by Jack Archer
Kyran said nothing, flipping his head to stare at the ground.
“We still have a few loyal Sustri on our side,” Ji’lan went on, the fire in his eyes dying down. “But with the destruction of our farms, I cannot turn a blind eye any longer to the threat they present us. We are fighting two enemies now. Our food is our lifeblood. Without it, they have effectively crippled us.”
“It’s just the Sustri on Yimesotwa, not all of them,” Enzo said, swiping through his tablet. Na’gya craned his neck to see dozens of articles about Sustri support for the Ya’ados back on Glasport 2 and Braluria, their homeworld. “The word is getting out about your struggle, and the Sustri are angry with the Horoth as well. Let us look into this for you. We have the resources.”
It was the first time Na’gya had seen Enzo volunteer to help his cause, and it touched him.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” Na’gya admitted, scratching the back of his head.
“Chure,” Ji’lan said from his chair.
Na’gya blinked. “Sorry?”
Ji’lan rose from his chair and beckoned for Na’gya to follow him to a large map of Yimesotwa on the wall. The rest of the crew stood behind him, watching closely. Ji’lan pointed to a bubble on the west side of the continent. “This is Chure, the planet’s industrial bubble. It is here the Horoth’s have the most control.”
He moved his finger slightly west of Chure to a large X and tapped on it. “This is where we believe the Horoth’s command their troops from. There are many secret goings-on here. If we can leverage a foothold in this base, I believe we will be one large step closer to overthrowing the Horoth hold on Yimesotwa.”
“Why haven’t you been there before?” Na’gya asked as Ji’lan removed his finger and crossed the room again.
“We have not been able to spare the resources,” Ji’lan admitted. “Every time we get close, something or another pops up, and we must divert. I’m hoping you all will be able to assist me with this.”
“We can go,” Na’gya said with a nod.
“Not all of us,” Kyran said, turning to Ji’lan. “I’m going to prove you do have Sustri support at your back.”
Ji’lan raised an eyebrow at Kyran, but a grin picked at the corner of his mouth. “And how do you plan on doing that?”
Kyran narrowed his eyes and placed a hand on a hip, tapping his foot and thinking for a moment. “Enzo, are you going with Na’gya?”
“Oksïf,” Enzo replied. Kyran nodded and turned to Shea.
“Shea, you and I are going hunting for the remains of the Sustri government around here, wherever they are,” he said before pointing to Rystar. “You can come with me or head out with Na’gya and Enzo, your choice, but I’m sure Na’gya would appreciate the extra firepower.”
Rystar nodded and approached Na’gya. “I’ll go with you and Enzo.”
“I appreciate it,” Na’gya said lightly.
The crew began to file out of the room, but Ji’lan stood up and caught Na’gya by the arm before he could leave. “Nalb, stay with me for a moment and talk.”
“Of course,” Na’gya said, waving Rystar away when she turned to look at him. She shut the door, and Na’gya and Ji’lan were plunged into silence except for the tapping coming from the couch from Lo’varth. “What did you want to speak about?”
“I want to know more about you,” Ji’lan said, crossing the room to the small cabinets and bringing down a bottle and two glasses. “Being the son of royalty, it intrigues me to know that you left the safe life for something like this.”
‘Something like this’ Na’gya translated to mean ‘horrible death sentence,’ but chuckled anyway, taking the glass from Ji’lan and smirking. “I felt that I couldn’t sit around anymore. The deaths of my brethren were too much for me to bear.”
“I heard of the massacre on Bufefu,” Ji’lan said, putting the bottle down and taking a sip of his drink. “Was that something you were involved in?”
Na’gya’s heart jolted, but he nodded, setting his drink down on the counter. “Yes, me and Ritora. She was the brains, but the Terrans were one step ahead of us.”
“Aren’t they always?” Ji’lan said with a snort, holding his glass up in solidarity.
“They seem to be,” Na’gya agreed, holding his own up and taking a sip.
