Purge of Prometheus (16 page)

Keryn looked dejected as she collapsed in the snow next to the other two, ignoring the frigid cold that spread into her skin.
 
Adam pulled out a nutrient bar, the staple of their new diet.
 
Grimacing at the texture, he swallowed hard, forcing the rubbery food down his throat.
 
The Terran guard nearby gave them an erstwhile glance before turning and pacing further up the street, the light on his helmet adding to the strong illumination from mounted spotlights which filled the ruins in which they worked.
 
When he was far enough away, Keryn dropped the façade of being beyond exhaustion and the defiant look returned to her eyes.

Reaching into her thick winter jacket, Keryn pulled out a battered piece of paper.
 
Unfurling it on a piece of stone rubble, her lithe, tan fingers traced the outline of a crudely sketched city.
 
They had created the map over the past two weeks as they transferred through a myriad of work groups, clearing rubble from different parts of the city.
 
Overall, they had mapped the major locations of the Terran occupation force.

“We need to get off this planet.” she said bluntly.
 
“We can’t stay here.
 
I don’t know about you, but I have no intention of slowly but inevitably freezing to death.”
 
The other two nodded in agreement.
 
“We need a plan, something the Terrans won’t expect.
 
Ideas?”

Adam reached over, pointing to a collection of hastily drawn buildings near the easily identifiable crater.
 
“These are the barracks they established for the soldiers.
 
They’re prefabricated structures, the type that burn easily if given the right incentive.
 
We could take out most of their invading force with a couple well-placed explosives.”

Keryn shook her head.
 
“No, no, that won’t work.
 
We might be able to take out their entire occupation force in Miller’s Glen, but what’s to stop them from just glassing the planet from space after that?
 
No, we need something that won’t result in the entire city being destroyed… again.”

“Then we get out of the city,” Penchant suggested.
 
He pointed out a series of dotted lines that ran through all parts of the city.
 
“We have mapped the majority of their patrol routes and could easily avoid them.
 
We sneak out of the city one night after curfew and find another way off the planet.”

“We can avoid the patrols easily enough, but they’ve set up sensors all along the perimeter of the city,” Adam replied.
 
“We trip one of those and we’ll be lucky if they just set off an alarm.
 
More than likely, we’ll be triggering an explosive that will be just strong enough to amputate both our legs as a warning to others.
 
Anyways, where are we going to find help?
 
From everything I’ve heard, they’ve taken control of every major city just as efficiently as they did Miller’s Glen.
 
There’s no place left to go to on the planet”

“And smaller cities?” Penchant suggested.
 
“They might have small puddle-jumper ships that could get us off planet.”

Adam and Keryn both shook their heads.
 
“The Terrans glassed them all,” Adam explained.
 
“If it was too small to bother occupying, they just destroyed it.”
 
Adam raised his hand to stop Penchant’s inevitable next question.
 
“And getting a ship out of one of the warehouses here will be suicide.
 
We don’t have the access codes to get inside or open the bay doors on the roof.
 
And even if we did, we’d be swarmed with soldiers before we got off the planet.”

Keryn stood and stretched her legs.
 
She covered her eyes as she watched the other survivors eat their lunch meal, their clusters of groups spotting the white landscape.
 
Where they had trudged back and forth through the deep snow, the intersecting walkways had turned to brown mush as the snow was trampled underfoot.
 
By this evening, however, the new snow would have hidden any disturbance from the day before.
 
When they arrived for work tomorrow, the landscape would be pristine once more.

“There is another option,” Keryn said flatly, knowing how the others would respond.
 
They looked up from their meals.
 
“There is another ship out there.”
 
They had the same conversation at least three times previously, always with the same recommendation: just wait.
 
She was tired of waiting.
 
And, more importantly for her, the Voice was tired of waiting as well.
 
At night, when others had already fallen asleep for the night, the Voice crept into her thoughts, urging her into action.
 
She wasn’t sure if her resolve was weakening or if she genuinely agreed with its rhetoric, but she was starting to believe the Voice was right.

“We don’t know that the
Cair Ilmun
survived, Keryn,” Adam said chidingly.
 
“If you go out there, you could be walking into a trap.”
 
He put a hand on her strong calf.
 
“We couldn’t afford to lose you.”

Keryn looked down, surprised to see genuine compassion reflected in his eyes.
 
She wanted to reply, but the blaring whistle sounded again, notifying the workers that lunch was over.
 
Keryn quickly slipped the map back into her jacket.
 
The others stood, separating only slightly across the rubble to avoid suspicion, and began loading rocks into the back of the truck once more.

Adam passed her, heaving a large stone into the back of the flatbed truck.
 
As he walked past her again, he paused, his hand slipping affectionately around her waist.
 
“Promise me you’ll stay with me, just a little bit longer,” he whispered gently into her ear.
 
As Adam slipped past her and moved back into the rubble, Keryn stood both stunned and, to her surprise, yearning for his touch once more.
 
She stared after him, unsure of how to respond.

She lifted a few rocks absently and loaded them on the truck until her immediate area was clear of debris.
 
Glancing around, Keryn looked for the Terran guard who would quickly separate any survivors who strayed to close to one another for too long.
 
Congregating outside the sleeping areas was strictly forbidden under the new regime.
 
Not seeing the guard anywhere nearby, she meandered through the rubble until she was only a few feet away from Adam.
 
