by Ashanti Luke
Cyrus zoomed out the hologram and saw Uzziah and Milliken’s mining craft following close behind their assault lev—and the fourth fighter was right behind them. Cyrus spun the ship-to-ship lasers in an attempt to aim at their pursuer, but the controls were sluggish, the turret was jittery, and when he noticed the image of his own lev on the gram, he could see the left laser was off its mount and facing the opposite direction of the other. He thought he heard himself curse, but it was hard to tell over the timorous pounding of his own heart.
The collapsing roof the cave had knocked them into the turret of the assault lev and the impact and the weight of the slab had launched them from the mouth of the cave nose-downward. The sheer awkwardness of their egress was the only thing that had caused the second missile to miss them and detonate against the side of the cave. Uzziah had instinctively killed the boosters, rolled to the right, and had used the momentum to follow the assault lev. Tanner and Cyrus’s tank had collided with the other, gone into a spin, and then had almost flipped over before it had lifted off the ground and had begun rising out of the crater. Uzziah had put his foot back to the throttle, had pitched up the nose of the mining craft, and against everything he had ever learned about fighter-to-fighter engagement, had flown directly between the wobbling tank and the fighter that was moving behind them.
The fighter stayed low, and as Cyrus yelled “Shit!” through the radio link, Uzziah saw that the massive laser jury-rigged to the assault lev was mangled and twisted beyond usefulness. But it didn’t matter, the fighter was staying beneath the assault lev, outside the arc of the lasers, and it was slowing down.
“He’s dropping back to fire again!” Uzziah yelled, not sure what he expected anyone to do. And then, he felt the air pressure inside the mining lev shift as the door opened behind him. He turned to see Milliken, carrying a hand-held coring laser in one hand, while tying something around his waist with the other. Then, before Uzziah could ask what he was doing, Milliken yelled, “Fuck this guy!” and jumped out the door.
He was tired of being tossed around. He was tired of all the running, running, and more running. But most of all, he was tired of being scared. Adrenalin had numbed his face to stone for the second time in two days. He was sure his bladder had released into his envirosuit, and he had been knocked around by missiles and collapsing caves one too many times. So when he leapt from the mining lev, counting to himself in his head as he activated the coring laser, the thought of, What the bloody hell am I doing? never crossed his mind.
Milliken fell downward, and even though he could not see the ground coming up to meet him, it still felt strange, like either the diminished gravity of the planet, or the heightened gravity of his choice, had slowed time to a more manageable speed. The rigging strap that he had secured caught him just beneath the lev. The wind pushed him back behind the doorway toward the fighter that was still chasing them as the distance between them and the fighter slowly increased.
…but it was still close enough. Milliken closed his eyes to steady his own head and then opened them again. He lifted the vibrating hand laser up past the edge of the mining lev and dropped it.
The air caught the laser and it spun as it fell toward the fighter. The fighter didn’t dodge because it didn’t need to. The laser fell harmlessly beneath it—harmlessly, until it activated. A thin blue line of light shot back behind the fighter and then spun like an antiquated saw blade beneath the pursuing fighter. Sparks flew from beneath the fighter as the laser cut through the bottom of it. The fighter pitched, dipped, and then fell and rolled, sputtering sparks and flame from its underside. But as it fell from view, a piece of it flew toward them. And then, Milliken realized it wasn’t a piece of the fighter, it was a missile, and it wasn’t aimed at them.
On the hologram, at that range, Cyrus could see something dangling from the mining lev as the fighter slowed behind it. It wasn’t until the small lozenge fell from the mining lev and fired a spinning laser burst through the bottom of the fighter that Cyrus realized the dangling form was most likely Milliken. The fighter fell off the hologram, but another odd piece, more shaft-like than lozenge-shaped, rose into view.
