Steph Bennion - Hollow Moon

“A grey!” murmured Surya, coming to her side. “They really do exist!”

Suddenly, Ostara shrieked. Something approached from behind the reactor.

Ravana turned and gasped in horror at the half man, half multi-limbed machine that now lurched towards them. The face below the metal skull plates was cruel and haggard with grey skin that hung in folds, yet from the waist down his body was that of a spider walker, the eight-legged mobility chairs she had seen on the streets of Hemakuta. Tubes cascaded from the man’s head and torso into the metal body of the walker, while the black chair upon which he sat seemed to blend seamlessly with the clothing he wore. Taranis was literally both man and machine, for there was no clear divide between where one ended and the other began.

“Ashtapada!” cried Ravana, gripped by the image of a huge mechanical spider.

“The mad priest himself!” Ostara looked shocked and stunned. “It is him, right?”

“That was the face on the holovid,” murmured Surya. He tried to hide behind her.

“I am Taranis!” the newcomer snapped. He sidled closer amidst a creepy contortion of metal limbs. “I have been waiting for you, Raja. I did not expect you to bring a retinue!”

“They are of no consequence,” said Fenris with a sneer. “I will deal with them in good time.”

“They are honoured to be here at the birth of a brave new world,” Taranis declared. “Today my disciples set forth and soon all will bow before the word of the greys!”

The scarlet-clad birdman, who up until now had been silently assessing the situation in the manner of a superhero both startled and annoyed, took a step forward.

“I am The Flying Fox!” he declared. “This madness ends now!”

He raised his fists and strode boldly towards the priest. Taranis shot him a disgusted glare and for an instant Ravana caught a flash of activity via her implant. The birdman gave a shriek of pain as an unseen force took his legs and cruelly splayed them wide. He collapsed into an untidy twitching heap on the floor.

“You fiend!” cried Ravana.

She dashed to her fallen hero and knelt to help him up into a sitting position, ignoring the threat of Fenris’ gun trained on her back. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied her cat dart from behind the nearest vat and towards the cage, its electric nose cautiously sniffing ahead. Taranis lumbered closer and paused.

“The mighty Ravana.” His voice was bitter. “You’re just a slip of a girl!”

“Well spotted,” she mumbled, more than a little perturbed.

“Your mother betrayed the faith!” he snarled. “She was the chosen one; destined to carry the future king of Lanka, born to unite Yuanshi and rid the moon of Que Qiao. I planned your life to the last detail,” he revealed. “You were to have the best schooling, the best training, the best of everything! You were to be the greatest leader and warrior Yuanshi had ever seen. It was I who named you Ravana, demon king! Then your whore of a mother goes and spoils it all by having the audacity to give birth to a girl!”

“How dare you speak ill of my mother!” Ravana retorted, now back on her feet.

“You gave Ravana her name?” asked Ostara. “She was teased dreadfully at school.”

Surya frowned. “Are you saying only boys can be great leaders and warriors?”

“That is the way of the greys!” snapped Fenris.

Ravana glanced towards the caged creature, which was gently stroking her cat with its outstretched grey fingers, then turned to the priest with a defiant stare.

“How can you revere the greys yet treat them so badly?” she demanded.

“They taught me that mind is all and flesh is a mere distraction,” Taranis said. “I was on a mission to a frontier planet when my ship was hit by a meteoroid. I was left stranded, trapped in the wreckage, with no prospect but death. It was they who rescued and repaired my shattered body, yet they saw no difference between my own mortal frame and the mechanical carriage I relied upon to get around. The result is what you see before you.”

“Yuck,” muttered Surya. “I am never going to one of their hospitals.”

“Do not mock the wisdom of the greys!” roared Taranis. “It was you, Ravana, who provided the new mother of destiny. My agents followed you into the woods that fateful day and saw you with the creature. It gave its body to provide the embryos for my disciples, in the same way that I have sacrificed my own flesh to the cause.”

“You took away my alien?” cried Ravana. “For your experiments? How could you?”

“Alien embryos and cloning vats,” murmured Ostara. She looked at the glass tanks and the thick cables running from the reactor. The part of her not terrified seemed rather pleased she had deduced Taranis’ plans so accurately. “I don’t like the way this is going.”

Unseen by all, Ravana’s cat had jumped onto the back of the priest’s spider-walker legs and was busily nibbling the tubes running down the walker’s mechanical spine. Abandoned by the cat, the caged creature stretched a hand towards something beyond its reach on top of a nearby crate, but continued to look at Ravana as if trying to draw her attention. Ravana glanced to the crate and was puzzled by the sight of a large old-fashioned book, then thought of the Isa-Sastra that Fenris had revealed was in Taranis’ possession. Meanwhile, The Flying Fox was back on his feet and more determined than ever.

“Whatever you are doing here, it has to stop!” he declared. He unhooked the high-tension lightning rod from his backpack and pressed a button on his wristpad to activate his smoke shield. “And I am the one to do it!”

“Zotz, no!” screamed Ravana.

Taranis smiled, then gave the masked birdman a stare so intense that his eyes seemed to flash fire. An intense bolt of pain shot through Ravana’s implant and with a shriek she fell to the floor, holding her head in her hands. A sudden whooshing noise filled the air as the birdman’s backpack unlatched itself, fired its rockets and soared away across the cavern, taking the smoke screen and lightning wand with it. When the fog cleared, Ravana looked up to see The Flying Fox kneeling before the priest and slapping himself around the face as hard as he could. The birdman’s mask hung in shreds and Zotz’s look of panic made it clear he had no control over his actions. All sorts of random visions flashed through Ravana’s mind and in a sudden blind rage she mentally lashed out and dashed the images to oblivion. Zotz’s hand stopped mid-slap and he fell wearily to the floor.

“Zotz!” wailed Ravana. She crawled across to where he lay. “Stop trying to be so brave!”

“What is going on?” cried Ostara. Behind her, Surya looked more scared than ever.

Taranis shuffled nearer and glowered at Ravana. She had fallen heavily on her weak right arm and the shrapnel wound in her shoulder had begun to bleed once more. Yet she remained defiant as she climbed to her feet and stood before the priest. Her hope had been unexpectedly rekindled by the sight of her cat chewing away behind Taranis’ back.

“Crude but effective,” the priest murmured, unaware of the electric pet’s presence. “I had forgotten it had been arranged for the young demon king to have such an implant.”

“What?” exclaimed Ravana.

“A minor oversight,” Fenris acknowledged. “I see now that Namtar and Inari acted too soon because it was the girl’s implant they detected at the palace, not that of the Raja.”

“Two oversights,” Ostara pointed out. “Ravana’s cat sniffed out this secret lair.”

“That makes me number three,” came a woman’s voice from behind.

Ravana, Surya, Ostara and Fenris turned to see Maharani Uma standing on the gallery near the hatch, calmly gazing down at the scene before her. Taranis had seen her enter and was already shuffling sideways towards the bottom of the stairs. Ravana heard a groan at her feet and saw her crumpled hero trying to sit up.