Read The Rising Sun: Episode 2 for Free Online Page A

spinning around on his chair to look
to look at their leader. Standing ahead of the table with his arms
folded in front, Evander nodded.
     
    Another one drew in a deep breath and said,
“And exactly where did the attack happen?”
     
    “Somewhere at the border of cluster 32.”
replied Evander, unfolding his arms and placing them on the table
before.
     
    “And this is the second attack in a
row, you say?” said another of the suited men, his posture
stiffening as he looked at Evander. “Did you say the first was an
attack at the planet Tansof, to the Mech laboratory?”
     
    Evander nodded again.
     
    Another rigid silence fell over the room. The
Naxim’s high council sank back to their grave ponderings. They all
seemed to be quietly weighing the scale of catastrophe, their faces
mirrors of the same dread and anxiety.
     
    Just minutes back, news had hit Evander of a
fresh attack by the same mystics responsible for the earlier one at
Tansof … But this time, it was different. This time, it was far
worse. They had blown an entire cruiser up.
     
    Evander had immediately called a meeting of
the Naxim’s high council, the entity governing the entire
organization. For he had realised that the situation had soared
well beyond limits.
     
    Their world was now under attack.
     
    Evander heaved a silent breath, bringing
himself back to focus. “We have a picture of the mystic, from the
video conference he held with the president of Dragor.”
     
    He walked forward and tapped a central spot
on the board table. A large sized holographic screen materialised
over it, rotating slowly for the entire boardroom to see. A face
stared out of the screen, frozen. It was the very same face Evander
had seen in the earlier picture, taken at Mech laboratory. Only
now, it was like having the face brought half to life on
screen…
     
    The man was standing right in front of the
screen, with an evil grin upon his pale face. He seemed to be in
one of the hallways of the cruiser, and lines of sleeping - or
unconscious - passengers could be seen behind him. The man’s long
black hair parted to reveal a colourless, pale face. With eyeless,
blank sockets that gazed out. A set of razor like teeth were
exposed as he smiled.
     
    Everything about him seemed unnatural.
Twisted.
     
    “Do we have any idea where they are now?”
asked one of the councillors , after the sharp effect left by the
picture had faded.
     
    Evander heaved a deep sigh, and then shook
his head. “We thought we did. But we’ve been proved wrong. We had
not a clue of where they were, and of where they are as of
now.”
     
    Derigor, who sat opposite to where Evander
stood, tapped on the table gently.
     
    “Now we know they’re after something.” he
said, looking about the room. “These attacks - the one at Mech
laboratory, and the cruiser … they are carrying these attacks with
some intention behind them. They’re after something and we need to
need to know what that is.”
     
    “But the more important question,” said
another of the councillors, his voice heavy with foreboding. “is
what next?” He brought his gaze to the picture hovering over the
table, with the eyeless man.
     
    “That’s very right.” Evander said quietly. “I
don’t think this is the last of what we’re going to see of them.
And we need to arm ourselves in preparation of what’s about to come
next.”
     
    A few of them nodded, while the rest of them
continued to gaze at the picture rotating in the middle of the
table, visibly unnerved.
     
    “The first thing we need to do,” continued
Evander. “is to tighten all security parameters in the inner
spectrum. We need Naxim ships patrolling each cluster, and
conducting checks on all as many passing ships as possible.”
     
    “Agreed.” said Derigor. “And in addition, we
need to bring in high security protocols. In every cluster.”
     
    “We’ll have to inform all of the planets of
this threat,” said the man sitting beside