Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1)

by Stephen Allan

  Crystil shrugged, deciding it was not her battle to command. She sat back down, preparing to drop the ship to the ground.

  A loud thud and a furious growl shook the ship.

  Startled, Crystil leaped up to see a Kastori screaming under the weight of Calypsius’ right hand, and another one already dead, impaled by the monster’s other right arm. Calypsius’ face bore into Crystil’s soul, as it bared its teeth and brandished its fire, breathing at Omega One. Crystil suddenly found herself frozen by the horrible sight, as the predatory face of Calypsius brought back the nakar that ate Eve.

  “Crystil!” a voice said from afar.

  The ship lurched backward, and two more missiles fired, knocking the monster back down. Yanked out of her head, Crystil could not understand what had just happened—the ship could not have flown in reverse.

  “Fly!” Erda yelled, and Crystil, realizing who had controlled the ship, had an even greater respect for the chief’s power.

  Before she could even buckle up, Crystil throttled the engines up and ahead, dropping two more missiles on Calypsius as the ship rose to safety. She flew south, away from the forest, but noticed that the monster had not yet given chase. She used the opportunity to catch her breath and refocus.

  “Did that thing recover already?”

  “No,” Erda said. “I suspect we rattled it, but it did not feel pain. We need to kill it within fifteen minutes before the healing process begins.”

  Crystil had Cortanus display a timer of thirteen minutes on one of her screens as she looped the ship back around, noticing the monster still had not gone to the skies after them. Why would it have not chased them?

  Erda cried out in horror before the ship’s turn had finished. Crystil saw why.

  The monster seemed more intent on hunting down the Kastori than swatting the ship out of the air. Its two sharp limbs instantly killed Kastori, and it breathed fire toward those running away. Crystil had no idea how many casualties they had already suffered, but more would come unless they did something.

  But what? Try and get it to follow us?

  As much as Crystil wanted to believe the Kastori were expendable before, seeing how much pain Erda experienced reminded her of her own suffering, and she could not bear the thought of anyone else dying—most especially Celeste and Cyrus. If she could get Calypsius to follow them, it wouldn’t kill anyone.

  “Get that thing on us,” Erda said. “The more of my people it kills, the more power it absorbs. You’re fighting a creature that gets stronger as the battle goes on.”

  “Strap in tight. We’re about to see how well this ship flies.”

  She fired four more missiles, straight at Calypsius’ back, and nailed it perfectly, knocking the creature to the ground. She swept over the monster and banked right, parallel to the forest. This time, though, the visual display showed the creature chasing the ship with frightening progress. Crystil could not win a speed race, so she would have to win the strategic game. Just as the creature got close enough to destroy the engines, Crystil banked hard to the right, creating severe whiplash for her and Erda. Calypsius scraped the hull of Omega One as it banked right but produced no significant damage.

  But much to Crystil’s chagrin, Calypsius, too, banked hard right, moving far swifter in the air than she’d imagined a creature of that size doing.

  “This is going to get a lot worse, Erda,” Crystil said.

  No longer able to hold her bullets for damaging the enemy, she instead concentrated her firepower toward giving her space. Crystil glanced over at Erda, who seemed deep in thought, and she trusted that the Kastori was doing something to aid their cause. She saw the beast making progress, albeit slower progress, with a look of singular determination on its face.

  Crystil banked left and put her piloting skills to test. She dipped in and over the valleys, at one point even flying through a tight curve by banking the ship on its side for a sharper turn. She swooped around Mount Ardor with the same skill and headed toward the plains.

  She had barely gained any distance on Calypsius, which it made up for moments later when the guns temporarily stopped, overheated. Crystil cursed and launched a single missile at the beast. It hit the monster and prevented it from gaining ground, but nothing short of total annihilation could stop Calypsius from its goal now.

  She looked at her display. She had used up over a third of her bullets and too many of her missiles, weapons which she would never get back. Erda couldn’t seem to stop the monster, and her firepower, if it was working, provided no visual indication of progress.

