‘Noah?’ Rebecca cried out in horror, her descent hastening as her worry intensified.
Like a bullet, Noah shot up out of the shadows and came to a stop in front of his lady. ‘This is some invention you’ve got here,’ he exclaimed, and took hold of Rebecca’s waist to pull her free-floating form closer. ‘Care to go for a spin?’
‘Only if I can drive.’ Rebecca took hold of Noah’s face in both her hands and, kissing him, she set them on a slow spiralling descent into the unknown.
Tory had discovered that she didn’t need to sleep, or breathe, or even eat, but as Seagull was quite a good chef she had had a hearty appetite since her return to reality.
She very much liked the crew of the Bil-me, even Crow, despite the fact that he’d been doing his level best to make her feel out of place and useless.
Her warrior form had not gone unnoticed, yet she had no recall as to how her body had become so developed. Fortunately, she had proven to be of roughly the same dimensions, body-wise, as young Chook. He had donated to her a pair of leather trousers and a couple of tank tops. All Falcon upper bodywear was backless to accommodate their large wings. Long sleeved shirts, T-shirts, jackets and singlets all fastened around neck and lower back.
Tory frequented Hawk’s quarters whenever she needed some privacy, for most areas of the medium-sized deep space craft were public domain.
In the captain’s cabin, she was viewing herself in a large mirror. The way she figured it she’d done some form of exercise in the past to build up her physique to look like this and so she slowly began to stretch, to see if her body recalled something of what her mind did not.
Her movements, forced at first, were dance-like, but as she breathed deeply, Tory became absorbed in her exercise and her body seemed to take over the routine. The moves she made became increasingly precise, swift and aggressive. Her actions were spurred on by the determined cries her effort inspired. When she finally came to a standstill, her hands were clenched into fists and were pulled close to her body to counter-balance her right leg, extended out to one side of her body. Steady in the posture, she lowered her extended limb back to a standing position, and bringing her hands together in front of her solar plexus in the prayer position, she bowed calmly — her heart pounding sixteen to the dozen in her chest.
‘By the Gods,’ uttered Hawk, standing flabbergasted in the doorway to his cabin. ‘Where did you learn to move like that?’
Tory turned to him, her eyes ablaze with the adrenaline pumping through her body. ‘Hit me.’ She beckoned the huge, muscle-bound captain to move close to her.
Hawk grinned and shied from the invitation, feeling that as fit and resilient as this woman was, he’d still hurt her. ‘I really don’t think that would be wise.’
Tory rolled her eyes, realising that Hawk was way too polite for her purposes. ‘Never mind.’ She moved past him. ‘I need Crow, where is he?’
‘Maintenance level, checking the state of our munitions stores.’ Tory was on her way there before Hawk had finished the sentence and, concerned about her intentions, he took off after her. ‘Swan! Surely you aren’t going to ask Crow to hit you? He will, you know.’
‘I know.’ She looked back at him with a huge mischievous grin on her face. ‘Because you are a gentleman, you are useless,’ she explained and headed down the charichalum stairs to the maintenance level.
Hawk laughed out loud at her assessment of him. ‘You think I am a gentleman?’ He laughed again. ‘’Tis obvious you don’t know me very well.’
‘Gentleman is as gentleman does,’ Tory retorted, as the large Falcon joined her at the bottom of the stairs. ‘It has nothing to do with breeding. Speaking of which,’ Tory rubbed her brow, awkwardly, ‘I wanted to apologise for when I awoke on board your ship. I was mistaking your present manifestation for another.’
‘Do you know who?’ Hawk was intrigued, as up until now she hadn’t remembered much about her previous life at all.
Tory burst into a smile, knowing the pirate would find her answer amusing. ‘A Deva,’ she enlightened him. ‘It’s like an angel,’ she explained in response to his bemused expression.
‘I know what a Deva is,’ Hawk said. ‘Like the being that came for your necklace.’
