by Jack Archer
Marsters rolled his eyes and swung his gun around to Aninas, who cried out and held his hands out before another shot rang out in the clearing, and Na’gya screamed, setting Ritora down before hopping up and holding his hands up.
“Take me then, stop this,” he pleaded, sniffing and shuffling forward.
“Always end up sniveling and groveling in the end, hybrid,” Marsters sneered, twitching his gun to make two more soldiers step forward and fold his wings to tie them together. They used a zip tie for his wrists, pinned painfully behind his back, and Na’gya winced, eyeing his friends on the ground.
The word ‘hybrid’ didn’t bother him as it did most of his fellows. He had grown up in royalty, nose in hundred-year-old books his entire life until he’d stupidly left the safety of his home for the great unknown. The news had begun to show terrible things happening to the Ya’ados, whispers of rebellion. Na’gya read of the humans and Aurum, how they had been pushed from the garden world back to the dusty planet Earth where they continued to dwindle while their rich counterparts flourished.
He’d heard the stories in the palace, how the Horoths hated the Ya’ados and their lack of ability to fly, how the humans hated the Ya’ados for their beautiful features, their great plumed wingspans. Na’gya never understood how anyone could hate their offspring so much, so he eventually began to branch out and talk with more of the Ya’ados through feeds, becoming more and more in tune with their ways.
Then he went and killed seven of their best.
They led him away towards a large van and shoved him in the back while Marsters climbed into the passenger side. He turned around to face Na’gya, who sat straight-backed in the seat across from Agyam. Sobbing, the Ya’ados looked up to Na’gya and pleaded. “Vasilev, I’m sorry, they had my family. What would you have done?”
Na’gya’s immediate response was to save his family, knowing full well that though they loved him, they upheld horrible things happening to the Ya’ados and Na’gya let his head hang. He came from shame and shadows. He had no family.
“I would have spat in their face,” Na’gya said half-heartedly, bringing his head back up to fix Agyam with a cold glare.
“What do you know?” Agyam shook his head and sank in his seat. “You have no partner, no children, you don’t know what it’s like to lose—”
“Shut up back there!” Marsters called, banging on the gate that separated them from the front with his gun. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where are you taking us?” Na’gya asked, his voice a low growl.
“Your friend here will be taken to the Ledgorod National Prison,” Marsters responded, turning back around in his seat to stare out of the front window, “while you will be taken to the Terran High Security Prison Complex way down in sunny Washington.”
They were taking him all the way to New America?
“Why there?” Na’gya asked, and Marsters turned around one more time to wink at him.
“You’re royalty, Vasilev. You get treated much better than the filth around you. You should know that.”
The Terran High Security Prison Complex wasn’t as fancy as Marsters made it out to be, but the room he resided in now was spacious enough for his wings, and his meals were solid, not some grey mush. Na’gya felt terrible. While he got put here, Agyam was stuck in a cold box in the Ledgorov blizzards, possibly without his family. And the rest of his team was still lying in the snow, unable to be buried, their friends and family unaware of their whereabouts.
Unable to properly mourn them.
While Na’gya stayed here simply because his one parent was the leader of a nation.
Na’gya paced to the front of the cell where he could look out of the plexiglass and punched it as hard as he could, completely bent on breaking every one of his fingers.
He looked at his hand, only bruised and throbbing, while several guards appeared from the doorway and stood at attention while a human woman appeared in front of his cell.
“Na’gya Vasilev?” she asked, and Na’gya nodded his head. “My name is Agent Davila. I work with the Chantakor courts and was sent here by another agent to offer you a free phone call.”
“I thought I was supposed to already get one of those?” Na’gya asked, tilting his head. Davila shook her head and nodded, making one of the soldiers press a button by the wall and opening a small hole at the bottom of the plexiglass. She slid in a comms tablet towards him and stood back up, taking a step back.