“Incoming!” Cyrus yelled, but the explosion eclipsed his warning. The assault lev dipped right, and the entire world spun around him. When it stopped, Cyrus was on the ceiling of the assault lev. He looked up to see if Tanner was okay, but his body was slumped awkwardly against the strap of the seat, which was now, from Cyrus’s point-of-view, attached to the ceiling. As Cyrus stood, it was hard for his eyes to register what he was seeing. The back corner of the lev was twisted impossibly and there was a rip in the back wall that defied understanding. As his cheeks began to tickle and warmth began to rush back into his face, Cyrus realized he was looking at the mining lev, upside down, its nose lights on as it moved above them, or maybe beneath them.
Cyrus rushed to the controls of the assault lev and tried to level the craft. Thankfully, Tanner was mumbling incoherently; he was shell-shocked, but he was still breathing. Cyrus slid across the roof of the lev as it slowly turned and then stopped on its side. Something in the lev drive shook the vehicle as it wheezed and sputtered. And then, just before the holomonitor dissolved and the control panel spewed sparks over him, Cyrus saw the altitude indicator running down too fast to read.
Cyrus jumped down to the side of the craft, stepping across odd panels and compartments. Some panels leaked miscellaneous fluids, and some burned from the inside. Cyrus stepped over to the door and hit the emergency release. The door separated with a pop and flew off into oblivion, and Cyrus again had trouble interpreting the signal his eyes sent to his brain. As he looked down through the doorway, he could see the doorway of the mining lev with a spotlight from the inside streaming toward him. Milliken was standing perpendicular to the doorway with something tied to his waist. He motioned for Cyrus to come toward him, but Cyrus shook his head and yelled over the howling wind, “I have to get Tanner!” without realizing they were still connected by radio.
It took some wrenching to get Tanner’s harness to release, but when it did, Tanner fell right onto Cyrus’s shoulder and he carried him over to the doorway. Tanner seemed to be unconscious now, and Cyrus wondered how he would get him to the mining lev, but when he reached the opening, his question was already answered. Milliken was standing on the outside of his lev, now only a few centimeters from the doorway, and Cyrus dropped Tanner gingerly into Milliken’s grasp.
Milliken lowered Tanner into the mining lev against the seat that rested in the middle. Cyrus wondered how hard it would be to match the descent of the assault lev while flying beneath it and still stay this close. And then, there was a sudden thump against the now-bottom of the assault lev that knocked Cyrus from his feet. “We got a problem!” Uzziah yelled through the radio.
Cyrus looked up and noticed the laser’s hologram was still active even though the controls of the craft were dark. The laser’s hologram was floating about a meter and a half above his head and it showed a fighter, most likely the same fighter, firing lasers into the sideways flying mining craft beneath his own sideways flying assault lev. Cyrus could only see a sliver of spotlight through the doorway now as sparks danced across the doorway hole in the now-floor. “You better get over here fast!” the radio reported as Cyrus hopped to his feet. He was about to move to the doorway when he turned to the laser controls. The fact that they were sideways barely registered in his mind. Cyrus was floored by the image before him as the holographic ground rushed up at the two levs, which were now a single blob in the hologram.
Cyrus grabbed the left shoulder harness, pulled it out as far as it would go, and wrapped it around the control stick for the left laser. He yanked the tightening strap, and then, without bothering to think about the distance, dove toward the spotlight as the broken laser fired and tore through the center of the assault lev itself. Cyrus twisted his body in the air and fell toward the mining lev. But the wind caught him as he fell and he felt his stomach leap into his t
hroat. Then, miraculously he was inside the mining lev, bouncing off something hard but padded, and as the lev compartment spun around his airborne body, he was dumped painfully onto his shoulders.
Uzziah was sweating inside his envirosuit and it made the air he was breathing thick and humid. It had been hard enough to match the descent of the smoking assault lev—sideways no doubt—and to also maintain a proximity that allowed Cyrus to lower the unconscious Tanner down to that crazy ass Milliken. But when the fighter had rose up behind them again, Uzziah’s resolve snapped, even before the laser had hit them. Luckily, Cyrus and Milliken had not been outside of the tandem levs when they were hit, but the hit shuddered the mining lev up into the falling tank. He had yelled to hurry Cyrus, and had increased their descent to open up the gap between the two levs, but they were running out of sky fast, and Uzziah couldn’t imagine Milliken or Cyrus had anymore tricks to throw at this persistent bastard that was chasing them.
