by Tarkin, Mika
“You know,” he said. “This could be a good chance for you to head back--”
“I told you. I’m going with you at least as far as the portal. We can decide what to do next once we get there.”
Her eyes told him that there was no changing her mind on that fact. He was happy for it. He didn’t know where he would be without her. How he could have managed the last few days.
“Why’d you come looking for me?” he asked.
“I told you. I missed you. I was worried about you.”
“But why were you worried.”
“Because I care about you.”
“You’re lying.”
“How can you say that? You’re the most important thing in the world to me Marko. You have been for… I don’t even remember how long.”
“Not about that.”
“Then what?”
“Why don’t you tell me.”
Marko stared her down. It hurt him to think that she would lie to him about anything. What had he done to make her feel like she needed to hide the truth, no matter what it was?
“I just heard that you’d joined up with the Halians.”
“From who?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters.”
Naeesha withered under his stare. He had a feeling that he knew where her story was going, and he could already feel his hands shaking with anticipatory rage.
“Two officers came to my apartment. They told me that you’d gone AWOL.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have trusted me if I told you that the military had sent me?”
Marko lost control. His anger, his sadness, his loss and longing, it all started to pour out.
“Two thousand people died when the military attacked my camp. You knew they’d found us, and you didn’t tell anybody.”
“I’m sorry,” Naeesha said, tears coming to her eyes once more. “I didn’t know what they would do.”
“How could you not have known? You’ve seen what they do. What they’ve done a hundred times!”
All that loss. All that suffering. It could have been prevented. He could have stopped it. If only he knew.
“I thought we’d be gone before they came. I didn’t know they were coming so soon. I didn’t know…”
Marko cleared his eyes and looked into the treeline, watching as the second sun disappeared behind the green crown of the horizon. What made him think that he could ever escape from the Alderoccans and the death that followed them? What made him think that Naeesha’s arrival had been a coincidence or that suffering would not come with her also?
He got up and turned towards the trail. He needed space. Needed to clear his head. Naeesha got up and started after him, but one look was all that he needed to turn her away.
The forest swallowed him, and he breathed easier without the crushing weight of the Halian’s grief hanging around him. Just because he’d gotten used to feeling everything that they did didn’t make it any easier.
Music and song carried through the forest. He smiled. It didn’t take the Hala long to start celebrating. It was their way of letting go. They grieved fast and hard and turned their energy towards moving on. Their people had always been nomads. Loss had been a part of them since the times of their first songs.
They always found a way to move on.
Marko lost himself in the beauty of the forest. He hadn’t been able to enjoy it earlier. To take in the wonderful splendor of all the light and the color. The strange smells and faint tastes that the wind carried through the trees. All of the sounds, a symphony of life that never stopped playing.
He’d spent many nights wondering what it was that he was fighting for. What he hoped to achieve by running or fighting or just trying to survive. He still didn’t know, but moments like this had to be worth something. Moments like this, and moments like the ones that he’d shared with Naeesha. Not just now, but before.
They were spread out over so long, mixed in with so much darkness and evil. But just like he could pick a birdsong out of the cacophony of noise in the woods, he could still pick the happy memories that he’d made with her from all of the suffering.
Even the times that had been tinged with regret - like the last night they’d spent together before he left - were still beautiful.
All the long nights, the urgent encounters between shifts or when they find an unused bunk room. The sex, the fights, the tears, and the laughter. He’d somehow lost all of it in the vast sea of memory, and every once in a while he’d be lucky enough for a little piece of it to float up to the surface where he could scoop it up, turn it over, relive it, and set it free again into the ocean.
That’s why he liked walks like this. The memories came easier, the stayed longer, played in brighter colors, the picture so much clearer. It was like he was there again, in a lean-to tent a few miles away from the airbase where they’d both been stationed. Instead of flying into the capital for their leave, they’d packed up a few days of supplies, walked out into the lush forest, and stopped at the first beautiful place they could find. As it happened, it was a small moss-covered landing just beside a waterfall where a little stream plunged down thirty feet of worn river rocks and kicked up a fine, warm mist that settled over everything.
The feeling of Naeesha’s soft skin, coated in that mist, it was something he’d never felt again. It was a sensation that belonged to that one fleeting moment in time, tied to that one particular point in space. But he was free to remember it any time pleased.
How had he ever forgotten?
He found himself nearly in tears, standing on a small hill, looking around at the beautiful country all around him. The sun was finally going down. He missed Naeesha. He wanted to go back and apologize. To make things right. To hold her and tell her that it was okay. That everything was going to be okay.
Taking his bearings, he turned back towards the camp and set off. But something caught his eye. A soundless blur in the near distance. A swarm of black, barely visible against the encroaching night. He knew right away what it was, but he strained his eyes, hoping to find some clue that would prove him wrong.
Part of the blur broke away from the frenzy and flitted across the forest, swooping just a few feet in front of him before pulling up and bursting through the canopy into the night sky.
