by J Hawk
Seeing her again seemed to have triggered a small explosion at the bottom of his stomach.
Vestra didn’t recognise him though, and her black eyes held the same mixture of confusion and shock as the other Nyon next to her. Ion’s gaze shifted to the boy standing beside her. He was a Redling, his pointed yellow teeth revealed slightly as he stared at Ion with a half open mouth. His bronze hair was wild and tousled, somewhat like Ion’s. Like the other two youngsters in the room, he too, looked about eighteen. His eyes unlatched themselves from Ion to run through the rest of the room, and the bodies of the unconscious rebels lying over it. Before travelling back to Ion with a deeper shade of shock.
“Who are you?” asked the Redling finally, sounding bewildered.
“Someone whom you can count on to show up at the right time.” replied Ion.
The two of them exchanged a glance.
The Redling cocked his head slightly, surveying Ion with a calculating expression. “Are you here to help us?”
“Judging by the fact that I just saved your life,” said Ion. “your best bet should be that I am.”
“But … why?” asked Vestra, sounding confused more than shocked.
The Redling beside her continued to regard Ion with a sceptical look, his head tilted. “No offence … but how do we know we can trust you?”
Ion turned and stared out the window, past the row of buildings stretching down the large village. The dangerous enemy territory they were now amidst. He turned back to the Redling and Vestra with a press of impatience in his tone as he spoke.
“I suggest you take my word for it at the moment. Because right now, if we’re gonna wanna go on living, we’d better be running instead of talking.”
While the Redling continued to survey him, Vestra slowly drew in a deep breath and placed an arm on the boy’s shoulder.
“Qyro, he’s right.” she told him. “Now’s not the time. We should leave while we can.”
The Redling, Qyro, inhaled slowly and nodded. “Fair enough, then.” His gaze darted to Razvol’s table, behind Ion. “But let’s not forget what we came here for.”
He leapt across the room in three strides and pushed the chair with Razvol’s body aside, causing the body to slump and fall off. Ion watched as he searched the top of the table in a neat sweep of his eyes before bending down, wrenching open his drawers and rummaging through them. Finally, his hands froze in the midst of the rummaging, and a smile spread across his red furred features.
“Did you find it?” asked Vestra.
Qyro shut the drawer and straightened up, raising an object in his right hand, the same one Mantra had shown Ion in the holo screen. It was, in simplest appearance, a crystal shard. Thin, pointed and glinting in the light, no longer than the Redling’s forefinger and no thicker than a few strands of hair.
Ion found himself gaping at the crystal shard with his jaw open.
The beam on his face growing stronger, Qyro pocketed the crystal shard like object.
“We’re done here, then.” he said, striding over across the room towards the exit behind them. “Let’s head out.”
__________
Now having seen the strange object live, Ion felt his confusion double: the Nyon had sent the other two and himself into the most dangerous planet in the spectrum to retrieve what looked like a crystal shard. And nothing more. A part of him was yearning to know what in the world was going on, and why the three of them were here risking their lives for this utterly ridiculous object. But he kept that part of him reserved for later on, knowing better than to abandon focus at a time like this: as of now, their priority was getting out of here alive with this strange object. The questions could be posed later on, if they were alive to ask them, of course.
Taking the white cloaks and masks from the rebels lying about the room, the three of them disguised themselves as members of the rebel squad and slowly made their way down the village’s cold streets. They skulked from street to street, stealthily moving through the maze of streets and keeping themselves to lanes that were smaller and less prone to have rebels moving through them. The few rebels they did pass threw strange lingering glances at the trio as they walked past. And at such instances when they did pass rebels, they would grip their sword handles tighter beneath their cloaks, sensing something loom over them. But the rebels they walked past so far didn’t seem to sniff out anything fishy at the pack of three moving down the place, and simply let them walk on, unconfronted.
The earlier lack of fortune that the two Nyon sent here had had seemed to have now been made up for as they tried exiting the village: they had managed to make it to the outskirts of the village without being attacked, without giving themselves away. As they reached the edge of the village, the three of them threw off their cloaks and took to a mindless dash down the lands beyond, aiming to put as much distance between them and the village as they could with their legs could handle.
After fifteen whole minutes of running, the three of them came to stall, panting relentlessly into the silent night air. As they finally gathered their breaths and were able to speak again, the Redling turned to Ion again.
“Great,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind explaining yourself, pal,” He exchanged a glance with Vestra. “Who are you, and why’d you help us back there?”
Ion took in a deep breath. “I’m one of you, now.”
The two of them lifted eyebrows together.
“One of us?” repeated Vestra.
“Yeah,” said Ion. “one of the Nyon. An hour or so back, Mantra and a few others from your elder council found me, and convinced me to help them.”
