James Somers - The rise of Lucin

KALE flipped backward over the Agonotti warrior as he struck at him. Emil hurled a handful of spicors at the creature, landing a couple of hits that did damage. Kale was quick with a blade from behind, ramming it through a joint in the warrior's armor plating. The Mithrial being fell over and began to dissipate after a moment.

Both boys surveyed the damage. The hangar was a disaster area, and most of the ships were too damaged to be safe for flying. The two rebels that had stayed on this side of the transgate portal were dead.

"That portal is totally ruined," said Emil.

"Yeah, I don't think we could fix that mess, even if we knew how."

"Did you notice that one of those things shot up that ventilation shaft?"

"He'll probably lead others back in here like my father was warning. Got any suggestions?" asked Kale.

"That smaller transport over there; it looks to be in good shape. Maybe we can use its computer to activate the gate they came in by."

"It's worth a shot," said Kale.

They ran across the deck and slid the side door open on the troop compartment of the ship. Making their way into the cockpit, Emil went to work searching the database for a gate command function. Kale was performing systems checks on the engine and bringing the turbines online.

"I've got the command sequence for the gate-I'm activating it," said Emil.

"Great, now if I can-"

Emil looked over at his friend. Kale was staring out of the cockpit window toward the far end of the hangar. Emil followed his friend's gaze to where he could see humanoids materializing from a dark fog growing in size in the far end of the huge chamber.

"Any weapons systems on board?" whispered Kale without taking his eyes from the window.

"Yes, pulse lasers and rockets."

"Unload the rockets on them when I hit the thrusters," instructed Kale.

Emil nodded and gently slid into his flight chair's harness. The panel indicated that turbines were operating at ninety six percent efficiency.

"Time to go," whispered Kale as he grabbed the flight controls.

"Rockets are locked and the gate is active."

He tensed his grip on the controls and activated the thrusters, just as Emil sent the deadly ordinance hurtling down the chamber toward the Agonotti. The ship reared up into the air, barely clearing the pavement before Kale pulled it into a one hundred and eighty degree turn heading for the portal. A huge flash of light erupted behind them as the rockets hit home. The rock wall came at them fast as Kale sought their escape through the active transgate portal.

"I hope that bought us some time. Open the gate!" shouted Kale.

"Got it!"

The portal flashed into being just before the nose of the ship would have smashed into the rock. They were suddenly emerging into open air outside the mountain; rising off of its face. Gravity fought to pull them back as the thrusters pushed hard away from the ground-the boys were locked into their flight chairs barely able to move. The panel readout was registering thruster power at maximum and a warning light was flashing to inform the pilot of potential turbine failure if speed was not reduced quickly.

Kale complied with the computer and eased off of the throttle as he pulled the ship around and leveled out their flight path.

"Do you see anything?!" shouted Kale over the roaring engine.

Emil looked out of the side window from the cockpit as the ship came around.

"We've got company!" said Emil. "Agonotti cloud, rising off of the mountain and headed our way."

"Is there anything near our position where we could hide or anything?"

Emil tapped into the ships database again. He pulled up maps and triangulated their position. "It says the closest civilization is Sector City-one hundred miles. Probably take about ten minutes at this speed."

"Are they gaining on us?" asked Kale.

Emil looked back at the cloud spiraling up and after them. "Hard to tell-they don't even show up on these scanners at all. What do we do when we reach the city?"

Kale looked at his friend with a shrug and said, "At this point, I haven't got a clue. I'm just hoping something will present itself."

TIET watched the display from behind Alec. The rebels still managed to have access to quite a bit of technology, even with the Agonotti dominating the population.

"It's confirmed, Tiet. Someone has escaped the mountain with one of our ships. The satellite is tracking them on a course heading toward Sector City."

Tiet breathed a sigh of relief as he glanced back at his wife, who was still assisting one of the young mothers that had just given birth.

"Are they being followed?" asked Wynn.

"It's difficult to tell. One of the advantages the Agonotti have is our inability to detect them as they travel in molecular cloud form."

"My guess would be that they are," said Tiet as he stared at the tracking information. "Look at the speed they're traveling. That's probably close to the max for a troop transport of that type, without blowing the turbines."

"Perhaps they hope to lose the Agonotti somehow inside the city," said Wynn.

"We have a large base under the city with some of our best people there," said Alec. "We can call for them to open up a gate here at the holding station and you can try to intercept them inside the city."

A warning alarm sounded at the computer station. "Sir, we've picked up something you had better see," said one of the data techs.

"What is it?" asked Alec.

"It's an army, sir."

"What? Who are they?"

Tiet and Wynn were at his side pouring over the incoming data. They looked at one another with dread as they realized the nature of the warships and the mass of soldiers assembling in the plains outside of Sector City.

"Those are our warships," said Wynn hesitantly.

"You've brought an army with you?"

"Not exactly," said Tiet. "They're all under the control of Lucin. He managed to assimilate the population on Castai through parasitic invasion."

"You mean we have to fight this invasion army and the Agonotti?"

Neither Wynn nor Tiet wanted to answer the question, but it was still obvious to everyone. Tiet stepped to him.

"None of us has any choice," said Tiet. "We either face them with everything we've got now, or we wait to be hunted down one group at a time. We have to trust Elithias, Alec. He has a plan even if we don't understand it yet."

Tiet stared right into Alec's eyes trying to reassure him. It felt good to walk by the pajet. He didn't have any idea how they could hope to fight against the Agonotti and the symbyte controlled army that was awaiting them, but Tiet was determined he was going to obey Elithias' command from Aija the prophet, no matter what.

"Can you assemble your people at the Sector City base, Alec? Will you fight with us?" asked Tiet.

Alec hesitated a moment, examining the faces of his people in the chamber. "Tranner."

"Yes, sir?"

"Ask Sector command to open a gate here, and send out to all commands to assemble our forces at Sector City."

"Yes, sir."

Alec turned back to Tiet and said, "We'll give you everything we've got, Tiet."

"My friend, no one can ask more than that," said Tiet. "Wynn, I think it's time to contact Grod and have him rendezvous with us in the city. Mirah-"

"I've got to bring one of the young women with us," said Mirah.

"What? But we're going to war."

"Ramah needs immediate care in our ship's med-lab," said Mirah, "This place is just not equipped for an emergency."

"What's wrong with her?" asked Tiet.

"She's hemorrhaging," she said. "If I don't get it under control quickly, she will bleed to death."

"Alright, get her ready to move."

Mirah smiled and kissed Tiet before heading back to her young patient. Now, all they needed, thought Tiet, was enough rebels to face off against thousands and thousands of their former assimilated comrades and thousands more wraith-like, fallen Mithri. He would have been in despair already, if not for the words of the prophet Aija assuring him of Elithias' plan and the inevitable defeat of his enemies.