The Silent Neighbours (Watchers Book 2)

by S. T. Boston

  “But the chance of finding her…” Taulass defended, however, he was already preparing to launch. As the Niribus lifted silently into the air he turned to Adam and said, “Hold on, without being in space this might shake the old girl a little.”

  Chapter 39

  The sheer mental strain of influencing Liam Granger enough to make him shoot two people had rendered Oriyanna unconscious. As she began to clear the murky waters of her mind and regain lucidity she felt the coolness of the floor on her back. Opening her eyes she twisted her head and saw Asmodeous, he was perched on the end of a bed, his eyes fixed on the screen of the ship's computer, which displayed itself on the wall of the room. The whole situation struck her as odd, and her struggling brain couldn't quite compute what was happening, or how she'd come to be there. She knew that he must have sensed that she was awake because he turned his attention to her, a big, charismatic, but slightly unhinged smile spreading on his face.

  “You're awake. Marvellous, and just in time, too,” he chirped. “The launch is just about to begin, come take a look.”

  Begrudgingly Oriyanna propped herself up on her elbows, her body still felt weak but strength was returning to her by the second, finally allowing her to get to her feet. She glanced around, soon realising that she was alone with him in one of the crew's living quarters. Her memory treated her to the image of Liam Granger shooting the two operators dead, if that had happened then why the hell was the launch still going ahead?

  On the screen was a box, in that box were an uncountable number of small graphics, each represented a nuclear weapon. Gradually one-by-one they rapidly went from green to red.

  “We have lift-off,” Asmodeous screamed in delight, jumping off the bed as if celebrating a goal scored by his favourite football team.

  Oriyanna didn't know what to do, she had no idea what had happened to Sam, Adam and Taulass, the plan had obviously failed and as a result, over the next twenty five minutes every major city on the globe was going to be reduced to ash. Not able to take her gaze off the screen she watched, eyes filling with tears as suddenly “ABORT” flashed across the display.

  “No – No!” Asmodeous screamed, getting up off the edge of the bed and rushing to the display, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He gripped the edges of the monitor, his eyes close to the screen, as if he couldn't believe it unless it was literally smacking him in the face.

  In a flash Oriyanna crossed the small cabin and rammed his face into the monitor, she heard his nose break with a sickening crunch. Turning away from him she reached the door, opened it and fled out into the passageway. With no weapons at her disposal she didn't fancy her chances against him, she needed to get off the ship, and fast.

  As she reached the end of the first passage and hit the stairs she glanced back, only to see Asmodeous rounding the frame of the cabin door and breaking into a run, his bloody nose forming a crimson streak down the lower half of his face. Not waiting a moment she threw herself into the stairway and leapt briskly down into the bowels of the ship, taking the steps four or five at a time.

  She could hear him coming after her, his feet slamming the metallic stairs as he pounded his way frantically down and down in pursuit. Oriyanna delved deep into her memory and tried to recall where the emergency access door was. She was sure she knew and with no other options she kept on her original heading, down.

  The descent seemed to take forever, all the time Asmodeous' feet pounded away on the stairs above her, she was sure they were growing louder with every passing flight. Not once did she dare to look back, for a moment of lapsed concentration would surely lead to a fall, and that would be the end.

  Finally at the very bottom of the ship her feet met the end of the stairs, now she glanced back and saw how close he was, just a floor above, two at most, and descending as fast as a cheetah might chase down its prey.

  With her chest struggling for air, Oriyanna took off down the passageway, her legs feeling light, pain burning deep in her muscles like fire. Finally she reached the access hatch, threw her hand into the recess and waited frantically. Opening the emergency access would cause the ship to de-cloak and that meant it took a painstaking few seconds longer to carry out the command, seconds that she didn't have. A hundred yards back Asmodeous was closing in, his amber eyes burning insanely, highlighted by the bright red blood that now covered his face.

