Chronicle of Ages (34 page)

‘And?' Maelgwn shook him to hurry him along.

‘Once locked, to safeguard against escape, if the lab is in any way breached … she'll be gassed.'

Maelgwn's grip on the lad loosened, as reality sank a dagger through his heart.

‘Any suggestions?' Zerrah joined them in the corridor.

‘Uriah seems to be the expert.' Maelgwn referred the captain to the lad, who slowly shook his head in response to the query.

‘Without the security code, there is nothing we can do,' Uriah informed them regretfully.

As Maelgwn entered the observation room to speak with Aquilla, she stood facing him in the middle of the window, both hands rested on her belly. ‘They killed my babe,' she uttered, as her tears ran rivers down her cheeks. ‘Durak is dead, and now it is my turn.'

‘No, Aquilla, we'll figure —'

‘There is no time,' she wept, imploring him to listen. ‘I hid Gibal's detection device in my quarters on the Mazua. You will find it in my pillow.'

Aquilla managed a bleak smile as Maelgwn came up close to the window and placed his hands upon the glass. On the quiet, he was hoping to pass right through the barrier and spirit Aquilla away to safety. Tears of frustration built in his eyes as the glass remained firm at his fingertips. He thought about contacting the Mazua — all he needed was one member of his squad and he could get her out. But he'd already jeopardised the future of too many people on behalf of this woman. It wouldn't be right to risk another life.

‘I feel this is what I deserve after how I deceived you.' Aquilla seemed to want to reach out to him, but refrained. ‘Please believe, I didn't want to do it, but I was already in so deep I —'

‘I allowed myself to be deceived,' Maelgwn insisted, whereby Aquilla's tears welled for a second time.

‘You are such a wonder, Maelgwn of Gwynedd.' Her voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘You must survive … you must leave here … now.' Aquilla gripped hold of a seat and swung it at the observation window.

Although the blow didn't come anywhere near to shattering the barrier, Maelgwn backed away. ‘No, Aquilla, don't do it,' he pleaded under his breath, knowing he was powerless to stop her as she had already made up her mind.

The massive thud brought Zerrah and Uriah running.

‘What is she doing? She'll never break the window.' Zerrah watched in horror as his sister took another run at the transparent barrier with the chair. ‘All she'll do is set off the security system.'

This time the impact was sufficient to trip the lab defenses, and toxic gas began filling the containment area.

Aquilla staggered up to the window, gasping and coughing as the billowing green substance crippled her. ‘Survive.' She stared hard at Maelgwn as she slid down the window and onto the floor.

Her life was over in an instant, and Maelgwn suppressed his tears as he observed her body still convulsing from the effects of the gas.
This kind of abuse cannot, and will not, continue.

Suddenly the reason why he'd been sent on this mission became clear. The powers that be meant to fuel his desire for the greater quest at hand — the downfall of the Nefilim. Increasingly aware of this soul-quest, Maelgwn wondered if Marduk knew of it.

‘If anyone is of the mind to carry out Aquilla's dying wish,' Uriah dared to break the silence, ‘we'd better do something about it, yesterday.'

Maelgwn emerged from his blind daze and nodded to agree.

Zerrah was still staring at his departed sister. The hardened warrior had been reduced to tears by the event, but he endured his grief in complete silence.

‘Let's move.' Maelgwn walked to the door and Uriah followed, but Zerrah was clearly not going to budge. ‘Zerrah, we are already pushing our luck.'

‘Go without me,' he snarled, his emotions bursting forth as he was forced to break his silence. ‘Damn it all! Just do as she said!'

‘I'm not moving until you do,' Maelgwn stated, in no uncertain terms. ‘Please don't make me shoot you.'

‘I'll shoot you if you don't get out of here!' Zerrah raised his weapon and aimed it at the Dragon.

‘Go right ahead.' Maelgwn seemed fairly complacent about the threat. ‘At least then you'll be forced to carry me to a vehicle, and save me the trouble of hauling you.'

‘What is the point?' Zerrah cried. ‘All my kin have been murdered! If I survive to have children, the same horrid life of abuse awaits them.'

‘No.' Maelgwn stated. ‘Things are going to change.'

‘And how do you know?' Zerrah scoffed, knowing nothing about Maelgwn's background.

‘Dragon!'

A faint cry was heard from another part of the building.

‘Commander!'

Several voices were heard to call repeatedly.

‘He's here,' Uriah ran into the corridor to hail them, without care for who it was — any possible means of escape was good at this point.

Maelgwn remained where he was, staring Zerrah out. He recognised one of the voices calling for him as belonging to Candace. As she was the Chosen female incarnation of Zerrah's immortal self, he figured that perhaps she could get the young captain motivated about life.

‘We are both going to die.' Zerrah was frustrated by Maelgwn's persistence as the sound of several people running down the corridor towards them was heard.