  Crystil begged the Kastori and her comrades to come up with an idea, because at the moment, she had none and was running out of ammo.

  56

  Celeste dropped numerous profanities as Calypsius rose up and chased Crystil, the fight taken away from her and the Kastori. She had no idea how much damage they had inflicted, but Celeste had noticed the creature’s right wing had suffered significant damage. With perhaps a bit more destruction, it would become useless. But she couldn’t do a thing about it if Crystil dragged the beast away from them.

  She looked at her gun and noted she’d used up about half her ammo. She briefly dropped it from the firing position to look at Reya, who had the same resigned look. She doesn’t think we can win. You can’t rely on her.

  “What are we going to do? We need to immobilize it.”

  “Agreed,” Reya said, but Celeste felt the Kastori agreed because she didn’t have the energy to disagree.

  “Your ice is making the wings brittle, so you need to keep doing that,” Celeste said as the sounds of Omega One’s gunfire and explosions surrounded them.

  Reya nodded quietly. Celeste looked out on the battlefield. By her count, eight Kastori lay dead, and she didn’t want to know how many others had perished out of sight. Just the thought of it sickened her. This was war—bloodied bodies, ugly terrors, and a sense of hopelessness. She had thought she knew war from watching her father on Monda, but this was an entirely different monstrosity. She didn’t like it and was determined to end it here so they would never experience it again.

  But to end the battle required strong communication, and no amount of shouting or signaling could get the Kastori in line.

  But magic…

  “Reya! Can you speak to the Kastori?”

  Reya slowly shook her head.

  “I am not trained in that kind of magic. Only a Kastori with red robes can communicate.”

  “Could they communicate to all Kastori?” she said as the sounds of the battle became distant.

  “Yes. But I do not know where one is.”

  “Can you try?” Celeste asked, becoming desperate.

  “It would be futile,” she said. “Only someone who can sense what others cannot can reach those pathways to communicate. I have never been able to detect such things.”

  Celeste didn’t hear Reya’s last sentence. Instead, the phrase “sense what others cannot” struck a deep chord with Celeste. It resonated with her in a way that suggested she might, impossibly, somehow, have the magical skill.

  Celeste saw no way the idea could work. She’d always called her ability to sense things her gut, a gift of powerful perception. But with Omega One and Calypsius approaching once more, and needing a cohesive battle plan that everyone could execute, she was willing to try anything.

  She closed her eyes, silenced the world around her, and sensed for those around her. When she felt like she had a sense of something—other people’s thoughts, their fears, their emotions—she “projected” her command as best as she could.

  Bring the ship to the field. Attack the wings. Bring it to the ground, and our fight becomes much easier.

  She opened her eyes and looked at Reya, who seemed unmoved. She looked down at the Kastori, who did not move either. Celeste sighed, feeling stupid for believing that she actually had magical skills, and cocked her rifle on her shoulder, determined to fire every last bullet in the Nakar 17.

  57
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br />   “This thing just doesn’t wanna die!” Cyrus yelled in frustration after Calypsius flew over him in dogged pursuit of Omega One.

  He’d unloaded as many bullets as he could into the creature, aiming for everything from the neck to the wings to the head. He could see blood pouring out, but the creature did not care at all. Cyrus began to realize what he’d heard in passing earlier. It didn’t feel pain.

  “Pagus, dude, I hope you have some ideas.”

  “If I did, I would’ve said them by now,” Pagus said, whipping off his mask. “By the way, it gets hot under here, I’ll take every chance I can to get this mask off. I don’t know how the rest do it. Anyways, in our previous battles, dude, we tried everything. Freezing it. Burning it. Choking it. Nothing works on it because it has magical powers too. You can’t beat that thing with magic. That thing eats magic for breakfast, lunch, dinner, afternoon snack, midnight—”

  “I get it,” Cyrus said. “But still. The missiles and bullets knocked it down.”

