Onidus 2 #2
“The gold one is stronger than his size!” Ramage chuckles. “If we live through this, I will ask my clan of Hunters to thank the gods for this chance to fight alongside powerful warriors.”
Ignus shifts upright, and Devrus joins him. They target the first hovercart we close in on and jump together.
I take the next, conjuring an orb into each hand and casting them at the Myndrous who pilot the cart. One ducks. The other falls and tumbles away into the dirt.
Leaping onto the platform from Ramage’s stolen cart, I stab the remaining Myndrous in his core. He fights me, pushing against my blade, using his size to knock me back. I feel torn metal of the frayed dash punch through my side.
Searing pangs rake up my ribs and steal the breath from my lungs.
My Vibrance flickers like a fading fire.
I feel it cool in my chest. I can’t reach my gun.
It’s pinned against the controls on my other side.
But I envision an orb, and it coalesces in my free hand.
Releasing the blast shoves the Myndrous off of me and the platform.
My blade drips with his blood as the dash becomes stained with mine.
I wince behind my Mask as I fight my fear to summon the courage I need to free myself from the twisted metal. Then I brace the dash behind me and wrench myself off of it.
The agony takes me to my knees.
Ramage slides back on the hovercart to check on me.
I pull up my Mask and cast the best aural cover I can just before he glances at me.
He nods like he thinks I’m good. That’s what I want.
But sometimes, I desperately wish I could be seen for who I really am, for the pain I’m actually in.
But in battle, that weakens the fight of those who rely on me.
I covertly summon heat into my hand and cauterize the surface of the puncture as Ramage races away. Devrus and Ignus check on me too as they bound toward Ramage, having taken down another. They see me smirking when really I’m grimacing inside a dying body.
Shutting down the hovercart with my stolen chip, I conjure an orb and use it to assist me back into Ramage’s vessel.
Devrus calls out over his earcom. “Does anyone have the queen?”
Com chatter isn’t promising. Then another Roscazkan shifter, named Toji, calls through, coughing. “Green…shield. I’m sorry. I’m hit.”
I spot the three ships still heading into the forest, two with blue-shielded prison carts of shifters on the back, one with a green-blue.
I’m not waiting. We need help. I have to risk it.
I call my ship to me. ION Striker, I need a pickup for a time-critical drop-off.
“On my way, sir,” ION Striker replies. “ETA five minutes.”
The queen does not have five minutes.
Raucous warping engines thunder in the distance. ION Striker’s thrusters glow with heat from the power surge as he glides in above us, a black star with a long, slender tail, in a smoky sky.
The moment my ship is within range, I point up. “Ramage, Devrus, Ignus, on me!”
ION Striker sinks in front of us and opens my ramp. Ramage, Devrus, and Ignus join me in jumping. But I don’t climb inside. I grab the aft solarfoils and pull myself up to the top.
The shifters and Ramage follow. Devrus leans forward in the wind and shifts into a scaled creature, making him more aerodynamic. Ignus picks a different species, and I’m suddenly jealous as my short hair whips around my eyes.
“I’m taking the queen’s ship,” I tell them.
“Are you nuts?” Ignus asks. “She’s our kind. Not yours.”
“I have a squad shield. Do you?” I challenge.
Ignus snorts. “Fine.”
“Why didn’t you use this earlier?” Ramage demands, pointing to my ship.
“Because we only had this one left until the Aegeris pack arrived. The others are down. If this gets damaged, we’re stuck here with Roscazkans.” I glare over at him. “We don’t have enough people to spread around with substantial forces.”
Ramage hangs his head. “I am sorry. I didn’t know.”
“We appreciate what you’re doing,” Devrus shouts over the wind.
I motion ahead, not wanting to open the emotional box. The three hovercarts are separating, heading for different Nebulous Empire transport ships. A security vessel stays with the queen’s cart.
“I’ve got the smoke soldiers,” Ramage growls before launching himself over the side.
Devrus and Ignus shift back into Mindoran forms with claws and teeth, then bound off my ship toward the blue carts. I race on, toward the queen.
Pain surges in my side.
“Sir, you are severely injured,” ION Striker reports.
“Not now, ION. There are more important matters. Just stay with the green cart, please.”
I only have to hold on a little longer.
As soon as ION has me within range, I get to my feet on the nose and ignite my hands.
“Sir, don’t you want me to get closer?” ION Striker asks.