Ten feet of leathery wings, a long snout that concealed three-inch long fangs, claws that could rip flesh from bone as easily as a child could pluck flowers from a petal. It was a vicious predator, eating its own weight every night. Strictly speaking, everything was part of the wolfbat’s diet, and just one of them was a serious threat to any person or creature that couldn’t contend with its strength or ferocity.
And by his count, a few hundred had just taken to the air.
Chapter Nineteen
“Nobody wants to play anymore. They’re all too sad,” Kiran said.
Of course they were. They’d just lost hundreds of their friends, and it was Naeesha’s fault. She could have at least warned Marko and the tribe, but she’d said nothing, thinking that things would just work themselves out. When did they ever?
“They just need some time. They’ll be better soon,” Naeesha said.
“Will you play with me?” Kiran asked.
She envied the child and their ability to carry on in spite of everything. She wished that she could have borrowed just an ounce of their courage to keep living life to the fullest, no matter what terrors lay in lurking.
Much to both of their approval, the crowd in the combined camp was starting to liven up. A jaunty tune sprung up from the noise of a camp, and more melodies soon joined it. People began to drift towards the joyful sounds, already moving to the quick, springy beat.
Kiran did not drift, so much as fly.
Naeesha tried to keep up as the child wove through the crowd and found their way to the front of a makeshift stage where a Halian musician was warming up a stringed instrument that she’d never
seen before. Their lithe red fingers danced across the polished wooden board that the strings were stretched over, and the musician plucked light, ringing notes that started to blend together into one unbroken song, like water trickling through a brook.
She stood entranced, awestruck by the beauty of the music and by the lilting sway of the crowd.
The smell of fresh cooked food began to fill the air as the kitchen fires began to burn. It would be a short celebration. If her sense of time was any good, the camp would soon go to the circles to meet, exchange news, and talk about current events. And hopefully, she thought, decide what to do once the sun came up.
All the same, people threw themselves into the revelry with abandon. If she could learn to be half as grateful for the joys of life as these people were, she didn’t doubt that she could live a happy life.
Naeesha couldn’t even begin to remember the last time she’d had that thought. A long time ago, maybe, when she’d imagined leaving the military with Marko and settling down together. But neither of them had ever entertained those fantasies seriously, and before too long, she stopped having them altogether.
But why not start again? Why not start living for the future, wondering what could be? After two days, she already felt welcome and at home with these people. It was impossible not to. There was no way to deceive herself into thinking that she was unappreciated or unwanted. She could feel every flicker of gratitude and affection and warmth that every single Hala felt towards her. It made her want to cry. Each and every one of them held her in higher regard than she could ever remember holding herself.
She wanted Marko. Wanted to tell him how she felt about him, to make sure that he didn’t have to go on wondering. If he still wanted to see her, of course. He was right. She could have stopped the massacre on the Halian camp if she’d just told him that the military knew where he was and was going to come for him. She wondered if the Halians would still dote their affection on her if they knew…
The suns finally went down and the stars came out. It was a beautiful night. The sky wasn’t quite dark yet, but she could still see a thousand stars. The faint disk of the galaxy stretched from horizon to horizon, a milky band that glittered with spectacular starlight.
She turned her attention back to the stage and the music and the dancing Halians. Kiran was lost in the crowd, whirling around, as happy as ever, she imagined.
Something in the sky caught her attention. She looked up, but didn’t see anything but the stars.
Again, she tried to let go of all the fear and worry and just enjoy the moment. To let the beauty wash over her. To surrender herself to the here and the now and let everything else go. It was behind her. There was no knowing what lay ahead. All she could do was open her hands and take whatever the universe gave her.
A dark blur crossed her field of vision again. She was sure of it this time, but she still couldn’t track anything against the night sky. Maybe it was a wisp of a cloud, or a small swarm of bugs or birds.
But there was a sense of lingering unease in her stomach. It didn’t belong to her, it was a discomfort that was shared by hundreds of Halians who must have noticed the same thing as her.
The metallic taste of adrenaline filled her mouth, though she didn’t know why. Her heart started racing. What was this feeling? It had been years since she felt it, and it seemed utterly out of place until she remembered the Halian soldiers.
It was battlelust.
A burst of light shot into the sky, streaking towards the horizon. And then another. She watched the brilliant green orb zip over the camp, and saw a nightmare frozen in the night sky. The plasma blast only illuminated it for a second, but that was long enough to see the cruel claws and curved fangs.
Wolfbats.
More shots rang out and she realized that the sky was boiling with them. Some of the soldiers connected with their targets, and the flying nightmares fell to the ground in crumpled, smoldering heaps. Gods, there must have been a thousand of them. With only fifty guns and fifty soldiers, there was no way that the camps would be able to defend themselves against the hungry swarm.
Back when she was flying strikes against Halian camps, she’d been sleeping in the barracks when she heard a scream. It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds between the first cry and when she made it outside, but by the time she got there, the only thing left of the Watcher on patrol was a few a handful of bones.
