Need to woman up here. Can’t be a shrieking violet.
“A little more power through here,” Max spoke through clenched teeth wading into a smoke-choked hall where the fire had eaten the carpeting. “Gotta find that sound. There, that door!”
She heard a small thud, the sound of a child crying. “Mommy!”
“Move back from the door,” Max called. She willed her body to phase through the door, stepping ahead. Max entered the bedroom without letting in all the smoke and heat. But the child was coughing from smoke that had come under the door and from an air vent.
The child was four, blue eyed, golden tresses. Her face was tear-stained. Max scooped her up and held her. The girl calmed, reaching to touch Max’s faces like it was something not of this Earth.
“You’re an angel!”
“Close your eyes, hon.” Pressing the girl’s face to her chest, Max held her tight, leaping toward a wall. Max ghosted through all barriers, and burst outside. She dropped from the sky to the sidewalk, releasing the girl. Swarming firefighters snatched her up. She was hustled toward a waiting ambulance where they applied an oxygen mask. Max should have felt good, but the girl still called for her mother.
Max returned to the fire, a streaking gold mist that only one child had seen through due to physical contact.
Max was happy to see a lot of evacuated residents down at the side of the building away from the flames. The fire had died down with Max irradiating the molecular structure, but now that she’d left, the fire was reigniting.
The Voice in her head said: There are no life-signs near the blasted part of the structure, but I am detecting one on the fifth floor, to the far left.
The Star took over piloting. Max found herself streaking back into the building. She ghosted into an apartment that had a “Nobody’s home” feel. Lights were off just like the TV. There were no people, but plenty of pictures of children and grandkids. Max entered a bedroom and found a gray-haired woman in her eighties. She was heavy set, her eyes closed, a respirator covering her lower face. A plastic tube ran to a large cylinder.
An oxygen tank. How am I supposed to handle all this?
This way, the Voice said. We create a force bubble and I tether it the Star. Where we go, the bed and tank will follow.
Cool, Max thought. This will come in handy.
It’s one of many skills you need to learn.
Fine. Let’s get grandma outta here for now. Max took over flight control, exploding out a window. The bubble followed like a faithful dog, shoving wood trim and brick out of its way. Max headed down to the crowd. She landed and so did the bed and oxygen cylinder. A younger woman rushed the bed. She shook the sleeper. “Mom, Mom, are you all right?”
The old woman stirred, her eyes opening. “Darla? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Those who’d seen the bed float down yammered about it:
“Bed’s don’t fly!”
“This one did, we all saw it.”
“Act of God…”
“Look there, what’s that hazy gold figure.”
“A ghost!”
“Report!” Mitron ordered.
“Ship’s taken excessive damage. Missiles are gone. We’re down to particle beams.”
“And the Light Born?” Mitron called.
“We’ve lost three of the team, but the diversions are keeping them occupied. No, wait, new reserves are headed down from orbit. We need to withdraw while we can,” the navigator said.
The mechamorph on the sensor station yelled. “I’ve got something at one of attack sites.”
Mitron swiveled the captain’s chair, bumping aside the old captain’s dead body. “What?”
“A bed. A floating bed.”
“Put it on screen.” Mitron said.
The screen lit up with a crowded street scene from planet side. A heavily damaged building was smoking, only partly aflame. A bed floated through the air, a haze of light near it. “Increase amplification,” Mitron ordered. The bed leaped in size. A sphere of pale gold surrounded it. A wrinkled human lay on the bed, a mask over half her face. The golden haze near the bed refused to come clear.
The team member on the sensor station said, “Something is there, but it’s too well shielded—can’t get any readings.”
“That’s the Guardian,” Mitron said. “Has to be.”
“Hit her with combined projectors—full power!”
The necklace spoke to her in an agitated voice. Max, I sense a force sheer build up. The bed was too much. Our work’s been spotted.
All Max could see in her head was a vision of these people dying as some kind of energy beam slashed them into nothing.
“Not on my watch!”
Max, you’re not used to channeling my power for extended periods. Your cells are still adjusting. You could hurt yourself.
“Not important.” She lifted her hands and concentrated, imagining a shield floating in the overhead sky. A shell of gold formed above the building, its cup catching the still rising smoke. Max trembled, a wave of dizziness dropping her to one knee. Her glassy-misty look faded and she appeared in full costume, her face a mask of light, her hair rising in tendrils, stirred by the power shimmering around her.
There were gasps from the crowd. From Darla. From the woman on the bed.
Max ignored this, force power through herself, reinforcing it with her will.
And then the shield was struck by a sword of red energy. The center of the shield turned orange where the two colors fought. Max felt her heart hammering in distress, a searing pain assailed her, like the sword was cutting into her heart, not the shield.
Hold on, Max. You can do this. I chose you because your heart is worthy and tough as steel when you need to be. Your compassion is the core of your power. Let it flow!
Max held the shield firmly in place as a dazzle of red bathed it, looking for a break. But there was no break, no faltering.
