Sky Swimmer

The Ascension, Part 12

Like a dragonfly alighting amidst a frenzy of scuttling beetles the channel 5 helicopter hits the tarmac in the middle of a surrounding flotilla of battle-ready military Humvees. Armed U.S. soldiers watch every move as Fuegar and Livia step down from the chopper. They are dirty from their fight with the Soilers, but they walk with their heads high and their eyes shining with purpose.

Pilot Mark Ferlinger shakes hands with Fuegar and says, "Hell of story you told me, and if I hadn't seen what I had seen with my own eyes I wouldn't be saying this, but I guess I am saying it now; if you need any help, look me up." And Mark hands Fuegar his business card.

"Thank you," Fuegar gives a bear hug to the pilot which puts all the soldiers on the tarmac into high alert.

Agent Torres and three Special Ops men in dark suits step from a limousine. Agent Torres calls up to them, "Very touching, could we please get a move on?"

---

The limo is pretty dark inside. Fuegar, Livia and Agent Torres face each other in uncomfortable silence. Agent Torres just heard the same story Fuegar had told the pilot over the com channel, but unlike the pilot, Torres is a bit more skeptical. Of course, he had not yet seen Fuegar or Livia engage in their sky swim activity, so it was natural for the Walker to be suspicious.

Torres breaks the silence, "So tell me again, who are you and who is Hamada?"

"Mr. Torres, we do not have time for this, I fear our Harm Arts alone will not save your kind," says Fuegar.

"Harm Arts. Right. Tell me about those again."

"Come on! " says an exasperated Livia. "We already told you everything!"

Fuegar tries to appease the federal agent. "The Palace Guard were the warriors who swore allegiance to the Royal Family, they practiced the Harm Arts. The rest of the Aireons had kind of, what you might call a Buddhist approach to life. A life of non-violence. This may have been our undoing because the Soilers are quite the opposite, all of them are trained and equipped for war from early childhood."

"Palace Guard, where are they now?" asks Fuegar.

"They died in defense of Cylestia."

Livia lights up a cigarette.

Agent Torres looks disapprovingly at Livia. "No smoking," he states.

"Arrest me."

Agent Torres disregards the girl's impertinence. He is not sure what to do with the duo. Torres's bullshit meter wants to jump off the scales, but all of his experience tells him that these two are not lying, especially in light of what he saw at the high school and the freeway. And of course, there was Hawaii. Sometimes he wondered why he wished he had just taken a job as a normal cop. "Can Soilers change the shape of a rock?" asks Torres.

Fuegar is happy that the questioning has turned away from suspicion and more towards intel and answers, "Indeed, they shape shift all minerals, including all that is comprised of minerals."

The agent glances at his watch, more out of habit than any need to know the present time. "You know, I was in Hawaii 12 years ago, on my honeymoon, when I saw something strange that ... ."

The limo bounces, all four wheels leave the tarmac.

Agent Torres looks out of the car and sees a taxiing 747 bounced off the tarmac and into the sky. What the?

"That's no earthquake," states Torres.

"The Soilers, they have begun the Ascension," says Fuegar

"What do the Soilers look like?"

As an answer to Agent Torres a chasm splits wide open and disgorges a mass of Soiler probe parts; arms, legs, torsos, heads, all twisting and reshaping from the rubble of the devastated tarmac. Giant creatures form unbelievably quickly and they waste no time in attacking the U.S. troops.

A Humvee is crushed between the giant jaws of one of the creatures.

Soldiers retaliate with deadly force.

The limo drives straight into a humanoid monster, its head dislodges from its body and bounces for a while on the hood of the car, its rocky teeth gnashing, its dirty tongue lashing, tendrils of dirty bone sprout from the head which it uses to scuttle toward the windshield.

BLAM!! BLAM!!! Agent Torres shoots through the window and the creepy head explodes.

The sounds of gunfire continue to pepper the airport as Agent Torres swears and fires at will along with the other feds.

Fuegar yells, "These are but the probes of the Soilers. Vicious but none too quick-witted. The Soilers themselves will be attacking soon. And they are not so easily dispensed with!"

Agent Torres has seen enough, he yells to his driver, "Let's go!"

---

Underlord Hamada and Bollingsworth walk down the throat of the ornately carved stone hall.

Bollingsworth says, "I must reiterate that this hasty war on my people will only upset the natural order of the Originals, and we do not know what heavy price will have to be paid, sire."

Hamada calmly replies, "Mr. Bollingsworth, you have been a mediocre slave at the best of times, but your knowledge of Walker culture and industry have proven useful to my endeavors. So I put up with your irritating existence. The Lady Transgressa is correct, we suffered no retributions after destroying the Aireon Kingdom. The Originals have abandoned this world to us. I am now the rightful owner. Henceforth you will agree with all my actions, or you will be dissolved."

Both step through a crumbling, cracking, opening that eventually forms a door and they enter a viewing platform high above a the Boulder Transport hanger.

A vast cavern hangar houses many thousands of the Transit Boulders. These boulders look similar to the one Floe and Eric currently travel in, except that they outfitted with more intimidating armature. Underlord Hamada, Transgressa and Bollingsworth overlook what appears to be an entire fleet of military vehicles.

A siren wails a deafening alarm and reverberates throughout the cavern. All eyes turn to the far wall of the hangar which ripples, wavers, crumbles and then spits out new incoming Transport Boulders. Soiler warriors surround the newly arrived vessels with practiced speed and purpose.

The boulders make a few last gyrations and Floe, Eric and Dan are unceremoniously disgorged. They find themselves sprawled out in the dirt with thirty Soilers aiming their quartz tipped lances at them.

The tips of the lances constantly burn, throb and shift in color and shape. They look nasty and Floe decides not to make a grab for one.

"She is exactly as I had imagined. Quite lovely, yes," the UnderLord states much to the dislike of Transgressa.

Bollingsworth looks troubled.