“Marsters did everything he could to make sure you weren’t allowed to ring anyone outside of this facility,” she said, gesturing for Na’gya to pick up the comms tablet before clasping her hands behind her back. “Please, call whoever you wish.”
Na’gya narrowed his eyes but bent down anyway, grabbed the comms tablet, and swiped up, trying to remember his parent’s number.
He typed it in and waited for it to ring several times before someone picked up.
“Office of the It’fasoad of Tavantis, how may I help you?” the voice answered, and Na’gya groaned.
“I need to speak with Fo’oal immediately, please,” Na’gya pleaded, hoping the use of his parent’s name would spur the office worker to patch him through.
“Fo’oal?” the worker repeated, and Na’gya could hear the incredulity in their voice. “If you know them that well, why don’t you just call them on their personal number?”
“They didn’t answer,” Na’gya lied and turned his back to the people watching him carefully from outside his cell. “Please, this is their son. I need to speak with them now.”
“The It’foasoad has no son that I’m aware of,” the office worker said, suspicion lacing their voice.
“I don’t have time for this, please, I need to speak—”
“Na’gya?”
The voice on the phone had changed to the low tambour of his parent’s voice, and it was so comforting, Na’gya felt tears sting the corners of his eyes. “Thank goodness, it’s you.”
“Son, what are you doing? Where are you?” Fo’oal asked.
“I’m… in the Terran High Security Prison on Bufefu,” he responded.
“What on Chantakor are you doing there?” they asked again, their voice a low whisper. “Did they kidnap you? Let me put your father on. I have no experience with the terrans.”
“Ta, wait,” Na’gya said, calling his parent Ta for the first time since he was a child. He certainly felt like a child now.
“Na’gya, what’s going on?” his father asked through the receiver, and Na’gya sucked in a breath.
“Dad, I made a mistake,” he started. “I made this pilgrimage and got caught up with something I had no business getting caught up with.”
“Don’t tell me you joined the rebellion,” his father scolded, and after Na’gya’s silence, it was clear. His father sighed. “I don’t know how I’m going to get you out. Both the Horoths and humans on Bufefu aren’t fans of yours, especially since you’re from Chantakor.”
“I’m sorry,” Na’gya sighed, sitting on his cot and putting his head in his hand.
“Who let you call us, anyway?” his father asked. “Normally, they do everything in their power to keep you in the dark until it’s trial time.”
“Some agent said she was with the office of Agent Finley,” Na’gya said with a shrug, putting his chin in his hand.
“Finley, you say?” his father repeated, and he hummed. “I have one idea. It may or may not work. I have to make a few phone calls. When is your trial?”
“They said in a couple of weeks,” Na’gya responded, sitting up a little straighter at the hope in his father’s voice. “But can you get someone out here that quickly?”
His father scoffed. “With enough money, son, anything is possible.”
“If you say so,” Na’gya said with a chuckle, surprised he was able to crack a smile at this point. “Please, get someone out here soon. And I’m sorry, I never should have left.”
“Don’t be sorry, Na’gya,” his
father soothed. “At some point, we all need to get out of our bubble and see the universe for what it is. I… shouldn’t have kept you in the dark for so long.”
“What do you mean?” Na’gya asked.
“Everything we’ve been doing to the Ya’ados,” he responded. “How we push them in the shadows, how we write our laws to exclude them. Ever since we had you, Fo’oal and I have had our eyes opened.”
“I’ve been alive for over a quarter of a century,” Na’gya said with a slight shake of the head. “Why is it bothering you now?”
“Politics and change take time,” his father said, “and things don’t happen overnight, even though I wish they did. I may be King, but I don’t make the laws.”
“Maybe you should,” Na’gya pointed out.
“Were it so easy,” his father responded, sighing loudly into the receiver. “Let me make some phone calls. We’ll get you out of there before you know it.”
“Promise?” Na’gya asked, knowing full well his father couldn’t promise something like this.
