ConQuest (The Quest Saga) (22 page)

The commander interrupted them “I trust everything is alright?”

“Yeah. Thanks for the help,” Taylor said.

“Oh, no. It is our honor to help one of the dark knights,” he said.

“How does this guy know about that?” she wondered as she smiled at him.

“Can we please leave?” Chris asked. She seemed to be pretty impatient to leave.

“Okay then, anytime you need help, just use the radio to call and we’ll be there in a flash, literally,” the commander chuckled.

They waved goodbye to the commander and left the Galactica.

“Well, it was fun,” Kai offered, but it was no use. Everyone was missing the Galactica already.

Granted it isn’t the place to have fun but it had a charm of its own.

“Can we focus on the map?” Elizabeth asked.

“Fine, fine,” Q said. He felt that a few people were getting a bit too pushy.

“We’re gonna land in a few minutes,” Kai said.

“Just a sec....” Chris interrupted.

“What?” everyone asked.

“Don’t you think the map should be with the patrol? You know, since they had the virtual map for the palace and everything?”

“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked.

“They must’ve explored the Temple of Last Hope at some point in time. That’s how their virtual reality system had the layout of the whole place. But if they’ve already explored the place they might have taken the map as well.”

Taylor understood Chris’s concern. “So, you’re basically saying that the map is with the patrol?” Taylor asked.

Chris nodded.

Everyone was silent. They had just been stumped by simple reasoning.

The silence continued until Kai decided to break it.

“Now why didn’t I think of that?” he joked.

Taylor knocked him on the head, making it was clear that she was on the more serious side of things.

“What are we going to do?” Chris asked.

“What?” It took Q a while to realize that all eyes were on him and he felt a little uncomfortable.

“You’re supposed to lead the mission!” Elizabeth said.

“Why don’t you use Q-maps?” Taylor suggested.

Q closed his eyes. He focused entirely on the Galactica. He could see the layout of the entire ship. He searched around for the map.

Q opened his eyes “No luck. It isn’t there,” he said.

“But wait. Could your Q-maps penetrate any sort of safety device?”

“You’re saying they have it in some place I can’t find?” Q said. “It’s a possibility.”

“What should we do?” Taylor asked.

“Well, I think the map’s in the temple.... but it might be a turn for the worse if what Chris says is true,” he said.

Kai instantly saw where Q was heading “You want us to split up?” he asked.

Q nodded. “I know it didn’t work out the last time…”

“Didn’t work out is an understatement,” Taylor muttered.

“…but we’ve got no choice now. We have to do it,” he finished.

Kai turned towards Q. “You, Elizabeth and Taylor head towards the temple. Chris and I can manage the patrol. Especially since we have the Orion with us.”

“
You bet,
” the Orion said.

“Alright then. Chris and Kai, you both take the ship and head back to the ‘Galactica’. The girls and I will try and get the map.”

“Alright. Readying sky drop,” Kai told them.

“Huh?” Taylor didn’t get this ‘sky drop’ thing.

Kai noticed the expression on her face. “It’s really simple. You just drop from the sky,” he explained.

“Wait.... you’re saying…” Q started. He was starting to get worried.

Kai smiled. “No time. Bye,” he said and pressed a button.

A door opened underneath them and they fell out of the Orion.

“Now we go get those patrol guys,” Kai said and set target.

“Ethosien!” Q said aloud. His armor instantly emerged. Once he had suited up, he looked around him. Taylor and Elizabeth had suited up as well.

He realized his main problem.

He was falling. And he had no idea how he could stop.

“Do these things have parachutes?” Q asked

Taylor seemed hesitant to answer “I don't know,” she said.

Q tried to change his suit into a flying version.

Surprisingly he got the white version that he had activated in the virtual realm.

He willed it to extend the arms and legs. He could feel the suit extending; the air resistance was getting larger. It grew for a few seconds, until he looked like a white bat.

“Hang on,” he said.

Q just swooped down and grabbed each one of the girls with one hand and landed softly on the surface.

