by R. D. Brady
He shot out a sidekick at the knee of another Unwelcome, not letting himself look at the face to see if it might be Anixquold, Dexender, or Gaxdrill.
An Unwelcome latched on to his arm; another one grabbed his back. A third tried to grab him from the front, but Miles kicked with both feet into the giant’s chest. Using his momentum, he yanked his arms free as he landed in a crouch. He spun around, sweeping out the leg of the Unwelcome behind him. The whole floor shuddered as he hit.
Miles rolled as one of the Unwelcome dove for him. He propped himself up on his hands, his gaze shooting to movement by the main doors. Two more Unwelcome appeared, both out of uniform.
And between them stood Lyla.
93
Lyla took in the scene in a glance. Riley and Petra were taking on four Unwelcome each. Miles was just getting to his feet after having rolled to avoid getting hit by another Unwelcome.
Arthur and Thor sprinted toward Riley and Petra to help. But Lyla, she went right for Miles. She didn’t think. She didn’t plan. She just let herself react. An Unwelcome reached out a giant arm for her. She ducked under it, slamming her fist into the Unwelcome’s stomach and then stomped on the back of his knee. With a yank on the back of its uniform, she slammed it onto its back.
Another tried to grab her from behind, while a second charged her from the front. She slipped the one from behind as she ducked her shoulders and slammed her shoulder right into the Unwelcome coming straight at her. Pushing through his hip, she yanked on the backs of its knees. It crashed down as well. Lyla ran right over the top of it.
Another charged. Lyla spun, slamming a spinning back kick into the being’s chest, and it went flying into three others coming up behind it.
And the whole time she fought, she tracked Miles. He was alive. He was fighting, but he was alive.
And she was damn well going to make sure he stayed that way.
Three Unwelcome converged on Miles, but the Unwelcome weren’t the problem. They were the puppets. She needed to take down the puppet masters.
Lyla shot a glance at the dais. It was only ten feet off the ground. I can handle ten feet.
She shifted her direction, aiming for the dais. Forms shuffled, and a cry of alarm rose from the dais as if they understood her intent. Unwelcome broke off from their fights to intercept her. She weaved and twirled, keeping out of their reach. But then one ended up right in front of her, sprinting forward. Another spinning back kick sent it flying into two more. Lyla didn’t slow. She sprinted forward, stepping up on the pile of Unwelcome and leaping for the dais. She landed with a roll.
An Unwelcome leaned down to grab her, but she rolled out of his way and onto her feet. She was two feet from a Naku. She slammed the ball of her foot into its chest. With a squeal, the creature went flying off the dais. The two Unwelcome that reached for her stopped, shaking their heads as if trying to shake off a fly.
Lyla didn’t waste any time. She sprinted forward, ducking under the punch of an Unwelcome and aiming a sidekick at the next Naku, who slammed into a third. Both of them collapsed to the ground.
“Stop!” the human liaison called out, scrambling back.
Lyla ignored him. Unwelcome were climbing onto the dais behind her. The ones that remained still under control created a wall between Lyla and the rest of the Naku.
Lyla slammed a round kick into the right knee of the first Unwelcome before shooting out a sidekick to its other knee. She grabbed the back of its head and yanked it out of the way as it tried to get its balance back. And then she was through. She bulldozed forward, slamming into the chest of the first Naku and then using him to ram into the other three behind him.
“Stop! Stop now! I will kill them all!” Romag blasts emitted sharp blasts as if to accentuate his point.
Lyla went still, her gaze darting over the throne room. There hadn’t been any romags in the room at play when Lyla arrived. The Naku no doubt thought that if the humans got a hold of them, they would be able to attack the Naku from a distance.
They were right.
But now Miles, Riley, and Petra were all held by Unwelcome, and romags were in the arms of six other Unwelcome that now appeared in the room.
Lyla’s heart nearly stopped dead when she realized that Thor and Arthur held on to Riley and Petra. They were once again under the control of the Naku. Thor had been wrong. The ash didn’t protect them from the mental intrusions of the Naku. And now they were working on behalf of the Naku.
Lyla stepped toward the edge of the dais.
“Stay where you are, or I will have them killed.”
Lyla narrowed her eyes, knowing that it was the human making that threat and not the Naku. “Traitor,” she hissed.
He smiled in response. “You are ungrateful for all the Naku have provided. Some of us know how to treat the gods amongst us.”
Lyla knew that with one quick burst of speed, she could be across the stage. But the Naku leader must’ve sensed her intent, because six Unwelcome stepped in front of the liaison.
At the edge of the dais, Arthur and Thor stood with Petra and Riley. Lyla scanned their faces. Petra and Riley looked mutinous, but she also knew they did not want to hurt either Arthur or Thor. She was pretty sure they did not feel the same reserve when it came to the Unwelcome on the other side.
She looked at Arthur. His face was completely blank. All that emotion, all that personality, was gone. His gaze shifted for a split second toward her, and he winked.
Lyla barely managed to keep in her gasp. He wasn’t under their control. Then what was he—
Arthur released Petra, stepping back. He threw something into the air. Ash burst around the room, scattering and landing on everyone within a thirty-foot radius.
