The Chronicles of Soone: Rebellion's Fate Page 5

  “Sir, the portal is gone!” he whispered harshly.

  “What?”

  Grod, Wynn and Tiet ran to the doorway and peered in. The portal was simply not there—no symbytes, no nothing.

  “Grod, could they have blocked the portal somehow, jammed the transmission?” asked Tiet.

  “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.”

  Then a sound rang overhead, like a speaker coming on somewhere.

  “Hello, General Grod, I assume you have Tiet with you and perhaps even the clever Wynn Gareth? No matter, this is not a social call.”

  “It’s that thing that’s taken over Estall,” said Tiet.

  “You may have noticed that your escape route back to Nagon-Toth is missing. That is, Nagon-Toth is now missing. And in a few seconds you will join them. Where can you run when your world goes boom?”

  “A bomb!” said Wynn and Tiet, looking at each other.

  “We’ll never get out of here in time,” said one of the soldiers.

  “The chamber where they kept Tiet; is it strong enough?” asked Grod quickly.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  ☼

  Lucin was still speaking through the voice of Estall, but they were too busy running to listen. Onboard his transport, he watched the monitor and the group of soldiers that were running back out of the room. He reached for the control panel and keyed in a code for the device he had left in the detention center. It wasn’t as powerful as the one which had been sent through the transgate portal to take out Nagon-Toth, but it would be sufficient to destroy the detention center. He pressed the button to detonate. The monitor went blank as he looked out the window at the jungle terrain of the wilds passing below. That’s one problem solved. Now to find the boy.

  ASSIMILATION

  When the door to the detention chamber opened again, the control room beyond was gone. Only fire remained. As the team looked out of their hold, they could see that most of the buildings superstructure had been blown away by the bomb that had been planted. But at least they were still alive.

  The group emerged quickly and found a trail through the rubble and fiery debris. As they came beyond the building’s perimeter it became apparent that the buildings around were damaged from the blast as well. Several of them looked structurally unsound.

  They reformed their group as screams came to their ears. People were being attacked, maybe hundreds of them. The blast site was clear of people all around, but when the team rounded the corner of a nearby building they could see hundreds of people being stunned and attacked by thousands upon thousands of symbyte-controlled citizens.

  The team stayed in the shadows, watching as mobs of the creatures, which had formerly been normal people, ravaged through the streets attacking any non-symbyte they could find. Once they had someone, their hands burst into spiny tentacles that were then plunged down the throats of their victims delivering the seed of the creature into its host. Tiet, Wynn and Grod watched in horror as the victims were left on the ground gasping only to rise again within minutes under the control of the beast within.

  “There are too many to fight,” said Grod.

  “He’s right,” said Tiet, “We’ve got to withdraw. We need a ship to get to the wilds and help Mirah and the boys.”

  “Are you sure Mirah is with them?” asked Grod.

  “I just sense it. They’re safe for the moment, but Kale must know he’s being followed.”

  “We could probably make it to the West Quarter Hangar without too much trouble,” suggested Wynn.

  “Wait—look,” said one of the team members.

  When they looked behind them, they saw a young Castillian girl, no more than four years old, staring at them with a blank expression on her face from an alley. She looked like she had been through a rough time and her clothes were tattered and torn with several blood stains visible.

  “Come here, little girl,” said one of the team members.

  The little girl waited until a large group of symbytes were coming down the alley behind her.

  “Come on, hurry!” shouted the team member again to the little girl.

  The girl pointed her finger at the team and hissed loudly as the symbytes passed on by her and began to fire at the team.

  “She’s one of them!” shouted Grod. He fired his plasma weapon into the approaching crowd.

  “They’re coming from over here too!” said Tiet as he drew a kemstick and began to repel incoming blaster fire.

  “They’re mentally linked to one another,” said Wynn. “We’ve got to get out of here fast or they’ll be on us from every direction!”

  The group ran as fast as they could toward the West Quarter Hangar almost a mile away from their position. They returned fire as they ran from the growing mob of symbytes. Some were armed and others, probably recently assimilated to the organism, were not. The blasters they were using were set to the maximum setting. They definitely weren’t trying to capture and assimilate Tiet’s team.

  The Horva soldiers returned fire using their plasma gloves. But the laser fire coming from the symbytes was beginning to overwhelm the small team. Some of the Horva were shot and killed. As the team passed another alley, some of the Horva toward the rear were cut off as the symbytes poured out of the alley, attacking them.

  “They’re everywhere!” shouted Grod as blaster shots rang into his E.M. shield.

  Tiet and Wynn rebounded incoming shots with their kemsticks, but the onslaught was becoming more than they could handle. The sheer number of symbytes pursuing them was unbelievable. It appeared the whole city was now a part of this organism.

