by Dave Walsh
Za’ra quietly moved through Alva’s quarters, her blue shawl wrapped over her head. That shawl was one of the few decorative pieces Alva had seen on any Cydonian in all her time on Cyngen. She had explained it to her when they first met when Alva was trying to break the ice with her. The head wrap was a custom of her family dating back to their nomadic Zarr’nid roots out in the desert, and she chose to wear it to respect her ancestors, not out of familial obligations. Of course, Trella had her own subtle, personal decorations, but the thought of Trella still stung a bit. Za'ra was suitable, but it felt like it was all business and little conversation. She missed those conversations she had had with Trella and still hadn’t gotten an explanation as to why Trella stopped coming by or answering her calls.
“Preparations for your journey are coming along, Princess Alva,” Za’ra said. Alva didn’t bother correcting her to just call her Alva. It felt like it didn’t matter.
“Thanks, Za’ra,” she said. “I appreciate all of your help over the past few weeks.”
“Of course, Princess Alva.”
“I guess I won’t be coming back here, will I?” she asked, not expecting a real answer.
“I do not think so, no,” Za’ra said, the hiss of her voice through her mask sounding almost serene.
“Well, I can’t say I’ll really miss being cooped up on Cyngen,” she said, looking around the room. “But there are some things about here I will miss.”
“Oh?” she asked. “I thought you would be pleased to go home.”
“I’m not sure where home really is anymore if I’m honest with you,” she said. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d even reply to me. You haven’t exactly been much of a talker since we’ve met, Za’ra.”
“I do apologize,” she bowed slightly. “I was under strict instructions from Trallex to avoid becoming too friendly like Trella did and…oh, I should not have—”
“Shouldn’t have what?” Alva felt a sudden swell of emotion inside of her. “Brought up Trella? It’s okay, it’s like everything else on this planet: a giant mystery. Introduce someone into my life, let them gain my trust and then yank them away. I’m sure it’s all a part of some master plan by Trallex to show me the error in my human, emotional ways.”
“I really am not sure,” Za’ra said in an even voice.
“That doesn’t shock me at all.” Alva sunk back into a chair, watching while Za’ra continued to pack up all of Alva’s room. “Nobody is going to tell me what happened to Trella, huh?”
“I wish that I had an answer for you, Princess Alva.” She kept her focus on packing up some of Alva’s clothing into a case. “But I have been told very little, just to assist you.”
“It’s fine, I’m just frustrated is all, I’m sorry.” She let herself relax before she began probing into the network. There had to be some information about Trella available to her somewhere, but most of the nodes were dead ends. Either she was unable to access them or they didn’t exist. She continued to scan before turning her attention to Trallex, pinging him and demanding his presence. There was a slight nod of response, more of a feeling than an actual reply, that told her that he’d be coming. “You’d better hurry up, I just called Trallex here and I don’t think he’s happy.”
“I understand,” Za’ra said, continuing to pack, pausing briefly at the pulseaxe hanging on the wall.
“I’ll be taking that with me, no need to pack it up.”
Za’ra simply nodded to her and continued while Alva sat staring at the door. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d say when Trallex entered the room, but things had been tense between them over the past few weeks. She understood her mission and wasn’t about to fight it, but being separated from the only person she had been able to call her friend on this rock of a planet felt like a step too far.
The door slid open and Trallex stood, looking as regal as ever. He strode into the room, surveying the scene before turning to Alva. “I believe you have some questions you want to ask me.”
“I have a lot of fucking questions, Trallex.”
“That is what I had assumed,” he said, motioning his head toward Za’ra, who scurried out the door. “You want to know about your handmaiden, correct?”
“I’ve been good, haven’t I?” Alva asked, trying to suppress her emotions. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me and am even gearing up for this asinine plot of yours that I never actually volunteered for. I haven’t complained once, but the one person on this rock who I kind of liked being around and you took her away?”
“You are emotional.” He walked around the room, inspecting the walls. “This is one thing that is not tolerated at a certain level for high-ranking Cydonians. It is also what sets you apart from the rest of us and why we strongly believe you’ll appeal to the citizens of Andlios. You are what we are not: emotional. You bonded with your handmaiden, there was a connection there, then we took her away and you are furious. Even right now you are suppressing this rage, but it is there.”
“I thought you wouldn’t notice,” she mocked.
“While we have noticed emotional reactions on a regular basis with you, we needed to know for sure that you were not…different.”
“Different?” She held out her right arm, pulling the sleeve of her shirt back to expose the augmentations. “I’m pretty different, I’d say.”
“We need you to be an emotional person, Princess Alva. If we send you back to your home altered and emotionless then the court of public opinion will not be swayed. We will still be seen as different, as evil, uncaring and everything that they fear. You need to be one of them as much as you are one of us.”
“I’m not sure who I really am anymore.” She was being honest. “I grew up a Krigan, but now? I’m different.”
“You have evolved, Princess Alva.”