‘Commander, praise the Goddess.' Candace breathed a sigh of relief as she came through the door and saw him.

As Cadwell entered, he placed a hand over the communicator on his chest to inform the other two members of the search party. ‘We've got him.'

‘I told you not to come.' Maelgwn pretended to be annoyed with them.

‘A higher power overruled your command. We traced your transmission to the prison complex and began our search there,' she concluded, knowing her commander was relieved beyond words to see them.
‘And you're most welcome,' Candace advised with a large smile.

Maelgwn looked to Zerrah to find him wide-eyed and smitten by the sight of the Homo sapiens warrior woman. ‘Neither of us need die today, please come with us?' he implored the captain, whereupon Candace turned her attention Zerrah's way. Maelgwn could tell she was delighted to discover who he was, but she was also aware of the Delphinus male's prevailing sorrow. She wandered over to the lab window and when she viewed who was laying dead within, Candace looked at Maelgwn with a look of deep sympathy upon her face.

‘I am sorry,' she said, as her attention turned to Zerrah. ‘And I know this is a lot for me, a total stranger, to ask you to believe right now, but,' she took hold of the Delphinus warrior's hands, ‘there is someone back on the
Aten
that you have to meet.'

The claim of the beautiful foreigner was so unexpected, that Zerrah's curiosity began to weaken his prior resolve. He had never known her before this moment and yet, she was so familiar, like someone from a dream.

‘I'll tell you what,' Maelgwn spoke up as Zerrah appeared completely at a loss. ‘Go with Candace, and if she doesn't make good her word, I'll shoot you myself.'

Zerrah seldom cracked a smile, and considering his circumstances he was as surprised as any by his reaction, but inside himself he knew that the brave thing to do was to survive the day.

Candace, sensing Zerrah's resolve, looked to Maelgwn and winked as she vanished with the man she held.

As Talynn and Sybil made an appearance, an almighty tremor began to rock the city.

‘We're out of here.' Cadwell grabbed hold of Maelgwn and the two women linked hands with Uriah.

‘What's happening?' Uriah hollered as everything around him was engulfed by bright blue-white light.

T
he rest of Dragon squad were manning a reconnaissance vessel that was stationed just beyond the shadow of Laarsa's smallest moon. This craft had been launched as soon as the
Aten
had entered the Dinara system, to be used as a point of advance or retreat for the squad during their mission to recover their commander.

Upon arriving on the flight deck of the medium-sized craft, Maelgwn witnessed the most extraordinary sight.

Out through the front shield window, the surface of the planet was changing. Blizzards and storm activity ceased, as mile by mile the terrain of Laarsa changed from white to grey.

‘What is happening?' Candace demanded an update from Cadwallon, who was still accessing Elima's central
database after tracing Maelgwn's transmission.

‘That's a damn fine question,' Zerrah mumbled, still stunned by his unusual passage forth. ‘Who are you people?'

‘I feel sure that Uriah will fill you in.' Maelgwn motioned the young captain to a seat out of the way.

Uriah seemed rather high in the wake of his first experience of etheric teleportation. He just couldn't wipe the smile off his face. ‘Glad to, Dragon.' He sat down with Zerrah and Maelgwn moved to converse with his people.

‘What did Elima City Central register that tremor as?' he questioned Cadwallon, most curious to learn what the technological readouts disclosed.

‘A sonic impact on the far side of the planet,' Cadwallon advised.

‘And we felt it in Elima?' Cadwell exhaled heavily and raised both brows. ‘That's some explosion.'

‘But there isn't anything on the far side of the planet?' It didn't make sense in Maelgwn's opinion. ‘There is nothing that could have exploded. There is nothing worth firing at.' It had him stumped. If you were going to fire at Laarsa, why not aim for the only city? ‘Where was Inanna's ship placed in all of this?' Maelgwn turned his attention to Rebecca who was in charge of the tracking systems.

‘Her ship docked with one of Shamash's large deep-space voyagers, which disappeared from our monitors as soon as it activated its cloaking device. The vessel was headed towards the wormhole at the time it disappeared, shortly before you got here,' Rebecca informed.

‘So, it's doubtful the ship she was on was responsible for the blast,' Maelgwn concluded.

‘According to our monitors, there were transports on that side of the planet at the time, but none of the vessels we were tracking discharged a weapon,' Rebecca further advised.

‘Elima is now recording a massive seismic anomaly that is spreading itself, not just over the planet's surface, but all the way through to the core of Laarsa.' Cadwallon's eyes scanned the information on the screen. ‘No.' He decided the data was wrong. ‘The climate monitoring systems must have been damaged by the blast. These readouts can't be right … not unless every particle on the planet is miraculously turning into stone.' He forced a laugh, thinking the scenario preposterous.

