by L H Whitlock
“It takes a lot more than that to kill me,” Lily responded with a playful grin.
Rowan slammed his eight-fingered hands on the table. “This isn’t a joke. Golan’s army is growing stronger, and they are getting close.”
Her grin melted away. “The Varlies were possessed because of Golan. I know that is a truth. It spoke to me in my head, taunting me!”
Rowan released a heavy breath. “Yes, I read that in your report and I have a few people looking into it. If Golan is able to possess multiple beings and from a great distance away, he has grown tremendously in power.”
A flourish of goose bumps rushed up her arms and she shivered involuntarily. “Do you think he could be controlling one of us?”
Rowan’s eyes squinted in thought. “No, you said that the eyes turn yellow. We would have noticed this, but his power and range will only increase, who knows what he will be capable of.”
Lily rubbed her arms. “We need to stop this soon or we may never be able to.
Rowan fell silent for many moments, then, with a sigh said, “I’m only putting Chuck on the team so we get a fresh set of eyes. His specific mission is to flush out the mole. Help him in any way you can.”
Lily crossed her arm over her chest. “You have my word.”
26
Lily stared at the ceiling. Her body was sweaty and her skin itchy from the rough sheets on her bed. Continuing the ritual she had kept all night, she glanced at her RAB. There were still a few hours before the mission. Giving up on the hopeless venture of sleep, she pulled herself off the thin mattress and into a warm shower.
As she made her way to the landing dock, she scrolled through her RAB, but wasn’t able to get any details about the mission besides the backup rally points and plans if something went wrong.
Surprisingly, the dock’s lights were on and Gustavo was busy going through the pre-mission checklists.
“Morning,” Lily greeted, stretching her arms above her head.
“Hey. Sorry ya got demoted. Think they’ll put me in charge next?” Gustavo grinned and winked at her as he briefly looked up from his work. Dark bags hung under his red-rimmed eyes, and his wet, blond hair curled slowly as it dried.
Though the comment struck a little close to home, Lily gave an exasperated laugh. “You wish. Need any help?” She leaned against the rounded side of the fighter craft. The ships were designed to withstand insanely high pressures and temperatures. It had two long retractable wings and three jets around its body, with one positioned on the bottom. Breaking apart the chrome exterior was a display window where the pilot sat in front of a compact control display.
Gustavo grinned, his smile a little too wide on his squared chin. “I’m just finishing up. Honestly I’ve checked everything already, but I couldn’t sleep.” He held out a clipboard.
“You and me both,” Lily said leaning into the fighter to check that they had a suit, water, and emergency rations. “This one looks good.”
Gustavo rubbed his eyes and checked the sheet. “We don’t have to go over this again, really, it’s probably a waste of time.”
Lily briefly skimmed through the paperwork. Each box had multiple checkmarks next to it. She looked up at Gustavo. “You going to be okay to go with us?”
“Oh yeah, I’m just a little tired. I took a caffeine shot a little bit ago, it should kick in soon. I don’t want us to be a man short right now, not with everything that’s been going on.”
Lily spiraled her hair into a tight bun. “Thanks, Gustavo.”
“Well, now we have to deal with Chuck,” Gustavo sneered.
“He’s really not that bad.”
Gustavo stared at her hard. “Not that bad? That guys a royal dick, and annoying as hell.”
Lily snorted, she couldn’t disagree with that. The Captain was a hard ball, a stickler for the rules, and a very, very good fighter.
Chuck entered into the room, stretching his four arms in the air. His thick, gray tail twitched behind him, not his best features, but it gave him a distinctive advantage in combat. She had personal experience with said advantage and had been nearly strangled to death during a sparring match several years earlier. The memory sparked another of her and Gustavo sparring. The only other time she had lost.
“Chuck! It has been too long.” Lily clasped his forearm.
“Commander. Heard you could use an extra hand.” Chuck waved his four hands and bellowed with laughter.
Lily rolled her eyes. That joke had grown old years ago.
