Conspiracy Unleashed

by L. Danvers

Upon doing so, they found Caelifera’s daughter, naked and chained to the wall. Even for a farokh, she was thin. Too thin. Her cheeks were hollow. Her eyes were sunken, and she was so weak she could hardly move. Yet her aura shone bright above her head.

  Mustering her remaining energy, Iliana forced words out of her mouth in her native tongue.

  “What did she say?” Britt asked.

  “She asked us to help her,” Aes said. He pressed his emerald pendant, disabling its ability to translate. Had Cal not known better, she would have found this suspicious, but she knew Aes well enough to know he had done this as a sign of respect to Caelifera’s ill daughter. She didn’t say much, but whatever she said was enough to convince him he had to do something to help her.

  “We will come back for her,” Aes said. “Before we leave Creatius, we will return for her.”

  “But—” Commander Ahmadi began.

  “We will come back for her!”

  “Alright. We will come back for her.”

  Aes whispered something to Iliana as he wiped tears from her eyes. With a couple blasts from his pulse-r, her chains broke free from the wall. This lifted her spirits, but she was too weak to move on her own. Aes asked her to remain there until he and the others could get her to safety, and she agreed. Cal felt awful about leaving the princess alone, but the crew would need all the manpower they had to take out Caelifera. Someone staying behind with Iliana wasn’t an option. Aes bowed his head and stormed out of the room. The crew followed him down the hall, turned a corner, went through yet another door and were face to face with three more farokh. Three moons were etched above the archway of the door they were guarding. Their craters were encrusted with jewels.

  It was five against three, but these guards were much larger and far more muscular than the others they had faced. Like they had been bred for this job. A firefight erupted. The guards blasted fire needles at the crew. Aes yelped as one grazed his arm. An oozy blue puddle formed on the floor. Cal stepped over it as she and the others marched forward, shooting at the farokh.

  The guard on the left shot Commander Ahmadi’s pulse-r out of his hand. He clomped toward him and lifted him by the neck. The commander’s feet dangled above the floor, and he struggled to pry the guard’s fingers from his throat.

  Cal ducked out of the way of a storm of fire needles. She couldn’t stay immobile long enough to get a good lock on her target. If someone didn’t do something fast, Commander Ahmadi was going to die. She ducked once more, held her breath and shot in the guard’s direction. The blast singed his shoulder, and he dropped Commander Ahmadi to the floor. Not wasting time to catch his breath, Commander Ahmadi kicked the farokh and knocked him against the wall. As the guard bent over, his slender fingers clenching his stomach, Commander Ahmadi head-butted him and threw him to the floor, and he shot him to be certain he was dead.

  Flynn, Britt and Aes took on the two remaining guards. As they did their best to fight their way past them, one of the farokh grabbed Flynn’s cape and yanked it, sweeping Flynn’s feet out from under him and sending his head crashing against the floor. He clutched his skull as he landed, but he fought through the pain and stood, off-balance as he was.

  Seeing that gave Britt an idea.

  She kicked one of the guard’s legs, which collapsed underneath him and brought him to his knees. Before he knew what hit him, she had wrapped the fabric of his own cape around his neck and pulled it until he passed out.

  That instant, Commander Ahmadi slammed the last guard’s head against the wall. The guard’s eyes rolled back, and he slid down into a slumped position.

  Using his pendant, Aes opened the door. Behind the gel was a massive room lined wall to wall with hand-painted and holographic portraits of Caelifera. And there, in the center of the room, was the enemy herself. She squawked at them in a threatening manner while waving something in the palm of her hand. The five of them walked forward, circling around her.

  Her shrieks grew louder. The crewmembers raised their guns and took aim. Caelifera opened her palm, and a plume of smoke filled the quaking room.

  Cal felt the floor slip out from under her feet. She couldn’t see anything but dark gray clouds of smoke, which felt heavy in her lungs. Her body dropped. The floor was crumbling out from under her.

  She threw out her arms and grabbed hold of a piece of the floor. She used what strength she had to try to lift herself up to hoist her leg up over the ledge.

