Chap 2: From the other side of Edge

when i came to i was lying on the floor and was wet, the wetness felt warm. instinctively i got up and the pain that shot through my head was sufficient enough to nearly scare me into unconsciousness.

a minute or so to gather my essence together and then i had look around me when i could not see antyhing i got frustrated and was going to scream when i realised.

 ‘ crap! its night and i am in a dark alleyway’

then there were these two miny lights glowing and one second i could see them in the dark far away,the next they were on topof me and i could barely make out the the outline of a feline, maybe it was a hexapuma about to rip out my throat, but then i realised i could feel only four limbs,must be a cat i thought, and the amused bleak reminded me that it was not a cat but a treecat. i wondered, what is it doing here? as the treecat snuggled close to me i started to sense its presence mentally, then like the brigh flash of flash grenades i froze in shock of realisation;this little fellow must havebonded me to save me from those bastards. i checked myself again and made sure i wasnt bleeding, but then to whom did the warm liquid belong to? or was it just urine?

a low melancholy and also angry bleak brought me back to reality, it must be the treecats, but was it blood? i smelled it;it didnt tasste like urine, so it must be blood or something else, feeling the treecat i realised it was not bleeding and i was relived like never before.

then as i started to get up i felt a shoulder under my hand, feeling along i could feel the gouged neck of a human.

i still did not know the names of my attackers; just that the three bastards were after me. i had many enemies but which one had hired these well-built and well trained assassins? well it could all come later once i found a safer place to hide, have something to eat and some time to stop and think, that put the lid on it! i had to find out what time it was, and if i was too late to alert the dragon lady, she had to know, but what? i could not remeber at the time, so i just stood up and got moving.

suddenly a small form bumped into me. how could i have forgotten the little creature, ” i dont know your name, i dont even know why you are here and what you want from me? but if you stay with me then you will be in danger! so hurry and go back to where you came from.” i shoved the kitty away from me, i didnt want to throw the poor thing!

a few steps later it leaped and landed in my arms, how? well i still had to figure that one out, but it did and as it did even i was comforted.

then

i could not see anything, the light was so bright that my eyes hurtand i dropped the feline, it wasnt a treecat per say but it wasnt any normal cat either. it bleaked in pain just as i screamed for my eyes. and the thunderpus noised that came with it, for a second i thought i was hit by lightning, or was standing behind an air-liners main engine! how ever the heat wave and the shock from the impact though only a nanosecond later than the disaster took me and nearly tore me to shreds as i was splattered on to the wall at the end of the alleyway. the wall had spikes on it. although i couldnt feel just yet but the immense increase in pain distinctly gave the impression that i was alive but impaled ont eh wall in various places.

as sight returned i saw my tiny friend had suffered about the same fate as me, though i could not tell if it was dead or alive as it didnt seem to be moving yet. and then all was dark again, the light from the blast was gone. and i was petrified, that must have been the dragon lady’s pinnace, that was the only thing that blast could have been, and i mourned my stupididty, if only i had realised the conspiracy earlier, i might have been able to save the dragon lady and her scaly companion ….

“kyuuuu!” came a voice, but i was no longer able to discern if it was just my hallucination from fatigue or if it was reality and so i lost the battle against unconsciousness .....

“kyuu!” i hear an exclamation
light at the end of a tunnel. did i die or am i still alive? the light is coming closer.

closer

closer

closer

jerk!

i am sitting now, its day time but i dont know how long i have been unconscious, if i am still alive

“kyuu”a bleak of utter rejoice

then i guess i must be alive

***                                                                                 ***

unknown to anoyone in the rubble of a building blown apart by the explosion of the dragon lady’s pinnace, lie two bodies; both fragile and extremely broken, but alive, just by a thread. they can hear a voice as if somebody is calling them from afar but, neither is in a condition to reply in any way other than blinking and letting the tears flow. the bleak of a dhurkat is heard closer, it fills them with hope, but only slightly. it is quite possible that the dhurkat is all alone. still in the thoughts of despair Nagrod lets out a subsonic scream of utter pain and despair. minutes pass with no response, but Nagrod still keeps his head high and waits for that answring call. it comes, but with undertones of caution and a request for assistance.  the associated undertones to the message leave Nagrod almost destroyed. His person lying there infront of him, body twisted at odd angles, but still breathing barely, bleeding from more than one deep wound and unconscious. Himself not in a much better state. the hopelessness seeming to engulf his entire being.

a rock shifts. out of the corner of his eye Nagrod can see someone trying to find access to them. someone knows they are here. but the question still hangs: are they the assassins makign sure their target is no longer a member of the living world? or are they the rescuers?  or is it the dhurkat and her person if she has one?

