by Trevor Scott
“The Ansarans have that power?” Liam interrupted.
Zega’s mouth contorted and he turned toward Nix, speaking directly to him. “Go to Surya’s moon to the Disciples of Re. There you will find your answers.”
“The Disciples of Re?” Nix asked. “What would that cult know?”
“My sources say they came upon a Gift of Re, the God of the Sun. This gift is said to bridge the farthest reaches of the galaxy.”
The room was silent while Nix processed this new information. Ragnar had flatly denied to Liam that the Ansarans knew anything about the wormhole. Though, if the Ansarans really did create a device capable of producing a singularity, they would surely lie about it to an outsider, as they’d called him.
“Is your source reliable?” Nix asked.
Zega laughed from his belly. “Of course it’s reliable, Nix my boy, if he wasn’t he would be dead.”
Liam could feel the sweat seeping through the back of his gray jumpsuit. Zega was sounding more and more like a crime boss, and not the kind Liam preferred to work for. His tone as he spoke of death was too casual. There was no paying him back or performing extra favors if a job went south. Zega was not the kind of person he wanted to owe.
“Very well, what favor do you ask?” Nix asked.
“Once more, I will provide you with my fastest ship, Nix. She can make the journey to the moon in a matter of hours.”
“What favor?” Nix repeated.
Zega’s eyes traveled down the row from Liam to Saturn, and finally landed on Ju-Long. He looked him up and down with a petulant grin. Zega pointed a clawed finger at Ju-Long and said, “He will be a formidable contender.”
“Contender for what?” Ju-Long asked, both bewildered and a bit intrigued.
Nix replied first, his head shaking as he spoke. “The Dinari hold a series of fights every year. Zega would ask that you fight for his sector. Sector Seven.”
“What exactly does that entail?” Liam probed.
Nix explained, “Each of the sectors in Akaru Colony, twenty-four in all, put forth two fighters. The fighters wear gloves that deliver small shocks to the opponent, who fight one-on-one until there is a winner. It can be a brutal sport, with the last man standing reigning over the sectors until the following year. It’s a fiat title, but a lot of local notoriety comes from it. Zega’s fighters represent Sector Seven. This year’s fights aren’t starting for a couple of months.”
Liam remembered the bartender upstairs. His scales had been burned to a crisp all over his face and body. Without scales for protection, he wondered how Ju-Long would fare in such a contest. Liam eyed Ju-Long, who sat stolid. He said, “I’ll leave this to you, Ju-Long. You don’t have to agree. I’m sure we can come to another arrangement if need be.”
“No,” Zega said. “No other arrangements. One of you will fight. I have already provided you the favor of information, so choose, Outsider.”
“It’s okay, Liam. I can handle it.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Saturn protested.
“Enough,” Ju-Long replied. “I’ve been waiting for a good fight. I accept.”
Zega’s smile creaked ever wider, his puffy cheeks curling up toward his sinister eyes. His thin tongue licked at his horrible yellowed teeth. The cantankerous Dinari clasped his hands together, still wet with the juice from his meal. Zega’s dark voice slipped out into his dining room, deeper than before. “It will be a fight to remember.”
20
Nix waved his hand and an orb of light slowly illuminated the guest room. Liam entered the small room above the bar and looked out the window to the colony. Purple light still emanated from the web overhead, pouring through the window with blinding intensity. On the street, he saw groups of Ansaran soldiers searching the streets.
“Step away from the window,” Nix warned.
Liam clenched his jaw before collapsing on the nearby mat. He didn’t like taking orders and he felt like he was losing control of his little group with each passing moment. Downstairs, Nix had given them a small piece of what tasted like compact bread. It was dense and sparsely flavored, but it did calm his stomach a bit.
“You moved the bikes, right?” Saturn questioned the shifty Dinari.
“Taken care of. They were moved into the loading bay. Sestra is down there with them now.”
“How long until first light?” Liam asked.
“A few hours,” Nix replied, finding his own mat and lying down. “We’re going to need the rest.”
