NaNoWriMo: Days 15-17
Dec. 2nd, 2012 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
polychrome_penPrompt 15: Storm
"All right Wing Storm! Cut and dive!" Peak said with a whoop as his purple dragon dove toward the bubbling lava pit. Stormy’s claws hooked perfectly around a fat amber crystal as the dragon expertly pulled up, avoiding a brush with the spicy dip.
“Cut the theatrics, Peak,” Z’neth said over his vox box.
“Why?” Peak asked, “Can’t stand being shown up?” he teased.
Peak heard Z’neth sigh. “Watch a master at work, little brother.” Peak stared in awe as Z’neth and his dragon Riptor made a daring dive into a tight corner of the lava pit before flying vertically upward against the sheer wall surrounding the lava.
Peak whistled with surprise. He shouldn’t have forgotten that Z’neth wasn’t Dragonator One for nothing. “All right, old man, I defer to your wealth of experience,” Peak said with a chuckle.
“Can we just get these crystals back to Airlandis?” Amod said as he and Titan snatched a crystal from the magma. “The Aristotle is supposed to be coming back today, and I really don’t want to miss it!”
“Agreed,” Z’neth said. “It’ll be good to have everyone home.”
“Amod just can’t wait to see his boyfriend!” Peak said.
The other dragonator raised an eyebrow on Peak’s vid screen. “And I’m sure you couldn’t care less about seeing…oh…Nora perhaps?” Amod said.
Peak turned bright red.
“I thought as much,” Amod said with a smirk.
Truth be told, Peak was a little jealous that Summit and Miriam had gotten to spend scads of private time together while he didn’t get the same opportunity with Nora. And what was that nonsense about him not being experienced enough? Nora had barely any more logged flight time than he did!
Wing Storm nudged him positive thoughts. Sometimes his drag just took him way too seriously. “Nothing to worry about, buddy,” he said, patting Stormy’s long neck.
The desolation of Old Earth slipped past them as the three dragonators made their way to the nearest Wind Pit. Almost more than Nora, Peak was looking forward to Summit, Apex, and their father to come back. He liked Z’neth, but dude was his oldest brother serious business all the time. How could anyone be like that and not feel like a cragface at the end of the day?
The Wind Pit came up on the north Flyz scanners. Peak looked down again as something caught his eye. Was the equipment ghosting again? “Amod, Z’neth, what does your equipment register in the northeast vector?” Peak asked.
“It looks like something large is headed for the Wind Pit,” Z’neth said. Peak heard him call in a possible D2 alert to Skywatch. Nothing to worry about, Peak thought.
As they moved closer to the Wind Pit, Peak could make out the shape of a large dragon at the head of an enormous column of gremwings, and two other dragons following them. Nocturna was at the front, and Dread Wing and Fryte were in the rear of the column.
“Looks like Dread’s giving us a going away party!” Peak said. At current speeds, they would reach the Wind Pit’s entrance at nearly the same time, and Peak knew it wouldn’t be pretty. “Let’s go, Stormy! I wouldn’t want to disappoint him by showing up late!”
Suddenly, Peak saw flashes of plasma cannon fire arcing out from Fryte and Dread Wing toward Nocturna, roasting several gremwings as they shot through the column.
“Wait Peak!” Z’neth said. “I think they’re chasing Nocturna, not us.”
“Good. Let them tear each other to pieces,” Amod added. “One less mutant for us to worry about.”
Peak saw Z’neth brow furrowed in concentration and told Stormy to slow down. “What are you cooking up, Big Z? For once I actually have to agree with Amod on this. Let’s change course for the next Wind Pit and let this drama unfold.”
“Negative, Peak. We’re going to rescue Nocturna,” Z’neth said.
“You can’t be serious, Z’neth!” Peak exclaimed. “You remember what happened the last time we tried helping her out, don’t you?”
“Yes, I remember the last time, Peak; getting caught up in a Warnado power struggle wasn’t exactly fun, but then she still had her Dark Dramen force. This time I think she’s alone,” Z’neth replied. “This really could be an opportunity to get intel on Dread that would help end this conflict. Also, it’s an order.”
“Aye, aye,” Amod chimed in in a less-than-enthusiastic tone. Peak found he really couldn’t blame him.