“Gustavo, let’s wrap that up. They checked the ships last night.” Chuck studied Gustavo with emerald green eyes.
“Better safe than being sucked through a hole and spewed out into a gas giant.” Gustavo smirked. Chuck’s obvious discord at his statement had Lily fighting to hide her laughter.
Brock strolled into the room. “Mornin’, baby girl.” He bent to kiss her forehead.
Lily ducked, pretending to check her ship. “Morning.”
Gloria entered the room followed by Alberta.
“Welcome everyone.” Chuck quickly filled the team in on their mission. “Alberta will fly to the new Home Ship. Once she is docked she will open a TIP and everyone will take the wormhole to Alvuntak. We need to drop an absorberator near the core. This is a new device created by our engineers to deflect a Harvest. If it works we may be able to save other planets. Golan has already deployed troops and the Harvest will begin in one rotation.” Chuck cleared his throat before continuing. “Gloria will be paired with Brock. Lily, Gustavo and I will fly separate.”
“Shouldn’t it be required that you can fly a fucking ship?” Brock grumbled, rolling his eyes.
Lily huffed. “Come on, Brock, don’t be an ass. Flying in space is very different then flying through a gas giant.”
Gloria smiled thankfully then placed her bag into Brock’s ship and took her seat behind him. The side of the ship closed, securing them safely inside. Once the rest of the team was in their ships, the dome to the dock opened and they took off.
There was very little effort required to fly and she barely felt a bump as they exited the atmosphere of base and entered the void. The team waited for Alberta to open the wormhole.
A bubble formed into the void of space, rippling and expanding the matter around it. The distorted image of Avuntak, a gas giant, filled the center.
No matter how many times Lily Tiped, the strangest part was not passing through the bulk, or the loss of control, it was the suddenness, the knowledge that they traveled hundreds of thousands of lightyears in just a few moments.
The ship rattled and their lights flickered as they passed through, then all was calm and serene. The gas giant Alvuntak filled the windows. Layers of red, pink, and orange circled the gas planet in frothy layers. Burgundy storms churned in the rapidly moving gas, twisting the gasses into an electric mixture. Chocolaty streaks slithered and wove, breaking apart the perfection of the layers.
“Listens up. This tricky. First layer fine. Pressure increase as you go lower. Watch out for the native’s homes, they like floating boulders,” Alberta instructed the group through the comm.
“Once we are in range we will drop the absorberator. We only have a few minutes within the kill zone.” Lily dove into the first layer of gas, the others followed in tight formation.
For a moment thick clouds obstructed their view in a red haze then they broke through the mist and entered into the uppermost layers of gas.
The large iceberg-shaped mountains that made up the Farwai’s homes swayed in the gentle breeze. The winged natives burrowed into the rock with their beaks, creating nests. They were primitive, just beginning to develop into an intelligent race, but that didn’t matter to Lily, all life was precious. The natives had been evacuated many rotations ago by another Renegade team when word got out that Golan was targeting the planet for Harvest.
Easily steering her ship around the swaying boulder, Lily plunged into a rougher layer.
“On your left,”
Gustavo warned.
Lily’s view screen showed that she was being flanked by two enemy ships. She swerved around a mountainous boulder. The ships followed, firing missiles. She tilted her ship and spiraled into the storm clouds below. Her attackers continued their pursuit.
Rumbles of thunder vibrated through her chest as she flew through the billowing clouds. The chocolate formations hung against the orange and red gases in ominous super cells. Swerving, she narrowly avoided the jagged fingers of red lightning. One of the pursuing enemy ships erupted with flame and plunged into the planet’s depths. Yanking the controls, Lily guided her ship between two floating mountains. The remaining attacker collided with the rock in a violent explosion.
Shots were fired. The missiles flew past the group colliding with a floating boulder, flinging debris through the air. Chuck pulled back to circle behind the enemy fighters and shot them down. The ships fell through layers of gas toward the planet’s unforgiving core.
Another squadron of fighters approached.
