Alpha Nebula

  “Oh, that’s ironic,” Akrillis pointed out. “Coming from the one person who thinks the universe revolves around him.” There was almost no wind that night. Smoke and ash floated all around them. “All those times I defended you,” Akrillis continued. “All those years I stuck up for you. Always watching your back, always dealing with the consequences of your actions! Me and father, and countless others. You lied, you used me, and you used others. All to find this artefact. All for your own selfish gain.”

  “It’s not about that anymore,” Val insisted.

  “Bullshit!” Akrillis said. “It’s always about you!”

  “You left me for dead!” Vanakis reminded him.

  “And you should have stayed dead!” Akrillis shouted back. “Mera is gone because of you! You’ve ruined everything.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Vanakis wondered. He hadn't seen or heard of mera in weeks, months even.

  “Don’t act innocent with me,” said Akrillis. “I never expected you to fall this low.”

  “I’m happy to disappoint you,” Vanakis smiled.

  “You killed her!” Akrillis shouted in rage.

  Vanakis was becoming more and more rage-filled as the conversation went on.

  “I loved her, and you took her away from me!” Akrillis declared.

  Vanakis found himself in a moment of sorrow as he thought about Mera, and if she really were dead. “If she died, it’s because of the choices you made,” Vanakis insisted.

  “No! You killed her!” Akrillis persisted.

  “I didn’t do anything. She’s dead because of your own actions!” claimed Vanakis.

  “That’s not true!” Akrillis exclaimed.

  “You might as well have killed her yourself!” Vanakis declared.

  “Shut up!” Akrillis yelled back.

  “You’re the reason she’s dead,” Vanakis just wouldn’t let up. He knew it was angering his brother, and he liked that.

  “Shut up!” Akrillis yelled, his frustrations were painted across his face.

  “You killed her!” Vanakis continued to provoke him. Getting under Akrillis' skin was easing his own rage.

  “Shut up!” Akrillis screamed. When he’d finally had enough, Akrillis charged towards his younger brother; a fire of rage burned within him. He tried to beat Vanakis, but Val was returning the act of violence. They punched and pounded each other. Akrillis drew his sword and slashed towards Vanakis. Akrillis’ irritation rose higher as Val managed to avoid his swing of the blade and then pulled his own sword from his back. Akrillis threw his blade toward Vanakis repeatedly with the sole intent to fatally wound his pathetic brother. Val deflected his blows and again retaliated with barbarity.

  The ash around him made it harder for Akrillis to breathe. Akrillis tackled Val and he took his brother over the edge and crashed through a glass-panelled roof and into the room below.

  TWENTY SIX

  A flood of a hundred slaves sprinted up the stairs. Above them was the night sky which had been hidden by smoke. Mantis led the charge. Atop the enormous staircase were huge steel doors.

  “Allow me,” Mantis said. He ran ahead, his long thin legs making it a breeze. As he approached the steel doors, he built up his telekinetic force. A wave of power travelled behind him until, finally, he barged through. The two steel doors busted off their hinges and flew across the large room, taking several Avayans with them.

  The many slaves poured into the room and overwhelmed the guards with numbers alone. Fleiss took a bolt of plasma to the leg and fell to her knees. Trydon helped her up and, together, they rejoined the action.

  “Now!” An Avayan yelled.

  A huge explosion went off and cleared the room. The destruction led back out the door. As the fire cleared, countless bodies were laid over the floor. Mantis, bruised and grazed, slowly pushed himself back to his feet. Slade revealed himself from behind a doorway. His cover had proven itself useful.

  Fleiss noticed Trydon laying still on the floor. “Trydon?” She called, with no answer.

  Slade checked for a pulse. “He’s gone.”

  “No, he can’t be,” Fleiss insisted.

  “Forget him. He’s gone!” Slade told her.

  Mantis froze in place. He stared at Trydon's lifeless body while feeling the sudden desolation. The brave soul that started it all wouldn't see the result of his actions. With or without his friend, he knew they had to go on.

  Much to Fleiss’s disagreement, they kept moving.

