by J. M. Page
Her father grabbed her arm and frowned, finding it soft and fleshy. Something flashed across his face — sadness? Hurt? Guilt stabbed at her, but she didn’t have time to indulge in it.
“No one knows these tunnels like you, Bug,” he said, using the nickname he came up for her when she was a child. Celine saw the manipulation, but also saw his point. “All your years of sneaking out to the surface might come in handy. I’ll get everyone together, you lead them. I could never navigate the way out, not the way things are.”
Celine hesitated. Her father admitting his weakness meant a lot. It meant he really needed her help. She looked back to the tunnels and then to the panicked modders. There were too many people to get to safety for her to worry about chasing after her arm. Her arm would have to wait. Or they’d have to find another way.
It was a tough decision, but one she had to make. She nodded. “Okay. I’ll lead the way.”
“Everyone,” Abatu roared, loud enough to cut through the ruckus. “The tunnels have been compromised. Celine is going to lead you to the surface and to safety. Listen to her,” he said, giving his daughter a small nod. Her chest swelled with pride and a bunch of people looked to her.
“Stick close to the person in front of you. We’re all in this together and we’re all going to get out of this together,” she said, turning back away from the hub, and out toward the surface.
Celine navigated the group through crumbling tunnels, reassuring them when the entire planet seemed to be crumbling underfoot. Twice, they’d come to a blocked tunnel, one that had already collapsed, and she had to find an alternate route. Time wore thin, but she couldn’t let on how worried she really was.
Luckily, her father was right. No one knew the tunnels better than Celine. After years of sneaking around, she could find her way through the maze blindfolded and asleep. The surface was finally in sight.
The woman at the head of the line, Tabitha, looked at the surface warily as Celine paused at the entrance and ushered her forward.
“Where are we supposed to go now?” At her side were her two small children, holding hands with each other and her. They were all wrapped head-to-toe in the same kind of garment Celine wore, giving them some protection from the elements.
Celine fished in her pocket and took out Ben’s coin, giving it a final squeeze before she handed it to Tabitha. “Head North. You’ll find the walled city. Show them this and ask for passage on the evacuation ships.”
Murmurs of “evacuation” sprang up through the crowd, but Celine hushed them. “Hopefully it won’t come to that, but get to the city.”
She just had to hope she wasn’t sending them to a different kind of danger. They couldn’t stay in the tunnels, that was for sure, but would the Terrans be as welcoming as she said? She played over the possible outcomes one-by-one as the modders filtered out onto the surface, forming a long procession across the great expanse of desert.
At last, she saw her father. He was the final person in line and Celine heaved a great sigh.
Just as she did, the ground rumbled, shaking and trembling enough to send her and her father to their knees. Bolts of pain shot up her thighs, but Celine ignored it, distracted by the rocks falling overhead. Cracks wide enough to put her arm through formed in the ceiling, and a curtain of dust blocked the exit.
“Dad!” she cried, realizing her father’s struggles to get up. “Give me your hand!” The ceiling shuddered, dust and sand fell, roaring like rushing water.
Abatu scrambled, reaching for her hand, but she couldn’t hold onto him. She couldn’t get her stupid mutinous alien arm to cooperate.
No, no, no. Not like this.
She turned, reaching with both hands, and her father was able to hold on. With a great heave and a tumble, they rolled out of the tunnels, onto the blessed sand of the surface. Just in time to watch their home crumble to nothing.
For a long moment, both Celine and her father stared at the rubble with pained expressions. There was no evidence that there had ever been anything other than a pile of rocks in that spot. No evidence that hundreds of people, countless generations, had lived their lives entirely just beyond that spot.
Celine’s stomach knotted and twisted, hot and full of despair. She didn’t get her arm back. She wasn’t going to be able to help Ben and his people. Guilt clawed at her chest until she could hardly breathe.
“You did it Bug. You got us all out,” Dad said, pulling her into a hug even while their butts were planted in the sand.
Celine nodded, choking back emotion. He was right. She did it. Even if it wasn’t the thing she was trying to do, it was a good thing. That had to count for something, didn’t it? She’d saved all the modders and her Dad.
She pushed back tears of mixed relief and anguish, clinging to his shoulders in a way she hadn’t since she was a little girl. It was over. There was nothing more she could do.
He stroked her back, soothing her as he always had. Before their relationship got so strained.
Wind and dust whipped around them, burying their laps and stirring the rubble, sending rocks skittering off in all directions.
Celine sniffed and frowned, pushing away from her father to narrow her eyes. The wind should only push rocks in one direction.
Just as she had the thought, rubble exploded from the collapsed tunnel and Scorpia herself emerged in a torrent of angry clicking.
Her tail swished back and forth, twitching as she focused her beady gaze on Celine. “YOU! You ungrateful little ape.” Scorpia skittered down the pile of rocks with unnatural grace and Celine scrambled backwards on her hands and feet, pushing herself up to stand.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Celine said, trying to keep her voice steady even while Rufus whined into her neck. Her stomach did a somersault spotting her arm attached to Scorpia. Visions of ripping it from her bodily sprang to Celine’s mind, but she pushed them aside. They could get out of this without anyone getting hurt. They could talk about this.
