by Paul Tassi
Lucas shifted as clouds began to eclipse the moon overhead. The jungle grew darker, the fire brighter.
“Soon later, sky demons come. Mol’taavi burn. Hope lost. Saato breaks free and finds woman. Tells her she must remember. Must remember who she is.”
Toruk’s eyes widened, full of excitement.
“Woman unleash great magic, great skill, kill sky demons, help escape to Makari. Rich men now bow at her feet. ‘Who is this?’ they ask. ‘Who wields such power?’ ‘I am Valli,’ she say, ‘First Woman.’ Blind men saw only thief, not god. Saato knew truth, did what needed to save people, even ones who cast hate on him. Saato and Valli protect Oni together many years after. First Man and Woman reunited.”
Lucas nodded as Toruk finished his story and fell silent.
“I see,” he said. “Why didn’t anyone recognize her?”
“Saato, Valli many bodies. Always change with new era. Look like you now. Like Asha.”
Lucas laughed.
“We’re not Saato and Valli, Toruk. I hate to break it to you.”
Toruk nodded sarcastically.
“Okay, you right. Fall from sky, commune with White Spirit, kill sky demon. Fulfill all prophecy, but not Saato and Valli. I understand.”
There’d be no convincing him, it seemed. Toruk got to his feet.
“Spirit journey must end. I grow weak. Much to do on Makari. We await you return.”
Spirit journey?
“We’ll be back,” Lucas said. “It may be a while, but we’ll return to help you take Makari again.”
“I know,” Toruk nodded as he began to turn translucent across from Lucas.
“Do not forget past lives. Remember, even disbelievers need saving. Truth absolute, eternal. Lie fades. Always fades. Do not lose sight of whole war for sake of one battle.”
And with that, he was gone, and Lucas was alone at the campfire.
He began to rise, unassisted, through the air. Through the trees, through the clouds. Lucas stared straight into the shining face of Mol’taavi. His tattoos glowed in the moonlight.
Lucas woke, being forcefully shaken. In seconds, a splitting headache found him, and his bleary eyes saw Asha sleeping on a seat across from him. Looking up, he saw the figure above him was Maston.
“Get up, we’re here.”
Lucas slowly unclipped his restraints as Maston jostled Asha’s shoulder until she snapped awake with an angry glare. The hovercraft was stopped, its engines silent. Gray light pierced the tinted windows.
“You’re going to want this,” Maston said, throwing a heavy thermal blanket at each of them. When he shoved open the door, it became clear why.
The air was frigid, and as their eyes adjusted to the light, they found they were parked on a rocky shoreline. The water lapping the stones was black; the sky was a flowing stream of thin milky clouds. It was freezing, but there was no snow to be found around them. Lucas and Asha huddled in their blankets as they tried to find their footing on the rocks. They left the hovercraft behind and followed Maston up a narrowly carved path that started at the end of the beach. Lucas looked down at his communicator and saw that it had been completely wiped. It wouldn’t even turn on. He did still have Natalie with him, however, and the gun was slung over his back. He soon found the rifle’s targeting system was also offline, but it could still fire without power. Alpha had made sure of that during construction.
After plodding along for ten minutes, they rounded a curve and saw a structure. It was an old house, made of stone with a thatched roof that looked even more primitive than their quarters in the Oni village on Makari. When they reached it, Maston unlocked the wooden door with a rusty key and ushered them inside.
It was one large room with a fireplace, bed, table, and chairs. There appeared to be something resembling a kitchen, and an opaque screen that Lucas guessed might conceal a lavatory. The head of a large sea creature, with rows of sharp teeth and two foot-long ivory horns, hung above the fireplace with a pair of crossed harpoons beneath it.
“What is this place?” Lucas asked. His eyes were relieved to be out of the daylight, though his head was still pounding. Maston was already starting to build a fire.
“We call it a black hole,” he said. “The less you know about where you are, the better. Suffice it to say you’re on a very small island in the middle of a very big ocean and no one’s going to find you here.”
