Gravity storm order of s.., p.21
Gravity Storm: Order of Scion book 3, page 21
“We’ve got to get out!” Mitch said, knowing there was no way they could escape the collapsing building. There were too many people. Even if they could make a run for the exit, the corridors and stairwells would quickly clog with people trying to escape.
“No,” Arq said. “Do not panic.”
“We must pool our strength,” Juj said.
Mitch reached out with his sense of control and began cutting gravity from the auditorium’s roof. But it was too little too late. The huge iron beams snapped. Whole chunks of the composite roofing materials were breaking apart and falling.
“Too late,” Arq said. “To me!”
Mitch responded instantly. He pulled Qwii close and hunched over his friends. It was a futile gesture, but he was taller and much physically larger than they were. Arq and Juj were kneeling. Qwii joined them, and Mitch felt a bubble of gravity around them as they drifted upward.
Mitch looked over just as the massive holographic projector that had been suspended from the roof, fell. It crashed down onto the stage. Mitch groaned as he saw the floor collapse. Maybe the masters were strong enough to protect themselves, but they were buried in the destruction.
All around them, people were screaming in alien languages. Their native languages were vastly different, but the sounds of fear were universal. Mitch could see other groups and even individuals who realized what to do. Like Arq, they had formed gravity bubbles around themselves and were levitating upward. But debris was falling, most of it large, heavy chunks. Dodging it wasn’t easy. The members levitating above the disintegrating seating area and floor were still bombarded with heavy materials that were falling so fast, that it was impossible to dodge them all.
It was inevitable that Arq’s bubble would be hit by the cascading materials. The walls were starting to collapse inward too. Mitch saw hundreds of members falling, getting wounded, or even crushed among the seats. Many panicked. They may have once been Scion Warriors, or maybe their place in the Order of Scion was achieved along a different path than the one Mitch had taken, but they were not ready for an attack. It was understandable given the fact that they were surrounded by more members of the Order of Scion than ever before. When the floor shook, they ran for the exits, only to have the roof fall in on them, or the floor open up beneath them. Mitch saw bodies, broken and bloodied in the few seconds while Arq tried to dodge the debris from the collapsing roof. It was a chaotic scene and within the space of a few seconds, the memories were burned into his mind forever.
Part of him wanted to help the wounded and dying. But another part of him wanted to find a way out. Then, they were hit. A massive iron beam came spinning down. The gravity bubble was like a protective shield, but it also sent the foursome spinning through open space. Mitch thought they were out of control, but Arq used his abilities to guide them into a concrete-lined connecting tunnel. They zoomed in, the space barely large enough for Mitch and the three Nagani. Then the auditorium around the tunnel collapsed. It felt like a roller coaster, only in complete darkness and with no seat belt.
“Hold on!” Arq yelled.
Mitch reached out, found the wall to one side, then the other. He was a big man, almost eight feet tall, with a tremendous reach. He braced his arms on either side of the tunnel as it tilted and dropped. Mitch felt his stomach jump into his throat as they slowed. Arq was trying to protect the section of the tunnel they were in. It still fell, but not hard enough to shatter, or spill anyone out. The sounds were so loud that they hurt Mitch’s ears, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. The concrete tunnel settled and was quickly buried in debris as the walls collapsed inward.
It occurred to Mitch that they were going to die. He tried to think of a way out of the building, but it was hard to form a coherent thought amidst so much noise and with his mind gripped with terror. But everything happened so fast that he didn’t have much time to consider his own demise. Before he knew it, the noise of destruction ceased. Mitch and his trio of Nagani friends stood braced for disaster that wasn’t coming.
“Is that it?” Qwii asked.
“We’re buried,” Juj said.
“At least we’re still breathing,” Mitch said.
He let his senses flow out from where he was buried inside the tunnel. There were several meters of debris on top of them.
“I’m supporting the tunnel,” Arq said. “The three of you can begin removing what has us trapped.”
“Thanks for getting us out alive,” Mitch said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“And yet your instinct was to put yourself between us and the danger from above,” Arq pointed out. “Your actions speak highly of your character, Mitch Murphy.”
Mitch couldn’t think of anything to say. Sure, he had hunched over the others, but he knew even as he did it, that it wouldn’t protect them. He didn’t think that anything could protect them at that moment. Arq had possessed the presence of mind to levitate the group and then tuck them safely into the tunnel. Mitch hadn’t thought of what the tunnel was. He saw it, but the facing had already been torn off. It was just a connecting hallway, perhaps a maintenance corridor. It was constructed of thick concrete on all four sides, but he could feel the cracks in the floor and on the walls.
With his senses extended, he began to levitate the materials on top of the pile. He wasn’t the only one at work either. Mitch didn’t sense anyone outside the compound, but there was plenty of movement. Chunks of debris were flying up and away. Mitch was careful not to just fling the material off the huge pile. It wasn’t uniform in shape and couldn’t be neatly stacked. Instead, he and the other survivors who were able, piled the debris in mounds around the manicured landscaping that surrounded the Hyperion auditorium.
