by Lesa Corryn
“What have you done?” she snarled.
“Nothing.” My voice diminished to a whimper. My eyes shut tight bracing my body against the several points of pain rushing through it. Rough coughs shook my weakened frame, each one sent a stabbing pain through my gut, a pounding reminder in my head.
“I don't have time for this,” she yelled. My mind flashed back to an hour ago. The words echoing in my ears as I jammed my wrist into the scanner.
“Shit,” I whined. Tears pooled up in the corners of my eyes as I prepared for another attack. Whether it was going to come or not, I can't say because soon both our attentions were drawn to the intercom above us.
“Lieutenant Pierce to the deck now... Allouette we need you now!”
Chapter 5
Asteroids
So sweet did the voice sound as it called Allouette away. For so long I yearned to meet her, to get to know my idol in person. But as my head rested on the cold metal floor, looking at her boots spattered with my own blood and spit, I started to reconsider my goals in life.
Again Captain Gith's voice urged Allouette to the deck and I laid quiet, holding my breath until she would finally decide to head off without me. Instead, she stood there. Her long, lean legs taut, and her body arched ready for a sprint. My throbbing, perhaps broken ribcage, ached for her to move, but she just kept darting her glance between me and the corridor ahead.
“I can't leave you here,” said Allouette. She turned and approached me. Her tainted boots clicking against the floor, ringing sharp in my ear.
“Shit,” I moaned. I'd much rather be in Teshe's care than here, I thought.
She grabbed my arm and tried to lurch me up. My body stayed limp in her grasp. I had no desire to head to deck with her, she could get me there on her own. Her knees buckled and her hands trembled, until she released my arm and my face collided with the floor again.
“Dammit,” I shouted. My hand rushed to my lip, cracked, open, and bleeding.
“If you got up, that wouldn't have happened,” she said. She reached her hands down again but this time with an effort to make her clawed fingers bent in a threatening and offensive manner. “Don't you realize what's going on? As you throw a tantrum on the floor, the rest of the lives on this ship get put on hold.” Her eyes seemed glossy in the light, but I'm sure it was just an illusion.
The ship rumbled again with a violent shake that knocked Allouette off her feet. The rumbles outside were getting louder and I could hear a scramble of feet overhead, banging against the floor, echoing in the empty corridor. As she crawled up, boosting herself by gripping onto a near by data screen portal, I remembered her words. The ones that shook me from Yanda's grip.
I urged my body up as my stomach, chest and head groaned with displeasure, but my mind geared them forward with all its power. My ascension caught Allouette's eye and she sprung into action, grabbing my wrist and digging her inhumanly long nails into my skin.
“You will go with me to deck,” she said through gritted teeth.
“No,” I said. I wrenched my arm out of her grasp. Though quick and nimble, she lacked strength to hold me. She's lucky I'm really not the spy, or else I could've overtaken her the second Nemis was out of sight. “You don't have enough time. We'll contact them through channels.”
I stepped past Allouette and began examining which corridor we were in. A small strip of burnt yellow ran along the top of the walls, the field tech hall. Okay, look around, I thought, where are we? I think Allouette started to demand an explanation, stamping her foot before searching for the gun she had dropped during our struggle. Think fast, I thought. I needed to find the key before the ball was back in her court. Pipes, control units, vents, anything. Then it hit me, the data portal, there's only one in each corridor. I had my key.
“Game's over, Thurman,” she said. Her voice was muffled, she wasn't behind me yet, I might even be out of range.
“For a tactician, you should know not to give way your position when attempting a strike.” My hand glided along the walls as I made my way through the hallway, the curves and corners painting the diagram in my head, mapping it out in clear detail. Two more doors, then a left, I told myself, then the first door on the right, that's it. I was running, my eyes closed as I focused on the schematic. Behind me Allouette's long light strides could be heard in the rhythmic clicking of her heels. She was gaining fast.
“I'm not the spy.” I made one last halfhearted attempt to prove my innocence. Turn left now, the map called to me.
