In that one remaining minute, they would have
to save an entire planet by finding and destroying the bomb.
The watchmen were spirits of Elderon, but
made with an earthen shell. And in that earthen shell, they were
vulnerable to emotions such as fear, as long as it as directed at
the purpose of good.
And right now, they felt their focussed minds
waver in submission to fear … fear that they may not be able to
reach the planet, and save it in time. And this was a well
reasoned, rationally plausible fear.
Because the truth was … that within those
three minutes, reaching and stopping the bomb would require nothing
short of a miracle.
__________
“How much more time?”
Mantra’s voice had a bite of impatience,
mixed with a hidden fear.
Zevinog produced his z-com and the same holo
screen formed in the air atop it. He lowered the device, and the
screen along with it, and said from over it, “Less than two
minutes.”
Feeling his teeth grit, Mantra continued to
pace the room with his hands fastened behind his back. Nano stood
still where he was before Zevinog, though his posture stiffened
very mildly.
Less than two minutes.
The words
repeated in Mantra’s head as he prowled up and down the room,
trying to calm his nerves.
Dantox was twiddling with his thumbs in a
display of nervousness.
“I’ll be able to tell when the bomb goes off”
Zevinog blanched as all three of them rounded on him, and hurriedly
added: “Err, I mean
if
it goes of.”
Mantra gave a mirthless chuckle, turned and
continued pacing. “I don’t need you to. I’ll know if it does
myself.”
__________
AGRATH, CLUSTER 32
The watchmen’s ship had reached the city
Hyrigor, and had rounded in on the gas chambers of the city, within
two and a half minute…
Thirty seconds
to oblivion for this
entire planet.
The batch of watchmen were now hurtling
through the abandoned facility that made this gas chamber,
following the directions of the crime lord.
They were mentally making the countdown:
Twenty five seconds…
They stopped as they reached the exact gas
chamber, wrenched its double sided door open and found themselves
in a gigantic chamber, like that of a factory. Large, abandoned
tools and machines lay all around the giant room, engulfed in
dust.
They scanned the entire place silently, for
the description of the electro bomb, as Zevinog had given it.
Twenty seconds…
And then, as one, the entire batch of seven
watchmen focussed their beady eyes at the small, cubicle like glass
container at the far edge of the chamber … inside of which a
clutter of wires could be seen, all of them twining around what
looked like a missile.
The bomb. The electro bomb.
Fifteen seconds
… The very nick of
time.
“It is done,” the foremost of them called,
releasing his breath. “We have found it.”
And the entire lot, as one, shot down the
room, jumping over the abandoned equipment and machines…
They felt relief now swell within them, for
they had made it. They had arrived at the very razor edged nick of
time, to save this planet. With not more than ten seconds left.
Ten mean seconds!
The foremost of the seven reached for his
sword to slice the giant cubicle from its centre. His blade had
left its sheath halfway … before the entire place was swallowed in
a blinding flare of white hot light. A radiating blast of energy
and light that consumed the entire planet, ripping it apart and
sending the giant chunks of rock that remained of it rocketing far
across space.
__________
Mantra twitched once.
And then he was completely still, standing as
frozen as an ice block in the middle of the large room. Behind him,
he could feel Nano shaking his head solemnly, sighing.
Forcing down the rage that came surging up
within him, as deadly as the blast that had just devoured the
innocent planet, Mantra turned and strode back to Zevinog.
The crime lord held his z-com lowered in his
hand, with the screen showcasing the countdown vanishing. His
features contorted in a wave of fear as he looked into Mantra’s
eyes.
“I’m sorry - it wasn’t my fault -”
But the end of his sentence was engulfed by a
loud, guttural gasp as Mantra sent a blow to his stomach, making
him bend forward, spluttering senselessly.
“It certainly
was
your fault,
Zevinog.” growled Mantra, bringing his face less than an inch from
the crime lord’s. “And you undoubtedly will pay the price for the
innocent lives you’ve just destroyed … But now, tell us the
location of the other eight.”
Zevinog caught hold of his breath slowly, and
began speaking. He told them which the eight marked planets
remaining were, and the locations of the bombs in three of the
eight. The other five, he admitted honestly, were completely out of
his knowledge … The watchmen had to get to that planet, and find
where the bombs were themselves.
As Zevinog finished, Mantra turned to the
leader of the watchmen and Dantox, both of whom were reflecting his
own desperate seriousness.
“The rest of the army,” he told them. “We’ll
have them spread out, and get to these eight planets, to destroy
the bombs.”
Nano seemed to be engrossed in thought for a
moment.
“What is it?” asked Mantra, looking at him.
“Nano, is something wrong?”
Nano seemed not to have heard him, continuing
to look thought absorbed. Then, slowly, he said, “The planet that
is about to go off next… if I am not mistaken, this planet happens
to be … in the outer spectrum.”
The … Outer spectrum.
Mantra felt his
eyes widen slightly as he recorded the meaning of that sentence. He
felt his head sway to face Zevinog, who nodded weakly and said, “It
is.”
“That means,” Mantra whispered, feeling a
fresh surge of panic rise within him. “It may take long to reach
there. Possibly even…” His breath dried before he said it.
“… More than an hour.” finished an equally
shocked Dantox, his voice just as bleak.
The two of them looked at Nano, who gave a
nod.
“And sadly, that is less than what we have:
an hour” said Nano softly. “Because this bomb goes off in this
coming hour … and the ticking has started. We will need to get
there well within an hour, if we stand a chance to save the planet.
