by Elin Wyn
“I didn’t realize we were talking about that patient,” she stammered. “Go right in.”
A blaring alarm by the cellblock door screeched. A security guard opened it for us.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” Dottie asked.
“No,” I replied. “I can handle this.”
“I’ll make sure guards are posted,” she said.
“Thanks.” I squeezed her hand and went through the open door. The guard who held the door open helped me find my father’s cell.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe to find him completely mad beyond recovery? Maybe to find that he’d ripped into a guard?
I wasn’t expecting to find him sitting cross-legged on the floor of his cell with a serene smile on his face.
“We have someone monitoring the cell from the security station and two men will be posted by the door,” the guard informed me as he let me into the cell.
“Is it safe?” I should’ve asked that sooner.
“Of course it is, honey,” my dad said. “I’m perfectly fine.”
I looked to the guard for confirmation. He nodded.
“You look confused. Come sit.” Dad gestured to the floor in front of him. I sat down opposite him and crossed my legs to mirror his.
“Dottie received an alert. We were worried that something had happened.”
“Nothing to worry about,” my father waved his hand dismissively. “I’m glad you’re here. I asked them to summon you.”
“How are you doing, dad?” I asked.
“Have you seen where I live?” He looked around the small cell and laughed.
“I tried to make it more comfortable,” I told him. “Turns out it’s really hard to get feather pillows in here.”
“I appreciate the effort.” He sounded like his old self again. My heart swelled with relief, but I couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that it wouldn’t last. Why else would he still be in here?
“It’s good to see you.” My throat felt thick with tears I refused to shed.
“You, too, honey. You’re looking well. Nyheim agrees with you, though I’m not surprised. I always knew you’d thrive in a bigger city. Kaster’s too small for someone as large as life, like you.”
“Kaster’s not so bad,” I shrugged. “Though it’s been nice getting to spend time with Dottie. And there are way more restaurants here. I went to the best diner yesterday. It had our favorite pie.”
“I hope you had an extra slice for me,” he smiled.
“I did. And I took two more home.” I decided not to mention Cazak.
“Do you remember when we special ordered that pie for your sixth birthday?”
“You foolishly thought ordering two would be enough,” I laughed.
“I didn’t count on you eating an entire pie by yourself.”
“I was sick for three days.”
“I know. I was the one cleaning up after you.”
Mom was already gone by then. The grim reminder wiped the smile off my face.
“You’re a lot like her, you know?” Dad said. “That was her favorite pie, too. If she had been there, I know she would’ve eaten the other one all on her own.”
“I’m glad she and I share the same pie-eating habits.” Talking about her felt strange.
“You have a lot more of her in you than your insatiable hunger for pie. You have her drive, her energy. You got your good looks from me, though.”
“Whatever you say,” I rolled my eyes, thrilled to finally have somewhat of a normal conversation with him, despite still wondering why he had asked them to send for me. “I’m glad you’re doing better, Dad.”
“Me, too.”
Hopefully, this nightmare was reaching its close.
“I should get going,” I said after he and I talked for a while longer. I stood up. My legs ached from sitting on the floor for so long. I offered my hand to Dad, but he didn’t take it. He looked up at me with a strange expression.
“You okay?” I asked, fearing the worst. I looked over my shoulder to make sure the guards were still in place in case Dad took a turn. They were.
“Before you go, I have to tell you something important.”
Cazak
The jungle spread out beneath us like a technicolor cloak as our shuttle skimmed through the air toward Aramita. Sakev, another Skotan like me, sat in the copilot seat, turning a rueful eye on me every time we hit turbulence.
“Damn it, Cazak, you do know how to fly one of these things, don’t you?”
“Have we crashed?”
“No, but—”
“Then shut the skrell up. She’s sluggish on account of, oh, I don’t know, the several tons of food we’re carrying in the cargo hold. Can’t help it if I have to fly low enough, we’re hitting the vertical wind shear.”
“Vertical wind shear, my ass. You’re just a shitty pilot.”
“Man, maybe you should spend more time with Evie. You’re a little uptight.”
“Ha ha. Speaking of Evie, there’s a human expression that goes like this; People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
“That just sounds like a good idea.”
“Yeah, and it pertains to you. Or have you not been cozying up to a certain politician’s daughter?”
“Whatever. It’s not like I’m the one who’s uptight.”
“From what I heard transpired, that’s not surprising. Just wait until you get deeper into the relationship. Then you’ll discover it’s not all wine and roses.” He scowled, then his grin broke out. “But they’re so very, very worth it.”
I checked our telemetry and found, thankfully, that we were close to our destination.
“Setting in approach vector. Looks like the welcome wagon has been rolled out for us.”
“More likely they’re freaking hungry.”
The landing pad loomed beneath us, complete with some ground crew prepared to unload our precious, if boring, cargo. Snowfall had been just as heavy here as elsewhere, but the high winds kept the concrete landing pad clean as a whistle. I brought the shuttle down in a gentle arc and settled her onto the landing pylons.