“Bull.” Her voice was clearer now, she was within shooting range. She probably just needed a clear shot.
“Here,” I exclaimed, pushing past the door as it slid open. She growled some obscenity and followed me in. The room was dark. It was an old lab, screens coated with dust and crates lining the walls. That's why it would be here, it was old technology.
“Thurman, I may not be full blooded, but I have decent dark vision. Hiding here won't help you, I've got you in my sight.” The gun hummed with anticipation as it warmed up, her safety clicked back.
“I don't think you can operate this on your own, so I wouldn't go shooting anyone,” I said. My voice seemed strong, unwavering, sturdy, deep, but sweat dripped down my face and my arm burned.
“What do you mean?” She stepped forward, slow, weaving through the mass of storage scattered along the floor.
“Commander Nemis, mentioned the old communication lines. Direct connects to Hera.” I moved my fingers across the key screen. Each movement calculated and slow, they trembled, her breath edging closer to my ear. “This here is a computer that can do that. It's old. Real old with an AI of a kindergartner. I need to talk with the CPU to get the communication through.”
“Why's your voice better than mine?” Her words penetrated my ears loud and clear. The gun's tip hovering between my shoulder blades.
“That's not what I mean. It doesn't take verbal input, only keystrokes.” My fingers whipped across the key screen, pulling up files, searching for the line.
“How do I know you aren't hacking the system?” Her syrupy words grew louder as she neared the end of her sentence, her gun punctuating each syllable with a jab into my back.
“You don't, just have some faith.”
The words dripped out from my lips and her face bombarded me, popping up like an exploding bomb. Her smile soft in the red light of the reactor. I couldn't save her.
“How can I trust you?” Allouette's words were almost lost in the rumble as the ship quaked again. Her breath pulled in sharp, keeping herself planted on the ground waiting for the next tremor.
“I know, I get it, I'm suspicious. I'd probably blame me too if I was in your position.” It hurt to admit it. “But I'm not your guy and I want to help, but having a gun jabbed into my already very sore back is not much motivation.”
She didn't say a word, but the gun pulled back. Not far enough for me to no longer feel it, but far enough.
The files were a jumble and the line seemed buried and forgotten amongst old data reports, but finally tucked away in the backup folder was the program. I booted it up and a message screen blinked to life. I stepped to the side and ushered Allouette forward.
“You know how to touch type, right?” I asked.
“It's only been two years since I was in Academy, of course I know touch type.” She nudged me out of the way and began her message. She had just enough time to hit send before a massive impact threw us and anything not bolted down, straight into the cold metal walls.
The room changed. No longer a pitch black, now it blared with a piercing red light, Hera repeating a message in her monotone voice.
“Report to evac pods, immediately. Report to evac pods, immediately.”
I had slammed into the wall, my back taking the blow of the impact. A burning pain seethed across my spine as all the recent wounds reignited in an effort to crumple my weakening frame. Though my head swelled as every pain point rushed to my brain, my mind did not dwindle on it, it
was far more frightened by the source of the blow rather than the outcome. No blaster hit would have given the ship so much momentum to send us flying. This impact was something far worse.
“The asteroid field, they must be breathing Venutian gas up there,” I murmured. The words dribbled from my lips as the realization slowly appeared before my eyes. There was an asteroid field, thick and hazardous, at the center of sector L-47. Only one of those monsters could have sent the ship reeling.
It only took a moment for my brain to shift from the impact to escaping. The fact that we weren't completely spaced after that hit was a miracle in itself. I wasn't going to tempt fate again if another should hit. I began running through my mind where the nearest evac pod would be when I heard a small groan to my right. Allouette.
I scrambled up from the wall, my whole body aching with each bend and twist. I fumbled past overturned crates and scattered debris, searching for the lost Lieutenant. But I was soon tasting the dusty metal ground as another blast whipped me off my feet.
