by Renee Rose
Kianna
* * *
“Hand me the orange ones, please?” Mirelle’s voice is tighter. I wasn’t sure why but since she’d left my home a few hours earlier, it’s like her anxiety has ratcheted up, notch by notch. If I could see her mind, I think it would be stretched out, ready to snap.
“Did I do something? I’m sorry if I complain too much about my situation.” I wipe my eyes; they’re still swollen and damp from earlier, and because my sadness hasn’t abated. I pick up the soft orange ribbon and pass it over for her to tie to a sparkling lantern. “Here.”
“What?” She frowns. “I’m fine. Of course not. You never do anything wrong.” But she doesn’t take the fabric.
“It’s just that you seem… on edge.” I put the soft bundle down beside her pile of crafts. Around us, other human voices rise together, a warm chatter of camaraderie and excitement as we prepare festival decorations. It’s amazing to see us all: medical staff, fighter pilot, farmers, teachers, mothers, all coming together to work on a common goal.
She glances around her and lowers her voice. “I’m just having a hard time getting ready for my next mission.”
“You don’t usually talk about that. What’s wrong?”
She looks to and fro, then takes my hand. “Can we talk in private?”
Nobody notices us leave, or if they do, they give it no thought: We are good friends, after all, usually inseparable. Only her behavior might clue someone into the fact that she’s worried.
We head out of the large meeting room into the quiet of the hallway, and then out the side door into a tree-lined square. It’s empty but for the shadows of the setting sun, and the lone cry of a lesser marjoric, whose red plumes gleam like garnets in the long soft rays. It cocks its head and regards us with a beady eye from its branch, but doesn’t stir. Perhaps waiting for crumbs; this is a popular lunch area for humans.
We sit on a stone bench and Mirelle looks down at her feet. “This has never happened before.” She rubs her hands together. “I can’t feel it.”
“Can’t feel what?” I lean closer.
“The move. My roundabout kick.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I created a new move the other sun while Lanz and Domm and I were rescuing those new humans from an Alph-4 auction.” She takes a breath. “It just came to me when I needed to fight a Mok—you know, the ones with three arms? I did a new leap and twist tumble and kick.”
“Well, that’s awesome.”
“It was.” She nods, licks her lip. “And Lanz and Domm told everyone about it. Every being. Talked about it incessantly and how I need to teach it in my class so all fighters can use it as needed.”
“That sounds like an honor.”
“Except I can’t remember what I did and they expect me to start teaching it tomorrow.” Her voice gets louder. She stands up and crosses her arms. “I can’t vecking remember any of it. It’s like a sick blurry dream. All I can think of is the panic and fear and the look in the Mok’s eyes.”
She squeezes herself hard, like she’s trying to get smaller. Startled, I get up and come closer. “Mirelle, I’ve never seen you like this.”
“What, I’m not allowed to get upset?” She makes a little noise and shrugs off my hand when I put it onto her shoulder. “Don’t touch me right now.”
“Fine.” I put my hands up, a little hurt, but more concerned. “You seem very disturbed.”
“Well, I am.” She glares at me. “Do you even have a clue what kind of pressure I’m under on a daily basis? Every being thinks it’s so easy. Strong, feisty Mirelle. She can kill and then have fun, all in the same planet rotation! What a life! What they don’t see is that sometimes?” She takes a breath and her voice wobbles. “Sometimes the kills all come back to haunt me at night. Even with my mates beside me.”
“Oh, Mirelle. I had no idea.”
She shrugs. “It’s the life of a warrior. It is what it is.”
I close my eyes and the image of the rushing grass fills me. I slow my breathing and do the thing I’ve taught myself with my heart rate. Then I do the other thing, where I sort of slide my mind to the side, just a bit, and suddenly the woman’s face becomes clear. Her name is Rhianna, and she’s my…
My eyes fly open. “Mirelle, I can help you.”
