by E L Strife
“A pill?” Teek asked.
She nodded and gestured an invisible item between her fingers. “It’s a small thing like food. You swallow it whole. It’s medicine.” Patting his shoulder, she pointed at the door they were approaching. “Touch with your wristband hand to open. It will register the individual code and unlock the door for you, permitting your capacitive connection on the handle.”
At the contact of her left hand, the latch unlocked with the clicking of heavy metal components in the doorframe. She pushed the large panel open, presenting the group room.
“There are eight bunks.” The fluorescent lights buzzed to life when they filed inside. “The sliding partition wall is between the bathroom doors at the back.”
“Who else coming?” Teek clutched his satchel strap with long fingers.
Atana scanned everyone, landing on Azure. “I figured there might be a few. Imara, maybe?”
“She may not come for a while.” Azure watched Kios, who had wriggled himself to the floor to run his hands over the soft fabric of a cot in utter elation. “She’s keeping herself busy as the Lead Guard now.”
“Right. I’m reserving these beds for her and anyone else we might want to work with from Agutra.” Rotating, she tapped the screen beside the door. “This is my room.” She selected a square on the digital schematic at the internal end of a hallway, placing a blue dot inside. The network registered her wristband and created a link above the indicator, displaying her name. “Quarters, Sergeant Bennett, R three, access code Tango Sierra One One,” she called out. The vocal analyzer blinked green and a dot dropped in the bunk across the hall from hers. Huh.
Ramura fidgeted. “What is ‘bath-room’?”
“Rio show me!” Kios took Ramura by the hand, leading her to the back, Teek following behind. His youthful voice gave instructions as the water turned on and off and the toilet flushed.
Teek peered over Ramura’s shoulder at the shower. “For cleaning body? It look like cage.”
“You can’t get locked inside. No latches.” Atana walked across the room and leaned against the doorframe to watch, Azure’s large body warming the cool air beside her. Lavrion hovered in the background.
Kios slid the door open and stepped in. His hands pressed the chrome handle up and over his head, causing the clear liquid to spray over the back wall.
“Sua’o.” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “Grat!” Moving the lever to the right, steam wafted up into the air. Kios giggled as he stomped his bare feet in the forming puddles of water tinting brown from the dirt on his skin.
“All right.” Atana summoned him out with a hand. “Good lesson, Kios.”
Hopping out of the shower, the boy stood on his tiptoes in front of the shelves, his fingers reaching up for a tan towel.
“Hesse liatti giatmano tusan.” He grunted. The friction of the towel against the others made it hard for him to pull out, but it gave and fell, unfolding over his head. He released a muffled laugh. “Yan!”
Ramura repeated Kios’s words, focusing on each. “Dry bare body using—this.” She spun around, eyes wide open at Atana. “We don’t wear clothes in there?”
“Correct, no clothes when you shower. You dry yourself off with the towel and then put your clothes back on.” Atana twisted the bolt knob on the bathroom door. “Red means no one can get in. White lets you out.”
Atana understood Ramura’s hesitancy to strip. Cloth was hard to come by on Agutra, and shreds were precious. Her own personal adjustment had taken months to grasp the basics of self-care, and years to stop guarding her food and being paranoid someone would try to stab her in her sleep.
Her new wristband screeched twice. A deep breath stretched her tired lungs.
Meeting 1-CR: Immediately. Come alone.
“I have to go to work,” she said to Azure, glancing at the muddy spray in the bottom of the shower. “Can you make sure everyone gets cleaned up and situated?”
“You’re leaving?” Kios’s smile faded, his big navy eyes filling with tears.
“I must talk to some other people.”
Azure’s sharp tone cut through the air. “Who?”
“Command, again.”
“Can I go with you?” He picked Kios up and placed the towel back on the shelf, shutting off the shower. Teek and Ramura stumbled out of the way.
She shook her head, walking back to the door. “You weren’t requested. After the incident this morning—” She gestured an explosion with a hand. “I’m not sure what will happen. Could you also show them how to get food? I expect they’re hungry.”
He hustled after her, catching her arm. “Don’t disappear on me again, not tonight.” When the backs of his fingers graced her cheek, her body locked up. They hadn’t done anything like this in front of others before. “I must see you later.”
“I can’t make promises like that here,” she reminded him, growing impatient with his continual requests. “Mission first, or there might not be a future for anyone.”
His hand fell to his side with a frustrated sway of his head. “I know. Just try, please.”
Glancing at the others, who promptly spun to muse unnecessarily over the bathroom in the back, she gave him a hesitant nod, opened the door, and slipped out.
…
Lavrion didn’t understand why she was leaving so soon. They hadn’t had a chance to talk. They’d barely managed a greeting. Her response was so different this time that he was stumbling through clouds of questions.
Slapping a desperate hand around the edge of the closing door, he flung it open to follow. “Sahara?”
Atana spun in the hallway. “I’m sorry. We can’t discuss things yet. I have to report, immediately.”
Fear stilled him. “Because of us?”
“I don’t know. The invasion was only half the problem. I will try to explain later if I can.”