“Is that why you killed our communicators?” Asha asked, tapping her own.
Maston shook his head.
“Buried in the center of this place is a device that silences any electronics in range, other than our own greenlit transports, of course. It also shields the area from orbital surveillance of any kind. Simply put, it causes this place not to exist.”
Lucas ran his hand over the carved wooden chair in front of him. On the ground was a rug made of some sort of skinned animal with the head still attached. The upturned snout indicated it might be some sort of enormous … boar, maybe? The place felt like an old hunting lodge.
“Where are Noah and Erik?” Lucas asked. “What’s happened to them?”
“They remain under Keeper Auran’s watch at the palace,” Maston assured them. “Nothing has changed about their care.”
“Except their parents can’t go within five thousand miles of them,” Asha growled.
Maston rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted. There was no way to tell how long they’d been flying.
“We’ll get all this sorted out, but it’s bad right now. Half the world is rioting about what Talis did, the other half about you supposedly killing her.”
“Did you know,” Lucas asked, “about Talis?”
Anger flashed in Maston’s eyes.
“Of course not!” he said sternly. “Knowing as much as Tulwar did, I’d have killed her myself if I had the chance. She put my fleet at risk. She put Corinthia at risk.”
It was the first time he’d said her name in months.
“But that doesn’t make Tulwar any less of a monster,” Maston continued. “I cannot believe he did all this. I cannot believe he won.”
Lucas didn’t have anything to say to that. It was true. Tulwar got everything he wanted. He was burning the world down around them and shaming his enemies, all from the comfort of his grave.
“But we have a more pressing problem,” Maston said, staring into the fire. “Word will reach Xala that Sora is in turmoil. They will not waste time before organizing an assault. SDI fleets are already returning from abroad to brace for a homeworld strike.”
“So you’re saying we need to get Zeta to Xala,” Lucas said.
“Yes. There’s been something we’ve been keeping from the strategy group that you should know now. Zeta has continued work on her algorithm. When she broadcasts the message from Xalan central command, she’ll also be able to completely disrupt their communications across all ships, cities, and planets for a short while afterward. The pairing of the unearthing of the truth and an inability to communicate will throw them for a loop, and we can take advantage.”
“So you want Xala to be as panicked and chaotic as Sora is now?” Asha said skeptically.
“Hopefully more so,” replied Maston.
“The revelation that the existence of their entire species and the basis for a ten-thousand-year-old war is an enormous lie should send shockwaves through them that run deeper than what we’re experiencing with Talis and us,” Lucas said. “At least that’s what Alpha has always made it sound like.”
“We’ll have to hope so,” Maston said. “If we can’t seriously disrupt their capabilities for an invasion, we’ll lose Sora. They can reach us faster than we can reach them with their white cores. They’ll be here in weeks.”
“And we still have no way of getting Zeta to Xala,” Lucas said. “Or have you been keeping that a secret too?”
“No such luck,” Maston said. “We’re still nowhere, last I heard.”
The three of them stood in silence. The situation outside of the
ir tiny hidden island was almost too dire to consider.
“I need to get back to the mainland,” Maston said. “I’ll be back to brief you once we figure all this shit out. I have to talk with Tannon to see where his head is.”
“Does he think we’re guilty?” Lucas asked.
“We haven’t had much time to chat, but considering he’s the one who pulled you off that Xalan ship drenched in Shadow blood, I’m guessing he’ll be in your corner.”
Maston opened the door to leave, but turned back to them.
“Oh, and the Tut-shai are friendly. They’ll find something for you to eat.”
“The what?”
But the door had already slammed shut behind him.
It took them a few hours before they found the Tut-shai. After locating some warm clothes and outerwear tucked under the bed, Lucas and Asha explored the rocky hill on which their cabin rested. On the other side from where they’d come, they found another path etched in the earth, one they followed for about a half an hour through the woods until they came upon a small encampment.
