Elementis 1: The Heir to the Stone (22 page)

"He’s doing it, he’s doing it!" yelled Twain excited.

Jonas winced from a sharp pain and the image disappeared, zipping back inside the necrofac and returning it to a plain old, hollow stone.

"I didn’t think you were ready," said Calyx. "Give it to me. Or we can do it together?" he offered, holding out his hand once more to Jonas.

Jonas had barely let anyone do anything for him his whole life. He wanted to do this alone. "Wait," he said, opening a pouch attached to a shoulder pad on his armour suit. He took out Witakker's vial of liquid, pulled the cork and took a sip. He replaced the cork and returned the vial to his pouch. His eyes flashed to silver with a blink. The hologram reappeared. Everyone stared in wonder looking at themselves floating in mid-air.

"Lynk, record this," said Twain, as Lynk opened up his abdominal data-screen and obliged.

The holographic image moved away from where they were standing and up through the skies of Aquilla and out of the atmosphere, moving past a trade moon, out through space, through the middle of an asteroid belt and passed near to a dull, red subdwarf and past a system of stormy-surfaced gas giants and dead planets. The focus turned to a low magnitude planet shining alone in the heavens. The white planet got brighter and larger and closer. The image sped into the atmosphere, gliding over endless fields of ice and above a forest of snowy trees, slowing down to a wooden hut and inside to a wooden box where the oval orange stone of the Elementis was kept safe, far away from the hands of the Zohr. The floating image disappeared. Jonas's eyes return to blue and everyone stood in silence.

"That was the coolest thing I've ever seen!" said Twain, his mind blown with the impossible physics behind such a contraption.

Jonas looked across to Lynk. "Lynk, you've got the destination?"

"I have located the planet," said Lynk.

Jonas ignored the magic he'd just performed and thought only of the practicalities in reaching the element stone. He slipped the stone lid back onto his pendant and placed it back around his neck. "Now all we need is a ship," he said.

Chapter XVIII

Recovery

The wreckage site of a defeated Enterra steamed with smoke and dust. Twisted beams of metal bending in all directions stuck out of their foundations with no signs of the buildings that used to rise from their support. Shards of glass sparkled in the daylight and great chunks of concrete were torn up from the ground from the weight of fallen buildings. Enterra had been savaged beyond recognition.

Sifting through the ruins, a unit of rescue Guard spread out, searching for trapped men who lay either alive or dead beneath the shattered urbanity. Every uniform of the Guard had a unique identifier code implanted into its fabric and it was the job of the search and rescue teams to compile death records and provide first-aid to any survivors—if the fantoms had left anyone alive.

"The king is around here somewhere," said Mak, quietly, looking down at the pale, bearded face of a dead old man.

"How do you know that?" whispered Darem across to Mak, who stood just a few paces away, seeing only a sea of destruction and no discernible signs to say where they were.

"That's Witakker Ald," Mak said, pointing down, "the king's advisor."

Darem jumped across from one slab of concrete to another, taking a look at the peaceful face of Witakker which lay at an awkward angle from his neck. Darem looked up at Mak, "Find the king's body, quietly and quickly," he said.

Darem went off to inform the others of their find while Mak skulked from one concrete crevasse to the next, shining the torch of his helix-blaster inside holes, checking for any signs of more bodies. He came to a deep well, he filled it with torchlight illuminating pockets of spaces all the way down to the bottom. His training told him that this was exactly what he was looking for—a place where bodies could be lying dead or alive underneath the rubble. Mak slid out a wire clamp from the belt of his uniform and attached it to a sturdy metal shard. He took one last look down the well and lowered himself inside, dangling his legs he felt around with his feet until he felt something solid enough to take his weight. He climbed down deeper, checking each dust filled hole as he went. Something moved behind him. He gripped onto a piece of metal with one hand and swung his blaster-torch around to see. The red mask of a fantom soldier lit up, staring right at him. The lights of the soldier's arm-cannons energized, and Mak shot a double-helix stream straight into the lasers followed by a shot into the red mask until the soldier lay dead. Silence returned in the torchlight but for Mak's soft breathing. Further down the hole another sound caught his ear. Mak shone his torch, ready to fire. A set of black fingers slipped out into the torchlight from a tight space under the weight of the world above as small pieces of rubble fell over the edge and down to the bottom of the well. The hand spread out, reaching for help. Mak watched the trembling fingers, unsure of what race they might belong to. The hand reached out further. A bracelet of golden crescents made Mak's jaw drop and freeze.

