New Light

by Ben Johnston

  Peering through the dusty smoke screen, Tom’s eyes sprung open. “I see her!” He shoved his finger towards the gardens. “I see her! There she goes!”

  Anniya flashed off towards the big hole in her tree wall and the deadly and destructive light show spraying out of it.

  “I don’t think she’s trying to escape, Doctor Cernon.” Tom frowned at Christopher.

  Christopher watched Anniya vanish into her garden’s hedgerows. “You’re right, Spark. She’s trying to attack.”

  Chapter 28

  Anniya dropped, sliding underneath a grapevine row to emerge out the other side, still sliding, still crouched. She leaned forward, and with a quick snap of lemon light leapt at the nearest Vectan soldier. Rotating in the air, she stuck the soldier with the soles of her boots.

  A glaring circle of neon lime rippled through the air, snapping-out from where Anniya’s boots had slammed into the Vectan soldier’s breastplate. With a sound like they had been struck by a boulder, the Vectan soldier shot away from Anniya to slam, like a flying boulder themselves, into another Vectan soldier. Both soldiers barreled tumbling across the ground as though they had been ejected from a moving vehicle.

  The instant that her double flying kick had struck the soldier, hurling them away in a green flash, Anniya herself had simply dropped to the ground to land in a prone, but ready position.

  From over behind the cover of the big woven tree trunk, Christopher and Tom peered out, their mouths hanging open.

  Anniya turned to look at them with a smile, raising and lowering her eyebrows a couple of times. As she turned back to the smouldering hole in her tree wall, a sapphire bolt struck the ground just in front of Anniya. Her wide eyes shimmered in the sparkling bloom of the blast as she held up her arms in front of her, a curved glassy disc blossoming-out in front of her, between her and the explosion.

  In the flash of a sharp bang, Anniya was thrown through the air, up and away from the Vectan soldiers now pouring-out through the opening in the tree wall onto the plot. She crashed through a hedgerow in a dark snapping mess of vines and leaves.

  Tom lunged forward, sprinting out from behind the cover of the tree. “You fracted, slavemaking!”

  Grabbing the back of Tom’s shirt, Christopher yanked the young scholar back from his desperate charge, spinning him around to glare face-to-face. “Spark. You can't charge out without a plan!”

  Tom shouted. “They're gonna vaporize her! We gotta do something!”

  Christopher patted his jacket pocket, grimacing as he felt the goldenlight sunstone. “Ruinous luck! We just got the goldenlight sunstone, but you’re right, we can’t just leave her.” He scratched his stubbled face, his jaw clenched. “OK. Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

  Christopher reached down to his belt, pulled out the shield spike and handed it to Tom. “You take this and run out there like you were going to. Shove the spike down as soon as you see the first bolts starting to come towards your position. Try to keep in mind where the Vectans are because as soon as a round hits that shield, the shield is done for, and you’re going to have to return fire.”

  Tom’s eyes were wide. “The shield can only take one more it?”

  Chrisopher nodded. “Yeah. But when it gets hit, you’ll have a little bit of time where the debris cloud should conceal you. Use that opportunity to shoot back.”

  Tom nodded quickly. Then stopped, then shook his head. “But then what? The dust will settle and I’ll just be standing out in the middle of the grass!”

  Christopher shook his head. “You’ll be fine. I’ve got my part of the plan.”

  Tom nodded again. “OK, Doctor Cernon. But what’s your part of the plan?”

  Christopher slammed his hand onto Tom’s back. “No time to explain that part, Spark. Just go!” With a mean shove, Christopher sent Tom running out into the open, purple rifle in one hand, spike in the other.

  As Christopher had predicted, the bolts that had been firing at and shredding the hedgerows where Anniya had fallen began to shoot towards him. With a scream, Tom dove to the ground, shoving the spike down hard. The glassy shield phased instantly to life, creating a curved, transparent surface between Tom and the incoming rounds.

  Almost the instant Tom had phased up the shield, a bolt struck with a slamming boom that blasted out a fan-shaped, sizzling crater into the ground away from the shield. The shield itself gave a final, weblike flash, disintegrating to leave behind spinning little motes of cold light that faded into the debris cloud like sparks from an icy fire.

