by C. C. Ekeke
Khrome and Liliana turned in tandem toward a large Kintarian with sleek sable fur in extravagant dress robes, glowering at V’Korram. The Kintarian Brigadier looked intent on ignoring him.
“Nothing to say?” The gaudy Kintarian sneered, showing pointy teeth. “You used to have plenty.”
V’Korram brusquely wheeled about. “Don’t you have rear-ends to kiss, Senator Onthar-Khada?” He pronounced the other’s name with chilled courtesy. “Or have they realized your worthlessness as well?”
The Senator’s pale green eyes blazed. “Show some respect, you cheeky cub! You aren’t on my level!” Both Kintarians already drew attention, mainly due to how tall they were, but Onthar-Khada’s rising voice wasn’t helping. Others around them began to stare.
“I still have nothing to say to a side-dealer like you, V’Gandu. I would much rather be out making this Union safe for the deserving innocents,” V’Korram retorted, his voice barely under control.
V’Gandu folded his arms and growled, “Yes, you and your Star Brigade rabble, a continuous budget drain with next to no real return? I expected you could go no lower. But this is you we speak of.”
“What? Brigade rabble?” Khrome almost choked on his drink. “Shut me down! That bigheaded scrapweed actually makes V’Korram seem likeable in comparison. I should—.”
Liliana brought up a quieting hand and focused on the Kintarians, impressed by how calm V’Korram was acting—for once. Captain Nwosu and Sam came up behind her and Khrome.
“What’s going on?” Nwosu eyed the verbal altercation with concern.
“Not sure, Captain, but I don’t think these two like each other,” Khrome noted.
Nwosu’s glare wiped the amusement right off the Thulican’s face. Just then V’Korram spat out a remark in Kintarian. Onthar-Khada staggered back as if slapped. “The nerve of you!” he snarled.
“Oh yes, the nerve of me,” V’Korram countered, baring his teeth. His fur rippled in rage as he spoke. “I operate in a real world. Unlike you, who acts and schemes without a thought to the constituents who elected you.” V’Korram shook his head. “And you consider yourself better than me because of that? Don’t embarrass yourself anymore.” That was the longest speech Liliana had ever heard from V’Korram. Many in the growing throng watched the scene. Even from far off, the Chouncilor and his entourage looked on curiously. Sam moved forward and slipped her arm around V’Korram’s massive one.
“Walk. Away,” she whispered, which seemed to reach the Kintarian. He nodded and turned away.
But the pompous V’Gandu Onthar-Khada had to get the last word. “Letting others decide for you? I see why Ch’tlanys wanted nothing to do with—.” There was an enraged roar, then a tawny blur flashed past Liliana. Gasps broke out from the crowd. V’Korram had launched himself at the Union Senator. Sam yelled, but V’Korram was too consumed by rage. None of Star Brigade could have stopped the inevitable brawl in time…except Marguliese. She came out of nowhere, too quick to be believed, planting herself in front of a yowling, spitting V’Korram inches from reaching Onthar-Khada.
The Senator looked terrified. Liliana felt her insides liquefy. Then she saw something else and groaned. “Oh no.” A procession of Honor Guard poured forth, pulse rifles drawn. Disk-shaped sentrymechs whizzed over V’Korram, ready to take him down. The Senator ducked behind the surfeit of security and smirked victoriously. V’Korram finally noticed the chaos that he had caused, and stopped fighting Marguliese. Honaa, just arriving on the scene, grabbed V’Korram’s arm to pull him away.
“The ship, now.” Captain Nwosu pointed at one of the exits, not seeming to care which one. Honaa and Marguliese led V’Korram away, until the Honor Guard surrounded the three in an instant.
“Situation’s under control.” Habraum moved to address the Honor Guardsmen. “No one got hurt—.”
“We’ll be the judge of that.” Their leader, as evident from the silver stripes on his chestplate, blocked Habraum’s path. “That individual is your subordinate?” The Galdorian’s tone was iron.
“Yes. No one got scraped,” Nwosu explained. “My team’s escorting him to our ship.”
“Until this ceremony is complete, we’ll detain him and his companions.” The Cerc’s face hardened, masking his muted fury. It was clear that he wouldn’t win this argument. The Honor Guard leader made a curt hand gesture and the four Honor Guardsmen escorted the three Brigadiers them away.