‘And yet that's exactly what appears to be happening,' Maelgwn mumbled, noting the expanding grey cloak on the planet was about to engulf the city of Elima.

On the invisible screen that arose from Cadwallon's work-station the scrolling data from Elima froze up. Try as he did, Cadwallon could not restore contact with the city's database. ‘The system's dead.'

‘So it would appear.' Maelgwn stared at the planet that was almost entirely grey.

I have a very bad feeling about this.
Sibyl, the seer of the squad, rose from her seat to urge them along.
We should leave the monitors running and abandon ship, immediately!

‘Is the
Aten
still attached to the Mazua?' Maelgwn asked Cadwell, as the rest of the squad readied
themselves to depart.

Cadwell shook his head. ‘Upon your advice Marduk is heading the
Aten
back to the Sirius system. We evacuated the Mazua and left it floating this side of the wormhole as a decoy.'

‘What about the projects in Gibal's lab?' There would be little point to restoring Gibal if everything he lived for had been destroyed.

‘It has all been transferred to the
Aten
.' Cadwell set Maelgwn's mind at rest.

As everyone had gathered in the centre of the control deck to teleport themselves and the other survivors to the
Aten
, Maelgwn delayed Cadwell from joining them. ‘I need you to get me to the Mazua. We'll see you back at the
Aten
,' he advised Candace, who nodded confirmation.

‘Don't be long,' she urged, before vanishing with Uriah, Zerrah and the rest of the Dragon squad.

All of the Chosen wore thought wave neutralisers to prevent any who had not been given clearance from learning their secrets. It also granted them privacy from each other, until the demi-gods all advanced to a level of awareness where they did not feel the need to shield their thoughts.

Cadwell removed the thought wave neutraliser he wore, whereby Maelgwn gripped hold of Cadwell's arm to relay the image of Aquilla's quarters on the Mazua to him. ‘Got it?' he queried his grandson, who smiled accordingly.

‘We're there, Grandpa.' Cadwell held the picture in his mind and willed himself to that place.

 

The detection device was right where Aquilla had said it would be. Maelgwn was of the mind to use it and go straight after Gibal, but Cadwell declined to aid him with the task.

‘We don't know where that thing is going to lead us? What if Inanna cast Gibal into a black hole? Or, what if the Lord is still on Laarsa?' explained Cadwell, clipping the thought wave neutraliser back onto his wrist.

‘Point taken,' Maelgwn granted, as he looked the detection device over and found a couple of sockets in one end. ‘It looks as though we can plug this into the database. Let's see if we can locate Gibal that way, hey?'

‘Now you're thinking.' Cadwell seconded the plan.

As a king, Maelgwn had come to rely on having many people to bounce his decisions off. This solo mission had been a real test of self-reliance, which, judging from the outcome of his quest, could use some work.

‘The security station is just up the hall. We can use the PK terminal in there.' Maelgwn smiled as he led the way.

Although Cadwell now wore the guise of his grandson, to Maelgwn this soul-mind would always be Vortipor, whom he trusted implicitly.

 

As Maelgwn plugged the locator into the terminal, Cadwell wandered over to the wall of security screens in the middle of the room to see if he could get a visual of Laarsa on one of them.

After zooming in on his target, he turned to get Maelgwn's attention. ‘Well, Laarsa is still there. What made you think that Inanna was going to destroy it?'

Whilst the detection device fed its information into the city's central database, Maelgwn turned to respond to Vortipor's question, just in time to see the on-screen image of Laarsa explode into a million pieces.

‘Holy moley!' Cadwell backed away from the transmission, stunned by the event.

‘What made me think Laarsa was going to be destroyed?' Maelgwn summed up. ‘Inanna suggested as much.'

‘So this was, more than likely, not a natural anomaly but a manufactured one?' Cadwell was rarely rattled, but the proposition of such a weapon was most disconcerting,

‘I sure hope not,' Maelgwn stared at the blank space where Laarsa had once been. ‘I have no evidence. It's just a hunch … that I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong,' he emphasised. ‘Let's hope Gibal wasn't still on the planet.'

As the PK terminal began beeping to advise that it had reached its conclusions, Maelgwn and Cadwell looked back to its large invisible screen that was now mapping out the course between the Mazua and the missing Lord — or his head at least.

‘Oh, very amusing.' Maelgwn commented as he viewed the information on the planet that had been pinpointed as the host. ‘Do you feel like a swim, Cadwell? Inanna has deposited Gibal's head in the deepest abyss on Lura.'

‘That's around where the
Aten
would be at present,' Cadwell guessed. ‘I suggest we report in with what we know and then take it from there.'

But Maelgwn was hesitant to run with the normal protocol. ‘I would dearly love to make good at least part of my disaster before I return to base.' He looked to his grandson to appeal, but Cadwell only frowned.

‘There is only so much of a burden one spine can take before it will snap. It's time to share some of your load, Grandfather.'

