Solara 24
I hustle toward the main hangar. The hallways of Viriden’s gilded ship bustle with soldiers of all ranks and skills.
I am the only one of them who doesn’t glow, who wears a harness, and yet has a healer’s patch.
The Aural Discerners weren’t more than a squad of Aural Masters who could confirm my intent was pure, and I did want to fight for them.
And they were eager to take my help even if I’m just a pending Torrent.
Pending my completed training. But today, for this mission, I get temporary status.
Oriclen meets me inside the hangar with a medical bag.
“I’ll show you where to get the supplies later.
We’re all being split up. Smolders are on their own missions.
Embers are usually paired with a Torrent, but they didn’t have time.
They just told us to pick someone and go.
I mean, we all kind of sense what’s going to work. You know?”
I don’t, but I listen and do my best to remember what he says. Oriclen is a Discernist and an unskilled Pyron with an augment in his temple that helps him control his commands. I guess that’s what they do for Isonians with difficulty focusing.
“Do we get rifles or anything?” I ask.
“Only Embers and Smoldren do. Our job is to help civilians get to shelter using defensive traditional blasts only, and for you to help them if they’re bleeding or draining.” Oriclen leads me onto a small transport.
Draining, right. Their soul draining out of their bodies.
It’s a strange concept that a body could be fine but a soulfire, a Vibrance, can be siphoned.
But I suppose like anything of power, it can be gained and lost. “Tell me about the weapons the Nebs use on you now. I know what they did on Delsfein, the banshees, the pulse grenades, the dimensional disrupters.”
Seats line the walls of the transport. Oriclen catches a case from an Isonian healer of an Ember rank and then follows me to the seats.
“Before you sit...” Oriclen places the case to my back and taps something. The box beeps, then ratchets open and folds around my body in an exoskeleton kind of suit. “We’re heading into a hot zone. Don’t want you to die on your first mission. That would be photonshit.”
“Thanks. Don’t really want to die either.”
Oriclen looks out the window and tilts his head toward it. “Onidus.”
The vessel that leaves Viriden’s ship is unfamiliar to me.
“Can’t believe they’re taking it in a Scorcher,” Oriclen mutters. “Seems vulnerable. A tanker or cargo vessel would have better shielding.”
“Maybe they’re too rough and clunky?” I ask. “Not enough precision in the controls? A bumpier, slower ride?”
“Perhaps you’re right.”
Then a ship, blazing with thrusters, chases after them.
“Viriden’s going and taking Chris?” Oriclen scans the Isonians with us as we head for a different city on the planet below us. “Please tell me they didn’t leave Gairol in command again.”
An Isonian male in the seat beside him arches a brow. “Good thing we’re not up there.”
“He is a hard ass about everything.” Oriclen fidgets like he’s nervous, and I realize he can see everything because of his skill, from how nervous others are with their flashing hearts to how much power we have in the ship’s cells and Vibrance.
I learned a lot in the day and a half that Onidus spent nonstop building the portal.
“Where are you from?” I ask Oriclen.
“Caniea. It’s a gully city with the chrome castle on the hilltop where we would send prayers to the Seraphim and Revenants from our Hall of Souls.
Augurs are only accessible there. So when we have pressing questions, we can request to meet with one.
” His eyes fall on a distant place. “It’s what the Nebs have hit first. But our guards have moved the Augurs.
We always do when there is a threat like this. ”
“Ah. What’s your favorite memory as a child?”
“I see what you’re doing.” Oriclen smiles and looks down at his hands.
“My little sister painted pictures of us with light. She didn’t want me to join the military, so she Masked herself.
Haven’t seen her since. I got called to duty.
I want her to be safe. To keep painting her pictures of light. So I hang onto that memory.”
“That’s very honorable of you. Sacrifice isn’t easy.”
“No, it’s not.” Oriclen quiets as our pilot calls out the situation.
“Approaching Jaweir. Nebs in heavy battle with civilians.” There’s hesitation in his voice.
Oriclen bolts upright, body swirling with gold light. “Stop! It’s an illusion trap! Shields up! Abort drop off!” He takes a knee like he’s horribly dizzy. Oriclen grabs his head.
