New Light

by Ben Johnston

  Smiling, she took a breath and stepped through the door and into the dark and quiet kitchen to encounter a piercing shriek and a flash of blinding red light as she tripped an alarm.

  Chapter 6

  Anniya’s gaze instantly exploded the triggered alarm.

  The poor alarm had been able to flash only a sliver of blinding red light and emit only a clipped but loud painful chirp before it blew itself apart, disintegrating violently in a brilliant shower of splitting green sparks. Each crackling spark fell splitting into smaller sparks, each of those then crackling and splitting again as the lights fell to the floor. Anniya stood, her face lit by the dimming illumination of the explosion, her wide eyes reflecting the sparks fizzling away to dust.

  “Spirit.” She spoke in an urgent whisper. In the darkness, the remains of the alarm smoked on the wall above.

  “What was that?”

  No answer.

  “Spirit?” Anniya’s gaze shot around the dark kitchen. Spirit was nowhere. Clenching her jaw, she spun around to face the large doors that led out to the dining area, her eyes drew down to slits beneath low eyebrows..

  The large main doors to the dining area phased open. Light beamed into the dark kitchen. Out of the light, two silhouettes charged into the kitchen to stand back-to-back, each holding a green metal pistol. Spitting out a few pitiful sparks, the remains of the alarm on the wall hissed-out smoke.

  “Lipkin! The alarm! It’s flecking fract, dude!”

  The dining hall lights suddenly went out at the same time the large doors phased shut, drowning the two soldiers in complete darkness.

  Lipkin reached up to adjust his nightglasses. “Jimmins! The flecking dining hall lights just flecked out!”

  Jimmins swung to face Lipkin, sweat beading on his forehead, above his opaque lenses. “OK, this is nuts, Lipkin! This is stupid! We should get out of here. We need help!”

  Suddenly, Jimmins’ head emitted a bright blue flash.

  Lipkin watched his partner slump to the ground. After reeling back in shock, the lone standing soldier then stared at his hand in wonder as the pistol he was holding made a loud hissing sizzling sound. He watched with horrible amazement as his weapon spewed-out thick purple smoke before spontaneously falling apart. The various pieces of his weapon clattered fizzling to the ground. Finally, with a deafening crack, his glasses threw out two sprays of smoke..

  Lipkin ripped off the glasses and threw them clattering across the floor. Shining back at him, casting light and shadows strangely across the feminine face that held them, the soldier beheld two glowing eyes floating before him in the darkness.

  “Did you set that trap!” The eyes were luminous and wild.

  Lipkin fell to a kneeling position on the ground. “Who are you!? How did you get in here?”

  The glowing eyes glared. “Answer me! Did you set the alarm.”

  As if shielding himself from the sun, Lipkin leaned back holding his hands up at the eyes. “Forgive me! Yes! We set the alarm. We wanted to catch whoever was stealing the chocsugar.”

  Then, Lipkin dropped his hands. His mouth hung open. “Oh light of life. Is it you? It is you!” He stared at the two glowing eyes. “Are you the Shadow!”

  The floating, glowing eyes blinked out. The kitchen was left in utter darkness.

  “Am I the Shadow? What are you talking about? Who’s the Shadow?”

  Lipkin searched the darkness. “You know. Years ago, there was that girl who jumped on that Vectan prison ship! LIttle girl. Brought the big thing flecking crashing down.” He made a motion, smashing his fist down into his palm. The soldier spun around, searching for anything in the pitch black. “And then just a few months ago, didn’t you do that scout patrol?”

  The darkness was completely silent. Lipkin spun in a complete circle, looking left and right, his eyes straining to see anything. “People say the Shadow is just a myth or a story, but Jimmins and I knew that it had to be you stealing our supplies. This base is max-secure.”

  A small sound came from the darkness. “You mean outpost.”

  Lipkin frowned. “Did you just laugh?”

  He looked left and right, then sighed. “Ok, look, We were getting blamed for the missing chocsugar, which if you didn’t know, is worth a lot. And the only explanation was that either someone was framing us, or someone was stealing the stuff. So we set up the trap to catch unauthorized entry. Me and Jimmins.” Lipkin gestured at the slumped form of his unconscious partner. “We had to spend our own light units to get that shard of an alarm.”

