Fushigi Yuugi: Mysterious Worlds
Chapter 5:
Boushin slowly put down the book. A brilliant smile lit up his entire face, even though a hint of tears could still be seen in his eyes. Still sitting in his mother's lap, he turned towards her and said, "They're okay!"
His mother, the Empress-Regent Houki, smiled back and hugged him tightly. "I knew they would be okay," she said softly. "They're seishi; they can take care of themselves, I'm sure."
"I was so scared!" her son declared, clutching the strange book tightly. "I thought for sure the Par... the Parathaians would be mean to Tasuki, but they just asked him questions and the others, the Delanis, were all nice to Chichiri! Well, all except for Metaxos," he said, reconsidering.
Boushin twisted in his mother's lap and held the book in both hands to get a good look at its cover. "I wonder what happens next?" he said, his eyes drawn to the picture of the large bug-man featured prominently on the cover.
He started to open the book again, but his mother covered his hands with her own. "That's enough," she said. "That's enough excitement for one day. We're all tired now, and the book isn't going to disappear overnight. We can read it tomorrow."
Boushin stared at her, eyes open wide. "But... but what if something bad happens?" he said.
"We'll find out tomorrow. But now, it's time for little Emperors to go to bed," she said, smiling sweetly.
Boushin couldn't believe what he was hearing. But I have to know what happens! he thought. It's my fault Tasuki and Chichiri are in the book at all, so I have to make sure they're okay. Why doesn't Mama understand?
He held onto the book tightly, and started to speak, to defend his right to keep reading. Houki anticipated his protest and silenced him with one look. "Now off to bed with you!" she told her young son, in a no-compromise tone of voice, taking the book out of his unwilling hands. Reluctantly Boushin did as his mother had told him to do. He slid off her lap and grabbed his little wooden horse before leaving the room with a pair of palace guards as an escort. He trudged dejectedly the entire way back to his room, and when he arrived there, he flopped tiredly onto his bed.
Boushin held the little horse up to the fading afternoon light that permeated his room. He inspected it slowly and carefully; it was beautifully made, almost flawless. "Tasuki must have worked awfully hard on you," he murmured sadly to the wooden horse. "But now he's gone, in another world... and Chichiri too. I wish I could help them, but Mama won't let me keep reading the book! It's not fair. "
The little Emperor desperately wanted to know what was happening to the two remaining seishi of Suzaku. He knew, however, that he had to abide by his mother's wishes. He couldn't sneak out of his room to read the book in secret, either, as the palace guards assigned to keep him safe would surely stop him before he'd gone two paces out of his room.
Boushin rolled over on his bed until he was lying on his back. "There's nothing I can do," he whispered hopelessly. He stared up at his ceiling as the last of the afternoon's light faded slowly away.
Empress-Regent Houki rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the persistent ache that was causing her head to pound. "This has been a stressful day," she stated quietly. Around her, various guards and advisors nodded in agreement.
She picked up the strange book and regarded it with distaste, saying, "This... thing... has already taken two seishi, and it almost took my son. I wish that no one had ever found it; I wish that it had mouldered in that storeroom for all eternity. But there's no going back now." She sighed, looking for a moment as if the weight of an entire world was resting on her slight shoulders. "I don't want to read any more. It's making my head hurt."
"You shouldn't strain yourself, Your Grace," said a concerned advisor.
"I'll be fine," she said tiredly, trying to convince herself as much as her advisors. Suddenly, she looked up, determination blazing in her eyes. "I don't want my son reading this book," she said firmly. "Not anymore. It's dangerous; Chichiri and Tasuki might never return from its pages. If something bad does happen to them, Boushin will blame it on himself. I don't want my son growing up thinking himself responsible for the deaths of two seishi. He's a sensitive boy as it is; such a thing would destroy him."
"Your Grace, what do you propose we should do?" asked an advisor, worried at the thought of losing the last of Suzaku's seishi. "If we took the book to Taiitsu-kun...?"