“Then let’s go save a mutant. Yay?” Peak said to Stormy, who rumbled his displeasure at the idea. Scalebacks were smarter than Z’neth today apparently.
Z’neth and Riptor picked up speed as they neared the flock of gremwings. Peak saw Z’neth blasting into the group with abandon as he angled straight for Dread Wing, hoping that disabling the leader would send the rest of the group packing. “Peak, get to Nocturna and protect her!” Z’neth yelled into his vox box.
Peak sighed, moving Stormy toward the blue-skinned she-mutant and her dragon.
Nocturna’s face was filled with confusion and concern as she got a sight of him and Storm. “What are you doing here, Dragon Flyz?” she screeched.
“Unfortunately, saving your blue hide,” Peak said as he directed Nocturna toward the Wind Pit. “Get into the Wind Pit and stay at the base. We’ll stop Dread Wing.” Peak activated his Wind Jammers and released volley after volley into the gremwings, knocking the horrid creatures from the air and into a waiting lava pit below. He looked over the battle: Amod and Titan were clashing with Fryte, and Peak cheered as Amod got in a well-placed shot that knocked Fryte off his dragon.
“No way am I letting some Dragon Flyz save me,” Nocturna said as she flew up toward Peak’s position. She activated her plasma cannon and roasted two gremwings. “It would ruin my reputation.”
“I think your reputation is the least of your current problems,” Peak retorted.
Z’neth and Dread Wing were engaged in a death match. Z’neth flew off of Riptor and engaged Dread Wing midair, while the dragons circled overhead and snapped at each other.
“You’re right, boy. Dread Wing is my current problem!” Nocturna replied. Letting out a bloodcurdling battle cry, she shot through the air toward Z’neth and Dread Wing.
Peak flew after her, and watched in shock as Nocturna barreled straight into Dread Wing, knocking him away from Z’neth. The mutant lord and his lieutenant plunged toward the smoking lava pit below. At the last moment before impact, Blackheart swooped down from his battle with Riptor and scooped up Dread Wing. Nocturna’s wings unfurled, carrying her back up on a draft of warm air.
“Keep the viper, Z’neth!” Peak heard Dread Wing yell as Blackheart flew away. “And may she bite your heel as she has mine one too many times!”
Peak sighed with relief as the gremwings and an obviously injured Fryte followed suit and flew off after Dread Wing into the gloom. Flying over to Z’neth and Nocturna, he got right up in the blue mutant’s face. “What was that all about?” he asked incredulously.
Nocturna gave Peak a cold look. “Exactly what it looked like, boy. I crossed Dread Wing for the final time, and now he is out for my blood.”
“Where were you running to, then?” Z’neth asked.
“The only place I knew I would be safe from Dread Wing, naturally – Airlandis,” Nocturna replied.
Peak sputtered with rage. “What makes you think we would give you sanctuary after you double crossed us the last time?”
“You gave Gangryn sanctuary,” she replied coolly.
“And look where that got us! Dread Wing almost stole our amber reactor technology!” Peak said.
“Can we stop the bickering for a minute?” Amod’s voice came over the vox box. “We need to get these crystals back to Airlandis.”
Z’neth turned to Nocturna. “We will offer you Sanctuary, but only on the condition that you spend the time under lockdown. Do you agree?”
Nocturna bowed her head and closed her eyes. “I agree,” she said, and Peak saw sorrow and defeat written on her face. Z’neth nodded, and flew back to Riptor.
Peak, still shaking his head at this development, returned to Stormy. This has bad idea written all over it, he thought to himself. But Z’neth was in command. However, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to watch Nocturna like a hawk.
She got back on her dragon, and Peak said, “One wrong move, Nocturna. Just give me one opportunity or try to hurt my family in any way, and you’ll wish you never asked for help from us.”
She simply nodded, her face a mask, yellow eyes glowing. Peak patted Wing Storm, and they started their ascent through the Wind Pit.
Peak knew Joshua would be furious, and probably their father as well. Peak wondered why Z’neth was putting his neck on the line for Lady Blue again. Had she really left Dread Wing for good? Whatever the circumstances, it looked to Peak like a storm was headed for Airlandis.
Prompt 16 – Strawberries
Nocturna stretched out on the bed, relishing the fluffy pillow and soft sheets. Despite what she sometimes thought of the humans, they knew how to live in comfort.