  “Yeah, you can injure it, but it won’t care,” Pagus said as the sound of the ship’s engines slowly came back. “You have to kill it, that’s the only way to stop it.”

  Cyrus tried to think of anything that could work. Could Amira’s red magic work on the monster in a way the elemental spells did not? That seemed unlikely, given that Pagus had mentioned choking it—though Pagus said a lot of things, and it was difficult to figure out what he meant and what he said in passing.

  Cyrus thought destroying the head would take out the beast, but instead, it didn’t even flinch. He had specifically remembered one of his bullets hitting the creature in the left eye, but it barely blinked. If that were any other animal, it would be shrieking in pain on the ground.

  Not with Calypsius.

  The question kept running through Cyrus’ mind. How can we overwhelm it? Omega One has to be the answer. Like we started this battle.

  A single word came to him, one he had not thought, in a voice different from his own. He could not identify anything about the voice, whether male or female, old or young. In fact, Cyrus couldn’t even say if he had heard it, or if he’d just now stumbled upon it. But the word told him everything he needed to do.

  “Wings.”

  It made sense. Celeste had taken the monster’s right side, and he the left side. Together, they could combine their powers to take out the wings. The targeting would be difficult, if not impossible, but they also had magic, which no VR training could provide.

  “Pagus!”

  “Yes sir!” Pagus said as Omega One flew overhead.

  “Can you guide my bullets?”

  “Afraid not! I wish I had that skill.”

  “Give my bullets ice properties!” Cyrus yelled as the monster flew past them at a frightening rate. “I need to make those wings brittle so we can shoot them off!”

  “I can do that!” Pagus said as he put his mask back on.

  “Good,” Cyrus said, steadying his hand and putting the aerial battle in view of his Nakar 17 scope. “Because our ship is banking right back toward us, and you’d better be ready when these bullets fire.”

  58

  Crystil shot the ship over the plains and prepared to run to the ocean. If Calypsius was going to destroy Omega One, she wanted Cyrus and Celeste to at least have time to escape before Calypsius returned.

  But Erda suddenly took her mask off and looked over at Crystil, her voice as clear as possible.

  “Turn the ship around and head toward my people!” Erda yelled.

  “And lead to more deaths?” Crystil yelled back. “This thing, it’s attracted to you, Erda. If we die out in the ocean, others live. We die where they are, we all die.”

  “We prolong their deaths if we do not try everything we can here,” Erda said.

  A loud cry disrupted their conversation, and Crystil saw Calypsius would hit them in less than a second. Instinctively, she kicked the ship up, going so high up Omega One inverted, and rolled it. They were now coming back toward the Kastori and, more importantly, had escaped Calypsius.

  “Probably just broke this ship in half doing that. Anyways, looks like you got your wish. But why are we going this way?”

  “One of the Kastori suggests we lead them into position for your friends to shoot out the wings,” Erda said. “My people can enhance your bullets, and if we can combine their forces with your weapons, then we can ground Calypsius and win with an aerial assault it will no longer be able to counter.”

  This seems desperate. But not like we have non-desperate plans.

  Crystil jammed the accelerator as hard as she could, though she still could not outrun Calypsius. She thought about Erda’s plan, and it seemed fine as something to try, but the missiles wouldn’t aim. They just locked on to the object emanating the most heat, and she saw no way that they would hit the wings instead of the monster’s face or body.

  But her guns were a different story. Having to switch focus between piloting the ship and targeting the turrets stretched her to her limits, as she had never multitasked to such a degree, even in VR training. Monda had co-pilots for a ship of Omega One’s size for a reason. But if anyone who knew Monda’s technology could do it, it was Crystil.

  She checked the visual readings and noticed the monster hot on their trail. Much to her relief, they had just enough space to reach the Kastori and Cyrus and Celeste before the monster closed in. She stopped firing her weapons and focused on lining up the turrets, with one targeting Calypsius’ right wing and one the left. The task proved incredibly difficult, even for a soldier as seasoned and talented as Crystil. It was like trying to shoot the feathers off of a flying aviant from half a mile away with a pistol.

