by A. R. Knight
“You’re talking to a merchant and her thug,” Plake replies. “We’ve assaulted plenty of enemies, but not like this.”
“Usually it’s one or two, up real close,” Agra-Red adds.
“Then let Bas and I do most of the work,” Sax hisses. “Cover us. Keep your eyes open for anything we miss, and clean up anything we leave behind.”
“You’re making it sound real glamorous,” Agra-Red says.
“This has nothing to do with pride,” Bas says. “The only thing that matters is the mission.”
“Then I think we have a problem,” Plake says, her voice running up high with concern. “Because we’re not going to the right place.”
17 To Save A Species
Lan sets the course towards Kolas’ cruiser, the Nunilite, as we clear the last bits of the moon. Beyond Vimelia’s atmosphere, the gravity in our ship drops to zero, letting my black hair float around while T’Oli does work keeping me gripped to the floor.
“So we glide on home?” I ask the Oratus. “Then what?”
“Kolas will have the ship scanned for any Sevora before we’re allowed to leave it,” Lan replies. “Then, after some time to rest, I imagine you will be sent to Aspicis, to present your species to the Chorus.”
I suppose that was the original purpose of Lan’s mission.
To my left, the door splitting the bridge from the crowded rear of the ship slides open and I’m surprised to see Malo glide in, followed by Viera. The Charre warrior still looks ill, but he manages to give me a weak smile.
“Sorry,” Malo says. “It’s really crowded back there, and once everyone started floating...”
“And the vomit,” Viera adds. “If you think humans getting sick is bad, try a bunch of Flaum. It’s disgusting. All in their fur, and—”
“I guess I’ll stay up here then,” I cut off Viera before her descriptions send my own stomach tumbling and the two of them settle in against the side opposite me.
Viera nods towards Lan, sitting in the netting. “How’s the pilot doing?”
“Fine,” Lan hisses.
“She did well,” I say. “Didn’t panic at all.”
“It helps when you don’t fear death,” Malo says, and the warrior coughs out a half-hearted laugh.
“What?”
“Them. The Oratus. You’re not afraid of anything, are you?” Malo says to Lan. “Not like us, like humans.”
Lan turns a yellow-black eye towards Malo. “The only thing we fear, if you want to call it that, is losing our pair.”
Outside, we’re heading into the outskirts of the Vincere fleet. Open space fills in with smaller ships buzzing around, larger freighters and what must be battle-ready cruisers move past us, heading towards the ruin of Vimelia. Probably to make sure nothing survives Kolas’ plan.
“Humans are like that too,” I say. “With those we love.”
“I love these miners.” Viera gestures with the weapons in each of her hands. “Wouldn’t want to lose them, either. Can’t say I’m afraid about it though.”
“You’re terrible at these conversations,” Malo says to her.
“I choose to be terrible, Malo,” Viera replies. “Because it’s funny, and that’s how I cope with this madness.”
Lan, at least, gives Viera a slight hissing laugh for her trouble. The conversation ebbs and flows from there, with Malo giving us a rundown of his time on Vimelia after we jetted off-world and left him collapsed in the docking bay cavern.
At first, Malo woke without any idea of where he was, only that things were dark and the air smelled thick and rotting. His whole body was sore, and Malo couldn’t really move, so he sat there in the dark until he realized the smell was the same as the sewers we’d all been running through not long before. Malo figured if he was back there, then maybe he’d been taken by one of the Clarity’s Dawn members, and started trying to make noise.
“It’s tough to scream when your throat is dry and your lungs burn,” Malo says. “But I kind of growled out a call for help, and someone came.”
That someone turned out to be Rackt, a Vyphen member of Clarity’s Dawn, and Rackt said he was surprised that Malo still lived. Nobody knew how a human’s body worked. All they had were experiments, medical cream meant for scales or furry Flaum skin. But humans aren’t so special after all - or so Malo found out when he didn’t die.
“I stayed in the dark for a while, getting better,” Malo says. “I thought we’d won at first - Rackt said that you had made it away, and I was happy about that.”
