ConQuest (The Quest Saga) (26 page)

Taylor remained deadly silent.

              They just stayed quiet for a while. Kai decided it was best to just leave her alone, so he got up and left. His last image of her was that of her sitting on the bed, a picture of her and Q’s childhood in her hands, her eyes staring at the cold metal floor.

Attacked

Chris was sad that Q had left them but there was something about the disappearance that didn’t seem normal to her. She couldn’t explain why but she just felt so, but then again it could’ve just been her brain trying to save her from emotional trauma.

Being a medic, Chris knew almost everything about how the body worked.

Right now her brain was at war with itself. Her intellect said that Q wasn’t alive while her intuition said the opposite. She tried to reason out. The Pandora Cannon was a weapon capable of taking out entire planets. It used antimatter to annihilate anything and everything that came in contact with it.

There would be nothing but a bunch of energy waves that would’ve been left of Q. It would be almost impossible to reconstruct him back from just loose energy. Energy bonded together would be different.

To put it in simple terms, you could make water from an ice cube but if by mistake the water is frozen into an ice cuboid instead of a cube, nothing would be wrong.

If the same theory was used on zyxians the change would be drastic. If a zyxian disintegrated into energy, turning that energy back to matter could create anything from cats to black holes.

Chris tried to divert her mind. She focused on the other problems.

They had no idea how they were going to approach those energy beings. It was almost impossible to do it without Q a.k.a The Hand of God.

There was something that made Chris feel that they were not going to be doing any good by visiting the palace.

She was still in between all these thoughts when Kai came over to her.

“Looks like you’ve got something on your mind,” he said.

“Yeah. I’m just wondering if these ‘energy beings’ are even going to listen to us. Considering Q isn’t there with us and everything.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll make sure we get some good out of it at least. Maybe they won’t fight, but instead give us some awesome weapons,” and he made laser gun noises, pointing his fingers around in an imaginary laser gun.

The sight of Kai acting a kid again made Chris feel better. She smiled at Kai. He was such a goofy kid. He always made you laugh, whether you liked it or not.

“Well then, I’ve got to be off,” he announced. “You’d better get some sleep. We’ve got a long journey ahead.”

“Yeah.”

As soon as he left the room, she was fast asleep in her bunk. It was one of the most peaceful naps she had ever taken in her whole life, which was really funny, considering she was in the worst situation she had ever been in her whole life.

She woke up abruptly to the ring of an alarm clock.

She sat up in her bed.

“I don’t remember setting up an alarm clock,” she muttered.

“That’s because that’s the emergency alarm!” Taylor yelled as she rushed past her bed. She was dressed in full armor. Looking at Taylor dressed like that made Chris realize that something was wrong.

She ran up to the pit.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Kai.

“Interplanetary defenses have latched onto us.”

“Where are we?” she asked, since she wasn’t able to see any palace.

“About two hundred light years from the palace.”

“The palace has defenses this far away?!”

“Well the only people who go after them are either crazy powerful guys or…”

She thought for a while

“Actually speaking, only crazy powerful guys go after them,” Taylor finished.

“Did I miss something?” Elizabeth walked in. She was also in full armor.

“We’re kinda getting mauled,” Kai explained.

“Okay guys. We’re going in. Get ready. We’re going to get in, get those energy beings to help us and finish off this Apocalypse guy once and for all,” Kai said.

“For Q” Elizabeth raised her sword.

“For Q!” They all joined in.

This was gonna be a heck of a ride.

Illusions

Laser beams were being shot at them, but they had no idea where they were coming from. It was impossible for them to find any locations of the enemies.

“If only Q was here,” Kai said.

“He’d have just gotten angry and finished these guys off,” Taylor joked.

Kai didn’t have time to laugh at that joke. None of them did. They were being attacked from all sides, by people they couldn’t even see. Not the kind of situation you’d want to be in. Unless you’re Q of course.

