by Dan Oakley
“Yes,” Cartwright agreed. “There’s nothing we can do about it down here. We need Trella to contact the commander and organize the jump.”
The team began to talk amongst themselves, and only Trella and I stayed silent. Trella’s gaze met mine, and I knew we were thinking along the same lines.
Trella let them talk though. She let them have their say and discuss what we would do next.
When they’d come to a decision, Draylan acted as spokesperson. “We’ve decided the best thing is to initiate the jump, Trella. You’ll need to contact the commander and pretend everything is normal.”
The spiky-haired girl looked perplexed. Her glance followed each person when they spoke as she attempted to understand what was going on. She looked as confused as I felt.
Trella sighed. “Do you really think after all this the commander is going to let any of us step foot on the K.S. Morellic again?”
She looked around at the team members. It was horrible to see the realization dawn on their faces.
Trella continued, “He sent us here with the same worthless weapons as he’d assigned to them. He never intended for us to get out of here alive.”
A shocked silence followed Trella’s words.
Zarak was the first to recover. “No, you’re wrong. Use your crystals to contact him, or you won’t have to worry about the mute girl anymore. I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Be careful, Rookie,” Bayliss boomed. “You’re talking about mutiny. That’s a crime punishable by death according to the law of the Seven Kingdoms.”
“Who cares?” Zarak sneered. “If we stay here, I’m dead anyway. We all are.”
Draylan stepped forward, putting his body between Bayliss and Zarak. Bayliss looked like he’d enjoy beating some sense into Zarak.
“We need to stay calm,” Draylan said. “Threats won’t help anyone.”
The spiky-haired girl moved closer to me but kept her weapon lowered and didn’t seem as threatening now that she knew we weren’t immediately going to contact the commander.
Zarak clenched his fists, banging them on his thighs in frustration.
I was finding it hard to breathe. It was stiflingly hot, and the heat was only adding to my confusion.
I moved over to Trella. “Are you sure?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” she replied.
I could see her point, but there was still a great deal I didn’t understand. As a fully trained mage, Trella was a valuable commodity. Why would the commander be willing to lose her, especially if he only had one mage on the ship?
“How can the K.S. Morellic jump anywhere without you?” I asked.
Trella’s gaze met mine briefly and then she looked away. She was hiding something. There were things about the Morellic she didn’t want me to know.
“Trella isn’t the only mage on board, you fool,” Zarak said scathingly. “She’s just the only one who can be trusted to walk among us. The others were plotting against the commander.”
My eyes widened in surprise, but still, Trella refused to look at me. “Is that true?”
She nodded once.
“You told me you were the only mage on board!” I couldn’t hold back my anger. I’d trusted her, and she’d lied to me.
“You can hardly blame her,” Draylan said. “The Kingdoms wanted you trained, and there was only so much she could tell you. You’re not supposed to know about the other mages. Command didn’t want you getting any ideas.”
“But why couldn’t I know about the other mages?” None of this was making any sense.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you, Tomas. I tried to warn you that some of the mages in the Kingdoms had rebelled, but I didn’t mention the ones on our ship. It was forbidden.”
“Why did they rebel?”
“Because they think they’re better than us,” Zarak spat. “They think magic can help make the universe go round, and we can all live in some crazy utopia. The truth of the matter is, they’re lazy and don’t like following orders.”
Trella got up and walked away, leaving the crystals on the workbench.
“Where are you going?” Draylan called after her.
“I just need a moment,” she said and left the room without looking back.
I was starting to realize there was a lot I didn’t know about the Kingdoms. Spacemages may have been forbidden to practice magic on Terrano, but it seemed mages weren’t living a carefree life in the rest of the Kingdoms either.
“I don’t know why she didn’t just tell me,” I muttered.
We’d spent a lot of time training together, and it hurt to know she didn’t trust me.
“Because the commander held something over her,” Draylan explained. “One of the mages involved in the rebellion was Trella’s sister.”
Slack-jawed, I stared at him. “Trella’s sister is still on board the K.S. Morellic?”
Draylan nodded. “As far as we know… None of us have seen the mages since the uprising six months ago. There has been a Kingdom-wide crackdown. You must’ve felt some of the animosity on board?”
I nodded but didn’t confess that I thought it was me bringing out the worst in people. I’d figured my personality was flawed in some way as I was unable to make friends or get on well with others.
“Mages are powerful, Tomas, and people are scared,” Draylan said.
“So the K.S. Morellic can easily use the other mages to jump away? They don’t need Trella.”
Draylan nodded. “Yes, they can jump and leave us here.”
I pulled at the neck piece securing my headset. I couldn’t breathe.
“Here,” Draylan said, removing his headset quickly and handing it to me. “Use mine until you cool down and get your oxygen levels back up.”
I took the headset and then removed mine holding it out to him.
With the headset removed, I was able to smell the rotting bodies. Bile rose in my throat, and I tried not to gag.
