by L. Danvers
Commander Ahmadi and Britt pulled Cal back, but she broke free. Like the calm before the storm, she composed herself. Shoulders squared, chin up, she inched toward Sam. Her eyes narrowed, and he could see the hatred in them.
“This whole time,” Cal said, trembling, “I thought my sister was dead.”
“I didn’t know she was here,” Sam said. “I swear. Cal, I swear to you I didn’t know. I would never... I couldn’t... You have to believe me.”
Cal grabbed her pulse-r and aimed it toward Sam. Her finger was steady on the trigger.
“I’m a good shot, you know,” she said to him. “I learned from the best.”
“Cal, think about what you’re doing,” Flynn said.
“He doesn’t deserve to live.”
“Cal, please,” Sam begged.
“Don’t,” Flynn said. He stepped in front of Sam, blocking the traitor’s body with his own. Her gun was aimed at her best friend. “I know you want to, Cal. I know you feel like you need to. But I know you. I know you better than anyone. Believe me, as much as I want to see this scumbag dead, I don’t want you to have his murder weighing on your conscience. Because it will. For the rest of your life. I can’t let you carry that burden.”
Cal lowered her pulse-r and slipped it in its holster. Streams of tears burned her cheeks. She hunched over and buried her face in her hands as she sobbed. Flynn wrapped his arms tight around her and stroked the back of her head with his hand, doing his best to comfort her.
“We will get Decker out of here,” Commander Ahmadi said, jerking his head toward the door.
With his pulse-r pointed at Sam’s back, he led Sam down the aisle until something made them both stop in their tracks. Britt gasped, and Cal silenced her tears. It was the door. Someone, or something, had opened it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Squeaky wheels swept across the cement, carrying a heavy load. The five of them slipped into the shadows at the end of the aisle opposite the door.
They exchanged worried glances, though Cal refused to look Sam in the eye. She wiped away her remaining tears as the gravity of the situation sunk in. She could mourn for her sister and stew in her hatred for Sam later. This could be a life and death situation.
The crewmembers had reached the same conclusion. Someone was delivering another specimen. Another person.
They peeked around the corner like stacked heads on a totem pole. They each went rigid; for a moment there was not so much as a breath escaping their lips.
They spotted an alien rolling a cart. It was carrying a glass capsule with a suspended body trapped inside. None of them got a good look at the alien, for it was too far away, and it was draped in a cape.
They needed to get closer.
The five of them tiptoed down the aisle, keeping constant vigilance. Each of them held their pulse-r guns in their hands. Cal winced as her shoes made the slightest squeaking sound, and she could feel the others glaring at her.
The glass capsule clanked against the casing, and there was a gush as the two pieces suctioned together.
Commander Ahmadi signaled. He was going to confront the alien, and they were to provide backup. He crept out from the end of the aisle and approached the being, who was too busy with the installation to notice him. Commander Ahmadi cleared his throat, and the alien’s breath caught. It looked so tiny and helpless as it stood in the commander’s shadow. It only came to his chest. It had smooth, creamy skin and cartoonish eyes that were surrounded by gray freckles. It had no hair atop its head, which instead of being round sprouted in six shoots, like a plume of feathers. The alien was draped in a brown cape fastened together by an emerald pendant. It wasn’t susceptible to the frigid temperatures of Duratus.
“Who are you?” Commander Ahmadi asked.
The alien was shaking. It squawked in a language unlike any Cal or the others had heard before.
“My name is Cyrus,” the commander said as he pointed to himself. He pointed at the alien. “And you are?”
The alien cowered. It continued to screech in its native tongue. It raised its head, and upon realizing Commander Ahmadi couldn’t understand what it was saying, it pressed its fingers against the pendant, which emitted a harsh light for an instant, then returned as it was before.
“Please do not hurt me,” the alien, now speaking in English, pleaded. Its voice was high-pitched, but like that of a male.
“Who are you?” Commander Ahmadi asked again. “Where are you from?”