--------------------------------------------

The bombarding of the Edge had begun a few days ago, and now it had reached the city of Kinara, the most eastern city of the Edge. It could have been called a port, but it wasn’t; it was a hidden city, surrounded by mountains on all sides save for the east where it touched the ocean. Nobody had ever been able to reach Kinara; it was too secluded and well guarded by nature and by man, but now this tradition had been broken by the ‘Corrupt’ as the Company was now known. They had come in the middle of the night, over the western mountains; nobody had expected them to cover the distance or tolerate the savageness of the high passes and the high death toll those mountains incurred upon travellers. Thus the destruction of one of the scientific bases of the Edge had begun.

Rather than help, some of the civilians turned out to be the “hidden sleepers” as they were known in the days of Old Earth; people taken from a country and brainwashed into being unconscious spies by their enemies, then placed back in the society of that country, especially within the higher research laboratories and scientific fields. The Sleepers, acting without understanding, made a dash for the ocean – there were thousands of them. At the beach they changed direction as one, moving now as if searching. Their hidden equipment in the holding caves beneath the beach was found and brought up and then they geared up to raid Kinara from the east. Some of the general city populace followed them at first, but upon learning of the deceit and evil intentions of the Sleepers panicked, and ran back into the city and in to the line of bombardment. Some committed suicide while others joined the Sleepers yet some tried to put up a resistance towards the sleepers. Few succeeded.

Crap! What has happened to me? Momentus thought, sitting in the pilot seat of a massive machine – a M.A.C (mobile attack craft). At 19 years old, and of mixed bloodlines, Momentus was a short boy, with dark messy hair and dark eyes rimmed by spectacles. What am I doing? Looking about him, he could see the controls and the screens showing him the city. Standing on the beach, his M.A.C. was facing Kinara, the beam rifle aimed at the mass of civilians running away from him and into the flaming city.  In one swift reflex he opened the entry hatch of the M.A.C. and jumped the 7 meters to the ground, dashing to the nearest group of civilians he could see; making sure it looked like he was coming from the city and not the M.A.C.

At first he couldn’t see what was happening but as he got closer Momentus realised that the group was made up of 5 boys, 4 big hulking idiots, who went to the same school as him and one small boy – the brains of the group. They were dragging a girl with them out of the city and on to the beach in an effort to escape by boat. Hearing footsteps, they stopped and crowded together. When they turned around and saw a boyish figure approach, however, their confidence swiftly returned.

It was as if he was never there, the speed with which he moved; only angels or demons could have even come close to it. He might have even beat light in a flat out race, or so thought the gang – they had all attacked at once, but unexpectedly they were the ones on the floor, staring up at the boy with not a scratch on him as he stood in the middle of the circle of downed toughs. He hadn’t even hit them hard – all he had done was make sure he took their balance and let them fall. Even as he did it, Momentus wondered where and when he had learnt how to do such a thing. Once he was done he ignored them and asked the girl if she would come with him. All they could do was glare at him defiantly, cowardly fear and certain defeat stilling their limbs. The short boy yelled in the negative and prepared for impact, a body slam or some kind of hit, but it never came. For a few moments there was an awkward silence, as the realisation that they were defeated utterly settled over them. They did the only thing they could – they bargained, agreeing to let the girl go if he would get them to the beach safely. Momentus agreed instantly; even he had realised they needed to move. There was a flash of anger on the face of the girl – she had just been sold to this young man, now what was he going to do with her?  The question echoed loud and uncertain in her mind.

They made their winding way to the beach, dodging the only two shells that came their way purely by chance. Soon they were at the beach and Momentus turned to them. Fearing another attack, the members of the group flinched before realising that this was as far as he would take them, this was where they parted ways. If only they could keep the girl and get rid of him! No matter how hard they had tried to think around it on their way down the beach, they couldn’t – he was just too fast for them. They suggested coming with him, to watch his back, but after a bit of speculation as to their characters and thinking of his M.A.C. Momentus declined their offer and told them he had space only for one other person and that that person had to be light. They shoved the girl towards him angrily, and ran after the silhouette of a boat. 

