CHANNELS

“You’re sure you wouldn’t prefer a private transport, Sei? The deck-dogs could have a Hop prepped up for you in a matter of minutes…”

Maddock eyed the assistant for a moment before glancing around at the other Guards occupying the open space at the back of the transport they had just entered. There were about a dozen of them, huddled up in groups of twos and threes, furtively whispering among themselves as they stole glances at the “living legend” in their presence. One young soldier was staring openly at him, his mouth hanging open, his fingers noticeably trembling as they hung limp at his sides.

“No, Karl. This will be fine…” said Maddock quietly. He offered the gawking Guard a small smile before reaching his arm up to grip one of the rubber slings that hung down from the ceiling and then ducked slightly to look out of the porthole-like window. Just then, the transport made a sharp movement as it locked into place, there was a loud clang as the ship’s gear slid into the runners that guided the transport out, and then it shot forward through the launching tube into open space.

“A nice Hop with seats… and seat belts…” Karl was muttering beside him, but Maddock wasn’t listening. There was only a moment’s glance out at the stars before they were dropping quickly into the planet’s atmosphere. Maddock couldn’t make out the ground yet through the fire that shot up around the ship’s hull, but his eyes were already scanning back and forth, seeking out their destination. Seconds later, as they started to slow down and the view cleared, Maddock gasped.

He hadn’t expected to actually be able to see the landing area, as it was an area usually covered by a thick mist. Sure enough, the thick white mist blanketed the area all around for at least a hundred macktra in all directions, but right in the center, the mist cleared to thin, wispy clouds in an almost perfect circle, allowing one to see through to the ground in that spot as if one was looking through a thin, orange glaze, for those wisps of smoke in the center of the forest of white mist appeared to be stained with an eerie orange glow.

Through the glaze of orange mist, he could see the gentle hill upon which an ancient building once stood, now reduced to rubble. Smoke wafted up from a number of fires still alight in the ruined building. Various-colored dots speckled the area, and Maddock groaned as he realized what those specks were… Nothing moved on the ground.

As they descended toward the orange disc of wispy smoke surrounded by thick white all around, the transport slowed significantly, but as the orange smoke began to creep up around them, the transport started to shake violently. Maddock gripped Karl’s forearm, pulling him back up as he began to fall forward, but Karl soon just slumped to the floor, held himself in place by grasping Maddock’s leg, and tucked his head down toward his chest. The Guards all around them were holding tightly to the support straps hanging from the ceiling as Maddock was doing, though many looked sick or fearful.

Under ordinary circumstances, one never tried to navigate a ship through the thick mist that infested many different areas of the planet Albatraz, but Guard techs had predetermined that the transports could safely travel through an area where the mist had thinned sufficiently, and there was no faster way for so many to reach the disaster area. Despite the heavy shaking, the transport soon touched down safely on a small patch of flat, green grass at the bottom of the hill upon which the ruins stood and just next to where the white mist rose up like a solid wall behind them. Maddock didn’t move, but watched out the window as two more identical transports touched down beside them. Then came the familiar sound of pressurized air being released, another metallic clang, and then the soft grinding noise of the wide door in the back of the ship lowering.

None of the Guards in the transport so much as twitched while Maddock abruptly turned, gently helped Karl to his feet, and then headed for the back. As Maddock stepped down onto the grass, he heard the senior officer order the Guards in his command to file out. As Guards unloaded from all three ships, Maddock stepped up to the wall of mist and stared into it, as if he might be able to see through, but all he could see was the swirling cloud of pure white filling his vision. Karl stepped up beside him, frowned at the wall of mist, and then leaned in to speak quietly to Maddock.

“Far be it for me to question your orders, Sei, but…” Karl stuttered, apparently struggling to find the words. Maddock turned away from the mist to look directly at Karl.

“You’re wondering why we’re here…” Maddock supplied, quietly.

“Well… yes. It’s obvious that something terrible has happened here, and yes, Oasis has registered two major psi-cataclysms here in the past week, but… Three full squads, Regs and Prods of every type alike, and the Commander himself…? And not to denigrate the tragedy of what must have happened here, but… All this for something that is already over in a place that nobody even knew was here before this happened?”

“I knew it was here…” Maddock muttered, but again, his attention had wandered elsewhere. Most of the troops were already up the hill, putting out fires and searching for survivors, but a few feet away, a young girl in a black officers’ uniform, her pale blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, was kneeling at the bottom of the hill’s slope, staring at the ground as if she saw something fascinating there. Her irises pulsed with a sharp green light, marking her as a Prodigy, and Maddock knew she probably did see something fascinating there; something that only she could see.

Maddock couldn’t remember ever seeing her before, but she seemed familiar somehow, and he stepped away from Karl even as the man was still going on about how strange the place was. The girl had now turned to stare at the wall of mist just as Maddock had been doing a moment before. She didn’t seem to notice him as he walked up beside her.

