Timelord, mary mary, mags, skynet, keepsmiling and
lurkers...Thank you all for hanging in there and reading. Zy and I would also like to thank
nibbles for nominating us for one of the categories in this rounds awards! (((HUGS)))
So without further a due...here is chapter 13 oh and be sure to check out the new arts...
here.
Chapter Thirteen
“To help win this war
we must employ the bitch
who gambled and lost her soul to the Devil.”
– Colonel Lowden (Black Moon)
*>>>>>>>>>>>>>>... (Deliverance) …<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<*
Q.A Warship Rubicon, Interstellar Space, Royal Council
“We have dispatched one of our remaining echelon squadrons to Earth. We cannot afford to send the few we have left to retrieve this Halfling!”
“I agree with Thelon. Kivar has stepped his guard up considerably since the Granolith’s return. Anyone we send will likely be killed before they can even set foot on Antarian soil. And if by some chance access to the planet is granted, entering Tiendem and then Helkai where the Halfling is kept will be next to impossible.”
“Yes, but if we don’t try all will be lost.”
Larek pinched the bridge of his nose, stifling a groan. This debate had been going on for hours, and they were getting nowhere. Times like these, made him long for the days when he was still on active duty, with a pulsar pistol in his hand and a battlefield under his boots. Now they scraped the grated floors of a battleship that technically didn’t exist.
The
Rubicon is the largest stealth vessel in the Alliance fleet, and its best kept secret. His irritated gaze shifted to the liquid silver table in the room’s center. Eighteen council members were present. The holographic commutative system made the other four hundred and eighty-two appeared to be physically sitting with them, but in reality all were either on their own worlds or other ships.
A mental curse sounded in his head when the discussions began to circle back over material they already covered.
“Need I remind you,” he interrupted, having enough of the endless debates. As one, the council turned to stare at him. “The Halfling alone isn’t the only one we must recover from Kivar’s clutches at this point.”
Queen Kathana, he noted, didn’t look pleased with him for speaking out of turn. The woman was shrewd as well as powerful. She also ruled Nimrah, one of the five planets in the Quintile star system which are at the heart of this war.
“Prince Larek,” she coolly acknowledged. “You wish to say something?”
He gave her a respectful nod. “We have wasted too much time,” he replied. “The fighters the Alliance sent to Earth may have already landed and are likely completing the mission as we speak. We need to cease these continuous discussions, and set in motion the second half of our plan! Another squadron must be deployed before Kivar ends up killing the Antarian’s Queen.”
“What you’re saying is true my son,” his father, King Dassin agreed. “However, what Mern said about an Alliance ship possibly being discovered before reaching Antar is also true. We need to discuss this issue to be sure we set a proper course of action.”
“True, true,” several voices chimed in.
Larek muttered another curse when the council once more started up a debate. This was the main reason why many Alliance commanders never waited for a directive from them on what to do when in active combat. They all would be dead if they did.
His father though, surprised him by rising and stopping the talks. “If what the Satori say about the Halfling is true, then my son is right. We need to send a squadron now before it’s too late.”
“And the Queen,” Larek asked, when his father was about sit back down. It was no secret many didn’t like what she had done to try and gain favor with Kivar, but he sensed there was more to her story than what the Alliance had learned. “She is after all one of the Antarian royals we all have been seeking.”
When the wall to his right parted, he turned and saw Antiis su Kota, the most revered Satori among the ancient savants walk through. Nervous rumblings sounded around the room as a contingent of Satorians followed the influential advisor.
“Antar’s former queen will be recovered as well,” Antiis informed them. “Leaving her in our enemy’s hands would be a grave error on the Alliance’s part. Something we cannot allow now that Kivar has breathed doubt in the minds of the Royal Four’s supporters. Rather you acknowledge it or not, we still need them to help us end this war.”
“We are well aware of your views on the subject,” King Dassin replied. “But this mission can only be carried out by high level echelons. All of which, except the four on this ship, are already on important assignments. To send any other prevalent combatant would likely result in failure.”
“I agree with King Dassin.” This came from Galvan, captain of the
Rubicon. Larek clinched his fists. The man’s shady tactics and decision making often blur the line of ally and enemy concerning sides in this war.
“As much as I hate to admit this,” Galvan continued. “Echelons are genetically stronger, faster and lethal with their powers. They’re an equal match to the elite centurion fighters Kivar commands. It would be foolish to believe he wouldn’t have them patrolling Tiendem’s under-city. A mid-level or lower skilled squadron would not last long in a battle with them.”
