by L. Danvers
Cal walked into the commander’s back when he came to an abrupt stop. Aes had been stopped by another saveen who knew him. Aes spoke to him in a hurried voice. It sounded like English to the humans, but the saveen understood Aes in his own native tongue. The saveen continued on his way.
Merchants conversed in shrill tones as they shoved their goods at passersby. As much as Cal wanted to push them out of her way, she didn’t dare move her arms for fear of her hands or skin being spotted. So she allowed herself to be pushed and shoved by dealers as she tried to keep pace with the others. She had a close call when one grabbed a tight hold around her arm, but by a stroke of pure luck she pulled free without the Creatian getting a good look at her.
As they came upon the last stretch of merchant booths, the inevitable happened. Britt tripped over her bulky cape and tumbled to the ground.
Cal froze. She didn’t know what to do. Creatians gathered around to get a look at what they assumed was a farokh who had fallen. Would they notice how small this particular farokh was? Would they pull back Britt’s hood and realize she was not of this world?
Aes helped Britt get to her feet, doing his best to ensure her skin could not be seen by anyone in the crowd. As he was lifting her up, a merchant a few booths behind them gasped. Something shattered. A pink substance oozed across the ground, smoking and bubbling. The ground disintegrated beneath it.
The Creatians who had gathered around the crewmembers scrambled to see what was going on at the booth, giving Aes, Britt, Commander Ahmadi, Cal and Flynn enough time to hurry through the remaining stretch of the marketplace and out of sight.
“This way,” Aes said. He led them down a street lined with humble homes carved into the side of the cavernous wall. Cal looked inside their circular windows as they passed. She surmised that this must be where the saveen lived. The insides were barren. The homes were nothing more than a place to sleep and a place to eat. There were no decorations of any kind.
She understood why Aes wasn’t upset about leaving this world behind.
Further ahead were two saveen. Their cartoonish eyes widened even more upon seeing the purple capes of what they believed to be the farokh. They hurried inside one of the homes. Though she couldn’t see them, Cal could feel them watching as she and the crew passed by.
They turned another corner, and Aes stopped in front of one of the homes. He checked over his shoulder to see if anyone else was around. He pressed a button to the left of the clear jelly-filled door. “Leiper, it is me. Let me in. Quick.”
Feet scurried about inside. The gel drained, and Leiper embraced him, kissing his cheek twice.
Her eyes fell on the purple capes. She took a step back as a look of terror swept across her face.
“Let us in,” Aes said. “I will explain everything.”
She had an uneasy look about her, but she relented and stepped out of the way so they could enter, the gelatinous door regenerating behind them.
Leiper looked much like Aes, though the speckles around her eyes curved upward at the ends like the eye-makeup of actresses in old-fashioned movies. Her skull bore many more feather-like plumes than Aes’s, and Cal wondered if that was because she was female, or if each of the saveen’s features were unique regardless of sex. Leiper’s face was far gentler than his, though she had a faded scar that spanned from the base of her neck to her lower lip. Cal was afraid to ask how she had gotten such a mark, though she suspected Caelifera had something to do with it.
Leiper offered them a sip of her crackling purple elixir, but the crew was unsure if such a substance would be safe for them to drink, so they declined.
Although Cal didn’t know how Creatians aged—come to think of it, she had no idea how old Aes was—Leiper looked younger than their new friend. She exuded a feeling of warmth and kindness even though she was nervous to have humans inside her home. Nevertheless, it was clear why Aes had so much trust in her.
Aes said something to her, and she pressed her fingers against the emerald pendant which held her brown cape together.
“Leiper,” Aes said, “it is my great pleasure to introduce you to my new friends.” The four of them pulled back their hoods. “They are humans from the planet Earth.”
“You do not mean...” Leiper said. “That Earth?”
