Three Suns

by S King

  “More like a nightmare,” I didn’t know who I was trying to lie to. Me or her. Every time that I looked at Eikko, I felt something turning in my stomach that wasn’t unpleasant in any way. But I couldn’t indulge Xerminara in her fawning of the Parlan idiot.

  I wasn’t blind, Eikko was a heart stopping, blood boiling, mind blowing kind of a man. Especially with those purple flecks in his eyes, I closed my eyes, shaking my head before staring at her.

  Flicking her nose, I tilted my head, “pull it together. He isn’t going to be here forever, and you have Claud.”

  She rested her head on my shoulder and watched Eikko’s backside disappear into the kitchen. “But Ana, he’s gorgeous.”

  I rolled my eyes, pushing her off my shoulder and shoved my finger in her face, “pull. Yourself. Together.” With a final warning look, I walked her out of my domicile and heard the food delivery alert me that my jutro meal was ready.

  “Captain Shaye,” my communicator beeped in my ear.

  Answering it, I made my way into the kitchen and tried not to narrow my eyes at Eikko examining the food delivery.

  “What is it, Orrie?” Eikko jumped at the sound of my voice, eyeing me the same way he had the first time he saw me.

  “I’m Eikko, Ostana,” his easy smile was something that made me have to clench my jaw.

  Waving a dismissive hand at him I pointed to my ear and took my and his meals out of the meal delivery compartment.

  “Someone purposefully sabotaged the aircraft that the Parlan guys were on,” Orrie, my chief officer, sounded more irritated than I felt.

  “What does that mean?” I handed Eikko his meal and grabbed my own plate.

  “Basically, it seemed as if whoever worked on this aircraft prior to their so-called departure to the entertainment district wanted them to crash here. Not just in the purple sun but the war zone specifically.”

  “What is this?” Eikko pointed to his chicken, kale, and brown rice.

  I cut my eyes at him and shoved a fork into his hand, “food eat it or starve. Go ahead Orrie,” I rubbed my forehead, not liking the problem that was beginning to unfold in front of me.

  If someone had held a grudge against Eikko or even Somsang, that grudge was big enough that they were willing to put the two of them in mortal danger and didn’t care if either came back to Parlan alive or not.

  “I have to give it to the mastermind though, I’ve never seen anything like this. The mechanism and placement were nearly missed by most of the guys because it was in the rotor and the engine block. So, two placements ensured that the aircraft would go down, but the thing is. It’d have to be a remote controlling the timing and the impact. In honesty, I don’t think that whoever pressed the detonator meant to hit you and Emric.”

  “Why?” I stabbed my straw into my protein drink and twirled it around, watching Eikko examine his food.

  Orrie sighed, “because there was heavy fog along with it being nakti and the flash from the Eyno attack. There was no way that someone could have seen your Citlail before the two collided. It just so happens that whoever had the remote decided that it would be as good of a time as any to go ahead and push the detonator two seconds before impact.”

  “That’s how long it took?”

  “More or less,” Orrie was a genius when it came to determining trajectories, calculations, longitude and latitude, anything that had to do with complex problems. He was the man for the job. “Besides that, we have nothing else. I have Striklen working on finding out whatever the piloting computer heard or saw during the flight, but the motherboard is next to nothing.”

  “Of course, it is,” I rubbed my forehead again and closed my eyes, “let me know when you’ve got something else. Yeah?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he ended the communication and left me to my vices as he went back to tearing Eikko’s aircraft apart to find the culprit of the situation.

  Eikko throwing his fork down caused me to break my staring out the window and focus on him.

  “I can’t eat this,” he pointed at his tray, “this isn’t food. This is…a nightmare. Is there nothing else to eat?”

  I rolled my eyes, finishing my own meal in two sekundi and tossed the tray in the compact recycle compartment before pushing away from the table.

  “I’m sorry our delicacies aren’t to your liking but that’s all you’re going to get for another,” I checked my time piece, “eighteen sati.”

  “What?”

  I closed my eyes remembering that he wasn’t used to Padrieg dialect, “hours. Eighteen hours, Eikko. So, I suggest you eat now and stop complaining.”

  “Well the next meal should be better than this. What is it?” He smiled at me hopeful.

  Staring at his full tray I didn’t bother answering.

  “This!”

  “Yes,” I snapped.

  He threw himself back in the chair and stared at the ceiling, “you’ve got to be playing some kind of trick on me.”

  “I don’t like you enough to play any kind of trick on you.”

  He settled his rose-pink eyes on me, those iris flecks glowing in agitation, “that’s why you’re always so sharp. You’re starving. I can’t say I’d blame you,” he pushed his plate away in defiance, “I’d be pissy too if I were you.”

