by Greg Dragon
“Who are you, friend?” he asked again, double-clutching the pistol and raising it up.
The man held up his fist, then removed his helmet. His face had the features of a Louine.
11
When Helga regained consciousness, she felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck. She tried to move but couldn’t and this sent her mind spiraling through a variety of awful possibilities. Had the Geralos already cut out her skull, and was her brain exposed to the atmosphere? Did they bite her and realize that she wasn’t psionic? Was her Casanian blood the culprit?
She felt cold and numb and her vision was blurry, but she was still alive and her mind was intact—at least that’s what she assumed. She opened and shut her eyes several times, trying to focus her vision, but even this was painful, so she stopped and decided to keep them closed.
A long time passed as she slipped in and out of consciousness. Time was a mystery as she faded in and out, but she dwelled more in the land of dreams than in the cold dark reality of the Geralos prison.
In the land of dreams she was in her childhood, watching her brother play with a kite. She followed the elaborate paper construct with her eyes as it dipped and climbed in the wind. Rolph, her brother, was tugging on the string, pulling it one way and then another.
Helga smiled as she watched. This was the Rolph she remembered, young and innocent but always in control. The kite continued to perform tricks while magically staying aloft, and it reminded her of the fighters that the Rendron would deploy.
They were on a hill in the northern Alps of Ferce on a planet known as Seryac. It was summer time, and Helga was in the birthday dress her mother had bought. They were always with their mother since their father was a Marine, and was actively fighting in the war.
As she looked around the grassy field, she spotted her mother on a bench. She appeared to be watching Rolph, but Helga recognized her expression. She remembered this day, and her mother’s face, masking the pain that she hid from them. She had just learned that her husband was dead, his dropship destroyed by a Geralos cruiser.
Why was she dreaming this? Why this memory? After this day her mother would join her father after losing her battle with depression. She and Rolph would be sent to the Rendron, orphans to strangers not fit to be parents.
This was the wake before the pain, and the dream kept every single detail. Helga was lucid yet stuck in her younger body, unable to escape. She recognized that she had been dreaming for an extremely long time, and she worried that she was actually dead and this was her version of an afterlife.
She got up off the ground, dusted herself off, and walked over to where her mother was seated. It felt good seeing her again, her Casanian half, and she could see that she got her lips from her. Unlike Rolph, whose features were more Casanian, Helga had a thick crop of hair, and her father’s sun-browned complexion.
As Peraplis, her mother, raised her wet eyes to meet hers, the dream began to fade to darkness. Helga’s eyes opened again, and though it was painful, she found that the blurriness was gone. When she looked around the room, she realized with some surprise that she was the lone person hanging.
A number of uniformed Geralos were on the far side, speaking in their gargling language. There was one staring at her, and when she saw him glaring, she closed her eyes to pretend that she was still in stasis. But she could hear him, laughing, and the others joined in. Then she heard them approach her body and felt hands on her head.
She felt the cold pressure of a knife being pushed down against her scalp. She tried to scream, but what came out was a cough, as her dry throat and heavy tongue reacted to the atmosphere. A new Geralos rushed in and screamed at the ones around her, and they backed away immediately.
He pointed at her face, then pointed towards his own, and made a gesture as if he was gasping for air. His violent sign language culminated with spit that smashed into Helga’s forehead and dripped down slowly past her nose.
The Geralos that meant to bite her walked out of the room quietly, followed by the one who had warned them off. Helga was stunned, trying to grasp what had happened between them. What had he told them to scare them so much, and why did he spit on her? That seemed unnecessary.
The mist didn’t appear to be making her tired, but she still felt paralyzed from her neck down. She could feel the spittle freezing in place on her face. Where are Cilas and Brise? she wondered, knowing somehow that they were dead. Was she the last survivor? Why hadn’t they bitten her first? Were they saving her for someone important, or to use as leverage somehow?
She noticed that the room was different from the one before, even though the mist had obscured everything within it. Maybe they moved me and the guys are still alive, she hoped. Tears mixed in with the Geralos spit, and her face felt stiff as if it held a thin layer of ice.
After a time she closed her eyes, hoping to pass out. She wished they had bitten her and rid her of her life.
When she fell asleep again, she was back in front of her mother, but this time they were inside their house. She was in front of her tools working on some plans, drafting up the layout to a house. She didn’t seem to notice Helga standing there, and she paused to play with a locket around her neck.
“Mom,” Helga said, getting her attention. She was startled to hear that her voice was not the eight-year-old version.
“Look after your brother, Sweet Pea,” she said in response, and Helga could see the tears rolling down her mother’s cheeks.
“Mom,” she tried again. But there was no answer as her mother’s head slumped down on the desk. It was the same way she’d died, when Helga found her so many years ago. Face down on the blueprints of a newly designed home, her teacup stinking with a potent Casanian poison.
It hurt as much now as it did back then, just less confusing and surprising. It would follow with her telling Rolph and him blaming her for everything. She hoped that her dream would let her escape before she got to that part.