“Please, sir. Do not hurt me. I am Aes of Creatius. I am nobody. I am a slave of Queen Caelifera.”
“Caelifera?”
Cal, Flynn, Britt and Sam stepped out from the shadows. Aes’s eyes widened upon seeing them.
“Yes, sir. My master. My queen. This is her storehouse. This is where she keeps the humans she has tested. I was sent here to deliver the latest human. Please do not hurt me.”
Aes wailed. He cried and pounded his fists against the floor, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. He feared for his life.
Unable to watch the exchange any longer, Britt ran over and crouched down beside him. She patted his back and assured him there was no need to worry.
“Ridley!” Commander Ahmadi snapped.
But she wasn’t listening. She promised she would look after him. She explained they had discovered this storehouse, as Aes called it, and they had a few questions they wanted to ask him.
Perhaps it was because he didn’t feel like he had any other choice, or perhaps it was because he was perceptive enough to know he could trust Britt, but Aes agreed to tell the crewmembers anything they wanted to know on one condition.
“And what condition is that?” Commander Ahmadi asked.
“You will take me with you,” Aes said. “To Earth.”
Commander Ahmadi scratched his peppered beard, unsure of what to make of this request. Aes was willing to give them information. But to bring an alien to Earth? After learning the leader of his planet was conducting experiments on people—including Cal’s sister? There were so many things to take into consideration.
Aes jumped to his feet and ran over to Commander Ahmadi, grabbed hold of his shoulders and sobbed once more. “Please, please. You must. If Caelifera were to find out I was speaking to you she would—” Aes hesitated, shaking his head and rubbing his temples with his bony fingers.
“What would she do?” Britt asked.
“I dare not say it out loud.”
“You are not in a position to negotiate here,” Commander Ahmadi said. At that, Aes let out a wail that echoed throughout the storehouse. The alien was distraught, and Commander Ahmadi couldn’t take it anymore. He held up both palms and shushed him, trying in vain to make him be quiet.
Commander Ahmadi looked at Cal, Flynn and Sam, and over at Britt, who was crouched on the floor where Aes had been. They each shrugged, unsure of what to advise him to do. This hadn’t been covered in training.
“Commander,” Britt said, “he’s harmless. Look at him. If he’s offering us information that could put him in mortal jeopardy, shouldn’t we at least protect him in return?”
“And who protected them?” Commander Ahmadi said, motioning to the rows of bodies lining the storehouse. “Huh? He is responsible for—”
“Oh no,” Aes interrupted, shaking his head. “No, no, no, no. I did not do this to the humans. No, no, no. I only delivered them. I take good care of them. I talk to them and visit them. I look after them. I think it is so cruel what Caelifera does to them, to your kind. No, I wouldn’t do this to humans. I even told her what I thought about it once. I told her what I thought of what she did.”
“And?”
Aes lifted up the sleeve of his dark cape, revealing smoldering scars along his forearm. They were blueish marks that looked to be moving, like lava creeping along the ridges of a mountainside.
“Commander,” Britt pleaded.
“Alright,” he said. “You can come with us if you agree to tell us everything you know.”
“Agreed,” Aes said, bowing in gratitude.
“It is settled. So are you the only, uh, one of your kind here?”
Aes nodded his large head. “I come here once a week to store the humans.”
“So you came in your own ship?” Flynn asked, looking interested.
“Yes. Well, not my own. It belongs to Caelifera.”
“Isn’t she going to notice if you don’t return?” Cal asked. “I mean, if we take you with us, how long will it take for her to realize you’re gone?”
“You raise a good point, Cameron,” Commander Ahmadi said. “We need to consider the ramifications. We would, from Caelifera’s perspective, be kidnapping one of her slaves.”
Aes rubbed his left arm while looking at his bare feet. Their shape reminded Cal of rabbit feet, though of course his were much larger. “I am the lowliest of the low, sir. It will be some time before she realizes I am gone. She will not notice until next week when I do not show up for the delivery.”
