by Grant Fausey
Flashing lights added to the chaos, warning of engine failure. The car's motors were overheating and the ground was coming up fast, rushing toward flying auto on course for a certain impact with the ground that would cause Travis and Callen’s death. The city's skyline took the shape of a smoking trail, marking their skycar's angle of descent toward the not so distance mountains. The streets filled quickly with a mishmash of residents; hundreds of panicking people, aliens, mechanicals and living machines of every kind filled the avenues fleeing for their lives into the open.
The metropolis rose in flames, a giant ring of fire encircling the genetic laboratory. Explosion after explosion shook the rooftops hurtling pieces of the tower into the air in blinding flashes of white. The laboratory's main tower came down in an explosion of energy that reached for the heavens. The genetic lab, the tower complex, even the concrete supports buckling in upon one another as they shattered in the eruption of twisted metal that shot into countless microscopic pieces of dust and powdered metal fragments into the air.
The skycar sliced through the rising smoke, plummeting to the ground in a crumbling impact of twisting metal, scorched plastic modules and smoldering after thoughts flung against the rocky terrain. Life scrolled out in front of them, slivers of scrap metal blasted against the turned up ground, and the crumbling skycar. Callen went one way. Travis another. Both thrown clear of the wreckage.
A thousand notions filled Travis' wondering mind, just as he hit the ground seeing his life pass before his eyes. His legs impacted the soil, shifting with pain as they impacted the rocky terrain. From his shoulder, a severe pain brushed crossed his body from the scraping impact against the heated stones, which dug at him like burning rubble beneath his body. He jerked, pulling himself off the hot pebbles.
Callen smacked into the rough surface behind him, bouncing away from the wreckage as his neck snapped. White blood dripped down his forehead, covering the front of his shirt with a pool of blood soaked soil beneath him. His fingers etched into the sandy surface, attempting to dig a way out of the burning hulk, but to no avail.
Travis looked back at him; his motionless body face down in the sand. There wasn't much point in rolling him over. Travis knew he was dead already and there was nothing he could do, but go on. He cringed and turned away. The auto wreckage stared him in the face. It's twisted and distorted shape, filling his vision with the images of his stepmother. Her body pinned inside the wreck, arms dislocated from her shoulders, severed from her body. Travis recoiled, burying his face in his hands. However, the Senator's lips moved; his last words barely loud enough for Travis to hear as a whisper in his mind. "It's time to remember," uttered his father. "Remember who you are and save yourself, my son."
Travis looked up: A shinny object in his face. He focused on a golden medallion as it slipped from the palm of his father's hand into his. The youth gasped in a futile attempt to help him from the wreckage, but it was hopeless. His body pinned tight under the curve of the metal couldn't be moved. Travis clung to the round piece of jewelry and rolled away from the car. The flames engulfed the remains, destroying what was left of the shell and its occupants: His parents where both dead. Callen rolled over and coughed, choking on his own saliva. His eyes squinted in a daze. Travis stared at him … surely he was dead. There was a pool of blood under his body. He was having a hard time trying to breath.
"You're okay, Callen?" questioned Travis quick to think the worst. "I thought you were dead!" Callen didn't answer; his body quivered as he sat up staring at the wreckage of the skycar watching it burn.
"You dead?"
Travis shook his head.
"Get a grip, Travis. You're imagining things." Travis sat there, watching the blood gushing from his intestines. There weren't any tears in his eyes. No fear to take over. Was he dead? He didn't know ... he wasn't ready to admit being dead or that he was alone for that matter. Instead, it was easier to ignore. He looked around, summing up the facts. This was an all out war. The heavens were filled with star fighters chasing each other’s trails in a hostile dogfight. Both humans and living machines were destroyed in the flash of a microsecond.
Black smudges bellowed out of the clouds like puffs of smoke encircled a cigar. Travis caught up with a different meaning: One less fighter to contend with. He fought his dreams, trying to escape the solitude of his nightmares. They were living memories. He looked back at the charred bodies of his parents. Never before had pain registered so close to his heart; he was actually experiencing death for the first time. Callen took in a shallow breath.
