by C. C. Ekeke
“Jakadda, Marguliese. Work with PLADECO and find out how the fekt those bombers got within Thasque’s borders.” He wheeled around on his second-in-command. “You go help Crescendo.”
Tyris was visibly put off by the assignment. “I can be more effective with Jakadda!”
Seriously? “Civilians are dying, Arcturus,” Habraum threw back. Why was everyone questioning his orders? “Off with you. Now where’s the UComm chief sorting this mess?”
Tyris, beady blue eyes narrowed, wordlessly gestured to his right.
Habraum turned toward a Cressonish in green and grey UComm fatigues, sitting at a makeshift command center, barking out orders. The Cerc glanced at Tyris. “Tell CT-1 we’ll reconvene here in two orvs before Solrao returns.” Habraum broke into a jog toward the UComm without another word.
Lily winced as her latest patient roared in agony. He was Suuruali—and enormous. This near-eight-foot being had been caught in the first bomb blast, dislocating his leg at the hip. Liliana had muscled up his beefy thigh, which alone was three times her body size, onto her shoulders. Three UComm officers held the Suuruali down so she could pop the joint back in place.
“Okay, on the count of three…” Liliana subtly motioned for two officers to steady the patient.
“STOP!” the Suuruali boomed over the chaotic din, not as cavernous a voice like most Suuruali adults, meaning he was probably in his late teens. This also explained why he wasn’t nine feet. Dulce Madre!
“We need to move you,” a human UComm officer offered rudely. Lily silenced him with a look.
“I’m scared!” The massive ursine-reptilian being gaped at the doctor with fearful watery eyes.
The nonstop ruin and injured victims offered Lily no time to coddle him. But he’s a child.
“What’s your name?” Lily asked as calmly as possible, hoisting up his massive thigh.
His leathery muzzle trembled. “Uadua.”
“I’m Liliana, and I’m a doctor.” That drew an odd stare from one of the three UComm officers, an Aesonite by his pebbly skin. Lily smiled at Uadua. “It’s okay to be afraid. I used to be when jumping into hyperspace. But with my job, I’ve had to face my fear.” Lily struggled keeping her trembling arms around the Suuruali’s burly thigh. The appendage probably weighed more than her!
The Suuruali watched her incredulously. “That’s all it took?”
Lily managed a shrug despite carrying his leg. “Well, a friend forced me to go orbital skydiving first. Now I try going orbital skydiving whenever time allows.”
“Really?” asked Uadua, totally riveted.
KRRKRACK! Liliana’s answer was a sharp twist, resetting his leg in place.
The Suuruali roared in pain. Flailing his left arm, he threw off the hapless officer holding it.
“Really.” Lily smiled. She carefully set down his rapidly swelling leg. “Hurts less if you don’t see it coming.” She shook the burning fatigue from her arms and addressed her helpers, including the UComm officer still staring, “Get that in a cooling stabilizer wrap and load him in a transport.” Liliana popped up, scanning the wreckage for her next patient.
Someone grabbed her arm. “Pardon, Liliana?” The doctor found herself facing the Aesonite officer with the staring problem. He was lanky in build, his granite-like complexion light grey. While Aesonite hair usually grew out in separated coiled tuffs, his hair appeared closely shaved.
“As in Dr. Liliana Cortes?” His voice had a distinct gravelly accent.
Lily frowned warily. “Yes?”
“KNEW IT!” The UComm officer grinned triumphantly. “Read your piece in the Poston Medical Journal of ExoBiochemistry. Loved it!”
Lily, flattered, smiled nervously. “I…Thanks! Thank you,” she stammered out, not knowing what to say. “Kinda need my arm back.”
“Oh!” The Aesonite immediately released her arm. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Thanks!” Lily winced at saying “thanks” three times, and retreated to the next triage site.
Once there, Liliana had little time to mull over her awkwardness earlier. The flashpoint of the first impact bomb and the buildings it detonated between shared a massive crater, leaving massive piles of rubble. Several UComm officers swarmed the scene, beginning rescue efforts of the injured and trapped. Liliana spotted a tall and familiar crystalline figure in their midst.
