by Ethan Proud
X
Above the chaos, Gana and Utria surveyed the scene. The outlook was bleak, the goni would surely kill everyone in the lake and reach the close shore. But if the Shrikers retreated here, they would die of thirst before they reclaimed the lake.
“Is that Lago?” Utria pointed, and Gana followed the line between her index finger and the scout amid the roiling waters. The bright green spot of Lago’s hair was an obvious identifier, though bathed in the red light as he was, it only appeared lighter than the rest of his shock of black hair. He was out of the way of the monster’s mouth, but he was still in danger of being crushed by its wing.
“Yes,” was all Gana said. There was obviously no chance of them rescuing the man. “He will have to fend for himself.”
“Should we return to the surface or join the fray?” Utria asked, as she too, weighed their odds.
“Neither, just yet. No need to bolster the dead with our own bodies,” Gana said tactfully.
“Prudent.” Utria nodded and sank lower to the ground. To her amazement, the Shrikers on the shore broke rank and fled. Some brave souls remained, Kilo among them.
She tracked the deserters as they made for the surface. Their escape was cut off abruptly as they ran right into the convoy led by Aqi and Rhea. Utria didn’t need to hear the words that escaped from Rhea’s lips to feel her fury. Fleet emerged from whatever position of safety he had chosen to add his two cents.
Gana and Utria couldn’t hear what transpired between the absconders and the Shriker Leaders, but they knew it would be best if they were found at the lake with Kilo rather than hidden amongst the crags. Wordlessly, they stole down to the shore.
The scouts easily blended into the army while the defectors and the commoners arrived. Kilo and Jorgen broke away from the army to meet Rhea, Aqi, and Fleet. It was a bleak moment for the members of the Commanding Family and the Council of Warchiefs. The power was already shifting with the loss of Mertensia, Jana, and Dmetri.
“The Greylings have all fled. But we have that monster to contend with…and none of our men can get a good shot at it,” Kilo reported.
“Why can’t anyone get a shot off? It’s huge,” Fleet said sardonically.
“Our men are in the way,” Rhea observed. It was true, the goni was ninety percent submerged, any conceivable target blocked by the Shrikers frantically trying to swim away.
“So we just watch our men get eaten?” Jorgen said and winced as more screams pierced the air.
Rhea didn’t answer, but stared at him flatly. Her gaze wasn’t focused on him, however, and the gears were whirring behind her irises.
“We need to get the light generator up and running on the shore,” Rhea said before coughing up a bleb of phlegm and blood.
“What are you planning?” Aqi demanded, her tone not lost on the others. Not that they had been very discreet since the fall of the Wreckage.
“I’m going to kill their god.”
Chapter Forty
Amid the thrashing water, Lago did plenty of thrashing himself. The goni’s head was dangerously close to him, and though it hadn’t noticed him it nearly crushed him several times. Other than its massive red glowing frame, Lago could barely see anything else in the cavern. Between trying to breathe and only spluttering out water, his lungs were screaming. When he felt something solid bump into him he didn’t hesitate before latching on. The shape began to struggle and Lago realized it was one of his fellow soldiers. Regardless, he finally had purchase of oxygen and his survival was dependent on the man beneath him drowning. As luck would have it, an overturned boat floated by and Lago released the poor sodden warrior and lurched for the craft. Lago had barely heaved himself onto the keel of the boat with a sigh of exhaustion when from the opposite shore, the clang of a lever being pulled was the only warning before a blinding light engulfed the cavern.
X
“You can’t do this,” Aqi argued, but Rhea hardly looked at her. Soldiers were dying and she had a duty to protect them.
“Let her do it,” Fleet said, and Aqi’s hand snapped into the air in an order for silence.
“Someone has to do something,” Rhea said as she shouldered her rifle. She pulled her goggles over her face so she could see in the brightly illuminated cave, then bent over in a fit of coughs while Kilo, Fleet, Aqi, and Jorgen looked at her with concern.