They sat in silence for a moment, nursing their drinks and becoming lost in their respective thoughts. Finally, Na’gya spoke. “Do you really expect to wrestle Yimesotwa back from the hands of the Horoths?”
Ji’lan said nothing, taking another sip of his drink and looking over at Lo’varth, taking a deep sigh. “I do not expect to take them over so easily. I expect many casualties, many losses. The farms and the industrial side may be easy, but the Horoth have such a strong hold of Sluirossi, even I admit there is no simple way to gain control back.”
“And you really think the Sustri are behind the bombings?” Na’gya asked.
“I do not see another scenario,” Ji’lan said, sighing and taking another sip of his drink. Na’gya cast his eyes to the maps on the walls, the countless hours Ji’lan put into helping his people and gaining no traction. Na’gya vowed to assist Ji’lan any way he could, even if it meant he had to stay on Yimesotwa for months or even years.
The Hoop could wait.
“We will be ready to infiltrate the Chure base tomorrow,” Na’gya said, draining his drink.
“I have faith in you and your crew,” Ji’lan said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Of course,” Na’gya said, setting his empty glass down. He exited the room and headed out into the nearly empty dining hall and through the winding maze. He caught up with the crew near the entrance and waved them on out of the building.
“What did Ji’lan want?” Rystar asked him as they walked down the hallway towards the elevators.
“Just wanted to know a little bit of my background,” Na’gya answered. “What I did on Bufefu, what I did before that.”
“And what did you do before Bufefu?” Rystar asked.
“Little bit of research,” Na’gya replied, remembering his time in the snow and thicket of trees. He missed the simplicity of the time and wished he could go back to it. But he looked down at Rystar, the way she smiled at him with those deep, green eyes, and couldn’t for the life of him wish he were anywhere else.
Chapter Five
Rystar Umara: Outskirts of Chure, Yimesotwa
They had taken the rest of the day to gather their things and create a plan to infiltrate the Chure base just outside of the bubble. Kyran and Shea had taken up residence in the corner of the dining hall, heads together and mumbling to themselves about different factions of Sustri around Sluirossi. Rystar wondered just how close they had gotten.
She, Na’gya, and Enzo had set up shop in the center of the dining room, pouring over maps and trajectories of where they were heading. There did indeed seem to be a base next to the Chure bubble, but it was ten miles away, and in the snow, that would be hell to traverse.
“With our suits, it should be an easy walk,” Rystar said, trying to not think about roughly two and a half hours of trudging through possibly the worse blizzard she had ever seen in a bulky snowsuit.
“An easy walk?” Enzo huffed, pulling his hair up into a bun. “There’s a reason the cities are in bubbles. We’ll need more than just our snowsuits. We’ll need our spacesuits on underneath them. Yimesotwa is a Level 1 hazard planet.”
“There better be a shitload of uranium on this rock,” Rystar muttered, fixing her attention on the map again.
Eventually, they settled on breaking into the side of the base and hooking into the main network to download any information they could from the base. Na’gya stretched greatly and stood up from the table, bidding them good night and heading to the elevators. Soon, Shea and Kyran did the same, and Rystar found herself alone with Enzo at the table.
He swiped through his tablet, seemingly unaware they were alone, and Rystar cleared her throat. Enzo
glanced up at her, then around the room. “Where’d everyone go?”
“To bed,” Rystar said with a shrug. “I suppose it’s getting late.”
Enzo hummed, setting his tablet down and stretching, pulling the tie from his hair and letting waves of onyx hair tumble down his shoulders. Rystar sighed and juggled her feelings again, this time landing on Enzo and his burning amber eyes. They looked to her now, and he smiled, something Enzo didn’t do very often.
“Feeling okay about tomorrow?” he asked.
“I’m apprehensive,” Rystar said, chuckling and setting her arms on the table. she brought out her Cortijet and took a couple of puffs before putting it away and sighing. “Why can’t we just break into their network from here, again?”
“It’s completely air gapped,” Enzo said.
“I thought you said nothing was completely air gapped,” Rystar pointed out, narrowing her eyes at him. “And I’m not entirely sure what ‘air gapped’ means.”