I don’t know Isonian culture, but I have a feeling, based on what I know about their ranks, the Oriclen might just be destined to be an Augur himself.
I rip the analyzer out of my side pouch and rush to him, scanning his Vibrance up to his forehead as the pilots look back. I get green readouts. “He’s clean. He’s not injured. No telepathic holds.”
The pilots bank hard and call out the warnings to others.
Reports come back that several ships are already stuck inside Neb isolation shields and unreachable.
We set down at a distance from the city and lower the ramp.
Oriclen stands with my help as other Isonians lift rifles and make their way outside.
Oriclen holds his head and staggers with them to the ramp.
Looming before us is the palest shimmer of a shield.
It forms a dome over the entire city. Inside, we can see Isonians running to us to the wall, screaming for help.
The soldiers that have unloaded with us walk to them with curiosity, and I’m certain it’s something they’ve not encountered before.
“What do you see?” I ask Oriclen.
He shakes his head. “They look real. They…have Vibrance energy. But they feel…hollow.”
“Then they are not real.” An Isonian beside us toys with a small orb in his hand. “But why?”
His patches tell me he’s a Master Pyron but just an Ember.
I am done waiting. I take a rifle off the wall and stalk out to the shield. It hums with a frequency I can hear, one I know. I reach out to touch it when Oriclen stops me. “Solara, you cannot just break chain of command like this. There are rules!”
“Let me test something.”
He releases me, and I dip a fingertip into the pale light. My scars hide again. I jerk my finger back. “I know what it is.”
“What?” the Master Pyron asks, motioning to another Ember in our squadron.
“It’s a scar cloak, well, in my business.
They are using it to conceal, but they’re imposing a visual that’s more complex than a simple plain mask.
This is Leosantian tech. I’ve worked on this before.
” I dig through my medical bag for a Mask breaker so I can see an Isonian’s true form even if he tries to hide injuries from me.
“Can someone get me a power cell from one of the ship guns?”
“I can power it,” the Master Pyron says, walking up to me. He holds out a hand. I place the device in it. “What will happen?”
“Might sting. Might kick.”
He grins. “Sounds like fun.”
Oriclen steps back and tugs me with him, whispering, “That’s Anion. He should be a Smolder, not an Ember.”
Anion powers up the device and plants it on the shield. The more power he feeds into it, the more of the shield fizzles out. Then the mask device arcs and puffs a cloud. Anion skids back a step and looks up as the shield pops like a soap bubble. The scene inside is devastating.
The city is already in smoking ruins. Civilians are gone. Ash rains from the sky.
“Dear Echelon,” Oriclen mutters in shock. “Hollow… It was the whole city I felt. I just didn’t want to accept it.”
The Ember beside Anion calls out my trick to the other ships as we make our way inside the dome’s perimeter. A drone falls from the sky near the center, smashing into buildings.
I rush to the first Isonian I see. She’s barely breathing. I find a stabilizer and prepare to give it to her.
“Don’t. Save it. I am old,” she wheezes. “The spirits came. Most of our people went underground. But some of us are slower. The shadow soldiers have Vibrance arrestors. But they take it out. I am but a dying human now.”
Oriclen gives me a wide-eyed look.
“So we’re dealing with a succubus device that steals souls.” I straighten as Oriclen calls out the discovery to the other soldiers who sift through debris.
I help her up with a hand. “You won’t die. It just feels like it. But you’ll survive.”
“How do you know?” Her body trembles when I get her upright.
“As a human, I’ve lost my soul once or twice.”
Oriclen helps her find a comfortable place to sit in a nearby building.
I seek out more Isonians and discover they have the same story: banshees, soul-suckers, and feeling cold and empty.
And then I catch a glimpse of a furry marbled-gray soldier with blue eyes through the narrow passages of the city, stealing an orb of light from an old man.
“Solara, where are you going?” Oriclen calls after me.
“To get the souls back. They are not Neb property,” I growl.
“That isn’t your job,” an Ember calls after me.