Sunlight streamed in the windows of her quarters on Airlandis. Nocturna got up, wandered to the window and sat down on the floor, knees pulled to her chest. Her gaze moved over the white clouds and blue skies. Will I ever get tired of this view? she thought idly. Everything here was so clean and full of light. Not like Warnado; no, not like Warnado at all.
Nocturna thought back to her first days here on Airlandis. Z’neth had not only saved her from a gruesome end at Dread Wing’s claws belowclouds, but had also stood up and vouched for her before the highborn Council, taking full responsibility. It had been a stupid decision on his part, ridiculously noble and self-sacrificing, but Nocturna found she was grateful all the same. Nobody in all her life had ever stood by her side in such a manner.
Still, that hadn’t stopped the Council from holding her in a cramped cell in the brig for the better part of a week. If nothing else, it had given Nocturna time to evaluate her life.
Nocturna had been born a nameless child of the breeding pits. Most children were not given names until they reached their maturity, as the survival rate was low. Her mother died when Nocturna had been very young, killed by her current lover. Nocturna never knew who her father was, though she suspected it was one of Dread Wing’s father’s high lieutenants. But it had never really mattered. She was born to nothing, and her life worth less than nothing. With her mother gone, Nocturna had stolen scraps of food to survive unnoticed in Warnado. In her lowest moments, she had killed and eaten gremwings in order to survive.
Nocturna could not say that she had loved her mother. Love was not an emotion ever given time to take root and grow in the breeding pits. Still, the Mistress of the Endless Night demanded justice, and Nocturna was the only one who cared to avenge her mother’s death. So she had survived and forged a will of iron. She would gain power someday, and on that day she would give the Mistress her due.
Options were limited to those of Nocturna’s caste. She could either become a whore like her mother or join Dread Wing’s army. The choice had been obvious.
The training had been awful. Nocturna returned to her crevice every night, her body covered with welts and plasma burns. But she had survived, even thrived in the strict atmosphere of the military. It hadn’t taken long to gain the fear and respect of the other recruits within the first few months.
Looking back on her life, those years of training had been the closest she had ever come to happiness while living on Old Earth. She put on weight with regular food, and the rigorous training left her muscles taught and tight. But any illusion of contentment died as they reached their majority.
For that was the day that he had come to look them over. It was the first time Nocturna had ever seen Lord Asmodeus, but she recognized him instantly as the lover who had killed her mother. Asmodeus stood seven feet tall, with mottled skin the colors of molten rock. The Lord of Warnado had grown old, but definitely not weak. He and his son Dread Wing were there to look over the soldiers, and review their skills for the opportunity of serving as Dread Wing’s personal guards.
They lined up for review, and as Asmodeus’s yellow eyes passed over Nocturna with barely concealed lust, they also contained a flicker of recognition. So perhaps the beast had not forgotten what he had done to her mother.
“The best of you will enjoy the high honor of serving Warnado as Prince Dread Wing’s personal guard,” Asmodeus said. “We will test your combat skills in the arena tonight. The last one standing will be granted a name and power second only to myself and the prince.”
Nocturna had known this would be her one chance to get close enough to Asmodeus to kill him. Once she won the completion and ingratiated herself with the royal family, she could dispose of Warnado’s Lord with ease.
“I have nothing. Nothing but the will to win,” Nocturna whispered to herself as she stepped onto the blood-soaked sands of the arena that night. All around the tiered seats, mutants and Dark Dramen cheered with bloodlust at the prospect of a good fight. Directly across from her entrance sat Asmodeus and Dread Wing, with the dragon Blackheart curling around their thrones.
At the sound of the dragon’s roar, the contestants were released into a free-for-all. Nocturna unfurled her wings and shot into the air while the grounded mutants knocked each other senseless. To her delight, several of them were already down for the count. But she was not alone in the air. The grotesque, long-necked, tusked mutant known as Fryte – not a true name, but one given for his terrifying appearance – was flying up toward her, screaming with blood rage. Nocturna’s clawed foot caught the horror right in the face and sent him tumbling down back into the fray. By gaining the high ground first, Nocturna was able to fend off several other fliers with the same ease.