Saturn and Ju-Long laid down on their mats and were quiet for several minutes. Saturn spoke up first. “Nix, how do you know Zega? Are you sure we can trust him?”
Nix’s face was motionless, seemingly sleeping with his eyes open and staring at the ceiling. Liam watched for several moments, waiting for his chest to move, but it never did. Finally, Nix put his hands behind his head and spoke, still staring at the ceiling. “Zega is an important man in this sector of Akaru Colony. When I was a child, he saved my life from an Ansaran soldier who was trying to make an example out of me for disobedience. Zega’s ways are not always eloquent, but he does put the interests of his people first. It is because of him that I came to work in the spire, an upper-class position for a Dinari, if you can believe it.”
“He put you there to spy,” Ju-Long stated.
Nix smiled. “Yes. But I could have been lying in a ditch. Instead, I helped the cause.”
Liam moved his eyes up to the purple web in the sky outside the window, its brilliant energy flowing through the air like so many fireflies. Nix had probably given up more than anyone to get them out of the spire. He hadn’t even asked for a favor like the others. Nix was different somehow. Maybe some things were more important than compensation. Liam was conditioned to think in terms of risk and reward. Being a freelancer will do that. At least now he knew that Earth wasn’t the only planet hung up on money, power, and status. It was a small comfort.
“Thank you,” Liam said. “You gave up a lot for us.”
“It was a small price to pay.”
Ju-Long turned his head and asked, “What do you mean?”
Nix tilted his head to make eye contact with Ju-Long and spoke soft enough that the whole room had to prick their ears to hear him. When he spoke, he did so without any of his prior ticks, as though they were part of some elaborate ruse for the Ansarans’ benefit.
“You do not yet realize your importance. For thirty thousand years, the three intelligent races of this system have traveled this system. We’ve been to other stars too, met other species, but ultimately decided to stay near this system, settling every planet and every moon in some fashion or another. The best technology we could muster couldn’t detect your species all that distance away. The fact that you’re here at all is a testament to how little we really know.”
“What are you implying?” Liam asked.
“The Ansarans will remain in power as long as they hold the best technology, the means to stay on top. Your presence mocks them and their knowledge of the galaxy. They would use you as a bargaining chip to broker peace with the Kurazon, and if that fails, they would kill you themselves, anything to keep you from the public’s knowledge. They will search this colony top to bottom to protect their illusion as the all-knowing leaders of the alliance.”
“What would happen if our presence didn’t remain a secret?” Saturn asked.
“Who knows?” Nix replied. “They may still kill you, or maybe they would let you live as a testament to their benevolence.”
“If our options are to be killed or possibly be killed, I’ll take the latter,” Ju-Long said, sinking back to his mat.
“I thought you’d say that. I believe that’s one reason Zega asked you to fight. Your face would be immortalized as the first outsider to fight in our ring. Every Dinari in this colony will know your name.”
“And the Ansarans wouldn’t try to kill a celebrity of the Dinari,” Liam mused. “That’s bad optics.”
Saturn
let out a sharp laugh and said, “Even on the other side of the galaxy it comes down to appearances. I feel right at home.”
Nix rolled over onto his side, the purple light from the web of energy piercing the window and bathing him in violet. His golden eyes now seemed dark and faded, colored with sadness. “You’ll find much of what happens here is under the surface, hidden from view.”
Liam nodded and, after a moment, said, “Let’s get some sleep. We’ve got a long road ahead.”
•
Liam tossed in the night, vivid images flooding his mind. Tiffany stood before him in the small room above The Sand’s Edge, dressed in her tight jeans and purple T-shirt, a thin hole piercing her skull so Liam could see right through to the other side. As she stared at him, blood began to drip from her wound and down the bridge of her nose. She looked so sad standing there, her tousled red hair blowing with a nonexistent breeze.
She opened her mouth to speak and only managed to ask, “Why?”
Liam’s eyes opened and he shot up to a seated position on his mat. Sweat seeped through his steely jumpsuit and down his tightened jaw, merging on his chin. He ran a hand through his blond hair, darkened with sweat, and slicked it back away from his eyes. His gaze moved to the window, where Nix stood examining the purple web enveloping the colony. Nix turned with a solemn expression that didn’t suit him.
