by Enid Titan
25
Attacked By Dogs
Penelope heard whispers at the edge of her expanded awareness. Dark whispers from dark minds.
«Do you hear that?» She directed the question toward Castor who walked close to her, inhaling deep labored breaths. A scarf covered his face so only his yellow eyes and furrowed brow peeked out. Penelope wished she could see him smile again. And kiss him. And not have to worry whether they would make it to the next day.
«No. You’re tired. We’re nearly there, Penelope.»
Poppy smelled burning metal from the crash. She sensed the animals trailing and stalking them. Janus appeared to be even more aware of them than she was.
«Three dogs are stalking us,» he said.
«Keep going,» Cas instructed, «We’re nearly there.»
«Maybe the rescue pod got Lyric,» Galene suggested. From the simmering silence, Poppy sensed no one else believed her. Something sinister was happening on the tundra and they’d already lost most of their fellow debaters. She longed for clarity. Even keeping her mind open the pulsing thoughts of the surrounding Devorans did nothing to help Poppy.
They were scared or worried as she was. Antigone and Galene were afraid to lose each other. Janus had pictured his death at the jowls of a vamphare or tundra dog a thousand ways and times. Ajax worried about nothing. Jason sulked. Castor brooded but kept his worry tightly locked away so even with her Fengari talents, Penelope could hardly perceive him.
As the crashed ship came into view, it became clear that if there were any survivors, they’d be severely injured. Against the better judgment of staying together, Ajax and Eros burst ahead and ran toward the craft which was sandwiched partly beneath the snow and was smaller than the pod, around the size of old Earth prop-planes like the ones Uncle Monty built models of.
A growl behind them interrupted their lucky discovery. Dogs! Poppy slid her blade out of its covering and faced the creatures. Three dogs towered over her. Galene and Antigone had a greater advantage given their height, but they were still three bipeds against three ruthless creatures with gnashing teeth.
“Toss me an atom weapon!” Galene screamed.
Ajax tossed his weapon to her since she had a better vantage point. Antigone shone her torch in the creature’s eyes and it yelped, retreating a few feet and giving Galene time to mount her weapon.
“The weapon will pierce the hide above the right shoulder,” Ajax called.
The moment Galene fired slowed down in all our perceptions. The hum of Devoran telepathy transformed into a frenzied buzz. Galene was an older student, but the Academy didn’t train a militia. Her skills with an atom weapon weren’t in the least bit guaranteed.
The surge of light burst forth and hit the dog right on its shoulder. The dog yelped and the other one leaped forward. Penelope lunged forward and struck it with her dagger, piercing the hide, but only barely. She lunged backward as she pulled her weapon out forcefully.
“Penelope! What are you doing? The hide is too thick!” Jason was screaming at her and Ajax.
Castor fired his weapon at the dog Galene failed to kill. Inspired by Penelope’s mad action, Antigone and Eros lunged for the dog she’d pierced with their long daggers. Castor’s blast missed. Galene fired again, hitting the dog above the shoulder. It crumpled to the ground but the remaining two were fired up and prepared to kill.
Penelope dropped her dagger. Perhaps she’d been right to use Fengari techniques, just not those. She closed her eyes and cleared the Devoran buzzing from her mind. I’m not just a human. I’m not just a human. I’m not just a human. She was something more, something conceived on the dark side of the moon, something with power.
Penelope’s mind emptied quickly. She saw the dogs and their minds. Their thoughts weren’t complex, but instinctive, harder to read and more brutish as they filtered in. Her fingertips throbbed and buzzed with their energy. She couldn’t kill them. She couldn’t bring herself to reach into another’s mind and take their life, even if it was a dangerous creature. As if coming from another room, she heard Cas screaming her name. A simple command would do the trick.
«Leave us.»
The beasts became aware of her and retreated, growling. Poppy grit her teeth and screamed as loud as her telepathic mind allowed.
«LEAVE.»
The dogs yelped and Poppy screamed the word again. They turned their backs and fled. Poppy stumbled forward and fell face-first into the snow. When she woke up, Ajax crouched over her, fanning her face.
“She’s cold. Bring her water.”
“What happened?” Poppy muttered.
“You passed out for a few seconds, not before you let one of the dogs scratch you.”
“Where…”
Ajax dabbed at her cheek with a warm towel. Ah. Warmth. It was nice to feel warm again.
“Your cheek. Penelope, those creatures could have killed you,” Castor said, prickling with anger.
“I stopped them. I knew I could.”
“I don’t know how you did. Dogs don’t have telepathic fields.”
“They do,” Poppy groaned, struggling to sit up.
Her body had other plans and she fell back down into the snow again. Ajax held up her back.
Galene called over to them, “Is she alright?”
“So far.”
“I’ll take Antigone to the craft and search for any survivors.”
Cas nodded and Penelope closed her eyes again for what she thought was only a moment. She woke in the morning to see the tent above her. She rolled over and met Jason’s disapproving gaze.
“Good evening, jazad. I see you’ve decided not to die on us.”
“How long have I been out.”
“Hours. Cas and Ajax are outside. We found a survivor in the craft.”
