by YS Pascal
But the phone’s silence was one more broken promise. Blinking back tears, I spent a few minutes watching George and Andi from the shade of our front porch. I’d gotten tired of carving paths in the fallen blossoms with my skateboard, so, hoisting it under one arm, I finally wandered down towards the gate. That’s when I saw them, down the road, coming our way: two men in uniform, looking grim. There was only one reason I could think of for their visit. A reason I didn’t want to hear.
“Is this John Rush’s residence?” the soldier demanded as he approached.
I didn’t move to open the gate. I didn’t nod. I held my breath and waited.
“Can we come in?” the second man asked.
I glanced to see if George and Andi had noticed our visitors. No, they seemed rapt in their tasks, contented. Undisturbed. Loath to hear the dreaded message myself, I wanted to hold off their pain as long as I could. I turned back to the soldiers and tried to keep the tremor out of my voice. “Just give it to me here.”
“Shiloh Rush?” From the second soldier, a hint of a question.
I didn’t answer, but my expression must have given me away.
The taller of the two leaned down over the gate and met my gaze. “All right, Shiloh. Here it is. You’ll know what to do.” He handed me a manila envelope that felt heavy in my shaking hands. I noted the insignia embroidered on his extended sleeve: two gold stripes and one glistening star, shaped like a sunflower in bloom.
“Everything is in there,” the tall soldier added. Nodding at his partner, he stood back up erect and turned to walk away. “Do not delay.”
“Wait!” I cried, “What happened to John?!”
But Sunflower-sleeve was now halfway down the road and ignored my cry. The other soldier, a few steps behind, turned towards me for a moment and, with a sad visage, shook his head. “Paraffin wings.”
Frantic, I tore open the envelope. It contained John’s wallet, his antique pocket watch, and a stiff paper bearing US Army letterhead--and the news I’d feared. I dropped the package and vaulted over the gate, hoping to catch up with the military messengers at my top running speed. But, though the main road stretched for many yards before me, the two soldiers were no longer visible. The road ahead and the fields to each side were as barren of life as my heart.
George and Andi were standing at the gate when I trudged back towards our house. Andi was clutching John’s wallet to her nose and George was reading the letter with a stricken expression. Two weeks earlier, it read, during a top secret mission in a confidential location, John had unexpectedly disappeared. He had left behind the enclosed belongings and never returned. Despite intensive search efforts, my beloved brother was missing in action and believed dead, and there was no trace of his remains.
I didn’t have the courage to read the letter myself for months. George had put it back in the envelope along with the watch. He’d gone up to John’s bedroom our farmhouse’s attic later that day for a few hours alone, and had come back down red-eyed, without it. Connie said George had hid the envelope in the box where John had kept his research papers and flash drives. She didn’t encourage me to go looking for it.
And, for a long time, I didn’t. There was no way I was willing to face that truth.
* * *
Maryland—two years ago
It had been one of the rainiest Novembers in memory. I had no appetite for turkey, nor for sitting around a holiday table without John in the head chair. I thought I’d go back to my bed instead and read a book or stream something, so I dragged myself up the stairs to the second floor. John’s room was on the third floor and I’d always looked away when I’d passed the closed door to the attic stairs. I don’t know why, but this time I stopped in front of it.
The dust on the handrail was pretty thick and I kept swiping my face to brush off real or imagined cobwebs as I climbed the stairwell. At the top, I could barely see inside John’s room. It was only around three o’clock, but the curtains were drawn and the sky beyond was dark from the thunderclouds. I turned on the wall switch and lit up the room with the single light bulb hanging from the rafters on the ceiling.
Something wasn’t quite right. It took me a few moments to figure it out. No cobwebs, no dust. Save for John’s things, the room was empty, but it was as clean as it had been when he’d come home to shower and crash after spending a week of nights doing research at the University of Maryland. How had it stayed so neat? George wasn’t terribly domestic, and I doubted Connie would have added John’s housekeeping to her responsibilities of supervising the young ones with their daily chores.
