by Cheree Alsop
“They won’t tell me what you were up to,” he said, continuing to talk as though it kept his thoughts from what he was doing. “I’m not allowed to ask. They have some fancy word for it, like me not knowing why you’re in here keeps me from breaking you out.” He paused, then said, “As if that’s what keeping me from messing with my time here. I’ve got three more months of service left to the Council, then I’m winging my way back to Cree. I can’t wait to get home.”
He paused.
Liora’s muscles shook. She could feel the sticky blood along her sides. Though he attempted to keep things clean, he could only work so quickly along one gash while the others bled. The bandages he placed along them didn’t seem to do much good.
“Are you still with me?”
Liora had to will her jaw to unclench to answer. When she spoke, she did so in the Tanli dialect.
“I’m alive.”
He was silent for so long she had to turn her head to look at him. The movement pulled at the new stitches along the back of her shoulder.
His gaze met hers and they were troubled. When he spoke, his words were in the common tongue.
“When I can’t see your face and I’m stitching up your back, I can pretend that you’re just an animal, a mute pulon taken for slaughter. Then you speak my language.” He switched to Tanli. “And I remember that you’re not just an animal; you are a humanoid heading for trial for whatever wrong you committed. I can only tell myself that you deserve these wounds.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “But I don’t feel anyone should suffer through such as these. I hope whoever gave them to you paid for them.”
Liora didn’t want his pity. She wanted to die, and he was working to do the exact opposite.
“I’m a murderer,” she said in the common tongue. “I deserve whatever fate they give me. You should just let me bleed out.”
Rist was still for a moment. When he began stitching again, Liora told herself that it was only her imagination that made him more careful.
By the time he finished, she was so exhausted from the tension in her muscles that she barely had the strength to roll onto her side. Rist helped her gently back into what remained of her Ventican shirt. When he stood back up, her eyes closed against her will.
“You should have some water,” he said. “And food. I wonder when the last time was that you ate.”
Liora didn’t want his compassion; she wanted him to leave. He did, eventually. She heard his footsteps cross to the door, the slight grind of gears when it slid open, and the rush of displaced air at its closure.
When the door slid open again, it felt like she had slept for ten minutes.
“Time for your hearing.”
“I told you she wasn’t fit to stand in front of the Council,” Rist argued.
“And I told you they don’t have the patience to wait for some planet meddler to get over a scratch,” the voice replied.
Liora sat up and her head swam. She waited for her eyes to focus on the pair by the door. The man with the purple skin and orange eyes from the moss planet glared at her. Liora rose to her feet. Lightheadedness made her want to sit down again, but she refused. A glance at the bed showed the amount of blood she had lost. It coated the black sheet in a thick dried area that looked far larger than she thought it would be. She could feel it clinging to the bandages across her back when she moved.
“Ludow, I really think this is a bad idea.” Rist said.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Ludow replied. He motioned for Liora to approach and held out a set of thick metal handcuffs.
“Are those really necessary?” Rist asked.
“Are they going to let a known mentalist draw from our planet and use its strength against us?” Ludow shot back as he fastened the handcuffs around Liora’s wrists.
Rist hissed out a breath and didn’t reply.
Liora fell in behind the man. Rist held out a bottle of water to her. She would have denied it if her throat wasn’t burning with thirst. As it was, she took it and drank the contents to ensure that she could stand in front of the Council and not pass out.
She handed the bottle back to Rist. The rattle of the chain between her cuffs was loud in the hallway.
“Thank you,” she said.
He glanced at her as if the gratitude surprised him.
“I had nothing to do with this,” he told her. “I asked them to give you a week to get your feet back under you.”
“Don’t talk to the prisoner,” Ludow growled.
Rist fell silent, but his grip on the water bottle tightened, making the plastic crinkle.
Silence settled over the trio. Liora concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. She stumbled once and saw Rist’s hand come out to catch her elbow. She shrugged out of his grasp and straightened. He kept closer than she felt was necessary, but when they reached the hearing room, she was grateful to have at least one friendly face at her back.
The room was more of a grand hall then just a regular meeting room. Giant pillars wider around than Liora was tall stretched from the floor to the ceiling so high overhead they were hidden in shadows. Stands ran in rows almost as far, and the majority of them were filled with numerous races Liora had never seen before.
The silence that settled over the room at her entrance was deafening. Liora could feel the tension when she was led by Ludow to the dais in the middle. He clipped her handcuffs to a metal loop on the stand. It gave her about a foot or less of movement. The familiar feeling of being trapped made her muscles tingle. She pushed down the fight or flight sensation.
“We have called the members of the Council for the Unification and Order of the Cosmos together to discuss the matter of this young woman’s violation of the Interplanetary Protection Treaty,” Ludow said.
“In order for it to be a violation, she has to be a member of the Unified Galaxies,” a familiar voice replied.
Liora glanced around Ludow and spotted Brandis on a stand to the left and below their own.
“You have not been given permission to speak,” Ludow growled, his orange eyes sparking.