  The thick smoke around him glowing with unseen flying bolts, Tom shakily wobbled to his feet, aiming his rifle in the general direction of the Vectan barrage. He pulled the trigger. A searing red line of light shot out of the rifle, causing the thick dusty air around him to glow.

  Tom was blown back and knocked down by a wall of wind and pressure accompanied by a painful thump from the explosion of his shot. As he got back to his feet, he saw that the dust cloud around him had been dispersed by the shockwave of his blast. He could now see clearly enough through the dirty mist to observe that his rifle shot had struck the ground in front of the Vectan soldiers, causing them to drop to the ground and stop firing. But they were now getting back up and training their rifles on Tom’s position.

  Tom dropped his rifle, dropped his gaze, and dropped to his knees on the ground.

  At that moment, from the other side of the trunk of Anniya’s big tree, Christopher burst out, yelling, running towards the Vectans.

  Immediately, a handful of soldiers turned their rifles on Christopher and began to fire. With bolts flying around him, the old archeologist leapt, hurling his rifle through the air towards the soldiers.

  The nearly weightless, lavender-colored firearm spun through the air in a high arc. Christopher dove to the ground and covered his head. Explosions pounded around him, each blue flash and blast closer to him than the last.

  The rifle Christopher had thrown reached the top of its arc, directly over the advancing Vectan soldiers.

  In a thick, rich, smack of light, the entire plot, the entire garden, was bathed in a saturated, crimson light as the rifle exploded.

  Lying tangled in the hedgerows, Anniya opened her eyes just in time to see Christopher’s rifle explode. She held up her arms in front of her in a cross, another curved disk of light blooming out.

  The shockwave of the overloaded rifle blasted downwards onto the Vectan troops from above, throwing them off their feet. Having shielded herself from the pulse, in a sun-yellow burst, Anniya leapt forward, attacking the Vectan troops before they had even hit the ground.

  Now in their midst, the troops could not fire for fear of hitting one another. Anniya was able to easily bounce from one troop to another knocking each out with a blue flash and hurling them backwards. A tall Vectan with the red jacket was last, firing at her, but hitting his own troop, who exploded in a brilliant flash of ocean-blue. She blocked a second bolt aimed for her heart with a small disk of goldenlight. The explosion blasted away from Anniya, throwing the red-jacketed Vectan sliding across the ground. Anniya jumped onto his chest as he slid, placing her fingers on his forehead and knocking him out with a blue flash before his body had even come to a stop.

  Christopher got up, holding his head in both hands. “Wow! That was a noggin-knocker!” He shook his head with a grin, then winced. “Oof. Might have cracked my crystal with that one.” He squatted, looking down at the ground.

  Tom came over to Christopher, arriving at the same time as Anniya. He squatted down next to the heavily breathing archeologist. “You alright, Doc?”

  Christopher took in a deep breath, then exhaled almost violently before springing back to his feet. “Perfectly fine, Spark. Not the first time I’ve had my bell rung.” He smiled, winced again. “Still ringing. But we don’t have time to worry. We have to get out of here. Reinforcements will be here before we know it.”

  Anniya turned slowly, gazing at her smoking, smouldering plot. The smell of
burning plants and smoky dust hung in wisps in the air. Smoking craters littered the lawn and glowed, burning weakly in the trunks of her woven tree.

  She dropped her head into her hands. “This is the worst. Why did you guys have to come here?” She looked up, eyebrows arched, staring at Tom. Tom blinked, then looked up to Christopher.

  The disheveled and beat-up archeologist closed his eyes and shook his head at Anniya. “Hey, Goldie. I’m really sorry about all this. We didn’t come here to ruin your home. But we can worry about all that later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”

  Anniya led them through the hot night jungle to a rocky overlook from where they could look out over the roof of the jungle, out to the great crown of her massive woven tree rising only slightly up above the canopy, spreading-out to cover and conceal her entire plot beneath it’s huge, spanning branches. As Tom and Christopher stood there on the overlook, staring down at the jungle, Anniya’s eyes wandered upwards to the sky. She pointed towards the horizon. “I see the reinforcements, it’s a single craft.”