Enzo let out a small laugh and yawned before setting his elbows on the table. “A network is usually connected to everything, right? There has to be at least one way out for it to connect to the outside world. Take this ship, for example. It has its own, closed, internal network that talks to everywhere in the ship, and one egress point that allows it to talk to the outside world.”
“Okay, I get that,” Rystar said, nodding and picturing it in her head. The whole networking and cyber thing never resonated with her. She preferred to just let it do its job and not look into it any further.
“Well, this base has no egress point at all,” Enzo continued, raising an eyebrow and letting Rystar consider the implications of that. She frowned.
“So how do they get that information to the outside world?” she asked.
“I assume using physical devices, like our tablets or an external drive,” Enzo replied. “They put the information from the base onto their physical device, then deliver it back to wherever it needs to go.”
“Seems fussy,” Rystar said, crinkling her nose. Enzo laughed and ran a hand through his hair.
“It’s incredibly secure,” he said, tilting his head and gazing at her. She returned his stare for a moment, wondering where they stood. He was hard to judge, and she found herself going back and forth on whether he was interested in her or not. He took a deep breath and looked down at the table. “So where do you and Shea stand on this whole Kyran thing?”
Rystar’s eyebrows shot up into her hair, and she smiled, not wondering anymore. “Shea has welcomed Kyran into the fold. And is open to others. Why?”
Enzo scratched his stubble and flicked his eyes up to Rystar for a moment, a smile playing at his lips. His foot tapped at the ground, and she grinned back, eager to find out where this was going. “If time permits… we should get a drink when this is over.”
“When which part is over?” Rystar asked, leaning forward. “Because this could last a long time, and I’m not a very patient person.”
Enzo’s grin became wider, and he stood up from the table, Rystar following suit. He walked around to face her and slipped their hands together, bending down, so he was inches from her face. “Well, you’ll just have to wait.”
The kiss didn’t even count as a kiss, more like a brushing of the lips. Rystar sucked in a breath as he moved away and towards the elevators. One last fleeting look, and the elevator doors closed on him, and Rystar slumped into her seat again, resting her chin in her hand.
“Damn everyone on this ship!”
Watching the ice creep into the window panes made Rystar’s bones shiver, but being out there, even with the space and snowsuits, chilled her to the very core.
They eventually decided to not use the Land capabilities of the Krimson Princess, opting to go on foot to avoid any surveillance the base might have. Not being able to see more than three feet in front of her brought her mood down even more, but having Na’gya and Enzo next to her warmed her up slightly.
Getting Na’gya into his space and snow suit had been a complete ordeal, complete with Kyran taking out his sewing kit (“A sewing kit? Really, Kyran?”) and stitching the rips back up where they had to make room for Na’gya’s wings. It was enough to stand out here and not freeze to death, and without further ado, they began to stomp through the snow towards the base.
“According to this map here, we should follow that peak until the base is in sight,” Enzo said in their receivers, his voice coming through Rystar’s earpiece.
“Can’t you just track it on your tablet?” Rystar asked.
“Negative,” Enzo said, shaking his head. “It’s too cold to keep it out. Plus, they might see the light from the base when we approach.”
Rystar pulled a face. They wouldn’t be able to see a damn thing in this weather. It took them the better part of three hours to trudge through the snow, occasionally grunting at each other or stopping on a snowdrift to catch their breath. Soon, they saw the dark curvature of a bubble looming in the distance, and they all whooped, heading towards it like it was their salvation.
There were no apparent doors or entry points when they got to it, so they walked around the perimeter, eventually finding a lone door stuck in the wall. They huddled around it, and Enzo brought out his tablet and began to swipe as fast as he could so the encroaching cold wouldn’t destroy it.
“Seems like a smart lock,” Enzo said over the comms as he swiped this way and that. “Pretty easy to break into, just give me a second.”