“Thank the stars it was just a blaster hit,” I mumbled to myself as I climbed back up.
“Don't assume we are safe,” murmured a soft voice just beyond the next crate. I raced over and found Allouette, barely conscious, her leg pinned behind a crate. I reached over to pull her leg out and found it not much more than a blood soaked mass of bone and tissue. It was broken possibly shattered.
“Well, at least it wasn't another aster,” I said, pulling her leg completely out from behind the crate. She screeched as the tension released from the break and her hands balled up into tight fists. “Don't move too much, I need to get you to an evac pod.”
“You don't get it, that blast means they followed us into the field. They can navigate the field.” She growled at me through gritted teeth, as I worked to get her out of the debris. I didn't want to consider her words, what they meant, what would become of us even if we were to escape. My only thought was to get us off the ship.
“We're in the field tech corridor,” I muttered to myself, “which means the closest evac pod is down one level.” I extracted Allouette’s small body and laid her down on the floor. I rose to my feet and scanned the room, catching my bearings. The lift down wasn't far, just across the hall and a little over. I could make it. I took a step forward, holding tight to a nearby lab table, my shallow steps brushing the ground as I moved forward. I could walk this, I thought, but Allouette. Normally her light lithe figure would be easy for me to carry, but after the beating she and the attack had inflicted, I could barely hold myself.
I reached over to a crate and began searching through the various contraptions. They were old tools, things whose purposes I didn't even recognize. Bulbous glass forms, with extending pipes. Colorful gems, dangling along wires. A spider like contraption with long spindly legs and menacing clips at the end of each. Finally, my hands brushed a smooth fabric. I yanked it from beneath the broken devices and hoped that it would be large enough for my purposes.
It was tattered and rotten with age, but I'm sure Allouette wouldn't mind the stench in her condition. I tied a thick knot at one end, then wrapped and tied the other to my belt. I slipped Allouette into the slit formed by the knots, the fabric stretching to mold her body.
Struggling forward, I shuffled through the room and out the corridor. Hera's words continued to blare and the flashing red light made my head dizzy. Time escaped me and the duration since the hit could've been thirty minutes, could've been three hours for all I knew. I just hoped there was time to make it to the pod.
The lift slid open and as I stepped in I made sure to thank the stars for my luck. If the lift had been out of order, there would have been no hope for me or Allouette.
The rumbles now seemed as much a part of the ship as the purr of Hera's engine, the rhythm of her recycled air. Mesmerizing, the beat low and deep almost in time with the flash of the red lights. The weight of Allouette's body grew heavy and it pulled me down to the floor. My heart it too pounded with the blaster fire, the blood pumping with each flash of light. Hera's voice called to me, lulling me to sleep. My eyes heavy, my legs shaking, my arms limp. The door slid open, another light flashing. The pod, the pod was just ahead. An arm outstretched, my fingers trying to pull me forward. The world blurring as Hera calls me to her.
“Jek, Jek!”
Chapter 6
Violet
Yanda was in a spring dress, a soft pink silk flying free in the warm summer breeze. Her arms clasped behind her, so her shoulder blades stuck out like delicate hills against the valley of her back. The straps hung loose on her small shoulders and they dared to slip right off and down her arm by a mere twist or bend. I felt the prick of grass blades against my arms and the wet air filled my lungs. Intoxicated, the sweet smell of strawberries wafted across the meadow, alluring, pulling me into the haze of the summer day. I watched her as she stared towards the setting sun. The golden glow haloed her head and lit her fair skin.
“We should leave, the sun is setting. It will get dark soon,” I said. I rose from the grass, stepping forward with light apprehensive steps, careful not to tread on the white blossoms scattered through the field.
“The sun has only just begun to rise,” said Yanda, though her voice did not seem her own.
“Yanda, please we need to leave, the sun,” I cried, “it's burning you.” I ran towards her, ignoring the strawberries, crushing the tall blades of grass beneath my feet.
“I am not Yanda,” she said in a whisper.