“I wish that you would have given us a chance, Mom,” she said, leaning down and hugging her mother close. “We did great things with our lives, despite the odds. Rolph, I don’t know, we haven’t been in touch, but I became a spacer … just like dad. If you were here it would give me someone on the Rendron to fight for. Someone who would care if I’m stuck in this place forever. But your heart was broken, and you were lonely. I understand now, more than ever. Rest easy, Mom. Maybe I will be seeing you soon?”
This time when Helga opened her eyes she realized that she was naked. She didn’t know how she’d missed this major detail of her captivity, but for some reason it had eluded her. No one said that fear, cold, and hopelessness granted much clarity, but now she was looking down at her breasts, and the floor—which seemed to be several feet below her.
Why would they hang me higher? she thought, and that was when she noticed that she was alone. Her head was no longer hurting and she regained some feeling in her limbs, which would have been good if not for the pain that came along with the recovery.
The room was extremely quiet, the only sound being the oxygen blowing through the vents. There was no mist like the other room, and when she studied the ground she saw no footprints in the dust. In her arms ran several tubes, and when she followed them they went to a device which held a vat of red liquid.
They’re feeding me, she thought, keeping me alive for who knows what.
She tried to move but her body wouldn’t respond. Either she was still in stasis or her limbs were too weak. It frightened her that she couldn’t tell which. It was as if they managed to separate her mind from her body.
The door slid open, and when she heard the noise, her body tensed at the thought of the Geralos coming back. When she summoned the courage to look, she saw a slender spacer that could have been Cilas Mec. He came up to her, pulled out the tubes, and then undid something above her that caused her to fall.
Despite the lower gravity of the settlement, the fall hurt worse than anything she’d felt in a long tim
e. All of the nerves and feelings of her body came back like a flood. The spacer pulled her up violently and handed her a uniform. When she studied it she saw that it was her 3B XO-suit.
“Who are you?” she whispered, her throat too dry to say more.
“Can you see, Ate? It’s me, Cilas. Get the suit on fast, and hurry it up. We only have a few minutes before this place is toast.”
“What do you mean?” Helga said, struggling to pull on the suit. She was trying not to panic as she went. Her legs were so slender, and her nails had grown into ghastly talons. How long had she been locked up here, and how had Cilas gotten out? This and many more questions flooded her mind as she slipped into her XO-suit and stood in front of Cilas.
“The Louines got my SOS. They’ve come in and are giving the lizards hell. One of their commandos rescued me and Sol, but I came back for you,” he said. “Still, I don’t know if there are lizards in this building hiding and waiting for an opportunity. Can you walk, Ate? You don’t look good.” He reached around the back of her head and then exhaled with relief. “They didn’t bite you. That’s good, but you do have a nasty scar.”
He led her out in the hallway, cradling a gun and limping as if he’d been injured. “Where’s our armor?” Helga said, but Cilas merely shrugged. He opened the door to a closet lined with the settler’s IEVA gear. He took out a small mask with a clear glass front and threw it into her hands.
She pulled it on but regretted it instantly. It reeked of vomit and something else. Minutes later they were back in the hallway, dressed in their 3B XO-suits. Helga could already feel the alien material trying to heal her wounds.
She understood now why Cilas insisted that they wear it whenever they intended to don the PAS armor. It was an extra life, a second chance if the armor failed you, but she wondered how well it would heal a body weak from malnutrition.
The hallways they traveled were lined with an organic growth that was so thick it hid all traces of the original metal paneling. “What is this stuff?” she said to Cilas, curious if he could hear her through the IEVA helmet.
“Lizards were terraforming, converting this to their home. They dropped spores that reacted with the oxygen in the vents, making an atmosphere similar to Geral. Any longer here and we would have suffocated, but the growth is too new to bother us,” he said.
They stepped outside of the building, where Helga saw leagues of Geralos being marched toward the hatch of a Louine ship. All around her were the dead bodies of her captors, along with a few blue-skinned Louines.
A tall Louine came over to them and Cilas walked out to meet him. Helga saw an old crate half buried in the surface, and she limped over to it and sat down. She felt as if she’d just run a marathon, and would kill for something cold to drink.
Cilas and the spacer talked at length while she studied their big, sleek, silver dropship. She had always heard about Louine’s advanced technology, but never thought she would see or experience it. Now as she gazed upon the shiny behemoth, she wondered what would happen if the Louines joined the war.
She felt a deep sort of pain that gave the impression that it was inside her bones. When she concentrated on it, the pain grew worse, and she noticed that her breathing was labored—and not from the musty helmet. She wanted to know what day it was, and the time. They had been under for so long that she had begun to confuse her dreams with reality.
Where was Brise Sol? She looked around to find him, and finally found him sitting near the drop ship with a man in white attending to him. Cilas Mec walked over and sat next to her, and she could tell from his face that he had something grave to tell her. He reached down for her wrist, and she let him have it. He slipped on a bracelet comms, and synched it to his own.
“Can you hear me, Ate?” he said when he was finished, and Helga nodded affirmatively. “Well, we’re out of the bad part, but we’re on our own. These Louines are a paramilitary group, as unofficial as they come. That’s their leader, Amatu Vlax. He intercepted my signal and came in to help us. He told me that the Louines would have ignored it, since they want no part of this war. Lucky for us, he hates lizards just like we do.” He laughed. “So we gave him an opportunity to try out his troops.”