“You saved them! They were all supposed to DIE,” Scorpia screeched, beyond enraged, her tail flailing wildly. “They all deserve to die. The invaders wiped out my kind. My family. It’s time I repaid the favor.”
Celine swallowed past the lump in her throat, trying to figure the way out of this. There was always a way. Always a secret passage or something to save the day. She just had to keep talking long enough to figure it out.
“I know you’re hurt,” she said, taking another step away from the incensed alien being. “But that was a long time ago. Many many human generations. Things have changed. The Terrans aren’t the backwards people they once were. They’re accepting and generous. We can all share the planet in harmony. There’s no need for this destruction,” she said. Her eyes flitted to her father and found him a rapt audience, his expression unreadable.
Scorpia unleashed a barrage of furious clicking. “No need! NO NEED? You wouldn’t say the same if it was your children murdered at the hands of aliens. If it was your home, destroyed and your loved ones left for dead.” Scorpia sounded hysterical now, frenetic and crazed.
Celine held up her hands in a sign of deference. “But I am saying that. Don’t you see? You’ve destroyed my home, left my loved ones for dead… But still, I think we can find peace.”
She thought she might be getting through to the heart-broken creature. Maybe they had a chance. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father get to his feet, hatred burning in his eyes.
“Dad, no!” It was too late. Abatu’s eye-lasers fired at Scorpia and she turned with a shrill wail, her hard exoskeleton protecting her from the attack.
Celine felt something hot and wet running down her arm, but when she touched her fingers to it, they came back dry, finding only a small hole in her clothing. Boiling acid poured under her skin, lighting her arm on fire, blinding pain pooling in her fingers as blackness crowded around the edge of her vision.
Before she put the pieces together, the world began to spin and six Sco
rpias danced in front of her eyes as the ground came rushing toward her.
Then there was nothing.
Chapter Fourteen
Ben
The hangar was filled to the brim with people, all clamoring for a spot on the next evac ship. Thousands of people crushed in the doorways and crowded one another, shouting and wailing in panic and fear.
Ben felt guilty for what he was about to do. It certainly wasn’t going to do him any favors in public opinion, but consequences be damned. He refused to sit idly by while Celine rushed headlong into danger. He refused to run away like his father.
Not without putting up the fight of his life first.
Ben shoved his way through the crowd, finally drawing on decades of breeding and lessons. He had to assert himself, play the part of the selfish Prince to get what he wanted.
The thought made him a little queasy, but he’d do that and much more for Celine.
At the front of the mob, trying desperately to contain it and prevent a riot, was a line of Royal Guardsmen, each brandishing a clear crowd shield and a look of unease. They were no more equipped for this than anyone else on the planet.
Ben cursed his father and all the royal viziers for being so short-sighted and narrow-minded. In the Space Force, they had a contingency for everything and anything. It seemed ludicrous that the crown didn’t operate in the same fashion.
Besides their shields, the Guardsmen brandished weapons, intimidating the crowd into compliance. It was only a matter of time before someone got jumpy and violence broke out.
Not that he could blame them. These people were left in the dark, fearing for their homes, their families, their very lives. Of course they were going to turn to violence. He just hoped he could fix everything before things went that far. Before any more tragedies occurred.
The guards at the front of the line recognized him and he shouted to be heard over the jeering. “I need a ship,” he said.
The guard pointed. “The next ship loading is over there Your Highness,” he said.
Ben shook his head. “No. My own ship. Now.”
The guard looked at his fellows on either side, all of them exchanging wary looks. He looked a little flustered and awkward when he answered. “Your Highness, all crafts are being used for evacuation efforts. We can’t let you—”
“Like hell you can’t,” Ben said, mustering up every bit of Princely authority he could find. “My father has already evacuated. That leaves me the de facto King, the only royalty left on the planet. And I demand a ship.”
The guards seemed to mull it over, still swapping worried looks, like this was some kind of test.
Ben growled and pushed past the barricade, meeting no resistance. The guards were too stunned to stop him. “I’ll find one myself,” he said. Before they could make up their minds to stop him, he was jogging away. He sent one look over his shoulder, enough to tell him they wanted to follow, but weren’t, busy as they were with crowd control.
It was a small victory, but a step in the right direction nonetheless. Ben chose a smaller craft, one that was meant to be crewed by a handful of men. It wouldn’t be much use in the evacuation as it only held a half dozen at most. Besides, he needed it.
Skipping the pre-flight checklist, he zoomed out of the hangar, his small craft zippy and agile, just the way he liked them. He didn’t want to waste any time, or give anyone a chance to stop him or stand in his way.
He was past the wall in moments and thinking back to the last time he saw Celine, when she urged him to check on his father. Had she known then that she was going off to the Wastelands alone? Was she already planning to walk to her doom when they last kissed?
