Chapter Twenty One
Drellic showered, dressed in his official attire and ate a hearty breakfast of meat, eggs and biscuits, just as he did nearly every morning. He then quickly made his way to the front door, holding a small duffle bag, containing the scrubber, firmly in his hand.
He unlocked the door and prepared to leave, without having said one word to his wife, who had been sitting silently in the family room the entire morning. Knowing he had her best interests at heart, he was content to leave the house without as much as a glance in her direction. But just as he opened the door, he saw her standing beside him with a scowl on her face.
“I have to leave,” he said, firmly. “We can talk about this later.”
“I lost another child,” Moya whispered, just as Drellic stepped out the door.
He then stopped, stepped back inside and dropped the duffle bag to the floor. His heart sank.
“What?” he asked in disbelief.
“I lost another little boy,” she sobbed. “You broke my heart. Your obsession, your secrets, your lies! They tore me up inside! But I suppose that can be your punishment! It’s just a shame that I must suffer through it as well.”
Drellic just stared blankly at her for a moment, before reaching down and picking up the duffle bag. He knew he had to remain steadfast if he was to make it to the Great Hall on time, and did not wish to jeopardize Moya’s safety any more than he already had.
“Like I said. We’ll talk about this later. I’m sorry,” he said, while choking back his tears. He then left the house and slammed the door behind him, leaving Moya behind in agony; whom Syll could not even attempt to comfort.
Nearly an hour later on the rooftop of the Great Hall, Drellic found himself alone with the radiation scrubber, and the Architect Flagship looming over his head, casting a chilling tentacle shaped shadow that made him quiver with fear.
The anticipation was killing him. He felt what he was doing was right, he just didn’t know how he was going to do it.
Then without warning, Drellic heard the unmistakable sound of Siren’s defense grid launching lethal blasts of energy at the Architect Flagship. He slowly spun himself around, to get a clear view of the entire perimeter of the city, where he saw the massive gun turrets that guarded the city’s borders, firing round after round.
The defense grid hadn’t been used in many years and Drellic wasn’t even aware that it was still operational. But its sudden activity had proven Jin Callos’ theory about insurgency members working as sleeper agents in the Great Hall, to be correct.
To Drellic’s surprise, he could hear cheering from the streets below. Citizens were running outside to praise what they perceived to be a government attack against the aliens. But Drellic knew all too well that Delendra was behind it all and that her plan was about to come to fruition.
As he continued to look on, Drellic noticed that the energy blasts were having no effect on the Flagship. An electrical charge formed over the skin of the ship and was effortlessly absorbing each impact.
After another minute of constant firing from the defense grid, the Flagship finally started to move away from the city. At first, Drellic thought that the Architects were retreating, but as it turned out, they were merely increasing their altitude in order to launch their counter measures.
The electrical charge that had been acting as the aliens’ shield on points of impact had come to surround the entire ship. Intensifying waves of energy passed back and forth over the Flagship’s hull, indicating that something monumental was about to occur.
But just when Drellic thought his life was about to come to an end, he heard a loud whirring sound and felt a two muscly arms grab him from behind. He then found himself in the open cabin of an unmarked airship, where Delendra had been waiting for him.
The ship was open on both the port and starboard sides, revealing the city below and the approaching energy shield around the Architect Flagship. It didn’t take Drellic long to realize that they were on a collision course with the shield.
“What the fuck are you thinking?!” Drellic screamed to Delendra. “You can’t be serious! We’re all going to die!”
“We’ve been studying this ship, since it first arrived. We know this will work,” Delendra insisted. “You just have to trust me.”
“Trust you?! We need to turn back! We’re all going to die!” Drellic yelled.
“That’s partially true!” Delendra shouted. “We will! But you won’t.”
She then crawled over to Drellic and softly kissed him on his lips, while tying his duffle bag to his waist with a piece of rope.
“Goodbye,” she whispered in his ear, as she violently shoved him out the wide open port side of the ship, sending him flying into the Architect’s electrical field.
Drellic once again braced for death, but instead found himself feeling no pain as he passed through the shield. He then crashed into the skin of the Flagship, which he was also able to pass through almost seamlessly, like a knife through butter.
A moment later, he found himself naked and alone inside an organic dome-like structure, similar to the one he had seen the first time he was on board.
