by Justin Bell
"Maybe that's a way out?" I ask, pointing towards it. As we start walking that direction the light shifts somewhat.
"You don't want to go that way." I whirl towards the low, ragged voice. Luxen follows my lead, lifting his pistol to direct it towards the sound of the voice.
A Bragdon Elder takes an unsteady step from the darkness, folding out of it like a shadow becoming reality. He's limping and has one hand pressed to his ribs. On his third step towards us, he shuffles and almost falls.
I move in, tucking my shoulder under his to help him stay upright.
"We thought they killed you!" Luxen shouts.
"Very nearly," he replies. "But we are harder to kill than we look."
I glance up at the shifting light in the hallway. It's growing larger.
"My two brothers are one with the spirit. However, I still live, for now." He follows my gaze towards the far hallway. "Do not go that way. Those lights . . . they are Reblon commandos. They infest this moon like insects. They will destroy this holy place."
"What can we do?" asks Luxen. I'm still watching the corridor ahead. The lights are growing larger.
The Elder shakes his head, saying, "The moon is already lost. There is nothing left to do but escape."
This gets my attention. "How can we escape? Our jump ship was destroyed. There's no way off this place."
He smiles, a crooked split of non-existent lips looking foreign against his withered, mottled gray face.
"There is a way, deep in the cavern. There is one last secret we've managed to keep."
I reach up under his shoulder and help him up, cradling his arm over me as we hobble back towards the opened area. "You're coming with us," I say. "Where do we go?"
The elder doesn't reply, he just extends his arm and long, pointed finger towards a hallway to our left.
Shouts echo from our right as our moving shapes become visible in the glow of Reblon lamps. Shotgun blasts rebound off of the coarse rock walls around us and a chunk of rock explodes, showering us with hot stone fragments.
"Luxen, here!" I breathe, extending my arm towards him, handing off the burden of assisting the elder. Luxen moves in to take his place underneath the frail arm of the old Bragdon.
"Weapon!" I say, extending my other hand, and Luxen obeys.
As two Bragdons advance down the hall, I fall back with the plasma weapon cradled in my arms. I am a walking nerve cluster with each step only further emphasizing the pain that racks my whole body.
As I move towards the corner where a crater spirals with dull gray smoke, I swing around, lift the weapon, and sight in on the Reblons that are bracketed by their own lights. Two swift shots of plasma drop the first two commandos, but a third and fourth break away, dashing forward to return fire. As I duck behind the rock there's a sharp stab and pinch in my right leg, but I push through the pain and charge forward, seeing Luxen and the Elder up ahead. I swivel and fire down the hall, sending the commandos scrambling for cover and buying us a few more moments.
I'm not running at this point, I'm more stumbling in a forward motion. I hear more footsteps pounding behind me. Around the front corner, more shots ring out, but they crash against rock wall. a
Luxen and the Elder are moving towards another large, cavernous room up ahead. There's a dim light in the room, and a large central column extends up towards the night sky. It's a strange sight, but I keep pressing forward, trying to ignore the approaching commandos behind me.
"Hurry!" shouts Luxen, waving his arm to emphasize the need for speed. A hobble is all he gets out of me, as my leg now matches my shoulder and ribs.
"Where do we go from here?" I ask as I enter the large room.
The Bragdon Elder props himself up on the column and beckons me over. His frail, thin hand is shaking like dry leaves on a loosely tied bundle of twigs.
As I walk over, he reaches towards the column next to him and presses into the rock surface. A strange glow emanates from his touch and scorches through the column like embedded lightning. Forked spikes of brightness spreading like a virus through the thick stone. My eyes widen as the stone begins to split and crumble away. The support column appears to be disintegrating before my eyes, but it is not the column that is disintegrating.
The rock that crumbles away isn't thick chunks of stone, but a strange sheet of rock that flakes away, scattering across the ground.
