by E L Strife
“Fantastic,” Bennett muttered sarcastically. “That leaves me.”
Atana had explained her brother’s skills on the transport that morning, along with a few other details about the Unveiling. He figured out fairly quick that humans were fewer in numbers than anyone knew.
The shouting of the crowd built into an aggressive roar. The Coordinator scanned the tensed security team. “Running out of time, Miskaht.”
Her eyes darted to Bennett. “Short, to the point. There are anomalies which gave us an advantage. Be vague, Sergeant.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Bennett wondered what on God’s green Earth he was going say as he trudged back out to the microphone.
Atana trailed behind. I’m staying in the shadows, twenty paces to your six.
Copy, Nakio.
She stopped nineteen paces out.
At the podium, he raised his hands. The crowd quieted.
Bennett took a steadying breath. “Last week, we met our match. The Suanoa are advanced beyond our understanding. I know because I went up there, with my team, others, and one unique shepherd. What we found was horrific. Those collected are put to work in fields and maintenance facilities with little food, water, clothing, or shelter, living with a constant fear of death by the Suanoa.”
He paused, stifling a choke behind a fist as the images of their shredded bodies and those dumped into space rushed through his mind.
“Yet, those enslaved fought back beside us, with crude weapons and every ounce of heart. The Suanoa have one simple flaw: a lack of humility. Humility feeds other things: sympathy, humanity, respect. Without it, the Suanoa didn’t see us coming, not so fast or in such great numbers. Now, few remain to enjoy their freedom.”
He dipped his head. Oh, what is Command going to do to me after this? His fingers drummed the sides of the podium. Summarize, short, vague—
“We’ve all seen mutations from our wars here on Earth. There are countless orphans and unanswered questions. We understand our common vulnerabilities to disease, to toxins, to things we don’t control. This humility unifies us.”
A gentle shiver he couldn’t identify ran through his bones. Bennett extended a hand to Atana, understanding why she had been so uncomfortable earlier with countless eyes on her. Please come. I can’t do this without you. I’m shaking in my boots.
Miskaht gave them a reluctant nod, and Atana stepped out of the shadows. Murmurs rippled through the masses.
He grasped her tight, drawing her to his side. “She is the reason our planet is not a molten rock devoid of life. She is my partner, my co-shepherd, my leader. If it were not for her courageous and selfless actions, not one—” he paused for emphasis. “Not one of us would be here today. She is humble beyond my comprehension.” He squeezed her hand behind the podium. “A willingness to sacrifice for the betterment of others is what we call loyalty. Her loyalty to us and ours to her. Our war is with the Suanoa now, not each other.”
A glint in the air made Bennett tuck her against his body, an arm lifting to protect her face on instinct.
Clink.
Bennett’s eyes cracked open. An arrow clattered to the hot concrete platform several meters away, its slender wooden shaft splintered and bent. Wisps of golden sunlight twinkled around them.
You conjured a shield? Atana stammered, blue eyes wide. In front of them?
Bennett shook his head in shock at the fading gold mist. Too late now.
Two guards started down the steps toward the assailant, a boy, shouting orders.
You’re right. Atana tore herself from Bennett’s grip, sending out a flash of her shield. The security team jolted, hands tensing on their SIs. “Let me talk to him!”
Bennett followed, a hand touching her back, primed to protect as she entered the level of the crowds.
She descended the steps and stopped when the boy looked up. The arrow he was frantically stringing fell from his fingers. The crowd spread out, leaving him standing alone with his bow and quiver.
“Why do you do this?” Atana asked.
“A-alien, you’re—both, you’re both—” He took a half-step away. “Aliens!” His scream crackled with fear, defeat, and confusion.
Bennett examined his dirty overalls and short-cropped hair. He had to be in his teens, about the age Bennett had been when UP took him in. “Where are your parents?”
The boy’s eyes glossed. “U-under the earth eater.”