Aes nodded. Leiper let out a gasp, and she sat on the bench by the dining table. A strained cry came from around the corner. Leiper jumped to her feet and disappeared, returning moments later with a bundle of brown cloth. Her baby was wrapped inside it. She nuzzled her forehead against the tiny infant. The baby whimpered and within moments was fast asleep once again. Leiper caressed her child’s face. She looked over to her cousin.
“We need your help,” he said.
He explained how he had met the humans, how they rescued the people who had been abducted and experimented on, how the crew guaranteed Aes his freedom and how Caelifera unleashed starbursts across planet Earth, causing chaos and destruction. And finally, he explained why the five of them were there.
“Three moons! You cannot be serious,” Leiper said, hugging her baby tight. “It is far too dangerous. If you fail, I shudder to think what will become of you.”
“We will not fail,” Commander Ahmadi assured her.
Aes took a seat next to his cousin. He put one hand on her back, and he cradled the baby with his other. “I appreciate your concern, Leiper,” he said, “but this is something we must do. Do not worry about what will become of us if we fail. My whole life, I have been as good as dead anyway. What has there been to live for? Nothing. Not until these humans gave me something to live for. No, no. Do not worry. Instead, think of what this will mean. Not only for Earth, but for Creatius, too. If we succeed, that is. Imagine a world where you are not ruled under the tyranny of Caelifera. Imagine a life where you, and everyone you know and love, even your child, is free.”
Leiper’s chest rose and fell. “What do you need from me, dear Aes?”
“Four capes for my friends here.”
Leiper retrieved a monochromatic assortment of tattered brown capes from what looked more like a hole than a closet. She held the baby with one arm, and she used her spare to gather the garments. She passed them out to the humans, who put them on and tossed their stolen purple capes in the corner. She assured them she would get rid of them. Aes gave Leiper a big hug and kissed her twice on the cheek.
“I wish you good fortune, dear cousin,” she told him. “I pray the Moon Sisters will protect you and lead you to victory.”
“Thank you, Leiper. I hope I will see you again one day. Tell the family I love them.”
“I will.”
“You look after the little one here. What is her name?”
“Isham.”
“A beautiful name for a beautiful child,” Aes said.
“Take care.”
Aes hugged her once more, and he and the crewmembers left his cousin’s home. There was one thing left to do: find Caelifera and kill her.
Chapter Thirty-One
With hoods draped over their heads in effort to disappear into the bustling crowd in the center of the city, the five of them stepped aboard a jeweled disc that hovered in an upward spiral until delivering them to the pod station, the public transportation system used throughout the Creatian underground. They couldn’t move without rubbing shoulders with hurried Creatians passing by, or even worse, having merchants shoving goods in their direction, pleading for them to purchase their products.
Cal felt something. There was a tickle in her nose. She sniffed a few times, trying to hold back an inevitable sneeze. She worried that Creatians may not make such sounds, but she wasn’t going to be able to keep it in. Their cover would be broken. When she puffed out her chest and opened her mouth, the entire cavern shook. Cal let out her sneeze, which was drowned out by gasps and screams from throughout the city.
The humans had no idea what was going on. Aes, however, was calm, like this happened every day. Cal wanted to ask him what was hap
pening, but she didn’t dare speak.
When things settled, they snagged one of the globular transportation pods to themselves. Cal and Flynn sat on a clear bench made of the same substance as the surrounding pod (the only thing Cal could think to compare it to was an inflatable couch), while Commander Ahmadi, Aes and Britt sat opposite them.
“What happened out there?” Britt asked.
“Over the years, the walls supporting our city have become unstable,” Aes explained as he pressed a button to select their desired destination. “These tremors happen from time to time.”
“So why haven’t the Creatians found another home?” Cal said.
“Our experts believe this cavern will hold up for another few hundred years,” Aes said. “That is, assuming Caelifera does not speed up the process by mining. Scouts have discovered another underground cavern on the other side of the planet. It is much larger, and it will one day make a wonderful home for our kind, but it will take some time for workers to finish developing it.”
