Chapter 1 - Miscarriage
Xaviera was in too much pain to sleep. Last night’s mild aches were not just because of her third trimester. Something was wrong. Her abdomen was cramping, and her lower back was throbbing. She couldn’t ignore it. The pain came in waves every 15 minutes or so. Each wave was more painful than the last until the tightness became almost paralyzing.
“Something is wrong.” She muttered to herself, still half asleep.
“What?” Heijan responded. He was surprisingly alert for 3:30 in the morning.
“Something’s wrong,” her words became more real. “Something’s wrong, something’s wrong!” She was almost screaming now and becoming panicked.
Heijan turned on the light and slowly pulled the sheets down past her hips. Laying prone, she couldn’t see beyond her belly, so she stared at Heijan’s face. Tiny beads of sweat began to form on the high corners of his forehead. The wrinkles around his beady black eyes were still, as were the taught lines around his thin face and crooked lips. He was good at keeping his face still and not betraying his thoughts. Not this time though. He scratched his short, black hair, and the slightest twitch of his squarish nose confirmed her fears. Something was indeed wrong.
“Wait here a minute,” he said as he gathered the blood-soaked sheets into a bundle and threw them off the bed. He ran to the closet and returned with an armful of clean sheets. He wrapped her hips and legs carefully picked her up. With surprising ease despite his wiry build, he placed her squarely in the desk chair. He piloted it swiftly around the tight corners and doorways of the master suite. He then turned left down the main hallway.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“We’re taking my skiff,” he responded almost before she had finished her question.
“Call PMEq!” she screamed.
“Today?” he asked, head cocked, and eyebrows raised.
“Ugh,” she sighed. He was right. Just hours ago, the King had given his final speech and been placed into cryo-stasis. Everyone in Nohon, even emergency personnel would be observing this newly created ‘King’s Day.’ No Medi-skiffs would be available.
“Fine,” she said. She was obviously not driving and Heijan would feel more comfortable in his own skiff, but they were headed for the stairs and Heijan wasn’t slowing down. “Heijan!” Xaviera screamed as she fell backwards down the stairs. She braced for impact but was spun around and landed softly at the bottom of the steps. Her hands dug into the armrests and she clenched her teeth, gasping for breath. Pain interrupted her thoughts. Moving backwards away from the house she leaned backwards to draw a deep breath. The full moon was especially bright tonight and cast a halo in the dust and humidity that covered nearly half of night sky. It was as if a great eye was illuminating the hills and mesas. She didn’t recognize her own home in the moonlight. It looked more like a haunted military bunker; like somewhere she no longer belonged.
​
They arrived in the skiff-port loft. Heijan hovered the chair across a cluttered floor and over to the lift. Xaviera squirmed in pain and caught a brief glimpse into a closet. Something strange was in there—a dim green light, a rock in a tank of liquid, but it was moving. She tried to look closer but, Aaach! sharp pain inside her cervix. They were getting more intense. Heijan locked the chair into the lift, and they were slowly lowered to the skiff-port.
Xaviera tried to think about anything but the pain.
“Why’s your skiff so dusty?” she asked Heijan
“The accumulation tells a story.” He responded with oblivious calm.
Not helpful, not helpful at all! She needed chit-chat right now, not philosophy. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to focus on her breath. Heijan pulled the chair around the skiff and opened the passenger door. The seat slid out and Heijan placed Xaviera carefully in, then slid her back in and closed the door.
“You love that stupid ejector seat you… Uaaghh!” Another sharp pain jolted her. It was made worse by the look of the cabin—control panels everywhere hanging by wires with no rhyme or reason. Does this thing even work?
Heijan got in, powered up, and engaged one of the larger levers. There was a loud clank and the skiff shuttered. The turbines were attached. This wasn’t going to be fun. Xaviera tried to swallow but her throat swelled up. She flailed and grabbed Heijan’s elbow until she finally was able to breathe. Heijan gave her a canteen of water. She took a few sips and calmed down but remained clenching her jaw, rapidly and involuntarily.
Heijan punched a few more levers, then set some functions on his watch which disengaged the tracker-transponder. That killed any shred of calm.
“What the hell are you doing?” Xaviera asked her heart pounding even harder and faster now.
“I need to get you to the hospital,” Heijan replied, “I need to fly.”
“Have to go to ZMS., Xaviera said, wincing through pain. There was no time to make it around the Basin and get to the much nicer Khamaiu Hospital. She didn’t even think they’d make it to ZMS hospital in time.