Houki pondered his words for a moment, then said, "No. She wouldn't be able to help; she wouldn't tell us anything other than to keep on reading." Her fingers tightened around the book. "We have no choice." As her advisors looked on, she opened the book again, and continued reading the story that had swallowed two seishi.
"More paperwork. Just what I need."
As he sat in front of his computer terminal, Keane grimaced at the thought of all the work that lay ahead of him. "Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork...," he muttered sourly. "It doesn't even involve paper anymore, and still it's a god-awful waste of time. And thanks to this inexplicable Tasuki character, I've got a million more forms to fill out, a million statements to register; as if I didn't have enough work to do in the first place..." The dark-skinned man sighed, then started busying himself, skimming through the latest batch of to-be-completed files that had been relayed to him from Padarath City.
As soon as he started, however, he was interrupted by a synthesized voice, seemingly emanating from the walls of his tiny private office. "Captain, there's bad news from the front lines. Very very bad news," exclaimed Dess. Keane was instantly alert; he had given Dess, the chief communications officer, orders not to bother him except during an emergency. This meant that whatever this news was, it must be incredibly important.
Dess continued, saying, "The aliens busted through our defenses a couple of minutes ago. The breach was closed, but some ships got through, and no one's been able to stop them yet. And one of those ships is headed directly towards us."
Keane couldn't believe what he was hearing. "An alien warship?" he yelped.
Dess's disembodied voice replied, "You got it."
An instant later, Keane's whirling mind sorted itself out. Quickly and efficiently he dumped the unnecessary files he'd just been working on, not at all sorry to see them gone. He called up several sets of schematic diagrams, one for the little Parathaian ship that he commanded, and one that, as far as anyone knew, described the type of alien warships that for the past few weeks had been hounding the planet shared by the countries of Parathay and Raiver Delan. Comparing the two sets of diagrams, he groaned, then said, half to himself and half to Dess, "Against a Delani civilian ship whose only crime is pushing the boundaries of Delani space, we're fine; against an alien warship of this class, we have no chance. Our ship isn't built for a high-power fight." Keane spent a few seconds concentrating fiercely. "Inform Korry and Thanion of this situation at once," he finally ordered. "We need to come up with something, and fast. I imagine High Command is being its usual incredibly helpful self?"
"Yup. A couple of the alien ships are making a beeline for Padarath City; all of the available forces are concentrated there to protect the capital. We're on our own, hey."
"Just like we usually are," muttered Keane. After scanning his ship's schematics one more time, he said grimly, "The only weapons we have that can do any damage at all to the warship are the laser cannons." He frowned; the cannons could be effective, but they had to be extremely accurate in order to do any significant damage. What's more, they could only be fired a few times before their energy reserves became depleted and the Parathaians had used their cannons just a few hours before, against the Delani ship. Keane glanced at a row of indicator lights on the wall by his head. "The laser cannons aren't fully recharged yet," he said, noting the one telltale amber light that was far too slow in becoming green. "How long do we have before the warship gets within firing range?"
"Ten minutes, at most."
"Damn... The cannons won't be at full power, but they're the best shot we have. Dess, I want you to shut down the communications switchboard for now; until this is over, no messages will be of use to us, so the switchboard's a useless drain on our power supply. I want you to concentrate your efforts on those cannons; right now, you're the only chance we've got."
"Understood, sir."
"It's coming..."
The room was pitch-black. Entire walls were covered with screens that should have been flashing brightly with statistics, with diagrams, with information and communications of all types, but all the screens were dark. Anyone who could control an entire ship with their mind alone had no need of mere statistics.
One person sat calmly in the middle of the room, in the middle of the little Parathaian ship's control centre. With eyes closed in fierce concentration, Dess muttered, "It's coming. It's almost here. Just a few more seconds..."
The wait had been interminable. In the neverending darkness, seconds had stretched out into minutes, minutes into hours. But now the wait was almost over. With senses extended far into space due to the Parathaian ship's sensitive instrumentation, Dess watched the alien warship make its approach. Its weapons were primed and ready for use; it was merely waiting for the human's ship to come within firing range.
