Alien Queen

by F. E. Arliss

  Something caught her eye not far in the distance. Movement, slight movement to her right. Crawling out of the ship, Juls righted herself with some effort and began trudging in the direction she’d seen the movement. Trudging was the right word. The heat and gravitational pull kept her from lifting her feet in a normal step.

  Opening her senses to the planet around her, Juls was able to ascertain that it did indeed have many energies. They swirled and eddied around her in an exotic flow of patterns she’d never seen before. Following the direction of a stronger pattern that was in the general direction of the movement she had seen, Juls labored on.

  Topping a small rise, Juls could see the struggling movement ahead of her. Moving towards it, she was halted by a low, ominous-sounding growl. Moving to the side of a small rock formation surrounded by scrub-brush, Juls saw the source of the sound.

  It was some type of animal. Yellow eyes glowed up at her and the continuing low growl ended in a terrifyingly defiant sounding hiss. A large webbed paw swiped towards her, wicked looking claws extended.

  Now she could see why it had seemed to be crawling. Her ship must have damaged it in the crash landing. The hind legs of the creature seemed to be spilling a narrow trail of dark orange substance. At first she couldn't tell if it was blood or waste. But finally, after realizing the creature couldn’t stand, she sent out soothing energy and tried to edge a little closer. The large cat-like creature was about the size of a small mountain lion she’d seen in old Earth vids. It had a short, rough coat of smooth hair. Stripes adorned its legs. Sharp, dagger-like canine teeth parted to emit a low rumbling sound, which made it clear that whatever it was, it was angry. And in pain. Juls felt fully responsible for its pain. Clearly, her ship had injured the animal when it crash landed.

  Sinking onto the sand beside the grumpy beast, Juls began to communicate with energy. Sending healing energy and thoughts of contrition didn’t seem to help much, although it did stop growling and hissing quite so much. Everytime she moved, it started up again. Finally, the creature began to drag itself onward, eyeing Juls malevolently while it did so. Thinking perhaps she could soothe it enough that she could carry it, Juls crawled forward. She was rewarded with an angry, wicked-looking claw barely missing her nose.

  Ok, she’d try to help it …. or not. She let it crawl on, then she stumbled ahead trying to see why the animal was heading in this direction. Perhaps it had a den, and with a den usually came nearby water. That was supposing, of course, that anything on this hot marble was logical. To think it was might be illogical.

  In the distance she could see a small flat outcropping of rock. That was probably the creature’s destination. She trudged towards it hoping for shelter. Nothing. It just looked like a large pile of jagged stone with a flattish top. Beginning to circumnavigate the roughly layered formation, Juls stopped when she came around to the far side. Here there was a small overhang with shade beneath. She sat for a minute, enjoying being out of the broiling suns. Craning her neck to look beyond the formation, she made out a narrow shadow some twelve feet further along.

  Clawing her way to a standing position, Juls sucked on a torn fingernail and made her way along the rocks, supporting herself now with her hands against the face of the rock. Slowly sticking her head through the small slit in the side of the formation, she gasped. Not only was it a den, there was water. A shallow pool ran in a slender crescent moon shape at the base of the far wall. Crawling towards it, she stopped herself on the cusp of sticking her hand in it. Maybe it was poison.

  Falling onto her back, she gathered her energies and ran them around the perimeter of the space. No bones. No malevolent energy. Nothing stirred her usually sensitive neck hairs. The place smelled like dog. But that was about it. Probing her senses into the water, she felt no living creatures in its shallow depths. It was very clear and she could see the red sand bottom easily. It appeared to be water from the root of the rock formation. She hoped so.

  Gingerly, she stuck her pinky finger into the water. She figured that if one of her fingers had to shrivel off, she’d do best keeping the others. Nothing happened. Ok, no creatures, not acid. Smelled ok. So much for science, she needed to live. Cupping some in her hands, she drank. Good grief, it was delicious. Water, the essence of life. She’d found some. Yay for her!

