by Travis Hall
“That was close,” Allora said, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“Am I dead?” Bell asked, still holding on tightly.
“Not just yet, pipsqueak,” Allora said, touching her sister’s hand. “Thanks, guys!”
“We are not out of the woods yet,” Dax said. The entire fleet of ships was now in pursuit. “We’ve got more company. Those skimmers will be on us in minutes.”
“Hey, Dax, you remember that play that we came up with?” Tanner asked.
“How in the world would that work?”
“Guys?” Katie asked.
“We came up with a play where we’d hand off the ball to a wide receiver who would fake as though he was running the other way so that our main objective could get down the field.”
“No way. Not happening,” Allora said, deducing their intentions.
“They are after you, the Eye, and what you have in your head,” Tanner argued. “We can’t let them get to you.”
“We all signed up for this,” Dax said.
“I didn’t,” Jenny said from behind Tanner.
“You really don’t have a say in this one,” Katie added.
“Just promise me you guys won’t do anything stupid,” Allora said, knowing her friends would do anything it took to keep her safe. “Just distract them, and get out of there.”
“Will do,” Tanner said. He veered to his left, followed by the others.
Allora punched the thrusters, pushing the skipper to over two hundred miles per hour.
“We’re not going to make it out of this one, are we?” Bell asked softly and painfully.
“We’ve made it this far, Bell,” Allora responded. “Don’t you ever give up hope. You remember the promise I made you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I never break my promises, OK?”
“OK.”
On the side of the front screen, it showed an image of a billowing fireball behind them. Allora felt a sense of dread and helplessness. She knew that she had to get her sister to safety, but she felt guilty for not being in the fight. It was now clear that everyone in Sandy had been there to protect her. And now the entire town was destroyed.
Just as she was about to get to the edge of the perimeter, numerous red dots appeared on her screen. They were coming right at her. There was nowhere to go. She could see the multitude of aircraft bearing down, but they were hundreds of feet in the air. They zoomed past, heading straight for the cruisers. It was the American F-16s. Allora watched the orange-and-yellow glow as hundreds of jet missiles were sent toward the large Sonoran ships.
“Well, looks like the cat’s out of the bag,” Allora said, turning her head toward her sister.
“You realize how ineffective those weapons are going to be?” Bell said, unimpressed by the reinforcements.
“What do you mean?”
“Aunt May told me that those cruisers have very powerful shields that will block most human weaponry,” Bell said, sounding very mature.
Allora watched the aft image of the missiles exploding against the hadron energy shields that surrounded the cruisers. Then a barrage of lights escaped the exterior guns, destroying most of the attacking aircraft. The others fled, only to be run down by pursuing skimmers. Distant balls of flames erupted in the sky.
Five minutes later they had passed by the perimeter defenses. A couple of skimmers and larger aircraft littered the forest where they had examined the gnomes’ weaponry. Allora set the skipper down in a field that bordered Crystal Lake. The capsule slid open, and Allora and Bell both got down off the dented metal sheet. The muffled sporadic explosions in the distance were ominous, as she knew that any one of them could be her friends or relatives. Allora sparked the skipper, activating the contraption and leaving it floating in the air in a cylindrical tube. She flung the strap around her back just as her sister threw her to the ground. A hadron burst hit Bell in the chest, flinging her through the air and toward an overhanging cliff. Allora screamed and spun around, pulling in hadrons and forcing them forward in anticipation of another burst, which came right at her. The force of the explosion against the hadron shield pushed her back along the ground, leaving two dirt trails as she fought to gain her balance. Allora ran backward, kneeling down next to her sister to check her pulse. She let out her breath after feeling the repetitive thump of Bell’s heart.
From the edge of the forest came a familiar figure.
“You, my dear, are a pain,” Dr. Lucas Smith said, walking through the field with a blade held by his side.
“Lucas,” Allora said, anger seething from her pores. “So, I guess that you’re not really a math teacher after all.”
“No, darling. I’m not.”