The Parathaian ship's laser cannons were ready; they'd been ready for minutes. Charged with power and swivelled into position, all they needed was a signal from Dess and their lethal potential would be realized.
Finally, the strange alien ship crossed an invisible line drawn in space. Dess smiled, an odd half-smile that held no reassurance or mercy, and fired. And fired.
"Remind me to congratulate Dess; that is, if we survive," said Thanion jokingly. "I didn't think it'd be possible to knock out all the warship's weapons systems with just two shots, but Dess sure proved me wrong."
Korry smiled crookedly and started running diagnostic tests on her laser rifle. "And it's a good thing too, otherwise we'd all be dead," she added.
Suddenly, Dess's synthesized voice sprang into existence. "Thanks for the compliment, hey!" The voice's tone changed, becoming much more serious. "Update: the warship's continuing its approach. Their main weapons may be out, but they're not dead yet. It looks like they're planning to board us."
"Damn. That's just what we need," muttered Thanion, "those blasted bugs running around in here like they own the ship." Korry just frowned and kept running diagnostics on her rifle.
"Correction," said Dess suddenly, "they're not just planning to board us. They've already begun." The entire ship shuddered under Korry and Thanion's feet. "They've just moored themselves to an entry hatch. We should have a couple of dozen aliens in here within the next two minutes."
"Dammit!" yelled Thanion.
"Sure don't waste any time, do they," said Korry, doing a final calibration on her favourite weapon.
"As far as I can tell, they'll head straight for the control room, once they figure out where it is. You two are needed there ASAP; Keane's already on his way. I'm doing my best to get our internal weapons systems up and running; it'll be tricky with just aux power, but I'll manage somehow."
"You always do, eh?" replied Thanion, full of confidence. He grabbed his own laser rifle and followed Korry, who had already started off towards the control room from where Dess was running the ship.
"Too bad it took out our main power supply," Thanion said as he ran. "Must be awfully hard for Dess, trying to run everything on just the aux power."
"We're lucky the warship only got that one shot in before Dess took out its main weapons. It must have been trying to majorly cripple us, or something like that, so it could capture our ship easily," said Korry.
"To study it?"
"No doubt. And probably, to study us as well."
Thanion grimaced. "I'd hate to have a bunch of bugs poking around inside my dead body."
"You're not the only one!" said Korry vehemently.
For a few seconds, the two armoured Parathaians ran in silence, coming ever closer to the control room. Then, Thanion remembered something urgent. "Dess!" he exclaimed. "What about Tasuki? We can't just leave him alone, especially not if those bugs'll be running around the ship. They might find him."
Dess's synthesized voice replied immediately. "I've got everything under control. He'll show up at the control centre in a few minutes."
"And then we get to protect him, too. Great," muttered Korry.
"But it'll be worth it. If he is the Champion, I mean," said Thanion.
They rounded one final corner, and arrived at the control room door. Captain Keane was already there. He was in similar battle armour, with rifle at the ready. He acknowledged the arrival of the rest of his team with a nod of his head, and said, "Now all we have to do is wait; for Tasuki, and for the aliens."
Captivity was beginning to seriously wear Tasuki down. After his dark-skinned interrogator had left, he'd lasted only about ten or fifteen minutes before trying his level best to bust down the strange white walls that surrounded him. Unsuccessfully, of course.
Even though no one had been around at the time, Tasuki had almost been able to feel the mocking stares of his strange captors. For all he knew, they'd been somehow watching the whole time, and were laughing at him even now for trying to break free. "To hell with 'em," he muttered.
He was lying on the bed, nursing his bruised fists. He'd stopped punching the walls after the pain became too much to bear, though he was planning to start again as soon as the pain died down a little; after all, there was nothing else to do. Tasuki had never been so bored in his entire life. His tiny cell was blank, featureless; there was nothing there to occupy his attention. The only things even remotely ressembling excitement had happened a few minutes ago. The lights had flickered off, then on again, though they were much dimmer than before, and slightly later, the floor had shook a little. Not exactly Tasuki's idea of attention-grabbing entertainment.
