Lazarus Rising

1.32 The Battle for New Europa

Charisa pressed the flat of her palm against the side of the vessel, the angular surface yielded revealing an access way and short passage to the bright interior chamber. "Here, please step up and stand in the recesses you find in the wall."

Lazarus was the first on board. Having received as many assurances from Noor as to the safely of the vessel and the trip ahead, he warily entered the vehicle and stood uncertainly in one of the five voids in the circular room. Throwing a wry grin at Charisa, Jamek leapt up the step and assumed his position in the next void and, after giving brief thanks to Noor, Cheyenne joined them.

Once inside she stood, in her position, in the third of the five recesses. The room was circular in aspect with a slightly domed roof. It was empty, the air musty and slightly foul. The light that flooded the chamber was that that radiated through the vessels crystal walls from the bio's sky, the curtain of undulating light on the floor giving her the impression she was standing on the sandy bed of Grafton Lake looking upward through the water onto the rippling surface, into a bright summer's day.

Outside she could see Noor and Charisa locked in urgent conversation before Charisa span quickly on her heels and sprang aboard.

The door slipped silently closed and Charisa entered her recess, the floor below their feet trembled as if woken from a long slumber. As the ship jumped to life the walls turned opaque, transmuting into a floating pattern of blues and reds; the image of the white clad Noor outside dissolving into an indistinct white fluttering shape that shrank into the floating landscape as he made his way from the ship.

Cheyanne, straining her head in her pod to see what Charisa was doing to bring about these changes felt the edges of her pod rapidly turning inward, grasping her limbs to suck her into the walls. Suppressing the surge of adrenaline laced panic racing through her body she braced her arms and prepared to push herself free of the restraining shell. Looking around she could see Lazarus and Jamek, caught too in the rapidly liquefying clams in which they stood. Lazarus give out a great shout, one of his arms lashing out as he attempted to twist free.

"Be still, Lazarus! This is normal," snapped Charisa, then. Be still.

"What!" Lazarus's arm dropped to his side, his voice echoing around the domed ceiling. "I can hear you. Inside my head."

The benefits of advanced technology, Lazarus. Think it, don't say it. Use your thoughts to project it to us.

"This is.....".... can you hear me, Charisa?

I can. Lazarus. Jamek? Charisa responded.

Yes, I'm here, this thing it's locked me in. I can't move.

Don't be concerned, it is in the process of securing us prior to departing. We will be ascending momentarily.

By now Lazarus and Jamek's bodies had almost disappeared. Consumed by the vessel, all that remained visible were their faces, peeping alarmingly out of the walls. Like the last vestiges of two drowning men, their white rimmed eyes flicked around the chamber following the mesmeric patterns pulsing though the walls.

Cheyenne, herself now suspended in the same manner, cocooned in a warm thick gooey membrane, held her breath as she felt the amorphous liquid envelop her skull and tighten around her body. Unable to turn her head enough to see Charisa who was in the compartment direct to the left of her, she took a deep breath and realising there was nothing she could do, relaxed.

Underneath their feet the tremor increased in magnitude and matching the intensity of the vibrations, the vivid lights covering the prisms surface accelerated to a whirl of frantic colours.