Ice Phoenix (32 page)

"Whose animal is that?" Kalindra shouted angrily, rubbing her sore head. Mikin and Bindal glanced at each other
, but wisely kept silent.

"Two weeks of detention
to the person who owns it!" Kalindra began running after Kazu. Misa followed.

Mikin groaned.
"Why now, of all times?" And then he too, began running.

They raced across the grounds
, Kalindra and Misa cursing as Kazu cheekily teased them, allowing them to catch up to him before sprinting away again. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself at their expense. Mikin huffed and puffed as he ran after them, but stopped when a large shadow fell across him.

He looked up in surprise. To his amazement, a large starcraft appeared to be coming in for a landing. More disturbingly, it was flanked by five fighter jets, which sounded alarm bells in his head. Even Misa, Kalindra, and Bindal had stopped giving chase and were staring at the jets. Fighter jets appeared only when something needed to be destroyed. To add to the intrigue, Headmistress Marl and Master Drummik emerged from the school lobby, looking peculiarly strained.

Mikin
took shelter behind some bushes as the craft touched down on the school grounds. Interestingly enough, the fighter jets did not land, but went on to circle the school's perimeter. One jet hovered in one place, acting as a sentry.

As
Mikin watched, the door to the starcraft opened and circular discs dropped down. People disembarked, and when Terrana, Lorn, and Prince Gil Ra Im stepped out, Mikin nearly shouted out their names, he was so happy to see them.

They looked terrible. Terrana
, in particular, appeared inert. She was being led by a haggard-looking Lorn. Prince Gil Ra Im seemed no better than Terrana and was being supported by a tall warrior woman. A pair of faars followed.

More people
came down from the craft, and Mikin saw Headmistress Marl rush up to a little man, quickly engaging him in conversation. There was some gesturing towards Terrana and the prince, and Mikin could see that both Headmistress Marl and Master Drummik were reacting badly to what they heard. In fact, they looked horrified.

Determined to learn more, Mikin crawled forwards, sticking to the shadows from the nearby bushes. Words started to drift across and he was soon able to catch pieces of the conversation.
He could make out Master Drummik's voice in particular.

"You're ... about Baneyon! It's ... not possible!"

"Drummik," said Headmistress Marl, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"
Quempa, weren't you with him?" growled Master Drummik.

Quempa hung his head and stared at the ground, unable to face the others
, and unwilling to relive Baneyon's death. He understood why Master Drummik demanded answers — Drummik and Baneyon had grown up together, and news of his death would have been a huge shock to him.

Grandmaster Deitrux stepped forwards, shielding Quempa from saying anything more. "He tried everything he could, Drummik. I am sorry. I know the two of you were close."

His words were of little consolation to Master Drummik, who clenched his fists and turned away. Perhaps it was to hide the raw emotion on his face. Grandmaster Deitrux continued to speak, but Mikin could not hear him because he switched to telepathy.

There is more. Her Highness has also passed on.

Master Drummik went very still while Headmistress Marl gasped.

Si Ren Da was a disaster. We lost the queen, Baneyon, and Master Ferro. We also lost every single L-Master. The L-Council will be furious. Furthermore, the queen's guards, the Shakan, will arrive in the next five hours to escort his young majesty back to Swiva. Right now, the children's states are fragile, particularly the girl's. I will explain later, but right now they cannot be left alone. It is vital that we never let Terrana out of our sight.

I will take them to the infirmary then.
It was Master Drummik who spoke.

Raimus will go with you. He
will brief you along the way. Drummik ... be gentle with her. She blames herself for Baneyon's death as well as the queen's.

Master Drummik was unsure of how to respond to that.
He turned away and walked up to Terrana, who paid no attention to him. He offered her his hand, but she didn't see it. In fact, it was debatable whether she was seeing anything.

"Terrana," he said softly. Her face was filthy, her hair matted with blood and her eyes swollen from crying. The smile that had entranced him when he
first met her in his office seemed lost forever.

"She won't speak," said Lorn, who
was standing beside her. Master Drummik sighed, then bent forwards to scoop Terrana into his arms.

"Follow me," he said to the boys.

As he led them away from the Imeldors, a silver-striped animal pounced on Master Drummik's feet. Drummik reacted immediately, raising the creature into the air. Kazu yowled and glared at him.

"Kazu!" uttered Lorn in surprise. "Master Drummik, that's Terrana's pet."

As if to agree with him, Kazu meowed pitifully and looked to Terrana. His voice must have reached her because she looked up.

"Kazu," she said softly, recognising her little pet. It was the first time she had spoken since they had left
DalKal 7.

"Please, Master Drummik," pleaded Lorn. "She needs him."

Master Drummik relaxed his hold on Kazu and lowered him into Terrana's waiting arms. Kazu meowed happily, snuggling up to his mistress. Master Drummik continued walking, and the others watched as he disappeared into the school lobby, with Lorn, the prince, and Raimus following him.

Headmistress Marl turned to Grandmaster Deitrux.
We were worried to death because you were gone longer than expected. So much has happened since then — Pa Gumpina is nearly destroyed!

Grandmaster Deitrux's expression was a mixture of pain and sadness.
I am sorry, Degra. We believed we were gone for four days, but it was only after exiting the time flux belt in Olden Kartath that we realised we had lost three weeks. We never suspected that Nashim would return here.

Is Nashim responsible for these creatures that are destroying our cities?

Grandmaster Deitrux nodded sadly.
I'm afraid so. The creatures are called wrails and very little is known about them. By the way …
He nodded towards the bushes on their right.
You have a few students who wish to speak with you.

