The Rising Sun: Episode 5 Read online

  The serenity that robed his office was shattered as the bell rung. Annoyed, Zevinog looked up from the screen: someone was at the door to his office.

  He looked up to see who it was.

  Swoon tapped a spot on the digitpad on the wall beside the door. The door slid open with a faint hiss and the next moment, there was a loud thud and Swoon was sent flying backwards.

  Mantra stood at the entrance, his eyes carrying along with the bodyguard as he slowly landed in a crumpled heap in the centre of the room. His eyes rested over the body of the man, whom he had punched, before slowly rising to meet a shellshocked Zevinog, who was frozen in a half bolt to his feet from his chair.

  “There’ll be no need for that,” Mantra announced calmly. “It’s really of no use. Not against me, at least.”

  Zevinog was stripped of all thoughts except one: he was now facing some kind of attack.

  Without turning his head, he roared, “Rash-cons, get him!”

  The space between the robots and the short man at the entrance was suddenly streaked with jets of light.

  But Mantra lazily flicked his hand, and the seventeen or so Sparkler shots flickered and died as they hit the shield that shimmered to life right before him. He felt a smile twist his lip as he saw the flabbergasted look on the crime lord’s face when he saw this.

  The Rash-cons came sprinting at him, all of their guns spraying him with incessant lights. But Mantra had his sword out and ignited in a flash, and he launched into action…

  Zevinog felt his jaw drop lower and lower still as he watched, stunned. If he hadn’t met and communicated with mystics before in his life, this sight would have half killed him with shock: the short old man had landed amidst the batch of Rash-cons. Then, he had dissolved behind a violent swirl of orange light as he spun his sword at lightspeed, blocking the shots they sent at him, and cutting through them all at he same time…

  Within three mere seconds, the dozen or so Rash-cons littered the elegantly tiled floor of his office, their chopped parts still steaming with an orange glow where the mystic’s sword had cut it. The mystic lay bent on the ground, his white eyes stalled on the wreckage of robot parts around the floor, his sword held out on one hand … shining in bright orange, and leaving wisps of a vapour like substance to fill the air around it.

  Wrenching himself from the shock, Zevinog sprang into motion…

  Mantra slowly doused his blade, and let his white eyes rise over the scene before him. He watched the target, the crime lord, vanish behind a supposed emergency door that had been right beside him. As he disappeared behind it, the door instantly slid shut. Mantra leaped across the room and reached the door. There was a digitpad by the side of the door, with a password required to open it.

  Mantra held up his left hand and summoned a gush of his mystical energy. The wall around the door cracked and blasted apart as the door broke and flew forward. He peered into long corridor emerging behind, and saw that the crime lord was faster than he appeared: he had disappeared behind a bend that came at the far end of the corridor.

  Well, good luck, where you’re heading. thought Mantra. You’ll probably need it.

  __________

  Zevinog tore down the corridor, bending and twisting along with it. This emergency passageway led him directly to the vehicle pod at the other end of this large floor, where his ship awaited.

  Keeping one hand steady over the Sparkler hanging by his belt, Zevinog sailed down the corridor, running faster than he had ever run his entire life.

  That man … That mystic …

  Zevinog knew who he was. He was a one of them. One of the fabled enemies of the Xeni … the Nyon.

  Deep down, after signing up to work for the Xeni, he should have expected this. He had been too blind not to.

  He arrived at the end of the long corridor, and burst into the large platform that hung at the edge of the floor. A large, majestic ship sat right ahead of him, painted in a shining dark black.

  As he arrived before the ship, a large ramp fell out from the bottom of the craft, landing right before him. He flew up the ramp, stopping only when he reached the hull. But as his eyes fell over the inside of the hull, he felt what was left of the blood in his face drain it completely.

  Nano and a group of ten watchmen stood leaning by the wall inside of the hull, gazing serenely at the crime lord they had expected to come bursting in here anytime now. Dantox stood leaning by the wall at the very back, casually watching the proceedings with a smile.

  As Zevinog stood stiffened before them, Nano stepped forward before the man. He had to suppress a sudden, mad urge to throttle the inhumane, unremorseful creature before him. He certainly would have, if not for the sad fact that they needed him alive. To tell them where the ten bombs were, and lead them to it.

  As the crime lord stood rooted to the spot, Nano took a final step forward upto him swung his fist across. It smacked the man with a quiet thud across his face, sending him flying back. The unconscious body hit the ramp and rolled down, coming to a mundane stop at its foot.

  As Zevinog slowly came around, he found himself back in his office. But the atmosphere he woke up to, in the office, was a completely different one. An atmosphere of slowly swelling dread.

  Standing coolly around the room were the group of strange fiery creatures that had attacked him. And the short, old mystic as well.

  They had placed him on his chair, which was pushed to the corner of the room, far away from both of his exits. And the mystic and the strange creatures stood around in front of him, all their eyes frozen over him.