“Very well then the four echelons shall be sent,” Kathana interjected. “A small unit is best in this sort of mission anyway, lessens the loss of valuable fighters.”
“Five.”
She, along with everyone, looked to Antiis.
“There are five echelons on this ship,” the Satorian calmly stated.
“What?”
“Who’s this other?”
“Personnel stats only show four.”
Larek shook his head as they all spoke at once. At this rate, another decade of fighting will have gone by before any decision would be made. He met Antiis’s penetrating gaze when the old man’s turned his way.
“Commander Larek.”
He went utterly still.
“Are you not more than capable to lead the mission?”
Dead silence fell like a heavy cloak around the room, but his father was the first to recover.
“Larek is my sole heir now that his sister has perished in this forsaken war. I cannot give sanction to put him back on active duty.”
King Sero, ruler of Terbium, another planet in the heart of the war, stood. “After what happened to the Antarian royals and my son, Antiis, you know as well as us all that the Alliance made an oath to preserve all royal lineages.”
“If Kivar kills the Halfling in his attempt to gain more power from the Granolith, there won’t be any to keep,” Antiis countered. “Heed me when I say this King Dassin, he is much more than just your heir. Rather you decide to let him go or not, the Halfling must be recovered at all cost.”
Several eyebrows, including Larek’s went up at that cryptic comment. Antiis was rumored to have the very rare gift of prophecy, that is, if you were into that sort of nonsense.
“I will think on it,” his father said, and with that, Larek watched him leave the congregate room. The other royals followed suit. The holographic system blinked off, and soon he was alone with Antiis.
“Don’t suppose you care to elaborate on what you meant by me being more than my father’s heir.”
A small smile lifted the corners of the old man’s mouth. Years of experience told Larek not to press the issue, besides he wouldn’t get a straight answer anyway.
“The female hybrid’s condition is most grave,” Antiis said to him instead, as they turned to leave the large room. “Kivar has expended all he can out of the cloned King’s power signature on the Granolith. Soon, I fear he will seek to wake the Halfling to remedy that.”
“And if he does, will the outcome really be as bad as you say?”
“Yes.”
*>>>>>>>>>>>>>>... (*><*)…<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<*
Antar, Helkai City, ten days later…
Chilled to the bone and fighting the pull of oblivious slumber, Tess shivered on the floor of her cell curled into a tight ball. She didn’t want to sleep. She was terrified of the nightmares it would bring. She tried focusing on the grimy wall before her, tried counting the tiny icicles that hung like teeth from the ceiling. But she was drowning like a swimmer giving up the fight to stay afloat in a bottomless sea. Her eyelids drooped once, then twice. Soon she lost her battle, and images began to flicker in her mind’s eye along the journey down into nothingness. Max’s accusing glare…the stricken expression on Valenti’s face due to her betrayal…Kivar’s taunting sneer …her child’s broken body, and finally bottom, where Yalix, her tormentor, her true nightmare, sat.
“Tell me, how does this feel.”
God–no, she thought as Yalix positioned a long wire thin probe at her navel. With a cruel twisting thrust, he impaled her flesh until she screamed and writhed against the restraints at her wrists and ankles. The metallic taste of blood bubbled up in her throat, filling her mouth and leaked out between her clenched teeth. The pain was excruciating, a hot fire that spread to infest every part of her body.
“Curious,” he murmured, shoving another probe into her abdomen.
After a moment, he ran his scaled fingertips through the blood that streamed from the wounds.
Tess squeezed her eyes shut. She did need to look to know he licked them clean. He had done so many times before.
“Tell me, what sensation you feel once I do thisss,” his voice hissed near her ear as he pushed the tools deeper.
A terrible wrenching in the pit of her stomach drove her from the nightmare and into painful reality. Biting the insides of her cheeks, she swallowed back sobs, not wanting Yalix to know she was awake. If he knew he would continue afflicting the worse kind of pain upon her—sending waves upon excruciating waves of electric fire into her mind and body with his physic powers and sharp instruments.
She shivered at the thought, as she willed herself to ignore the cold grated floor pressing into her exposed skin. The thin gown she wore during her son’s birth had long since perished, and a replacement was never given. If the brutal experiments didn’t kill her, phenomena probably would.
The subzero temp was due to being underground. Helkai, she learned when Yalix was in a talkative mood, is a subterranean borough that exist directly under the royal city, Tiendem. Twin sisters, he had said, who were forever linked but will always be separate. One of decadence, polish and cool restraint, the other dark, gritty and wild.
