Giles Kurns_Rogue Instigator

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Giles waited.

  “And if you find it,” he finished, “you can keep it.”

  Giles’s eyebrows furrowed. “And if we don’t find it?”

  “Then we’ll have a discussion.”

  “What does that mean?” Giles parried back immediately.

  “It means that as friends, I grant you this favor, then when you return and you want another favor, we talk about some form of mutually beneficial agreement.”

  Giles thought about making eye contact with Arlene before making a call but realized immediately that would be perceived as a sign of weakness in a relatively new culture such as this. Instead, he grinned brightly and stepped forward, holding out his hand. “You have yourself a deal.”

  Arlene knew full well that Giles wasn’t buying into The Crown’s agreement one bit.

  The Crown stepped forward, trying to emulate his smile, but instead just bore a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. Giles instinctively recoiled but then forced himself to stand his ground.

  The Queegert used his arm-like tendril and grabbed not his hand, but Giles’s whole arm to the elbow and slapped his forearm with his other tendril. Giles’s mind immediately put it in context of what he knew about this race anthropologically. He assumed that forearm—or rather, tendril blades were the weapon of choice. Made sense, looking at their anatomy.

  And so it stood to reason that as their social norms developed, they’d want to make sure that the person they were meeting wasn’t intending to catch them unaware and stab them. Probably in the eye, Giles thought to himself, looking for the only vulnerable part of their bodies.

  “Right, then,” Giles agreed, after returning a couple of good slaps on the Queegert’s forearm and pulling away as soon as he thought it might be socially acceptable.

  “You can start in the morning. Be here at sunrise. I’ll have Rolf-nah take you.” He signaled to another Queegert who seemed to have been observing the whole meeting from the back of the room.

  Giles wasn’t clear. Either that was Rolf-nah, or he’d be relaying the order to Rolf-nah. Either way, he smiled and raised his hand in greeting. The Queegert just regarded him with one eye, the other two fixed straight ahead. Apart from that, he didn’t respond.

  “Rest well,” The Crown told him, heading back across the room to the door he’d emerged through. “You’ll need it,” he added cryptically.

  Giles and Arlene had been dismissed. They turned to see one of the guards already opening the door for them to leave.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Royal Settlement, Mallifrax-8

  Having been led through the building, then released from the settlement, Giles and Arlene made their way across the grass back to the Scamp Princess.

  “Tomb raiding!” Giles declared in indignation. “They raided the fucking tomb!”

  His frustration blinded him to his previous preoccupation about his voice being overheard.

  “First,” Arlene said flatly.

  “What?”

  “First,” she repeated. “They just got there first. What they did . . . that was all you were going to do.”

  “We,” he corrected her. “And yes, but we have a bigger quest here. We’re not just doing it to hold on to pretty things of value. Or extort something out of unsuspecting researchers. We’re trying to figure out the origin of . . . well, maybe all life in the universe!”

  Arlene looked at him dryly. “Down, boy. We’re looking at the possible origin of a handful of species in our corner of the galaxy.”

  “Same difference,” he gruffed.

  “BIG difference,” she argued. “As in, one hundred thousand light years kind of difference.”

  Giles didn’t have an answer. Arlene had always been too sharp for him when it came to logical arguments. He knew he didn’t stand a chance.

  They continued walking in silence.

  “So what do we do?” she asked finally.

  Giles shrugged. “Take him up on his offer to have someone take us there to see for ourselves. As you said, they’re not the sharpest tools in the box. Maybe they missed it. Maybe our original civilization was smart enough to make sure it was only discovered by a species with enough braincells to rub together.”

  “Before they got themselves extinct?”

  “Yes. Before.”

  Arlene was smirking again. “Smart enough to hide a talisman safely from Queegerts, but not smart enough to survive. Yup . . . I’ll take those odds,” she concluded with dryness and irony.

  Giles grinned despite the setback and his bad mood. She was clearly back in form, now that she was in the field.

  Aboard the Scamp Princess, outside the Royal Settlement, Mallifrax-8

  The next morning, the planet’s sun streamed onto the Scamp Princess’s exterior hull, heating up the whole ship. It had become so warm that it had triggered the on-board atmospheric coolers to kick in.

  “Ok,” Arlene said, finishing her cup of mocha in a last gulp. “You stay put. And remember what we talked about.” Arlene moved her eyes from Anne to Giles, who was busy packing a supplies bag in the doorway of the tiny kitchen.

  Anne sat at the table, a glass of water in front of her, nodding obediently. She knew what Arlene was reminding her of.

  Giles. And how it would destroy him if anything happened to her.

  Frankly, Anne thought to herself, this smacks of mere manipulation to get me to do as she wants me to. She glanced over at Giles. Yet, it was Giles. So even though she was onto Arlene, she didn’t want to hurt him.

  “I’ll stay put,” she confirmed. “But can I have access to Scamp?”

  Arlene frowned. “Whatever for?”

