He wanted to believe she was faking it. It
would be easy to close off his objective mind and pretend the
expression she now wore was all an act.
Yet it still tugged at his heart, as if she
had reached right into his chest.
“
Stay here,” he turned to head for the
door.
It was a useless thing to say; she was
tied to the chair. There was nowhere she could go. Instead of Ki
acerbically pointing that out, she crumpled, her body weighing
against the rope. Shivering, she started to shake her head
repeatedly.
Staring at her, he backed off.
The hum suddenly stopped.
Silence filled the house. His heart raced
against the sudden change, adrenaline filling his body, tensing his
muscles, preparing his senses.
Before he could turn to head through the
door, he saw something move beyond the window. Low to the ground,
it darted forward like an Ashkan wolf. White, whatever it wore
glinted in the sun.
Suddenly there was a sound from the front of
the house. At first a soft, almost imperceptible scrabbling,
seconds later an explosion ripped through the building.
Slamming himself down, he locked his arms
over his head.
Before he could turn to push Ki over and
pull her under cover, the window over his desk shattered. Glass
scattered through the room in a powerful blast that saw chunks of
it slash past his exposed arms, cutting the flesh easily.
Ki screamed, but the keening, desperate cry
cut out quickly.
He looked up to see a man next to her. He’d
jumped in through the open window with agility and strength any
hardened soldier would be amazed at.
Dressed in an unusual, pure-white, metallic
armor from head to foot, the man grabbed Ki by the neck and pushed
her head up. Though his armored fingers were tight around her
throat, she did not make a noise. She stared up in shaking-eyed
desperation.
The man pulled a white device from the wrist
of his armor and brought it in front of her face. It pulsed with a
blue light, beeping intermittently.
Finally Jackson acted. He snapped up,
getting ready to lunge at the soldier.
He didn’t get the chance.
The soldier reacted with impossible
reflexes, reaching for his gun and pointing it at Jackson without
ever turning around or removing that device from next to Ki’s
face.
Frozen on the spot, Jackson heard soft
footsteps from the front of the house.
“
Target acquired,” the soldier in front of
Ki said aloud, his voice distorted somehow. “Scanners confirm no
other life signs in the building.”
Scanners? Life signs?
The soldier closed the device, returning it
to his armor. It fitted in neatly.
Jackson had never seen technology like it.
From the armor to the dexterity of the soldier, something wasn’t
right. If the Tarkans were this developed, they would have taken
Ashka easily in the last war. If they had only recently invented
this kind of technology, they would have used it to their immediate
advantage.
Still frozen on the spot, he heard several
people approaching, and two more soldiers dressed in exactly the
same flawless white armor entered the room. All wore opaque
helmets. There was no glass fitted in the front, no gap to see out
of, just continuous, smooth metal. Yet they all clearly could
see.
They approached with their weapons locked on
him.
“
Don’t shoot him; remove the levi device
first.” The soldier in front of Ki lowered his own weapon, bringing
his hand down sharply. A blade shot out from the back of his wrist.
Long and sharp, it too was perfect, clean, glinting
white.
Ki flinched, turning to the side.
The blade was a bare centimeter from her
cheek.
Tight fear seized Jackson’s chest as he
watched the soldier move around her. Instead of plunging the long
blade through her back, he cut the ropes that bound her to the
chair.
She did not lunge forward and try to run
away. She sat there limply.
Jackson had seen people surrender before. In
the last war, he’d watched close friends give in to desperation.
Their faces would turn white, their bodies limp, their expressions
cold and dead.
She looked no different from those men he’d
seen.
“
Who are you?” finding his courage, he
snapped at the men. “Ashkan Guards are on their way.”
The soldier before Ki tipped his head to the
side, that faceless helmet directed at Jackson. With a seamless
move, the blade disappeared back into the armor of his wrist. Then
he brought up his gun instead.
It was unlike anything Jackson had ever
seen. Sleek, long, the barrel held a chamber that pulsed with a
blue glow. There was no magazine for bullets, just that radiant
light.
“
Take the levi device from him. Be careful.
Then remove him from the house and disintegrate him.” The soldier
turned back to Ki, looping an arm under her shoulder and pulling
her to her feet. She winced in pain, but she made no
noise.
Disintegrate him?
Why not just shoot him now and take the
device from his pocket? Why were they being so careful?
As one of the other soldiers moved towards
him, Jackson formulated a plan.
The device was all he had. So he plunged a
hand into his pocket and brought it out.
It was a strange-looking thing. Fitting into
his palm neatly, it was incredibly light, feeling like nothing more
than colored air. It was made of blue interlocking, filament-like
sections.
With one press of his hand he confirmed it
was soft enough to break though. Given enough force, he could snap
it easily.
At his sudden move, the three soldiers
before him all hunkered over their weapons, raising them higher
with quick, sharp snaps.
None of them shot, neither did they stamp
forward, punch him with their armored fists, and simply pluck the
device from his hand.
They all acted warily.
“
Drop it, try to break it,” Ki suddenly
shifted forward, frantic, her eyes coming to life with something
akin to hope.
The main sol
dier instantly grabbed her back, using force that
saw her slam against his chest. He snapped up his free hand,
pumping his fist closed. With a pneumatic hiss, a device extended
from his wrist again. This time it was not a knife. It was a short,
thin cylinder with a nib at the top.
He yanked Ki’s head to the side and held it
against her neck.
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as
her body drew limp. The lead soldier fixed her against him with one
arm around her middle as she fainted away.
All attention returned to Jackson.
He still held the device aloft, his
fingers tight around it.
