Selena

by V Guy

  James turned to observe Malik. “Just like Asile. I guess devastating plagues are a good deterrent, while the disappearance of an entire garrison was convincing.”

  Violet was next to arrive. “May I avoid going out there, where a grundlun could poison me or a cut could kill me?”

  “We’ve cleared the spiders,” said Evelyn, stretching and popping her neck as she entered the bridge. “And Malik’s inoculations have proven themselves.”

  “Thus far, anyway. James?”

  He grinned and yielded the station. “I’d like to get out. Maybe take a stroll.”

  Malik rose. “If we get finished early, you can take the bikes.”

  “Go for a spin? Hmmm.” James looked at Evelyn and reminisced. “We once had some fun races. I’m getting moving.”

  “I’ll establish a scrap-decontamination station out front,” said Malik. “You can have it delivered there.”

  “What about me?” asked Jenna, appearing at the hatch.

  “Scrap or collectibles?”

  “Collectibles. I’ve done plenty of scrap.”

  Malik nodded, exiting through the hatch to see one of the Fates. Evelyn moved past him toward the garage.

  “What about us?” asked Furaha.

  He frowned. “You’ve only just awakened.”

  “We been awake for a week, helped in the infirmary, observed on the bridge, and worked maintenance. We can help.”

  “All of a week.” Malik shook his head in disbelief. “See Evelyn. She’ll find a place for you.”

  He observed Li in the galley and strode near. “Are you ready?”

  The man grimaced and rubbed his chest. “From all indications, that monster’s blow should’ve skewered me.”

  Malik considered him. “It would have. I pulled you away before the stroke was complete.”

  “My armor is rubbish. Where am I today?”

  Malik nodded toward Evelyn. “She’s in charge and has the list.”

  They finished transferring the collectibles at noon. The retrieval of scrap ended shortly after that, and all that remained was to clean and decon the metal. Base water and bots eased the process, but the job was a long one. Li, James, and Evelyn stepped free of the ship after the most recent load of scrap was deposited.

  “We’re finished,” said Evelyn, moving to observe the pile. “I see you’re still working.”

  Li took a second hose and started working the pile. James began sorting.

  Malik made a warning growl. “I didn’t have the same help.”

  “Many hands reduce a chore,” said Evelyn lightly, glancing about. “Everyone helped, and it went quickly.”

  He retrieved a new piece of metal to wash. “This will take a bit longer. How do you feel about relaxing?”

  Evelyn, James, and Li froze in surprise.

  Malik made a humored snort. “Go for a walk; race the bikes. Granted, if you walk, you need to be armed and if you take the bikes, they’ll need to be sterilized before departure.”

  “You’re serious,” said James in disbelief.

  “Absolutely.” He looked at the two men. “How many free days on planet do you usually receive? I’ve got this.”

  “What about you?” asked Evelyn.

  “I’m outside; I can spread my wings.” He smiled and extended them to their full spread. “I don’t think I can fly, but I might be able to glide.”

  His wings had grown large and overshadowed them. The front pair resembled Drelas’s wings, with long fingers of bone at the end of the second joint and one finger at the first joint supporting a tent of leathery flesh. The inmost finger extended a fold that tapered to Malik’s backside. The rear pair of wings were shorter and broader, with the skin of the wings tapering a quarter distance down his tail. The end of his tail fanned to stabilize flight.

  “Well, I want to see it,” said Evelyn, crossing her arms and grinning. “After all the hatches we widened, they’d better work.”

  He sighed impatiently. “I’m the one squeezing through them. Run along. If any of our passengers decide to stay onboard, you can get ahead of the game by giving them early medical clearances.”

  She smirked. “I think they like the fresh air. Where’s the bug? It wasn’t in hold two.”

  “Moved into my quarters. Strangely enough, it’s still technically alive. All it needed was a power source.”

  Li was discomfited. “I couldn’t fight it, moving and killing my concealment. I had no control. I let it strike.”