Q was ready to get adventuring. “C'mon. Let’s go,” he said.

Taylor looked around her. The planet was exactly as they had seen in the virtual realm.

It was a blizzard-ridden place. Actually speaking they didn’t even know if it was day or night. The storm could have blocked out a million radiant suns. It was only because of their suits’ in-built night vision goggles that they were able to even see each other.

“We’ve got to find the tunnel,” Elizabeth said.

Q wasn’t listening. He was busy modifying his suit a little more. It grew spikes around it and handles on the shoulder blades.

“Grab the handles or the wind could sweep you out,” he said.

They grabbed the handles and all of them started searching for the tunnel. They walked around for an hour but still couldn’t find it.

Q knelt on the floor.

“Tired already?” Taylor chuckled.

Q wasn’t listening. He was much too busy sweeping snow off the ground, wherever that was, with the snow piling up, the ground might even be a mile down from the surface.

Elizabeth on the other hand was using some sort of megaphone. She kept pointing it in different directions.

“What’s that?” Taylor asked.

“Ultra sound,” she said. “I’m trying to find any cliffs or rocks nearby. It will reflect the sound back.”

“Any luck?”

“Not even a single wave came back.”

“Found it!” Q yelled so loud that Elizabeth jumped.

He was putting his hand into the snow. He went in up to his shoulder and moved it around. Suddenly all the snow just crumbled away and a tunnel emerged!

They peeked down the tunnel. It didn’t seem like a friendly place but they didn’t have a choice.

“Let’s go.” Elizabeth jumped into the hole.

Taylor looked at Q. They both shrugged and jumped in as well.

The tunnel was completely vertical till the bottom. There were just solid walls of ice to give them company. Q wondered what the ice in this planet was made of. It certainly didn't seem like frozen ice.

When they reached the bottom, they were looking at the palace of ice. It looked just like the one Q had seen in the virtual realm. He wondered if the patrol had really taken the map after all. He was more worried about Kai and Chris. What if the patrol attacked them?

Taylor walked up to him “It’s okay. Kai and Chris will be fine,” she said as if she’d just read his mind.

He looked at her quizzically.

“I’ve known you long enough to know how you feel,” Taylor smiled.

“So what are we waiting for?” Elizabeth asked.

“Well, we’ve got to see if there are any creatures down here,” Q said.

The image of that shadowy creature attacking him stayed vividly in his mind.

“We’ve got to stay together, okay guys?” Q told them.

They both nodded.

They approached the palace made of solid ice. The color of ice changed very frequently, which made Q wonder if there was some sort of colored liquid flowing inside it.

“No pink?” Elizabeth asked on seeing every color other than pink. She looked so sad that Q couldn’t help searching for pink color alongside her.

“Doesn’t this place strike you as eerie?” Q asked.

No one was listening to him. Elizabeth was searching for pink and Taylor was scouting for enemies, monsters, the lot.

“Relax,” Q put his hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “Nothing’s gonna happen…”

They heard a loud thud ahead of them.

“…until now.”

At the sound of the thud they rushed forward. They kept running and running but they couldn’t find anything.

“It must've been an echo, you know, with the walls being solid ice and all. It could’ve been just ice falling down,” he said.

“Yeah,” Taylor agreed.

They continued walking until they reached a fork in the pathway.

“What do we do?” Q asked.

“Split up?” Elizabeth suggested.

“Will you girls be all right on your own?”

“We’ll have to be,” Taylor smiled.

Just as Taylor finished her sentence, they heard something crack.

Taylor froze. “Don’t move...an....inch,” she said.

They froze as well.

Taylor slowly looked down. There was a crack below their feet. It was small, but it could give away in less than a second, if it became any wider.

They heard a crack again.

“Move! Move!” Taylor yelled.

She and Elizabeth got out of the patch easily but Q had a tougher job ahead of him. He had quite a lot of ground to cover.

He took a few steps but his foot got caught in a crack in the ice. He tried taking it out but it was stuck fast. He looked at the two worried faces of Taylor and Elizabeth.

