Cydonia Rising

by Dave Walsh

  Her failure weighed heavily on her, knowing that not only had she failed herself, but she had failed her father, Oystein and even, in a strange way, failed Trallex. While there was nothing like an emotional bond with Trallex, there was a grudging respect for the man who had helped to bring her back and give her the opportunity to restore the honor of the Krigan people. Of course, her people really didn’t see her as one of them anymore; instead, she was just another Cymage in disguise looking to send their people further into ruin and dishonor. Winning back the Krigans was a tall order—possibly too difficult for her to handle on her own. She didn’t need to just win their approval, she needed to prove to them that she could be more than a figurehead to their movement, that she was a true leader. All Krigans knew were force and honor, the rest were details that some respected, but most didn’t care about.

  Alva was all alone in a place that should have felt like her home but instead felt like a giant, oppressive machine that had systematically destroyed everything she knew and loved. Somehow she was supposed to change all of that and now, without the help of Oystein and his warriors, she had to do it on her own. Even if his band of Krigans was not the most experienced, they were Krigans and nothing struck heart into the fear of an opposing force than a Krigan charging full force at them with pulseaxes in the air. She was so close to being able to do that on her own, to charge forward with her own warband with hopes of changing Andlios for good, but now that was lost.

  She slumped back into the comfortable couch, feeling the cushion embrace her and help assuage at least some of her fears about the future. The Krigan way was flawed, she had to remember, and the only way the Krigans had held off the Fourth Fleet was with the assistance of Ingen. The Krigans all wanted to charge headfirst into battle, to simply throw bodies at the Fourth Fleet and hope they would back down, while Ingen had instead utilized old Earth military tactics and taught them the value of patience. Oystein had rallied against such actions then and chances were he wouldn’t take kindly to being reminded of that. Alva couldn’t simply march up to him and explain that she was simply a weapon at their disposal, something they wouldn’t expect.

  The answer was simple to her, although she wasn’t sure there were any means available to her to accomplish that—she needed an army. Her army was back at the Quorthon and wasn’t exactly pleased with the revelation that she had been augmented by the Cydonians; that made her an army of one, which wasn’t going to cut it against Cronus’s elite guards. She had heard stories of other forces making raids on cities on Andlios, but they felt like tall tales more than anything else. There was a group of raiders out by the deserts of Zahira, just beyond Cydonia in the northeast, who had been defying Cronus and attempting to take Cydonia by force. They were called the Wild Ones and there wasn’t much out there about them. Alva scrolled through whatever news stories she could find about them and remembered hearing Trella mention them in passing; they were what was left of the nomadic Zarr’nid people who didn’t fold into Cydonian culture; they were the outcasts who had rallied against the rise of the Cydonian people, but ultimately were left behind.

  What little video there was of the Wild Ones both disgusted and intrigued her. They were insane, that much could be said for them. They rode derelict transports that were modified to their own liking, usually with more weapons—both projectile and stationary—than she had ever seen strapped onto one of those old transports before. They wore traditional Zarr’nid desert gear, meaning long robes and head wraps that obscured them, although they had decorated everything with either blood or red paint, it wasn’t clear to her which. Of late they had been focusing on raiding into Cydonia, destroying convoys from Krigar that were carrying weapons and other supplies for the military.

  Still entranced by the video of the raiders hitting a supply line that was caught on vid, she toyed with the idea of reaching out to Trallex for guidance and even for him to assure her that she was on the right path, but she paused instead, choosing to map out her route to the Zahira desert and hatching a plan to catch their attention. This mission was vital to her—not just to her, but to her entire mission. She would not fail this time, nor would she be taken advantage of again.

  Traversing the wastes of Andlios felt like she was home again more than being in Krigar had ever felt to her. Time had elapsed since she was last there, but everything was there just like it was before she left it. Ruins of once-great cities stood untouched by man, overgrown from vines and other plants. Most would be appalled to be driving through a flat, barren area like this, but for Alva, it was quite natural. The stronghold she had spent most of her formative years in was about fifty klicks to the south, right near Speera, the city that was first founded by the Earthers and had since sprawled out to become one of the major cities on Andlios. She had only heard stories of it since she had visited it while O’Neil was still there, but apparently, it had grown quite unwieldy since then.

  She took care to avoid most of the major throughways that led to Cydonia. Cydonia was not her final destination, although the road to Cydonia was clearer in parts than riding through the wastes of Andlios. There were stories about how these wastes were rich forests teeming with life before the great wars, but all she had ever known of the area was the great wastes, a place where if you walked through, you’d need anti-radiation medication and to keep a close eye on your rad levels, or else your life would be uncomfortable for whatever was left of it.

  The Andliosian sun was setting over the horizon and she knew she was running short on time. Alva had just continued heading East, diverging from the road to Cydonia and toward the Zahira desert in hopes of running into the Wild Ones, or at least one of their scouts. They had to be around somewhere and a pristine transport alone and unarmed heading out into their desert was just the right bait to lure them into attacking her. The transport was zipping along, heading into a narrow pass that fed out into the mouth of the desert when she saw a figure ahead, standing in front of a broken down transport, waving wildly at her.

