by Ethan Proud
Chapter Forty-Four
Tears dried, Aqi carried Rhea to the lake shore. None of the Shrikers had been able to get close to the woman, her Greyling guards made sure she had her space. Aqi reverently set Rhea’s now cold body in the bottom of a boat, filled with jewel-like insects and molla caps. The Greylings poured the spores into her mouth, presumably they would inoculate within the cavity and digest her slowly over many months. A few handfuls of sand from the surface were sprinkled over her body before the watercraft was pushed into the center of the lake. Whether or not the lake goni Rhea had met in battle had usually eaten the corpses of the dead, her body would remain unmolested until the natural process of decay rendered her detritus.
Aqi knew that the murderer or murderers were somewhere in the audience. The entire known sentient population of AE625 was gathered along the lake shore. However, the Greylings prevented any of the Shrikers getting a good view of the Shakespearian love story’s final act. Aqi clenched her jaw when she heard the murmurs begin to spread. She knew that Rhea would encourage her to get everyone off the planet. But until justice was brought down upon the conspirators, no one would be leaving the Greyling City.
With one final tear stained goodbye, Aqi pushed the boat out onto the water and watched as it listed slowly towards the center. She turned and marched back to the home she had shared with Rhea. It had been the first bed they ever openly shared and they had expected a lifetime of happiness now the old ways of the Wreckage had dissolved. That dream died in the same breath as the traditions had. Perhaps they had been too hasty. Had they waited until they were on the Second Earth, they would have been safe.
Aqi saw the Hydras clustered amongst the Shrikers. They stuck out like sore thumbs, especially the two wearing the death masks. Fitting, Aqi thought, all the Exos should have adorned themselves as such. It was only because of Rhea that they had won the Greyling War. Another thought raced through her mind. What if they had been told Rhea led the massacre of Seven?
Aqi’s face snapped back towards the misfits, but only two remained. Yuto and Deirde had disappeared somewhere in the crowd. Her suspicion deepened. She knew where to start the witch hunt now. But who had told them?
Fleet. Of course.
Aqi’s stride lengthened as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders. She still bore immeasurable grief, but now she had a purpose and an outlet for said grief. Before she started her hunt for the traitors, she needed to rest. Her heart was tired, and revenge was a task for the morning.
Taking the stairs one at a time, Aqi ascended to where Rhea had breathed her last. She collapsed on the floor and began to cry softly until she fell asleep. She was aware of two Greylings standing guard by her door. She cared not what they said or thought. She couldn’t know that the only disdain they felt was for whoever had caused their new deity pain. Obviously, it had been one of her own. The sacrifice had seen no purpose and was barbaric in their alien eyes. They continued to stare at the goddess on the floor and were touched by her humanity.
X
When Aqi woke next, she knew not whether it was day or night, a common theme underground. She saw the Martian Flares around her had begun to wilt. Their petals were soft and limp, and brown necrosis speckled the margins and the sepals. She lifted the glass terrarium case around it, and gingerly lifted it until it was level with her face. Its anthers drooped and its stamen had collapsed on itself. The flares all around the room were similarly failing, their bioluminescent quality in various stages of degradation. What caused their sudden demise was a mystery, though Aqi surmised that their fungal symbiont had perished due to malnutrition. The plants had been fed by molla hyphae and stunted the production of the fruiting body, but produced a molla spore inside the seed capsule when pollinated. It was a beautiful process, one that mirrored that of the humans and gonis’ symbiosis.
The clack of a booted heel on stone nearly made Aqi drop the Martian Flare on the ground. Instead, she tucked it back inside its terrarium and silently said a prayer for its recovery. She turned to face her intruder. None of the Exos were welcome in her quarters and none of the Greylings wore boots. For all she knew, it could be the assassins coming to finish their work.
Tension left her shoulders when she saw Fleet in the doorway. He stood their sheepishly, but still had purpose. If that was possible. He hadn’t had much of a purpose since they left the Wreckage.
