Relias: Uprising (48 page)

 Tess didn’t care. She actually didn’t even notice. Her thoughts were so racked with thoughts of her father, now lost to her, that she was in a state of absent thought. She was in a mindset where danger and concerns of one’s own wellbeing were but an afterthought. She saw the half-crazed men slouching on the sidewalks and benches staring at her with carnal, lustful eyes, and she thought nothing of it. She just needed fresh air and some time alone.

 The street stretched off into utter darkness on both ends of the street, but again, in her bewilderment, Tess didn’t notice where she was. Worse yet, she didn’t notice that a man, dressed in a ragged trench coat, was following her.

 Tess came around a corner at a three-way intersection. She looked down the street and saw the same thing she saw on the street she currently walked: complete darkness. Yet, as she was thoughtlessly meandering, Tess turned the corner and walked onto that new street, continuing the stream of depressed, haphazard thoughts that filled her head.

 The trench coat clad man followed her, carrying a large duffle bag in one hand. Only his mouth was visible from beneath the shadow of his tattered cotton hood.

 There was a square just up ahead in an area that most likely bursted with people during the daytime. At the center of the square there was a large, circular stone fountain with three layers, each getting smaller as the fountain grew higher. With piercing eyes, a copper Razorback spread its wings atop the fountain, its massive clawed hands clutching the edges of the fountain while its tail circled down to the fountain’s lower platforms. The copper on the Razorback’s upper body was dull, weathered, while the areas that touched the water were teal with oxidation. Around the fountain, placed evenly, were stone platforms that served as benches.

 Tess sat down at one bench, her back to the street, and she looked at the towering cathedral that lay opposite the square, its windows were darkened as well and, to the typical person, it was an unsettling image. While a church or religious building should evoke appropriate feelings of happiness and encouragement, this building was daunting, dark, and loomed over her like an impending demon. Along the ledges that lined the walls above the massive, cherry doors, stone gargoyles smile down on her, their sharp, thick tongues dangling from their mouths as they watched her.

 The man came closer. He was merely yards away from Tess. She was still oblivious.

 The water from the fountain still trickled down in thick droplets, landing on each lower level until it landed in the pool below, rippling the darkened waters and bending the light that shone upon the coins that littered its bottom.

 The man came up from behind Tess. She didn’t know he was there.

 Tess rested her face in her hands, putting her elbows on her legs as she stared to the ground.
Why couldn’t she have been more understanding? Why couldn’t she have seen that Luke was only trying to protect her?

 It happened fast. A large, powerful hand came down on her shoulder.

 Tess came around with a knife and held it to the man’s throat. He put his hands in the air and dropped his bag with a heavy clatter as Tess breathed calmly into his face.

 “Try something else and I’ll tear your balls off, you get that?”

 There was a pause as the man took a deep breath. With her teeth clenched and her muscles tense, Tess waited for his response.

 “Tessie…” Came a deep, rough voice from beneath the hood. Tess’s eyes went wide and she dropped the knife, knowing exactly who it without seeing his face. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

 “Dad! I’m… I didn’t mean anything by it I’m-“ 

 “Slow down.” Luke said, pushing her away and seeing she was a head taller than him. She stood on the bench. “You didn’t hurt me.”

 “Not that.” Tess said, controlling her emotions while her voice cracked repeatedly. “In Praemon. When you wanted me to go with you out of the city and away from the war I didn’t mean anything I just… I just wanted to prove that I was strong. I wanted to prove that I was a Semprys so please don’t be mad at me.” Tess sniffed and huffed a laugh that quavered in her throat. “And take that hood off. You look ridiculous.”

 With immediate obedience he pulled his hood down. Seeing his face, Tess became emotional once more and hugged him again, tighter this time. Her affection caught Luke off guard, but that wasn’t to say it wasn’t welcome. That was far from the truth.

 “And I’m sorry too.” Luke said, returning her embrace and putting his hand gently on the back of her head. “I wasn’t thinking. I haven’t been thinking right for a long time but I’m better now. I’m better and I’m going to make the right choice this time.” 