  The soldier dropped his head, blew out a quick breath, then perked back up. “But hey, at least I got to meet the Shadow! Right?”

  The kitchen was silent.

  “Uh.” Lipkin raised an eyebrow. “You are the Shadow, aren’t you? You’re not a Vectan spy about to kill me, right?”

  Lipkin heard the familiar Namoonian accent in her voice. “I am not a fleckin Vectan, dude.” The kitchen lights glowed dimly to life.

  Anniya threw back her hood. “Sorry about the alarm.” She leaned down to the wide-eyed Lipkin and placed her fingers on his forehead. “And sorry for the headache.”

  Lipkin’s wide eyes looked up at his forehead. His head emitted a faint blue flash. Anniya caught Lipkins’ limp body as it fell to lay it gently next to the already unconscious Jimmins.

  Standing, Anniya shook her head and made a casual dismissive gesture at the two snoring troops. “You guys will be up in five minutes, max.”

  With that, she hurried to the large pallet by the far wall, ripped off the cardboard top and began greedily filling her satchel, shoveling-in bars and bars of fresh Union chocsugar

  The kitchen door phased open and out of its darkness stepped Anniya. The door phased closed. Anniya stood in the moonlight, the little fox at her feet sitting in the curl of his long sparkling tail.

  She turned, put her hands on her hips and glared down at the little guy. “Spirit!” She threw her hands at him. “Why didn’t you tell me there was an alarm?”

  Spirit blinked his fluorescent indigo eyes. “You did not ask if there was an alarm.”

  She pulled at her face. “But didn’t you know there was an alarm?”

  Spirit turned away, bored. “Anniya, you know that I don’t know what I know until you ask me.” He turned back to look at her, then yawned.

  Anniya dropped her hands, made a quick annoyed sniff, then gave a small yawn herself. She looked up to the moon, then back down to the fox with a smile. “Well, anyway, did you see?”

  Spirit tilted his head. “See what, Anniya? See that you set off a powerful alarm, barely disabling it before the entire outpost heard it? Or see that you still managed to alert two guards?”

  Anniya rolled her eyes. “No. Not that. I mean, they called me the Shadow! The Federation knows who I am! That’s great, right?”

  “I thought you didn’t like nicknames.”

  Anniya stood up straight. “Well. Usually…”

  The scraping and shouting of the pallets filled the night. Anniya squinted one eye and frowned. “It’s probably better this dumb army doesn’t know my real name anyway.”

  She looked off towards the big admin building. “Now. Let’s go get those batteries then get out of here.”

  Chapter 7

  Anniya slunk along the side of the long maintenance building making her way towards the narrow alley around the rear of the big admin building. Once there, she looked up the tall outer wall, crouched, and all was silent for a few seconds.

  The jungle rang. Distant, arguing birds hooted. Faint and far off, somewhere in the dark outpost, a few soldiers coughed and laughed.

  Then, with a quick and noiseless burst of bright lemon light, completely contained and hidden within the narrow dark alley behind the big admin building, Anniya soared upwards through the warm night air towards the roof. As she rushed upwards looking to the sky, the hot air roaring by her, her eyes fixed on something.

  She sprung up out of the darkness below, face st
ill gazing skyward, eyes narrowed, to land onto the hard gray surface of the moonlit roof. Her soft boots touched down noiselessly, as if she had simply taken a gentle step forward and not jumped up a three-story building.

  Standing on the admin building under the full moon, staring upwards, she addressed the fox who sat sparkling by her feet. “Spirit!” She pointed her finger to the starry night sky. “That looks like a dropship. What is it?”

  Now sitting on her shoulder, Spirit answered. “That is a Vectan inertial dropship, Anniya. It has four hundred elite combat soldiers on board and a Vectan lightmaker Colonel. It is currently in space, headed directly at us, and will land on this outpost, destroying it and a substantial area around it shortly.”