Rhea turned to stalk down to the shore when Aqi grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around. Rhea expected her to protest further, but instead felt her lips pressed against her own. Aqi’s strong, lean arms wrapped around Rhea’s waist and pulled her close for a moment, before she pulled away and pushed Rhea towards her fate.
With a smile on her face, Rhea reached the shoreline. With her index and thumb pressed against her tongue, she let loose a piercing whistle. Despite being blinded, the gigantic goni began charging across the water, its blind eyes roving in all directions at no accord of what the other was doing. As it sped through the water, all in its path were crushed beneath its furious mass.
Calmly, Rhea flicked the safety off and rested her trigger finger right outside the guard. The beast wasn’t as close as she wanted it to be yet. She could feel her pulse pounding wildly in her throat, but her hands were steady and her mind still. What did she have to worry about? If she failed, she met her inevitable death. Ellie the Hydra was surely taking her vengeance via the hydrazine. Rhea found the thought oddly amusing. If she succeeded here, she saved the human race and the army could hasten to destroy the Greyling City.
The creature crossed the span of the lake in only a few seconds, though it had seemed like an eternity to Rhea. The beast stopped fifteen feet from her and reared its horrible head. Heat pits lined its mouth, each one easily the size of a human head. With this infrared sight, the goni had found the infidel that dared to stand before its might. With a deafening shriek, it cursed her existence before its maw sped towards her. With a gentle squeeze of the trigger, Rhea sent the bullet spinning towards the Greyling god. It tore through the soft palate, entered its cranial cavity, and failed to exit on the other side of the skull. Instead, it ricocheted an impossible number of times, scrambling the goni’s brain. The creature’s body suddenly went limp and its neck slapped the gravel next to Rhea a moment before its head crashed into the rocks with an empty thud. The Scout Warchief put another bullet in its brain for good measure. Suddenly, she felt exceedingly weak. Her limbs throbbed, her lungs were struggling to pull in enough air. Her kidneys ached, and she felt the burning of acid in her throat.
Woozily, she sat down on the goni’s dead head and felt the thundering applause of the Shrike Colonial Military as well as that of the citizens.
Slowly, the Shrikers stranded amongst the waves began to drag themselves from the water. Their clothes weighed pounds more than they had when dry and their bodies felt waterlogged, if that was possible. They shielded their eyes until they adjusted to the artificial sunlight filling the underworld.
Rhea swooned and before she fell over, Aqi swept her up in her arms like a child too tired to walk in from the car. Rhea smiled up at her, before she heard the padding noises of bare feet.
None of the Shrikers dared to utter even a breath as an innumerable host of Greylings filtered from every shadow imaginable. Now with the light generator, they could see the honeycombed pattern riddling the cave walls. Hundreds of the creatures came crawling from the rocky precipices, their numbers rivaling the Shrikers.
The Shrike Colonial Military took a deep breath in unison as they steadied themselves for the coming bloodshed. A still overtook the arena and neither side moved for several long moments. A single Greyling broke ranks. He wore a crackling cloak of chitinuous shells and his body was aglow with orange ichor offset by dark streaks of molla spores. The other Greylings stayed back, cowering from the light. Clearly this individual was their leader or representative of sorts.
Cautiously, he approached the corpse of the slaughtered god, but his eyes were focused on the woman who had come t
o the rescue of the soldier who killed the lake monster. Clearly, this woman wielded some power among her people. Aqi didn’t balk at his approach, though no other Shriker had the courage to move. Aqi met the creature’s gaze, even when he was less than a foot away from her face. Much to her surprise, he shed his cloak, draped it around her shoulders, and fell prostrate at her feet. At once, the entire population of Greylings lay down and accepted her into their pantheon. Aqi was now the Greyling Queen.
The creature at her feet turned his eyes upward, and Aqi saw in his eyes what he wanted. With a grim smile, she supplied her name.
The grotto became overwhelmed with the rhythmic chanting.
AQI. AQI. AQI.
