The Lost Star: The Complete Series, page 53
“But the resistance tried to kill me.”
“Yes. Before I realized the priestesses had locked themselves away. But when you became the last, you became my only option.” The Prince still had his head pressed against Ava’s, his parted lips whispering into her ear.
“… You’re the force behind the resistance?”
“Yes,” he hissed, every S elongated like hisses of steam, “I forged them. Sowed the seed of discontent.”
“Why?”
“Because I require you Avixans, require your power.”
“For your mannequins?”
“And more.”
“And you knew we wouldn’t help you – so you destroyed our society,” she said, true bitterness twisting through her words as her fight ignited in her gut.
“Yes. I needed the real power you Avixans are capable of. But in order to get it, I had to stoke your rage. I had to crush the social mores that kept you back. But none of that matters now, priestess, all that matters is the final seal. You will open it, won’t you?”
“… Only if you promise to save the Mandalay, Hunter, and the Coalition. You have the power to do that, don’t you? To protect them?”
He didn’t hesitate to lie. “Yes. You have my word. But you must open the seal. If you don’t, I will kill every last Avixan. I will not hesitate to hunt them down. I can do it remotely. I have access to the energy that keeps them sustained. If you do not assist me, the blood of your people will be on your hands. And yet if you assist me, you can ensure the continued survival of the Coalition and every citizen under her wing. You, priestess, can save everyone. Only if you help me.”
“… I’ll help you.”
“Good girl,” he hissed as he finally pulled his cheek off hers and stood.
As he stepped out of Ava’s view, she saw that the metal platform they were on continued to descend through the shaft.
And the shaft continued to melt, more and more molten metal dripping down the sides.
Though the metal platform they were on did not shake, the walls shuddered more and more violently.
The Mandalay kept up its attack.
It was now a race against time.
…
Lieutenant Hunter McClane
His mind was a daze, thoughts a cloud that settled through his consciousness, spread so thinly he could barely follow them.
The only thing he could follow was his heart as it rammed away in his chest. It kept his bleary eyes open, kept his bloody fingers locked against the wall as he pressed forward.
The orb appeared to be leading him toward some point.
A few seconds later, he arrived at it.
The door opened out into… an enormous, incredible driveshaft.
He’d never seen anything like it. Its sheer magnitude was beyond any technology the Coalition had access to.
It stretched so high and so far down, he couldn’t see where it began and where it ended.
The orb kept shaking from side-to-side, every new shudder more violent than the previous.
As he was pushed off balance and slammed a hand into the wall beside him, his fingers started to shove through it as the metal began to melt.
He jerked back and stared at the wall for a single second before it shattered. As soon as those broken fragments hit the floor, they oozed into a puddle of metal and disappeared through invisible cracks beneath his feet.
… The orb was failing.
“Ava,” her name cracked from his lips.
He could turn around, follow the corridors back out to the light bridges beyond, and hope he could make it to the waiting cruiser in time. He didn’t.
He thrust forward.
At that exact moment, his boots skidded on some new puddle of molten metal, and he fell right off the side of the walkway.
For a single second, he tumbled in free fall.
Then a metal platform shot out of the wall beside him and formed beneath his plunging body.
His shoulder struck the side of it, and yet the metal somehow shifted to absorb the blow.
Then the platform began to descend. With him on it.
He pushed up, locking one shaking, completely fatigued hand onto the metal and forcing his bleary eyes open.
He watched his platform descend.
Descend through a shaft of melting metal.
He pressed himself right against the edge of the platform.
Far below, he saw another platform.
Though it was right at the edge of his sight, his helmet – which miraculously was relatively intact – had repaired just enough to focus in on the view.
Ava.
With Prince Zor.
His face was pressed right up against hers. Then the Prince shifted back and stood.
Hunter’s heart wanted to shoot from his chest and slam into Zor.
A second later, the platform they were on stopped.
It suddenly shifted sideways right towards the shaft wall.
Before Hunter could scream out in fear, a doorway opened at the base of the shaft, and that platform shifted through it.
His heart exploded in his chest as he saw the cube she was on disappear into the side of the wall. Droplets of metal continued to hail down from the walls as if he was suspended in the universe’s strangest waterfall.
The ship continued to shake, too - an unholy rattling that shook and vibrated through the ceiling and walls. Hunter instinctively knew that if he weren’t suspended on this slowly descending metal cube, he would have been pitched about so violently, he wouldn’t have been able to get to his feet. “Come on, come on,” he said through clenched, locked teeth.
He didn’t think about the stakes of this situation – the unholy price of losing here today. He locked every gram of attention on the base of the shaft. With every breath and spinning thought, he begged his cube to go faster.
Like it or not, he was Ava’s only hope. And if he was Ava’s only hope, he was the universe’s only hope, too.
…
Captain Harvey McClane
It didn’t take long for him to wake in the med bay. The chief medical officer ordered him to stay put, but he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. He would not see this battle out on the sidelines.
