Regina heard a hissing sound and glanced left to see that, without waiting for orders, Omega had already taken offensive action and targeted the man with her own complement of missiles. One of them shot across the space between them and exploded against the shield, again engulfing the area with fire and light, though the result was the same. Omega wasted no time, firing two more in quick succession. Another came from Red Eye’s jet. Now the tower was lit up in a fearsome blaze for hundreds of feet. When it cleared, they saw once again that the man’s shield was still intact and untouched by the tremendous volley of force they had fired at him. The ripples that flowed around its surface slowly dissipated, then disappeared.
“What else have we got?” Red Eye asked. In his voice, Regina could hear just a trace of desperation; it was as though he knew exactly what was coming. She stared at the man hovering in front of her, as he was still watching her. In fact, she realized then that he had barely taken his eyes off her since Micra’s plane had been destroyed.
“I don’t know,” Regina responded, unable to hide the hesitation in her voice. Her hands reached out for the controls again, but she stopped. Looking down at them, she realized they had run out of tricks; she had no idea what order to give. “Nothing,” she replied eventually. Then, as she glanced around the cockpit desperately, she remembered they had one more item in their arsenal. It was their last chance. She hadn’t thought about using it because their primary target had been the tower; they hadn’t been prepared for a fight with a super powerful Ethereal. “I have an idea. What about the disrupt—”
She didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence as, acting on pure instinct, she glanced back up and saw the young man’s eyes pulse with blue light. Regina’s mouth gaped open as he reached his hands toward her. She pulled on the controls and banked left as he darted away from where he levitated, but she was too late. Partway through her maneuver, he rocketed straight through the left wing of her craft, shearing it away from the body. There was an explosion, and the jet spun out of control. Emergency lights flashed all around Regina and warning sounds filled the cockpit. Glancing to her left, she saw that the remaining section of the wing was jutting out from the main body of the craft, its edge ablaze. She knew there was no hope of regaining control.
Regina brought the ejection system online and initiated it. To her horror, the system’s AI spoke through the static of the failing systems. “Warning, ejection system has failed.”
She shook her head, defeated. “Fantastic, Macy. I have about fifteen seconds before this jet hits the water and I die. How is that supposed to help me?”
“I’m not certain how to answer that question.”
Regina rolled her eyes. Giving up in a sense, she unlatched her mask and watched the tower. It came in and out of view as the craft spun rapidly, hurtling toward the water. She glanced out the window and watched as the dark surface approached. A sea of death, she thought, but no grimace came. Pursing her lips, still caught in a rage she had never before felt or anticipated, she accepted her fate and prepared to make one final address to her two remaining comrades.
Then something changed. The craft lurched and, slowly, the spinning momentum stopped. Just as the craft was about to hit the surface of the ocean, it skirted off and rose back upward. Regina glanced around the cockpit, her jaw dropping open.
“Macy, what’s happening? How has the craft managed to stabilize itself?”
“Unknown. However, I am detecting a substantial spike of psionic activity surrounding the craft. The specific signature suggests the effect may be psychokinetic in origin.”
“What?” Regina spat, shocked.
As the craft steadied itself further, Regina saw the crystal bridge coming into view, also glinting in the moonlight. Something fluttered on her right, and she glanced out the window. It took her a moment to comprehend what she was seeing. A man in a black cloak hovered fifty feet away from her vessel. He was staring straight at it, with one hand held out in front of him. Even from this distance, she saw a white light glow from his palm. It immediately became obvious that he was controlling the craft, and though his gait remained the same, he was following it, moving in tandem with its immense velocity straight toward the bridge.
The gleaming surface approached, and now she knew the man’s intention was to set her craft down there. When the bridge was two hundred feet away, her momentum slowed. Regina looked out at the man once more. Now he held both his hands straight up as he steadied her descent. Looking forward, she saw that she was now only a hundred feet from the bridge, and she saw a lone figure standing there in the distance. She felt a glow in her chest, a feeling of sheer elation, for she knew immediately that it was her comrade, Ben. He had been standing still, but as her craft lowered toward the surface, he ran toward it.
The bridge was only fifty feet away and coming at her fast. Her ship lurched once again, slowing down further. Regina looked out the side window one last time to see the man still controlling the vehicle’s descent. Then, finally, the fighter hit the solid surface with a thud. It skidded ten feet and came to an abrupt halt. The hatch popped open above her.
Immediately, she undid her harness and stood. Regina glanced down to see that the fire which had blazed at the broken left wing had been extinguished, and only a small trace of smoke rose from that location. Turning, she glanced at Ben. She smiled at him and stepped out, jumping onto the surface below. Her feet hit hard, but she ignored it.
Ben ran at her, but Regina turned around, looking behind her for the man who had rescued her. He was hovering just to the right above the bridge, staring down at them. Then, he nodded—almost imperceptibly—and turned around. With astonishing speed, his body disappeared. He quickly became a black dot in the distance as he flew back toward the tower. She followed him for a moment, then turned back to Ben, who was now only ten feet away. Finally, she ran toward him and threw her arms around him.