Atana timidly inched closer. “Can you tell us what happened?”
“Our farm, my brother, my dog—” Anger washed his face in claret hues beneath his dark skin. “You stole them from me!”
She stilled, her face contorting in a moment of anger. “I would not help those who killed my father and tore my family apart. I fight them.” Atana calmly pointed up at the shadow of Agutra in the sky. “For my family.”
The boy’s arms sagged, reforming her words with his lips. The bow slipped from his loosened fingers as he stared at her with distraught remorse. His face paled. Bennett and Atana lunged out, catching him as he collapsed in tears, stirring up dust in the plaza.
“Hush, I know your pain.” Atana collected him in her arms. “The fear from being alone.”
Bennett rested a calloused hand to the boy’s back. “You are your family now. You must be strong for them.”
The boy’s body quaked with every sob.
Atana brushed the black hair from his face. “You don’t think you can make it, but you can.”
A camera for Planet News hovered too close for Bennett’s comfort. He growled low, pushing the lens away. “Have you no respect? Give us some space.”
Atana looked up when Bennett crouched beside her gently rocking form again.
He trailed his fingers over her shoulder and took one of the boy’s hands in his. “Every shepherd is an orphan.”
“Y-you are?” The boy sniffled, wiping his face with a dirty sleeve.
“Yes.” Bennett’s vision glinted with the sun, above what he hoped was a promising smile. “We’re more alike than you know.”
Chapter 26
SHOUTS ERUPTED in the main hangar. Azure closed his eyes with a grimace. It was bad enough he had to work on the collectors while all the shepherds were prepping the F-201s that morning for the ceremony. He’d forgotten how noisy being on a planet was.
“Now we have a whole mess on our hands!” someone snapped.
Space was quiet. There was no air outside to compress for sound to travel, and inside had been so vast, Azure could always find a quiescent place to meditate.
He chewed a lip in remorse. Thirteen years, the Hatoga fields on Agutra had been home, however torturous and hopeless the time had been. The slaves who had worked and survived alongside him were like family.
Somehow, in retrospect, he missed the golden Hatoga grasses and the soft breeze carrying the sharpness of pine and the sweet undertone of the warm grains under the artificial sunlight. Despite the dirt in his bloodied fingers from working the fields and the exhaustion from guarding each night, it was a part of him. They were. The guilt he bore for not being there to stop the purge was suffocating.
“I can’t believe she broke the code!”
Azure rolled his eyes and groaned, setting the control panel he’d pulled out of a life-slot back on the workbench between his tools. At least there were enough distractions to keep him from wallowing in self-pity. He needed to map the wiring, but it was impossible with the two bickering outside.
Padding down the ramp, he peered around the back of the ship to find a pair of Command members talking beyond the main starboard airfoil. He noted they were the ones Atana had thought might be twins, both pale with spines jutting out of their backs. They looked sickly.
But Earth was toxic. He’d seen the patches of irradiated land devoid of life from the collector. The few people he’d seen on the ground in those zones looked similar enough.
“Two weeks to live is the spreading rumor,” the first said. “They’re already breaking out i
n scuffles over anyone who honors the deity in the sky.”
“Should we worry about those in hiding?” the other asked.
On the walls of the main hangar, the screens were playing the feed from the Coordinator’s speech, followed by Atana and Bennett consoling a child. It had been on repeat since the F-201 fighters returned.
Bennett had protected her as promised, but Azure couldn’t stifle the urge to growl when he’d watched her wince and duck beneath the arrow’s trajectory. He should’ve been there, should’ve taken it for her, like a warrior would for his love. It was the honorable thing to do.
Bennett stood in his place.
Azure’s lungs heaved at the vile thought of his humiliation, the degradation of his status with Atana.
One twin hissed, “She expressed emotion! Atana cannot be considered reliable after this.”
Two footsteps stopped beside the twins. “Leave it be.”