Max forced herself to stand though it felt like the pressure of an ocean was crushing her. Her voice snapped out, a promise to herself and others. “I am the Guardian, and I will protect this world!” The glow around her face died. The shield grew brighter. And max noticed that the sky was empty of fire and thunder. The war in the heavens was over—except for this last battle she fought.
The energy sword thinned and vanished. The shield hovered, cracked, chipped at the edges, but triumphant.
The Light Born have ended things, the Voice reported.
Max collapsed the shield and felt immediate relief.
Cell phones were held by various people in the crowd. They were taking pictures.
Max gasped. My face!
The glow returned to hide her features.
Grim-faced cops were running closer, hands on their holstered guns at their sides.
The Voice said: The Light Born will be coming, too.
I need to get out of here.
Someone caught up her hand and held it in a vise-like grip. It was a teary-eyed Darla. “You saved my mother. Thank you.”
The raw emotion in the woman’s face made max avert her eyes which were getting weepy.
I don’t deserve praise. I’m the reason this is happening. I’m the one the aliens want. If not for me—
Stop it, Max. You aren’t blame for the evil others choose. If want these deaths to matter, learn to use your gifts. Become a shining light that will blaze across the galaxy and show the sentient a purer way.
A purer way?
One of the cops reached her and seized her arm, tugging away. “You need to come and have a little talk with us.”
Surprised, Max didn’t resist at first. Cops were the good guys, authority figures she’d been taught to obey, but she knew she couldn’t let her secrets out. Not yet. Maybe never. If the innocent here were endangered to find her, her family would surely be targeted even more viciously to control her—and her power.
What about the cell phones? Max thought.
There was a crackle from the phones. Th
ey died. Their owners shook them and hit them, but they remained dead.
The Voice said: Electro-magnetic pulse.
Great. Then color me gone.
The cops almost had her over to a parked patrol car. Dug in her heels, and let the power of the Star flow through her again. Her arm ghosted free of the policeman’s grip. Her body became glassy, translucent at the core of a golden mist. She rose into the air, hung there a second, and then streaked away, leaving a dying wake of light.
The Light Born will help the rescuers from here, Max. Don’t worry.
Don’t worry? How can I not? There was no answer. Max flew toward home, accepting that her life—as she’d always planned it—was now D.O.A., dead-on-arrival. I’m the Guardian now. Better get used to it since I’m stuck with the Star.
And of course Tommy was there, waiting as she flew in through the window, swung her feet under her, and landed. He held a half-eaten sandwich on a plate, and had a can of soda nearby, while sitting on her bed. “Been out having fun, have we?”
Max stood there, crying silently. “No. Fun doesn’t cover it.”
He came over and held her, leaving his half-eaten sandwich behind on the bed. That was when Max understood the depth of his love for her.
NINE
Dawn broke. Shafts of light fanned above the horizon, chasing away shades of gray. From several thousand feet in the air, Hardrune looked down on the city. It was pocked with blast craters. A few buildings had fallen in the night. The smoke of fires still smudged the sky in places. The Light Born had intercepted much of the enemy bombardment, but not all.
Several of Hardrune’s companions kept him company; the rest had returned to orbit for down time, to take a later shift. Such devastation could not be allowed again. Already, the planet feared off-worlders. The Guardian herself might have been biased against them by all this.
Not good.
Hardrune broke his silence. “This was not the work of pirates. It was too targeted, too specific, and no looting occurred.”
Taurra—a mottle-slime from the planet Krogen—elegantly ripped his pseudopod fins. “Ashere’s people?”
Hardrune gave an affirmative grunt. “Not that we can prove it. The hijacked vessel was destroyed with all hands onboard—that we know of.”
Taurra said, “You suspect enemy survivors?”
“There were odd gravitonic readings in the city at the time of the vessel’s destruction. It may be some new form of teleportation. I think mechamorphs were trying to find and kill the new Guardian. They’d write off the whole planet to achieve that end.”
Taurra gurgled contempt deep in his long throat. “Crazy! The Star will never serve a Guardian against its will.”
Hardrune nodded. “Yes, but I believe Ashere truly is insane. She believes she can achieve anything by divine right of birth—to use the term loosely.”
He fell silent again, a broody silence that his companions were all familiar with. Again, Hardrune broke his own reserve. “Sometimes, madness pays off. The Guardian was here, fighting among her people, fighting for them. Too bad she fled before we could introduce ourselves.”
Taurra’s face rippled, producing a foot-wide smile with serrated teeth. “She’s a warrior, that one, more like us than the last Guardian.”
“They’re all different in many ways, but they’ve always put the needs of the galactic community above all else. We can’t let Ashere change that.”
Taurra said, “What I don’t understand is how the mechamorphs tracked the new Guardian to this location ahead of us. How did they find her first?”
Hardrune shrugged. “We may never know, but I’m not letting them get the jump on us again. We are going to keep a presence here, sweeping for anomalies until we find her. I think if that new teleportation system is used again, I can home in on it.”
The police helicopter and the news copters swung by, keeping an eye on them. The human authorities were nervous, but had learned through the night that the Light Born were here to help. At the hospital, where they Light Born had bought many of the wounded humans, they’d made reassurances that were still spreading among the humans. Representatives of the Earth’s military had tried to take them into custody. Hardrune had politely declines.