Liliana’s heart stuttered, and by the looks Sam, Nwosu and Tyris exchanged, they all shared her same fear. “Marguliese isn’t at risk,” Khrome assured them with a confidence his gleaming eyes lacked.
20.
Tharydane finally worked up the nerve to explore the commerce station, once Pol’Jeras and Mikas had left to drink themselves into oblivion. Who knew when she’d get a chance to glimpse her estranged homeworld before Mikas left the Rhyne System? Upon exiting Mikas’s ship, the first thing Tharydane noticed was how clean everything looked. Pristine. Shiny. Perfectly shaped. The launch bay where they landed, large for such a small ship, was a polished gleaming white. Bimnorii’s spaceports and buildings were always grimy and in varying states of dilapidation. She walked through the bay exit, still awed by this inescapable cleanliness.
“Please step onto the center circle,” a mechanical male voice ordered.
Tharydane froze. Halolights momentarily blinded her. She squinted and shaded her eyes. Once the lights dimmed down, the Korvenite saw that she had entered a circular room with smooth walls. For a split nanoclic, she thought about sprinting back to Mikas’ ship. But Mikas had promised his holobracelet would pass through this scanner. The genetic scanners beyond the Passenger arrival section were the ones that would get her in trouble. Tharydane inhaled deeply and stepped into the room’s center.
The security scanners, thin beams of translucent green, washed over her entire body. Tharydane closed her eyes and willfully shut down her access to her abilities—a little trick she had taught herself on Bimnorii. This SO isn’t going to work. What in Korvan’s name was I thinking? she fretted to herself.
“Earthborn human identified. Welcome to Sollus Commerce Station,” the console chirped. To her surprise, she heard the unmistakable hiss of a door moving in front of her. Tharydane opened her eyes and sagged in relief. The entrance was open, beckoning her into a new world. She made a mental note of the landing bay, Gate UY-765, stepped outside, and was instantly bombarded. Tharydane roved about slowly gazing this way and that in wonderment, trying to take everything in. But that was impossible. Thankfully she kept her abilities closed off, otherwise the hum of surface thoughts would’ve been maddening.
Throngs of diverse beings bustled about to their destinations, a more diverse crowd than Tharydane would have seen spending a week at Rimhara Spaceport. Some species she recognized straightaway, but even the ones she recognized sported different accents and ethnicities. Even their port speak was fancier. The Korvenite focused on the ones she never even knew existed; one insect-like being ambled along on numerous little feet, another wore what looked like a life-sustaining containment suit in a humanoid chassis. A flock of short purplish-skinned aliens with eyestalks and webbed hands scurried past. When one of them caught Tharydane gaping, she quickly turned and kept walking.
Earth humans were the most numerous species she spotted. But these looked nothing like any Earth humans Tharydane had encountered. Some sported snow-white hair with roots the same color as their eyes. Others styled their hair in outrageous loops, horns, liquids or spikes accentuated by colorful choices of neon hair dye. Several humans covered their face and body in beautifully patterned tattoos or stained their skin in any pigment except the usual fleshy pink. Quite a few had both. And that didn’t include those with body modifications or visible cybernetics or so much ridiculous biosculpting that they resembled humanoid mechs. Was this an attempt to fit in more with their non-human neighbors? And how these humans spoke in an absurdly clipped, formal, monotone type of Standard Speak all the time
. Tharydane realized how alien her guise must look to them, making her almost burst out laughing at the irony.
The four floors in this section of the commerce station boasted large viewscreens flashing departing and arriving starline flights in far more languages than necessary. Countless hostellarises, souvenir shops and bistros showcased either interspecies fusion or specialized in a particular race’s culture. Glitzy holosigns shilled products she could never have imagined, floating holoscreens displayed news streams from planets Tharydane had never heard of, one after another, completely overwhelming her. Every color popped, so vibrant yet so artificial. The reds were hotter than a desert sun, the blues deeper than ocean water, the yellows brighter than heat lightning. Higher quality than anything she’d seen on Bimnorii.
