by Drew Avera
“Where are you taking her?” Anki asked, her voice sounding more natural while also sounding protective. Brendle knew she was more than capable of protecting those she loved. The question was would she protect this strange girl. He caught a glimpse in her face that made him think she was just as disoriented as he was. Is she acting out of character? Is she in control?
“We must go,” the second man said as he reached for the chain dangling from the girl’s shackles. Brendle could hear each link ring as it tapped against the next link in the chain, echoing out into the world like a chime. Something about being in the presence of the girl seemed to sharpen his senses. First the girl’s voice, the strange thoughts, and now the chains, he thought. What’s happening?
“Not so fast,” Anki hissed. She drew the weapon from behind Brendle’s back before he even realized it. The business end of her gun was level with the first man’s forehead. It was a clean shot, one that would take the top part of his head off if she squeezed the trigger. By the look in her eyes, Brendle thought there was a good chance she would. A part of him wanted to watch her do it, but he didn’t know why he yearned for the act of violence to escalate out of control. It was as if chaos beckoned for him to jump in with both feet, but he knew there was nothing but death at the bottom of whatever he leaped into. It was unnatural to think this way. He and Anki wanted peace; it was why he left the Greshian Navy. That was why they were together now, not wanting to fight the battles of their peoples.
“Wait,” Brendle started to say, but his thoughts were interrupted when both men drew down on him and Anki. “It’s going to be like that, huh?” Brendle said instead as he brandished his own weapon, the cold steel heavy in his hand, the weight of it reaffirming the fact that those men’s lives were also in his hands. The thought was a haunting reminder of who he used to be. He delivered violence for a living once upon a time. he knew that the person he used to be still lived under his skin somewhere in the dark reaches of his personality. Brendle knew that part of his personality was close enough that he could call upon it and be the murderer he no longer wanted to be. It was inching its way outward now; he could feel it along with the tingling sensation in his trigger finger. He itched for the release, his heart beating faster in sweet anticipation. He didn’t like the fact that version of himself was still evident, but the moment seemed to call for such a person to exist. A part of him reveled at the thought of unleashing the monster in himself that he usually wanted to hide.
“We have the authority here. Drop your weapons or we will use deadly force,” the first man said. A twitch in the man’s eye caught Brendle’s attention. He looked down at the girl and back up at Anki. “I said to drop it.”
Brendle looked down at the girl, tears streaming down her face and she gasped for air. She was terrified, and she felt alone, he could feel it.
“I can’t drop my weapon,” Anki whispered.
Brendle looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Sweat beaded on her forehead and the muscles in her face twitched. He looked at his own weapon and tried to force the barrel down, but it stayed anchored in the direction of the men as they aimed their sights back in Brendle and Anki’s direction. “I can’t either,” he said. Nor do I want to. The voice in his head did not sound like his, though.
The second man looked at Brendle and Anki curiously; his head moving from side to side. “The girl is controlling them.”
“That cannot be,” the first man said, his eyes narrowing as he glared at the back of the young girl’s head. “She has never shown the kind of proficiency that would allow her to control another person before. If she is controlling them, then that means—” He stopped talking and took action.
Brendle watched as the first man lowered the barrel of his gun, setting the tip of the gun against the back of her head so that it pushed her head forward. Carista’s eyes widened, knowing what was to come. Brendle felt the cold steel as if it was on the back of his own head. They were connected in some strange way, and he felt afraid too.
Brendle felt the scream forming in his chest like steam building up inside of a boiler. His lips parted as Carista’s eyes met his. They were green this time, like his. His voice uttered a silent scream as the weapon discharged, the recoil of the weapon causing the flesh of the first man’s arm to ripple from his hand up past his elbow like a cresting wave. Brendle watched the violent shake of the man’s body as the bullet exited the barrel, turning counter-clockwise from Brendle’s point of view. It spun in slow motion, the light hitting it and glaring back in his direction. The sound of the gunshot threatened to rupture his eardrums, but he made no move to cover his ears. He merely watched in silent horror as he waited for the bullet to tear through the girl’s fragile skull, ripping away bits of flesh and bone and casting her into death’s embrace.
Emerald eyes beheld each other for long seconds as the world seemed to fall away and rebuild itself piece by piece. The sensation felt like death, or dying, or being reborn. Brendle could not tell the difference. It was just existing without existence, living without life. Then it was dark. And then it was not.
Chapter Six: Deis
The Replicade sat quietly under the night sky. It was the first day the drive was back online after a short overhaul, but flight tests had yet to be run to ensure all systems functioned correctly. Deis was just happy to be off facility power and have the air recyclers functioning again. It’s surprising how fast the air grows stuffy and stale in the matter of a couple of weeks, he thought, especially with the cool temperatures of this world. But the warship was designed to hold heat in the event it was caught adrift in vacuum without power. Deis doubted they would freeze to death in the dark if they lost power for a week or more, but it was still a miserable existence to stay on board without the amenities and luxury comforts.