"Which way to Temple City," he said blood pouring down his front onto his legs, his shoes then the ground.
"Opposite to the sun," Travis said instinctively, stunned at the spectacle of his friend. He was talking to the living dead. Callen nodded stumbling to the ground in a sparkling event of molecular decomposition. The rush of blood decomposed separating into little flashing dots of regenerative deconstruction. Callen crumbled in an explosion of light that dissolved him in the blur of regeneration. The same process took each and every clone of the original until none were left.
Somehow Travis remembered the future event, as if out of some black-hearted movie he had seen in another life, another universe. He brushed off his blue jeans, und in a daze. As far as he could tell, his life was over. "Run," screamed Callen voice, echoing his last fleeting words as he passed into the next universe. Travis obeyed, tearing into the sandy ground with his sneakers as he pushed his body's weight into a full gallop: Each stride longer than the previous. He couldn't look back; there wasn't time to bury his parents. They were casualties of war.
Another blue-white laser bolt of burning photons shot overhead just a few feet above his head exploding between two smoldering boulders. Travis gasped for air, trying to catch his breath in the heat atmosphere. "Come on, Callen," he yelled, but there was no answer. His words transformed his thought. He turned around to face the inevitable, but his eyes and mouth were closed shut buried in his arms.
"Awaken," said a voice in his head. Travis jerked, looking around to see someone else, but there was no one else there. Just the burning rubble and soiled ground. "Travis hear my words,” said the inner voice. “Awaken and remember.... remember."
Travis stood and took flight, in shock and out of his mind. Something he didn’t understand was happening to him; and his first instinct was to run. His senses were alive. Another fighter streaked overhead, exploding midair. The cockpit thundered away from the craft, hurtling through the sky in a dance with the devil that left a trail marked with blackening smoke that rushed into the mountains. The ground shook hard from the impact scattering across countryside.
The ground trembled below Travis’ feet, but not from the impact of the fighter–something more was happening, as yet unseen. Travis shouted to his dead friend ducking flying chunks of stone that suddenly flew everywhere, rolling down the mountainside in front of him. "They're using planetary devastation devices," hollered the voice in his mind. "They're destroying the planet from within. You have to get out of here and find a way off this rock, or you're going to die here, Travis."
Travis shook his head; hearing for the first, second, perhaps the hundredth time that he had to make it to safety. For the life of him, he was freaking out, panicking as he reached the top of the knoll and looked out across the horizon in a hundred different directions as he spun around trying to make sense of the voice in his head.
The earth quaked again, rolling in full fury like he had never felt before. A dozen columns of explosive light rose from the surface, climbing high into the sky above the crumbling the ground beneath his feet. Travis stumbled, collapsing into an opening crevice that sent him sliding down the hill between the boulders to a forming spillway that instantly filled with rushing water. "Callen," he cried, but there was no answer. His nightmares had become reality.
"Grab a hold of something," shouted Indigo trying to save his young life. But the trauma of the ordeal was too much. He was
only half hearing the bounty hunter who at this moment had troubles of his own. He was still entangled with his connection to his former life as Maccon. Shifting from one incarnation to another was growing more difficult and weary. Multiple lifetimes were involved now, and Travis was in mortal danger.
The youth’s feet slammed against the rocks, the water submerging him in a twisting turning thrust that dropped him sideways into the rushing water like a stone recoiling off the rushing water. Travis scrambled, fighting the current in a vain attempt to stay afloat. But the force of the waterfall drove him under. The sky rolled past, the clouds swirling and churning devoid of fighters. The end of the crevice opened wider, plummeting into the spillway at the base of the rocky terrain. Travis thrashed for life, trying desperately to stay buoyant then another quake split the ground beneath him and the edge of the pool collapsed. Travis scrapped the edge of the spillway with bloody fingers trying desperately to catch hold of anything with his fingertips: One rock shard after another passed him by until the edge of the waterfall fell away a hundred feet then fifty then the last bit of stone.