As the dust settled below her, Nocturna could see only Fryte remained standing. So, the twisted beast had actually managed to beat the rest of the fighters. No matter – his streak would end with her.
Nocturna retracted her wings upon landing, and Fryte did the same. They circled each other for several minutes, each looking for an opening to crush the other. Nocturna knew that Fryte was easily double her size and strength. Still, she was far more nimble. And more intelligent by a longshot.
Fryte made the first move, his clawed hand shooting for her throat at lightning speed. Nocturna executed a perfect backflip, narrowly evading his grasp. She returned with a spinning roundhouse kick aimed at his face. Fryte grabbed her foot out of the air, and Nocturna was savagely slammed into the sandy floor.
Gasping for breath, she rolled over onto her back as Fryte lunged for her again. Using her powerful legs, Nocturna caught Fryte square in the chest, launching him backward. She leapt up to her feet, pushing the pain away, lest it threaten to overwhelm her. Nocturna vaulted, landing on top of Fryte, her claws at his throat, drawing the tiniest amount of blood.
“Do you yield?” she called out.
Fryte coughed, giving her an evil look. “I…yield.”
The cheers and roars of the spectators were deafening, and Nocturna relished the praise and respect that she had never before experienced. Asmodeus called her forward, and granted her the name “Nocturna.” Despite her hatred for the mutant king, she relished the sound of her new name on her tongue.
As their prizes for winners of the tournament, Nocturna and Fryte were named as Dread Wing’s first and second lieutenants. The next days were a blur to Nocturna, as she was given her own dragon and set up with a high-ranking apartment in Warnado. The luxury of the rulers was definitely something Nocturna could see herself becoming accustomed to.
Dread Wing, the mutant prince who had only been a means to an end for her, was the most surprising thing of all in her new life. His lust for power nearly matched her own. From him, she learned of the floating city of Airlandis, the dragonators and their crystal raids, and the humans’ search for a new homeland on Old Earth.
Nocturna would be lying to say she didn’t have second thoughts about her duty to kill the king. The power in her new position was heady and intoxicating. It would be difficult to give that up. But she was not without her own sense of honor. And that demanded Asmodeus’s death.
It was late the night she had decided to finally do it. Nocturna had stopped by the inventor Gangryn’s laboratory earlier that evening and stolen a vial of poison, coating her claws with it. It was slow-acting, and Asmodeus would suffer. Nocturna found comfort in that fact.
She snuck into the king’s private quarters and concealed herself behind a large tapestry. Thankfully, she didn’t have long to wait for the king. She could hear Dread Wing bid his father good night, and felt a small pang of guilt for depriving another child of their parent. Pushing it aside, she stepped from behind the tapestry and faced the king.
He had a sad smile on his gruesome face. “I wondered when you would come for me, Nocturna,” he said wistfully.
She felt grateful he knew – it would make it all the easier. “You know who I am then. And why I am here,” she replied coldy.
“I do,” he said. “The Mistress of the Endless night is a harsh taskmistress, yet her cardinal rule governs our lives like a death trap. I don’t suppose I could offer you anything to stop you from trying to complete this foolish task? You are a skilled warrior; I would hate to have to kill you.”
Nocturna shook her head.
Asmodeus sighed. “I feared as much,” he said, before launching himself at her.
Nocturna barely had time to react, jumping out of the way. Thinking quickly, she grabbed the tapestry and pulled it from the wall onto the king. He pulled out a small lava gun and shot it, instantly incinerating the woven fibers.
“What a waste – that was my favorite tapestry,” he snarled.
“It is fortunate that you will not have to worry about it much longer then!” Nocturna said. She unfurled her wings and flew at Asmodeus. His giant fist easily knocked her away, but not before she scratched his arm with her poisoned claws.
The poison’s effect was almost instant. Asmodeus dropped to his knees, convulsing and beginning to foam at the mouth. The poison was working its way through his body, beginning the slow process of dissolving the king’s organs.
“Justice is done, Mistress,” Nocturna said with a bowed head. She used the king’s water basin to cleanse her hands of the poison before moving to the door. Opening it, Nocturna emitted a cry as she saw Dread Wing standing there. His hand shot to her throat, and he lifted Noctura off the ground.
“You have killed my father, witch,” Dread said. It was not a question.