While Brendle and Anki stayed in a nearby hotel, Deis and Malikea took their shift staying on board as the bustling repair crews worked seemingly around the clock to restore the ship to fighting condition. Tonight was an oddity in that the last of the repair crew had secured for the night, leaving Deis and Malikea with some much needed peace and quiet. Deis hated being in the shipyard and longed to leave this place before he lost his mind. The good news was that the major repairs were complete and the warship was deemed ready to fly once again, so long as the Replicade passed its flight tests. The bad news was eerily similar to the good news to Deis as he sat alone outside the ship. Being able to leave meant they would once again be thrust into unforseeable dangers as they drifted through the darkness across the Alorian Galaxy. Deis was conflicted. As much as he wanted to leave Karanta, he wanted to find somewhere else to settle that was not on a lonesome ship with the same confining spaces for months at a time. It was like the dangers of one option didn’t necessarily outweigh the perils of the other.
He let out a sigh, his thoughts drifting to a time when the horrors that he and his husband had now witnessed never seemed to exist in their world. He remembered what it was like to be innocent and to think innocently, but those days were so far removed from his reality that innocence felt like a myth. At any other time he would have thought it was aged wisdom that made him think this way, but the truth was that it was experience with horrific people that painted such a skewed view of the world that he all but lost complete hope in the good of people.
He was sad to feel so jaded about everything, but witnessing someone he knew and loved become something else entirely had a way of disrupting his thoughts about the world. What was worse, it changed the way Deis thought about himself.
“Are you coming to bed?” Malikea asked softly. Deis hadn’t heard him come outside, but there he was, wearing the crimson silk robe he loved sleeping in. The pale blue-tinged light of the triple moons reflected off Malikea’s gray skin and his eyes glowed a yellowish hue as they reflected the moonlight. It was mesmerizing to Deis how beautiful his husband looked in the moonlight. Even scars have their moments of beauty, he thought.
Pointing to the sky, he
said, “I wish we would have had a view like this at our wedding.” Deis was deliberately not answering his lover’s question because his mind was too full of crazy thoughts to let him sleep. Instead of saying so, he just jutted around the question, hoping Malikea would not notice. “Could you imagine how the lighting would have played against our ivory robes that night?” He contemplated the night they married, the matrimonial ceremony replaying in his mind; how handsome Malikea looked, how young and full of life they were. And then it almost went away.
Malikea leaned over, wrapping his arms around Deis, distracting him from his memory and bringing him back to reality. He pressed his moist lips against Deis’ cheek. “Our wedding night was perfect,” he said. “I think of it often because it was the last time I felt like we were home.”
Home was a place Deis thought about with more regret than hope lately. It was hard to put into words exactly how he felt and the pain he was going through. He knew Malikea understood; his husband had gone through the same thing before. That truth only made Deis feel worse about keeping his thoughts to himself. “I miss home,” Deis said after a long silence. What I really miss is how things were before, but we can never go back.
“As do I, but we have a home here,” Malikea said, running a gentle hand along Deis’ back.
“It’s not the same,” Deis said, waving his hand as if to dismiss Malikea’s words. The sentiment didn’t do much to make him feel any better, just more hopeless.
“It can be.”
Deis scoffed at the idea of forcing himself to make the Replicade a suitable environment for the two of them to make a home. The ship was a tool to take them somewhere else, someplace where they could start over, but the ship was feeling more and more like a crutch to him, and his resentment of it grew with each passing day. They were beyond needing to survive, yet he couldn’t draw the courage to step away from it because he was afraid of something else happening that would put their lives in jeopardy again. If it wasn’t another pirate like Crase Tuin, then what would it be next time?
“I’m serious,” Malikea said. “We can do whatever we want, go wherever we want. We always have a home here, though.”
Deis nodded, not because he agreed, but because denying it would only prolong the argument building up in his thoughts. He would give anything to walk away from the ship and start over, but he knew Malikea had grown attached to Anki. He cared for Brendle and Anki too, but the bond between Malikea and Anki seemed to go deeper than simple friendship and Deis did not think he could tear them away from each other without damaging his relationship with his husband. He deserves better than that, Deis thought. “I’ll be up to bed soon.” He finally answered the question, silently hoping that Malikea would leave him be to drown in the depression where his thoughts often took him after watching Neular die. No, it wasn’t his death that makes me depressed, it’s watching his makeshift casket careen into the darkness, to be forgotten by time and the expansion of the universe. We are too meek to exist in a world where that can happen. It makes me feel like I have no point in life.
“All right,” Malikea said, bending over to kiss Deis’ lips this time. Deis canted his head and met Malikea’s lips with his own. I hope you understand why I am the way I am, he thought as their lips parted, even though I can’t define exactly why I am the way I am right now. The worst part of Deis’ depression, in his mind, was that he could no longer trust how he felt. The things he once found happiness in paled in comparison to his memory of those things. He felt tainted and unworthy of Malikea’s affection. He knew it was crazy, but in some way his self-doubt was causing him to sabotage what he had. He could see it in Malikea’s eyes, even though his love was fighting for their relationship just as hard as Deis was fighting to maintain some sort of sanity, though he had no idea what sane even looked like anymore.