And then the imager showed the S-to-S laser light up on top of the assault lev. The tank tipped and rolled slightly in the air above them, and Uzziah heard an odd thump inside the compartment followed by a moan that sounded like Cyrus. Then, the line of the laser spread through the blip of the assault lev and across the top of the pursuing fighter in the imager. The fighter’s roof shaved off and flipped behind it, and then the fighter dipped, rocked shakily, and, just as it seemed like it would recover, a large chunk of the assault lev smashed into it. The fighter was knocked into a dizzying spin and spiraled into the ground as Uzziah cut the boosters and rolled back to level to avoid hitting that same ground.
As Uzziah slowed to level the craft, the rest of the assault lev came down in front of them. Uzziah’s instincts told him to evade, but no one was belted in. He gritted his teeth and activated the coring lasers, skirting little more than two meters above ground. The assault lev hit the ground with the force of a titan. The mounted S-to-S laser, still firing, cut a swath in the ground dangerously close to them. Uzziah reacted, but he could not take his focus from the tank that threw dirt and rocks into the air as it appeared to roll toward them. Uzziah hit the throttle and pulled back on the controls, pitching the nose upward as he prayed his mining lasers would fire in time.The tank threw rent pieces into the air and, just as Uzziah was about to pass over it, bounced up off the ground. And as the coring lasers fired, Uzziah’s training faltered, allowing innate human reaction to kick in. The maelstrom of debris was too much, so he muttered another silent prayer, let go of the controls, and closed his eyes.
There was a thump against the bottom of the mining lev and when Uzziah’s eyes opened, there was nothing but clear, starry sky before them. Milliken was checking Cyrus and Tanner as he removed their helmets. Uzziah removed his own helmet and the cool, thin air of the cockpit soothed his anxious lungs. “How are they?” he gasped, unsure of what answer to expect.
Milliken took his own helmet off and breathed an airy sigh, “They are out, but for all it’s worth, I think they’ll be okay.”
“You?” Uzziah asked, trying to catch his breath.
“Me? I think it’ll be a long while before I’m okay again.” Milliken pressed the button to close the door and Uzziah returned to the controls to correct their heading. And as Milliken put Tanner and Cyrus in more comfortable positions, they all sped toward the slowly expanding band of orange looming on the horizon.
twenty
• • • • •
—Dada, today during physical fitness, Scott Seal broke his arm.
—How’d he do that?
—He tied a jacket around his neck like a cape and said he was Power Stone and then just jumped off the balcony.
—Well, that sounds like a boneheaded thing to do.
—Miss Hasabe said it’s cuz children feel like they are indestructible.
—You know, a lot of adults who have forgotten what it’s like to have a sense of wonder and adventure say that about children.
—Yeah, I don’t feel indestructible. It’s just I can’t imagine how bad breaking an arm or something would hurt.
—And now that Scott Seal knows what it feels like, I’m sure he won’t do it again anytime soon.
—Do you ever feel indestructible, Dada?
—Never. Sometimes I feel entirely too vulnerable.
—That’s strange, cuz sometimes I think you might be.
—Well see, there’s a trick to being indestructible. Something that should have killed you has to hit you for you to earn that label, and just because you keep going afterwards, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. How do you know that every time Dr. Mindbender’s robots hit Power Stone with a mag-lev, or The Eviscerator blasts him with pulse lasers, that it doesn’t hurt?
—I guess I don’t.
—We just think Power Stone is great, and that he can’t be killed because he gets back up.
—So maybe he isn’t really indestructible after all.
—Exactly, and I bet he’s the only man in the room that knows it. Bottom line is this—if you ever hit a man as hard as you can and he gets up like it didn’t hurt, hit him again. And if anyone ever hits you so hard you’re not sure you should have even gotten up, you do whatever it takes to make sure he never, ever hits you like that again.