“That wasn’t the word I was thinking of,” she said. “So when does Trella come back, then? You’ve done your experiment already.”
“Princess, I’m not sure you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That you are leaving within a matter of hours on your journey—there is no time for,” he paused, “such trivial matters.”
She let it roll off her but could feel her blood boiling. She knew that he would be able to detect the changes in her mood, but Alva didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of verbalizing it. There was an awkward silence for a brief while before Alva picked herself up and continued packing on her own.
“I can summon Za’ra to finish that,” Trallex said.
“Why bother? I can just finish this on my own. You wouldn’t want me getting too attached now, would you?”
“I see,” he said. She continued to pack while he stood there in the doorway.
“Can you at least tell me,” she kept packing, refusing to look back at him while the tears welled up in her eyes. “Is she going to be alright?”
“Ah yes,” he said. “I did not think about that. Yes, Princess Alva, Trella will be well taken care of. I am very sorry I didn’t think to explain that to you. We do not exactly value these kinds of feelings.”
She didn’t know if she believed it or not, but it did set her at ease. Alva’s skin crawled knowing that Trallex probably noticed how it affected her.
Trella
Trella stood on a balcony overlooking the section of Cyngen that had been dubbed the “Human District.” It sounded inane to her, considering that Cydonians were still human at their core. That very idea made her ache. She was human, she knew it, Alva knew it and most importantly, Trallex knew it. That was why she found herself reassigned, her entries on their codex altered to show no trace of her.
Princess Alva was aware now, she had access to the network and Trella had simply been selected for the role due to the “impurities” they had detected in her earlier. Those impurities were showing signs of emotion. Subtle, at first, but the bond she grew with Princess Alva made those imperfections show more and more. Trallex had given her another chance, explained
that they would hide her indiscretions.
Trella knew that Princess Alva would be departing soon, heading to Andlios after her years of training. It was what they had been working toward for so long. Of course, they had never informed Trella of their intentions, she had been just as in the dark as Princess Alva had been. The reasoning was sound to her—it helped keep the experience authentic, but she couldn’t help but feel (as odd as that sounded to her) that she had been used. It felt disgusting.
She had always felt comfortable within the confines of the Cydonian lifestyle, but seeing how an emotional human reacted to everything had opened up a new world of emotion to her. While Trella was careful to outright dismiss the Cydonian way, it felt wrong to force everyone into an emotionless life. The world was abuzz beneath her feet, humans of different backgrounds, races and religions working together unloading ships and going about their daily lives.
There was probably a reason why they moved her quarters close to the Human District—it was either to hide her from the prying Cydonian eyes that would look down on her or to reprogram her. Instead, all it did was make her feel a deep longing for Alva. Alva’s flight would be leaving soon, she knew that, but had no way of finding out exactly which flight or to make contact with her before she left. It felt her feeling strange, like a weight was hung around her neck.
They had discussed her flight plan before she was reassigned, so she knew that Helgun was the first stop in what would be many. Trella pulled up the flight plans for all the ships departing shortly for Helgun only to find that there were twenty-seven such flights with none listing an Alva as a passenger. Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. One flight was leaving in thirty minutes and she noticed there were a few vacancies. She wasn’t sure that she could find the exact flight Alva was on, but she could go to Helgun and attempt to find her there.
The very thought of leaving unannounced and unauthorized made her stomach churn. She added it to the list in her head of unexpected feelings that had arisen in her over the past few months but continued rationalizing her next few moves. Trallex would never let her off the planet, but it wouldn’t hurt to inquire at the last moment, she figured.
The ship was a human vessel—Helgean to be precise. There weren’t many Helgeans on Cyngen, but there were always a few that moved back and forth. They were concerned with the spiritual health of the non-Cydonians living on Cyngen, although most humans on Cyngen were mostly there to avoid the complications that came with living inside the core. That was what the fringes were for: avoiding complications.
She quietly walked through her room then out the door, heading toward the docks. Along the way, she booked herself onto the ship under the name “Freyja.” There would be some questions as to why someone in a full Cydonian suit would have such a common human name, but she was hoping to simply deter Trallex and his agents from catching on too quickly.
The walk through the terminal was quiet, although it felt like the eyes of everyone was on the lone Cydonian boarding the ship, but Trella imagined that it was just her nerves, that she just was feeling what Alva had explained as anxiety to her. She still wasn’t sure exactly what her plan was, but the idea of staying on Cyngen without Alva made her overwhelmed with emotions. This, at least, made her feel like she was doing something.