Azure shifted further out of view, aiming a single eye around the hull. The third man stood in dark fatigues, his large hands hanging limp and open at his sides. From where Azure was at, he caught enough of a shimmer to the man’s skin he remembered who he was: the male Mirramor who revealed Command’s true identity before the mutiny.
A twin scoffed. “Glato. Siding with Miskaht and Hyras, aren’t you?”
The man’s abrasive tone matched his brooding glare. “Your gossip is not constructive. It is also forbidden.”
“Gossip is unsupported,” the first twin said.
The volume of a TV rose, the speakers pelting outwards. “Talks today at the old Jeronite building ended with an attempt on a Universal Protector’s life. This child’s daring shot brought out the truth about our silent guardians and has triggered a flash flood of reports concerning their behavior and the ruthless manner in which they carry out their attacks.”
Azure retrained his gaze on a screen from the shelter of the collector ramp. This camera angle differed from the one which had been playing all day. It now showed the back of Lavrion, who carried the boy off into the shadows, and Bennett corralling Atana away from the questions of the crowd.
Someone knelt at her feet. She back-stepped. Bennett had a quick arm around her, escorting her out of the video frame.
“The controversy remains: is she on our side or theirs? Should we fear these Suanoa, or is it a hoax to get us to conform? We don’t know who their syndicates are or where the money comes to supply these so-called shepherds their services. Several fights have broken out already between those who kneel to her and those who question her loyalty.”
The volume dropped, and one twin sneered. “This is why she is a problem. This changes everything! She must be re-evaluated.”
“You’re making a decision based on Liatha and the Giant, the media hack-job no one believes,” Glato said as two sets of boots thundered over. “Strings of charged questions and statements meant to provoke the sensationalist in every civilian isn’t news. It’s manipulation.”
“What is this?” the twins stuttered.
“I am to enforce the serum mandate to all Command members. We should’ve kept a better eye trained on Command’s CENA logs. Serum compliance is mandatory. You two voted for it if you remember.”
Azure heard scuffling and a few grunts as the group circled the front of the collector.
“I can walk. Get off me, you brutes,” one said.
“How can you treat us like this, like we’re animals?” the second asked.
“Like a shepherd?” Glato boomed. “Don’t worry. The other five are already in there.”
As the guards escorted the twins to S.S.O., Azure sat on the ramp, letting the air out of his lungs.
On the other side of the collector, in the distance, a shepherd leaned around the nose of an F-201, close enough Azure could catch the creases between his brows. It was the male Primvera member of Command, Krett, hiding in a black tactical uniform. “Glad you found them. What are your thoughts about the potential backfire?”
“I think the people understand it more than the news lets on. They’re connecting with her because of the boy. It’s far better than when they feared her,” Glato replied.
Krett’s shoulders twitched like his back was in pain. “Fear makes humans angry and violent because they’re desperate to avoid death and discomfort when both are inevitable.”
“Under the belief, there is nothing more to existence after death.” Glato gave Krett a knowing look. “The mind is our most powerful tool.”
Falling into step together, Krett’s voice faded as they headed for the exits. “What’s important is what we believe and what we believe in.”
Or who, Azure thought to himself.
Tanner rested beside him. “Hey, how you holding up?”
Azure sighed through his nose. “I did not expect so much sound and thought. When we were here last, I was too focused on other things to notice. Now it’s like I have stuck my head in a gear drive.”
Tanner’s dimple threw his smile off center. He held out a pair of earbuds. “For you. If you’re anything like me, you might find them helpful while you’re integrating.”
Azure took them in hand. “What do they do?”
“Play approved music from the Home Station network.” He pointed into his ears. “They’re like our wristbands. They use our movement and our menial electrical charge to run. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble with the batteries dying on you.” Tanner chuckled.
Putting them in, Azure listened to the pitter-patter sound and cocked his head.
“What is this?” he yelled.
Tanner cringed and shied away before cracking another smile. He gestured for Azure to take them out. “It’s sounds of nature. That was rain.”