  Malik’s expression softened. “It was controlling as many as fifteen people when I silenced it. You were overmatched.”

  “You survived.”

  “I survived Asile. If I could survive that—”

  “What about the rest of us?” asked Li, his failure eating at him. “Where’s our protection?”

  “I put you to sleep.” He saw their appalled expressions and smirked. “I can drill all of you with new mental sequences, but they might be insufficient. The living creature is available for my examination. I’ll learn to break its programming, protections, and encryptions. Then there’s the telepathic organ, which must be shielded. The creature is an exquisite piece of work.”

  “How long will that take?” asked James.

  Li’s expression was tight.

  “I expect I’ll be able to break the mind within a week,” said Malik, placing scrap into a pile for the bots. “The shielding will take longer.” He looked thoughtfully to the sky. “I should probably return here to experiment. Too much risk at the spaceport.”

  Li frowned. “What about Selena? How many weeks are we talking about? Isn’t this about getting her back?”

  Malik smiled. “Next week is about killing Hess, or that’s what we’ll encourage her to believe. Have you ever arranged the destruction of a ship and made it look preventable?”

  Li appeared insulted. “Is that your plan?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How will she not know in advance? Couldn’t she sense that?”

  “A decision hasn’t been made.” Malik made a sly smile. “I may decide not to threaten him; it all depends on the quality of the ideas, and I would like several unique plans for rescuing her. I won’t decide upon any of them until the time arrives. Be prepared for all of them.”

  “You’ll confuse her.”

  Malik smiled. “I may wait a week; I’m deliberately indecisive. You should enjoy the day.”

  Scrap decontamination continued for two hours, halting when the task of its recovery became bottlenecked in maintenance. The ship’s occupants took expeditions to the Remnant’s old home, explored the abandoned base, and examined the barracks. Evelyn and James rode the Spyders on the Catricel roads later in the day, exploring and testing themselves on the routes learned during the quarantine.

  Malik climbed the palace exterior to make his first trusting leap from its crown. To his great appreciation, his wings permitted gliding, but flying was impossible. Beats of his wings only delayed landing and softened the impact, yet he was tenacious about the exercise, repeating the process until he could barely keep them rigid in flight. Evelyn met him at the edge of the base after a final, rough landing.

  “Well?” she asked. “Are you still airworthy?”

  His pleasure was palpable. “I love flying. I thought running was liberating, but this…this is beyond all a person could desire. Or a creature. I’m still growing, thus it’s still possible, but I’m impatient.”

  She smirked. “I guess we’ll be here next week?”

  “Certainly,” he said, making a pseudo-indignant scowl. “We’ve got the second load of Britton’s collection to move and another batch of scrap to gather.”

  “Among other things. We lack the same level of help.”

  Malik shook his head and shrugged. He made a few strokes of his wings to loosen the stiffness forming in his muscles and joints. “It’ll take us all day.”

  “You’ll get your chance.”

  He grinned. “Even if we must stay late.”r />
  She peered into the early evening sky. “Everyone has been cleared for departure; they won’t get sick, nor will they be carriers of destruction. The bikes have been disassembled and will soon be finished. It’s just us.”

  Malik pondered the surrounding ruins and let himself appreciate the break. “It’s nice, this time away from toil.”

  “Maybe if you offered it more frequently…”

  A humored rumble traversed his throat. “It’d spoil you.”

  They heard a long, modulating howl break the evening’s calm. She looked at him in alarm.

  “It’s a prowler,” he said, pricking his ears. “And a large one at that.”

  Evelyn checked her waist and realized she was unarmed. A second, louder expression sounded in the distance.

  Malik dismissed her response. “We’ve attracted attention. It’s approaching.”

  “I’ll get help.”

  “They’d just need to get checked again. Don’t bother.”

  A third, mournful howl sounded, and Malik cocked his head. He straightened, drew in a deep breath, and sent an answering, growling howl of his own.

  “Don’t do that,” said Evelyn, her eyes flashing. “It’ll come.”

