Chapter 31
Mirana walked for a long time, putting one foot in front of the other through sheer will. Much of the fire had actually burned past where she was now, leaving a landscape of blasted ash. Smoke still billowed into the sky, and there was no way to even guess at whether any ships had come down to investigate, or which side they were on. Mirana’s first instinct was to vanish, but she knew that she was nowhere near the edge of the marker field the Enemy had left around the area, and she did not want to draw any attention with a flash of green. So she simply stumbled along in spite of the ache that seemed to penetrate her whole soul.
Unfortunately, with the immediate threat of Dren gone, there was only one thing she could think about: Nedward Simmons. She had failed him. She had dragged him from his home and thrown him into battle. She had used him as a shield and a means of escape and given him nothing in return. She had abandoned him. She had known he would not stay hidden, even though she had made it obvious that to do otherwise was hopeless.
But it hadn’t been hopeless. Somehow, Ned had tracked down and defeated Kayleen Rax, the very woman that Mirana had been forced to run from. How had he done that? And why had a group of mere Vortak been able to kill him afterward? The injustice made her angry, but without any enemies on hand to focus that anger on, the only target available was herself.
She did not know how long she had been walking when she realized why that sense of self-loathing was wearing on her so heavily: it was covering up something even worse. Because the more Mirana condemned herself for what had happened to Ned, the more she was forced to realize just how much she missed him. She kept going over her memories of the time they had spent together. The way he had reached out to her as someone he could talk about his power with. The way he had listened even as she confessed her unforgiveable crimes. The way he had lit up with excitement as they had discovered the technicalities of their power. The fact that he had given up his own source of power to rescue her.
Ned had not just been another ally like Randar or Ablithra. Ned had understood her. He had shown an interest in her abilities and her past, but he had also seemed genuinely interested in her as a person in a way no one else had since her father died, besides her adopted Marnax family. He had been a friend. Her only friend, to be frank.
And then there was that look Ned had given her the last time they had parted. He had been trying to tell her something important, and she had stopped him. She had made an excuse about needing to avoid distraction, but the fact was that Mirana had been frightened of what Ned might tell her. He had been notorious for waxing emotional when things got intense, and there was no telling what he might say in parting, especially after what they had just been through together. Mirana had not been ready to find out, so she had stopped him before he could say what was on his mind. And now she would never know what it was.
Mirana had no idea how long she had been walking when her thoughts finally stopped churning enough to let her think about her surroundings. It was not a pleasant situation. She was hungry. She was exhausted. And her face was covered with tears for the first time since she had been forced to come to terms with the twisted identity crisis that had been her life before Viper had been defeated. Before Nedward. She shook her head, forcing away the thoughts that threatened to well up again. Surely she would be in communication range soon, and she could not appear weak when she finally made contact.
It occurred to her that even when her com link started beeping again, she was going to have trouble reaching it. Her scorched armor was sealed all around her, and dematerializing it would probably take just as much effort as calling it forth had been. In fact, just weighing her options suddenly seemed unreasonably burdensome. She had spent all of her Plasmic energy defending herself against the Flame Plasma, and she had spent all of her emotional energy dealing with the news of Ned’s death. And hadn’t the Shadow Masters said that physical strength was tied to those things? Without really meaning to, Mirana stopped in her tracks. She was right next to a charred tree stump with a hole burned into its side that would make a perfect place to lie down and get some sleep. Her armor would probably blend in with the ash, and once night fell it would be virtually impossible for anyone to find her, even if the smoke cleared out of the sky. Once she was asleep she wouldn’t have to worry about hunger, and surely she would be more prepared to deal with things after a decent sleep.
She took a step toward the stump but then stopped, frowning, as the image of Ned once again appeared in her mind. He would not sleep now, she told herself. There were people still threatened by a dangerous enemy – annoying people perhaps, but innocent ones. Ned would find a way to help them. Reaching out like she and Ned had done before, Mirana tried to draw power into herself. It was difficult – Mirana never had sensed the raw energy around her in quite the way Ned had, and Mirana’s weakened physical state was inhibiting her control over it anyway. But the power was there, and after a few minutes Mirana decided that she had the strength to keep walking after all.
Ever since the shuttle from Dread Phoenix had gone down to the planet, X had been gripping the controls of his starfighter, tense with anticipation of the battle that could start at any moment. General Orvinder had kept him patched into official communications, more as a favor to Jenara than as a reflection of X’s actual role here. The information he had been hearing was surprising, if not comforting. That other ship, White Mercury, must have finished off the shields on that invisible moon, because the two had stopped trading weapons fire. He had actually been rooting for the moon this time; the fact that one of Dren’s ships had survived a battle that the Palandorans had run from was not encouraging, although X chose to believe that the Palandorans had done most of the damage before they had pulled out, and White Mercury has merely finished off the last little bit. Either way, though, that ship and Dread Phoenix seemed to be a pretty good match for the Palandoran defense force.