  The remaining slaves fought their way through more guards. At every turn, they found more resistance the higher up they went.

  “There’s the elevator,” Mantis said.

  As they bolted for the elevator, Avayans opened fire on them once more.

  “Oh, come on!” Slade muttered in frustration.

  “Hurry!” Fleiss shouted.

  They made it inside the elevator and waited for the doors to close. After taking cover behind the doorway they fired right back at their foes. Slade got frustrated and hammered the ‘up’ button several times.

  Everyone knows that the more you press it, the faster it goes.

  The doors finally began to close while bolts of Neo-Plasma continued to pass through them until they eventually sealed. At long last—after what seemed like an eternity—the elevator was on the move. All the while, a typical elevator song played on a loop as they waited for it to reach the eighty-fifth floor. All of them breathed heavily as their hearts raced.

  Once they had reached the eighty-fifth floor, the elevator doors opened, and a grenade rolled down the corridor towards the elevator.

  “Fuck!” Slade yelled. The grenade went off and emitted a gas of some sort.

  Mantis' panic shot to maximum levels. “Move!” he told them. As they rushed through the gas, they found more resistance on the other side. Guards let loose plasma bolts as Slade, Fleiss, and Mantis moved to cover. Luckily, this floor was the communications hub, and so there were plenty of desks and workstations to hide behind.

  Fleiss noticed the explosive barrels beside the Avayans. As she studied the room she quickly concluded that the guards far outnumbered them. And they didn’t have the firepower to deal with them. Fleiss again looked to the barrels, a good shot would ignite them, but they too far away. “Get that thing to the array and end this!” She shouted over the gunfire.

  “What are you doing?” Slade wondered.

  Fleiss leapt over the desk and tried to move in closer for a decent shot. As she approached the barrels, the sudden agony in her gut was horrific. Bolts pierced her stomach and flew through her, causing a pain so bad that she almost couldn’t feel it—or anything. She fell to her knees and then dropped face down. Fleiss lifted her pistol for one last shot.

  As she fired on the barrels, the explosion engulfed the Avayans, leaving a clean path for Mantis and Slade. However, she was too close to the explosion and lost her own life in the process.

  “Let’s finish this fucking thing,” Slade said. As he and Mantis—the only two remaining—were not far now.

  There were far less slaves remaining by this point, and the Avayan weaponry was proving to be just too much for them. When the conflict began, the slaves had the element of surprise, but once the guards became more organised, they gained the advantage.

  The Azura led the Avayan fighters on a wild goose chase as she avoided fire while keeping them distracted from the battle below. The ship’s VI was a more than capable pilot. Laurelle sat safe on the bridge but was still terrified by the whole situation. She felt even worse being all alone. As long as the fighters kept their attention on the Azura, they couldn’t bomb the slaves on the ground. Laurelle sat in the pilot’s chair, her belly twisted and turned. Her body shook as dread had a tight hold. Suddenly, the whole ship shook, as did the cat-bobblehead. An interface popped up; damage had been taken. The rear of the ship had been hit. The VI led the ship up and ascended higher and higher. The radar showed more fighter jets followed their tail now. The Azu
ra took another hit. There were simply too many Avayans chasing it. The ship was being overwhelmed.

  ‘I need to do something,’ Laurelle thought, ‘but what can I do?’

  She didn’t know how the ship worked, but if the situation continued like this, she wouldn’t last much longer.

  The interface popped up once more. ‘Firing rear defences.’ The ship released a dozen bolts of Neo-Plasma, but the enemy stepped up their game as well; several missiles were closing in.

  When Laurelle noticed this, her eyes launched open. ‘I need to do something!’ she thought, although she didn’t know what to do. That was when she thought about what Vanakis had told her a while back.

  ‘That level of overload could send the ship to fly supersonic.’

  ‘Supersonic, that would be just what we need,’ she gulped.

  Laurelle bolted to the engine room as the missiles closed in quick. The little Tarian arrived at the engine and stared for a moment at the huge contraptions, wires, cables, and machinery everywhere.

