The Topaz Operation Read online

  Aphiemi smiled, then broke into a tension-relieving laugh.

  Ryle’s comm buzzed with Qusam’s voice. “Ryle, I think I found something.”

  “Thank goodness. Very sorry, ladies, but I gotta go.” Ryle made a fast exit.

  “Has this helped you at all, Aph?”

  “I think so. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, though I didn’t do much. I just helped you see things a little clearer.”

  “Which is exactly what I needed.”

  Chapter 34

  Ryle arrived back to find Qusam hunched over the desk, the wizard practically buried in books and papers. Qusam spread a detailed pencil drawing of Topaz’s tallest peak across the table on top of other documents. “This is an old drawing of the cavern under Mount Trizo.”

  Ryle looked over the drawing, a blueprint-like cross-section of the mountain. “The cavern. I don’t know much about it, but that’s the place dark wizards go for more intense dark training, correct?”

  “The same,” said Qusam. “But I’ve never seen this rendition before.”

  The cavern ran from the summit down into the planet, extending all the way to the planet’s core. “I didn’t know the cavern went that far down,” said Ryle.

  “Neither did I.”

  “When did the dark wizards first go down into it?”

  “Legend has it that when the original Light of Zoain stopped shining on Trizo, the mountain transformed into a volcano, plunging into darkness both literally and spiritually. When the first Chrysolite settlers arrived on Topaz, they learned to keep their distance from the mountain summit as all those who went near failed to return. The Qesem, however, kept making treks to the peak and down into the cavern. Not only did they survive, they emerged even stronger. Once Aqtal took control of Topaz, he began sending his most accomplished ones into the cavern to achieve higher levels of dark wizardry.”

  Ryle was hesitant to ask but did anyway. “Did you ever go?”

  “No. There were plans for me to go, but they got delayed. Once light began seeping into me, I kept avoiding the cavern. Aqtal resented it.” Qusam scratched his chin, recalling long lost memories. He shook his head. “I should have questioned Rez more about the cavern, though I don’t believe he ever went through it either. Once a wizard passes through, all light is extinguished forever.”

  Ryle ran through his mind the Qesem he had been unfortunate enough to encounter. “Like Lightcrusher?”

  “Indeed. The cavern is where that one earned his name. Another veteran was the really foul purple one Seilah and I slayed on Phengos.”

  “Right.” Ryle recalled Jez and Mitchett’s story of getting manhandled by that same wizard back on Beryl before Qusam rescued them.

  “Aqtal himself entered the cavern and used his powers to personally expand it, digging deeper into the planet. He wanted to make his mark as ‘Lord over the Cavern.’ When he emerged, he was as dark hearted and fear-invoking as ever before.”

  Ryle’s fears for Jez rose up within. How could his little brother withstand the onslaught of Aqtal’s evil? The psychological assault alone would be too much for him. Qusam himself was once under Aqtal’s influence and barely made it off Amethyst alive. “Well, old buddy, I’m glad you never went through the cavern.”

  “Thank you, my friend. Me too.”

  “What do you have in mind next?”

  “You mentioned there is planetary shielding appearing around Topaz?”

  “Yeah,” said Ryle as he pulled up his wrist device. “Perks of being a colonel. I can link to it without going back to the ship.” He ran a scan and it showed an extensive shield pattern concentrated around Mount Trizo. “He’s protecting the mountain!”

  Qusam set down the scroll he was holding and peered at the scan, thinking it over. “So he failed on Mount Phengos, now trying on Trizo. But what is he trying?”

  “Jez and the diamond collecting must have something to do with it. One thing I’ve learned is that Aqtal’s schemes are never haphazard.”

  “What that scheme is, I cannot yet guess.” Qusam resumed poring over the copious papers on the desk.

  While contemplating the situation, Ryle admired a bright blue, topographically accurate globe of Carnelian on the shelf behind Qusam. He found Sienna’s island. Just south of the equator, the island was quite a distance from the larger continental islands. Probably a good thing.