‘Exactly.’ Tory gave a clap. ‘But you were of an even higher order of Deva than the one we saw. I recall seeing you as an angel right before I came to and saw you here. And with that lovely set of wings you sport, well …’ She shrugged. ‘You can see how the error occurred.’ It was clear that Hawk didn’t know what to say, so Tory spoke up to get him out of a fix. ‘I realise kissing a mutant might have been a tad unpleasant for you, but you handled me really well. I —’
‘Swan,’ Hawk interrupted, as he felt he’d given her the wrong impression. ‘In the real world, beyond this ship, I am the inferior mutant. It is your kind who are the perfect demi-gods that all the mortal tribes secretly aspire to emulate.’
‘No, that can’t be,’ Tory protested, seriously. ‘As a race your kind are far more talented … and better looking.’
‘How do you know that?’ Hawk was flattered by her words, but felt he should point out something. ‘You don’t remember any of your kin.’
‘Compared to me, I mean. I feel like a spare toe around here.’ Recalling her current mission, she resumed her search for Crow. ‘I want to pull my own weight, serve some useful purpose.’
They had already discussed the prospect of returning Tory to her kin, but with the current plight of the Chosen being as it was, they weren’t too sure where any of her kindred were. There was a pirate radio ship, the Blasphemagraph, that kept all the degenerates of the galaxy up to date on what was going on. No one knew who the phantom broadcaster was. He was known only as Nova. This DJ broadcast in random bursts to avoid detection by the Pantheon, but managed to source and put to air all manner of incriminating audio and visual accounts of Nefilim cruelty and injustice. All the people subordinate to the Pantheon were kept informed about their crooked ventures. Sooner or later Nova was bound to report on the whereabouts of some of Tory’s kin, but until he did, Hawk had suggested that she stay on the Bil-me.
‘So, what useful purpose did you have in mind, Swan?’ Hawk couldn’t think of any task on a pirate ship, suited to a woman, that wouldn’t earn him a slap in the face.
‘Well … Raven told me that your stores are getting low and that you will have to do a little raiding soon.’
‘Yes, so?’
‘Then, if —’ Tory paused, and, glancing back at Hawk, she decided to postpone enlightening him until she had proven her worth. ‘Tell you later.’ She ducked through the hatchway onto the main maintenance deck.
As Chook spied Tory making her way through his systems room, he whistled with approval. ‘Are they my clothes?’ he shouted out.
‘Hey, Chook, you like?’ Tory waved, did a catwalk twirl for him, and without stopping continued into the munitions storage area.
‘If looks could kill, you’d be lethal,’ Chook assured and received an affirmative nod from the captain as he trailed their exotic guest.
‘There you are.’ Tory spotted Crow entering numbers into a handheld computer as he eyed over their weapon racks.
‘What do you want?’ He glanced at her briefly, immediately irked by her presence.
‘I’ve come with a request that’s going to make your day.’ Tory waited for Crow to be curious enough to look at her before informing him: ‘I want you to hit me.’
‘No, she doesn’t,’ Hawk countered, entering the room.
‘Stay out of this,’ Tory warned him.
‘Why would I be bothered hitting you?’ Crow scoffed, going back to his stocktaking. Hawk was amused by his brother’s comeback.
‘Alright, that’s fair enough,’ Tory granted. She began folding the bottom of her sleeveless, backless top into a midriff style, and with the hipsters she wore, a good part of her muscular torso was left exposed. ‘How about trying to steal my favours then?’ She placed her hands on her hip
s to make the offer.
Hawk’s eyes widened, as did his brother’s.
‘If you can overpower me, I’ll give you that head job you asked for,’ she baited him. Crow smiled broadly.
In truth, Tory had no idea what a head job was, but she knew Crow wanted it.
‘Swan?’ Hawk appeared a little disappointed in her.
‘What’s wrong, Hawk? Pissed off that she didn’t make you the same offer?’ Crow teased, for it was plain that Hawk doted on their super-human guest. His little brother, having spent most of his life on the run in deep space, hadn’t had a lot of experience with women. It was fun to see him so smitten — for once Hawk didn’t have all the answers.
‘Hawk is the kind of man to fight for a woman’s favours, not fight a woman for her favours. Big difference.’ Tory explained her preference for Crow.
‘How do you know what kind of man I am?’ Hawk protested, although she was absolutely right.
‘Because I am an amazing judge of character,’ she boasted.