"I want my tessen back, you bastards!" he yelled. Over the past hour or so, he'd taken to yelling random demands and insults, in the hope that one of them would spark a reaction. Any reaction on the part of his captors, whether good or bad, would be better than this neverending dullness.
Then, one of the walls of Tasuki's tiny cell again became transparent. He immediately sprang to his feet, and stared out into the hall beyond. "No one there!" he spat. "What's going on?"
A voice seemed to spring out of nowhere. It sounded intensely strange, almost inhuman, buzzing with metallic overtones. "The door's open," it said loudly. "I'd suggest you get out of here. We're about to have some very unpleasant guests."
"What?" Tasuki yelled, trying to see out into the dark hallway. "Who are you? Where are you?" To his surprise, he found that the transparent wall no longer existed. He stumbled out into the hallway. There was no one in sight.
"Go to your right. Quickly. You don't have much time," said the voice urgently.
Tasuki saw this as a great opportunity to make some demands. "I'm not going anywhere without my tessen!" he shouted, crossing his arms and planting his feet firmly.
"You have to!" the voice insisted.
"I'm not going anywhere, whoever the hell you are!" an irate Tasuki insisted, looking back and forth frantically to find the source of the mysterious voice.
"I'm doing this to protect you, idiot," snapped the voice. "Now get moving."
"I can protect myself!" yelled Tasuki furiously. "Just give me my tessen back!" Suddenly, a thundering sound to his left drew his attention. He stared incomprehendingly at the huge insect-like being that had turned a corner and arrived at the end of the hallway. Its pitch-black carapace glistened malevolently, even in the low light. It raised a metallic device in its wiry pincers, and before he knew what was happening, Tasuki's shoulder felt like it was on fire.
"Dammit! I told you to get moving!" shouted the strange voice as Tasuki cried out, gripping his burned shoulder in agony.
Tasuki barely noticed a mechanical whirring noise coming from above. A tiny red beam of light sprang from a little grey box set into the ceiling. The bug-monster shrieked, and dropped its now-smoking weapon. Beam after beam of red light struck the alien, and its carapace began smoking at a dozen different points. Chittering angrily, it quickly got away, backing around the corner to safety.
"I can't do too much more of that," muttered the voice. "Power levels too low... so hard... So do you believe me yet? Or do you have a death wish?"
Wincing in pain, Tasuki yelled, "If I had my tessen, I could've killed that... that thing! I don't need your protection!"
"You still want your iron fan back? After all that?" said the voice angrily. "I give up! I'll get you your fan back. Just follow my damn instructions, alright?"
"Sure!" Tasuki eagerly agreed. Still clutching his injured shoulder, he raced down several short, shadowed hallways, following the directions given him by the otherworldly voice.
"Stop here," said the voice. "Wait a minute while I open the door, okay?" Tasuki stopped in front of a segment of the hallway that was darker than the surrounding walls. It didn't look much like a door to him.
Seconds passed, and nothing seemed to happen. Out of boredom, Tasuki asked the mysterious voice, "Are you invisible? You've followed me all this time, but I can't see you anywhere." He walked up to the door, searching for the invisible person that was trying to open it.
"I'm not here, I'm in another room."
Tasuki blinked. "But I can hear you clearly," he said.
"Trust me. I'm nowhere near here."
Suspiciously, Tasuki asked, "How can you open the door if you're not even here?"
"Like this."
Suddenly, the door disappeared, revealing a small room stuffed full of metallic equipment. On a table, clamped with all sorts of gizmos and gadgets, was his tessen. Tasuki rushed inside and grabbed it, stripping off the gizmos and yelling, "All right!"
"Quickly now!" said the voice. "You've got to get to... oh, dammit."
Another enormous insect-man suddenly appeared in the doorway. It was carrying a strange metal weapon, just like the other one had been carrying. From the loud sounds of chittering, several other bugs were nearby. This time, Tasuki didn't wait around. Lifting his metal fan high, he shouted, "Lekka shien!"
