Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Return to Self

A tide of blue Irus sand was waiting for them when they touched down, miles and miles of blue dunes stretching into the distance to meet the horizon. It looked tranquil, but Adam knew better. Communications had come back up shortly after they re established the defense nexus ,and Thomas had been flooded with e a range of broadcasts from Irus surface.

The sudden fracturing of their moon had come as a shock and been environmentally catastrophic across multiple regions of the planet. Their carefully maintained gravity balance had fractured as the green moon was pulled apart and pushed closer. Debris had rained from the sky in the form of flaming meteorites, though luckily only small pieces had managed to make it to the surface. Any larger pieces had been vaporized by on-ground Surface to air missiles which had not been lost during the nexus loss. Still the result was a few sizable craters and dust in high atmosphere.

Rundi scientists were already predicting a global drop in temperature which could be potentially catastrophic.

Not only that but the sudden jump in gravity had unearthed hundred of underground springs across the planet's surface, and water now flowed freely from a thousand small oases. Entire towns had to be evacuated as, for the first time in millions of years, liquid water flowed on the surface .

Adam Celex and Sunny had picked up a troop transport from the green moon, exhausted and relieve din equal measures.

When the door to the shuttle pen, Celex stumbled out onto the sand and lay down against the burning blue. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Adam was surprised to see that Makers could even get tired, but Celex had expended a lot of energy which he didn't even known how to use. On their way down he had admitted that controlling the flow of power was the hardest part.

Adam couldn't blame him.

He pulled off his helmet and slowly went to sit in the sand beside Celex joined a moment later by Sunny. The two of them leaned against each other for support, Adam's head resting on Sunny's shoulder, and Sunny's head resting atop his.

Three warriors recovering after a long battle.

None of them spoke, too tired, and the silence reined for many minutes until the second ship dropped down to join them.

Adam lifted his head as the F-90 touched down from above kicking up a cloud of sapphire sand as it did. Sunny let him up as he stood and ran towards the jet as the canopy opened . he got there just in time as Kelly dropped from the jet and onto the sand. Usually she would have needed a ladder, but as a maker, she made the jump look easy.

Adam stopped in front of her eyes wide, not sure what to say.

Looking at her, Adam could see that she still wasn't all there. Her body flickered continually back and forth between human and void creature, and one moment he could see her face, while the next he was staring into a field of stars. Her hair never changed always glowing with a field of stars which rolled and undulated as her hair was moved by the wind. She had pulled it back in a tight bun for her flight, but a few strands had still come loose.

Unnervingly, even when her body was visible, her eyes glowed orange with void light, and nervously he wondered if it was really her he was seeing.

They locked eyes.

She flickered, and he held still.

"Kelly?"

"You don't sound so sure."

"I.... It's really you isn't it.'

The darkness on her face flickered, and her human face smiled. Despite the glowing orange void eyes, the smile was genuine. She wasn't entirely the Kelly that he remembered, sure she still had the same straight posture, the bearing of a soldier, the presence of a general, but there was also something breakable?