The Tut-shai looked vaguely Asian, but had pale white skin and glacial blue eyes. When they saw the two of them emerging from the forest path, they merely met them with smiles and waves and went about their business. It was a small community, with maybe only forty or fifty residents inside a collection of leather huts held together with handmade rope and carved wooden poles. A row of boats docked at the shoreline indicated it was a fishing village, and there were catches roasting on small fires scattered throughout the camp. Almost immediately, a round-faced woman wearing a billowing fur coat handed them two small fish skewered on pointed sticks. Friendly, indeed.
In the days that followed, they met the leader of the Tut-shai, Nanno, a short, wrinkled old man who looked to be a few days shy of a thousand. He was the only one who spoke any amount of Soran, and they learned he’d been in the SDI about eighty years ago before a mission marooned him with the Tut-shai. He’d stayed and started a family, leaving his old life behind. He told them how the tribe was ancient, and even after thousands of years, they were content to live in peace, free of the technological advancements of the rest of the planet. Nanno boasted that his adopted people hadn’t seen war in twenty thousand years, though that seemed like something of an exaggeration.
The Tut-shai’s lifestyle was practically prehistoric. They fished, they harvested plants from the forest, and they survived. Other Tut-shai were scattered around islands all throughout the region, and had no interest in anything other than their tiny patch of ocean. In other words, anyone the government kept here had no fear of being exposed by the locals. It seemed to be an otherworldly witness protection program of sorts. Nanno and the SDI had an understanding, and he was more than welcoming to those who needed safe haven. Lucas and Asha were starting to get sick of fish already, and it hadn’t even been a week.
On their sixth day there, Nanno’s wife, Janti, had tasked them with marching into the forest with buckets to extract water from one of the island’s inland freshwater pools. It was only a few miles worth of hiking, though that practically took them across the entire minuscule island.
As they approached the village, they heard a high-pitched shriek up ahead through the woods. They looked at each other worriedly and set down the water before sprinting toward town.
When they got there, they found the village completely deserted. Fires were burning blackened fish. A shattered pot lay in pieces on the ground. Lucas grabbed a nearby harpoon stuck in the ground; their weapons were back at the cabin at Nanno’s request. Asha pulled out a silver knife that appeared to have materialized from thin air.
Lucas peeked into one of the tents and found a mother with three small children quivering inside.
“Ko lalo toso!” she cried, shaking her head violently. “Ko lalo monosi!”
She raised her finger to point behind them. Lucas spun around, harpoon raised.
Standing there was an eight-foot-tall, confused-looking creature.
Alpha.
“They informed me I could find you here,” he said through his flickering translator collar, which had somehow survived the island’s dampening system. “It appears the locals are not accustomed to my species.”
Of course they’re not, Lucas thought. They wouldn’t have had any reason to ever see a Xalan before, as the uprising and homeworld strikes hadn’t touched this tiny patch of the planet. No wonder they were terrified.
“What brings you to our little corner of paradise?” Asha asked.
“Until this point, I have been kept underground in research labs as we continue to formulate a plan of action despite this … distraction,” Alpha replied.
“What’s going on out there? We’ve heard nothing,” asked Lucas.
“The planet is still in turmoil in the wake of High Chancellor Vale’s death. Commander Tannon Vale has assumed power, though many are calling for his removal in light of Talis Vale’s past actions against the Rhylosi.”
Some of the Tut-shai were starting to creep out of their tents now, looking in wonder at the talking creature in the middle of their village. Alpha paid them no mind.
“Why did you come here? Friendly visit?” Asha asked.
“If only it were so,” Alpha said. “I am the first of many who will be joining us. Our journey to Xala is at hand.”
A little girl in a fur coat far bigger than she was waddled up to Alpha. She thrust her arms upward and presented him with a raw fish as long as her arm. Alpha looked at it curiously for a minute before staking it with his claw and devouring it whole.
“If only the rest of this galaxy were as hospitable,” he said. “Zeta waits at your residence. Let us go.”
