Three
She dashed toward the case. It swung away from the wall, suddenly revealing a gap about a quarter of a meter wide and just shy of two meters tall. It was plenty tall enough, but Amelia had to turn her head to squeeze through the gap. She assumed this was a special hiding place where she would stay until the Brotherhood left. The bookcase swung back closed with a quick motion, and she heard it latch in place with a hefty clunk of thick metal. In the absolute cold darkness, she couldn’t see a thing. Even as her adaptive contacts now glowed to provide enough ambient light to serve as illumination, there wasn’t anything to see. The gap in the stone wall was smooth and polished like Jamison’s stone bar up in their living quarters.
She touched the cool rock in front of her and heard his voice in her head. Like her contacts, the miniscule implants she had just inside her ears allowed her to receive communication calls and listen to music without the disruptive blasting speakers her grandpa favored.
“Amelia, can you hear me?” he asked. The incoming signal came into view as it bounced in front of her. She selected the comm channel and saw him looking back at her in that odd way in which images drifted across her projected vision.
“Yes,” she whispered back to him.
“Don’t be afraid. I know this is very sudden for you, but you are wise beyond your years and strong and able. You will survive this,” he said.
As she looked at him, she could see a burgundy glow on the usually gray door behind him.
“Grandpa! They are coming, aren’t they?” she asked as concern warped her words into almost a whine. She certainly didn’t feel wise or strong at the moment.
Jamison turned around and looked behind himself. “Yes. Plasma torches. I only have a few minutes. Say the code word aloud. I’m sending it to you now.”
The word Juxtapose sailed in front of her.
Amelia repeated it and was not completely surprised to see a panel light up to her right. It only had one button on it. The door behind her grandpa went from having a blister of red to flash of white. Jamison’s image deliberately switched off, and she bit her lip. She was almost certain she would never see her grandfather again.
She pushed the button and felt the floor drop out from under her. As she fell, she stifled a scream and held her arms across her chest. She felt contact behind her and realized she was sliding down a corkscrew. After dropping perhaps twenty meters, she saw light fill the round tunnel she was in. She came to a stop just as the tube opened up into an entire room. Breathing hard now from the thrill of the drop, she had to fight to focus.
The hangar was dimly lit, but she could see a gleaming ship unlike anything she’d ever been on. It was a spacefaring yacht, shiny, navy, and smooth.
Hearing and feeling a dull thump that might have been an explosion in the rooms above her, she dashed across the stone floor toward the ship. “Open!” she commanded. It did as she asked, revealing a hatch she’d not even seen the outline of before. She rushed up a ramp and was thankful that her contacts dimmed the bright light that blazed inside the craft. Amelia turned toward the front of the vessel. “We need to go,” she said.
“Amelia Pennell, welcome aboard. Where do you want to go?” the voice of a man asked her.
“Away! Just get us out of here!” she said in a panic.
“Turn left,” the voice said, guiding her toward what she assumed would be the cockpit. She’d never piloted a craft like this or any other. How hard can it be? she asked herself.
A door opened in front of her, and she saw a pair of chairs and a smooth console with a few avionic indicators. A window showed the massive hangar doors ease out of their way with more caution than she cared for at the moment. “Please be seated and strap in,” the voice told her.
“What’s your name?” she asked as she pulled the strap over her and locked it in place.
“Andrew,” the voice said.
“Like my father?” she asked, blinking in astonishment.
“Yes,” Andrew told her. “We are departing in three seconds.”
True to its word, Andrew leapt from the gaping hole in the side of the volcanic pillar. “Code 17 is in effect. Please wait.”
“What?” she asked, watching as the ground rushed past her. The thrill of moving so quickly and so close to the ground made her glad she had strapped in. An image of the ship’s shape displayed on the panel in front of her and she watched as the navy teardrop morphed into the dynamic dimensions of a winged bird.
She was in awe for a moment before the ship turned and headed back toward the pillar.