  Her eyes stung and welled with tears. She coughed between gasps for air and could hear others doing the same. Her hands were slipping. She didn’t have a good enough grip, and her fingers were struggling to hold her weight.

  Another finger slipped. Again, she tried pulling her body up over the ledge, but it was no use.

  One more finger slipped.

  She thought she was as good as dead until Flynn grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her to safety.

  She gave him a quick but firm hug as he helped her to his feet. She glanced back and saw a significant chunk of the room was missing, and so were at least a few floors below them. She peered down at the pile of rubble, among which were scattered bodies of the farokh.

  The smoke settled, and she could make out the silhouette of Caelifera—the entrancing aura, the towering presence, the lanky arms. There was something else, though. She was holding something.

  No, someone.

  Caelifera had Britt.

  Tears raced down Britt's face, and she clawed at her own neck, which had Caelifera’s smoldering whip wrapped around it. She tried to scream, but her cries fell silent. Cal reached for her pulse-r, but it was gone. It had fallen through the floor.

  Commander Ahmadi drew his pulse-r, but Caelifera let out a threatening scream and pulled harder on the whip, making Britt’s face contort in agony.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” Aes pleaded. His voice trembled, but the tighter Caelifera pulled on the whip, the angrier his tone became. He narrowed his eyes and snarled at his former master.

  An animalistic instinct came over him.

  He lunged toward Caelifera, pulling a knife from his utility belt as he jumped.

  In the air, knife firm in his grasp, he lifted his right arm back and flung the blade forward, plunging the knife into Caelifera’s chest.

  Caelifera pulled tighter on the whip. Seeing Britt enduring the torture was more than Aes could take. There was a gushing sound as he drew the goo-covered knife out of Caelifera’s chest and drove it into the arm wielding the whip. Caelifera shrieked and let go.

  Aes dropped the knife and unwrapped the smoldering whip from around Britt’s neck, which was covered in singe marks and dried blood.

  Taking advantage of the temporary distraction, a bleeding Caelifera tried crawling away using her one good arm. She looked up to find Cal’s foot planted on her shoulder, shoving her down to the floor. “I don’t think so.”

  A pulse of gold light emitted from Commander Ahmadi’s gun.

  They had achieved their mission. Caelifera was dead.

  But at what cost?

  Life drained from Britt’s face. Her body went limp as she buckled to the floor.

  “We need to get her to safety,” Commander Ahmadi said. “Aes, what is the fastest way out of here?”

  “Follow me,” Aes said. The commander hoisted Britt’s body up and over his shoulder. He tossed Cal his pulse-r so she could help Flynn cover for him and Britt.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  A few minutes and six dead guards later, the group filed into a room filled with a fleet of escape pods. They were far too small for the five of them to fit in. They were going to have to split up. Commander Ahmadi ordered Aes to get Britt to the Stellix and said he, Cal and Flynn would follow.

  Aes opened the hatches of two of the pods, and Commander Ahmadi placed Britt’s limp body in one of the passenger seats.

  “I will be right back,” Aes said, already heading for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Cal yelled. “Britt needs you.”


  “I made a promise to Iliana,” Aes replied, looking at them once more before heading out the door. “And by the three moons, I intend to keep it.”

  After he left, two more guards covered in soot came bursting into the room. Cal and Flynn blasted them with gold rays. Minutes passed. Aes returned, carrying a nearly lifeless Iliana in his arms. He placed her beside Britt. He climbed inside with them and showed Commander Ahmadi a couple of buttons. Commander Ahmadi gave the top of the pod a tap as he wished Aes luck.

  Once situated, with Flynn’s arm snug around her waist, Cal closed her eyes and said a quick prayer for Britt while Commander Ahmadi figured out how to operate the ship. Cal had already lost her sister, or at least until recently she thought she had. She couldn’t bear to lose Britt, too. Oh God, she thought. What if Britt doesn’t make it? Who will help Quinn and the others? She opened her eyes and leaned against the seat as the pod rose. She felt guilty for that being one of her first thoughts—worrying about how Britt’s situation would affect her. One obstacle at a time. First, let’s focus on Britt’s health. We can worry about reanimating Caelifera’s victims later.