Over the course of the next day, a collection of hovercraft and small ships began landing on the beaches of the island, bringing familiar faces with them. First came Mars Maston, less heated than the last time they’d seen him, but clearly on edge. Kiati and a few of the Guardians who had survived Makari arrived a short while later, along with a few steel-eyed soldiers Lucas didn’t recognize. Then came Tannon Vale himself with an entourage of military officials Lucas had met once or twice during strategy sessions. He looked like he’d aged ten years in ten days, and Lucas could imagine why. He told them to expect at least one more ship’s arrival, but their relatively small cabin was already going to be stuffed with people. Alpha and Zeta could barely stand without hitting their heads on the rafters.
“Good to see you, High Chancellor,” Lucas said as Tannon entered.
“Oh, stop it with that shit. I’m no more Chancellor than he is,” he said, nodding toward Alpha. “I’m just the guy cleaning up Talis’s mess.”
Lucas had learned that Tannon had had no knowledge of his sister’s plans for Vitalla, though much of the public didn’t believe that.
“I see you brought the whole cavalry,” Asha said, looking around their ever-shrinking residence.
“Well, it’s a big day,” Tannon said. He looked odd in plainclothes, but still intimidating.
“Now that most of us are here, someone should probably tell them what’s going on,” said Maston. Behind him, Kiati scratched her recently regrown eye; there was still some scarring around it. Maston had decided to keep his synthetic leg for the time being, he’d told them.
“Indeed,” said Tannon. “Time for your redemption.”
“Redemption?” said Asha. “We didn’t do anything.”
“Well, the planet still needs saving either way, and we need your help to do it,” Tannon said. “May I continue?”
Asha nodded warily.
“This … situation may have provided a scenario to get Zeta to Xala.”
“And how is that?” Lucas said incredulously. He was feeling claustrophobic, but at least the cabin wasn’t freezing for a change.
“You will escape Sora. Make a run for it.”
“And why would we do that?” Lucas asked.
“You, Asha, and your Xalan friends are no longer safe here.
I’ve publicly accused the four of you of killing my sister and helping Hex Tulwar escape.”
“You what?” Asha yelled as she shot a look toward Maston, who remained stonefaced.
“More importantly,” Tannon continued, ignoring her outburst. “The Xalan Ruling Council now knows you’ve been accused of killing my sister. They may have limited intelligence here, but they’ll at least hear that much.”
“So we’ll escape? Then what?” Lucas asked. Tannon folded his arms across his chest.
“The story will be that Alpha transplanted a white null core into a Soran ship, and the four of you are on your way to a sparsely populated rim planet to seek asylum with Fourth Order sympathizers. With the core, you will be able to outrun pursuit by the SDI.”
“But not the Xalans,” Lucas said, starting to catch on.
“The idea is that even with their pending invasion, they’ll send at least a ship or two to intercept your craft and take all of you prisoner,” said Tannon.
“One of my resistance contacts will pose as a double agent and leak the location of our escape to the Ruling Council,” said Zeta. Maston cut in.
“Two of their greatest scientific minds and most prominent rebellion leaders, along with the humans responsible for killing their Shadow Commander, would be too valuable a target to pass up.”
“We are not a forgiving people,” Zeta mused.
“They will ambush you; we will ambush them,” Maston said. “We’ll secure their ship and load it up with our own troops. Then we’ll head back to Xala where we’ll disembark and disappear with the aid of Zeta’s Xalan resistance plants before they get wise to us. They should be distracted by the invasion at that point, anyway.”
“Jesus Christ,” Asha said. “Alpha, did you come up with this?”
“Perhaps,” Alpha replied.
“Yeah, it sounds like one of yours. Insanity, inside and out.”
“And yet you live,” Alpha replied smartly.
“It ain’t pretty, but it’s the best option we’ve got. The clock’s run out,” said Tannon. The military leaders he’d brought with him nodded silently in assent. Kiati appeared to be bored and was polishing her pistol in the corner while the other Guardians stood uncomfortably shoulder to shoulder.