A Warrior's Revenge (22 page)

“You expect me to believe that her eyes
changed color on the way down here you pair of sick little
weasels?” Tyra said angrily, but even as her words ended the hair
she held onto turned into black plated braids.

Tyra jumped back in stunned disbelief, as
the form before her grew measurably in size. Tyra turned to scream
an alarm, but a massive black forearm came up to choke off her cry,
“Time to die little viper!” I said before I snapped her neck.

The two interrogators stood frozen in the
moment, as in sheer terror they watched the lone arch nemesis of
their people materialize out of the body of a woman. Together they
turned to run, but I leaped forward slamming their heads together
in unison, with enough force to crush both men’s skulls. Not
bothering to watch them fall I took off down the hall, because I
could feel the vibration of the ring on my finger. I had never been
this close to finding the relic of Perth in all the long years that
I’d hunted for it.

I ran around a corner and abruptly
stopped.

Ellanara let Loric and Satago help her up
from off the floor. She clutched at her head and the headache that
had blossomed to full life within its confines. It had been beyond
strenuous to superimpose an image of her and her emotions over that
of Salanicus’s and shield him from view, but he had taught her
well. She had been doing a pretty good job of it, until the link
between them had grown weak and she’d felt the projection of
herself onto Salanicus start to unravel.

“Do you think he made it to where they were
keeping the relic?” Loric asked her.

“I don’t know.” Ellanara whispered past the
pain that was throbbing in her head. She truly didn’t know and not
knowing was killing her!

“Keep him safe Lord!” Was her whispered
thought plea for the man she was starting to fall madly in love
with.

I’d found it! After all these years I had
finally found the relic. I had stumbled into a giant hollowed out
space of a cavern and at the far end of it sat the relic on an
upraised dais. The idiots had been worshiping it, as if it was a
god of some kind!

I ran down the stairs and across the floor
of the cavern to the dais, which I climbed up in leaping strides.
The relic was an oval shaped box with rounded off sides. Two grips
that curved out from the sides of the relic were where the ring
bearers grasped it in unison. I grabbed the relic up and carefully
stowed it in a bag, which I then slung over my shoulder, even as I
sensed a flurry of activity all around me.

Guards were pouring into the room from all
corners. I pulled a purple round crystal from my belt, which
immediately elongated out to become my staff, which I pounded the
end of down against the ground of the cavern. A shockwave of
ultraviolet light pulsed throughout the room in all directions
leveling everybody. When the guards had recovered it was only to
see that I was already gone.

“There I feel him again! He has the relic of
Perth, but I sense a lot of oppositional forces close to him!”
Ellanara said addressing those gathered within the control
room.

Loric looked around at the warriors
gathered. It was an assembly of his own countrymen and hand chosen
warriors picked out by Salanicus of his own people.

“You know what to do. Get ready to
disembark.” Loric said firmly, as he unsheathed his sword.

Each warrior laid a hand to the sword at his
side and prepared to be transported off the ship. Every sword was a
light sword such as the one Loric had. Salanicus had opened up his
workshop on the moon to Sallaconese and Vallians alike. He had made
many such swords in order to fill his time over the long years.

I stepped away from the elevator shaft, even
as I tossed a red glowing crystal back down it. I made my way
uncontested out of the building and out into the busy thoroughfare
of the city. To say I stood out was an exaggeration. I strode down
the street towards my pickup point, as civilians fled in a mass
panic away from me. In their eyes I was the stuff of nightmares. A
lingering haunt of a bygone era come to drag them down to pay the
price of Hell’s eternity for a life spent in excess and without
compassion.

Enemy fire coursed across the air to slam
into my shield of swirling violet colored light. I’d been busy over
the course of a thousand years and no Orlandian technology was the
superior of mine in terms of armament. I disregarded the enemy
strikes to my shield of violet color and made my way to an open
area and stopped.