Unfortunately, a combination of high winds and my relative unfamiliarity with piloting a fully loaded cargo shuttle made the touchdown a bit rougher than necessary.
Sakev lurched around in his seat dramatically, but I’m pretty sure he was hamming it up.
“Watch it, I think you just gave me whiplash.”
“Well, hearing your voice for the last several hours has given me tinnitus, so I guess we’re even.”
Sakev headed outside to supervise the unloading process. I had fun watching him shiver in the cold on my monitor. The shuttle sat higher on its suspension as the food was unloaded. I looked forward to flying it without the extra weight.
I decided to have a little fun while Sakev was still outside. I closed the entrance ramp and then ‘forgot’ to turn my comm on. He walked around, pounding on the hull for several minutes between shivers. Good times.
After about the tenth time he shouted ‘I know you can hear me, damn it’ I finally let the ramp down.
“Oh, hey, are you all done out there?”
“Fuck off. If I die of pneumonia, I’ll never speak to you again.”
Amid Sakev’s bitching, I started up the shuttle’s engines and we rose into the air. Our ascent was a bit extreme, as I still had the shuttle set up to lift heavy weights. My belly bottomed out and Sakev gripped his armrests for dear life.
“The hell is wrong with you?”
“Sorry. I’ve got it under control. We’re all good now.”
“Just don’t make us crash. It’s a long walk back to Nyheim.”
“I’m not going to crash.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say right before they crash.”
I turned to face my fellow Skotan and jabbed a finger at him.
“Sakev, if I crash this shuttle, I’ll buy you a round at the pub AND I’ll kiss your ass.”
“Promises, promises.�
��
We sailed through the air, mostly just shooting the breeze without talking about anything too heavy. I did mention the situation at the quake station, and how the Puppet Master had to protect them from the hybrids lurking about in the woods. We were reporting the news up the chain as well, but the sooner the message was dispersed, the better.
“If you ask me, I’d rather be fighting the damn bugs than dealing with incorporeal beings you can’t see or touch.”
“Yeah, at least the Xathi made it obvious when they took over someone’s mind.”
“Did you know Tyehn had to kill a young mother during the Xathi invasion to protect her children?”
Sakev glanced at me sharply.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah. He’s pretty laid back about it all, but I can tell it actually bothers him a lot.”
“Well, I can see that. Valorni aren’t soldiers, like us Skotan.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with that—”
The shuttle lurched violently in the air and an earsplitting explosion rang throughout the cabin amid the screeching of metal. Suddenly we were dipping hard to the right. I glanced at the myriad red lights flashing on my console and gritted my teeth.
“What the hell? Did you hit something?”
“No, something hit us. Artillery fire. The entire right-side stabilizer array is off line.”
“Can you see what—”
The shuttle rocked again, and this time the cabin was penetrated. Our uniforms whipped into furrows and ridges from the air being sucked outside. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw twisted metal and gray skies.
“That took out our engines. We’re deadweight.” I checked the panel, but it was useless. “Brace for impact.”
We had been hit near the site of the Vengeance crash, and the miles-long swath of slow regrowth which marked its passage. Considering who had taken up residence in its shadow, it wasn’t hard to guess who’d attacked our shuttle.
The shuttle dropped out of the sky like a lead weight. With no wings to speak of, the craft had no means of lift and only our momentum kept us moving forward as well as down. Sakev and I braced ourselves as the shuttle dipped below the tree line. A rapid tattoo echoed through the cabin as the shuttle broke through branches on its way down.
We were jostled about roughly, but at the same time, I was grateful for the trees slowing us down. I tried to steer us away from the larger trunks, but without engines, there was little I could do. The entire left side of our chassis was sheared off by one of the knobby trees, and then the shuttle’s belly smashed into the jungle floor. Upon impact, I felt a sharp pain in the roof of my mouth—I later found I had broken a bone in it, which I hadn’t even thought possible—and I banged my forehead on the console pretty hard. Fortunately, both Sakev and I had our scales out, which prevented us from being maimed in the wreck.
Sakev seemed to have hurt his leg, and both of us were bleeding from tiny cuts and were generally banged up. We sat there groaning in misery for a moment as the shuttle’s engines popped and smoked.
“Sakev, you alive?”
“Yeah.” He coughed in the heavy smoke. “We can’t stay here.”
“I know. Are you able to send out a distress beacon?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Good. Do that while I prep our meager weaponry.”
“Weaponry?”
“Somebody shot us down on purpose. You think they’re going to assume we died in the crash, or are they going to come and make sure?”
“If it was me, I’d come and be sure.”
“Then let’s assume we’re about to have some company.”
Sakev called in to headquarters while I unsnapped my crash webbing and stumbled across a bent and twisted floor to the shuttle’s main cabin. It was a total wreck, barely even intact. The sundered armor provided no protection from the icy winds, and I knew it would be even less effective against blaster fire.
We hadn’t brought much in the way of weaponry, as we were going on a supply run. We did have an automatic rifle each, with a spare clip for each of us. The only other thing that survived the crash was a service pistol which only held twelve shots, but nothing to reload it with.
