by Cheree Alsop
The hum of the drone’s guns sounded the instant before Liora’s knife sunk into the metal box. The drone spun to the side and hit the wall. Brandis and Devren flipped it over. Beeps sounded from the machine. Liora jammed her knife into the control board. The drone fell silent. Brandis and Devren let go and the machine dropped to the ground with a loud thud.
“One down,” Devren said.
Chapter 12
Liora threw a bullet casing down the hallway. One of the drones near the control room darted after the sound. A few seconds later, the crash of a drone hitting the ground echoed back.
“It’s down,” Brandis announced over the headsets. “Chief Annihilo put a knife through its brain.”
“One left,” Tariq said quietly. “Lefkin’s going to wish he had sent a few more. He must’ve been desperate to risk drones out this far.”
“I’ll rip every one of you apart,” the colonel’s voice shouted from the final drone. “You might think you’ve felt pain in your life, but it’ll be nothing like what’s waiting for you when I get you in my clutches. You won’t be safe anywhere! Traitors, deserters, and fugitives from the Coalition are shown no mercy, and they are always caught.”
“Go now,” Tariq whispered.
Liora crept slowly along the wall. The drone faced the door to the control room and the colonel continued to rage as though he could tear down the door with sheer anger.
“You have taken away a very important weapon in a time when such a thing could turn the tide of battle. The Omne Occasus was more than a galaxy imploder. It was a way to show the Revolutionaries that they are far outgunned. Take out their precious planets, and they’ll bow to our demands.”
“How is that peaceful?” Devren asked, appearing at the other end of the hallway.
The drone turned to face him, giving Liora its back.
“Well, well,” Colonel Lefkin said. “Nice to see you again, Captain. Are you prepared to give up?”
Weapons rose from chambers on the drone.
“Funny. I was going to ask you the same thing,” Devren replied levelly.
“How is that funny?” Tariq demanded in their headsets. “Get out of there before he shoots you!”
Liora stopped directly behind the drone. She pulled out her knife.
“You have destroyed the only thing you had to bargain with,” Colonel Lefkin said with a cruel laugh. “Did your father teach you anything? At least Captain Metis had a plan! You’ll die the same way I arranged for your scum-riddled haffot of a father to.”
The guns whirled and Devren dove out of the way.
At the same time, Liora sunk her knife into the drone. When it flipped, she shoved it to the ground and stabbed it through the control board. The machine stopped moving.
Everyone was silent for a moment. Tariq spoke the command and the control room door slid open. He looked from Liora to Devren.
“Did you hear that?” Devren asked, his voice soft.
“I heard,” Tariq replied.
“Captain, are…there?” O’Tule’s voice came patchy over the headsets.
“O’Tule, what’s going on?” Devren asked.
“Can’t…need…out of there,” O’Tule replied.
“The ship must be interfering with the signal,” Hyrin said.
“Did you get what we came for?” Devren asked him.
Hyrin held up a small black object. “I’ve recorded the transmission. We can review it aboard the Kratos.”
“On our way,” Devren told O’Tule.
“C…Coalition!” Zran’s voice shouted.
The word rang through loudly over their headsets.
Tariq stared at Devren. “They couldn’t have reached us already.”
“They could if they were nearby,” Devren replied. “Colonel Lefkin sounded pretty desperate. He’s out for blood.”
Liora turned quickly to the Damaclan chiefs. “Chief Decerpo, Chief Annihilo, we’ll regroup at the Kratos. If we have to run, we’ll meet you at Corian. Please send my condolences to Chief Incendo’s clan.”
Both chiefs nodded without a word.
Devren led the way to the door. The group stepped out in a swirl of red sand. When the sand settled, they froze.
Roughly thirty Coalition officers stood in front of two red Gulls. Their guns were aimed and ready. Nobody would make it back inside the foreign spacecraft before being shot full of holes.