 Tess pulled away and smiled, looking her dad in the face and seeing him smile warmly. And with that one, loving smile, Tess’s loneliness, her apprehension about life, the future, most concerning the operation, disintegrated and showered to the rough, aged cement. Tess looked at him a moment longer before noticing that she was still standing on the bench. She laughed at herself, composed for the most part, before stepping down to the ground. She sat down on the bench and patted the empty space next to her. Smiling, Tess watched Luke come around the bench and sit down next to her, leaning forward and resting his hands on his legs. His back expanded and shrank as he drew the warm city air in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Quietly he watched the fountain, finding the sound of falling water relaxing. And now, with things finally seeming right, they relaxed and listened to the soothing trickle of the fountain.

 “Dad…” Tess said, leaving the end open for his response.

 “Yeah?”

 “I know… I know you told me you didn’t want to tell me but…” Tess paused. She had just gotten everything she wanted and she didn’t want to ruin it. But she didn’t have to finish and Luke didn’t make her. He knew exactly what she was referring to. Peering into the blackness of the church, Luke collected his thoughts and cleared the knot from his throat.

 “In Olsgrad Canyon we had backed ourselves into a corner. The fortress we had there was the second best thing we had to Brysdal’s protection, what with the decelerated time field, but we couldn’t get there. Frenz knew we had a secret city somewhere and cut the entire area off. So what Durants remained, the ones that we were able to rescue from the camps and the prisons, had to make their way to Olsgrad.”

 “The First Legionnaire was right behind us though. But Alighieri had already had a defense grid set up so he covered us while we made it in. See, Olsgrad is at the end of a canyon.” Luke said, using his hands to illustrate the shape. “It funneled soldiers right into our cannon fire, and with nearly two dozen AA turrets covering the rear portion of the fortress we weren’t getting hit from behind.”

 “So we put the Durants in a stabilized cave. The Commune… somehow, I’m not sure how… learned to track our Furo signatures by satellite. This is before the moon’s orbit took us through the planet’s dust belt and made satellites impossible. So when we put them in stabilized space they couldn’t be tracked. Everybody else went to the battlements, the canyon walls in those four-legged Avid crawlers, while we had troops on the ground stationed around supply gates.”

 Tess’s head was bowed, listening. “What’re those?”

 “We used them to warp in ammo, guns, stuff like that that would be selected through from a menu by squad leaders, queued up on a holographic screen at the supply hub in Brysdal and warped in. So we had eight of those placed evenly in the caves that ran through the canyons on both sides of Olsgrad, tunnels which connected to the main fortress at the canyon’s end. And we were holding strong. We had a fleet of Battlecrafts coming in, ready to cover out escape but…” Luke stopped. He had to force himself to continue. “There were just too many of them. They just kept pushing us further and further back, taking supply gates and cutting those squads off. It’s a miracle Morlo and Hendrick made it out of there… I held the central part of the canyon for some time, helping the forces on the ground get their footing back but… but that’s what got us killed. I’m sure seeing me on the ground was more than Frenz could handle. He ordered a pressure missile to nail the center of the canyon even though thousands of Legionnaires were still in there… I should’ve known he’d do something like that…”

 “So we evacuated. Some genius in Brysdal figured out how to reverse the warp field on the supply gates and we used those to get everybody out of there. While everybody else got out I went after the only Durants we had left in the world. We’d be the last out but there was no time for anything else. So we hurried. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a pressure device go off but it’s brutal. It’s just a massive shockwave powerful enough to turn flesh into mist.”

 “Legionnaires flooded the tunnels. I did my best to cover the Durants but… well I got thirty of them to the last standing warp gate. Hendrick and Morlo held it for us, waving us on. The missile was seconds from impact. They would’ve stayed but… I heard the missile hit. I yelled for them to go through and they barely made it. We were in a shallower tunnel, only twenty or thirty feet from the outside. I tried to throw up a barrier to protect all of us… it had only expanded enough to partially cover me.”

