Rift Breaker (28 page)

‘Gift?'

‘The gift of the Rift Breaker. The gift stolen from us. You are our miracle.'

Milton felt an incredible rage brew inside. A rage he did not know what to do with. He shouted his protests but Reelai muted him.

Then he saw himself, his own face, through a section of mineral that had been made transparent. His hair was wavy as he seemed to be trapped in a compartment of clear liquid. He stepped back — no — the one whose eyes he was looking through stepped back and turned round. Then he saw three Xoeloid scientists. Standing and watching. Then a Human walked in! Milton wanted to know more. He studied the man, his movements, his speech, everything. He was surrounded by Composite guards similar to the ones he saw on Lubric. The man was called Leroy; he was a fleet commander. Leroy examined a
monitor and grinned in excitement. He approached Reelai with a spring in his step. ‘When are you planning on descending?' he asked.

‘Now,' Reelai's voice replied.

‘They're using the Nimbus you know,' said Leroy. ‘I've always hated that thing. My only regret is that Raegar isn't alive to see it go.'

Commander Raegar, the one from Poria, was dead? Milton remembered now. He had been on Poria and then travelled to Cenyulone with Raegar. And now he was … somewhere else.

The conversation prompted in him a sense of what was to happen. The presence of armies, waiting in dark holds, priming weapons with strong desires to slaughter; the thoughts held his heart in great disturbance.

Reelai spoke again. ‘Tell me everything you know about the defences.'

‘Gladly,' Leroy replied.

Leroy's explanation was cut short. Milton dropped from the set of eyes, the image of Leroy shrank and his voice faded away. Reelai swiftly banished Milton from prying into any and all Xoeloid minds. Even in thought, he was their slave.

Milton woke … again, to blackness. A dripping sound echoed. He was standing and surprised he had free movement of his body, although he wasn't sure if he was blind or not. He reached forward into the space in front of him. Nothing. He stepped forward and touched a surface — a tube of some kind. He found more, they were pipes. Milton followed them down a
wall, trailing his hands along. A light appeared ahead. With more confidence he increased his pace, relieved he still had vision.

Milton stepped into the weak glow of a ceiling bulb. He didn't recognise anything. Cobwebs and dust covered pipes of different sizes running in, out and along the walls, which were lined with pale green plastic panels.

A heavy grinding noise ahead. A sliver of light appeared further down the hall. A sliding door scraped open, its moving parts dry and dirty. Rusted particles sprinkled from its surface. A moving form cast shadows through the weak glow. Long brown digits extended into the corridor. Milton stepped back. The fingers curled around the edge of the door. With an abrupt scrape the door was thrust wide open.

A tall silhouette emerged, inching into the light with an uncurling of fingers and a slight roll of thin arms. The creature wore a tattered light brown cloth. Milton inched back into the dark and silently crouched against the wall behind the jutting clump of pipes. He readied himself to run. The creature slowly turned, scanning its surroundings. Milton tensed. Without shifting its footing, the creature's body twisted and its gaze snapped behind.

Upon seeing the haunting black eyes, Milton wanted to run, but he froze. He didn't seem to have complete control of his body. Even though the monster looked directly at him, it didn't notice. It turned back, pivoting its large head. The creature continued down the corridor.

Milton followed cautiously. The creature passed through a cloud of vapour spewing from a broken pipe. Milton jogged forward and used the steam as cover. He walked into the mist. Strangely the cloud was neither hot nor cold. When on the other side he found the creature stopped. It stood motionless in the corridor. Milton was about to step back when it took off at a faster pace. He went after it.

It turned into another passage, with an unbroken focus on its new direction. This passage was narrower, the creature ducked under low sections of ceiling and slid between vertical pipes; it slowed as it disappeared into a chamber at the end. Milton peered in and found a long rectangular room. Along the wall stood bubbles of transparent plastic or glass. Ten of them, tilted back at an angle of thirty or forty degrees.

The creature went further into the room and Milton walked slowly at a distance. Behind the dusty transparent shielding, Milton made out something. He approached the bubble. Inside the shell lay an old man. His eyes were sunken into their sockets. His flaky skin was dry and peeling. The faint glow of a readout screen above reflected on the bubble. The cracked screen showed a faint horizontal line.