  The sound of Aes’s pod smashing through the window snapped Cal back into the present moment. Commander Ahmadi steered the pod and followed close behind. Cal sensed a glimpse of motion in her peripheral vision. She turned around and saw the farokh through the rear window. They were scrambling into the room and climbing inside pods. “Commander, we have company.”

  They zoomed through the hole Aes’s pod had carved out of the tower and followed him across the cavernous city, evading the bubble pods and starbursts, and doing their best to avoid blasts from the farokh, who were trailing close behind.

  They zipped over the gemstone mining fields and past the housing districts. They swept above the marketplace, and through the window they saw angry merchants and terrified customers waving their fists in the air and squawking at them.

  Following Aes’s lead, and with the farokh firing at them, Commander Ahmadi steered the pod with precision toward the entrance of the cavern. They flew up and over the staircase with ease until the pod gave a sudden jolt, and a cringe-worthy grating sound rang in their ears.

  “Sorry,” he said, adjusting the pod downward so that it was no longer scraping against the ceiling of the cavern.

  Clear gel splatted across the windshield, sliding across the sides of the pod and leaving a gooey trail behind. Ahead, there were more spurts of gel spewing from Aes’s pod. He had flown right through the door.

  It was getting brighter by the second as they neared the exit. They made it through and found themselves flying across the sand dune-covered desert in the direction of the Stellix.

  The pod tumbled. It had been hit by a blast from behind. It rolled in the air four times, but Commander Ahmadi got it upright and continued steering it toward the Stellix. Cal felt like she was going to be sick. She bent over and rested her head on her knees. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and did whatever she could to think about anything but the feeling of her stomach somersaulting inside her.

  “Look,” Flynn said. He nudged her side.

  She lifted her head in time to spot a rypkal soaring to the right of their pod. She leaned over to get a better look, but a blast shot into the beast’s back. It stopped in midair and arched in agony. It spiraled as it plummeted head-first into the sand below. Cal’s jaw dropped.

  Commander Ahmadi dodged another blast, but he couldn’t evade the one that came next. The three of them were thrust forward. The pod shook from impact. A deafening alarm blared as the pod picked up speed while it tumbled downward. Pieces of the vehicle went flying as they pounded into the surface of Creatius. Cal, Flynn and Commander Ahmadi were met with a blast of dry heat and a cloud of sand.

  “The Stellix is ahead,” Commander Ahmadi said between coughs. “Go, go, go!”

  Intense heat radiated from Cal’s calves as she raced across the sand dunes, ducking and jumping out of the way of blasts from the farokh who were shooting at them from above.

  Aes had landed his pod by the Stellix. He opened the hatch door, dragging a limp Britt and Iliana behind him as he ascended up the ramp.

  As he, Cal and Flynn neared the ship, Commander Ahmadi gave a quick look over his shoulder. “Aes, get in and close the hatch door.”

  “But—” Aes argued.

  “Do it!”

  Aes pressed a button, and the ramp retracted. The hatch door lowered before their eyes. Cal, Flynn and Commander Ahmadi were fifteen feet away from the Stellix. There was no way they were going to make it. A rush of adrenaline pulsed through them. Cal’s legs carried her even faster, like she’d developed exceptional speed. The door was about halfway down the hatch. Driven by the same compulsion for survival, she, Flynn and Commander Ahmadi leapt forward, tumbling in circles as they rolled inside the Stellix. Cal looked back and moved her foot out of the way before the hatch closed on it. The three of them jumped to their feet and darted in the direction of the main cabin, while Aes lugged Britt and Iliana behind him. The Stellix rocked, taking fire from the farokh. It was hard for the crewmembers to maintain their balance as their ship shook, but they made their way inside the main cabin.

  “Hang on!” the commander yelled in a raspy voice while he and Flynn prepped the Stellix for the slingshot maneuver. Colors and shapes swarmed like hornets around them. The main cabin stretched like a rubber band, and with a snap they found themselves in a different sector of space. There were no farokh blasting at them. There was no longer imminent danger.

