by C. C. Ekeke
The humans cowered among themselves, whimpering and shaking. Maelstrom scowled. Just the sight of these parasites made his blood simmer. Still, their fear tasted sweet and satisfying to Maelstrom. The two chosen Korvenites stood side by side with heads high, their strong minds shining beacons among these weak creatures.
“[This forcefield is composed of thaelarite emissions and the cubes are serving as mock planetary barrier shields,]” Isar explained to Maelstrom while the other Korvenite techies darted about, checking the settings. “[But watch when we add our modified quadronide solution.]” The stout Korvenite nodded to the forcefield operator, who began typing at his floating console a few metrids away.
The cubes instantly reacted, vibrating and releasing a deep azure hue into the golden force field. In short order, the entire sphere shifted into a green color. “[Activate!]” Isar shouted.
The operator did as instructed. Within nanoclics the field shimmered so fiercely that Maelstrom and all observing parties had to shield their eyes. None could drown out the jarring shrieks from within the sphere. Through that, Maelstrom felt the resolve of his two Korvenites glow like twin stars!
After several macroms, the last cry finally quieted. Still blinded by the forcefield, Maelstrom reached into the sphere with his mind. He sensed the stony hush of death within its confines.
“[Lower the forcefield,]” Isar commanded.
As the brilliance of the green faded, so did the soft gold hue of the thaelarite forcefield. The Korvenite leader lowered his hands from his eyes. Other Korvenites did the same as their eyes adjusted to the normal lights. What Maelstrom saw made his jaw drop, a rare occurrence.
Within the forcefield’s confines lay the charred remains of humans and other Union-member races. Foul smoke curled from the charred viscera of the deceased, already stinking up the lab. Maelstrom strode closer still, the dead barely holding his attention. In the middle of the ruined corpses stood his two Korvenites, mostly unscathed. Neither Jorgahn nor Masra exhibited any fear. In their minds, Maelstrom heard them singing praise to Korvan and himself.
“[It worked,]” the llyriac whispered. Three years of meticulous planning and finally, the main piece of his plan to reclaim Sollus was complete. Despite appearing solemn to his followers, inside he could barely keep himself from shouting in happiness.
“[It did work Lord Maelstrom,]” Isar looked pleased, as he should. “[We input quadronide in its plasma state and stimulated the shield. We then remotely programmed which race to incinerate. Just like with a planet’s defense grids.]”
Maelstrom turned and stared at him, which quickly made Isar stop smiling. “[And the independent spacestation orbiting Sollus? Is there a solution for this?]”
“[Already in my possession, Lord. The information from our spies on Rhomera is on this card.]” Isar fished a small chip from his pant pocket and handed it to Maelstrom.
The llyriac prodded the datacard in his palm. “[You are sure this will work on a planet?]”
“[Truly, my Lord.]” Isar nodded so vigorously it looked like his head would fly off. “[As long as every component is in place and the auxiliary spacestation’s shield frequencies are correct.]”
Maelstrom pocketed the datacard and placed both hands on Isar’s shoulders. “[You worked the will of Korvan today, friend. Our success will be because of the gifts you used in His name.]” Maelstrom, seeing the bliss on Isar’s face, felt a swell of pride. “[And all of you,]” he turned to the other Korvenites in the tech lab. He then focused on Masra and Jorgahn still in the forcefield, mentally singing the chants to Korvan.
“[Masra, Jorgahn. Come.]” The two Korvenites snapped out of their trance and purposely stepped on the human remains as they moved toward their leader.
“[You two are key to our success. Study the spacestation on this datacard. Learn about its schematics, security and mainframe by tomorrow.]” Maelstrom took Masra’s hand and placed the datacard in it. She gazed up at him, her round face beaming. “[Then you will be sent out into Terra Sollus aerospace and gain control of that station, for your species.]”
Jorgahn, teary-eyed and trembling, clapped a hand over his mouth. “[My thanks Lord Maelstrom.]”
Maelstrom patted Jorgahn’s cheek like a proud father. “[No, I thank you both.]” They knew this was a suicide mission, yet neither displayed any reluctance. True devotion. “[Go, serve Korvan.]”
“[Korvan guides us to victory. He is the beginning and the end,]” both Masra and Jorgahn said in chorus as they left the room, hearts soaring.
