James Somers - The rise of Lucin

Kale realized the shots had come from a shell of a building one hundred feet ahead of them. The enemy gunfire remained constant, but focused solely on him. Wynn took the opportunity and hurled a spicor disc-guiding it to the target with his mind. Kale saw the disc flash past him and into the structure ahead where it exploded.

He saw someone as the disc hit their weapon and vaporized most of it. They turned to run with another person in tow, as Kale entered the building through the window they had been sniping from. These two were quick, dodging and evading him through the wreckage of the building and toppling some of it along the way to slow him. Kale pushed the debris away mentally as he continued to dog their heels in the pursuit.

They were human and young-he saw that much for sure. The pair dodged behind another wall and he lost them for a moment. Then they appeared in the street beyond running into another more intact structure. Kale leaped through a whole in the wall and headed across the street and into the other building trying to keep up with his prey. He spotted Wynn and the others coming down the street running toward the same building.

Kale paused as he entered a great hall with a number of large staircases, some heading up and others down. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted two heads dropping out of sight on one of the downward staircases.

"Where did they go," Grod asked as they caught up with Kale.

"Down there," Kale said as he launched out after them again. The others followed.

The lighting was dim at best as they descended into the recesses of the building's subterranean levels. Kale tried to sense them, but Wynn already had them in his mind and said, "This way, men."

The warriors remained so focused on the pair mentally they neglected their surroundings. By the time Kale and the others finally cornered the pair of youths, they stood in a huge room with hardly any light at all. When Kale's group crossed the space between them, emergency lighting suddenly came on, spotlighting Wynn, Kale, Emil and Grod. They pulled their weapons quickly, but the sound of a hundred gun bolts locking into firing position all around them in the dark caused them to quickly rethink their aggressive posture.

"Lower your weapons," Wynn said as he motioned with his hands to the others and placed his blade on the ground.

The others complied apprehensively. Kale hesitated until Wynn shot him a hard look. He was right. They really couldn't hope to defend themselves like this. Logically, if these people meant to kill them outright then they already would have done it.

Steps approached from the darkness. A young man, not much older than Kale, stepped into the light. He was dressed in tattered clothes and confident enough to stand near them with his rifle slung over his shoulder.

"Why are you here?"

"We're not with the Agonotti, in fact we were fighting against them only a few months ago," Kale offered.

"Yes, and then you ran away through that portal of yours. Now, why are you here?" he asked again.

"We're here to help," Wynn said. Hopefully the prophet had that intention for bringing them to Draconis.

The boy looked at them with skepticism. "You can't help," he said hopelessly. "No one can stop them now." He turned to signal someone unseen. The room lights came on revealing nearly one hundred adolescents and children surrounding them with their weapons trained on Kale's group. They all bore the same impoverished appearance as the young man before them.

"Where are your parents?" Emil asked.

"They're all dead," said the boy leader. "They died trying to fight the Agonotti.

"Has this happened in all of your cities?" Wynn asked.

"I don't know. We've just been trying to stay alive."

"You should come back with us to the ship," Emil said. "Aija may know what to do for you."

"We're not going anywhere. The Agonotti will have seen your ship. It won't take long before they come for it."

"We've got to get back then," Kale said as he reached for his blade on the ground. The boy whipped his rifle off of his shoulder and put the barrel against Kale's head.

"I said "we're not going anywhere," and that includes you."

Mirah didn't realize she had been asleep until she woke up. She couldn't remember, but she thought she had heard something. An image of a small animal, scratching the wall, flashed in her mind, as though she had been dreaming about it a moment ago.

Mirah found Tiet still sleeping in the bed next to her chair. He looked peaceful enough. She got up and decided to go to the kitchen without waking him. She noticed there weren't any voices to be heard in the ship at the moment. The landing party must not have come back yet.

Mirah wandered to the compartment door rubbing the back of her neck. The chair wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep. The door opened automatically. On the other side, great soiled wings unfolded to reveal a horrible man. Darkness emanated from him. Mirah screamed, but her words, her voice, were swallowed up by him. A great sword unlike anything a man would handle came suddenly to his hand. Blood already stained the blade. She shut her eyes, but she could still see him as he struck.

Mirah jumped and fell out of her chair. Tiet lay asleep on the bed next to her. Sweat poured off her and she shook uncontrollably. It was only a dream. She got up and tried to compose her self. Her hip hurt now.

Mirah heard Juli in the next room, calling for her. She walked toward the door and paused as a wave of recurrent fear ran up her spine. The door opened automatically, but no one was there. Mirah walked into the room Juli had been sleeping in. "I'm here. It's alright, Juli."

The girl panted, trying to catch her breath. She was sweating, despite the cool temperature in her room. Mirah sat on the bed next to her. "What's wrong?"

"It was so real-my dream."

"Oh. Well, you've just had a nightmare. You're fine."

"I know," she said as she brought her breathing under control. "He was just so real."

"Who was so real?"

"The Mithri in my dream," said Juli.

Mirah felt fear wash over her senses again. "Your dream was about a Mithri?"

"Yes. He was terrible and dirty looking, not beautiful at all. He attacked me with a bloody sword and I couldn't even scream for help-it was so frightening."

Mirah trembled as Juli described her dream-it was the same dream she had experienced. Her medical training told her that it was logically impossible, but her spirit cried out a warning of danger.

Suddenly she heard something-a scratching like her dream and it was getting louder. Footsteps added to the sounds coming from the ships hull above them. A blaster pistol hung in a holster on the wall. She pulled it as she heard someone approaching the door. When it opened, Merab stood there with his pulse rifle.

"Mirah, we've got company."

The boy kept his rifle barrel pressed into Kale's temple. If the boy leader was to be believed, then the others back at the ship were in big trouble and they had to get out of here now to help them. Kale eyed Wynn, looking for something in his expression-permission to act. Wynn glanced down at the floor and Kale followed his gaze.

On the ground just behind the boy leader, words etched themselves into the thick layer of dust and ash. An unseen finger wrote: Don't Harm and Diversion in the Barudii language of old that Wynn had been teaching him. Some of the other armed children had come to encircle them and stand guard.

"We'll move you to our secret location, where the Agonotti can't reach us," the boy leader said.

Wynn wasn't listening anymore; instead he was focused on the surrounding room. Things began to move in the dark around them-pieces of debris pounded into the walls and bounced across the floor out of view. The children reacted immediately with fear. Their eyes searched for targets with weapons pointed into the darkness around them; their hands trembling with anticipation born of experience with the Agonotti.