  They joined in a collective sigh of relief.

  “Aes,” Commander Ahmadi said, “How are Britt and Iliana holding up?”

  “Not well, but they are both alive.”

  “Take them and teleport with them to the estate. Agent Taylor will see to it that the two of them are taken care of. I will contact her to update her and let her know to expect you.”

  Aes nodded and lugged them out of the room.

  “Flynn, would you mind helping Aes get them to the telepad base? Oh. And Aes, thank you for getting us out alive.”

  Commander Ahmadi pulled Agent Taylor up on the holographic projector at the front of the main cabin. He informed her of Britt’s condition and urged her to see to it that she was looked after. He made her aware of the discovery of Caelifera’s daughter Iliana, and he let her know that she was in urgent need of care. He explained to Agent Taylor that Caelifera was dead, and he told her how they had escaped Creatius.

  “I congratulate you on your success,” Agent Taylor said coolly. “You have far exceeded our expectations. However, Iliana’s capture concerns me. Someone will notice she is missing.”

  “I do not think so. Other than Caelifera, we believe the guards were the only other Creatians who knew where she was being held, and they are both dead.”

  “I see,” Agent Taylor said. “I hope we can trust Aes’s judgment. Nevertheless, we will do our best to restore her health and, once she is well, interview her. I wish I could say we are ready for you to come home. However, there is one more thing I must ask of you.”

  “Anything.”

  “Caelifera is dead, but the farokh are set to attack. Her warship is protected by advanced deflector shields, and Earth’s fleet hasn’t made a dent,” Agent Taylor said. “Six of our own ships have been destroyed. You know the enemy best. You have seen what they are capable of.”

  “What types of weapon systems are they using?” he asked.

  “Guided kinetic cannons,” Agent Taylor answered.

  “We will assist in any way we can. Send over the coordinates, and we will be on our way.”

  “Thank you. Remember: fortune favors the brave.”

  “Fortune favors the brave,” Commander Ahmadi and Cal replied as Flynn returned to the room.

  The transmission ended, and Agent Taylor sent the coordinates to the sector in which the battle between the humans and Creatians was taking place.

  The three of them needed some time to catch
their breath. With Commander Ahmadi’s blessing, they took a brief respite to freshen up. He wanted to check in with his wife anyway.

  After changing out of her torn, singed and bloody uniform and into a clean one, Cal went to the dining hall to get some water before heading to the main cabin. She was so parched she was hardly producing enough saliva to swallow. With each strained gulp, it felt like a thousand knives were piercing into her tongue and throat. She filled the largest glass she could find and chugged it, not minding the excess trickling down her chin and splattering on the front of her uniform.

  Flynn entered the dining hall as Cal wiped the last bit of dribble from her chin. He was as dehydrated as she was, if not more so. His lips were pale and cracked, so much so that they were bleeding. He darted to the sink without acknowledging her presence. He chugged two glasses of water, then came up to breathe. Cal noticed the bruise on his cheekbone had turned a nasty blue.

  Flynn gasped for air as he slammed his glass down on the counter. “My God,” he said, his chest heaving, “I didn’t know it was possible to be so thirsty.”

  “I know what you mean.” Cal smiled. “We better get back to the main cabin. I know Commander Ahmadi is eager to get going.”

  “Yeah,” Flynn said, but he didn’t move. Instead he stood there, staring at her.

  “What is it?” Cal asked, resting her hand on his arm.

  “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I had no idea how deep this went, and I didn’t understand at the time how dangerous this mission would be. I shouldn’t have put you in this situation.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Cal said, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. “You bringing me on led me to Quinn. And to you.”

  Flynn wrapped his arms around Cal, bringing her in to his chest as he held her tight. He rested his chin on the top of her head. “If we make it out alive, I promise I’ll take you on a proper date.”

  “I look forward to it.” Cal laughed, her cheek warm from being pressed against him.

  He kissed the top of her head, and together they went forth to face their next task.