  “Lower!” Erda ordered, and Crystil went as low as she could, so low that if she jumped out of the ship, she might have survived the height. Still trying to aim for the wings, she lined them up at the center of the creature’s flapping and figured she’d just have to time it as best as she could. She looked up ahead and saw the edge of the forest closing in, giving her about three seconds before she had to pull up to avoid death.

  At one and a half second, she fired both turrets, unloaded a couple of missiles for good measure, and pulled up as hard as she could as the sound of explosions came behind her. Trees scraped the belly of the ship, but nothing sounded quite so pleasant, for it meant the monster had not reached them.

  As she pulled up to safety, Crystil heard an even louder sound—the monster crashing into the forest, annihilating many trees and, much to Crystil’s horror, more Kastori. Just not Cyrus and Celeste. Please.

  Crystil slowed the ship and turned around. The monster lay on its stomach, with the skid marks evident from the moment it had lost its wings. The right wing was completely destroyed. The left was broken in half, clearly unable to support the monster in flight. Crystil felt relief wash over her. They could easily finish the job with some missile strikes.

  But Erda’s cry shook her.

  “Many of my Kastori died,” she said solemnly.

  “Cyrus and Celeste?” Crystil said, almost wishing she hadn’t asked the question.

  Erda remained silent for several seconds. Crystil assumed the worst.

  “Celeste lives. Cyrus… I cannot get a sense for him,” Erda said. “I do not know.”

  Still hope, still a possibility. But assume he’s gone.

  “In any case, Crystil, the beast still lives. It is greatly wounded and cannot fly, but we need to deliver the final blow.”

  Crystil glanced down. The surrounding trees would make it difficult to hit it, and the time it would take to come around and inflict more damage might allow Calypsius time to rise.

  Crystil thought of a move so insane, she rejected it at first before deciding she had nothing to lose. She quickly shot Omega One up to the sky, climbing a few thousand feet, until she felt sure of the positioning. She tilted the ship forward, lining it up with the monster.

  “You’re about to feel very lightweight and possibly sick,
” Crystil said, her stomach revolting. “Get ready.”

  She killed the engine and let gravity take over as she unloaded missiles and bullets into the back of the creature. The explosions lit up the dark sky, and at the last second, Crystil turned the engines back on, kicking the ship up and through a fireball. She had not timed the climb perfectly, as the ship skipped on the ground, but the damage done did not prevent Omega One from flying back up into the sky. Crystil slowed the ship down and breathed a sigh of relief, unbuckling her belt as she slowly mumbled, “Yes.”

  “I think we might have actually pulled this one off.”

  59

  Cyrus had unloaded nearly all of his bullets into the beast’s wing when Omega One zoomed overhead at the last second, producing a substantial drag that nearly knocked Cyrus out of the tree. He looked back just in time to see the great beast tumbling forward, one of its wings completely clipped and the other broken in half, with its head crashing into the trees. Cyrus didn’t even have time to react before the monster slammed through the bottom half of the tree, knocking him from the perch.

  He woke to the sound of the creature breathing slowly and tried to piece the events together. The time from the explosion to losing consciousness was virtually instantaneous. How was he still alive? What were the chances his rifle would still be in his lap? Looking up at Mount Ardor didn’t give any answers, so he sat up and turned back to the battlefield. It was scattered with bodies. Up above, Omega One floated in the air, observing from afar. And directly in front of him, a red-hooded Kastori worked on a different person without robes.

  Cyrus realized only one other person on this battlefield wouldn’t be wearing robes.

  “Celeste!” he yelled, quickly making his way over branches, leaves and other debris toward his sister.

  To his relief, she rose with just a few cuts on her face and arms before he got to her.

  “You all right?” Cyrus asked.

  “Yeah, thanks,” she said, dusting herself off. “The Kastori, though—”