Shera was dead. That fact slammed into him as he dragged himself from the med bay. The memory of their once caring relationship still haunted him. As pathetic as it sounded, a part of him still couldn’t believe this had happened. Call it crazy, but in another situation, another place, a parallel universe, maybe, he could have easily envisioned another future with Shera. He had to push that unsettling thought from his mind, though, as they were too close to the end to become distracted now.
Finally the super-fast lift he was in pinged, and he arrived on the bridge. He sprang out, or at least moved as fast as his broken body would allow. He was so dosed up on stims, his teeth were practically chattering in his skull.
Hutchins bolted up from his command seat. Her eyes opened wide as they looked at him. “Sir, what are you doing out of the med bay?”
All the eyes of the bridge crew locked on him.
He gathered his body together, scrounged every last scrap of energy, and faced them. Though he should have probably shuffled over to his command seat and latched a hand on the back of it for support, he didn’t.
He faced them, and they faced him.
He had to clench his teeth and tense every muscle down into his back and sides to stand unassisted. He did it. Because right now he would do everything to win.
Maybe now was a good time to offer some impassioned speech. You know, chuck his head back, stare at each member of his crew in turn, and tell them all in a chest-thumping tone that no matter the odds, they could do this.
He didn’t. He simply made sustained eye contact. His gaze said it all. For every member of his crew met his gritty look and returned it with one of their own.
Instantly Hutchins was beside him, though she didn’t automatically reach out a hand to stabilize him. She wouldn’t undermine his command like that. She really was the best commander he’d ever met. She knew when to support him and knew when to let him fall on his own.
“Captain, we’re continuing the barrage on the orb. It’s strong. Got shielding the likes of which we’ve never seen. Our sensors can barely penetrate it, but we must be having some effect, however small.”
“Keep it up,” Harvey growled. “We have to give them everything we’ve got, but we also have to keep some weapons in reserve. Who knows if Zor will send reinforcements?”
There was a truly ominous note to Captain Harvey McClane’s voice. But in that moment, he couldn’t appreciate just how prescient he was.
…
Prince Zor
The Mandalay was meddling. They were all meddling. Those fools from the Coalition, they were trying one last-ditch, desperate, ultimately futile attempt to stop him.
Nothing would stop him. Not now he’d come this far.
Finally their transport cube pushed through the wall.
No metal droplets splashed over his face or arms – he was protected from that constantly falling flurry.
Yet, as he tipped his head back and stared at the damage along the shaft wall, he clenched his teeth and hissed. Those inbreds had done more damage than he’d anticipated.
No matter. In minutes, he would destroy their ship. For good.
The priestess was still too weak to move. He wasn’t an idiot, though. This time, he was determined to keep his eyes on her. She had almost escaped from him before.
Her breath was uneven.
Though it appeared she barely had the energy to stay conscious, let alone fight, a determined expression was still visible on her face. For a few seconds as they continued sideways through the wall, he let that impossible determination distract him. Then he jerked his head up as a low, sonorous hum echoed through the corridor.
He could see it above him - the pulsing heart of the orb.
It was mesmerizing, every beat like the thrumming pulse of a heart. It had an effect on the priestess. She stilled her breath, her eyes growing wide as she valiantly tried to tip her head back.
He parted his lips back and sniggered through them. “You can feel it, can’t you?” he hissed through his clenched teeth. “It’s calling out to you, your destiny.”
She tried to spread her lips back and snarl but obviously couldn’t scrounge the energy.
He laughed at her pathetic attempt. Then, energy renewed, he tipped his head back and took in the sight above him with an exhilarating breath. Not much longer now, that voice in the back of his head incanted.
Not much longer now.
Finally they came to a stop before an enormous platform. He tipped his head back and took in the sheer magnitude of the structure above them.
Its architecture was on an astounding scale. It led the eye back towards the huge, pulsing drive in the center of the chamber. Around it ran banks of platforms that shifted in a constant dance. The room was lit in pulsing shades of blue and red light.
And that hum continually vibrated through everything.
He heard the priestess hiss in surprise, heard her try to shift up.
He brought a foot up and locked it on her shoulder, pausing for just a second before he drove her down. She could have tried to fight him but didn’t bother wasting her precious little energy.
“That’s right. That’s right,” he hissed. Then he snapped his attention back up to the Central Drive. There he would be able to end this.
He shifted back, but as he did, another explosion slammed into the side of the orb, shaking the central chamber with such force, it appeared that the massive pulsing drive above might be torn from its pulsating frame and fall to the base of the shaft kilometers below. “Not yet, not yet,” he hissed.
Finally they docked with the side of a ramp.
He lunged forward, never pausing.
He hissed again, the sound so loud, it reverberated around him.
He dragged the priestess behind him. There was nothing she could do. Indeed, she did not even try to fight him. She lay there, weak in his grasp, her body thumping as it grated over every new section of path.