“Arcturus!” She ran to his side. Currently the Tanoeen had both hands on one of the larger debris piles. Instantly, several veins of sub-zero frost wormed from his hand across the ferroment chunk’s surface, completely freezing it. Arcturus moved back and a UComm officer swung his baton-type weapon. With a slight tap, the frozen rubble shattered into a million brittle pieces. Lily raised an arm to protect her face from the shrapnel.
Tyris then acknowledged Lily. “We’re clearing rubble away to find those buried.” Fury danced in his cobalt-blue eyes, but not directed at her. With so many injured, his issue would have to wait, causing an idea to form.
“Hold on.” Liliana closed her eyes and held both hands over the rubble, emitting continuous high-pitch sound waves from her body. She felt them wash over the wreckage like a sonar.
Instantly, the waves bounced back. Lily sensed the soft shapes underneath. “…two are trapped under there.”
The aid workers shot each other baffled glances before directing their rescue mechanoids to the spot Liliana had indicated. Tyris stood staring at her. “How did you—”
“Echolocation,” she explained, and watched the aid workers intently as they began removing rocks more precisely. The whole time, the clouds churning over Thasque blotted out Herope’s sunlight.
“You know if they’re alive?” Tyris moved to begin freezing some debris again.
“I do sonar, not x-ray—” Lily stopped and frowned at this sudden buzzing, piercing and monotone. By how everyone else continued about their business, no one else noticed.
The buzzing grew louder, sending Lily’s world twirling round and round to the point of nausea. She stumbled backward and clutched at her pounding head. The buzzing intensified to the point that Liliana wanted to rip her own brain out and dump it in a bucket of ice-cold tea.
Thunder from the heavens shook the very air, and Liliana’s legs had become spaghetti. She reached out for something to steady herself against…and found only air. If not for Tyris catching her around the waist, Liliana might have pitched forward and fell.
“Crescendo?” Tyris asked, sounding worried. Getting no response, he tried again, “Liliana, what—”
“Some…something’s wrong,” Lily wheezed. She hung limp in his arms. She could feel the air quiver around her as a skyquake began. Why couldn’t anyone else sense it?
Tyris directed Liliana away from the wreckage site and the mystified stares from aid workers. “Something is wrong. Three impact bombs went off,” he said in a sharp, cold whisper of a voice.
“No…something else,” the doctor barely gasped out. Just moving her jaw made Liliana nauseous.
The heavens above answered for her in the form of a skyquake, violently shaking Liliana’s whole world back and forth. A white-hot lightning fork splintered down, shredding through a row of redirected hovercar traffic before impaling a nearby building as if it were made of woodpaper. Liliana looked up in horror to see several lightning bolts raining down. Screams from citizens dashing for cover and the UComm and Ttaunz Defense officers trying to keep the peace only accentuated the city-state center’s utter chaos.
Tyris began ushering Liliana away. “We need to move—AAH!”
A bolt of lightning struck nearby, tossing both Brigadiers apart and shearing off a huge chunk of ferroment from one of the surrounding buildings still intact.
The devastated bomb site had devolved into a roiling disaster area. Several buildings were ablaze, savaged by lightning that dazzled the dark and turbulent heavens. Smoldering hovercars crashed down like a hailstorm of scorched metal. The amount of fleeing bystanders swelled, now including TDF
and UComm officers.
Nobody ran in any particular direction, because nowhere was safe.
Liliana, overwhelmed, stood and stared as Thasque plunged into chaos around her.
That was when everything froze…
Habraum’s skull was still ringing, his body still sore all over. But Habraum kept his pain contained in the face of Thasque’s devastation. The Cerc was getting briefed by Commander Jheygo Iort, on-site leader of the Planetary Defense Corps contingent.
This Cressonish was a barrel-chested, lanky male, his entire body—sans mouth and nose—covered in shaggy goldenrod fur. The hairless muzzle on his face resembled a pair of horse hooves pressed together vertically. By how Cressonish vocal chords were structured, Jheygo needed a digital voice box to speak Standard. “Since the bombings started, we’ve assisted TDF’s search for the Ghebrekh. But it’s like chasing ghosts.”
Habraum nodded, glancing at the darkening sky. “My team will find them.”