I've spotted them too. The
Nipponian is Terrana's classmate and a close friend.

Then it's best we call him and the others out. It must be urgent if they appear to be torn between running after their friends and speaking with us.

With an impatient sigh and a wave of her hand, Headmistress Marl dragged the children out from their hiding spot, planting them right in front of her and the grandmaster.

"You better have a good reason for eavesdropping on us," she growled. "And Kalindra, I expected better from you."

"Headmistress Marl, Mikin has some information about the alien creatures!" Kalindra said quickly. "We were on our way to see you when the craft arrived."

Before the headmistress could reply, Grandmaster Deitrux spoke.
"Interesting. What kind of information?" He peered at Mikin closely, and the little elephant squirmed under his gaze. Because he was so nervous, he blurted out the most unnecessary information first.

"My family's been book collectors for centuries, sir. We're more like information hoarders because we really like to read and I happened to
transload some old books about wars and aliens onto my cube. I have pictures of wrails — a few actually."

Mikin paused, expecting someone to chide him for wasting their time. He looked at them nervously, wishing the ground would just open up and swallow him. Finally, someone did
speak, but it wasn't the little man. It was the big, hairy Gratchonian who came from the same planet as Bagruth.

"Transload, huh?" said
Master Kuldor. "That must be some powerful storage unit you have there. May I take a look?"

Transload wasn't just a simple matter of transferring information into a storage device. It was reserved for shifting incredibly large chunks of data. The storage devices used to execute the transfer were
hard to come by, and were mainly limited to large organisations or to people of considerable wealth.

A transloader, such as Mikin's cube, had the c
apacity to store entire virtual interactive libraries containing multiple encryptions. It was designed to protect the information within and, therefore, in addition to the stringent access procedures required, it also came with a set of self-destruction protocols that would activate if it ever fell into the wrong hands.

The fact that Mikin claimed to possess such a device was beyond incredible.

"So, where is it?" asked Master Kuldor.

Kalindra stepped forwards and handed the cube over to him. Master Kuldor examined it closely, turning it between his large hands. He let out a low whistle.

"It really is a transloader." He stared at Mikin. "I don't have to guess that you are the only person who can unlock this?"

Mikin nodded and took the cube from Master Kuldor. He rubbed one of its sides lightly and, after a series of what appeared to be random tapping, he activated a retinal scan. Then, his ears spread out and covered both the cube and his hands. In this way, he shielded himself from the curious eyes of the others as he punched through a complicated sequence of codes, aware that he had
only a short time to complete them.

Kalindra's attempts to unlock the cube
earlier had resulted in locking it down completely, hence the series of complex key strokes that Mikin had to apply.

Finally, he succeeded
, and the cube emitted a series of clicking noises. Thin, spidery legs pushed their way out and dug into the ground. Tiny panels at the top flipped over, and suddenly there was light.

Everyone jumped back as images of wrails began flashing by, some accompanied by pictures of the Valpuri
. The wrails advanced, their eyes merciless and cruel. A dark cloud loomed in the background, lit up by fire and smoke, no doubt the summation of all the pain and death left in the wake of the wrails.

"Incredible," gasped Headmistress Marl. "It lists the origins of the creatures and the dates they appeared! More importantly, it explains why we haven't
been able to defeat them — they're imbued with qi, and some of them even act as nullifiers!"

"Like the dogs of Si Ren Da," said Master Kuldor grimly. "These creatures are the closest to feiyed we've seen
, and judging by their descriptions, they are intelligent — the worst possible combination." He glanced down at Mikin, who was chewing his trunk nervously.

"Looks like you'll be coming with us then."

"Huh?" Mikin wasn't sure he had heard correctly.

"In order to keep this cube activated, you'll need to come with us," said Kuldor, giving the boy a pat on the head. "And then you can tell me all about your family and how they managed to build their own transloaders."

Mikin's face fell. His family would not appreciate him giving away trade secrets.

Master Kuldor caught his expression and laughed. "You can relax
, boy! You don't have to tell us if you don't want to, but we need the information stored on this transloader, you understand?"

Mikin nodded. He gave Master Kuldor a hopeful look. "Can I see my friends first?"

Master Kuldor shook his head. "I'm afraid we don't have time."

"Are we going to have another war?"

Everyone looked at him in surprise.

"We have a serious pest invasion problem," said Master Kuldor, "but what makes you think we'll have
another
war?"

"Because there was one back before UWIB was ever forme
d, when the Valpuri invaded six sectors along with someone called the Dream Walker. But please, sir, I would really like to see my friends. They looked like they could do with some cheering up."

Grandmaster Deitrux levitated towards him. "I'm sorry, little one. Our time here is short and we must leave soon to the Great Council halls. During that time, you would be doing us a great service by filling us in on what you know about the war
. Also I would like you to assist Master Kuldor in unlocking your libraries so that we can access the information it contains."

"But, but I'm not supposed to leave the school without parental consent," Mikin protested.

Master Kuldor lifted the boy with one arm and started walking back to the craft. "Not to worry, we'll have it soon enough."

Grandmaster Deitrux remained behind with Headmistress Marl and the other
students. So that the students would not hear what he wanted to relay to the headmistress, he again spoke to her telepathically.

Raimus will brief you on everything that's happened. I must hasten
to a meeting with the L-Council and the rest of the Imeldors as soon as possible. Be ready. I know you are coordinating the evacuation of all the students for tomorrow. Good. Please make sure that Terrana goes with you, and I must stress, never, never let her out of your sight. If the Valpuri, the demons, find out who she is, our fight against the Dream Walker could already be over. Now hasten to Raimus. I will take my leave now.