Not to mention cold as hell… Tess bitterly thought, flexing her cramping fingers against her stomach. Her mindless clawing at the restraints during her tormentor’s sessions left them raw and bleeding. She couldn’t bear the sight of them. Some were purple and black from him yanking out the nails for samples.
A loud thud had her glancing in fear at the wall to her right. She didn’t know her neighbor, but often she heard his cries of torment when Yalix’s guards got a wild hair in their asses to beat on him.
An agonizing scream drifted through the icy panel then, causing her to ease into a sitting position. Every muscle in her body protested the move, but she knew they would be coming to her next. She shut her eyes. A beating she could heal from, it was the other things they liked doing that left her mind and soul raw.
Resting her head against the wall behind her, she took deep breaths fighting rolling nausea in her stomach. Once a day they bought her food and water, but both were foul tasting. Never could she keep the shit down for long.
Tess steeled herself as voices sounded outside her cell. She drew her legs up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them as the door sheathed open…
*>>>>>>>>>>>>>>... (*><*)…<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<*
Larek moved slowly along the north wall of Yalix’s underground compound, toward a guard standing near a back entrance. Even though he wore heavy-battle gear, he made no sound as he slipped an arm around the man’s neck and wrenched it up with a pop. Hilmar, his fellow echelon moved up to provide cover as he pulled the body into the shadows.
“Kivar has summoned Yalix to the palace,” Menotha whispered, moving to his side. “He should be away for some time. If we are to do this…now is the time.”
Larek gave a slight nod to the Alliance spy, as he removed the dead man’s eyes with his
cylix blade. He stood once finished, and held the detached orbs up to a small red light in the door’s center. The steel panel immediately hissed open revealing a dark passageway.
“Stay sharp,” he ordered, leading the way with Menotha at his back, and Hilmar bringing up the rear. The other three echelons in their recovery group remained topside in the royal city to ensure a secure path back to the space docks and off the planet.
“The tunnel to your right,” Menotha whispered once they came to a labyrinth of passageways spiraling in different directions before them. Larek frowned when she skirted around him, heading in its direction. “The cells are further down underground, but he moved her closer to his lab–”
*(Stop!)*
The spy froze at his command just as a small troop of guards marched past the end of the under path. He didn’t have to look to know Hilmar followed him as he eased out behind the group.
*(Plaz-armor.)* He informed him, before firing his pulsar-weapon at the guard’s knees. Body armor protected the torso but not the legs. The troops went down, screaming. Both silenced them for good with a single shot to head.
“The gunfire is bound to bring more. We better hurry,” Menotha told them, taking a passkey from one of the dead fighters.
“Are you certain the Halfling hasn’t been moved,” Larek asked, jogging after her.
“Yes. I delivered food to the aides who maintain its harvester only a min ago. I hadn’t the heart to wake the Queen though when I checked on her. I didn’t want to raise her hopes of rescue.”
“What’s her condition?”
“Bad, but she’s strong, a fighter. She’ll survive.”
Larek didn’t miss a step when he sighted down his weapon and shot the four guards running their way.
“Providing we don’t get caught,” Menotha muttered, moving around the now prone bodies.
The grim smile Larek shared with Hilmar at her expense melted the moment they entered the wing where Yalix kept his most prized experiments. Blacken and dingy doors lined the walls on both sides of the passageway. The stench of decay hung heavy in the frozen air as did the sounds of despair. Moans mingled with sobs and futile pleas of mercy.
All of this though, paled in comparison upon sight of the hybrid once they gained access to her cell. The girl was slumped in a corner with her cheek pressed against the freezing wall. Her unblinking blue eyes stared at nothing. Filth and blood encrusted hair that was so dirty it was hard to discern its natural color. Her mouth was swollen and cut.
Larek noted the fresh smear of blood on her inner thighs. A muscle ticked in jaw. The four guards he killed had been coming from this direction.
“
T’zura…it is I, Menotha.”
Larek took up the satchel the spy dropped upon seeing the girl, and pulled out clothing she had packed. Antar’s former queen showed no signs of spirit as they carefully bent her limbs and coaxed them into the garments.
“Has she always been this unresponsive,” he asked his tone sharp.
“I-I don’t know. I’ve only seen her when she sleeps.”
“Commander!”
Larek immediately stood at Hilmar’s alarmed call. When he saw the echelon opened the cell next to the hybrid’s and go inside, he resisted the urge to curse. They did not have time for this.