Maelstrom waited until the doors slid behind the two youngsters before speaking again. “[Isar, walk with me.]” He swept toward the exit, his robes billowing out behind him. A spike of surprise came from Isar at this request, but soon Maelstrom felt the Korvenite technician jogging to catch up to his brisk pace.
[You have your doubts, Isar?] Maelstrom asked mentally, as both he and Isar entered into a viewport corridor. Merrivel Nebula’s reddish pink hue splashed bright pastels over them as they walked.
Isar turned pale green in alarm. [Lord, it isn’t my place to question—.]
[It is your place to voice your opinion,] Maelstrom retorted. He spun in mid-stride to face the shorter Korvenite directly. [You are one of the few who has stayed with me since the beginning, even before my sojourn beyond Union borders. Speak, Isar. You have earned the right.]
Isar studied Maelstrom for a few moments before he spoke aloud in Korcei. “[Our technology and our intelligence all come from other races. We cannot keep relying so heavily on outsiders if we are to be truly independent. I am not alone in this opinion.]” He looked at the ground in shame, but continued. “[And this Strategic Assault & Reconnaissance Brigade hunting us, led by a human.]” Isar said ‘human’ like a swearword.
As Isar spoke, movement among the pink clouds caught Maelstrom’s eye. A betelydra far bigger than any he had seen flailed and rolled in the gleaming capture net designed to keep it docile. The medium-sized UComm retrieval craft dragging the betelydra back into Merrivel clearly struggled with its huge cargo. Not a rare sight, as betelydra sometimes wandered too close to Alorum, the nearest planet outside of the nebula. The massive creature fought despite its restraints. Its round black eyes were wide, verbalizing fear, its muscular foot whipped dangerously near the ship’s engine.
“[That betelydra there, Isar. Do you see it?]” Maelstrom put an arm around Isar’s shoulders and pulled him closer to the viewport. “[Even though the creature’s desire for freedom is constantly hampered by the Union, it still fights. I see our species in that betelydra, Isar. I see our struggle.]” Maelstrom watched as the betelydra went limp for a heartbeat—only to renew its violent thrashing tenfold, rolling and tangling up the capture net. The retrieval craft abruptly veered to the right in order to avoid getting jerked back by its much larger cargo. Isar watched, looking a little confused as to Maelstrom’s point.
“[However, find me a race that claims to be a self-sustained galaxy, I’ll call them liars. You think the Cybernarr are truly isolationists in the Dracius Cluster? Everyone needs some aid to reach its goals.]” Maelstrom stretched out mentally to his weaponry chief. [Lioth, disable the ship holding the betelydra.]
[Yes, my Lord.] The Libremancer fired off three neutrino disruptor pulses, nailing the retrieval craft dead-on in the weapons bay and the engines. Maelstrom smiled faintly as the ship lit up upon impact and began floating aimlessly. The betelydra now wriggled furiously out of the lifeless capture net and soared free through the clouds. A twinkling rain of nebula dust cascaded against the viewport.
Isar stared with dropped jaw. “[Amazing. I—I see what you speak of, Maelstrom.]”
“[Good.]” Maelstrom nodded in satisfaction. [Vama,] he reached out to the ship’s helm commander. [Make sure our betelydra gets to its intended location.] Instantly, Maelstrom saw a beacon shoot out of the Libremancer and toward the betelydra, which now poked its head into some golden-feathered clouds.
The beacon la
nded between the blubbery folds of its neck, burrowing into the creature’s body, and then its brain. Maelstrom was soon in mental sync with the betelydra’s simple brain. A surge came from the Unilink to the creature. [Go, feed your curiosity.] With that, the betelydra jerked up and sped away at breakneck speed toward Merrivel Nebula’s exit.
“[Now, where were we Isar,]” Maelstrom turned back to his subordinate with a smile.
[Lord Maelstrom,] Vama thought through the Unilink. [About the retrieval craft?] The triangular Union craft still drifted in space with no visible power. [It will be disabled for another orv. We scanned the ship navicomputer for any useful data, but found nothing other than that it has a six-human crew—.]
[Destroy it,] Maelstrom ordered immediately. At once the Libremancer’s turbo cannon array lit up and fired on the helpless retrieval craft— punching straight through the hull like knives through butter. Moments later the craft burst apart in a fiery swell, briefly illuminating the nearby nebula billows. Scattered ship debris and black smoke stained the rose-pink clouds outside the viewport. [Thank you, Vama.] Maelstrom turned away and renewed his walk with Isar. “[Ah, Star Brigade,]” he spat the name out like sour milk.