  As the hatch finally opened and Oriyanna felt the cool desert air hit her burning face, the surrounding mountains suddenly ignited in a bright halo of light. Fork lighting laced its way across the sky, like a crazed electrified spider's web. Throwing herself down the access ramp she felt heavy rain instantly soaking her to the skin, her feet slipped treacherously on the metal ramp, she fought for purchase but it was too late, her body twisted and she went tumbling down, her body stopping in a crumpled mess at the bottom.

  The few seconds it took to recover were enough to allow Asmodeous to close the gap, as Oriyanna hauled herself to her feet, she paused and looked back toward the ship. He was only twenty yards away now, and he had sensed that he was going to catch her, she could tell. He'd halted his rushed approach and now almost stalked down the access ramp, his face locked in a jeering grin. More lightning ignited the sky with electrical fingers, silhouetting the gigantic hulk of Arkus 2 against his predatory body. Oriyanna knew there was no point in running, she was just burning valuable energy, energy that she would need to defend herself. She took a step back, buying her a little more room and got ready to fight.

  * * *

  In the Earth's atmosphere the short wormhole jump created a boom five times louder than that of a plane breaking the sound barrier. Four miles away, in the small town of Amesbury every window in every house, shop and car, shattered into a million pieces. Less than a second later the Niribus arrived above the giant structure of Arkus 2 in Peru, the smaller craft zipped the length of the craft before dropping down the side of the ship.

  “I'll run a scan of the craft,” Taulass said, as lightening flashed across the horizon. The ship was uncloaked and looked impossibly huge against the darken sky.

  “Down there, look!” cried Sam, pointing out of the display window. Around twenty feet below them, out in the open ground were two bodies locked in a bitter struggle.

  “Get us on the ground,” said Adam. “I need your weapon, ours were taken.”

  “No offence mate but I think I'll do the honours,” Sam said, as Taulass touched the ship down not fifty feet from where the pair were fighting. Before Lucie had a chance to protest at him rushing into the fray once again he took the gun from Taulass, gave it a once over and figured that the trigger-like button was most likely the thing he needed to push. As the door to the craft slid open, both of them rushed out into the pounding rain.

  * * *

  Asmodeous hit her like a steam train, instantly knocking her off her feet and sending her sprawling onto her back. In an instant he was on her, pinning her to the slimy, wet ground with his body. As he grabbed her by the hair she registered the craft as it blinked into existence high above her, it sped the length of Arkus 2 and for a moment she lost sight of it, then it swooped down the side of the hull and came back. Oriyanna made a futile effort to unseat Asmodeous from his positon, but he fought back, slamming her head into the ground. Oriyanna saw stars and felt nausea flood her body.

  “I may not be able to shoot you, but I'm going to smash your pretty fucking skull to pieces,” Asmodeous screamed as he pulled her by the hair, adjusted his grip and slammed the back of her head down again, then again. She could felt the sickening crunch of her skull breaking, it reverberated through every muscle and bone of her ancient, yet preserved body. Once again he drew her head up, but thankfully unconsciousness took her before the next blow came.

  * * *

  Sam raced across the wet ground, his shirt plastered to his skin, the weapon raised before him, “Hey, asshole!” he screamed as more lighting chased hot lines in the sky, followed by a clap of thunder so loud
it shook the ground. Asmodeous turned to look at him, a puzzled expression on his crazed face. His hands were covered in blood despite the rain, and Sam realised why, the back of Oriyanna's head was mush, like a hardboiled egg in a shell that had been dropped off a kitchen counter. It made him want to gag. Before Asmodeous had chance to slam her skull back down Sam raised the gun, a red targeting dot automatically highlighted his head for a nanosecond before he pulled the trigger. He felt no recoil, and there was no sound, just a very small vibration through the handle that lasted half a second at most. Sam watched as Asmodeous' body convulsed, green lightning danced over his wet clothing, his face and his hands.

  Before Asmodeous' body hit the ground, Sam saw Adam slam into him, and push him away. The dead body slumped forcefully onto the wet ground with a splash. Sam watched as frantically Adam collected Oriyanna's limp body up into his arms, he had a horrible feeling that they'd been too late, her skin looked pallid and her lips were an unhealthy shade of purple. The whole scene gave Sam a serious flashback to when they'd first found her, battered and shot on the riverbank. As they rushed to the Niribus more lightning streaked the sky, burning his eyes.

