From the Ashes

by A B Lucian

  Yosh wished he had a watch. He’d set the self-destruct for five minutes, and he estimated it took them three to traverse the hundred yards up the hill. If his plan didn’t work, the arkanians would track them to the depot. Yosh thought he could take one out if need be, but his glasses were gone and his eyelids were already sore from all the squinting. He still limped, his face stung, and his brain burned from the pain. He was in no condition to fight an arkanian soldier. Yosh wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers. Despite the distance and the darkness and the absence of his glasses, Yosh could see pretty well. Was squinting really this effective?

  The arkanians checked around the smoking ship and were now doing something to the ramp. Yosh counted them. Two fumbled with the ramp, two patrolled the surroundings, and the fifth was somewhere out of sight.

  “Come on, explode,” he whispered through his teeth. Ara sat huddled close to him, behind the door.

  The two arkanians pried open the entrance ramp, and entered commando-style, guns ready. Yosh clenched his teeth. This was a disaster. They would discover the self-destruct and shut it off. It only required the flip of a switch. There was no time for second guessing. Yosh pulled out the pulse gun, squinted hard, and squeezed the trigger. He had aimed at the patrolling arkanians, but the streak of deadly blue skittered across the ship’s ramp, making a terrible scraping noise. That wasn’t half-bad, considering the circumstances.

  The two arkanians poked their heads out, taking cover at the entrance, weapons barred and held at eye level. The two on patrol dropped to the ground instantly, scouring the surroundings for the shooter. I guess I’m not that bad a shot even without my glasses, Yosh thought. He saw better than he expected, as if he still had his glasses, but it was hard to compare because of all the smoke and the darkness. The arkanians shouted something between them. One of them fired a shot toward the depot. Blast it, they had seen him. The smoking transport ship flashed white and erupted into orange flames, taking out the arkanians taking cover at the entrance ramp. A wave of flames and pieces of hot metal caught the other two, hurling them tens of feet away, like burning rag-dolls.

  “Yes!” Yosh smacked his palm against the cold floor. “We did it.”

  “Yosh,” Ara murmured, looking panicked.

  “It worked Ara, it worked!”

  Ara ducked behind the door, pointing somewhere in the distance.

  A streak of blue flashed against the steel door, less than a foot from Yosh’s head. His heart jumped to his throat, and he dropped to the floor on his belly. He glanced downhill. The fifth arkanian ran toward them from cover to cover, firing his weapon. Lower on the hill, one of the two caught by the blast staggered to his feet. Yosh slid inside and shut the door. He had the only key, so the arkanians weren’t getting in, but now they were trapped. Yosh leaned against the steel door. Something didn’t add up. How come I spotted the two arkanians so easily? My glasses are junked and I haven’t used my eye drops in over two days. His skin still itched underneath his overalls. He checked the sleeveless arm where his boils had split open earlier. Shreds of sticky, vile looking skin riddled his arm, but something was off. Yosh brushed away the dead skin and sticky pus. Raw, pink skin lay underneath. Still wet, but otherwise smooth as a baby’s bottom.

  “No way,” was all he managed to say before the door at the opposite end of the depot’s main corridor burst open.

  Chapter Nine

  Yosh cursed himself for not checking the second door. He dragged Ara behind the closest of the two arkanian terminals in the corridor. The terminals were old things—computers as large as bookshelves and twice as wide. There was plenty of space to hide behind them. Yosh breathed in deep and poked his face beyond the edge of the terminal. He fired two shots. The streaks of light bathed the small corridor between the dog pens and the wall in bright blue, but missed the arkanian soldier. He’d taken cover behind the other terminal.

  The soldier’s communicator buzzed. “I’m in the building and I have the human pinned,” he told someone in Arkanian.

  Another arkanian answered, his voice ragged. “I’m at the front entrance. I’ll circle around and join you.”

  “No,” the first one said. “Stay there to block him. Shoot your way through. I’ll keep him busy and we can take him from both sides.”

  “Understood.”