  Having had enough of his insults and ungratefulness towards the fact that I hadn’t downright killed him yet, I grabbed his plate tossing it into the recycling compartment and stabbed a finger in his face.

  “Now you have to wait for the next meal. Maybe if you’ll get hungry enough, you’ll learn to accept what is offered instead of being a jerk about it.” I spun on my training boot, grabbing my stuff from the hideaway hook, and marched for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to go to work, Eikko. Maybe you don’t know anything about it, thanks to your pampered lifestyle but people in Padrieg work in order to make a living and sitting here arguing with you isn’t going to take care of my responsibilities. Pleasant skies!”

  “Goodbye!” He hollered before I slammed the door on him.

  “Please refrain from damaging your domicile,” the holographic Parlan woman appeared.

  “Oh, shut up,” I snapped, marching to the main military base.

  “Pleasant skies,” she answered to my back.

  Calm. I needed to remain calm. This wasn’t how things were handled in Padrieg and I was beginning to let Eikko and his tantrums get under my skin. The best thing I could do at this point was find my inner peace and act as if everything were ok.

  Someone had purposefully set Eikko and Somsang up for failure and I needed to figure out why. The faster I found out the why and who behind the crash, the faster I could send Eikko back to where he came from and resume my life. I was moving up the ranks of the military quickly and I was not going to let some know nothing Parlan jerk ruin it for me.

  I just hoped as I rounded the corner to the military base that Emric was having better luck with Somsang than I was with Eikko.

  Chapter 4 Tag I’m It

  When I walked into the military base official headquarters everyone seemed as if they were losing their minds. Even the answering staff were looking more flustered than normal; officers from all shifts were speed walking or flat out running from one end of the building to the next. Ducking and skidding into lifts and passing documents.

  Frowning I flashed my station tags at the lone woman manning the front desk and slipped past the usual check points for security details.

  “Shaye!” I turned to face Kendrick coming toward me with a pinched look covering his normally serene face.

  I saluted him, falling in step beside him, “what’s going on?”

  He blew out a quick breath, “these Parlan men and the wreck have caused everyone to lose their rapid minds. You’d think that this was the first disaster Padrieg has ever had.”

  I raised a brow at him as I pulled my office door open, “isn’t it though? We’ve never had something like this hap
pen in the history of the society. At least not to my knowledge,” I sat my things down on my desk and waved my hand over my holographic database.

  He collapsed into a chair across from my desk, massaging his temples, “I’d assume you were right. Speaking of which, how’d it go sinoć?”

  It was my turn to blow out a raspberry and fall into my chair, “don’t get me started.”

  “That bad?”

  “Well, let’s see. He threw a tantrum about not being able to eat sinoć, this jutro it was a derma something or another. Then when he couldn’t do a facial, he refused to eat the food that was offered to him and then we got into a shouting match. Other than it was great.” I bit out the last of my explanation as I looked over the map and the current coordinates of where the Eynos where located.

  When I noticed that he wasn’t saying anything I glanced at him only to stop.

  “What?”

  “You managed to handle him and still come in danas,” he stared at me awestruck like I had grown a tail.

  Raising a brow at him, I stopped looking at the map and sat back in my chair.

  “What was I supposed to do? Call you and say I have a…a man child that doesn’t want to act like an adult and I can’t make it in?”

  A rare smile broke across his face as he steepled his fingers together, “he’s gotten under your skin.”

  I tossed my pen on my desk and drummed my fingers on my forehead, “he’s irritating, unreasonable, whiny, and just all around annoying. How is he not supposed to get under my skin?”

  Kendrick rubbed his chin and sighed, “ok Shaye.” He blew out another breath, “what’ve you found out?”

  Finally, we were off the subject of Eikko and how he may or may not have gotten under my skin. I let out a breath, sitting back into my chair and gave him the short version of what Orrie told me. When I was done with the explanation and had diverted my attention back to the map. If we could keep the Eynos pushed back to their territory, then maybe the war could become nothing more than a societal argument between opposing sides. Granted, it sounded simple enough, but if I’d learned anything from being in the military, I knew that the Eynos weren’t going to take too much more of being pushed around without some form of retaliation.

  Kendrick grumbled something under his breath before looking at me, “so, we have to put up with these guys for a few more tjedan.” He shrugged, “what’s the worse that can happen?”

  Slowly, I raised my eyes to meet his, “what’s the worse that can happen?” I stabbed my pen at him, “sir, you’re not dealing with him or Somsang, I am dealing with Eikko and Emric is dealing with Somsang. You don’t know what kind of kipu these two are causing us, especially Eikko. Did you not hear me when I told you about this jutro je event? He’s a nightmare and now you want me to just deal with him?”

  Kendrick clapped his hands together as if that were the end of the conversation, “yes, Shaye. I think it’ll do some good for our squadron as well as for you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, “what is that supposed to mean, sir?”