  Anniya, her eyes wide, her quivering mouth turned down, stared up at the stars. “Vectans! And a Vectan lightmaker!?” She scrambled to the edge of the roof and did a quick survey of the assembly area and the troop activity. “Why are they all just unloading that big landship? Haven’t any of the Federation soldiers detected that ship? Why don’t they get out of here, Spirit?”

  “The dropship is still in space and beyond their ability to detect. It is too advanced. They will not detect it in time to escape.”

  “They’re not going to see that Vectan ship in time, Spirit. They’re going to get shattered into flecking splintered shards if we don’t do something.”

  Anniya scurried away from the roof’s edge, back towards the center of the rooftop where she found a vent that opened straight down to the floor below. Crouching, she easily swung the cover open to see down. Lines of troops were all moving stuff around. Most pushing floating carts stacked with black cases or the occasional bundle of open batteries, unloading them, placing them into organized rows on the shelves.

  As she watched, one soldier pushing a cart loaded with tall stacks of loose batteries lost control. His floating cart leaned to the side, then fell over, toppling the batteries clattering to the ground. When they crashed into the ground, a few of the batteries went dark - the little glowing light in their centers going out.

  Anniya frowned, gritting her teeth as she looked down at the bundles of batteries. “Ruinous, flecking shards. Spirit, look at all those batteries! They just broke like five of them. That’s like fifteen years worth of light!”

  She blew out a frustrated huff, then turned her attention away from the spilled, broken batteries. Looking straight down she saw two individuals who stood by the pile not unloading cases. These two were not pushing carts, and not yanking stuff off the shelves. They just stood like stones in a river, idly talking as the soldiers and activity flowed around them.

  “Spirit, who are those two?” Anniya pointed straight down. “They look important.”

  “The bigger one is the base commander.” Spirit turned his glowing gaze to Anniya. “Someone you should not talk to.”

  Anniya stood. The grainy red light of the warehouse beamed weakly up through the square vent, painting her face from beneath. “Spirit, I can’t just let them get pulverized.” Her chin and nose glimmered in a dark irradiant berry. “They’re the Federation. They’re the good guys!”

  Pausing, Anniya glanced upwards. She placed a finger on her puckered lips, her eyes glancing down and to the right under low eyebrows. “OK, I mean, they’re the ‘gooder’ guys. Look, the point is that I have to warn them! I just have to...”

  The lightfox was not looking at Anniya. He was staring away across the top of the forest valley, off towards the rim.

  Following the little fox’s gaze, Anniya saw the distant edge of the valley and the tall tree by the way home.

  She looked down at the shiny fox with a sigh. “Yes, Spirit, I know you think we should just go home. But I can’t just leave.” She stood, put her fists on her hips and took in a deep breath. “I’m the Shadow!”

  Then, with a quick hop, Anniya dropped through the vent to fall through the air of the warehouse, landing in a sunburst of light next to the outpost commander.

  Chapter 8

  The warehouse floor rushed up, and the moment it touched Anniya’s soft boots, she threw back her hood and addressed the Commander.

  “Hello there.”

  Anniya’s eyes snapped open wide, as before the commander could reach for his weapon, the blonde woman who had been standing next to him sprang out holding her forearm in front of her, flaring out from its center a disc of light shining a clear sky-blue against the coal-red illumination of the warehouse’s lights.

  Anniya stared wide-eyed at the disk of solid light on this woman’s arm. “You’re a lightmaker! You’re a real lightmaker!”

  In that same instant, Anniya watched as from this lightmaker’s shoulder’s dozens of gleaming, glittering, sharp glinting metal flechettes jumped into the air. All the darts flicked to point at Anniya’s face. Anniya’s eyes grew yet wider, glimmering with the reflections.

  The swarm began to creep forward.

  Anniya’s mouth fell open. “What in the shattered Ruin are those glinting things!?”

  The blonde lightmaker and the big base commander shot a quick glance at one another. The lightmaker turned her head slightly, keeping her eyes on Anniya. “What kind of lightmaker doesn’t know what flashcrackers are?”

  Anniya’s gaping mouth flickered with an amazed smile. “Flashcrackers? That’s a weird name.” She drew her finger up to point at the needle tip of the nearest flechette. “They’re so wicked! And beautiful. Look at how intricate...” Anniya’s eyes glimmered like a spray of water in front of the sun. The flechette near her finger glimmered with the same light, then moved slowly through the air, coming to rest on her fingertip.