Milton stepped back. Above the other pods, the screens were all the same, except one, which had a small jump on its line. The creature had stopped there.

Brown fingers wrapped around the sides of the container. The bubble cracked and creaked. One final crunch and the outer
casing came free. The creature discarded the covering to the side and loomed over the inhabitant.

Inside, a young Human woman lay on her back. She was about Milton's age. She was beautiful. Her red dress, dotted with yellow flowers, loosely covered her swollen belly. The monster leaned inside the pod.

‘Hey,' Milton yelled.

The creature ignored him. Milton charged forward, not knowing what to do. He gained as much momentum as he could and jumped into the creature. He passed straight through its body and stumbled to a halt. He turned, confused. The creature was a hologram? Or a ghost perhaps?

The creature reached in and took the woman. Everything flashed white.

Milton stood in a different space. He couldn't make out any walls. He glanced about to find his bearings. Looking back, he saw an image of the room he was just in. It had a circular frame around it. The border had threads of light with tongues of tiny stars licking away from it. It shrunk into a speck and disappeared.

The woman lay on a platform; two of the black-eyed creatures emerged from the dark and flanked her. He was looking at the Vellnoa. The beings Reelai had told him about. Neither of them acknowledged him. It seemed that he, not they, was the ghost.

The woman's eyelids fluttered and opened. Her gaze travelled up one of the creatures. Upon seeing its face, her mouth dropped. She lifted her head anxiously. The Vellnoa took her hand. She
turned over her palm and squeezed the creature's hand tight, bringing her other up to her belly.

She took a deep breath and looked again into its eyes. When her lungs emptied, her head dropped and her gaze defocused. The Vellnoa rested her hand back to the platform.

Another one of the creatures entered slowly, limping out of the darkness. Its thin brown skin sagged off its skull and thin frame. It walked with a cane made of shiny rock and wore a thick dark garment that flowed to the floor. It stood over the woman and reached forth a withered hand.

One of the others perked up. The other one gave it eye contact, which evoked an uneasy calm. The older Vellnoa touched the woman's belly. A glow strengthened under its touch. The old creature began to shake. Its eyes flickered between white and black and it started to violently convulse. Again, everything flashed white.

Milton now watched over a healthy Human baby, contained in a new transparent bubble. He was startled when he saw the three other Vellnoa standing across from him doing the same.

The older one was different. Its brown face was blemished with a few dark spots that weren't there previously. It was somehow thinner and more wrinkled; shivering and frail, it leaned against the cane. One of the other Vellnoa came to its side in aid.

The baby smiled. Milton couldn't help but grin back. It reached up to him with tiny grabbing hands. When he looked
up again, all three Vellnoa were staring directly at him with glistening, black, focused eyes.

‘Do you see now?' he heard them think.

The baby's eyes sparkled with microscopic stars. He had encountered eyes like these before. With that came a revelation that struck against the core of Milton Lance's soul.

Twenty-four

Raegar's surgically welded wound stung when he moved his lower left arm. The captain's chair of the
Raticia
only had two armrests, but was sufficient for the time being. The seat itself was also uncomfortable. He adjusted it many times and still he could not find a suitable position for his shape. He had also ordered the dimming of the above staging lights, as he was not accustomed to the default lighting level.

Objections arose pertaining to him leading the defence on Cenyulone. The defence chiefs felt they were being usurped and argued the matter. ‘Welcome to my universe,' Raegar had said. Jhaia had pointed out that the old Kharla had more experience defending Cenyulone than everyone in the room and this fact settled the matter with the overseers. The young ones were quite excited at the new directive.

The design of the bridge placed his crew ahead of him on lower levels. Just in front of him, a few of his crew gathered
around a tactical table that presented a real-time holographic layout of the Nimbus and positioning fleet.

The remaining defence fleet was made up of medium class vessels with the exception of a large one, the
Dwarve
, which hovered to the rear of the formation.