“How did they do?” Helga said, smiling. She thought he looked handsome beneath the light of his helmet.
“They are the truth, and I’m not being generous, Ate. They took on over a hundred lizards with thirty untested men. Apparently the simulations they trained on is top of the line amazing. They couldn’t do it on their planet; they would have been arrested and locked up forever. So they stole a ship, modded it out for stealth, and used it as a training grounds for their men.”
“So, what do they do exactly, if they aren’t a part of the war?” Helga said.
“They want to be, Ate. This is why they came for us. We were the flair that lit up the sky for them, and now they’re ready to join the war. I told Amatu that when we make it back to the Alliance, I would inform them about what he did. Hopefully we can recruit them into our corps and get them the hell out of this system. The longer they stay the more they risk discovery, and their ship is too small and underpowered to defend against a Geralos destroyer.”
“Yeah, and if the Louines come to arrest them, they won’t be able to stop that, either. I understand, Lieutenant … wow. I want to give Amatu a hug,” Helga said.
“How are you feeling, Ate? Please answer me honestly. I need to know. What did they do to you? You know you can tell me. What do you remember from when they isolated you?”
Helga struggled to remember the few times when she was conscious in that room. Nothing came, just a big black gap, and the painful memory of Lamia going rogue. “If I remembered, I would happily tell you, Lieutenant, but they kept me frozen the entire time. My body hurts though, like my bones have cracks in them. Do you know what I mean? It’s pretty intense.”
Cilas shifted and sat forward, placing his elbows on his thighs. He seemed to be watching Brise as the doctor examined him, and then he began to wring his hands. “I feel it too,” he said finally. “If I stop to think, it’s the absolute worst. Deep pains throughout my body, my guts feel like they are on fire, and the wound from the ship … well, it’s taking some real effort to ignore it. Helga, I feel like I’m already dead.”
Without thinking better of it, Helga embraced him, and she felt him surrender in her arms. He’d done everything he could to get them to safety, and she wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone. This went beyond protocol or appearances because she saw him as a friend. Cilas would not admit weakness to just anyone, so she felt honored that it was her.
Her eyes grew heavy while she hugged him, as if she hadn’t slept in days. She fought to stay conscious, but she was losing, and eventually the darkness won.
12
Helga came out of her dreams to pressure on her eyes, an annoying beeping sound, and the smell of chemicals. She tried to open her eyes but they remained closed, and she struggled against the panic building up inside of her.
Okay, eyes are sealed, she thought, and then tried to move. Nothing, but she did manage to wiggle her toes and fingers. Good, now let’s see what’s going on with these eyes.
When she tried to open them she felt a bit of pain. Her mind then dipped into the realm of the absurd. She imagined that the Geralos had bound her to a bed, cut her scalp open, and sewed her eyes shut.
It’s okay, she thought, eyes can be replaced. She lifted her right arm to try and reach up to her face. Something stopped her movement halfway up, and with two tugs she assumed that it was belt restraints. Should I say something—could I say something? she thought, then opened her mouth and tried.
“Lieutenant,” she said, but it came out as a croak. “Lieutenant, are you there? Sol?”
“I’m here, Ate,” a voice said. “We’re both here in beds next to you.”
It was Brise Sol, but where was Cilas? She tried to figure out where she was. The last time she was awake, she was hanging from a wall, b
ut now she could tell that she was lying in a bed. There was also the beeping, and the strong chemical smell. They had to be in a hospital, which meant—”Hey, are we back on the Rendron?” she said.
Brise laughed. “No. Is something wrong with your eyes?”
Her memory was fuzzy, but she remembered them being rescued. For a while there had been a lot of darkness broken up by confusing dreams. Either she was flying into battle or reliving a scene from her past, so now that she was finally awake, she struggled to make sense of her location.
Brise was still talking. “It’s just this cream they put over your eyes. It stings a little, but not for long. Try to open your eyes.”
Helga did as he said and opened her eyes, slamming them shut from an assault of bright fluorescent light. When she opened them again, she saw computers all around her. On one monitor it showed a star map, which told her that they were leaving Dyn.
Her thoughts went to Varnes, Cage, and Wyatt. She wondered if the Louines had recovered their bodies from the crater. Cilas wouldn’t leave without them, she knew he wouldn’t, so either the full team was on the ship or the lieutenant had stayed behind.
She adjusted her body to look to the side, and that’s when she saw the other beds. Cilas was in bandages, unconscious or asleep, and on the bed near the wall sat Brise. She had somehow managed to forget about him, but she was pleased that he had made it.
He pounded his chest in the Alliance’s universal salute, and Helga wondered why. Maybe he’d forgiven her, now that they were out. They had been thrown into a blender, ground up to bits, and then dumped into a fire on that moon. Yet here they were, alive and rescued. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
Suddenly Helga felt guilty and sick, unworthy of her life. Brise saluting her made it seem worse. Why did they make it and the others didn’t? But Brise looked lost, just as lost as she was, as if he really needed a friend. Why should she leave him out in the cold? Because he’d yelled at her when they were captured?