“[Yes Lord.]” Isar watched Maelstrom as they came to the end of the corridor. “[If they stopped us from getting those Mindshift Potentials, they might be a threat to our—your—plans to take Sollus.]”
“[Worry not, young Isar. We’ll be dealing with this Star Brigade very soon.]” Maelstrom’s eyes flashed with hate. No one would stop him. Not the humans, and certainly not a has-been UComm outfit.
9.
A loud, hacking cough from outside jolted Tharydane from slumber. Under the flickering lights she looked up from her pillow and pushed back a tangled mass of violet hair. The Korvenite had enjoyed her first nightmare-free sleep in days, but fatigue still lingered. The low, soothing hum of a hyperdrive reminded her she was now on a vessel shooting through hyperspace. She hadn’t been on a spacecraft since Hugrask took her on a supply run to Tavamnorii, Noriida Major’s fourth planet, three months ago.
The tiny freighter compartment serving as her room smelled rather musty. Cracks of light needled through the door, adding little to the room’s sputtering illumination. Some food would be nice, as her stomach had begun to complain loudly.
She had dreamed of her biological family last night; the parents she’d lost, the older siblings killed long before her birth. Tharydane’s first memories had been on a ship with her parents fleeing from planet to planet to evade Korvenite slavers. Space ships had once made her feel safe…until slavers had caught them unawares within the Supremacy’s Ruin seven years ago, selling her parents to who knows who on who knows what planet, putting a terrified seven-year-old Tharydane on a Bimnorii slave auction block.
Thank the Maker Hugrask got me first. In her haste to rise, Tharydane brushed a hand against her pillow and felt wetness. From her own tears of course. And then she recalled why she felt so miserable.
Six days had passed and still what she had seen, what she had done, remained crystal clear in her mind. The tears began to well up again. She propped herself against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut.
Don’t cry. DON’T. A single tear trickled down her cheek, spattering on the ground. That was all she’d allow. Bimnorii was light-years away, but Tharydane couldn’t escape all that death she caused. After two long macroms, the grief finally subsided and the Korvenite let out a tired sigh.
She had to focus on something else—kind of difficult while sitting in a barren room with nothing to do. In fact, Tharydane hadn’t even changed out of the too-big knit shirt and too-small pants she had been given to replace her bloodied garments. Bloodied. And none of the blood hers. The Korvenite shivered.
Laughter seeped into her room through the closed door. The pilots were carrying on about something else. She knew one of them, Mikas, the jolly and middle-aged human, a regular at Hugrask’s. He would check on Tharydane every few orvs and continuously asked if she was hungry, despite her claims of being otherwise. She would have to amend that claim next time Mikas visited.
It took the Korvenite a moment to recognize the swirling drawl of the second pilot, a Ganttarian. Tharydane had never understood the universal contempt heaped down upon this species. And Korvan forbid if any Kedri happens to be in the same room as a Ganttarian. Only one being ever left those confrontations alive, and it was never the Ganttarian. Even Hugrask had no stomach for—.
No, Tharydane shook her head. Thinking about Hugrask hurts too much.
Yet the memories kept pouring forth. Desperate to focus on anything else, she crawled on hands and knees across the room and pressed her ear against the door. “…you didn’t narrowly miss that asteroid when we passed Aramnorii, Pol’Jeras. You nicked my ship!”
“I nicked nothing, Mikas!” the Ganttarian drawled back. “What you saw was hyperspace stress.”
“Hyperspace stress?!” Mikas repeated the words with such disgust that Tharydane couldn’t help but smile from behind the compartment door. “I got a two metrid-long scratch on my ship’s belly that speaks otherwise of your hyperspace stress! It comes outta your purse on this trip!”
“If it makes you stop whining like an aaln in labor, then fine. And only because I let you,” Pol’Jeras muttered. “So Mick, who’s our Korvie passenger back there?”
Mikas’ voice promptly lowered. “Remember that teenage dancer from Hugrask’s Hostellaris?”
“WHAAT?” the Ganttarian hissed.
“Yep, it’s her.”
“But how’d you get her away from the Mulkeavian? I heard how possessive he is of his property—.”