  “Someone to talk to? And something to do?” Anne paused, trying not to sound too pushy. If she was too keen, she’d arouse suspicion. She made her voice as casual as possible. “I mean, the whole reason for keeping me off the grid over in Estaria was to keep me safe from the people on Estaria who might want to hurt me. But now, we’re light years away from the Sark System. Surely, it doesn’t matter.”

  Arlene processed the request for a moment. She glanced at Giles, who was still struggling to get his water bottle into the already-overflowing pack. He was in no position to help with this decision.

  “Ok,” she agreed reluctantly. “But no sending messages, signals, and no doing anything that could endanger you or the mission. Information gathering and processing only.”

  Anne’s face brightened, her natural blue effervescence returning to her complexion.

  Arlene noticed and realized she’d been looking quite shell-like and empty for a girl her age. She smiled, hitting her holo. “Scamp, did you get that?”

  “Received. No outgoings, and only information and processing that doesn’t endanger her or the mission.”

  “Good. Thank you, Scamp.”

  Anne scooted back on her chair noisily, then pushed her way out of the kitchen, past Giles, and into the cockpit. “Later, G-man,” she called.

  “Er, right. Bye, Anne,” he called back.

  “Shall we?” he said, turning back to Arlene.

  Arlene plonked her mug in the sink. “We shall.” She picked up her slick, lightweight pack and slipped her arms into it, heading gracefully to the door.

  Giles, defeated by the water bottle, clipped it onto the outside of his bulky pack and awkwardly threw it over one shoulder before following Arlene out through the side door, onto the terrain below.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Temple Ruins, 15 km S.E. of Royal Settlement, Mallifrax-8

  The planet’s sun was high in the sky by the time they reached the ruins.

  Rolf-nah had turned out to be just as stoic as his colleagues. It also turned out that he wasn’t the same Queegert who’d witnessed their conversation with The Crown. He seemed more the outdoorsy, warrior type. The other Queegert was an administrator or some kind of butler, from what Arlene could tell.

  “This is it,” Rolf-nah declared, stopping in the opening in the vegetation, and looking up at
the structure. It was ruins, for sure.

  Arlene couldn’t be sure from the angle what shape the base was. For the first fifty feet, it seemed to narrow gradually in a kind of pyramid shape, but thereafter for a good height beyond, it became more chimney-like.

  She strained her head backwards, trying to see the top. “That’s a lot of temple,” she muttered under her breath.

  Giles agreed. “Suppose we better get started.” He strode onward and into the opening that was probably, once upon a time, a doorway.

  Arlene followed him, but Rolf-nah dropped his pack. “I’ll wait here,” he told them.

  Arlene confirmed she’d heard him and continued on. Once inside and out of earshot, she shared her thoughts. “Doesn’t look like he wants to be too helpful,” she commented.

  Giles was distracted already, shining his torch around the dark dankness of the temple. It looked like it was far more than a single chamber. There were corners and cubbies and corridors coming off it all over the place.

  “No signs of artwork, or painting,” he commented. His tone was as matter-of-fact as a coroner performing an examination. “No indications of carvings or language either.” He continued wandering, disappearing into the darkness.

  Arlene sighed. “I suppose this is going to take a while,” she called.

  Giles didn’t answer.

  She wasn’t sure, but she thought for a second there was motion in the darkness, somewhere out of the corner of her eye. “Giles?”

  Still no answer.

  Her hands slipped to her pistols. This time, they didn’t hover there. She immediately drew one and then the other, knocking each of them against her forearm to deactivate the safeties. She stepped forward into the darkness. There was a faint shuffling up ahead. She started to call out to Giles, but something in her subconscious stopped the sound before it made it to her throat.

  There was something there with her. Something in the darkness, moving around.

  Shit. It’s times like this I wish I had a spare hand for a flashlight or a fireball.

  A fireball! That would do it.

  She tried to connect to the ground energy of the planet. It felt weak. She tried again. There was something there that she could use. Her brain searched for what she knew of the planet. Iron core, electromagnetic fields. Well, duh, of course . . . it has an atmosphere and solid shell. And life. Something feels off though. There should be more power.

  She ran her consciousness through the rock she was standing on, realizing that if a temple had actually been built here, it must’ve been tapped into something. Especially if these people had known anything about the laws of physics.

  There was something. But it just felt like it was sealed off.

  She felt the thing in the darkness closer to her now. It was definitely organic and corporeal. It didn’t move like a Queegert though. Or a human. More . . . animal-like.

  Suddenly, in the process of flicking her awareness from one realm to the other, something clicked, and the power she was looking for from the ground welled up. She had to channel the energy into a fireball just to keep it from knocking her off-balance.

  She barely had a chance to holster her left gun before—

  BOOM!

  Her fireball shot out of her hand and exploded in the middle of the temple, casting harsh shadows all over the place. Her eyes scanned the area around her, before catching sight of a pair of fierce, yellow eyes glaring at her.

  She clocked the teeth and a sleek blackness of a cat-like creature before it bolted, heading down an offshoot from the main chamber.

  “Giles! You have incoming! Giant scary-ass panther!” she yelled before chasing after it as fast as her boots on the rugged concrete could carry her.