It's a covering, a rock textured sheath with something underneath. The starlight from above glistens off of the surface of the smooth, angular cylinder hidden underneath the stone covering.
It's a ship, some kind of modified jettison pod that is sleek and aerodynamic is embedded into a built-in launcher dug deep into the dirt surface of the floor.
Above us the rock formation, a narrow hole opens up to the star specked sky.
"A launch pad?" I ask, looking at the Elder. "This whole rock is a glorified launch pad?"
"A method for escape if needed," the Elder replies. "And it is needed."
"They have a ship!" comes a gruff shout from the leading hallway. I fire my plasma weapon, sending the two approaching Reblons for cover, though I can hear a lot of footfalls behind them.
"They're coming!" I shout. "I hear them! Lots of them!"
"In, young one. Get in," whispers the Elder. He gestures towards a ladder bolted to the side of the long, sloped escape vessel, and Luxen leaps up onto it, clamoring up the side towards the clear canopy.
Well over a dozen Reblons flood towards the chamber in a tightly clustered group, all hair, growls, and double-barreled shotguns.
My plasma weapon roars to life, slamming energy into the group of approaching commandos. Two of them fall and the oncoming swarm envelops them.
"Your turn!" the Elder shouts, pressing his narrow hand into my shoulder. "Give me the weapon."
I turn and glare at him. "But, can you . . . ? How will you . . . ?"
"You are too important to die here in the dirt. Go, Brie Northstar. Give me the weapon!"
He slips the weapon from my hands, and I launch myself up onto a ladder. Pushing back the agony that still tears at my shoulder and leg, I scramble up the metal rungs.
The cavern erupts in a cacophony of shotgun shots, and I hear slugs banging off the metal hide of the spacecraft. I try to ignore the danger as I keep climbing, hand over hand with my eyes focused on the open canopy ahead where Luxen is already slipping into the seat.
I reach the canopy and glance down, for what reason, I'm not sure, but my eyes fix on the Elder who takes two steps forward with the plasma weapon and unloads it towards the crowd of Reblons. Some scatter away while others continue. Those shooting at me halt and turn toward the older Bragdon down below.
As their weapons erupt, I close my eyes and turn away, having no desire to see what their guns do to the wrinkled flesh of a Bragdon Elder. My own vivid imagination fills in far too many of the blanks already.
Luxen is strapped back into the seat of the vertical ship, looking up through the opening in the top of this artificial mountain. I climb over him as shots slam against the hide of the pod again.
"Get us out of here!" I shout as I scramble past him, making my way towards another seat.
"Where's the Elder?" he asks.
"He's gone, Luxen. Just go!"
Like an expert pilot, the young Bragdon keys a few commands into the control panel, guns the throttle, and primes the thrusters.
The ship rattles and jostles with a barrage of shotgun slugs. One shot skitters across the left edge of the canopy.
"They're going to tear this ship apart!" I scream.
"Hold tight!" he replies, a sense of firm confidence sharpening his tone. I glance back down through the canopy as the ground below fades under the collecting smoke of the primed thrusters.
Luxen slams his fist down on the launch ignition and the ground explodes underneath us in a rolling boil of fire and smoke. I hear the low growling screams of dying Reblon commandos all around us.
The ship shifts, sn
aps free of concealed mounting brackets, and seems to hover for a moment before surging sharply upward through the opening in the mountain and screaming out into the dark sky pierced by starlight.
The strange, artificial moon falls away behind us and moments later we smash through the atmosphere, free of the confines of fake Bragdon gravity, and free of the Reblon horde, at least for now.
How long will this freedom last? How long will I be safe?
Do I even still feel safe? When I have three entire planets after me, how can I?
Epilogue
The Bragdon Battle Cruiser Roxilander lumbers through vacant space. The massive battleship is covered in scorch marks up and down its thick, metal hide.
Faint clouds of spent fuel and plasma discharge obscure the area.