It was longer than a second, and Rystar’s toes were getting more frostbit by the second. She knew better than to hurry him up and bounced on her toes while looking up at the bubble instead. It was certainly much smaller than the Sluirossi bubble. She could see the curvature when she looked to her left and right. But it was still quite large, and she wondered what they were up to in there.
At long last, Enzo exclaimed, and the lock clicked open. Enzo grabbed the door handle and pulled it open, enlisting Rystar and Na’gya’s help to push some snow aside for Enzo to squeeze through. One by one, they filed through the door and shut it behind them, finding themselves in near darkness.
The cold pierced their insides here, too, and no one seemed to want to take off their protective gear.
“It’s probably better we keep this stuff on, right?” Rystar muttered to them.
“We shouldn’t be here long,” Enzo said, shaking his head. “I just need to find a jack somewhere to plug my tablet into. Let’s check this room over here.”
A door sat in the wall down a little ways, and they made their way to it, opening it and pushing themselves inside. Enzo flicked on the light and looked around the room, noticing a wall jack with two openings. He exclaimed in a hushed tone and made his way to it, taking a cord from his pocket and plugging his tablet in.
“Rystar, Na’gya, guard the door,” Enzo said, pointing to the door before focusing back on his tablet. “I’m sure they have sensors set up around the place, it won’t be long until they find out someone used that door and they send a guard to check it out.”
Rystar and Na’gya exited the room and stood on either side of the hallway, with Rystar closer to the outside door. She pulled out a pistol and kept it trained down, her eyes adjusting to the dim light in the hallway. Na’gya stood next to the room Enzo was in, his wings pressed close to his sides.
“Almost done, Enzo?” Rystar asked after a moment. “It’s getting creepy out here.”
“They’re using some new protocol I can’t figure out,” Enzo replied, his voice harried. “It’s taking me longer than usual to get around it.”
“Well, hurry the hell up. I think I heard someone down the hall,” Rystar pleaded, taking a deep breath and keeping her eyes on the end of the hall.
“Everyone’s in a damn rush,” Enzo grumbled.
Several tense moments passed until Rystar and Na’gya jumped at a bang from down the hallway. “Enzo, someone’s coming. We have to go.”
“Hold them off for a little bit. I’m almost don
e,” came Enzo’s voice, and Rystar groaned, not liking the idea of shooting at Horoth government.
A large, dark figure appeared at the end of the hallway and stopped, peering at them as if they were camouflaged in the darkness. They fumbled with something near the waistband of their pants, and Na’gya threw himself into the center of the hallway, stretching his wings as far as they would go.
“Rystar, run,” he hissed into the receiver.
“I’m not leaving you both here alone,” she shot back, rushing up to him but flying back as Na’gya threw his arm out and pushed her.
“One of us has to make it out of here,” he said, standing in front of her as the guard shone his light in the hallway, illuminating the front of Na’gya. He raised an arm to shield his eyes, and Rystar lunged for him again, pulling him out of the way and raising her arm to fire at the guard.
Na’gya ran for the door while Rystar backed away, watching as two more guards came down the hall. She fired. “Enzo, we have to leave, now.”
“Two more seconds,” Enzo said into the receiver, and Rystar growled as the gun went off in her hand, hitting a guard in the arm. Another pulled out their own gun, and Rystar wasn’t stupid enough to have a gunfight in a narrow hallway. More guards rushed at the end of the hallway, and Na’gya opened the door, yelling at Rystar to follow him.
She flicked her eyes to the door of the room Enzo was still in and cursed as she backed away further, and the guards began to swarm it. Turning and heading out of the door, gunshots pinged behind her as they shut it and headed off into the cold.
They listened to the pleas of Enzo as the Horoths stripped him from his gear and the radio went silent. The wind whipped around them, and Rystar would look back every so often to ensure they weren’t being followed.
After a while, a couple of snow bikes roared past, and Rystar and Na’gya barreled down into the snow, piling it up around them and waiting until the soft purr of the engines had faded. They walked on again in silence towards what they hoped was the Sluirossi bubble for a couple of hours until the dark curve of it faded into view.