“What… what will you… do?”
“End this.” He wasted nothing on frivolous words.
The snaking paths were in such an arrangement that he had to navigate a delicate route as he circled back towards the main drive. The main drive was not his intended target, however. Instead, he headed towards a bank of floating consoles just below it.
He felt the priestess momentarily tense in his grip as they neared. It brought a sneering smile to his face. She would be able to feel the power of the drives, just as he could. But she would not be able to manipulate them. Now he’d learned of what she could do, he had blocked her out.
Perhaps she tried, though. Perhaps that was the reason for the sudden quick pace of her breath. He could even feel her heartbeat quicken and pound through his grip along her arm.
She tried to resist, tried to slow the inevitable. She couldn’t.
Finally he made his way around the meandering pathways until he reached the correct section. His heart quickened as he neared.
Soon.
Soon.
He jerked towards a console just as it rose towards him. He flattened his fingers over the controls as a rush of exhilaration slammed through his heart.
With a few easy, quick, practiced movements, he did it. He let himself appreciate that fact, soaking in a welcome sense of victory. Then he turned his attention on the priestess.
It was time to end this.
…
Captain Harvey McClane
It was just when they weren’t expecting it that it happened. Something slammed into the side of the Mandalay. It was so quick and traveled so fast that their sensors didn’t even have an opportunity to pick it up. There was no warning until it hit. Then structural alarms blared through the bridge, so loud and insistent, even the dead would be able to hear them.
He threw out a hand and locked it on the back of his seat, holding himself in place.
As soon as the shaking stopped long enough for him to catch his breath, he twisted his full attention and locked it on Hutchins. “What was that?” he stuttered and choked over his words.
It seemed every single warning alarm on the Mandalay was sounding all at once.
Hutchins threw herself forward and launched at the tactical station.
She hissed.
She jerked back, locked a sweaty hand on her mouth, and swore. “It’s some kind of planetary harpoon,” she choked over her words.
“Harpoon?” he stammered.
“It’s dragging us down to the surface of the planet!”
Harvey snapped his head forward and stared.
…
Ava
She had to stop him.
Find some way. Any way.
They were in some kind of central drive chamber. It was the heart of the orb. The heart of the planet, even. She didn’t need the Prince to tell her that – she knew it. The knowledge pulsed deep in her heart with every beat of that pulsing core.
He’d done something – typed something with manic glee into a glowing set of consoles.
Immediately she felt the orb shift. It was connected to her mind now, and she could sense its mood, despite the fact it should have been nothing more than a collection of technology. It had a personality. And now it was crying out as it was being forced to do something it didn’t want to.
She clenched her teeth together, grinding them back and forth, back and forth, in her endless attempts to gather back her energy.
When he’d defeated her out on the light bridges, he’d taken it all. Now she had to dig deep to retrieve every scrap she could.
This massive central drive room was lit by glowing red and blue lights that pulsed down from above. They made the shadows around the Prince’s feet and under his eyes all the darker until they hinted at the depths of the furthest reaches of space.
She was still on the floor at his feet where he had abandoned her. Though these enormous intertwining moving connecting platforms that ran around the central pulsing drive core could hardly be classed as floors. It was like standing on flat snakes circling around an orb of light.
The metal below her wasn’t cold or hot. It wasn’t smooth or rough. It was… unlike any material she’d ever felt before. It yielded to her skin and yet at the same time had the rigidity of steel.
Finally the Prince took a step back, a smile curling over his lips as he turned sharply, tilted his head down, and glared at her.
She knew what he was going to do long before he lurched down to one knee, wrapped stiff fingers over her collar, and jerked her up.
She had to stop the fear that threatened to rise through her heart and see her teeth jitter in her skull. She wouldn’t let him make her afraid.
Not again. Not ever. So as he brought his sneering face close to hers and he pared back his teeth until she could see his stiff canines glinting back at her, she glared. If she could have strangled him with her eyes, she would have.
It appeared to have an effect on him – and as she looked deep into his gaze, a single speck of fear flared. But he brushed it away as he pulled his lips hard to the side and snarled. “Your turn, priestess. It is time to attend to your date with destiny.”
“I’ll find some way to throw you off this walkway,” she snarled back. It was hard to control her voice, hard because she could barely control the muscles in her chest sufficiently to breathe. But she managed it, using every scrap of energy she could.
Again that flare of fear sparked deep in his gaze, but again he pushed it back.
He locked a hand around her collar and began to drag her back. His footfall was rough, determined, ringing with every step. And she banged along the path, her arms and legs snagging on rough sections of metal.
She paid no attention whatsoever to the pain that leaped through her legs and high into her shoulders. She darkened her gaze, locked it on the Prince’s shadow beside her, and used every scrap of will and attention she had to draw back her power. For even if she didn’t scrounge enough to fight the Prince directly, she would find another way to end this. Even if she had to end herself.
_preview.jpg)
