Elementis 1: The Heir to the Stone (19 page)

The Zohr turned to one of his colonels. "Take the civilians from the under city. They are ready to join us," he proclaimed. The colonel nodded at his request.

The Zohr turned to Mutus. "It is done," he said, sharing a moment of revelation with his son. "Their minds have grown weaker. We must find the king!"

The Zohr and General Mutus waded deeper into the city, walking towards what remained of the glass bowl of the cytherean headquarters.

Chapter XIV

Belief

Holoported images of squadron leaders shot up all around the king as news of the war's devastation flooded into the cytherean control room, they fizzled out as death became them.

A life-sized transmission formed into the figure of a burgundy-uniformed Guard on the largest central holopad. It was Ando, Twain's father. The image was clear enough to see the sweat and dirt-burns that covered his bleeding and battered face.

"Trade moon 4," he blurted, short of breath. "We’re the last moon standing, almost everyone is dead. We’ve never seen anything like it. We need…" The image fuzzed out with an explosion and everyone in the room, from the king's protectors, the system controllers, Witakker and Uly, knew that the man had just been killed and they'd lost the seven trade moons as quickly as they were losing the city.

White noise fizzed in the air where the figure of the man had projected from the holopad. The cosmic after-effects of the birth of the universe. But the fuzzing of white noise was not the oldest thing in the room. The king saw Hawk and Spirit glancing at the Elementis on his wrist, no doubt wondering why he did not use it to save his people from being slaughtered. Of all of the people in that command room and of all of the people fighting the war outside of those doors, only Uly and Witakker knew that using the Elementis was no longer possible for the minds of the cythereans. The Zohr was right in his thinking. They were now too weak to resist him. They were now too weak to harness their power.

"We have to do something, Uly!" Hawk said, full of het-up energy.

"The Guard have their orders. Do not lose patience, Hawk!" Uly replied to his chief protector.

Hawk made a move towards the exit. "I’m not hiding in here while they pound the city and kill all of our friends out there!"

"Hawk, wait!" Uly shouted, just as his attention was drawn away by a voice coming from the holoporter. Hawk didn't stop. He ignored the orders of his king for the first time and he left through a triple-tiered sliding door, the door closed with three secure clunks after him. Uly looked back towards the white noised-remains of the hologram in the centre of the room as it crackled into a new image forming on the holoporter. The unclear image flickered in the air with a skewed clarity.

"Father, you need to evacuate!" Jonas's voice called out, as the clarity improved bringing a clear image of Jonas with Twain standing beside him.

The king let Hawk go, and he moved across the room to stand in front of his son. "Jonas, it’s too late!" Uly said to his boy, wondering how the news of the attack had travelled to Obitrum.

Jonas looked at his father's face on his side of the transmission and filled with emotion seeing the hopeless concern in his father's eyes as clearly as if he was in the room. Jonas urged his father to act with force. "Use the Elementis, Father, I beg of you! Calyx has seen the dydrid army. It’s ten million strong. You will not survive!"

"I cannot use it my son, you must…" said Uly, as the screen at Jonas's end blanked out half way through the king's sentence. The transmission was lost.

"Father? Father, what must I do?" Jonas screamed, waiting for his father to reappear. The holopad in front of Jonas remained figureless.

"Twain, get everyone to the landing bay, hurry!" Jonas commanded.

Without question, Twain ran on his way. War was raging at home and Twain would waste no time in preparing the junior Guard to return for battle. He would waste no time in wanting to return to his mother in the under city.

Jonas stared for a moment at the static form feeding out from the holopad, thinking of what his father had wanted to say before the communication was lost. His heart twisted with anger. His body shook. All he wanted in that moment was a weapon and a meeting with the Zohr. He wasn't unstoppable, Jonas thought to himself. No one is unstoppable.