The Sevora, though weren’t as thrilled with Malo and the rest of Clarity’s Dawn. They struck on what Malo thinks was the third day, hitting Clarity’s Dawn’s headquarters beneath the surface. They took some prisoners, the ones that didn’t fight back too hard, the ones who might still be useful as hosts. Others, like Rackt and Sapphrite, vanished in a hail of burning laserfire.
“By the time I realized what was happening, it was already too late,” Malo says. “I managed to get out of my chamber, and that was the end of it. They stunned me, and I’ve spent every day since then with these prisoners, waiting to see what the Sevora were going to do.”
By the time Malo finishes his story, Lan announces that we’re closing in on Kolas’ cruiser and the back edge of the fleet. With T’Oli loosening its grip on my feet, I manage to float my way over to Malo and wrap the warrior in a tight hug.
“We’re not leaving you behind again,” I say. “Promise.”
“Shouldn’t promise things you can’t control, Empress,” Malo says, but I think he’s joking, even if his eyes have a wary look to them.
He’s still recovering, still putting himself back together. I would be cautious too.
Gar’s roar surprises everyone. We’re in the final approach, and the crashing, hissing, pained noise comes out of still air. I jerk apart from Malo, just in time for Lan to push me out of the way as the Oratus streaks away from the net to the call of her pair. I try to look through the door, but Lan blocks it and when she’s through, the only thing I see is a roiling mass of chaos as the prisoners throw, cut, and bite at the Oratus.
“Are they insane?” I say. “What are they doing?”
“A case of the space crazies?” Viera says, and she pulls up her miners.
Speaking of, a pair of flashes blitz through the door, followed by another hissing roar, this time from Lan. More surprise, more pain.
“Viera, go,” I tell her. “Help them. I’ll hold the bridge with T’Oli and Malo.”
“You want me in that mess?” Viera eyes me. “I don’t know...”
“If Lan and Gar get hurt, Kolas might not let us back on board,” I reply.
Viera takes the hint, pushes off from the floor and heads through the entryway back into the ship’s main area. I tell T’Oli to follow her and keep a barrier between the bridge and the rest of the ship - the last thing we need is whoever’s causing the problem back there to get their claws or whatever they have on the flight stick.
“Empress,” Malo says, and I turn to see him drifting into the cockpit’s netting. “You might want to hold on to something.”
“What?”
Malo reaches, grabs the flight stick, and shoves it forward. The ship lurches down, away from our landing path with the Nunilite. The new velocity pushes me back against the wall, and I hear more frustrated hissing and a single, angry yelp from Viera.
“What are you doing?” I yell as Malo boosts the ship’s speed, faster and faster as we launch out beyond the end of the Vincere fleet.
“Saving my species, Kaishi,” Malo says. “What I tried to do on Earth. What I won’t fail to do now.”
“Sevora.” T’Oli slaps the word as I put it together.
“Ignos?” I say a name that I thought dead and gone. “You’re alive?”
“Barely,” Malo, no, Ignos says. The Sevora is sending Malo’s hands tapping away at a feverish pace. “Like your warrior here, I nearly died in your escape.”
“You crashed the tr
ansport shuttle yourself!” I shout. “You chose to come after us!”
“No, Kaishi,” Ignos replies. “I chose nothing - everything I’ve done has been forced upon me by the Vincere, by your Oratus friends. Do you think we wanted to escape our home like this?”
The prisoners. We’d never had a scan to search them for Sevora. Jel or Nasiya could have infected all of them. The thought makes me sick, but I push the nausea away. No time for that now. Instead, I press my legs against the wall, and push forward, flying towards the pilot’s netting.
“How many?” I ask as I head towards Malo, towards Ignos. “How many of them are Sevora?”
“Every last one,” Ignos says, and the Sevora doesn’t turn his head until I catch the netting. Then Malo’s face, twisted in a sad, steady stare, looks at me through the netting. “It’s the only time Nasiya and Jel ever agreed on a plan. One that would have failed utterly if you hadn’t come through for us.”