"Command, we have confirmation that the Reblon fleet has withdrawn," reports the young Bragdon officer dressed in stark black.
Bragdon Command stands at his console, looking out over the vastness of space.
"Where is the jump ship?" he asks, his voice sharp enough to cut bone.
The younger, smaller Bragdon clears his throat. "We . . . we no longer have them on our view screens."
Command doesn't turn. He doesn't speak.
"We tracked them to the Elder Moon. We're in the same sector. Long range sensors indicate that a ship departed from there a short while ago, but we're not finding anything yet. A landing team is arriving in moments."
"Keep scanning," Command growls.
"The spent plasma in this sector is making that . . . difficult."
Command glances over his shoulder, eyes slit under his furrowed, spiked brow. "Keep. Scanning."
"As you wish, Sir." The younger Bragdon nods, bows slightly and withdraws, turning to walk down the hall towards the reconnaissance wing.
"HOW MANY SURVIVORS?" Admirable Flurogh asks. Like the Bragdon fleet commander, he glares out of the large, rounded window on the bridge of the Reblon battle cruiser.
"Forty-Six," the Reblon officer replies.
"Out of how many?" the Admiral inquires.
"Two hundred, Sir," the officer states.
"What was gained from this exercise!" the Admiral demands rather than asks.
The Reblon officer's eyes dart around the bridge, as if looking for an escape tunnel.
"We killed three Bragdon Elders," the officer replies.
Admiral Flurogh looks back, eyes narrowing. "Three Elders? Do you think three Elders equal one hundred and fifty dead Reblon commandos?"
"No, Sir."
The admiral gazes through the window. "I'm glad we're on the same page."
There is a vast, thick silence across the bridge, no voices, no milling around, just an uncomfortable silence.
"Continue to scour the sector," Admiral Flurogh says. "I want Northstar in captured or eliminated. There are no other options."
ISN'T THIS HOW THIS whole thing started?
Luxen is asleep in the seat next to me with his eyes closed and his small head tipped over to one side. His breath comes in the even, steady sweeps that are the restful sleep of the innocent.
If only we were all so innocent.
My only companion is asleep and there's nothing to see but the vastness of space. That gives me a lot of time to think about everything that has happened and everyone who has died pursuing me. No matter how much I think, I can't understand what makes me so significant in this endless galaxy of significant things.
Should an eighteen-year-old be worried about these things? Probably not, but I have little choice? Inhabitants of all three planets in the Yarda Quadrant either want me captured or want me dead. There is no place to turn and nowhere to go.
I was starting to trust Gragson, to think that he had my back, even if he had his own gruff way of showing it, but now he's dead, and I have no idea what to expect from the rest of the population of Braxis.
I escaped Athelon as they fired plasma torpedoes at me, and they weren't warning shots either. An entire army of Reblon commandos just spent a couple of hours trying to punch my ticket with shotgun slugs.
I made it. I'm still breathing. This should reassure me. It should make me feel good, but there are no good feelings here, only the silent oppression of immense guilt.
Hundreds if not thousands of other living beings, none of them any less important than I am, have died in the past month as a direct result of me and these stupid new powers I have.
I still don't understand this legend that surrounds me. I struggle to think how I might find more information without revealing myself to one or more of my pursuers.
I think back to what the Elders told me, and what Gragson understood from his studies. I'm a whole that is the sum of three parts. But the sum of those three parts is greater than the individual parts that make me up. I am supposed to be some kind of living embodiment of celestial synergy.
Mind. Blown.
Right about now I should be worried about school and about dealing with midterm exams. I should be wondering if that cute boy in my astrophysics class likes me or is just trying to cheat off my answers.
Instead I'm strapped into this interstellar missile that is just a reinforced projectile launched from an artificial Braxis moon to catapult us through hyperspace and land me in this unfamiliar sector of the Yarda Quadrant. I don't even know where I am, which isn't surprising since I'm not well traveled, but now my fuel is dangerously low and I've set the ship adrift, trying to keep power in reserve for the important stuff, like life support, air, food and water.