As he had no trouble breathing, Drellic had just proven to himself that the Overseer had lied to him about requiring a separate atmosphere for his people.
It seemed that the energy shield surrounding the Flagship, disintegrated his clothing, but left his body perfectly intact. Evidently, Delendra knew that organic materials would have no difficulty penetrating the shield or skin of the ship.
He then fearfully checked his waist for the scrubber. The thick rope around his waist had almost been completely reduced to ash, but the scrubber’s strong outer casing had saved the device from burning up as well.
Unbeknownst to Drellic, moments after he had successfully boarded the Flagship, the Architect’s energy shield sent out an electromagnetic pulse, which made every vehicle and device on the planet Siren that required any form of energy based current, utterly useless. This sent Delendra’s airship crashing into the surface below, killing everyone on board upon impact.
Drellic cautiously pulled apart a tall seam in the organic wall of the chamber ahead of him, allowing him to move on to the next area. He was still alone, but was constantly questioning how long that would last.
Clutching the scrubber firmly in hand, Drellic pressed his ear to the far wall of the second chamber and heard the familiar sound of the protective energy beam that guarded the door to the radiation chamber. After slowly pulling apart the wall, while listening to the disturbing sound of the entrail-like fibers becoming untangled in his hands, he found the dark corridor he had discovered on his previous journey through the ship. And at the end of that corridor, was the protected steel door; presumably the storage room for the Architect’s doomsday weapon.
He started down the corridor, knowing it was far too late to turn back. But he couldn’t help but hesitate at the thought of what had happened the last time he was in that same hallway. Drellic suspected that at any moment, he would be silently relocated or killed. He at the very least, expected to see the Architect ambassador appear before him and for him to interrogate him.
With hundreds of similar ships still circling the four human domains, both Drellic and the insurgency had ruled that an attempt to simply destroy the Architect Flagship from the inside, would be futile and that rendering their weapon inert would be the best way to expose their true intentions and rally more support.
They also had no way of knowing if any of the other ships were housing such large quantities of radioactive materials, but there was also little chance that humanity would receive an opportunity like this ever again.
After one final moment of hesitation, Drellic briefly turned his back to the steel door. But upon doing so, he heard the same whisper he had already heard many times before.
“Drellic, where are you going?” the voice asked.
The sheer allure and mystery surrounding the
voice gave Drellic the confidence he needed to proceed as planned. Without another flicker of wavering confidence, Drellic sprinted to the door and used the nearly indestructible alloy of the scrubber’s casing, to break through the steel poles, holding the protective energy beam in place. Once the beam was no longer active, he turned his attention to the steel door.
Since he had never gotten that far into that area before, it was his first time realizing that it was the least organic part of the ship. In order for Drellic to enter the room, he would have to use the very laser used to guard the door, to cut a hole in it.
The exposed wiring on the severed bottoms of the short metal stanchions seemed familiar enough to him. He was able to rewire and charge just one of the stanchions and convert it into a cutting torch. Sparks flew at every inch of his exposed body, burning his shoulders and torso almost instantly. But he fought through the pain and managed to successfully cut his way inside his target area.
As he entered the dark metallic corridor on the other side of the door, he was amazed that he still hadn’t been stopped by any of the alien crew yet. But as he slowly crept towards a faint light source at the other end of the corridor, he heard crashing noises all around the outer hull of the ship; which was actually the sound of ships rendered powerless by the electromagnetic pulse, as they crashed lifelessly into the Architect’s energy shield; their crews burning alive within seconds.
Drellic was feeling hopeful that the aliens were still distracted by whatever was going on outside and made his way to the other end of the corridor, where he found something that completely defied his expectations.
Instead of a weapon’s chamber or armory of some kind, Drellic had stumbled onto what resembled a scientific laboratory. A long black grid hanging from the metallic ceiling, held hundreds, perhaps even thousands of tiny glass vials; each containing a glowing white liquid.
As Drellic approached the grid, he felt a strange pulling sensation throughout his entire body. Something unknown and unseen was drawing him to the strange substance. The substance within the vials was making the scrubber go haywire. It was designed to emit a shrill beeping sound, whenever in the presence of radioactive materials. But despite repeated warnings from the device, Drellic could not help but submit to the strange power the substance seemed to have over him.