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Cat

  Snorting, she stood and trudged back towards the wounded cat-beast. It was still weakly trying to drag itself onward. Kneeling next to it, Juls gave up on trying to make nice with her energies and said, “Look, Spitfire, you’re in need of help and I’m it. I’ll bet there are other things around here and I need to get you to water, get some things from the ship, and get back to your den before dark. So, either be nice while I help you or I forget it and leave you here to die a slow, painful death. I’m sorry my ship landed on you, but I couldn’t help it. I got shot by a bunch of ass hats who blew up my home.”

  At that thought, and letting the wave of grief roll over her, Juls slid sideways, slumped forward and had a good, long cry. Wiping snot from her nose onto her black leggings -- damn things were way too hot on this planet -- she looked back at the no-longer-hissing animal.

  It had laid its head down and was staring at her from slitted yellow eyes, its breathing shallow. “Well, wanna go get a drink of water?” Juls queried. Righting herself, she crawled around to his back and reached out to run one finger down his spine. A low hiss issued from its throat. Now Juls could see that it was a he.

  She stroked him again. One paw batted listlessly at her hand, claws retracted. “Ok, big guy, so you’re running out of steam. We better get you back to your den then. If you’re gonna die on me, you’ll want to do it at home. Everyone does. If they have a home that is,” she said, her voice cracking on that thought.

  Slowly, she slid one hand under his shoulder. A choking growl broke off mid-exertion and then sequed into a higher-pitched yowl of pain. Juls slid her other hand under the dragging hips and gathered the cat against her. No further protests emerged. Maybe he was unconscious, she thought. Nope, his lolling head turned towards her and teeth snapped inches from her shoulder.

  “Stop that!” Juls ordered him in a no-nonsense tone. “You’re going to have to put up with me for a night or two until I figure this out or you conk off on me. So, cut it out!” A low gurgling hiss was the only answer.

  Stumbling against the side of the rock formation, Juls twisted herself to protect the cat’s limp form and scraped her way inside the den once more. Juls swore loudly as a good long gouge dug into the skin of her back. Holy hell, she thought, being an Idolum queen was easy work back on Talio and Geboren. Mentally stressful at the beginning, sure, but this was physically stressful. She was going to have to toughen up to survive this and the coming war.

  Laying the cat down at the edge of the pool, she dripped water into his half-open, uncaring mouth. Slowly, he coughed, then revived enough to roll his head and shoulders into a more upright position. The move elicited a long moaning keen from his gut.

  “Sorry, buddy, Pain’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Juls agreed. Then cupped some water in her hands and held it under his chin. More engaged now in holding himself upright, the cat lowered his head, sniffed at her hands, emitted a continuous rolling growl and then began lapping at the water. Minutes passed. Each time he paused, the growl would begin again, then stop as he drank. Finally, lowering his head back down to the ground, he rolled his body onto the side again, and emitted another long hiss of pain.

  Juls stood, eyed him, and then turned to leave. The cat’s yellow eyes followed her. “I’ll be back. I need to get things from the ship.” A set of dusty brown eyelashed flicked. Satisfied that she’d done what she could for him, Juls shambled back to the ship. The heat was oppressive, and she could feel her energies humming with continual transfer as she worked to keep her strength flowing.

  At the ship, grabbing everything she could find, including the small crate, from the stash she’d brought from Ge
boren’s birthing chamber, Juls gathered it all up in the parachute material she pried from the emergency eject chamber. The trip dragging it behind her back to the den exhausted her emotionally. When she arrived back, the cat had managed to drag himself under a shelf on the side wall near the far end of the pool. From his cover, he growled at her and hissed.

  “Fine, be an asshole. It’s not like I’m not used to it,” Juls said to the cat, then went about laying out what she had: a large set of high-protein food packets -- not that she’d need those much, but maybe the cat could eat them; a laser pistol that she could charge off her own abilities; the parachute; and some water pods. She had no idea why she hadn’t gathered one of those pods before she stumbled out into the desert. Shock maybe, but stupidity either way.

