SWNOVELS Chapter Eleventh Chant
Resistance of Last Resort
“Left flank requires assistance, sir!”
“Tohr, we have free men near the exits!”
“Send every one of them to the edge of the left layer!”
“Sir! You have to see this.”
Officer pointed at the row of small windows at the end of the hangar the size of three towns. While blocking bullets from flahric cannons flying towards them, Qe Tohr ran through the center of the hangar, where most of the guards were surrounded by his men and forced to use up all the energy from their guns.
Temporary General of the Rebellion looked though the window but what he saw wasn’t what he expected to see.
“We’re…”
“On the moon, sir.”
“We must take over the ship.”
“That’s not all, sir. Please look up.”
Thousands of Callyps’ fleet’s spaceships were covered with black-green flames, exploding one after another. Qe looked hard at the wrecks falling limply through the atmosphere of Therra. Then he noticed small object emitting green light like a small star. Due to not being pure-blooded Ellementall, but the hybrid – half Elemental half Drahgsa – his sense of sight was much more sharpened and field of his vision was a lot wider and farther.
“No…” He mumbled backing from the window. “Kids…”
“Excuse me, sir?” confused officer made one step towards his superior.
“Kill them all. Living guards. Unlock as many escape pods as possible and send every old man, woman and child back to Therra! Hurry! We don’t have much time left!”
“Yes sir!”
Soldier scrawled fast something on small piece of paper, then snapped his fingers burning down the note. Ashes flew up and scattered in every direction. The officer himself ran towards the center of hangar.
“Mom! Mom!” Ehv’s plea barely made it to Meg through the screams of dying next to them soldiers and guards, even though only meters separated Akh’s girls.
Just like all the other women, children and some older men, they too were heading to the escape capsules. Mere ten lifeboats for five persons each could evacuate huge ship simultaneously while for transport was waiting almost one thousand children and twice as many women and old people.
“Ehvi, any updates from dad?”
“Yes. He orders everyone to leave this ship in next ten minutes.”
“That’s practically impossible.” Meg grabbed daughter’s arm. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Ken. He’s the only one to take everyone out of here all at once.”
“Ken? That weird boy from the city? That half-ass genius?”
“Yes. Go find mayor Tohr, that violet-skinned soldier that leads this insurgence and tell him the exact same words dad told you.”
Ehvi just nodded and started to force her way through the mass crowding near the lifeboats. After a few seconds she managed to leave the assemblage and looked around in search for Tohr.
‘Violet-skinned soldier. Violet-skinned soldier.’ She kept repeating that sentence in her head trying to remember what his face looked like.
Suddenly, the person she was looking for stood before her and she would have bump into him if she hadn’t turned her head his way.
“Ehvi Dhamm, what are you doing here instead of evacuating with the rest of civilians?”
“I have a message from my father.”
“General Dhamm? What is it?”
Ehvi passed on Tohr every single word of her father and when she finished Tohr’s complexion turned from purple to pale pink.
“Come with me.”
“What about mom? She stayed at the evacuation point…”
“She can take care of herself. It’s not the first situation like this your mother found herself dragged into and let’s just hope it’s the last one.”
“Raiders are dead, Raida is dead, my fleet is practically ceasing to exist. If this goes on I might even die myself. Where’s the boy?”
“In his cell, sir.”
“Bring him to me immediately, before I lose this ship too.”
“Yes sir!”
After a brief moment, doors to the bridge opened, and short young lad with dark skin of the olive color came through them.
“Ken, right? Look out the window and tell me what you see.”
Lad followed the order without a delay.
“I see your fleet, Commander. However, it loses on the numbers every second.”
“Do you possibly know what could be the cause of something like this? Any Ellementall weapon?”
“Unfortunately I have no information about any kind of weapon except the flahric cannons. However…” Boy hesitated for a second. “However, there exists some logical explanation of this phenomenon. I warn you, Commander, you won’t like it though.”
“Explain if you don’t want to lose your precious smart head.”
“You asked me WHAT could be the cause of this destruction. And my answer is not what, but WHO. And I think you know very well who am I talking about.”
He knew. He saw him on Therra when he defeated Raiders, but the sensors showed that his energy was roughly dropping and he shouldn’t be alive by now. And here he was, covered with blacked emerald aura, piercing through the ships one by one as if they were nothing but clouds.
“Now look through the window on the other side.” Callyps indicated half smaller window behind him. “What do you see there?”
Thousands of people swarmed at the corner of at least few thousands of hectares large space dock and dozens of armed men werw finishing off the guards who survived the rebellion.
“Simply speaking? Revolt. Riot for survival. You had to know that this race don’t give up so easily, and yet you gave them fifteen years to prepare for your return. I’m percipient and intelligent highly above my age, but still, I cannot decipher you, Commander. What powers you?”