“Who are you?” Allora asked, pulling a sword from the sheath on her back and standing tall against her adversary.
“You don’t recognize me?” Lucas said, sauntering toward her. His body began to morph, growing in height, his hair changing to dark brown.
“Marcus,” she said, her fists clenched.
“How about we go for round two with that kiss?”
“Why would you do this? Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
“You represent everything wrong with Sonora,” he answered while morphing back into Lucas. “You and this entire race of humans are a disease that I intend to eradicate. These weak, stupid, wretched creatures are a plague upon this world and our own. I am simply protecting our people.”
“By slaughtering humans?”
“What you don’t understand is that we are gods to these creatures,” Lucas said, becoming more animated. “I am just balancing the natural order of civilization.”
“No, what you’re doing is genocide.”
“History only judges the losers,” Lucas said, dropping his chin, focusing his eyes, and clenching the hilt of his sword.
“Well, then let’s just see who comes out on top.”
“So be it,” Lucas said, raising his sword and pushing a hadron burst at his opponent. The red hadron burst pushed back on the shield that Allora had placed in front of her. She barely saw the glint of the sword bearing down on her. She pulled her blade up, and the two pieces of metal clashed, the sounds echoing across the lake. Lucas sent short bursts of energy that kept Allora on her heels and pushed her back toward the lake. Seeing the edge of the water at her back, she sent a bubble of energy to her feet and launched into the air over Lucas, swinging at his head. He flipped backward sending a barrage of bursts at the flying girl. She didn’t see the red streaks and was hit with numerous stings of energy that jolted her body and flung her violently into the ground.
Her elbows buckled under the weight of her body as she tried to get up. Her nervous system was sending sharp, shooting pains into every limb. Lucas shot another string of red hadron bursts that hit the ground around her. Adrenaline shot through her, lifting her to her knees. She pulled her sword up as Lucas’s came down. The muscles in her arms strained against the full weight of her old teacher. Then she saw an opening between his two-handed grip on the sword. She used all of her strength, pushed his sword up, pulled in the hadrons around her, and sent a purple ball straight into his gut. He stumbled back and tripped on a rock.
He began laughing as he got up. “You really think you can win?”
Her wrist communicator began flashing. She pulled the metal band back, and a steady stream of blinking lights moved into the area around her location. Allora looked up into the sky to see two large black cruisers lifted over the edge of the forest on the other side of the lake.
“I gotta say, I admire the fight, but there is no happy ending for you,” Lucas said, getting to his feet. The radio came alive with the voices of her family and friends fighting through the overwhelming forces. Screams of death echoed in her ear as they were fleeing the onslaught of skimmers that were pursuing them. Allora looked at Lucas and then at the body of her unconscious sister lying by the edge of the lake. Small black dots escaped the sides of the cruisers above, indicating
a large army deployed on their position. The cruisers at her back would be there in less than a minute. They were surrounded with no way out.
“I promise if you surrender to me, I will make sure that none of your little rebellion here is hurt further,” Lucas said, watching as his forces moved out of the forest and slowed to a stop above the lake. “You can save them. All you need to do is come with me.”
Allora thought back to the words her uncle had spoken: “Never give in; never give up.”
They echoed in her head, battling against the dead faces of those she had known and cared about. Her nightmares were coming alive, eating away at her slowly.
“Prove it,” Allora said.
Lucas stared her down, contemplating his next move, like a chess player ready to exact his final blow.
“Royal guard,” Lucas said, pulling up his communicator. “This is Commander Lucas. All forces, stand down the attack and hold positions.”
The advancing army stopped at the edges of the field. There were hundreds of them, fully clad in black-and-gold battle suits. The voices of her friends were confirming the orders as they made their way to the lake. As the hovering pods of her friends’ skippers touched down behind her, Lucas backed up to the edge of the lake, glancing down with a smirk at the still-unconscious Bell.
“How do I know you won’t betray your word if I go with you?”