I try to get around the netting, but Ignos shakes Malo’s head. “Don’t try it, Kaishi. Touch me, and I’ll kill you.” With Malo’s right hand, Ignos brandishes a small, shining knife from beneath the ragged folds of his clothes. “I’m going to leap in a moment, before those Vincere fighters decide we’re not worth the risk. Find somewhere to strap yourself down.”
Ignos glances back at the monitors, and his right hand lets go of the knife, leaving it to float in space, to punch in a command. I start to let go, to drop back to the wall where I’d rode out the acceleration, then I pull myself around the netting, this time to Ignos’ right, reaching for the knife.
And catch an elbow in my stomach. It’s a hard hit, one that blows the air from my lungs and, with nothing to hold me, sends me floating back along the same way I’d been faking a moment earlier.
“The human body is not a bad one,” Ignos says, and now, outside, I can see the barest few flashes as the Vincere start shooting. I hope they hit us. “It takes some time to get hold of the nerves, but with Malo stuck in our facilities, and with my experience from your own body, we had that time.”
“You stole him.”
“Kaishi, don’t be naive. You are fighting for the survival of your species, like us.” Ignos taps one more green-outlined box on the right monitor and the ship’s alarms go off, announcing a short leap countdown. “Just because we’ve won, doesn’t mean you’re any better than we are.”
The hissing and roaring from behind us has died down, and I don’t hear any sarcastic remarks from Viera. T’Oli has its eyestalks split, one back into the mess, one towards us.
“They’re all stunned,” T’Oli says when I look its way. “They kept small, microstunners beneath their rags. Ingenious, really.”
No. A desperate attempt that only succeeded because I ignored all advice. Lan, Kolas, even Viera tried to warn me. I tried to do what Father would not, and because of that, I’ve lost everything.
The leap is both instant and long, a warping of everything I am that goes handily with the mind-wipe I’m going through. The back of Malo’s head, covered in scraggy black hair, seems to split into a dozen copies of itself that spill around a prism. I look left and instead of that side of the bridge, I see T’Oli spread out across the cosmos; an infinite expanse of cream blending with the stars.
Then the universe snaps back to itself and I’m there again, trapped with a bunch of my worst enemies. Outside, dead center in front of us, I can see a ship that’s definitely not part of the Vincere fleet: it’s huge, for one. Larger than Cobalt, though they share their round exterior.
“A seed ship,” T’Oli says from its spread position across the bridge’s sole doorway, though whether the Ooblot is telling me or whistling its own surprise I’m not sure.
“Where did you take us?” I ask Malo, pushing myself off the wall.
Part of me wants to go to the door, to check on Lan, Gar, and Viera. T’Oli says they’re stunned, a fate I think I’d share if I went that way. So instead, with Malo and Ignos still staring towards the front, out the windshield, I wave to T’Oli, tell the Ooblot, with my hand, to come over, and T’Oli complies.
“Deep space,” Ignos says. “Well off any charted course, near no habitable planets or points of interest. An ideal place to park the last sanctuary for our species.”
T’Oli wraps its cream self around my left arm, sharpening its edge into a blade. I glide towards Malo, a warrior that I’d given everything to save, one that I wanted desperately to be alive, and that desperation blinded me.
Time to fix that mistake.
“Kaishi,” Ignos says as I get close. “Don’t—”
The Sevora doesn’t finish. I stab forward with T’Oli, drive the diamond-hard point of the Ooblot towards my friend. But it’s hard getting momentum without weight, and instead of the decisive slice I’m hoping for, my stab barely gets through the net. Malo has plenty of time to wheel out of the way, to press his back against the windshield as my swing falls short.
“Put it down,” Ignos says, raising Malo’s hands, palms up, to me.
“No.” I slice the netting away. “You’ve betrayed me at every turn. Used me, like you’re using Malo now. I’ll never do what you say again.”
“Your friends will die if you kill me,” Ignos says, and there’s not an ounce of fear in its voice, even as I draw my arm back for another strike.
Ignos has no room to move this time, nowhere to send Malo’s body to get away from my Ooblot sword. Yet, I know why it’s not afraid. I know why it’s simply staring at me now, taking a slow, deep breath.
I can’t. I can’t kill Ignos if it means the rest of my friends will die.