  A book slid off the shelf onto the floor. Ryle grabbed it and slid it back in between two other volumes. Another book smacked Ryle on the head and hit the floor. “Ouch. What the...,” said Ryle as he rubbed his head. The book must have fallen from a shelf above. A strong breeze of cold wind blew throughout the library, ruffling loose papers and scrolls. Ryle and Qusam locked eyes. The library shook and dozens of books and scrolls fell off the shelves. Qusam pushed away from the table.

  Ryle yanked his pistol out of his holster and darted for the door which slid open before he reached it. He aimed at the entryway but pulled up at the sight of Sienna bursting in.

  “Q, let’s get them to their ship,” said Sienna.

  “I was thinking the same,” said Qusam, bounding past Ryle. His staff, which had been leaning against the wall, flew into his hand as he exited the library.

  Ryle ran into the main room and nearly collided with Aphiemi.

  “They found us?” she said.

  “Don’t panic,” said Ryle.

  “I knew this day would come,” said Sienna. “I’m sad you had to be here for it.” Two staffs from opposite corners of the room flew into Sienna’s hands. The entire sitting area shook. Sienna’s exquisite light fixtures dropped from the ceiling and smashed onto the floor, breaking the bulbs, sputtering out the remnants of their illumination.

  “It’s our fault. I’m so sorry,” said Aphiemi.

  Qusam touched her shoulder. “No time for that now. You and Ryle get to the Arrow. We’ll hold them off until you’re safe.”

  Ryle began to protest. “But—”

  “Please, Ryle. We’ll be all right. You must take Aph and the diamond and flee.”

  Ryle knew he was right, or at least it was useless to argue. He squeezed Aphiemi’s hand and pulled her back toward the main entrance. They weaved their way through the waterfall room around the big tree and approached the vegetation wall. Right on cue, the doors parted open. From his wrist controls, Ryle remote powered-up the Arrow and they scampered up the ramp.

  Ryle activated the cockpit controls and the ship lifted up. Aphiemi strapped herself in. Ryle eyed the tactical—two Archon transports and a Gak hovering over the island. “Gives me a chance to test the slicers. They work best at close range.”

  “Just get us out of here, okay?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  The Arrow climbed straight upward, broke off a few tree limbs and emerged above the tree line. The Gak Destroyer, blocking their escape, fired from an underside cannon and scored a direct hit on the Arrow’s starboard wing. The Arrow’s deflector shields absorbed some of the blast but at such close range couldn’t prevent damage.

  Sparks popped from the cockpit ceiling as the Arrow lurched to the right. Ryle yanked the slicer lever. Two stiff beams of concentrated plasma bounced out like boomerangs and sliced through the Gak’s center, ripping it in half. The two halves fell toward the island on either side of the Arrow. The Arrow’s boosters fired rocketing it into the sky.

  Before the Gak’s ship halves crashed, two purple Qesem leapt out of side exits and landed on their feet in the midst of the jungle. The ship pieces crashed against the ancient trees. The two Archon transports landed on the island’s outskirts and unloaded squads of heavily-armed troops.

  * * *

  Qusam stood, staff raised in a defensive position, with his back to Sienna in the main room. He closed his eyes and meditated as best he could to ascertain what type of threat they were facing. It did not feel good.

  Sienna sang a quick song and tapped her staffs at the foot of the library door. A slithering mass of
vines and vegetation converged on the door, covering it to provide at least some camouflage. “Something’s not right.”

  “That much is certain,” said Qusam.

  “What I mean is...something feels very odd about this raid.”

  “By the way, you do have an escape plan, correct?”

  “Just follow me when the time is right. I have underwater breathing apparatuses if needed.”

  “That’s why I admire you.”

  A gust of wind blew down the door to the waterfall room. Birds fluttered in around Sienna. She ran into the room.

  “Wait!” said Qusam, then went after her.

  Birds, lizards, and frogs filtered through the holes in the ceiling, the birds flapping their wings in a panic. The wind stirred up to a blustery, violent pitch. Sienna tapped both her staffs and sang a calming tune. The wind and the birds’ wild flapping calmed.

