Epic of Aravinda 1: The Truth Beyond the Sky (19 page)

“Avani?”

“You have known it intuitively since you first set foot onto its silvery sands.”

“But it is only a hatchling world. Zahn is the only Avanian on record who has ever left his star system.”

“There is much you shall learn. There was once a time when your worlds behaved as brothers, and we see that a Great Reunion may yet occur. But Avani is under great threat, Oonak. We have sensed the corruption of space around the Kuvela system, and all reconnaissance missions have failed to return.”

“What must I do?”

“Contact the council when you have ascertained the fate of Darshana, and we will provide further instructions. Until then, all must be vigilant. If you are successful, there may yet be a Great Reunion in the Stars. Even this council is but a fragment of a Greater Council that was ruptured long ago. Indeed, all is temporary in this galaxy. Even separation.”

“Thank you, Council.”

“In closing, we are exceedingly proud of you and your world. Your people have made an admirable first step, and you may exit our world by the same method you arrived. We have already configured the portal to send you to a point just beyond the edge of the nebula. This will allow maximum safety for your approach. Do you understand all that we have said here?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then we have no doubt that we will be seeing you in the future. Remember, we will be there helping you in hidden ways, though you will not be able to perceive us. We leave you now in the Truth of the Infinite Creator. We are of Amithya.”

Oonak felt pulled back to his body. In an instant, it felt as though he had covered a great distance, and soon the light of the dome was filtering through his eyelids once more.

He took a deep breath, and his body felt fresh.

“There you are! I’m sorry I woke myself up, Oon,” Zahn said. “It’s hard to remain calm when I know that my mother is alive. Can you believe it? It’s incredible! All those times up on Zikhara Peak, my intuition really was right. She had been taken, and I’m the only person from Avani who knows.”

“And now we are going to find her, Zahn.”

“She’s alive?” Asha’s face lit up. “That’s wonderful, Zahn! From what you told me, it seemed like your mind was doubtful, but your heart knew she was alive all along, didn’t it? Don’t you see? If you trust it, the heart knows.”

“I guess you’re right. I guess sometimes the heart is a lot smarter than the brain.” Zahn smiled. “But I’ve got to ask, and I don’t mean to put a lot of pressure on you, but do you think you’ll be able to do anything for her when we find her? If we find her.”

“We
will
find her, Zahn. I won’t deny that I still have a long way to go, but I have learned some fundamental techniques from them. Whatever condition we find her in, I will do everything I can to help strengthen her. You have my word.”

“Thanks, Asha. That means a lot to me. And Oonak, I don’t think I have any words for how grateful I am for your offer to help me… I don’t know what I’d do without you and Asha.”

“Zahn,” Oonak said, “without you I would most likely still be stranded back on Avani.”

The dome room seemed brighter than before, and Zahn blinked a few times to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. His head felt bright and filled with energy, and when his feet touched solid ground once more, his body seemed like unnecessary weight compared to the experience of weightlessness he’d just emerged from.

At the end of each of their stone beds, there were now transparent cups that contained a golden liquid. Zahn lifted his cup. It smelled sweet and fresh.

“What do you think this is, Oon?” Asha wondered.

Oonak examined the liquid.

“Could it be? Have they really given us amrita?”

“What’s that?” Zahn said.

“In our communication with the Transcendent Worlds, we learned of a golden drink that contained more vital energy than any other known substance. They called it amrita. The council must have given some to us to speed us along in our journey. We are truly blessed. Be sure to give thanks before you drink it. Gratitude itself is said to increase its effectiveness.”

Zahn closed his eyes and thanked the Amithyans, intending that they would be as blessed as much as they had blessed him and his friends, and drank the golden liquid. Asha and Oonak did the same, and when it reached their bellies they felt as if their entire stomachs had been wrapped in a blanket of love. This feeling spread to their entire body. Within minutes, they felt energized and more vibrant than they had felt in a long time.

When they were back outside, Zahn realized why the dome room had seemed brighter. While they had been inside, the sky had brightened considerably.

Oonak walked over to the shimmering starship.

“Navika, have they completed repairs on the timespace drive? How do you feel?”

