Star Angel: Rising (Star Angel Book 4)

by David G. McDaniel

  Crying softly.

  **

  Zac watched the ground scrolling beneath him in those moments between impact. The tremendous force of each leap carried him high and far, giving him time as he sailed through the air looking down, spinning his arms and pumping his legs in order to land on his feet for the next giant bound, watching in each final instant for where he was about to hit.

  This last jump carried him over a small group of houses, a few families out for some sort of gathering, and as he arced in for the landing they spotted him, screaming and pointing—to each other and to him in the sky. He heard a handful of the younger children yelling in glee, their reaction completely opposite the adults. To them this was awesome. To the adults it was impossible.

  Whump! he hit near them in a poof of whitish dirt, one leg going out in that same forward motion, the other following and …

  Unnn! he was up and away, clearing a stand of trees and heading downrange for another landing. Once in the air he saw this arc had him headed for a pond, and as he adjusted the best he could he thought briefly of that saying, Up, up and away! Jess told him about, a saying to make a superhero fly. Right then he wished more than ever he could fly. Despite all his strength that sort of magic was just not one of the Kazerai abilities.

  And so he jumped. Over and over, again and again, crashing into things unexpectedly, rarely able to see where his launch would land him and not caring, smashing into what he couldn’t avoid along the way, leaving terrified people in his wake, making his way as fast as he possibly could. There was no doubt now he was getting stronger. He could feel it. These leaps were farther than any he would’ve been capable of just a short time ago. The sort of progress that would’ve made him proud at one time.

  Now it frustrated him.

  He couldn’t possibly get there fast enough. He had to reach Willet and Satori; get back to Nani and see if she could fix the broken Icon. He glanced at it in his hand, swinging as he balanced for the next strike, crashing into the outer band of trees at the edge of the dense forest and proceeding with a bit more difficulty. In the trees his leaps had to be higher, more vertical, whacking branches as he cracked through the canopy on each descent. He became more mindful of the Icon, not wanting to do anymore damage to it. The bullet dings on its shiny surface were already enough to ruin its function. He prayed, refusing to give up hope, that the damage was only superficial. That, while its activation mechanism no longer worked, the core, the real info that mattered, was intact and could be used. Maybe Nani could use it to program the ship.

  He hit a clearing and this time jumped straight up, as high as he could, feeling the tremendous vertigo as he peaked high in the air, looking down in the direction of the Kel fighter.

  It wasn’t there.

  As he dropped he wondered if he was remembering wrong. Was this the place?

  He leapt again, this time arcing toward the spot, just to check up close—looking left and right as he did, seeing if it were somewhere else. It wasn’t, and as he jumped again, looking further this time, he began to worry.

  He crashed through the branches at the edge of the next clearing and hit, then jumped all the way to the actual clearing where the fighter was supposed to be. Where he’d left it. This time he stopped and simply stood.

  This was definitely where it had been. Depressions from the landing struts were there; other signs of its presence. His sense of direction had not been mistaken. This was the place.

  The fighter was gone.

  He looked at the Icon in his hand.

  Willet and Satori had left.

  **

  Willet stared in hushed awe as they descended deeper into Earth’s ocean. One of its oceans, he reminded himself, this one called the Atlantic, and after racing to it overland, just above the surface in broad daylight, no longer caring who saw or what they thought, he and Satori had plunged beneath its surface and turned up the speed. Flying fast enough through the depths, for a while, to create an ultrasonic cavity around the hull of the Kel fighter, trailing vaporized water and sea life in their wake. That they did for a while, to gain depth and put distance on their point of entrance, and had now slowed to what could be called a leisurely pace. They were close to one of the deeper trenches and had settled into a sort of free-fall, dropping further toward the bottom. As the gloom closed and it became impossible to see, Satori found controls for the viewscreen and switched on enhancers. Instruments made it so they didn’t need to “see” anything, but it was a human reaction to want to. Since that time Willet had been looking far and wide outside the “window”, amazed that this planet had so much life beneath the surface. The viewer was alive with it.

  “Think we’re doing the right thing?” he asked.

  “I think we don’t have a choice.” Satori checked a few readings and put her own gaze outside the cockpit, staring into the murky depths as they drifted ever downward. Creatures, formations, all manner of things floated this way or that.

  In a way it served to distract from the situation.

  “You think Jess and Zac are alive?”

  Satori considered. “I just don’t see how Zac could’ve let them get killed. For starters, there’s no way he could be killed. Maybe Jess got killed and it sent him over the edge?” She looked uncertain. “She was the only liability. But with Zac there …” She struggled in consideration of the impossible. “I can’t imagine what happened.” Then: “I can’t imagine a lot of things right now. This may be the biggest mess we’ve ever been in the middle of.”

  Willet had to agree.