“No,” Heijan said, his tone steely and irreverent.
What the hell is wrong with him? It’s not like she didn’t know him, but couldn’t he show a shred of emotion right now? She began to cry, but every sob put more pressure on her abdomen and caused more pain. Back to breathing. She closed her eyes, lifted her legs, and curled up on her left side facing Heijan.
​
Heijan set off slowly at first but picked up speed as he piloted along the curving driveway headed towards the main surface roads. He approached the curving intersection but made a sharp right turn onto a winding untreated road out towards the Black Basin.
“Where are you going?” Xaviera yelled, “this road doesn’t go around!”
“Shhh.” Heijan gently placed his hand on her thigh.
Why is he being even colder than usual? She was in too much pain to protest. A sharp contraction jolted her. She breathed through it and it turned into a dull ache in her lower back. She tried to watch the road to keep her mind distracted. Strangely, Heijan did not engage the propellers or the tires. The magnets kept the skiff hovering above the untreated road.
“How are these magnets working out here?” Xaviera asked, tense with pain,
“I installed better ones a while ago,” Heijan said. The finality in his tone preventing any willingness to address a response.
What is he hiding? Xaviera couldn’t press him, she could only close her eyes and breathe
They reached an old concrete bridge that traversed a shallow ravine, Heijan sped across it and onto a dirt road that ran straight down the middle of an ownerless mesa. He began pressing buttons and adjusting knobs. He was going too fast. Xaviera curled into a ball and closed her eyes, trying to breathe through the intense cramps.
Heijan’s hand remained on her thigh. His touch was as tender as he was probably capable of, but he seemed more focused on the challenge ahead, than he was concerned about her wellbeing.
They sped onward over a shallow hill and down the swale towards a dead end. The faint glow of the moonlit mountains many miles beyond the cliffs gave Xaviera a sense of her bearings and gave her body a shudder. Immediately ahead, nothing was visible. The Black Basin was before them, and Heijan was speeding straight towards it. The road disappeared about a mile from the Basin and the desert shrubbery became denser. Heijan pulled back on the steering wheel to keep the bottom of the skiff above the thicket. He wasn’t slowing down. He was going right for it. Why?
“The Basin…” Xaviera gasped “…the…the Transponder!”
“Disabled,” Heijan replied, his eyes fixed on the precipice ahead. “We’re going to Khamaiu. Trust me.”
What does that mean? She thought, noticing a hint of emotion in his tone. She had to stay focused on her body though. Her abdomen was rock hard now. Ugh! Another sharp pain. She closed her eyes tightly, from pain and because she couldn’t bear to watch as the skiff sped, seemingly out of control, towards the brambly precipice.
“Hold on,” Heijan said as they reached the cliffs.
“Shut Up,” she replied with a grunt.
The skiff barreled through the rocky edge of the cliff. Xaviera held her breath through the ear-piercing crash as the skiff cleared the first of the thicket. Heijan angled it the nose upwards so the foliage acted as a cushion, yet he could still pick up speed down the curve of the large gully. The propellers were engaged at full power now, keeping the skiff airborne and chopping through bushes. The loud, angry rhythm of propellers and thicket was overwhelming. Xaviera closed her eyes and dug her fingernails deep into the armrests as the skiff neared the basin floor. They landed softly at the base of the gully and were engulfed by the foliage. There was a moment of pause, but they were not stopped; inertia was simply transferring.
“Hold on again,” Heijan said. Then, he engaged the turbines while retracting the hover propellers. The skiff shot out of the thicket and was instantly careening a few feet above the Basin floor.
It felt out of control at first, rolling, pitching and dipping at random. Heijan quickly deployed the magnets though. The skiff stabilized and embraced the terrain. Amazingly, the magnets made a purer connection with the Basin floor than they ever had with any paved and treated roadway.
“You can relax,” Heijan said, “We’re safe for now.”
“For now?” Xaviera grunted.
"Yes," Heijan smirked and put on some bulbous, dark driving glasses.
​
All of a sudden, calm like a drug overcame Xaviera as she melted into her seat. Pains subsided. Fear was silent. She was one with the skiff, gliding smoothly over the gentle undulations. The black sand was still invisible at night. Even from just a few feet above, it was impossible to see exactly where the ground was. Only the silhouettes of cliffs stood out against the glow of the city. The invisible land just below her drew her nearer. She stared out the window into the void and noticed an occasional glimmer of light.
