by Cameron Hale
Elgar sighed. His own shore leave practices were hardly an example, but he doggedly honored his sense of duty. Though loyal, his men were somewhat less committed; the allure of Latkor’s charms a powerful competitor. Simale’s lackadaisical attitude was typical of the hedonistic Latkians and did little to reassure him in the face of an approaching catastrophe. His priority now was to evacuate his crew. As the graceful city of dazzling spires passed beneath in a checkerboard of parks, plazas and shimmering lakes, he formulated a plan.
* * *
The first stop at the city’s hectic commerce center almost filled the shuttle. Despite the crisis, many of the Latkians still haggled over business transactions and market prices. Elgar moved to the back rear where a few empty seats remained. He perused the passengers during the shuttle’s continuing journey, the arguments about trade and profit rising in pitch. Though handsome in a vaguely serpentine way, the superbly sculpted Latkians were almost intimidating as they dealt with every aspect of life with the same burning intensity.
Uninhibited, heavily tattooed and clad boldly in barely enough for modesty, their speech and gestures mimicked the passion they displayed in the simplest of tasks. Elgar often found the Latkians exhausting in large numbers, their energy reflected in the non-stop pulse of their sprawling cities. Lovers of culture, connoisseurs of food and sex in its infinite variety, they offered a complete sensory experience to every visitor. It was no wonder Latkor was a notorious recreational haven for troopers and civilians alike.
The second shuttle stop was the Ktsima brothel. Overlooking idyllic subterranean grottos and cascading waterfalls, it was the favorite stopover of Terran servicemen. Elgar wondered why any male in his right mind would risk castration to have a Latkian woman, especially as there were few augmented females, but he had only to dwell on Simale to know the answer. Though he had experienced many alien women, few could match the sensual fire of a Latkian female.
He felt a familiar stirring in his loins that he only partially managed to squelch. An image of Simale rose in his mind, a snapshot recollection of her immersed in the pool perched within the transparent, diamond blue walls of the conservatory. The surreal setting not only offered a fabulous view of the city, but also provided the sensation of being suspended in air. He had come in unexpectedly from a mission to rescue a stranded ship. Entering Simale’s apartment with the intention of surprising her, he had been the one surprised to see her swimming naked below the limpid surface of the pool, her body moving with serpentine grace. Burning for her with a hunger he could barely comprehend, he had stripped and dove in to the electric embrace of her mouth and hands…
A violent concussion rocked the shuttle, shattering his reverie and hurling terrified passengers from their seats. Screams echoed as a slow motion fireball burst through the skyshell. It skimmed the skyline and hurled into the horizon mercifully past the city limits. A panic-stricken woman screamed and seized Elgar’s arm.
“We’re going to be killed! You’re a trooper! Do something!”
Elgar gently seated her to a cacophony of screeching sirens, startling thousands in the teeming city below. People streamed from buildings into the vast central plaza, milling aimlessly. Elgar stared in horror as the shuttle bucked and plunged toward a nearby residential tower. At the last minute, the vessel veered and shuddered to a rough landing in a park by an amphitheater, an array of musical instruments abandoned in the wake of the terrified exodus of orchestra and audience. While the shaken passengers quickly abandoned the shuttle, Elgar’s tracer momentarily sprang to life with a hailing code and faded out.
He hesitated, his attention drawn to Simale’s fluted residential tower soaring behind him. Duty compelled him to locate his crew, but something stronger drew him into the building. He hastily transmitted instructions for each man to report to the space dock as soon as possible and hoped for the best.
A torrent of frightened residents burst from the building’s sweeping entrance and virtually swept him back into the plaza. He flailed against them like a salmon swimming upstream and caught one of the lifts just as it began a dizzying ascent. By the hundredth floor, the city below a mere miniature through the transparent walls, he realized he had no intention of leaving Latkor without Simale.
He prepared for another onslaught as the lift doors dilated open. To his surprise, the corridor was deserted. An eerie wind whistled from a shattered segment of window, not quite masking the sound of street level panic. He jogged close to the walls, his fingers clutching the elaborately woven hangings each time the building spasmed.