  It was clearly a decoy, but she had no choice but to play coy, pulling up alongside the other transport and hopping out. “Hello there,” she said, gripping the pulseaxe in her right hand and slinging it over her shoulder. “What kind of trouble do you got here?”

  “Damned engine got overheated again,” the figure said, clearly an older male.

  “Do you need a lift?” she asked, nodding toward her own transport.

  “Wow,” he said, admiring it. “That looks brand new, what brings you out here?”

  “Looking for some friends,” she said.

  “Friends are hard to come by out in Zahira,” he said, his voice sounding tentative.

  “I’m just hopeful, I guess.”

  “Out here that is more dangerous than you might think,” he said.

  “Oh?” She could feel the presence of more people around them, crawling out from behind rocks and staying out of sight. “From what I can tell you’ve got a few friends of your own here.”

  She saw his eyes widen and heard a few voices cry out; the sound of rocks underfoot were coming from all angles and before she knew it, she was surrounded by figures dressed similarly to the first man, only with deep red stains lining their off-white robes. They stood with spears and a few with blasters pointed at her, one with a more ornate scarf stepping forward with an air of confidence radiating around him.

  “There are no friends out here for you, red-haired one,” he said. “We are the Wild Ones and if you value your life you’ll hand over that transport. We’ll provide you with food and water and point you toward Cydonia.”

  “You can have it,” she said, holding her empty hands up. “I brought it with me as a gift.”

  “A gift?” he laughed. “We would claim it, gift or not. We are not looking for more friends.”

  “What about a friend who could promise you Cronus Freeman’s head on a pike?”

  “A truly benevolent gesture,” he said. “Although one would think that a girl such as your
self, coming to us with gifts such as this would be able to somehow prove that she could deliver on such a…bold promise.”

  “Didn’t you hear? I’ve come back from the dead.”

  “I…Interesting. Who is this dead girl who stands before us?”

  “I’m Alva Hedlund,” she said. “Daughter of Tyr Hedlund and I’m building an army to take Andlios back.”

  “So you are not only deceased but a fool as well.”

  “The Andlios Republic was founded by fools, was it not?”

  “This much is true. That makes you one as well.”

  “In a way.”

  “Very interesting. There is a sandstorm brewing on the horizon, and not taking shelter would be foolish now. Come with me,” he motioned for her to follow him toward a small cave.

  Trella

  The mood in the bunker was what Trella could only imagine as being tense, maybe even hopeless. Prime Minister O’Neil had left a few hours before and there was a silence that ruled over the underground cavern that had made Trella snap her fingers a few times to ensure that her sensors were not malfunctioning. Not only was no one speaking, but no one was really moving or even fiddling with a holoscanner. It was just silence laced with despair. At least what she had decided was despair. They all knew that he understood his chances of evading capture on the surface, yet he went anyway, not wanting to sacrifice their mission. He was as bold of a man as all the vids had said he was.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Trella finally broke the silence.

  Katrijn sprung up from her seat and kicked the wooden chair back, stomping out of the large gathering room into one of the bunk rooms off to the side. Jace simply sat where he was on top of the table, his feet hanging off onto a chair and shook his head. Loren let out a sigh and picked himself up, stretching out his arms. “I’ll go check on her,” he said, heading after her.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asked, still unsure.

  “Not really,” Jace said. “He’s a crafty guy, we’re all sure he’ll be fine, but it’s the rest of us we are worried about, Trella.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Why?”

  “That’s not really easy to explain,” he said. “He was in charge, he had the plans and the connections down here and now we are kind of just trapped in this underground bunker without anyone to really tell us what we should be doing.”

  “So things are without hope, then?”

  “Yeah, well.” Jace scratched behind his ear. “I wouldn’t go that far, but more or less.”

  “Then why are we still here?”

  “That’s, uh,” he paused. “That’s a very good question, one I don’t have an answer to just yet. We gotta give Kat some time to process all of this. You can’t just become a leader in a day, you know? As for me, I don’t know, I might try to hightail it out of here sooner rather than later, but suddenly it feels like a bad idea to just leave like this.”

  “Then what was the plan in the first place?”

  “O’Neil was integral to that, I guess,” he said. “O’Neil helped her father lead before and apparently made attempts at guiding Cronus. The plan was for him to help Katrijn out, from what I’ve gathered. I don’t know, they don’t really tell me much about plans or tactics or whatever.”

  “Oh,” she said, unsure of where their conversation should go next. “Shouldn’t we come up with a plan now?”

  “I’m sure Loren will help with that,” he said. “He seems pretty good at that kind of stuff. Until then, I guess we wait.”

  “This doesn’t seem like a good plan to me,” she said.