Bimnorii. The planet unleashed a flood of unwanted memories. “Hugrask,” she whispered. The Mulkeavian had wanted so much to get off that worthless ball of sand.
“Move!” Tharydane was almost bowled over by a bizarre sentient moving on a tangle of tentacles instead of feet.
“Sorry!” Tharydane barely regained her footing.
“Oooh!” A youngster to her right squealed with delight. “Terra Sollus looks so BIG!!”
Right away Tharydane spun in the direction of the child’s voice. A large, diverse group of youngsters swarmed together around a wall-sized viewport. Some howled with joy, others threw conniption fits. At least five adults of varying species swept through their midst, no doubt the caretakers. But the noisy children were a mere distraction from what lay beyond the viewport. A blue and green planet hung in the twinkling darkness, its aerospace teeming with space vessels.
Terra Sollus looked so crisp from space, so blue. “Water without end. Oceans,” Tharydane marveled. None of the planets she’d seen from space had so much water without end. The Korvenite moved closer, pressing her hands against the viewport. She could stare at this planet, her planet for orvs.
Except…Tharydane felt someone watching her. A glance to the left confirmed it.
A small human boy, probably no older than seven years, stood a couple metrids away. He was calm and curious, a sharp contrast to his wild, rambunctious peers nearby. This child had a darker complexion than most humans and a shock of curly black hair. But his eyes were the most luminous Tharydane had ever seen, like one of those bright-eyed Cercidalean humans she’d met once before. It was quite unsettling how he never once blinked, taking in everything he surveyed.
For a long moment Tharydane locked eyes with this child, who broke into an adorable grin and waved. That made her smile and she bashfully waved back. Her smile faded when she glanced at her bracelet. Its power meter was half empty. “Oh no!”
Tharydane had to return to Mikas’ ship. When she looked back, the boy was gone. The Korvenite took one last gaze at Terra Sollus before heading back.
[Tharyn? I knew it!] The voice again, speaking Korcei, crystal clear in her head. Tharydane frantically looked around, seeing only the gaggle of children and their chaperones, along with other sentients bustling toward their intended destinations. [Has it been so long that you don’t recognize me?]
Tharydane frowned incredulously. “Masra?”
[Don’t make faces like that. Sentients will stare.] Tharydane glanced about. A few bystanders were staring as if a third eye had sprouted on her nose. But she didn’t care. How did Masra get here?
[I was going to ask the same thing. Barely found you after you masked yourself so well—.]
“Stop reading my thoughts,” Tharydane shook her head furiously. “If this is Masra, then I’ll see for myself!” Without thinking she opened her powers up again, immediately bombarded by thoughts and emotions not her own—depression looking out upon a harsh desert plain, exhaustion under Noriida Major’s scorching heat, crippling fear at a menacing Maruduuk, hope at the sight of Maelstrom—.
[No Tharyn!] Too late. Tharydane had intertwined with Masra’s mind. Everything around her hushed, the beings scurrying to and from their destinations vanished.
A vast sprawl of cityscape washed over her vision, with towering starscrapers reaching for the heavens. Still, the city had an emptiness—a fathomless pit no amount of structures could fill. The sun hid behind a blanket of ugly grey gloom. Frigid air bit her skin, once again a milky white Korvenite complexion. She hugged herself to get warm.
Tharydane felt the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end. this was clearly Terra Sollus, but not at all like the vibrant society that Mikas described. She stepped forward and heard a dull snap. Tharydane looked down and squealed.
A blackened human skull lay crushed underneath her foot. For miles in every direction the landscape was littered with bones of many races. Death permeated the air was a putrid, hollow stench. Tharydane’s blood ran cold. This seemed too familiar. The Korvenite backed up slowly, only to hit something solid. She turned and saw Maelstrom, someone she wished she had never met.
The Korvenite llyriac towered over her, grim and imposing. He was the shadowed stranger in her visions. In fact this was her vision, but never had she seen it so clearly. Gentle winds tussled up Maelstrom’s long hair, its purple color a sharp contrast against the greying sky.
“[Welcome home, youngling.]” His golden eyes flashed. “[Thanks to you, Sollus has been purged.]” Tharydane was too dumbfounded to think straight. She opened her mouth to ask what in Korvan’s name was going on. At that moment, pain crudely interrupted.