  * * *

  On board Adam laid Oriyanna out onto the floor of the bridge, his shaking hands wiping her wet and tangled hair out of her eyes. Blood from the wound on her head began to pool out around her.

  “I'll check her in a second,” Taulass said quickly, closing the access door and getting the craft into the air. “In under a minute this whole place is going to burn!”

  Adam just about registered the tugging feeling in his stomach as the small interplanetary craft shot into the sky, cleared the clouds and ten seconds later entered Earth's orbit. Far below them, an insignificant looking blister of fire lit up the darken landscape and spread out across the desert like a ripple in a pond. No one even noticed as their attention was fixed on Adam who was still pointlessly clearing wet hair from Oriyanna's plaid face, his soaking fingers trembling as they worked.

  Leaving the station, Taulass joined Adam and the others on the floor. He examined the wound on her head and placed his cheek down closed to her mouth as they all waited in silence around her lifeless looking body. “She is still breathing,” he said with relief after a few painstaking seconds. “It's very shallow, though. Another blow to the head and he would have killed her, of that I am certain. It's going to take her a few days to fully heal, but I'm confident that she will make a full recovery. To be on the safe side I am going to get us back to Arkkadia,” he said. “Our work here is done.”

  “I'm not leaving her,” Adam said, his voice a little lighter with relief, yet still wavering and shaky.

  “Well, I suggest you get her comfortable in the medical bay and get her dry. You will need to keep an eye on her for the next day or so. You can dress her wounds to help stem the blood flow but they will start to heal soon enough. I'll get us underway.”

  “Are we going home?” Lucie asked, her wide eyes looking at Sam.

  “Yeah, I guess we are,” he grinned. “In a manner of speaking, anyway. I don't think London is any place to raise a family at the moment.”

  “You know!” she blurted, her eyes filling with tears. “How?”

  “That's not important right now, I love you.” He kissed her deeply on the lips as Taulass span the craft round and activated the wormhole drive. In the blink of an eye, Earth was gone.

  Epilogue Part 1

  For three full days Oriyanna remained unconscious. Her wounds healed gradually, but not at the normally speedy rate afforded by The Gift. Taulass was not surprised, nor after the first twenty four hours was he worried. Adam refused to leave her side, and on the second day, once Taulass had checked her healing skull, he explained to Adam that she would likely need further treatment once back on Arkkadia as he suspected that a large number of her tiny nanobotic life preservers were killed off thanks to the head injury. 'Thankfully she has maintained a large enough number to keep her alive,' he'd said. 'It was a closer call than I first imagined.'

  Finally on the third day she came round, and the only indication that anything had actually happened to her was a total loss of memory from the point that she'd escaped the room aboard Arkus 2, having slammed Asmodeous' face into the ships computer screen.

  On the fourth day, with Oriyanna out of the medical bay and fighting fit, Lucie had voiced a concern that all the anxiety and stress might have caused harm to her unborn child. Oriyanna had rested a hand on her tummy, smiled and reassured her that all was still well and the infant was fighting fit, and asked if she'd liked to know the sex of the child. Something that neither her, nor Sam wanted to know. Oriyanna had smiled at them and promised to keep it to herself. Still being a tad on the sceptical side, Lucie had insisted on being checked in the ship's medical bay by some proper apparatus. Oriyanna had obliged and placed a series of small wireless sensors on Lucie's abdomen, then using a holo-display she'd brought up a frighteningly realistic 3D projection of the infant. 'I'd say you are about twelve weeks along,' Oriyanna had told her, looking at the image. That night, and for the first time in days, Lucie slept soundly.