“You don’t. But you don’t really have a choice, do you?”
“Why?” Allora asked, still perplexed. “Why am I so important to you?”
“You don’t know?” Lucas said, shocked at the revelation.
“All this time and no one told you who you really are?” Lucas chuckled. “Milly is not your mother.” Allora stared at him, unable to comprehend what he had just said. “You’re the royal baby, the daughter of Taldar and Kalia Anticleus, previous king and queen of Titanis, capital city of Sonora. You are the lost princess Aurora.”
“You’re lying!” Allora said, emphatically.
“No, he’s not.” Milly touched down, got off her skipper, and pulled out her sword as Allora started to walk to Lucas. Seeing the famous keeper, Lucas stepped back, grabbed Bell from the grounds as she started to come to, and placed his blade against her throat. Milly instantly stopped and looked at Allora, who had her mouth open and eyes wide.
“Bell, it’s going to be all right,” Milly said, her hands in the air, dropping her blade.
“Mom?” Allora said, cocking her head to the side.
“I meant to tell you long ago, but I just couldn’t find the right moment to do it.” Allora’s heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. This betrayal was even more difficult to swallow than anything she’d experienced.
“Who are you?” Allora said angrily.
“Your birth mother was my older sister,” Milly said. “We were pursued by Salazar’s forces after your father, the king, was murdered in a secret council meeting, set up by Salazar himself. I needed time to open up the gateway to Earth. Your real mother sacrificed herself so that you could live. I’m so sorry, Allora. I never meant for you to find out this way.”
“Such a pitiful royal family,” Lucas said, laughing maniacally.
“You bastard,” Milly yelled. “You lay one finger on her and I’ll rip your heart out.”
“You are in no position to be making threats. I gotta say, though, it’s an absolute honor to meet you finally. The legend of the Rebel Wars standing right in front of me. I feel star struck.”
Lucas’s patronizing tone further exacerbated Milly’s rage. She stood rigid, with fists clenched around her weapon, waiting for the moment to strike.
“Ah, ah,” Lucas said, carefully slicing through Bell’s skin and leaving a trail of blood that trickled down her neck and onto the ground. “I wouldn’t want to accidently hurt this one.”
“Stop,” Allora yelled, moving with her palm outstretched. “All right, I’ll surrender. Just don’t hurt anyone else.” She turned to Milly. “No one else is going to die.”
“Allora, no,” Milly pleaded. “I didn’t fight this long just to see you give in to this maniac’s wishes.”
“I can’t watch him hurt anyone else I care about.”
“And what about the millions of humans and Sonorans who will be affected by your capture? You don’t fully understand your importance.”
“And what about your real daughter? What about Bell?”
There was no answer to that question. Milly’s mouth opened and closed without a sound. Allora took the steps forward, giving in to Lucas’s demands. Three more skippers bounced down from the tree line, stopping at the edge of the confrontation. Tanner, Katie, and Dax got off their hovercrafts and moved toward the group. Jenny and Brandon followed reluctantly, standing a good distance behind.
Allora held up her hand, seeing Lucas’s blade inch closer to Bell’s jugular.
“Stay back,” Allora screamed.
“Allora, what are you doing?” Tanner asked, holding onto the hilt of his sword tightly.
“What I have to.”
Allora stepped forward as Lucas pulled out metal cuffs that looked like a figure eight. She hesitated, causing Lucas to tap his sword on Bell’s shoulder. She extended her arms, and Lucas placed the cuffs through her hands and around her wrists. A gel exploded around her fists, securely locking them in front of her body. She tried to focus hadrons, but the gel kept the energy from being pulled in.
“I’ve waited a long time for this moment,” Lucas said. He pulled up his communicator and said, “All right, kill them all!”
“What?” Allora said, her eyebrows raised. She violently struggled against the cuffs as Milly ran forward. The army surrounding them advanced as Lucas threw Allora to the ground and sent a burst at Milly, who easily struck it down with her sword. Allora watched from the ground, unable to move as her friends were overwhelmed.