Terra Sollus, the skeletons and Maelstrom shattered into a million splinters of light before her eyes. Tharydane’s mind thundered, like someone set off a nucleonic detonator in the back of her neck. She clamped her hands on her temples to lessen the pain, but it swelled and enveloped her to the point that she couldn’t even scream. Tharydane slumped to the ground in a heap.
[Fret not child, you are safe.] Another voice—this one was neither Korvenite nor female. Its serenity soothed her mind, slowly easing the pain away. Tharydane didn’t even realize she had her eyes clamped shut until she opened them and blinked. Her head throbbed unmercifully, so much that she wanted to rip her brain out and soak it in cold water.
Clarity finally returned and she found herself back at the Sollus Commerce Station luckily still under the veil of her holoimager. The station flurry of traffic continued, but many stared with obvious apprehension. Someone tall crouched next to her, with the longest neck she had ever seen. He gazed down at her with large, innocent orbs housed in an ovular head.
“Are you hurt?” he asked in that serene voice. Tharydane stared. There were two other thin mouths on his neck speaking the same words and tripled his vocal pitch. She nodded slowly. For some reason, she felt safe around this being. Many onlookers pointed and whispered, but her savior took no notice. “Come.” He grasped Tharydane by the waist with spindly limbs and hoisted her up.
“Close yourself off or you will be discovered,” the strange sentient whispered. Now that they were both standing, she was shocked at how tall he was. But Tharydane did as she was told, pushing past her headache and shielding herself. She didn’t know why she quickly trusted this stranger so much or was letting him lead her away to a nearby bench. Still, it just felt safe. A few moments later, three menacing sentrymechs sped around the same area, scanning for something. The throng of sentients looked on curiously, but soon resumed their usual feverish pace.
“It was unwise for you to communicate with your companion in that manner,” the sentient said, once he and Tharydane were situated on the bench. “There are Korvenite countermeasures set up all around this Commerce Station. You would be mentally paralyzed had you been connected any longer.”
Tharydane gaped at him, still foggy from her headache. “You…you know what I—?”
The creature nodded solemnly. “Let’s not say it out loud.” He glanced back at the sentrymechs calmly. “That holoimager is impressive. Those sentrymechs should have easily traced you.”
“Lucky me.” Tharydane looked at her holoimager bracelet, barely noticing that th
e holoimager was now at less than half its power. Imagining mental paralysis she started trembling all over. It didn’t help that her brain still pounded against her skull. The Kudoban noted this and placed a hand on her shoulder.
Instantly Tharydane’s whole body went all tingly. A sudden pressure filled her mind, gentle but firm, shifting from point to point, increasing at times to a slight discomfort.
It was this stranger, clearly a potent telepath. His huge, ivory-white eyes locked on her own the entire time, silently reassuring her that he truly meant no harm. After about a macrom, he released her shoulder. Suddenly Tharydane felt a wave of calm fill her. Her shoulders slumped forward and the throbbing headache vanished. Everything was so…peaceful.
“I am called Lethe,” the sentient said.
“Is being called Lethe a good thing?” Tharydane blurted out dreamily.
Lethe smiled graciously. “Hopefully. It is my name, youngling.”
“Oh.” Her face flushed green at how brainless she must have sounded. “I am called Tharydane. Wha-what did you just do?” She rubbed the back of her neck experimentally.
Lethe cast a wary gaze on the swarming sentrymechs as they finally left, then focused on Tharydane. His eyes twinkled. “I just alleviated you of your headache. Your mind is so tensed up.”
Lethe gazed at her searchingly. “Your accent is from beyond Union borders. And there are no scars of ever wearing a psionic dampener. Yet your mind—it has seen so much…death for one your age.”
Tharydane looked away from that ugly truth. Her lungs burned for air and she had to remind herself to breathe. The Korvenite closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about it. Not now, not ever.
Lethe placed his hand on her shoulder again. Gazing back at him felt so safe. “I can help you if you let me.” Genuine sincerity rolled off him in waves. But Tharydane still felt uneasy, unsure.
“Lethe?” Both Tharydane and Lethe turned.
The little boy with the large eyes stood before them. “Why aren’t we leaving for Calliste?”