Taylor sat in the passengers’ area. She was trying to cast a force field around the ship. It was the only thing that could give them an advantage, since they didn’t carry any firearms.

“
You should take some of my power
.” It was Ruby.

“Where are you right now?”

“
Inside the ship, only in another dimension, I’ll be there in a flash.
”

And then a blinding flash appeared and when it died, Ruby stood there.

Taylor was surprised at the rate she had grown. She had found Ruby only yesterday and she’d already become as large as an elephant. It was a miracle that she even fit into the Orion.

“
If you’re wondering, I can change my size at will, so that’s how I got into the ship
.”

Taylor smirked. You had no idea how irritating it was to have a pet that could read your mind.

“
I’m sorry about Q
.”

At the moment Ruby said that, a dark shadow passed across Taylor’s face.

“Yeah...me too,” she managed to say.

Ruby understood that she had hit on a sensitive topic and decided to leave it alone.

“Can you scout the area and find the enemy?”

“
Just because I can survive in space doesn’t make me a scout, okay
?”

Taylor smiled a bit. It had been a long time since she saw Ruby irritated. Actually it was only half a day, but all the events that had happened seemed to make time crawl.

“
About those enemies...
” Ruby started.

“Yeah? What about them?”

“
Did you take a closer look at the laser beams
?”

“No. Should I?”

“
They’re Illusions.
”

Taylor got up abruptly. No wonder they couldn’t find the enemy. They weren’t even there. Ruby was right. The enemies didn’t exist. They were just illusions!

“Thanks, Ruby,” she said and ran to the pit.

“Kai,” Taylor stopped, panting. Running in the armor was really draining. “The enemies are illusions!”

“They’re what?”

“Illusions, it’s probably a part of the defense mechanism,” she suggested.

“They probably want to scare off amateur explorers,” Chris said.

It was only when she spoke did Taylor realize that Chris was there as well.

“Head straight in for the centre,” Taylor suggested.

“You sure?” said a voice behind her. It was Elizabeth. “We might walk into a trap.”

“That is true.......” Chris broke off, not knowing what to say next. No one knew what to say.

Kai maneuvered the ship, though there wasn’t much to do since they weren’t being attacked.

A scene was playing in the back of his mind, one of the ‘what if’ scenes. He wondered what would happen to them if the energy beings refused to help at all. They would have to go about it all alone.

He wondered if they could do that. Without Q, they had lost their most powerful member.

“
Do not underestimate yourself
,” said the Orion.

“Is that supposed to be funny?” he asked within his mind.

“
What is this ‘funny’? Is it a feeling
?”

“Forget about it. My mistake trying to talk about feelings to a spaceship.”

“
You are a joker card, one of the most destructive as well as weakest cards in the game. If you unleash your destructiveness, I’m sure you’d beat Apocalypse
.”

Kai sat quietly. ‘Joker card, huh?’ he thought.

“Alright then, I’ll be the most destructive joker you’ve ever seen,” Kai said.

He was starting to feel a bit more confident. He had the whole electronic world in his control. It was just sitting there, waiting for him to activate it.

He saw a speck of blue on the horizon.

“Guys! Come over here,” Kai called out to everyone.

Everyone came over in a rush.

“What’s up?” they asked.

He pointed to the horizon. “That is.”

They weren’t able to see it initially, but when they caught a glimpse, their eyes widened.

“Is that…?” Chris asked.

“The Palace of Being,” Kai confirmed.

“It doesn’t seem to be very well protected,” Taylor said.

“Seems that way, but we’ve got to be on our guard. It’s not like we can just stroll in there and go ‘Hi!’” Elizabeth said.

“That reminds me, what are we going to tell them?” Taylor asked.

“We tell them everything, about Apocalypse, the map, the patrol, and most important of all, about Q. If we mention he’s the ‘Hand of God’ we get a lot of points on the like-meter,” Kai said.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Chris said.