“Can’t sleep?” Liam whispered.
Nix nodded and replied, “My work at the spire has made me more nocturnal than I’m used to, but I have always enjoyed the night. Bad dream?”
“You could say that,” Liam said, lying back down on his mat.
Nix turned his gaze back out the window. Softly, he said, “We all have our burdens to bear.”
Liam’s eyelids began to droop and once again he fell into darkness. Nix’s words remained at the forefront of his mind. He wondered what secrets their Dinari friend held. Surely they were no worse than the secrets in Liam’s murky past.
•
“Take these,” Nix said, passing Liam and the crew rough brown cloaks similar to his own. “Keep your hands in the pockets when possible and your hoods up, you’ll blend in better on our way to the hangar. The last thing we want is attention from the Ansarans.”
It was early morning when Liam unzipped his ashen jumpsuit and stepped out of it, putting the cloak over his head and pulling it down, its long brown fabric hanging down to his knees and curling around him like a hooded poncho. The loading bay had just about anything Liam could think of. More and more, Zega was starting to remind him of some of his old contacts at Vesta Corporation. They were never short of supplies and were found in places just as seedy as The Sand’s Edge.
Liam pulled on a matching pair of pants and pulled the pallid drawstring tight. Last, he strapped the energy weapon to his thigh under the cloak. Liam felt odd wearing the Dinari outfit, but the oddest part about it wasn’t what he was wearing, but what he wasn’t. Even in this sandy environment, most Dinari didn’t wear shoes. Liam found himself thinking about how hot the sand was going to be on his toes.
As though reading his mind, Nix reached into a crate and pulled out a pair of thin boots. “These are meant for a Dinari teenager, but they might fit you. Boots aren’t so common on Surya.”
Liam tried on the tan boots, which conformed nicely to his feet and looked like something out of an ancient history book from Earth. They had several leather straps and made their way almost to his knees. There was a little extra room at the end where a Dinari’s claws would probably have fit. All in all, they fit well enough, considering they weren’t even made for his species. Liam pulled the hood over his head, the tip of which hung down past his eyebrows.
Saturn and Ju-Long finished strapping on their boots while Nix checked them all over. Anyone getting a close look would know they weren’t Dinari, but the disguises were good enough that on a speeding hover bike they should go unnoticed. Nix smiled in admiration of his work. “I think we’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
“What about Sestra?” Liam asked.
“She has another assignment. Besides, this kind of mission isn’t her style.”
Without offering any further explanation, Nix pressed a button on the wall and a corrugated metal garage door opened, morning light flooding the loading bay. Liam took the nearest hover bike, expecting Saturn to hop on the back. Instead, she took one of the other bikes, shooing Ju-Long away when he tried to get on with her. Dejected, Ju-Long walked up to Liam’s bike and got on. When Liam powered on the bike, Ju-Long put a hand awkwardly on Liam’s shoulder to steady himself. The hover bikes made whirring noises, quiet at first, but rising in volume until the loading bay was filled with their deafening hum.
Nix powered on his bike and fiddled with his console, projecting his face as a hologram on Liam and Saturn’s bikes. “When we get out there, if a patrol catches wind of us, split up. I’ll send a map with the location of the hangar. Don’t let them follow you, though. We can’t afford a fight out in the open.”
Nix pointed his clawed toes, pressing down on the accelerator and quickly turned left out of the loading bay, followed closely by Saturn. A holographic map appeared on Liam’s control panel, hovering above the display in a yellow outline, their destination flashing in red. Liam turned a copper knob, increasing power to his engine until the whir became a steady but deafening hum. He pointed the toe of his boot and sped out into the morning light.
