Chapter Three
A few feet from Delendra Tower’s main entrance, Daelon was still lying on his back, against the jagged metal staircase, at the tower’s base. Core had pressed his knife into Daelon’s throat, just hard enough to produce the slightest trickle of blood, while Daelon struggled to break free, from beneath Core’s long hair and foul smelling breath.
“Are you ready to come to your senses now?” Core whispered, as he began to drool onto Daelon’s face, in between his quick breaths.
Daelon squinted his eyes and turned his head, as he did his best to endure Core’s barbaric tactics and putrid odor. Despite his misgivings, he knew that appeasing Core for the time being, would be his only chance of getting him to withdraw his blade, and let him back on his feet. Aside from the two of them, the streets had become completely deserted for miles. Daelon had also made the assumption that Delendra Tower had been long evacuated.
In addition, he knew that even if there were some people left in the area, no stragglers would be likely to come to his aid. Then, through Core’s long, burgundy strands of hair, Daelon could see the sun setting in the distance, providing a much clearer view of neighboring planet Siren, still burning brightly, in the sky above. The light from the flaming world overhead, when combined with the light of the three moons, orbiting both Siren and Tyrran, created an ominous glow around the approaching Architect ships.
During the one hundred year war that had raged between Drellic’s army and the Architects, the people of the two worlds of man had seen all the different classes of Architect vessels. However, it seemed as though the newer Planet Farmers were the only ships being used to carry out the annihilation of the human species. These were long, slender metallic ships that were primarily organic and wrapped in slimy, dark green and black tentacles, nearly 10,000 feet long, once completely unraveled.
The tentacles expanded and retracted from each ship’s center and rear, and could secrete either deadly bursts of energy, or genesis producing energy, capable of creating environments suitable for carbon based life forms. Ironically, these sea monster-like ships were in the same class of vessels, used to create life on Siren and Tyrran, billions of years before.
Daelon saw that the aliens were mere minutes away, from being able to reach out and touch Tyrran’s atmosphere, with their ships’ extremities.
So with a slow, sinking feeling, he swallowed his pride and said, “Alright, Core. Just take it. Take it and do what you want. It doesn’t matter anymore anyways. We’re all dead.”
“No we’re not,” Core confidently replied, as he slowly pulled his blade from the blood droplets, covering Daelon’s throat. “With your help, we can send those monsters a message that will make them think twice about attacking here.”
Daelon rolled his eyes, but remained still, as Core picked up the Talin and placed it in his pocket.
“Come with me,” ordered Core, as he motioned for Daelon to follow him back to his ship.
Together, they descended the staircase, and to Daelon’s complete lack of surprise, Core’s vessel was found to be completely dead and utterly useless. They had entered to ship’s cockpit, to find a thick cloud of smoke, coming from the control consoles.
“You thought you could arrive late and avoid the electro-magnetic pulse,” Daelon said, with a smirk. “But that’s right. You never paid attention in school. Architect technology doesn’t work that way.”
Core angrily punched his flight controls and pushed Daelon against the side of the ship, pressing him against the hot metal hull. “Well then if you’re so smart, why don’t you explain it to me?!” yelled Core.
“They did this to us once before,” Daelon began. “It happened in the beginning, when my brother first declared war upon them and destroyed their Flagship. When they send their pulse, it isn’t a singular event. It’s like an invisible parasite that blankets the world. Every time you try to use something, it steals the energy you’re trying to use, making it even stronger. The parasite only leaves when the Architects take it away. Only this time, I doubt they’ll find that necessary.”
Core then hastily removed the Talin from his pocket and activated it, by striking the correct combination of characters on its topside. Daelon was bewildered.
“How did you know how to do that?” he asked Core.
“Drellic taught me everything he could about this device. I was ordered to weaponize it. That’s what I intend to do.”
“No. He knew how important this device is. He wanted me to use it for its original purpose,” Daelon insisted.
“Don’t be a fool. I was standing right next to him, when he sent you that last message. When he said that Tyrran still had a chance to survive, he was talking about the potential this device has as a WEAPON, not a time capsule!” Core aggressively replied. “More importantly,” Core continued, “Why does the Talin still function?”
Daelon remained silent, but Core refused to be ignored and kicked Daelon’s legs out from under him. Daelon was once again lying on his back, as Core towered over him, firmly pressing his right boot against Daelon’s left cheek, pressing the right side of Daelon’s face against the warm metallic floor of the ship.