A wave of fire engulfed the buglike monster. It shrieked, and fired its weapon blindly, making sparks fly from nearby pieces of mechanical equipment. The flames soon died away. Tasuki saw that the creature, despite its shrieks, had barely been affected by the flames. "What the hell?" he gasped.
"Its shell is too tough!" said the bodiless voice. "Let's see if I can help with that." Almost instantly, tiny red beams sprang from another little grey box in the ceiling. They targeted the bug's carapace and soon burned a dozen holes into it, despite its shrieks of protest and frantic firing. Not to be outdone, Tasuki again used his tessen to surround the bug with flames.
This time, the laser burn-holes allowed the flames entrance to the insect-man's soft, flammable inner parts. It wailed, one final sound of despair, dropped its weapon, and blazed merrily, soon collapsing to the ground.
No sooner had the one bug been defeated when another took its place. Tasuki, working together with whoever was controlling the red beams of light, destroyed it as well, and a third one, in a similar fashion. When no more bugs appeared, he breathed a sigh of relief, though still holding his tessen at the ready.
"Wow," said the voice, sounding tired, but impressed. "Tasuki... your name's Tasuki, right? Nice job!"
"Yeah! And you... you made those red light things, didn't you? We work together pretty well, eh, whoever you are..."
"Call me Dess," offered the voice.
"Um... sure," replied Tasuki. "Dess." Strange name, he thought, whoever this guy really is. The red-haired bandit remembered how Dess's strange red lights, whatever they were, had turned the tide of battle decisively in his favour. I guess I owe him for that, he thought, not quite sure what to think, but prepared now to think of Dess as more of an ally than an oppressor.
"Well, now that that's over," said Dess, "we'd better get down to the control room. The rest of my team seriously needs rescuing."
"You okay, Captain?" said Korry, covering for him with scathing bursts of laser fire as he recovered slowly from what seemed to be a deep mental shock.
"Yeah," groaned Keane, barely able to hold on to his own laser rifle. "I tried seeing if I could pick up any emotions from the aliens; if I could only get some kind of insight that'd give us an edge... no chance. Their minds are too weird..."
Korry dodged every single one of the aliens' shots with ease. She sprang with elastic grace around the room, often retreating from the safety of the shelter the humans had hastily rigged up out of a small metal table. Her precise laser fire coaxed shrieks of annoyance out of the attacking aliens.
"Dess, are you sure you can't get the lasers to work here?" yelled Thanion, firing his own laser rifle frantically. Unlike Korry, he wasn't adept at dodging, and the aliens' weapons had burned him in a dozen places. "We could really use some help here!"
"I've tried them a thousand times," replied Dess's strange synthesized voice. "The lasers are working fine in other places. I'm not quite sure, but I think the ones here are defective."
"That's... good to know," remarked Thanion, sourly.
There were seven aliens exchanging laser fire with the Parathaians. Their tough carapaces were covered in scorch marks from the humans' rifles, but not a single bug had even been seriously injured. The hand-held laser beams weren't as focused as the ceiling-mounted lasers, and couldn't quite pierce the bugs' tough, glossy outer shells.
"If you could just crack the shells somehow," suggested Dess. "The bugs' insides burn really well, once you get through the shell."
"I'm with you," said Thanion. Instantly, Korry and a slightly recovered Keane covered for him with increased laser fire, as he ducked behind the shelter, closed his eyes, and concentrated hard.
The bugs began to look more and more uncomfortable. Their otherworldly chittering became louder, more strident. Soon after that, cracks appeared in their tough shells.
Finally, Thanion slumped forward. "That's all I can do right now," he said wearily. "It had better be enough."
Keane and Korry immediately targeted the largest cracks in the bugs' shells. This new tactic brought some slight success. A few lucky shots seriously wounded two of the aliens, making them drop hastily out of the battle, shrieking, to tend to their flaming limbs. But there were still too many of the aliens. It would be only a matter of time before the humans would be overpowered.
Dess's voice intruded suddenly. "Get down!" The others instinctively obeyed, knowing from long experience that Dess had an overview of the battle that no one else could ever have.
