Battle Across Worlds

by Dean Chalmers

  Jack was leaning over the seat, stretching to reach the controls; when the craft climbed, the force of the ascent pressed the top of the leather seat into his gut. It was an awkward posture, but he could still fly the craft.

  There wasn’t time for him force his way into the front seat, and Jael wasn’t going anywhere, anyway.

  Thank God there aren’t any foot-pedals, he thought.

  He swerved left, then right. Jael’s head bounced against his arm …

  Jael! If they didn’t get away soon, would he survive? The man’s blood was already all over the cockpit.

  Jack’s left hand was still flicking the jet levers, taking them through what he hoped was an evasive pattern, while he poked the wounded pilot with his other hand.

  Jael moaned, his eyes opening half-way.

  Alive, then. For now …

  He wished he had time to do something for the man, anything, dress his wound—but their enemy wouldn’t let up, those whistling white fire beams shooting ever closer.

  Jack dropped the flyer, then shot back up again, angling the craft’s nose skyward as Jael had shown him, using the jets to accelerate his climb. He swerved violently to and fro, trying to throw off his opponent’s aim. The enemy craft stayed close behind, always close, so very damn close …

  Had Jack been in another frame of mind, he might have been proud of how quickly he had mastered Jael’s techniques, and how readily he’d compensated for the flyer’s damaged wing.

  But that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was to fly, react, stay one step ahead.

  He took the flyer into a descending corkscrew, spiraling down through the air as bolts of white cut close, flashing in his view.

  More than once, he thought that flash was the last thing he would see—a bright white whistling death, then everything gone forever.

  He dropped again, climbed, swerved, the enemy always following. Though Jack was giving his foe a hard time, the attacker seemed determined to stay close, riding his tail no matter what maneuvers he tried.

  So close. Maybe—too close?

  That could be a weakness …

  Jack swerved left, still evading, but subtly slowing, letting the enemy catch up. He eased up on the rear jets.

  It was a major risk. If his opponent got in a good shot, they were doomed.

  With a yell of fury, he flicked on the forward jets and shoved the harness down so that the flyer shot backwards and up, almost scraping the top of the enemy craft as it shot past.

  Now Jack was behind his foe, looking at the broad “tail” of the crystal craft. Only for a second, but if this worked …

  With the flyer’s nose angled down, its gun-needle pointed directly at the box-like cockpit of the enemy craft, Jack fired. He held down the gun button as white fire blazed out to smash into the blue-black skin of his target’s flyer.

  Sheets of white flickered over the target, but there was no explosion.

  The enemy slowed, dropping back …

  A strange focus came over Jack, and time seemed to slow as adrenaline pumped through him.

  The soldier’s instinct, the eye of the storm …

  Without conscious thought, Jack reacted, his fingers gliding over the control levers.

  As the enemy braked and slipped backwards, trying to evade, Jack used the flyer’s side jets to turn his craft, so that the ambia beam rotated with him and maintained contact with the target all the while.

  Rotating and strafing in a perfect ballet, he showered ambia on the enemy craft: an unrelenting torrent of white fury.

  Suddenly, there was a sound like cracking ice, and then the front of the enemy ship imploded in a flash of white.

  Looking like a forlorn toy that someone had bashed with a hammer, it fell end over end, trailing crackling ambia behind it. Jack glanced back and watched it hit the ground, the resulting explosion launching up a geyser of sand and white energy.

  Someone laughed. Jack turned and saw Jael, his head lolling but his eyes open. The pilot coughed, and laughed again.

  “We have to get you some help,” Jack said. He leveled out the flyer and turned it back towards the fortress, then set about using Jael’s silk scarf to bandage his wound.

  #

  Uhon was sharing a small jug of beer with two other pilots in a corner of Xai Kaor’s main landing platform when Panna Jael’s flyer returned.

  He saw immediately that one wing of the Hummingbird was badly damaged and that the canopy glass had been cracked. Then the canopy flew up, and the red-coated stranger was shouting, waving for help.