If not…” He shook his head solemnly. “We shall simply be wasting
our resources .. And
lives
trying.”
“Wait, are you saying…” Dantox began slowly,
who seemed to be applying some quick, cold logic himself. “That …
if this planet is too far away, and if it seems that we won’t be
able to reach it well within an hour … we should
abandon
it?”
Nano gave a strained sigh. “Only for the
greater good. The good of the other seven planets. If we waste
ourselves trying to rescue this one planet, when it is clear that
we cannot … then we would achieve nothing in the end,
and
we
would be compromising the chances we had of saving the other seven.
Instead of that, we could leave that one planet and focus all our
resources on tracking and finding the bombs in the other seven.
That may be more prudent.”
“But what if this planet’s not so far away,”
ventured Mantra. “and we stand a chance of reaching it and saving
it in an hour?…”
Nano waited for a second, and then broke a
firm nod. “Then we go for it … but only if the journey to the
planet comes well within one hour. Because let us not forget - we
need to go there, and then find the bomb. We shall be needing time
for that as well.”
“Absolutely.” agreed Dantox. “If we are going
to take this risk, we need to make sure that it’s one that’s well
calculated. And well worth it.”
“We’ll first find out how far this planet
is,” said Mantra. “And how long the journey would take.” He snapped
around to face Zevinog and held out his hand, “z-com.”
Terrified, the man produced his z-com, and
passed it to Mantra. Among the z-com’s many functions were the
recorded distances between planets. And Mantra checked the distance
between this planet, and the next one which was about to go off,
located in the outer spectrum. And he estimated -
“Forty minutes should do it.” He heard the
bite of urgency in his own voice. “The journey to this planet in
the outer spectrum will take about forty minutes.”
“Leaving us with a twenty minute cushion to
find and destroy the bomb.” said Dantox.
Mantra smiled. “If all goes well. Let’s not
forget the third party that has a say in this game …
fate
.”
Nano sighed. “Indeed … and even then, we are
leaving too much to chance. This planet’s bomb is the next in line
to go off. And the clock is ticking. We need to find and destroy
the bomb within an hour. But
getting
there itself swallows a
massive chunk of this desperate one hour … This may be a very
unworthy risk.”
The three of them settled to a thoughtful
silence again, and Mantra let his thoughts run over all the
options, possibilities … They were now reasonably far from the
planet, which was buried deep in the outer spectrum.
He frowned, thinking of Galinor. The third
Nyon master to survive. Galinor was possibly closer to the outer
spectrum. But even if that were so, Mantra knew that Galinor was
completely unguarded. Mantra and Dantox would have the watchmen
with them, an entire army to protect them as they travelled.
Galinor, who held important information, and was one of the three
last surviving Nyon masters, did not. If he went venturing across
planets, he would risk getting caught by the Naxim or worse … by
the Xeni. And Mantra knew that that could not happen. The Xeni
would squeeze out everything Galinor knew, if they happened to find
him. And among everything he knew, there was the information
regarding the plague crystal, and its current whereabouts. The one
piece of information that the Xeni could not be allowed to know at
any cost … at even the cost of the ten planets which were going to
be blown off.
Sighing to himself, Mantra turned to Nano
with a determined look. “We’ll have to chance it. The three of us
will journey to this planet and try to destroy the bomb. We’ll send
the rest of the watchmen to spread out and get the last seven.”
He shifted his gaze to Dantox, who was
stroking his cheek, thinking for a moment. The Brownling’s eyes
were angled in a thoughtful frown. He then exhaled and nodded. “I
think so too. Abandoning an entire planet would, when we have a
chance to save it - even a small one -would be foolhardy and
wrong
.” Turning to look at Nano, he went on. “No matter what
the risk here is, I agree with Mantra: we should take hold of this
small chance, no matter how small it is, to save the bomb.”
Nano held Dantox’s gaze for a second of
thought, before moving his bead like, fiery eyes over Mantra.
Mantra knew that Nano came with his own intelligence. The leader of
the spirits of Elderon would be prone to a higher reasoning which
catered to a level of
good
that surpassed their perception
of it. His was a brand of intelligence that also catered to a far
more
extreme
version of good: if sacrificing one entire
planet would aid them in saving seven others, he knew Nano would
prefer that option. And would oppose any other.
But after a long, thought absorbed silence,
Nano nodded feebly and said, “Very well, then … I guess this is the
one risk we have to take.”
They had the rest of the watchmen army
waiting for their command at the outskirts of this city. The next
bomb would go off in the next hour. Sending a call to the
authorities to pick a restrained Zevinog up, the two of them left
in the hover car they’d arrived in. They reached the place beyond
the city, where the rest of the army of watchmen awaited. Giving
them the location of the other eight bombs, they ordered the army
to spread out to the eight locations to destroy the bomb.
Mantra, Dantox and Nano accompanied one of
the groups to the bomb which was about to go off next … the one
which was located at the outer spectrum. They estimated about forty
minutes to get to the planet, leaving them with a twenty minutes’
cushion to destroy the bomb.
If all went well.
Quiroc, Cluster 46
A dry scraping noise pierced the desert’s
silence.
The sun had settled in a position directly
over the land, its scorching heat flowing over the land below. The
meandering sands of the desert roamed up and down, sprawling forth
endlessly. The day’s heat, with the sun resting directly overhead,
was almost unbearable.
The scraping noise continued, the only sound
heard over the silence.
Glistening mirages rose over the desert on
all four sides. The watery reflections rippled in mid air, clear
and real enough to absorb any stray dweller’s attention.