  **

  The ringed blue world, a giant version of Saturn, dominated the horizon. It filled the night sky, reflecting light so brightly as to make the entirety of the heavens black all around it, no stars visible until you looked high overhead or directly left or right to the far horizons. There the stars were brilliant. Overhead a colored nebula painted a bright slash across the dark. Jess gazed up at it as she walked, trying to maintain her steady breathing. Trying not to stop breathing altogether. Beneath her were the stone steps leading up to the cliffside plateau she’d just departed, behind and before her the two guards.

  She turned her attention to the narrow path down which she was being made to walk, a long drop on one side, stone cliff wall on the other, nowhere to run. Not that she had it in mind to run. After all, where would she go?

  She glanced behind, at the following white tunic in the glow of the planet-light, then back ahead to the guard leading the way. Everything was starkly visible in monochrome blue, the shape of the guards’ dog-head helmets made all the more menacing. Their dark, archaically crafted armor clinked and chinked as they walked, long pikes glinting in their grip.

  Soon the steps ended and fed out onto a walkway, one that was just as narrow and made of the same stone. At least it felt that way underfoot, roughly fitted blocks that seemed to match the archaic theme, dusted with grit.

  She thought back to the last stretch of time. That numbing void following her arrival. The guards had stood motionless, waiting for what she could not know but allowing her to sit up there on the high plateau, holding the point of her gun lazily on them, praying silently for Zac to come.

  At some point, just as she began to forget they were even there, as she’d begun to forget most everything, a slow distance creeping over her, consuming her mind, they moved in. Bracketed her at a close distance and raised their pikes, speaking back and forth to each other, voices echoing but human inside the helmets. Human males. Definitely. Their words meant nothing, but their intentions were clear. She didn’t resist. They took the gun and made her rise.

  It was all hopeless anyway.

  Only, now that they’d descended the steps and she’d gotten some feeling back in her head … she was beginning to panic. Beginning to wake up. What if Zac came now? He hadn’t yet, but what if he did while she was gone? What if she wasn’t up there when he did?

  What if he came right now?

  She jerked her head over her
shoulder, looking way up, back the way she’d come; tried to calm herself in that instant of worry. He’d follow the path down, of course. Of course he will. Zac would do that. He wouldn’t just come and then leave. Anxiously she looked back at the guard behind her in his heavy armor, stumping along, blocking the way and giving her no choice but to keep moving.

  With a great effort she cleared her thoughts.

  If Zac came through—when he comes through, she made herself say that—he would charge down and find her and take her back. The stairs were the only way and he would see that and chase after. He would know she went this way. Maybe his keen eyesight would even show him her footprints in the dust.

  She would be fine.

  A little further along the trail and the guards exchanged a few words. Up ahead, around a bend in the trail, a flickering firelight had become visible. Like maybe a campfire or something.

  Jess strained her hearing toward it, filtering the metallic sounds of the guards’ armor, ignoring the clank of their boots on the stones and even the soft pad of her own feet.

  She could hear nothing. No voices, no talking, no sounds of revelry. There was a fire up there, that was clear, but there didn’t seem to be much going on around it. Maybe it was late and no one was still awake. Or maybe it was the campsite of the dog-armored guys, empty until they returned.

  As they drew closer rock formations rose around them to block more of the giant blue planet from view, and soon they were descending into a sort of valley. Silhouettes of a few oddly shaped trees hung over the trail. Jess felt her senses sharpening, heart rate rising; beginning to prepare herself for whatever came next. To rise a little from the hopelessness. To become the Jessica she’d had to become so many times, it seemed, when the odds were stacked against her. If she had to fight these guards she would. She would kill them if she had to. She would get back the guns and she would kill anyone—or anything—that threatened her.

  For now she walked. For now she went along. But there was another Jess there with them.

  One they did not want to call out.

  CHAPTER 6: A BRAVE NEW WORLD

  Cee Ranok, Tremarch of the Kel, swept into her cavernous chamber, furs billowing behind, passed her bishop—who had been waiting—pulled him into her wake and went straight for her throne. The giant viewscreen towering before it was not yet active. Unlike the usual conversations held on this screen the transmission she came for today was monumental. Today the screen was surrounded by technicians, preparing it for the first live feed across interstellar space. Today she would talk to Voltan, in another star system altogether, using the coordinates for the invasion fleet and the same displacement technology designed to move them to it.

  She stepped to her throne and sat, leaned slightly forward and gripped the ornately curved arms.

  “We have received the first transmission from Lord Voltan,” her bishop informed her as he covered the last steps to stand beside her. “We should be able to put it through any moment.”

  Cee glanced down, then cast her gaze to the giant screen, to the technicians working to make the connection. This was truly historic. Until now she had spoken to her Praetor from many locations in space, none so far away as this. Now they were about to establish direct contact across a vast distance, tunneling quantum space for an instantaneous connection and, Cee hoped, epic news. The fact that Voltan had initiated a response was news enough. It meant the fleet—his ship, at least—was intact, and had not met with unexpected tragedy. As yet there was no way for Cee to establish first contact and so she waited. Until that signal was placed Voltan and the condition of the invasion fleet remained a mystery. Indications, however, were good. The signal was live, and the technicians worked to solidify the link.