*

Lora warmed her lap with a cross-stitch blanket, swaying back and forth in the comfort of a well-used rocking chair, still getting used to the silence of a near empty house. She pulled a thread through a patch, sewing it to a pair of Twain's trousers. The trousers hadn't torn, Twain barely played out enough to tear a hole, but he did have a favourite place, right across the thigh where he always wiped his oiled hands and Lora would often sew patch on patch so that Twain would have a clean slate to wipe his dirty hands. She rocked the chair with a gentle creak in its wooden rungs, humming a tune she composed in her head, tugging the thread and needle up and back down, sinking a stitch close to the last. A loud crash caught her attention. She froze, holding the needle still. Another crash sent wonder into her mind as to what was going on outside. The noises were too loud to be a rock falling from the cave roof, as frequently happened. She put down the trousers, unfolded the blanket away from her lap and moved towards the window. Before she'd made it across the room to peer outside, Lynk's robotic legs came walking into the room, faster than his usual pace.

"Please, miss Lora, we need to go," said Lynk, with a pre-programmed hint of panic in his voice.

"What is it, Lynk?" she asked. "What's the matter?"

Lynk looked distraught at Lora, with almost human eyes. "The dydrid are here!"

Heat and flame knocked Lora across the room, and into the back wall. She lay still on the floor, conscious but her ears were dulled by the noise of the explosion, her eyes held wide open, shocked by the force of the impact. Dust and debris from the walls and roof floated softly in the air. Lora struggled and coughed. She wanted to call for Lynk, her voice wouldn't come. She couldn't see a sign of a robot arm or leg anywhere, she was sure the blast would have torn him to pieces. A fantom soldier stepped in through the haze, coming towards her. A dark hand, larger than her head reached down to her, picking her up by one of her arms with little finesse. She screamed, kicking at his armour, clanging a shoe against his leg as she dangled from his hold. The fantom dropped her, extended arm-cannons from his forearm and out over his fist, aiming them down at Lora. Her body shook. Her eyes watered as she prepared to die and to never see her husband or her son again. Through the tinged red of his visored helmet the soldier tilted his head and stared into her quivering eyes. Retracting his guns back onto his forearm he knocked a hand into her cheek. Lora collapsed to the floor, quiet and lifeless. He lifted her with more grace this time around, and throwing her over his shoulder he waded back through the wreckage of timber beams and shredded clay.

Outside the caves of Subterennea, dydrid colonels watched over an endless line of cythereans feeding out from the undercity's cavern holes. Ushered along by the heavy hands of the fantoms, the cythereans were forced onto a dozen waiting transport ships. The towering transporters sent wonder into the minds of the people. Mothers wiped tears away from the children's faces, holding them in their arms, shielding them from any metal hands which might lay a bruise upon their young skin. The elderly walked along as fast as their failing legs would take them, helped up again and again as they stumbled at the haste of the soldiers' pushiness. Questions of what was going on and where they were being taken muttered from the mouths of the captured. But no one was told the answers to their questions. The final question which the people arrived at was not what, or where, or why, but who? Who would save them? This was the question that ticked over in all of their minds and trickled out from their whispers as they were dragged onto those transporters to be taken away. Their king was allowing this to happen. He could stop it. They knew of the power he held on his arm, and yet he did nothing. Desperation brought people falling to their knees. Not only the children were crying; men, women, grandfathers and grandmothers shed tears with the feeling of being taken from their homes and on to the unknown. Every single cytherean knew of the evil that lived inside the Zohr, and every single cytherean knew that their capture more than likely meant death by one way or another. There was nothing they could do but be taken and wait.

*

Over a thousand boys and girls of the junior Guard stood to attention in front of Dog-Star. The children were dwarfed by the arrowed bodies of row upon row of the shining burgundy dekapods around them. Twain, Spectrum, Cortex, Menace and Goldheart stood on the front row directly level with the hard-faced veteran. Dog-Star stared over the entire room, well aware that rumours of war at home had spread throughout the academy.

"None of you have the skills or minds to deal with the fear which you will face. You will all head to certain death, and I will not let you fly!" Dog-Star assured them.

Jonas walked onto the decking of the landing bay, coming to stop a little way behind Dog-Star.

"There is nothing you can do! Do you understand me? Nothing!" Dog-Star drove into them further.

