The rest were more careful, circling the mercenary. They had seen their opponents’ abilities; her speed and grace far faster than they had expected. One of them grew brave, dashing forwards, bringing his weapon down in a vertical strike. Aileena simply stepped to the side, wrapping her hand around his wrist. She pushed forward with her shoulder, using the momentum of her attacker against him. He tumbled over her shoulder, his head colliding with the cold stone.
“Which one of you is next?” Aileena said, a smirk across her face. “I’m three to zero so far. Not going well for you is it?”
Michael watched her as she disarmed the next guard brave enough to attempt an attack. This time she simply stood still and kicked with her left leg, slamming her boot into her attackers gut well before he could get into range to strike. It was strange, Michael had found himself growing to like Aileena, despite being technically her kidnapping victim. Talking day in day out, running from one crazy circumstance to the next, it was easy to forget she was a professional mercenary. A trained killer, good enough to do what she did for money.
“Everyone just stop!” Michael could feel himself shouting, an anger building from inside him. “This is to help. Please just stop.”
They did. Michael’s words had found weight, his feelings giving them extra gravitas. Michael had always had jobs that involved him talking. Museum aide, tour guide, but it never felt like anyone was listening. Not now. Now all eyes were on him.
“Guys,” Brekt’s voice came through Aileena’s bracelet, the sound scratchy.
“I know it sounds mad, but this will stop the attacks. You’ll be able to leave, to explore beyond this empty mountain. To rebuild.” Michael had stepped backwards, to the edge of the plateau. Behind him, the sky had turned a dull orange, as if the sun was setting.
“We’re detecting something up here, a lot of energy. A lot,” Brekt said.
His words were unnecessary. The air continued to change colour, becoming a light pink.
“You’re free now!” Michael said. As he did, pink lightning crackled through the air, great bolts of energy blasting forth. They were everywhere, exploding across the sky, thundering booms filling the air. Michael stood, the sky framed behind him, energy exploding across the horizon. For a moment he was a mythic figure, a hero controlling the elements themselves.
Across the ice plains of the planet, the energy pulsed. Creatures shrieked, claws clacking angrily at the sky. As strange energies saturated the planet, the creatures began to collapse, the forces holding them together failing as the creature that had embedded itself within the world, brought its strength against them, finally able to fully realise its power.
Around the planet, the Vystak died, their infection purged. The lightning died down, the power no longer needed. Slowly, the sky began to switch back to its normal blue, a perfect azure wall. Around a single dome of stone, embedded in a perfect circle of dazzling plant life, the ice receded. Slightly and slowly, the glaciers falling back millimetres at a time.
Michael stared at the viewscreen, watching Merydia spin before them. Gravult had been furious, insisting they leave. They had done as asked, the Sword descending back into the atmosphere, lowering the damaged Seeker onto the plateau to act as a lift. Gravult had watched them as they raised the cables back into the massive ship. He had demanded his daughter had to go with them, banishing her to space. She hadn’t argued, Michael got the feeling she would have insisted on leaving with them anyway.
After the storm, after the energy had washed over the planet, the Vystak had vanished. No scans from the ship could find them. To make sure, they had skimmed over the vast icefields. Nothing burst forth from the surface, no angry crabs snapping angrily at them. It seemed it had worked, not that the Merydians were grateful.
“Everything is looking good. Crystal is giving out energy again,” the floating face of Kestok said. “It’s different this time. The power in the crystal is definitely going down. Seems like they aren’t connected to the creature anyone, now their job is done.”
“Are we going to run out of power?” Aileena said. She was plotting a course, taking the Sword away from the planet. Gravult hadn’t stopped them taking the ship. He even seemed relieved, to be able to go back to his own personal kingdom.
“No. When I say going down, I mean it’s almost undetectable on the sensors. We could run the ship on full power for centuries and I still don’t think it would run out. Plus, now we’re clear of the planet, I can start up the normal reactor if need be. The fuel tanks on this thing are still full. I’ve already started pumping some into the Seeker, just in case.”
“Ok well. Anything else we should know?”
“I don’t think the jump drive is working at full power. There are two slots for drive matrixes. Never seen that before. There’s only one matrix, if we could get a second, I think maybe this ship could jump further than anything else. We could get anywhere we wanted to go.” Kestok’s hovering face was smiling. The ship was clearly a joy for him to work on. “I’m sure more will come up. This ship is just so massive. At least now I have an assistant.”
“Hello!” Skorra’s voice came from the cloud of nanobots, though it sounded far away, the greeting shouted over Kestok’s shoulder.
“Still haven’t found any weapons,” Brekt said. “There is something mounted on the hull, but honestly, I don’t think they’re guns. There is no targeting system I can find.”
“Maybe they never installed it?” Mellok said. He was scrolling through the records on the ship. He had become fascinated with it, a treasure trove of information of how the galaxy was, thousands of years ago. Brekt just shrugged in response.
“So, I’m planning this course, without any idea of where to go,” Aileena said. “I’m not doing the random button press again. I’m not planning on crashing second time.”
“So, you do admit it was a crash?” Michael said.
“In hindsight, yes.”
“I know where we can go,” Mellok said. “Here.” His feathered finger pointed to the screen. “The files in here have information on local cultures, one’s outside council control. It says here that there’s a factory world, with a shipyard. Maybe we could get another matrix for Kestok. Then, finally, we can get to Cortica.”
“It’ll be nice to go somewhere safe,” Michael said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
James Orson sat on his small bed; a tiny uncomfortable thing crammed into the corner of a room that could only charitably be called private quarters. He had wanted to bunk in with the rest of his crew and the small squad of marines the ship carried, the crew quarters and their massed bunkbeds somehow more spacious than the corner closet he lived in. Orson’s superior officer, a tall thin alien covered with thick dark green scales, a creature the translator decided was called Ordained-Commander Viirk, had been very insistent that a ship’s captain was not to bunk with a crew. It simply wasn’t done as a member of Council military. The hissing alien had been quite clear that any hint of impropriety could jeopardise a career. Orson supposed it was something to do with The Council’s fanatical religion, higher ranks in the fleet required joining the priesthood as well.
Orson tried to get comfortable, his legs dangling slightly. Humans it seemed were just slightly shorter than the average Council race, and the ships had been designed for the median, an attempt to make it suitable for as many species as possible. That, of course, meant that it suited nobody at all. In his hands was a tablet. A little lighter and thinner than what he was used to, but similar enough to a human one that it felt natural to use. Orson had wirelessly connected his translator, allowing the tablet to adapt the text into English.