by A. G. Wilde
Kyro’s eyebrow jerked a little.
He could open, it but it would take him too much time to do so and all he wanted right now was to get back to base. Not being there was making him antsy. It wasn’t just the fact that he wanted to be there to keep his eyes on her, he also wanted to be there in case Shive or that slimy M’Agunt tried anything.
They were getting a little too close to her for his comfort. He didn’t know exactly what Shive’s intentions were but M’Agunt’s were as clear as day, and that made him livid.
“If there are any beings on board, I sense none...” Yce trailed off, the glow in his eyes growing with intensity.
“Deep stasis...” Xul murmured.
“Wait...” Yce frowned, as he moved closer to the vessel. “There is one I sense. Confusion. Fear. Insanity...” He tilted his head.
Kyro felt his shoulders stiffen. “You sense a being inside? He is awake?”
Yce’s eyes met his. “She. She is awake. And she is terrified.”
As they all turned to look at the dark metal that was exposed, the air felt heavy.
To be locked in a prison for so long, awake, and unable to move...it could break the strongest of men.
“Insanity...” Yce stretched out his hand, his brows furrowing in pain. “Her mind is frayed. I cannot calm her.”
“Stop, brother.” Xul grabbed Yce’s arm. “Do not try to connect.”
Kyro gulped, staring at the dark metal. He had to do something. He couldn’t let the female suffer in there any longer than she needed to. He knew what it was like being imprisoned. He knew how it could break a person.
“I can open it,” he said. All eyes moved to him, even the Mukkians’. “I can open the carrier. I can get her out.”
Xul was about to say something when Yce’s mind pulse hit them all.
“Danger in the skies. Incoming!”
They had just enough time to look up before a Hedgerud fighter jet, commissioned by the Tasqals, appeared in the sky above.
The Tasqals didn’t fight fair. But that was no surprise.
The ship seemed to materialize out of thin air and began firing immediately.
Chaos ensued.
The Mukkians ran for their serpents, mounting them with practiced ease while Crex raced for the top of the mound.
It was clear what he was trying to do. If the ship came in low enough, he was going to leap onto it and attempt to take it down. If any one of them could do that, he could.
A roar from Xul swept across the desert in between the sound of the laser bullets coming from the ship. As the bullets connected with the sand beneath them, it caused particles to fill the air, reducing visibility.
But the Hedgeruds piloting the vessel didn’t need to see their target. They had the upper hand.
And they kept firing.
“Evade!” he heard Xul roar, but they were already splitting up, each moving in a different direction. With them all in one spot, they were asking to be shredded to bits.
Crex still crouched atop the sand mound, his eyes completely gone black as he channeled the terror within him.
Dark terror. He understood now, the thought coming to him as he, Xul, Rokan, and Yce crouched behind different dunes.
“These won’t hold up for long!” Rokan shouted.
“And they’ll wake the zehmips underneath!” Yce added.
The zehmips. Those man-eating plants that slept underneath the dunes would only add more chaos to the mix. It was best they didn’t rouse them.
As the vessel passed over them, the sound of the engine cut through the air as the firing stopped. They were going to turn around and do another pass. There was little time to hatch a battle plan.
“I can disable their vessel! Breech the system! Bring the vessel down!” Kyro shouted, his eyes on Xul. As Xul nodded, Kyro brought out his datapad, typing in a string of commands as fast as he could.
“Here they come!” Rokan’s shout cut through the air just before the vessel began firing again.
“I will need some time!” Kyro shouted.
“Got you,” Yce’s voice sounded in his head. When Kyro glanced at his brother, he saw his gleaming eyes tracking the ship. For a second, the ship dipped as if the pilot was experiencing difficulty controlling it.
Jerking his chin down in a nod, Kyro set to work.
The fighter jet was one he’d seen before and he remembered reading the manual for it in just one day. He knew everything there was to know about the vessel without ever having set foot in one.
There was a design flaw in the AI engineering. One that allowed him to transmit a code to the ship that would cause its engines to shut down and the ship to fall from the sky. They were flying so low in their attack; his plan might just succeed, and the ship would fall to the sand before the system recovered and got rid of his code.
His fingers felt light as they moved quickly, the code coming back to him as if he hadn’t read the manual over seven orbits ago.
This was one of those times being Vorti was something he was grateful for.
As he punched in the last line of code, he pinged the ship.
“Done!” he shouted, loud enough for his brothers to hear.
Yce turned his head to look at him, his eyes no longer glowing as he cut his connection with the ship’s pilot.
As they all turned their eyes to the sky, they saw the ship jerk in the air before it began to nosedive.
“Incoming!” Xul’s voice reached him and Kyro watched as the ship came in hard and fast. Right before it hit the ground, he could just make out the blur of Crex as his brother jumped onto the falling vessel, using one of the fins from his back to smash the gazer before he pulled the pilot from his seat.
While Crex dealt with that one, he heard Xul send a message to the Restitution for pickup as they raced toward the ship, which was now kicking a huge sand cloud into the air as it carved a straight path through the sand.
