Cries of the Wolf

by C. S. Harte

  “Stand and be measured,” said the boy as he walked down the steps of the dais.

  Meomi and the group stood.

  “Remove your helmets,” said the boy as he stopped in front of Meomi.

  He had vivid rainbow eyes which shifted in color as he stared. Entrent eyes.

  Meomi rushed to guard her thoughts fearing the person in front of her could be an Entrent. She turned to Inoke who nodded back at her.

  “You are the leader of this band of warriors?” The boy asked Meomi.

  Meomi glanced at Thorne who looked listless and frail. “I am.” If they intended to treat leaders more harshly, she'd rather bear the brunt of their beatings. “You’re an Entrent? Working with Mimics?” she questioned back.

  “I am Tomi, noble Voice of Queen Zavo. I serve only the Queen of Chorda. I would seek death before I would ever serve anyone else.” He sneered.

  “If I may,” Thorne spoke up. “Where are we?”

  “You are in the throne room of the exalted Queen Zavo in the centrum of the Chordian Universe.”

  “Universe?” Rayfin said. “You can’t just claim an entire universe for yourself.”

  Tomi stared blankly at Rayfin. “The Chordian people are made from the atoms of the stars themselves. We do not claim anything. This universe is in the blood that courses through our veins. It is ours by birthright. Every parsec of space, every photon of light belongs to the glorious Queen Zavo.”

  Thorne tilted his head up as his eyes opened wide. “Is Earth, our home planet in the Sol system, part of this universe?”

  “It is not,” Tomi answered. “We would not allow such impurities to exist in our creation.”

  Meomi and Rayfin both stared at Thorne in confusion.

  “That answers a lot, thank you.” Thorne nodded his head.

  “It did?” Rayfin asked. “I seem to have more questions.”

  “What are you going to do with us?” Meomi tried to steer the conversation toward more pressing matters. “Why did you bring us here?”

  “You have proven yourself resourceful in finding our hidden base,” Tomi said. “Submit to the rule of Queen Zavo by swearing fealty to her majesty and bind yourself to fight against all her enemies great and small. Do this and your lives will be spared.”

  “Forgive my ignorance, Your Highness,” Thorne said directly at the Queen, ignoring Tomi. “But if the Chordian people are so powerful, why do you ally yourself with the Mimic horde? Is it because you fear them?”

  “What are you doing, Thorne?” Rayfin said through the side of his mouth. “Don’t piss off the crazy aliens in their own universe.”

  The Queen shifted in her seat.

  Tomi looked back at his Queen before answering. “You will direct all remarks to I unless you do not further value your tongue.” Tomi glared at Thorne with furious red eyes. “The Chordian fears no one. We are the masters of this universe. Mimics are the masters of yours. Along with the Voidi, the Waethlst, and the Stredyr, we have an unbreakable grip on the Five Creations.”

  “This is making my head hurt,” Rayfin said. He looked at Thorne. “Is this making any sense to you?”

  “I’m seeing a clearer picture of the whole story, yes.”

  “Oh, care to share with the slower ones among us?” Rayfin asked.

  Thorne nodded. “If we make it out alive…”

  “Your response, humans,” Tomi interrupted. “Do not waste time with what should be an obvious answer. Swear loyalty to the Queen in this universe and beyond.”

  “Do we have a choice?” Meomi asked. “What happens if we say no?”

  Tomi narrowed his eyes at Meomi. “This one, my Queen.” His irises turned yellow. “She has much fight in her. Perhaps you will like this one for your own personal bed slave.” He touched Meomi’s cheek. “Choice is only an illusion in the presence of a powerful will.”

  “Curious, do we all get the bed slave option?” Rayfin asked.

  In the corner of her eye, Meomi observed a spark of light similar to the portal that delivered her here. It floated toward her in a slow, eerie way that made her skin itch. No one else seemed to notice it but her.

  Tomi moved to Inoke next. He lifted him by the chin. “Your eyes. You are like I?” Tomi raised his eyebrows.

  Inoke pulled away from Tomi’s grasp. “We are not alike. I serve no one but myself.”

