter. The huge section of metal came crashing down into their frontline and smashed many of the warriors as it tumbled through their ranks. Some of the war machines caught in the path of the ring were crushed and burst into flame.

  RANUL continued the scans of the planet surface, trying to close in on the disturbance the computer had picked up. The sensors concentrated on one city in particular. The database identified the city as Baeth Periege There was a very intense battle being waged from within and without the city perimeter.

  “Helmsman, get us to that city immediately,” he ordered.

  Estall signaled for two of the other cruisers to follow them to the surface while the rest remained in orbit. The large Vorn warships began their descent through the atmosphere with shields at maximum for reentry. The sheering forces of the atmosphere beat upon the vessels but did not harm them.

  As the three large battle cruisers came closer to Baeth Periege, Ranul was able to pull up a more detailed visual: several Vorn ships were leaving the city and heading away for open space as the battle raged on.

  Ranul tried to locate the beacon from the Saberhawk, but was unable to locate it anywhere in the vicinity. He did however notice an old Barudii ship climbing through the atmosphere, but it was of the smaller strider class of vessel. They needed to get to the city soon; hopefully his friends could be found safe.

  WYNN and Tiet stayed pinned down in the trench of the magnetic rail. The Horva had regrouped and were laying down more pulse fire against their position. Large blasts from the war machines were closing in on them. They looked at one another, trying to figure out what to do next. “The tunnel!” shouted Wynn over the explosions going off around them.

  Tiet got up and followed the elder man toward the magnetic rail tunnel they had emerged from earlier. The explosions continued all around them as the Horva persistently moved in on their position.

  The tunnel was nearly eight hundred yards away from them and th
e enemy was tearing into the rail trench with everything they had. Pulse laser fire was shredding the safety wall all around them as they ran. They shielded themselves mentally at different intervals as large chunks of concrete and metal flew at them.

  Suddenly, large beams of energy shot overhead from another direction, but the shots weren’t aimed at them. They stopped a moment as the firepower coming down on them halted. As they surveyed the scene, they could see several large Vorn battle cruisers coming in over the city from the southeast. The cruisers were firing upon the Horva army.

  The Horva tried to return fire but it was useless against the shields on the cruisers. After several heavy volleys of laser fire, the Horva began to retreat away from the approaching warships. Many of the Horva began to scatter into the wasteland beyond the city perimeter, while the greater majority either retreated into the tunnel of the magnetic rail or stood their ground and died.

  Wynn and Tiet watched as their own escape route was being used by those trying to kill them only minutes before. They were still hunkered down in the rail trench below a section of the crumbling safety wall approximately four hundred yards from the escaping Horva going into the tunnel. They didn’t dare run from their position for fear the Vorn cruisers might pick them off with large pulse cannons.

  From the shuttle bay of the lead ship, they noticed a large troop carrier coming down very near their position. They remained where they were as it landed, not having anywhere else to go. To their surprise, when the back of the transport lowered and the people inside came out it wasn’t Vorn military but Castillians.

  The warriors filed out of the transport and took up a defensive stance around the ship. Behind them came Ranul. Tiet jumped out of the trench when he recognized them. Wynn followed behind him. The warriors took aim on him until Ranul called his name and came out of the formation to meet them.