As they pulled away from their kiss, a burst of blue light flashed from behind Malikea, stirring both of their attention away from their loving moment. They stared at the light glowing from the opening in the ship, casting shadows on the area outside the Replicade. With the light came a droning sound reminiscent of wind howling in a storm.
“What the—” Deis rose from his seat and grabbed the handle of the gun holstered to his hip. He disliked weapons, but if the last few months taught him anything, it was that being unarmed left him vulnerable, and that was the last thing he ever wanted to be again. “There shouldn’t be anyone on the ship,” he said as he drew the gun and stepped between Malikea and the Replicade. “Wait here,” he ordered.
“No, I’m going with you,” Malikea replied, drawing his own weapon from beneath his robe. Where he was hiding it, Deis didn’t know, but it brought a smile to his lips. He hated putting Malikea in danger, but he appreciated his husband’s willingness to step into the thick of things with him despite how distant Deis had been feeling recently. Perhaps we both learned something from our last encounter on a foreign world, Deis thought. It gave him hope.
“All right, cover me,” he said as he stepped towards the cargo bay door jutting out from under the ship. The flashing of the blue light had disappeared, but the glow was still strong and he heard a commotion that shouldn’t have been there. The sound of rushing wind seemed to have died down, but in its place was something else that made Deis feel afraid. The sound of people speaking. “Someone’s on the ship,” he whispered.
Malikea stopped walking and stayed in the shadows behind Deis. “What should we do?”
Deis thought for a moment. “You made sure all of the repair crews were gone, right?”
“Of course,” Malikea answered, concern in his voice.
“Then this isn’t good,” Deis said. “We need to sneak on board and secure the ship.”
“Should we call for Anki and Brendle first?”
Deis shook his head. “There’s no time. Besides, this is our responsibility.” Fear pulsed through Deis’ body with every heartbeat. He knew having their shipmates’ help would make the danger fade, at least a little, but he felt it was his duty to do the right thing, which was to protect the Replicade. Waiting might put them and the ship in more danger. “Are you ready?”
Malikea cocked his weapon and nodded. “I’m ready.”
Deis took a deep breath and moved towards the cargo bay door, the only way onto the ship, and the only way off. It’s impossible for anyone to have gotten past us, so who was stowing away and what do they want? Deis peered up into the cargo bay, but he was not tall enough to see anything other than the overhead and a small portion of the bulkhead. If anyone was up there, they would be out of sight and deeper inside the cargo bay. He could hear Malikea follow behind him and he felt a little relief, knowing that if things went bad he would have backup. That relief fell away when he thought that, if things did go bad, Malikea would be alone and potentially the next victim. Guess I’ll have to aim carefully and shoot quick, he thought as his right foot touched upon the door leading up into the cargo bay. He realized there was more than one voice. Dread flooded into his emotions, and his heart felt as heavy as the gun he held in his shaking hand. His worst fear was being realized in this moment, and he had no choice but to act. He took a few deep breaths as he tried to settle his nerves, but the anxiety didn’t die the way he hoped it would. His thoughts drifted to the other times he and Malikea got out of bad situations. If we can survive that, then we can survive anything, he thought. I can do this. Deis took another breath and ran forward, gun drawn, ready to fire. But what he found waiting for him sent shivers down his spine.
Chapter Seven: Ilium
Knowing a pirate was on board his ship etched a smile onto Ilium’s face. There was something to be said about those who existed and thrived outside the parameters of conventional society. It was the lust for a better life that brought him to where he was now, but he was still stifled by the illusion of his life of constant pretending. There was no reward for his best work, only the contrived notion that there was something better waiting for him at a later time. Those better
things did exist, but he still felt trapped, and it led him to want to take things and apply his own expertise to it, to mold his own future outside of the shadow organization he worked for. To do that, he needed anonymity and resources beyond what was currently available. He needed free reign, and that was something he would never have under Harager’s thumb.
The biggest allure to piracy was that it existed outside of the law, outside of the institutional mindset of military life. Both were things that Ilium hated, but was subjected to nonetheless. He was naïve to think the organization would be without restrictions. If anything, it was just as cruel as actually serving in the military and he resented every minute of it. It was a means to an end, though, and Ilium grew up with aspirations beyond his current station in life. He would not be satisfied until he accomplished all of his goals and succeeded in implanting himself as the ruler of the Greshian Empire.
Some would say he was insane to think in those terms, but that charge was just another person’s inability to comprehend his genius. He was certain he would have to prove himself time and time again, but it was a burden he was more than willing to bear if it meant he would be sitting at the proverbial throne of the Greshian Empire with the rest of the Alorian Galaxy under his control. A man can dream, he thought as he closed his eyes and lost himself in the ever-changing world of his imagination. “Sir, are you busy?” Ilium hadn’t been aware that the door was open, but there stood Chief Harso, arms crossed and leaning against the doorframe. There was a scowl on his face, which made Ilium think he was either angry or nervous.