Subterranean (23 page)

“Flynn,” the hand of Lisa’s voice yanked him from the crumbling ledge he so often hung from, “what did he find?”

“Long range sensors.” He pulled the mask of invulnerability over himself again and walked out onto the stage. “He detected a giant ship in space just above us and a hornet’s nest of Ravager ships flying around in the skies.” He crossed his arms. “And apparently, the ships they use are a lot like the ones we have, only better.”

“Oh, no,” Lisa’s worry cut deep within him, “what are we going to do?”

“Well,” he felt a bittersweet twinge in his chest, “he found a really big gun not too far from here that we can use to blow the mother ship into the next solar system,” he lingered in the ascended heights of hope for a while, “but we don’t know how to shoot it.”

“Can Radovan figure it out?” She asked, hanging on his response.

“That’s what he’s doing now.” His affirmation relieved her, the effects spilling out into his easing body, as well. Feeling lighter from her soft smile, he caught the others in the corner of his eye. “How are they?”

“Fine.” She sighed, glad to deliver a bit of good news for a change. “Vale is a little… happy from the medicine and Rolan is starting to speak.”

“Good,” he placed a hand on her shoulder, startling her accidentally, “what about you? How are you doing?”

“I’m fine…” she took a deep breath and held tightly to his arm, “just glad to be with you.”

He kissed her softly on the lips and smiled. “Me, too.” Suddenly, the pale sound of a distant explosion revitalized his paranoia. “What about the entrance the Ravagers came through?” He gazed at the most unnerving section of the hangar.

“No one else has come through it since we collapsed the tunnel.” She swung around back to him after viewing the dense blockade of rock and stone.

“Good, hopefully it stays that way.”

Forgiveness

“Hey, Rolan, how are you feeling?” Flynn sat next to him on the makeshift bed, glad to see his friend sitting upright and forming complete sentences.

“Far better than before.” His eyes peeled away from Rasina for just a second. “Thank you.”

“Thank your wife,” Flynn nodded at her as she clung to Rolan like a child holds a teddy bear, “she treated you.”

“Yes, about that…” Rolan sighed deeply and pulled Rasina’s head closer to his chest, “thank you for bringing her to me. I feel like a fool for having left her in the city.” His hand ambled along her, coming to stop at the manifestation of their unborn child. “I should have saved her myself, but in my anger, I was blinded, seeking atonement with your blood, and I almost lost the person I love most, along with a true friend.” With a repressed gaze, he swallowed his pride. “I should have seen it earlier that you are not the cause, but the only hope we have of surviving. Please,” his eyes met Flynn’s sincerely, “forgive me.”

Flynn paused in deep reflection before speaking. “I know what it feels like to make that mistake.” He spoke the words, distracted by the passing images of his sister in the background. “To be so obsessed with something that you forget about the ones you love.” He shifted and sucked in a gasp of air. “But you should thank Lisa and Vale,” focus reappeared in his face, “they were the ones who brought Rasina to safety.”

Rolan hung his head, bringing it back up with a grin. “Will you allow me to thank you for anything?”

“I don’t know… you did end up shooting me a second time… and a third time…”

“I missed!”

“You still shot me…” Flynn warped his jaw to restrain his laughter, “I mean it’s not like I had a stick or anything…”

“Flynn!”

“I am only joking.” He said with a chuckle.

“Oh… right… yes, of course.” He turned to Lisa, who stood at Flynn’s side. “Thank you, Lisa.”

“You’re welcome.” She said clearly and with a smile. “I’d hate to see friends lose what they love.”

“I understand.” Rolan placed a pensive hand on his chin. “And I fear my people may lose everything they love. It has been a long time since the Ravagers began their invasion, there is undoubtedly little left of the city by now with such a destructive force attacking it.” A picture of flame and ruin sat broodingly in the sheen of his eyes.

“Everything will be okay.” Lisa spoke with a reassuring smile. “Flynn will make sure of it.”