“They lost their souls,” I reply. “It only feels like dying the first time. Your citizens will live. But I doubt you want to run Ignesium nonstop for the next few years. You need your power to have the best weapons to fight and defend yourselves. Not to mention, whatever the Nebs plan to do with your souls can’t be good. ”
I can hear the soulfire orbs. They cry out for help like the Delsfein over static, begging to be set free.
Oriclen chases after me. “If you break the rules, you’ll never be inducted.”
“I’d rather be alive and your people be whole than carry a meaningless title. And sometimes, we have to break the rules to save some asses.”
Oriclen doesn’t look like he wants to go headfirst toward the Nebs.
“I’m not making you do anything you don’t want to,” I add.
Oriclen puffs out a breath, closes his eyes, and opens them a brighter shade of gold. “Onidus would go. He would risk everything. But I have seen what that kind of action can do. And he can’t hold the line on his own forever.”
Maybe it’s because I’m older than Oriclen, but I feel responsible for him. And that notion makes me more comfortable carrying the rifle.
“Say, what does it look like when you see auras?”
Oriclen hunkers down behind the wall with me as we watch the Nebs in the distance.
“Like clouds of color and light. The hues describe the emotional spectrum. The brightness describes the purity of the soul. The way the orbs move, if they vibrate or fold in on themselves, describes their character qualities: their adaptability versus their rigidity and those sorts of things. Whether or not they lie. The way they lie. If it’s duress, manipulation, questioning truth, or treachery. ”
“Do you just see that with Isonians and other species?”
Oriclen looks up at me. “Everything. The only place with silence is space and death. Neither of which I like because of their vulnerability.”
“Sounds like you’re on your way to be an Augur.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s a lot of responsibility. I’m just a Torrent.”
I punch him lightly in the shoulder. “You have already saved us from being stuck inside a shield. Have a little faith in your Vibrance. The universe gave you this skill potential for a reason, just like it gave me fingers that can feel a hair-thin augment fiber that’s out of place.
I can’t see it without assistance, but I can feel it.
And I have to trust that. If I don’t, people can die.
Can you trust yourself for just a little while? ”
Oriclen nods. “I will do my best.”
“We have to stop the Nebs from taking what isn’t theirs, but we have to live to make sure we get all the souls back, protect them. And return them. I want you with me when we bring them home.”
Oriclen studies me. “You know they’re down there.”
“I hear them like I hear Delsfein. Something about primordial fibers in my body from an unprotected natural portal ignition. Makes our bodies do weird shit.”
Oriclen considers this. “So you hear energies like I see them?”
“You could say that.”
He nods. “Okay. I know it’s not easy to chase something that compels you when no one else can see it. Or hear it. What’s the plan?”
“Prevent their escape. Target the ships’ thrusters and the portal carriers, those with the black harnesses with the double circle symbol. They’re blood-bound to the portal. If they die, the portal dies. Last I remember. But I guess you’ve probably gone up against them more than I have.”
“Actually, no.” Oriclen glances behind us.
“I usually stay with them, where it’s safer because I’m newer.
I’ve only been in for about a year. But you should watch out for their new pulse discs.
They seem to steal everyone’s technology.
It’s like a pulse grenade, but it just knocks bodies and stuff back without the frag.
That’s what I was told. Hey, maybe we should report this to Ember Fiasan? He’s in charge of the ground squads.”
“Good idea. You do that.”
Oriclen turns back, signals Fiasan, and tells him what’s going on.
Fiasan, a tall Ember with white-gold eyes, studies me as he listens. “Torrent Solara will remain behind us with the injured. We will take on the Nebs.”
I don’t like the sound of that, even if it is logical. “You can’t all go in and just attack them.”
Ember Fiasan takes a step toward me. “Oh, you’ve been in war more than we have?”
“No. But…”
“Then stay out of the way.”
Oriclen hangs his head like he’s regretting telling Fiasan. “You should listen to her. She’s seen things only Onidus has.”
Fiasan’s jaw muscles dance with his irritation. “If you want to believe the human, then stay behind with her. Everyone else, form up and stay with me.”