  The old man, whom Zevinog had guessed to belong to the Nyon, stepped closer, his white eyes drilling right through him. By his side was the Brownling with golden hair he had seen in his ship.

  Mantra cleared his throat, before crafting the most simpering smile he could out of his features. “So, Zevinog, is it? … Tell us what we need to know. And perhaps we’ll let you live.”

  Zevinog needed a few seconds to find his voice, and spoke in a strained croak: “Who … are you people?”

  “We believe you already know.” said Dantox softly.

  “Or rather, working for those wretched excuses that you call as people, you should know.” corrected Mantra.

  Zevinog’s eyes darted between Dantox and Mantra, before he breathed, “Nyon…”

  “Yes.” Mantra nodded. “Not bad, you’re learning to catch up.”

  Zevinog’s terrified gaze roamed over the watchmen clustering behind Mantra again, and the confusion in his eyes deepened.

  “All right, all right.” He held up his hands. “I’ll give you what you want. What do you want?”

  “You know what we want.” said Dantox, folding his hands before him. “I hope you do.”

  Zevinog’s breathing grew into panicked pants, as he surveyed the scene before him. Then, slowly steadying himself, he said, “All right. I do know why you’re here. My organisation is the one the Xeni used to have the electro bombs installed in the ten planets.” He looked about at them all, eyes filled with desperacy. “I believe that’s what you want?”

  “Keep going.” ordered Mantra.

  Zevinog nodded, his breathing slowing. “I know which ten planets they’ve wired.” He hesitated. “But I have no clue exactly where the bombs are.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Mantra, his voice sharpening. “You know which planets they are, but not where the bombs are in those planets?”

  Zevinog’s face crumpled with fear as Mantra bored into him with his eyes. He gulped and said, “No. exactly where each planet’s bomb is placed, I don’t know. The Xeni were the ones who decided on that.” As Mantra continued to bear down upon him, he hurriedly added, “Oh, all right … I can chance a guess on a few of the locations of the bombs. But it’s purely at your risk: I’m not sure I’ll be right.”

  “Tell us the location of the one that’s about to go off now.” commanded Dantox. “In this hour.”

  “It is
in the planet Agrath, in cluster 32.” said Zevinog. His voice teetered at a hesitative edge, and then he added, “If I know correctly - and I hope I do - the bomb is hidden deep within one of the long abandoned gas chambers in a city known as Hyrigor in sector 232 of the planet.”

  He gave them the exact directions to reaching the correct gas chamber in the city, and Mantra listened closely, alongside Dantox. He knew Nano, standing beside him, was drinking in every word, without forgetting.

  The leader of the watchmen stepped forward to face Zevinog, who seemed to shrink into himself, terror deepening as he came face to face with this strange specimen.

  “And exactly how much time do we have,” asked Nano. “before the bomb goes off?”

  Zevinog held up his hand, gesturing to wait. Then, he pulled out his z-com from within his suit with the free hand, and produced a holo screen. A screen displaying the time. Then, as the screen closed, he looked from Nano to Mantra, and a pained smile flickered on his face.

  “Well, actually … the bomb’s about to go off in three minutes.”

  Mantra felt the air in his lungs sharpen like a razor.

  “Three minutes?” he hissed, exchanging a glance with Dantox, whose face had turned into a mirror of his own alarm.

  Zevinog’s voice came as a weak whisper. “I can’t- I can’t do anything. The bomb is timed. The only way to stop it is to get there and destroy it. I’m … sorry.”

  Mantra spun around at the watchmen behind them. But they didn’t need telling twice…

  “We shall proceed on it, master.” said the foremost of the bunch.

  “Take the ship parked outside.” ordered Nano, his voice tense. “Go, hurry! You heard the location?”

  “Yes we did.” they all echoed, nodding.

  And then, without another second splintered in waste, the group of seven watchmen took to their heels, racing out of the emergency door towards the ship which Zevinog had parked out his platform.

  Mantra felt his calm and composure was now crumble beneath a slow, building panic. He could feel the same sense of dread from Dantox, who was standing there with slightly wide eyes.

  “Three minutes…” Dantox repeated absently.

  Nano, who had remained behind, looked between them and gave a consoling nod.

  “Let us not worry, masters … they will get there.”

  Mantra stopped and looked at Zevinog, who had his back pressed as tightly to the chair behind as possible, as if wishing to melt into it and disappear.

  “For your sake, Zevinog … let’s hope they do.”

  __________

  The bunch of watchmen who had just left Vanirox in Zevinog’s ship blasted right across space in it. They knew that this space jump, from this planet to the target planet Agrath, would take about two minutes…

  In that one remaining minute, they would have to save an entire planet by finding and destroying the bomb.

  The watchmen were spirits of Elderon, but made with an earthen shell. And in that earthen shell, they were vulnerable to emotions such as fear, as long as it as directed at the purpose of good.

