by Lizzy Bequin
“Hey!” he whines. “I’m in the same boat as you, Rogar. You think I wanted to rat you out? I didn’t have any choice.”
I sigh and try my best to calm my nerves. Right now, there’s no point in arguing with Lorka. We need to figure out how the hell we’re going to get ourselves untied.
After that, however, I may still punt his puny purple ass.
“When did they get you?” I say, keeping my voice as level as possible.
“Almost as soon as you had set off for Earth. I think that damn droid was eavesdropping on us in the cantina when we met last. They jumped me on my way home and took me hostage on their ship. There was nothing I could do. Rogar, they said they were gonna saw off my horns!”
I sigh and thump my helmet back against the tree in frustration.
This is all my fault.
After we came out of hyperspace and found this planet, I sent a message to Lorka, who had already been kidnapped at that point. Of course Van Cleef intercepted the message, which was encoded with my coordinates.
Damn it, I practically led them straight to us. It didn’t take them long to track us down and figure where we crashed.
Some kind of flying bug is buzzing around Lorka’s face, and the little Acquisitor starts huffing and puffing at it, trying to blow it away from him.
“Anyway,” he manages between puffs. “How did you crash out here? I’ve never known you to botch a landing before.”
“I didn’t botch the landing. We were shot down.”
Lorka’s eyes go wide.
“By whom?”
I shake my head.
“No clue. From what I’ve been able to see, there are primitive tribes inhabiting this planet, but the blast that dropped my ship must have come from an incredible energy source. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen.”
“So there are beings living on this planet?” Lorka whimpers. “What about wildlife, Rogar? Have you run into any, you know…predators?”
I nod grimly, thinking of the spiny orange monster that I barely managed to kill. I can only imagine what one of those things would do to us helpless and strapped to a tree like we are.
“We’ve got to do something,” Lorka stammers. “We have to try to escape.”
I try to wriggle my body against the cords that are binding us, but it’s hopeless. My limbs are completely immobile. I may as well be frozen from the chest down.
“We’re not going to be able to get out of these ropes,” I tell Lorka. “Szelina was right. I taught her everything she knows about tying knots.”
Lorka raises an eyebrow.
“For securing prisoners,” I add with annoyance. “There was never anything between us.”
Lorka’s eyes dip to the bleeding scar on my chest.
“What did you do to piss Szelina off so bad?” Lorka asks.
“It’s what I wouldn’t do,” I answer. “Szelina is a Mezentian like me, but she’s just not my type.”
I didn’t realize it until a few days ago, but my type isn’t even my own species.
Clare.
I have to do something to save her, but at this point I’m out of ideas.
“Rogar,” Lorka whispers. “Did you just hear that?”
I listen to our surroundings—the sigh of the wind and the crackle of my ship’s exploded remnants burning a little ways off. Some creatures caw in the distance.
And then I hear it.
Footsteps, moving swiftly through the underbrush and heading our way.
And it’s definitely more than two feet. In fact, it sounds like…eight.
“What is it?” Lorka hisses. His face has paled to a light mauve.
I shush him.
The footsteps grow closer. Leaves rustle and limbs snap as something plows through the dense foliage.
Then the sounds stop.
“Babu?“
I breathe a sigh of relief as the being walks around in front of us, its enormous, unblinking eyes staring at me and Lorka curiously. Cords of light pulse beneath its transparent skin.
It’s the same being that I saved from the monster yesterday. Anyway, I think it is.
The being begins gesturing wildly, letting loose a whole stream of babus and labus and other incomprehensible syllables, and I understand why Clare decided to dub this creature Babu.
A moment later three more beings round the tree to join it. They look identical except for one big difference.
“Rogar?” Lorka whispers. “What the hell are these things?”
“Quiet.”
These new beings are more than twice as tall, and they tower over us.
Are these the adults? And Babu is just a kid?
Babu, the “small” one, starts looking all around the jungle. Its expression is blank but its movements are jerky and almost panicked. It takes me a moment to realize why.
It’s looking for Clare.
Babu turns toward me and places a hand on my chest studying my fresh wound.
“Na na na,” it mutters.
Then it places both hands on my shoulders. I get a feeling, like waves of pure gratitude emanating from the strange being, and then images begin flashing through my mind like pictures on a screen.
I see myself slaying the spiny orange monstrosity. I see Clare, tears on her cheeks as she leans over my unconscious body pleading for help. I see slender, translucent fingers bandaging my head.
Somehow this being is bypassing the necessity for language and communicating directly with images.
I try to do it back, remembering the scene from a few minutes ago, when Clare was teleported away by the bounty hunters.
Babu stiffens and claps his thin fingers to what passes for its cheeks.
“Naaaa…”
Babu and the three taller beings begin speaking rapidly for a moment, and then they set to work untying our bonds.
CHAPTER 26: CLARE
I thought I would be totally unconscious in the stasis field. I didn’t think there would be dreams.
Mostly I dream of Rogar in feverish, disconnected impressions. Strong hands flowing over the curves of my body. Dry, cool scales warming under my touch. Jade eyes flickering in green flames.
I could live inside this illusion forever.