  Jennifer dropped her forearm, its shield of light vanishing. “How are you doing that? Who are you? Some Vectan lightmaker?”

  Anniya blinked rapidly, giving her head a quick shake. “Who, me!? A fleckin Vectan?”

  With an ear-piercing snap that sounded like the crack of a whip, the flechette that had been resting on Anniya’s finger flashed with a topaz light and shot away, returning to hover among the swarm of its fellow flechettes.

  Anniya gave a few wide-eyed blinks. “That’s why you call them flashcrackers.”

  At that moment, two soldiers came shambling noisily through the warehouse, shouting as they pushed through the scattered crowd of frozen soldiers and carts, making their way to where Anniya, Ryan, and Jennifer stood. Both of the limping soldiers supported each other, breathing heavily. “She’s not a Vectan spy! She’s the Shadow! That’s the Shadow! She’s the one who took all the chocsugar! But she’s cool, she didn’t kill us or anything!”

  An excited grumble rose up from the soldiers in the warehouse as Ryan watched the two panting soldiers stumble up to him, falling to their knees out of breath. He looked up from the soldiers to Anniya. “Oh, really?” His eyebrows pressed together. “So you’re the famous Shadow? You know, every single thing that goes missing from the Federation army gets blamed on you. What do you do, sell the stuff?”

  “Oh, give me a break. I only ever help you guys. Or sometimes I maybe get some food or maybe a couple parts, but I’ve never taken weapons or anything. Anyhow, that’s not important.” Anniya held up her hands. “Look. I’m not here to fight. I’m here to tell you that there’s a Vectan dropship up in space,” she pointed a finger straight up, “and it is coming down to smash this place. You have to evacuate, now!”

  By this point dozens of troops had encircled and trained their rifles on Anniya. Ryan ordered two of the soldiers to remove Anniya’s bags. Jennifer’s flechettes all joined back together smoothly and silently to form back into her glittering shoulderpads.

  Anniya looked back and forth at the two soldiers taking away her satchel and backpack. “You guys better give that stuff back when you’re done.”

  Ryan shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. A Vectan assault craft carrying an entire battalion. Why would the Vectans allocate that for an isolated outpost on a minor Federation planet? That’s not very economical. Not very
Vectan.”

  Once Anniya’s bags had been removed, Ryan motioned for the surrounding soldiers to lower their weapons. He turned back to Annyia, the corner of his mouth turned up in what was not exactly a smile. “Still, since it never hurts to look, I’m going to order that a scan and survey be conducted to see if we detect a ship in the area. In the meantime, Miss Shadow, you’ll need to be put into...”

  Anniya interrupted him. “You won’t be able to detect the ship! It’s still up in space! But not for long. That thing is coming straight down. Your fainty little telescopes and detectors won’t even see it until it’s too late.”

  Ryan looked Anniya up and down. “And where is your telescope? Where are your detectors?”

  He looked to the soldiers holding her bags. “Does she have a telescope or some kind of detector in there?”

  The soldier with her backpack pulled out a clear rope that floated in the air. He shook his head at Ryan. The other soldier, holding her satchel, reached in and withdrew a stack of chocsugar bars. He looked to the commander and shrugged.

  Jennifer leaned towards Ryan. “Ryan, a lightmaker could see a dropship in orbit.”

  Jennifer motioned to Anniya. “Shadow.” She tilted her head towards the loading bay opening. “Come outside. Show me.”

  Anniya ran out of the bay, the troops raising their rifles at her. Jennifer immediately followed as Ryan shouted orders for them to lower their weapons.

  Outside the gaping loading bay, Anniya came to a shuffling stop. Side-lit by the flood of bright apricot light from the landship, outlined from behind by the speckle of the ruddy warehouse lights, she pointed straight up at the night sky.

  “There!”

  Jennifer looked upwards, saw the dropship, then turned immediately turned, shouting at Ryan. “Ryan! Sound the alarm, now! Get out, now! Now!”