When the dust settled, I was not sure how I made it to my feet, nor how I began to run through cracked, hot wasteland. On autopilot, I forced my feet to carry me over sizzling, newly-formed blast craters, my shoes painfully melting from the leftover heat. Each step was like agony, but I kept running.
I made it a solid few yards before I flipped around in terror. Mother! Gabriel!
Amidst warm smoke, bright glass, and incredible scorched earth lay only one of the two: Mother. Her prone, unmoving form was no longer metal but instead reverted to flesh, much of her clothing burned away. My legs carried me forward at the highest speeds I could muster, long strides on too small a child's frame.
Inexplicably riding atop a thin platform of metal, shining with green light, was Gabriel. The platform carried him fast at an angle straight for the armored Reach warrior, climbing higher and higher. A real life hoverboard! A sleek black and silver body suit had replaced his previous clothing, and he carried several glowing orbs in his hand. A look of determination burned across his face, which changed only slightly when he looked down long enough to lock eyes with me.
"Run!" he shouted, then turned away long enough to chuck an orb toward Xandros. "Get her and run!"
A moment later, the sky erupted in a catastrophe of emerald and silver light, undulating on itself like a willful flame. Bigger than any explosion I'd ever seen, perhaps rivaling movies back on Earth in another lifetime. Nothing could live through that!
I had to look away, using the moment to close the distance toward Mother. I spared a glance upward for but a second, and Gabriel flew straight through the flickering embers left behind and into a great cloud of smoke that choked light from the area.
Good god, what was all this?
What- how?
I cried for Mother to awaken. I begged myself not to focus on the sight of her ruined legs, her scarred back, her burned shoulders. I forced my twitching hands to pull her to her side, then to her back, to check her for any sign of consciousness. Every medical show or moment in a movie came to my mind, to check for a pulse, to check for signs of life, but I could only whimper in helplessness.
She had taken every bit of that force.
Every bit of that heat.
She had saved my life.
Another series of explosive blasts of plasma fell on the ground several dozen yards away, cooking every bit of sand and dirt in the area.
Every inclination I had to not trust the Reach had proven correct.
I could not dwell on it.
I had to get her out of here. Had to get her away from here. Where… where was safe?
He could fly! There was nowhere to hide that he couldn't see, even stumbling in the dark. There was no cover from an aerial onslaught in a flat wasteland. Sanitas was the closest settlement, at least two hours away without carrying her to safety. Grandfather was close, but the vehicle could not outpace the scarab technology. We were sitting ducks to run on our own.
My only solution: let Gabriel buy us some time.
Gift or not, neither Mother nor I had anything that could close the distance. Xandros could freely rain plasma down on us from dozens of feet in the air, and we could do nothing to stop it. Gabriel? He could close the distance. I dare not hope he could win, no matter what awe-inspiring tech he could bring to the table.
The hoverboard carried the man into view above me once more, carving a trail through the smoke. The human hefted something in the shape of a pistol and aimed at the retreating form of the armored beetle warrior. A few pulls of the trigger later, and electricity danced harmlessly against an energy shield that emerged from an outstretched gauntlet. I could practically see the Osmosian man's sick grin, despite the closed helmet obscuring his face. Gabriel shouted for me to leave again, as he changed ammo sources and unleashed something else that left scars.
I reached down to grab for Mother, only just now trying to comprehend why the Reach would do this. What do they gain by attacking people they do not know? Why was Xandros okay with attacking his own people? Why open fire first without discussion? They meant to kill us for investigating this?
I heaved her onto my shoulder, grateful to feel the soft shifting of her breathing against my back. Compared to a human child, it was easy to carry her weight, but cumbersome to keep her from dragging behind me. She was still too long compared to my height, and I had to grab at legs that were far too scarred to not have permanent damage just to pull them into a position to be easy to carry. It took great effort to not think about the wet wounds I could feel beneath my hands.
A horrifically loud sound reverberated somewhere above us. A new cannon unleashed a kind of sonic attack, and Gabriel narrowly dodged the impact force of it. Where it touched against the desert floor, a cloud of sand emerged in waves. The human tried to toss another grenade, but the silver and green orb missed and detonated several yards away, flashing the sky again with impressive light and fire.
Xandros flew through the mass of heat without worry. Voice amplified loudly enough that I can hear it as I try to flee, he taunted, "There is little chance of escape. Surrender now to the Triarchy, and you may face clemency for your trespass."