“Oh, you can?” She shakes her head. “Unless you can get inside my brain and wring out the memory of how to do that fighter move, you can’t do a thing.”
“That’s just it. I think I can get into your brain.” I’m so excited that my words tumble out fast. “I can teach you.”
“No you can’t.” But she loosens her grip on her body. “How could that be possible?”
“I’ve been doing this thing.” I feel my cheeks redden because it’s odd to explain. “I move my mind around and let the thoughts clarify.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.” I reach out and when she takes my hand, I smile. “It will. Just try something with me. Will you?”
She shrugs. But I sense interest in her stance and her expression. “I guess so. Sure.”
I look around and we’re still alone. Even the bird is silent, preening her feathers with a long, silver beak.
“First we’re going to breathe together. But in a special way.” I slide off my shoes, sit down and cross my legs. “Join me. Arrange your legs like this.” I pat the ground right in front of me and put my feet up on the opposite thigh.
“What’s special about it?” She narrows her eyes. But she sits down. Takes off her shoes and arranges herself in the lotus position so she matches me. “Like this?”
“Yes.” I nod. “Now. We breathe in until we fill our diaphragm with air, then we whoosh it out like this.” I demonstrate. “Put your hand on my body to feel how I do it. It’s different from regular breathing.”
Mirelle is a quick study. It’s unbelievable how fast she learns the five different ways of breathing I’ve discovered, even the one where you hold one nostril shut, breathe in and out in a specific way.
It sounds odd, but it clears the mind. Makes it sharp as a Zandian sword, the edge so fine it can cut air. As clear as the still waters of the grotto, where you can see a mile down to the shimmering formations beneath, the ones that have lived there for millennia.
Now I speak to her, explaining what to do with this breath. “Next time you breathe out, empty your mind completely. All you see is the glowing Zandian star. Keep your eyes closed, and focus on the star. Just that.” I take her hands in mine. “Hold my hand while you breathe. Relax.”
Mirelle’s muscles loosen. Her hands in mine are soft and lax.
I don’t know how long we breathe together, but I sense when she’s ready for the next part.
“You see only the star. But now you’re going to do your new kick next to it. You’re relaxed and calm. Your body knows how to do this. Watch yourself, Mirelle. Watch like on a holo. Keep breathing.” I make my voice flow like the stream, dancing over rocks, limber and lithe. I send it into her mind, sending it into the dark crevices she can’t access.
Her eyelids flicker but her breathing doesn’t falter.
“You can feel your body perfectly. Each muscle, each tendon. You’re watching what happens. Do you see it?”
She sucks in a little breath.
“Tell me how it goes.”
Her voice is calm and soft. “I prepare like I’m doing the A3 kick, but then I…” she trails off. She’s silent for a long time.
She pulls her hands from mine and stands up. At first I’m terrified that it didn’t work.
Without speaking, she crouches down, then roars, a fearsome, beautiful sound, and leaps.
I catch my breath. It’s the most graceful, destructive thing I’ve seen.
“I got it back!” She screams. She does the move again. Again.
She comes over and bends down, squeezes me awkwardly, so hard I can’t breath. “Kee, you fixed me! You got into my head. I didn’t think you could,
but you did. Oh, sweet Mother Earth. I’ve got it back.”
There are tears in her eyes and she doesn’t bother to wipe them, and they shine like little stars in the light. “Kee, you’re a genius. How did you do that?”
I flush. “I’m no genius. It’s just a thing… that I do.” I stand up, and one knee pops. I shake it out and shrug.
“It’s incredible.” She steps back and does the thing again.
I want to ask how she does it, to teach it to me. For a second, I imagine myself leaping and screaming, and Mykl’s face, amazed—because I’m a warrior, too, someone he can respect.
But even I know I need many solar rotations of training to even come close to trying what she can do.
I bite my lip, both pleased and sad. “I’m glad I helped.”