“That was the one thing Drellic couldn’t explain to me, but said you could,” Core whispered. “Why does the Talin still work? What makes it so special?”
“Something about the fusion reactor,” Daelon gasped, from beneath Core’s boot. “It’s a different kind of self-sustaining energy. It’s not the same as other fusion powered…”
Before Daelon could finish, Core removed his boot from Daelon’s cheek and violently kicked him in his ribs, before returning that same boot to its original position. He then pressed down on Daelon’s face even harder than before.
“You’re lying!” Core shouted. “This machine is your life. You know everything there is to know about it. I need to as well, in order to save our race. Tell me why it still works!”
Blood was streaming from Daelon’s nose, as his head was still firmly pressed against the metal plating on the ship’s floor. He knew he had to tell Core something to make him back off, if he had any chance of completing his mission. Finally, Daelon felt that the truth would be more than enough to get Core to release him. He just wasn’t sure if he would live to see Core fail in the aftermath.
“It’s Starblood,” Daelon gasped.
Core’s eyes widened, as he removed his boot from Daelon’s face. “What did you say?” Core asked, in a state of shock.
“The Talin’s reactor runs on a combination of fusion…and Starblood,” Daelon replied.
All the rage that Core had ever felt for Daelon, meant nothing until that moment. His anger paralyzed him, as Daelon began to cough and spit more blood, while dragging himself back onto his feet.
Daelon and Core were then standing face to face in the cockpit.
“You mean to tell me that you actually found some Starblood, and instead of using it on yourself, or using it to help save this planet, you put it in a box, to be buried in the ground?!” Core screamed.
“I’m telling you, it wouldn’t have made any difference!” Daelon screamed. “Don’t you understand?! There’s nothing we can do! Those things are up there and they are going to kill us all. They’ve trapped us here and surrounded us with dozens of ships. They’re using technology we can’t even conceive! It’s over!”
Core pushed Daelon back up against the wall and screamed, “It’s over when I say it is! Drellic ordered me to hunt you down and turn you into the man you’re supposed to be! That’s exactly what I’m going to do!”
Despite what most of the people of Siren had been led to believe, the Kail’s bloodline was actually conceived on Tyrran. Drellic and his parents were born in Faul City; the planet’s capital. Shortly after Drellic had destroyed the Architect flagship at the beginning of the war, Drellic briefly returned to Faul City, to make sure that Starblood found its way into the old neighborhoods he had grown up in.
Six months before t
he destruction of Siren, decades later, Daelon was hiding in an abandoned building in one such neighborhood, while trying to escape a group of extremists, who blamed his family for the war and were trying to kill him.
While cowering in an old stone basement, immersed in darkness and covered in dusty cobwebs, Daelon spotted a faint yellow glow in the corner of the room. Once he felt it was safe for him to move, he approached the strange light and knelt down beside it, to examine it. The light was emanating from just a few tiny droplets of liquid, very near to burning a hole in the cement floor. It was unmistakably, Starblood, from a supply that Daelon had thought was long depleted.
At that moment, he had to make the most important choice of his life. In the end, instead of ingesting the divine liquid, or giving it to someone more inclined to be a warrior, he chose to experiment with it. Months later, just before the fall of Siren, he finally made his breakthrough.
Combined with a small fusion reactor, the Starblood showed him that his life’s work would not go unfinished. A reaction was produced that ensured that the Talin would last for billions of years, without ever needing to be recharged and could endure any kind of harsh environmental change or other catastrophe.
The incredibly small amount of Starblood, not only helped power the Talin, but bonded with the metal alloy, encasing its invaluable data, making it indestructible. Unless of course, Core were to successfully weaponize it. But Daelon was convinced that even with all its power, the Talin could only destroy a small fraction of the Architect fleet.
Core refused to listen, as Daelon continued to make his case. Then, after a few more failed attempts to restart his ship, Core dragged Daelon out into the darkening streets of Faul City. The light from the once burning surface of Siren, had been extinguished. Tyrran’s celestial neighbor had since, become a large, spherical cinder, never to be seen in its brilliant blue form again.
An ominous cloud cover had also formed overhead, blocking the light from Tyrran’s three moons. Core was forcing Daelon to walk several paces ahead of him into the night, while pointing a pistol at his back. There was only one other device on Tyrran that still drew enough power, to convert the Talin into Core’s ideal weapon of mass destruction.