“What do you see?” Maddock broke the silence. The girl replied with a distracted, “Hm?” still staring at the mist for a moment before glancing to her side. Her eyes widened as she let out a slight yelp, and she stood at attention, touching her fingers to her chin in salute.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” said Maddock, returning her salute. The girl’s body slackened only slightly, and her eyes darted back and forth between the Commander and the mist. Maddock continued, “Have we met?”

“Er… Well, no, Sei. Not directly.”

Maddock looked at her for a moment, wondering what she meant exactly. Had they met in some indirect way? But rather than pursuing the matter, he asked again, “What do you see, Lieutenant?”

She furrowed her brow and looked back at the mist, then turned and looked at the grass at the base of the hill again. Maddock turned with her. When the girl started speaking, she spoke quietly, with hesitance, yet every word she uttered was assertive. “It’s hard to say, Sei… I can sense the presence of a Prod… I can’t quite see it. Something about this place seems to block my Sight… But there’s something here… A trail that I can’t quite pick up but can sense is there… It’s… familiar…”

Maddock’s jaw slid open, a strange chill creeping into him at her words, somehow echoing his own feeling toward her. She stole a glance at him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, and he kept his eyes fixed on the spot of ground she had been staring at, snapping his mouth back shut, only to open it again to ask, “Lieutenant, what did you mean when you said—”

“I knew your son, Sei,” the girl said in a rush, obviously anticipating the question despite the conversation’s shifting direction. Suddenly, it clicked in Maddock’s head where he had seen her before, and he stared at her, mouth agape once again but this time forgotten in his confusion. She looked back at him, clearly confused at his expression and whatever she must have seen in his aura, and Maddock’s memory clicked again. His momentary lapse of understanding corrected itself, and Maddock adjusted his expression.

Looking away from her, Maddock started back toward Karl who had remained where he stood, though he watched the two with curiosity. “Carry on,” Maddock called back to the girl, “Let me know if you figure something out…”

Maddock closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath as the doors slid closed and the steady hum of the elevator quickly powered up. His eyes still closed, he gently leaned back against the wall. The slight vibration of the rising cabin was soothing, and his tired muscles began to relax. He hooked his fingers over the collar of his uniform and tugged the top few snap-buttons free. He breathed deliberately, savoring each breath as if it were a delicious bite of a sweet dessert. With this simple act, he felt as if the worries and stresses of the day were slowly seeping out of him with each breath. It felt so good; Maddock could almost feel tears forming beneath his closed eyelids.

It had been a long day.

An involuntary groan quietly escaped Maddock’s throat as the day’s events stubbornly crawled back into the forefront of his mind. He had only really wanted a moment without having to think about it, but it was a moment his mutinous thoughts did not want to allow him. As if the state of the monastery hadn’t been concern enough for him already, what that green-eyed girl had been looking at; what she had felt... And somehow he had known, even if she didn’t... It was as if he had seen it through her eyes: Dock...

But now, a soft warmth spread across the back of Maddock’s neck, saving him once more from the thoughts and images plaguing his mind. A smile played at the corner of his lips and he turned as his eyes opened to the incredible sight that had emerged through the translucent wall of the elevator he had been leaning against. It was the Az-kah, and it never failed to awe Maddock Traz, no matter what else might have happened or how he might be feeling.

The Az-kah was a massive, fiery orb dominating the star-speckled space outside Oasis, the space station that was the hub of all of Az, and home base of the Guard. The central star of a small circle of planets called Az, except that the Az-kah was like no other star that could be seen through Zanitors’ mightiest telescopes. Some even said that it was no star at all. In truth, the Az-kah was a mystery. But whatever it might be, it was beautiful.

The Az-kah was not dominated by one core color or tone, but shone with light of a wide spectrum of colors, flowing over one another in constantly shifting waves of light. Randomly cutting through these multicolored flaming waves were what looked like cracks, out of which poured the whitest, brightest light imaginable. The cracks of white light also shifted, never remaining in the same place, though they moved in different ways than the waves of light. At any moment when watching the Az-kah, one or more cracks of white light might be sealing itself up while another is forming elsewhere. The entire thing is in a constant state of shift. And Maddock Traz had been stunned by the sight of it since the first time he had looked up in the sky as a boy.

A soft chime rang out, signaling the end of the elevator's ascent.

Maddock jumped, startled out of his awe, by the elevator suddenly rocking to a stop. The clear windowed wall he had been staring out tinted over as it always did just as the door slid back open behind him, and Maddock sighed, disappointed to find himself back in the real world. His troubles were no doubt far behind. But as Maddock slowly turned to face his darkened quarters, he immediately discovered that he had been quite wrong about where his troubles were; as it turned out, they were standing directly before him.

“Father…”

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