‘But you don't understand why I failed,' Maelgwn argued, knowing the thought wave neutraliser Cadwell wore would prevent him from perceiving the truth for himself.

‘There is no success or failure, only that which prevails,' Cadwell advised firmly, before adopting a more civil tone. ‘I know you don't feel it, because you're running on adrenalin, but you are very badly injured. I'm no healer and even I can see the shadow that is cloaking your subtle body.'

Maelgwn was frustrated by Cadwell's advice. He was doing his best not to think about anything that had happened to him on this mission — if he returned to the
Aten
they would force him to confront the dreaded memories. ‘I'm afraid that if I stop,' he began to tremble violently as he confessed, ‘I shall fall apart completely.'

‘Better to fall apart and have a complete rebuild, then go on pushing a damaged vehicle.' Cadwell approached to place a comforting hand on his grandfather's shoulder. ‘You have done as much as any man could.' As Maelgwn forced a laugh to differ, Cadwell clarified: ‘We have the means to find Gibal, you have delivered most of his lab to the
Aten
as
promised, and you have discovered our enemies intentions … you have earned a rest, Dragon, we can take it from here.'

Maelgwn gave a heavy sigh, not daring to think of the part of his failure that his squad didn't know about. ‘If I go with you back to the
Aten
, I want your assurance that I shall still be permitted to go after Gibal.'

‘Hey, you're the commander.' Cadwell shrugged off the responsibility. ‘It is Marduk you must convince, not I.'

Maelgwn, having no psychic ability of his own, knew he would be forced to bend to Cadwell's will in any case. ‘Back to base then,' he resolved, with some reluctance.

‘You will be glad of this decision, Dragon,' Cadwell expressed his heartfelt opinion, when a tremor rocked the Mazua. ‘This feels familiar.'

Cadwell and Maelgwn looked to the security screens to see the rear of the space station begin to transform into stone. The grey cloak made its way towards the main body of the Mazua, engulfing, not only the ground dwellings and the base of the vessel, but the transparent dome force field that rose over the city. Some of the ground surveillance transmissions at the rear of the vessel were terminated, as their transmitters were destroyed, and one by one the security screens began to go blank.

‘Time to leave.' Cadwell grabbed hold of his grandfather and envisioned the Star Chamber in the
Aten
.

 

The large quartz throne in Marduk's Star Chamber was vacant when they arrived. Only Seshut was waiting in
attendance. Her eyes filled with sympathy the moment she laid eyes on Maelgwn — obviously his aura told the whole sordid story of his misadventure.

‘Welcome back, Commander,' Seshut smiled warmly.

‘Oh no!' Maelgwn had a panic attack when he saw the Merlin. ‘I don't need to be psychoanalysed right now. What I
need
is to see Marduk.'

Seshut shook her head slowly. ‘The only way to Marduk is through me … you have fears that need to be addressed, some of which you are not even aware of.'

‘Will this take long?' the warrior queried in a frustrated fashion. ‘Gibal, or part thereof, is lying at the bottom of an abyss!'

‘Cadwell will report to the Lord Marduk.' Seshut nodded to grant him leave.

‘Don't you dare leave this vessel without me,' Maelgwn cautioned his grandson in a tone that was most unbecoming; the emotional damage sustained during his ordeal was looking for a release.

‘And why is it so important that you go to retrieve Gibal?' Seshut queried politely, drawing the Dragon's attention back towards her as Cadwell departed.

‘You know why!' Maelgwn accused, his pent-up anger surging to the fore. ‘He was my responsibility! He trusted
me
to protect him.'

‘And you did your best,' Seshut advised.

It puzzled Maelgwn that she thought so. He was wearing no thought wave neutraliser, yet she failed to mention that he'd been seduced from duty by the wrong kind of woman. ‘You knew all this was going to happen, didn't you?'

Seshut nodded. ‘As did you … what appears as a misfortune shall prove very much to our favour. From injustice, justice will be done.'

The statement brought Adama's prophecy flooding back to Maelgwn, and he realised that he had been forewarned of his apparent failure. But the Lord had also advised that unseen forces were at work with him. ‘Endure and overcome,' Maelgwn uttered with resolve, as he looked to Seshut, his eyes wide in recognition.

‘I see beyond this battle to the war,' she told him. ‘In the larger scheme of things, the events you have just suffered through will have long-reaching implications for the better, and will eventually bring about the full realisation of your soul-quest.'

Maelgwn calmed as the Merlin had raised a subject of pressing interest to him. ‘Is Marduk aware of the nature of this quest?'

‘He is,' she put that fear to rest, ‘and will speak to you about it when next he sees you.'

The next fear that surfaced in Maelgwn was for Tory. ‘Inanna said something about being in Tory's skin?' he mumbled the little he recollected of Inanna's parting words to him.