Callyps took off his mask covering over half of his face, and smiled looking at adamant face of young man standing before him.
“This scar I hide, do you possibly know how I got it?”
“No.”
“That’s quite the eventful story. When I was no more than five years old, my father, Chief Commander and General of Ta-imu of that time, decided that I, together with my two years older sister Raida, should sit under the best teachers and mentors of Empire, to one day one of us could take his place. Raida, due to being firstborn, was constantly being favored and had real aptitude for any kind of study – be it science, humanities, art or sport. Compared to her I was nobody. At age of six, after a whole year of studying, I challenged the best student… my sister. The fight was interrupted when I was injured in the eye.”
Callyps stepped closer to Ken and swiped his finger on smallest, straight and most shallow scar going vertically over the middle of his eye.
“I was then transferred as far away from Raida as it was possible” he continued. “ Father’s order. For five years I haven’t seen her nor hear anything about her. On my eleventh birthday the letter came informing that thirteen years old Raida has already finished all the studies and was fighting battles and conquering planets alongside our father. Three years later, still without even being close to graduation, I ran off from the academy and challenged Raida for a duel. Again. Meanwhile however, she was learning for two years, under watchful eye of our father, secret techniques of Ta-imu – control over time. However, the fight ended with a draw. When my sister congratulated me for my improvement, father decided to punish me for insubordination.”
He swiped his finger on second, slanted scar. Deeper and longer one, starting from outer side of the eyebrow and ending at the edge of the lips.
“That’s where I have my second scar from. In next year I completed all courses, training, graduated all levels in all academies and joined father’s army. He didn’t want to teach me anything though. Not at first. When I was twenty my father sent me to conquer so far neutral race, Technomians. Your race.”
The boy looked at Callyps with no emotion.
“So where did you get the third scar from?”
“When I successfully took control over your people, as a reward my father agreed to introduce me to the secrets of our clan. But during that time my dear sister wasn’t sitting idly. She conquered all the rebelling planets and took charge of major incursion on the most formidable of our enemies. Not long after that, two years or so, she was sent here, to the Milky Way Galaxy, even though it was supposed to be MY mission. Something went wrong and Raida’s ship was the only one who did not return from the quest. Your parents were members of her crew, and the ship you were found on fifteen years ago was her ship. Infuriated, I confronted my father. Do you know what he did? Laughed at me and said ‘if Raida couldn’t manage such simple mission, how can I expect YOU to do any better?’. Something broke inside me, all the hatred towards my sister turned against real villain – my beloved father. I simply pierced his throat with the clasp from my coat. Before he died he thrust his fingernail deep in the middle of my forehead and slowly dragged it down through the eye to the chin” Commander pointed at the freshest, deepest and longest of the three scars.
“Interesting how they all cross each other exactly in the middle of the ey-…” the laugh of Callyps interrupted the sentence.
“That’s actually Gamidio Yakufe’s doing. You see, fifteen years ago, when I battled him, he put a sort of curse on me. But that’s just a superstitious nonsense I have no desire to ever believe in. I make my own destiny.”
The window towards hangar suddenly burst. Six, armed with flahric guns, Ellementall officers crashed through it inside the bridge aiming at every member of Callyps’ crew. Commander put his mask back on and snapped his fingers.
“See you in the other life, Ken.” Callyps vanished in the thin air with wide smile on his face.
Piercing through next battleship, I sensed that everyone left the mother-ship of Ta-imu Empire Fleet. Everyone, including Callyps himself. Small spacecraft, a lot smaller than Sniffer but too big for an escape pod, flew towards Therra.
“There you are” I thought cheerfully. “ You won’t get away from me this easily. But first…” I stopped for the first time since I left planet’s atmosphere.
Thousands of ships were either covered in dark green flames or falling on Therra like a huge, worldwide meteor shower. The rest of the fleet fell back to planet Mavoros already.
I enlarged the aura around me and I saw everything in green-scale. After increasing the speed slightly over the speed of light I outran the remaining fleet of Ta-imu and marked all ships in a split of the second with the exact same marking I used to seal Callyps’ Raiders.
“You will wait for me, but HE won’t.” I whispered to myself, using up the last ounce of the oxygen in my chest.
I left the ships immobilized on the orbit of Mavoros and returned to Therra. Callyps didn’t even manage to land yet.
(end of part 1)
part 2
Tall, middle-age man opened his eyes. He was firmly holding young short olive-skinned boy with his left hand. Black, bushy beard covering half of the man’s face foreclosed reading any kind of emotion from it.
He looked up, still holding the boy’s arm. Dimly yellow on the dark night sky covered the moon completely. Only black and green streak of cloud-like smoke curled chaotically at the center of the flash was visible for a few seconds when the shine began to vanish.
“Khalakij?” bearded man with long mahogany hair with signs of hoariness in a few places asked the boy who started to regain consciousness.