Is the sand reflecting the moonlight? The glimmers became more and more sparkly. Soon the sparkles were more like small flashes of light. They were not just in the sand anymore but all around her, even it seemed, inside the skiff! She turned to Heijan. He had one hand on the wheel while he gazed ahead. In his other hand, he was holding out a pair of glasses for her.
“What do you see?” He asked, his tone as robotic as ever, yet Xaviera sensed a hint of smug satisfaction beneath the indifference. Perhaps out here, in the Basin, in his own element Heijan was capable of more human emotions.
“Why don’t you tell me,” she responded, not willing to be a pawn in his condescending guessing game.
“You’re reacting to the Nietle,” he said.
“What?”
“Nietle,” Heijan said again.
“Nietle?” she gasped. “Here?”
“Virgin Nietle, here,” he responded with finality. Xaviera was silent.
Nietle—Wise Matter of the ancient world—was mere legend at this point. Yes, trace amounts of the substance existed in Xaviera’s amulet, chain, and gown, but it was merely symbolic. The High Justice probably had something of greater concentration, but still nothing with any independent power. The closest thing to virgin Nietle that existed in Nohon was the 2nd generation alloy in King Kol’s crown, and even that had no powers of record. No, there was nothing in the known world as potent with Nietle as this place that she had hated for so long from a far.
How did he uncover this? How did I miss it?!
“How do you know about this?” she asked.
“Put these on,” Heijan said, ignoring her question. His eyes grew wider though, perhaps he realized he had said too much.
“Service demands sacrifice,” Xaviera said, invoking a trigger phrase in a stern tone. “How do you know about the Nietle?”
“Nietle,” Heijan muttered. His back straightened and his body stiffened in reaction to the trigger-phrase. He just blinked perplexedly.
Why didn’t the trigger phrase work?
“Put these on,” Heijan repeated, as he handed her a pair of bulbous, black glasses.
Xaviera put them on. The sparkles disappeared, but the Basin became visible. The cockpit also disappeared from view and light green holographic terrain whizzed by. The distant cliffs were now bright green, and the bright city glow beyond the mountains became dark and smoky. Some terrain had obviously been mapped out and programmed into whatever system Heijan was locked into. The occasional ridge, tor, or outcropping was a glitchy blur.
“I haven’t finished mapping that out yet,” he said, obviously noticing the same glitch. “They shoot down the drones, so I have to do it on site.”
“Who shoots down the drones?”
“Nomads,” Heijan said as he clenched his jaw. Specs of light, pale blue, deep indigo, and every color in between, began to appear and take on human forms as they drew nearer.
“Nomads?” Xaviera asked, frightened as she was enthralled.
“Clans of them. They don’t ever seem to sleep,” Heijan sighed. He turned sharply and accelerated down the sloping southern pediment towards the Basin’s central ridge. Bright orange lights appeared and disappeared near the skiff and in the distance. Some came from the human forms while others seemed to shoot up out of the ground. Heijan weaved the skiff in and around the lights.
“Are they shooting at us?” Xaviera's calm was gone with a tightening shiver of her spine. “What if they hit us?”
“They won’t,” Heijan said. He pulled back on a large lever and the skiff kicked into an even higher speed. They were now barreling down the slope at top speed towards the central ridge. Xaviera’s pressed her foot into the floor panel. Sweat stung her eyes as she dug her nails into the armrests and fought for small sips of air. "Breathe,” Heijan said, his tone still smug, condescending even.
Finally shows some emotion and its nasty! She knew who he was though. She had years to prepare. Years to monitor him. This pain, this fear. This was Xaviera’s own fault. She had not done her job. She had abandoned her mission. And the grinding, that grinding sound of the turbines, and the gravel against the skiff-chassis. It brought to fore that memory that always nagged at the back of her mind.
Headquarters.
The factory.
Master Linda.
​
MEMORIES 1
14 Years Earlier
Master Linda led Xaviera through a meandering maze of corridors and stairways, some spaces were tight and dark while others were massive. All the while hundreds if not thousands of sisters, all clad in their proud blue gowns carried textiles, yarn and fabric from one space to another. The harsh clanging of metal competing with the steady din of machine engines reverberated through the cavernous space.