“I have truly never been better,” Navika replied, “and the jagrul creature is waiting inside. It appears to be hungry.”

“The what?” Asha said, catching up to them.

“Don’t worry, Asha. We’ll explain it all on the way to the portal. What’s important is that my mother is alive, and there is no power in this galaxy that will stop me from rescuing her now.”

CHAPTER
27

AN ODD LITTLE CREATURE

On their way down the wide tunnel to the portal, Zahn told Asha all that had happened while she was with the healers.

Oddly enough, the wide tunnel was now empty of water. It wasn’t until the iris at the bottom opened that a stream of water sprayed out and filled the tunnel. As they descended, the jagrul landed on Asha’s shoulder, nibbled her ear, and then nuzzled up against her neck.

The jagrul was quite an odd little creature. The council had not mentioned how remarkably similar it was to a small bird. It could even fly, and its green-blue plumage reminded Zahn of the murmur birds back on Avani, except that it had voluminous eyes containing large black pupils. The effect was slightly unsettling, but Asha couldn’t keep her hands off of it.

Ahead, Zahn saw that the portal was now shining brightly.

“The council has configured this portal to send us just beyond the edge of the Nirananda Nebula where Zahn’s mother has been detected. Prepare yourselves.”

Like a fish going down the drain, Navika tumbled into the already spinning vortex, transforming everything in their vision into perfect light.

Zahn wasn’t surprised to see a reversal of what he had experienced when they had first used the portal to reach Amithya. He saw the light resolve itself into a radiant sphere and then race away until it became a single point of light in an absolute void. Soon, even the single point of light disappeared, and for a moment he felt as though they might be the only three people left in the galaxy.

Then, the joy rushed over him once more.

The perfect darkness transformed itself into perfect light, and a feeling of joy and profound happiness overtook him. It seemed as though the entire ship was suspended in nothing but pure light. For a moment, he felt as though he was connected to every beating heart in the galaxy, and the feeling was indescribable. It simply overwhelmed him, and everything around him fell away.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself looking out onto a vast array of stars once more. He took a deep breath and looked over to Asha who was looking at him inquisitively.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“Did you feel that? That feeling of connectedness? It happened last time we went through one of those portals, too.”

“Yes…” Asha said. “What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know. Oon?”

Zahn looked behind him, up to where Oonak was sitting. He seemed focused on something, but after a few seconds he looked down to them.

“Are you both okay?” Oonak said.

“I think so. Just stunned,” Zahn said. “What was that feeling of joy as we went through the portal? It happened the first time, too, but it never happened when we used the gate network. Do you have any idea why?”

Oonak paused to consider this.

“I do not know. However, I would hypothesize that whatever portal system the Transcendent Worlds use, it is far more advanced than the ancient gate system.”

“How so?”

“I’m sorry. I am not able to provide further information. However, I do have good news. We have arrived near the edge of the Nirananda Nebula, just as the council predicted.”

“Why can’t I see it?” Zahn said.

“It is a dark nebula. You will see its outline against the stars soon enough.”

Asha put out her hand to the jagrul which was now walking around the cabin. It scampered around a bit before circling back to her and sniffing her hand absentmindedly.

“So, how do we use this little guy?”

“You mean the jagrul? That’s a good question,” Zahn said. “Oon, do you think it’s enough to just show the lens to it?”

“I would place the lens beside it and observe its behavior.”

Zahn scooted over to make room between him and Asha, reached into his pocket, and set the lens on the seat between them. Asha reached out her finger for the jagrul to step onto. It did, and she moved her hand down to the small lens lying on the seat. Once her finger was near it, the jagrul jumped off her finger and smelled it.

“This was my mother’s,” Zahn said. “Where is she now?”

The jagrul whistled quietly, walked around the lens, and chirped repeatedly.

“What’s it doing?”

“As I mentioned before,” Navika said, “while I don’t have prior experience with this life form, I hypothesize that it is hungry.”

“How do you know?” Asha said.

“All passengers are scanned upon entering, and I observed that this creature’s stomach, although rather exotic, is nonetheless quite empty.”