“Like the irrigation sprinklers?” Azure looked at the tiny ivory beans in his fingers. “I can pretend I’m in the Hatoga fields?”
“Yep. I’m sure there’s a grassy meadow soundtrack or two in the playlist. It’s on random. It’ll play in whatever order Command has it organized. Let me know if you need anything else. I’m backlogged, working on a few old maintenance projects. I’ll be in the Electrical Integration Lab, but I’m a tap away.” He pointed to his wristband, hopped off the ramp, and aimed for the Home Station doors.
“Thanks.” Taking a breath, Azure put the earbuds back in and listened to the rain. A hint of a rumble came through, reminding him of the Suanoa’s main engines kicking on. It was an inseparable part of him, like testing, Atana, and Zephyr Station.
He leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes.
Atana was safe under the protection of Bennett, however much he loathed the idea. Ramura and Teek were watching Kios. Paramor and Hyras were keeping in contact so Azure knew Agutra was secure. The doku he’d assigned a few menial tasks in the other collectors. With the crucial elements holding, he let his mind drift.
Hatoga grains rustled around him in the artificial breeze, his toes sinking into the soft dirt. Looking to the hut, he saw Saema Chamarel in her colorful stole, kneeling to a young Teek and healing another soldering burn on his fingers. When she stood and looked up at Azure, her face glittering with the many shades of species’ colors and textures, he could feel her love fold around his heart like his mother’s arms.
“I wish you could see how things are now, Ma. You wouldn’t believe what’s changed.”
Chapter 27
WIND SWIRLED through her tousled hair. Atana extended a hand to her brother from the transport deck. “You find someone to care for him?”
He took her offering and hauled himself up. “This is how I survive.”
Bennett slung the door shut. “Command has a strict rule for Inductees having no record of an attack on another member of UP. Otherwise, I would’ve taken him.”
Lavrion dropped into an aisle seat a row behind the security crews. “Makes sense. Are either of you hurt?”
“No.” Atana strapped in across the aisle from him.
Bennett took the window seat beside her. “You ma
ke a good addition to public relations missions, Lavrion.”
He smiled unconvincingly. “Glad I can help.”
The teams sank heavily into the cushions, the vibration deepening with their launch for Home.
“Kronos were watching, about twenty of them,” Lavrion said, scouting the rolling landscape through the window behind Bennett.
Atana sighed. “Always are.”
He slunk down, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. “After the reporters focused on you, I noticed them conversing with people not marked with Ks but in the same attire.”
Sitting forward in his seat, Bennett looked past her to her brother. “Any recognizable details?”
“Couldn’t catch any faces. It was just something I noticed. Thought you might like to know.”
Thank you. Atana did her best to smile.
He didn’t return the gesture but scanned between her and Bennett with intrigue. “Sure.”
Lavrion’s soft voice was oddly soothing in her ears, despite the fact that she knew she’d never heard it as a child. Leaning her head back, the A/C running, cooling the sweating shepherds as they left the Tropic Zone behind, she closed her eyes, praying for sleep.
A fur coat of stone and snow drifted and parted with the mountain air beside her. It compressed beneath her tiny hands, her fingers tickled by every soft, wavy strand. A creek sparkled before them and, beyond, a barn with a horse chewing hay.
Why a wolf, Miipa? she asked, her voice high-pitched and small.
Panting, he scanned the tree line. The universe has rules. This was the quickest form they could regenerate my spark into because the man who hurt your mother is coming back.
She clambered to her feet on the wooden porch, her head level with his. Here?
Yes. I can stay long enough to protect you three. I am sorry, Sahara. He leaned toward her, a large, pink tongue licking her chin. You are so beautiful. I see you got your mother’s hazel eyes. Always hoped you’d look like me.
Miima make me look like her to keep me safe. Her arms barely latched around his neck as she gave the wolf a hug. I love you, Miipa.