“Yes. I’m… I’m fine now” the boy stood up on his own. “Why do you always talk with me in my mother language?”
“Aillay. Kahayal lakkaialu uhlai aillay.”
“Come on. I won’t forget the language I was born with knowing. And you don’t sound like you need to practice it either.”
The man finally let go of the young boy who brushed his clothes off of the sand they landed on.
“Ken! Khail!” female voice reached them from the depths of small forest situated nearby the sandy glade on which dozen of people tried to snap out of the confusion caused by abrupt and distant transportation.
Pregnant woman with long red hair came out of the woods and rapidly approached still confused Ken and lost in his thoughts Khail. Couple of meters behind here was walking her younger copy however the color of her hair was more orange than red.
“Ken! Where is Tohr?” asked the pregnant woman when both with her daughter stood a meter away from men.
“He… He died on the ship before I managed to transport him with everyone else.”
“How many didn’t make it?”
“I’m not sure, but around fifteen thousands. They were too weak to pierce with superluminal speed through Therra’s atmosphere.”
“Where did you send the rest?”
“They’re in the valley just behind that hill” Ken pointed at few hundred meters high white rock formation coming out from above the line of trees.
Right next to them should be the ones that managed to escape using rescue pods.” Ken looked at lurching Ehvi. “First time? The transfer I mean. Any news from General Dhamm?”
Ehvi contradicted with a nod. She couldn’t make herself to speak even a single word, and her dinner was trying to come back out whenever she opened her mouth.
“Meg. Take the kids as far away from here, it’s not safe here.” Khail’s tone was deadly serious. He kept looking either up, at the sky covered with dark clouds or around, at his men.
“Fine. I’ll take them to the rest and we…”
“No.” Khail grabbed Meg’s hand and looked her deep in the eyes. “You must go in exactly opposite direction. Especially since you are in your current state.”
“Why?” she freed herself from the grip with second hand.
“Bad sensation.” Khail closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and took out broad knife from the back pocket of his trousers. “I feel it might be another Andromeda.”
Meg looked at him and without the word grabbed the kids and pushed them into the woods. Khail started resuscitate soldiers in the worst shapes.
The capsule in which he evacuated barely worked, there was no way to pilot it, not to mention landing. Consumed by night’s darkness planet was getting closer with every second.
Suddenly, yellowish flash engulfed everything, blinding Callyps until the remains of his so called ship hit the surface of the planet. While rubbing his eyes Callyps made for the exit door. After he managed to stand safely on the ground the ship and all the area around him were overwhelmed by fire. Tens of thousands of screams, smell of burned flesh, they reached him before he even realized what happened when he lost sight.
Solely the cockpit in which Callyps was sitting a minute ago stayed intact, the rest - scattered in all directions - went up in flames, taking to the other world thousands souls every second.
Callyps couldn’t stop laughing. Groans of the dying, drowned out by Callyps’ gales of laughter, began to weaken alongside burning out fire.
“Callyps” quiet voice got through the laughter to his ears. Commander turned around.
“Admiral Khail Aben, I wasn’t expecting to see you so quickly.”
“You will pay for this… this...” Khail snapped his fingers and extinguished completely the remaining fire. “This genocide.”
Fire erupted from the ground around Callyps like geyser of molten lava. Sky lightened with bloody red but Callyps never flinched nor blinked. Standing still, he glowered on Khail nervously trying to stop smiling.
Khail raised his hand and dozen soldiers jumped out of the insides of flaming geysers, enclosing Callyps by the circle of fire with every step.
“What would Dhamm think, Khai? Yakufe himself had no chance against me and you send only a bunch of greenhorn kids?”
“Maybe they are young and not as experienced as General Yakufe, however look at them. They survived. This is the elite of new generation, every single one of them is at least as strong as you, when you murdered General.”
“Wonderful.”
Khail flapped his wrist around and twelve tall, short cut warriors jumped simultaneously towards Callyps. Everyone of them had already a chant prepared.
In the blink of the second, however, half of them fell on the ground bleeding generously from wounds on their necks and torso. Callyps was standing in the same spot, but in his left hand he was holding short, broad guard-less sword made of black metal.
The rest of the squad stopped concurrently, looking incredulously at dying comrades.
“Elite? Is that all you got after fifteen long years?” Callyps impacted the sword into the ground up til the hilt. “It’s a waste of time, training for weaklings like you.”
“Fall back!”
Khail screamed too late and second half of his elite division shared the fate of their fallen friends. Black metal traversed underground and pierced through young lads with thousands of grass-stalk thin blades. When Callyps took the sword out of the ground the blades disappeared.
“Your turn.”
Standing behind him instantaneously, Callyps stabbed Khail’s chest. The last thing Khail could see was his own blood on the tip of the blade.