Before Xaviera had a chance to remark about this never-before-seen space, Master Linda opened a large steel door and led into a dark room. A stack of papers and a satchel of data cards sat on a small table in the corner. The dim blue glow of the holoprojectors at the ceiling corners was the only light in the room. Master Linda touched an unnoticeable switch on the wall and the room became filled with charts, notes and images. At the center of it all was a long face with short, scraggly hair, thin lips and deeply sunken half-shut eyes. Such peculiar features to this face. It looked more like a light sculpture than an official hologram.
“Here is your assignment Sister Xaviera,” Master Linda said in a mechanical tone that matched her face, pale and blue in the glow of the hologram. “His name is Agent Heijan Tavor.”
Xaviera scowled at the hologram before her and said, “He’s—”
“Not particularly attractive?” Master Linda interrupted.
“No, just, that look in his eyes. It’s so impersonal, unemotional.”
“Yes dear, probably a result of his conditioning. He’s a Kings Orphan you see. Either taken from his family at a young age, or never having had a family. The Crown ‘adopts’ such children and conditions them to serve the king without question.”
“How?” Xaviera asked
“Hypnosis, pain, pleasure, reward, punishment, other things. The details are in the file. Fortunately, our sisters are well embedded into the orphan academy bureaucracy. You will learn many of the trigger phrases that will command Agent Tavor’s obedience,” Master Linda said as she handed Xaviera a small satchel of data cards. “You will also learn that he is not unemotional. He is in fact very passionate, about one thing.”
“The King?”
“Exactly! And all things related to the King, including your forthcoming marriage. It will be conducted by a Royal authority instead of a Provincial or municipal one. This will ensure that the King’s seal is on your marriage contract, and that his service to you will be to him a passionate obligation.”
“This will make my mission easier?” Xaviera asked.
“This will make it possible. This will help you gain access to the the Lord Marshall,”
“The Lord Marshall?” Xaviera said as Master Linda opened the briefing room door and walked toward the warm glow of the hallway. “How are he and Agent Tavor connected?”
Master Linda paused. “They aren’t. Not yet, but we believe they will be eventually. Come dear.” Xaviera followed Master Linda into the narrow corridor. “The Lord Marshall has been slippery. None of us has been able to get close. He is on the move as well. His agents have been creeping into the bureaucracies of many agencies under the Royal authority. We assume he will begin spreading his influence into Black Basin Affairs. It won’t be long before there’s an overt coup.”
“That’s where Agent Tavor works?”
“Correct, as the sole cartographer of the basin itself. We believe the Lord Marshall will want whatever information Agent Tavor has. It may take decades, but our algorithms have determined that it will happen.”
“So, I will get to the Lord Marshall through Agent Tavor?” Xaviera asked.
“Yes. Nearly all King’s orphans have been displaying scorn towards the Lord Marshall. They view him as a usurper, as they serve the King above all else.”
“So, he may confide in me because of his hatred for the Lord Marshall?” Xaviera asked.
“Yes dear. A most critical assignment. The most critical assignment in a long time.” Master Linda stared at her. Her face was drawn and serious. A hint of pity shone in the corner of her eyes. “I must say this now, though it is in your file. You must not procreate with him! You will learn the means to keep his seed at bay and you will take supplements to inhibit your own conceptive abilities. Look at me Xaviera. Many sisters are required to have children. Your assignment will fail if you do not comply with this directive. Love him, but don’t fall in love with him. You must remain vigilant, and emotion can cloud your vision.”
“OK,” was all that Xaviera’s quivering voice could muster. Her heart beat faster as a shiver gripped her entire body. Fine, she thought. Don’t have children. That shouldn’t be a problem.
​
​
​
CHAPTER 2 - ELUSION
​
The lights were exploding now. Xaviera seemed to have passed out. That was good. Heijan was done talking. The central ridge loomed before him. He turned towards the right side of the ridge, dodging explosions as he lined up to enter the mouth of a small hanging valley. He dodged some rocks at the right side of the opening while rolling right into the crumbling scree. Once clear on the right he quickly rolled left and pulled back sharply on the wheel to barely avoiding crashing into the mountainside. A final explosion just missed but shook the skiff on Xaviera’s side.
“Heijan!” she yelled. “Too much crashing. The baby!”
“Hmm,” maybe she was right. Too much shock would probably cause a miscarriage.