“What’s it like back there?”
“Not good, but at least we’re not completely unarmed. The shuttle is skrell, though.”
“Then we can’t sit here and play siege. We should get moving.”
A thousand little fires of agony spread about my body as I struggled to get back up to the cockpit. I assisted Sakev with disengaging his crash webbing, which had been damaged in the impact. When the buckle wouldn’t come unsnapped, I drew my trench knife and cut away at the fabric.
Helping to support Sakev’s weight, I got him out of the shuttle and into the snowy jungle. The shuttle’s path of descent through the forest was marked by broken tree branches, felled limbs, and sundered metal, some of it still on fire. A blind man could follow such a trail right to us.
“We have to get out of here, find some cover where we can make our stand.”
“Too late.”
I followed Sakev’s pointing finger down the trail of destruction we’d left behind. At first, all I saw were tiny fires and swirling snowflakes. Then I spotted a hooded figure hustling through the sundered jungle limbs. Human, carrying a simple, but nonetheless deadly, rifle.
And he was not alone. I counted at least a dozen more humans coming in his wake, and there were probably more that were obscured by the jungle and the snowfall.
“This is going to be rough.”
“Yeah.” I flipped the safety off my assault rifle and took cover behind a tree trunk. “For them.”
Despite my bravado, I knew we were in deep trouble, and help was likely going to be a long time coming.
Sybil
“What do you want to tell me?” I asked.
“Why don’t you sit back down.” My dad patted the floor across from him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I sat back down and crossed my legs once more.
“I’m great,” he smiled and gently touched my knee. “I was going to tell you this when you came back to visit, but I figured I might as well tell you while you’re here. I’d hate to inconvenience you.”
“You’re never an inconvenience, Dad. You know that. I’m only in this city for you.”
And maybe Cazak, too.
“You’re a sweet kid. Your mother would be so proud.”
My apprehension lessened when he brought up mom.
“Is that what you want to talk about?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I want to tell you a story. Do you have time?”
“I have as much time as you need.”
“Excellent. It’s not a long story, but it’s an important one, so I need you to listen very closely.”
“Of course, Dad.”
“Do you know what the Ancient Ones are? Some of those opposed to us have called us Ancient Enemies. Do you know who they are?” he asked.
“Dottie’s mentioned them once or twice, but she hasn’t told me anything specific,” I replied. His expression lit up.
“Oh, good. The Ancient Ones go by so many names. I’m glad I have the term you know.”
Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t place it. The way Dottie talked about the Ancient Enemies led me to think that they weren’t a good thing. Dad seemed excited to talk about them.
“What are they?” I pressed.
“The Ancient Enemies,” he stopped and let out a giggle. “Sorry, it’s just a strange name for them compared to all of the others.”
“What are their other names?”
“I couldn’t even begin to pronounce them,” my dad laughed and shook his head. “One sounds kind of like this.” He made a strange gurgling sound that didn’t sound like anything.
“I sound pretty crazy trying to pronounce that, right?”
“A little.” I laughed nervously.
“The other names ar
en’t important. We can call them the Ancient Enemies for the sake of the story.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “What are they?”
“They are a race of the most powerful beings in the galaxy. Not just our galaxy, either. Every galaxy.”
“Why haven’t I seen one before?” I asked.
“A thousand years ago, there was a war. The Ancient Enemies didn’t lose, but they did pull back and regroup. It slowed them down for a while, but they were never stopped. Some beings like to think they were stopped, but that’s just not true. Can you imagine such arrogance? A lesser species thinking they were powerful enough to permanently stop a race like the Ancient Enemies?”
“It sounds like the Ancient Enemies are the arrogant ones, if you ask me.”
Dad considered my statement for a moment.
“I can see why you’d think that,” he nodded. “But hopefully, this story will change your way of thinking.”
“Can I ask why you’re telling me this?” I asked him.
“It’s important that you know these things.” That was Dad’s go-to answer whenever he wanted to teach me something, even if I never used the knowledge again.
“Dottie said the Ancient Enemies might be what’s causing people to act so strange,” I said.
“That’s somewhat true. I’d argue that the people they touch aren’t acting strange, just enlightened.”
I felt sick.
“I don’t understand,” I forced the words out.
“Do you know what a symbiotic relationship is?” Dad asked.
“A mutually beneficial relationship between two species,” I rattled off without thinking too much about my words.
“Smart girl!” Dad beamed. “That’s exactly right. The Ancient Enemies and humans have a symbiotic relationship. Humans are the perfect hosts for the Ancient Enemies.”
My mouth went dry. I was tempted to call the guards but I wanted more information. Maybe Dottie could make heads or tails of this.
“How so?” If my voice sounded strange, Dad didn’t notice or comment on it. He kept on with his lesson.
“Humans are overflowing with unchecked ambition. There’s not a creature in existence with the same drive as humans.”
A few moments ago, Dad had complimented my drive. I wondered if he was thinking of that talk when he said that.