The Halians rushed to the center of camp and huddled in a tight knot. The soldiers formed a tight perimeter around them, shooting as fast as they could into the churning skies above them. Their plasma weapons were poorly suited to the task. It took a few seconds for the capacitors to recharge after every shot, and the wolfbats moved in fast, erratic arcs. Couple that with the fact that it was too dark to see what they were shooting at, and each soldier was lucky to bring down one bat a minute.
And with each passing minute, the bats were getting bolder. They started swooping so low that Naeesha could feel the gusts of their wings as they flew by. She drew her plasma pistol out of her bag. It had a better fire rate than the rifles, at the cost of its punch. But one shot should still have been enough to take out one of the gnashing monsters.
Her theory was confirmed on the first shot, when a brilliant green blur connected the barrel of her gun to a bat that had taken a dive at her. She kept her right eye closed tight, opening it for a fraction of a second at a time to keep her night vision strong. The world around her moved like a slideshow. She’d get a glimpse of soft black shapes against the stars, just a notion of a target really, and then a second later, it would be somewhere else. She tried to pick out targets in the middle of a glide and shoot ahead, anticipating their path.
The strategy was producing good results, but she was still missing more shots than she landed.
No matter how many bats seemed to fall from the sky, the swarm appeared to be just as strong as ever. And they were turning their attention to the huddled masses. A few of the soldiers turned their focus inward, picking off the bats that swooped in to try and rake at the frightened civilians.
The plasma fire came in so low that it was hitting the treeline, just barely clearing the heads of the soldiers on the other side of the pack. The bats were coming in closer, and so was the rest of the plasma fire. Before too much longer, the sky above the survivors was just a tangle of green streaks. Bats started swooping down and clawing at civilians faster than soldiers could pick them off. The tight crowds kept them from swarming anyone too fast, but the screams and the feelings of agony and terror told Naeesha that things were not going well for the people inside the circle.
One scream in particular stood out among the crowd. It was small and shrill. That of a child. Naeesha saw a bat rising up out of the crowd. It was pounding its wings but barely making any gains towards the sky. It was carrying a child.
“Heeeelp,” the child cried.
It was Kiran.
She lined up carefully and fired. The bolt went just high of the bat as it cleared the outside of the mob. Two more plasma blasts ripped by, also high. The bats were small targets to begin with, and trying to get a good shot while avoiding Kiran.
With the next shot, she cut things a little closer. The bat was approaching the treeline fast, and if nobody stopped it, the kindest thing that anybody could do for Kiran would be to kill them now.
The plasma blast went wide as the bat cut left. She had a window for one more good attempt, and then maybe a couple wild-ass prayers.
Another bat swooped down and started clawing at a woman next to her. Naeesha cursed, turned, and put a burning hole through the bat, taking a shot she couldn’t possibly miss over the long shot. She turned back, saw the faint black outline of the bat carrying Kiran away, and took a deep breath.
She exhaled slowly, steadying her hands, and sighting the black shape. She watched as it sank, then rose, sank, and then rose again with the steady beats of its wings. It sank again, she squeezed the trigger of her pistol and watche
d and listened for some sign of success. It took a moment for the green contrail to fade enough that she could see.
The bat was still flying. She could see Kiran kicking and flailing in its claws.
Then, a flash of red light, like a falling star. It tore through the bat and turned to the camp. It was a phoenix.
The huge burning bird swooped in low near the circle, and Naeesha watched as a small red figure tumbled to the ground, got up, and ran back into the crowd.
In a fiery flash, the Phoenix was back in the air, cutting through the sky in jagged streaks, tearing wolfbats out of the sky, ripping them apart, and letting their charred bodies fall to the ground. With its help, the soldiers pushed the bats off the survivors and back into the sky. Their numbers thinned, and just a few seconds later, the few remaining bats beat wing and fled with a salvo of plasma fire chasing after them.
The Phoenix crashed to the ground in the middle of camp and erupted like a supernova, the brilliant white blast temporarily blinding Naeesha. The world came back into a fuzzy focus, and she saw Marko’s darkened figure kneeling in a pile of smoking ash.
Chapter Twenty
Reviving from his Phoenix form was without a doubt the worst thing that Marko had ever experienced. It didn’t work like other shifts. It harnessed the same power that allowed Watchers to self detonate and burned it on a slow fuse. The shift was over when the inferno had consumed the last bit of fuel, and, if everything went the way it was supposed to, Marko would shift back to his natural form among the spent shapeshifted body. If things went wrong, then there would just be a loose mound of ash. No Marko. But it was a risk he had to take. If the wolfbats swarmed him, they could bring down any of his other forms - even his dragon. Any attempt to attack a Pheonix, however, would be less successful.
But even when things went well, it was still an unpleasant experience. To make a long story short, it basically meant using every scrap of energy that he had, being lit on fire, dying from aforementioned blaze, and being dragged back to on the molecular level.