D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

Mark. Unbelievable. In some ways hearing the truth about my own history and the revelation of Solara was easier to accept than Mark being a badass. Yet he was. He punched out the second dado that had been holding him, sending the guard careening backward. The dado slammed into one of the marble pillars. Hard. If it hadn’t been a dado, I’d guess that it would have hurt. But dados didn’t hurt. It stood up and went right for Mark.

I had my own problems. The dado I had been fighting was coming after me, aggressively. What drove me was knowing how important it was to get those guys out of there. To get Mark out of there. No matter what, I had to stick around, which meant not being killed. The dado lunged at me. I knocked his attack away, forcing him off balance as he followed through. It gave me a short window. It was all I needed. I hit the guy on the back of his head with the other wand. A short zap later, he was done. “Bobby!” I heard Mark shout.

I turned in time to see that I was being attacked. Not by a dado. By Saint Dane. Nevva had run to the top of the platform next to the throne, safely out of harm’s way. Saint Dane, on the other hand, was coming after me with his own electric prod. I turned and threw my two weapons up to repel his attack. I didn’t have to bother. Oddly, he stopped. The others continued to battle the dados, but Saint Dane stopped. He stood there with a confused expression, as if trying to process new information-which is exactly what was happening.

“‘Bobby’?” he repeated, as if the word were alien to him. Then a look of recognition.

Uh-oh.

“Mark Dimond!” he said aloud as the truth hit home. “Well, Pendragon, it looks as if you have something to lose after all.”

Rest time was over. He came at me, swinging his weapon furiously. He was even faster than the dado. I had no chance to think about how to attack. It was all I could do to keep the wand away from my body.

With each swing Saint Dane growled out a word. “You… will… go… back… to… Solara… and… watch… it… die.”

I was getting tired. Saint Dane wasn’t. He knocked one of the wands out of my hand, and followed up with a backhand. His prod was about to hit me in the stomach. I reacted quickly. It had to have been out of some ingrained instinct, because I certainly wasn’t taught to do what I did. Saint Dane’s swipe came parallel to the ground. In a second it would slice right through me, sending me back to the edges of Halla. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get Mark and the others out of there. What I did was out of desperation- not to save myself, but to save my friend.

Saint Dane’s electric weapon swept right through me. I had willed myself to become smoke, and I did. I didn’t feel any different. In fact, the moment his attack swept through me, I was back and ready to fight. Maybe I had only changed my midsection. Whatever. It had worked. I had used the power of Solara, the same way that Saint Dane had used it for so long. I’d like to say that I was invincible, but that was wrong. I couldn’t keep on using that power. Solara couldn’t handle that.

The effect it had on Saint Dane was instant. He was stupefied. He stood frozen, his weapon still at the end of its arc.

“So you do know the truth,” he said in awe.

I answered by nailing him with both of my wands. I brought them together like cymbals, hitting both his shoulders at the same time. The reaction was instant. Saint Dane turned to ashes. Not smoke. Ashes. His remains fell to the ground just as the others had done. He had been so surprised by the demonstration of my newfound ability that he didn’t use his own power to save himself.

The dados reacted instantly. They left their individual battles and ran to the pile of soot that was the remains of their leader. I wasn’t sure why. What did they think they were going to do? Put Humpty Dumpty back together again? I didn’t feel bad for Saint Dane. He was a spirit from Solara. I may have killed his body, but I knew it wouldn’t be for long. As soon as he hit the cosmic reset button, he’d be back. I didn’t want to be around when that happened.

“Outta here!” I shouted to Mark and the others.

They immediately ran for the door. Before following them, I looked up to Nevva who hadn’t moved from her spot near the throne. She didn’t do anything to try and stop me. On the other hand, she didn’t try to help Saint Dane, either. It seemed as if she was in shock.

“Is this the way you wanted things to be?” I asked.

“I’m afraid this is the way it must be” was her melancholy answer.

“Don’t bet on it,” I said, then turned and ran.

As I sprinted after the fleeing prisoners, my head was already spinning forward to our next move. We were going to get out of the Taj Mahal, but we would still be in the middle of Saint Dane’s luxury theme park. How would we get out of there? Run all the way back to the wall? That was a long way, with lots of dados between here and there. Once we got there, would there be any hope of opening those big doors? There would certainly be more Ravinian dado guards there. What chance did the four of us have against them? We needed an advantage, and not the kind that came from being a spirit from Solara. That wouldn’t help Mark and the others. Right now, it was all about those guys. I had to keep them safe, but the truth was, I didn’t know how.

Fortunately, Mark did. He and the others hit the door before me and blasted outside. We found ourselves in the wide-open garden that Patrick and I had crossed to get to the building. Mark knew exactly where to go. He sprinted straight for the helicopters that had brought them there. It seemed like the perfect means of escape, except for one thing. Mark wouldn’t know how to fly a helicopter. He’d never even gotten his driver’s license.

That was the old Mark. The new Mark had learned a few new tricks.

“Keep ‘em back!” he shouted to me and the others.

“Keep who back?” I called after him.

He didn’t have to answer. From around both corners of the Taj Mahal, Ravinian guards were headed our way. The two helicopters were parked square in the middle of one side of the building, which meant the guards from both sides had about a seventy-yard sprint to get to us. Mark jumped into the pilot’s seat of one chopper and started confidently flipping switches. With a tortured whine the overhead rotor began to turn, though painfully slowly. The other two guys stood on either side of the chopper, holding up their stolen electric prods, ready to repel an attack. I didn’t think they’d do so well against a swarm of dados, but I wasn’t going to point that out.

I jumped into the seat across from Mark. “You can fly this thing?” I shouted above the growing whine.

“We captured one a year go,” he answered. “We taught ourselves.”

“A year go?” I shouted. “How long have you been here?” “Been here? Or since we got dumped into the flume?” “Since the flume.” “Five years. Give or take.”

That news hit me like a punch to the head. It had been five years since Mark and Courtney were herded into the flume on Second Earth. Five years. That meant Mark was twenty-three years old. The buddy I had grown up with was five years older than I was.

“We’ve got a lot to catch up on,” Mark said with a smile, which was pretty amazing under the circumstances.

“We’d better get the chance,” I shot back.

The rotor was picking up speed. So were the dados.

“Come on… come on…,” Mark coaxed the machine.

We didn’t have much more time.

“Get in!” I shouted to the others.

They didn’t listen. They were focused on the incoming dados.

“Uh, Mark,” I said with fake calm. “It would be good to get airborne.”