  Cee grew impatient.

  “What is the delay?”

  If it didn’t work it would be unbearable waiting for their return. She could scarcely imagine an entire invasion and conquest unfolding without her knowing a thing until it was over. Nor did she dare go herself until all had been confirmed and there was, in fact, no threat on the other end. Scouts could be sent if it came to that, but—

  The screen cracked and popped to life. Voltan’s image was suddenly there and Cee smiled in open satisfaction. Voltan was looking down at controls on his end, seeing what else could be done to bring the connection online, and now it was live. He looked up, handsome eye patch and regal fur framing his visage. The functional aesthetic of the dreadnought’s small tactical room was a stark backdrop for his address.

  “My queen.”

  “Lord Voltan,” she greeted him. Smoothly she dialed back her emotion. Pretending to be calmly interested she leaned back a little, into the throne. “What news?” Now that the channel was open connections could be made in both directions. There would be no need from this point on to await his call.

  “We have reached a star system,” he said, and for a moment she was confused.

  A star system?

  “Not the target system, my queen. I will explain more. However know that, despite this, my news is positive on all fronts. We have not reached Anitra, home of Kang but, rather, a planet called Earth. Also filled with humans, and, as we expected to encounter at Anitra, possessing of a technology and a means well beneath ours. Even now we hold position in high orbit, preparing our next act. The world is ripe, and there is no threat they can bring to bear against us.”

  Cee was sitting forward again; eager. Intriguing! She wasn’t sure how to moderate her reactions. The fleet had failed in their objective, yet …

  “Another human world?”

  And of a marked lesser technology?

  It was too good to imagine.

  Voltan nodded. “Fallout from the old Combine, it would seem. Leftover from our last Dynasty. Kang’s world, Anitra, and this world, Earth, were likely once our colonies.”

  Cee considered this.

  “And they offer no resistance?” Could it be? Would they be able to restore the kingdom of the old Dynasty? Just like that? As if it had never collapsed? As if it hadn’t lain lost and in ruins the last thousand years? Had Kang and this little Icon of his unwittingly laid bare the way to past glory?

  It was magnificent.

  Voltan confirmed, “None we cannot overcome. Earth is not unlike Anitra, as described by Kang. About the same level of technology we came expecting. The two are remarkably similar, in fact, according to what we know. About the same sort of environmental conditions and so forth. More people than estimated on Anitra. Many more, actually. Several billions. The big difference with this world and what Kang described is the degree of disunity. Whereas Kang described Anitra as having two major factions, Earth has dozens, few truly seeming to cooperate. Heavily balkanized, many different militaries of vastly differing capabilities, the most powerful of which are still well below our capability to handle. There are a few nation-states that appear to be in majority control.” Then: “Perhaps the most interesting element is that they speak the same language as Kang. Which, of course, is making things that much easier.”

  Cee continued to shift in her seat, scarcely able to hide her fascination.

  Voltan elaborated. “Obviously many things were lost following the Wars, but as we know Kang’s language, “English”, does not appear to have roots in any of our ancient records. And yet these two worlds share it. Kang’s Anitra and Earth. How that’s possible, where this language comes from … those are mysteries for another day. Perhaps Kang knows more. However the fact of it gives us yet another advantage. We have full translations in place.

  “As I say, at this early stage all news is positive.”

  Cee thought on this, her own curiosities mixing with the more dominant issues of the moment.

  At last she leaned to the side, putting a leg over one arm of the throne, managing to effect her more usual bearing. “What of Anitra? If this was the wrong location, do we know of it? Does Kang? How did you end up at Earth?”

  Voltan frowned a little. “We do not. I’m
afraid it may be a bit more complicated than all this. I’ve consulted with the techs on my end. As we know Kang’s device connects only two points, what we thought was Anitra on one end, our system on the other. This endpoint, which we believed was Anitra, as Kang insisted that it was, turns out in fact to be Earth. How Kang had the device, on his world, when it clearly does not connect there, brings with it yet more intrigue. Somehow the device ended up in Kang’s possession. A device that connects only this world, Earth, and deep space in our star system, was in the possession of Kang on yet another world. Anitra.” He paused, seeming almost to sigh. “I suspect there are many more mysteries ahead.” Then: “Perhaps there are other such devices we might find. However all of that, and the unraveling of those mysteries is, at the moment—much like the language riddle—a question for another day. It is possible in the conquest of this world other things will become clear. For now the location of Anitra remains unknown.”

  “Could Anitra be made up?” It seemed highly improbable, but did Kang invent that story? Why would he? “Do you think this world, Earth, is actually where Kang originated?”

  Voltan didn’t seem to. “Unstable as he is,” he said, “I do not. Kang is bordering on insane, no doubt delusional, but I witnessed his reaction, I have spent much time with him, we all heard his thorough descriptions of Anitra. I do not believe Anitra is a figment of his imagination. He was genuinely perplexed when we arrived here and even tried to hide the fact that he did not at first know where we were.”