  The planet’s double suns were setting and cold was beginning to creep into the dark recesses of the den. She’d better get herself situated for the night. Unwrapping one of the protein strips, she dipped it in the pool to reconstitute it and crawled over to the cat. Shoving it under his nose, she said, “Go ahead, eat it. It’s the only way you’ll be stronger.” Then crawled back to her side of the small cavern, wrapped the parachute around herself, wadded one end up for a pillow, gripped the laser pistol in the other hand, and settled in to keep watch.

  A few minutes later, she saw the cat sniff the protein strip, lick it delicately, then draw back in surprise. A few minutes more and he licked it again, hesitated, and then snagged it with one lethal claw and dragged it under the shelf growling. A few minutes of unmannered chewing ensued.

  Juls wasn’t sure when she fell asleep. It seemed like hours she had gripped the pistol, listening for any sound that denoted an intruder. But finally, wrapped in the parachute, she slept. When she woke, a weak light filtered into the den. She was warm ... no, downright hot. Slowly opening her eyes, she glanced around the den. The cat was gone.

  Moving one hand to her face to shove her hair out of the way, Juls felt a weight tugging at her wrist. It was the cat. He’d dragged himself into the parachute and was laid against the wall of her belly, out like a light. He was still breathing and terribly hot. She wondered if he had a fever. He seemed hotter than last night. Trying not to wake him, she reached for one of the water bags. Yellow eyes slitted open instantly.

  Moving slowly, Juls opened the top and gently lowered the pod to the ground in front of the wary cat. Squeezing the end of the bag, she forced a couple of drops of water out the end of the nozzle. His nose twitched, and he reluctantly licked at the drops. Juls squeezed some more, and the cat began to lick at the nozzle. She let him have his fill.

  When he fell back against her, Juls capped the water bottle and then slowly laid a hand on his twisted flank. She saw that the bleeding had stopped. Slowly, and with intense concentration, Juls lay beside him and began to channel energy into the muscled, stringy body at her side.

  Several hours passed. Finally, unable to stand being on her side anymore, Juls rolled onto her back and, using the parachute as a sling, hauled the cat onto her stomach. He’d hissed softly, then relaxed. Her efforts at healing him seemed to be working. He seemed more alert and was moving a bit more. Finally, strong enough to crawl out of her arms, he limped a few feet and excreted on the floor on shaking legs.

  Juls cleaned it up, pretty sure that if he hadn’t been so weak that wouldn’t have happened. The den was clean and had no sign of other waste. Letting him watch while she cleaned it up, she then sat down, cut some large pieces from the end of the parachute and fashioned a pleated sling in which to carry him. Putting the sling over her shoulder, she slowly approached, showed him the pouch at the bottom of the sling, and patted the inside of it with her hand.

  Juls slid her hands under his heavy body and lifted him slowly into the pouch. The cat growled and hissed the whole way. Finally, settled against her abdomen and chest, he stopped complaining. She set out to take a look at the damage to the small ship she landed in. A clearer picture of what needed to be done was mandatory. How she was going to find the parts, or grow the parts, remained to be seen. The cat was quiet through the trudge to the ship and back. She laid him on the sand while she spent an hour crawling around the ship in the suns. It was fixable. She felt confident that she could grow the part if she could just figure out how to hydrate the ship.

  The next few weeks were an experiment in roaming about the planet and watching the cat recover. Juls suspected that several internal organs had been damaged and maybe some bones broken. Hours of running her energy through his body and focusing on knitting tissues back together had resulted in a quickly recovering and slightly less grumpy cat.

  She was even sort of pleased with herself over it. Helping the cat had helped her keep her focus away from the losses she’d suffered. Once he recovered enough to begin roaming about on his own, Juls began exploring the planet in further and further excursions. She’d grown more accustomed to the gravity and after a few weeks had been able to begin energy repairs on the small sloop.