Hedgerud fighters began jumping from the vessel before it even came to a stop, their long, armored tails swinging behind them in the air as they snarled from their long snouts.
“Qrakking long noses!” a Mukkian screamed as they too raced toward the oncoming guards. For a second, Kyro was surprised to see the little men still there. He’d thought they’d escaped on their creatures, but he should have known better. The Mukkians hated the Tasqals as much as the Restitution did.
This wasn’t just a fight between his brothers and the guards. It was but a small part of a larger fight between the whole galaxy and the Tasqals.
What happened next was a blur. Crex was beside them in record speed, taking down one of the guards before the rest of them even reached close enough for contact.
Xul charged, his spear pointed for combat as he lodged it deep into a Hedgerud’s body. As the bloody tip of Xul’s spear came out the other end of the guard, Kyro ducked under the attack of a guard that charged at him.
The guard’s sword slid right by his face and he gripped the guard’s outstretched arm, twisting it as he retrieved the sword with his other hand and buried it in the guard’s back.
He could feel the remnants of his chets itch, the thrill of a fight running through his very veins.
To his left, Rokan let out a hoot, no doubt feeling the same itch. As their eyes locked, a knowing look passed between them that confirmed his thoughts.
With a grin, Kyro cut down the next guard that came at him, using the same tactic as before and in his peripheral vision, he could see Yce doing the same.
They were no match for all five brothers together. It was a suicide mission.
Without their ship, the Hedgeruds would die.
The Hedgerud guards must have just been scouting for the stasis pods themselves when they came upon them. This hadn’t been a planned attack, or they would have brought more ships along with them.
So many other humans. He wondered what Evren would think. Would it make her happy to have more of her kind around?
Even as he thought a
bout her, he took out another guard, using the two swords he’d taken from the previous guards and burying them into the one charging at him. He was just about to pull the weapons from the wound to attack another charging guard when a sharp pain in his side had him glancing down.
“Blaster!” he heard Xul shout, but it was too late.
Off in the distance, he could see his brother Yce, falling to his knees, a deep gash of burning flesh on his shoulder.
Looking down, a similar gash was in his side. He’d been hit.
His vision waned as he saw Xul take down the fighter charging toward him while Crex reached the guard with the blaster and snapped his neck with a roar.
Evren, he thought.
Life was suddenly fragile and all he felt was disappointment and regret.
He hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye.
23
Kyro grit his teeth.
The gash in his side was making its presence known with every breath that he took. Still, he could walk, he was conscious, and most of all, he was alive.
As their shuttle landed, he cast a glance at his brothers.
Those who were injured didn’t look too bad. It seemed they would all survive. And most of all, they’d succeeded on what they’d set out to do.
All those humans they’d rescued would be safe from the Tasqals now. It would take a while to open the stasis hold but at least the hold had been transported from immediate danger.
“I’ll take Yce to the med bay. Crex, you go to headquarters to update them,” Xul said, as the doors to the shuttle hissed open and they began to file out. Turning to Kyro, he advised the same. “Rokan, you come with me, bring Kyro to the med bay.”
As Rokan filed from the shuttle, his eyes met Kyro’s. They both knew what the answer to that had to be. Even if he was dying, no medic could see him.
“I will head home. It is but a flesh wound,” Kyro answered, hoping Xul would drop it and leave it there.
As he watched Xul frown, Kyro steeled himself for what was about to come next.
“That looks more serious than a flesh wound, brother. A medic—”
“I insist.”
Xul looked at him for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I will never understand your fear of med bays.”
No, he wouldn’t, would he.
Kyro shrugged and began moving away, his hand held to the wound at his side.
Xul wouldn’t understand, and the sad thing was that he couldn’t tell him the reason either.
He couldn’t risk any examination. He couldn’t risk the medic discovering he was not what he portrayed himself to be.
“Fine,” Xul conceded. “But I insist that you get care at home. If you won’t go to the med bay, I will send a medic to your quarters to tend to you.”
“No need,” Rokan chimed in. “I will tend to him.”
Xul paused for a moment, passing a glance between them both. “Very well.”
As Xul moved off, supporting Yce as they walked toward the med bay, Kyro jerked his chin at Rokan.
“Hey,” Rokan grinned, “just don’t expect any foot rubs.”
“I won’t because you’ll want me to return the favor and your feet are vile.”
Rokan’s grin widened. “Fair enough.”
Eyes falling, Kyro looked down at the gash in his side.
Qrak him, it was bad.
A call was coming in on her datapad.
Evren grabbed the little device, her eyes lighting up as she looked at the screen.
She’d heard of the mission from Athena and even though Kyro hadn’t mentioned it to her, because he still seemed to be keeping his distance, she’d spent the better part of the day walking around biting her fingers as she waited.
It’s been over twelve hours that they’d been away and in that time all she could think about was the fact that they’d gone back to that dangerous planet.
But as she tapped the datapad’s screen and the caller ID showed up, she couldn’t help the bit of disappointment she felt when she realized it wasn’t him. Kyro had still not contacted her.
