Laura Jo Phillips (36 page)

“What the...?” Saige said with confusion.  “How is that thing slowing down?”  She glanced at Lariah and saw that her friend was sitting with her eyes closed, an expression of intense concentration on her face.  After a moment she smiled and opened her eyes.

“Its Garen, Trey and Val,” she said.  “I’m not really sure what they’re doing, but I know its them doing it.” 

“Their magic is very strong now,” Riata said.  “I believe that they will, in time, become much stronger than they imagine possible.”

“Do you think they will be able to stop it?” Saige asked, watching as the large white ball continued to slow, though it was still moving fast.

“I don’t think so,” Lariah said, her eyes taking on a distant look as she focused on her men.  “I think its going too fast for that, but I’m not sure.  I sense that they are straining very hard to slow it, and that they are frustrated.”

“Lets try to slow it down,” Trey suggested as they stood watching the tiny white ball in the sky grow steadily larger.

“We’ve never tried to stretch our new abilities that far,” Garen said. 

“I would say that now is a good time for it,” Val put in.  “Sooner is better.  That thing is moving fast.”

“Very well,” Garen agreed.  He didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a try.  “Faron, make sure that all your people and animals are as far away from this area as possible.  You might also want to get anything out of the house that you don’t want to lose.”

“Yes, Highness,” Faron said.  “Dav just got word from Captain Liam that they successfully dumped the tanker’s fuel load at the edge of the upper atmosphere where it will burn harmlessly.”

“Excellent,” Garen said with relief.  As most of the mass of the ship was fuel, getting rid of all that Hydrogen was going to help a great deal. 

Faron offered his Princes a short bow before turning and racing around toward the back of the house.  Ban hurried inside the house to make sure it was empty as Dav shifted before taking off for the barn where the majority of their ranch hands would be.

“Maxim, call your brother,” Garen said.  “Thank him for his efforts in dumping the fuel.  And make sure they eject.  When they do, I need you to find them and, if necessary, call for medical aid.”

Maxim bowed, the relief he felt at Garen’s repeated order that his youngest brothers eject from the doomed tanker not showing on his face.

“All right brothers, lets see if we can slow this thing down,” Garen said.  Trey and Val placed a hand lightly on Garen’s shoulders and all three men stared at the approaching ball of white in the sky and focused. 

Garen felt the power flow into him from his brothers and nearly gasped at the sheer strength of it.  They had experimented with their new power after their binding with Lariah, but they had started small, unwilling to cause accidents, or disasters, with their new and unknown powers.  But Garen had never imagined their combined power was so great, and yet, at the same time, he realized that with practice it would grow even stronger than what he felt now. 

He jerked his thoughts into line and focused on the tanker growing ever larger in the distant sky.  He began by thickening the air in the ship’s path, sensing the speed and heat of the thing as it raced towards them.  He thickened the air even more, then began thickening the air below the tanker, while at the same time thinning the air above it to create lift, making its angle of descent more shallow, to allow more time for the denser air in front of it to slow it.  He pulled back before increasing the air’s density too much, as slowing the ship too rapidly would cause structural failure, destroying it in mid-air.  There were still six Jasani males on board the tanker and he could not risk their lives that way.

Once the air was as thick as he could safely make it, he focused on the ship.  It was definitely slowing down, of that much he was certain.  But he did not think it would slow enough to make a controlled landing.  He checked the thickness of the air to make sure it was holding then shook his head.

“I am not sure what else we can do,” he said to Trey and Val.  “If we make the air any thicker we’ll destroy the ship and the explosion will be too far away for us to contain.  Any suggestions?”

“At the moment of the explosion, we need to thin the air around it as much as possible,” Val said.  “That way, with less air to carry the force of the explosive shock wave, the effect of the blast will be much weaker.  Then, we put up a shield of super-dense air around the vacuum to contain any flying debris.  Hopefully that will help to contain the explosion and reduce the damage it causes.”

“Good idea,” Trey said.  “We also need to figure out where it is going to hit.”

“Sounds good to me,” Garen agreed.  He looked back into the sky and once again felt the power from Trey and Val flow into him.  He continued to thicken the air in front of and below the tanker to slow and shallow its descent, working quickly but carefully.  He knew he had succeeded when the glowing trail of gas began to engulf the white ball of the tanker, which reminded him of the male-sets still on board.

“Damn,” he said softly.  “We must get the men off the tanker now.  We have no idea of the effect what we are doing might have on their ejection pods, or the air inside them.  Tell them to eject straight up, away from the ground.”

Trey stepped back, then pulled his vox from its protective pouch and contacted Maxim.  Garen felt Trey’s power withdraw from him, making it much harder to maintain the changes in the atmosphere around the tanker that they were creating.  The tanker that was growing larger with every passing second.

“Hurry, Trey,” Garen urged as he strained to hold the magic in place.  He felt the tanker’s rate of slowing decrease and knew that without Trey, he and Val would not be able to maintain the air density changes for long.  Finally, he felt Trey return and place his hand on his shoulder again, and the power surged through him. 

“The male-sets onboard will eject in the next few seconds,” Trey said.  Garen acknowledged the news with a relieved grunt, his eyes never leaving the ball of white that was now much larger than it had been only moments before.  Together, the three stopped working to rarify the air above the tanker, allowing it to return to its normal density so that the crew could eject through that area.  He could not see the men when they ejected, but he felt it, as did Trey and Val.  Garen waited several seconds until he was certain they had time to clear the area around the tanker, then, once more, made the air above the tanker thinner to generate lift and keep the ship in the air longer.

Garen felt sweat beading on his face but ignored it.  “Now we need to know where it will hit,” he said.