“Hil–”
“It’s Sarric commander,” Hilmar interrupted.
Larek gazed down at the unfortunate soul who appeared to be a few breaths away from death. The face was unrecognizable what with it being severely cut and bruised. He was about to tell the echelon he was mistaken until he spotted the insignia of the Kaduna crown branded on the man’s chest.
“By Hohlan,” he breathed, squatting down to touch the beaten face of a friend he thought long dead.
“King Sero will be happy to know his son still lives.”
“Yes, but for how long,” Larek murmured, noticing the wounded man’s shallow breaths. “I must retrieve the harvester. Can you manage him?”
“Yes.”
“Get them to the space-docks. I will be right behind you.” Standing, Larek ran out of the cell, heading for Yalix’s lab.
(*An alarm has been triggered!*) The telepathic warning came from Toafin. The echelons left to guard the minor viaduct they used to enter Helkai.
(*How? We didn’t give the guards we encountered a chance to live long enough to send one.*)
(*I think it’s more a case of inactivity. They must have to report in at certain times.*)
Larek cursed under his breath as he eased through the open doors of a dark laboratory. The place was empty, save for the harvester. The tubular machine hovered horizontally above the floor in the center of the room. Huge cables attached to ports along its sides kept it from drifting away on the cloud of air that streamed out of the jets underneath its steel exterior.
(*Look alive!*) Toafin warned.
(*Centurions are heading your way!*)
“So much for stealth,” Larek muttered, shooting out a nearby console, causing the cables to release the harvester. Getting on one end of the thing, he shoved it toward the doors, just as a group of aides and guards came through.
Larek sprayed a hail of pulse-bullets as he ran behind the big machine, hoping they would refrain from firing back to accurately for fear of hitting the damn thing. He fought his way out of the compound and into the crowded byways of Helkai only to find a small army of centurions coming his way.
He switched his pulsar-gun’s ammo to something more deadly, as he moved in the direction of a nearby outtake vent. All underground dwellings had them. They vented out stale air while their counterpart blew down fresh.
“Hilmar!” There was no need to keep silent on the con-devices, besides he had an idea. He needed to know if they were clear though. “Status!”
“Topside and nearly home,” came the echelon’s static reply
“Good.” Larek stood and shoved the harvester into the restricted area near the vent, before turning to launch five mini plasma flash-bombs in the direction of the rapidly advancing centurions.
The explosives detonated over toxic vapors coming out of vents in the ground. No doubt the poisonous gasses came from Yalix’s deeper underground laboratories. The city shook as dirt and debris rained down on them all. Aftershocks sent Larek stumbling toward the harvester as the machine sailed under the outtake duct. Within an instant it was suctioned up as if it weighted nothing. Shooting off another bomb, he dove after the thing.
A loud boom echoed up the shaft as heat engulfed him. He looked down, catching site of a boiling cloud of fire racing up behind him. The instant he shot free of the vent, he rolled clear as the flames roared past. Alarms sounded as the heavens above lit up with bright flashes from something high in the atmosphere.
“Please tell me that’s you Lund,” he said, into his con-device.
“Yes, commander,” came a static reply. Lund, captained the Kiburi. The ship the rescue team had come here on. “I got the others and locked onto your position. Sit tight I’m coming.”
“Easier said than done,” Larek responded, spying another platoon of centurions and aero-drones heading his way. “Can you hit a moving target with the porter?”
“To risky…could kill you.”
“Chance it anyway!” Larek propelled the harvester off the nearby cliff the up duct had come out near.
“What? Wait!”
Pulse-bullets as well as energy blasts followed him over as he rode the machine toward the Avilarian Sea. Before he could hit water though, a protective beam of radiant bluish-white light halted his fall. The good captain had chanced it…
*>>>>>>>>>>>>>>... (*><*)…<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<*
Q.A Warship Kiburi, Interstellar Space, six days later…
Tess opened her eyes.
It was dark in the room. Preternaturally still. She could hear the soft hum of the warship’s engines and the chatter of its crew passing beyond her door. For a moment, her mind struggled to recall just how she came to be here. How she come to wake in this strange place with its white sterile walls, and square picture window showing her the impossible inkiness of space.
Gradually though the fog receded, leaving in its wake a grinding ache that went deeper than physical. She remembered now. Her baby, Yalix and Kivar, it all came back. Hot tears trickled from her eyes, moving in silent, misery down her temples to soak the pillow beneath her head.
He’s dead.