“Okay guys, get ready, we’re going in,” Kai said.

Everyone, other than Kai, went to the passengers’ area and latched themselves to the chair with seatbelts.

Kai got into the atmosphere. Then he wondered why the energy beings needed an atmosphere. Maybe the people who visited them would need it. You’d think the powerful beings in the universe could survive without oxygen.

Kai struggled with the controls as they landed. He finally managed to put them down on the surface.

Elizabeth stared at the view outside when suddenly everything went white.

When the light died down, Elizabeth was looking at a familiar sight. It was the playground in her hometown. She looked around. She wasn't in the Orion anymore. None of her friends seemed to be there either. She walked up to the gate and peeked in.

Nobody was there. She opened the gate and went inside.

She got onto the swings and started enjoying herself. That was when she saw
him
. He looked ordinary, dressed in blue shorts and a black T-shirt. His black hair was rough and un-kept.

The boy just stood there staring at his feet. After a while Elizabeth got bored of the swings. So she went up to the boy.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

The boy looked at her with his silver-grey eyes, shook his head and ran away from her.

“Wait! I’m not a monster,” she yelled and ran after him.

The boy was too fast and after a while she gave up chasing him. She need not have given a chase since the boy came to her. He had something in his hands, but he wouldn’t show it to her.

“I’m Elizabeth!” she squeaked.

The boy smiled and gave her something. She took it and brought it up to her eyes. It was a butterfly brooch. It was one of the most adorable gifts that she had ever got.

“It’s awesome!” Elizabeth said, her voice, squeaky, high-pitched and full of energy.

She looked up but the boy was gone. She looked around for him, but he had disappeared.

Chris’s face suddenly appeared out of thin air. Everything around Elizabeth seemed to change back into reality.

“Wake up!” Chris yelled.

Elizabeth moved her hands to let them know that she was awake, but her mind was still actively analyzing information from the dream.

It was a dream that she had had a lot of times, but this time was different. This time she had seen the boy’s face. She had looked at the face and there was no doubt about it. She finally realized who the boy was.

“I was so worried about you,” Chris said.

“I’m fine,” she replied

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m all right.”

“You girls okay?” Kai asked, finally making an appearance in the passengers’ area. “I’m sorry about the bumpy ride.”

“What do you say we step outside?” Kai suggested.

They wore their suits and armor and got ready to get out. They knew there was an atmosphere but they didn’t know if they could survive in it.

“Opening doors,” Kai announced.

The light fell on them as the door opened. This place seemed to have an orange sun just like the earth, which was welcome to any earthling after seeing a purple or green one.

The sun reminded Elizabeth of the sunset that she had shared with Q. She smiled at the memory.

They looked up at the sky. It was bright blue. The resemblance that the planet had to earth was uncanny. The palace was a spectacle by itself. It was a huge glass pyramid with four pillars around it.

There was a pathway that led into the pyramid. Chris remembered the last encounter she had had with the mummies. That was when Q had saved her. She had remembered Q again.

After he had left them, they all kept recollecting memories of him time and again.

It was emotional for everyone. They kept thinking about Q all the time. They knew he was their friend, and yes it was only natural to keep thinking about his absence. But on a mission like this, it’s just pure distraction.

“So, I guess we’d better go in,” Taylor said and led the way. The others followed her.

Taylor couldn’t remember the last time she had led a team. Q had lifted the burden off her completely. He hadn't made her feel responsible for everything especially since everyone else expected her to lead as she was a dark knight.

Q took care of anything and everything.

They entered the pyramid. There were lines of flames, lit upon sticks held by iron rings attached to the wall. It looked like a typical Egyptian tomb.

“
I’m coming over
,” said a voice. It didn’t take Taylor long to realize that it was Ruby. She had this habit of popping in from time to time. Apparently she could travel dimensions at will, she wasn’t able to take anyone else though. Dimensional travel had some sort of laws to follow.