An unfamiliar voice shouted, "Lekka shien!" Soon the room was full of fire, and of the horrified shrieking of the bugs whose cracked outer shells could no longer repel the flames. The Parathaians didn't quite understand what was going on, but the ferocious heat of the air above persuaded them to keep their heads down.
The heat quickly faded, though the aliens' anguished shrieks took longer to die down. Finally, there was silence. Keane, judging that it was safe, slowly stood and took in the strange scene that presented itself to him.
Seven black, smoking carcasses littered the floor. All of the aliens, surrounded by flames, had succumbed and now lay dead. Beyond them, standing defiantly in the doorway, was the redheaded kid, their erstwhile prisoner. He was grinning ferociously, and holding his metal fan with confidence.
"Amazing," gasped Korry, staring at Tasuki. "The pyrokinetics..."
Thanion stood up shakily, holding onto the now unneccessary shelter for support. In an awed tone of voice, he said, "The Champion of Parathay... "
"Great job," added Dess's synthesized voice. "You've got a lot of control with that fan thing, hey."
Tasuki's grin widened. He put his fan out of the way in some kind of holster strapped to his back. Then, as if for the first time, he noticed there were other people in the room. "You," he said, looking at Thanion, recognizing him from the time he'd been kidnapped. "You!" he snapped, recognizing Keane, his interrogator. He started to reach for his fan once more.
"Easy, easy, Tasuki," said Dess, trying to pacify him. "This is my team; we work together. They're my friends." This managed to check his rage slightly; apparently, Dess had made some kind of impression on him.
"Tasuki," said Keane, with all the composure he could muster in the face of the redhead's barely-suppressed anger. "Thank you. You saved our lives. Padarath City will repay you well for what you have done. As far as I'm concerned, you're not a prisoner anymore."
This seemed to mollify him slightly. "Better not be," he muttered angrily, fixing Keane with a piercing glare.
"About the ship, guys?" Dess interjected suddenly. "I'm tired. Really tired. Don't think I can keep this up for much longer. I'm trying to shut down most of the unnecessary stuff... the lasers, the power drain... try to put the communications switchboard back up... got most of that done..."
"Dess, you're officially relieved, as of right now," said Keane in a commanding tone of voice, turning away from Tasuki. "You've done more than enough. Get out of there and get some sleep!"
"Who needs sleep? All I want is more coffee," replied Dess lightly. However, the door blocking entrance to the control room swiftly disappeared. A curious Tasuki stepped forward, no doubt to see what kind of person his ally would turn out to be.
There was one person sitting in the middle of the dark control room, surrounded by all kinds of computer terminals, as well as by walls covered with dozens of darkened screens. As Tasuki and the other Parathaians watched, the screens slowly began to flicker to life, bathing the control room and the person in an ever-brightening glow.
As soon as Tasuki got his first good look at Dess, his eyes widened. "A... woman...?"
Dess was finishing off a mug of coffee, so the synthesized, mind-controlled voice replied, "Ardessa Brenfort, at your service." She put down the now-empty mug, and with vocal cords stiff from disuse, croaked, "Need to get me some more coffee. Almost ran out in here, hey." She waved a slightly shaking hand around the control room, where six or seven large, empty coffeepots were strewn around randomly.
Leaving his minor laser burns for later treatment, Thanion strode into the control room, followed closely by Korry. "You get out of here, Dess. It's our turn now," said Korry kindly, helping her out of her chair.
Staggering a little, Ardessa walked out of the control room. Having overcome his momentary shock, Tasuki rushed to help her. "Thanks," she said weakly, leaning on his shoulder. "Wow, trying to wrestle a wounded ship into submission... 's a little tough. I think I will rest a little after all..."
Keane watched the two of them as they slowly walked away, being careful to step around the still-smoking alien carcasses. In the control room, Thanion and Korry busied themselves with the immense job of running their near-fatally wounded ship. It's all over, Keane thought, smiling faintly. I guess I'd better get back to my paperwork...