013. The Monastery
Jace
Everything that could hurt on Jace felt like it was screaming out to him while he sat hunched over in the back of the dark mess hall. They had arrived quietly enough on Helgun, docked the Pequod and met with one of the monks that Jace regularly dealt with on Helgun. The dark sky didn’t bother him anymore but Katrijn seemed taken aback by it, a sharp contrast to the Andliosian days, that was for sure. They were holed up inside one of the large log cabins that served as a part of the monastery in the small city of Ongut on Helgun. The room was dark, like everything else on this planet, which suited him just fine for the time being while they were essentially on the run. His back was pressed up against the wall behind him, his entire torso wrapped up in tape thanks to the three cracked ribs he had suffered during their harrowing escape from Cyngen. The bowl of piping hot noodle soup in front of him was calling to him but he still felt like he was in a daze from all that had happened over the past week. Katrijn Freeman sat across from him eating without either exchanging a word for a long silence.
“So where to next?” she asked, keeping her voice down even though they were the only two inside the building.
“I really don’t know,” he said. “There’s a good chance that someone will be trying to track us. We’ll need to lay low for a bit, I think. I’m just not sure for how long. I’m going to try to get a new contract so we can get out of here, but I gotta feel things out first.”
“We can let you heal up, at least.” She took a slurp from her spoon after blowing on it.
“At least,” he said. “I’ve already spoken with one of my contacts about getting you some new credentials, and we’ve gotta talk about some changes…”
“Changes?” she asked, putting her spoon down in the bowl. “Like what?”
“Your name for one.” He turned toward her. “Then maybe something like cut and dye your hair? I’m not saying plastic surgery or anything major like that, just enough. If you are going to keep flying with me—”
“You know I got by for quite a while without doing any of those things,” she said. “Also, who said I’d keep flying with you?”
“I was just operating under the idea that I was kinda stuck with you.” He shrugged only to feel a sharp pain run through his body, making him cringe in pain. “No offense.”
“I don’t really know where to go from here if I’m honest with myself,” she said, taking another slurp of soup. “There doesn’t seem to be any perceivable way I’ll meet that contact on Cyngen unless I go back.”
“I’m not going back to Cyngen,” he said. “At least not for a while, nor should you. Look, Princess,” the word came out harsher than he had wanted it to, “you have nowhere to go and I’m pretty sure my career just burned up in the atmosphere of Cyngen for the time being. It isn’t ideal, but I can drop you off somewhere after I get my next contract; it just doesn’t seem smart to go back to Cyngen, alright? Isn’t there any other way to reach out to your uncle?”
“I don’t know.” She looked crestfallen staring down into her bowl of soup. “I mean, I don’t even know anymore. I’ve been running for so long, can I really keep running?”
“That’s up to you, I guess. Maybe we can just blast our way into Krigar and take over the whole Republic that way.”
“Well…”
“I was joking,” he looked over at her. “That’s not a good idea.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m just tired of running.”
“For now it seems like the only way.” He picked up his spoon and gestured with it toward her. “At least until we can get you back with your uncle and I can go off on my own again.”
“Well, I appreciate the gesture,” she said. “Not sure I should really worry about changing anything right now, though. I’ve gotten by just fine, I’d say.”
“Look where it ended up, though,” he said. “I’m not saying you weren’t smart, but smart only gets you so far. Your brother isn’t an idiot, as much as I’d like to write him off as such. Even if he is an idiot, he has some smart people working for him, which includes the Old Man.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Sorry.” He half meant it, but old habits were hard to break. “That’s just what I’ve known him as, it’s not like I’ve ever interacted with someone who considers him family before, right?”
“No, I guess not.” She picked up her spoon and took another mouthful of soup. “So what are you suggesting I do?”
“Shorter hair, maybe a bit darker and…” he said. “Maybe some makeup now and then?”
“Oh great.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Make me into a beauty queen, why don’t you.”
“That reaction is
exactly why you doing those things will make you more inconspicuous.”
“You do have a point.” She let her spoon drop into her bowl. “I’m trusting you here.”
“Jol’or would have given me good money to hand you over,” he said, feeling a slight pang of regret. “I know that you know that, but I just wanted to say it out loud so it’s out in the open. I think I’ve earned your trust by now.”
“You were really a hero back there, that’s for sure,” she said. “After I took out three of them while you hid.”
“That’s not funny,” he raised his voice, feeling the pain in his ribs that made him double over. “I played my part just as much as you did. Not everyone was trained by the emperor’s best men in combat. But then again, I guess you weren’t trained in critical thinking while aboard a renegade ship escaping from ADCs.”
“We both have our strengths, then.”
“It’s like we were just born to be partners, huh?”
“Partners in what? I’m not even sure what we are doing, what our play is?”
“There isn’t really a 'we' here, is there?” He stared down into the abyss that was his soup, ripples running through it. “I’m the pilot of a hauler out on the fringes and you are a princess looking to retake a throne.”
“I guess you are right.”
“I’ve gotta make a few calls, but I’ve heard that there’s some big construction stuff going on out on the other side of the system over by Gimle and the Andals.”
“Oh?” She looked up at him.
“Yeah, this might just be talk, but I’ve heard that there is something huge going on over there, tons of contracts flowing freely,” he nodded absently. “I doubt that Jol’or has much influence that far out, so that might be the place to go.”