  “It’s what we’ve got,” he said. “What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going to stick with us or what? From what we’ve heard, Alva is here and leading her own movement of some sort. That’s why you came here, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said, feeling a burning in her stomach at the mention of Alva’s name. “I just didn’t want to leave you all in such a bad position.”

  “Things aren’t looking great, are they?” he said. “But it is nice to have a friend around.”

  “Friend?” It was a word she had heard Alva use and she knew the meaning but had never heard it used around her. “I’ve never been called a friend before.”

  “Well, you are a friend of mine,” he said. “I’d say you are a friend of all of ours now, even. We’re all in this together right now. You did come here to find Alva, though.”

  “I do want to find Alva.”

  “Well, what was the place the driver said that they operated out of? Some bar or something?”

  “The Quorthon,” she said; the name hadn’t left her since she heard it.

  “Right, Quorthon. An old Jarl or something, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He had a hand in the birth of our people, even. He was also the first one to shun us.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “That old story. I had kinda forgotten about it.”

  “No Cydonian has been able to forget it, as I’m sure no Krigan has forgotten it, either.”

  They sat in silence for a moment before Loren strode back into the room, his customary smile on his face. “The good news is that she’s gonna be fine,” he clapped his hands together.

  “Is there bad news?” Jace asked, not looking over.

  “Other than the Old Man walking out into the abyss and us without a plan? Naw,” he said. “It’s all fine. We just gotta come up with a plan.”

  “Great,” Jace said. “Maybe a fleet of starships will just come out of nowhere and blow Cronus and his goons up for us, then just hand everything over to us and leave.”

  “That’d be nice,” Loren said. “I mean, we can’t rule that out just yet.”

  “Gods, you are impossible sometimes,” Jace sighed.

  “We just gotta keep our cool, alright? I’ve got contacts all around the city that I’ve been talking to and we’ll come up with something.”

  “Alright, alright,” he said.

  “I think I can help,” Trella said.

  “Help how?” Loren turned to her.

  “I’m going to head to the Quorthon and find Alva,” she said. “I will tell her about you, about Katrijn and I’m sure she’ll listen to me.”

  “Okay,” Loren squinted at her. “Are you serious? Is she serious?” He turned to Jace. “I can’t tell with Cymages, they don’t inflect at all, it’s all this monotone nonsense.”

  “I think so,” Jace said.

  “Can you do that?” Loren asked.

  “I can try,” she said.

  Loren met her with a silent nod and she began her preparations. The mood within the bunker was still somber and it felt freeing to remove herself from that situation. Trella had been just a passenger with them for a while, just another body along for the ride and it felt good to her to finally be contributing. Her stomach felt weird, her blood pressure had risen over ten points and her pulse had quickened at the thought of seeing Alva again. It had only been a matter of a few weeks now, but she had resigned herself to never seeing Alva again after Trallex had removed her from the situation right before Alva was to depart.

  There was a feeling that snuck into the back of her mind while she was on this journey that maybe Alva was a part of the decision to leave Trella behind. It didn’t make sense in the context of their last meeting, especially with how tender Alva was toward her, but it was what she had presumed was a fear. The fear that Alva didn’t want her around anymore and would turn her away as soon as she showed up. Maybe Alva needed distance from Trella to get her task done; she might be a hindrance if she were around or even kept Alva from wanting to be a part of it in any way. None of that mattered now, though, things were looking grim and she knew she needed to find Alva, if not for her, then for everyone else. They had all been so nice to her, Jace especially, and she didn’t want to let them down.

  While she walked down the street, having point-by-point guidance in her display, she noted just how odd Krigar f
elt compared to Cyngen. Cyngen was more like the bunker they were laying low in, just a system of caves, only of course much larger in scope. But everything on Krigar was open, the buildings were filled with windows and people walked the streets without a care in the world. Back on Cyngen, the only people on the streets were the non-Cydonians and they were mostly busy with their work at the time. Everyone seemed to live a very different kind of lifestyle in Krigar and she wondered what the rest of Andlios looked like now. She had always been keen on seeing Cydonia, but if the reports were true and it had been reappropriated to be more like Krigar, then there wouldn’t be much of a point—it would be nearly identical to Krigar. After a while, Krigar began to transform, the buildings growing older and in disrepair, the sea of citizens thinning out to just a few scattered people, mostly keeping to themselves and glaring at her while she walked by.

  Throughout most of the city there was a diverse population, a mix of people, but the closer she got to the Quorthon, the more it was simply Krigans. That meant more and more of them were glaring at her or even snickering at her. They still seemed to not be very welcoming to Cydonians, which only made the knot in her stomach grow in intensity. She finally rounded the corner to the street where the Quorthon was, noting it was the only building where there was any activity among what looked like dilapidated or abandoned buildings. Outside of it stood a few young Krigans, pulseaxes either in hand or strapped onto their backs, joking and drinking in the middle of the street as if they were untouchable.