  “Don’t you want to see it?”

  She was incredulous. An inquisitive mixture of howl and bark followed. Malik sent a reassuring mix of a howl, barks, chirps, and trills back.

  Evelyn’s eyes widened, and distress marked her face. “Please don’t encourage it.”

  He smirked. “I’m making a friend.”

  “Friends mean work and require time. I have too much of one and too little of the other.”

  The next expression of the canid originated much closer, sounding like a mixture of curiosity, hope, and interest dispersed among long notes of loss. Malik replied with a matching set of encouragement.

  “What are you getting us into?” she asked, scowling. “You said prowlers can get as large as five hundred kilograms.”

  He smirked. “They can.”

  The next call was close, perhaps coming from just beyond the ruined buildings before them. Her heart started to gallop. “It’s my ship. I swear, I’ll leave you here. I promise.”

  Malik guffawed then answered the call.

  An enormous prowler rounded a pile of stone and stepped onto the road. It made a pleading set of yips and barks. Malik replied with a positive upturn of the same sounds. The creature advanced a few steps, and a softer, more familiar set of sounds emerged. He answered the prowler with an encouraging, impatient set of barks, rumbles, and growls. The creature lowered its head, emitted a set of plaintive whines and trills, and began trotting forward.

  Evelyn glared at him and crossed her arms. “You’re a monster, you know that?”

  “I was trying to tell you it was okay.” Malik chuckled and grinned. “It’s Lallis. She’s lonely.”

  ***

  The prowler’s arrival significantly delayed departure. Once she saw Malik, her course was set. Her trot accelerated, and she playfully collided with him at full tilt. She had smelled him from a distance, seen him glide, recognized his voice from farther out, and no amount of final verification was needed when she was near. Her joyful, seemingly lethal tackling led to Malik’s response, and soon both of them were rolling, leaping, and snapping at each other. The close encounter expanded with the two of them circling and exchanging nips. Lallis cheerfully barked her pleasure. Malik’s growls sounded like a guttural purring. Their nips progressed to lunges and parries, and if Evelyn had known less about them, she would have believed they were fighting. Threat postures were absent, however, and the bloody, aggressive interaction grew more energetic until Lallis took off at a sprint. Malik shot after her.

  Evelyn watched as they tore into the ruins. “How about we stay a while?” she muttered. “Relax a little?”

  She returned to ship to deliver the news. Darkness was well settled before the two of them returned, the prowler crowding Malik as he approached. She kept her head low as she greeted her old friends.

  “Didn’t you tell us to avoid going out after dark?” asked Evelyn, stroking the huge canid’s head.

  “She’s a prowler, and I’m a dragon,” replied Malik. “Every other creature hid from us.”

  “Is she coming?”

  He nodded. “She couldn’t find intelligent company here.”

  Lallis’s transition back to the ship was involved. She was first washed outside, and her hair and nails were trimmed. Then she was brought into the sim for a specially designed program to give her a better cleaning and to dislodge many parasitic passengers. Her teeth were cleaned and, in some instances, repaired. She was then subjected to an extensive medical examination, where accumulated injuries were repaired. Once deemed clear of pathogens and harmful parasites, Lallis was brushed and freed to canvas the vessel.

  Pathfinder departed Catricel late in the night, quick skating to the gravity restriction and submerging to Gemini. There they ran the variable Gemini-Vista channel. Next was a submergence to run the variable channel from Olympus to Hardress. From thence they submerged to Hardress, where Li assisted Malik in acquiring the destination of the mass adjusters from a depot. With this successful, they submerged again and arrived at Kroes’s warehouse at Irenia. The transfer of collectibles required a full morning. After lifting off and signaling delivery, they skated/submerged to Tania.

  With the remaining initiates’ strengthening sessions complete, Jenna and Nina had chosen to go to what they called the “big house,” the place the commandos were restoring. One of the other, lingering initiates was beset with insecurity concerning returning to society, while another initiate still recovered from the extensive efforts to remove Bedele Creative’s influence. Both chose to go to the mansion along with the other women.