A pale, skinny woman with long silver hair to her ankles raised a hand. She stood on a dais across from Liora’s. Several other members of various races stood at podiums near hers, but it was obvious by the height of her dais that she was an important member of the Council. Ludow fell immediately silent.
She gave her head a half-nod that looked as formal as a full bow.
“Brandis, son of Julius Day, the acknowledged Commandant of the Lesser Neutral Systems, it is our understanding that Liora, sharing half of the blood of your father, falls outside of the Treaty boundaries,” the woman said. Her words were soft, but they carried across the room. It felt as if every person in the hall strained to catch each syllable of her gentle voice. “However, that does not pardon the fact that she used a planet’s energy for her own benefit,” the woman concluded.
Brandis nodded. “Acknowledged, Your Grace. But I must point out that she used the energy in order to protect both our army and your own in the face of an attack by Ketulans.”
At his last word, a rush of surprise sounded through the hall. Louder talking ensued.
A man with dark green, scaled skin leaned forward to speak into his microphone. “Council, we do not acknowledge the existence of Ketulans.”
Brandis sputtered; the sound was loud in the huge room.
“The Council does not acknowledge the existence of Ketulans?” he repeated. He leaned forward and stared at Ludow. “Your people were killed, General. How can you deny their existence?”
Ludow spoke into the microphone without looking at Brandis. “We acknowledge the presence of abnormalities on planet F One Thousand Seven of Dreyer Nebula Five Eighty-four; however, we refuse to accept that machines such as the race known as Ketulans, exist. Machines have neither individual thought processes nor the ability to act on their own as these abnormalities did.”
“So what were they?” Brandis challen
ged.
Ludow glared at him. “I don’t have to answer to you. They were a fluke and were taken care of accordingly.”
“By Liora,” Brandis shot back.
Ludow slammed a thick fist onto his podium and the sound reverberated through the hall. Before he could speak, the woman with the silver hair raised her hand again.
“We have heard from the accused’s brother and her accuser. Perhaps it is time that we hear from Liora herself.” The woman turned her silver gaze to Liora. “Liora Day, what happened on Planet F One Thousand and Seven?”
Chapter 15
A thousand images flashed through Liora’s mind. She saw the battle with the cave creatures, felt the claws rake her back, and heard the cries of her fallen warriors. She remembered the feeling of the soft moss beneath her feet and felt her heart jump at the sight of Brandis’ face when she cut the moss free. She remembered how it felt to channel Tariq’s strength with her own and shove it at the moss that threatened to strangle them. It had worked, at least so they thought. In the end, it had also caused Tariq’s death. The thousands of new moss creatures had to be stopped. There was no other way.
“Liora?”
Liora blinked and saw the hall again. The woman across from her gave a kind smile that Liora felt was far out of place among the glares of those around her.
“Do you have anything to add to your brother’s words?”
Liora wanted to stay silent, but the woman had asked so kindly. For some reason, she wanted to answer the woman. She thought through the words Brandis had said. The Ketulans may have been the reason she pulled the strength from the planet, but it wasn’t the purpose for their journey.
“We went to the planet you call F One Thousand Seven to rescue my brother from a trap.”
The woman nodded her head. “Brandis gave his statement earlier about the beings who captured him and took him to the planet where he was then taken into captivity by some sort of grass-like entity.”
“It was more like moss,” Liora replied.
“Don’t ever presume to correct Her Grace,” Ludow snarled.
He raised a hand to strike Liora. She didn’t flinch, merely met his gaze and waited.
The silver-haired woman gave the smallest shake of her head. It was enough to make Ludow close his mouth and drop his hand immediately.
“It’s alright, General,” the woman said. “Liora does not know our customs. I don’t think she meant to be rude.”
At the woman’s enquiring look, Liora shook her head. With everything she had gone through, she felt justified in being rude; however, the woman treated her with such kindness, Liora couldn’t help being polite in return.
“They set a trap for me,” Liora said. “They wanted to create a gateway to the Milky Way Galaxy, but I destroyed the orbs they planned to use, so they were seeking revenge.”
A woman with glowing yellow tentacles asked, “Can we have clarification about the location of the Milky Way Galaxy?”
“The Milky Way Galaxy is one of the lesser’ galaxies still struggling with basic political principles and practices,” Metasa, a woman with four arms crossed in front of her chest and eight piercing eyes said into her microphone. “It is yet too unstable in its social dynamics to be considered a member of the Unified Galaxies.”
“Thank you,” the tentacled council member replied.
“Let’s return to the moss entity,” the silver-haired woman suggested.
Liora nodded.
“For the record, we do not have a moss-like entity in our archives,” Metasa dictated in a monotone voice.
“Thank you, Metasa,” the woman said. “Your memory serves us as always.”
“If I may speak, Your Grace?” Brandis asked. At the woman’s nod, he continued, “When they had me submerged in their energy draw, I was privy to their thoughts. The moss entity, as you call it, traveled from planet to planet sucking the life out of its core and inhabitants. It was far more an enemy to your treaty than Liora.”
The man with dark green scales cleared his throat. “That is for us to decide, young man.”