“Kill me, then,” she said in a strangled whisper.
Dread Wing’s eyes narrowed as he looked more closely at her. “No, Nocturna,” he said, dropping her to the floor. “In fact, you have done me a service.” Dread Wings eyes travelled across the room to his slowly dying father. “For you have made me Lord of Warnado. Mark my words, though – should you ever double cross me, I shall feed you to Blackheart with nary a second thought.”
A tear ran down Nocturna’s cheek as she remembered what had followed. Though in a twisted way Dread Wing owed her his throne, it had not stopped him from whipping her, then later bedding her. It had felt horrible, like she was becoming her weak mother all over again. But her lust for power had been so strong that Nocturna had abided the treatment, as it let her stay in Dread Wing’s good graces and retain her position as his first lieutenant.
Until that last time. Dread Wing had let her power-mad activities slide for a long time, as he had never truly felt threatened by her. But for a moment, she had had a plasma cannon pressed to his head in their bed before he overpowered her. It had been enough for Dread Wing to realize she wanted his throne more than him, and that ending her life was the best solution to his problem.
Which brought Nocturna to Airlandis.
After her week in the brig, Nocturna had been released to Z’neth’s custody. He had set her up with quarters close to him (likely in order to keep a close eye on her). She still wore an explosive tracking anklet at all times (she didn’t take the humans for complete fools after all), but Z’neth had insisted she clean up her wardrobe, and brought in Apex to help.
Once Z’neth had left the room, Apex gave her an icy glare. “Look Nocturna, I don’t know what your game is, but for reasons I cannot possibly comprehend my idiot brother has decided to apparently tie his fate to yours. And so I will be watching you. Anything you attempt will land you straight back in the brig, and any harm you cause to Z’neth or anyone else on Airlandis will be revisited to you tenfold. Is that clear?”
What was clear was that the female hated her. “I…understand your mistrust, dragonator,” Nocturna answered. “But there is really nothing more going on here than self-preservation.” Which unfortunately was the truth. Nocturna felt naked as she realized she had no contingency plans, no possible routes of escape. She was truly at the mercy of the humans.
Apex rolled her eyes. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t immediately believe you. Past history being my educational primer and all.” She had reluctantly helped Nocturna pick a few articles of clothing from the computer database, which were later brought to the room. Nocturna had never felt so covered up in her life. Each of the garments could easily have made three outfits appropriate for Warnado. But Nocturna had not expected to be so damned cold here all the time. She found the constant cold wind absolutely miserable.
Almost as miserable as the cold glares whenever she left her quarters. Nocturna had – at Z’neth’s insistence – taken a meal in the Replimat. There hadn’t been a filled chair in any of the tables surrounding her. She saw Peak and Apex at the peripheral edge of the crowd, keeping an eye on everything.
So Nocturna had decided to take her meals alone. Until this morning.
She heard a loud knock at her door. “It’s Z’neth,” he heard the white-haired Dragonator’s voice from the other side.
“It’s open,” Nocturna replied, rising from her seated position in the sun.
The door whooshed open, and Z’neth stepped in. It was strange seeing her longtime adversary out of his flight uniform, but Nocturna had to admit Z’neth was quite…handsome?
“We’re going to get breakfast,” he announced, crossing his arms and looking straight at her.
She waved him off and crawled back into her soft bed. “Not going to happen, Z’neth. I don’t enjoy subjecting myself to public scorn and humiliation.”
Z’neth whipped off the sheets. “If you don’t try, you’ll never work up the courage to leave this room. Nobody will ever become accustomed to your presence here on Airlandis.”
Nocturna propped her head up on one arm and raised an eyebrow at Z’neth. “I don’t think anyone’s dying to make my acquaintance. Nor I theirs.”
“I don’t think that’s the truth,” he insisted.
“Why do you care anyway? What does it matter to you if the people of Airlandis like me or not?” she snarled.
“Believe it or not, Nocturna, humans and mutants are not all that different,” he said, as she snorted with disbelief. He went on, “If humans want any chance of making a new home on Earth, we need to find common ground with your people instead of what makes us fight each other.”