  She heard a dull thump up ahead and then a groaning. Obviously Giles, she figured. She threw another fireball, which this time she could control, causing it to hover mid-air in the center of the second chamber, providing some much-needed light.

  Giles had thrust himself against the wall in the corridor and was inspecting himself to make sure he wasn’t injured.

  “You ok?” she checked, her eyes darting around again to find the threat.

  “Ugh . . . yeah. What was that?”

  “Panther? Or rather, a Mallifrax Panther, to be more precise.”

  Giles groaned more in annoyance than pain. “Guess just one more obstacle we have to face on this godforsaken quest.” He used the wall to stagger to his feet. “Mallifrax panther—you totally made that up.”

  Arlene rolled her eyes, pointing her weapon into the shadows. “I don’t think it’s just the one either.”

  Giles looked up to see three, no four sets of yellow eyes glaring menacingly at him.

  “Something tells me we’re not welcome here,” Arlene said, moving her aim from one to another.

  The panther-like beasts started to advance, stepping into the glow of the light. Arlene noticed their fur had a strange purple tint to the blackness that caused it to glow. But it wasn’t strictly fur. More like hair-like skin, she thought, briefly wondering about the evolutionary aspects in this environment.

  She felt movement behind her, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Giles standing behind her. “Two more,” he informed her.

  She pulled out her second weapon and handed it to him. “We gonna shoot?” she asked, almost daring him to try and come up with a non-combative solution.

  He pushed his glasses back on his face. “I think we may need to. Although, as there’s probably nothing here, I suggest we see if we can make our way out.”

  Arlene shrugged. “Good an idea as any, though I think having come all this way . . .”

  Giles knew exactly what she was saying. He could almost have predicted what was going to happen next. He felt the beast straight in front of her and off to his left venture further forward than the others. And he was the one within pouncing distance.

  It all happened in slow motion for Giles. He felt the advance, slowly at first, then suddenly it sped up. Arlene had released the second gun into his grasp, and no sooner had she done that, she was bending down to grab her spare from inside her boot, all the while, her right weapon tracked the advance of the monster.

  Boom. Boom. Bang!

  She punched three rounds into the first beast as it took off in a jump, heading straight for Giles. Giles felt his body respond to the shock by staggering sideways along the tunnel wall, narrowly getting out of the way. The panther crashed to the deck just feet away from him. It wasn’t dead yet, but it didn’t seem to be capable of moving anymore, at least.

  There was a second of silent respite. Then all the others started charging towards them.

  Arlene fired a shield of bullets into the area in front of her and off to the right. Giles, realizing what was happening, gripped more firmly the weapon she’d just handed him and started firing into the others coming from behind her, off to the right of the opening to the linking tunnel.

  There was a hail of bullets, and the accompanying clamor that went with the weapons fired, ricocheted around the temple room. The panther-like beasts were mostly incapacitated—at least, the ones nearest them were. But more quickly started to arrive, replacing the first wave in a matter of moments.

  “We need to move!” she shouted over the sound of her weapons firing.

  “Don’t hear any arguments from me,” Giles called back over the din, already moving back through the corridor. Two more sets of eyes appeared ahead of him, blocking their path. “Not an option that way though.” He fired at them, but they kept coming.

  Arlene wheeled round just in time.

  BANG, BANG, BANG.

  The eyes disappeared, and Giles could just make out the bodies slumped down on the ground.

  Then everything fell quiet.

  Those that hadn’t been killed seemed to turn tail and retreat, leaving the carnage of the attack dispersed all over the chamber.

  Giles sighed in relief, leaning back against the tunnel wall. “Well, that
was . . . exhilarating.”

  Arlene half laughed, half scoffed. “I was starting to get worried there,” she snorted, carefully kicking a nearby animal with her foot to make sure it was gone.

  Giles frowned, handing her weapon back to her. “How come I couldn’t stop them?” he asked nodding at the gun.

  Arlene checked it. “Ah, settings were turned to stun. I ended up turning mine up a few notches when that first one started coming at you.”

  Giles stared into space, replaying the moment. “If you hadn’t, I would’ve been a goner!”

  Arlene pursed her lips. “You’re welcome,” she told him, venturing further into the room. “Now, do you wanna check the other chambers just to make sure?”

  He sighed. “Somehow, I feel like I’ve lost my curiosity,” he confessed.

  Arlene smirked. “Scaredy cat. I’ll come with you. But we’d better do it quickly. Last thing we want is those creatures to come back with their friends.”

  “True,” he agreed.

  They searched every nook and cranny they could find and still turned up nothing of any archaeological significance. Giles took holographic images as far as he was able, given the poor lighting, but being short on time and courage, his perfectionist tendencies evaporated.

  Soon, the pair swept back through the corridors and returned to the initial entranceway of the chamber. There was an eerie feel as they left. The feeling one gets when one is being watched.

  Arlene, visibly shuddered as they marched back out into the open and back to the normality of the jungle-like clearing they’d left their guide in.

  “All ok?” Rolf-nah asked reluctantly, staggering up from his seated position and back onto his three legs.

  “Yes, delightful,” Giles reported, knowing full well the irony was going to be lost on him.