  Uhon and the others rushed over. The stranger was already outside the craft, struggling to pull Jael from his seat.

  Uhon saw that his friend’s arm was bundled up in his scarf, and that the white linen was soaked through with red. Jael’s leather coat was covered with sticky, drying blood.

  “Panna!” he shouted. “What happened?”

  Jael’s eyes were half-lidded and he was ashen pale, but he looked up Uhon and laughed softly.

  “You know … what?” he gasped. “The monkey can fly better than you, Uhon.”

  “He can?”

  Jael coughed and nodded. “Tell Captain Neron … we can use him.”

  -27-

  Technician Second Class Telnon, formerly of the Order of Kion, crouched inside the square reaction chamber deep inside the bowels of Pai Lanaya’s giant flying fortress. The young man’s skin was dripping in a cold sweat.

  Two tiny pyramid-shaped aon shells were attached to silver prongs that jutted from either side of this reaction chamber, leaving a gap of several feet between them.

  Inside the shells were sympathetic aona which, when brought into a state of convergence, would generate a tremendous amount of ambia.

  The process was similar to that used by the Key of Oberkion, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. And here, the purpose was purely destructive—the rush of ambia would be focused by the green needle of the great ship’s cannon to create a compressed ambia beam with a power that Telnon himself could scarcely imagine.

  This was Pai Lanaya’s ultimate weapon—her holy fire.

  But Telnon had a problem.

  The sympathetic aon particles inside the two pyramidal shells were not yet closely attuned, and it was proving a difficult effort to adjust them.

  He needed the states to be similar so that, when activated, the two aona would become literally the same particle. Normally, each aon in the universe was unique. When the states of two of them were forced into artificial convergence like this, the white paradox energy-ambia-was generated.

  But Telnon had to be very careful. This was delicate work, and mis-tuning could be disastrous.

  He leaned forward, touching each of the pyramids with one of the silver instruments that he held in each sweaty hand. He simultaneously ran the silver tools from the base to the apex of each shell.

  A flicker of ambia, like a white flame, appeared at the top of each pyramid.

  Good, he thought. Getting close …

  Suddenly, the air around him seemed to shift and blur, as if viewed through the dancing haze of desert heat. He jumped back and pulled his hands away as the space in front of him was warped.

  The two pyramids drew closer and closer to each other without actually moving, space distorting as the ambia halo of each pyramid brightened, then shot out to form a bridge of energy linking them …

  No! It was too fast, too soon. If the reaction occurred with him in the chamber, he’d be vaporized.

  Desperate, he stuck his hand into the area of the hazy distortion, probing with his silver tool …

  There was a terrible loud cracking noise and a hissing fizzle of energy. Telnon covered his ears and turned away.

  When he looked back, the distortion in the air was gone, as was the glow of the ambia.

  But the two pyramids at the ends of the prongs had imploded, and shards of their crystalline remnants now covered the floor.

  Telnon fell to his knees and put his head in
his hands. He’d been such a fool.

  Might as well have been vaporized by the reaction, he thought. Better that than to face her.

  What would she do when he told her that her greatest weapon had been crippled?

  He climbed out of the reaction chamber, along the cylinder of the gun barrel and out through an access hatch. As he climbed down to the floor of the landing bay, he saw that General Lanaya herself was stalking across the hanger towards him, her red eyes locked on his trembling form.

  Did she know already?

  “Do I have my holy fire?” she asked.

  He fell to his knees and hid his face. “Pai General, I beg your mercy. This task was beyond me. I did what I could but the damage is … I didn’t mean to …” his words broke off with a sob.

  “So,” she said. “You fail to do as I ask, even as the moment of glory approaches. Perhaps your flesh has blocked your hearing.”

  “I do not understand?” he choked.

  Then, she was leaning down over him. He could feel her presence there like a terrible pressure. Her hands were in his hair … and then she grabbed his ears.

  There was a hideous tearing pain, and he screamed as the agony consumed him.