“She isn’t…wasn’t his property,” Mikas snapped. “Anyway, I go in for a midday swig of black dwarf before we head off. When I get there, I see a large crowd standing around like someone had died.”
“Someone die?”
Mikas snorted testily. “Try Hugrask, all his employees, along with Gijjir Nhul and a chunk of his henchbeings.”
“Gijjir Nhul? The Ymedes crime guvnor?!” The Ganttarian let out a long tootle. “How?”
“Inside what was left of the hostellaris, Hugrask and his employees were all shot to death. Frekking gory, but not half as bad as Gijjir Nhul and his cronies.” A morbid chill ran through Mikas’ next words.
“It was like some big crotalus came and had its way with them. Just thinking about it makes me ill.”
“Wait. A. Moment!” the Ganttarian cut in. “What does the Korvie girl have to do with this? I’ve heard about what happened in D’Sozi and Ymedes. You don’t think she—?”
“That teeny lass?” Mikas scoffed glibly. “Tharyn’s harmless. I found her in the hostellaris covered in blood, curled up and crying next to what was left of Hugrask. Broke my heart. I had to get her outta there. Sides, Hugrask always made me feel right at home anytime I came to the hostellaris and it was the right thing to do. By the Maker, three days ago she was just staring off into space like an osvorwraith had sucked her soul bleeding dry.” An uncomfortable silence followed.
“I don’t look like an osvorwraith sucked out my soul!” Tharydane hissed crossly.
“Just hope you did the right thing, Mick,” Pol’Jeras said. “And by the way, she’s awake.”
Tharydane gawked. Ganttarians and their hearing!
“Then, I’m going to go see if she’ll finally eat.” Even through the door, Tharydane could hear Mikas’ seat groan when relieved of his ample weight. Then came his heavy shuffle of footsteps approaching.
Tharydane scuttled back from the door so quickly she slipped and landed painfully on her behind. She bit her lip and swallowed a curse as the compartment door creaked open.
Tharydane involuntarily squinted as a more potent halolight flooded the room. Mikas filled most of the doorway with his rotund frame, blocking most of the illumination. Tharydane made out his long, grizzled beard and balding top, despite the shadows obscuring his face. She hugged herself closer against her knees
and stared at her own scarily gaunt arms.
“How ya feeling today, Tharyn?” He tried hard to soften his gravelly voice.
The Korvenite stared at the ground. “Fine,” she lied, her constant answer over the past few days. Spills of violet hair hid Tharydane’s face from the human. Hearing the fear in both Mikas and Pol’Jeras’s voices when speaking of the hostellaris incident only made her feel worse.
“Of course you are,” he replied, sounding less than convinced, then turned to leave. “Listen, if you’re hungry I gots some breakfast grits and other foodstuffs.”
“Breakfast grit will do,” Tharydane said quickly.
“Okay.” Mikas’ face brightened. “You can ride with us as long as you want. We’ll have to stop and refuel in the Mynar Sector in about six days or so, but that’s our only stop in Union Space.”
Tharydane nodded and then looked up at Mikas earnestly. “Thank you, Mikas. For everything.”
His smile displayed big white teeth in the darkness. “No problem, lass.”
“Umm, Mikas,” Tharydane called out as he turned to leave. “Which planet are we stopping at?”
The human shrugged. “Some orbital spaceport near The Epicenter.”
Tharydane stared at him blankly. “The Epicenter of what?”
Tharydane couldn’t see the Ganttarian but she could certainly hear him. “She’s never heard of The Epicenter?” Pol’Jeras drawled in disbelief.
“Can it!” Mikas growled at the Ganttarian. He turned back to a still puzzled Tharydane and smiled. “‘The Epicenter of the Galaxy’. Just a nickname for Terra Sollus.”
The mere mention of the name sent a shock from her head to her toes and back again, making Tharydane sit bolt upright. Terra Sollus—the planet that the entire Korvenite slave population in Ymedes fawned about as long she knew them, the ancestral home of her race before they were driven out.
“Home,” Tharydane whispered, hugging her knees against her chest and rocking back and forth. “I’m going home.” Seeing that she was lost in her thoughts again, Mikas slowly shut the door to her compartment. The illumination faded back to the sputtering halolight on the room’s ceiling. Tharydane didn’t even notice. She was traveling to the Korvenite homeworld, her homeworld. Terra Sollus.