Would that be the last time he ever kissed her? Ben’s gut wrung itself tight, twisting his insides, making him feel sick and full of lava-hot adrenaline-laced dread.
It couldn’t be. He refused to accept the possibility. There’s no way that he’d never see her again, never hold her again. Not now, not when he was only just starting to realize how much he lo—.
No. He couldn’t think about that either. Ben took a deep steadying breath and focused on his instrument panels. He’d make it to her in time. They’d get through this.
They had to.
The dust made navigation difficult, though the ship he piloted now filtered the dust better than the hoverspeeder he’d pilfered from the city a few days ago. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
It was. It was a lifetime before Celine. Everything changed after her.
He dipped the craft lower, closer to the surface, peering out, looking for signs of… something. He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly.
But then he saw it. One figure clad in head-to-toe white. His heart leapt. The figure wasn’t alone though, it was joined by two smaller robe-wrapped people — children. Then there were more. Dozens more. Maybe hundreds, all in a long line, all marching toward the city.
She saved them, he thought, his heart swelling with pride. Of course she did. How could he have ever doubted her?
Ben looked closely, trying to spot any identifying features, hoping Celine was among them, but something told him she wasn’t. She’d be leading them if she was.
He flew over the end of the line, garnering more than a few looks up from the Wastelanders. Now what? The question didn’t linger for longer than a heartbeat as his ship drew nearer to three more shapes, barely discernable through the dust.
One was large and bulky — definitely not Celine. Another, was smaller — maybe Celine — and the third was… Ben flew closer. Not human. The native Celine told him about. The one who’d wreaked all this havoc.
His eyes narrowed, his heart pumping fast and hard even as everything started to slow down. Combat he was used to. This, he could handle.
The maybe Celine shape dropped to the ground and Ben’s heart lodged itself in his windpipe. Was he too late?
No. He couldn’t let himself go down that line of thinking. Not yet.
He swooped in, zeroing in on the alien creature who only noticed the shadow of the looming ship seconds before it descended on her with a wholly satisfying crunch.
Ben wasted no time exiting the ship and rushing to Celine’s side. He slid forward in the sand on his knees, scooping her into his arms, cradling her limp form close to his chest.
“Come on now,” he said, his heart all but stopped. He brushed stray hair away from her damp forehead and pleaded. “You can’t leave me now. I promised to show you the galaxy.”
Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused and dull. “Ben?” Tears clouded her captivating eyes and he shushed her. “I couldn’t… without my arm… sorry.” Her eyes drifted closed again and Ben resisted his urge to shake her awake. To scream and cry and demand she not leave him.
Instead, he held her close, whispering. “Celine. No, Celine, come on. Wake up for me, sweetheart. You’re going to be okay.”
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and nearly made him jump up, but he wouldn’t let her go. “She’s been poisoned. The beast stung her.”
Ben’s eyes were wet somehow and terror stampeded through his veins. There had to be something they could do. An antidote. A… “We have to save her. There has to be something.” He heard the words and recognized his own voice, but it seemed so far off. Detached from him somehow.
“Help me get her to the ship, I might have an idea,” the hulking man said, taking Celine and cradling her like a child. Ben felt empty without her in his arms, but he saw the the paternal love in the other man’s grasp and realized this was Celine’s father.
He took some small comfort in realizing the other man didn’t look nearly as helpless as Ben himself felt.
Ben sectioned off an area of the ship for Celine’s father to lay her down. The other man looked at her unconscious form with a mixture of sadness and adoration.
“I think I can stop the venom from spreading, but she won’t like it.”
“Anything. Do whatever it takes, you have to,” Ben said without hesitation.<
br />
Her father nodded and left the ship. Ben took the moment to stroke Celine’s ebony hair and whisper soothing nonsense in her ear. It mostly amounted to “Please be okay. You have to be okay. You’re going to be okay. Please.”
When he heard the heavy footfalls of the other man coming back up the gangway, he dried his face.
Celine’s father paid little attention to Ben, carrying her mechanical arm with him. “It’s a little worse for wear,” he said, blowing off some dust, “but I can fix it up for her later.”
Ben understood now why he thought Celine wouldn’t like the solution, but that was a chance he was willing to take.
The ground rumbled under them and in the far-off distance, another evacuation ship darkened the sky over the city. He had to get back, had to stop the evacuation and fix the force field and restore order to his kingdom. He had all those things to do, and yet the only thing on his mind was whether Celine was safe or not.
“Go,” her father said. “Hold this bucket of bolts steady for me if you don’t want her to end up with a nasty scar.”
Ben hopped in the pilot’s seat, thinking it wouldn’t matter if Celine was covered in scars. He would still think her the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He just wanted her to be okay.
Still, he did as instructed, going back into pilot mode, shutting out his fears and worries to just fly.
He was no sooner off the ground when the older man spoke again. “So you’re the boy she ran off for?” His voice was gruff and straight to the point, no dancing around like Ben was used to.
He actually didn’t know how to respond to the question, first feeling shocked. But then he thought about it and the idea warmed him from the inside, making him feel content in ways he hadn’t known possible.