Commander Ahmadi let out a heavy sigh. He suggested the crew return to the Stellix and contact Agent Taylor to brief her on their findings. She could give instructions as to how to proceed.
The six of them filed out of the massive storehouse. Cal glanced over her shoulder to get one last look in the direction of her beloved sister and prayed this would not be the last time she saw Quinn. They had to figure out a way to save her and the rest of the victims.
Sam put his hand on her shoulder, but Cal flinched and pulled away. “You don’t get to touch me,” Cal said. “Ever again.”
“Cal,” Sam pleaded.
“Leave her alone, man,” Flynn said. “Can’t you see you’ve put her through enough?”
Sam fell to the back of the group while they ventured out into the elements. As they walked toward their own ship, Cal caught a glimpse of the one Aes had arrived in. It was more like a pod, big enough to hold him and one or two capsules. It was made of reflective material, kind of gray, kind of blueish purple, kind of green, depending on how the light hit it.
Before she knew it, she and the rest of the group had reached the Stellix. Upon entering, Commander Ahmadi instructed Cal, Flynn, Britt and Aes to wait for him in the main cabin while he escorted Sam to his living quarters. Sam was an admitted traitor, so Commander Ahmadi thought it best to treat him as such and keep him confined, at least until they had a chance to fill Agent Taylor in on his confession. Sam didn’t protest.
Flynn hung back while the rest of them entered the main cabin. He looked at his own wrist and over at Aes’s. “How did you get into the storehouse if you don’t have one of these?” Flynn asked, showing Aes his tattoo.
“This,” Aes said. He pressed his emerald pendant, and a projection of a credittat appeared.
“Do you mind?” Flynn asked.
Aes waved him over, permitting him to come closer to get a better look. Flynn knelt, his eyes squinting as he examined the pendant. He was about to reach out and touch it when the gold screen projection flickered as Commander Ahmadi marched into the main cabin.
“O’Boyle?” he said.
“Oh, sorry, Commander,” Flynn replied. He got to his feet and pulled up Agent Taylor on the HP.
“Good afternoon, team,” she said. Her subtle smile faded into a hard line. She blinked a couple times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. “Commander, is that what I think it is?”
“Yes. We have a lot to talk about.”
With the help of Cal, Britt and Flynn, he recounted the events of the day. He informed her that Sam had been working as a double agent and explained what they had found upon entering the storehouse on Duratus.
It was written across Agent Taylor’s face—her wrinkled brow, her eyes looking upward as she tried to connect the dots in her mind. Cal had a hunch she was as unaware as they had been of the vice president’s true intentions with the Stellix Mission.
Commander Ahmadi told her about finding Cal’s sister and of how they met Aes and the agreement they made with him. Aes shifted his weight, looking down past his round belly at his rabbit-like feet. He was trembling. Britt got up and took his hand in hers and patted it to comfort him, which he appreciated.
Agent Taylor was briefed on everything the crew knew. She paced, trying to come up with a plan. She instructed them to stay in place until she could contact Vice President Pierce. She wanted to speak with him herself. She said it was to see how he wanted to proceed, but Cal suspected there was more to it.
With that, Agent Taylor disappeared, and the four of them were left in the main cabin with the alien. They fired question after question at him while they waited for instructions. They started with the storehouse and asked what he knew about what happened to the humans before he brought them there. Being a slave, he wasn’t privy to the specifics of the tests that were performed on them. Nevertheless, he told the crew each tidbit of information he could think of.
He told them of Caelifera’s daughter Iliana. She was the reason Caelifera was running these experiments. Rumor had it Iliana had been ill for a long time. When it became apparent there was no cure to be discovered on her home planet Creatius, Caelifera ventured out into the universe, bargaining with planetary leaders to secure specimens. She had her scientists comb through their genetic codes for a cure.
“Why bargain, though?” Cal asked. “If she’s as bad as you say she is, why wouldn’t she obliterate the powers that be and take what she needs?”