X had gotten really nervous when the satellite images had shown Mirana walking out to meet Dren. He and his Vortak escort had had plenty of time to carry in whatever was in those large containers, and Mirana was clearly walking into a trap. And of course, the last time Plasma Masters had fought on this planet, his mentor had died as a result. This time might turn out even worse if things did not go well. When that forest fire had started, though, X and everyone else had completely lost track of what was going on down there, so now there was nothing to do but wait.
At least the Vortak were holding up their end of the deal so far; they were waiting at a safe distance, hovering over the spot where the battle was taking place. And while X kept expecting to see a group of dragons flying in to finish off the Shadow Master that had escaped them before, Valkron and the others were still staying out of sight. He was going to have to have a long talk with them after this.
Finally, after maybe an hour, the shuttle from Dread Phoenix rose from the surface. This was it, X realized with an ill feeling. Mirana had not contacted him, and Dren clearly considered his mission finished. Now he would come after Jenara to satisfy his sick sense of vengeance. Which meant that the battle would be starting up again very soon.
Dread Phoenix started moving the moment the shuttle was on board. X braced himself, but suddenly Orvinder’s voice came over the com link. “Hold your fire,” he said. “Dread Phoenix is moving toward the corridor. If they want to leave, we’re not going to stop them.”
X followed the red warship’s movement and saw that Orvinder was right – Dren’s ship was definitely on its way out. For a moment X dared to hope that it was over, but then he realized that White Mercury was not moving, and neither were any of the smaller Vortak fighters. He frowned, wondering why there had been no further contact. Just sitting there in silence was becoming unbearable.
Finally Dread Phoenix reached the corridor entrance and disappeared into hyperspace. The silence lasted for maybe another minute, and then Orvinder’s voice came over the link again: “They have left the nebula. All ships target Whit
e Mercury and prepare to engage on my mark.”
Now the white, crystalline ship was on the move, accelerating toward the little fleet positioned over Tibrus City. Orvinder sounded the attack, and X headed off to meet the warship and starfighter escort. But although White Mercury was moving toward them, X noticed that it was not really aiming for the city; it was headed for the burning forest where Mirana and Dren had been fighting. The Palandoran ships moved to intercept it, and X followed the other fighters down as well.
Then X’s squadron clashed with the swarm of Vortak escort ships, trading laser fire with them in an attempt to draw them away from the larger Palandoran vessels, which were moving sluggishly through the atmosphere in their attempt to stay between the Vortak and Tibrus City. Ahead, X could see White Mercury firing continuously into the cloud of smoke below them. It seemed redundant to attack such an obviously devastated landscape, but X knew that there must be something still down there. Could Mirana have won after all?
His answer came just seconds later as his com link beeped.
“X? Are you up there?”
“Yes,” X called back as he shot down an incoming missile. “Where are you?”
“Down here. I need you to land, right now.”
“I’m in the middle of a firefight! I can’t land!”
“Just open your cargo bay or something. I can’t hide forever. And bring a few friends if you can.”
“Fine,” X said in an exasperated breath. There was no sense asking questions now, and he could hardly leave Mirana down there at this point. He tracked her signal, then signaled a few other fighter pilots and headed down toward the ash-covered plain. He soon saw why Mirana had suggested the backup; some Vortak fighters were now moving to intercept, perhaps tracking the same signal. But Mirana was closer to the city than the Vortak had apparently assumed, and X reached her first. She looked awful, wearing some kind of armor that looked like it had lost a fight with an angry blacksmith. X brought his fighter down low, then dropped his shields and opened the storage hatch. When his console indicated that something was inside, he shielded himself and headed back up, his heart pounding from the risky stop he had just made.
“They’re all after me,” he called to Mirana.
“I know,” she called back weakly. “Head for space. It will lead them away.”
X did not need to be told twice to run. He was, however, surprised at the lines of green light that appeared at his wingtips. “Are you marking me? Is there some kind of a plan going on here?”
“Tell me when the light vanishes. I need to know when we’re clear.”
X felt like every Vortak ship was after him; although he was able to outdistance the larger ship, the smaller ones were all over him, draining his shields steadily with their constant barrage of lasers.
“It’s gone,” he called back to Mirana when he noticed that the green light had faded.
“I think I can wrap your fighter in a Shadow field for a minute or so. That should be enough to let you get clear of the battle.”
X frowned. “Get clear? We’re under attack! I can’t just leave everyone behind!”
There was a moment of silence, and X almost forgot about his passenger as his shields glowed with a pair of missile hits. He was a little startled when Mirana spoke again.