“Look under the seat,” Oonak said. “Some emergency rations are kept there, including some seeds from Sumanas.”

Asha soon found them in a thin packet and emptied them out onto the floor. Within moments the jagrul had eaten them up. When it was done, it flew back up to the bench and examined the lens once more.

Strangely, it opened its mouth and stood perfectly still.

For some time, Asha and Zahn couldn’t figure out what it was doing. At first, Zahn wondered if it might be hungry again, but when he looked back at the view ahead of them, he noticed a green point that was marking a dark area of space ahead.

“Why is Navika indicating the nebula with a marker?”

“He is not,” Oonak said.

Zahn looked back at the small jagrul. It hadn’t moved at all. Its mouth was still open, and Zahn moved his hand in front of its mouth. Sure enough, the green point shined onto the palm of his hand, and when he removed his hand, the green marker shone once again onto a spot within the dark nebula ahead.

“Oonak, follow that point of light. My mother has waited to be rescued for long enough.”

CHAPTER
28

THE STOLEN MOON

As they slipped into the Nirananda Nebula, they occasionally saw the twinkle of a star peek through, but because it was so dark, it was difficult to discern the nebula’s true size.

On the way inside, Oonak was careful to minimize any chances of them being detected. All weapons were cooled down, and the cloaking cells were working at near peak efficiency ever since the council had repaired them back on Amithya.

After a few minutes, they exited the other side of a dark patch of dust and saw a slightly bluish star up ahead. To Zahn’s delight, the jagrul’s green marker was just beside it.

“Navika has detected six planets in the system that the jagrul has indicated. Several of them have moons,” Oonak said.

An alarm rang throughout the ship.

“We’re being hit with an intense radiation pulse which is disrupting the cloak,” Oonak announced. “The radiation is emanating from the star up ahead.”

“Don’t all stars emit radiation?”

“We’ve just been hit by another pulse. This is not an ordinary star, Zahn. It’s a pulsar. A slow-phase pulsar, but still powerful. Such high-intensity energy pulses coming every few seconds is overloading the cloaking cells, causing some energy to leak back out into space, which means our cloak is severely compromised. We need to find cover from these pulses as soon as possible.”

The jagrul was still projecting a small green marker onto Navika’s transparent wall. Zahn noticed that it indicated the crescent shape of a moon.

“A moon? The jagrul says our destination is a moon.”

“Yes, the moon of Hataaza Darad,” Oonak said. “However we must seek cover before—Wait.”

Something on Zahn’s left caught his eye. It was a jagged black shape, so dark that light itself seemed to fall into it. In moments, it blocked their entire view of the port side of the ship, and Zahn had trouble discerning its true size. Occasionally, it would disappear completely for a moment, only to reappear in the same spot, and he guessed that the pulsar was disrupting its cloak just as it was disrupting Navika’s.

He didn’t have much time to think about this, because only a few seconds later three dark vortexes appeared in front of them.

“Zahn, under your seat is a mindcap. It will read your thoughts. Put it on and use it to direct Navika’s fire while I maneuver the ship.”

Zahn fumbled around and put on the cap which was made of a thin cloth covered in a mesh of thin, bright fibers. It fit him surprisingly well.

Outside, more vortexes were forming around the ship.

“Okay, but how do I aim?” Zahn said.

Oonak sent the ship diving down, perpendicular to the star to avoid impacting the vortexes ahead. Even though he couldn’t actually feel the ship turn sharply, the sight still made Zahn feel space-sick for a moment.

“Just see the beam going where you want it to go. The battle grid will help guide you, and the cap will interpret your thoughts. I need you to help fight them off until we can find cover.”

“What do I do?” Asha said.

“I’m sorry, but I only have one extra mindcap. In this situation, you are a better asset to the mission if you leverage your healing abilities. Did the Amithyans teach you how to reinforce someone’s energy field?”

“Yes.”

“Then keep your focus on Zahn. He has never done this before. He’ll need it.”

