Chapter Thirty
When the Levee Breaks
The tunnel exploded into chaos as claws scraped against the walls, shrieks echoed in deafening waves, and the rocky ground trembled. I barely had time to register the advancing swarm before Zephyron launched himself forward.
With a roar, he tore through the first wave of creatures as Solis and Axios' lights pulsed.
His tanned muscles rippled, each strike calculated for maximum damage.
He ripped a Zerlite's arm off and used it as a club, smashing another across the face.
Rocks and shattered exoskeletons flew as he battered his way toward the queen.
"Tommy! Behind you!" Dad snapped. I turned, barely dodging a leaping reptilian monkey-thing.
Simulacra stood back-to-back, their pointed connectors flashing as they fought in perfect synchronization. Solis severed a Zerlite's legs with a swift swipe while Axios drove his short, stubby arm through another's torso. Their movements were almost ballet-like in their precision.
"Safe!" Axios crackled with static as he shoved me out of harm's way.
In a split second, another simian Zerlite lashed out and sliced into Axios' head with needle claws.
Sparks burst from his temple, and his face twitched violently, as if electrocuted again.
One side of his memory crystal and the heart of everything that made him unique fractured.
A jagged half snapped off, then bounced with a hollow, clinking sound across the wet cavern floor.
"No!" I screamed, my own voice ripped out of me. I grabbed the laughing thing by the throat and hurled it deep into the dark shadows.
Axios stumbled backward, stabilizers whined, and his glow dimmed. He fell, and his dimming diagnostic light lit the edge of the underground river.
Parker grunted. His ribs had to be screaming with pain, but he pushed through and used my surfboard to smash smaller, bulbous Zerlites. Several approached with their needle appendages toward him and my son.
The queen watched us with an eerie stillness, as her glowing eyes tracked every movement.
I sucked in a breath, while my heart hammered in my chest, and whistled, repeating the Sandari wind chimes.
The Queen's head turned with a slow pivot.
I did it again, louder, and matched the notes perfectly.
Solis and Parker's drone were too busy to duplicate my sounds, but she had to have heard.
The Queen's twisted mouth curled before she pivoted her head.
On the side of her skull was a thick patch of shiny black armor over her ears.
She was the same and learned. A Human blasted her with sound, and she made sure I could never do it again. Some lesser Zerlites twitched with every musical pitch, and the Queen hissed. Zerlites snapped back into focus, then surged forward as a wave of fangs and claws under her command.
Zephyron leapt at the queen, but she deflected his strike with a swipe of her massive talons.
He slammed against the ground, only to rise again, his teeth bared and bloody.
He had one of Axios' metal shoes and threw it like a throwing star, striking her across the face.
The other 'shoe' he used as a shield. His bloodied fingers around the edge didn't register with him.
The queen roared, rose with a bone-crunching sound, and stretched her black limbs.
Long, curved claws dug into the cavern wall, then scaled up to the ceiling.
Zephyron lunged at her, driving a Zerlite limb into her glowing veins.
She shrieked. Instead of attacking him or spitting molten sand, she remained focused on what was above us all.
Muddy liquid soon poured down in powerful streams, growing larger with every second. She's flooding the tunnel!
Zerlites were already revived, but the water was the real threat. I'd grown up camping with my brothers, and even ankle-deep current could take you down if it moved fast enough.
A flash of those ice asteroids crossed my mind. I wanted an ocean, but not like this.
Parker stood firm, his drone hovering by Elai's side.
No longer just a video camera, it was a protector as my friend kept filming, gripping his battered phone, but he couldn't let the moment go.
Not this one. History came, and he'd spent his whole life preparing to record it.
He saw the big picture. This footage might convince Earth that Zephyron was the right one.
Parker couldn't fight with cracked ribs, but he could do this.
He steadied the phone on Zephyron as my man drove his fists into the queen's throat. His fingers trembled, soaked with water.
"Just a little more..." he muttered. The flood rose over his shoes. The drone remained by my baby.
"Parker, move!" I screamed as Solis stabbed one of the three crab-Zerlites at my feet.