Whether it was light or dark on the surface, it was the dawn of a new era on AE625.
Chapter Forty-One
Weeks later, Aqi and Rhea lounged in their new home. Rhea was beginning to recover now that she had a clean supply of water from the lake. The Greylings had housed them in one of the nine towers built around the shore. The only goni that had been seen in weeks had been Icharus. The Greylings doted upon him with daily gifts of molla, though it was nothing compared to the treatment Aqi and Rhea received. They were both adorned with jewels mined from the deep, though most of the rocks sparkled an opaque blackness that only deepened the dark around them. Their bodies were painted with the orange hemolymph. They were also fed a delicious meal that was chewier than the goni flesh had been and very rich in flavor and texture. It was undoubtedly flesh, though whether it belonged to Greyling sacrifices or sand dingoes hunted on the surface, it was impossible to tell due to the language barrier. Fleet had been sulking since the couple’s rise to power, though Kilo stopped by frequently and informed them on the progress of the Second Earth rescue mission. It was a mere week away. Salvation was at hand.
“How do you think we will be received on the Second Earth?” Aqi asked.
“Like prodigal sons,” Rhea answered. “They’ll slaughter the fattened calf and all will be happy.”
Aqi could tell she wasn’t serious.
“Is that how the Hydras were welcomed by us?” She mulled the thought over. No doubt they would be seen as uncouth pariahs, no matter the state of affairs on the Second Earth.
“You need to stop feeling guilty for the sins of the past Commanding Families. Besides, I believe the ruse was partially due to the Hydras who believed the spring was tainted by hydrazine,” Rhea said. It wasn’t meant to be comforting. It was an order.
“That doesn’t mean it was right to continue with the illusion. It caused us a lot of problems and I won’t blame the dead for the mistakes of the living,” Aqi argued lightly.
“Since when have you become a martyr?” Rhea laughed and traced Aqi’s jawline.
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Aqi said and bent down to kiss Rhea.
X
Across the camp, a discussion of a different kind was being held by the Hydras. They sat cross legged on the floor, passing around a few caps of molla. Taiga and Lepiro had allowed the skull paint to wash off, but Yuto and Deirde still donned the macabre masks.
Lepiro held up a cap of molla into the air and Icharus alighted on his arm and began feasting greedily. The other three stared enviously at the last living goni-human symbiosis.
“I think we should seek our revenge, before we are rescued and the chance is lost to us forever,” Deirde said, her eyes just as wild as the night she, Yuto, and Rio made the pact to leave. She had the strange sensation of déjà vu.
“The rescue is in a week or less,” Taiga argued. “Why jeopardize our chance at getting off this planet?”
“And how do you propose we get revenge?” Lepiro asked dryly. Clearly neither he nor Taiga would be joining in the crusade.
“Assassinating the Commanding Family,” Deirde said flatly.
Taiga and Lepiro turned to stare at her, before looking at Yuto. He wasn’t shocked by this, clearly the two had deliberated it beforehand.
“That won’t go over as easily as you think it will,” Lepiro warned.
“Ye of little faith,” Yuto hissed. “You are clearly opposed to the very thought of it. A model Hydra if there ever was one.”
“Excuse me?” Lepiro growled and tensed, but made no further move.
“Always pleased to serve the Original Settlement,” Yuto continued with a sneer. He would have said more but Deirde held up a hand for peace.
“That’s why we are asking for your assistance. It will be difficult with just the two of us. But the four of us could easily do it.”
“We will need to think about it,” Taiga answered, while Lepiro’s body language suggested he would do very little thinking. And if Yuto knew Taiga she had already made up her mind.
“Either you are in or you are out. It’s simple,” Deirde said sweetly. “We aren’t asking you to kill them, just help us.”
“I said we would need time to think about it,” Taiga ground out.
“In. Out.” Deirde gestured with her hands to illustrate her point.
“Out. But we won’t stand in your way,” Lepiro said, deciding right then and there.