“I promise,” his father lied. “I promise I will do my best. How is that?”
“Better than nothing,” Na’gya laughed and went silent for a moment. “Will you tell Ta I love them?”
“Of course,” his father said. “I love you, too, you know.”
“I love you too, dad,” Na’gya said before he heard the receiver click. He sat there for a moment, holding the heel of his hand to his eye before standing up and bringing the comms tablet back to Agent Davila.
“Thank you, all of you, for that,” he said, and Davila nodded.
“We will do what we can to make sure your trial is postponed until after your release,” she said, tapping her nose and making to leave.
“Wait,” Na’gya said, putting his hand against the glass. Agent Davila stopped and turned around. “Why do you all care so much about me? I thought the humans hated the Ya’ados.”
Agent Davila put on a small smile and cocked an eyebrow as she approached him again, holding the comms tablet tightly to her chest. “In your future travels, you will learn that not all humans hate the Ya’ados, and not all Horoths hate you either. It’s the mean-spirited ones, the ones that have nothing else better to do, the ones that have never even talked with a Ya’ados before, who hate you. I’m sorry it’s not simpler, or we would have eradicated this idiotic mindset a long time ago.”
“Do you do the same thing on Earth?” Na’gya asked. “With other humans?”
“Since the dawn of man,” Davila replied with a sad purse of the lips as she raised her eyebrows at him and walked away again, leaving Na’gya alone.
He laid belly-down on his cot, positioned in the center of the wall so his wings could spread out on either side and curled his arms beneath his head. All he could do now was wait, and he hated every minute of it. Hours passed, then days, and the only company he had was the occasional guard setting his meal down to push it through the plexiglass hole in the bottom of his cage.
Finally, after several days, he heard a rough voice waft through the plexiglass walls, and he looked up, expecting to find a worn-around-the-edges owner. Instead, he saw the most gorgeous woman and matching partner standing in front of his cell.
“Na’gya Vasilev?”
Chapter 7
Shea Hendi: Terran High Security Prison, New America, Bufefu
Rystar wasn’t lying when she said they would have to wade through a wave of red tape to speak with the Terran’s number one terrorist. Back in Tavantis, they rented out a hotel room for a couple of days while Rystar sat in front of her comms tablet at the desk and filled out ream after ream of paperwork.
Shea spent most of his time researching Bufefu, the third planet from the yellow-white sun in the Tyurba system next door to Chantakor. The system was shared by both humans and Horoths and housed three livable planets: Ofni for the Horoths, Smikar for the humans, and Bufefu, the bustling, Horoth-human mixer of a planet. It was divided into two halves, Horoth on one, and the sprawling human civilization that continued to segregate itself on the other.
The Terran High Security Prison complex they were heading to was located in Washington, New America, and Shea rolled his eyes at how predictable humans were.
Late the second evening, Shea let his tablet drop on his chest, and he stretched, staring at the ceiling when he was done. It had been a long day of research, and he could do with a drink of Charlom.
“How are you planning on breaking him out?” Shea muttered into the dark room. When he spoke, Rystar seemed to snap out of her trance and look around, grumbling at the light situation.
“Jorge gave me an advance on credits,” she murmured back and stood up from her chair to cross the room and turn the light on. She stretched too, her shirt riding up her stomach, and Shea had to look away. “Figure it’ll be enough to make bail.”
“You think they’ll really just let him walk free?” Shea cocked an eyebrow at her and sat up on the bed.
“Can’t hurt to try, can it?” she asked with a shrug. Looking around, she bounced on her toes and clapped her hands together before fixing Shea with a stare. She tilted her head and gave him a wicked smile. “Why don’t we take a break?”
The club downstairs was just as packed as it had been the other night and Rystar and Shea wound their way through it. The same booth was open, and Shea moved to claim it while Rystar got the drinks. Or bottle, it seemed.