"Darem—here now!" Mak called up the well with a whispered shout, looking up to the bright circle of sky above.

Darem's head appeared. "What is it?" he whispered back.

"I've found the king," Mak told him.

"Good work, Mak!" Darem said.

"He's still alive." said Mak, not quite believing his own words.

"Well get him out of there!" Darem said, smiling down.

Mak shifted downwards to the king. His feet reached the floor of the well. He shone his torchlight into the space where the king was stuck. "King Uly, my name’s Mak. Are you hurt?" he asked.

Uly groaned, and moved his arm a little. In the darkness and torchlight, Mak could see that his face was covered in soot and blood and his once long hair had been singed to the roots. Mak pointed his torch down to the ground to check for sharp objects where he planned to lay the king down once he'd dragged him out. Behind where he stood, Mak caught a glimpse of an intact corridor leading away to somewhere inside the old headquarters, but he could only see so far down it before the darkness rounded off the light.

"I’m getting you out of here. Sorry, my lord, this might hurt a bit!" he said, pulling underneath the kings armpits to drag him free, and yielding a painful groan. He slid Uly out onto his shoulder, and just as he was about to lie him down he heard shouting from above, the echoes of which came bounding down the well.

He looked up. "Shit!" Mak whispered to himself. "Shit, shit, shit!"

Laser fire followed the shouting, and then the shouting stopped. Mak kept looking up to the light. There was no more shooting, no more sound at all. The figure of a head moved over the light of the hole, and drips of liquid splashed around Mak's feet. Mak moved his torchlight down to see a pool of red blood collecting on the floor of the well. He pointed his torch up to the face above. Darem's eyes were staring right at him, "Run!" he begged. His head dropped.

With the king on his shoulder, Mak hurried along the undamaged corridor.

*

Calyx returned with Jonas to what was left of his home city. Hawk waited to greet the party as the ramp lowered from the black exterior of the dydrid transporter ship. Spectrum and Goldheart hurried off the ship, saluting Hawk with arm holds as they ran past.

Hawk smiled at the sight of Calyx coming down the ramp. It was difficult not reacting to the boy's silver eyes. "Calyx, did they hurt you?" he asked.

"Not as much as my father did," he said.

"We wanted to rescue you but…"

"But it was easier to call in a replacement," Calyx said, cutting Hawk short.

"I’m sorry about your father," said Hawk, lowering his head in respect.

"There’s no need to apologize for him!" Calyx said.

Hawk looked Calyx in the eyes, "I meant…"

"I know what you meant, Hawk," said Calyx, cutting in again.

"What about the Elementis, is it safe?" Hawk said.

Jonas intervened. "We've located the stone," he said.

"Can you get to it?" Hawk asked, knowing it would be well hidden.

"Spectrum's arranging a ship now," Jonas told him.

Hawk looked across to Willow. "You’d better have a good reason for bringing her here."

"She helped us, Hawk," said Jonas.

"How? By spying for the Zohr? I wouldn’t advise this, Jonas," Hawk told him.

"We are not all evil, commander," Willow countered.

Hawk looked her straight in the eye. "You're all killers," he said, recalling the deaths of too many of his friends at the hands of the dydrid.

"I have never killed anyone, Hawk. Tell me, how does it feel?" said Willow.

Hawk kept a solid stare into her green eyes. "Jonas, what are your orders?"

"Go with Twain, take as many Guard as we can spare; find and rescue the civilians. The rest of us are going on a treasure hunt," said Jonas.

Spectrum and Goldheart ran across to rejoin the group. "The Utopious is the only deep-space carrier we have left, Spider" said Spectrum.

Jonas thought back to Witakker's lesson of the great world war, "A thousand-year-old ship?" he said in disappointment.

"She’s two clicks north from here in an underground hangar, good as new they said," Spectrum told Jonas.