• • • • •
Cyrus awoke soaked in his own sweat. The envirosuit was an excellent insulator, which in the frigid temperatures of the Miasma kept the body warm, but that same insulation caused the body to marinate in the fumes of its own perspiration when the ambient air was closer to room temperature. He couldn’t tell how long he had been out, or even what had knocked him out, but as Cyrus propped himself against the wall, he noticed Tanner was groggy, but was already up as well. Cyrus’s head pounded, only slightly out of sync with the whirring of the gravity drive and thrusters of the mining lev.
The sky was a milky yellow as if a film had been stretched across it. A few stars could still be seen, but either the mining lev’s speed or Cyrus’s slowly widening pupils made it seem like the stars were fading from view by the moment. As his vision cleared, Cyrus could see a thin crescent of white low in the sky with an occasional glimmer beneath it. It must have been the J.L. Orbital Station.
And then Cyrus remembered the look on Tanner’s face when they had approached the building that Tanner had called The Third Temple at the center of the strange city.
“Marcus, you okay?” Cyrus asked, his own voice cracking under the strain of speech.
“Stellar.” The sarcasm was disturbing coming from Tanner.
“What was that place back there?” Cyrus was unable to hold back his curiosity any longer.
“As far as I can tell, that place was New Jerusalem; but it makes no sense.” Tanner was more distraught than Cyrus had ever seen him.
“That place was carved directly from the rock it lay in. The entire city was like one gigantic statue. It’s impossible to tell when those buildings were cut,” Milliken chimed in. He sounded bewildered himself, but no more shaken than everyone else, “but the aves were made of fused quartz, which had to have been laid at the same time as, or after, the cutting. Those aves were fused approximately six hundred thousand years ago according to the data.”
Milliken pulled his datadeck free of the clamps that held it beneath the base of the holographic imager.
“It’s a good thing I tamped this thing down,” he opened the deck and pulled up the map of the underground city. “My guess is somehow the early Ashans discovered that power source from the surface while they were scanning the area for gold deposits. Even though the entry cave looked smooth from the inside, you can see on this mapping it was pretty sloppy. Not even close to the technical precision of the city itself.” Milliken pressed the keys to link the deck to the holographic imager and then zoomed in on the hologram to give a clear view of how wavy the passage was. “This part was cut with the extraplanetary lasers. Evidently whoever found it was in a rush.”
“It was probably Kalem. That city is probably what got h
im killed,” Cyrus added.
“But why?” Uzziah asked.
“For the same reason they wanted to kill us.”
“But who was trying to kill us?” Milliken asked without looking up from the hologram.
“The Echelon probably. They were started by that Rex Mundi character. They were the ones who gaffed us at the orbital when we got here. They were probably the ones that killed my friend.” Cyrus was more animated now, but he appeared to be in pain.
“Why would they kill someone who could help them figure out what it all meant? You said he studied that sort of thing, right?” Milliken asked, looking up this time.
“Maybe they already knew what it meant, or thought they did. Either way, Kalem’s knowledge would be precisely what got him killed; which means we need to figure out what it is they think they know before they find us.” Cyrus was nursing his shoulder, but it didn’t seem to help.
“What was in the back room of the Temple?” Uzziah turned in his chair to face them.
“Nothing,” Tanner answered, still distant.
“But you said, ‘There were two of them.’ Two of what?” Milliken turned to face him also.
“The Temple is supposed to house the Ark of the Covenant. There’s supposed to only be one, and that was supposed to have been on Earth.”
“How do you know there had been anything at all if the room was empty when you got there?” Milliken sounded indignant, but everyone knew he must have been feeling the same weariness they all shared—everyone except Tanner who was obviously more distraught.
“They were clumsy when they moved them. There were scratches on the floor. There were also depressions left in the floor where they had stood before they moved them.” Tanner’s distance was haunting. He had always been the most composed of them all, his presence alone calming in the face of duress, but now his anxiety was unsettling.