His back was still turned as he moved another stone and he hardly noticed as she stepped through the dirty mush that accumulated on the ground and stood by his side.

“I don’t think I have much of a choice,” she conceded, wanting to recapture the tender moment they shared a second ago.
 
“Even if I wanted to go, I have no idea how I would get out of the city unnoticed.”

A polite cough interrupted the two and they turned to find Penchant standing nearby.
 
“I think I might have found a solution to your problem.”
 
Gesturing, they followed his gaze to where he had been removing the rubble of a collapsed home.
 
Beneath the shifted rubble laid Keryn’s answer and her encounter with Adam fled from her mind.

On the ground where Penchant had been working laid an exposed sewer entrance.

CHAPTER 14:

Yen awoke with a start the following morning, his throbbing head sending sparks of white exploding in his vision.
 
Even from his prone place on the bed, he knew that trying to stand today would cause immeasurable suffering.
 
His requirements, including his meeting with the Captain on the bridge later that morning, forced him up.

Crawling from bed, his mind screaming in protest, he pulled his knees underneath him and tried to stand, using the bed as a support.
 
As his feet were pulled underneath him, a sickening sense of vertigo overwhelmed Yen and he staggered forward, dropping to his knees.
 
Bile rose, burning the back of his throat and causing him to gag.
 
Fighting off the pain in his skull, Yen rushed to the bathroom, sliding to his knees in front of the toilet only moments before he vomited violently into the bowl.
 
Yen stared in horror as he saw the water in the bowl turn bloody red, the coppery taste filling his mouth and dripping from his lips.
 
His vision hazed, wavering as though looking through a desert mirage.
 
Above his head, a sharp crack resounded, followed by a crash as his toiletry kit dropped from the sink’s countertop.
 
Looking up, Yen noticed the wavering tendrils of power, larger and more powerful than he had seen them before.
 
A single tendril pulled away from the now shattered mirror as another drew its length across the sink.
 
Still others curiously searched the shower to his right or rolled lazily up the length of the doorway.

Fear tightened like a belt around Yen’s chest.
 
The exertion of his power last night had left him drained, emotionally, physically, and mentally.
 
What worried him more, however, was that last night had acted like a catalyst, driving the power free from his body.
 
He watched as the tendrils, each the width of his leg, groped their way through the small bathroom.
 
Shaking his head, Yen knew that he didn’t stand a chance at containing the power in his present state.
 
Taking advantage of his weakness, the air around him whipped chaotically, shimmering and blurring the world around him.
 
Standing, he wiped the blood from his mouth and nose with a tissue before turning and walking back into the bedroom.
 
As he entered, he heard objects dislodge from on top of the dresser and shatter on the floor below.
 
A drawer blew free of the nightstand, crashing onto the floor, its contents erupting into the room like snowfall.
 
Yen staggered to the bed, his head throbbing as the power parasitically drew more and more power from his body, the tendrils now lashing out aggressively toward the few standing objects in the room.
 
Collapsing into bed, he pulled the pillow over his head in an attempt to block out the sound of destruction being caused by his wayward psychic energy.

Yen groaned and threw the pillow across the room as the pain refused to subside, echoing in metal spikes rocketing back and forth within his skull.
 
Snarling in a hollow gesture, he pushed himself into a seated position.
 
Crossing his legs, Yen closed his eyes and tried to block out the scraping of his power running its tendrils across the far walls.
 
Instead, he let his mind sink into itself, imagining a calming and empty plain of white.
 
He took deep breaths, practicing a meditation technique that he had used since the initial onset of his powers during puberty.
 
Wordlessly, he mouthed the same words over and over, a mantra to relax his body and mind.
 
He continued his mantra, straining his concentration against the growing pain in his head.
 
Slowly, the sound of his power’s destructive rage subsided.
 
His body shuddered, the pressure of maintaining his powers inside growing exponentially.
 
The world settled once more, no longer shimmering as though his body were exuding extreme heat.
 
He didn’t know how much time had passed since he began his meditation, but he truly didn’t care, knowing that it was safer for everyone if he regained some semblance of control before leaving his room.
 
He knew, however, that he would need to leave soon if he were to make his meeting on the bridge.

Throwing on his uniform, Yen paused at the dinning room table, staring at a half-filled glass that he never cleared from the night before.
 
Opening his hand and placing it on the far side of the table from the glass, Yen concentrated, focusing his wayward power on pulling the glass to him.
 
The simple action should have been thoughtless, especially after the impressive display of power earlier, but as a few minutes passed Yen had managed to do no more than rattle the glass in place.
 
Gritting his teeth, he tried again, straining to pull the glass across the slick table.
 
Rocking back the forth, the glass responded to his power but refused to move.
 
Yen clenched his hand into a fist.
 
His vision narrowing, Yen stared at the glass; the veins at his temples and on his forehead pulsed with the exertion.
 
The glass began rattling, rolling dangerously on its edge but not tipping or spilling the remnants of the wine within.
 
Darkness crept into the edges of Yen’s vision and his breathing became labored as consciousness threatened to leave him.
 
Straining still, Yen leapt backward as the glass shot from the table, flying across the room before shattering into the cupboards within the kitchen.
 
Where the fragile glass had struck, the wood was splintered from the explosive impact.
 
Yen stared in surprise at the unleashed power, cursing himself for still lacking the control he desired.
 
Absently, he used the back of his hand to wipe away the blood that seeped from his nostril as he felt the pain in his head swelling once more.