“Destruct order has been confirmed. Human lives detected in the target, including Jamison Pennell,” Andrew said.
“What?” she asked in horror. “What do you mean?”
Amelia’s mind raced. Jamison had put her in a kind of automatically programmed lifeboat. That she understood. What she did not comprehend immediately was that he had also effectively initiated his own death.
“Awaiting code word for mission completion,” Andrew told her.
Amelia’s heart raced as the ship pointed toward the pillar. Smoke oozed from the pillar and several starships hovered like feeding hummingbirds attending a flower.
“Can you shoot those ships down?” she asked.
“Law enforcement or military engagement override required. Please supply the code word,” the voice said again.
“If I give you the code word, what will you do?” she asked, not even sure what the word was.
“Destroy the targets and complete the destruct sequence for the residence,” he said without emotion.
Her hair was flaring now between red and icy glacial blue. “So, you will kill my grandfather?” she asked in trepidation.
“That is correct,” he said.
“Freak! What am I supposed to do?” she spat out. But even as she said the words, she knew. She knew Jamison Pennell was giving her an opportunity to escape and do the Brotherhood some damage at the same time. But, assuming she guessed the right code word, she would immediately become an outlaw. It would change her life forever. She would have to keep her own criminal actions secret or face the consequences.
Amelia closed her eyes, balled her fists and ground her teeth. The last thing in the universe she wanted to do was kill her own grandfather—even if it meant taking a few of the Brotherhood with her.
You were born to make tough decisions, she heard her grandfather’s voice in her mind.
“Pipsqueak!” she shouted.
“Code confirmed,” the voice said.
She didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t see Andrew lash out with twisting channels of energy that struck each ship, disabling them and letting them drop into the dense foliage below. But she did hear and feel the weapons.
Amelia Pennell opened her eyes. The pillar was still standing.
“Andrew, why didn’t you destroy the pillar?” she asked.
“You have to order it destroyed,” he said evenly.
“How many life signs?” she asked impatiently.
“Seven,” Andrew answered.
The almost-teen girl looked out the window as Andrew circled the smoking steep volcanic core that was rising up from the gorgeous green forests and beautiful blue lakes she’d never seen from her viewpoint in the residence where she’d been living these past years. Tears flooded her eyes, and her lip quivered, but she refused to let herself lose control. “Andrew, target my home. Complete the destruct sequence. Goodbye, Grandpa,” she sighed as her hair, eyes, and nose ring shifted into a deep royal blue.
Amelia Pennell’s course was set.
* * * *
About the Author
S. Rodger Bock was raised in Flagstaff, Arizona. High in the mountains, surrounded by lush aspen groves and an abundance of ponderosa pine, he fell in love with the outdoors. Teaching himself at an early age to type on a Commodore 64, he began writing silly, frivolous stories packed with imagination but severely deficient in execution and devoid of grammar. Al
l these years later, he still has the long, winding, and incoherent stories he wrote in junior high and high school.
Now, he is embarking on a new set of trilogies in The Edenix Cycle, which tells the story of the mysteriously populated world on the edge of human expansion where so many oddities exist.
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Read more from S. Rodger Bock:
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Morgan’s plan to escape mundane mediocrity has succeeded—so far. But when she arrives in the new town full of hope and promises, her scheme immediately encounters obstacles. Against overwhelming odds, she must persevere in her plan and win the heart of the only one who can give her what she most desires. Will Morgan’s scheme unravel despite all she has done and be doomed to a life of a slave in a land where she is neither loved nor respected? What exactly is her dangerous design?
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UNFOLDING
Edeanna McKinley is married to a man who doesn’t love her. She has miscarried their baby only months before. She barely avoids a grisly auto accident. Minutes later, her husband threatens divorce and leaves. As if that’s not bad enough, people start shooting at her. Edeanna must run for her life while trying to rebuild what's come crashing down around her. Can she find hope despite her turmoil?
The Pennell Predicament: An Edenix Cycle Story Page 3