“I’m going to go directly to the training dome.” Her words tumble out. “Teach this right now, to whomever is there. Oh, Kee, I love you.” She grabs me again and I hug her back. Maybe my life is a wreck right now, but fuck, it does feel good—to do something useful. Something valuable. And as she hurries away, happiness in every footfall, my own eyes tear up and I smile, watching her go.
Chapter 5
Mykl
* * *
“You’re on that again?” Lanz points at my ultra-far-reach scanner. “Why do you even bother?”
“Some planet rotation I’ll get the message for which I’ve been waiting.” I twist wires together and reach for my soldering tools. “It passes the time while I work.” Kianna is off duty today, and Amber isn’t here, either—she’s on leave expecting her young. Apparently human females need time to prepare for the birth.
Lanz snorts. “Some planet rotation you’ll wake up and realize that you’re too old, and you wasted your life waiting for something that will never arrive.”
“When I prove you wrong, I expect you to bow down and apologize on one knee.” I narrow my eyes.
“Oh, I’ll grovel and writhe around like a Marsan worm if you find a batch of Zandian females by listening to that scanner.” He smirks. “I’ll eat dirt. I’ll cook you a meal. I’ll be your pleasure slave for a planet rotation.” He likes to joke around like this now. In the past, I would have punched him. Now, I admit it’s mildly humorous. He’s almost as funny as Kianna—I push her out of my mind.
I snort. “Veck off. You’re the last being I’d want as a slave.” Thoughts of Kianna fill my mind again. She was a factory slave before Zandia acquired her. Not a pleasure slave—thank veck. If she’d been a pleasure slave, I would spend every planet rotation here wanting to kill every nasty being who used her.
“What’s the news, then?” He taps the volume button.
Static fills the air, then snippets of tower talk from a hundred thousand light years away: Two Marrians discussing airspeed velocity to leave their planet.
“The usual. Nothing. Yet.” I raise my eyebrow. “Where are you headed?”
“A pleasure slave auction. Checking for human females.” He crosses his arms. “Which we learned about from our official scanner and our army-sanctioned comm listening devices.”
“Veck you.” I grimace, but it lacks bite. “Where?”
“In the Midrian belt.”
I whistle, a low tone. “Isn’t that still deadly territory?”
He nods, somber now. “But we have Mirelle.”
I purse my lips. “So you do.” Even I acknowledge that their team is stronger with her; that they can do things with her that they never could before. “Be safe.”
“Always.” He smiles. Touches my shoulder. A look of concern passes over his face. “You seem upset. Everything okay?”
Veck these mated Zandian males and their newfound emotional sensitivity that comes from their humans.
I shrug his hand off. “I’m fine.”
“All right.”
He’s not that sentimental—he knows to leave me alone when I need it. He waves and jogs off toward his craft, and I’m relieved to see him go.
When he leaves, I take my scanner and open it up. I insert the new part I’ve been working on now for the past solar cycle.
My heart starts to beat faster, because I’ve had my mind set on this for so long.
Our current scanning capacity only reaches so far. But I’ve figured out a way to tap into Ocretian satellites and find transmissions that bounce off them—expanding our reach by another million light years. Into parts of the galaxy that have, to us, been dark. Silent.
Oh, sure, sometimes we can intercept transmissions if we search for them. But this will be a vast surge of communications, like I’m opening a pipeline.
I can only dream of what I’ll learn. Surely something will be useful for Zandia. Maybe even the very thing I long for most of all.
Or at least the thing I thought I longed for.
Kianna
* * *
“So, I told some of my students about what you did.” Mirelle grabs an apple and bites into it. Juice runs down her chin, and she wipes it with one hand, then swipes her hand on her dirty flight pants. We’re in the lunch area where many human females congregate during the planet rotation to eat together.
“What I did? What do you mean?” I blink at her and put down my fork. “Mirelle?”
“The thing you did for me.” She chews and swallows. “You know, when you got into my head and helped me find my move.”