Lavrion didn’t like the idea of sitting on his thumbs, waiting. “I’d like to help. I’m three-quarters Mirramor. My hands heal.” He lifted his open palms, propping the door with his foot. “Pretty good at it. I’ve been surviving off of healing others and their gifts of food and shelter. I’m not familiar with all of this. I need something to do.”
“You can check in with Dr. Tieshna when you are ready. She’ll be upstairs in the main hangar helping the injured shepherds and civilians as they return. If you tell her I sent you, she can verify it with me.” Atana gestured to her wristband.
“Thank you.” Lavrion glanced into the group room to trace Ramura’s short, curvy figure while she played with Kios in Azure’s arms. “Ramura is from Agutra, the place they were taking us all to?”
“Yes.”
His sister followed his gaze with interest. He felt warmth invade his face. “How are they handling this merge of forces? Usually, tribes will get along until the memory of the battle fades. Then they start fighting one another over cultural differences.”
Her jaw jutted as if chewing on something. “I know. I’m concerned too.”
Lavrion drew in deep, lingering over the arc of Ramura’s cheeks before he could tear his eyes away. “Do they even want interaction with us? I mean, they’re all from different planets, right? Don’t they want to go home?” He gestured between Teek and the Xahu’ré.
“Vioras is gone, like many planets. Lizra, where the Mirramor are from, is as well.” Atana tilted her head, inspecting him. My home planet and yours.
“Ma told me. I wasn’t sure if shepherds knew the truth about the past or not.”
Her head swayed and hung. “Only Azure and I. But I told Bennett.”
“So this Command of yours has everyone in the dark about our ancestors.”
“As I understand it.”
“Okay, I wanted to gauge where we were at socially since we’re sleeping together.” Cold alarm pounded in his chest at his slip. “I mean—in the same room.”
Atana’s expression obscured into nothing recognizable. His faux pas didn’t faze her. “No families, friends, or e
motions. At least, not around shepherds.”
The gossip about shepherds being machines was true. But seeing his sister act like one of them broke his heart. Years he’d searched for her because of their mother’s last request. He wouldn’t give up on either of them now, even if it wasn’t what he’d anticipated. He’d dreamed about meeting her for years. And now, standing here with her, he could immediately tell. She had no idea how special she was.
Atana arched a brow the way his mother used to when he was in trouble. “In the room, you can do what you want. Please make sure you read the introduction forms on your wristbands. The screen should prompt you through before use. Best read them to the others.”
He tucked his smile inside. It felt odd, a moment of happiness for himself, not a charade to keep hope alive in others.
“Since you three are the first guests not here for Induction training, outside of Kios and Azure, your actions will pave the road or destroy it, understood?”
“Understood, ma’am.” When she was gone, Lavrion scrubbed a hand through his hair and studied the steel walls of the functionally efficient structure around them. No art, no furniture with cushions. Every desk, chair, bench, and light matched a value of grayscale and were all formed in the minimalist style of a prison.
Peeking in through the cracked door one more time, he gave Ramura’s shorter figure a once-over. Three Xahu’ré and a Simmaro, all from Agutra. I’m the outsider, like always. He looked down at his chewed up leather boots. When peace was broken, fury governed action, and hope was a fantasy, their mother had given him
one reminder that stuck.
Life is a gift. Love is a luxury.
Chapter 19
METAL CHILLED HER hand on contact as Atana pushed inside Command’s conference room. All twenty-one faces pinned on her.
What were they going to say? Had she finally made an unforgivable error?
The Coordinator stood from his seat at the far end of the long interactive table, no emotion on his face. “Sergeant Atana.”
Making sure the door was closed, she spun to face them, standing at attention. “What can I do to be of service, Command?”
“Where is Sergeant Bennett?” a woman asked. “We do not want to start without him.”
Atana pinpointed her: milky skin, longer-than-normal eyelashes, and two additional holes punched in her upper ears. The members of Command never showed themselves in the typical shepherds’ spaces. The more she met with them, the more she caught on to the variation in their appearances and behavior.
“Working in the hangars. They are overwhelmed, and I wish to return as soon as we are done.”
“We will try to be quick.” The Coordinator opened his hands, directing one at each row of the table. “As you are now aware, there are multiple species here on Earth. However, Earth’s population believes they are human, as every child is visited by UP’s cataloging team with a Mirramor so they can ensure they look human. This is why we have a Human Cataloging office in every district of every zone.”
Atana wanted to mention the odd weapon the team had encountered in the sand and hovered the thought in the back of her mind.
The Coordinator rested his forearms on the table. “Some are always missed. To survive, they must find an H.Co office to be concealed. Otherwise, they risk being singled out as diseased or mutants.”
Another member chimed in from her left side, a lanky male with a spine so knobby she could see the vertebrae jutting from the back of his neck. “The unfortunate events of this morning exposed the humans to non-humans in the Universal Protectors.”
The male to his right looked similar enough to the first that Atana thought they could be twins. He tapped on the glass tabletop, bringing up a civilian’s home video on the screen behind the Coordinator. “The simple solution was to say that when we took down the collectors, we also killed the aliens. That would’ve protected the minds of Earthlings and preserved our image as a strong, unified force.”