The others were of a relatively new design, the same as the
Raticia
. Its main body, long, tall and thin, had the heaviest weaponry fronted. It widened at the top to support an oval armoured shell on top of which accommodated rows of defence weaponry and a fighter deployment shaft between. A section of the shell, as narrow as the body, curved down the front face and housed the bridge. An inverted triangle made up the forward pane, which extended over the captain's head. The other defence vessels could be seen above, drifting slowly into position.

Below, Tranquillian Composite forces scrambled to fortify the Nimbus. The weapon transports constituted of carriages, coupled with energy beams. Twenty of them snaked sluggishly along the platform curve, lowering the mobile defence batteries. The weapons were evenly spaced along the platform, the basic layout from the civil war.

He adjusted the holographic image and enlarged a section of the Nimbus. The barrel of the cannon with its multiple weapons systems raised to the sky. Tech personnel scurried around it, assembling, activating and welding. The ammunition caches were unpacked and placed in the autoloader, a shielded section to the
weapon's rear, housing a conveyor belt that shifted when a reload was required.

An anti-aircraft mech walker oversaw its assembly. Several hundred patrolled the platform. By now they would have completed their system and mobility checks. Their ability to move quickly and their extensive array of missiles made them ideal units to protect the defence batteries for as long as possible.

The holographic display enlarged again and turned the Nimbus transparent. Down in the city, the last of the non-military transports and craft took off from hangars and docks. Adhering to the evacuation plan, they formed designated groups, speeding out in orderly lines into the surrounding hills to gather at the regional centres dotted about the planet.

The fleet commander's attention was forced from the layout when a flash shined in the corner of his eye. Orientating his gaze, he caught a glimpse of a twinkling piece of dust, crossing the front of the ship.

Raegar immediately rose from his seat and descended the steps to the front. Walking to the window, he placed his hands on the pane and looked in the direction the spark had travelled. Below and to the right, specks of light, the same light he'd seen on the Poria outpost, clustered below the
Raticia
's nose. They swirled anticlockwise in a mass as wide as the ship. He looked out to the distance. A wall of the anomalies formed around the entire fleet. He turned from the window.

‘I want a drop in altitude right now,' he yelled, rushing back to his chair.

He summoned the main channel and addressed the fleet.

‘The attack has begun,' he started. ‘Red group position three fifty and gold group at two seventy. The distortions in the sky are hostile; reform your positions now.'

Thrusters fired up across the sky and the fleet moved sluggishly from their positions. Half of the fleet ascended above the forming warpholes and the other half joined the
Raticia
and dropped altitude.

‘Target the light,' he said. The system could not obtain a lock but the primary weapons pointed in the general direction. Raegar watched the crosshairs on his side monitor. The swirls began to condense.

The bridge rocked with an intense blast that threw Raegar to the side of his seat.

‘The shot came from below sir,' yelled a voice.

Through the window, heavy blasts rose from the ground and exploded against the underside of the Composite vessels.

‘On screen,' said Raegar.

The forward pane displayed a view from the underside of the ship. The city was gone. A large black blob obscured the view. Two jagged vessels of the enemy dwelled inside. They unleashed another blast into the
Raticia
's shield. The communication channel amassed with chatter of panicking captains. Behind the pane image, one of the allied ships dropped at the nose
and careered in a downward spiral. Raegar activated the communicator and addressed the fleet. ‘All red group members taking damage from below, drop site destroyers.'

‘Over the city?' came back a worried voice.

‘Do it,' he shot back.

The orb-ike bombs rained into the warpholes. A blanket of muffled explosions filled the display. After the fifth deployment, the enemy backed off. The edge of the warphole began to ripple and shake and the specs dispersed off the rim.

‘Cease fire,' screamed the Commander.

The warphole suddenly shrank and disappeared. Across the city, volleys of remaining bombs dropped. Raegar ordered the forward pane clear and revealed the cityscape. Mushroom clouds sprouted between the skyscrapers, forcing them to crumple away from the blasts like dying trees. Shockwaves spread through the streets, crippling the architecture, scattering abandoned vehicles and toppling buildings.