Liora looked around quickly, but the Kratos’ Gull was further away with the Damaclan ships. Several slain Damaclan bodies could be seen partially submerged in the sand. Fingers tightened on triggers.
“Fire!” an officer called out.
The sand beneath the officers fell inward. They stumbled backwards toward the ship. A massive circle wider than the Coalition Gulls and officers deepened, then exploded upwards. A worm bigger than any Liora had seen arched into the air. Its huge mouth engulfed the ships and officers. Screams were heard as they disappeared inside the giant, toothed gullet.
The worm sunk back down as quickly as it had appeared. The Damaclans and members of the Kratos stared at the giant hole where, moments before, their doom had waited with an order to kill.
“Uh, to the ship?” Brandis suggested.
“Yes, quickly,” Devren replied.
Everyone made a wide circle around the worm’s hole as they ran toward the waiting crafts. Liora expected the ground to open beneath them at any moment. She didn’t realize until she reached the Gull and her lungs began to burn that she had been holding her breath. She let it out as the Gull lifted into the air.
“Were the worms that big the last time you were there?” Brandis asked.
Liora shook her head. “We’ve never seen that one before.”
“Let’s not go back there,” he suggested.
Tariq chuckled. “I second that.”
“Me, too,” Hyrin called from the pilot seat.
“Captain Devren?” O’Tule’s voice was near panic over the headsets.
“We’re alright,” Devren reassured her. “We’re aboard the Gull and heading for the Kratos. Open the landing bay so the Damaclans can dock as well.”
When they landed on the Kratos, the mood from the other Damaclans was solemn. Nobody looked forward to reporting the news of Chief Incendo’s death to his clan. With the amount of children being taken by the Nameless Ones, there was no telling if the chief had a successor left to continue his line.
Hyrin led the way to the bridge.
“Thank goodness!” O’Tule exclaimed.
She gave each of them a hug in turn. Liora suffered through the green-skinned woman’s need to display affection, and fought back a smile when O’Tule insisted on hugging Brandis as well.
“I’m glad you made it back safely,” Shathryn said from her station. She gave them a small smile.
“It was close,” Devren told them. “Luckily, Liora didn’t manage to kill all of the worms on the red planet.”
“How is that lucky?” Zran asked. “From what O’Tule tells me, they’re terrifying.”
Devren nodded. “One just happened to be terrifyingly in our favor this time.”
Hyrin sat at his console. He plugged the small black square into his computer.
“It’ll take a moment to translate,” he told them. “From what I could tell, their language is uncategorized, but it has Galian roots. If I isolate the dialect, I may be able to trick our translator into thinking it’s a crude vernacular like what they speak in the tunnels of Tanus.”
He looked pleased with himself.
“Can you hurry?” Devren asked.
“Oh, um, yes,” Hyrin replied. He spun back to face the console. After typing far quicker than Liora thought someone could and still come up with real words, he made a sound of triumph.
“Done!” he announced.
He hit one more button and the image appeared on the screen.
Shadow forms ghosted past the camera. One of the forms spoke. A chill of recognition ran down Liora’s spine.
“We can�
�t activate the Omne Occasus in this form,” the voice said.
“The asteroid that hit our ship destroyed the controls. There was no choice but to crash,” another replied.
“But we’re lost,” a third wailed. “Without the energy from the Occasus, we have no hope.”
“We wait,” the first voice hissed. “We sent out the beacon. Someone will arrive to scavenge the wreck, and we will follow them to their home planet and prey on them until she comes.”
“Who is she?” the second asked.
Liora knew what the Nameless One would say, but hearing it again settled around her shoulders with the weight of a shroud.
“The desperate one,” the first replied.
“She’ll bleed planets dry for us,” another whispered.
“Souls are not long for this universe,” the first said. “And the Omne Occasus will give us the power to make that happen.”
“Give her a blade.”
“Show her the way.”
“She’ll be the key to the end of it all, the girl from the stars. The girl without a soul.”