“What do you want?” Aqi grated her teeth together.
“To simply talk,” Fleet said and splayed his hands in a gesture of neutrality.
“And what would we have to discuss?” Aqi said, no more polite than she had been when he first entered.
“Our people need to be led. We have lost Mertensia and Kilo. It is up to us to take the Shrikers home. We need to stick together during this time.” His words were laced with cunning. As hard as he tried, he could never sound truly genuine.
“They had leaders, you just weren’t one of them.”
Fleet balked at this, but kept his façade. “I have always shown our people how to survive. If it had not been for the four of us, they would have died long ago.”
“We simply followed the rules laid out by those before us. We were hardly radical or revolutionary. With the systems that were in place, any fool could have survived.” Aqi snorted humorously at Fleet’s delusions.
“Aqi,” he started sternly, “I am only trying to do what is best. Why won’t you lead at my side? Like we used to.” He smiled, and his eyes gleamed with desperation.
“I haven’t been interested in being at your side in over two years,” Aqi countered. “You had Mertensia and Kilo. You did not need a fourth.”
“Our ancestors always had a quartet of leaders.” Fleet’s eyes darkened and tears welled at their edges.
“Little good it did them. Rhea and I were content to simply belong to each other. We weren’t seeking to rule as Queens. I don’t see why you were so threatened,” Aqi said and sneered at Fleet’s weakness.
“Why do you hold our traditions in such contempt? Until you met Rhea, everything was perfect in your book.”
“Were you so jealous that you had to have the Hydras kill her?” Aqi said and seemed to grow two inches taller as wrath welled within her.
“I can’t believe you would be bold enough to insinuate something of that nature.” Fleet recoiled, his lip curled in disgust.
“I didn’t insinuate anything. And you didn’t deny it either.” Aqi took a dangerous step closer to her ex-lover.
“Only the guilty deny anything. You should know me better than to think me so callous,” Fleet said, faking a hurt expression.
“I know you all too well. You are scum. And you are the reason why Rhea is dead.” Aqi spat on Fleet’s face.
He flinched but didn’t retaliate. Instead, he seemed to sag as if his resolve had been crushed. “I loved you, Aqi. Not Kilo, not Mertensia. Well, not in the same way.” Tears streamed down his face.
“You are pathetic. You think murdering the woman I loved would make me fawn over you?” Aqi asked incredulously. The coals in her chest had been fanned by his admission and were now columns of red hot anger.
Drawn by the sound of arguing, the tower was full of Greylings. They crept up the stairwell and peered in at the two Exos. Silently, they slunk into the room, crouched and ready to spring at the slightest inclination from their queen.
Fleet took no notice of them. Instead, he continued to beg Aqi for forgiveness and her love. He groveled on the ground, on his knees he clawed at her pant leg, but she remained unmoved.
“Tell me you love me,” Aqi said, her face as cold as the stone they stood on.
“I love you Aqi. I’ve already told you this, I love you more than life itself. I would die if I couldn’t have you.” He made quite the convincing plea, but Aqi’s harsh features only hardened.
She scanned the room and surveyed the Greylings that had crowded in. There had to be at least twelve of them pressed against the wall, and she spotted just as many beyond
the threshold of the room.
“Then die you must,” Aqi said and Fleet looked up at her, initially terrified. Then angry. He opened his mouth to shout but Aqi held up a hand to stop him. She turned to the Greylings. “Kill him.”
Like a pride of lions, they closed in wordlessly. They dismembered him with their bare hands.
Aqi settled into a high-backed stone chair. She patted the armrest. She could get used to a throne like this. But one overlooking the lake. She counted the days in her head, while her minions watched her, blood dripping from their hands and mouths.
The Second Earth ship would be landing in four days. But nobody would be alive to meet it. If Rhea couldn’t travel with her to paradise then nobody would. The barbaric Shrikers didn’t deserve to be saved. Aqi had passed her judgment and the twelfth seal had been opened. Her wrath would be fit for the First Testament.