The last of the civilians had fled and the
security forces closed in firing upon me as they came. Their weapon
blasts of focused energy only seemed to strengthen my shield and so
they gave up on trying to breach it with their weapon fire and
closed in to fight with me melee style.

With relish for the coming struggle I tossed
my staff up into the air and caught it mid staff. It abruptly
changed into my favorite weapon, a double-edged sword staff with a
wicked spear head on the downward side that glowed red. As the
ranks of the enemy converged on me I swung my sword staff in arcing
strikes that sprayed ultraviolet light, as the sword end cleaved
through the ranks of desperate Orlandian soldiers.

If I escaped with the relic their lives were
forfeit, which they well knew, but even knowing that their fervor
wasn’t a match for mine, as I piled up their broken slashed bodies
to a depth taller than I was myself in the area of the open square
that I had claimed as mine. Suddenly there were whirlwinds of color
all around me and I had help, as warriors with flashing swords
cleaved into the bewildered Orlandian security forces with a
vengeful gusto.

I forced myself to leave the scene of the
slaughter of my enemies to be drawn up into a whirlwind of color
that retraced me back up to the bar-Trinity that was hovering
cloaked overtop the city. I would have rather stayed and helped
kill more of the enemy, but the relic’s safety was paramount.

I appeared on the bridge and caught the
brief look of relief that crossed over Ellanara’s face before it
returned to its normal studied calm. It was nice to have someone
that cared about me. She hadn’t let me down either! She’d done a
masterful job of linking with me and superimposing herself overtop
me in order to deceive the enemy. It hadn’t been her fault for the
disguise falling apart a little prematurely.

I felt jubilance rise up in me. We had the
rings and the relic!

My jubilance was checked, when I saw the
sudden concern of Ellanara’s features.

“Bring them back on board now Abby!”
Ellanara called out commandingly.

In various forms of fighting pose the
warriors, who had covered my retreat appeared on board, some of
them still in the process of swinging their sword.

“What is it?” I asked, even as I connected
with the ship to ascertain what had Ellanara worried.

“A huge fleet of ships is bearing down on
our position fast! I think this was a trap!” Ellanara called out in
reply to me, as the bar-Trinity shuddered and dropped some in
elevation, as its shield absorbed several direct hits.

“Salanicus I need you to……”

“Already on it!” I said cutting Ellanara
off, as I took over control of both the shield and weapons
platforms, while she focused on getting extra power out of the ship
in order to get us away from the arena of battle that we were
suddenly ill-prepared to face. There had to be over thirty
Orlandian war cruisers on our tail.

There had been no indication of so many of
the enemy’s fleet so close to us. We were making headway, but only
just.

“Engaging particle cloud!” Ellanara called
out.

Enemy ships were still on our tail just out
of weapons range. Where had the enemy ships come from and how were
they moving so fast? It was only Ellanara’s extra effort that was
pulling us slightly clear of them.

The answer to the clever ruse played on us
by the Orlandians was there before me, but I didn’t want to
recognize the bitter truth of it. The Orlandian’s had secretly made
a technological breakthrough, which likely meant that they could
reach the Haven Worlds for themselves now. All they needed was the
destination.

“Salanicus!”

I looked up and followed Ellanara’s gaze out
the forward portals to where the blue snapping haze of the
bar-Trinity’s light gate glistened only to see it was surrounded by
watery red hazes. The Orlandian’s were going to follow us. It was
apparent that our chances of escape were diminishing.

How had they hidden such a technological
breakthrough from me? It didn’t matter I had failed my people.

The bar-Trinity zoomed into the gate only to
be followed moments later by the enemy ships in hot pursuit of us.
They were locked on our signature and there was going to be no
losing them. I left my station and found a chair and I crumbled
down into it letting my head fall forward into my hands. We could
not out run the enemy and we could not fight off so many. What
could we do?

I felt cool hands pull at mine and I let my
gaze find Ellanara’s who had come to stand before me. Her beautiful
eyes were sympathetic, but somehow upbeat, which I didn’t
understand at a moment like this.