  It was in bad shape. Burn damage from the atmospheric entry was her primary concern. Bolstered by her success with the cat, Juls began focusing her attention piece by piece on the repairs for the sloop. She’d begun to haul water to the ship and empty it into a likely looking reservoir she’d found on the belly of the ship.

  Unlike the damaged sloop, Talio had simply repaired himself when she had boarded him in the knotted abyss. None of his systems had been damaged, he was just low on energy, having used his own to sustain the stasis pods. He’d been easily able to synthesize water from the atmosphere around him. Now, Juls did not have that luxury. The sloop was broken, and she had to direct and focus energy in a way that would affect repairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Caloon Speaks

  Meditating for a few hours every day, she began drawing on the vast amounts of data the helmet aboard Talio had downloaded into her brain. Before, she’d taken it for granted. Now she needed to use it, access it, and put that information into action.

  The planet seemed mostly empty. But she sensed huge stores of energy that moved and roiled beneath the surface. Juls thought it was perhaps other life forms and had begun to follow the cat on his daily excursions. Twice she’d seen him slip into a small hole in a distant rock formation. The hole had been too small for her to enter. Later, she’d heard his stomach digesting something and he’d had gas. While she was glad he’d found a food source since the ration packets were getting low, the gas definitely was not welcome. “No more of that, Cat! It makes you stink!” she informed him. He simply licked one lethal looking claw and ignored her.

  Juls knew that crash landing on this desert planet had given her the excuse she needed to retreat from life. For all the others knew, she was dead, although she suspected Freux and her offspring could sense that she was not. She needed to mourn the loss of their home on Geboren. She had to come to terms with her rage at the Intergalactic Guard and the traitorous Idolum that had taken their home from her. She still had Freux, her children -- her nest -- and she needed to get back to them. Protect them. Now, she also wanted to … no, needed to send a message to those that had harmed her family and home. Mess with me, mess with death. The past was behind her. They would never stop hounding those she loved until she forced their hand. Nothing stopped sentient beings better than fear. Sad, but true.

  The Intergalactic Guard hunted her out of fear. They feared the Idolums’ power. Now they feared her. The Idolum feared other nests having more power and the corruption of their ‘pure’ heritage, even if that meant killing each other and weakening their own empire. Such was the idiocy of the sentient struggle. Fear governed their every move. Juls had nothing to lose. Those things she loved had been threatened, some destroyed, and others remained in danger. She would not hesitate now to stop those who threatened them.

  As far as she could tell, the only way to stop those who would threaten her family was with the one thing they could understand. Fear. They needed to fear her. Now she had to find a w
ay to make that fear reality. Now she had to make them fear her wrath, more than they feared her power.

  Her ships were out there. Her allies were out there. The sloop was repaired. What she needed now was enough energy to get off this planet and a weapon formidable enough to instill fear deep in their souls. As far as Juls knew, she was the only weapon she had access to that could do that. It had to be her. She was the weapon. Now she just had to figure out how to arm herself.

  Finally, crawling over to the crate she’d found on Geboren in the birthing chamber, Juls placed her hand on the heavy lock and willed it to open. It didn’t. Ok….hmmmm. Calming her frustration, she let her mind drift back through all the things she’d learned. Keeping the thought of the crate and Queen Altum Vis in her mind as homing beacons, she let her thoughts swirl without effort. Only Vis and the crate kept her focus. Slowly ideas began to form. Information floated into her consciousness.

  The crate was Queen Altum Vis’ sceptre. Vis had rarely used it. She’d rarely needed it. It had been such a powerful focusing tool that Vis had kept it hidden away for fear it would fall into the wrong hands. It had been made for her out of metal from the Idolum home world, crafted in ancient forges deep beneath the rocks of that world, now gone in wars and infighting. It had no power except to focus and direct thought. It was an ancient magnifier of its bearer’s intent. If she could wake it, it was the key to her success. With it, her intentions could be hurled through time and space. She could power the sloop. Hell, she could power a world, or worlds, with the sceptre. To wake it, she had to charge it. She knew now how to open it.