My duty is to save my wife. But the baby… His thought trailed off. True, the unborn baby was not a citizen of Nohon. It was not a subject of the King and, consequently not as important as Xaviera. But the potential, the potential to bring a new, pure citizen into the country. Yes. There could be no greater way to serve. Heijan would have to engage the inertial dampeners, although they had yet to be field tested. If they fail, then we all die. But there is no greater honor than death in the service of the King. He entered a combination on the keypad beneath the central control panel.
“For you my King,” Heijan said as he depressed a plunger beneath his seat and engaged the dampeners. A loud click smoothed out to a heavy vibration as the seat drew him in. We're still alive. The dampeners seem to be working for now. Heijan returned to negotiating the terrain. He straightened the skiff's trajectory, climbed towards the edge of the cliff, and accelerated. He needed enough speed to clear the rocks at the precipice.
“Heijan!” Xaviera screamed again as she curled up on her side to brace herself.
She’s still squealing in that high register. Decades of training had conditioned Heijan to focus despite all distractions, but something about Xaviera’s high pitched tone managed to slice through his concentration. Focus!
Heijan returned to the cliff before him and held the wheel steady. The reinforced nose of his skiff crackled through the rocks. Success! They were airborne now. More complicated calculations awaited, none that Heijan couldn’t handle, as long as Xaviera stayed somewhat still and quiet.
If there was anything in Nohon, aside from the King, that Heijan loved it was the Basin—his lifelong project. Every day of his eighteen-year career at BBA he spent acquiring data or compiling it. Now from above, to see his project in all its glory. It was beautiful. From two-hundred yards above the Earth, the Basin was entirely aglow in the digital display of his goggles. Bright green cliffs on the southern borders were thick with dark blue foliage in every gully. The Black Mountain Chain to the north was a dimmer greenish gray. Beyond the Black Chain, in shades of dark gray, the city of Pota-Mei sprawled northwards, over and around the Khamaiu Mountains and out of sight. Pota-Mei, the Almost Endless City was a blanket of light, covering valleys, basins and flats. The city was an electric liquid, flowing into every lowland, and trickling through the hills and mountains. Even from thousands of feet above the ground one could not see the end of it.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Xaviera said quietly.
“The city or the Basin?” Heijan asked
“Both I guess.”
“Well, few people ever have,” he responded.
“So, this is what you do, huh?” she asked, gazing all around. Clearly mesmerized by the hologram. By his hologram, yes, he was proud of himself.
“Yes,” Heijan whispered, but a cold shiver shook him to near nausea. Pride, pride was a distraction. An unacceptable, detrimental distraction. They had warned him about hubris in training, but it was never an issue. Not until two years ago. Not until the Nietle discovery.
“What’s that?” Xaviera asked as she looked behind her.
“No,” Heijan whispered to himself, glancing over his shoulder to the east-southeast. Another shiver ran throughout his body. That blur of proxy-green and data-void black—the Anomaly. “I haven’t mapped it out yet,” Heijan said as his jaw clenched shut.
“You haven’t mapped it out?” Xaviera asked as she took her goggles off, glanced at him and squinted. She seemed perplexed. She seemed to sense his fear. Heijan had avoided the Anomaly since his first encounter 10 years prior, not realizing until years later that the cold shiver he felt every time he got near that place’s cold energetic void was in fact another distraction his trainers had warned him about, but that he had never known as such—the distraction of fear.
She is insightful, perhaps I’m saying too much. Heijan’s thoughts were interrupted by a shrill scream.
“The Grid!” Xaviera wailed, almost gagging off her words. She seemed to be in as much fear as pain, and for good reason. Under normal circumstances the skiff would contact the lasers of the Grid, be disabled, and plummet to the Basin below. “The Grid!” she screamed again, “What about the Grid!”
“Hmph,” Heijan allowed himself a snicker and a grin. She had no idea that they had cleared the grid and were flying above it. If she put her goggles back on, she would see an endless moving matrix of orange beams below her. “Put your goggles back on.”
“What?” she said, looking upwards.
“Look Down,”
“What the…” Xaviera whispered loudly, shaking her head as she looked at her lap.
“What?” Xaviera said, at a loss for all other words. “How…how is this…possible?”
Heijan paused, considering the question as he descended towards the northern border of the Basin. He didn’t want to answer, not yet, lest hubris again get the better of him and he share more than necessary. No need to tell her about the nanotechnology, the billions of tiny mirrors tuned to the skiff, the lasers, and to one-another. Better to just show her.