“So be it. If you try to stop us, then you are our enemy,” Deirde said as she and Yuto rose and made to exit the dwelling.
“If we are questioned, we won’t lie for you. And we won’t sacrifice our safety for you.” Taiga stood and faced her husband and the woman who was going down a dangerous path with him.
“Then we part as enemies,” Yuto said, his voice empty but his eyes showing the betrayal he felt. He sidestepped her and exited the hut.
Stepping out into the dark reminded him of a lifetime ago, when he would rise before the sun and hunt for water and molla. Yet it could have only been a month or two since Hydra Seven had been destroyed. He felt the loss of Aileen deeply at that moment, not that he hadn’t been feeling it. He doubted she could survive on the Second Earth. For that matter, perhaps none of the Exos on AE625 would be adapted to whatever molecular differences the air held.
His feet made no noise and neither did Deirde’s as they stole between the buildings. They admired the rock gardens, molla ristras, and other ornamentation. They had never had the luxury of personalizing their collapsible tents, nor did they spend much time in one area. Anything more than the essentials was a waste of pack space and too heavy to consider bringing.
Other Shrikers were milling about in the streets, or sitting on stone benches, though they were always segregated by workers and soldiers. Very little interaction occurred between the Greylings and Shrikers, though the occasional interspecies gathering could be seen when one bold individual joined a group of the other species. So far the language barrier hadn’t been breached. It probably wouldn’t ever. Soon the Shrikers would leave the Greylings without a god—leaving nothing behind but a wrecked civilization. There would be no concern for another species beyond their own, but then again, hadn’t that always been the way? There was a reason they had to attempt to colonize other planets, fleeing their homeland for another world to destroy lightyears away.
The two hunters continued stalking through the city. The prey they sought now would be much easier than the elusive water they had spent their lives searching for. Sure enough, their first victim crossed their path with a courteous nod of his head. Kilo was headed to the surface, surely to communicate with the Second Earth ship sent to rescue them. In tow was Lago. Dierde and Yuto smirked devilishly. They vividly remembered being thrown to the ground and bound. This had just sweetened the deal. Deirde fantasized taking Lago’s other eye before killing him.
The Hydras lagged behind casually before trailing the Shrikers towards the surface. Once they reached the lake, they stopped and patiently waited for the boat to cross to the other side. They listened to the idle conversation, or at least the parts they could hear. It wasn’t very exciting. Finally, the grate of gravel on keel let them know their prey had reached the other side. They still waited, rather than letting the sound of paddles ruin the element of surpr
ise. The Shrikers had taken the guns back from the Hydras, and could easily defeat a noisome assailant before the threat had even gotten within striking distance.
When they were certain their quarries were out of earshot, they slipped into one of the boats and began the painstaking process of crossing the lake without making a sound. The Hydras took a great deal longer than Kilo and Lago, but at long last they gently touched land and began their pursuit to the surface.
Chapter Forty-Two
Gana and Utria sat post at the edge of the City Lake. What exactly they were supposed to be guarding, neither knew. In the weeks between Rhea achieving her Godslayer status and Aqi ascending as the new god, Gana had found time to mourn for his sister. Now he needed to make it to the Second Earth so her death wasn’t in vain. The grief was still too near for him to focus on such thoughts, but it was always in the back of his mind. Utria picked up a rock and skipped it across the surface.
After its last bounce, it sank gently beneath the waves, and another plop echoed eerily back to them.
“Do you think the gonis are extinct now?” Utria asked Gana.
“We haven’t even explored a worthwhile section of this planet. I’m sure there are more, and there are things we haven’t even begun to imagine here,” Gana answered, his eyes fixed on the vast expanse of water. It was mesmerizing. He would have loved to swim in it all day and never leave, much like the Greyling’s deity.
“I’m kind of sad we will be leaving this place forever,” Utria said and Gana fought back the urge to scoff. “It’s been our home for nearly a millennium, maybe it’s nothing compared to what’s waiting for us…but we never really appreciated it.”
