[Prologue]    [Chapter 1]    [Chapter 2]    [Chapter 3]    [Chapter 4]    [Chapter 5]    [Chapter 6]    [Chapter 7]    [Chapter 8]    [Chapter 9]    [Chapter 10]    [Chapter 11]    [Chapter 12]    [Chapter 13]    [Chapter 14]    [Chapter 15]    [Chapter 16]    [Chapter 17]    [Chapter 18]    [Chapter 19]    [Chapter 20]    [Chapter 21]    [Chapter 22]    [Chapter 23]    [Chapter 24]    [Chapter 25]    [Chapter 26]    [Chapter 27]    [Chapter 29]    [Chapter 30]    [Epilogue]
   

Chapter 28

    “What was that?” asked the minister after they started to hear explosions.
    “Find out,” Ingree  told  a guard. The guard nodded and left.
    “The attack! It’s started,” thought Corina. “Why did you attack Tyrony? All those years ago?” she asked.
    Ingree stared at her. “It was for territory. It was not until 9 years of our grand rule had passed that my dear wife suggested to eat the useless Tyrons like chickens.” He grinned.
    The guard came back. “Your Majesty, we are being attacked.”
    The King couldn’t believe  it. “What?!”

Jaron pressed a few buttons. “To all the waiting ships, launch your attack, you are allowed to destroy as much of the wall as possible. To the Royal Combat Tyrons, you are ordered to lay curfew in the residential areas.”
    One screen looking around saw that Catlan, Wayan, Tellen, Bannon and Tyron armies had clashed. The battle had started.

Rida used his Wind Blade and a gust of wind made a bunch of Catlan soldiers fall over. He flew up and stood on the statue, he looked around him. Catlan soldiers kept coming out  of the building, every Catlan seemed to either have a gun or wanted to fight.
    A load of Bannons and Catlans were climbing and fighting up ladders on walls. One Bannon threw a grenade into a window. The room blew up and there was a huge fire. Rida blew wind at a few Catlans and saw Balka, Kuni and Zana fight right in front of the palace. Guards blocked them.
    Loria kicked Catlans about her and iced some hands and feet. She looked around her. Then she quickly ran to the statue...or tried to, there was lots of fighting and she needed to cover the kids in blankets of ice to make sure they weren’t hurt. She ran around, hitting Catlans. She climbed half way up the statue, then Rida saw her.
    “This is chaos!” he shouted.
    Loria nodded. “I know! We need to stop all the Catlans from flooding this city by trapping them!” Rida stared at her. Loria put up her hand. “Mind to fly me?”
    Rida held her hand and flew off. He bought her up and put his hands around her waist.
    They flew along a load of shopping centres. Catlans stood confused in the middle of all of them. Loria pointed her Ice Blade down and made it light up. Catlans saw the bright light and either ran away or back inside the buildings. A huge burst of ice came out, icing the roads and doors.
    “Why are you doing that?” asked Rida.
    “To trap some zillion Catlans, slip up the enemies and to make it easier for hovercrafts,” answered Loria.
    “You’re enjoying all this, aren’t you?” he asked.
    Loria grinned. “It’s been a while since I enjoyed my toy.”
    The ice flow stopped. They flew along skyscrapers and then they saw the wall and walkway of flags. The wall had a lot of cracks and holes. It also rumbled a lot. Rida was about to land when he heard bombs and more of the wall shook and broke apart. A bunch of Tyrons flew over.
    Loria started icing the bottom bits of buildings, making windows 3 levels high the only way out. More bombs came and there was more shaking and destruction. The Tyrons stayed hovered in the air, they didn’t want to be shaken about. There were more holes in the wall and the weak parts crumbled, fell and broke apart, crashing with a loud bang. One rock fell into the blue floor and smashed it. There was now a big, gaping hole in the wall that went for miles.
    “GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!” shouted a Tyron to a ship. The ships moved away.
    Rida landed on top of a building. “It’s too quiet,” said Rida. “Shouldn’t Catlans be protesting by now?”
    Catlan flags and insults were being stuck to the windows. Some Catlans were spraying them. One woman opened a window and shouted: “You can torture and kill us all you want! But the Catlans will always triumph!”
    “There’s your protest Rida,” said Loria.
    A Tyron flew to the woman, pointed a laser rifle at her and shouted: “Shut up and stay in the apartment!” The woman slammed the window shut.
    “THIS IS A WARNING TO ALL OF YOU!” shouted a Tyron through a megaphone. “A CURFEW IS IN PLACE! DO NOT LEAVE YOUR APARTMENT!” The Tyron had ciphers looking at him so Catlans were watching him on their screens.
    A Tyron officer had walked up to Loria and Rida. “We seem to have everything under control Your Majesties,” she said.
    “And it’s your job to keep it that way,” said Loria. Her communicator went off. “Hello?”
    “The fight in the Battlezone’s gone real bad,” said Jaron. “Catlans have lit up streams of Faric Fluid (Petrol) on fire and grenades are thrown everywhere. There are a lot of serious injuries but for now they haven’t caused any deaths.”
    “I need to get back there,” said Loria.
    “You do...”
    “But?”
    “I’d rather you didn’t,” said Jaron.
    “War is war Jaron, every last man is needed,” told Loria and switched off her communicator. “Ready to fly me back?” she asked Rida.
    “Do I have to?” he asked.
    “Look, just fly me there and if you don’t want to stay, you can fly back here, okay?” Loria told him.
    Rida nodded. He picked her up and flew away.
    “Good luck!” called the Tyron officer.