  #

  As their transport flyer flew low over the southern jungle, nearly brushing the treetops, Jarlus scanned the greenery below with one eye; his other remained locked on the da’ta se.

  Taxamia and Ralley held a slender rod between them: a bronze device with silver tips, and veins of silver running through it.

  Jarlus didn’t understand how it worked, but he knew it was something like the aon eyepiece which amplified one’s vision … In this case, the rod increased one’s perception of aon activity, or so they’d told him.

  The two of them were completely motionless now, gazing into each other’s eyes with such intensity that Jarlus could almost see the connection of their stares, like a thick current in the air. It was as if they were mechanical, linked machines, and he didn’t like seeing his Princess this way.

  Maybe there was something to Oberkion’s prophecy, after all. It galled him that Orcus Gaelti might have been right all along, but the link between Taxamia and her beloved Ralley Quenn could not be denied. Jarlus himself had tested the young foreigner’s resolve under threat of death, after all.

  But would the two be able to use their combined talents to find the Baek Tayon stronghold?

  Part of him hoped that they would fail. Though he was eager to plunge into the thick of the forest in search of the traitor and her barbarian allies, he didn’t want to place the Princess in danger again.

  After one more day of this mission, they would have canvassed the entire suspected area. Then, the da’ta se and the aon technicians would go home, and Jarlus would come back with a large force of his Xa Ashaon troops to scout out the most likely hiding spots on foot.

  No more of this aon sensing nonsense. Gaelti had played around long enough …

  “AHHH!” Taxamia and the red-haired youth cried out in unison, their bodies going rigid.

  “It feels like a sharp wind in my mind,” Ralley said. “Bright and loud … no, wait, it’s going now.”

  Taxamia nodded, her eyes never leaving Ralley’s. “Ambia explosion. It has to be.”

  “An explosion?” Jarlus asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said simply, flat confidence in her voice. “It was quite distinct. Even with the general aon interference in this region, I would not mistake it.”

  “Where?” Jarlus asked.

  She pointed towards a rise in the land ahead of their craft, where the tree-thick hills climbed in a series of gentle ridges.

  “Up there. About two miles ahead.”

  Jarlus sighed. So much for getting the Princess home safely.

  Then again, it might not be Baek Tayon. They’d have to see for themselves …

  “Put us down,” he told the pilot. “There.” He pointed towards a rocky clearing about a quarter mile in front of the cruising flyer. “It’s not too rough to land?”

  “We’ll manage,” the pilot said, and he dropped the flyer down, waving to their escorts as a signal for them to descend as well.

  The three transport flyers came down in a tight cluster. As soon as they’d landed, Jarlus and the pilot threw up the long, heavy canopy of their craft.

  Jarlus grabbed his short bow, his clawed baekon dagger and his ambia gun from the storage basket in the rear of the craft. Though he put more stock in the former two weapons, he knew he might need the white fire rifle if they ran up against crystal-armored opponents.

  He gathered his men from both of the transport flyers which had followed them, then gave them their orders.

  “Noen, Sabokis—you’re going with me. The rest of you set up a perimeter around the flyers and stay here for now. If anyone approaches without giving the proper signal, open fire.”

  He turned to the pilot of his own craft. “Remember, if anything happens—you hear shooting, shouts, whatever—don’t wait for a signal. Take off and get the Princess and Quenn out of here. The other flyers will escort you back to Serath. Understood?”

  The pilot nodded, his expression somber.

  Jarlus turned to look at the trees, spotting a narrow opening between the trunks which seemed to leer at him, a hungry mouth of shadow.

  He knew the jungle well. He’d been a hunter all of his life.

  But had they been seen coming down? Were they still hunters, or prey?

  He turned one last time to Ralley and Taxamia. Their fiery intensity had faded now, the aon sensing rod put aside.

  Ralley cradled the Princess’s head on his shoulder, stroking her hair with a trembling pale hand and humming another odd tune.