“Yes,” he nodded, “I hope so.” His gaze trailed around the room, marking each of the people inside the hangar, when he was suddenly sparked by a moment of agitation. “Where is Tural?”

“He did not survive.” Flynn’s voice fell to a somber note. “A dozen Ravager blasters struck him…” he recalled witnessing the scene himself, “there wasn’t anything we could do…”

Rolan swallowed hard and sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “How… unfortunate.” He reopened them and tightened his arm around Rasina.

“I am sorry.” Flynn wasn’t particularly fond of Tural, but he still believed there was a chance he would listen to reason. Now the deranged leader would never get that chance, the chance to redeem himself and fulfill his ancestral promise.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Rolan said soothingly. “The Ravagers killed him.”

Although it was true, Flynn couldn’t pardon himself so easily from the outcome of recent events. Along with the destruction of the city and the slaughter of its inhabitants, the Subterranean leader was dead… Flynn was perhaps the most infamous human in history at this point; destroyer of worlds, ender of civilizations, murderer of millions. “He would still be alive if it weren’t for me. Everyone would.”

“Do not blame yourself.” With Rasina’s help, Rolan pushed himself to his feet and stood eye level with Flynn. “There is nothing you can do for him now and you must focus on saving this planet and its people from the Ravagers.” He glanced over at the lump on the ground, its true gruesome nature covered by a clean white cloth. “That is something even he would agree with, whether he would admit to you or not.”

“Yeah…” he sunk in reluctant acceptance, “you’re right.”

Chapter 21

Planning

He’d organized everyone together in the hangar so they could discuss how to defeat the Ravagers. Flynn knew better than anyone that he couldn’t pull off such an enormous task alone, so he felt it fitting that the others be involved in figuring out the plan that would save the day and reconcile all actions thus far.

It was this, and that he hadn’t the slightest clue of how to fight the Ravagers as a force of war. He was an archaeologist, not a soldier. He needed the skills of his friends to ensure the construction of an effective plan, one that would be strong enough to agree with success and flexible enough to allow for a margin of error. He would need a lot of advice for something so painfully unobtainable.

“Okay,” Flynn stood precariously before the others on a rickety bridge of confidence, feigning his ability to lead as best he could, “now that you all know the situation, do you have any suggestions?”

“We destroy them.” Rolan clenched his fists.

“Yes,” Flynn grinned impatiently, “but I was more interested in the details.”

“I believe that portion of the plan was your task.” Vale asserted with a collected voice.

“Yes… it is… but I could use a little help.”

“Very well.” She put her hands together. “Such as?”

“Radovan tells me that the mother ship has shields capable of deflecting every weapon we have at our disposal.”

“What of the orbital cannon?” Vale sharply reminded him.

“Even that.”

Lisa frowned, her shaky hold on fear slipping free. “So, what do we do, then?”

“I don’t know.” Flynn shook his lowered head, ashamed to say such words.

“Can the shields be lowered?” Vale inquired after a short moment of silence.

“Maybe, if we can get inside to do it.” He fumbled with the idea in his mind. “But even then, we would have to know how to use Ravager technology to operate the systems.”

“Radovan can figure that out.” Lisa turned to him, her voice brimming with faith. “Right?”

He nodded, devoid of expression. “Most likely.”

“Then there is hope.” Rasina said softly from within the group.

“Alright,” Flynn continued calmly, “so we fly up to the ship, board it, disable its shields, and then hit it with a blast from the orbital cannon?”

Rolan nodded in agreement. “That sounds acceptable.”

Flynn aimed his astonished gaze at him. “That
sounds
like suicide.”

“Indeed,” Rasina said worriedly, “it sounds quite dangerous.”

“Flynn,” Rolan said with a smile, “where is your ever-present optimism?”

“It’s about to fly out of a spaceship along with our bodies halfway into space!”

Sensing the rising tension, Lisa reined him in with abrupt admonition. “Flynn!”