“Mirelle!” My stomach roils. “You weren’t supposed to tell anyone.”
She blinks. “What you did? It was amazing. It needs to be shared. I taught the class and, Mother Earth, all the young warriors can do that move now. It’s incredible. Without you, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“But it’s private.”
I’m not hungry anymore. I push my plate away, leaving my fruit uneaten.
Mirelle slides closer to me on the bench. She lowers her voice. “I think you could do it to more beings. And that it would be as good for you as it would be for them.”
My heart starts to pound. “ I can barely do it for myself. I didn’t even know if it would work for you. And it probably only did work for you because we’re friends.”
“I tried to do it for Sparr, but I didn’t know how. Please, can you just try?” She grabs my hand. “He’s so smart and talented, but he’s about ready to give up on fight class and join the ag workers. I know if he just gets this breakthrough, he’ll be at another level.”
“Help him do what?” I cross my arms.
“So like I was stuck on my move? He’s having trouble remembering the sequence of actions he needs to do for a general…” and then she says some things that are like garbled nonsense to me, because it’s all fighter words.
Blood rushes in my ears. “No, I can’t.”
“But I already told him you would.” Mirelle’s voice is patient.
“Oh Mother Earth. You’re so bad.” I scowl at her. “You had no right.” Still, part of me comes alive. I remember how amazing it felt to help Mirelle. Could I do it again? For another being?
“I’m sorry.” She cocks her head. “But it’s important. And you did say you wanted to be more warrior-ish, right? This is helping fighters. He’s waiting over there.”
She gestures past our little lunch grove, and I see him—a tall, handsome warrior, waiting under a tree, his body language tense. Like he’s waiting for something bad.
“Fine, but, Mirelle, you owe me.”
“Okay.” She takes another bite of her apple and sets it down. “Can we go now? I told him you’d do it really quickly.”
“Oh Mother Earth. You owe me more than one thing. Like seven things.”
“That’s fair. We can leave our stuff and come back.” She waves at our food.
From a distance, this young male looks as upset as I feel.
As we approach, he looks up and the expression on his face, of such anticipation and hope, makes me forget my anxiety. All I know is that I want to help him.
“Greetings.” He raises his fist at a 90 degree angle, as is tra
ditional for Zandians who are meeting for the first time. “I am Sparr. Mirelle”—he nods at her—“says you may be able to help me with an… issue.” He swallows. I can tell that his Zandian pride makes this difficult for him. They don’t like to ask for help.
“I don’t know if I can.” I take a breath. “But I can try.”
“She’ll do the thing,” promises Mirelle, and touches his arm.
He frowns. “I am not accustomed to close contact in such an intimate way. Mirelle explained that you need to hold my hands.”
“I understand.” I nod. What I did with Mirelle was definitely intimate, in a way that Zandians don’t usually engage. “Perhaps you can sit further back. You do not need to hold my hands. Just listen to my voice and practice the breathing I will teach you.”
“That will be acceptable.” His voice is stiff. He looks around, as if checking for privacy.
“We can go to the fight dome.” Mirelle points. “It’s close and will be empty at this hour.”
As we walk, I try to sync myself to this being’s essence. He’s nervous, but strong. Young, yet not headstrong; I can see it in the way he walks and holds himself. He’s actually reticent, I think—not just with his words, but his actions. Like he doesn’t trust himself yet.
Like Mirelle, he learns the breathing techniques quickly. Unlike her, though, he does not want to close his eyes and relax.
“I keep my eyes open.” He fixes them on me, his shoulders tight. “I need to be alert at all times.”
“I understand.” I glance around. “Perhaps Mirelle can keep guard while you relax.”
He considers this. Frowns. “I am not sure.”
“It’s all right.” Mirelle goes to the door. “Trust me, Sparr.”
He hesitates, then nods. “All right.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, tightly. “Now what?”