“If you don’t have the facts, how will you decide fairly?” Brandis replied. He leaned forward so he could see Liora around Ludow. “Where’s Tariq, Liora? He could add his testimony to ours and let them know that we’re telling the truth.”
The name rang in Liora’s ears and a knot grew in her throat so that she couldn’t speak.
“Who is this Tariq?” the woman asked.
“He’s her boyfriend,” Brandis replied. “He’s also the best medic I’ve ever met. He was a member of the Coalition, then when we disbanded from them, he was recruited into my father’s new defense fleet. He’s the best hand with a gun I ever met.” His gaze was expectant when he turned to Liora. “You know he’d speak on your behalf. They can’t deny all of our testimonies. Do they have him here somewhere, too?”
The grip Liora had on the bar in front of her kept her centered. She lowered her gaze to the cold metal and felt glass beneath her palm again.
She took a shuddering breath. “When we freed Brandis and the other survivors from the moss entity, my warriors carried them out. Tariq…” It was hard to say his name. She swallowed and said again, “Tariq and I knew from what the moss had shown us that if we didn’t stop it, it would have access to the rest of the Macrocosm. We had to finish it at all costs.”
Liora couldn’t speak. She knew she couldn’t describe what had happened in a way that would be true to Tariq’s memory.
“Your Grace, I need to ask permission to show you instead of tell you what happened on F One Thousand Seven.”
The woman with the silver hair gave a slight frown.
“In a hearing such as this where your ability to pull energy is in question, your request is highly unusual,” she said.
Liora waited in silence. Talking about Tariq’s death was more than she knew she could handle at the moment. Her only chance to defend herself was to show them instead of tell them the truth of the events on the moss planet.
“Even so, given the uniqueness of the circumstances, I allow it,” the woman finally conceded. “If you have the ability to push such a memory into our minds, which we acknowledge is a considerable task, we welcome the chance to clarify the circumstances on F One Thousand and Seven.”
Loud talking rushed through the room. Several voices were raised and the sound echoed down.
“She’s not pushing thoughts into my head!”
“There’s no way I’m letting her into my brain!”
The woman raised her hand and talking ceased.
“Those who are uncomfortable with the sharing of images are welcome to leave the room. Your opinions will not be included in the final hearing,” the woman said.
The sound of beings leaving met Liora’s ears, but she didn’t look up. The thought of what she was about to do gripped Liora’s heart.
“Liora, you don’t have to do this,” Brandis said quietly.
Liora looked at him. It was obvious by his expression that he dreaded finding out what had happened to Tariq. Liora lowered her gaze.
“Liora Day, we are ready,” the woman said.
Liora nodded. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. Pushing to so many would take a considerable amount of strength. She hoped she had enough left.
Liora chose to start with their landing on the planet. The journey through the caves were rough, but she didn’t leave out the deaths of her warriors. She showed them finding Brandis and the others being used by the moss. The attack of the huge creatures with the long claws made several minds shy away from hers. Liora continued to push to those who still remained open.
She felt her back be torn open again and her wounds throbbed. She pushed forward to the voice of the moss in her mind when she and Tariq were enveloped. She showed them the planets being sucked dry by the moss’ parasitic ways and the plan for the use of her warriors’ bodies to transport the many moss particles to the rest of the galaxies.
�
��Liora, get out of here!” Tariq said. “Get to the ship before the others are killed!”
“I won’t leave you here,” Liora refused.
Tariq grabbed her arm. There was desperation in his gaze. “Liora, you can’t let them leave this planet.”
Liora reached the mind of her brother and stopped the warriors from entering the ship. She heard the gasps of those in the audience when the Ketulans attacked. The Nine was torn apart and crashed into the opening of the dome. Liora touched the glass.
“I love you,” Tariq mouthed.
“No!” she yelled.
The bomb exploded. Liora put her hand to the red rock ground. She gathered the strength she found and pooled it into a knot in her chest. With an outlet of angry breath, Liora shoved the energy up her arms and the glass shattered.
Liora pushed on, showing the Ketulans tearing apart the warriors and Ludlow’s people. She reached the edge of the ship, a target for the machines, drawing them away from the others. They closed in on her from every side, burying her with their flashing blades. She paused, her debate evident as to whether she should live or die. In the end, with her Damaclan blood, she was unable to just give in. She put her hand to the ground and pulled. The power arched over her and the Ketulans burst into flames.
Liora let the memory fade.
The silence that followed was broken when Ludow said, “So she pulled from the planet twice.”
The woman across from Liora let out a slow breath. She looked at the members of the Council on either side of her.
“We will adjourn this preliminary hearing for the Council to discuss the information we have been given. We will reconvene this afternoon to hear the decision of the Council.” She nodded at Liora. “Thank you for showing us what you did. It had to take courage.”
Liora lowered her gaze and didn’t speak.
“Your Grace, may I beg permission to see my sister?” Brandis asked. There was a hint of desperation in his voice that told how long he had been waiting to know if she was alright.
The woman gave a kind smile, but shook her head. “It is against the customs of this Council to allow visitation of any kind until the hearing is ended. You will have the chance to see Liora tomorrow.”