He stemmed the sullen abjection leaking from his lips and rubbed the back of his neck. “Right… sorry.”

“So, what about the Ravagers in the city?” Vale summoned images of the burning city streets for all to see. “Do you believe destroying the mother ship will force them to retreat?”

“Yeah,” he said shakily, “that was sort of the plan.”

“I do not see how the tentacle beast will simply ‘retreat.’” Radovan shifted in his seat. “It has grown over a considerable area of the planet.”

“Grown?” Flynn furrowed his eyebrows. “Did you figure out exactly what that thing is, yet?”

“Yes, I believe so. Scans indicate it is a plant-based life form.”

“It’s a giant plant?” Flynn said, surprised.

“Yes, although its purpose, aside from enhancing the destructive capabilities of the Ravagers, is beyond my understanding at this time.”

“Great. Any ideas on how to kill it?”

“According to the scans,” he procured a data pad from his pocket, “its ‘organs’, so to speak, are contained within a sac located at the point of its origination.”

“I think I saw where it started growing out in the desert, but there’s no way we could get to it on foot…” his pondering eyes wandered over to the ships and lit up, “we have to shoot it with one of the ships.”

Radovan slipped the data pad back into his pocket. “A reasonable conclusion.”

Flynn kept his eyes on the spaceships. “Do you think one of those things has enough firepower to destroy it?”

“More than enough.” He said, without as much as a glance over his shoulder.

“Good, so it’s agreed, then,” Flynn laid out the plan comfortably, glad to finally have an idea of the future to put his mind at ease, “we split up into two teams: one team flies up to the ship, while the other stays down here to coordinate our movements and operate the orbital cannon.” He focused on Radovan. “Did you figure out its controls?”

“I believe so.”

“You
believe
so?”

He crossed his arms. “Well, without testing it, there is no guarantee it will work.”

“And if we test it, we give away its position, right?”

“Precisely.”

“Wonderful…” Flynn threw out a despondent hand, “we’re relying on a super weapon that hasn’t been used in a thousand years.”

“Probably longer.”

“Not helping.”

“In fact, it is uncertain whether or not the blast doors above the weapon will even open.” He deadened their possibility of success almost humorously. “The orbital cannon is located in another section of caves that have not been explored for some time now.”

“Okay, I get it! Impossible odds!”

“More like improbable.”

“Radovan!” He shouted.

“Flynn…” Lisa protested once more.

“I know, I know…” He allayed his fuming anger, brought on by his rising fear.

Vale spoke softly in the ensuing silence. “Who will the two teams consist of?”

Flynn bit down on his tongue. “I’ll… get back to you on that.”

When he fled to the sanctuary of his mind, away from the eyes of others, the air in the hangar seemed to thin, stretched by his inability to assuage his concerns over upcoming events. He needed time to process everything, but time was a precious resource indeed, as every second that passed was one inch closer to the total destruction of the planet.

Doubts

Flynn sat quietly in an alcove of the hangar, tucked away between two platforms hoisting the majestic ships high into the air, overlooking his melancholy. He clutched the picture of his sister in his hands, his fingers nestling on her smile in one of the rare moments of laughter he shared with her. The swollen levies of his eyes cracked open, dripping sorrowful tears of regret that landed on his seeds of frustration, nourishing them until he couldn’t bear it any longer. A hard fist against the wall discharged his overloading anger and then, over his heaving chest rising and falling heartily with each breath, he felt the presence of another nearby.

“What do you want?” He called out, assuming his anger would discourage the presence from coming forth.

“I wanted to see if you were okay.” Lisa’s unmistakably girlish voice exuded from behind a platform.

“I’m fine.” He said plainly.

Seconds later, her ethereal figure emerged, her fingers stroking each other nervously. A precarious moment of unstable tension charged the air as she approached slowly, uncertain of how her advance would be met. He turned away from her, shrinking himself into a ball further against the alcove, and kept his eyes to the floor.