 Again, Luke ceased to speak. That same wave of guilt he felt every time a Dark looked at him with hating eyes came over him. Slowly, he went on. “The cliffs had absorbed most of the shock but… but what made it past was enough to daze every last one of them. It made the supply gate inoperable and left us by ourselves.” Luke gave a small, saddened yet admiring grin. “I wonder what the Ditrinity thought when we didn’t come through that gate when we were only seconds behind them... They would’ve just stood there on the other side, waiting, knowing that if we hadn’t come in a few seconds then we weren’t coming at all.”

 “So it was just us now. I was dazed, the Durants were immobilized, and I had to make a choice. At first I picked up my sword, barely able to stand, mind you, and dragged it towards the entrance. But there were thousands of them. Tens of thousands. And the only way out… I knew it was… was with them. And after what they’d done to the Durants in the camps and research facilities I knew what they would face was worse than death. So I saved them.” 

 Tess’s face was grim. She scooted closer to her father and hugged his arm. It was as though Luke hadn’t even noticed. “I’ll never forget their faces, the words they were barely even able to whisper… they begged me not to… at first I decided not to but there was… there was no other way, Tess. There wasn’t. I had to kill them. They would’ve been on the butcher tables right next to me, watching themselves dissected, disemboweled, and instead of dying quick with the ones they loved at their sides, they’d die slow, lonely, in complete agony. I had to Tess. I might’ve murdered other people in my life but never… never them.”

 Tess nodded but said nothing else. She didn’t ask any more questions. But Luke, though obviously lost in emotional turmoil, went on.

 “Your brother tried to save me.” Luke said. It was that statement that drew complete shock from Tess. Luke spoke in a whisper now. “He had pretended for years after Frenz thought he’d rewired Lazarus’s brain to be a Legionnaire. But after hearing about Olsgrad, hearing how I was the last man standing, he gave it all up. He sacrificed himself. His life… it was for nothing. They took him into custody, shipped him off and executed him.” Luke saw Lazarus in the crowd of Legionnaires, yelling, dressed in the armor of a commander, hacking through the crowd with his customized katana, yelling for Luke, for his father. He disappeared, and that was the last Luke had ever seen of him.

 It was then that Tess knew that Luke had nothing else to say. She squeezed his arm tighter and closed her eyes. “You’ll always be my hero…”

 A warm tingling spread throughout Luke’s chest. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever said to him. It was just another piece of evidence that, by fighting for others instead of for himself, he had made the right choice. He reached a hand over and put it on her head.

 Tess held herself there, calm and quiet. She opened her eyes and looked towards the duffle. “So those your things?” She asked. All she wanted was to talk to him. Luke patted the bag and nodded.

 “Everything I’ve got.” He said quietly.

 Tess smiled. A warmth spread throughout her that she couldn’t describe. She’d never felt like this, not even when she first saw Luke in Alighieri’s office. That Luke wasn’t the Luke that now sat next to her. That man was vengeful, hateful, but the man that she now looked at was her father. He was a man she admired and a man that she’d brag about once more.

 They sat on the bench quietly, the silence speaking for itself. They were relieved and overjoyed to be at each other’s side and nothing else had to be said.

 They sat for what could have been hours, staring at the fountain both with faint smiles on their faces. At long last, Tess came to a startling realization.

 “The others! We have to get you back!”

 The break in silence caught Luke off guard, but hearing Tess’s proposition drew a groan. Tess already knew why he was hesitant but tugged at his arm anyway. Even with both hands she was still unable to reach even halfway around his arm.

 “It’ll be fine!” She giggled. Luke let her pull him upright and he picked up his bag. “I’ll do the talking and the apologizing, you just stand back and let me do it. I promise it’ll be great, and the operation will, especially with you here now, it’ll go perfect and there’s…”

 Her voice was lost as a deep, rumbling hum which rattled the streets. They both looked down to the ground as vibrations traveled beneath their feet, up their legs and reverberated through their entire bodies.

 It was engine noise. Helio engines. And they were getting closer.

 Luke looked to the sky and, no more than a hundred feet from the tallest building, a massive dark shape obscured the sky. All along its belly there were hundreds of tiny lights, each varying in color. It took little less than half a minute for the entire shape to pass over them. Tess folded her arms in confusion and Luke, confused as well, looked on with curiosity.