I lamented aloud, “All of my people! All of
them! I’ve lost them! I’ve grouped them altogether so that they can
be all lost at once and save the Orlandian’s the inconvenience of
having to hunt them down! I’ve failed!” I closed my eyes, but
opened them at her words.

“No you haven’t. Come look.” She said
reassuringly, as she grasped my hands and placed them against her
head and held them there.

“See everything that I have my husband.”

She was opening her thoughts to me! The ones
that she had fought so hard, even to her own peril to keep from me.
My breath left me, as I scanned through her secrets, which were all
laid open before me. I refocused on her and she smiled and then
moved her head to kiss the palms of both of my hands.

“You know of such a place my husband? A
place of abundant free particle energy?”

“Yes!” I said, as a place my father had told
me of came to mind.

“Then show me and we will save your people
together.”

She started to leave, but I caught a hold of
her hand with the ring on it and I brought it to my lips as I
corrected her, “Save our people.”

She gave me one of those smiles, which I
spent a moment taking in the beauty of before rising and putting
the coordinates to the spot I had remembered into the ship’s
trajectory control.

It took two days to reach the nebula cloud.
We dropped out of light particle wavelength travel directly into
the pinkish hued nebula full of free energy and waited. Then like
an unwelcome occurrence of mosquitoes on a calm summer evening one
by one the enemy ships dropped out of the light wave travel and
took up position around the bar-Trinity. The bar-Trinity was
surrounded.

Abby glanced up from her screen, “They
appear to be waiting for something. I’m detecting a communication
signal.”

“Bring it up Abby.” Ellanara responded
calmly.

A much painted and bedecked visage appeared
on a screen and began blathering out a message, “If you wish to
survive you must surrender your ship to our superior forces at
once. You have no hope of escape. We……”

Ellanara and I exchanged a look and a
thought.

Ellanara said, “Abby target the ship that
the communication is coming from with everything we’ve got and fire
when ready.”

The individual’s face on the screen briefly
registered a surprised shock, as the bar-Trinity let loose with its
full arsenal, in a perfectly timed deadly salvo of raw power. The
Orlandian cruiser disintegrated into a fireball, as the waves of
power bolts coursed through it.

“Initiate Trinity action.” Ellanara intoned.
“Everyone to your stations. Damage control prepare for maximum
damage.”

There was a slight grinding of metal with a
corresponding hard bump, as both v-wings dislocated from the main
fuselage and drifted outward from the main hull under their own
power. Reaching a set distance from the main hull they both began
to spin incredibly fast spewing out a green color swirl from there
equally fast spinning turbines. The two wings spun in orbit around
the main hall picking up more speed with each orbit.

“Geocentric orbit achieved. Light stream
shield at forty percent and rising.” Abby intoned softly from the
background.

“Commence automatic target firing selection
at will, when the light stream shield reaches sixty percent.
Prepare for neutron alignment with source beacon array.” Ellanara
said more to let everyone know what was happening than really
needing to state what she and Abby were up to.

I couldn’t get over how beautiful and poised
she looked standing there completely in control of the situation.
She was comfortably within her element like no other woman I had
ever known, except for perhaps my mother. I noticed Nara standing
in the background smiling at me benevolently, as if she was reading
my mind. Maybe she was I didn’t care.

I was completely smitten with the girl that
stood so commandingly before me that I had the privilege of calling
wife. I loved everything there was about her and somewhat startled
I realized that I loved her. Ellanara glanced my way with a smile
and a sparkle in her blue eyes. Apparently everyone was reading my
mind.

Ellanara gestured with a hand for me to come
near and I did. As I drew near to her she pressed back against me
and I became appreciably aware of her as a woman too. I felt her
smile more than I saw it and not for the first time I realized how
completely this special woman had me wrapped around her finger,
ever since the day at the village, when she had given herself to
me.