She, with her stupid beliefs and blind faith in the wrong people, had killed him. She wept on as the door to her room whispered open. She did not look to see who had come in, nor did she protests when that someone took her into their arms.
“It is all right zura…cry if you must.”
Tess did until she had no more tears, and the agony of grief was replaced with exhaustion. A deep and profound sadness scarred her soul now, leaving her empty. Her mind began to shut down, to seek relief in the deep oblivion of sleep.
In the days that followed, she slowly went about the business of healing, and getting to know who her rescuers were. Larek and an older man name Antiis visited her often as did Menotha, her guardian angel who let her cry on her shoulder.
“I’ve brought you food,” Menotha greeted, lifting up a tray of food as she came into her room. “Promise me you will try and eat more than a few bites.”
Tess gave the savory fair a disinterested glance. To eat is to live and she didn’t want to do either.
(*Ah but to live, is to fight and survive…and perhaps exact revenge on those who’ve hurt you…no?*) A voice said in her head.
She stiffened as a gentle chiming sounded at her door before it opened, and Larek entered.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“What,” he asked, with an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Listen in on my thoughts and talk in my head,” Tess accusingly replied.
Deep indigo sparkled into her own deep blue eyes as she held his gaze. The lights in the room glinted off the honey-gold highlights in his hair and shone faintly on the bristles of a new beard. He had a faint scar above one brow and another at the corner of his mouth. He didn’t have a perfect face, but it was an arresting one all the same. Tess resisted the urge to fidget under his quiet scrutiny.
“Revenge your highness,” he finally said, breaking his silence. “It is what fuels even the weariest of us. Eventually if you are fortunate enough, you will learn to carry on without it once you have avenged those you’ve lost. We all want Kivar to fall, but we cannot take him down alone. We must fight together.”
He was right of course—but. “What can we do,” she asked after taking a sip of the broth like liquid Menotha handed her. The tangy flavor reminded her of the lemon sauce Kyle loved to put over his bake chicken. She took another sip, squelching the nostalgic feeling the thought brought.
“We find the one thing our enemy wants most, and we use it against him,” Larek continued.
That’s easy, she thought. Kivar wants Max. Her eyes closed against the images of the boy she once believed to be in love with. Her son’s father had been so eager to learn of his past— yet hesitant to embrace it. She considered him to be a fool for that, when in reality, it was she who was the fool.
“Forgiveness…”
Tess frowned, lost for a moment. “What?”
“For what transpired on Earth before you came to Antar. Perhaps if you asked for forgiveness, Max will–”
She gave a brittle laugh, cutting him off. “What I’ve done cannot be forgiven…nor forgotten. All I want from Max, if I ever see him again, is his help in killing our son’s murderer.”
“And once Kivar is vanquished, what then?”
“Then I guess I’ll be alone with my demons…and if they devour me whole so be it,” she said, defiantly meeting his gaze.
“Will you undergo the conversion?”
Her eyes narrowed,not liking the change in topic. A few days ago she was told they could give her back her old memories. She would no longer have the false ones Nasedo planted in her mind as a child if she underwent this conversion. Of course her savior’s motive of wanting her to go through with it is to have her more mentally ‘
stable’. It would appear that when she and the others were made, their creators were force to do a rush job on account of the enemy breathing down their necks. Both sets in reality were flawed.
But with every good thing there is a bad. There was a chance she could be fully taken over by her past self. Become Queen Avanyah, with no memories of her life on Earth.
“I know what you fear,” Larek said into her silence. “But our scientists believe that won’t happen.”
“Your highness,” Menotha said, gaining her attention. “To have no memory of your true past could put you in far greater danger than anything else. If the one thing this war has taught us it’s to know your past mistakes and learn from them.”
Deep down Tess knew they all were right. She couldn’t continue at this “blind” state, but…She frowned feeling dizzy just thinking about it.
Wait! Alarm bells went off in her head. She really
was dizzy.
It was then she realized that other people had entered her room. They stood back, silently watching as if they were waiting on something. Another wave of dizziness had her shoving the bowl off her lap in disgust.
“Why,” she whispered, looking at Larek.
“Because I can’t watch you make the same mistakes,” he whispered back.
Tess’s last thought before unconsciousness claimed her was a prayer to the god the Valentis worshiped. She prayed with all her heart and soul that she would remember them, and their kindness...who she was and most of all her baby boy…
My bro and I humbly throw ourselves at your feet and grovel for forgiveness. Life took us by the throats and shoved us down roads we had no choice but take…We did manage though, to write along the way. 
sssshhhh….
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