“Your efforts have shifted the impact point several miles,” Faron said from behind them.  “From what I can see, it looks as though it is going to hit almost exactly where we are standing.  Can you keep a hold on whatever it is you’re doing while moving out of the way?”

“I hope so,” Garen replied as he took a moment to look around.  “Lets move up to that low hill over there,” he suggested.

“Yes, that should work,” Faron replied.

“We are going to speed travel over there so we don’t let go of those air changes for too long,” Garen said.  “Make sure you get everyone out of the way.  We are building a partial vacuum around the tanker, and when it hits, anything that is inside of that area is going to be very short of air.”

How much area do you think we need?” Faron asked.

“About one square mile,” Trey said.  “That gives us a little extra room in case the vacuum doesn’t work as well as we hope.”

“I’m sorry, Faron,” Garen said.  “You are going to lose your home, but the tanker is too big and moving too fast for us to alter its course enough to save it.”

“Better an empty house than a pasture full of livestock,” Faron said with a shrug.  “We have nothing of real value inside anyway as we are not here that much.”

 “Round up your brothers and meet us up on the hill as quickly as you can,” Garen said.  He did not wait for Faron’s response before diverting a bit of magic and turning towards the hill he had selected as their safe area.  A couple of seconds later they were on the hill and Garen was testing the air in front of and beneath the tanker.  Both had thinned in the small amount of time they had taken to travel and he quickly built them back up.  The tanker was growing huge in the sky above them, but it was moving far slower than it had been.  Garen was hopeful that their plan would work.  He tested the air below the tanker once more, carefully thickening it just a bit. 

By the time the Lobos joined them on the hill the tanker was so close it seemed to fill the sky above them.  Garen built a strong shield around all of them to protect themselves from the heat and any debris that might escape the barrier around the tanker.

“Are the Katres safe?” he asked, his voice strained with the constant effort.  He had never tried to hold magic for so long and could only hope that his strength held out for as long as they needed it.

“Yes, they are several miles away and have retrieved their brothers and the Falcoran male-set,” Dav replied.  “I’ve told them to take cover and build some shield walls.”

Garen suddenly realized that Dav was yelling to be heard over the rising roar of the approaching ship.  His eyes widened as the tanker grew so large that for a moment he feared they had miscalculated and the ship was going to hit them. 

“Now!” Garen shouted above the sound of the ship which had risen several octaves to an almost shrill scream.  “Create the vacuum bubble and the super-dense shell!”  A few seconds later, the gigantic tanker slammed into the ground, its nose hitting almost exactly where they had been standing minutes earlier. 

The explosion was enormous.  As big as Garen had thought it would be, it was bigger.  The heat was so intense that even from their vantage point, protected by a bubble of vacuum around the ship and blocked by thick shields of solid air, it became so hot they could barely breathe.  Garen strained harder than ever to hold the barrier surrounding the huge mass of burning metal and fuel in those first few seconds.  Even as strong as their magic was, some debris escaped the areas of protection they created around the tanker.  The glowing shards of metal traced arcs of flame against the sky.

Garen immediately focused on pulling even more air out of the area around the tanker to smother the giant ball of fire. 

The women continued to watch as the ball drew inexorably closer to the ground until, finally, it dropped below their line of sight.  They waited silently for long moments, expecting to see signs of a huge explosion in the distance, but one did not materialize. 

“Perhaps they were able to contain it?” Saige said, making the statement a question as she turned to look at Lariah.  Lariah frowned as she concentrated. 

“They are still straining, even harder than before,” she said.  “But they are also feeling relieved.”  Lariah opened her eyes again.  “I think they are containing it.  It’s very hot, so there was an explosion, but they are holding it somehow.”

They continued to watch the empty sky for long minutes as though mesmerized until Suly stepped out onto the patio with lunch.  At first Lariah declined, but a pleading look from Suly had Riata and Saige both insisting that she eat.  Lariah gave in finally, more to keep peace than because she was hungry.  But all of their eyes continually strayed to the horizon throughout lunch.

None of them had much of an appetite and they finished eating quickly, though Lariah continued to slip tasty morsels of food from her plate to Tiny.  When the food stopped coming, Tiny rose to his feet, stretched, then headed off the patio and across the garden, leaping lightly over the low back gate.  Saige cocked a brow at Lariah.

“He’s going to that hill behind the house,” she explained.  “He would never do his business in Pater’s garden.”

Saige nodded in understanding and sipped her drink as she studied her friend carefully without seeming to.  She and Riata were both concerned about Lariah.  Even though the Dracons had placed a large protective barrier around the house that would prevent anyone with intent to harm the occupants from crossing it, Lariah seemed unaccountably nervous and restless. 

“Are you worried about your men?” Saige asked after a particularly long silence from Lariah.

“I’m not sure,” Lariah replied cryptically.  “They are very strong in their magic now.  The strongest of all the Jasani.  I know that and yet, I feel...edgy today.”

Riata eyed Lariah once again.  She rose from her chair, intending to examine Lariah, when they all heard a loud growling roar, followed by a short yelp, then silence. 

Garen, Trey and Val were drenched in sweat from the heat still radiating from the burning tanker, and the effort required to keep it contained.  Every time they succeeded in making the air within the enclosure thin enough to extinguish the fire, it flared up again as soon as they began to let the air return to normal.  Although the tanker had dumped in the upper atmosphere the fuel it had been carrying as cargo, the crew had not been able to dump the ship’s own fuel, so it had crashed with nearly a full load of the fuel it carried for its own engines and reaction control thrusters, amounting to many tons of highly combustible Hydrogen.  The residual heat was so intense that it reignited all of that fuel the moment air was allowed to reach it.  Garen feared their strength would give out before they could truly avert a disaster.