Outside, another loathsome shadow appeared ahead of them, and five more vortexes were forming around the ship. Once Zahn had put on the mindcap, a red grid appeared all around him, and wherever he looked, a corresponding red square flickered. He imagined Navika’s twin plasma cannons firing at the closest shadow, and almost like magic, two painfully bright bolts of white plasma converged from either side of the ship and impacted onto the shield of one of the shadowed ships. He marveled at how quickly his thoughts became reality.

Zahn thought he could see the outline of the ship, a haunting shape that froze his thinking for a moment.

“Keep firing, Zahn! We’re almost in the moon’s shadow.”

As Oonak maneuvered, Zahn felt disoriented as the stars streaked across his vision, yet the red grid remained oriented on their foes, making it somewhat easier to keep his aim. He also felt Asha’s support.

The mindcap made Zahn’s thoughts seem sharper and more solid somehow. He fired on where he guessed the first craft was and then back at the second. Oonak had to maneuver wildly to keep from being pulled into the gravity wells that were multiplying around the ship. Ahead, Zahn saw that they were heading straight toward one.

Oonak accelerated and narrowly missed the edge of the vortex, and the two shadows pulled far ahead of them.

“Are they retreating?” Zahn said.

“Unknown. Stay focused.”

Once they were a certain distance away, both ships held position ahead of them, and Zahn took that opportunity to fire on them both. As he did, plasma bolts impacted onto their hulls.

But it was too easy. Why weren’t they moving?

Zahn continued firing, theoretically doing more damage to their ships. Exactly how much, he was unsure because they were so completely dark. For a spilt second between pulsar pulses, they disappeared once more, and Zahn caught a glimpse of what they were in front of.

They weren’t creating a blockade, they were in front of an enormous vortex that was forming right behind them.

Both of them fired piercingly green beams into the vortex, causing it to grow at an alarming pace.

The circular disc of the moon was now clearly visible ahead as four more massive shadows approached them from behind.

“Oonak, do you see that? That’s the largest vortex I’ve seen them make yet.”

“And four more are approaching behind us,” Asha said.

“What do we do?”

“Improvise.” Oonak abruptly sent the ship racing upwards. Zahn realized that there was no ‘up’ in space, but relative to the cabin, he perceived their course as heading upward.

“Brace yourselves. We’re going to make a hyper-local timespace jump.”

“What does that mean?” Asha said.

Before he could answer, the space around the ship became stretched and unreal, as if a child had painted the scene in watercolor and left it out in the rain.

The interior of the ship roared, and Zahn watched as the moon below slowly faded away. They weren’t flying away. It was simply dematerializing.

“Oonak, what’s happening?”

“As we accelerate,” Oonak said over the growing roar, “it may appear that everything is dematerializing around us, but in truth,
we
are what is dematerializing.”

“Isn’t that bad?!” Zahn yelled over the roar.

“No!” Oonak yelled. “Don’t worry. As we phase out of spacetime, we phase into timespace.”

Although they couldn’t feel it, Asha and Zahn guessed that the ship was accelerating to fantastic speeds. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem fast enough. Four of the Vakragha ships were growing closer.

Zahn looked back at Oonak and noticed that his eyes were once again closed. He was smiling, and although no one could see it, bright flecks of light raced within Navika’s nucleus at a frenzied pace.

As if they were a bad dream fading away, the four ships and everything around them faded to darkness as a narrow vortex formed in front of the ship. As it formed, Zahn felt as though the vortex was somehow inside of his own mind, as well.

In a flash, Zahn caught a glimpse of a blinding corridor of pure light. An instant later, there was another flash as they reentered the Ocean of Space, and the roar of the ship gradually returned to a hum.

Below them was the night side of a large, barren moon.

“Whew, that was close.” Zahn looked around. “We’re still in the nebula?”

“Yes,” Oonak said. “We have jumped to the dark side of one of the nearby moons. The prison moon that we seek is on the other side of this planetary system. Thankfully though, here we are shielded from the pulsar’s radiation so our cloaking cells will work properly.”

Asha and Zahn breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“So that was the timespace drive in action? Kind of takes the idea of a shortcut to a whole new level. Why didn’t you do that sooner?” Asha said.

“The timespace drive needs time to calibrate. Once ready, the ship needs to reach a certain relative velocity to dematerialize.”