Thor was already moving, vaulting up onto the dais. He crashed past the Unwelcome standing there. They did nothing to stop him, appearing stunned. Thor bulldozed past them as the Naku squealed, trying to get away. Lyla sprinted around the Unwelcome in front of her as the human liaison screamed.
But he was unimportant. Her gaze was focused on the Esteemed Leader sitting in his glider. He had turned his glider and was heading across the dais for the exit.
“Lyla!” Miles yelled as he chucked Lyla a helmet.
She caught it and flung it at the retreating leader. It crashed into the back of his head. He slumped forward, his glider still moving before it ran into a wall and dropped to the floor with a clatter.
The Esteemed Leader did not move.
94
The Esteemed Leader was dead.
Miles could barely believe it. After all the Naku had done, for it to end so quickly seemed impossible. Arms grabbed him from behind, and he was spun around. Riley grinned at him and yanked him into a hug. Miles’s throat felt tight, and his eyes burned as he hugged his brother back.
He stepped back and was pulled into another hug by Petra. She clung to him, and Miles wrapped his arms around her, breathing her in. And to his great surprise, she seemed reluctant to let him go.
Then Arthur was there. He picked Miles up and twirled him around with a laugh. “I knew you were all right.”
“Thanks to your sister,” Miles said when Arthur put him back on the floor.
Surprise flashed across Arthur’s face as Miles gestured to Anixquold. Anixquold stepped forward hesitantly. “Arthur, I shouldn’t have—”
Arthur crossed the space between them in two long strides and wrapped his arms around her. “I have missed you.”
“I have missed you as well,” she replied.
The Unwelcome stirred around Miles and then stepped aside, making a path.
Lyla walked toward him. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. And Miles felt his own eyes fill as well. She didn’t take her gaze from him as she closed the distance, and then she was hugging him tightly, her whole body shaking.
Miles held on to her and let the tears flow.
“You’re safe now. You’re safe,” Lyla repeated over and over again. Miles just held on to her,
his throat too tight for words to pass.
95
Alan fell to his knees as the Unwelcome charged the dais. And it was on his hands and knees that he’d crawled from the dais and through a side door. No one seemed to have noticed.
On trembling legs, he ran through the darkened ship, not sure where he was going. They had killed the gods. They had killed the beings who would guarantee their future. Humanity was lost now. Once again, humanity would be pushed underneath the rubble.
Alan turned into the first hallway he came across. Then he slipped down hallway after hallway, not paying attention to where he was going, not capable of thinking beyond the idea of getting away. But even as he thought it, he knew there was nowhere to get away to. Safety was gone. That woman and her people had ruined any chance he had of being safe.
He wandered without direction, without focus, his mind racing. When the ship had first been damaged, Alan had been confused. He hadn’t understood what had happened. But then as it began to tip and tilt, he knew they were going to crash. And for the first time, he saw fear on the face of the Naku. For a few moments, they had all sat stunned. Then they had gone about in their quiet, methodical way of trying to get the ship to the planet without it being fully destroyed.
And even in the midst of that chaos, the Esteemed Leader had sought him out. He already knew that they needed to take the next steps. That the humans needed to be dealt with and that an arrangement needed to be brokered so that the Naku could continue to thrive.
Sparks burst from a panel as he passed. He screamed, jumping away while swatting at his arm. The humans had done this. New City below was in chaos according to the reports. And the gods had been killed. Alan had felt nothing but rage at his own kind. And now he fanned that rage. He was the only one left who could exact retribution.
He did not have fighting skills. The ship was in its death throes, which meant any chances of large-scale retribution were impossible.
But that one woman, he could do something about her.
It was the least he owed the Naku.
96
After the death of the Esteemed Leader and retrieving Miles, Lyla wanted nothing more than to get the hell off the ship. But first they needed to deal with the Unwelcome that were still in the throne room.
A few of them had disappeared from of the room after the Esteemed Leader died. Lyla turned to the three that now stood with Miles.
Miles nodded at each of them. “This is Dexender and Gaxdrill. You already know Anixquold. They were helping me escape.”
Lyla noted that they were the three who hadn’t had helmets when she’d arrived in the throne room. A few others had already removed theirs. Thor and Arthur were speaking with them quietly a short distance away.
Anixquold shook her head. “That’s not true. We were his captors. I was his assailant. You should—”
Miles cut her off with a glare. “You were helping me. I don’t care about before that.” He turned and raised an eyebrow at Lyla, his glare no less serious. “And you don’t either, do you?’
Lyla had to bite back her smile. She had been afraid that his captivity would have broken him. That he would no longer be Miles. And it was true; he was different. But he wasn’t weaker. No, his captivity had made him stronger.
She nodded. “Nope. If Miles says you helped him, then that’s good enough for me. Now let’s get off the ship.”
“What about the other Naku?” Anne asked.
“I want everybody off the ship. We’ll regroup, try to help your people figure out their next steps, and then we’ll set up a search party to go through the ship level by level, room by room, to make sure that the Naku are gone.”