‘Well, then.’ Crow dropped everything to stop the couple from gazing into each other’s eyes any longer. ‘Let’s get to it. You’d better leave, eh?’ he suggested to Hawk, as he unfastened the jacket he wore. ‘This could get messy.’
Hawk looked at Tory, reluctant to leave. Even though Tory had picked the fight, he still felt compelled to stay and defend her.
‘He’s right,’ Tory agreed. ‘It wouldn’t be polite to belittle your older brother in your presence.’
Hawk looked away from both parties, knowing they could each read him very well.
Half of him was annoyed, although there was no rational reason as to why he should be. It was her body, her risk to take. The other half of him wanted to smile, daring to believe that she harboured forgotten powers that would save her in this instance. Her display in his quarters just now had certainly been impressive, but could she put such skills into practice against a real opponent? That was exactly what she was trying to discover, he thought. She was right in thinking that he would have let her win, whereas Crow never would — certainly not with the incentive she’d given him.
Hawk breathed a sigh of relief as he realised this challenge had nothing to do with any attraction Swan had for his older brother, but rather, the opposite was true.
‘You’re not going to pull any of that supernatural hocus pocus are you?’ Crow began having second thoughts about their deal, remembering how her unconscious form had battered him with flying debris during his attempt to kidnap her. Right now, they were standing in the middle of stored munitions — she’d be capable of doing him far more damage in here. Then the horrifying thought occurred. What if she does remember? Everything! She’ll kill me for sure.
‘What are you on about?’ Tory frowned. ‘I don’t know any hocus pocus.’
Hawk was also wondering where his brother’s comment had come from when he remembered Crow confessing what the Chosen woman had put him through when he’d kidnapped her. Did this mean Crow was lying about Swan having been his target, or was he simply wary because he knew what her kind were capable of?
‘Actually,’ Crow’s mood became very peculiar, ‘I have better things to do.’
‘Oh … come on,’ Tory protested. ‘You’re not going to wimp out on me, are you, Crow?’
Although Crow knew that his brother would become suspicious if he declined Swan’s challenge, he was still hesitant to take it.
‘Weren’t you leaving, Captain?’ Tory reached around behind her back to unfasten her top and rouse Crow’s interest in the fight again.
The thought of her losing to his brother was too unbearable for Hawk. ‘Allow me to accept the challenge —’
‘No way,’ Crow barked, as he shoved his brother out the doorway and, placing a hand on the control plate, closed the door. ‘Now your arse is mine, princess.’ He turned back to Tory to find her refastening her top. ‘I thought you were taking that off?’ he protested.
‘You take it off me. I dare you.’ She held out her arm and beckoned with her fingers for him to approach.
Hawk could have opened the hatch door, as his palm print overrode all the locks on this ship. But both Swan and Crow seemed content on their mischief, so who was he to interfere?
Chook knew something suspicious was going on when he noted his captain literally flying back towards the stairs leading to the control deck level. He set down his tools to go investigate.
‘I’ve got it on screen and Seagull is heating up the popcorn.’ Raven rubbed his hands together in excitement as the captain entered.
‘Is she still conscious?’ Hawk rushed over to take up his seat alongside the pilot.
‘Are you kidding?’ Raven laughed. ‘Crow hasn’t gotten within arm’s reach of her. It would seem our little Swan is gifted with an amazing instinct for self-defence.’
Hawk became mesmerised as he watched the demi-goddess fend off her much larger attacker. The truly amazing thing was that she wasn’t even looking at her opponent. Her eyes were focused straight ahead and were even closed at times.
‘How is she doing that?’ Chook questioned, startling the two men seated in front of the screen.
‘Why are you here?’ Hawk snapped, as both he and Raven gave the lad a slap for having scared them.
‘My mistake.’ Chook moved backwards, but as his superiors became immediately re-immersed in the fight, he too stayed to witness the outcome.
‘Fuck this!’ Crow staggered back to a seat and conceded defeat.
As he regained his breath, Tory stood perfectly poised and inwardly focused, awaiting another onslaught. At length, Crow smiled and raised himself out of his slouch. ‘Perhaps you’ll prove of some use, after all.’