The shock returned to leave both their faces blank again for a moment or two.
“Mantra and some of our council,” said the Redling slowly, looking thoughtful. “They asked you to join them?”
“Yeah,” said Ion. “I was a stray mystic they’d been keeping an eye on. They thought I’d be a good candidate to join them.”
“How’s that?” asked Vestra.
Ion allowed her a smile. “Because of you, of course.”
“Me?” she asked, taken aback.
“You told them that I’d make a good member when you met me two years back.”
Vestra looked at him incredulously for a few seconds, before slowly saying, “I’m sorry, do we know each other?”
Ion considered the question for a moment. He thought it would be slightly awry to say, “Yes, you’re the girl I’ve dreamt of for two years now.” Instead, he decided on, “You saved me from the Zelgron warlord, Carcasar, two years back, remember?”
As he finished Vestra’s eyes drifted into memory for a few seconds. Then, a smile sprang to her lips. “You’re … Ion.”
One more person knows my name. thought Ion. Guess that brings the count upto … well, one.
The Redling fixed Ion with an intrigued stare. “So … Mantra and the elder council sent you here?”
“They did.”
“They found and sent a stray mystic to help us?”
“Let’s hope they weren’t making a mistake there.”
The Redling gave an amused laugh. “Of course not. It’s just … there’s gotta be something really big going on. To push them to such an extent.”
Ion scowled, inwardly trying to scout out a heading through the murky background they were in. “I had that very same feeling.”
Qyro’s sceptical look now dissolved, allowing a friendly grin to spread over his face.
“Well, if what you’re saying is true,” he said. “We’re sorry for doubting you, man. It’s just … policy demands that we keep up our vigilance.”
“A wise policy.” Ion nodded. He now felt his earlier curiosity rise inside of him. “What was that thing you two were sent to recover?”
Qyro thrust his hand into his pocket and withdrew the small crystal, which looked like a toothpick made out of glass, shining and well crafted. But definitely not worth such a chaotic misadventure for all three
of them.
“What the hell us it?” asked Ion. Not bothering to keep the tone of startlement down.
“Whatever it is,” said Qyro, pocketing it again. “It’s definitely more than it looks.”
“Let’s hope so.” said Ion, nodding. “It would be a pity if we’d risked our necks for a broken piece of glass.”
Ion had parked the escape ship which he had stolen across the other side of the village. After fleeing the village successfully and ending up here, they agreed that it would be beyond foolish to tread anywhere back towards the village to retrieve the ship. Qyro and Vestra had brought their hover boards, which they remembered to have parked closeby. They walked further off from the village for less than two minutes before arriving at the trough in the unlevelled terrain where the two vehicles lay safely parked.
“So where is the brotherhood hiding, currently?” asked Ion, something that had never occurred to him to ask earlier on.
“The Nyon temple’s hidden in a planet deep in the outer spectrum.” said Qyro, as the two of them walked over to where their boards lay. “Pretty deep into it, actually.”
“It’s in the planet Farnor, which is in the seventh level of the outer spectrum.” said Vestra.
Ion had travelled wide across the outer spectrum. But he’d never heard of this planet. It was clear that the Nyon were keeping themselves well hidden. In a planet barely even heard of. They were safer than he might have guessed.
“How long would it take us to get there?’ he asked, as the two of them stood bent over their long, thin hover boards, with flawless black skin that gleamed in the moon and starlight.
Vestra paused as she set the hover board to its destination. “It took us about half an hour to reach here.”
As soon as she said it, a fierce beeping noise emitted from the folds of her robes. A noise Ion knew to be that of a z-com with an incoming call.
Qyro paused and looked over as Vestra drew the z-com and pressed a button. A holographic screen grew to life over the device. And a familiar face stared out of it. But the calm look which Ion had seen earlier on Mantra’s face was gone, and a heavy anxiety was left to cloud his features. His eyebrows rose slightly as his vision registered Vestra and Qyro, standing before the screen.
“You’re alive!”
“Hope you’re not sorry.” snapped Qyro, who dug his hand into his robe and produced the shiny crystal object. He held it before the screen for Mantra to see. The elderly master’s eyes widened as they fell over it.
“We’ve got it,” said Qyro, turning to Ion who stood beside the two of them. “With a little bit of help that you’ve sent our way.”
“You got it!” exclaimed Mantra, and the tone in his voice for some reason, was not that of delight and relief … It was of alarm and terror.
Vestra’s eyes sank in a troubled frown. “Why, is something wrong?”
“Where are you?”
The three of them exchanged glances, not failing to miss the growing tenseness in Mantra’s voice.
“We’re still on the planet.” answered Qyro. “We haven’t left, yet.”
“Master, is something wrong?” repeated Vestra.