If I had been a gullible man, I might have believed that. If he really wanted us to surrender, he wouldn't have started with enough explosive force to level a building. But I was not a gullible man, and neither was Gabriel. The human scoffed and brandished his weapon with a short burst round of fire, one of the shots managing to mark a solid hole in the side of the armor. In response, the Reach's lapdog redoubled his efforts with the sonic weapon, and I pushed myself faster.
I carried her as far as I could in the direction of any sign of cover. Gabriel had managed to drive the man's focus away from Mother and I, and I stopped long enough to reach for the communicato-
Fried.
Useless.
I grumbled as I tossed the device onto the dirt. Grandfather would surely see or hear the sound of the explosions and come. If I could hide long enough, maybe he'd have time to get here and escort us out of harm's way.
Another distant flash of light preceded an immediate explosion, and the force of it rattled my knees. I didn't dare turn to see this time – fleeing was more important. Far more important.
OSMOS V
August 04, 21:31 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Jula would like to believe that she felt a shift in the air before the announcement. The past few days had confirmed it for her, and until this mess with her family began, she would have assumed nothing. Calls, messages, reports – not all were similar in content, but many were similar in meaning: things were about to change for the worse. For whom? Probably for everyone.
Since her call with her father, Jula had spent the afternoon trying to gather information from as many people as she could. Reporters, friends, business rivals – no useful information. The company had forced her to make many contacts over the years, and she held quite a few close relationships with people in the government. The worrying thing? Not one of them would talk with her beyond the expected, and they repeated the same bottom line from Elder Gordia's announcements. No amount of smooth talking could convince them, and Jula felt truly in hot water.
It wasn't until the next broadcast where she learned exactly where things were headed, and she wished with every fiber of her being that her family were here. They were stuck in the wilderness, chasing after something that might not pan out, while everyone else stood ready to hear the most dramatic news imaginable.
Jula'd been in mid-conversation with a former colleague when the message began. Elders Seneca, Cato, and Gordia – the current Triarchs – interrupted every signal on anything with a screen and a strong enough connection, including her desk terminal. Their faces were calm, their voices resolute, their speech impassioned, their postures united. A perfectly poised message to deliver dreadful news. In the past twenty-four hours, life within the borders of the Triarchy had changed, and nothing signaled that more to Jula than seeing such a rehearsed message.
Gordia delivered the bulk of the message, and Jula supposed that if anyone could deliver them through this, it would be the woman who had ruled the longest.
"Earlier today, I delivered news of the grave threat that our planet faces. Our partners among the Reach have confirmed the presence of additional landing sites, to a number far beyond initial estimates. There have been hundreds of landings scattered across our planet, among nearly every region around the world."
Jula gasped in horror when they showed their evidence. A graphic displayed a map of the affected locations. Every major region across the three continents. Many were near cities, and even the Capital had dozens of landing zones around it.
While the message continued, she could see the panic beginning to spread from far below her penthouse window. The Overcity would be ensconced in mayhem within minutes, as people scrambled to make ends meet before chaos began. The aliens beyond their walls could be minutes away from causing harm, abducting more people like her brother, and she cursed herself and the whole damn situation.
Seneca stepped forward next. "These hostile creatures from beyond our stars are highly dangerous, with natural and unnatural abilities that threaten the stability of our home. Normal life in our great world cannot continue as it is under the presence of this close danger."
A trio of clips played on the screen below their three stalwart faces. In the first, a reptilian alien grew to be dozens of feet tall and barreled through a stone pillar, forcing a building to collapse. In the second, a strange shape flash-froze an entire ship near the coast, before diving into frozen water. In the third, a panicked group of civilians were torn apart as an alien spawned dozens of itself and swarmed them, ripping into them with teeth and bare hands.
With shaking fingers, Jula tried to shift the communicator to contact her father, but it refused to move away from the mandatory broadcast. With a glance toward the city, what few viewing screens she could see on the sides of buildings or through opened windows were displaying the same information. They wanted everyone to be on the same page, and it would calm and excite to equal degrees.
"Our forces unite against them now," Cato explained impassively, as the clips repeated. "Given the magnitude of the situation, we are instituting a strict mandate. You must shelter in place until further information arrives. Violators will be prosecuted under the full weight of the law, for the safety of yourselves and your neighbors. Information about logistics will be provided-"
She tuned them out.
Martial law. Intended to keep them safe, but would it succeed?
Jula ordered her robotic attendants to gather supplies from anything she might have and to place it in an organized pile for her to further collect. The broadcast continued, outlining more specific information, for nearly ten additional minutes, but Jula only half-listened. Instead, she and her drones carried the supplies down to her garage.