Tory emerged from a dream-like state as she let down her defences. ‘That was amazing,’ she said. She held her head, then released a great excited, ‘YAHOO!’ that nearly startled Crow out of his wits. To the Falcon’s further bemusement she ran up and hugged him. ‘Thank you so much!’ Tory kissed his cheek, saying: ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you.’ She pulled back to take a look at his left eye. It had copped a fair beating.
‘It’s fine,’ Crow growled, pulling away. Her warmth confused him. He liked the attention but it was not like him to admit it. He just couldn’t recapture the same animosity he’d felt for her before his beating; truth was, he admired her.
‘So, is this how you treat all your men?’ he grumbled, so astounded by his defeat that he only now came to realise how humiliating it was. ‘Seduce them and beat them up?’
Tory laughed at this and Crow found himself laughing with her.
‘You think I could come in handy on your next raid?’ she prompted.
‘No!’ Hawk came charging through the door.
Both Tory and Crow looked to Hawk to protest. ‘What do you mean, no?’
‘I mean that Crow does not call the shots in that regard.’
‘I see.’ Tory fronted up to Hawk. ‘You want me to beat you up, too, is that it?’
Both brothers laughed, but it was Crow who explained to Tory: ‘He just doesn’t like to see me scoring all the hugs and kisses … sibling rivalry is what it is.’
Tory was quite astonished at this development, and it must have reflected on her face.
‘Oh, he’s keen on you alright,’ Crow continued, enjoying seeing his brother squirm for a change.
Tory sensed the friction in the air. How could she get out of this fix without making either brother uncomfortable? ‘Get serious, Crow.’ She slapped his shoulder playfully. ‘I’m sure the women of your breed are more beautiful than plain old me.’ She scratched the short spikes on her head and wandered out through the hatchway while the going was good.
By the time Noah and Rebecca touched down on the canyon floor they were shrouded in complete darkness. The only light to be seen was a thin crack above which served to keep the couple aware of which way was up.
‘Don’t move,’ Rebecca advised, clinging close to her husband as she pulled her inf
ra-red glasses from her equipment belt. ‘Let’s see where we are.’
Noah found his infra-red glasses as his wife took a look around. ‘What do you see?’
‘Pretty much what you’d expect to see.’ She tried not to sound bored and disappointed. ‘A fairly narrow chasm, lots of rubble, and more rubble. This might be a good time to consult that rock the Dragon gave you.’
‘Shit!’ Noah hit himself. ‘We probably should have done that before we descended into the canyon.’
Rebecca nodded to agree, but as the thought hadn’t occurred to her before now she could hardly hold his error against him.
‘What the hell, I’m new at this questing business.’ Noah pulled the precious treasure from his jacket pocket. Even from within the drawn pouch of black leather in which it was sitting, the light coming from it was near blinding.
‘Was it glowing that brightly earlier?’ Rebecca didn’t think so.
‘No way.’ Noah removed his eyewear before loosening the drawstring and opening the pouch.
The keystone was not just exuding light, but ultra-violet light, which filled the space around them and brought to life the towering rock walls above them, shot through with mineral deposits of amazing colour. In that instant their desolate surroundings were as awe inspiring as a beautiful coral reef, minus the plants and animals.
‘Oh my,’ uttered Rebecca as she removed her eyewear. ‘Is it crystal?’
Noah hadn’t encountered this type of iridescent fluorescence before. ‘Of sorts,’ he replied at last. ‘It would seem to be a good sign that we are getting closer to your city.’
Rebecca collected a sample of the radiant rock and bagged it for the Geology Department back on Kila. ‘This does look vaguely familiar to me …’ She gazed at another huge sample. It was now a long time since she had had her vision of this place, but the strange waves of colour that rushed through the mineral were reminiscent of the amazing construction she had foreseen.
‘If this thing is a locator then how does one get it to locate without a computer or some other device?’ Noah looked the rock over, and on the flat, back plane of the stone he found an image had appeared. ‘Hello.’ He held the stone out in front of him and then behind, and discovered, thanks to the markings in the glowing rock, that it was the path ahead that matched the image the stone projected. ‘I believe it wants us to go this way.’