21
In steep contrast to the night, the daytime had the streets of Sector Seven bustling with Dinari, open-air markets littering the side streets. Ansaran guards clad in their tan uniforms patrolled the street in pairs, their eyes obstructed by dark visors. Liam saw some Ansaran guards shaking down a teenage Dinari male, punching his scaled face with sickening force. The purple web that owned the night was gone, replaced by a sun that seemed far larger in the sky than the Earth’s. Its position was still low, but it took up far more of the yellowed atmosphere than Liam had expected.
Nix led them around a deep bend in the dirt road. Liam had to maneuver out of the way of a cart filled with a foreign produce, purple in color and spherical in shape. The road was wide and there were few vehicles to clog it. Most Dinari appeared to travel on foot and there was only an occasional Ansaran craft, but they generally flew over the tops of the buildings. Their sleek vehicles were as wide as four of their bikes abreast and had two large fans on the sides which tilted back to accelerate the ship. Each held two Ansaran guards crammed tight in the clear glass cockpit.
Whenever they saw one, Liam instinctively pressed down his foot and accelerated. There didn’t seem to be any speed laws in Akaru, though if there were, somehow, he doubted Nix would follow them. Liam and Ju-Long caught up to Nix and Saturn’s bikes before long. Watching Nix’s back as he rode, Liam thought that there must be a lot more to their Dinari guide. His persona from the day before was far different from the confident Dinari before him. It made Liam wonder how much truth there was in Nix’s words. Or, whether life in the spire had depressed his spirit.
The Ansaran guards didn’t take any interest in them until they passed into Sector Eight. Two pillars on either side of the street illuminated as they approached, sending out a grid of red lasers in their path. Ju-Long grabbed both of Liam’s shoulders tight, crying out for him to stop. Liam tried to decelerate but ended up plowing right through the field of lasers.
He didn’t feel a thing as they passed through. Liam realized too late that they had been scanned. Two Ansaran crafts were on them in moments, their large rotors tilted forward, and the ships hovered ten meters off the ground. A wall of sand plumed up behind them as the Ansarans pursued the three hover bikes. Up ahead, Nix broke hard and turned down a side street off to the right, far too small for the Ansarans but perfect for their small bikes. Saturn accelerated to her top speed, leaving Liam in her wake of dust.
On Liam’s dash the yellow holographic map gleamed, a red dot flashing straight ahead where the warehouse would be. From behind, a blue la
ser cut into the dirt road a meter to his right, blasting out a perfect line in the sand a half meter deep. Out of Liam’s peripheral vision, he saw Ju-Long’s hand pointing to the left. Liam turned hard, neglecting his brake, and the hover bike shot up a few meters into the turn, sparking off the side of a clay building before Liam could level it out in the alleyway.
The Ansaran ships slowed, rising vertically into the air to get their bearings. Soon, they adjusted and followed him over the top of the buildings, their loud fans propelling them forward far faster than Liam’s bike was capable. Liam knew he’d have to lose them in the alleys if he were to have any chance of getting rid of them before he reached the hangar.
“Hang on,” Liam shouted over his shoulder.
Ju-Long gripped Liam’s cloak tighter in response.
Liam broke hard and twisted the handles of the bike to the right, spinning the back end wide as he made the turn. He pressed his foot down on the gas, quickly accelerating until he started to get tunnel vision. The alley was becoming thinner, too thin to safely get the bike through. Above him the Ansarans had adjusted and were hot on his trail. Liam pressed the brake and turned to the left, the bike coming off the ground again and flipping upside down in a barrel roll before finding the ground and hovering there once more, flying down the alley with blazing speed.
Liam made two more turns and checked over his shoulder. He’d lost them. A hundred meters ahead Liam could see where the alley dumped out into the main road. It looked like they were going to come out in the middle of one of the open-air markets. Liam tilted his toe and the hover bike accelerated through the thin alley, the clay walls narrowing until less than a meter remained on either side. They burst out of the alley, making a quick turn. Out of the sky an Ansaran ship dropped down, sending a cloud of dust into Liam’s eyes and forcing him to brake hard. He lost control of the hover bike and it skidded across the sand, sending Ju-Long and Liam rolling to the side of the street. They tumbled to a stop and lay there, motionless.