Not wishing to disturb the pristine bed, I pulled out the chair next to the desk and plunked down onto the soft leather seat. My eyes caught the box with John’s files on the adjacent bookshelf. The manila envelope lay on top, safeguarding John’s research secrets in the papers and drives below. I finally marshaled the strength to pick it up and open it for a second time.
I tossed the letter from the Army into the wastebasket. Months had passed and they still hadn’t found John’s body. George would call the Special Operations number they’d given us at least once a week, but the answer was always coldly the same. Their records showed John Rush was still MIA. They could tell us nothing more. None of the other Army numbers we researched got us anywhere either. As soon as a responder looked up John’s name, he’d transfer us to Special Ops, and we were back at square one. We’d even tried going down to Headquarters, Department of the Army. They sent us from office to office til we landed back at Special Ops for our expected answer: no news. The Army could offer us nothing except a referral to a support group for families of those missing in action. We passed.
Fuming, I turned the envelope upside down and caught John’s pocket watch as it slid into my hand. The gold watch was unusually light and sparkled as I held it up to the light and admired its intricate etched designs. Grandpa Alexander had given it to John on his sixteenth birthday, my brother had told me. It had been a gift to Grandpa from his own great-grandfather many, many years before. John had treasured the watch, never letting it out of his hands and forbidding us to touch it. I’d always been eager to have a peek at the watch’s antique face. Feeling just a little guilty, I twisted and pressed the stem to open the hunter’s casing and--
Instantly, John’s room disappeared. Shaken, I found myself in a sparsely furnished contemporary showroom straight out of the Jetsons cartoons. In front of me was a large Formica elliptical table at which was seated a distinguished-looking, middle-aged man, dressed in a fashionable silver-gray pinstripe suit that perfectly matched the color of the hair at his temples. I covered my mouth with my hand to hold in the scream.
“Hello, Shiloh,” the gentleman greeted me, his voice warm. “My name is Gary.”
I knew I shouldn’t have touched that watch--what had I done? Where was I? I looked around the room again. Except for me and, and Gary, we were otherwise alone. There didn’t seem to be even one window, in the seamless curved metallic walls; just a red door behind Gary, which was closed, and probably locked. Either this was one weird dream, or I was in big trouble. I took a few deep breaths, and prayed it was a dream.
“Hi, Gary,” I responded with a tentative smile and a trembling voice.
He seemed to be waiting for my question.
I took a few more deep breaths. “Okay, uh, where am I?” I eventually asked.
“At a fork in the road,” he answered softly.
Chapter 2
Zygint
I was terrified I’d wake up before I could ask my next question. “John. Where’s John?” I blurted at Gary.
A brief note of sadness crossed his handsome features before he answered, “I really don’t know. I am sorry.”
I swallowed hard. “But you do know something.”
Gary nodded. “He’d been on assignment—”
I interrupted, “For you?” Gary’s tailored suit sure didn’t look like a standard Army-issue uniform. In fact, it suddenly hit me that none of t
he Army uniforms we had seen in DC had borne the sunflower insignia worn by the two military messengers that had brought us John’s tragic news. I hadn’t realized that before…
“For us.” Gary agreed as a flash of sadness crossed his face. “He was one of our best catascopes.”
My confusion must have been obvious. “Us?” I truly doubted ‘us’ could be Army Special Operations. What was a catascope? A type of soldier?
“A catascope is a Zygint agent,” he added, reading my thoughts. “An operative for Zygan Intelligence.”
I was still very confused. “And you’re … Z-zygan Intelligence?” I ventured.
“A very small part of it.” Gary’s expression softened, and he sat back in his chair. “John was working for us undercover. He had instructions to check in periodically, but when he missed his last rendezvous,” Gary paused and cleared his throat, “after that we never heard from him again. Our efforts to find him were … unsuccessful. A great loss.” Gary blinked several times. “His work over the past eight years had been outstanding. You should be very proud of—”
“Eight years?” John was … had only been twenty-four. “B-but he just joined the Army last spring!”