The Cressonish glared sourly. “You’ll succeed where PLADECO, UIB, and TDF failed?”
“We’re specialists at hunting terrorists like Ghuj’aega,” Habraum said as they walked side by side toward another mound of jagged wreckage. “Still, when it comes to hunting him, any PLADECO help is welcome.”
“HAH!” The Cressonish’s shiny opal eyes sparkled. “Well answered, Nwosu.”
Habraum’s wristcom beeped. “Excuse me.” He raised the wristcom to his mouth. “Go ahead.”
“Jakadda here,” V’Korram Prydyri-Ravlek’s growl answered. “Scoured all over the city-state using Phaeton’s sensor sweep. All borders and their gene scanners are intact. No breaches.”
Habraum bucked his teeth, but kept his cool in front of the Commander. He felt the air begin to rattle around him—a skyquake aftershock. “Keep looking, Lieutenant—”
The first blinding fork zigzagged down from the heavens, shredding through three traffic lanes of hovercars. Bright orange plumes ignited in their place. Several more hovercars plummeted in a shower of flaming ruins. The aftershocks instantly graduated into a full-fledged skyquake. Larger military vehicles veered away from the lightning, nearly hitting the screaming crowds.
“Move somewhere safe, Jakadda! Reign out!” The Cerc turned to Khal. “Vertex, get any civilians you can inside. Khrome, clear any debris blocking civilian evacuations.”
Khal did as ordered. “Shouldn’t Thasque have energy shielding against lightning storms like this?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” the Cressonish commander called out, having just finished barking out orders to the PLADECO troopers under his command.
Never had Habraum seen lightning this savage, not even the worst summer torridities on Cercidale. Any holo-billboards struck by lightning erupted in brilliant showers of sparks. As more lightning bolts lanced and scorched the cityscape, Habraum truly saw nowhere inside or out to hide.
One thick bolt forked through a seven-story structure. Story by story, viewports blew out top to bottom, each with an explosive orange blaze. Habraum flinched and ducked, but continued marching onward. Commander Jheygo was a step behind him. More bolts rained down as screaming civilians ran in the other direction. Soaring plumes of fire, horrific yet spectacular to behold, adorned this area of Thasque like flowers in a garden.
Then everything paused, as in stopped movement…except Habraum. The Cerc spied Khrome off to one side, frozen in midair. Khal stood on another side, mouth open in mid-sentence. PLADECO troopers were swarmed by terrified yet unmoving masses of civilians. Even the tongues of flames stayed motionless. Everywhere in downtown Thasque, currently flooded with civilians and burning structures, looked as if someone had pressed pause on a HLHG program. Yet the dark skies above it all continued to churn and flash.
Habraum, standing alone, let his fear truly show. Rogguts, he fretted, maybe I do have a concussion.
A movement caught his ear, boots scraping on the ground. He spun around, raising his glowing fist to fire at the threat. The culprit was Liliana Cortes, weaving slowly through the maze of motionless bodies. She was gaping at something in the crowd that the Cerc could not see.
Their eyes met. Both Brigadiers stared in silence, neither knowing what to do or say…
…right as everything burst back into motion. Lightning strikes fell more savagely than before. Khal shouted out directions, at times telekinetically shoving stragglers toward safety. Khrome floated about, directing traffic also. The jarring symphony of screams and explosions shocked Habraum out of his surprise, and he narrowly dodged away from getting trampled by a stampede of civilians. He glanced in Liliana’s direction once more, but she had disappeared into the swelling crowd.
But Habraum knew she could handle herself.
“Nwosu?!” exclaimed Jheygo. “How did you get over there? You were right next to me—”
Habraum turned, realizing he had moved a couple feet from the commander while everyone had been immobile. Before he could answer, a spiraling hovercar grazed by the lightning strikes came hurtling forward at the oblivious commander!
Habraum ran and snatched Jheygo’s collar, jerking him out of harm’s way.
In the same motion, the Cerc raised a glowing fist at the out-of-control hovercar. Anyone in the way cleared out without being told. A low-intensity burst should have stopped the vehicle without harming the driver. Habraum never got the chance.
A short wall of silvery muscle flew into the hovercar’s path. Khrome spread his arms and braced himself for the impact.