Water surged around him, rising to his knees before sweeping him off his feet. He rolled hard, gasping as his body slammed into the rock floor, but the phone stayed clutched in his hand.
Two monkey-like attackers broke from the swarm, eyes fixed on my baby. The drone buzzed in warning, unable to shock anything without risking him. It imitated my whistle, buying it and my child a few seconds.
Parker saw everything. Clinging to a stalactite, he sized up the scene like a man trained to see a story: Elai in danger. The drone pinned. The water rising. And him—injured, half-limping, ribs likely cracked.
One broken man for two monsters, and it was simple math. I saw it in his eyes. "Save the phone, Thomas!"
With one hand, he hurled his brick-heavy vintage phone, smashing it square into one of the creature's bug-eyed faces. The camera-drone lunged, snatching the stunned Zerlite and electrocuting it in midair.
The second Zerlite turned, enraged, and leapt.
Parker didn't run or duck.
He grabbed the creature with both hands as it landed on him, and they vanished together, swept away by the torrent, rolling again and again toward and then finally over the edge.
"PARKER!"
The queen dropped from the ceiling, landing squarely between me and where my friend had vanished.
A slow, stuttering click-click-click filled the cavern.
It started faint, then rose in a brutal, mocking tempo.
There was no translation from my implant.
Twisted as it was, music had no language barrier, and I understood it all.
The Queen laugh-sang a cruel, jagged melody about loss, helplessness, and me.
Her long, blue claws unfurled. She could have killed me but wanted to savor the moment.
It wasn't the first time I'd known fear, but nothing prepared me for the wrongness of her.
She wasn't just alien. She was an unnatural lifeform twisted by ancient Sandari science.
Omega-Thomas wouldn't exist either if not for the Volardi. We each created life, but I wasn't a monster.
Zephyron leapt between us as water surged in torrents, rising faster with every passing second. The queen screeched with a piercing, guttural cry that reverberated in my bones. Her head tilted. She was smart and realized hurting me would hurt him.
For a fleeting moment, I was her target.
Yet, she knew taking him out would give everyone and her children easy food. I backed away, instinctively finding spots free of the roaring rapids.
She swiped with her claws, and Zephyron dodged, then thrust forward with a jagged chunk of Axios' memory crystal. The queen reared back, her armor-like skin split open under the crystal's continual stabs. Eyes glowed red before she slammed my man into the cavern wall.
He shook his head, leapt back, and thrust Axios' essence deep into the queen's side.
Dad grunted, smashing a large stone into a bulbous Zerlite climbing up his leg.
Solis moved beside him, slicing through another creature with swift precision.
Sparks of electricity surged as her connectors sliced through one after another.
She tore the data connector from Axios and threw it to me.
Thankfully, I caught it with the pointy end out, then quickly used it on an attacker with longer arms and more armored skin.
The queen bellowed again, her gaze shifting toward the camera-drone hovering over my child.
A high, terrified wail pierced through the battlefield noise.
I'm so sorry, Elai. Parker's drone buzzed furiously and fended off Zerlites, but they were relentless.
The queen shrieked, and a dozen new headcrabs skittered to Elai.
"Take our baby," I screamed to the drone.
"Fly up. Keep him out of the water and shock anything that gets close.
" Throwing electricity around a child was dangerous, but so was not doing it.
It chirped in acknowledgment, encased my child in tendrils, and rose.
Two free tentacles zapped headcrabs that had jumped up, trying to eat my kid. I stabbed the ones that fell back.
Zephyron continued his battle, but the queen showed no signs of slowing.
Glowing green blood, or whatever passed for it, dripped from her wounds, yet she pressed forward, her claws swiping with terrifying precision as they raked across my man's skin.
She moved on instinct and strategy and sensed his weakness: me.
His attention was split, and he couldn't worry about both.
Thoughts about him seeing me as a warrior came.
"Get her," I said. Two words but loaded with meaning.
I'll take care of myself. He roared, the sound echoing off the cavern walls as he grabbed Axios' corpse and spun, sending DuraMetal through the air.
The queen stumbled, and her balance faltered as the weight struck her square in the chest.