  In the end, Sam's shoulder had also needed attention. The wound, although clean, seemed reluctant to heal and just kept scabbing over, then bleeding. Following Lucie's scan, Taulass carried out a procedure that was close to stitching, only it used a very fine laser beam to knit the torn skin back together. 'If you want it,' Taulass had said, 'they will reinstate The Gift when we get back.' Sam had refused and argued that no man should watch his wife, and child, or children grow old whilst he remained practically frozen in time, for him the return to mortality was actually a welcome one. Sam had never seen the gift as an amelioration of life in the way many would, sure it had its benefits, but to him it had some outweighing drawbacks.

  * * *

  Adapting to life on Arkkadia was not as hard as Lucie had envisaged during the seven day trip, because there was plenty about the planet and the way of life that was so close to Earth it was almost frightening, yet somehow on the flipside vastly different. Lucie saw it as Earth as it should be, devoid of all wars, suffering and famine. There were no political or geographical boundaries, no countries so to speak of, just districts and territories, but there were no borders and anyone was free to go anywhere they liked. The Arkkadian council, who governed the entire planet and had done so for thousands of years, saw it the right of any Arkkadian to live and work where they wished, as the planet was theirs, a shared asset and not a thing to divide into geographical boundaries and then squabbled over the way two spoilt children might a toy in nursery. It was a Utopian ideal the likes of which Lucie knew could never exist on Earth.

  Following their arrival her life had become close to what she'd class as celebrity on Earth. Like Earth the planet had media and entertainment and she, along with Sam and Adam, found themselves at the very centre of its attention. For her brother and husband it was the second such time they'd found themselves in the limelight. This media interest had lasted a full three months before it began to subside, thus permitting her a more normal life.

  In the last few months before giving birth, when Lucie had found herself swelling like a balloon, she and Sam were living just outside of the planet's main capital, Unia. Lucie spent her days working within the educational system, teaching young Arkkadian children about Earth and the people of her home planet. The children were always fascinated with her and her teaching times overran greatly due to the amount of questions that followed every lesson.

  It was during one of these very lessons that she went into Labour, three whole weeks early. Five hours later their son was born. They named him Xavier, after the Watcher who'd sacrificed himself in the bowels of the Great Pyramid, thus saving both planets.

  Once again there was a bevy of media attention for Lucie and Sam to endure. The first Earth-Human child to be born on the planet was big news. It was around this time that Adam and Sam began their campaign, they wanted the people of Earth to know the tr
uth, wanted the Arkkadian council to announce themselves, believing it would help to unite Earth and bring an end to such an age of uncertainty. With the aid of Oriyanna, who was highly placed on the council, they'd gained an audience with the planet's governors and presented their case. The council members had then voted, it was a one hundred percent majority against. The matter was closed, for now. Thanks to their joint tenacity they had managed to get the matter reviewed, once every ten Earth years. It was going to be a long road but as Adam had joked, 'I've got a bloody long time to live, and we will get there in the end.'

  Epilogue Part 2

  The council chambers in Unia, the capital city of all Arkkadia, were vast, and set on the banks of the Unas, the main river whose deep blue waters snaked the length of the Thurerlusa district, before finally meeting with the ocean. The main chamber room was an amphitheatre affair, a cavernous half circle of twenty tiers, each tier held fifty seats, and in those seats sat the governors for each of the one thousand districts and territories that made up Arkkadia. In the very centre of this half circle, halfway up the twenty tiers in a magnificent booth sat Elohim, the head of the council and leader of all Arkkadia. To his left and right sat the senior council members, of which Oriyanna was one. She caught Adam's eye, her hair looking like golden honey in the deep afternoon sun that streamed in through the cathedral-like windows above the tiers in almost solid, tangible looking shafts. Holding her gaze for a few long seconds, she offered him a reassuring smile from across the room.

  Adam took a deep breath and allowed himself a moment to study the one thousand expectant faces who all studied him back with deep scrutiny. He turned to Sam, who as always, joined him in the speakers' box, just as he had done on eight previous occasions over the last eighty years. His sandy blonde hair was now a mixture of deep and light greys, his eyes, though, still glinted with a boyish charm and seemed to belong to a man a quarter of his age.