by Justin Sloan
“It’s true. This temple used to be more populated but I’m the only priest now. You shot most of my remaining followers—not counting the three disciples, of course.”
Given the way the priest’s voice shook, Kalan believed him. “I’ve got to know… How do you do that thing with the door?”
The priest seemed to perk up a bit at the question. He stood up and brushed himself off, sliding easily into teaching mode. “You wondered whether it was solid rock or a hologram? The truth is, it’s both. The rock wall sinks into the floor and we project a hologram so our enemies can’t tell when we’ve opened it.”
“Clever,” Kalan said. “We’re all really impressed with your fancy door. Now take us to those slaves.”
The priest led them through a series of passages, deeper into the heart of the stone structure.
As they walked, Bob asked, “So what’s the deal? Why are there so few people here? Isn’t religion a big thing for you Skulla?”
The priest hesitated before answering. “Religion, yes. This religion, not so much. We believe that advanced technology is the path to enlightenment. It used to be a commonly held belief among my kind, but for the past couple decades most Skulla have been turning to another way.”
“The way of the fighting pit?” Kalan asked.
“Exactly.”
The priest led them to a large open room near the center of the temple. The walls were lined with monitors and blinking lights, and the illustrations on the domed ceiling far above depicted Skulla building great machines. Kalan got the sense that this place was some strange combination of sanctuary and control room.
Three Skulla in tattered orange robes were scrubbing the floor on their hands and knees in various parts of the room. Two of the slaves were males, and the third was an ancient-looking female. All three looked up in surprise as the strange crew entered.
“This is them,” the priest muttered.
“Uh, hi everyone,” Bob called. “We’re here to free you.”
Kalan stared at the old female for a long moment. Something about her wasn’t right. The way she carried herself seemed off.
She stared back with wide eyes, seemingly shocked at the sight of him. She slowly got to her feet, not taking her eyes off him. “Kalan?”
When she spoke, Kalan realized what was different about her. He stared at the corner of a tattoo on her face for a long moment, and sure enough, he saw it flicker.
And that voice—it was so familiar.
But it couldn’t be her. Not here.
Still, he couldn’t stop himself from saying her name. “Jilla?”
The Skulla female smiled, then began to change. Her limbs lengthened and grew lean, and the tattoos and wrinkles faded.
The priest and her fellow slaves looked as surprised as Bob did as the old Skulla transformed into a beautiful Pallicon female.
When she’d reverted to her natural form, she flashed Kalan a smile. “Well, isn’t this romantic. After all the times I saved your ass, you finally decided to repay the favor.”
Bob scratched his ear, clearly confused. “Um, so you two know each other?”
Kalan nodded. “This is Jilla. We used to sort of date back on SEDE.”
Jilla raised an eyebrow. “Sort of? Give me a break! This guy proposed to me so often his knee is probably still sore.”
Kalan ignored the comment. “What are you doing here?”
Jilla flashed him a smile. “Oh, you know… Floors, windows, mucking out the occasional stall. Classic slave-type stuff.”
“I mean—”
“I knew what you meant. I came here on a little research project. I heard there was advanced tech here, stuff you can’t find in other parts of the system, so I thought it would be a really smart idea to knock on the door and ask about it. I didn’t know I’d spend the next year and a half doing forced labor. At least I had the good sense to transform into an old Skulla. That saved me from unwanted male attention.”
Bob glared at the priest. “So you’re telling me you had her here for a year and a half and you didn’t know she was a Pallicon?”
The priest was so baffled he stammered, unable to form a sentence.
Jilla shook her head sadly. “These isolated forest Skulla are pathetic. No idea how to spot a Pallicon, unlike some I know.” She nodded toward Kalan. “It didn’t even take you ten seconds. So you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“The ugly human is Bob.” He hesitated for a moment. “There’s someone else here you should meet. Her name is Wearl, and she is a Shimmer.”
Now it was Jilla’s turn to look surprised. “A Shimmer? Like the ones that used to steal our contraband and abuse our friends back on SEDE?”
“Yeah, that kind.”
“Wearl’s not like those other Shimmers,” Bob quickly added. “She’s pretty cool.”
The team spent the next hour figuring out what to do about this messy situation, and eventually they took a few years’ worth of wages out of the priest’s coffers and gave them to the two Skulla males before sending them on their way. At Jilla’s insistence they decided to let the priest live, although Kalan assured him he’d be looking in on him from time to time to make sure everyone in the temple wanted to be there.
In truth, Kalan intended to notify Sslake’s enforcers on this planet of what was going on in this valley. They could arrest the priest and deal with him locally.
When the Skulla had all cleared out, Kalan turned to Jilla. “So how about you? What are you going to do next?”
Jilla shrugged. “Well, up until about an hour ago I was under the impression I’d be working in this temple for the rest of my natural life, so I guess I suddenly find myself with a little time on my hands.” She paused for a moment. “You never did tell me what you were doing here.”
Kalan sighed. “Following up on a lead. I’d heard there was a Grayhewn in this temple, but according to the priest he’s long dead.”
“Yeah, he’s not lying. I’ve heard stories, but the guy was dead before I got here.”