They held the embrace for a moment, and then she pulled away. “I thought we’d lost you.” Ben smiled widely, then glanced up over her shoulder toward the tower.
“That guy—whoever he is—saved me. My parachute was a mess. I would have hit the water and died on impact. One minute I was spinning out of control. I was in free-fall. Then I stopped falling. I looked up and he was rushing toward me. He lowered me to the ground, smiled, and then disappeared.”
A frown creased her brow as Regina turned and glanced back toward the tower. In the distance, she heard the faint sound of jet engines as the remaining fighters stayed close, still not having abandoned the mission. Then her eyes widened as she saw two fast-moving objects appear to chase each other, lighting up portions of the sky.
“What on earth is going on up there?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What happened to Micra?”
“An errant laser brought down his fighter. It was that man in front of the tower—he caused it to happen. The beam ripped his plane to shreds.”
“Where is he, then?”
Regina shook her head, unable to take her eyes off the tower, which now appeared to be a prop from some eccentric designer’s snow globe. “I’m not sure,” she said, no longer concentrating on what Ben was saying. The sight of the glimmering edifice had transfixed her.
CHAPTER 17
ETERNAL
Omega, whose name was Tori, was pushing the fighter’s engines to their limits, testing them in ways they hadn’t been used before. Although she had managed to outmaneuver the young man attacking them, she had the nagging sensation that he was merely enjoying himself, like a child—bored of his integration with digital technology—might kick a football. Still, as he flew past her, she pulled 180-degree turns and opened fire with both the high-energy laser canon and missiles. Thus far, his shield remained intact. When he had flown at her again, she had banked left and come back around in a full 360-degree spin, once again using the advanced targeting systems to find him quickly and pummel him with rounds of fire. Still, they were hav
ing no effect. She had taken command, though there seemed little point now. Tori had reported back to base about what had happened and was awaiting further instructions, expecting their unit to be recalled at any moment. However, this young man had—as far as she knew—potentially murdered her friends, and she wanted him dead. At this point, she was undecided as to whether she would obey the command to withdraw, when—and if—it came.
She stopped firing now, and as his shield became transparent again, Tori waited for him to make his next move. In their arsenal was one final thing that none of them had tried, and she thought that it might have crossed Taurus’s mind just before her plane had been hit. It was an experimental device that had come from an organization about which Tori knew nothing. It was known simply as “The Committee.” Tori hadn’t even been told the name directly; she had learned it only recently and accidentally while passing two of her commanding officers in the middle of a heated discussion.
She watched carefully, waiting on the man to make his move. When she saw him dart forward, she activated the disrupter. A humming sound filled both her plane and the area around her as the device, which had recently been installed at the front of the jet, emitted a powerful shockwave. To her, it appeared to be waves of energy that oscillated through the air in front of her.
Tori’s eyes opened wide as the shockwave hit the man and knocked him backward. He reeled with it, caught in its wake, and flew back toward the tower. Then, appearing dazed, he drifted and fell outside the weapon’s range. Tori leaned forward and watched, astonished, as his limp body fell toward the sea.
“I don’t believe it. We—we got him!”
“YES!” she heard Sven scream over the comms system.
Tori smiled a little as she heard his exuberance. She remembered now why his call sign was “Red Eye.” The smile faded quickly as she heard a different male voice, and it wasn’t coming through the comms system. This time, it was speaking directly into her mind.
No, you didn’t. You got lucky. You’ve managed to stun him briefly, but he won’t let that happen again. Trust me.
Tori’s body froze with shock. “Who said that?” she asked, her voice quivering. Her eyes darted around the cockpit’s interior.
I did, said the calm, male voice. And you should be careful. He’s coming back up now. Tori glanced at her sensors and saw that this man—whoever he was—was correct. A target was rushing straight back up the length of the tower, headed for her. She banked right hard, pushing the jet sideways to get a clear view. She gasped in horror at what she saw. Not only was the young man rising toward her, but he was carrying with him a gushing column of water, easily seventy feet wide. If it impacted her ship, she would have no chance of recovering her vessel; it would be destroyed.
Tori pushed the engines to full, but they roared under the strain of some external influence. The plane remained stationary and unmoving. Then the water hit and she yelled out. The vessel lurched violently as it was caught in the gushing column of water. Tori’s body was pulled hard against her harness, and she struggled for air as water covered the vessel, pushing it in multiple, ever-changing directions. Reaching out her hands, fighting against the centrifugal motion of the jet, Tori grabbed for the controls and pushed the engines to full, but it had no effect; the water was still flowing upward and the jet was completely caught—pulled into its ongoing, upward wake.
“Macy!” she yelled over the sound of the water as it pummeled the craft’s exterior.
“Yes?” responded the calm voice of the AI.
“Increase the output of the engines to one hundred fifty percent.” Tori watched, eyes wide, as tons of liquid pummeled the forward windows, blocking her view.
“Warning. Using the engines beyond their original design specifications presents extreme risk of—”
“Override. Do it now.”