  Ara had understood their guttural words too. She shivered, looking at Yosh with fearful eyes. He needed come up with a plan, but the clamor made it hard to focus. Shots rang from outside against the front door and the metal visibly heated and bent around the locking mechanism. They had minutes, at most, before it broke. The other arkanian shot at them now and then, probably so they’d stay put. Which meant Yosh had to fire back just to keep the arkanian guessing. Otherwise, he might get a sudden craving to charge at them. But worst of all were the dogs. They were hungry, scared, and angry. They clawed at their pens, barked, and slammed their three-hundred-pound bodies against the mesh. It was enough to drive Yosh mad.

  Ara clung to him. “What do we do, Yosh?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, firing at the arkanian. Two shots came back in response.

  “Give up, human,” the arkanian soldier said in a guttural version of the common language. “There’s nowhere to run. You’re trapped.”

  Yosh answered him with a shot. It missed by far and glanced off the durasteel mesh of the dogs’ pen. This inspired an even more furious round of barking. He needed time to think. “Why are you after me?”

  “You will not be harmed if you surrender.”

  “I don’t believe you. I saw what your commander did. He killed at least six slaves!”

  “Commander Kagos… is dead,” the soldier said. “We won’t harm you. You have my word.”

  Yosh thought about it. Even that bastard Commander Kagos hadn’t killed him on the spot. And Lord Munov had asked about humans. Whatever their purpose was, they wanted him and his grandfather alive. But why?

  “What about Ara?” Yosh asked as the girl clung to him like a panicked cat.

  “Who?”

  “The lorran girl who escaped with me.”

  “We don’t care about her. She’ll be free to leave if you surrender.”

  “How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know your name.”

  For a while he could hear only the dogs barking and scratching at the pen doors.

  “Rastos,” the arkanian said.

  “What?”

  “Rastos,” he repeated. “That’s my name, Rastos of clan Ghalla. My comrade will break through the door any minute and we’ll take you by force. You have no choice.”

  Yosh gritted his teeth. “There is always hope,” his grandfather had told him once. “Keep your eyes and your mind open, and your heart filled with purpose.” There had to be a way out. If only he could think.

  “Maybe we should do what he says,” Ara said. “I don’t want to die.”

  “I don’t trust him, Ara, he’s an arkanian. If I put down my gun, I don’t know what he’ll do.”

  Tears welled up in Ara’s big eyes. “But he said he wouldn’t hurt us.”

  “Ara,” Yosh said, trying to be as gentle as possible, “you saw what they did today. You were three feet away when they shot Ghett. They would have shot you too if I hadn’t surrendered.”

  The memory of Ghett dying was too much for her. Tears flowed, mixing with the blue, crusty blood on her cheek. She shook her head. “But… but he said the Commander Kagos is dead.”

  “He did, but the shock stick wouldn’t have killed him,” he said, frowning. “Arkanians are tough. This Rastos has to be lying.”

  She shuddered as the blasts pounding the front door grew louder. The dark red blot on the metal door grew hotter and hotter. It wouldn’t last much longer.

  “This is your final chance,” Rastos shouted. “Surrender! You won’t be harmed and the girl will be free to leave.”

  “What do we do,” Ara asked. “Yosh?”

  Yosh cradled his throbbing head
in his hands. The barking was driving him mad. “I don’t know, I’m trying to think but these blasted dogs…” He pointed to the dogs and clenched his teeth, and it came to him. Of course, he thought. It was here all along, I just didn’t keep my eyes open. “Don’t move,” he told Ara, turning to speak to Rastos. “All right, Rastos. I accept. I’m coming out. Don’t shoot!”

  He made to stand up, but Ara caught him by the arm and shook her tiny blue head.

  “Trust me,” he said. “Stay low and keep quiet.”

  She let go of his arm and hugged her scrappy blue knees.

  “Throw your gun over before I hold my fire,” Rastos said.

  Yosh complied. He kicked his gun toward Rastos. It slid across the rough cement, stopping in the middle, between the two terminals. Rastos prowled out from behind the terminal, gazed at the gun, and surveyed Yosh. Yosh held his palms open at hip level. He stepped forward, out of easy reach of the hiding place, but in perfect range to access the controls on the terminal.