“No. Get back behind Aegeris fleet.”
“Sir…”
“That’s an order.”
“Your probability of success…”
“I don’t care!” I blink back the urges that beg me to rest, to tell ION the truth, and to use my Afterburn to take out a Neb ship, just so the torture of endless battle will cease.
But I don’t.
Because that isn’t what’s in my heart. There is still one thread tethering me to this universe. Until it is gone, I will cling to it.
“Get out of here!” I tell him.
I’m not sure, but I think I hear my ship’s companion program sigh in irritation.
Spreading my feet, I close my eyes for just a moment, find the source energy, the Vibrance burning deep in my core, and my hands blaze hotter. I jump off of the ship and fall.
The queen’s prison cart has six Myndrous on it. She is visible inside, surrounded by her guards and caretakers. I direct my hands below me and torch two Myndrous, making just enough room on the platform for me to land on their bodies.
My boots settle into ash. But I’m exhausted, and summoning another blast only renders a fizzle.
The closest Myndrous charges like he’s going to tackle me.
I dodge under his swiping arm, catch him around the middle, and smash him back against the controls. One of the thrusters sparks, sending us banking away from the Nebulous ships.
He smashes an elbow onto the back of my armor, knocking the breath out of me. I draw my gun, shove it in his side, and pull the trigger. He jolts and falls limp. His cohort tugs me backward by the collar of my suit.
I drop to my back, swing a kick over my head and tag him in the throat. The Vibrance follows my every move, assisting me like golden fingers of mist, strengthening my failing body.
Catching him in a weakly pulsing golden forcefield that I open up with my mind, I get a foot under me.
I pick him up and shove him back at the last two as they charge me from where they’ve been firing defense shots off the back of the cart.
They stagger back, then let his body fall before stalking over it toward me like their Myndrous brother means nothing to them.
When I try to shoot them with my gun, their shields flicker and deflect the blasts.
I draw my blade. They smirk. I slide a finger over my trigger, and the blade hums with shield disrupter vibrations, which lessens the confidence in their pale eyes. One frees a gun from his belt and fires at me.
Casting a deflection blast isn’t something most Isonians can do quickly. I manage it, barely. His pulses spray out in a blue sheet of fire away from me.
Surprise is my best weapon in this situation, where we’re both shielded, and their strength will soon overpower what’s left of mine.
So I launch myself through the blaze of his gunshots, thrusting my blade into his neck.
I rip the blade out the moment it’s fully buried.
The last soldier moves closer, his hand jabbing toward my middle.
I shove myself away from the dying Myndrous, and it gives me just enough space to avoid taking a knife to my stomach.
Grabbing his wrist, I dig my fingers in.
He drops the blade as I throw an elbow in his face to distract him.
When he winces and freezes, I jab my blade into his thigh and twist. “For all the Mindorans your kind abduct and hurt.”
As he takes a knee, he tries to grab me. But I break off his chip, knowing the queen’s cart has special security the others don’t, and step back. “You know what the saddest thing is of all of this?”
“That you will die,” he remarks. “With no purpose.”
“No. It’s that your mother was taken from her homeworld by the empire, and you sided with the ones that hurt her.”
The anger in his eyes fades. It’s the distraction I need to shove him off the transport without another fight. I take control of the hovercart as more Neb security teams race toward us from the empire transports.
“Hang on!” I call back. Then I bank the queen’s cart hard.
Engines sputter. Hoverpads rumble. But I get us headed back the way we came, toward the protection of Aegeris.
But the busted thruster is slowing us down.
I can’t rewire it or fix the screen. So I reach down to the power control module.
I need to see what the problem is and where I must send power to get this damn thing flying straight again.
The constant over-correcting has to be making the queen ill.
It’s not a skill I share with others, but it has saved more lives than I can count.
I close my eyes, brace myself for being vulnerable, and open myself to the universe without a question or command in my mind.
I just open the door. It’s like unmasking the world, letting the universe show me what it is.
I have seen more than I will ever tell another soul about. But I let it speak and accept its vastness, its emptiness, its angry worlds, its energy, and its silence. And because I listen and I open to it, I can see things for what they are. No Masks. Just…truth.
Few Isonians have my traditional skill at such levels, or so Viriden says. I think of our younger Embers and Torrents who use assistive augments to help them learn commands to cast spells and wield the universe’s forces.