  “It means that you need to be somewhere else other than on the battlefield.”

  “I’m the best soldier you have, Kendrick!” I couldn’t believe where he was trying to take this conversation.

  I didn’t need time off the battlefield I needed to be there next to my brethren and taking out as many Eynos as my fire ability and wind slicing blades could manage. Not babysitting some over pampered, demigod looking, angel singing jerk from Parlan.

  He nodded, “you are, but Shaye.” He leveled his light orange eyes on me, “everyone needs a break from the killing and violence that happens in war. You’re not the exception to that.”

  I threw myself back into the seat and rubbed my forehead, “so what am I supposed to do? Sit back and watch everyone else be productive while I’m on desk duty?” My mood was quickly turning from bad to worse and this conversation was only making the train wreck that was my life become more difficult.

  Kendrick raked his fingers through his short hair, “that sounds as good as anything for the time being. Right now, we need to figure out who and why the Parlan aircraft crashed into you as well as why specifically they were flying in a war zone to begin with.”

  I closed my eyes, “fine.” Composing my temper and the flames that were slowly forming around my hand, I went back to examining the map and didn’t say anything else.

  “You’re mad at me,” he tilted his head, considering me.

  “No, I’m frustrated with the situation. There’s nothing I can do about it for the time being until I track down the person that decided to cause those two,” I flicked my hand at the door and rolled my eyes as I started mapping the coordinates, “to crash into my Citlail.”

  In a rare display of emotion, Kendrick smiled and stood from the chair, “I’ll let you know if we find out anything concrete.”

  I nodded bidding him a goodbye, as Eikko would say, and kept on mapping. There was no sense in continuing to argue with my commanding officer. After all, he had the final say so and so did the other ranking officials. However, that didn’t mean that I couldn’t be productive even if I were stuck behind the desk.

  When my jutro ended and all of the paperwork was done and gone with, I turned off my drone lights and locked my office. After Kendrick had left, officers of all rankings had come to me with questions, paperwork, and general conversation about Eikko, Somsang, and the crash. The one person that hadn’t come to my office was Emric.

  I detoured from going to my domicile unit and headed for the common dining arena. Emric wasn’t the type to stay at home or focus on his paperwork. If he wasn’t working on new weapons than he was eating; I nodded to several passing officers and narrowed my eyes at the dining booths.

  “You never come to the tables, what’s going on?” Emric stepped up beside me and smirked.

  I opened my mouth to say something when I caught sight of Somsang standing off to Emric’s side. The shorter man still looked nervous, taking in the scene before him.

  I grabbed Emric’s shirt, dragging him to the side, “how’s it going?”

  Emric’s sandstone eyes skirted over to the man in question, “he stayed on the derma therapy thing for three sati. What about yours?”

  I took a breath of relief, thankful that my friend was going through the same thing that I was with his own ward.

  “Same, but to top things off,” I nodded to another officer before turning my attention to him, “he refuses to eat.”

  Emric snorted, “maybe he’ll starve to death and then he won’t be a problem anymore.”

  “That’s not nice,” I slapped his chest, “if he dies then I’m in some deep sranje.”

  “True,” he rolled his eyes as Somsang sped walked over to us in fear, “I’ll see you later. Are you going to be at the training arena?”

  I nodded, bidding both men a pleasant skies and headed back to my domicile and waiting ward.

  “Welcome home, Captain Shaye,” the holographic Parlan woman appeared as she always did and smiled sweetly at me.

  Oddly, I didn’t panic when the silence of the domicile greeted me in response. Unfortunately, I had grounds to panic. After setting my things down in the hidden compartment and the smell hit me. I didn’t know if I should gag or moan; it was a mixture of roses and citrus something, all I knew at that moment was I couldn’t leave Eikko in my domicile by himself anymore.

  “Kangho!” The smell kept tickling my nose like a bad flower or something but made my insides calm from the day’s stressors.

  “What are you screaming about?” Eikko came out only to duck behind the wall when I shot a fire angel at him.

  My reaction was solely from not recognizing him, “what is on your face?” I had another fire angel dancing in the palm of my hand, ready to throw it at him, should he answer the wrong thing. The problem was, I didn’t know what the wrong answer was.

  “It’s called a detox mask, Ostana, it cleans out the pores and tightens
the skin. Why are you wound up so tight?” He peeked out from behind the wall at me and frowned, cracking his shell that covered his face.

  I let the flames diminish before tilting my head at him, “where did you get that?”

  Finally, he stepped out from behind the wall and dusted ashes off his black tee shirt. “I made it.”

  “From what?”

  “That so-called soap and the flowers from your window.”

  I glared at the now empty canister in front of my solitary window in the living room before turning burning eyes to him.