But it ends almost as soon as it’s begun.
Mechanical hands drag me forward from the weird, immaterial jelly that is the stasis field. My bare feet stumble clumsily on the metal grating of the deck. Cold air washes over my body like water, pebbling my skin with goosebumps.
I’m naked, I remember.
The droid made me strip before I willingly climbed into the stasis field, and now it is holding up my Leia costume—the intricately stitched top in one metal claw and the skimpy, deep red bottoms in the other.
“I put your garments through the electron cleaner while you were asleep,” Null-99 says. “We want you to be at least somewhat presentable when you meet your new husband.”
Even though it is an emotionless droid, I swear I detect a salacious edge to its otherwise monotone voice.
Null-99’s multiple eyes whir and click as they adjust to focus on me. I snatch the offered clothing and dress as quickly as possible, not liking the feel of those robotic eyes on me.
The cloth of the costume is noticeably cleaner, though it is still ratty with rips and frayed edges.
“Come with me,” the droid intones once I’m dressed. “You must secure yourself for landing.”
I follow the droid down the chilly corridor, rubbing warmth into my bare arms. Szelina is leaning against the wall twirling a knife between her fingers. She glares at me and sneers as I pass, then follows us into the cockpit where we all get strapped in. The eyepatch-wearing catman turns around to wink at me with his one good eye.
He draws back a lever on the control panel, an alarm buzzes, and my stomach lurches as we drop out of hyperspace.
A massive planet, a gas giant composed of swirling, snot-colored clouds looms in front of us, nearly blocking out the entire front v
iewing port.
“There is our destination.” Null-99 twists his head around backward to speak to me. “Rothilian Primaris.”
At first, I think he’s talking about the gas giant, but when I follow the line of his extended arm and metal finger, I see what he’s pointing to.
A tiny moon.
At first, it’s little more than a speck against the backdrop of the grimy planet that it orbits. But soon it grows into a dark marble. Its churning atmosphere flickers with blue and purple electrical storms like a black opal.
From this distance, Rothilian Primaris almost looks beautiful.
I’m soon disabused of that notion, however.
As we descend into the planet’s atmosphere, the ship jutters with turbulence, and for a few moments the front port is blocked-out by roiling darkness, Then the clouds pull back to reveal a sprawling industrial hellscape stretching from horizon to curving horizon.
Dark, clustered spires of densely packed cities soar above the ravaged land, belching out noxious smoke. Pale flakes of ash drift across our windscreen like snow, only to be washed away by spatters of greasy rain.
Diving even lower, I can see the awful cities in even greater detail—ugly haphazard hives, their networks of crowded streets and alleys lit by the garish glow of neon.
We make our way toward a domed structure situated atop the largest city like a giant iron nipple.
“Lord Putrude’s palace,” the droid explains.
The spaceship slows as the catman tucks it neatly into an open hanger on the side of the palace. Once inside, we disembark down the ships lowered ramp where we are greeted by a squad of heavily armed men with faces like mangy rodents who lead us into the depths of the palace.
CHAPTER 27: ROGAR
“Oh, careful!” Lorka shouts as we race over the grasslands.
The Gavronian’s legs are too short to keep up a good pace, and that’s not to mention his general lack of conditioning. My helmet would make it difficult for him to fit his stubby legs on my shoulders, so that only leaves one other option.
He’s a dozen or more feet off the ground, hitching a ride on the shoulders of one of the tall transparent creatures as we run toward a nearby mountain.
Their height gives them a long stride. The smallest one—the one Clare called Babu—is still as tall as me, and it lopes over the grass effortlessly. I have to make an effort to keep up.
“Easy,” Lorka cries, holding onto his ride’s head for dear life. “Don’t drop me!”
“Calm down, Lorka,” I chuckle, “You’re in good hands.”
“How do you know? You’ve only known these things as long as I have.”
That’s technically true. But I have a good feeling about them. I think they are grateful that I saved Babu from the predator.
For one thing, they rescued me and Lorka from that tree. Then they used some leaves to make a poultice for my wound where Szelina cut me. Now, a few hours later, the shallow wound has already closed.
Apparently the little one, Babu, saved my life yesterday by doing something similar. At least that’s what Clare told me.
Clare.
The thought of her is like a knife twisting in my heart.
My mind is inflamed with a need to protect her. To have her back in my arms where I’m certain she’s safe. But she is halfway across the galaxy by now, and I’m stuck here on this planet.
I’m not used to this feeling of desperation, of helplessness.
But I have experienced it once before.
When the raiders took my brother.
As we continue our long run, I try to clear my head and think logically. Van Cleef and his gang departed sometime this morning. Now we have been running nearly all day, and the sun is almost setting in the west, dragging our long shadows out across the grass.
I don’t know the exact length of a day on this planet, but as a rough estimate, I would say that Van Cleef’s ship is coming out of hyperspace right about now and making its descent to Rothilian Primaris.
Shit.
This is all my fault. I’m the one who put Clare into this situation. I should have turned down that assignment and left her to live her life on Earth.
“Gulabulabu!”