“Fine. I’ll give you as much as time as I can. Do whatever you have to.”
And with that, X saw the hull of his fighter vanish. It was odd to see only the interior of the cockpit, but once his mind accepted what was happening he banked sharply and headed back toward the battle. Several Palandoran fighters had been helping keep the Vortak off of X, and now they were taking the full force of the attack. X picked out one fighter that was being pursued by two red Vortak ships and headed toward the group. He managed to get right behind one of the Vortak, and when he started firing missiles it had no time to react. By the time the second Vortak had figured out where X was, the first fighter had exploded. X held his fire and dodged, then finished off the other ship in a similar fashion.
He was lining up a third sneak attack when abruptly the exterior of his fighter reappeared. The Vortak he had been targeting dipped sharply, but X was already on its tail and managed to stay in pursuit, firing constantly. Its shields failed before any others could come to its aid. By now, though, the rest of the group had targeted X again, and he began to wonder if dropping Mirana off before returning to the battle might have been a good idea.
Then a bright flash off to one side caught his eye, and X turned to see that the Palandoran defense had breached the shields of White Mercury and were blowing several large holes in its hull. The crystalline ship lasted only a few more seconds before some critical system exploded inside it, ripping it apart and tossing fragments in all directions. Now free to help out the starfighters, the larger ships now joined the attack on the smaller Vortak vessels, which for some reason made no attempt to surrender in spite of having no mother ship and presumably no commander. X found their stubbornness infuriating; this whole attack was becoming increasingly pointless.
“X, are you okay?” It was Orvinder.
“Yes, General. Mirana’s here with me and-”
“Head to Black Fang and dock immediately. The others can handle the rest.”
X still felt guilty leaving the other pilots, but his shields were low, and he supposed that receiving a direct order was justification enough to pull out.
X went to bed early, but he was awakened after just a few hours by someone calling at his cave door. At first he panicked, remembering the previous morning’s call, but a quick look at the security camera calmed him down. It was Mirana.
“Good to see you up,” he said as he opened the doorway and invited her in. Mirana gave him a weak smile and followed him into his entry room, where they sat down. “So are you all right?”
“I woke up feeling pretty rested, actually. I guess I just used too much power too fast, and I just shut down for a while. Thanks for getting me out of there, by the way.”
X shrugged. “It’s what we do.”
“Yes, well, I promised I’d come find you when I was done, and I figured you deserved to hear the rest of the story.”
X had to laugh. “Can I assume by your choice of timing that you’re not planning to stay long?”
Mirana regarded him solemnly. “Things are far from over. I really don’t want to be the one to tell you this, but…”
She looked away, and suddenly X felt very worried.
Mirana shut her eyes with a pained look. “Nakmar Dren told me that Ned Simmons is dead.”
X gasped and clutched the arm of his chair. “No. That’s not… he was invincible!”
Mirana gave him an understanding look. “I know. Believe me, I’ve been trying to convince myself it isn’t true since the battle ended, but Dren seemed sincere. He was gloating and angry at the same time, and he seemed desperate for revenge. If Ned killed Rax and were still alive, then wouldn’t Dren be going after him instead?”
X nodded, still in shock from this news. When he had gone to bed, it had been in the context of a recent victory. Now all of that seemed to have vanished.
Mirana leaned toward him, looking determined in spite of the glistening in her eyes. “I’m telling you this now so you won’t find out like I did. But now is not the time to mourn. We have to finish what he started.”
“Right.” It was hard to think of anything else after what he had just been told, but X forced his thoughts back to the current situation. “So, what do we do now?”
“I need to get back to Gerran right away so we can share information. I’m… kind of the only one left who can face Viper now, although I guess that was true anyway, but… you understand. I need to get out of here immediately.”
X nodded again, thinking. “I doubt Jenara will be willing to send Black Fang out of the nebula, but I can try to get you back aboard the ship you came on. I have to warn you, though, I might not have as much influence as I used to.”
Mirana gave him a weak smile. “Jenara didn’t approve of you helping me?”
X bit his lip and shook his head.
“Maybe we’d better swap stories now.”
They filled each other in on the details of the battles they had just fought. Mirana downplayed the details of her fight with Dren, but X could tell it had been fairly epic, and that it had taken no small amount of skill and creativity for Mirana to defeat the Flame Master. X’s story felt mundane in comparison, but Mirana seemed interested in his account of the Palandoran defense’s involvement. And since Mirana had predicted Jenara’s reaction to the whole encounter, X decided to tell Mirana of their conversation.
“Interesting,” she said when he had finished. “I don’t suppose you pointed out to her the fact that things would have gone a lot more smoothly if she had taken my advice and kept her distance. The Shadow fortress would have helped fight Dren.”