“What happens now?” I say, keeping T’Oli level, ready. “What are you going to do?”
Ignos points towards the huge seed ship, towards the docking bay that’s opened up for our approach. “We’re going to begin again. The Sevora will grow, we will find a new home, and we will spread.”
“Until the Chorus finds you, and this whole process repeats itself.”
Ignos laughs. “As it has before, so it may again. We are learning, though, and the Amigga, I think, are beginning to lose their grip on the galaxy.”
“What do you mean?” T’Oli asks the question, pattering away from a patch between the eyestalks, up near my elbow. “The Chorus is as strong as ever.”
“Ooblot, you’ve been buried under Vimelia’s rock for too long. There’s a rot within your civilization, one that’s growing too fast for the Chorus to contain. Even if the Amigga survive this revolt, they won’t be strong enough to fight us.”
Seeing Ignos turn Malo into a gloating clown only makes me angry, and I push the sharp tip against Malo’s body, pinning Ignos to the windshield. Nowhere in Ignos’ plans was there anything for us, which means the only way out we have is the same way Malo’s taken; through the mind of a Sevora.
I’d rather die than let another one of those creatures into my head. Viera, Lan and Gar would too.
“Wait,” Ignos says, and now, at least, there’s a leak of fear in that voice. “Kaishi. We can make a deal here. A good one.”
“Make it, then,” I growl.
Outside, our ship drifts into a wide, blue-lit docking bay. It’s huge, and there’s a smattering of other craft around, but unlike every other bay I’ve been to, not a soul moves in it. There are no robots, no scurrying Flaum or any sign of life.
“I’m sure Nasiya and Jel will agree with me,” Ignos says. “If we promise you your lives. You, Viera, and this one. Malo. I will give him back to you.”
“What about me?” T’Oli says.
Ignos shrugs. “Go with them.”
“Gar and Lan?” I ask.
Now there’s hesitation as the ship settles to the ground, the whine of microjets coming in clear. As we land on the seed ship, I feel some slight gravity return, pressing my feet to the floor. If I had to swing now, the cut would be quick. Deadly.
“We can’t risk them getting away,” Ignos finally says. “They’ll head back to the Vincere and te
ll them what we’ve done.”
“I could do that too.”
“But you won’t,” Ignos replies. “Before you managed to figure out where, who to speak to, we’ll be gone. And if you betray us, then before too long, your precious Earth will see another Sevora seed, and another tribe will find their god. Only this time, I’ll have full control.”
My species for the Sevora. A trade.
There’s only one thing to do. One way to go.
“I agree.”
18 Inside the Walls
The drone shuttle’s bay doors are shut and there’s no windows to speak of, so the first glimpse Sax gets of where they’re going is after the ship lands with a thud on something distinctly metallic. The shuttle’s doors open with a whoosh. There’s a lot of loud shouting, orders for Plake and Agra-Red to drop their weapons.
From his squashed corner, Sax can only see a little, but what he gets is a deep blue metal enclosure, far different from the vine-wrapped spaces he’s seen elsewhere on this planet. He can’t make out the enemies, but they must be dangerous, as Plake drops her miner and Agra-Red ejects the power pack from its own fixed weapon. Both items are swept up by furry Flaum fingers as soon as they hit the floor.
Chances at surprise are few, so Sax and Bas wait, with the latter positioning herself so that she can curl off of Sax towards the shuttle’s doors, claws out and at the ready.
“Either you two leave now, slowly, or we melt the shuttle where it sits,” the voice is the mechanical whine of an Amigga. “We scanned the ship for heat sources on the way in. We know you’re in there.”
“This is the last time I trust anyone other than you,” Sax hisses to his pair.
“It’s just another adventure, Sax,” Bas says lightly, then climbs off of Sax and heads outside.
His muscles are still sore, so Sax takes a bit of time extricating himself from the shuttle’s cramped confines, but when the Oratus manages to get himself out into the chilly, northern air, the first view tells him why it’s dark: the camp’s on the very edge of Aspicis’ night line, with the white dwarf setting oh-so-slowly on the far horizon.