A white lie but a lie, nonetheless.
Atana scanned the members, unable to distinguish the source of the muffled voice. Her attention jerked to the shaking video now playing on Command’s screen. A few choice words in shock released from the individual recording her flaming orb and Azure as he picked himself up from the sand.
“This is unacceptable,” another member snapped. “You can’t go parading around like this. There’s a PR system in place for a reason!”
She looked to him as he sat on the right: strawberry blond hair, rose-quartz skin with cinnamon freckles, smaller frame. Atana made a mental note of his comparison to Josie.
“Dequan,” the Coordinator warned.
The man’s jade eyes glared at her, unmoved.
A woman with spiked scarlet hair and mauve skin leaned back in her chair between a man with saffron eyes and the knobby twins. “What do you have to say for your actions?”
Atana made a note of her similarity to Ekiipa, the Kriit perimeter guard in-training who’d stepped forward during the mutiny and saved his father’s life and countless others while injured. Kriit were the personification of quiet fury. She would not underestimate her too.
The door whooshed open behind her. She spun around, palming an SI out of instinct.
“Azure, you cannot enter without a request for your presence,” the Coordinator stated.
“I fight with my people.” Azure placed himself beside her. “Not under them.”
“Where’s Kios?” Atana asked, noting his arms were empty.
“With Ramura and Teek. I left after Rio stopped by.”
A member sat forward on the far right, her vivid cyan eyes too bright to be human. “You have housed outsiders here without our permission?”
“They are unattended?” Another, she remembered was Xahu’ré, sputtered in disbelief from his seat closest to the door.
“No, Rio is there. They are banded and are members of Azure’s team. If we are to maintain good relations, they will be accepted,” Atana stated. Command didn’t look convinced. “Kios had no one left to care for him. He, Teek, Azure, and Ekiipa are the only ones remaining of the Hatoga fields that sheltered us in the beginning. Ramura is from Paramor’s sector. We owe them our respect and protection.”
The male with the saffron-gold eyes spoke softly from his chair closer to the Coordinator. “You cannot make decisions like this without our approval.”
She scowled and, growing impatient, moved on to the axis of the problem. “We shouldn’t be lying to the public to preserve a social image. You may have prevented most from looking anything other than human. Who’s to say they didn’t keep their family history alive in secret?” Lavrion knew about other species. “You know it’s a media shit storm if we don’t lay the baseline before the public leaks information on its own. And don’t tell me this wouldn’t be any different, working with Agutra, if we all knew what we were from the get-go. Fear of the unknown wouldn’t be an issue of this magnitude.”
Command shifted in their seats. It was clearly something they’d thought about and pushed out of their minds.
“You’ve grown quite insubordinate in the last few days,” a member remarked.
Atana’s wristband peeped. I’m just getting started. Taking a deep breath to calm her building frustration, she read Dr. Tieshna’s request for Lavrion’s approval to work. She tapped Confirm next to the message. “My team encountered a weapon we have not seen before in the databases or on Agutra. It’s what tore open Sergeant Cutter’s thigh.”
The woman beside the Coordinator looked up, her pencil pausing over the paper. “Description?”
“A ball of ring-shaped blades about the size of a hand grenade.” Atana stepped up to the table and connected to the design lab via the interactive surface. Within seconds, she had the rendering program open and drew the loops of metal, moving them through the pattern she remembered hearing.
“Growing rather disrespectful,” one of the twins said. “Just take over the station.”
“S
ometimes approval takes too long,” she muttered, flashing them a glare before making a few corrections to the aerodynamics. It was the biggest reason, in recent days, that she’d broken so many rules. “You’ve unveiled a secret that could crack this entire foundation in two. Are you keeping your knowledge of this device from us too?”
She transferred the schematic of the spinning blades to the main screen behind the Coordinator. Again, she was met with their uneasy silence.
Azure locked on the white design rotating against the blue background.
Straightening, she rolled her stiff shoulders wishing she had time to sleep. “I broke more than two of your rules in the last week because of things I knew would take too much explaining, wasting time we didn’t have. We have two weeks until the Kyras arrive. I do not see the point in formalities at this juncture. This is about survival.”
The Coordinator studied the image in length. “What was your experience with this object?”
“It took out a chunk of wall above Sergeant Tanner, knocking him to the ground. Sliced Cutter’s leg open before I could extend my shield to them. They’re fast.”
Command bubbled forth with murmurs among themselves. The Coordinator held his hands out, palms down. The chatter quieted. “What did this person look like?”
“He was tall, thin-boned, and pale.” Resting her fingers on the interface, she folded the digital blades into a single, three-layer disc. “I believe they are collapsible.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the woman with the spiked, scarlet hair said.
“I have.” Azure’s voice carried through the room, an angry thunderstorm. “We find these on Linéten slaves fresh off the collector. They do lie flat and can be thrown. Some have said they used a mechanism to shoot them. Linétens always attack us at first until they realize the Verros movement is useless, and they are stuck as workers, same as us.”
Concern tightened his face. He looked down at her. “You did not tell me you encountered these.”