A second later, Tori heard the engines roar to life beneath her. She pushed the throttle full forward. The plane shot out from the side of the torrent, but Tori had overcorrected. Now that she was in normal airspace, she immediately lost control of the jet. She tried to correct, but as the left engine sputtered, Tori fell into a spin, and seconds later, the tower was rushing past her through the forward window. It was as though she were on a carousel, watching something in the background. As the plane fell toward the water, the engine on the left side returned to full capacity and, slowly, Tori managed to steady the craft. Having fallen several hundred feet, she corrected the spin swiftly, and was now facing the glimmering edifice once again. Glancing up at the enormous structure, it seemed, worryingly, that even in the short time since they had begun their attack, its surface was glinting to an even greater degree. Tori craned her neck and looked up, only to see that it had undoubtedly increased in height, even during the short duration of their engagement with the powerful Ethereal. She winced with deep, grave concern.
Gathering her composure, Tori repositioned the jet, pushed the engines to full, and lifted the craft back into the sky, moving farther from the structure to consider her options. When she had reached the height at which her unit had begun its attack, she saw that the enormous column of water had stopped rising, and the billion or so gallons of liquid were now falling back into the ocean. As the water dissipated, some of it fell like rain against the side of the tower. Tori watched it for a moment, mesmerized, but as she returned her attention to the same place, she noticed that now two individuals were in the air, separated by a distance of less than a hundred feet. They were circling each other, levitating at the same place where she had previously been firing with her comrades.
“Red Eye to Omega, are you still online?”
“Yes,” replied the shaken man.
“Are you seeing this?”
“Yes, there’s a second one.” After a brief pause, he said, “I’m preparing to fire again.”
“No, wait. Let’s see how this plays out. I’m not going to risk using that disruption device again. All it did was stun him.” Tori paused as she watched the two slowly circle each other, dimly illuminated by the tower behind them.
“Yes. Besides, we don’t even know where it came from.”
Tori glanced out at his jet and frowned. “Right,” she responded hesitantly. She hadn’t had time to give further thought to the Committee from which she had heard this technology had come. Now, though, she wondered. Not only that, she was angry. Whoever they were, they had known more about this situation than her companion pilots had, and apparently, so did her commanding officers. The psionic disruptor—so recently installed—was the only thing that had had any effect on the man at all. Everything else had been a catastrophic failure. So why had it been kept so secret?
***
Claudia couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Josh’s plan had worked. The extremely advanced civilian drones were sending back incredible footage of the military intervention, and now, of the appearance of this second individual in the black cloak. “We have to get this to air, now,” she said.
“Wait a few seconds,” Josh said. “It looks like they’re going to fight.”
“He’s right,” John added. “The man in the black cloak—he’s on our side.”
“How do you know?” Claudia asked.
“I don’t know—I just do,” John said.
Claudia frowned.
John took a breath and glanced at the ground. He bit his bottom lip for a second, then looked back up at her as he took a step closer. “Look, if it were any other time, I would keep this to myself. But it’s like a radio transmission. OK? I can feel it—I can almost hear it. If you concentrate, maybe you can too. This man is good.”
Claudia’s eyes narrowed as she took in what he had said. Glancing away, she tried to listen, but after five seconds of hearing absolutely nothing, she gave up. So far, the advice of these two particular crew members had been spot-on, and so she returned her attention to the monitor, waiting for the moment when she would broadcast what they were witnessing to th
e world.
***
The two jets still hovered nearby, their engines barely audible to Max as he circled Trey, focusing his will on keeping up his psychic defenses. This close to the tower, Zatera was even more powerful, and Max knew he had to be careful. His power was leaking out into the surrounding environment. Now, as he summoned more strength from the enormous structure, arcs of electricity shot out from it, connecting to his body. His eyes flared with light, and behind and above them, the dark clouds that swirled near the tip of the structure lit up with multicolored, otherworldly lightning.
You know if you complete this, there’s no going back. This will be the end of your endeavors, whether you succeed or not.
I’m aware of that.
Zatera’s words echoed in his mind like a powerful chorus, the gentle and innocent tones of Trey’s voice now gone completely. Max avoided wincing. In the new light of the energy that glowed around them, the lines that had so recently formed around Max’s eyes became apparent. Thin, dark shadows were cast down each side of his face.
You don’t know if It will even accept you.
Oh, Zatera said as he turned and glanced at the magnificent structure behind him. Then he turned back to face Max as they continued encircling each other. I don’t think It will have a choice. And then…
Max watched as, once again, Trey’s eyes pulsed and an unexpected volley of psychic light occluded his vision. His own psychic defenses were momentarily cracked open wide; a flash of images clouded his mind. There was one particular vision. In it, he saw a giant crystalline colossus across a distant ocean. The monstrosity was thousands of feet high and waded through the water below as though a human might wade through a pond. It was a metaphor, Max knew, but the message was clear; it signified power. Max winced and glanced sideways, trying to shake the scene from his mind. Instead, unexpectedly, anger rose within him. As the light receded, he glared back at Trey. Max reached out quickly, broke through Zatera’s own psychic defenses, and looked into his mind. What he saw almost brought tears to his eyes.
The Crystal Tower Page 33