“Please, we need to leave, it is getting dark.” I reached out my arm to grab her shoulder. What rose was a mutilated limb, scabbed and dark, burnt and red. No, I thought, it can't be. The sun it burned so bright, huge against the horizon, its rays reflecting like white daggers off the waves below. My left hand rose to massage my arm, probing it. My thumb slid into the skin, cutting through like butter. A thick yellow ooze of puss flowed from the hole and I cried out in pain.
“Yanda, please, come back!”
“I am not Yanda.” She turned and for the moment, her face directed to the sun, I saw something animal, something primal. The sweet, round face of Yanda, innocent and naïve was gone.
“Yanda!”
“Aye, Jek, you more bang up than I thought,” muttered a small familiar voice.
The world was black. Were my eyelids shut? I couldn't tell. Blotches of red floated into view as my eyes rotated around in their sockets. I tried to raise my body up, hoping to get a better view around me, but pain wrenched every muscle, commanding them to stay in place with a crack of a whip.
“What I just say? You bang up. Stay put Terran.” Only one person's Galactic was that bad and only one person who'd use the fact I grew up on Earth Terra as an insult. Flik.
My heart beat against my chest with painful thumps. Why is Flik here? I wondered. Where is here? I thought a better question. And where is Allouette? My mouth moved to form the words, but only grunts and moans passed my chapped lips. The air was dry and hot. I could feel my face turning a painful red. Sun? The word popped into my head like a knife and my eyes wrenched open. This was no corridor in Hera. This wasn't even the evac pod. We were on terra.
The rasp of dirt and parched grass scratched against my skin. My fingers clawed the ground, small pebbles and earth collecting beneath my nails. I lay on my back, gazing up at a violet sun. An ultraviolet world, I wondered. But my vision was clear.
My head ached with questions, nothing made sense. What world was this? How did I get here? Why can I see? Why's Flik here? Where's Allouette? What happened to the Hera? The questions bounced around my head with increasing ferocity, bashing whatever sensibility I had left. My voice caught at my throat, my mouth dry and thirsting for water. Nothing formed accept a bellow or a moan.
A shuffling of feet to my left. Something being scraped across the ground. The footsteps were shallow and moved with care, but were heavy. They were carrying a weight. Flik perhaps. Who was he dragging? Why wasn't he talking to me? Why wouldn't he gi
ve me answers? Fire burned inside my gut and my face grew even hotter in the sun as anger boiled to my skin.
A bump. The footsteps gone, the dragging stopped. A faint sigh. The steps returned. Lighter, crisper. Flik's face floated into view.
“Need to get you out of sun,” said Flik, a giggle in his voice. My face so full of rage it must have been as purple as the sun or his violet eyes. “You need relax, you bust a vessel with that stress.” He reached down and wrapped his fingers beneath my pits, lurching my body up. His face tensed and a vein peeked out in his neck and forehead. The body before must have been lighter, perhaps Allouette's. Mine must have been twice hers and a deal greater than Flik's. “Why you such a big lug?” he sputtered. Though his skin was a rich brown, red flushed his cheeks.
“Why won't you tell me what's going on?” I demanded. The strangeness of it all grated on my nerves and Flik's nonchalant attitude finished them off. It had been a long day. I was tired of it.
“Not now, must get inside.” He seemed to have gained some momentum, my body inching its way across the dirt.
“Why are we outside? Where's the evac pod?” None of this was making sense.
“Please Jek, must get inside, been out too long.”
Done. I had been beaten, bruised, and nearly destroyed in an asteroid field. I was done. Flik had no right to keep me in the dark. I would have told him that too if he had not frozen in place and shoved a hand flat against my mouth.
“Do not move, do not breathe.” His words were not even a whisper, they were something just short of that. Only the consonants seemed to break through his throat and fall to my ears. I had to guess what he had said. He didn't really need to say anything though. I could tell, now was not the time to lose my head. Something was about, something the made Flik's large eyes about twice their size.