  An explosion busted open the vegetation wall doors and a dozen troops poured into the room. The python from the center tree flung itself from the branches and wrapped itself around the squad leader. He yelled and went to the ground, wrestling with the snake, but the snake held firm. A cluster of six red sea sloths leapt out from the waterfall onto separate troops and latched themselves in between pieces of body armor. The troops went down screaming and were quickly dead.

  “You were right about those,” said Qusam.

  Sienna held her staffs up high and sang. Qusam joined her. A wind stirred up in the room, picked up the remaining troops, and flung them upward through the ceiling holes back into the jungle crashing against various trees.

  “This is child’s play,” said Sienna. “Where’s the real assault?”

  “Be careful what you ask for.”

  An explosion behind them blew ceiling debris all over the main room. Qusam and Sienna ducked through the doorway back into that room. Her pretty lights popped their last sparks of light in twenty different spots around the floor.

  Through the smoke two metal staffs spun. A blast of air shoved Qusam and Sienna backward against the wall as a flurry of laser blasts simultaneously rained upon them. They recovered and spun their staffs, deflecting the blasts away, some of which struck the new set of attacking troops.

  Two purple wizards emerged from the smoke, banging their staffs on the ground and spitting out wicked tunes. The chairs lifted up from the center of the room and sped toward Sienna.

  She waved her staffs and the chairs crashed away from her against the doorway. “What do you want, oh singers of despair? Whatever it is, you will not find it here.”

  “Your time has come, mistress of secrecy,” said the Qesem on the left. His voice sounded younger and smoother, without the usual raspy-ness characterizing his type.

  “My time?” She laughed at them.

  Qusam wasn’t sure if she truly found something funny or was just buying time for Ryle and Aphiemi.

  “My time is far more valuably spent than yours,” said Sienna.

  “Serving Lord Aqtal is the only thing of value. You are not too old to learn the way,” said the Qesem.

  “Sounds as if your life has taken the wrong path, young one,” said Sienna.

  The Qesem on the right spun his staff. “Enough of this. Hand over what you have or we will take it.”

  Qusam couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Haven’t our past encounters revealed the futility of trying to take something from me?”

  A deafening reverberating noise roared through the room. Qusam and Sienna both covered their ears. What is this? Qusam fell to one knee, his speech momentarily silenced because of this anomaly. Sienna was definitely right about something being off. A figure dropped into the room between the two Qesem—silver, metallic, with no eyes and only a right arm. Its chest bobbed in and out like mercury.

  “What were you saying, wizard?” said the Qesem on the right.

  Qusam eyed this creature up and down but could not discern who or what it was. It emanated a sense of wickedness unlike anything, yet still accompanied by an edge of familiarity. Its close affinity with these dark wizards made his skin crawl. What had Aqtal cooked up now?

  Sienna sang a high-pitched, powerful song. Traces of red sunlight rushed in through the gaping hole in the ceiling and from the waterfall room, encircled her in a misty vapor, and rushed out in a tight beam against the intruders.

  The two purple Qesem were knocked backward off their feet. The light flung the troops against the far wall, knocking them out. But the silver man stood firm—the beam of red light was absorbed into him, rippled through this body, and rocketed outward striking Sienna and slamming her up against the wall, from whence she flopped back to the ground.

  Aghast, Qusam rushed to her and cupped her head in his hands. She was alive but unconscious. The dark wizards, back on their feet, moved in to surround them. Qusam suspected they were no longer interested in negotiation. He mustered all his strength and sang, lashing out with a powerful wind. The two dark wizards chanted dirges, absorbing the attack. The silver man appeared unmoved and unaffected.

  Qusam spun his staff and struck the floor hard. He burst out a fast tune that rippled through the floor, causing the ground beneath his enemies to buckle and crack open. Buried tree roots reached upward and wrapped around the purple wizards. The silver man showed no concern as the roots could not get a grip on him. He merely strode through them, compelling the roots to slide off in defeat and retreat back into the ground. He floated over open cracks in the ground and landed closer to Qusam. The two purple Qesem fought free from the tree roots, slicing through them with their staffs and spurts of wicked noise.