  Finally the hangar came into view, but the streets were filled with symbytes coming from all directions.

  “We’re cut off!” shouted Wynn above the sounds of the mobs footsteps and gunfire.

  “Into the building!” shouted Tiet as he ran for the entrance to the building adjacent to the hangar complex.

  “We’ll be pinned in!” said Grod as he reluctantly followed.

  “Too late for that now,” said Wynn at his side.

  Once inside, Tiet ran toward the stairs as fast as he could with the others following.

  “Where are we going?” asked one of the soldiers.

  “The roof!” said Tiet from way up ahead.

  Only ten people remained of their group now. The others had been gunned down or overrun by the symbyte mob. They encountered only minimal resistance on the way toward the roof. Those symbytes who came at them from within the mostly empty building were quickly dispatched by Tiet up ahead.

  When they reached the roof, Tiet was already at the western side looking out over the distance between them and the eastern launch platform of the hangar complex.

  “We can make it!” shouted Tiet.

  “Sure, we can, but what about the others?” said Wynn coming up beside him.

  “We’ll get to a ship and bring it back over here.”

  “Those things are already coming through the building after us. There isn’t time. There must be another way,” said Wynn.

  “No! There is no other way,” said Grod as he joined them.

  “But, Grod, we—.”

  “No, my friend. This is the only way. Go! We’ll do our best to hold our own here.”

  Wynn knew they were right. He clipped his kemstick then he and Tiet took a short run to the ledge and jumped. They carried themselves across the entire expanse mentally and soft landed on the eastern platform. Without stopping, they ran into the hangar area and out of Grod’s sight as they went looking for a ship.

  The building was tall, but it was not very wide. It only had a few access doors to the roof. Grod stationed himself and the other Horva soldiers in positions to defend those exits.

  ☼

  Wynn and Tiet broke into the first sizeable troop transport they could find.

  “I don’t have the right access code,” said Wynn as he punched the keys on the panel in frustration.

  Tiet didn’t answ
er. Wynn turned to find him concentrating on the controls mentally. Wynn heard a beeping from the display. The engines fired up immediately.

  “Excellent!”

  “I had a good teacher,” replied Tiet with a grin as he jumped into the pilot’s seat and took over the controls.

  The transport lifted off of the platform and headed for the bay entrance.

  When the transport climbed to the level of the roof on the adjacent building they could see the remainder of the team blasting away furiously at the symbytes pouring through the roof access doors. As one person was being hit by the plasma weapons the others would jump through over top of them. The roof was quickly becoming overrun.

  Tiet brought the transport down near the few team members who were left. Five more had been overrun by symbytes and were pummeled by the crowd or thrown over the side of the building to their deaths. Grod and the others ran for the transport with symbytes hot on their trail firing with blasters.

  Wynn took the controls of the mounted gun turret through an access panel behind the pilot’s chair and fired into the crowd of symbytes chasing after the Horva. He mowed them down as Grod and two others jumped into the transport.

  Tiet wasted no time lifting away from the roof. Several of the symbytes tried to jump and cling onto the transport, but they fell off over the city as Tiet brought the engines to full power.

  “We’ve got to get to the wilds before they catch Mirah and the boys,” he said, plotting the navigation data into the computer.

  “I only hope we’re in time,” said Grod.

  ☼

  Kale adjusted the controls slightly to keep on course for the campsite that he and Emil had previously scouted out for their post trial outing. It was located deep in the wilds. They had relished the idea of a rigorous survival trip, but they had never intended on this. The Whiplash glided just above the massive treetops as the sun began to set.

  ☼

  Electronic eyes watched from orbit above the planet. A skynet satellite locked onto the fast-moving target. The satellite network had been intended to help repel invaders, but was now under the control of the symbytes.

  The satellite’s laser focused to a tight beam as the guidance system compensated for the speed of the target. A precise pinpoint shot was needed to bring the ship down in a controlled fashion. The satellite fired from the silence of space.

  ☼

  Onboard the Whiplash, the fighter rocked with the blast that took out its engine cooling system.

  “We’ve lost power,” said Emil. “Something hit us, but I can’t find it on the scope.”

  “Coolant system is offline. The temperature will go up fast if I don’t bring her down. How far to the campsite?”

  “We’re still twenty minutes out.”

  “That’s too far. I’ve got to find a place to land now.”

  “I’m scanning the terrain…I’ve got something...I’m loading the coordinates.”

  Kale changed his course to reflect the new landing zone on his display. Smoke billowed from the laser burn on the hull as the engine began to heat up rapidly. Kale slowed the speed and spotted the clearing among the massive trees as he began to land the ship before it exploded.

  “Kale? Kale? What’s going on, where are we?”