“Did you talk to them?”
“You lay back down.”
“No, I want to see them.”
“Too late. They were injured. And died. In the morning, Antigone and Galene will perform the rites.”
Penelope never heard of Devoran death rites before. She sensed Jason’s anger and even if she longed for him, she didn’t dare try to broach his moods.
«You might know I’m angry with you, jazad, but you don’t know why,» he grumbled.
«I’m sorry.»
«You could have been killed.»
“I know.”
“You have to be careful.”
“I understand.”
“No. You don’t. That soldier we found… she said something that you need to hear about who we’re dealing with. About what’s happening back home.”
26
Return of The Order
The Order annexed a continent on Sekhmet-delta. The attacks on Vortha started one day after our pod left. The capital wasn’t aware that the pod had been lost but the students’ presence confirmed the soldier’s worst suspicions — The Order planned to attack from the tundra.
The Order found a way to survive out here better than we had. They could still be out there — hunting them. Poppy’s stomach tightened when she thought about what they’d been through the last time she encountered The Order. Daphne had only been a teenage girl. They were more powerful now than they were then.
“They probably took the others captive,” Jason continued.
“We have to find them.”
“No. We need to keep going. The Order is probably looking for you, Penelope. Your mind, whatever it is you learned on Fengari, they want to study it. They believe you’re a dark telepath.”
“I’m not!”
Penelope’s blood coursed with rage. How could they think she was like Daphne or the others who hurt her? She’d never do what they’d done. She’d never kill people for her ends.
“Relax, Penelope. I know you’re not some sort of dark telepath. What matters is they think you are. We need to be careful.”
“Right.”
“Let’s go outside and check on the boys. I doubt you’ll get much sleep here.”
“When’s the last time you slept?”
Jason furrowed his brow.
“I can’t sleep when you’re injured. I can’t.”
Poppy’s heart softened to him. Jason could be sullen and surly when he saw fit, but moments of his deep caring burst through all the time. Penelope followed him outside of the tent and her stomach dropped. They were surrounded. Devorans. They weren’t dressed in typical Devoran white but in scarlet uniforms that covered every exposed inch of their skin. They held weapons up to Castor and Galene. Antigone, Eros, Janus, and Ajax lay immobile in the snow. Poppy wanted to scream but before she could, a soldier of The Order grabbed her by the wrist and teleported them away.
Poppy landed on her knees in a prison cell alone. The soldier who had teleported with her held his weapon up to her head.
“Penelope Darden, jazad. Welcome to your new home.”
Poppy trembled but didn’t bother saying a word to him. The Order wanted her, but Jason never mentioned how much they knew about her and her telepathy. She could read this soldier’s mind. He was old — older than anyone she knew on Earth but still young for Devoran standards. At 200 years old, he was tired of the trend against isolationism the planet took and horrified at what he saw.
He came to The Order searching for an end to the polluting aliens, the outsiders that threatened the peace and freedom he knew on Devor. Poppy saw his childhood home, she saw the first person he killed long before she was born and she saw the people he’d kidnapped who were still alive. Oz. Poseidon was here somewhere and this man knew where he was.
He backed out the cell slowly, his weapon trained on Poppy as he left. The Fengari taught Penelope the power of silence to draw her awareness when she needed it and despite what happened, she was eerily calm. The only thing that broke her still waters was the image of Ajax lying in the snow. She hadn’t felt him the way she usually did, but she hadn’t felt his absence either.
The reality was, this might have been the death Sibyl mentioned — Ajax’s death. Poppy fell to her knees and pressed her back up against the stone walls. Breathe. Just breathe. Poppy was trying to will herself to fall asleep, partly from her earlier exhausting encounter and partly from a desire to have the walls of her prison disappear around her for just a moment so she could think.
«Penelope, are you there?»
«Castor… Where are you?»
«I don’t know. It’s dark. I can’t see. They shot Ajax. I think… I think he’s…»
«We don’t know for sure,» Poppy said, resting her head against the stone and hoping that Cas with his smooth blue skin and white hair was on the other side.
«Is Jason here too?»
«I don’t know,» Penelope asked, «I hadn’t heard his voice.»
«They don’t know we’re mates. If they did, they’d know how dangerous this is.»
«They have the others, Cas. I sensed it on the one who brought me in here.»
«Penelope, what aren’t you telling me about what happened on your moon?»
«I thought I told you everything.»
«Whatever you do, don’t tell them what you can do. Don’t let them find out how strong you are.»
«I might have to if we’re supposed to get out of here,» Poppy mused.
She’d told Jason that she wasn’t like them, that she could never kill, but just then when she brought the image of Ajax lying in the snow to the forefront of her mind, she thought she could kill.
«I didn’t feel his death,» Poppy whispered, her voice straining even telepathically, «He can’t be dead if I don’t feel that absence, right?»
«We should try to sleep. We’ve had a long night and we’ll plan better in the morning.»
Penelope nodded. Perhaps in her dreams, she’d see Jason or Ajax. She curled up on the stone floor, her neck bent at an awkward angle and she tried not to cry. She hadn’t cried much this time on Devor. When she first got here, her tears spilled easily. After her time on the moon, she’d toughened up. Crying might do for a while but come morning, or whenever her back could no longer tolerate freezing stone, she’d find a way out of here.