She was grateful for the private elevator to the ground floor. From its windows, she watched waves of uncertainty, waves of distress, and waves of violence begin to wash over the city. The people in her building, who lived below her, had no such access point to easily get to the ground floor, forced to fight for the same paths. The drones stood behind her, ready to defend her from any potential crowds.
The elevator's speaker continued the message as it reached its conclusion. "Cooperation from the Reach is ongoing to address the influx of violence we face from hostile dissidents. Even now, Diplomat Xandros engages with threats to our people's safety, and we thank our partners for carrying us through such a trying time. Osmos V will live on to a new day because they are here to help."
Jula had to admit that she once believed the Reach to be a boon. A people with technological superiority who were willing to share their resources with their society? Medicine, food, water, transportation, computing – all of those fields, and more, were better than they had been. Their sensors located this threat to Osmos V, an invasion right under the Triarchy's noses. If they helped stop the damage before it could spread too highly, then maybe? Maybe it was good.
Her brother and her father did not think so. Cassian didn't think so, and the kid had a remarkably fixed perspective on the whole thing. Many of her colleagues were on her side, but a few agreed with those of her family. She felt torn between suspicion and praise, and the entire thing was just… off.
Upon reaching the base floor of the building and its expansive garage, she could hear the sounds of panic in the streets just beyond its walls. Her three drones placed the gathered supplies into the back of the vehicle, and within minutes, she forced her way into the cramped roads, sure to activate her security system behind her as the door to the building closed. The man-sized robots sat among the cabin, and her most experienced at driving took the wheel.
Others held the same idea.
Get onto the road.
Get out of the city.
Get into the city.
The vehicle turned corners too-sharply and drove over walk-paths, only so quickly to avoid harming any of the growing crowds. More joined the roads in their own machines, or were already in transit, and she pressed on to the nearest gate. Once she was out into the desert proper, she could go off-road and avoid what would more likely become a target.
The second the broadcast ended, she tried again to call her father, to tell her that she was on the way to Sanitas.
Jammed.
Static.
Busy.
Jula cursed aloud and messaged her boss an update. Several replies followed in swift succession, and she ignored them to continue the drive. Someone in the city would know where she headed, and she hoped she could make it before martial law settled into place.
She wasn't the only one who had those same hopes.
Horror spread across her face as she crossed a second thoroughfare that led toward the nearest city exit, this one more packed than the first she'd checked. Desperate people crawled from the Undercity entrances to the surface. Idiots descended into the tunnels in the vain hopes things would be safer. Vehicles and people alike cramped the city streets as all looked for ways out, ways in, and anywhere else between.
Several minutes passed before her vehicle even made progress, and each harrowing second was a second where fear gripped her heart. The two drones at either side of her in the back of the cabin shifted into defensive postures each time a scared, dirty face crossed too close to the windows looking outside. Jula almost told them to hold off, to become less aggressive, until she saw an Exception in the distance spit enough acid at a vehicle that the door melted, making it easy pray for looting.
Jula's fingers desperately tried to call again, to send a message, to let someone know. Heart pounding in her chest, there was no tone, no reply. Lucrecia, Cassian, Maximus, Horatio – no one was responding.
Someone thumped into her vehicle. Foot traffic and vehicle traffic became too tight to escape, too tight to turn around, too tight to get out. The robot to her left tensed as a metallic arm rose in a defensive posture, ready to crash through the window at anyone who managed to get too close. Jula had programmed them well for situations like muggers, not for crowds of people who just wanted out and were willing to do anything to get out.
A heavy crash caused panicked screams. Jula tried to see what caused it, but there was too much happening.
A voice – digitally enhanced to be as loud as possible – reverberated throughout the masses. "Citizens of the Capital are now under strict orders to return to your homes. This is for your safety."
The message repeated several times, and the people were not listening. Those who wanted to turn around could not, for there was little room to escape the immediate area. Anger bled from fear, and Jula desperately wished to be anywhere but here.
This was a mistake.
Another crash. A flicker of orange flames. An Exception stretching her body in impossible shapes, weaving her strange body through the crowd to try to get closer, only to get shoved away and then forced to retaliate.
In mere moments, Jula's vehicle lay in the center of a violent riot.
At her request, the drone to her left opened the door to the vehicle with such force that she knocked a pair of parents and their young son to the ground. Jula's heart sang with guilt as she dropped to the ground behind the exiting robot, the other two abandoning the vehicle behind her. A small bag of supplies over its metallic shoulders, the drone behind her stiff-armed a running citizen, knocking him away forcefully before he could get too close.