Nobody looked at her, but Liora felt as though they knew she was the one the Nameless Ones spoke of. They had predicted that she would bring them the Omne Occasus. They had called her desperate, and she had been desperate to die with her mother and the clan that she knew. The Nameless Ones had let her live in the hopes that her drive to die would bring her back to them.
Tariq broke the silence that followed. “They don’t know the orbs have been removed from the Omne Occasus and destroyed.”
“If we make them more desperate, they’ll kill all Damaclans,” Chief Decerpo replied.
“Unless we give them what they want,” Devren said.
He and Tariq exchanged a look as though they were on the same page.
“So we give it to them,” Tariq finished.
“But how?” Chief Annihilo asked. “The orbs are gone.”
“They need the energy,” Liora thought aloud. Everyone fell silent, waiting for her to collect her thoughts. She paused, then said, “So what if we can create something that looks like the Omne Occasus, but does the opposite.”
“Instead of giving them energy…” Tariq began.
“It takes their energy away,” Devren finished. “Brilliant.”
Hyrin nodded quickly from his seat at the console. “We saw what the Feren and Bilar energies can do. If we can harness the opposite source, perhaps we can destroy these beings once and for all.”
“Only one person can do that,” Devren said.
Hyrin spoke the name. “Tramareaus.”
Everyone looked at Shathryn, expecting her to protest. The purple-haired humanoid realized what they thought she would do.
“It’s alright,” she said with a small smile. “It might be good to see that old rascal.”
Hyrin shook his head. “The Macrocosm really is going to end.”
Devren smiled. “Hyrin, get ahold of Tramareaus. It sounds like we’re heading back to Titus.”
Both Shathryn and O’Tule groaned.
“That’s more like it,” Hyrin said.
“There’s no way you can take this ship anywhere near Titus if what I heard from that colonel is accurate. By now, he’ll no doubt have every head-hunter mercenary on your trail. You’re risking your entire crew,” Brandis said.
“You sound like you have a better idea,” Devren queried.
Brandis nodded. “The Coalition pads their pockets by ripping off the merchants who bring them supplies. Because of this, we usually avoid the Milky Way Galaxy, but I’m sure my father could come up with a reason for one of our ships to go to Titus. You and those of your crew that you feel necessary to bring along can hide as members of my staff. Merchants dock at a separate port than the regular fleet. Security will prevent us from traversing inside Titus, but if this Tramareaus could meet us somewhere….”
“We could leave Titus without ever setting off an alarm,” Devren finished. He nodded. “It’s a good plan. I appreciate your consideration for the safety of my crew. Please reach Commandant Day and see if the option is available to us.”
“I will,” Brandis replied. He turned to Liora. “One condition is that my sister stays at Corian.”
“Absolutely not,” Liora said.
At the same time, both Damaclan chiefs shook their heads.
Tariq looked from Liora to Brandis. “Good luck with that one.”
“You put yourself in danger unnecessarily,” Brandis told her. “There’s no reason for you to go to Titus, especially after what happened last time.”
“No reason?” Liora replied. “Did you not just hear that the entire Damaclan race is in danger of being annihilated by the Nameless Ones if we don’t succeed in bringing the Omne Occasus to them?”
“Yes, but—”
Liora cut him off. “Brandis, you’ve heard a lot about me, but something you apparently don’t know is that I won’t leave anyone to suffer if I can do something about it.”
“And she means anyone,” Tariq pointed out.
“I’m the girl the Nameless Ones spoke about,” Liora continued. At her words, the entire bridge fell silent. “I’m the one they expect to bring the Omne Occasus. If I’m not there, the plan will fail. Without me, there is no reason to go to Tramareaus or return to Ralian. Without me, the Damaclan race will be annihilated. I’ll be there no matter what your conditions.”
A smile quirked Brandis’ mouth. He nodded. “Very well, but I will be there, too. It’s time my little sister has a brother to look out for her.”
His words brought a rush of warmth to Liora. Family, a word that had been unknown to her for so long, was starting to matter now more than ever.
