Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 52

AS SOON AS THE crack split the wall, Petar barreled into Brodham and knocked him away.

"Get ready!" he shouted. Brodham looked around wildly, then groped toward the M4 he'd left on the floor where Jem had been sitting. Petar glanced back at Jem. The hum was louder now, growing in frequency. Jem was wavering at the edges. As Petar looked, Jem's eyes shot open. The white film was gone and they shone with radiance. Their eyes found each other for a split second, then the vucari burst into the room.

It wheeled and screamed, searching for another soldier. Brodham raised his rifle at it. Petar waved his hands over his head, silently mouthed NO! Brodham looked at the vucari, then at Petar, then back at the vucari. He kept the barrel pointed straight at it, but loosened his index finger off the trigger. Petar raised a finger to his lips. Shhh. Brodham nodded.

The vucari spun around the open floor space in front of the platform, then returned to the hole it'd broken in the wall, raised up on its hind legs, and shrieked.

A soldier stepped around the crumbled edge of the hole and fired a single shot. It was enough. The vucari was gone before Petar could blink, carrying the soldier across the room on the tip of its long tentacle.

Petar looked back at Jem. The flickering sheen around the perimeter of his body had grown stronger. The breach was opening. He had to stop it. He couldn't leave Jem like this. He'd die.

He ran across the room toward the control bank.

"What are you doing?" Brodham shouted after him.

"I have to shut it down," he yelled over his shoulder. The rising hum from the platform nearly drowned out his words. It throbbed against his eardrums, becoming a slow wump, wump, wump as his brain struggled to perceive the alien sound.

Just as Petar dropped his hand to the keyboard, something slammed into him from the side. He crashed to the ground in a heap and struck at the soft object on top of him. It was Brodham. His nose began bleeding from Petar's fist.

"What are you doing?" Petar shouted.

"Go!" Brodham yelled. "You have to. It's the only way you can stop Nikola."

"Jem will be stuck down here. I can't let Samil kill him. There'll be another chance."

"This is the only chance." They were both shouting, more to be heard over the steady wump of the resonance than out of anger. "I'll get him out of here," Brodham said.

Petar squirmed and broke free of Brodham's grip.

"I'm sorry. I can't stake his life on that," he said.

"You have to. Trust me. He'll make it." Brodham's voice was low. Petar felt the words more than heard them.

"Stop him," Brodham said. "Go back there and shove your fist so far up his ass you scrape your knuckles on his teeth. You're the only chance we have."

Petar turned toward Brodham and opened his mouth to reply. He wanted to tell him about all the lives that had already been lost. About the bloodshed on his hands, the nightmares when he tried to sleep. The squirming sensation in his stomach when he thought about Jem's life disappearing before his eyes. The utter hopelessness of anything.

It's a suicide mission, he wanted to say. I can't go back. Miles of treacherous land separated him from his father's fortress. The elements were harsh, and the planet itself was harsher. An entire army stood in front of him on the other side. Shock turf. Vortex fields. His father's hand on all of it, ready to snuff out any resistance to his sweeping plans. Even if that resistance came from his own son. He would crush Petar like a gnat under his thumb if he buzzed too close.

He wanted to scream at Brodham. Grab him, shake the understanding into him.

Instead, his eyes were pleading. His voice came out in a whisper. "I can't..."

He never got the chance to finish. The pistol shot melted into the room's breath-like hum. All he felt was an ice-cold streak slicing into his back. There was no pain. Just surprise.

Then he collapsed.

Thanks for reading my story! Please VOTE and let me know what you think of it so far, then check out Chapter 53!