Daelon was originally on his way to Delendra, to gain access to its underground tunnels, leading to “The Depths”, but Core had other plans for the glistening tower’s facilities. Core had decided to force Daelon to lead him to the highest level of Delendra; a chamber which contained The Emperor’s Gate.
Delendra was the ancient human word for heaven, in the time of the Architect War. Delendra Tower was built long before the war, as a gathering place for the world’s leaders, but also served a much more profound purpose. An identical tower was constructed on Siren, prior to the construction of the tower on Tyrran. Both towers were essentially, giant super conductors that had the power to create miniature singularities in retrofitted chambers, atop their mile high foundations.
These wormholes allowed one person, controlling one Gate Chamber, to bend space and temporarily pull the opposite Gate Chamber into his or her own. The two chambers were identical in size, layout and materials, down to the last molecule. The two chambers would become one, for the briefest of moments, allowing the men and women in power, the means to instantaneously travel between the two worlds.
After this process was performed several dozen times, it was discovered that the two singularities could no longer be collapsed, by powering down the two towers’ systems. All other attempts to close the portals had failed as well. There was then, consequently, a permanent bridge between the two towers.
Remarkably, the wormholes remained stable within their respective Gate Chambers and posed no threat to Siren and Tyrran. Core knew that the amount of energy within The Emperor’s Gate, when combined with the Starblood reactor of the Talin, would be astronomical.
Siren was gone, meaning there would be no means of escape using the chamber, but as Core and Daelon were once again climbing the front steps of Delendra Tower, Core pulled a pair of long range binoculars from his pocket and used them to magnify the highest window on the tower, more than 5,000 feet from where they stood.
To Core’s delight, he was able to use the night vision feature, to look through the gigantic glass window, placed in front of The Emperor’s Gate. The gate itself was still spinning, indicating that the bridge was still intact. Although the tower on Siren had undoubtedly been destroyed, there was still an active miniature singularity there, connecting the planets.
Core then excitedly informed Daelon that The Emperor’s Gate was still functioning.
“What exactly do you intend to do?” Daelon asked with a subtle laugh. He knew that Core was anything but a scientist, and was more than curious as to his plan to use an unstable Black Hole, to turn the Talin into a bomb or missile.
“You’ll find out when we get up there,” Core snapped. He then jammed his pistol into Daelon’s back again, pushing him up the last few steps, to the tall steel archway, which led into the tower’s main foyer.
Daelon reluctantly entered the dark foyer, and he had only taken a few steps inside, before tripping and falling to the hard marble-like floor. It felt like a hand had grabbed his foot, just before he fell. Core mocked Daelon’s clumsiness, then pulled a flashlight from one of his many inner pockets, and pointed it towards Daelon’s silhouette on the floor. But as soon as he turned on the light, Core jumped backwards. His eyes widened and his heart began to race. Daelon also looked upon his illuminated surroundings and screamed with fear.
The floor of the main foyer was covered in burnt human remains and tattered clothing. A pile of dead men, women and children had collected there. And the corpses had been smashed apart, as if they had fallen a great distance, before reaching their final resting place. Core and Daelon both looked up into the tower’s core shaft, which was hollow and served as a mile high energy conduit, leading to The Emperor’s Gate.
The sides of the shaft were lined with even more bodies that dangled from the various pipes, cables and ledges, which spiraled up the conduit. Daelon got to his feet and frantically brushed off the human ashes that had accumulated on his cloak. He and Core both knew where the bodies had come from. These were the remains of people from Siren, who had most likely stormed the Gate Chamber on the other side and burned to death, before making it through to Tyrran.
Core then noticed an opening on the wall, to his left. He shined his flashlight on the opening, to see the bottom of a concrete staircase. He then looked back at Daelon, pointed his pistol at his face and sternly said, “It’s more than 5,000 feet to the top. We better get going.”
Daelon took one final look at the mountain of burnt flesh around him, before he began to weep. Seeing all those bodies had forced him to finally come face to face with his reality. He knew that humanity was doomed, but he had been so preoccupied with his mission that he had forgotten what the end of mankind meant to him, personally.
With a heavy heart, he wiped his tears from his face and pushed a lifetime’s worth of personal memories from his mind. He then walked ahead of Core and began the long climb to the top of Delendra Tower, knowing that Core’s delusional mind would be with him every step of the way.
The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three Page 26