“Kill them all.”
The Greylings bowed their heads in understanding and stole from the room. The screams started before the last one had filtered from Aqi’s tower.
Chapter Forty-Five
Gana stood in shock as the Greylings poured from the tower like oil and began tearing into the Shrikers with abandon. He lifted his rifle and fired three blasts and three of the aliens dropped. He wondered how Aqi fared, had they torn her apart first now that the Godslayer had been murdered?
Next to him, Utria leveled the barrel of her own gun, before seeing the futility. “We need to regroup and take a defensible position. We will be slaughtered unless we take cover.”
Her companion nodded and together they took off at a light jog towards the last place they had seen Jorgen. The chaos around them deepened as more of the Greylings turned violent. They barely took three steps without pulling the trigger at least once. With each assailant killed, another two took their place. And with each Greyling killed, three Shrikers fell.
A blinding light pierced the darkness and the two scouts shielded their eyes with gloved hands. A hail of bullets surrounded them, and then the cave went silent. The light dimmed, to reveal Jorgen and a contingent of soldiers protecting Johan who was manning the generator.
“Gana, Utria. Good that you’ve made it. We need to round up all the survivors we can. If we get out of these tunnels, we can survive until the ship lands.” Jorgen peered around the buildings. The Greylings had fallen back, but their glowing eyes could still be seen peering from behind the huts. Their hatred was tangible.
“We need water to survive four days on the sands,” Utria cautioned. “We will need to take it before we flee.”
“And that’s precisely what we will do. We will set up a barricade at the edge of the tunnel to the surface, and send a squad to the lake,” Jorgen said in accordance with Utria.
“Which lake?” Johan asked, as he fiddled with the generator. Its power was surging, but it had not yet gone out.
“The one closest to the surface. The City Lake, we poison with these.” Jorgen smiled as he held up four canisters of hydrazine. They had been taken from the rovers. The visual claxon of yellow and black promised disastrous results.
“Serves these creatures right,” Gana said and spat on the ground. “Has anyone seen Kilo or Lago?”
“We found them dead on the surface. It’s not only Greylings we need to fear,” Jorgen said direly.
“The Hydras?” Utria hissed through her teeth.
“Not all of them,” Lepiro said as he and Taiga pushed past the crowd of soldiers.
Jorgen’s face tensed grimly. “If you see the ones with the face paint, kill on sight.”
“Not these, though?” Utria asked, her distaste for the nomads evident before she even opened her mouth. Her brows were knit together so tightly they nearly touched.
“No.” Jorgen was firm. “These two warned us of their kindred’s treachery. They will be rewarded for their loyalty.”
“What if this is part of their plan?” Utria asked, but Gana put a hand on her shoulder.
“The Greylings are our enemy now. We need to focus on the immediate threat.”
A silence fell over the group, and the clamor of hunting Greylings reached their ears.
“Not all of us are safe right now though,” Jorgen said and waved the group into motion.
They began to sweep through the streets. At the edge of the light, fleeing shadowy figures were in no short supply. The soldiers tried to block out the sounds of the aliens closing in behind them, but it was futile. How many of the beings were there? It seemed as though there were infinitely more Greylings than Shrikers. The surface and escape seemed further away with every passing minute.
Rounding a corner, they bore witness to a graphic murder. The light of the generator fell upon a group of six Greylings ravaging the corpses of four adult civilians, while children huddled in terror behind earthenware pots. Either the aliens hadn’t seen them yet, or they were simply toying with the young humans. Either way, it was sickening.
Teeth and claws were little match for the power of technology and all six of the beasts were rendered piles of flesh by many more bullets than necessary. Jorgen stepped forward and ushered the children to move, their little bodies shaking with fear or shock, their eyes wide and glassy. Jorgen scooped the littlest of them up and cradled him against his chest while he brandished his rifle in his free hand.
Several hours more of combing the streets yielded no more survivors. There had to be more though, seven hundred and sixty-four Shrikers had sojourned to The Source. Only forty-seven were in Jorgen’s unit, including the three children.