  Tomi’s lips curled up. “Why do you lie to yourself? I can read your mind plainly.” He walked behind Inoke. “You are a Voice like I. Forged in blood like I. Our masters may be different, but our role is to serve our masters, regardless of where we stand.”

  The spark stopped half a meter in front of Meomi’s chest before fading away. When it did, it left behind the black cube artifact. Meomi’s mouth dropped. She looked around to see if anyone else noticed the floating object. All other eyes were on the exchange between Inoke and Tomi.

  “Are there more of you in your universe?” Tomi asked Inoke. “Many more?” Tomi's eyes opened wide. “Hundreds you say.”

  Inoke covered his ears with his hands. “Get out of my head!” he screamed.

  Queen Zavo rose from her throne and walked down to the fifth step of the dais. She was the tallest person in the room, standing over two meters in height. Her garb suggested a warrior, not a Queen. Long gray, leather leggings with chromatic jackboots covered her legs. A fuchsia bodice with matching arm sleeves clung to her blue-tinted skin. Silver hair flowed from her head, a stark contrast to her piercing, glowing blue eyes.

  The Queen pointed at Meomi.

  Tomi changed focus to Captain Hana. “This one. She sees something.” He placed his hand on Meomi’s forehead. “What does she see?”

  17

  Meomi slapped Tomi’s hand off her forehead. “Don’t touch me again unless you want to lose that pasty thing!” she snarled.

  “Augur! Augur! She is chosen!” Tomi turned to his Queen, looking for guidance. “She must be stopped! Voidis! Kill her! Kill her!”

  The Voidi guards behind Meomi armed their weapons.

  Tomi unsheathed his dagger hidden underneath his sash. Light shone from the tip of the blade as red energy radiated from the hilt.

  “No, wait!” Thorne yelled.

  Rayfin jumped in front of Meomi. “You’ll have to go through me first.”

  Tomi smiled. “This one is loyal. An admiral trait. It chooses to die in defense of its leader.”

  The right hand of the Queen began to glow with a crisp blue and white light.

  “The Queen is most content to oblige,” Tomi said with a wicked smile.

  Wisps of yellow and green swirled in her palm, spinning into a sphere-shaped mass of energy.

  “I hope this works again…” Meomi pressed her hand into the cube artifact floating in front of her. It felt hot to the touch, even through her suit gloves.

  Queen Zavo screeched an ear-piercing wail as Meomi made contact with the cube, bringing everyone in the throne room to their knees.

  A sense of weightlessness surrounded Meomi. She felt a disconnection from her corporeal being as her body started to separate at a molecular level. The world around her stretched and pull away at immense speeds. Everyone in the room became pinpricks of light as she zoomed away until eventually, all the colors vanished.

  Meomi’s thoughts were on her squadmates. She hoped wherever she was going, they were coming with her, instead of being left behind to suffer at the whims of a lunatic queen. After what seemed like months of floating in a dark abyss, her retinas registered flickers of light. Something was coming for her. She instinctively swam toward the object.

  The specks of light became streaks, painting the void in shades other than black. Ribbons of color coalesced into visions of plateaus, canyons, valleys, and rock formations.

  Speeding toward Meomi was a new world. She felt a warmth on her skin, replacing the feeling of nothingness that persisted before. Her eyes closed as she zoomed to the surface, bracing for what she expected to be a catastrophic impact. Instead
, her momentum dissipated without any work on her part. Meomi landed in a crouched position, one knee touching down. With her eyes still closed, she patted the surrounding ground. Soft. Sandy. Solid. Heat poured onto her face.

  Meomi forced her eyes open only to have them assaulted by intense sunlight. She watched as her HUD refreshed. The chronometer showed only minutes had passed since she was in the throne room of Queen Zavo.

  “Where am I?” Meomi surveyed the desert landscape around her. Martian red soil beneath her feet. Short, stringy blades of green resembling grass. Long chains of sun-blanched rocks equivalent to mountain ranges. She patted her body as she stood. “I’m alive… and whole.”