“Go! You’ll die if you stay here any longer,” he urged.

“No! I’m not giving up,” Taylor said and ran forward.

Q saw that she was coming forward and instantly knew what to do.

Q concentrated on his armor. A rocket launcher appeared above his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at Taylor running towards him desperately.

“Bye,” he said and shot the rocket at her. The rocket hit her plumb on the chest and pushed her back. At the exact same moment, the ground gave way and Q fell down.

“No!!!!” Taylor fell to her knees.

Elizabeth put her hand on Taylor’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. He’ll be okay,” she said but a voice inside her said otherwise.

“I never got to tell him.....” Taylor sobbed.

Elizabeth knew there was no way she could convince her to come along. She decided to win by volume than reason.

“Do you want to save him or not?” she shouted.

Taylor didn’t say anything. She sat motionless.

“So you just want to let Q lie on an ice cold floor all alone till he dies?”

That seemed to snap Taylor out of it. Her head twitched and she shot to her feet.

“Let’s go,” Taylor said enthusiastically and Elizabeth instantly knew then that she had touched the right chord to get her motivated.

“Elizabeth?”  Elizabeth looked at her.

“Thanks,” she said.

Elizabeth just smiled. She knew that they had a much bigger task ahead of them now. She was deep in thought when she was distracted by something on the wall. It was a patch of pink ice!

Taylor looked at Elizabeth’s face and smiled.

We are kids after all, she thought.

And that was the closest to kids they’d ever be.

Perfect Ten

Q lay motionless on the ground. His eyes fluttered open. He moved his body around to check for broken limbs. So far so good. The suit had protected him quite well.

He looked around him. He seemed to be in some sort of underground cave. The whole place was made of solid ice. The floor was black though. It seemed like mud but on closer inspection it looked like lava.

“How could there be lava in a place like this?” Q wondered aloud.

Then through the corner of his eye, he saw a shining object. He went closer to it. Whatever it was, covered in solid ice, it looked like a huge ice boulder.

He put his face to the ice and then wished that he hadn't. He saw the bones of some animal. The animal was huge. It would’ve dwarfed a T-rex any day. The bones were so dim and transparent that Q had to strain to see them.

              Then came the real question. What were those bones doing there in the first place? There was no way that an animal died in there and the flesh just disappeared. There was no way the flesh would’ve decayed given that the place was like a really big freezer.

“The only possibility is…”

He heard a loud rumble.

“…a monster.”

He heard loud thumps coming from all sides. The ice was reflecting the sound. He had no idea where the noise was coming from.

The thumps kept getting louder and louder. He could hear one side sounding louder than the other. He turned to that side. He could vaguely make out something coming towards him.

Then he saw a burst of flame go up in the air. He realized where the lava had come from. He realized what had happened to the animal that was fossilized in the ice.

He could see the beast more clearly. It was completely made of ice. It had colored liquid flowing all through its body. Q figured that it was probably its blood system.

It was at least sixty feet tall and easily a hundred feet long. It spewed blue flames of fire into the air. Its wings were long and deadly sharp. Overall a ten on ten in the beast meter.

Oh yeah, it was also heading right for him.

Enter the Dragon

Traitor

Kai and Chris’s faces were beaded with sweat.

They had been right all along.

The patrol wasn't on their side. It never was.

“Those bloody traitors,” Kai cursed.

“It’s okay. We can take them on” Chris smiled. She tried to focus on piloting the Orion.

“We don't know if they have the map,” she added.

Kai turned to her “What? But you said…”

“… they might have the map. For all we know they tried to confuse us and leave Q, Taylor and Elizabeth back at the temple. They might have planned an ambush or something back there.”

Kai looked stunned. “Gee, thanks for lifting my spirits,” he said.

“I didn't mean…”

“Watch out!” Kai yelled.

Chris looked ahead. A huge blob of energy headed towards them.

She turned the ship sharply to the right.

They heard a loud blast. Smoke surrounded the ship.