The Sixth Seal полностью

Henri looked up at her.

Zahra jabbed him in the face with her fist, bloodying his nose. “Now we’re even.”

Henri flared his nostrils and blinked his tearing eyes. “Fair enough.”

“Let’s go.” Zahra began her ascent. “You get the journal?”

Henri visualized the prized possession in his admin pouch. “N-no,” he lied. “It fell with the others.”

“Great news!”

Henri looked up at her, frowning.

“You’re terrible people. I’m glad it’s gone.”

Zahra and Henri were nearly at the top of the quickly widening hole in the hangar floor. She had decided to save Henri’s life on a whim. Maybe it was recency bias that had motivated her? Men like him deserved to die, but she had saved him — for what?

Yet, here I am.

“So, you’re a Nazi, huh?” Zahra asked. She needed to know.

“I am a soldier. My motives are not driven by race or religion.”

Well, that’s good to know.

“But your organization was founded by the worst Nazi of them all.”

“Himmler was a remarkable man.”

Zahra looked down at Henri. “See, told ya. Nazi.”

She made it to the crater’s edge and pulled herself up. Zahra didn’t bother helping Henri with the rest of his climb. She’d already helped him more than he deserved.

They sat on their knees and caught their breath as two sets of footfalls came charging toward them. She looked up from the cracked floor and saw Yana and Hammet sprinting her way, but their focus wasn’t on her.

It was on Kyle Ford, a.k.a. Henri Vogel.

Zahra held out a shaky hand. “Stop!”

The surprised pair did. They pulled up just as they were about to send Henri back into the growing void.

“But he’s one of them?” Hammet said, confused by why she would protect him.

“And he saved our lives.”

Yana stepped closer to Henri with gritted teeth. “There is no room for honor with animals like him.” She jabbed a finger in his face. “You deserve only death.”

“Yana,” Zahra said, but her friend didn’t look at her.

“Yana?”

The Russian’s eyes flashed to Zahra.

“We aren’t like them.”

Hammet removed his stare from Henri and met Zahra’s eyes. He put a hand on the irate Russian’s shoulder. “She’s right. Let him go.”

“Let him go?” Yana shouted. “You, of all people, should want to watch him suffer. He’s a Nazi!”

“Yes, I know. But Zahra is right. He saved our lives,” he looked at Henri, “even if it really was to only save his own.”

Yana burned with rage. She shook to the point of exploding. She turned red and turned away. Henri took that as his cue to leave. He got to his feet and stepped around Yana and Hammet, giving them a wide berth as he did.

Suddenly, the floor beneath Zahra gave way, and she fell. Yana and Hammet were forced to flee and run toward the center of the hangar to avoid joining her. Zahra free-fell until she snagged the end of her grappling hook’s stout cord. She came to an abrupt stop, unsure of what the claws had caught. The floor beneath her crumbled to reveal a light show of intergalactic proportions.

George Lucas, eat your heart out.

There, she hung alone, and witnessed the alien spacecraft fully emerge from the continent’s embrace. The ice shook free like a dog shaking off fleas. How the ship got all the way down here was still beyond Zahra’s understanding. Sanitation? Heat?

The spacecraft was the size of a cruise liner, but that’s where the similarities ended. It was solid black and covered with the same panels as the Geisterbombers. These panels were significantly larger, though.

The pulsating purple light wasn’t coming from any kind of engine Zahra could see. She couldn’t see any external thrusters from her overhead view. The beautiful aura was coming from the ship itself. It was an energy field of some kind.

Then, the ship fell.

As it fell, she saw that the chasm was much larger than Zahra had originally thought. It would engulf the ship with ease.

The light increased in strength, and so did the unearthly sound.

Zahra watched in awe as the panels blurred. They started at what she guessed was its bow. Row by row, the ship vanished from sight — only the very tip of the stern was left. Then, when it too was gone, the ship let out one final, earth-shattering bwomp and the purple light shrank inward, then exploded outward. She covered her eyes involuntarily, but the effect was visual only. And it was quick.

In less than three seconds, it was gone.

To where, Zahra had no idea.

Oh my God, she thought. The launch hadn’t been a “launch” in the classic sense. Did it teleport? Can the bombers do that, too? Another possibility was that it slipped into another dimension. Is that how it got here?

“Zahra!” She looked up and saw Yana and Hammet waving at her. Yana cupped her hands around her mouth. “We’re going to pull you up!”