Nocturna actually laughed, a shrill cackle. “Your naiveté is charming, Z’neth. The only way in which we are similar is that we walk on two legs. Not nearly enough to forge a treaty on.” She saw his pained expression, and felt a little guilty. But better he learn that from her than at the point of Dread Wing’s lava cannon. Still, it would be nice to get out of the room, if only for a little while.
“All right, all right. I’ll go with you to breakfast. Though I warn you you’ll regret it,” she said.
Their walk to the Replimat was full of hundreds of befuddled frowns from the Airlandean citizens. They got their food as the entirety of the hall looked on in silence, and Z’neth found them a table without much incident. Nocturna saw his tray was filled with a variety of colorful items, while hers with the most basic of nutritional supplements. She was just being careful – on Old Earth, the vivid food was the most likely to be poisonous.
Z’neth sighed as he caught sight of her tray. “Here, take these,” he said, sliding a bowl of red fruits across the table to her. “They’re not poisonous – see?” he said, spearing one with a fork and eating it. “They’re called strawberries.”
Nocturna eyed the bowl with mistrust. Still, after Z’neth had made such a show…
“Well, in the name of friendship and all that nonsense,” she said, taking a tentative bite. The flavors that ran across her tongue were like nothing Nocturna had ever experienced before. It was sweet and beautiful, like a symphony of flavor.
Z’neth smiled as he took a sip of that revolting beverage they called coffee. “How was it?”
“I’ve had better,” Nocturna lied, spearing another berry.
“Of course,” he replied, taking another one for himself.
Prompt 17 – Weapon
Twisters churned up the desert all around Cifex’s small hovercraft. His instruments were all going haywire, and his optical sensors could barely make out anything more than fifty feet in either direction. For the thousandth time, he wished he could have found a working aircraft in the military base. Still, his trusty little hovercraft had proven its worth time and time again – she was a sturdy little vehicle, without a doubt.
Following the maps he had downloaded from the 30th Century military base, Cifex had spent months following a lead of dead ends. All the potential human settlements he had uncovered so far had been either completely wiped away, or rusted out hulks. There hadn’t been a sign of human life in any of them. Granted, his info was roughly a millennium out of date.
What was it with him and deserts? The sands blew all around, and Cifex decided that enough was enough for today. According to the data his ship had gathered before the storms blew in, there should be a gorge somewhere nearby. Moving in the perceived direction (or as near as he could tell, given his instruments unwillingness to cooperate), Cifex hoped he wouldn’t go off the edge into it without warning.
“Computer, please send out an electro-scanning pulse,” he said. The ship sent the pulse, but it dissipated quickly in the whirling sands. Cifex set the ship to continue sending out pulses at five-second intervals. After nearly an hour of this slow search, Cifex almost missed the computer finally registering the gorge on his scan. Shifting his heading, Cifex sent the craft coasting toward the protected safety of the ravine.
As he got closer, however, the gorge wasn’t the only thing that his eletro-scanning pulses revealed. Located in the center of the canyon was a ziggurat-shaped edifice. Referencing his settlement information with the closest approximation he could get of the gorge’s coordinates, Cifex found a hit under “Starship Explorer.” Well, it certainly didn’t look like a space-faring vessel was down there, so he was doubly curious.
Cifex maneuvered his hovercraft slowly down the side of the gorge, praying his stabilizers would hold out long enough to reach the bottom. When he finally leveled out, Cifex was impressed by the ziggurat’s size. It looked like there were shields set around the base, obscuring any type of doorway or entrance. Cifex brought the hovercraft between the shields and the ziggurat, glad that it fit between the two and was therefore shielding from any outside observers. Plus, it was nice to finally be out of the wind.
Cifex booted up his holo-cube memory of Apex before opening the hatch and hopping out of the hovercraft. The hologram had become something of a good-luck charm for him before entering any possible settlements. He also grabbed a pulse-laser pistol on his way out. No sense in going in with luck alone on his side.
His cloak whispered around him as Cifex made his way toward the entrance. The building was obviously ancient, the stone lichen-covered. On closer inspection, however, Cifex noticed that the stones were in perfect shape, with nary a scratch on their surface. The door was a metal alloy Cifex was unfamiliar with. With some surprise, he noticed there wasn’t even a hint of rust on it.