They were hovering just above the grid and Heijan dipped the nose of the skiff slightly, so the grid engulfed them. The lasers wrapped around an invisible shield, enclosing the skiff in a spherical bubble of refracted laser light. Programming the nano-mirrors to refract the beam wasn’t such a big deal. Programming them to recombine the millions of refracted micro-beams back into the original large beam AND send it back on its original trajectory was the challenge, a challenge that took him—
“Two years,” he said, thinking out loud.
“Two years?” Xaviera replied.
“Yes, two years.” The last two years had been very different. Ever since the Nietle discovery his cartography work went far more smoothly, giving him time for other projects. Projects he was never trained for…
“I reactivated many defunct drones and skiffs. All but the successful trial drones were destroyed.”
Heijan did not want to discuss the matter of grid-refractor nanotech any further. He descended quickly out of the grid to draw Xaviera’s attention back to the journey.
The Black Chain mountains were just ahead, and Khamaiu Hospital was not far beyond the foothills. as they neared a mountain valley. A large space in between two peaks held an elevated lake that fed into a river. The river ran down the North side of the mountains, through the foothills and into the city. The lake drew closer, but Heijan’s trajectory was off and the propellors were not meant for flight, so there was no reliable way to adjust a controlled descent. He did not want to overshoot it. Angling the nose down, he hit the turbine to force a precise trajectory into the steep river valley. Immediately before the skiff contacted the thick trees, he pulled the nose up.
“Aghh!” Xaviera squealed, then curled up into a ball. Her body convulsed and made a moist guttural sound. It seemed she had vomited in her mouth and spit it onto the floor. “Just get me to the hospital,” she grunted.
“I will,” he replied, while wincing at her vomitous breath, but refocused at the potential to acquire some qualitative data on the effectiveness of the in-cabin inertial dampeners, so he asked Xaviera, “Did you notice that the shock was not as bad as it should have been?"
“What?” she gasped, gazing blankly with bile dripping from the corner of her mouth.
“The shock of the landing, it should have been much worse," he said, but realized she was too emotional to be a source of uncontaminated data, and Heijan had to focus on the journey. "Never mind.”
The trees cushioned the descent through the valley, propellers chopping them to bits as they went. The transition to the foothills was gentle, but the valley was too overgrown to fly through and the skiff became stuck in thicker trees at the base of the mountains. Heijan tensed up. This was the first time this trip—this self-imposed mission—that he was at a loss. Xaviera smirked. Perhaps she found that oddly amusing.
Heijan corrected quickly though. Using the propellers to tilt the skiff backwards and punching the turbines, Heijan shot the skiff out of the trees. He struggled to stabilize the skiff, so he drifted away from the river valley and had to land on one of the hillside neighborhood roads. He sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Xaviera asked.
“I didn’t want to turn the transponder on until we got to the Hospital,” he said through clenched teeth. “Untracked, we would blur-in in the city but not up in the hills.” His hand was on the transponder control panel tapping it nervously. Leave off the transponder and try to make it to the city before the Pota-Mei Equilibrium (PMEq) troopers took notice of his untracked vehicle, or turn on the transponder, be tracked, and be disabled for breaking traffic laws? His brow furrowed, and his eyes blinked rapidly. His heart beat faster than it should. His hands were tenser than they should be. Was this more…fear? Make a decision!
He scraped his sole patch stubble through his teeth and drew a deep, sharp breath as he hit the turbine lever. Untracked it would be. The skiff shot forward, catching some air over a hill and starting to nose up out of control. Heijan quickly corrected and locked the magnets into the roadway. He was unmarked but PMEq was likely aware of him now.
​
Heijan piloted as quickly as he could through the unfamiliar winding roads. He kept looking to his left, straining his neck to see around trees and through houses. It didn’t take long before PMEq found them. The Trooper was waiting cleverly in a dark cul-de-sac.
“Heretics,” Heijan seethed. His disdain for PMEq, and generally all of Pota-Mei was as strong as his love for the King. These pathetic fools, these infidels, these traitors despised their King but had no problem living under his protection. What did they think they would be without the King's protection? Conquered by the COAN that’s what. Maybe that’s what they wanted.
No, these miscreants had no authority over Heijan. No authority over a loyal subject of the King, on his way to save the life of another loyal subject, and to help create the life of yet another. Heijan would do as he pleased. The consequences were irrelevant.
He waited until he was at the bottom of a hill. He lined the skiff up on the right side of the roadway and let the trooper get very close from behind. Then, he abruptly veered left and punched the turbine. The skiff launched off the crest of the hill, flying over two houses on the left and landing softly. As the hills gave way to the city, roadways became more orthogonal and predictable. Heijan was now trying to make his way west and back to the river.