He looked across the club and saw him again, the same man from the other night, and gasped. When Shea stood up, Rystar appeared in front of him, and he looked down at her for a moment. “Someone’s following us.”
Her face became serious, and she pushed him into the booth, scooting in after him. Pouring them both a drink, she kept her eyes on the bottle and muttered to him over the thrum of pounding bass. “Where are they?”
“Just in that booth across from us,” Shea responded, taking his drink and knocking it back as Rystar took hers. She moved back in her seat and stretched languidly, eyeing the booth across them before her brow furrowed.
“The couple making out?” she asked. Shea whipped around.
Sure enough, the man was gone again, replaced with two people violently going at each other’s mouths and throats, and Shea groaned. “I swore there was a man there, watching us.”
“Well, he’s gone now,” Rystar said, taking another drink and leaning forward on the table.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Shea muttered and shook his head.
“I should be done with the paperwork tomorrow morning,” Rystar continued, “and we’ll be able to leave here for good, hopefully, by mid-morning. We’ll go to Melm, grab the guy, drop him off at his parents, and go the hell home.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Shea said, nodding. Rystar pulled out her Cortijet and began to smoke, great plumes of grey clouds wafting around her. “But you still haven’t told me what happens if they don’t let you post bail.”
“I’m starting to think there’s more and more of a chance they won’t let us if we’re being honest,” Rystar said, taking another drink and sitting back. “He is a Terran war criminal, after all.”
“How do you figure?” Shea asked, taking the bottle she slid to him.
She held up a finger to her temple. “Think about it. He’s been taken to the only Terran prison within three systems of here. He’s been charged with leading a rebellion. My only guess is he’s raging against either the Terrans, the Horoths, or, suicidally, both. I don’t care how big of an army he has behind him.”
They both lapsed into silence, Shea wondering if Rystar was bonkers enough to try and bust a war criminal out from prison. After a while, Rystar tilted her head and rolled her glass around on the table, a vicious smirk appearing on her face.
“On the other hand…” she started, frowning up at the ceiling. She turned to him, and Shea recognized the look. “I need you to find me two Terran military uniforms tomorrow morning while I’m finishing up the paperwork.
One co
rner of Shea’s mouth turned up, and he nodded, taking another drink.
Much to Shea’s disappointment, when they went back to the hotel room that night, they both passed out in their respective beds, fully clothed and painfully aware of each other’s presence. Shea tossed and turned the entire time, and when he awoke the next morning, his head ached, and his body screamed at him for a shower.
“I can’t keep up with your drinking,” he called from the shower, forehead pressed against the cool tile.
“One day you might,” Rystar yelled from the room.
When he couldn’t stand the hot water anymore, Shea shut off the shower and stepped out. Yanking the towel from its bar, he noticed Rystar was standing at the sink, brushing her teeth.
“You know, some people like a little privacy while they’re showering,” Shea muttered, pulling the curtain back to cover him and toweling off.
“And those people probably have the luxury of time,” Rystar threw back with a mouthful of toothpaste. She spat and turned the tap on. “I’m still waiting on two Terran military uniforms.”
Shea huffed. He wasn’t even sure where he was supposed to get those. When he was dry, Shea wrapped the towel around his waist and threw open the shower curtain to see Rystar leaning against the sink with just a towel wrapped around her body.
“You take your time in the shower,” she purred, letting her towel drop, and Shea gulped. “I hope you take your time in other aspects of your life.”
Shea’s chest tightened. Rystar was only a few inches shorter than him, but she stood up on her toes to press their lips together, pulling away just as Shea moved his hands to her waist.
“There’s a surplus store near the club we went to last night,” she muttered against his lips. “I suggest you hurry because I’m almost done with the paperwork.”
Shea swallowed hard again, moving aside to let Rystar into the shower. Jetting out of the bathroom, he struggled to get into his pants, and threw on a shirt and jacket before bolting out of the hotel room and downstairs.