  Her onboard computer finished examining the planet’s atmosphere. 18% Oxygen, 4% humidity. No toxic gases. Safe to breathe. External temperature readings at 301 Kelvins. Hot and dry, but manageable. Meomi took off her helmet and inhaled a deep breath of air. Wherever she was, she was safe for the time being.

  Unusual wailings sounded from above. Meomi looked up to see three blue and white beams twisting together as they streaked her way. In a flash, Thorne, Inoke, and Rayfin appeared next to her.

  Rayfin had his arms extended forward, stuck in a fighting pose as if fending off an attacker in front of him.

  “It worked!” Meomi laughed uncontrollably.

  “You used the cube artifact again, didn’t you?” Thorne asked.

  She nodded and smiled.

  “Um, what’s going on?” Rayfin looked around with his eyebrows raised.

  “Do you see the artifact now?” Thorne removed his helmet, allowing his blonde locks to flow down to his shoulders.

  Meomi looked around then shook her head. “No.”

  “Do you know what triggered it to appear back in the throne room?”

  “Not a clue.” Meomi shrugged.

  “Anyone going to fill the rest of us in?” Rayfin asked.

  “Captain Thorne here knows more than he lets on,” Meomi said.

  Inoke took off his helmet. “We are alone.” He stared at Rayfin. “I do not sense other sentient beings.”

  “Why did you look my way as you said that?” Rayfin glared at Inoke.

  “It’s mainly a supposition,” Thorne said while covering the sun from his face. “We lack the technological constructs to understand more. We should find shade before I go into detail and perhaps longer-term shelter.” He pointed to a tall mountain in the distance. “There might be a cave system there. On an alien planet, we don’t want to risk being introduced to the local fauna as they hunt during the night.”

  Meomi took inventory of Thorne’s injuries. “You’ll be able to make it there?”

  He waved her off. “I appreciate your concern, Captain Hana. But I’ll be fine. My Obscura suit is lined with med-gels. I've been slowly healing inside my suit.”

  The team made their way toward the mountain following a cliff trail which overlooked a sharp drop into the canyon below.

  “Thorne, it’s time to share everything you know,” Meomi said.

  He nodded. “Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Ever since I was a child, I’ve always suspected alien life to be a possibility. Before joining Fleet, I thought I might become a Xenohistorian.”

  “OK, we don’t have to go that far back,” Rayfin said.

  “My apologies, I’ll fast forward to the cube then.” Thorne cleared his throat. “According to Valric — hard as it was for him to admit this — during the time of the First League, there was a very technologically advanced race that was more advanced than the Katoks. They called themselves the Aorgar.”

  “When you say more advanced than the Katoks, what are we talking about?” Rayfin asked.

  Thorne smiled like a professor appreciating a smart question from a student. “The Aorgar were to Katoks what Katoks are to humans.”

  “I can’t even picture in my head how advanced that is,” Rayfin said.

  “Let him continue!” Meomi shouted at Rayfin. “You have no idea how long I’ve been trying to get him to share details with me!”

  “Sorry,” Rayfin said and tucked his chin.

  “These Aorgars,” Thorne cleared his throat again, “while members of the First League, they were not very active participants in First League affairs. They were insular and somewhat secretive of their technology. It might have something to do with their low population count, numbering in the tens of thousands spread across hundreds of planets and scientific outposts. They only had one goal as a society, the advancement of their scientific knowledge. The Aorgars believed in this so fully that when Mimics attacked the First League, they voted against war.”

  “Was it because they didn’t want to fight or because they didn’t think the First League could win?” Meomi asked.

  Thorne shook his head. “According to Valric, the Aorgars believed victory would only be possible through tremendous loss of life and civilizations. Even then, the chances of victory were slim. While the rest of the First League fought the combined forces of Mimics and the Defiled, the Aorgars devised technology intended to save lives, as many as they could.”

  “These Aorgars invented the cube artifact that transported us here?” Meomi asked.

  “Millions of years ago? And it still works?” Rayfin whistled. “I wish my sonic shower was that reliable.”

  “If you assume that the surviving records of the First League are correct, then yes to all your questions,” Thorne said with a smug smile.

  “But what is this artifact?” Meomi pinched her lips together and rushed her speech. “What does it do? How does it work? Why is it only I can see it and use it?”