I shoved on the headset over my damp hair and inhaled deeply, thankful the air inside the headset only smelled of rubber and plastic.
Draylan waited until I had taken a few more breaths then said, “Feeling better now?”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Zarak groaned. “There has to be a way out of this.”
But I was barely listening to Zarak. It had just dawned on me that the spiky-haired girl wore no protection and yet she appeared to be breathing easily.
“How come you don’t need any breathing equipment?” I asked the girl.
She didn’t reply but stared back at me.
“It could be that she’s been here a while,” Cartwright said. “I heard people living in the colony often went without headgear or cooling systems. They just cooled and purified the air in the buildings and that was enough.”
“So you think somehow she’s adapted to the environment,” Bayliss said, looking curiously at the spiky-haired girl.
She folded her arms over her chest and glared at us all. She didn’t like us treating her like a science specimen.
“Sorry,” I said. “How long have you been here?”
I was sure she understood my question, but she refused to answer.
“We need to decide what to do,” Draylan said. “But our most immediate problem is the lizards. We need to set up a base and protect ourselves.”
Bobby looked around at the bodies scattered on the floor. “It doesn’t look like this room is going to work out well as a base. The scientists weren’t able to protect themselves in here.”
“Yes, but we have Trella and Tomas.” Draylan smiled at me. “Don’t forget our rookie mage has obliterated a lizard too. We have more going for us than the scientists did, especially as Commander Taggert sent them here with a fake mage.”
The others looked at me doubtfully, and I can’t say I appreciated their lack of confidence, but I didn’t blame them.
“Okay, let’s find some things we can use as barricade
s or protection,” Bayliss said.
“We also know that the system is working somehow.” I looked at the spiky-haired girl. “She was able to access enough power to play us that recording.”
“Good point,” Draylan said. “See if you can work out what she did.”
I beckoned her over to me, and although she gripped the laser weapon a little tighter, she didn’t point it at me, and I took that as a good sign. Tentatively, she moved a little closer. I tried to communicate using hand signals and pointing at the keypad.
“Can you show me how you accessed the power? If we can get it working, we can turn on the air filtration as well as the locking and security systems. We could get the alarms back up and running…”
She shook her head stubbornly.
“We need to protect ourselves,” I insisted. “This doesn’t have anything to do with contacting the commander. This is to make our life easier here and now.”
She observed me, as though she was weighing up what I was telling her and deciding whether or not to trust me.
“Please, show me how to access the power. We could get the cooler working.”
She held up her hand and pinched her thumb and forefinger together. I took that to mean there wasn’t enough power to do the job.
Then she shrugged and moved closer and tapped a code into the keypad. I was paying attention, trying to memorize and understand what she was doing when I heard a call of alarm.
Bayliss led the charge, flinging his body against the door trying to close it.
My chest tightened. It was another lizard attack. We hadn’t even had a chance to prepare our defenses.
Cartwright joined Bayliss. Both big men strained to shut the door as Draylan desperately tried to pull over some heavy shelving to use as a barricade.
But the defense squad men stood no chance against the lizard.
Where was Trella when we needed her?
I pushed the spiky-haired girl behind me and tried to focus on my energy vibrations.
I just needed to do the same thing as before. How hard could it be? Blast it. I was angry enough. These flaming things were attacking us. It wasn’t even because they needed the food. They were doing it for fun.
I tried to draw on my anger at the horrible creatures as well as my fury at the commander leaving his sister to die and for tricking us to come to the planet.
I felt the familiar buzzing just as the lizard burst through the door, sending Bayliss flying backward and Cartwright stumbling over his own feet.
The creature let out a tremendous roar, which set my teeth on edge. Then it turned, focusing its amber eyes on me. In one leap it was almost on top of me. I sent out an energy bolt, bright, flashing from my hands, but it didn’t find its mark. It hit the lizard, but it was only a glancing blow off the creature’s shoulder.
Before I could regroup and try another attack. The lizard swung its giant meaty tail towards me. I raised my hands to try and protect my head, but the tip of its tail crashed against my headset and sent me hurtling across the room.
Everything went black.
Chapter 24
It was dark when I woke. How long had I been out?
I raised a hand to touch my aching head and was surprised when my fingers made contact with my face. Where was my headset?
Eyes loomed over me. Startled, I tried to scoot backward. The ache in my shoulder was excruciating. I must have hit it pretty hard when I fell. When my foggy brain started to work I realized the eyes weren’t the glowing amber eyes of a lizard, but the bright blue eyes of the girl with the spiky hair.
“Where am I? What happened?” My voice was croaky, and my throat was dry. I had so many questions, but I knew the girl wasn’t going to answer me.
A question pretty high up on my list was why I was no longer wearing my headset but felt pretty comfortable. It was cool in here, where ever we were...
Rather than answering me, the girl patted my arm and stood up. She seemed to disappear into blackness, and I felt a stab of fear. I didn’t like the idea of being left alone in this dark place.
