{Earth}

“Uncle Caeda! Uncle Caeda!”

Tameka Phillips, Sovereign Ambassador of the Two Worlds, opened her green eyes and scanned her surroundings. Smashed hardwood planks cut trails over otherwise aesthetically pleasing waterways. Gray-painted, busted walls. Overturned plants. Buried waterfalls. The scent of exotic flowers and millennia of old rock dust.

Xelan’s underground stronghold.

Slabs of rock collapsed onto the kitchen and dining area. The explosion in the cylindrical entryway, miles under the Egyptian desert, blocked their exit and any rescue attempt.

The voice of her two-year-old son cut through the structural rumbling again. “Uncle Caeda!”

“Pax? Where are you? Be careful!” Trapped in a pocket of rock, Tameka rolled onto her back and pressed palms flat to a chunk of limestone. Push! Her tawny brown biceps bunched and ripped. Ligaments popped. She screamed through the pain and pressed, anyway.

“Mommy!” In his searching for her, that sweet baby jumped right on top of the limestone with enough weight to send it crashing back down on his mother.

Tameka curled on her side surrounded by her waist-length red curls with her arms folded inward like a bug. She suppressed sobs in the dirt as the soft tissue repair system in her nacre—the nano computer in her chest—healed the damage. Before round two. Coughing from the dust and dirt, she answered, “I’m here. Under the rock.”

His brown face with darker brown freckled cheeks, like her own, appeared in a small opening. “Mommy, Uncle Caeda gone.”

A hot tear slid down her cheek as she relived it all. They sat down to dinner when Chris, resident hero and bodyguard to the King Regent of Earth, got a call from Kyle at the Iona Medical Ecology urging them to find shelter from Imminent attacks.

Rocks exploded from the entrance.

Caedes. He stood over her and her son. Shielded them from the collapsing structure. His deep green, almost black eyes, filled with so much pain as slab after slab of rock fell on him until he disappeared.

Tameka smiled weakly as her son tried to pry his way into the pocket with her. “It’s okay, baby. We’ll find Caedes. Have you seen the others—”

“Karter?!” Chris shouted through the mess. Some rocks shuffled around and debris stirred, indicating his excavation. Coughing and croaking, he asked, “Are you all right, Jack?”

“Alive. My leg was broken in two places, but it’s already healing. I’ve got Ross. She’s unconscious, but breathing.” The eighteen-year-old King of Earth reported their status from closer to the exit.

Oh, thank Elden. Tameka waited to hear from the Valkyrie.

Chris moved about the space, disheveling bulky rubble and shifting dust. “Karter?” He crawled closer to the dining room table. The last place they saw the tall, muscular Icarean warrior before she pushed Ross out of the way of the collapsing ceiling.

Tameka closed her eyes and hoped the two Icari survived—

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Crashing and rumbling erupted from the entrance, and rocks caved further into the cylindrical lift. Slabs chucked into the smashed living room.

“Pax! Get down!” Tameka cried out and reached to her son through the hole. As fresh dust plumes rose and fell, he disappeared. “Pax! PAX!” No. No, she wouldn’t watch someone else she loved die. “Answer me!”

“I’ve got him,” Chris called to her from only a few feet away.

“Batman gave me gum.” Her son sounded pleased in the man’s arms. The codename suited the black veteran’s one hundred percent heroic ass.

Shuffling around the rock out of her sight, he assured, “We’ll get you out, Fury.”

Tameka smiled slightly at her self-chosen codename. “I can almost push it off, but I need help.”

“We need Rayne.” Jack said it first. And his voice squeezed as if in pain as he said it.

“Is it time?” Chris’ question rang through the collapsed cavern.

Tameka gripped the chain around her neck. It just might be—

“Stronghold. Batman. This is Bones. Come in. Over.” The comms device, boosted by Tritan alien technology, allowed them to communicate with team members across the world. Bones, another Icarean warrior, currently watched over King Rayne of Earth and Cinder as she slept.

“This is Batman. An explosion took out the entrance to the stronghold. Jack, Ross, Pax, Tameka accounted for. Searching for Karter and Caedes. We need help. Repeat. We need assistance to get the hell out. Report. Over.”

Xelan. His hidden home. Damaged and forever compromised.

“How did they find us?” Tameka rasped with emotion clogging her throat. It hurt to think of her lover’s heart breaking at the loss of fortitude after thousands of years of secrecy.

“No idea. A spy? Maybe we weren’t discrete enough. Although, I can’t imagine anything more discrete than Seamswalking,” Jack offered reasonable deductions.

“Batman. We’re sending help. Try to keep calm and avoid structural weaknesses. We’ll fill you in on the other instances once we arrive. Over and Out.” Bones disconnected.

“Other instances” hung in the air. What the fuck happened? How were they blindsided so badly? And with all of them in secure locations.

Rubble shifted around. “I’m coming to help you, Tameka. Pax, stay and watch over Jack and Ross for me. Can you do that?”

“Yesss.”

Tameka’s heart squeezed at the sweetness in his excited voice. “Get me out of here, Batman, so I can hug my son.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Did he salute? She wished she could see if he saluted. He stuck his face in the small gap. “Are you injured? Palpate for me to check for neck injuries.”

She wanted out so badly she almost screamed in frustration at his perfectly reasonable request. After following his instructions, she checked out fine. “No headaches. No nausea.”

“Okay. You know what to do. On the count of three. One. Two. Three!”

Nacres imbued their bearers with strength and increased healing. As a Progeny—the hybrid of an Icarus and a human—Tameka inherited a few enhancements, including greater strength and faster healing. Not to mention the unique ability to drain energy from anything with a nacre. Time and place, and this wasn’t it.

Again, she pushed and screamed as if drawing her might from her voice. Chris’ groans harmonized. Almost there. A little more—

It lifted suddenly with ease.

“Uncle Caeda!”

Caedes stood on the other side, revealed in the settling dust. The tall, bald, gruff Icarus needed a med unit, badly. Blue blood soaked his face and the back of his head. Scrapes swelled along his back. After settling the limestone away from Tameka, the warrior wrapped his arms around his ribs and collapsed to his knees. He vomited a wash of blue.

She bolted from the dusty floor to check on him. Chris, the only one in the room with official medical training, immediately checked the Icarus’ vitals. While Batman searched for injuries, Caedes stared into Tameka’s eyes. Breathing. His primary focus. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t die. The effort to keep going written in his eyes.

“Will he make it?” Jack called out from the more structurally sound side of the room.

Chris answered for the Icarus, “We need to get him to the Medical Ecology. The hard tissue repair system will work overtime until then. We’ll get you across the room, and then I don’t want you to move unnecessarily. You got me?”

Caedes nodded so very slowly.

Chris threw one of the Icarus’ arms over his shoulder. Tameka took the other. For a brief moment, her bright green eyes met Caedes’ deeper ones. No wasting time. “Thank you—”

A boom and a crash interrupted her. The place vibrated with the shock of it. Another explosion?

The comms device whirred and Bone’s voice came on the line, “We’re here to get you out.”

Chris snarked, “With what? A bulldozer?”

“The crawlers.”