Zein: The Homecoming Read online

  He surmised there were five hundred soldiers in total, when the barricades and barracks should be manned by over three thousand.

  Women and kids! The stupid idiot has left women and children to guard one of the main gates. If the Pod had attacked here then…he tried to remain calm…as calm as he could. ‘Okay soldier what is the status?’ said Tate deciding that authority and leadership were required.

  ‘T-h-h-e Pod have a-a-ttacked the corridor between the North and West Gate b-b-barricades Sir,’ said the teenager, shaking with fear. Tate smiled warmly and placed a hand onto the boy’s shoulders.

  ‘You are doing an excellent job young man,’ said Tate smiling encouragingly, ‘Where did Prince Southgate go?’

  ‘He took the main force in the gliders to see what has happened,’ said the teenager.

  Leaving one of the principal gates practically unguarded! Tate ground his teeth together in anger.

  ‘Kron, leave a hundred of the regiment here to support these brave soldiers.’ Kron pointed to a number of his group and they peeled off to support the gate and pill-box. The defenders smiled in relief. ‘Let’s go,’ said Tate and the remainder of the force re-entered the gliders and set off down the tunnel.

  The journey took more time than Tate remembered. The north to west part of the tunnel covered one of the largest lengths of corridor between the main gates. The tunnel was purposely engineered to be wide, enabling the Zeinonians to bring down the collapsed elements of the buildings prior to the winter and reception periods and the raw material from their mining operations up to the surface.

  How could they break through the steel covered tunnel wall? he thought worriedly. It was the toughest metal known to Zein – made from iron ore and zinithium. The Blackstones’ made the composite and the Tyther clan welded the steel sheets together – they had never been breached…until now it seems.

  Flashes ahead signified that they had reached the battle and Tate ordered the driver to stop the leading glider, causing the other vehicles to stop, as they took their lead from the first glider. He turned to his second-in-command, who waited patiently; he had no doubts that the young royal would not be found wanting. Many battles fighting shoulder to shoulder had reinforced the gnarled soldier’s expectations.

  ‘Kron, form the soldiers into four columns. Tell them to hold their fire until I give the command. We don’t want to be killing our fellow soldiers,’ said Tate, his face tight with anticipation. Kron went to execute his Lord’s orders.

  The men formed the columns and Tate drew his seckles and flexed his muscles, his muscles rippling against the tight, red, battered body armour. He took a quick glance behind him and saw the experienced grim determination of his elite guard focused ahead. He started jogging towards the flashes ahead, his men following, their feet rhythmically thumping onto the steel floor as they ran after Lord Chancellor Tate Malacca.

  The flashes began to grow in intensity and the noise of battle cascaded down the steel encased corridors. They turned a corner and were faced with an unbelievable sight. The bulk of the Southgate army were in hand-to-hand combat across the huge tunnel with many of the Pod, the seven foot creatures with shaggy dark blue hair and razor sharp claws that could scythe through body armour as it was paper, were pressing the soldiers back by their ferocity. At their feet were large numbers of lifeless bodies from the Southgate clan, whose spilt blood pooled into newly running mini tributaries throughout the tunnel.

  Where had they all come from? Then he saw the answer to his question. In one of the sides of the tunnel there was a massive hole with steel curled up on the inside, where the Pod must have created the breech. Streaming through the hole was more and more of their hated enemy. Tate knew he had to seal the hole or the Pod would gain a foothold which would first threaten the North Gate and then the other gates, leaving the city protected only by the flimsy zinithium run Inner Perimeter Barrier and inadequate Inner Defence Wall.

  ‘Kron, take one hundred men and the engineers and secure that hole,’ he ordered the one man who could do such a thing. Kron didn’t hesitate. He fired out orders and the battle hardened men selected moved within firing distance of the hole. The Pod hadn’t noticed them, concentrating on the fierce combat with the Southgate soldiers. Kron lined up his men and they pulled out their photon rifles. Kron shouted an order.

  One of the Pod, who was still some distance away, heard the shout over the noise of the battle and turned to look at the new arrivals. His face turned into a roar and his two sabre incisor teeth that jutted from the menacing mouth rose as he shouted a warning to his brethren. The Pod near him turned to see what the warning was about.