He searched with his fingertips, screaming at the top of his lungs. The water beat against his face, pushing at his body until he couldn't hold on any longer. The pressure threw him over the edge, thrusting him out into the air, his feet flying out from under him as he careened downward at an incredible pace. The few seconds it took to reach the bottom were the longest time in his life. Fear filled every part of his body, until nothing of his world or the next could describe the terror he felt.
Travis slammed into the water at the bottom; tossed into the crashing water, only to be swept away into the debris where he impacted a boulder, cringed in pain. The waves rolled past him, pushing him still further into the fury of a hurricane. His life had been spared, but not by much. The youth pulled himself up onto dry land, where he lay entangled in the debris. The ground rolled beneath his feet, shaking furiously. "No––" he shrieked in pain and anger, but there was no one to heed his warning. "Not again. Please, no––"
The rupture opening into a fissure that crisscrossed the land, the water splashed up around him as he stood, only to be thrown back into the sea. Another powerful explosion rocked the valley floor. The mountaintops lit up in amber streams of light hurtling chunks of the rock into the sky: A volcanic eruptions ensued with falling debris. Travis traced the edge of the mountain, watching for the collapse into the interior of the planet. "Devastation devices," he hollered, the timber around him toppling one tree upon another as if his voice commanded it. Safety was nowhere to be found and Travis knew he had nowhere left to run, but he did it anyway. He ran a few feet in one direction then stopped turning around and around, scanning the horizon with his eyes, waiting for the final blow that he knew would come.
There was a low rumble over the land. The wind went calm. The quivering ceased, falling motionless to become a deadly silence that filled the air. The sky empty, the last moments of Trithen had come.
Travis witnessed the last moments of his life. Waiting. The rumble began low to build again, the explosive a wave force of sound that erupted the heavens that sent an echo straight to the planet's core bursting it out the other side of the planet. Trithen crumbled; the world came apart in a wildfire that devoured even the howl of the hungry wolf.
Travis lurched forward, fear in his eyes. The ground shook again, but this time was the last time. The earth shifted pulling itself apart like an orange peel. His senses heightened beyond any recognition. The devastation devices peeled back the land, sheered off the trees, in a volcanic eruption that delivered the force of an nuclear explosion. The remains of the planet's molten core came to the surface. Travis ran for his life, unsure of where he was going. His body swept away in a river of molten lava into a sweltering tombstone of molten liquid that surrounded him on all sides like a crypt.
"Use the medallion," Indigo murmured, hoping the chaos of his mind would respond.
"Maccon?" he yelled.
"Use the medallion, Travis," Indigo repeated. "Use it to take you to safety."
"How!" Travis screamed, "I don't know how."
"Listen to the voice inside of you and remember ... awaken the Ronna-Kaa within you."
"Remember what?" wailed Travis fumbling with the reality that presented itself. He tracked the medallion to in front of his face. Looked past it to the rushing river of liquid hell that was nearly upon him: "Who are you?" he roared. "Where are you?"
"Remember––" employed Maccon’s lasting words in a whisper. "Its the only way."
Travis staggered, backhanded by a wave of heat that caught him off guard and could have melted a blast furnace. The sky churned reddish orange now with fire, and brimstone mounting from the depths of the planet to fill the waterway in rising hot steam. Behind him the ground collapsed, swept away into a world-swallowed whole, destroying itself from within. Travis searched his mind for a remote memory from his past, the complacency of another existence, and said: "I am a knight of the Ronna-Kaa," Boldly he repeated with more pride than he could remember, but the words flowed.
"A warrior of the light!”
He remembered! "Of what light?"
"The light within you, Travis;” echoed Indigo’s voice. “Summon the eternal light to your side ... remember."
"I'm a knight of the light?"
"Summon the power within you. Hurry ... you're running out of time."
"With this medallion?" Travis said questioning the command. "Summon all that I am? Is that what you're saying?"
"All that we must be," Indigo said to him. "Join with me, so that we may become one!"
Travis gripped the medallion and closed his eyes, searching for the light within him. The ground gave way under his feet, falling away from beneath him. "Guide me––" he shouted, "take me to safety."