Before anyone had the chance to ask any further questions, the wall of the globular pod which they were each resting their backs against morphed. A protective bubble formed around their chests.
“Hold on,” Aes advised.
Their pod zipped with great speed. The pod zoomed up, down, left, right and right again, bouncing down to another pod station. There were a few more gentle bounces, and the pod came to a stop.
Cal swept dangling strands of hair out of her eyes and tucked them behind her ear.
“Caelifera’s residence is ahead, across that bridge,” Aes said before opening the door.
The crew followed him through another busy pod station and in the direction of the ominous tower. They approached a gate made of crystal, which caught the light from the starbursts hovering overhead. Aes lined his pendant up to the goo-filled box to the right of the gate, and the crystal door swung open.
Cal drew a deep breath, bracing herself for what might be on the other side. She and the others journeyed forward along a path elevated high above the bubbling river. It was narrow and had no rails along the edges to protect them. It was lined with the occasional crystal pillar. Each pillar was lit with crackling violet flames. Eerie shadows danced along the bridge.
Cal tried her best not to look down. She wasn’t scared of heights. She had traveled through space without any problems. What she hadn’t done before, though, was trek an unfamiliar bridge hundreds of feet above a river in the dark. It took everything she had not to imagine herself and her comrades tumbling to their deaths.
To her relief, though, they made it across the path and to the front door of the tower. The gel disintegrated. A farokh guard stood before them.
There was an immediate change in Aes’s mannerisms. He stood erect with his shoulders back and chin up, and he identified himself. The guard flared his slit-like nostrils and eyed the hooded group. Aes insisted Caelifera had requested to see them, and that satisfied the guard’s suspicions. He stepped aside to let them pass.
Aes led the way through the grand hall. The crew marveled at the impressive workmanship. Magnificent crystal pillars lined the room, and artificial light from starbursts hovering at the peak of the curved ceiling refracted through the columns, casting the full spectrum of colors across the floor. It was hard to believe this building could be so opulent when the city that surrounded it was made of dirt. The only thing about it that struck Cal as odd was that there weren’t many windows. In comparison to this, the city wasn’t much to look at.
A cluster of eight farokh marched across the hall, one of them keeping an eye on the group as he walked past them. He murmured something to the others. Cal felt the heat of their stares burning in the back of her head.
Aes picked up the pace, and the rest of the group took note. They followed him to a circular opening in the crystalline wall. It was brimming with crackling violet flames similar to those that adorned the pillars along the path outside. Cal regretted looking back. The farokh were gaining on them. By the time she turned around, the flames had disappeared, and Aes was motioning for her to hurry and join the others on top of the hovering jeweled disc. She barely had both feet on the disc before it shot up into the air at a wild speed. The crystal walls around them twinkled in streaks of every color of the rainbow. Someone squeezed her hand. She looked to her side and saw Flynn staring at her, giving her a reassuring smile. She met eyes with Commander Ahmadi, who looked confident as always, Britt with her warm but fierce spirit and Aes, whose demeanor had transformed since earning his freedom. Her stomach twirled as they soared higher and higher.
A peculiar sound caught Cal’s attention.
Whoop whoop whoop whoop.
It grew louder by the second.
Worry swept across Aes’s face. “That is the alarm system,” he said, looking far less confident than he had moments earlier. “Our cover is blown. They will be waiting for us.”
“And we will be ready for them,” Commander Ahmadi said. He pulled his pulse-r from his utility belt, held it steady in his hand and pointed at the door. Cal, Flynn, Britt and Aes followed suit. Their rapid breathing could be heard over the upward swooshing of the elevator disc.
They came to a screeching halt and found themselves face to face with a handful of farokh guards. Aes whimpered. Commander Ahmadi leapt from the disc between two of the guards, both of whom wielded smoldering whips like Caelifera’s. Cal jumped from the elevator disc, too, and began shooting. Her powerful weapon vibrated as waves of gold burst out of the tip, hitting one of the farokh in the hand. He roared in pain and clutched his fist with his other hand.