This was a primitive world just entering its cyberspace era, and yet—for the foreseeable future—no world in the league would be so important. “We’d better get used to the customs here. This is going to be the new capital of the League, maybe for centuries to come.” The Guardians routinely lived longer than the average among their people. That was why such instability between reigns was a rare thing.
* * *
Once more, Max had slept in and was late for the bus. Running out the door with her backpack, she felt like an anime character with a buttered piece of toast crammed in her mouth.
The memories of the night’s events haunted the back of her mind where she’d shoved them. As long as she didn’t remember too strongly, the images in her soul didn’t swamp her, submerging her in guilt and pain. Just because she intellectually knew she wasn’t at fault didn’t mean she let herself off the hook.
A strange tingling wave went through her. The crystal in her jean pocket warmed her leg. A sense of displacement possessed her. “What’s goin on?” she muttered.
You are beginning to feel what I feel. Sub-space distortion, very near.
But what does that mean?
Alien presence. Probable threat.
Great. Moving down her sidewalk toward the street, she scanned the sky for trouble. The only motion catching her eyes was at street level; the school bus making its approach. A flutter of excitement filled her stomach. Jeff would be on the bus. And he’d have that cool-blue gaze that would shiver her on contact. She looked forward to it.
A red half-shell of light swirled in the air above the bus. The vanishing light-play left a humanoid form in the air, a man with white skin in a black body sheath. Iron wings jutted from his back. They didn’t move, but somehow held him up against the force of gravity.
The voice in her head made an identification: Mechamorph. I know this one; Mitron, Ashere’s number one underling.
He waved his hand at the back of the bus. There was a string of muffled pops. The bus swerved and sideswiped a row of parked cars, leaving globs of bubbling rubber on the road. The bus jounced into a ditch, falling onto its right side, sealing the side doors.
Max’s body launched itself in an all-out run. Breathless, she reached the bus. Tires were molten, smoking, the rubber dripping off.
Thermal rays, the Voice said.
At the back of the bus, max felt the waves of heat from the axels. She opened the emergency hatch at the back. Two girls her age spilled out. Max caught them, cushioning their fall as they all went down. The girls seemed all right, shaken and bruised a little.
“Excuse me,” Max groaned. “I seem to have my stomach in someone’s knee.” The weight came off her suddenly, and Max climbed to her feet. She stood by the rear exit, hearing moaning, crying, complaints, and words she’d been taught never to say.
“This way,” she called. Jeff came to her. He cradled one hand against his shirt. His voice was strained. He was pale-faced, wincing from pain. His good arm went over Max’s shoulders, as she helped him out the door, and down. His feet hit the uneven ground with a jar. His eyes closed and he gritted his teeth but said nothing, leaning against Max an extra moment before going on.
“You’re hurt!
“Not too bad, I think. Thanks,” he added.
“Any time.” The girls she’d helped bracketed jeff nd guided him away from the bus, in case it might burst into flames. They were a little too eager to be helpful. It mad max want to bitch slap them both. Somehow, she restrained herself, turning back to the emergency exit. Several students were scrambling down, using her for support. They moaned and bitched their way to the edge of the street.
Max clambered into the vehicle. A lot of the students were still sorting themselves out, but not seri
ously hurt. “C’mon, people, move to the back. Don’t block the aisle. We got hurt people to rescue.”
She found Kim, one of her best friends. Her heart pounded a little faster. “Kim?” Max grabbed her hand, and studied her face. Kim had a bleeding scalp wound. “Kim, can you stand?”
Kim groaned, looking up. She started to move.
“Slow down,” Max advised. “Make sure everything is still working right before you start to use it.”
Kim sat up slowly. “I’m all right, I think. Got a wicked headache though. What happened?”
“Bus turned over. Tires are flat. Hey, don’t touch that. There’s blood on the side of your head. Looks like it stopped bleeding, but it might need stitches.”
“Just let me outta this tin can. I don’t dso well in tight, tilted places.”
Max steadied her friend as she climbed to her feet. The bus was now void of the able-bodied. Only a few seriously uninjured remained. The driver was one of them. Max got Kim to the exit, then went back. She leaned over the driver. He’d fallen sideways from his seat, into the stairwell. He was conscious, immobile, but not apparently in pain. Another of Max’s friends was with him.
Max asked, “Stacy, what’s the deal?”
“Mr. Packard’s bad back was aggravated by the fall. He says he can’t move his legs without a sharp pain shooting across his back. I’ve tried to make him comfortable, getting his head up off of the stairs.” Stacy’s backpack was serving the driver as a pillow.
Sirens approached, splitting the air. “We better clear out of the way so they can get in here to help,” Max said.
Stacy nodded. She gave the driver’s hand a final squeeze and put it back on his chest. “Hold on. It will just be a little longer. Help’s almost here.”
The portly driver nodded. “You kids, go on. Nothin’ you can do here.” Stacy and Max backed away, turned, and filed out. A paramedic pulled them aside as they exited, fussing over them a moment, making sure they weren’t hurt while his partner climbed into the wreck.
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