“Please stop and let them take me!” Xaviera pled, clenched and squinting. The contractions were probably pretty unbearable now. The jolt of the landing must have shocked her. She didn’t miscarry though.
Inertial dampeners must be working well enough. “Please!” Xaviera continued
“They’ll take too long,” he said while scanning the surroundings. One of the troopers fired an EMP bolt. Heijan rolled right to dodge it, then pulled up on the wheel to avoid crashing into some boulders on the side of the road. The skiff almost flipped over but Heijan stabilized and turned sharply left onto a driveway, punched the turbine, and launched over a few more houses. Straight ahead, the hills ended, and the valley of concrete and metal began. The violet glow of the hospital was not far off.
“Stop messing around and hurry up.” she hissed. “Watch the road!” Xaviera said, wincing and clenching her teeth, “or the sky, or the river, or whatever the f…unngghh.”
“Yes ma’am!” Heijan responded, emboldened by the authoritative tone she took. Propellers pitched the nose up as he fired the turbines and went speeding over the tops of the trees. He barely cleared the last of them and saw the river drain just ahead. He was coming in fast and at a sharp angle. He rolled slightly to the right and pulled up on the wheel so the bottom of the chassis hit flush against the flared concrete wall of the river drainage trench. “Hang on.” Heijan murmured. The impact was jarring. Xaviera balled up, her entire body looked to be in pain, but still, no miscarriage.
“Get me there or kill me now,” she grunted.
The drainage trench—which long ago was a river—still retained that name, but it was no more than a slimy open-air sewer and it wasn’t meant to be driven on. The magnets barely held the skiff aloft, but PMEq troopers seemed even less equipped to pilot the trench than Heijan. The first of them appeared and made a blockade about a half a mile away. Heijan approached the blockade by awkwardly negotiated the angular, downhill slopes with a jerky combination of propeller bursts and turbine thrusts. Finally, they approached the blockade. Heijan, welcoming the vindictive shiver that coursed through his limbs, tilted the skiff onto one edge, punched the turbine, and busted through the Eq Trooper blockade.
Metal screeched and clanked against the bottom of his skiff, as Heijan gazed up to catch a glimpse of an Eq. trooper diving to safety. Finally, he caught himself, breathing deeply in wide eyed excitement.
No! No excitement. No anger. Focus. Yes, the Eq. troopers—the traitors—deserved everything Heijan could do to them and more, but to be so overwhelmed with pride and joy? No, emotional investment was beneath him. He shook it off and focused. A larger blockade was gathering at the hospital turn off. The hospital was only a mile away, but they were trapped.
“We’re pretty close. Let them take me.” Xaviera said, grunting through sips of air.
Heijan didn’t answer. He started out of the muck slowly and veered right onto the angled side-wall. He stayed on the wall as long as he could, picking up speed as he went. Xaviera was shaking. More and more Eq Troopers arrived at the blockade and were converging on the trench from all directions. When they were no more than 300 yards away Heijan brought the skiff as high up on the right side of the wall as he could and turned sharply to the left, going back down the side-wall, crossing the trench, and coming up onto the left side-wall. As soon as the skiff was mostly on the left wall, Heijan punched the turbine lever and they were airborne, soaring over the two-story buildings.
He took off at an awkward angle though, and the skiff began to roll too far to the right. Heijan followed through with the momentum and turned the propellers on to complete the barrel roll. He drifted a bit too far to the right, though, and he wound up overshooting the road to the hospital. He landed on an adjacent rooftop, crashing hard with the left side of the skiff. Xaviera lurched in pain and vomited all over herself. The acrid stench filled the skiff and she vomited again. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move.
“Just 2 blocks away,” Heijan said, unflustered by the stench. He engaged the undamaged front propellers to get the nose up then punched the turbine. The skiff shot off the roof, very unstable this time. He wobbled his way through the air and lined up for a crash landing in the large fountain of the hospital entrance. He came in at a steep angle, pulling back frantically on the wheel. The two working propellers squealed and smoked, pushed beyond their limit to slow the skiff’s descent. The hospital staff and other city-folk scattered. Heijan strained to shallow his approach angle but that was impossible. This would be a hard landing. He eyed Xaviera with embarassment.
“Sorry,” he said, and he meant it.
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