  “Are you sure we can’t help?” Ralley asked.

  Jarlus shook his head. “No, Master Ralley. The future Culcras prince and his bride-to-be would best serve their kingdom by staying inside the flyer and not worrying their Xai Ashaon, yes?”

  They both nodded.

  “Life and health, Jarlus,” Taxamia said. She blinked anxiously as she looked into his eyes.

  Ralley reached over the side of the flyer and extended his hand for Jarlus to shake. The young man’s palm was damp with sweat, but his grip was firm.

  “Good luck,” he whispered, some odd benediction in his own tongue.

  Jarlus bowed quickly in response, then turned to lead his scouting party out of the clearing.

  #

  Ralley sat in the flyer, studying the dense wall of trees into which Jarlus had just disappeared, watching as several of their Xa Ashaon guards slowly walked the perimeter of the clearing.

  In the front of the craft, the pilot was standing, removing his head-scarf and leather jacket to expose sweat-soaked linen underneath.

  The jungle was hot and damp, and Ralley’s own face was already running with sweat. It was torture to be left waiting here, forced to stay in the flyer—but he understood Jarlus’s reasoning. He hummed a buzzing melody, hoping it would make him feel better.

  “Love,” Taxamia asked, “what is that song?”

  “It’s the ‘Doom Chorus’ from ‘The Fall of the Hero Gebornson in the Forest of Death’,” Ralley explained, slightly embarrassed. “It is rather dirgeful, isn’t it?”

  She shook her head. “No, I like it. It’s powerful. Rises up through you.”

  Ralley smiled. “Exactly! I saw Karsten Vanderrog performing as Lady Gebornson once, at the Opera House in Ironbound … I wish you could have been there.”

  Taxamia nodded. “I feel like I was there. I can almost see it Ralley, when I hear you hum the music … the gilded hall, the wine-colored carpets, the hanging glass, um, candle trees?”

  “Chandeliers, yes! Love, it must be the aon link … we share so much, even more than I thought.”

  She closed her eyes, sighed softly. “And there’s … sadness. This is something that was lost, Ralley?”

  “The Stefanites closed the Opera House down two years ago,” Ral
ley told her. “Theatricals of any sort aren’t allowed in Ironbound anymore. But it still stands there … the great Opera House itself, I mean. The hundred marble steps leading up to it from the city square rising up, waiting for the boots of ladies and men to climb again …”

  He stopped humming, concentrating on wiping his dripping brow with his tunic’s sleeve instead.

  Taxamia took his hand, but the Princess’s own palm was cold.

  “You’re afraid?” he asked.

  She nodded, bit her lip. “Not for us. For Jarlus.”

  “He knows what he’d doing, doesn’t he?” Ralley asked.

  “His people are from this jungle. He grew up under the canopy of the forest, and he’s the best scout we have. But …”

  “But she’s out there, and that worries you?”

  Taxamia nodded. “Jarlus taught her everything. He was her mentor, before she went mad. She knows what to expect.”

  “He taught her?” Ralley was stunned. “He mentioned something about the ‘monster in our midst,’ but I didn’t know … Is that why he feels responsible?”

  Taxamia closed her eyes, pained, and nodded again. “Yes. When she was a child, my sister asked Jarlus to train her in archery and swordsmanship, and he got father’s permission to do so. It was Jarlus who later convinced father to let her join the army. When she turned traitor and took half of her troops with her, Jarlus was devastated … He swore that one day he would find her and stop her.”

  “I wish we could help him,” Ralley sighed. He brushed his sweat-damp hair from his forehead. “If there was only something we could do right now …”

  “Maybe there is something,” she whispered. She held up the bronze-and-silver aon sensing rod. “Perhaps we can provide more information for the Xai Ashaon to work with. If there are other aon devices in the area, we can sense them with further effort. We have the time … Do you feel up for another try with me, love?”

  Ralley’s head hurt from their previous aon sensing efforts, but he knew that he had to put his petty aches aside. He smiled.