Above the uproar, a loud metal clank rang out. The Thulican caught the much larger hovercar in midair like a beach ball, barely staggering. Khrome floated slowly to the ground, gently lowering the vehicle onto its belly.
The Thulican leaned in to peer at the driver through the cracked front viewport. “You alright—”
Khrome’s concern was met with a terrified shriek. The bald female Ttaunz in gaudy designer garb frantically wrenched her sliding driver’s side door open and tore off into the pandemonium.
“You’re welcome!” Khrome scowled after her, his metal flesh reflecting the subsiding lightning.
Habraum breathed, releasing the Commander’s collar. Clearly embarrassed, the Cressonish straightened up with as much dignity as possible and nodded gratefully at the Thulican. “Lightning storm’s starting to ebb,” Habraum continued, feeling little relief as he once again assessed the downtown carnage. This had been no act of nature. Yet Habraum couldn’t believe a primitive tribe wielded such destructive power.
“Uh, Reign? Khrome?” The two Brigadiers and the UComm Commander turned to Khal, who was gazing skyward in shock. “Problem! Up there!” What Khal spotted almost made Habraum retch again.
A starliner, the same one Phaeton nearly struck earlier, burst through the dark cloud blankets. Out of control with lights flickering frenetically, the gigantic vessel was plummeting down from the skies. Cascades of lightning doused its trapezoidal shape, keeping it from pulling back up.
Habraum then noticed four small recovery ships approaching to catch the starliner in their tractor beams, then steer it toward the nearest spaceport—normal procedure if a ship this size ever lost control. But jagged forks of lightning lashed out any time the recovery vessels got too close.
And the starliner nosedived straight for downtown Thasque.
On instinct, Habraum turned to Khrome. “Can you…”
The Thulican almost looked insulted. “Of course!”
“Go!”
“GONE.” Khrome saluted curtly and squatted down, looking to the heavens. Habraum felt tiny shockwaves billowing out as Khrome uncurled and rocketed toward the cloudy pink heavens.
Hurtling at top speed toward the plummeting starliner, Khrome broke the sound barrier with a sharp BOOM.
“What is he doing?” Jheygo shouted over the clamor.
“Saving that starliner,” Habraum calmly replied.
The Cressonish looked staggered. “How?! That starliner is the length of two Conuropolis c
ity-state blocks!”
“And?” Habraum replied, eyes fixed on Khrome’s flight. “He’ll stop it.” He knew Khrome was the strongest Brigadier on his roster. But is it enough? The Cerc clenched his jaw, refusing to let doubt creep in. “C’mon, Khromulus,” he whispered. “Don’t make me a liar.”
Chapter 21
Lily had just reached the rest of CT-1 with Tyris in tow. Her mind was still blitzed from what she had just witnessed: downtown Thasque momentarily unmoving, Captain Nwosu the only one also unaffected, and that other bizarre spectacle.
It took Tyris’s ice-cold finger jabbing her ribs to jar the doctor from her stupor. “What?” she called over the tumult.
Tyris, his cobalt-blue eyes the only feature on his face, were wider than saucers. “Khrome.”
Lily followed where he pointed and saw Khrome hurtling into the sky, small as a silver spec against fuming, flashing clouds drenched in Herope’s crimson glow.
Lily was more confused than alarmed. “Where is he going?” Her eyes drifted over to the colossal starliner zigzagging out of control, then the four recovery interceptors scattered like metal bees by harsh blood-red lightning.
Khrome was going to right the starliner’s course—a suicide mission.
She whirled on Captain Nwosu angrily. How could you?!
Then their eyes met, and Lily saw the resolution in those twin pools of bullion, as well as the fear for one of his own. There’s one other option, she realized and looked again to the skies. Either Khrome succeeds or that starliner gets shot down. Crimson lightning flashed grimly as Khrome continued his ascent.
At a glance, the vessel looked like a typical Endeavor-class starliner ship; 142 metrids long with a span of around seventy metrids. The doctor refused even to guesstimate its weight.
The SolluStar Spaceways vessel’s grey and blue hull was marred by scorch marks from the onslaught of lightning. No escape pods had been activated; obviously, the evacuees had no intention of getting fried.