Without slowing his pace, Babu gestures to an outcropping of the mountain that we are approaching. It takes me a moment to realize what Babu is pointing at. Then I see it. Small lights twinkling among the stones.
As we get even closer, I realize that the lights are windows.
The settlement is carved directly into the stones.
It seems that these beings, whatever they are, have burrowed into these rocks, which themselves are the gigantic ruined columns of another, much larger and much more ancient structure.
As we have been running today, I have scanned the beings with my helmet and gotten some strange readings. They don’t seem to be organic. In fact, my helmet seems to think that these beings are androids.
But they are far more advanced than any droids I’ve ever encountered.
Plus, I’m fairly certain Babu is a child, or at least an adolescent, which means these beings grow and reproduce somehow.
We reach the foot of the mountain and start to ascend, following angled stairways carved directly into the solid stone. As we climb the stairs, more of the shimmering, translucent beings watch from the windows, drawn mainly by Lorka’s panicked yelps as he clings desperately to the head of the being carrying him.
At last, we reach a large plaza. The tall being plucks Lorka from its shoulders and places him gently on the ground. The Acquisitor huffs, and dusts off his cape and tunic.
“Not the smoothest ride I’ve had in my life,” Lorka complains.
“Stow it,” I say. “You should be grateful I didn’t tell them to leave you tied to that tree you little traitor.”
Lorka snorts.
“As if you could talk to these weirdos,” he says, eyeing our new hosts up and down. He juts a stubby finger up at me. “And I take issue with being called a traitor. I told you, there was nothing I could have done. They were gonna take my horns, Rogar. My horns!”
I let it go.
Besides, I’m more interested in the tall stone obelisk in the middle of the plaza. As we draw near, I sense that the structure is crackling with arcane energy.
Babu’s odd little slit mouth mimics a shooting sound. The strange being’s hands gesture, and I realize it is imitating a ship being shot down.
Damn. Is this the weapon that shot us out of the sky when we arrived?
Babu and the other beings place their hands together and bow toward me, seemingly in apology. I wave my hand, trying to let them know it’s okay.
I can totally understand them shooting down my ship. From their perspective, I was a trespasser here. As someone whose planet has been invaded by pirates, I can totally sympathize.
Plus, somehow I get the impression these beings have an obligation. A duty. Something valuable they are trying to protect.
I can sympathize with that too.
Next, Babu gestures us to follow him and his much taller companions toward a towering wall along one side of the plaza. We pass beneath a high archway and file down a narrow corridor that opens into an enormous chamber.
“What is this place?” Lorka’s question echoes around the soaring walls and vaulted ceiling.
I feel the same awe that I can hear in the Acquisitor’s voice. The chamber is breathtaking. Carved directly from the solid stone, its arching walls are graven all over with strange glyphs and ideograms. Everything is lit by a strange wavering glow like light reflected off of rippling water, but I can’t find the source.
“These carvings look like some kind of language.” Even at a whisper, my voice echoes through the massive space. “Have you ever seen anything like this, Lorka?”
“Never in my life.”
A realization is slowly dawning in the back of my mind. The gigantic ruins. The elaborate symbols carved by an ancient hand. Our slender, transparent saviors w
ho my scanners show to be synthetic life forms.
But what I’m thinking can’t be possible.
Our companions are conversing now in their strange babu-labu language, and I see the little one, if he can be called little, is pointing to another door at the far end of the chamber.
I don’t know how I missed that door before.
Even now, however, as I try to look at it, the door seems to evade my eyes. Its shape seems to follow a seemingly impossible geometry with lines meeting at angles that aren’t quite right somehow. And the space beyond drinks the light. It is filled with a darkness that is deeper than it should be.
“What’s in there?” Lorka asks. There is a slight tremble in his voice.
I shake my head.
The beings continue talking, and I get the impression that Babu is trying to convince the others of something. Babu is speaking excitedly, gesturing between me and Lorka, the door, and itself.
At last, the other, taller beings nod their heads in agreement.
Babu gives a little yelp of excitement and beckons Lorka and me. We follow Babu toward the strange, impossible door. Behind us, the other beings have begun to hum and sway to a mysterious music.
“Maybe…maybe I’ll just wait for you here,” Lorka says, tugging at his beard nervously.
I stride ahead, following Babu, who turns every few steps to make sure we’re following. At the last instant, Lorka’s curiosity gets the better of him, or perhaps it’s simply that he would rather accompany me into the unknown than to be left alone with the strange beings.
Inside the misshapen doorway, the darkness surrounds us—a darkness so deep it seems like we are floating in the void of space itself.
“Rogar?” Lorka’s voice sounds flat and tinny, without any echo.
“I’m here,” I answer.
Turning around, I can make out the door to the large chamber where the other beings are still moving and humming, but the sound is muted. It could be a world away—in another reality.
“Babu, babu, babu…”
My eyes find Babu, who is visible in this all-encompassing darkness thanks to the sparkling fibers and veins pulsing beneath its transparent skin. Babu beckons us once more, and then hurries away in a direction that is neither forward nor backward nor left nor right nor up nor down, but an angle that is somehow, impossibly, perpendicular to all of these.