Lazarus Rising

1.33 The Battle for New Europa II

"Jamek, Lazarus. Welcome back." Charisa said as both Jamek and Lazarus came to. "You have been in suspension, we are now back at Earth, descending to New Europa. In a few moments we will be landing."

"We should head for Metro headquarters." Jamek said heavily as he shook off the effects of the sedation, "to alert them."

"We shall see Jamek," responded Charisa. "It appears Urbaine has beaten us here. Look now."

The innards of the chamber glowed orange, the hull superheated by the gasses rushing past as they dropped into the atmosphere. Within minutes the city shot into sharp relief below them. The buildings jumped with flashes of light, here and there flickering red fires raged. In the near distance the outline of the island that held the Sanatorium could be made out, an irregular shaped mass of land sitting in the shimmering black mirror of Grafton Lake. Hope Fields grew in size with such rapidity that soon the masses of shadowy Zigs sitting there alerted them to the fact that the assault on the city had already begun.

"We are too late!" Lazarus alarmed voice filled the room.

The interior of the ship drifted from ruby red to an eerie whiteness as the hull rose even higher in temperature. But inside the vessel it felt as if they were enveloped in a silent snow storm, surrounded by a vague whooshing and gentle bumping as it hit pockets of lighter then denser air.

Suddenly with a bang that knocked their vessel violently sideways they were hit by a projectile shooting up from the surface. And then another and another, filling the chamber with the sound of a thousand tolling church bells. The ship, now marked out against the night sky, became a magnet for the Earth batteries. Entering a gauntlet of gun fire climbing up from every part of the city the craft jolted, and crashed ,shaking so viciously that Cheyenne feared they were about to be torn apart.

"Who's firing on us?" shouted Lazarus above the din, his eyes searching the cabin walls for signs of fracture.

"Just about everyone by the looks of it," yelled Jamek, "now they can see us!"

Their ragged decent continued, the ship diving and lurching wildly under the bombardment. Breathing deeply in Cheyenne forced herself to watch what was happening below, in an attempt to ignore the perilous nature of their position and plan what they would do once they managed to land.

If they managed to land.

They were heading straight for Hope Fields where it seemed that the main fire-fight was taking place for the control of the city. Off to the side of the main port lay one of Urbiane's ships, presumably bought down by the same batteries that were now firing at them. It lay like a crushed skeleton of a primeval leviathan beast, its disemboweled innards splashed across the port surface, withering into radiant piles of molten metal.

Around the airfield Urbaine's aero's skipped like angry wasps, exchanging fire with Metro men sheltering in the multitude of service buildings that surrounded the landing areas. Troops were disembarking en-mass from the Zigs, long snakes of armoured warriors running toward the side of the airfield that led toward the city's center, the Collectives and the Sanatorium beyond.

A mind numbing boom resonated through the cabin, sending the ship spinning uncontrollably through the air as the room resonated with a shriek of an unbridled engine. "We're going down! Brace yourselves!" Charisa shouted.

The force of the impact of the ship hitting the ground was so ferocious that Cheyenne could feel her innards thrust up against the inside of her ribcage and push so hard that it felt the bones would give and her guts spill out in front of her. For a second she closed her eyes and then opened them as the ship slowed and ground to a halt in a squeal of tearing metal. They had stopped, the ship up on its side, the floor dipping away at a sheer angle below them. The light inside the ship dimmed and the air filled with a smell of acrid smoke. The heavy fire from the batteries was now replaced by sporadic light arms fire, the rounds pinging off the surface of the ship and disappearing up into the night sky like burning arrows.

Without warning the cells they were constrained in withdrew. Cheyenne slithered across the floor crashing into Lazarus and Jamek.

"Out! Out!" shouted Charisa, pulling them up and pushing them urgently toward the aperture in the wall. "We must get out!"

Stumbling free of the ship, coughing as they ran, the air around them erupted in a storm of phosphorus light as sniper fire picked them out of the rubble of the building they had crashed in to. Cheyenne ducked away, shielding her face she grabbed a stunned looking Lazarus by the arm and dragged him toward a breach in the wall.

And then she stopped. Oblivious to the chunks of masonry popping of the wall all around her she dropped Lazarus's hand and stood as if in shock, oblivious to the firefight around her and turned to face the open ground that fell before them.

Out of the low lying smoke that covered the pulverized earth like an early morning mist were the bodies of hundreds of dead Risers. Broken creatures in a twisted, burnt mass of arms, legs and broken bodies, countless scores lying scattered across the airfield in front of her.

"Are you hurt?" Charisa's face appeared in front of her.

Cheyenne could not feel anything. The snow that now filled the air in floating flurries, the cold, and the noise, all felt like distant things. Looking up at pyramidal forms of the zigs set across the skyline Cheyenne felt as if they had landed on a planet ruled for millennia by an ancient alien race. Around her the fight was reaching its climax. She stood and took in all that was happening as if she were remote from it all, an observer, not a player. The desolation of the risers, the retreating camo suited metro men jumping in and out of the walls around them scattering gunfire randomly into the darkness as they went.

The sounds had dulled. The low drone of the aeros, the long thick thump, thump of pulsar fire, the distant erratic hammering of jack riles seemed like things far removed. Great clots of smoke plumed upward from the building they were standing by interspersed by indistinct shouts and the occasional scream. She covered her ears and a great numbing pain filled her head.

Leaning against the wall in the spinning light, gasping for breath she could feel the thoughts of the Risers entering her head. Bolts of electricity kicking into her cortex, bought with them irrepressible feelings of confusion, numbness, terror and pain. This feeling, this symbiotic attachment she had to the Risers, she knew now that it had always been with her but in its latent form. The man who cleaned her hall, she could picture his children. She knew she always could. The Riser lying dying in the snow by the graveyard, she had shared with him his dying moments, his dying visions. And at the Collective, she had triggered in them a consciousness that they had wanted to share with her.

"Are you hurt!" repeated Charisa desperately.

Wordlessly Cheyenne looked up. Great arcs of light illuminated the night sky. Charisa was far away, down a long tunnel of time, far off and indistinct. And Urbaine too was so far away. Did it matter, did any of it matter. She felt powerless, sucked in by the emotions of the Risers racing through her. A terrifying immobility transfixed her as her head filled with images of the things that ran through the minds of the Risers. Lost families, tormented lives and the horror of a living death. She felt like crying but an overwhelming numbness held her powerless to react to anything.

Cheyenne stared at the sky carpeted with stark flashes of light, uncanny displaying, in pulses of black and white, the ground scattered with the twisted burned Riser bodies. Limbs frozen where they had fallen, skin melted and cooked from Urbaine's vicious assault. A despair filled her, a darkness that flooded her mind and seeped into her consciousness. Slowly her legs gave way under her and she slipped to the ground.

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