World In Turmoil

35: Rise Family

Amongst the dense trees of the Amarosa Valley that still stood. Far beyond the distant smoldering husks of the once lush woodlands that had stood atop the windswept mountains that flanked Gersanto. Began a silent rumble.

As the breaking dawn caught the tree leaves, hidden from it's blaze by the towering mountains, the ground of a vast patch of land began to shake and shift. Parting in three places, straight lines converging on one central point, in three directions it began to part.

Filth and soil spilling into that deep and dark black void that presented itself to the world, cold dusty air rising like smoke into the striking morning glow of the new day.

From deep within, roared the fires of a vessel.

An old vessel.

Outdated, and yet more than competent enough to stride from it's years of sleep with a vigor that any warship could yearn for.

Like a bonfire, the tip of the vessel caught the morning light, and erupted into a glowing flame of pure energy. The old explorer ship thundering it's escape from it's unceremonious grave.

Yet the two beings that guided its thrusts moved with a graceful skill that far outmatched what one would expect from two pilots long past their prime. As if some old terror propelled them, or old determination.

Their single passenger, strapped herself into a pitch black seat that sat itself in a prime position, behind the two seats of the ship's commanders.

The man and woman that held the helm, swept precises fingers across a flat buttoned surface that arrayed itself in a spectrum of green and red. The shuddering from deep within it's core, sent old lost papers, and discarded components of metal flying with an untouchable grace across the control room.

Elana held firm to her seat. Her eyes imbued with a fiery passion that truly could not be defined. Something deep within her had given her a determined rage.

Something not quite holy, yet righteous enough. The flame that burned within her set her jaw firm, and her eyes straight ahead. She watched with steel calm eyes as her parents shifted the modest vessel into the dawning sky.

It's stretching length continuing to ignite as light struck it's reflective shell.

From it's belly, rings of yellow engines pressed a dark green energy from their centres, and forced the world beneath them to drop from it's presence. The vast force of the thrusters overwhelming any pull the world could exert on them.

From that black stale pit rose the lanky form of an old dark green craft that held itself in higher regard than any fleet of any empire that had ever graced the universe.

It's form breathtakingly old. Yet sweetly rustic.

This ship, now sailing up into the vibrant dawn. It's hull, shifted and moved, it's very metal seeming to squirm and slide with every second it flew, only to reform, to reinforce, as if warming old muscles.

This ship was a machine of mystery long ago forged in the fires of shipyards not known to anyone anymore.

Their pilots knew this, and took great care in it's function.

Pops and bangs radiated from everywhere across the old ancient craft as it's many mechanisms and systems truly began to awaken.

Martek pulled his levers, and ticked his buttons.
"No ship is ever truly awake, until it has flown a mile across the lands of it's sleep."

Beth laughed for a single moment, before the expression melted from her face, and her eyebrows crossed into a form of unrepentant determination.

"No one is ever truly dead until their mother has avenged them."

Martek only gave her a sideways glance, his tone like that of a calm captain.
"Revenge makes two graves. Not one, Honey."

Elana glared at her father through the head-rest of his seat, an anger rising from her and condensing on the roof like a paste as she gripped the seat beneath her with white knuckles.

"If Ren isn't there. We aren't leaving Dad."

Martek turned in his seat, ( as dangerous a move as that may be. ) and shot his daughter a glance. His brow furrowed, and his lips parted in a sigh that seemed to almost mirror the ship's shaking around him.

"I'm not getting you killed. Whether you two like it or not. You're not throwing us at that fleet whatever you do."

Elana's stone expression seemed to melt slightly. Her lips turning back to their normal position.

"Can I say something Dad?"

Beth sighed.

"What can this ship do?"

Martek only held his stern gaze forward to the distant city.
"My love. Only what I know I can make it do. Which in comparison to our enemies, will be less than a pinprick to an elephant.   You know what elephants are?"

"Of course dad..."

Beth a quiver of pain in her voice said, "It can annihilate Dear... not much. But it can do enough."

Silence now slowly clawed itself into the room. The cold air, and monotonous sounds around her held themselves firm now, letting Elana's eyes drift towards her hands.

The black soot that stained them, and the few clean spots where tears had fallen to make their cold mark, such an indication of what had become.

She slowly, with thought and deliberate attention, raised them to her face, and looked at them.

Thinking about the fires...

The burning city...

She wanted revenge.

She needed him avenged.

"We'll search for him right?"

Exhaling as if struck with a sucker punch, Martek responded in earnest kind.
"Of course. I'm not leaving my son."

Beth turned her eyes to him, and looked into his sight, with an expression that pulled at his heart strings. A look that roared with rage and anguish. She had his heart in her hands, and she squeezed.

Martek felt his very being begin to warm and shiver. Like hot magma rushing through his veins he started to feel the pure anger within his wife, his wife that had always seemed so much cooler than he had ever been in his entire life.

He was the hot head. Not her.

"Whatever we do. Neither of you are dying today."
In a controlled fashion, he exhaled on command, and attempted to maintain a clear head.
"Even if I throw this ship at that fleet by myself."

In silent triumph, and ecstasy, Beth breathed a relieved sigh that seemed to calm Martek's boiling blood at it's very sound.

He eyed her with vague speculation. This was brazen. Brash. Uncalculated.

But if his son was dead...

This ship would fulfill his last dying wish...

Quite well.