A moment later, the lights came on. They didn’t generate the same startling whiteness as the lighting we had on the K.S. Morellic, and they weren’t even as bright as the electric lights we had at home on Terrano, but they glowed faintly and were just bright enough for me to make out the features of the room.
I pushed myself to a sitting position and looked around. The room was square, with a tiled floor. There were multiple screens on the walls, and a stockpile of weapons stacked up in one corner. I wasn’t lying on the floor as I’d first assumed but was lying on a very narrow, hard bed.
Pictures adorned the walls. There were some photographs and some images or stills from old-fashioned movies and TV shows. The wall opposite me was lined with shelves stacked with boxes of dried and preserved food and water as well as some fresh red fruit that I didn’t recognize.
I turned my attention back to the girl. “Is this where you’ve been living?”
She nodded.
“And you have power in here?”
She nodded again and this time held her thumb and forefinger together. I guessed she meant she didn’t have much power and only used it sparingly.
“If you weren’t part of the science expedition, where did you come from? How did you get to Tor?”
She hesitated for a moment and then walked over to the shelves, pulling out a file from behind one of the food boxes. She flicked through it and selected a small square piece of paper before walking back over to me and holding it out.
It was a printed image. A man and a woman with two little girls. They wore no headsets, but it looked like they were on Tor. The edge of the jungle was just in view, and they were standing outside the mining complex building. The building looked shiny and new and well maintained.
Both little girls had dark hair and bright blue eyes. They wore matching green dresses.
“Are you one of the little girls?”
She leaned forward and pointed to the girl on the left.
“So you were part of the original colony?”
She nodded.
“But the disaster was ten years ago... Have you been living here all that time?”
She nodded, and I stared at her in amazement. I’d heard about the evacuation on the broadcasts. Even on Terrano, the disaster at Tor had been big news. The evacuation had been rushed, but we’d been told that every soul was rescued and had survived after treatment for radiation poisoning.
If this girl was from the original colony, then the news reporting on the incident had gotten it wrong. Very wrong.
“Is there anyone else here with you?”
She shook her head sadly.
“What happened? How did you get left behind?”
She didn’t respond and avoided my gaze.
I swung my feet to the floor, intending to stand up, but my head swam, and I clutched the side of the hard mattress. “Where are the others?”
I hoped Trella had heard the commotion and come back to annihilate the lizard.
Again, she didn’t respond.
“Where is my headset? I need to go and help the rest of the team.”
She grabbed my headset from beneath the shelving and handed it to me. Although the air was cool in here, I knew I’d need my headset as soon as I left the spiky-haired girl’s sanctuary.
As I checked the headset for damage, I said, “I guess I should thank you for saving me. Without you, I would have been lizard chum. How did you bring me here anyway?”
She mimed a dragging motion.
I smiled. “Thank you. I don’t suppose you saw my friend Trella, she’s the woman with bright red hair?”
The girl shook her head.
“Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find her. Do you want to come with me?”
She shook her head firmly and walked over to the door. It was held in place by numerous metal bolts. It took her thirty seconds to release them all.
As soon as the door ope
ned, the hot, sticky air flooded over me, and I yanked on my headset. I was surprised when she reached out and firmly shook my hand. The headset muffled sound, but I could have sworn she’d mouthed the words good luck. Before I could say anything else, she shut the door on me.
Alone in the corridor, I looked around and tried to get my bearings. I turned up the sound setting on the headset but heard nothing. That was better than hearing screaming, or weapons being discharged I supposed.
I used my wrist device, which thankfully had escaped unscathed, to bring up a schematic of the building. I hadn’t used the program before but soon got the hang of it. Working my way back from the lobby, I identified the room where we found the scientists’ bodies and had been attacked by the lizard. That’s where I would start searching for the team. I just hoped the body count hadn’t increased.
As I began to walk, I tested out the comms system but only heard static. That either meant there was no one left to reply, or my headset had been damaged internally.
I used my wrist device to run diagnostics on the comms system. A message flashed up in my eye line, informing me the diagnostics would take two minutes to complete.
I switched on the reverse camera. Thankfully, that still worked. I didn’t want any of those scaly reptiles creeping up on me. I walked quickly but quietly along the narrow corridors until I reached the room of death.
There was no sign of any predators now. But I didn’t want to stay here any longer than I had to. For all I knew, the smell of the corpses could attract more lizards.
Just before I reached my destination, another message flashed up. The comms system was down, and the primary transmitter damaged. I tried to initiate a repair but didn’t hold out much hope it would work.
The rotting bodies of the scientists were still in the same positions on the floor. I guessed the lizards only enjoyed eating the soft, fresh meat. I clutched the handle of my ElectroLaser weapon, wishing we could take the time to bury the victims. It seemed so inhuman to leave them rotting like this. But all the time we were under attack, we had to watch our backs. Maybe we’d have time later to perform a mass burial.