Then a booming growl blew through the field, followed by a wave of warlocks and giants launching trees into the army of royal guardsman that advanced on the group. Bod and Mot came out of the forest, violently swinging their clubs as soldier after soldier screamed at the brute force of the weapon knocking them into the lake and field. Sas, Yeti, Abe, and a few more warlocks came flying at the group that surrounded her friends, sending bursts of light knocking the royal guard into the lake. Milly was swinging at Lucas, who was far inferior to the maddened mother. Her violent screams chilled everyone in the area as she kept swinging her blade, taking out the group of surrounding royal guardsman who were trying to protect their commander. Allora almost started laughing at Lucas’s petrified look as he crawled backward, slipping over his feet as Milly kept advancing toward him like an Amazon warrior. Shots of yellow bursts exploded into the advancing army as she continued her rampage toward the retreating commander. Seeing the battle momentum changing, the cruisers above began a salvo of fire raining down on the small group of rebels as they fought the overwhelming forces.
One of the cruisers suddenly exploded in a full show of fire and light. The cruisers above stopped firing on the ground and readjusted their aim toward a distant group of battle carriers heading their way from the shadow side of Mt. Hood. Just then a voice came onto their communicators. “Did we miss the party?”
It was Captain Theus. The rebel carrier force moved in and launched a full wave of skimmers and skirmishers. The sky above erupted in an epic light show as numerous ships were destroyed in the head-to-head battle. On the ground, Tanner ran toward the edge of the lake, slicing through two soldiers and making it to Allora’s feet as Bell was coming to. Dax and Katie stood guard, as Brandon and Jenny huddled behind them with guns shaking in their grasps.
“You really know how to make things interesting,” Tanner said, totally out of breath.
“Shut up,” Allora replied. “Now get me out of here.”
Tanner tried pulling at the cuffs and sparking them, but they wouldn’t budge. Dax and Katie kept fighting off the advancing army, helped along by Sas and Yeti.
> “You trust me?” Tanner asked, pulling Allora to her feet and raising his sword above his head.
“Oh God,” she replied. Sticking her hands out in front of her, she turned her head and closed her eyes. He swung down hard, lighting his sword blue with as much energy as he could muster. The cuffs shattered when struck, leaving only bruised wrists.
“Now what?” Katie asked.
Allora grabbed the bow from around her back, placed her sword in the sheath hanging diagonally from her quiver, and pulled an arrow out, placing it in the ready position.
“Now we fight,” Allora said, pulling back the bowstring and launching an arrow at a soldier who was about to strike down on Milly. The purple arrow struck the soldier, launching him into a tree. She fired off numerous missiles, which hit their targets every time. Above a skimmer was struck and careened toward the field, exploding in a ball of fire as it barreled toward the battle. Allora barely escaped a metal wing as she rolled away.
Then the shields of one of the cruisers dissipated, leaving it vulnerable. Seeing an opening, one of the battle carriers launched all of its fighters toward it, followed by its own barrage of hadron missiles. The cruiser erupted in fire and exploded in its forward compartments as its ammunition room took a direct hit from a hadron missile. The ship lost altitude and crashed into the lake. A wave of water engulfed the field, knocking most off their feet. Allora sloshed around in the muddy water, grabbing her sword from its sheath and splashing toward Milly, who was taking on three soldiers. Allora pierced the back of one of the royal guardsmen. The sword penetrated the battle suit, pushing through the soldier’s abdomen. Another cruiser took extreme damage and pushed away from the battle as the rebel carrier group gained air space from the royal guard.
Just as they thought they were winning, three more dragon-class cruisers ported into the area, followed by ten trolls that burst out of the forest to take on the giants and warlocks.
Exhausted, Milly limped over to the edge of the water and pulled out a metallic orb from a pocket on her chest.
“Those cruisers are inhibiting any porting from this position, and they are surrounding the area,” Milly said between breaths.