The door to Simale’s apartment was partially jammed open. Elgar flattened himself against the wall, his weapon poised. Cautiously he peered into the candlelit room, the flames low and weak against the tense atmosphere. A foul odor lingered in the air, its reek familiar. He crept into the room, his pulse quickening as he spotted Simale cowering in a corner, her face a mask of terror. A livid Naylor towered above her, a massive studded belt knotted around his hand and poised to strike. Angry words reached his ears.
“I’ll teach you once and for all to mix with that stinking Terran prick,” he growled, snapping the belt. “You see no one else when I’m on Latkor! Understand? Not Elgar, not anyone! If I even think you’ve had his cock in your mouth…”
“Naylor, you bastard!” Elgar shouted, firing at the Venusian before the man had a chance to respond. The giant’s chest exploded in time with Simale’s scream, a stunned expression twisting his face as he collapsed in a pool of oily brown blood.
Elgar savagely kicked the lifeless body before replacing his weapon. “Rule number one, Simale,” he said, his breath barely quickened. “Never leave your back uncovered. I’ve warned you before to be careful with Naylor. His kind doesn’t rank as intelligent life.”
Simale scampered toward him, her brief gauzy dress splattered with blood. “I’m so glad to see you! Honestly, Elgar, I wasn’t expecting anyone, let alone Naylor. When I heard the commotion outside…”
An explosive force rocked the tower. Elgar paled and grabbed Simale. “We’ve got to get out of the building now!” he shouted, dragging her out of the apartment.
“Will you tell me what’s happening?” she cried as they raced down the corridor. “All the channels went down after that fireball came through. Most of my neighbors fled after the shockwave. They tried to get me to leave but I wanted to wait in case I heard from you. Then Naylor showed up and started threatening me. He was the last person I expected to see. I couldn’t find a way to signal for help…”
“We’ve got a code infinity,” he cut in. “You know what that means. We’ve got to find a way to get off Latkor. There’s no chance of getting to my ship now. I sent orders to the crew though it’s anyone’s guess if they’ll receive them. If we have to leave without them we will.”
The pair encountered a group of stragglers crowding into the lift. Simale turned toward one of the other lifts.
“No, they’ll be deathtraps if the building takes another hit!” Elgar cried, pulling her into an auxiliary corridor leading to the private shuttle pod bays.
Simale balked when she noticed him checking one of the few remaining pods. “You’re not thinking of getting to the surface in one of those! Everyone’s heading for the labyrinths, Elgar! We’ll be safe down there. Why are we heading for the surface?”
“There’s no time for a debate! Latkor’s gravity is pulling in a disintegrating comet. Something happened to sway it toward us from its original course. I suspect it may have been deliberate. We’ve already had one massive fireball break through the city shell. Repair droids won’t be able to patch the hole in time. The damaged skyshell can’t protect us, nor will the labyrinths if more fireballs break through.”
“Elgar, are you insane? What makes you think you’ll get that pod off the planet? Even normal surface conditions are far too dangerous for sub-surface craft!” She tried to shake free of his grasp. “I’d rather take my chances in the labyrinths, thank you.”
&n
bsp; He seized her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “Trust me, Simale. I’ve been in the service most of my life and have experienced things you can only imagine. What’s happening is similar to a meteor shower. Now I’ve survived those and I’ll survive this comet. The odds are better in the open sky than in subterranean tunnels miles below the planet surface. Have you thought about seismic activity if a fireball strikes a fault or…”
The corridor rocked, tumbling them. Screams echoed in the distance as the tower creaked and swayed.
“Let’s go!” he cried.
They scrambled to their feet and boarded the tiny pod. Ignoring pre-flight checks, Elgar blew the exit hatch and fired the thrusters, his face grimly averted from an older couple that appeared unexpectedly, valuables in hand, to claim their hijacked pod. Simale bit her lip as their indignant voices tapered off.