  The ship entered orbit, and the Rumbler was brought into the passage and prepped. Exit procedures had been completed for the four women, determining they were healthy and as prepared as possible.

  Their goodbyes were heartfelt. The twins watched in resignation, the Fates clapped and teared like proud mothers, and Violet was mindful of her own eventual departure. The Rumbler was crowded during departure and conversely spacious upon return.

  Malik breathed a sigh of relief when it showed in the passage. Every trip had its perils, and an accident could rear its ugly head at any time.

  “You should see the place,” said Evelyn in excitement. “It’s gorgeous. Leave it to a bunch of reformed commandos and redeemed slaves to create a work of art from an abandoned home. Who do you suppose they learned that from?”

  He chuckled, made a nonchalant shrug, and withdrew his device to begin the exterior portion of the hovercraft shutdown. “Have you ever thought of a place to live?”

  She smirked. “Are you kidding? I live here.”

  ***

  Pathfinder found Endurance, a small Third Fleet patrol craft at Imperium, and eased near it. The first ship’s powerful computers easily penetrated the other craft’s systems to copy its contents. Malik was similarly decisive with the other ship’s captain, pulling him to Pathfinder’s simulator, searching his memories, making him forget, then pushing him back unawares. This interrogation led to one of the junior officers experiencing a similar, fifteen-minute void in his memory. Satisfied with the information, Malik directed Pathfinder to Mao. The ship entered orbit, cloaked. The Rumbler was again withdrawn from the garage.

  The audience for the twin’s departure was sparse. Their future held little joy, the penalties and prices of freedom sobering them. The Fates were unfailingly encouraging. Violet was numb. Malik offered final words of assurance.

  Their exit emptied the corridor, Violet returning to the bridge and the Fates parting ways. Faithful as always, Malik waited. The Rumbler completed a successful trip, showing in a brightened passage with only a pilot. Evelyn emerged with a suspicious grin on her face.

  “You’re conniving,” she said. “You knew they would be welcomed. They had a huge part
y awaiting them.”

  “I needed them to accept the consequences of their choices.”

  She smirked. “They were crying.”

  His visage warmed. “Some tears are good. “This was a long time coming.”

  “And we’re mostly done,” said Evelyn, smiling.

  He nodded. “Now we’ve got to tear down the dorm.”

  The smile became a scowl. “No.”

  “Yes. If Kroes boards again and finds a dorm perfectly prepared for Bedele’s stolen slaves, she’ll have something major to store away for a rainy day.”

  Evelyn sat in the driver’s seat to take readings. “I thought we were good.”

  “We’ve had a hiccup; we might still be.”

  “Britton’s collection?”

  “Ensures Serena’s health after my confiscation.”

  “What guarantees Kroes’s cooperation?”

  He paused. “I have information she wants, but I’m not yielding until I receive what I desire, and that’s something she must help me to obtain.”

  A tired frown touched her visage when she peeked out. “Is this the thing that everyone might wish to avoid?”

  Malik made a grim nod. “Full retribution for Catricel, Paradise, and Salient.”

  54: Extinguished

  Day 881: Harris, Pathfinder, Stellar Clipper

  Malik reserved his early evenings for breaking the Mantis’s mind, then he started the nights by continuing investigations of Evaline’s criminal connections. Depending on their proximity, he could locate and investigate as many as ten people, but the expected number was three; he might find a contact in a different city if he were lucky. Daylight brought interviews and two calls to assist Marshall Police Department, while the crew worked daily to fabricate additional sensor modules, integrating them as quickly as they were completed.

  He approached Pathfinder after another Friday’s interviews, pausing before the ramp to appreciate the cool autumn wind that swept leaves across the tarmac. He stretched, popped joints, and flexed his limbs to rid them of the tension they held. Malik had run the distance back, but no rest awaited.