  Tom and Christopher squinted, looking off into the dark night towards where Anniya was pointing. Tom shook his head. “I can’t see anything.”

  Suddenly there were three quick flashes from above the horizon, and three gleaming, emerald-green bolts came flying across the dark sky to strike Anniya’s plot. They watched as with three great blasts, a fireball erupted into the dark sky, huge sections of trees and ground shooting up and out from the explosion, flaming and spinning to crash down into the surrounding rainforest. The fireball belched away into the sky, all the smoky trails from the flying debris of her house and tree and garden looking like a fountain.

  Chrisopher’s mouth hung open as he slowly turned to look at Anniya, frowning, his eyebrows low, but his eyes intent. “Goldie. I’m.”

  Anniya snapped her head around, fixing her gaze on Christopher. “You’re sorry? You?” She snarled and vanished in a sour cranberry flash, the after-image of her angry face floating in the air for a moment.

  Christopher patted his pocket, then sighed in relief. “Still got the stone. Whew.” He turned to Tom who was massaging his head. “Spark, we gotta get off this planet and back to the Union.” He looked towards the horizon, where the bolts had come from. There was now a small dot of light, growing slowly brighter. “And I think I see our ride coming.”

  The Vectan shuttle descended through the night, coming down through the dark jungle, the grass and trees bathed in the silent ice-blue of its engines. The engines went dark, the jungle returning to it’s damp, ringing blackness. The shuttles rear gate swung up and a wide, short ramp lowered to the ground.

  Hiding in the brush a short distance from the landed Vectan shuttle, Christopher drew in a deep breath. “There’s probably about four Vectans on there. Here’s what we’re going to do.” He began to reach into his inside jacket pockets when Tom stopped him, leaning forward, pointing.

  “Wait, Doc. Look!” The windows of the Vectan shuttle flashed bright blue a few times, before Anniya emerged out the back gate, waving at them to come.

  Christopher patted the amazed Tom on his back. “That plan sure worked out well.”

  Once on board, Anniya overrode all the security systems.

  Christopher looked at a slate embedded in the instrument panel. “It looks like we’ve got a full charge, let’s get out of here.”

  They took off into the sky, the recently set-sun rising again above the horizon as the surface began to curve.

  Anniya watched as her home planet shrank away, slowly at first. As they drew further away from the planet, it began to shrink away more quickly. The rapidity of the shrinking increased until the planet had shrunk to the size of a small stone, then, as if sliding away down an icy slope, the planet became too small to see. After a few minutes, the blinding sun itself began to do the same - shrinking slowly at first, then more quickly, then becoming just another star in the sky.

  The entire background starfield started to move slowly. Then more quickly. Finally, with the stars flying by them on all sides, going through a tunnel of stars, she saw the glowing cloud that was the galaxy itself begin to move away from them.

  Finally, the entire galaxy could be seen by looking left to right, a huge glowing spiral cloud surrounded by a mottled inky blackness. They were outside the Phoenix galaxy looking out at the surrounding blackness of the Ruin.

  Chapter 29

  The gleaming spiral of the Phoenix galaxy lay spread before the ship’s front window. Above, below and behind the sparkling swirl, everywhere, was the great mottled blackness of the Ruin. Christopher gazed out at the darkness surrounding their ship and the lone shining galaxy.

  “We’re not gonna make it through the Ruin in a stolen Vectan shuttle. We’re gonna have to ditch this ship and find a place to lay low while I try to get a message to the School.”

  Christopher spun the pilot’s seat, putting his back to the shining galaxy and the ponderous Ruin, then stood. He reached overhead, activating and turning off various little readouts. He opened and closed a couple compartments as he spoke.

  “We can hang out here hugging the edge of the galaxy next to Ruin space for a little while, but sooner or later a sweeper squadron’s gonna ping us.” He closed the last compartment, scratching his head. “Out here in Ruin space, we stand out like a mosquito on a wall.”