“It would be a waste of resources,” Aes replied. “Why sacrifice your own soldiers or deplete your stock of weaponry when you can negotiate to get what you want?”
As time passed, the crewmembers started asking him more personal questions, like whether he had any family and what had happened to them. His parents were dead, he explained. They had been slaves, too. He was born a slave, and his great-great-great grandchildren would one day be born slaves. In fact, his entire race was born into slavery. Aes explained the inhabitants of Creatius were comprised of two races: the saveen—his kind—and the farokh, the ruling class.
“The farokh,” Britt said. “Do they look like you?”
“Three moons, no,” Aes laughed. “The inhabitants of our planet are as diverse as those of Earth.”
Commander Ahmadi sat and crossed one leg over another. He no longer had a stern look about him. Aes was growing on him. “What does Caelifera look like?”
“Tall. I’d say you come to her shoulders. Slender. Skin that sparkles like the stars, and an aura of purple light that emanates from the crown of her head. In fact, I would say she looks more like you than I do—long arms and legs, small eyes. She’s the epitome of beauty as far as most Creatians are concerned.”
They asked him about his home planet. They learned that his species, the only intelligent species inhabiting that world, lived underground. They had developed magnificent cities in vast underground caverns. It was a beautiful place, Aes assured them. He said he would miss his home planet as well as the few family members—cousins, mostly—he had there. But freedom, he said, was worth the price.
Cal bit her thumbnail while she listened to him speak. On the one hand, she sympathized with him. It wasn’t his fault that he was a slave and that he was assigned to handle delivering the human-filled capsules to Duratus. But the fact of the matter was that he was the one delivering them, and she couldn’t look at him without thinking of poor Quinn. It made her sick thinking about her sister floating there, frozen in that creepy, dusty storehouse.
There was a flash of light as Agent Taylor reappeared as a projected hologram at the front of the main cabin.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “I spoke with Vice President Pierce. He would like everyone, including the alien, to return here to his estate to discuss these developments.”
She instructed them to return the Stellix to the original location where it had been docked before their mission began and to use the telepad to return to the mansion. Commander Ahmadi assured her they would be there as soon as possible, and
with that, she vanished.
Commander Ahmadi flew the ship out of Duratus’s atmosphere, and with the help of Flynn, he propelled the Stellix across space using the slingshot maneuver.
It wasn’t long before they were ready to return to Earth. They fetched Sam from his living quarters, and the six of them made their way to the room which housed the telepad. No one said a word to Sam, and he didn’t dare speak. Commander Ahmadi entered the coordinates, and he, Cal, Britt, Flynn, Sam and Aes stepped aboard the hovering base.
Three.
Two.
One.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They say the stars are full of secrets, kept quiet by the silence of the night. If only they knew, Cal thought.
It was late by the time the six of them arrived back at the vice president’s estate. Pierce was tied up with work in Washington, and it would be morning before he could get there, so Agent Taylor dismissed everyone except for Sam and Aes for the night. She had questions for them that couldn’t wait.
Commander Ahmadi went straight to bed, but Cal, Britt and Flynn were too worked up to sleep. They changed into their training clothes, which were far more comfortable than their uniforms, and met up with one another in the observatory. The three of them sat smooshed together on the couch in the center of the room. They stared up through the glass ceiling and HPs of the constellations across the night sky.
“I miss this,” Britt said.
“Miss what?” Cal asked.
“Looking up at the stars and not knowing what was up there. It’s the mystery that’s beautiful, when you think about it. Don’t get me wrong. I love seeking knowledge and the thrill of exploring. But the universe is a volatile place—black holes, asteroids, supernovas... Caelifera. From here, though, it looks so peaceful.”
“That’s perspective for you,” Flynn said with a heavy sigh.
They talked for hours about how strange it felt to be on Earth again, and of the events that had brought them back here. Flynn drifted to sleep while Britt and Cal were busy conversing. They chuckled at his snoring, but it wasn’t long before Britt succumbed to her exhaustion, and Cal fell asleep, too.