“Dive deep, they won’t be able to follow us into the lower levels, their ships can’t handle the pressure,” Chuck instructed through the comm.
Lily dove through several layers of gas. Her team followed.
As they approached the denser gasses they slowed their pace. Thick burgundy and chocolate clouds shielded their view of the metallic ocean below, hiding its splendor.
“We will be in the kill zone in ten minutes, Chuck will drop the absorberator then we get the hell out. Hopefully, Golan’s fleet does not realize we are coming out the other side.”
Heat seeped into the ship. Though she knew the ship was built to withstand these conditions, the idea of being crushed beneath hundreds of thousands of pounds of gravity was unnerving. Sweat dripped down the side of her face. Her fingers burned against the metal shift. Her heart pounded as she squinted to see through the dense fog.
Finally, they broke free of the thick, blinding gasses and dipped into an area just above a metallic hydrogen ocean. The clouds above blanketed the sky in thick gray dollops. Lightning struck the eerily still ocean, its electricity webbing out in jagged roots. Besides the cold glow of the metallic hydrogen ocean, the area was only lit when a streak of lightning broke free of the clouds above and reached into the shiny waters.
Pings from a deadly hail rattled the ship. Gloria’s gleeful laughs rang through the comm. Lily wished she had the same joy, but despite the diamond rains beauty, it was a deadly hazard and she couldn’t see past that. The stones glistened when the ship’s spotlights bounced off of them. The glittering rain ended in the liquid below, the gems floating momentarily on the surface before being pulled toward the core.
They needed to get out of the area before the storm that was causing the diamond rain reached them. Lily’s damp hair clung to the sides of her face. Salt burned her eyes and she wiped a hand across her sweaty forehead.
“Dispensing in 5…4...” Somehow Chuck had gotten ahead of her and she watched as the absorberator dropped from a latch in the bottom of this ship. The small box hit the liquid below, the gravity and pressure was so intense it didn’t even cause a ripple.
They pulled up out of the kill zone and focused on flying through the layers of clouds and to the other side of the planet. It was a lengthy process but it was much safer than going back the way they came.
Her ship shook as she steered upwards, the vibrations making it hard for her to keep hold of the shift. A ding on her dash pulled her attention away from her ascent. The gauges blinked, showing that her oxygen level was declining rapidly. She had only a few minutes before she would suffocate.
Using her RAB, she sent a private call to Chuck. “I am losing oxygen.” She tried to remain calm but was betrayed by the squeak in her voice.
“What are your levels?”
“Ten percent.”
There was a brief pause. “How long will that last?”
Lily glanced at the rapidly declining meter. “Five minutes, maybe, there seems to be a leak.”
“We need to get you out of there. How do you feel about jumping ship?”
“Are you fucking crazy? I am not jumping ship. I would be killed.”
“Yeah, you’re right. We are still far too deep to attempt that. Do you have any oxygen masks or a suit?”
“Yes, we do.” Lily placed her ship on autopilot and pulled the cushion off her seat. Sitting inside the compartment was a gray colored suit, an oxygen tank and a mask. She put it on. The large suit hung four inches past her fingertips, the extra material around her legs making it hard to move. “I should be okay until we get to Alberta.”
“You all right?” Chuck’s voice came through her RAB.
She swerved to avoid a collision with an oncoming boulder. “Yeah.”
“Who serviced the ship?” Chuck demanded.
“We always check the systems before the missions.”
“Who.”
“Well, Gustavo checked them this morning, but you said someone else checked them last night—“
“Gustavo? That son of a bitch,” Chuck hissed.
“It’s not like that. He checked them many times, he always does. I was there this morning, how would he know which ship I was going to choose? These things sometimes just happen.” Lily argued through the swell in her throat.
“You defend him? You guys were competing for the commanding position and you know he has it out for you.”
“He does not! Sure, we don’t really get along all the time, but we are teammates and have worked without incident—“
“If you were without incident then Rowan wouldn’t have called me in to watch you guys.”