Only I've been drifting for hours and I don't know what to do next or what my options are. I don't know where to turn or who to ask.
There's a chime from the long range sensors that jerks my focus back to the console screen.
Well, what do you know? There's a planet there. Did that hyperspace jump land me near Braxis? That might make some sense considering who made that artificial moon.
But this doesn't look the same as the space surrounding Braxis. Granted I was in fear for my life the last time I fell into Braxis orbit, but something about this is different. It's cleaner here.
Risking a bit of fuel, I adjust course, bringing the nose of the ship towards the planet's trajectory. I see an emerging globe of dark blue and gleaming silver. The glow of the world is evident from even this far away.
I know where I am, but I don't know what's waiting for me there. Reblox lies ahead.
Of all the places in the Yarda Quadrant where that ship could land us, it chose here?
"It didn't choose here, Brie Northstar. I sent it here."
"By the Mother!" I shout, standing from my seat and spinning around. The voice echoed from the emptiness of the ship behind me. Luxen still slept next to me.
The Bragdon Elder is one with the darkness of the rear of the ship with only his bright eyes and the faint outline of his cloaked form visible among the shadows.
"I thought you were dead." I whisper.
"Did you see me struck?" the Elder queries.
I hadn't. I'd turned away.
"But how did you get in?" I shake my head in confusion.
He takes a step forward, looking far steadier on his feet than he had.
"That's unimportant. What is important is that I'm here. We're here together."
I glance over at Luxen, but he is still fast asleep.
"He will not awaken until I wish him to. We can converse in confidence, child." the Elder reassures me.
"Anything we have to say, we can say in front of him. He saved my life. Whatever happens from here on, it's because of him."
The Elder turns and looks at the young sleeping Bragdon, and, for a moment, I think I see a smile on his face.
"The truth, Brie, is that a secret war has been raging for generations. This war that has been concealed from the planets at large, but could change the structure of the quadrant as we know it."
"But why?"
"Even as we speak, this intergalactic conflict brews close to the surface, far cl
oser than it has ever been in the past." He wanders past me towards one of the side bucket seats, and eases his skinny frame into it.
"If the war boils over, if range and anger take to the streets of any of these three planets, billions could die."
"How do we stop it?" I ask. I realize the elder is trying to give me information, but it only serves to further confuse me.
He sits with his arms crossed over his knees, his hood pulled up over his head, and his eyes cast down towards the floor of the ship.
"I'm not sure we can, but we need to try." As he looks up at me, his hood slides back so I can see the outline of his withered face. Rows of wrinkles carve the skin there, like the hard nugget in a peach.
"You are our best chance," he continues, looking at me. "If we can reveal your existence, it could lead to the unification that these three planets have been lacking for five generations."
"I still don't understand." I complain.
He reaches forward and places a gentle, wrinkled hand on my cheek, his touch like dried prunes.
"You are proof, my child." he says.
"Proof?"
"Yes, proof. Proof that the three planets were once more alike than anyone cares to admit. Proof that, in fact, the three planets were once one." The Elder proclaims.
"One?"
He drops his hand and leans back, releasing a long and pained sigh.
"It is a long lesson of history, young one. History that I cannot go into now." he says wearily.
I'm about to resist and open my mouth to bark some snide reply, but I catch myself and suck the words back in before I can utter them. To be honest, I feel proud of thinking before speaking. That's not typically a Brie Northstar trademark.
"There are pockets of resistance," he says. "On each planet, there are denizens who believe in the theory of unification. They are searching for you, looking for a way to prove that we all belong together."
"I take it the ones who are trying to kill me are not part of that resistance?"
The elder nods. "True, but one of the largest cadres is, in fact, on Reblox. Northwest sector is in the shadows of the planet's capital city. That is where I set our path."