  “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she admitted to herself.

  Laurelle headed straight for the two cables—the ones she was specifically told never to touch—and she immediately took hold of them. She pulled one out and the Azura slowed down. She pulled the other out and inserted it into the opposite plug, then she hesitated before she put the last one in; worried about the outcome. She pushed it into place; the enormous cables were now switched around. The ship immediately took off faster than ever before. Everything in the ship was thrown aside as the Azura blasted off into the horizon and the missiles were nowhere to be seen. The ship broke the sound barrier and was long gone. Laurelle quickly arrived back at the bridge. ‘I need to help Vanakis somehow,’ she convinced herself. She noticed the VI control panel.

  This can only go well.

  Laurelle pressed enter command. ‘Say command,’ the screen read.

  “Drop me off at the facility,” she ordered.

  ‘Would you like to select a more accurate location?’ It replied.

  “Just anywhere; it doesn’t matter. I need to get down there,” Laurelle insisted. The bobblehead was rocking its head from side to side, as if it disagreed with her.

  In a room filled with computer hardware and supercomputers, Vanakis desperately tried to defend himself from Akrillis' vicious blows. One wrong move and Akrillis would likely decapitate him. His chest felt to be constricting itself as a horrible mix of anxiety and fury stirred within.

  As their fight dragged on, ash floated down and crept in through the broken ceiling. Eventually, Vanakis went to grab Akrillis' sword wielding hand as it came hurling towards him, with the intent of using that opportunity to fatally wound his opponent. As he went to execute his plan Akrillis countered him by doing the exact same thing. Their hands were now locked in place. Vanakis stared at Akrillis with the hatred that had consumed him. A force pushing him to fight harder. Akrillis didn't hesitate to return the terrorising look.

  In an attempt to break up their intimate moment Val kneed Akrillis in the gut. They moved towards the circular centre of the computer-filled room. Vanakis leapt through the pylons in the centre and out of his brothers reach for a few seconds. Akrillis viciously followed in a fit of rage. They continued to swing and block one another’s swords. Vanakis felt the satisfaction as he stabbed Akrillis and at the same time screamed in agony as a sword was driven deep into his own gut.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  “There it is!” Slade shouted.

  The comms array was just ahead of them, as were as a dozen Avayan guards. Slade immediately charged head-first into battle and spilt blood with every swing of his daggers.

  The Avayan fighter jets had returned, no longer focusing their efforts on the Azura, they began to bomb areas of the compound. Explosions everywhere left many dead in the chaos—Tarians and Avayans alike. Several explosions hit the facility.

  Mantis thought the chaos was the perfect opportunity to attempt to reach the array; this proved to be wrong. The Zantian was quickly faced with his own collection of enemies. He tossed them aside with his abilities, but there were too many for it to be that easy. Slade had become overwhelmed himself, and even he couldn’t deal with so many foes at once. It wasn’t long before he suffered a large gash to his back and fell to one knee. Mantis pushed his enemies away using a force of energy. The guards fired their weapons at Mantis, who held the bolts at bay with his abilities, stopping them dead mere inches from him.

  Mantis turned to Slade and saw the injured Veech struggle to his feet. The Zantian felt there was only one way he could ensure that the prymus made it to that console.

  “Get that thing over there, and do what you came here to do,” Mantis told Slade.

  “No,” Slade insisted. He knew what the Zantian was about to do.

  “It’s okay,” Mantis promised. “See that these people are free.”

  Mantis smiled at Slade before staring his foes in the face. “May Calhalla guide me, give me strength, and destroy my enemies.” The Zantian prayed his final prayer. Then, he threw the plasma bolts back towards the Avayans and dropped most of them dead. A single bolt shot straight through the Zantian’s shoulder. He screamed and continued his charge to his enemies. Slade watched as Mantis fought the Avayan guards at close quarters. He punched them as they shot him, stabbed him with combat knives, and punched him right back.

