DIMENSIONS

The Saberhawk rumbled again as it broke free of Castai’s atmosphere into open space. Gravity controls quickly adjusted the internal environment for the crew. Tiet had never been in space before and he wondered at the vastness of it. There were seemingly billions of stars now visible in the distance through the view-port.

Tiet noticed a gaseous formation ahead of them. Orin brought up the tactical display which identified the phenomena as a transdimensional rift. The energy readings went off the scale. It was like the gaping mouth of some planet eating monster waiting there to suck them in.

Only Orin could remember it. He had seen it during a space battle with the Vorn which had left the Castillians without a space fleet. From that time on, the Barudii had only battled the invaders on Castillian soil.

“Readings show the rift fully open and safe for passage,” Orin reported.

Millo nodded and adjusted his flight path to carry them through the ominous black void near the center of the multicolored gaseous cloud surrounding the rift.

☼

Dorian wondered if she would ever see her brother or her people again. And would Estall be able to defeat the remaining Vorn on the planet? Though he was vastly outnumbered, she had confidence he would—more confidence than she had in their own ability to successfully defeat the Vorn fleet waiting on the other side of the rift. Suddenly, Dorian longed for Castillian soil under her feet again.

She looked at Tiet in the chair next to her. He watched the rift on the viewer. Tiet was handsome, brave and powerful. Yet, behind his eyes she saw a child who had experienced the loss of everything dear to him. Still, somehow, he still smiled and had hope for the future. Was it gullibility or just innocence, and did it really matter?

As a child, Dorian had wondered about the little boy in the archive photos—the son of the Barudii King. The boy was so happy in the images she had seen in her studies. Dorian had often thought, were he still alive, they would have been the same age and could have played games together.

In her adolescence, the small boy in the images had become the young man who defeated the Vorn enemies in her dreams and swept her away from the harsh reality of her life. And now, here he was, very much alive and only inches from her.

It did not matter if they returned now. Dorian knew her place was beside him. She wiped an escaping tear as Tiet looked at her with the same childlike smile. Dorian returned it. Together they watched the approaching darkness of the rift .

☼

Darkness began to fall as Estall’s formation of transports swept across the wasteland toward the capital. A violent weather system approached from the east. They hoped it would not intercept them before they could reach the city. Estall had sent nearly half of his transports ahead at full speed while his group continued on at half speed. If the other group of transports could swing wide of the city and get around undetected then they might just be able to encircle it during their final approach. Ranul hunkered down in the open cockpit of Estall’s transport as the wind whipped at them from different directions caused by the approaching storm.

Ranul had seen many violent fluctuations in Castai’s weather and had studied many historical files relating to it. He understood well the reason for Castillians building the majority of their cities underground in the centuries following the appearance of the rift.

Once Estall’s forces came within ten miles of the Vorn defenses, even these small craft would be detectable. The long-range, phase cannons could be employed at up to seven miles, but if the transports remained scattered, the Vorn would have difficulty hitting them.

The Aolene were a brave people. They had faced the adversity of Vorn attacks on their cities and had survived to now become an even stronger people through the study of the Barudii fighting arts. Though they lacked the mental powers of the Barudii, the Aolene certainly reminded Ranul of those long dead warriors in spirit. As they steadily approached the capital, Ranul hoped he would not witness the loss of another brave people today.