  Kron wasted no time and organised the men into two rows of twenty-five and the rest in two columns behind them. On his order the men reached into their backpacks and pulled out a powerful zinithium powered rocket each, which they then fixed to the barrels of the rifles like a bayonet. He didn’t want to use these precious remnants of their arsenal but he had no choice. On his command the first row dropped to their knees and the second row aimed high in the direction of the breech. The Pod saw the danger and charged the men.

  The second row of soldiers fired and an arc of rocket propelled weapons sped towards the hole. When they hit, the multiple explosions threw the charging Pod off their feet, many dying. Arms and limbs were torn off the crazed beasts by the devastating explosives. The tunnel became full of smoke, like a thick London pea soup fog rolling in from the River Thames. Even with this killing field in front of him, Kron knew that the battle was only half won.

  Tate led the rest of the soldiers in a charge against the melee in the tunnel. He assessed that there were around two thousand Pod covering the wide tunnel floor.

  In advance of Kron, Tate and his men tore into the left flank of the Pod as they reeled from the first photon grenade strikes. Tate skilfully wielded the seckles that seemed to be glued to his hands. He evaded the vicious sweep of the clawed hands of his attackers by levitating slightly at key moments to alter his position. His red force-field pulsated from his body. Surrounding him were his troops, relying on the accuracy of their long swords or seckle and blaster to compensate for their weaker force-fields.

  A shout from one of his men drew his attention to a Pod who had approached him from behind. Tate spun round to face the beast, raising his seckles in defence.

  What he saw surprised him. The tall Pod was injured, the rage, so present on the Pods’ faces absent. There was sadness in his eyes and his clawed hand reached out as if asking for mercy. The mouth drooped and the sabre-teeth rested unthreateningly out of the corners of his mouth. His bare chest heaved with exertion. Tate saw the wound in his side from the shrapnel caused by the grenades and the resultant free flowing green blood of the animal.

  Tate dropped his seckles to his side in astonishment. The Pod began to make hand signals. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ said Tate, blocking out the fighting around him. The Pod stamped his foot in frustration as he made the sign again, a circle and a finger gesture to firstly to Tate and then pointing to his chest. Suddenly, a shot whistled past Tate’s ear and the creature’s head was flung back and a mighty roar issued from his mouth. A new green gushing hole appeared in the Pod’s shoulder and with one last desperate look at Tate, the Pod male lurched off back to the hole.

  Kron shouted his next command. The soldiers in the front row stood and they replicated the firing sequence. The explosions ripped through the tunnel. The smoke billowed out further into the main fighting.

  Tate looked around as the second blast of grenades decimated the Pod’s ranks and the hole in the tunnel was nearly closed, the explosions bringing stone and rubble crashing down from the Pod-made opening. The Pod began to retreat.

  He saw the manic grin of Taio Southgate, the twenty-five year old senior prince of the Southgate bloodline. Taio was chasing the fleeing Pod brethren and killing them where they stood with powerful cuts of his gold plated extra-long seckle – one of the heirlooms of the Southga
tes.

  What was she doing here! Beside Taio was Jaida Blackstone. Ruthless, cold and killing with precision. She was also beautiful, tall and had a grace about her that would make a ballroom sway to her dancing. Why was a Blackstone with the Southgates? Had they reformed their alliance? He spotted members of the Blackstone Royal Guard supporting her and Myolon, the alpha male of the Changelings with his personal guard consisting of twenty. The Changelings were fighting as Roths and gouging the Pod with their horns, without holding back.

  He made his way to them as he battled his attackers.

  ‘Hi Tate, nice to see you joining in the fun,’ said the grinning Taio, skilfully disembowelling one of the Pod who was covering the retreat.

  ‘Why did you leave the North Gate post so lightly guarded?’ said Tate, panting with the exertion of the violence, as he ducked a claw and then parried another with his seckle.