"Get every Guard armed and ready and prepare the juniors to clear us a path, we’re leaving now!" Jonas said.

Spectrum saluted. "Yes sir," he said, smiling at his new commander.

*

The small spotlight of Mak's torch scoured up and down a reflective white wall. A control panel came into view. "There you are," he said, as he moved to the panel and waved a hand back and across turning on a few surviving fluorescent lights. Mak stood with the king hanging over his shoulder, finding himself in a nearly empty dekapod hangar with only three fighter ships remaining intact. Half of the hangar was under rubble and half was untouched.

"Well that’s one way out!" he said to the unconscious king as he eyed up the fighters.

Mak hurried across to the ladder of a double-seated fighter and step by step he struggled up, dropping the king into the rear seat. He settled down in the front seat, igniting the dekapod's engine as the fighter's boosters glowed with a high-energy blue. Mak pulled the pilot's hatch closed and prepared for take off.

*

Hawk boarded the dydrid transporter along with a squadron of fifty men. Jonas ran across to see Twain before they went their separate ways. They couldn't help but be reminded of the time they'd once before come so close to being separated, only this time the separation came with a much heavier burden than a simple goodbye.

"Good luck my friend," Jonas said to Twain.

"You too," Twain smiled.

"I know you'll find her!" Jonas said, instilling belief into the young boys heart.

"And Lynk will find the ice planet," said Twain.

"I'll see you again!"

Twain smiled with young innocent lips. "I don't doubt it," he said.

Jonas and Twain shook hands with a firm grip around each other's forearms. Neither had said so but they knew this could very well be the last hand shake they ever shared. Just as Jonas owed much to Witakker, he owed the same to Twain for helping him to make it so far. Their hands broke apart and Jonas watched Twain walk up the ship's ramp with a hope that carried the weight of the cosmos behind it, the hope that he would see his friend again.

Jonas didn't have much time for sentimentality. He ran on to catch up with his protectors, joining behind the escort of armoured laser-tanks and light-propelled choppers that cleared them a path ahead.

Dydrid attacks resumed in the streets. Jonas and the others knew they had to move swiftly before the fantoms wiped them out along with every other soldier of the Guard. With the skies above patrolled by the juniors dekapods and now clear for the Utopious to leave it was only the fantom infantry and a journey of a thousand star units that stood between them and retrieving the Elementis. Jonas only hoped that they could overcome the assault of the enemy soldiers, and should the necrofac be accurate in its tellings he then hoped with all of his heart that he or Calyx would be able to control the powers of the Elementis and destroy the Zohr.

*

In another part of town fantom soldiers paraded through the war-ravaged streets in marching ranks a hundred deep. A blast from within a mountain of rubble knocked a solid hole through to the outside. The fantoms turned, and energizing their guns to fire. Mak flew the fighter through the blast hole. "King coming through—make way please!" he screamed, releasing his cannons into the soldiers as they scrambled to the deck.

Mak flew up and over the city. "I know you don’t feel too great right now, just hold on back there. I'll get you some help real soon!" he said, talking over his shoulder, trying to keep the king from switching off.

The dekapod skimmed over deserted, flattened streets reaching the makeshift barracks of the stronghold where he'd last seen thousands of his fellow Guard. He looked around for any signs of them. "Where is everyone?" he said to himself.

Mak turned to the king, he was bleeding through the bandage Mak had tied around his side. "Looks like it’s just you and me, boss!" he said, fingering the touch screen buttons on the dash.

"Contingency Code? _ _ _" flashed onto the data-screen and Mak typed in 0 6 2.

The ships program thought for a second and spoke to Mak. "Contingency accepted," it confirmed in a robotic voice. Mak let go of the controls, he didn't know where he was headed, he was just glad the contingency code worked. The fighter turned and blasted straight up into the sky.

Chapter XIX

Trust

Running like wild fire past flame-ridden tanks and between the ruins of fallen buildings, Jonas, his entourage and thousands of Guard evaded the streams of fuming bolts shooting across their path. The angels above their heads, the gunmen of the light-propelled helicopters, shot spiralling lines of helix plasma down onto the fantom soldiers, melting their armour and metallic innards while the junior Guard sent a spree of laser cannon into the streets ahead.