“John started working for us when he was sixteen,” Gary explained. “The Army was a cover story—their top brass work confidentially with us sometimes. We knew this assignment would take him away for a long time and—”
I leapt up towards Gary, unable to hold back my anger at the betrayal. “A long time?! You took him away from us forever!”
Gary kept his composure as he shook his head. “It was your brother’s choice, not mine. He heard the calling to serve the Zygan Federation, and he came to see me, in this very room, in fact.” Gary paused, glanced at the watch I was still clutching in one hand, and favored me with another warm smile. “And now, so have you.”
I stood stunned and speechless for a moment, letting the watch drop from my fingers as if it burned my skin. It landed on the table in front of me and popped open like an oyster. Secreted inside the cap I saw a pearl: my favorite photo of John and me a few years ago, arm in arm, standing victoriously on the top of Sugarloaf Mountain after a grueling climb. Swallowing a sob, I collapsed back down in the plastic chair and buried my face in my hands. I knew at that moment that my die was cast. I would follow my brother’s footsteps by following in his footsteps. And, maybe, just maybe, I might learn why he left us. And why he disappeared.
* * *
I had a lot to learn.
My new homeland, the Zygan Federation or, as we commonly call it, Zygfed, is ruled by His Royal Highness, the Omega Archon.
Kingdoms need their soldiers, and Zygfed is no exception. Though the Zygan Federation had achieved internal peace millennia ago, it was not 100% immune from attacks by alien species from without and anarchist guerrillas, Andarts, from within.
Therefore, Zygfed planets and territories are protected by an elite corps of cosmic guards known as the Sentinels, and by Zygan Intelligence field operatives working throughout Andromeda and the Milky Way.
By virtue of my brother’s final sacrifice, I would now myself have the chance to earn my wings as a Zygan Intelligence agent, a catascope, and serve the Zygan Federation and its subjects. John had apparently been a valuable operative for Zygfed. Would I be able to measure up to him? And, a more difficult question, should I?
One of my earliest memories as a little girl was of waking up in a barren, icy chamber, the sun scorching my fluttering lids. I fought to move, but my arms and legs were frozen, trapped, my struggles in vain. Terrified, I looked away from the blinding light and saw John’s face in the shadows. I could barely make out his features, but I was comforted by his gentle voice, a voice that reached out through my fog and told me that all would be well. “I am by your side, do not be afraid. Patience is the champion’s best tool.” Soothed by his words, I closed my eyes again and felt at peace.
The surgeon finished suturing the laceration on my scalp a few minutes later and directed the blazing operating room lamp away from my face. I was released from the papoose board, the straps that had imprisoned me flung aside as I leaped off the gurney and fell into John’s arms.
The damage to the sidecar of his motorcycle could easily be repaired, he reassured me. It was me he was worried about. Squeezing his hand, I told him there was no need to worry about me. After my cut healed, I could wear a helmet and ride behind him on the seat instead. He promised he’d drive the bike slower in the future, but I was glad he didn’t. I liked the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair, and I was grateful I had a brother who did, too. Helmets were for chickens. We were eagles. We were meant to soar.
The answer found me. Not only would I soar into space on John’s trail, I would do him proud.
So, on my own sixteenth birthday, I joined the Zygan Intelligence team and started my training as a catascope at Mingferplatoi Academy in Zyga’s bustling intergalactic capital city of Mikkin.
* * *
Mingferplatoi Academy—one year ago
“It doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I grumbled as I instructed nav to begin our first practice mission. As the only two Terrans in our Academy class, Spud and I had been matched as partners for our upcoming internships. The thought of having to orbit Earth in a cramped ship for the next six months with Spud the Stiff wasn’t brightening my day. The Scooter lurched and bucked as we lifted off from the Academy’s lush chartreuse grounds.