  ‘Heck, they will be fine…the attack is here not there.’ Annoyance crept into Taio’s voice as he brought his wicked looking seckle crashing into an outstretched arm. Pod blood spurted from the separated limb, adding to the slick wetness of the gore of the slain.

  Tate decided not to push it. He was conscious that Taio still had his main guard close by and he only had a small force and there would be a time to debate this properly at the next Inner Council meeting. He deactivated one seckle and thrust it into his body armour and with one fluid movement pulled the ancient sword from the scabbard on his back.

  Two Pod launched their huge bodies at Tate; he leapt away from the vicious trajectory of their swinging claws and then skipped past both his attackers’ now unbalanced position to dispatch them with two swings of the razor sharp sword, sending them to whatever afterlife they went to. He leaned on his sword to catch his breath.

  ‘Tate! Behind you!’ shouted Jaida. He pushed any thought of tiredness to the back of his mind and dropping into a crouch he swung his sword in a lethal arc into the side of a Pod who was attacking his seemingly unprotected back. The Pod let out an agonised scream and then Jaida, with relish, plunged her seckle through his heart. The Pod toppled over and lay still on the steel floor, resting on the bodies of his brethren, his face twisted in the pain of death.

  Jaida offered Tate her hand, which, with a wry grin, he took and as he stood up, Jaida pushed her body against his and he could feel her hot breath on his face. Tate cursed as he felt his heart race and Jaida, as she apparently guessed what he was thinking, allowed a mocking smile to spread over her face. She cheekily pecked him on the cheek and then moved away.

  Damn that woman.

  A cheer rose from the defenders. The final remnants of the Pod had disappeared back through the reduced hole. Tate looked at the carnage in the tunnel. The Pod lay two and sometimes even three deep on the brushed steel floor. They had no weapons except their claws and ferocity. Why were they so hell bent on killing them? He wished he knew.

  ‘Hello, Tate, my darling, were you missing me and wondering where I was?’ Jaida again. His eyes rested on the most beautiful face you could ever hope to see. Younger than both Taio and himself, Jaida was a force of nature.

  Both had courted her, where she teased, pulled them along until they couldn’t resist and then casually cast them aside when she was done. Tate had moved on but the scars still scoured his heart, there was no one else he had connected to or wanted to Join with and now he had settled in his own mind that he may be alone for ever.

  ‘Not exactly. What brings you down here, morning walk, sabbatical?’ he asked, the sarcasm, hiding his true feelings, or so he thought.

  ‘My dear Lord Malacca, sarcasm does not suit your usual dark brooding look,’ she teased, wiping a nonexistent piece of dirt off his cheek, knowing full well what buttons to press. ‘Can’t a girl go out for an early morning stroll with a friend?’ indicating Taio, who smirked. Jaida then linked her arm around the tall figure of the most senior Changeling, Myolon, now transformed into his Zeinonian shape, the only outward sign that he was not all he seemed to be were the animalistic amber flecked, multi-coloured eyes that looked impassively at Tate.

  Tate didn’t react. There were tasks to do and he didn’t want to antagonise the Blackstones or indeed the leader of the Changelings. He called out to the Southgate troops to start stacking up the bodies of the Pod so they could burn them. Taio’s lips tightened. Tate knew it irritated him that he was in charge – the Inner Council was still his to command. The Southgate soldiers did not wait for their own royal bloodline to issue orders but began to stack the bodies. Lord Malacca had demonstrated to them many times his bravery and there was grudging respect in acknowledging that they and the Aeria Cavern would have fallen in the last few years if it hadn’t been for this young lord.

  Annoyed that his soldiers were following Tate’s orders, Taio swaggered up to him until his face was within touching distance. Tate didn’t move but his hand rested on one of his now deactivated seckles within his tunic, He saw the blood lust in Taio’s eyes. Mentally Taio was still in the battle so Tate kept his body relaxed but ready for any challenge. Tate had seen and accomplished so much, that a spoilt prince was not a major issue for him.

  Taio’s face was full of rage. ‘You think you are just the best don’t you,’ Taio spat out, spittle spraying out, some onto Tate’s face, but Tate didn’t move and stayed silent, enraging Taio even more. His vindictive eyes, burning still with the triumph of the battle, flashed, ‘One day my dear Malacca, I will be ordering you around.’