The soldiers inched closer to him, obviously
trying to surround him. Yet none of them tried an outright
attack.
They were evidently afraid of what he’d do
to the device.
She’d told him to throw it on the ground.
Though he doubted that would be enough to chip it, let alone break
it, he raised his hand dramatically.
Instantly the soldiers flinched back.
“
I will drop this,” he warned, opening his
fingers a fraction to prove his point.
“
You are outnumbered and outgunned. Return
the device to us,” the main soldier began, then his voice cut out
abruptly. He turned his head sharply towards the broken window he’d
come through. “A vehicle is approaching. Approximately ten life
signs are inside. They are armed.”
The Guards.
“
Deal with them. I will retrieve the
device,” the head soldier nodded towards the open
window.
The other soldiers immediately followed the
order and filed out of the window, vaulting over the desk with
admirable ease.
Jackson used all his training to keep
control of his body, to stop his hand from trembling as he thought
about what would happen to the Guards. Worse than that, what if
Laura was coming back with them?
“
You and your people are no match for us.
We are technologically and physically superior,” the head soldier
lowered his gun. “If you return the device, we will leave before
the others arrive. If you do not, we will kill them and then we
will kill you.”
Jackson’s gaze, of its own accord, drifted
down to Ki. She was unconscious, her head flopped against the
soldier’s shoulder.
Perhaps she had told the truth after
all.
“
You have approximately 28 seconds to make
your decision,” the soldier shifted Ki, her long black hair
trailing over her limp arms.
“
Go to hell,” the words were out of
Jackson’s lips before he could stop himself.
He brought the device up higher, then threw
it as hard as he could at the ground.
The soldier dumped Ki. Lurching forward, his
arm snapped towards the strange object like a spring.
He was too late.
The blue lattice struck the chipped and worn
floorboards.
As soon as it did, light
bl
ed from it. Cracks
snaked up the sides and a glow surged within.
The soldier scuttled backwards, bringing a
hand up before his face.
The device exploded. It sent a shockwave
blasting out in a boom. It picked Jackson up and slammed him
against the opposite wall, but the soldier took the brunt of the
explosion. He’d been closest, his body barely 30 centimeters from
it.
The blast picked him up and smashed him into
the desk, the wood crumpling under his weight.
Then the light came.
Just as before, it tracked forward slowly,
moving like water.
It washed over Jackson, filling the entire
room. As it did, something extraordinary occurred.
A weightless feeling built within his body.
It chased away the pain that filled him. Though he doubted he had
broken bones, being slammed against the wall had hurt like
hell.
The light pushed that crippling sensation
from his mind. Then it pushed him up.
He began to float.
In fact, everything in the room did. From
his broken desk to the soldier.
The blue light continued to caress Jackson’s
skin, trailing delicately around him like a warm and lingering
touch. It was the most incredible sensation.
He was floating on nothing but light.
It would not last.
He heard the soldiers from outside
screaming. Amidst their shouts, he picked up one statement
clearly.
Their particle weapons would not work near
the light.
It was all Jackson needed.
The main soldier started to stir. He was
floating on the other side of the room, his armor keeping his body
stiff, his legs and arms splayed. Now they shifted, his head
snapping up.
Jackson moved.
He had a gun, and while the weapons of these
strange soldiers might be useless, he doubted his own would be. It
worked on nothing more sophisticated than a bullet and
gunpowder.
When he’d brought Ki into the room, he’d
placed the gun on one of the boxes by the door. In all the
confusion, he’d never had a chance to reach for it.
Now it floated just outside the doorway.
He dived
towards it, crunching his legs against the wall
beside him and using it to push forward. He sailed through the air,
the light churning around him like steam. He managed to reach the
door, locking his fingers onto the top of the frame and using it to
flip forward.
As the soldier stirred behind him, Jackson
dashed in and grabbed his gun. It floated just above the hallway
carpet, and he snatched it up easily, pivoting to face the
man.
“
Your gun won’t work, mine will,” Jackson
pointed his at the soldier and hesitated no longer. He pulled the
trigger. The bullet slammed out of the barrel, impacting the
soldier’s chest, front and center.
Though the force of it knocked the soldier
back, and he tipped head over heels, he soon latched a hand onto
the wall and straightened up. As he did, Jackson saw his white
armor wasn’t even scratched.
“
Your primitive weapon is no match for my
armor,” the soldier’s voice dipped, that distortion warping his
tone suddenly growing stronger with a crackle.
From outside the sound of tires crunching
over gravel filtered through the broken window.
The Guards.
The head soldier half turned towards the
view.
Light was spilling out of the window and
into the yard outside. How far it spread, Jackson could not guess,
but he hoped it was far enough to ensure none of the other soldiers
would be able to use their weapons. At least that would give the
Guards a chance.
As the main soldier turned, Jackson acted.
He dove towards Ki. She was floating just before him, head flopped
to the side as her long robe and hair fluttered around her.
He grabbed her, anchored her with his arm,
and did not hesitate to bring his gun against her temple.
The main soldier snapped his head around,
body stiffening visibly.
“
I will shoot her,” Jackson lied. “Somehow
I think she’s far more important to you than that stone
was.”
The soldier didn’t react.
So Jackson began to push himself backwards.
It was a difficult maneuver, especially with the unconscious Ki in
his arms, but he managed to get into the hall.
The soldier began to follow.
“
Get any closer and I’ll kill her,” Jackson
pushed the gun visibly harder into her head.
The soldier stopped dead.
“
Call your men off. Get them to
surrender.”
The soldier hesitated.
“
Do you want me to kill her?”