Instantly, he could see the ground disappear beneath his feet, falling away in a rush of molten lava that devoured the ground below the surface. His adrenaline pumped wildly; his body quivered and danced, delivered safely to threshold of another world. His heart fell true to his inner life, and the wisdom that was born within, he became immersed in a brilliant blue-white light that embodied him in a molecularly shift that crossed time and space until he stood on the surface of another world. Alive.
– 23 –
THE FRONTIER
The Trillian star system seemed a quiet, an uninhibited place. The perfect environment for an afternoon rendezvous, serene and hypnotic, nearly devoid of planetary life. It was simply the proverbial WIDE OPEN SPACES. Brant made a list of do’s and don'ts, taking into consideration the mission, the distance, the prospects for success and failure, complete with options and necessities. It wasn't on paper, of course, but rather in his head like a road map of sorts, bleached onto the dome of a radiant attic.
Nevertheless, there were concerns, no one wanted to lose, especially Brant. The crew's performance was far beyond what anyone had anticipated. Jessica had the touch of a magician, when it came to her navigational computer and because of Kyle Helmer's expertise in delivering weaponry to the appropriate targets with a deadly pointed finger, the starship felt like a well groomed feather launched down a cliff, on a treacherous fall without enough speed and agility to keep it afloat. However, like the Great War Bird it was, the ship would rise to the occasion like the Phoenix, ready to reclaim itself from the ashes of its own shortcomings.
Helmer smiled, toying with the delicate fire control finger pads ... waiting ... breathing ... listening for the GO COMMAND.
"I'm picking up four blips," affirmed Jessica glaring down on her instrument panels. The sweeping electronics targeted each and every point on the horizon. She looked up the line to Brant. "I'm tracking the Cyclone and three escort ships." Brant looked back to her, his stare cool as ice; his mind alive with the intricate buzzing of calculations. One after another the computations stressed at his intellect, probing, driving him onward.
"That's three fighters, Commander," she announced abrupt
ly. Jessica wasn't quite as confident in his abilities as he was. Brant could feel the distention in her voice. She was more than a bit worried. "According to the mission briefing the Cyclone was supposed to be alone." Brant countered her fears as best he could, letting the uneasiness between them play more to his advantage. He spoke with a lot of conviction, his voice strong and comforting to her as he could. "They've either expended their fuel limits, or our information on the range of the fighter without refueling is wrong. We'll need to make a note of it for further reference."
Helmer stared at him. “Future reference?” He knew what he was trying to do; it was obvious, he was covering up his own foolish notions of turning tail and running for all he was worth. The gunner sat back in his seat's cushioned shoulder. "So–– Skipper," he said rather cocky. "What's the plan?"
"Give me a minute.” Brant searched the computer for a possible course of action, for a means of available escape. “I’m working on it!" He trained his eyes on Helmer, cranking his seat into a sideways position. "I'll need the lead fighter's trajectory and tactical data base on possible intercept courses."
Helmer grinned. That was all he needed to hear. Fast answers. "Don't take too long," Jessica reminded him. "We'll be in scanner range in sixty seconds. Those fighters are deadly, remember?"
"How can I forget," answered Brant. The controls felt sweaty under his palms. "All right––" he announced. "Arm weapons. I have an idea."
The Cyclone was a pleasure cruiser, hard-core luxury. The Emperor had spared no expense in creating the Cyclone or its twin-- the Cyclone II. The ship measured five hundred meters long, housed two delta-winged shuttles in the lower hull's twin docking bays. It was a magnificent machine, complete with three levels of accommodations for up to a hundred passengers. An observation lounge, suspended under the forward command deck that protruded for the ease of forward and aft viewing of space. Two escort fighters swam through the darkness next to the star yacht. One high. One low above the Cyclone's flight deck, a third laid hidden low and inside, refueling with a Camanion space tanker. They labored together to complete refueling as quickly as possible. Brant noticed the vessel, marked its distance and plotted his attack run around the refueling vessel. The tanker's position made it the perfect target: Less than a thousand meters from the star yacht, tucked tightly into the lower quadrant of the attack computer.