  And right now, they felt their focussed minds waver in submission to fear … fear that they may not be able to reach the planet, and save it in time. And this was a well reasoned, rationally plausible fear.

  Because the truth was … that within those three minutes, reaching and stopping the bomb would require nothing short of a miracle.

  __________

  “How much more time?”

  Mantra’s voice had a bite of impatience, mixed with a hidden fear.

  Zevinog produced his z-com and the same holo screen formed in the air atop it. He lowered the device, and the screen along with it, and said from over it, “Less than two minutes.”

  Feeling his teeth grit, Mantra continued to pace the room with his hands fastened behind his back. Nano stood still where he was before Zevinog, though his posture stiffened very mildly.

  Less than two minutes. The words repeated in Mantra’s head as he prowled up and down the room, trying to calm his nerves.

  Dantox was twiddling with his thumbs in a display of nervousness.

  “I’ll be able to tell when the bomb goes off” Zevinog blanched as all three of them rounded on him, and hurriedly added: “Err, I mean if it goes of.”

  Mantra gave a mirthless chuckle, turned and continued pacing. “I don’t need you to. I’ll know if it does myself.”

  __________

  AGRATH, CLUSTER 32

 

  The watchmen’s ship had reached the city Hyrigor, and had rounded in on the gas chambers of the city, within two and a half minute…

  Thirty seconds to oblivion for this entire planet.

  The batch of watchmen were now hurtling through the abandoned facility that made this gas chamber, following the directions of the crime lord.

  They were mentally making the countdown:

  Twenty five seconds…

  They stopped as they reached the exact gas chamber, wrenched its double sided door open and found themselves in a gigantic chamber, like that of a factory. Large, abandoned tools and machines lay all around the giant room, engulfed in dust.

  They scanned the entire place silently, for the description of the electro bomb, as Zevinog had given it.

  Twenty seconds…

  And then, as one, the entire batch of seven watchmen focussed their beady eyes at the small, cubicle like glass container at the far edge of the chamber … inside of which a clutter of wires could be seen, all of them twining around what looked like a missile.

  The bomb. The electro bomb.

  Fifteen seconds… The very nick of time.

  “It is done,” the foremost of them called, releasing his breath. “We have found it.”

  And the entire lot, as one, shot down the room, jumping over the abandoned equipment and machines…

  They felt relief now swell within them, for they had made it. They had arrived at the very razor edged nick of time, to save this planet. With not more than ten seconds left. Ten mean seconds!

  The foremost of the seven reached for his sword to slice the giant cubicle from its centre. His blade had left its sheath halfway … before the entire place was swallowed in a blinding flare of white hot light. A radiating blast of energy and light that consumed the entire planet, ripping it apart and sending the giant chunks of rock that remained of it rocketing far across space.

  __________

  Mantra twitched once.

  And then he was completely still, standing as frozen as an ice block in the middle of the large room. Behind him, he could feel Nano shaking his head solemnly, sighing.

  Forcing down the rage that came surging up within him, as deadly as the blast that had just devoured the innocent planet, Mantra turned and strode back to Zevinog.

  The crime lord held his z-com lowered in his hand, with the screen showcasing the countdown vanishing. His features contorted in a wave of fear as he looked into Mantra’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry - it wasn’t my fault -”

  But the end of his sentence was engulfed by a loud, guttural gasp as Mantra sent a blow to his stomach, making him bend forward, spluttering senselessly.

  “It certainly was your fault, Zevinog.” growled Mantra, bringing his face less than an inch from the crime lord’s. “And you undoubtedly will pay the price for the innocent lives you’ve just destroyed … But now, tell us the location of the other eight.”

  Zevinog caught hold of his breath slowly, and began speaking. He told them which the eight marked planets remaining were, and the locations of the bombs in three of the eight. The other five, he admitted honestly, were completely out of his knowledge … The watchmen had to get to that planet, and find where the bombs were themselves.

  As Zevinog finished, Mantra turned to the leader of the watchmen and Dantox, both of whom were reflecting his own desperate seriousness.

  “The rest of the army,” he told them. “We’ll have t
hem spread out, and get to these eight planets, to destroy the bombs.”

  Nano seemed to be engrossed in thought for a moment.

  “What is it?” asked Mantra, looking at him. “Nano, is something wrong?”

  Nano seemed not to have heard him, continuing to look thought absorbed. Then, slowly, he said, “The planet that is about to go off next… if I am not mistaken, this planet happens to be … in the outer spectrum.”

  The … Outer spectrum. Mantra felt his eyes widen slightly as he recorded the meaning of that sentence. He felt his head sway to face Zevinog, who nodded weakly and said, “It is.”

  “That means,” Mantra whispered, feeling a fresh surge of panic rise within him. “It may take long to reach there. Possibly even…” His breath dried before he said it.