  Slade lifted his sore, throbbing body with the prymus in hand and carried it over to the comms array. His body ached, and his back leaked blood. The amount of pain and anguish within his flesh was a nightmare. Once finally there, he tossed the current power source aside and placed the artefact gently into place. The power overload caused the array to dispense the energy and allowed it to escape. The power of the prymus shot up high above them in a beam of blue light.

  What few slaves and guards were left fighting against each other were stopped dead in awe. A sudden wave of energy passed across the compound. Electrical bolts surrounded each and every Avayan, and they began to drop like flies. The energy wave travelled across the entire planet—all of Rynok felt it’s passing. Every last Avayan fell to its power, leaving no one to keep the Tarian slaves in check. The planet of Rynok, after millennia, was finally free.

  Val looked out the large window and saw the pulse wave disappear in the horizon. The blade which had impaled him was in his hand as he laid on the floor resting his upper body on an elbow. He tossed the blade aside.

  “Well, brother, it’s done,” said Vanakis. “The slaves were freed after all, just like you wanted.” He pulled out a small vial of Neo-Plasma from the pouch on his outer thigh, then applied it to his stab wound.

  “You didn’t come here for them,” Akrillis held his gut, stumbling slightly with his words. “You came here for revenge—to kill me.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Val got to his feet slowly. “I didn’t even know you were here until after we arrived. I’m not the same brother I once was.”

  Vanakis pulled his blade from Akrillis, sheathed it and walked away. As he opened the door, he fell through the rubble which a bomb had left. Vanakis then collided with the steel below. The room he fell to was mostly gone. Two of the four walls were blown away by bombs and a chuck of the floor was missing too.

  “Agh, that sucked,” he said to himself.

  “Vanakis!” Laurelle shouted.

  “What are you doing here?” Vanakis asked, surprised and not at all happy to see her.

  “I came to help you,” she explained.

  “I told you to stay on the ship.”

  Laurelle’s smile quickly faded. Part of the debris above broke off and landed right near young Laurelle’s feet. The surrounding floor fell, and she with it. Vanakis turned to see the ordeal take place, but just as quickly turned back to walk away. His mission was accomplished. The slaves were free, and he didn’t care about doing anything else today—and he was definitely done babysitting Laurelle.

  “Help!” Laurelle cried
for aid.

  Vanakis walked off as if oblivious to her plea for help.

  Now, this little girl is in danger? When will this climax end? Ha, ha! Climax, get it? Sorry.

  Vanakis surprised himself when he couldn't seem to keep going. Several weeks ago he wouldn't have cared at all, but now… he was astounded by himself.

  The Tarian stopped, rolled his eyes, and sighed. Then, he turned and ran to the edge. Without even a thought about how high they were, he dove down. Laurelle was hanging onto a cord on a slanted platform. The plug on the end just managed to hold her weight. Below her was thirty-seven stories of open air—well, dirty ash-filled air. As it was nighttime, all Val could see below were the fires that burned. As Vanakis passed a metal scaffold and grabbed it, he swung around and then landed safely on top, now perched there like a monkey.

  “Don’t move!” He shouted as he began to climb down the scaffold. His fear of heights quickly took hold of him. His body began to tense up, and the anxiety came out to play, but he couldn’t think of that now. His only focus was saving Laurelle. Once he had reached the bottom of the construction scaffolding, he realised that, with an enormous gap between him and the next lot of scaffolds, he would have to jump. Vanakis swallowed his fears and took a leap of faith. The entire way down, he was frozen, but he still looked graceful as all hell. When he landed on the tiny scaffold, it suddenly lowered and almost collapsed under his weight. His muscles suddenly locked in place, and he didn’t move. He took a long deep breath and tried to overcome the anxiety.

  “Hold on!” He shouted to Laurelle, who was now not too far from him.

  Val raced down the scaffolds and ducked under steel poles while swinging from others, his monkey-like grace proved useful. Meanwhile, Laurelle lost her grip and slid down several feet. The plug was starting to fall out. Mere seconds longer, and she was done for. Vanakis struggled to make his way down quickly enough. Around obstacles he leapt and ducked, down ladders he dropped and jumped.