  ‘Sir, anything wrong?’ It was Kron. Taio took a pace back. If there was one man he feared it was this man. Kron just looked through him as if he didn’t exist.

  ‘Nothing wrong Kron, just a friendly chat between royals,’ said Tate, ‘Well Taio, if that day arrives, I will let you know,’ he concluded sarcastically. He wished for a time when he didn’t need to handle Taio’s tantrums.

  ‘Have the engineers close that hole up, fast,’ Tate directed his trusted captain who saluted and moved off to carry out the orders.

  The engineers had taken their large backpacks off and each removed a set of steel sheets from each one. The soldiers had cleared away the bodies around the hole and most of the debris. The engineers then cut away any remnants of steel that jutted out and removed any remaining rubble. Then at a mesmerising speed the Tyther men in a coordinated display of team work joined each of the steel oblongs together one by one with their powerful operated drill packs. Within a short space of time the hole was covered with a patchwork quilt of steel joined with rivets. Tate surveyed the work in admiration.

  They hadn’t finished. The chief engineer, with goggles over his eyes, pulled out a small device, similar to a blaster. The other engineers stepped back and placed goggles over their eyes. He switched the tool on and even Tate, who was standing a safe distance away, had to turn his head away from the brightness of the light.

  The experienced engineer traced the edges first, the steel melting to become one with the rest of the tunnel steel. Once done he switched to any rivets or inconsistences where the other oblongs met. When he had finished he switched off the beam and took off his goggles to survey his work. Except for some red glowing areas where the heat had last been focused it was hard to see where the hole had been. Tate shook his head in amazement. He knew that the Oneerions were the number one builders and skilled craftsmen in the Universe yet you just knew the Tyther clan would challenge such a statement.

  The survivors climbed onto the gliders to make their way back to their respective posts. The fire took hold of the piles of stacked bodies as numerous bonfires were lit. Tate tracked the thin tendrils of smoke climb to the roof of the tunnel where it was whisked away by the venting system. He had two questions crashing around his head. How had the Pod penetrated the steel walls? The weaknesses had always been the gates and barricades.

  But the most disturbing question that challenged him was his encounter with that particular male Pod. What had he been trying to say? Why communicate at all? Were they not both commi
tted to destroying each other? He was confused, not helped by the weariness he felt from the endless fighting. As they climbed back onto the gliders Tate’s mind drifted to the history of the Expeditionary Force and wondered whether they would ever come back. What he didn’t know was that he would find out the answer to his questions sooner than he thought.

  Chapter 2: Friends and Enemies

  ‘What were you thinking of, Taio?’ said an exasperated Tate, banging his fist down on the dark mahogany throne where many figures, both animal and Zeinonian, were carved into the impressive decorative back that swept up the wall like ivy. The room they were in was relatively small, as space in the packed city was at a premium, and Tate missed the grand throne hall where his father once ruled after the death of Lord Ricken Blackstone. That now seemed so long ago with the throne hall now split into many temporary sleeping dormitories.

  Taio didn’t reply. He just looked everywhere except at the Chancellor, his face a deep crimson as he held back his anger at such a public dressing down. Tate had no choice but to call an emergency Inner Council meeting to discuss the recent attack which had altered the status quo of the settlement.

  In the meeting were the senior representatives from each of the clans and also from the enigmatic Changeling community, the latter silent, watching. They were all seated in a semi-circle facing Tate. Behind each of the clans were two soldiers from their personal bodyguards and situated at the locked main doors was an armed guard drawn from the Malacca clan. Beside Tate was the reassuring figure of Kron, who stood directly to his left.

  ‘Now, Tate, leave Taio alone,’ said the calming voice of Eben Southgate, the oldest person in the room and Taio’s grandfather. ‘Did he not take on the Pod and beat them? We should be congratulating him not castigating him.’ Tate turned his attention to the old man. He needed to be careful here, the old man’s voice carried weight with the Blackstones. He was also as wily as a fox and Tate never underestimated him.