"I believe in you," Jonas called out, skulking into view from the background. Dog-Star turned to look at Jonas. He came closer and stood behind Dog-Star.

"I believe in all of you," he followed, rising his head higher with the faith in his own words.

"You may not have the training you need to survive, but you have the heart," Jonas urged, sharing his eyes with everyone in the room. "I am proud to be a part of this race and I will be proud to fight for it. Join me now. Stand by my side in this fight against the Zohr. We cannot let him rule the way he wishes. Who is with me?"

Dog-Star peered around the room for a response to Jonas's heartfelt pitch. No one moved. Just a thousand worried faces switching between staring at Dog-Star and staring at Jonas.

Spectrum walked forward, stopping one step away from Jonas. Locking eyes with Jonas, he smiled at him, "I believe in you too," he said, turning to face the junior Guard. "The dydrid are attacking! As we stand here they destroy our homes and our families. The risk of death is great!" He paused to allow the room to digest the danger of his words. "Who is with us?" Spectrum barked.

Goldheart, Cortex and Menace brushed past Dog-Star and stood behind their leader. Twain followed on, running across to make up for his slight delay. The children looked around at each other, conversing and debating with heated discussion. A few of them moved forward to stand behind Jonas and in drips and drabs eventually every child followed suite to leave Dog-Star facing no one.

Dog-Star turned around to face the children once more, this time with Jonas at the helm. He looked surprisingly pleased to say it. "Ready the ships ladies and gentlemen, you're going to war!"

The children cheered.

Chapter XV

Hidden Powers

Even knowing they stood little chance of survival, the Cytherean Guard fought with all of their hearts to defend their city against the metal-blooded strength of the fantom army. Every Guard had trained for war on Obitrum since they were eleven years old and every Guard remembered how the dydrid infantry-clones and shadow-walker drones were worthy adversaries in any training exercise. And it wasn't as if they hadn't had battle experience. Minor skirmishes broke out with the enemy on a daily basis when out on patrol in the mixed territory of the forests. But here and now they had learned of the real force that the Zohr possessed, a power built over a thousand years behind the secret walls of Mercron. And no amount of training and fighting could prepare them for the brute devastation which now reigned across Enterra.

The dydrid air force continued to bomb across the parts of the city which the fantoms had not yet invaded and building by building, man by man, Enterra fell into the hands of the Zohr. He walked through the city, following behind his army, taking pride in the spilled blood amongst the fallen rubble and the smoking shells of armoured vehicles left in the wake of the advance towards the headquarters.

Having grown impatient and needing to fight, Hawk and a small squadron of Guard hid in a cramped trench beneath a ripped-up slab of concrete. The thin slit that made them almost invisible was perfect for firing out on the unexpecting fantom troops. Their position gave them enough time for their helix-blaster streams to twist through the black fantom armour and kill any soldier who couldn't reach cover quick enough. Hawk saw something coming, something more terrifying than any fantom soldier. He ordered a ceasefire to his men. A thin line of dusty light shone through the firing slit into their eyes, Hawk peered closer out to the world above. He saw the stern face of General Mutus firing as he walked. He saw the Zohr, his black-spiked shoulders, his silver head-plate and his dull, evil face. Fantoms ran past, firing at everything, and the Zohr followed after. His heavy boots levelled with Hawk's eyes, near enough to kick the dust of the ground into his face. Hawk watched every footstep in silence, watching with a deep-rooted knot stuck in his throat, too petrified to move.

He knew where the Zohr was heading. The fact that the headquarters was almost untouched compared to the surrounding devastation was no coincidence, and it made Hawk all too aware of how much danger his king was in. He waited until the area was clear of all signs of fantoms and the Zohr had left his sight, then Hawk and his men came out from hiding and tracked close behind. The closer to the base they came the more Hawk tried the radio on the forearm of his armour suit. Communications were down all over the city. Hawk could only watch on as the Zohr, Mutus, and an army of fantoms disappeared inside the unguarded entrance to the headquarters.