“We need to fall back to the tunnels, we can’t lose anyone we have right now. We need a volunteer to take the hydrazine to the lake though,” Jorgen ordered.
Nobody immediately volunteered. They had all witnessed Rhea’s deterioration after being exposed to the stuff.
Finally, one brave soul stepped forward.
“I’ll do it,” Utria offered.
“I’ll go with her,” Gana said quickly.
“No. We can only spare one soldier. She will be less likely to be discovered if she is alone.” Jorgen’s tone left little room for argument.
Gana tried, regardless. “You can’t be serious. She will need help.”
“I told you, no,” Jorgen reiterated before turning to Utria. “Thank you, we will wait for you.” He motioned for Drips to bring the hydrazine to her. Utria took it and slipped the containers into her pack and reshouldered it.
“See you on the surface.”
She didn’t wait for anyone to say goodbye. Instead, she darted into the nearest alley and cut a path towards the lake. The hydrazine containers made an imperceptible clinking within her pack.
The strange dialect of the AE625 natives reached her ears and she froze for only a moment before dipping behind some urns portraying the same craftsmanship as the ones the children had taken cover in. She turned her ear and attempted to eavesdrop on the aliens. Some of the words were a mockery of her own language, but others were completely indecipherable. The creatures passed, and Utria let out a long breath. When she inhaled again, a strange odor escaped the pottery and reached her nostrils. After hearing the Hydra’s description of the rituals, she refused to look inside the urns. Instead, she crept back into the alleyway.
After making sure the coast was clear, she crossed the main street. The cacophony of battle told her that the danger was not immediate, but it was close. She moved a little quicker, she didn’t want to get caught on the wrong side of the Greyling Army and be unable to reach the barricade. Knowing Jorgen and his zeal for efficiency, it wouldn’t be long until it was up.
Utria saw the sliver of reflection on the lake surface. The little bit of light from the scorpion-moths was all it needed to shimmer like glass. The gravel crunched under her boots as she crossed the shore. Aqi’s tower loomed some sixty feet to her left. She paid it no heed; for all she knew Aqi had been slaughtered within its confines.
Slinging her pack off her shoulder, Utria stooped to pull the first ca
nister free. She froze when she heard footsteps coming from behind her.
She whirled around and drew her pistol, but let it fall when she saw Aqi. “We thought you were dead!” Utria blew out a sigh of relief and holstered the weapon.
Aqi made no move, nor did she make any comment. A single line of fiery ichor had been drawn from one earlobe to the other, crossing her cheekbones and meeting on the bridge of her nose. Another line of orange blazed from her lower lip, past the hollow of her throat, and stopped at her breastbone. The only effects she wore that were Shriker in origin were tall boots and the poncho she often wore on the surface to shield her from the blistering sand. She wore several stone rings on her fingers, and a crown made of living molla. The hyphae intertwined, the usually microscopic roots transformed into a thick braid. Feeding the saprotrophs were the wings and shells of the impish insects.
Aqi lifted her hand cryptically, and before Utria could ask, Greylings rose from the water and yanked her backwards. Holding her limbs against her sides they shoved her thrashing body to the bottom of the lake. In a flurry of bubbles, all her breath left her. Her lungs burned, despite the cool liquid flooding them. Her panic rose in her throat and she felt as if she would puke, but the water filling her chest was relentless. Blackness took her and she ceased struggling.
The Greylings pulled Utria’s body from the lake several minutes later, to be certain she was dead. Her wide lifeless eyes stared at Aqi, though they saw nothing. The Queen of the Greylings turned and led her disciples towards the cavern mouth.
X
Behind the barricade, Gana paced. The Greylings had fallen back, but his mind was not on his own survival. His thoughts were consumed by Utria. If she had fallen, he would have lost everyone, Jana, Rhea, and Lago. He willed her to still be alive. He was similarly preoccupied when he spotted the striking figure cutting through the darkness.