  Thorne took a deep breath before replying to Meomi’s barrage of questions. “Valric doesn’t know, and neither do I. Remember, Aorgar technology is exponentially more advanced than Katok technology which is exponentially more advanced than ours. How the cube works, what it does, and the answers to your other questions may forever be out of our conceptual reach.”

  “Well, that’s not helpful…” Meomi sighed.

  He held up a finger. “With that said, Valric does have a theory. Have you heard of the concept of pocket universes?”

  Meomi looked at Rayfin who shook his head.

  “I’ll take that as a no.” Thorne smiled. “There were things lost in translation as Inoke interpreted the explanation to me. Keep in mind, I’m not a theoretical physicist by trade.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short buddy.” Rayfin held up his thumb.

  “Thank you, Ensign.” Thorne nodded at Rayfin. “The Aorgars theorized that during the ultra-rapid expansion period of the universe, there were certain sections called ‘pockets’ that expanded at different speeds. Some slower pockets, in essence, dropped out of the flow of expansion and gave rise to its own universe. The Aorgars believed an infinite amount of these pockets exist.”

  “So…” Meomi scratched her head. “If I understand you correctly, I’ve been jumping from one universe to another, thanks to the Aorgar artifact?”

  “It sort of makes sense. Would explain a lot of the unexplainable so far,” Rayfin added.

  “The Aorgar were a peaceful society,” Thorne said. “They went to great lengths to stay out of the fighting. Valric believed that they spent the last few decades of the Mimic war working on a way to jump from one pocket universe to another. But according to the Katok archives, they were unsuccessful. Eventually, the Aorgar succumbed to the Mimic horde like the other First League races.”

  “Well it appears someone figured out the solution,” Rayfin said.

  A low rumble vibrated the sand and stones underneath their feet.

  “Look!” Inoke pointed toward the valley below.

  A surging dust cloud roared through the canyon.

  “Is that a sandstorm?” Rayfin asked.

  Red dots indicating unknown life signs flooded Meomi’s mini-map. She zoomed into the fog of dust and sand. Strange brown, lizard-like creatures, four meters long, two meters tall with sharp spikes on their bac
ks could be seen running through the ravine. Meomi relayed the video to the rest of the team.

  Rayfin looked at Inoke. “Is it a migration or are they running from something?”

  “I have no ability to read the thoughts of non-intelligent animals,” Inoke said with a pinched expression.

  “If this is a migration, they seem to be moving very fast,” Thorne said. “60 kilometers per hour.”

  Meomi scanned the tail end of the herd. “I don’t see… Wait…” She panned up. “10 o’clock. Look!”

  “Are those… Are those… dragons?” Rayfin stuttered.

  The reptilian creatures on the canyon floor were being chased by enormous birds of prey with black, scaly skin, razor-sharp talons, and a sharply pointed, gray horn on its nose. From leathery wing to leathery wing, the gigantic monsters measured 15 meters wide as they glided through the sky.

  “Dragons aren’t real!” Meomi scoffed.

  “You’re right, these things seem scarier…” Rayfin shuddered.

  “Regardless, it might be prudent to find shelter immediately. We don’t want to become a target of theirs,” Throne suggested.

  “Agreed.” Meomi turned around to find an enclosure when she noticed a moving shadow overhead. “Look out!”

  Before anyone realized what happened, one of the dragon-like creatures wrapped its talons around Inoke’s shoulder, carrying him off into the night sky.

  Inoke cried out in pain as the claws pierced through his exo suit.

  Meomi reacted quickly, leaping after Inoke but fell short in reaching him. She landed hard on her side and lay in the dirt with her heart racing and head spinning. Confusion and shock settled into her system. A creature the size of a space shuttle had just surprised her and snatched her squadmate into the sky. “Inoke…”

  18

  The team fired their guns at the dragon-like creature as it soared away with Inoke. Shot after shot bounced off its thick, scaly skin.

  “Dammit! No impact!” Thorne yelled through the din of weapons' fire.

  “It’ll be out of range soon!” Rayfin yelled frantically. “What do we do, Captain?”