“Sorry,” he muttered, feeling the accusation of their words. “But they had their chance.”
He swore under his breath as the main thrusters misfired and juiced them with power from the emergency backups. In the back of his mind, he hoped they would not be needed later. The shuttle careened from the exit tube and angled toward one of the skyshell’s gigantic ventilation chutes. Simale screamed as a fiery fragment burst through the damaged portion of the skyshell and obliterated the tower behind them. A deadly hail of bodies and crystalline shards showered the crowded streets below. Screams and cries penetrated the insulated pod.
While Simale openly wept, Elgar grimly threaded his way through the apocalyptic chaos. Around them, the city center and part of the skyshell crumbled beneath the onslaught of yet another fireball. It tumbled toward the commerce center and decimated several square kilometers. Elgar prayed that the remaining ventilation chutes were not blocked or destroyed. Ahead, a bank of yellow warning lights flashed as one huge oval chute yawned open like a great eye, revealing a glimpse of the tumultuous sky beyond.
“We’re in luck!” he cried. “There’s a chute opening just ahead. Hold on, Simale, this is going to be a rough ride. I don’t know if the chute’s going to stay open long enough for us to make it through.”
She squeezed his hand, her face ashen. “If anyone’s going to make it, you will.”
He fired the emergency backup thrusters, their earlier drain leaving barely enough power to shunt the pod into the gaping chute. Simale gasped and shrank back into her seat. Elgar gritted his teeth, steering virtually impossible as turbulence battered the fragile craft. It bucked and seesawed, the modest engines whining against the strain.
An explosive updraft snatched the pod and whipped it out into the atmosphere at a dizzying speed. Nauseated, Simale doubled over, unaccustomed to such velocity. Elgar struggled to control the somersaulting pod. He initiated an automatic distress signal in the hopes that a message might breach the interference. Fireballs pelted the planet, lethal debris narrowly missing the craft. After several harrowing banks and evasive turns, he intermittently fired the recalcitrant backup thrusters in an attempt to slow the pod and land behind the shelter of a low mountain range.
The frozen ground was enticingly near when a piece of fiery debris pierced the pod’s hull, driving a spoke of metal cleanly through his shoulder. The impact hurled him across Simale’s lap, her cries intermingling with the collision warning as the pod lurched and dove.
Elgar fought unconsciousness as Simale tore a strip from her dress and applied a makeshift tourniquet to the wound.
“Elgar, can you hear me?” she cried, knotting the fabric tightly under his armpit. “Please stay with me!”
“Controls¾quickly,” he murmured, fuzzy waves of red edging his vision. “Land¾signal…”
Simale gently propped him up in his seat and grabbed the controls. With shaking hands, she tried to maneuver the pod to a chorus of status alerts. The interior temperature plunged as Latkor’s thin, frozen air seeped through the fist-sized hole. The pod gradually stabilized, giving her a measure of control. After some coaxing, she managed to initiate the pod’s autopilot and hastily entered a landing coordinate. She glanced at Elgar, his body crumpled like a broken puppet.
“Don’t leave me, Elgar,” she said, clutching his limp hand. “Stay with me. You’ve got to help me through this!”
The bloodstain crept inexorably across his blue tunic. Simale choked a sob as his eyes fluttered open. He grimaced with pain, sweat gleaming on his forehead despite the chill air.
“Think¾the bastard got me,” he whispered. “Can’t¾can’t breathe…”
Simale embraced him. “No, Elgar,” she said, stroking his damp hair. “Please hold on! We’ll get through this, you’ll see. Someone’s bound to get the distress signal. Maybe the interference isn’t so bad from the surface. They’ll find us. You’ll be all right!”
He looked into her moistening eyes, a faint smile on his lips. “I never knew you cared…”
A golden tear trickled down Simale’s face. Gently, she stroked his face and planted a soft kiss on his lips. “I didn’t realize how much until now, Elgar. From the day we met at the street market, I knew you were special. It didn’t matter that you weren’t Latkian, it only mattered that I loved you.”