Soon, aid workers began to arrive in loud vehicles. Mitch sensed the presence of a small number of members who had escaped the wreckage or survived the destruction. They were congregating together. It took Mitch, Qwii, and Juj almost twenty minutes to uncover the tunnel. Along the way, they encountered bodies. Mitch had no way of knowing if the aliens they found were alive or dead. Their gravity signature was the same either way. What quickly became obvious were the beings whose bodies had been pierced with materials, or torn to pieces.
Grief numbed Mitch’s mind. He couldn’t believe what had happened. It was worse than he imagined possible. The attack wasn’t a complete surprise, but the form and nature of it were. As soon as they could, he and his companions levitated out of the buried tunnel. They rose up, relatively unscathed, to find dozens of other members in far worse condition. Everyone was coated in dust. There were emergency personnel arriving, but not enough, and none that could do as much as a single member of the Order. Mitch immediately turned his attention to helping uncover more survivors. Arq joined him, while Qwii and Juj began working with the injured.
Mitch couldn’t help but think that the attack had been perfect from a strategic perspective. He didn’t know the exact number of members in attendance, but there had been tens of thousands in the auditorium. Members of the Order from all over the galaxy had come, and as Mitch looked around the destruction, he could only see small groups. At a glance, he guessed that maybe a few hundred had survived. And then, as Arq removed a huge section of the roof, hundreds more came crawling out of the rubble. Thousands had dropped to the floor and held off the rubble raining down with gravity shields. They slipped and crawled into tiny crevices to escape the danger.
Mitch was flooded with relief. He sent his awareness deep into the pit of rubble and sensed thousands more. There was no way to tell who was alive and who was dead, but the priority was getting to them. And Mitch threw himself into the rescue efforts, so much so, that it nearly cost him his life.
CHAPTER 28
The ship was landing, Mara could sense it. Her abilities to sense gravity waves were new and elementary. Jingo was quicker to pick it up. The big man looked odd sitting on the deck, his mind focusing on the power that couldn’t be seen or measured by technology. Flash on the other hand, while anxious to figure things out, had more trouble quieting his mind and staying focused on the gravity waves. Still, they could all sense it and were beginning to learn how to manipulate little things.
Fors’No hadn’t given any more lessons. In fact, they hadn’t seen him at all in three days. But when the ship made the jump to the Cadish System, they all felt it. And, an hour later, as they neared a planet, Mara could feel that too. It was like being close to a bonfire and feeling the heat increase with every step as she got closer to the flames. The planet was producing major gravity waves. As soon as they entered the star system, the feeling of the waves changed. It was a bit like stepping into a fast-moving stream. She immediately felt a pull in toward the star system. But as the ship approached the planet, there was an even stronger current that latched onto the ship and was pulling it down toward the surface.
“Looks like the alien wasn’t lying,” Flash said. “What do you think is next?”
“He’ll test us,” Jingo said. “You better hope he ain’t lookin’ to make an example out of one of us.”
“That ain’t funny, bro,” Flash replied.
“We’re all getting it,” Mara said. “If he wants to see what we can do, we can show him. It’ll be enough.”
“Better be,” Flash said. “I ain’t nobody’s slave. I’ll die first.”
“No one is dying,” Mara said. “I don’t know what the alien wants, but we are staying together. We watch each other’s back.”
“This Fors’No can snuff us at any moment,” Jingo said. “If he wants us gone, I don’t think there’s much we can do about it.”
“The Lieutenant said there were levels in the group he was with,” Mara said. “He was in the warrior class, but that was the lowest level.”
“He saved our bacon against the Lymies,” Flash said. “I wish he would have stuck around long enough to take on this guy.”
He pointed toward the doorway that led farther into the ship, the passageway they were forbidden from entering.
“That would have been something to see,” Jingo said.
“He told me that when two of them fight, they cancel out the gravity power,” Mara said. “That’s why he carries that sword.”
“He could use his control of gravity to counteract what the aliens do?” Jingo asked. Mara nodded. “Then we have to keep practicing. We have to get strong enough to do that as well. I like our chances if it comes to close combat.”
“That alien didn’t look like much to me,” Flash agreed.
“Like a stiff breeze would snap him in half,” Mara said. “But if we could kill him, we’d be stuck here.”
“Where do you think we are?” Jingo asked.
“I have no idea,” Mara replied. “The main thing is that we stay together and stay alive.”
“Leo Squad,” Flash said.
“We watch each other’s backs,” Jingo agreed. “Eventually, we’ll find a way to get home.”
“Maybe by then we’ll be able to do what the LT can do,” Flash said. “Won’t nobody mess with us then.”
It was a happy thought. Mara wasn’t the type of person who wished for peace. But she wasn’t the type to start a fight either. And humanity needed guardians with the ability to fight against aliens like Fors’No.
The ship descended through the atmosphere and the pull of gravity increased. Not on the ship, but from the planet. Mara could sense it. She had to focus on the feeling. It took effort, but it was getting easier.
The ship landed without incident. The three prisoners were attuned not just to where they were going, but to what their captor was doing. They could sense his control of the gravity waves. They felt the bubble he held around the ship, almost like the vessel was a tiny planet with an atmosphere. None of them were attuned enough to differentiate between air molecules, or even to identify the different elements by feel. But they could feel the way gravity was holding things around the ship, including the air they were all breathing.