X bit his lip again, now feeling a bit defensive on Jenara’s behalf. “I don’t think it would be very tactful to mention that. She was doing what she thought was best to keep the planet safe.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I promise to be nice to her if we meet again. Consider it a down payment on the favor I owe you for getting me away from that ship. And by the way, don’t think things are totally over between you. Unless she’s a very bitter person, my guess is that she’s already thinking of how to patch things up. Playing hard to get can be very effective.”
X had to laugh. “Playing? How is that you know so much about relationships?”
“Please. I may be a dangerous recluse now, but I went to school just like everybody else. I saw enough examples of relationship drama to cover pretty much any situation, I think.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
Mirana smiled weakly, looking relieved to be discussing lighter matters. Her face quickly regained its serious tone, though. “There are a couple of things we need to discuss before I go. First of all, the Vortak – I get that they wanted to try to finish me off, and I get that they had to send word back to Viper. But they must have known that one ship against your whole force wasn’t going to last long. Why the hopeless battle?”
“I don’t know. The Vortak are a complete mystery to me.”
“All I can think is that the ones that left needed to be able to say that they did all they could to kill me before returning – you know, like making a sacrifice of the others. They can’t possibly think that the Palandorans were an important enough target to lose a ship on – no offense. And even though I was really weak, they could not have known that.”
“I does seem pretty desperate, I guess, although they did do a lot of damage in the process.”
“And it’s not just the Vortak on the ship. When I woke up I… ‘asked around,’ let’s say… about the Vortak that followed me. Do you know where it is?”
X shook his head.
“It’s dead. The thing attacked the team that was holding it when they tried to feed it, and it ended up getting shot. It’s like they’re all more afraid of being captured or defeated than they are of dying.”
“If they’re working for Viper, it’s not hard to imagine that they’d be terrified of him.”
“Yes, but I want to know exactly what he’s doing that terrifies them.”
X shrugged. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
“You’ve been a lot of help. Like I said, I’m the one that owes you. One last thing though. That ship you were fighting, with the crystal-looking hull – that was Rax’s ship.”
“I guess so. White Mercury.”
Mirana was smiling again. “Dren left me a parting gift by bringing that ship here. The Shadow data crystal thing told me that my armor would recharge but would take a long time to reach me. See, it was stuck to the Plasmic ether associated with its last location in normal space. Which was on Rax’s ship.”
“So you’re saying-”
Mirana stood up, and a suit of shiny black metal appeared around her with a low hum. The helmet was deactivated, so X could see the triumphant look on Mirana’s face. “I’m saying that I’m back to full power. I’ve spent enough time mourning for now. Right now it’s time for revenge.”
X just stared, glad that Mirana was on his side.
Interlogue
I will.
It was an empty, scattered thought, a feeling without anything to latch on to. It was just there, and for the moment nothing else was.
I will.
Once there had been a specific intent, maybe even a plan, but that was all gone now. Now there was only that will, the determination to act. It was everywhere; it was everything. For Nedward Simmons, nothing else in the universe existed.
No, there was something else. Something near him, something important. Or someone…
I will… fix this.
Ned’s eyes snapped open – or maybe they had been open already. Nothing seemed to change, but all of a sudden Ned became aware of himself. He looked around for an explanation for what he was experiencing, but there was nothing.
He squinted. There was something else. It was light. Everywhere. No source, nothing to be illuminated, just blinding, white light. Everywhere.
What is going on?
To be concluded…
Afterword
I kind of wrote this story twice. I wrote the prologue kind of spontaneously, not really knowing where it was going to lead. The story that followed was fun to write, but as I tried to finish it up I got hit with a ten-year case of writer’s block. Finally I realized that a big source of my problem was with how I had set things up at the start, so I went back and gave it an overhaul. I had meant to have just one sequel, but by the time I had rewritten the material from the original draft I realized that the second story was longer than the first, and there was still a ways to go before I could resolve things. So the rest will have to go into a third book.
As it stands, though, I’m happy with how things turned out. This is still an amateur work, but the issues in the sequel feel a bit deeper to me, and in particular I’m happy to have been able to show Mirana as an active participant in the story rather than just a supporting character, stuck in the shadows so to speak.
Hopefully, readers will also get the sense that this is less of a Star Wars / Star Trek genre thing. To be honest, I think the best science fiction of the last several years comes not from movies or TV but from Nintendo’s Metroid series. If anything I ever write evokes a kindred sentiment, I’ll be more than pleased.
I owe my brother Kevin big time for reviewing early drafts again, along with my cousin Shelly, who surprised me by becoming the second person I know in person to actually read The Plasma Master. My son David found some typos, and my sister-in-law Christina did the nifty cover art.
I guess the only thing left to say is that I’m absolutely sure that the next book will be the final one. I don’t have another fifteen years free to do this again!
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