The fighting around the shopping centres didn’t have much fire or explosions, it was just men and women punching each other. All of a sudden a Zamaki emergency ambulance (the long-vehicle-made-as-a-hovercraft) came along and the crazy driver decided to drive right into the middle of the fighting. The ambulance sped along as loads of people ran out of the way, threw people in front of it or stood there.
    Rida and Loria flew nearer the bomb-fire scene. They could see the shelf-level that went around the shopping buildings half way up from the ground. Some of the fighting was on there.
    “There’s some schools,” pointed out Loria.
    “How d’you know?” asked Rida.
    “The kids walking on the shelf-level,” she said.
    They flew nearer to the palace. They could see a large building (lab building) in flames. The statue was knocked over and some of it had been melted. There were fires everywhere, some of the fires were in the buildings around them.
    “That ship’s shot missiles,” said Rida in a loud voice. Loria could see a ship hovering.
    “Someone ordered it to stop.” Loria looked around her. “Set me down somewhere.”
    Rida flew down near a fire and put her down. He then flew off again and stood on the edge of the shelf-level. He could see that a fire was put out and there was lots of steam instead.
    Loria ducked a fire bomb thrown at her and froze it with her Ice Blade. She kicked a Catlan and threw the frozen bomb into him. She froze the legs  of another and ducked another bomb. Then she punched a Catlan in the face and froze another fire. Someone then put powder on her.
    Rida could see fires going up and down, appearing and disappearing. “It’s funny that there’s Catlans going about bent down like that, then throwing bombs at certain people in certain places. It’s almost like there’s a Catlan squad with a plan. Wait a minute, there is a plan! But what is it?” He looked around. Then he saw on the statue platform a metal box with buttons and blue tubes on the sides. “A Rush Bomb! Everyone'll be killed!” He quickly flew to it, picked it up and flew up into the air, going higher and higher.

Jaron shook his head. “I’m glad my kids ain’t seeing this,” he thought. He was watching every battle scene in the city.
    Shuttles were flying everywhere, firing lasers at cannons. You could see smoke and wreckage. A ship had bombed a warehouse to bits, leaving fire behind. People were running around everywhere, a lot of injured and hurt people were lying down on steel floors while being treated by medics. A medical ship had landed and medics rushed in with injured people on stretchers.
    Jaron was then watching the scene in front of the palace. He grinned when he saw fires turn to steam. There was lots of fighting, it looked like that the soldiers would stop fighting in a few hours. He then saw Rida in the air. He then saw what he was doing.
    “A Rush-holy..!” Jaron quickly pressed some buttons and shouted to the speaker. “All of you fighting! Get away from the middle! I repeat! Get away from the middle!” Soldiers pushed away and made a gap under Rida. Some Catlans started to shoot at him. “Get the Catlans! Stop ‘em! Keep away from the middle! Push further!”

Balka-Rae, Kuni and Zana ran along the palace corridor. They had no idea what was going on outside.
    “That’s odd,” said Balka. “There should be more guards around here.”
    “The guards have either been sent outside or moved to defend Ingree,” Zana told his family. “We’re gonna come under heavy fire as we get near.”
    “There’s an elevator up ahead,” said Kuni. “Shall we use it?”
    “Might as well,” her Dad said.
    They ran into the open lift.

Yatri put the injured Bannon on an inflated bed. She wiped the blood off his forehead. There were medics and hurt Taklans all around her. There was also lots of fighting and rioting on the nearby shelf-level.

Jaron jumped and shouted: “RIDA! GET AWAY! YOU CAN’T DEFUSE IT! THROW! THROW!!!”

Then everything was shaking. Yatri could see a big, glowing, bright blue ball in the distance. It stayed there for a few seconds, then slowly shrunk and disappeared.

Jaron sat down.

©Ruth Amy Louise Hüneke 2008