  Looking over the top of the pilot’s seat, Christopher grinned. “Ah.” He reached past the chair, over to the top of the control console. “There it is.”

  He lifted a flat oval sheet of glass out of a shallow depression atop the console. He stared at the single blinking red light in the center of the rounded sheet. “And the flecking nav slate is locked.”

  Christopher collapsed back into the pilot’s seat. He stared at the blinking red light in the center of the transparent slate. “That’s just shiny.”

  He blinked, then smiled. He looked up at Anniya. “Hey, uh, Goldie, can I ask a favor?”

  Anniya glared at Christopher. “You need to stop calling me that. My name is Anniya.”

  Christopher blinked. “OK.” He held out the oval glass slate. “Anniya, then.” He offered her a smile. “Would you be so kind?”

  Anniya focused on the round slate. It glowed. The red light in its center transitioned to green, then vanished.

  Christopher turned the slate to his face and stared at it for a moment. His eyes shifted to Anniya. “Have you ever considered a career in archeology?”

  Anniya rolled her eyes.

  Christopher lounged back in the pilot’s seat and set the oval glass slate on his lap, swiping his finger across the surface. With his free left hand, he then withdrew a chip from his chest pocket, held it up to his left, phasing up a transparency with glowing lines and dots displayed on its surface. He let the transparency go. The clear sheet floated in the air.

  Anniya raised an eyebrow at the archeologist. “What is that?”

  The dusty archeologist gave a half smile.

  The young scholar scoffed. “That’s a scavenger map!” Tom looked at Christopher in disbelief. “Are we seriously going to trust a scav map, Doctor Cernon?”

  Christopher shrugged. “I’ve found a lot of great things with scav maps, Spark.” His smile fell. “A lot of not-so-great things, too.” He shook his head. “But that’s a story for another time.”

  The archeologist pointed at the rectangular sheet floating in the air to his left. “Right now this scav map shows Heenu.” He then pointed to the oval slate in his lap. “And the dirty little planet’s right here in the Phoenix Galaxy, and the Vectans don’t even know it..”

  The archeologist looked at Anniya. “Heenu’s isolated, and it’s relatively unknown. It ought to be pretty easy to hide there. You should be able to avoid being recognized, which is good, because getting a message all the way through the Ruin, to the School, and then back again is going to take some time. We’re gonna have to lay low for a while.”

  Anniya stood there, arms folde
d. “I was wearing makeup.”

  Christopher blinked. “Makeup? What are you talking about?”

  “I was wearing makeup at the Golden Tournament. You know. When the fleckin’ universe was taking light captures of me. Nobody knows what I really look like.”

  Tom turned to Anniya and nodded. “That’s right. I remember you wearing all that makeup. But you look really nice without the makeup, too.”

  Anniya patted Tom on the shoulder. “Yeah. You already told me that, Sparky.”

  Tom frowned.

  Christopher’s palm went over his eyes as he shook his head. “Just keep your face hidden, OK?”

  Anniya looked away, her arms folded. “I know how to stay hidden.”

  Christopher took his hand off his eyes, looking at Anniya with raised eyebrows.

  Arm’s still tightly folded, she turned her head back to meet Christopher’s gaze. “What?”

  Chrisopher held out his hands. “What, what? Nothing.” He rotated the pilot’s seat away from Anniya to face the console, grinning. “Just don’t try hiding in the middle of a colosseum floor again.”

  Reaching forward the archeologist set his square transparent sheet in the air floating to the left of the control console. He placed the glass oval slate down flat back into its depression in the top of the console. As soon as the oval slate was set in place, it projected a small, three-dimensional scattering of points of glowing light.

  Christopher began rotating the scattering of light around with his hands, glancing back and forth between the little cluster of bright dots and the floating clear sheet, talking to himself. “Yup. That one right there.”

  Moving his fingertip between two points of light, a thin line of light connected them. “And then we should go there.” He repeated this action, zig-zagging a thin line with his fingertip, weaving a line through the little cloud of lights.

  Anniya glared at Christopher, then flicked her gaze to Tom.