She sunk to a knee and massaged his shoulder with the graceful touch of her hand. “What’s wrong, Flynn?” She whispered in his ear.

“Nothing.” His hand contracted around the picture, the permanence of its paper edges curling. “Nothing’s wrong.”

She tilted her head and rested it gently against him. “I know you too well to believe that.”

He sighed. “I suppose you do…” His eyes met her before his face did. “What if I told you it had something to do with the alien invasion I’m supposed to repel?”

“I’d say you’re thinking too much into it.”

“Hmph, you know me better than
I
do.”

“Why’s that?” She murmured with barely parted lips.

His chin magnetized closer to his chest. “Because I don’t even know what I’m doing right now.”

She pulled her head away and wrinkled her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Lisa.” He pushed her off tenderly, lifted himself to his feet, and leaned against the wall. “I’m no solder. I don’t stand a chance against the Ravager armada.”

“Sure you do.” She looked up at him with a venerable smile. “You’re determined.”

“Determined? Look at where that’s gotten me!” He swallowed up his whole world, in all its disarray, with two outstretched arms. “Everything I’ve done up to this point has put other people in danger and brought me no closer to Earth.”

“If you didn’t do what you did,” her face strengthened, “we would still be stuck here without any hope of ever returning.”

He cast away her reverence with a shrug of his shoulders and a shake of his head. “But thousands of people would still be alive. An entire civilization wouldn’t be in ruins.”

“You couldn’t have known any of this would happen. They were lying to us.”

“With good reason!” He pointed his consumed gaze down at her.

She climbed up to meet him. “Flynn, stop it. Let’s just finish this and get back to Earth.” Her hands adhered to his chest, where they then slid leisurely up to his neck. “I want to see you become a hero and take me away forever.” She tipped her head back, exposing her neck.

He exhaled apathetically. “I’m not even sure if that’s what I want anymore.”

“What?” Her dejected eyes fell upon him. “Why?”

“Earth, Lisa,” he corrected, “I don’t know if I want Earth. Of course I want you.” Their lips converged passionately, remaining entwined until Lisa drew away.

“But what about your sister?”

“What about her?” He clenched the photo tighter.

“You can’t just leave her there. On Earth.”

“Why not?” He wriggled free from her grasp and turned around, pressing the memento of his sister against his forehead. “She’s probably dead by now, anyway.”

“Flynn!” She snaked her fingers up to his shoulders. “That’s no way to think of her.”

“Lisa,” he flicked the fragile digits off, “I need to be alone.”

“No,” she crossed her arms, “if I leave you alone, you’ll only get worse.”

“Lisa…”

“What did I say before about self-pity?” She raised a brow.

“Lisa…”

“Flynn, I did not go through this much trouble to find you just so you could sulk in a dark corner of the room!”

He spun back around to her, his dark shield of despondency projecting from his chest. “I’m just an archaeologist without a reason to live, Lisa! What do you expect me to do?!”

Discouraged into silence for an ephemeral moment, her eyes then suddenly abridged into icy blue slits. “You have the planet Earth, its people, your sister, the Subterraneans,” she touched her lips with her tongue, “and you have me.”

“You’re enough to live for.” He teetered on the edge of his propensity, admiring a vista of greenery the likes of which had always eluded him in times such as these. “But how can I live with myself knowing I couldn’t save Earth… or even the Subterraneans?”

“You haven’t tried, yet.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“I guess you’ll just have to trust yourself…” With those words, she kissed him warmly on the lips and ambled away.

Perched unsteadily atop the ledge of his mind, he repeated the mystical words Lisa had imbued in him. “Trust… myself?”

Holding the picture of his sister tightly in his hand, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped. As he fell, with the grotesque hands of doubt clawing at him from the cliff face, Flynn felt a soft glow in his chest; a shimmering lake waited for him at the bottom.

Seeking Absolution

“Alright,” Flynn stepped into the light, his proud frame poised directly in front of the ships behind him, “does everyone know the plan?”