Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 50 - Hands of Flame

"Death never was what it seemed." - revived survivor of the Lampon Cruiseship Crash

The terrain become more uneven as the two Loreseekers centered upon the final resting place of the crashed ship. It was in an area that was mostly plains and desert, though the shockwaves had indeed shivered the small planet, sending waves of destruction about it like a thoughtless ocean throws its waves upon the shores, heedless of the sandcastles built thereon.

The khaki plains and dry brownish green grasses were pushed up into hillocks and great rocks thrust from the ground, freshly so as the ruin about them would confirm, nearly mountains in themselves, pieces of boulders tumbling down continuously so that the ground beneath the landcraft was constantly shaking, the micro controllers in the craft's tronic center working furiously to compensate so that the vehicle did not buck the two riders wildly into the air and burn itself out in a fireball of concentrated atomic gasses and micropressed molecular nanodes.

Nami was slotted into the driver's seat and he could tell the machine was under heavy pressure, and Blue could feel from the off kilter hum of the entire landcraft that it probably would not be making a return trip.

They looked at each other at the same time, Blue hitting a button on the dash panel, opening a holographic sketch of their destination as interpreted by their locational radar dispersement fields.

"Just a minute more." Blue promised, pushing his hands through the off green hologram and onto the treated glass itself, as if in a reaching for the flaming dustbowl ahead of them that darkened the sky to the color of coal itself.

The craft started shaking as more and more gaps, jags, and hills ran into their way, making their teeth rattle in their heads, the orange and black glow growing brighter by the second.

"Stop!" Blue cried, his hands clencing away from the glass as Nami set the braking implements in motion.

When full stop commenced Blue punched in the codes to open the cockpit and was out in a dash.

"Oh!" he shouted, as Nami unslotted himself from the driver's seat, the vehicle's receptacle cords sparking while retracting into their nodes.

He was rushing forwards, his mind a jumble as savage lights jammed themselves into his concious thinking process as through the haze he saw gold ; a golden light shining through the toxic plasticoat smell he was inhaling from the fumes of the disintegrated flight craft.

Golden light calling, the ground pulling him forward step by step...he could feel the earth moving him forward and couldn't have stopped if he wanted to.

The burning, brightly burnished orange/gold body of the Autonomous Emperor reached for Blue through the flames, arms held out to grasp him fully.