  Rastos lowered his pulse rifle. “The lorran girl?”

  Yosh couldn’t have asked for more. “Right behind the terminal,” he said, moving his right hand toward the terminal’s controls. The motion hadn’t raised Rastos’s suspicious, which was perfect. Yosh flipped a small switch with one smooth flick of his fingers, and the gates to the dog pens burst open.

  Rastos’s red eyes narrowed. He raised his rifle and aimed at Yosh, but the dogs already burst through the gates. One sank its teeth in the arm holding the rifle, two others grappled Rastos’ legs, and the rest snapped at his face and neck. The brutality of the dogs took Yosh aback. They had never acted this way before. Blood and scales flew everywhere, while Rastos screamed. Yosh couldn’t watch. He rummaged through the fat dogs for the pulse gun and went back to get Ara. They couldn’t stay here. More and more dogs poured out of the pens and Yosh didn’t know how much longer they would focus their attention on Rastos the Tasty. This brutal side of the dogs scared him.

  More screams came from outside, screams and gunfire—lots of it.

  “What’s happening?” Ara asked.

  Yosh shook his head. “We need to leave. Come on, the dogs won’t hurt you.” I hope.

  It was rough trekking through the mob of dogs shoving this way and that. When almost past the second terminal a dog whimpered and someone roared, and a half-dead dog flew past Yosh’s head. He froze in place, twisting to see what happened.

  Monstrous screams came from the middle of the pack. A thick green tail, slick with blood whipped back and forth, smashing the dogs and cracking their bones. Rastos had deep gashes all over his assault suit and bits of flesh hung loose from his face and neck. In some places the bone was exposed, yet he was on his feet, wrestling a tidal wave of claws and teeth. He grabbed a dog by the throat with one hand and smashed him so hard against the ground that Yosh’s teeth clattered. The other hand held a pulse gun, firing amid the dogs, hitting many and scaring more. His tail flashed back and forth as he twirled around, gun blazing. The dogs still came, hungry and mad. Yosh had never seen them like this.

  Yosh pulled Ara’s hand. “Let’s go, fast.” Why hadn’t the other arkanian broken the door?

  “Human,” Rastos screamed they passed by. His face was bloody and his mouth opened in a constant scream as he fought off the dogs. “No human tricks Rastos. Die, human, die!” Rastos gave up firing at the dogs and turned his weapon against Yosh. He got off three shots before the dogs overwhelmed and pulled him to the ground. Two missed, but one took Yosh straight in the chest.

  ◆◆◆

  “You should have been there to see him in action, Sabina,” her grandfather told her, his eyes beaming. “Jack Mullen was the best and brightest of us. I was young, not even eighteen when he recruited me. I joined the Academy at my father’s insistence. ‘Military life is in our blood,’ he told me. He never asked me what I wanted.” Her grandfather’s wrinkled hands cupped under his chin, his large bones visible beneath the papery white skin. His hands may seem as feeble as any other sixty-year-old man’s hands, but those paws could break bones as easily as withered sticks. He stared at the control panel in front of him as if all the answers in the universe lay there. Olexander Farmer, the last true Protector of the Earth. Her grandfather was 132 years old. He looked like a man in his sixties and fought like one in his thirties. Would the years be so kind to Sabina?

  She stirred in the seat next to him. “What did you want to do?”

  That broke his reverie. He turned to her and smiled through his brittle white beard. “I wanted to be a writer.”

  She smiled back. “Don’t take it the wrong way, but a gun fits your hand better than any quill.”

  He growled and shook his head. “All my attempts were colossal failures, but that didn’t deter me. I was a stubborn young man, you see. Books still had a place in the world back then.”

  “And now you’re a stubborn old man, and we’re all lucky that you are.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Who else would plow through a hundred years of enslavement just to see Earth free? People would have forgotten about freedom without you.”

  He stared at her for a moment with his deep blue eyes, young and burning. “Don’t be silly, girl, humans aren’t meant to be slaves. Someone somewhere would still have rallied them and led them to freedom even if I weren’t here.”