Once standing in the center of the grid, while admiring the glowing vials hanging over his head, he heard the sound of a mechanical device coming towards him from the other end of the corridor behind him. It was the familiar sound of crashing heavy metal footsteps; reminiscent of Tyrran’s mechanical royal guards.
Whether the Architects themselves were coming to collect him, or some form of robotic assassin was on its way, Drellic knew that time was short and that he needed to act.
He prepared to activate the scrubber, by opening its casing, revealing a bright multicolored control pad of dials and keys. But before he could make his first key stroke, he found himself feeling uncontrollably drawn to the glowing vials, dangling above him, like sparkling icicles on the darkest nights during the Siren cold spell.
The alluring voice continued to call out to him. But it was no longer coming to him in the form of words. It was simply a feeling; a feeling that the answer to his problems was in those glass vials and not in the crude mechanical device in his hands.
Drellic then dropped the scrubber to the floor, allowing the exposed keypad to smash against the hard metal at his feet; shattering it to pieces. He then lifted a single vial from the grid and held it close to his eyes; waiting for something to happen.
Then, just as the echo of steel pounding against steel sounded like it was coming from just a few feet behind him, the liquid shot out of the vial, in the form of a single energy pellet and penetrated his forehead, without leaving any kind of wound on his skin.
Once the compound was inside his body, it instantly formed a symbiotic relationship with his brain and also bonded with his entire nervous system. The first few minutes of exposure were the hardest for Drellic, because he did not yet realize what had happened to him.
Drellic turned to face the corridor, where he saw a tall metallic centurion, standing several feet over his head. Its gleaming armor covering its bulky arms and torso, towered over him, shimmering in the light from the other vials hanging from the grid.
He looked into its desolate black metal face plate and the intimidating white eye on top of it, which fired a concentrated burst of energy at his chest. And to Drellic’s complete surprise, his body absorbed the energy and sent it coursing through his muscles, like a shot of steroids, without inducing any pain whatsoever.
The machine then attempted to stomp him into the floor. It raised its giant circular foot high over Drellic’s head and quickly thrust it down onto his body.
Drellic’s only instinct was to raise his hands over his head, but upon doing so, he inadvertently sent the centurion flying backwards and crashing into the side of the dark corridor.
“What’s happening to me? What is this?” Drellic thought, as he quickly realized he had the means to escape.
He decided to test his new found strength by charging the machine. But to his delight, he was not only able to tackle and dismantle the behemoth with his bare hands. His legs propelled him into the robot at an incredible speed, causing him to take on the form of a flesh colored blur, before reappearing atop the demolished centurion; which had been reduced to a pile of twisted wiring and metal.
Drellic then went on a rampage and burst through the walls of each compartment of the ship, as if they were made of paper. And although he did not know where the ship’s vital systems were, he had mistakenly destroyed enough of them to send the mighty Architect Flagship into an irreversible flat spin, causing it to crash into the city below.
Given his new abilities, Drellic was unharmed, but the sight of the devastation he had caused, and the number of casualties he had been responsible for, saddened him greatly. Smoke was rising from the burning flesh of the Flagship; its tentacles wrapped around the ruins of Siren City skyscrapers.
But amidst the dust, rubble and flames, Drellic spotted a little boy writhing in pain several feet away. The child’s leg was caught under a heavy metal beam from a collapsed building, and he looked as though he would bleed to death in minutes.
Drellic then realized the true potential of the miracle compound he had discovered on the alien ship. What he had thought was a weapon meant to destroy mankind, had the potential to be the element that would save them.
“But did the crash destroy them all?” Drellic thought in a panic, while listening to the boy screaming in agony.
He bolted back inside the ship, instantly arriving back at the demolished laboratory, where he found the black metal grid still hanging from the ceiling, and the majority of the vials still secured onto it.
Then in a series of quick flashes, he charged back and forth, carrying as many of the vials as he could each time. Finally, he had retrieved all that could be salvaged, wrapped himself in a blanket he found on the side of the road, and quickly approached the boy.
The child fearfully looked up at Drellic; his face covered in his own blood and tears. He saw a gleaming vial in Drellic’s hand and watched as Drellic held it in front of his face.
“What is it?!” the boy cried out in pain.
Drellic simply replied, “The future.”
The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three Page 76