Instead, the caller pinging her was Athena.
“Hey, Athena. How’s it going?” She tried to sound bright, but she was sure the other woman could sense the underlying anxiety coating her voice.
“Good. I’m just ringing you to tell you that the boys are back.” Athena paused and she was sure as her blood was red that the woman was holding back something big. “And...”
“And what? Did they find more humans?”
“Ya. They did. They found a lot more humans. In stasis pods.” Athena released a breath.
Evren blinked.
More humans.
More lives uprooted never to be the same again.
“Have they,” she gulped, “have they woken them yet?”
“No, the engineers are working on it. But...” For some reason, it felt as if Athena was about to pass out some bad news. “One of them was awake.”
“What?!”
“She was awake the entire time, Evren. Stuck in that pod. Unable to move.”
Athena’s voice broke.
Evren didn’t know how to respond.
To be awake all that time...
“They’ll be moving her to a secure location and they’re waiting for the Interplanetary Union to pass down a directive regarding the others.”
Evren processed the information slowly. “I hope she’s okay...”
“Me too...”
“How many are there?”
“It’s hard to say. Xul says the hold they’re in is quite large.”
Her shoulders rose and fell as she released a sigh. “God...”
“I know, right. We almost didn’t get to them in time either. There was a huge fight with those gator-guard things. Yce and Kyro got injured.”
Evren felt her hand go slack and the datapad almost fell to the floor. “Kyro got injured?”
“Ya. Pretty badly too.”
“He’s at the med bay?” Without even thinking about it, she was already moving to grab her shoes and head out.
How could she have been so selfish, waiting for a message from him? He was probably fighting for his life. Of course, he hadn’t sent her a message.
“No. Yce is at the med bay. Kyro is at home. Something about not wanting to go to the medics. I don’t know.”
Breathing out a heavy sigh through her nose, Evren slipped on her boots and headed to the door. “I’m heading over there right now.”
“You are? I didn’t know you and Kyro were so close.”
What could she say? They’d been getting close, but she’d been the one who’d pushed him away.
“I—”
“I get it,” Athena said.
“You do?”
“I do.” There was a knowing in her tone that made Evren relax. “Just keep us updated on his progress. Xul won’t say it but he’s a little worried about him and Yce. He thinks it’s his fault for not looking out for them better.”
“I thought it was a surprise attack.” She was already in the gravity lift, waiting impatiently as she floated down to ground level.
“It was but I guess it’s doesn’t prevent the guilt he’s feeling?”
Kind of like the guilt she was feeling now, for no true reason. She felt bad for not contacting Kyro and taking back what she’d said. Now he’d been hurt, could have lost his life and she wouldn’t have had the chance to apologize to him.
“Piper’s pinging me. I’ll hit you up later.” Athena broke into her thoughts.
“Sure.”
As the call clicked off, Evren gulped, her guilt only getting heavier on her shoulders as she neared Kyro’s residence.
Evren tapped her foot lightly as she waited outside Kyro’s door.
No one was answering, not even Kyro’s roommate, and she began to wonder if they had indeed gone to the med bay after all.
As she pressed the door chime more, she took out her datapad to send Kyro a message when the door his
sed open.
Looking up from the screen, the smile that was on her face froze as she saw no one there.
“Hello?”
The lights in the apartment were bright again, so bright she had to squint but as she stepped across the threshold, there was still no one there.
“Kyro?”
A low groan from one of the bedrooms caught her ear.
“Kyro?” Walking cautiously, Evren headed toward the sound, even as the front door hissed closed again.
This was eerie and through habit, she felt behind her back underneath her vest for the cutting instrument she always carried.
Of course, it wasn’t there. She’d rushed out of the apartment too fast to grab anything except the one thing she’d been holding: the datapad.
As she entered the bedroom though, the feeling that had been making goosebumps form on her flesh dissipated as she saw him.
He was lying on the bed, his lids low as he looked at her and there was obviously something very wrong.
His gray skin was paling.
Rushing to his side, Evren gulped, wide-eyed as her gaze traveled over him.
His skin looked moist, as if he was sweating, and there was a large bandage covering his side.
“Kyro?”
Another low groan moved from his throat as his eyes tracked her under his low lids.
Placing a hand over his forehead, her eyes widened some more.
“Ohmigod, you’re burning up!”
Dropping her datapad to the side of the bed, she rushed into his bathroom. Luckily, his place was laid out exactly like hers, so it was easy to find things.
Grabbing one of the big poofy things that looked like cotton, she wet it in cold water and ran back to the bed, placing it over his forehead.
“Ev-ren...” His voice sounded so different...so weak.
“Kyro. You’re burning up. Where’s the person who’s supposed to be looking after you?”
“...fine.”
“What?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She could feel her brows deepen so hard that her forehead hurt. “Like hell you will. You have a fever and—” Her eyes moved down to his wound, her hand hovering over it helplessly. “God. That must really hurt.”
