The Aethernet Falls

Chapter 6 - Crashing

“Why are we coming here?” Clarissa asked. They were in the heart of the wealthiest area of the city. Fellow pedestrians came and went, their numbers dwindling down until only they were visible. It gave Boros the distinct impression that they were the only people left in the city.

“If anybody knows what’s happening or where to go, its here.” He adjusted his grip on their bag.

“And what, we stroll up and ask them what to do?”

“I never said we ask them.”

“So this is your plan?” She planted herself firmly on the path. It was the first time they had stopped since they started walking. Her face was distorted into something resembling anger, but she had never been angry with him, could never be truly angry with him. She was frustrated he wouldn’t tell her anything, despite knowing he didn’t say anything because he had nothing to say. It wasn’t his plan, because he didn’t have a plan.

It had taken Boros this long to realize his sister wasn’t her usual self. He had expected her to be frightened. He had also expected her to take it all in stride. Like she always had. When she remained silent for the hours long trip, he had put it down to the early onset of withdrawals.

Now he was concerned for her.

 He stopped, too, after a few more steps. Turning to face her he said simply, “I’m sorry.” Clarissa had found that it was his eyes alone that said he was upset. The way the lids lowered slightly and his brow furrowed. The way the sky-blue irises seemed to become deep like the endless depths of the oceans. The rest of his face never changed, like it was carved from stone, when he normally twitched a smile every now and again. She always thought no one who spent little time with him could tell what he was feeling by looking on the surface, where she wore it all on her face.

“Sasa…” He shifted his gaze to the alloy footpath, careful not to look towards the edge, “We’re going to need help even getting out of this city. I…” He was thinking through his words, formulating what to do as he spoke, “We weren’t exactly in a good situation. This isn’t like when I talked ourselves into a room when we were kids, but we’re not much more well-off than then. If we need to take it, or if we can get someone, anyone to help us, we need more than this bag,” He hefted it by the handle, briefly relieving the pain in his shoulder, “to get us out of here.”

If he were a different man, a man who hadn’t lived through the things he had, he might have let a tear slide down his cheek. Only the deepening of his eyes denoted how he was feeling. Clarissa, too might have cried. She wasn’t as adverse to it as he was. Instead her eyes widened in surprise. She raised her hand and pointed.

At first, Boros could only see a lone man in a pressed and tailored suit running at full tilt towards them. Then, as he followed the line of her outstretched arm he could see what she was actually looking at. A fireball falling from the sky. He rifled through his pocket and nearly dropped the small lens as he produced it, fumbling with it before pressing it to his eye.

At once, a stream of numbers appeared in his vision. Impossibly large size, dangerously fast speed, and still accelerating. More comforting was the fact that it was still far off. Though the image was automatically darkened by the lens to protect his vision he could make out hard lines and bubble-like protrusions, each studded with a single, long tube; a clash of curves and straight edges. An orbital battleship.

Its still a hundred klicks out, how is already breaking up? Was his first thought. Oh s**t. Was his second. Even though it was still at the outer edges of atmosphere, it would break in, largely whole, and crash down to the earth in minutes.

“Out of my way!” The man running towards them had shouted.

It had seemed to Boros that everyone else had the sense to stay where they were and face impending doom with dignity. But something about the man made him also want to run. He clearly had something in mind. Before he could grab his sister and start running after him the sky opened up. Deafening booms as projectiles leaving bright orange trails came from somewhere that seemed close by. Only the fact that he saw the massive hunks of tungsten and high explosive before he heard the reports let him know they were in fact far away and just very, very loud. The defence grid was still functional.

They were sprinting now, quickly catching up to the man in the suit. He must have been running for some time. Must have had some knowledge of what was happening. We have to follow him. Ran through Boros’ mind again and again like a mantra, we have to follow him, we have to follow him, we HAVE to follow him.

He hazarded a glance over his shoulder, slowing his pace only marginally. The defense grid’s proprietary hardware of tungsten coated high-explosive artillery shells had made contact. He heard more booms in the distance. No, only the first volley has made contact. They were trying to spread the damage over as much space as they can. Hope many smaller impacts causes less damage than one big one. It was already on fire because other nearby ships had already tried to take it out; nearby being an entirely relative term as most of the orbital battleships were thousands of kilometres away from each other.

They had caught up to the man. He was sucking in huge gasps of air but still managed to bark at them, “Quit f*****g following me!”

Boros didn’t say anything, he just focused on his breathing. Clarissa was heaving hard and couldn’t keep it up much longer. But neither could the man.

It grew evident that they wouldn’t need to keep up running as the man stopped when the path forked off, an umbilical pathway leading straight to a tower, reminiscent of nothing more than a phallus with a domed top and smooth, mirror-like walls traced with gantries and permanent scaffolding for purely aesthetic purposes. The stranger rifled through the pockets of his jacket with one hand while wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of the other. Finally he produced a slim, black device and raised it to his face, a blue laser traced over his face and pinged an affirmative. The wall of the phallic building opened where no seams had been before and he ran into it. Boros followed quickly after, Clarissa was wheezing but she was close behind.

When the doors sealed again the man bent over, resting his hands on his knees breathing hard in between violent fits of coughing. Boros stood straight and glared at him. He opened the bag, glad he hadn’t ditched it for all the damage it could have done him, and fondled blindly for the handgun. Clarissa almost collapsed to the floor.

“Who the f**k are you?” The man demanded, his eyes hard despite the vulnerability of his stance. “Get the f**k out of my house.” He coughed.

Boros felt the hard surface of the pistol and wiggled it free from between to pouches of vitamin slurry. He levelled it at the man. Clarissa looked on, still trying to catch her breath.

“We’re coming with you.”