27
Ajax’s Rescue Mission
Ajax's parents were scientists. When he was a boy he’d been hurt, scratches down his chest so deep that the greatest reconstructive surgeons on Devor left him with large scars running across his breast. Two hearts enclosed in a large blue chest and a muscular body that heaved in ragged undulations as he law in the snow.
Ajax wasn’t as sensitive as his mate to the cold. The snow to him was no different from laying in the sand, but he could still freeze to death if he lingered too long. The blast had pierced through the top of his left shoulder. From his injuries as a child his parents had committed a great Devoran taboo, a secret he carried on his own. Metal implants. His chest and breasts reinforced from childhood with materials that made him as much of a cyborg as their Polluxian enemies.
Ajax turned his neck and nearly heaved the remnants of his dinner at the sight of his flesh ripped apart from the metal. At least there was little blood. One of his hearts pumped slower than the other, the arrhythmic motion made standing difficult. Until he bandaged that wound, he’d continue to lie useless in the snow, unable to help.
The Order left them for dead — Janus, Eros, and Antigone. Ajax tasted a metallic sliver of blood on the roof of his mouth and struggled in labored steps over to where they lay. Janus — dead. Eros — dead. Antigone — near death, but not quite gone. Eros. The cousin he hardly knew. Ajax kissed the top of the boy's forehead. They should have hand hundreds of years together. He kneeled next to Antigone and pushed her over, trying to awaken her. Ajax examined her body in the darkness. Shit.
A vamphare had attached itself to her injured leg, its teeth sunk deep into her blue flesh. Ajax yanked his dagger out and tried to convince the creature to unclench its teeth from Antigone.
“Begone, monster,” Ajax grunted.
The innocent-looking white creature wriggled its ears but refused to let go. He grabbed at its haunches and attempted to yank it off. It scuttled and hissed and reattached itself with renewed vigor. Ajax’s stomach flipped as he realized what he had to do — give the creature a more appealing option. He could handle it better than Antigone who by the looks of it had lost a lot of blood.
He sliced open a bit of his forearm with the dagger. He grimaced as he imagined what Penelope would say and how she’d chide him. Smelling a fresher flow, the vamphare left Antigone’s bleeding leg and attached itself to him.
“I should wring your neck,” Ajax grumbled.
Instead, he pinched his forearm and squeezed the fangs out of it. Once the vamphare came loose, he added a smooth kick in its behind and it bounded off, burrowing through the deep snow. Ajax groaned as he lifted Antigone off the ground. He’d have to get her in a tent and give her what medical care he could in the field.
From his parents' work, he knew more about medicine than most at the Academy. Simple Devoran first aid. He picked up a scanner, the one that Castor dropped as the scarlet-robed soldiers held them captive. She had a broken tibia which could be easily healed with the right settings, and dehydration.
After a few hours, Ajax finally had her awake and upright. With two bodies in the snow and the twin suns coming over the horizon, they couldn’t remain here long. Scavengers would smell the dead soon and without enough women to perform the rites, there was only one option.
Antigone’s haggard breathing turned to regular snores and she woke up right at sunrise. Ajax explained to her what happened. She held back her tears at the mention of Galene and Janus’ death. Before she’d rested enough Antigone suggested they get moving.
“What do you suggest we do? We’re both injured.”
“You wrapped your shoulder. My leg is almost healed. We can find them.”
“They must have teleported. They could be anywhere — hovering over us, out in space. Our best chance is to get to Vortha.”
“Are you sure they�
�re alive?” Antigone asked the question Ajax hadn’t wanted to consider.
He assumed they were alive. He’d mated with Penelope. He’d know if anything happened to her.
“I would know if anything happened to Penelope.”
“You hope,” Antigone finished, not meaning to be cynical, but certainly sticking to her Devoran ways.
Before he could retort, Ajax pressed a finger to his lips.
“Do you hear that?”
“No.”
“I hear crafts overhead.”
“We are feet away from a military vessel.”
“I’ll go outside and check it out.”
“Something big is happening, Ajax. I hope we can get them back.”
“Me too.”
Ajax lumbered out of the tent and stared up at the sky. Four military vessels were descending onto the snow. They’d been spotted and finally, rescued. Ajax waved as a battalion of Devoran soldiers clothed in white approached.
“Help us! We have injured!”
Ajax recognized the seal on one of the ships. The Devoran Royal Family. He bowed his head, white hair whipping around him in the wind.
“Your majesty,” he whispered.
“I’m only the prince. You can raise your head, young man.”
“Prince Prometheus,” Ajax said out loud, establishing his recognition of the hundred-year-old Devoran man who stood before him.
“Correct. You… are not one of our soldiers. You’re one of the missing students.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Are the rest of you safe?”
“No. I’m afraid not.”
Prometheus commanded a group of soldiers to approach the fallen military craft. Ajax stood silently, waiting for his acknowledgment again.
“You have a girl in the tent. Your mate?”