From the street, she could see a better angle of what lay ahead. The passageway through the city's perimeter walls, once designed to protect against the elements, now served as a reminder of a prison. Armed military operatives dressed in fatigues, four of them as hard as stone, two as sleek as metal. Others among them carried weapons and riot gear, and were actively using different methods to fight back against the ensuing threat of citizens who were too afraid to think clearly.
… She hadn't been thinking clearly either, she realized too late.
Jula did not have more time to contemplate as the first volley of the army's warning shots - and actual shots - fired in her vicinity. Blaster bolts struck flesh all around her, and those who could still stand began to hobble away as some in the crowd dispersed. Others, incensed, used the Gift and Exceptions to fight back, and Jula could not afford to stay to watch the violence.
She darted away as quickly as she could muster, robotic drones surrounding her. One took a heavy hit from a kinetic weapon, arm plates loose from their correct orientation. They readied their weapons as a deterrent, built-in stunner mounts on their shoulders, and at least three people who looked to cross in front of her backed away in shock. She had a clear path.
"I can't believe they'd attack us!"
"Get the damned aliens!"
"Morons are fighting them too! Get us all killed!"
"Elder Cato's gonna save us!"
More voices of the citizens joined the din of reactions, and she moved for the only place that looked safe – anywhere but here.
OSMOS V
August 04, 21:41 UTC
TEAM YEAR NEGATIVE SEVEN
Mother stirred awake, and I hurriedly dropped her as gently as I could beneath the rocky outcropping. I hadn't wanted to stop here for long – it would be painfully obvious that this was the only bit of cover around, and I'd had to carry her for far too long to even get here. Somehow, the confrontation between Gabriel and the Reach warrior had not yet ended, and if it ended right then, at that moment, I was just glad he bought her enough time to awaken.
If this was it, I could say my-
"C-cassi-"
I clutched her hand. The one that was least disfigured. She held tight.
"Mom, I – you gotta – you gotta move. We can't stay here. Can you?"
I knew the likely answer in my brain, but my heart was not listening.
She tried to stand. I could see the effort in her face, could hear it in her breath. Distantly, the warbling sounds of sonic cannons caught my attention, and each moment where Gabriel did not catch up with us was another moment where he'd just lose. I almost missed her finally pull herself to a sitting position, with immense effort.
"Don't stress yourself if it's too hard," I tried weakly. "We're gonna get help. The – Gabriel's using some weapons to fight him off."
She wasn't listening – or perhaps was in too much pain to hear me. Several seconds passed while Mother stared at her hands, and she reached down as though to grab for the rock. A look on her face told me she wanted to absorb it, but she did not follow through. Was there too much pain?
"Who- who is Gabriel fighting?"
"The Scarlet Scarab," I answered carefully. "I don't know how or why, but Xandros attacked us." I explained more about what I saw, but her eyes were distant as she thought deeply.
"Are you hurt?"
I was, and I told her. She hadn't completely covered me with her body, and there was a serious burn on my right leg that wrapped almost entirely around it, between my ankle and my knee. It was nowhere near as deep as anything Mother had, and the sight of it brought her to fresh tears.
"Oh, Cassian. You- you – I hate this."
I gestured to the jacket Gabriel had given me. "I guess this thing worked. I'm okay – I will be okay. And you will too. We just gotta wait it out." I exhaled. "Just wait it out." I glanced toward her extensively burned legs, trying not to think about the smell. "You can walk?"
Mother glanced toward her hands again and then toward me, toward my chest. The sky glittered with the flash of another explosion, and she grabbed onto my shoulder without a second thought.
Energy crackled where she touched, green light flickering and trying to escape her absorbant grasp. My eyes widened with shock as I realized what she was doing, and I watched with horror as her own eyes flashed with an emerald glow. Within seconds, the jacket had completely disappeared, and all of that energy had gone into her.
With shaky movements, light shimmered across her body in crackling waves, solidifying into an aura that enveloped her. In movements that surprised both of us, she stood confidently – if wearily – onto her feet, energy cascading off of her with such distorting force that I could feel it from feet away.
"Mother, you-"
"Do as I say, not as I do."
Green light flickered into existence across her entire body, and then she took off running toward the sounds of battle. As she ran, the ridges around her eyes deepened into solid black lines, and the horns that were not due to grow for several more years lengthened into prominent, permanent fixtures across her head. If she noticed, I wasn't sure, but she turned long enough to throw a warding hand toward me.
"Stay here!"
And with an impossible leap despite wounded legs, she bound into the air with such force that she almost cleared the ground entirely. I watched in pure surprise as she landed several dozen yards away with a crash, and then leaped again, even higher and farther.
Toward the site of the battle.