  “So you say, but you know how things are out there. The largest gathering of humans can’t be more than a thousand strong. The arkanians made sure of it; they made sure humans were spread thin and lived in terror.”

  “Because they fear us, and they’re right to do so.” He turned to the control panel and tapped a few commands. “We’ll be dropping out of hyperspace in a few minutes.”

  Sabina let her sight wander around the inside of her grandfather’s ship. It was a scout ship, medium size. He had never showed it to her until now. Her grandfather was careful. The cockpit was well lit, with soft seats, and the viewscreens and control panels spread evenly in front of them, but only had enough room for two. It had one huge viewscreen above their heads, of course. It had a certain elegance she had seen nowhere else. She had piloted over fifty types of ships in her line of work: cargo haulers, transport ships, fighters, interceptors, luxury liners, a small frigate once, even day-to-day personal transports. Some were luxurious, others rough, and others had only functionality in their design. But this ship, her grandfather’s ship, was all she could wish for and more.

  “It’s nice to have a hyperdrive on such a small ship,” she said. “From what I’ve seen, not even heavy frigates have to piggy-back with bigger vessels.”

  He sighed. “The Protectors had the best technology available. Our ships were faster, smaller, our shields were stronger, our weapons more powerful, and we were smarter.”

  “So how did we lose then?”

  He didn’t seem to like the question. “You know very well how. Too few of us, too few ships like this, too many fallen comrades, and too many betrayals.”

  The small circles of loose flesh beneath his eyes always tightened when he became upset. A knot caught in her throat. She almost laughed at her reaction. I can tear a man’s throat out with my bare hands and not even flinch, she thought, but I can’t bear to see my grandfather sad. It was worse than torture. “Tell me more about Jack Mullen,” she said. Her grandfather always enjoyed talking about him. “You named my father after him, didn’t you?”

  They dropped out of hyperspace.

  He nodded. “Jack Mullen—Jack ‘Darkheart’ everyone called him—but his heart was warmer and bigger than all of ours put together.” And so her grandfather smiled again. “Naming your father after him seemed... proper.” His entire body tensed as he studied the viewscreen. “We’re five minutes out from Mandessa. Hmm…”

  “Five minutes? Are you telling me you can jump so deep into the solar system? Are you trying to get us killed? We should have jumped near the edge.”

  “Quiet, girl,” he said, frowning at the screen. “It
was a perfectly safe hyperspace jump. It’s only dangerous to jump deep with big, heavy ships, and besides, I know Mandessa’s gravitational map like the inside of my pockets.” He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. “Even so, I fear we’re a bit late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s an arkanian heavy cruiser in orbit above Mandessa.”

  ◆◆◆

  Yosh’s head pounded as he drifted back to conciousness. His flesh throbbed and ached as if it wanted to come off the bone. Had the arkanians captured him? He remained still for a few moments, listening for gruff arkanian voices, or the shrill they made when they breathed, but there were none. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was Rastos being devoured by the dogs and... He shot me. Am I dead? Why aren’t I dead?

  He craned his eyelids open and looked around through the receding fog. He was in a bed, a clean bed. The sheets were white and soft under his fingers. Gray metal walls around him and bright lights above that hurt his brain to look at. Of course everything was foggy. That wouldn’t change until he replaced his glasses. He remembered the big shard that burrowed in his face and brought his fingers to his cheek. The skin was smooth—no trace of any wound or scab where the glass had cut him. Had it all been a dream?

  Someone sobbed to his left. He turned his head toward the blurry shadow sitting on a chair next to his bed. Why hadn’t he heard anything before?

  “Yosh,” someone said in a soft, trembling voice.

  He squinted. “Who—”

  In a heartbeat, the blurry shadow was on him, its sweet lips pressing against his. Two hands cradled his head. He spread his arms and wrapped them around Assai’s slender frame, pulling her close. She broke off from the kiss, cradled her head against his shoulder, and coiled her tail around one of his arms. “I knew you would survive. I knew it!” She trembled and even though Assai was slender and a foot shorter than Yosh, her strength was undeniable. Sinew popped somewhere inside Yosh’s chest.