“Damn, another dead-end!”
Jilla thought for a moment. “If you’re looking for Grayhewns, I can help.”
“Wait, what? You know another Grayhewn?” The excitement in Kalan’s voice surprised him. He hadn’t allowed himself to think much about how badly he wanted to find another of his people. His father had been paroled when he was four and Kalan hadn’t seen him since, so for the vast majority of his life his mother had been the only other Grayhewn Kalan knew. He wanted to know what others of his kind were like, but more importantly he wanted to help them if they were in trouble.
Jilla nodded. “I know a guy who was partners with a Grayhewn for decades. I’m sure he can put us in touch with him. Lives on the moon of Tol.”
An unexpected smile crept across Kalan’s face. “You’ll take us to meet him? Give us an introduction?”
“Like I said, it’s not like I have much else going on.”
“Wearl? Bob? What do you say? We do have another seat on the Nim, after all.”
“Cool with me,” Bob said. He listened for a moment, then turned a light shade of red before speaking again. “Wearl would like me to tell you that Shimmers do not experience the phenomenon of jealousy. Jilla, she’d be happy to welcome you aboard and to share Kalan with you.” He listened for another moment, then turned and spoke to the empty space next to him. “They know you mean sexually, Wearl. You don’t have to spell it out.”
Julia raised an eyebrow. “So, Kalan…you and the Shimmer?”
“What? No! I mean, she’s a friend. She’s great. But not, you know, like that.”
Jilla smiled. “I see. So she’s just an invisible friend, then.”
Kalan ignored the comment. “Let’s get to the ship. I’d like to get to this moon as quickly as possible.”
Bob held up a hand. “Hold on. Wearl says there’s something she has to do first.”
Kalan and Jilla exchanged a glance, but said nothing and waited.
> Bob explained, interpreting for Wearl. “Apparently while we were investigating in town, Wearl was out researching. You SEDE babies were set up with chips that can be updated remotely. Made sense in the prison environment—if they wanted to make a change to your translation chips they could do it all at once, without putting you all under the knife. She says she had to find the right frequency.”
Jilla raised an eyebrow. “She’s not going to mess with the software implanted in our brains, is she?”
“Wearl, let’s have a discussion before you make any software updates, okay?” Kalan asked.
The monitor on the wall closest to them began flashing as a series of windows with scrolling code appeared, then quickly disappeared.
“She says it’s a bit late for that,” Bob said sheepishly. “The technology here is so advanced that it won’t take but a moment.”
“I gotta say,” Jilla said, “it’s a bit presumptuous to modify someone you just met.”
“That’s kinda Wearl’s whole deal.” As soon as Kalan had finished speaking a strange flash of light appeared behind his eyes like a burst of static. There was no pain, only a disconcerting jolt.
He took a step towards the brightly-lit monitor. “Seriously, Wearl, that’s enough. You have to stop!”
“Fair enough,” a female voice said from near the monitor. “Stopping now. The procedure is complete. How’d I do?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Planet Tol: Singlaxian Grandeur
Valerie still wasn’t sure how she felt about a former warlord being with them in the Grandeur, but here they were, flying toward some valley of robots according to his direction.
If it was a trap, they were leaping into it with open arms.
“How exactly do you know about all this again?” Valerie asked, moving back through the ship as Flynn flew. In Bob’s absence, she was learning that the corporal could handle a fighter, though she would take over if they found themselves in trouble.
“I sent scouts out to the wreckage you described,” he replied. “The base, that is. There shouldn’t have been communications to the valley, since we thought the valley was dead—nothing there. Turns out we were wrong.”
“Great. Wonderful. Except that I never said where the base was, and I’m certain Sslake didn’t tell you.”
Palnik sighed, tilting his head from one side to the other as Skulla did instead of shrugging. “You want honesty, is that it? Fine, I was number two to the Bandian, so do you think I didn’t know where his base was?”
“I knew it,” Garcia growled, getting up in Palnik’s face. “You—”
“Wait, wait!” Palnik held up both hands. “I knew because I was having him tailed. Followed, understand? In case—”
“In case you found an opportunity to make a move on him,” Valerie finished the sentence. “To be clear, that’s not the way we work, got it? You don’t make a move against Sslake, and if you do, win or lose, you die.”
He frowned, jaw working as if he wanted to argue, but instead he said, “Understood.”
“The warlord doesn’t like it,” Garcia said, almost taunting. “Hey, I don’t mess with cultures either, buddy, but the minute that culture starts killing innocents and taking slaves I interfere the fuck out of it.”
“Agreed,” Robin chimed in, glaring.
“Nobody’s arguing here,” Palnik replied. “You can see how the old system benefited me, but sure, I get it. New system, new power-players.” He tilted his head back and forth. “I’m a survivor, you see? I can adapt.”
“Good, so adapt to the current situation,” Valerie said. “We’re riding into unknown territory, at least to us, based purely on your word. I want to know what’s down there, and what we’re walking into.”
“That part, I know only slightly more than you. There were experiments… You saw the genetically-modified Skulla, right?”
“Hard to miss.”