Zahn looked down to the dark surface of the moon.

“I’m just glad we got out of that alive. Those ships weren’t just dark. They completely absorbed all light that touched them. Do all Vakragha ships look like that?”

“Navika and I have only come into contact with a few, but all of them followed that pattern, yes.”

“So what do we do? If we can’t fly to our destination from here because the Vakragha ships will suck us into oblivion, how are we going to get to where my mother is?”

“What about the gate system?” Asha said. “Is it possible that there’s a gate down on the moon that we could use?”

“Not just possible, it’s provable,” Oonak said. “Navika has already detected a gate on the surface below, and no life signs are present. We are about to begin our descent.”

As Zahn removed the mindcap and slowly folded it up, Asha sensed his anxiety and looked over to him.

“Don’t worry, Zahn. If she’s survived out here this long, it means that she has been holding on, and if she’s been holding on, it means she still has the will to live.” Asha paused for a moment. “No matter how good of a healer I could ever become, I could never give someone that. It’s a choice only they can make.”

Zahn looked over and considered her words. He thought about how things could be different after he returned home.
Would she ever consider living on Avani? Was it worth asking?

Below, the moon became larger.

The surface of the moon was barren and rusty with a peppering of small, eroded mountains. Once they were near the ground, Oonak surveyed the area that the gate’s gravity signature was emanating from, finding a small cave leading into the side of one of the mountains. They followed it down a few hundred meters, blasted through part of a collapsed tunnel, and followed it into a large, dark cavern.

Upon illuminating the space, they found that the gate was covered in debris and dust. It looked as though it hadn’t been touched in millennia.

When Oonak set the ship down beside the gate and told Zahn and Asha to put spacesuits on, Zahn was confused.

“Aren’t we going to fly in?”

“No. We have no way of knowing the full reality of the situation on the other side. For all we know, it leads to a narrow passage, in which case Navika would have no way to maneuver without attracting the attention of every creature within 100 klicks of the gate. Even worse, that gate may lead to the daytime side of the moon, exposing us to the pulsar and causing our cloaking cells to become useless. If that were to happen, we would have to face the Hataazans directly.”

“Who?” Zahn asked.

“On the other side of that gate is Hataaza Darad, a world completely controlled by the Vakragha Dominion. The Hataazans are their tortured slaves, massive and vicious. Some even claim that the Vakragha created them. We must be vigilant. I have placed each of your resonators in your suits’ holsters. They do not fit perfectly, but they are adequate for now.”

“Thanks.” Asha patted her holster. “Much better than pockets, that’s for sure.”

“We’ll be fine,” Zahn said.

After doing a quick check to confirm that they could hear each other through their suits’ comms, they headed outside where their suits quickly confirmed that the air was far from breathable. The place was so dusty that Zahn wouldn’t want to breathe the air even if he could. Every time they moved, they kicked up a small cloud of reddish dust which stuck to their boots.

“Oon, I just realized something, ” Zahn said as he stared at the gate’s lifeless controls.

“What is it, Zahn?”

“Well, how are we going to get this gate to work? After all, you said that these gates are tuned for their inhabitants, and none of us were born on this moon. We don’t even know what kind of life might have lived here.”

“None of us are tuned to activate this gate. I’ve already tried each of our patterns, so I’ve instructed Navika to broadcast every DNA pattern in his memory to it. He has been transmitting codes to the gate since we landed, so I’m sure—”

As Asha examined it, the console flared to life, and the flash startled her for a moment.

“There!” Asha said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“But Oon,” Zahn said, “why didn’t you do that when you crashed on Avani? Why ask for my help?”

“Have you so quickly forgotten? The gate would not respond to me, no matter what I tried.”

“So what DNA worked just now?” Zahn said.

Oonak looked up, as though he were trying to remember something, but by now Zahn knew that was the face he made when Navika was telling him something through his mental link. While he watched Oonak, he heard a ringing in his right ear, but since he was wearing a space suit he couldn’t do much about it.

“Taarakani DNA?” Oonak said. “That cannot be true…”

Asha walked up to them, carrying the jagrul in a colorless, airtight sphere. “Why? Where is Taarakani?”