  Qusam spun around seeking an escape, but yet another purple wizard landed from above into the waterfall room, blocking a clear path out. He had only one other option, one he was hoping he wouldn’t use, but he couldn’t keep up this fight with Sienna unconscious and at risk of more harm. He reached into his robe and pulled out the golden Flute of Fienna. He hesitated at first, but when the silver creature moved in toward him, he put the flute to his mouth and played. The sound of the melody was sweet as ever—soft, gentle, yet powerful.

  The silver man stopped. Ripples ran through its body and the center of its chest sparkled momentarily. All three purple wizards became still, pacified by the flute music. Qusam kneeled over Sienna and kept playing.

  The dark wizard on the left dropped his staff to the floor. The other one held on but swayed back and forth slightly as in a trance. The third one froze in place then dropped his staff.

  The silver man raised his arm and seemed to suck the music into himself. A screeching bass-like squawk echoed from him fanning out throughout the room, flinging all the wizards—light and dark—up into the air and back down to the ground. Qusam smacked onto the ground and lost grip of the flute which rolled over to the silver man’s feet. The man picked it up and—with no eyes—appeared to examine it.

  Qusam crawled over to Sienna. He considered fighting for the flute but deemed it unwise as he had no idea how to combat this creature and would leave Sienna vulnerable. He gathered all his strength, reached for his staff, grabbed Sienna tight, and bounded out the door into the waterfall room, brushing past the still-disoriented purple wizard. He mumbled out a song and a strong wind picked them up and carried them into the jungle. Moving as fast as he could while still carrying Sienna, he picked his way through the jungle down to a water hole where, he recalled, Sienna had mentioned having an underwater something—bunker, ship, or whatever.

  He desperately hoped this was true as he jumped in and went under.

  Chapter 35

  The Arrow sped away from Carnelian without further incident other than Ryle making emergency power adjustments to evade an Archon patrol cruiser. The Gak’s parting shot caused more damage than he had time to worry about until they were in the clear, far away from orbit.

  Aphiemi shivered.

  “Cold?” Ryle hadn’t felt the crisp coolness sooner as he had his mind on other things.

  “Yeah. Very. I ma
y need a blanket.”

  “We must have been hit harder than I thought.” He checked the damage report. “We’re fine on oxygen. Whew, glad they didn’t hit life support but looks like the heat’s out for the rest of this trip. Other systems damaged...CO2 recycler and artificial gravity. We can just flush out the CO2.”

  Aphiemi unstrapped herself and her entire body floated upward. She grabbed the armrest. “Whoa!”

  “Careful! Don’t bump your head.” Ryle smirked, still strapped in.

  “Maybe I’ll just stay here,” she said as she pulled herself back into the seat and strapped back in. The tips of her hair floated upward and outward. She tried to bat them back down but to no avail. “So, are we just leaving Qusam and Sienna?”

  “They’ll be all right,” said Ryle as he made course adjustments. “I know Q and he would want us to press on.”

  “What’s our course, then?”

  “Well, the best way to find Jez is through Rez, and he should not be hard to find.”

  “How is that?”

  “Because while in captivity we inserted a chip tracker deep within his body, so deep there’s no way he could remove it on his own.”

  “Convenient.”

  “We do it for most of our high-profile prisoners.” After saying this, Ryle could tell the gears in Aphiemi’s mind were turning—as they should because she was a smart woman.

  “Wait a minute. You mean you could have found Rez sooner?”

  Ryle nodded. “But Qusam felt, and I agreed, the trip to Carnelian should come first. And since Rez was already on the loose, I…kinda wanted to let him do his thing first.”

  “Do his thing?”

  “You know, I wanted to see who or what he might find first.”

  Aphiemi shook her head, getting Ryle’s point. “What will we do if and when we find him?”

  “Depends on if he found Jez or not. We’ll adjust our plans accordingly.” Ryle ran the deep scan which thankfully still worked. After a minute, the signal popped. “Got him! Works every time. He’s on Jacinth, four hours away.”