The girl stumbled and fell into his arms. Momentus caught her deftly, but didn’t notice how scared she was; he had too many things to think about, the most important being to think up an escape route which involved also saving ‘his’ M.A.C.  Making sure no one was following them, he took the girl by the wrist and started running towards the M.A.C. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her face twisted in pain, so he released his grip on her wrist and insisted that she run ahead of him instead. 

Why is he doing this? What does he want me for? Why me? How do I run away from here? Thoughts ran in circles around the girl’s mind, distracting her. She paid little heed to where she was running and more than once Momentus had to keep her from falling and being hit by a stray mortar. It didn’t take them long to reach the M.A.C., but it had seemed like eternity. Once they got there, Momentus helped the girl up into the cockpit and together they squished into the pilot seat. Switching on the systems, he instantly received a multitude of messages; some from the people who claimed to be his bosses and ordering him to shoot the civilians and scientists and 3 from other people who seemed to have broken through their brain-washing and had a plan and a next step in mind to rescue their beloved city. Only one message caught his eye from those three – it was from his sworn brother! He had gotten onto a transport space carrier and was waiting for him a kilometre from the beach deep in the sea! Momentus replied immediately, swiftly closing the exit hatch of his cockpit and stirring the M.A.C. into motion.

The trip to the space carrier was uneventful – the girl didn’t speak much, but the slightest tremble of fear worked its way through her body and Momentus could feel it. He understood – they could be walking into a trap, but it was a risk he was willing to take. After all, the person on the other end was his sworn brother.

The space carrier wasn’t very large, it wasn’t meant to transport M.A.C.s as they could traverse space on their own; with the advent of zero-radiation nuclear engines capable of operating for five hundred years at maximum combat power, the dream of solo space travel had been achieved, and it’s first application was as the driving force behind the M.A.C. As they were climbing on to the lifts to go up from the hangars to the bridge of the space carrier Momentus asked the girl the question he had been meaning to ask for the last three years; “Will you marry me?”

Once, she had been disgusted by him – the way he looked, the person he was, the people he hung out with, everything he did. To her, they were fundamental enemies. But even then he had risked his life to save hers, not just this time but countless times previously as well, as she had ended up finding out once the incidents were over and he wasn’t around to thank. But this one question, such a question, at such a time, it was too much; she broke down and dropped to her knees crying harder than she had done ever before. Startled, Momentus approached her. Seeing her hurt so much, in such utter grief and despair was painful – he wanted to comfort her so he moved closer to kneel beside her, laying a hand on her shoulder. She tried to resist it at first but he didn’t budge. When she finally looked up, he looked her in the eye.

“You are free to do whatever you want. I will not force you to do something you don’t wish to; if you want to leave I will not stop you once we reach a safe haven.” He whispered, hand gentle on her shoulder. Deep down, she recognized his sincerity.

“Yes.” She replied quietly.

Momentus smiled. Caught in his gaze, she marvelled that such a thing would look so natural on his face. She smiled back.

The lift stopped with a sudden jerk and the door opened. The moment broke as they were greeted by a blast of joyful laughter as Momentus’ sworn brother and his two fellows welcomed them onto their ‘ship’.

Muzamorous, his sworn brother, had stumbled into his life a few years ago while they were still at school. Momentus was the ultimate epitome of geek. He had always suffered the brunt of bullying from the entirety of the school pupils. Even the nerds shunned for being too geeky. One such day when he was being beaten to a pulp as usual, Muzamorous stepped in and rescued him from the slaughter. Grateful for Muzamorous’ kindness, Momentus promised to help him with anything. So, he followed Muzamorous around for a week before they struck a deal: to watch each other’s backs.

The ship was by no means large, but from the inside it just seemed enormous and spacious; that was probably due to the fact that all the passenger’s rooms had been removed to fit in the troop carriers. Piloting a space carrier such as this one was child’s play as the controls were simple and easy to remember. Momentus was jarred from his silent appreciation of the ship by a sudden rocking impact – a missile impact, he judged from the muffled ‘boom’. Belatedly, he realised that their stationary carrier must have garnered some suspicion from the others surrounding it who were still attacking Kinara. Everything went black.

When he woke, the first thing Momentus was aware of was the pain in his eyes. Squinting, his eyes gradually adjusted until he could see the stark whiteness of the room he was in. His itching wrists were chafed from the restraints binding him to a flat metal table. There was no sign of Muzamorous or the girl.

"hexapuma and treecat credit goes to david weber
everythign else is mine, this is just a section of a larger passage i wrote inspired by david weber’s Honor Harrington series"