Lily bit her lip and clenched her hands. “Chuck…Chuck.” Lily glanced out the window and glared at the ship that housed their temporary commander. “Damnit Chuck, we aren’t done talking.”
Silence filled the other end of the RAB. Lily gripped the wheel. Her heart was in the pit of her stomach and she felt dizzy with anxiety. This wasn’t right; Gustavo would never have put any of them in danger, not on purpose.
The Home Ship blended with the darkness of space. No lights shone from the outside and no radio waves emitted from the vessel. It hung in absolute silence. Strategic, Lily thought, but then again Alberta always was.
Lily tried to listen to the lighthearted conversation that the team was having through the comm, but it was all just noise to her ears.
27
The moment the dock re-pressurized, Chuck jumped from his seat and pounded on Gustavo’s ship. “Open the door you piece of shit! You’re under arrest!”
Lily scrambled out of her ship and sprinted after Chuck. “Calm down. He did not do anything!”
“Didn’t do anything?” Chuck spun on his heel to face her. “He purposely damaged your ship. He could have killed you!” Chuck’s nostrils flared, his tail twitched in midair. “Him not opening the door only proves this!”
Gustavo pressed his palms against the window and shouted. Only a muffled sentence made it through but she couldn’t make out what he said.
Brock strode up. “Don’t take this out on El. She’s just tryin’ to be fair. What the hell happened?”
“I’ll tell you what the hell happened,” Chuck spat. “Gustavo damaged Lily’s oxygen reserves knowing that she would run out and die.” Chuck pounded on Gustavo’s ship.
Brock scratched the side of his beard. “Gustavo? You sure?”
“Come on, Gustavo wouldn’t do that to us.” Gloria crossed her arms.
“Despite what you guys think, if Gustavo does not open this damn door right this instant I will blow it up and send all of you to jail!” Chuck snapped. “How can you defend him when it’s so blatant?”
Lily patted the air in front of her, trying to calm the man down. “Let’s calm down and figure out what happened—“
Chuck slammed his fist against the ship. “This is your last warning.”
“Take it easy. The door won’t open if you bang on it,” Gloria said.
>
“Well, then what do you suggest,” Chuck sneered.
Gloria’s fuchsia-penciled eyebrows arched and a sideways grin pulled at her aqua-colored lips. She flicked her hair over her shoulder then pressed a button on the side of the door and a compartment opened, revealing a lever. Gloria grabbed the lever and pulled while turning the handle at the same time. The door popped open.
Gustavo scurried to the opposite side of the ship. “Get him away from me. Whatever you think I did, I didn’t do.”
“If you weren’t guilty then you would have opened the door. You’re under arrest.” Chuck lunged, grabbed Gustavo’s collar and yanked him from the ship. Gustavo tumbled to the ground.
“Chuck, be careful!” Gloria screeched.
Chuck flipped Gustavo onto his stomach and wedged a knee between his shoulder-blades. “You’re under arrest for attempted homicide and treason, I’m sure.”
“Homicide?” Gustavo flailed on the ground, his gaze meeting Lily’s. “I didn’t do anything! I promise—ow dammit! Don’t I have a right to say anything?” Gustavo growled as Chuck secured his hands behind his back with electro-cuffs. The cuffs sparked as Gustavo struggled to get free, causing him to cry out in pain as a zap of electricity raced through his hands.
“Not when you purposely damage someone’s ship,” Chuck snarled. “Get the fuck up you piece of shit.” Chuck grabbed Gustavo’s arm and yanked him to his feet. Gustavo’s usually combed hair was a tangled, golden nest, his clothes untucked and a raspberry on his elbow shined bright red against his fake tan.
“Lily, Brock, I didn’t do this. You know me—ow!”
“We know Gustavo, we’ll find out what happened.” Brock promised as he marched after Chuck.
“Gustavo…” Lily shouted, unsure what else to say.
“That’s enough from you two. You will cooperate or I will arrest all of you. Let’s go,” Chuck ordered while pushing Gustavo into a transportation ship.
Lily stared after them, her eyes narrowed and fists trembling at her side.