The ship itself had electrical power, enough to keep them warm and operate the dim lighting in their section of the vessel. There was warm water in the bathroom, and the air in the ship was pumped through the HVAC system which probably had some type of carbon dioxide filters, but they didn’t know for sure. What they could learn from their captor was how he moved the ship. In Mara’s mind, he created a strong gravitational force directly in front of the ship, which pulled the entire bubble forward. She was no expert in the laws of physics, but she did know that the bubble contained the entire ship, holding it in a steady state so that it could travel at any speed and make turns without slowing. Nothing would affect the ship or those on board as long as the bubble maintained its integrity. It was a simple enough concept. How the alien opened portals was completely different. She didn’t understand that part of navigating through space, but she had felt the overwhelming sense of gravity as he did it. More gravity than even a star produced. If control over gravity was measured, their captor was incredibly powerful. Mara, on the other hand, had barely begun to scratch the surface of what was possible, and that took extreme concentration on her part. But she thought that if her control of gravity continued to grow, she could fly a vessel the same way that Fors’No did… eventually.
The hatch that led deeper into the ship swished open, and Fors’No appeared in a long, black coat. He was an ugly being. His flat, noseless face was made all the more hideous by the thick jowls and pointed teeth.
“You have begun to learn the skills needed to join me in my work,” he said, walking confidently into the room with the three Marines. His gait was odd. Mara thought that he might have two knee joints in his long, skinny legs. But that was just conjecture. She wasn’t skilled enough to sense the difference between his muscles, tendons, bones, and joints with her perception of the gravity waves his body produced.
“You have two choices,” he continued, looking tiny and frail beside Jingo. “Stay with me, and learn to use your new powers, or leave the ship. This world is Cadish, and you will be slaves here. But if you come with me, you must obey my commands without question.”
“Doesn’t seem like much of a choice,” Jingo said.
“We’ll be slaves either way,” Flash said defiantly.
“You have seen what I am capable of,” Fors’No said, undaunted by Flash’s attitude. “And that is just the beginning of my power. I will train you to use the same power, and help you to understand it. In exchange, you will help me in my mission to stop the Order of Scion.”
Mara felt a rising wave of panic inside her. Mitch Murphy was a member of the Order of Scion. She didn’t know why Fors’No wanted to stop them, but she felt certain he was up to no good.
“Why?” Jingo asked.
“I have studied your species,” Fors’No said. “I have learned your language and your history. Humans threw off the yoke of slavery, first the archaic rulers and despots, then the suffocating rules and restrictions of religion. In the wider universe, the Order of Scion pedals their belief in a Creator. It is a fantasy. They promise peace and harmony, but what they really create is a religious empire with complete control over the populations of hundreds of worlds. They claim the universe was corrupted and promote a mandate of restoration, but all they do is seize control. I know this because I was once one of them. But it didn’t take me long to see through their lies and deceptions. Since then, I’ve committed myself to stopping them. And I am not alone. My confederates have worked together to stop the Order of Scion in this galaxy. And once we’re done here, we’ll continue across the universe, freeing people from the slavery of false beliefs.”
“What makes you think we would be interested in helping you do that?” Mara asked.
“You are warriors,” Fors’No said. “The best your people have. I offer to make you even greater and to give you a purpose that protecting a single world cannot compare with. Join me and we shall free the galaxy.”
Mara looked at Flash. She could tell he wasn’t convinced, but he gave a slight nod. When she glanced at Jingo, he was looking at her. They had served together long enough to almost read one another’s thoughts.
“We’ll do it,” she said.
“Excellent. Remove your armor.”
“Why?” Flash demanded.
“I will tolerate your insolence just this once,” Fors’No said. “You are no longer my captives, you are my apprentices. I want you to look like it.”
He turned and went back into the forbidden corridor. When he returned a moment later, he had short, double-edged swords. The members of Leo Squad were in the process of removing their armor. Underneath, they wore simple compression garments that wicked moisture away from their skin. Fors’No handed Jingo the first sword.
“This is the weapon of the Fray,” he said. “The blade is Cidian.”
Jingo drew the sword. In his big hand, it looked more like a dagger than a sword or a combat knife of sorts. The weapon was simple, just a straight blade with a median ridge running down the length, and symmetrically clipped edges that formed a point at the end. The hand guard was made of what appeared to be steel and was barely wide enough to cover Jingo’s knuckles. His meaty hand filled the handle and part of the ring pommel too.
“What’s Cidian?” Mara asked, taking her sword.
“It is the badge of acceptance into the Order of Scion. A rare mineral only found on a few worlds. The members go through an initiation to get theirs.”
“Where do you get yours?” Jingo asked, sliding his sword back into the scabbard.
“From killing them,” Fors’No confessed.
“You kill the members of the Order?” Mara asked.
“We are sworn enemies,” Fors’No said. “As my apprentices, you have become their enemy too. They will slaughter you if given the chance. Which is why you must learn to use the power of the universe to combat them.”