“Zygint endeavors to assign species to duty near their home environments. Fewer chances of accidental discovery when we resemble our charges,” Spud rationalized, adding, “However, you are not the only one who is dubious regarding this arrangement.” Smiling, he reached over and tweaked the antigrav settings on the nav holo, smoothing our ascent through the Zygan atmosphere.
I wasn’t about to thank him. “Let’s just get through this test, okay.” I turned my attention to navigating through the maze of guard buoys sprinkled through the planet’s stratosphere by Zyga Traffic Control.
His tone was cold as he returned, “You do not wish to wait for the pedagogue?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve done this course hundreds of times on the simulator.” The virtual experience had bolstered my confidence. “She’ll catch up. Contact metrics?”
“Working.” Sighing, Spud ran his fingers across his holo in front of his post. “Cygnus in ninety-two minutes. Rendez-vous with the target on Kepler 6b, metrics established.”
After flawlessly achieving apogee, I couldn’t resist sending Spud a smirk. Clear of planet Zyga, I gave the Scooter the command to shift into hyperdrive and speed us towards the Milky Way. Spud remained silent, focused on tracking our route on his nav holo, and scanning for signs of our pedagogue’s ship on our trail.
The constellation of Cygnus soon appeared on our viewscreens, a bright cross nestled in a ring of nebulae. Spud’s holo had highlighted our landing site as an ‘X’ at an uninhabited peninsula on a southern continental shelf of planet Kepler 6b.
“Cygnus is derived from the ancient Greek word for swan,” Spud ventured, “and contains two of this octant’s most populated planets orbiting Deneb and Albireo. Kepler 5b and 6b are among a ring of exoplanets that include the Glieser homeworlds.”
I yawned, hoping he’d get the hint.
He didn’t. “Cygnus is included in the Zodiac sign of Sagittarius, along with—“
I raised a hand. “I’ve uploaded all the Zygfed cosmography I’ll need, thank you. And medicine, science, and history. You shouldn’t overfill that ‘brain-attic’ of yours, anyway. Or mine.”
Spud’s eyes narrowed. “You are implying that one’s accumulation of knowledge could be finite. I should consider that possibility—
CRASH!
“Andarts!” I shouted as our Scooter rocked with the force of the attacking torpedoes launched no doubt by the fearsome terrorists. CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! We were being battered from all sides by the swooping projectiles.
“Armor’s holdin
g,” Spud reported, his eyes darting from one holo screen to another as flocks of missiles struck our ship. “For the moment.”
“Can you ID their ships?” I called out, struggling to dodge the torpedoes and, at the same time, pull up a perimeter holo scan.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
“There must be hundreds of them,” I growled as I fought to stabilize our vessel. “I thought this was just supposed to be a mock search and rescue mission. Where’s our pedagogue’s ship?”
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
“Armor at 70%,” he said, adding, “Probably far back out of our range. I’ve located two singularities at the rim of our scan range. I shall endeavour to localise their signals. And, alas, I see no other Zygfed vessels in our perimeter. I’ve sent a distress signal to Deneb 5, but it looks as if we are on our own.”
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
“Damn!” Our ship rolled to starboard with the latest barrage, as I compensated for yaw. “Evasive maneuvers aren’t working. Can we outrun them?”
“Unlikely. The torpedos are coming in full-circle 360 degrees. Armor is now at 50%.” Spud’s words escaped through gritted teeth.
“Then fire our fission grenades. That’ll buy us some time.” Unfortunately, we both knew that our limited weapons cache couldn’t overcome the obvious firepower levels of our invisible assailants.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
Spud launched a wide dispersion of our own armaments to pick out some of our avionic assailants, but our meager hits didn’t do much to stem the flow. As I fixed my gaze on our viewscreen, something caught my eye.
“Their torpedoes don’t seem to be dodging very well.” I frowned. “Internal torpedo controls should respond as soon as they see our grenades and change course to evade. Check out the two second response delay in their maneuvers—I’ll bet these torpedoes are remote controlled.”