I landed on Therra too late. Callyps has left behind him thousands of burnt down bodies and the remains of his ship scattered on couple of acres. Only few hours left before the sunrise and Callyps masked his live-force energy. He had to know who was he dealing with.
“Oh well. I’ll better find the survivors, and Callyps has no way to flee from Therra. Tomorrow, after replenishing my strength, I will find him no matter how well he can hide and mask himself.”
No breathing soul could be found in the place of Callyps’ crash landing, but the scene of lying dead on the ground elite soldiers from Khail’s unit saddened me. Even I, without my strongest element fusion, had problems fighting them in group. With his last doze of energy, Khail, my dear friend, left me a message from his own blood. Three crosses combined in a shape of triangle inside which was a circle with two lines resembling analog time measuring device from ancient times. It was a symbol which we have found in the notes on Technomian ship’s walls. Below the symbol Khail wrote the set of numbers found on that ship however one of them was crossed out.
11, 23, 254, 101, 5874, 7
“I have to find Ken.”
I sat among charred bodies, smell of death and airborne ashes hindered my concentration.
“Soul Element. Alter anima par (Soul mate)”
My eyes glowed in azure, lightening over dozen meters of piled up corpses. If Ken wasn’t here, Khail had to sent him with Meg and Ehvi. I find girls - I find Ken.
After less than quarter of an hour I managed to find them, whole three, hidden safely in one the underground caves, couple of kilometers south from the catastrophe left by Callyps.
I could barely sense them and that meant Meg was almost ready for child’s birth and Ehvi was probably too tired to constantly emanate sufficient amount of sensible energy. Ken, due to him coming from different galaxy, was almost never sensible with any known chant, even by me.
“Ken, can I talk to you for a minute? Outside...”
When we stood underneath cloudless night sky I explained the situation to young Technomian.
“If what you say is true, then the worst case scenario is starting right now…”
“What do you mean?”
“The end of the world. Reset button of this galaxy has been pressed. I’m not sure when the actual end will come, but neither you nor anyone from this galaxy can put your hands on the off switch. You can’t do anything to stop it.”
“How much time do you think is left?”
“It can be thousands of years, millions, but on the other hand it might be just a week.”
I sat on the tree stump, near the entrance to the labyrinth of hidden below the surface caves.
“Is killing Callyps going to change anything?”
Boy looked up at the shining stars in deep thoughtfulness.
“Considering the fact that both me and Callyps come from other galaxy, eliminating from the equation any of us might immeasurably change the fate of Milky Way. The question arises - will that slow the upcoming end, or accelerate it? General, can I suggest something?”
“As long as there is a chance of stopping Callyps and bringing back the balance of Milky Way’s fate, I have nothing to lose.”
Ken smiled nonchalantly, picked up a stick from the ground and started drawing something in the sand.
Good thing I have found this coat, looks like Dhamm can’t locate me as long as I wear it…
For the last three full moons Callyps wandered about forests and mountain-caves no further than one day away on foot from the crash-landing carnage.
In spite of appearances he managed to adapt to the climate of this planet, learned to use its natural resources, fauna and flora. Day after day he become stronger, waiting for the chance to confront Dhamm in one-on-one battle, capture Technomian brat to build him a ship and return home from this godforsaken rock. However, that chance hadn’t come yet.
It’s been one month since he last saw any sign of Dhamm or his little assistant. Callyps suspected that they started looking for him someplace else.
After long weeks of solitude in out of the way wilderness, Callyps finally decided to come back to the wreckage of his ship. He got there at dawn of hundredth day of his stay on Therra.
Trying to open the pilot cabin doors a silent rustle in the brush few meters behind him reached his alerted ears. When he turned around swiftly there was nothing out there anymore. The situation repeated constantly every few seconds until he managed to open the black steel door.
“Hello, Apo”, familiar female voice came from the insides of the only intact part of the ship. “It’s been awhile since the last time we saw you, you look gruesome.”
That was true. Dense bristle on his face, dirty tangled hair, torn up cloths and bloodshot, disoriented eyes gave Callyps an unusual appearance of a vagabond.
Red-haired woman came out of the cabin, holding sleeping baby in her arms.
“Akh, Evi? Get out from behind these trees and say hello to our guest.”
Apo turned around and watched as two dark shadows arisen from the depth of the forest. Rising sun was blinding him so intensely that he was able to see the faces of those two only after they were one meter before him.
“I have seen your future, Apo. I have seen the future of this planet, whole Milky Way and even your Empire.” Akh reached out to Apo. “I can help you return home and make things right but only if you swear not to come back here, ever again.”
“What’s the catch?”
“Neither you nor any of your descendants will be able to cross the border between our two Galaxies if you accept my help.”
Callyps came to the handle of his sword on his back - still as sharp as if it had been just edged. He drew his sword, pierced it into the ground and grabbed Dhamm’s hand.
“Tell me more about this future, Dhamm.”.