Mantra continued to keep his eyes steadily held on the crystal Qyro raised before him. Then, gathering a quick, deep breath, the master went on in a slightly less panicky tone.
“The object you’ve acquired is a very, very crucial one. We have to ensure that it’s brought back to the temple safely, without the slightest chance of falling to the wrong hands. Hear me out.” He drew in another deep breath, and said slowly, “That crystal must not fall to the wrong hands … even the Naxim’s. But we’ve just discovered a big problem with that particular part.”
__________
The three of them stared at Mantra’s face in the holo screen, sharing the confused silence for a second.
“What problem?” asked Qyro, throwing his hands out. “We don’t see any problem. We’re going to get on our hover boards now, and reach the temple in less than half an -”
“That my friend, is the very problem.” said Mantra, his voice taking a slower pace. “We’ve just got intel from Dantox that the Naxim has been alerted of the three of you by the rebels in the village. And apparently, they’ve scanned their satellite cameras and spotted the two of you arriving on your hover boards. The entire planet’s now on high alert. They’re watching the skies of the planet, monitoring every ship and car and board leaving it. The planet’s skies are being watched carefully. If you leave on the hover boards, they won’t fail to recognise the two of you from the video which caught you entering. And you’ll be goners before you knew it.”
His words ended in cold silence.
“They have satellite imagery of the hover boards the two of us came here in.” Qyro said, looking over at the two hover boards. “Then our boards are ruled out: they’re obviously expecting us to leave the same way.”
“It makes no difference,” said Mantra. “because they’re still keeping their alerted watch on every personal vehicle moving out of the planet.”
“They’re monitoring every ship and vehicle leaving the planet to find us , you say?” asked Vestra in a shrill whisper. She looked around at the other two, unable to complete the assimilation that was running through all their heads now. “This means…”
“That we’re trapped here.” whispered Qyro, looking stunned. “We can’t leave at all.”
Ion ran a hand through his red hair absently, his insides bubbling with anxiety and discord.
“And if you’re near the village right now,” said Mantra. “Then you can’t stay there either: they’re sending their forces to scout out the region around the village, in case you’re still here.”
The three of them drew their eyes off the screen from which they were hearing all these announcements, and gazed at each other in silent alarm.
“What the hell do we do, then?” asked Ion finally.
“Whatever you do now,” said Mantra. “There will be a very grave risk involved. The situation’s now changed with the Naxim having been alerted of you. But seeing as all the options are plain suicide anyway, we’ll have to surrender to the lesser of two dangerous ones.”
“Which is?” asked Vestra.
“Public transport.” answered Mantra.
“That’s half crazy.” protested Qyro. “Are you telling me that the ship stations haven’t been alerted of us?”
“The Naxim would have placed the planet’s authorities on alert as well.” pointed out Ion. “Which means the planet’s authorities will be keeping an eye out for us around here, especially in ship stations.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Vestra. “they’ll be watching out for us everywhere. There’s nowhere here on this planet’s that’s safe anymore.”
To their surprise, a smile broadened over Mantra’s face. “Exactly. That’s what I’m heading to: there’s nowhere in the planet that’s safe for you anymore. But of all the places, the ship station would be almost safest. Because the Naxim would be taking things from your point of view. And when they do that, they would assume that you wouldn’t dare use public transport in the most prominent planet that they’re present in: they would find it rather foolish of you. So, they would focus their resources instead on other regions, where they presume you would be more likely to be found. And their presumption can garner us a sleek advantage. Believe me, the options right now are very slim. And public transport is the safest of all of them.”
As the three of them digested this, Mantra went on in a bolder tone. “But there’s one more advantage to our side here: the image taken by the satellite caught Qyro and Vestra entering the planet together. And now, they’re expecting the two of you to leave together as well. They’ll be keeping a lookout for a young man and woman of your description travelling as one. And this gives us another advantage: if the two of you split up, you may have a better chance. If you two head to separate hangars, you may slip past their attentio
n because the other member of the pair the camera caught was found missing. They probably wouldn’t expect to find one of the target pair alone.”
“All right, then.” Qyro nodded. “Vestra and I go separately. Got it.”
“Good,” said Mantra. “Now, keep yourself steady, and follow my lead from here. And the three of you may just be able to reach here alive.”
17
Less than an hour later…
Cruiser 3209 took off from the southern space station of Radioc with two hundred and eighty seven passengers seated inside of its seventeen halls. Somewhere in hall number 43, a young man with rich red hair and orange eyes and a Redling with bronze hair were seated at the corner of the hall. Ion and Qyro watched from the window by their right as the large vessel soared through space.
“That was rather surprisingly easy.” said Ion, feeling the tension vanish now with the two of them having safely boarded the cruiser and away from that deadly planet.