Cal’s lips curved into a grin, and just she felt a slight sense of pride in her handiwork, something struck the side of her head with enormous force. She collapsed to the floor, and everything went black. Noises slurred and sloshed together in an indistinct stew of sound. She forced her eyes open, but she couldn’t make out any of the blurred shapes. She heard a voice that sounded like it had come from someone speaking underwater.
“Cal!” the voice called out. “Cal, get up.”
She blinked, and everything came into focus. Flynn was a few feet away from her in hand-to-hand combat with one of the farokh. Britt was crouched over Cal, trying to snap her back to reality by shaking her shoulders, while Aes was in a shootout with a guard. Though Commander Ahmadi wasn’t within sight, she could hear him grunting and groaning, fighting for his life.
Cal sprang to her feet. Two guards were swooping in on her and Britt. She and her friend exchanged looks and knew what they needed to do. They turned back to back and blasted their weapons. While Cal shot at her target, the farokh returned fire, using the same weapon that had nearly killed her when she escaped Caelifera’s ship. “Incoming!” she warned Britt, ducking out of the way.
The fire needle whizzed by Cal’s head, missing her ear. She shot at the farokh, who was dodging her pulse-r blasts with surprising ease. Commander Ahmadi kicked the guard to the floor. Cal fired her pulse-r at the guard’s head and killed him. Commander Ahmadi jumped over the body to assist Aes.
Britt was struggling to take out her target. She had shot him in the leg, but that wasn’t enough to stop him. He thrashed his smoldering whip at the two young women, who got out of the way in time to avoid being scarred, or worse. Cal stumbled as she dodged it. The guard raised the whip once more as she scrambled to find her balance. Britt blasted a pulse-r beam into his neck. He dropped to the floor.
“Thank you.” Britt gave her a wink, and she put her hand on Cal’s back to guide her to help the others fight the rest of the guards.
Fire needles and pulse-r blasts zipped by from every direction, making a grid-like pattern of flashing lights. Crystal shattered around them.
As Cal rushed to the commander’s side, one of the farokh shot a fire needle into his leg. Commander Ahmadi didn’t flinch. The guard watched in horror, wondering what kind of magic he had used to be immune to the sting of a fire needle. Little did the farokh know he had
shot into a prosthetic leg. Commander Ahmadi delivered a fatal blast to the guard.
“You alright, Commander?” Cal called out.
“Fantastic!”
Cal looked to her left and saw Flynn crouched over the back of a farokh, slamming the guard’s head against the floor, killing him. By the time Flynn got to his feet, a blackish purple bruise was spreading across his right cheekbone. His lower lip was bleeding. It pained Cal to see him like that, but she knew there may be worse fates awaiting each of them.
The whoop whoop of the alarm echoed throughout the tower. She and the rest of the crew knew more farokh would be on their trail. They needed to get to Caelifera. Fast.
“Follow me!” Aes shouted, charging down the hall. The other four chased after him through two sets of doors. He peeked around the corner. He stopped and said, “Hmm. Peculiar.”
“What is?” Commander Ahmadi asked.
“Two guards were standing in front of that door on the left, but they ran toward Caelifera’s room.”
“Why is that peculiar?” Cal asked.
“Because that room should be empty,” Aes said. “What could there be to guard?”
“Does it matter?” Commander Ahmadi asked. “We are wasting precious time.”
“It does not make any sense,” Aes said. “There should not be anything in there to guard. What were they protecting?”
Aes walked toward the door in a trancelike state. The others called out to him from behind, but he didn’t hear them. He aligned his pendant with the goo-filled box outside the door. Nothing happened. With a strange look in his eye, he reached for his pulse-r and blasted the box. The door drained, and Aes gasped. “Three moons!”
“What is it, Aes?” Commander Ahmadi asked.
“Iliana,” Aes mouthed. He entered the room and disappeared from sight. The others followed.