“I agree.” He glanced down at his own body for a minute, lost in thought, then continued, “Well, there were days when we tried more than that. When we tried to merge robot and Skulla, testing it first on other races and then on ourselves. We modified Skulla so that they were one with the mech, quite literally, others where they simply had robotic hands or legs, exoskeletons that were attached to the bone—you name it. And then we started creating pure robots, even getting to the point where we tried putting Skulla brains into the robotic warriors. The ultimate warrior, right?”
“That’s sick,” Robin stated, which was what everyone else was thinking.
“Is it?” He tilted his head. “Way we saw it at the time, it was advancement—until they turned on us. The singularity, right? Or attempted. One mind, built from within the system, by the system, took over all of it. You had robot in or on you, you became one of them. So we shut it all down—what we could, anyway.”
“And the rest you sent off to this space station,” Valerie noted. “Only, it seems to have not only survived, but evolved.”
“No thanks to the Bandian.”
Valerie shook her head. “Thanks to him and all of you, I imagine. You’re telling me you wouldn’t have done the same thing if you thought it would get you more power?”
He stared at her, unblinking. Yeah, probably smart not to answer that one.
They went on like this, trying to judge his new position in all this and find any reason to trust him, but it was a struggle. Considering that their first interaction had been him ordering her to kill someone as part of a betrayal on his part, she couldn’t see how trust would come into the equation, but she was trying.
When they had passed the mountain and the base, Valerie craned her neck to see the damage and noticed several forms moving around down there.
“Yours?” she asked.
Palnik frowned and went to the window, then turned back to her, pale. “They’re in there too, likely recovering whatever they can.”
“You sound so certain.”
He pointed at his eyes. “Modified. Here and down belo—”
“Okay, we get the point,” she interrupted, definitely not wanting to hear more. They already creeped her out enough, these genetic modifications. She didn’t need the details.
But he was smiling at her, and it wasn’t a normal smile.
“Do I make you uncomfortable, Wandrei?” he asked, standing and moving over to her.
A quick punch in the gut sent him back into his seat, and when he looked up again the smile was gone.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She smiled now, but her eyes were still frowning. “Did that make you uncomfortable?”
“Excruciatingly so,” he replied.
“Watch out,” Robin said with a sneer. “She bites.”
“He’s not going to find out.” Valerie shrugged. “Not my type.”
“I…didn’t mean in that way.”
Palnik glanced between the two of them in confusion, and looked relieved when Flynn called, “We got something.”
They all turned to the display, where Flynn had zoomed in on the horizon. Ahead was more jungle, which gave way to desert again. Sure enough, a line crossed the land, metallic glints shining in the sunlight.
“That’d be the valley,” Palnik said. “In the past I would’ve said we shouldn’t pay it any mind, but we might want to approach with caution.”
“Hence the recon mission.” Garcia scoffed.
“What’s the best direction of approach?” Valerie asked.
Palnik rubbed his belly for a moment, glaring at her, but then gestured to a spot on the display where the jungle ended. “Just past there, although I’d think they have sensors in play. We can leave the ship and approach on foot.”
Flynn angled the Grandeur, and soon they had set down and were running across the hot sand.
Just when they had reached the edge of the valley, a large ship like the one they had seen over the city during the announcement and attack swept over them. They threw themselves to the ground and waited to see if they had been noticed, watching as t
he ship headed into the sky.
It shrank from their vision and was gone.
The thumping of Valerie’s heartbeat was strong in her head as she laid there waiting to see if anything else would happen. When nothing did, she motioned to Robin and the two of them crawled forward to look into the valley, but as far as she could see nothing else was coming their way.
“No alarms?” Garcia asked as he and the others joined them.
“I don’t think they saw us,” Valerie replied.
Most of the valley was covered in thick overgrowth, stands of trees whose leaves blew hard in the same wind that was blowing the sand around them up here. Valerie was glad for her helmet. She generally didn’t find it necessary to wear it, but in a situation like this she didn’t know what would come at her. An extra layer of protection was welcome, especially since it was keeping the sand from her eyes.
A red dot blipped onto her screen, then another. More and more appeared, and she stared at what, according to her HUD, was a valley full of moving forms. They had heat signatures, but were cooler than humans. Everything the warlord had said was likely true, she realized, and these were either the cyborgs, or possibly the machines themselves.
“You all seeing this?” Flynn asked.
Robin let out a deep breath, accentuated by the speakers from her helmet. “It’s like an anthill down there.”
“An ant valley, I guess.” Garcia leaned forward, inching toward the descent. “We’re going down, right?”
Palnik chuckled, then sputtered, “What?”
Valerie thought about his response for a moment, then groaned. “Get your damn translator fixed. We’re going to descend into the valley to get a closer view. Got it?”
He didn’t erase the annoying grin that showed through the clear faceplate, but nodded.
“I’ll take point,” Garcia said, already beginning to work his way down the steep decline.
They used tree roots and horizontal trunks to keep from falling, but halfway down Garcia froze, pointing. Nearby, a round metallic object was on a tree. Its iris-like red center seemed to be looking at them, maybe scanning them.