Pulling the door open, Cifex stared into the darkness. His optical sensors adjusted to the gloom, and what he saw was incredible. Banks of panels and monitors stood surrounding a central gazebo-like structure. All of the technology appeared to be in perfect working order, though in a powered-down mode.
His mind was scrolling through memory files as fast as his neuroprocessor would allow. What was this place? It was definitely not a 30th Century military installation; if the coordinates were correct, it had something to do with a Starship Explorer. But this building was obviously no spaceship.
Cifex moved to the central structure, but did not enter it. It vaguely resembled the teleportation pads he had seen used for shock troop movements during the war. Site to site teleportation had been a new technology before the Cataclysm, but during the dark days many of the teleporter pads stopped functioning. Could this installation be an intergalactic, functional version of those teleporters?
Going back to the nearest terminal, Cifex booted it up. Instantly, a man’s face appeared on the screen. “Greetings, visitors,” it said. “I am Captain Jonathan Lands of the Starship Explorer. We are a civilian transport with 20,000 passengers bound for the outer limits of the galaxy in hopes of finding a new world to call home. The portal you see in front of you is a direct link to Explorer, and the door is always open to any other survivors who will join us.”
Cifex sat back in the chair – well, this certainly helped his computations as to what had happened to many of the surviving human colonies. It appeared that most of the humans had left Earth in the centuries following the Cataclysm, beaming themselves to the Starship Exlplorer. Remembering the horrors of that period, Cifex found he couldn’t blame them. Between space and Airlandis, Cifex wondered if there really were any humans left down here on Old Earth.
The question now was...should he attempt a trip through the portal and see what was on the other side? Cifex was hesitant to risk going through; if this portal was unidirectional, he would be stuck in whatever place he ended up (provided the portal still had a reception site on the other end and didn't just scatter his atoms across the cosmos).
If he didn't at least attempt it, Cifex felt the central thrust of his quest might end up in vain. If the vast majority of humanity had left Earth behind, he had a duty to find out. Cifex brought up the portal controls and tried to interface his systems with them. With any luck, he could activate a pullback protocol that would bring him back to Old Earth after a set amount of time. The system was newer than him, however, and it took his central processor several hours to sift through the terraquads of data stored to in the computers to run the complex systems that controlled the portal.
Finally, he found the relevant systems and began to work with them, changing the portal's command codes to suit his needs. After several hours of reprogramming, Cifex was confident that the gateway would bring him back, provided there was anything left to bring back. He set the controls for one hour.
Cifex took one last look at the holocube of Apex before tucking it back into his pocket. He holstered his pulse-laser pistol, drew his cloak around his shoulder, and stepped into the portal.
Lightning arced all around him, dancing over his body but not harming him. Cifex's vision turned to white, and he was both weightless and formless. Though he had no vision, Cifex felt stars and galaxies racing past him, supernovas exploding, interstellar dust swirling and forming planets.
And in an instant, it was all over. Cifex breathed a sigh of relief as he saw his body completely whole and unharmed. Looking around, he saw himself on a transporter pad, surrounded on all sides by windows looking out onto the cosmos. The experience was breathtaking. What appeared to be a hallway made of glass led off toward a central structure. The Explorer, perhaps? If so, shouldn't there be people here monitoring the teleporter? Perhaps it had been so long since anyone had come through that the system had been abandoned.
Cifex made his way down the hallway, marveling at the ingenuity of such a design. It felt as though he were walking through space itself. As he neared the end of the tunnel, his aural sensors picked up a sound coming from nearby. Filtering it through his database, Cifex recognized the sound as piano music.
The glass tunnel ended in a nondescript hallway. Cifex turned to his left, heading toward the sound of the piano music. It was a beautiful, if sad melody that he was able to hear. Rounding a corner, Cifex saw the back of a woman in a purple dress. Her golden hair was tied loosely up, and she sat at a golden piano that was surrounded by the glass walls, letting the stars shine in.
"Um...hello," Cifex said. The woman jumped slightly, startled at the sudden greeting. She turned around slowly, as if in a dream, and Cifex was strongly reminded of Apex and her brothers.
"Who are you?" she asked, obviously still shocked by his sudden appearance.
"My name is Cifex," he answered. "I'm from Old Earth. Who are you, and where am I?"
"You are on the Starship Explorer," the woman answered, suddenly smiling. "And my name is Iranda."