"Again!" I screamed with desperation, clawing at my throat.
Zephyron sprinted forward, lifted Axios' frame, then spun again, this time slamming the queen's head with the full force of Sim metal. The blow staggered her, sending her teetering near the cliff edge.
She didn't fall.
Her claws gouged the slick stone, anchoring herself against the swirling current. One wrong move would send her to the floor, but for now, she held steady.
I could see it. A moment that could tip either way. It just needed something. Then I saw it. My surfboard. It had survived everything. Interstellar travel, space ice, fire, a crash, and electricity. Now it sat a few feet from me, hanging loose on a flat boulder while water zipped around.
I grabbed it and slid it across the mud, water, and stone toward her.
Maybe she thought it was a weapon, something meant to hurt her and thus be crushed.
She'd never seen a board quite like this.
The ones at the Gold Dust Woman Festival didn't have a frictionless bottom.
She stepped on it and slipped, landing hard on the surfboard as it shot backward.
The current then took her, zipping away with flailing arms. Her screech rose as she toppled further back into the flood.
The board jammed against a hidden rock and halted her slide for a few breaths.
Zephyron lunged, and the shove sent her massive form back into the current.
She vanished into the black where Parker had gone.
My hand went out, grabbing his, and I leaned back, using my body weight as leverage.
In my side vision, a headcrab leapt toward Dad, giving me no time or way to stop it.
The creature's needle-like appendage stabbed into his stomach. Dad gasped, staggering backward, wide-eyed. Solis rushed to his side, severing the creature into explosive goo in a flash, but the damage was done.
Zephyron found his footing and we ran toward him. "Dad!" The rocky floor beneath me shifted. Water soaked my feet, rising rapidly. My foot caught on a hidden hole within the liquid.
The world tilted. My vision swam as I fell, the noise fading into a dull roar. The last thing I heard was Zephyron calling my name before everything went dark.
***
"Tommy! Hey son! Easy now," Dad whispered and knelt beside me. His face was pale, and eyes haunted.
My gaze darted around, doing a count and coming up short.
"Where's Parker?" I croaked, struggling to sit up. That part had to be a bad dream or something I imagined. Sarcastic Parker, the one who wrote Brandon's old show. The man arguably responsible for bringing the Volardi to Earth. Where was he?
A sense of dread gripped my chest.
Dad's lips trembled. "He's gone, son."
No, no, no. He clung to a rock, or got stuck behind a ledge, or somehow waited on a lower level.
"The water," said Dad. "He didn't see it coming, or maybe he did. He was trying to protect my grandson and get his footage."
"No," I whispered, shaking my head as my eyes stung. "No. He would have... he—"
My father's eyes shone. "—couldn't let them hurt Elai."
I screamed raw, the anguish tearing through me. It echoed violently in the cavern, making my baby cry out in fear. I clutched him close, my tears falling onto his tiny face as he wailed with me.
"Wait!" I blinked, staring at my father with shock. "Shouldn't you be dead?"
He smiled the tiniest bit. "Sorry to disappoint."
"But how?"
He raised his shirt. His stomach was damp with blood, but no fatal wound. Just a thick silver scar-vein, gleaming under pulsing light.
"The mark," explained Solis without her characteristic cheerfulness and with one hand behind her back. "It is made from DuraMetal."
"Just a stab to the left or right and it would have got me." Zephyron took our child, and I hugged Dad so hard, I nearly cracked his spine. Parker and Axios were hard enough. Dad being gone would have pushed me over.
"You saved him... again."
Zephyron placed a hand on my shoulder.
"And Axios?"
Wait! Solis spoke words. She extended her other hand, revealing shards of memory crystal stuck to her pointed data connector. "Some is still in him. Others are with me. I am using my fractured friend to speak."
"We'll fix him," I then repeated it again for her benefit and mine.
But right now, Parker was gone, Axios, or what made him unique, was shattered with fragments possibly swept away in the waters.
And we still had a final Trial to attend, after my man had just fought a Zerlite Queen. He was exhausted and physically and mentally wounded.
What would go through the mind of someone after all that?
***