Tears glistened in Elgar’s eyes despite his attempts to blink them back. “Then you felt the same?” he murmured.
She nodded. “You were always coming and going. Somehow, it never seemed the right time to mention anything. I was afraid I’d scare you off. I know troopers. Commitment is more frightening than the worst possible battle. Emotions always have a way of complicating things. That was the last thing I wanted. But now, now there is something I want…”
“Damned¾unpredictable troopers,” he murmured, giving Simale’s hand a weak squeeze. “Too headstrong to admit¾their feelings are¾are the same…”
She stifled a sob as the color drained from his face. His head lolled back, his eyes fluttering shut. “Sure will miss those candles…” he whispered, clutching her hand until his lifeless fingers slowly slipped off…
* * *
The distress signal repeated every ten seconds. Nestled beneath the shelter of a solid rock outcrop, the pod survived Latkor’s punishing ordeal as the cometary debris finally petered out. Eventually, a multi-planetary fleet of rescue cruisers flanked the horizon. A Terran vessel tracked Simale’s signal and requested a status confirmation.
Several hours later, a rescue craft landed beside the battered pod. Its powerful searchlights scanned the area, but found nothing on the desolate surface beyond the solitary craft. Clad in atmosphere suits, a two-person search team boarded the pod. A female medic prepared to administer aid, stabilizer hypos already retrieved from her kit. Her partner gently gripped her shoulder and shook his head.
“No rush, lieutenant,” he said, his somber gaze fixed on the couple frozen together in a final, tender embrace. “I’m afraid we’re too late…”
TIMESPANNER
No more than a speck in the sky, the creature rode the storm lashed night. Underscored by symphonic thunderclaps, the tempest reached a deafening crescendo. Lightning speared the turbulent clouds, illuminating the sky with fearsome pyrotechnics that stabbed through windows at restless sleepers. Gale force winds raged and compounded damage already caused by torrential rains. The city shuddered beneath the onslaught, the flooded streets churning like whitewater rapids. Anxious eyes peered through curtains at trees limboing precariously towards walls and fences. The occasional cry of a frightened child rose fleetingly in the din and quickly silenced.
The creature soared majestically through the heavens, rejoicing in nature's raw fury. Its great arched wings spanned twenty feet, the texture of its grainy, rain-splattered hide a muddy, mottled gray. Taloned claws nestled tightly against its streamlined underbelly. Intelligent yellow eyes scanned the tumultuous skies, an occasional interrogative cry rising from its sharp, pointed beak.
Buffeted by the undercurrents, the creature coasted. No longer did it see the destruction and artifice of the current age, but rather the vi
sions of the remote past, visions of lush rain forests, steaming volcanoes and fearsome beasts whose tread thundered across the land. Eons before, while assuming the primitive avian form, the creature had savored the savage youth of the blue planet and had basked in the heat of the yellow star. Though its travels had spanned the boundaries of the universe, it had found little to compete with the untamed childhood of a new world.
Constantly seeking new experiences and sensations on the blue planet, it had transmuted into countless indigenous forms. Whether swimming the vast depths of virgin oceans or foraging at the base of volatile mountain ranges, it had hunted, feasted and rutted with unrelenting abandon. Most enjoyable was the coupling, the variety of species offering amazing variations of the sexual urge that so intensely drove all life on the world.
The creature considered its own kind. Once bound to a single body like so many species, the Khemblaar had gradually evolved into a chameleon like entities capable of assuming any form. Though the transmutation process was stressful and required adherence to certain physical laws of the universe, the assumption of other life forms eventually replaced interaction between its own species. In some ways, the ability had become an addiction, prompting the Khemblaar to exist in solitude as nomads forever seeking sensory input.
Then came the cataclysm. Such a force rocked the planet that at first the creature thought the yellow star had exploded. Yet it knew that such an event was impossible as the star was far too young. The creature recalled its astonishment and wondered how it could not have foreseen such a catastrophe. Engrossed by the mating process of the great reptiles, it had let itself be lulled by the carnal innocence of the blue planet.