  “Hold on, Mother, we’re on landing approach.”

  He continued the landing and got the ship safely on the ground. Smoke still billowed out of the laser burn as the ship’s engines powered down.

  “The engine is still at critical temperature, Kale. We’d better hurry.”

  Kale popped the latch on the spare compartment and quickly helped his mother out of the space.

  “Where are we?” asked Mirah. She looked dazed—the after effect of being stunned.

  “Out in the wilds. We didn’t know where else to go with the military conducting attacks.”

  “What about your father?”

  “We don’t know where he is.”

  Mirah looked worried, as if the worst may have happened to her husband.

  “Mother, I know he’s alive with Wynn. I can sense it.”

  “Well, what now? Have we been followed?” she said.

  “I think so. They shot us down somehow, but we never saw them. They have to know our location. It’s only a matter of time before they find us. Our best chance is to set out on foot.”

  “On foot? In the wilds?”

  “Wild animals are the least of our worries now.”

  “Could they track us on foot?” asked Emil.

  “I don’t know, but all the wildlife out here might just mask us enough to keep them guessing.”

  The engine compartment continued to smolder more and more, then the ship began to burn under an open flame.

  “We’d better get out of here before it explodes,” said Emil.

  The trio gathered the gear they had available and headed out cautiously into the cover of dense jungle foliage.

  ☼

  “Sir, we’re picking up some burning wreckage approximately ten miles ahead, west by southwest.”

  “Good, their ship is down, which means they’ll be nearby on foot,” said Lucin. “I want you to scan for any group of three human size life forms traveling away from us. Then I want the transport, with our little gift, to swing in front of their heading and drop her one mile ahead in their path.”

  VIOLATED

  Grod could not believe what he was seeing on the display. The image was pulled from one of the skynet satellites by Wynn. He still had access to the data, but the weapons systems were controlled by the symbytes now.

  On the display appeared what remained of his home at Nagon-Toth. The entire compound was now nothing more than smoldering rubble and layer upon layer of sand baked to glass. This explained what had happened to the transgate portal back at the detention center. Somehow they had planted a bomb there or sent one through the portal after their team had left it to rescue Tiet.

  His people and his wife were all gone. Only two of his Horva brothers with him in the ship survived now and his son—he hoped.

  “I’m so sorry, Grod,” said Tiet sitting next to him.

  He tried to offer consolation to his friend. Grod would not weep. Instead, his grief transformed into anger so powerful he found himself almost unable to sit still. He looked at his remaining two warriors, Jael and Merab, still sitting near the front of the transport. He would wait to share the demise of their people, wait until they reached the enemy on the ground. Then they would be free to unleash their fury upon these symbyte creatures without reservation. Grod looked at Wynn through narrow eyes. He placed his hand upon the Horva general’s shoulder.

  “Soon my friend. Soon you will have vengeance,” he whispered.

  They were the only words of comfort that could have been offered. Wynn was a true friend and had been since the end of the Baruk war when he knew of the Horva rescue of Tiet and his late brother Kale. And Wynn was right. He would take his vengeance soon upon these creatures. He thought of his son Emil and recovering him safely. It quieted his spirit somewhat.

  The wilds were before them now. Tiet pressed the engines hard toward a destination only he could sense. He knew without a doubt that his son was alive.

  ☼

  Kale and the others moved as quickly as possible through the dense vegetation. Emil took the point position and whacked away at the large undergrowth with a kemstick while Kale helped his mother along. She was still a little shaky from being stunned by the soldiers. Every so often they thought they heard the faint sound of engines. Then it would fade and be gone completely, leaving only the sounds of the indigenous wildlife.

  All manner of creatures, both deadly and benign, lived in the wilds and the boys knew very well the dangers they might have to face beyond just the military being after them. The boys thought better than to share those possibilities with Mirah.

  Emil was a good twenty feet ahead of them in the foliage which seemed to instantly replace the cut vegetation with more to bar t
heir way.

  “Kale! I’ve found something—someone!”

  They rushed ahead to where Emil was standing. Just beyond, half hidden in the bushes, was a little girl of no more than five years of age. She was staring at them with a terrified look on her face as though she might attempt to run at any moment.

  “It’s all right, Honey,” said Mirah as she knelt to try and coax the child from her hiding place.

  “Monsters, trying to get me,” said the little girl through lips that quivered as though she were freezing out here in the hot jungle air.

  “I know, Honey. We won’t let any monsters get you. Come here, it’s all right, you’re safe now,” consoled Mirah.

  The girl eased herself out of the brush and began to walk toward Mirah. Kale scanned around trying to see if the soldiers were nearby or if he could hear any noise from their engines. The girl reached Mirah and then dodged around her and ran to Kale, jumping into his arms before he knew what was happening.