“Fine, but you better bring a few guns. Things with the Coalition tend to end in shootouts,” she told him.
Brandis grinned. “It seems like anything that involves you ends in shootouts.”
“Sounds like he knows you better than I thought,” Tariq said.
Liora shrugged. “I have a dominant personality. Officers and mercenaries tend not to like that.”
“Or worms,” Tariq pointed out.
“Or drones,” Devren said.
“Or Gauls,” Officer Straham echoed.
Hyrin laughed. “Gauls, definitely Gauls.”
“Or Calypsans,” Tariq said. “I know one in particular that won’t forgive you for quite a while.”
Liora smiled at him. “You had as much to do with stealing his ship as I did.”
“You would have done it whether I was there or not,” Tariq pointed out.
“But you couldn’t let me have all the fun,” Liora replied.
Tariq chuckled. “That’s for sure. Let’s go get some food. I’m famished.”
Devren put his hand to the panel next to the bridge door. It slid open. “Chief Decerpo, Chief Annihilo, you and your crew are welcome to join us in the mess hall. Our cook is more than happy to feed anyone who walks through his doors.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Chief Annihilo said with a shallow nod. “But Damaclans prefer to dine alone.” He turned his gaze to Liora. “We will depart the Kratos with the intentions of escorting you to Ralian.”
Liora nodded. “You have my gratitude. We’ll notify you as soon as we leave Titus.”
Both chiefs gave shallow bows before they left the bridge.
“Officer O’Tule, allow the Damaclans to depart the hull when they are ready,” Devren instructed. “Hyrin, begin communications with Tramareaus. Let him know what we need and ask him if it’s possible. In the meantime, set a course for Corian.”
“Yes, Captain,” Hyrin replied.
Devren motioned toward the door. “Brandis, will you join us for a late, but most welcome, supper?”
“I would be happy to,” Brandis replied. “I could eat the skin off a haffot at this point.”
Liora and Tariq followed them down the hall. Tariq pulled Liora into an adjoining hallway without the others noticing. He pushed her gently a
gainst the wall and put his hands on either side of her head. He looked down at her with concern in his gaze.
“You sure I can’t convince you to take up Brandis’ offer? You would be safer on Corian.”
“Really? You’re going there, too?” Liora replied. “You know there’s no way…” Her words died at the smile that spread across his face. She slapped his chest. “You’re teasing me.”
“Even if you could turn down a fight, you wouldn’t,” Tariq replied. “I think you hope things turn bad so you can pull out those knives you’re so fond of.”
“You gave me one of those knives,” she reminded him.
He smiled, his lips less than an inch from hers. “Maybe I like to see you in action.”
She smiled and his lips pressed against hers. He kissed her thoroughly, his touch gentle but firm, his body pressed against hers and his hand in her hair, holding her to him.
When he finally stepped back, they both fought to catch their breath.
Liora grinned at him. “Maybe you’re the one I should be afraid of, Officer Donovan.”
He smiled down at her. “Why is that, Officer Day?”
“Because you’re the only one I know who can actually disarm me.”
Tariq heft the silver knife in his hand. “You mean this? Well, you were distracted.”
She laughed and took the knife back. She slid it into the sheath at her waist. “You distracted me on purpose.”
He nodded. “Kissing you is always on purpose.”
She couldn’t deny the way she felt lost and yet found when staring into the depths of his light blue gaze.
His smile touched his eyes, creasing the corners and bringing a smile to her face in return.
“Come on, Officer Day. Let’s get some food into that little growling stomach of yours.”
She took the hand he held out. “Gladly, Officer Donovan. You could use some nourishment, too. Your stomach was grumbling on the bridge loud enough I thought Hyrin might call for a search of ship rats.”
Tariq laughed. “I was hoping nobody heard that.”
“That was wishful thinking,” she replied.
She linked her fingers through his and they followed the path Captain Devren and Brandis had taken down the Kratos hallway.