“Are you going to kill them all?” Miles asked.
“Not if we don’t have to.” She smiled at Arthur, who headed toward them. “And apparently we have a way of making sure that even the avad are safe from the Naku’s mental intrusions.”
“There is much to tell you.” Arthur wrapped an arm around Miles and his other around his sister, hauling her up to his side. Anixquold squirmed, looking uncomfortable with the affectionate gesture, but she didn’t step away.
“Yes,” Lyla replied dryly. “Like perhaps you could explain how you happened to have a pocket full of Ta’Chiko’s ash.”
Now it was Arthur’s turn to look uncomfortable. “I took it from Ta’Chiko’s box. I thought we might need it.”
“And you decided not to tell me?” Lyla asked.
“There was a human expression that Saul taught me: Better to ask forgiveness than permission. It seemed to apply.”
Lyla rolled her eyes. “I’m going to need to have a chat with Saul.”
It took them another twenty minutes to get off the ship. The Unwelcome seemed nervous about being close to the humans. Although even as Lyla thought that, she realized she had to stop thinking that way. After all, they were all humans. And that would be one thing that she would be sure to explain to them as soon as they got everything organized.
Her hand was wrapped in Miles’s when the two of them stepped off the ship. Miles held his face up to the sun with a smile on his face, and his eyes closed. Lyla leaned into him, sharing in the enjoyment of his first taste of sunlight in weeks.
He grinned down at her, and she smiled in return. He was fine. He was going to be fine. Around them, the other Unwelcome were looking around curiously.
A shout went up from down the street. Adros, Montel, and a dozen other of their people were racing toward them, smiles on their faces. The Unwelcome took a step back, some of them looking like they were about to flee.
Lyla stepped forward with her hands up. “It’s all right. They’re with us.” She stepped out of the way to allow Adros and everyone else access to Miles. Her grin widened with each person who hugged him.
She ended up standing next to Anixquold. She glanced up at the tall woman. Anixquold was watching Miles with a furrowed brow.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t understand this greeting. Are they all family?”
Lyla glanced back at the group. She grinned. “Yes. They’re all family.”
A romag blast sounded behind her, and pain burst through Lyla’s back as she pitched forward.
97
Chaos erupted. But Lyla was only partly aware of it. Her back burned as if she had been scalded by boiling water. No, as if she was continually being scalded by boiling water. The pain rippled through her over and over again.
Anne caught her so she didn’t crash face first into the ground. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the human liaison with a romag in his hand. He darted away as Dexender and Gaxdrill took off after him, Riley and Petra right behind, along with half a dozen others.
Then Arthur was there at her side, his eyes wide. “No.” He went to pull her up.
Anne stayed his hand. “No. Don’t move her. The blast hit her in the back.”
Arthur’s hand dropped. “What do I do?”
Miles crouched down on her other side. “We need water. And cloths and—” His words cut off as he looked at the mothership. “Anne, do you know how to convert power on the ship?”
And shook her head. “No, but—”
Pxedlin stepped forward. “I may be able to.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Miles said before standing and yelling. “I need at least six of you to come with me.”
He darted away, but Lyla couldn’t tell where he was headed. Just the idea of turning her head made her light-headed, so instead she closed her eyes and let the pain take her away.
98
Silence. It was the first thing that Lyla noticed—the silence. Her limbs felt awkward, and her head felt like it was being held at an unnatural angle. She struggled to open her eyes, but it felt like there was almost something holding down her eyelids.
She became more and more aware of the environment around her and of how still it was. Blood began to pound in her ears. Something was wrong.
Where am I?
Her eyes flew open, and she jolted her head back. She was in a container, a clear glass container. It looked like she was surrounded by water, but there was a firmness to it not found in water.
Panic began to roar through her. They caught me. Somehow the Naku—
A face appeared in front of her. Dark skin, bright brown eyes. Miles.
He was trying to say something to her, but she couldn’t make it out through the glass. And then she felt movement. The liquid surrounding her was moving. Slowly the level of the liquid began to lower until her head was free, then her chest and arms, and finally only her feet were in the liquid as it slowly disappeared down the drain at the bottom of the cylinder.
The door at the front of the cylinder flew open. Arthur reached in. “I’ve got you.”
He pulled her out, cuddling her to his chest, not caring about the gel that was now transferring from Lyla to him.
It was difficult to work up enough saliva to even get out a word. Lyla swallowed, her mouth feeling dry. Lyla’s gaze scanned the area. This is where I was shot.
Miles appeared next to her, holding a cup to her lips. “Drink this. Slowly.”
Relief flowed through her as the first drops of water hit her parched mouth. She drank until the painful dryness in her mouth and throat receded, then she tapped gently on his hands. He pulled the cup away, and she swallowed again.
“What happened?” she asked.
“That snake Alan, he shot you outside the mothership. It was bad, Lyla. I didn’t think—” Miles’s voice cut off.
Arthur’s grip on her tightened, but she didn’t complain. “Miles had a great idea. With Pxedlin’s help, they managed to hook up one of the healing pods from the medical bay. The other Unwelcome helped carry it out here.”