by Stella Sky
Nobody was in the mood to celebrate with their comrade’s corpse bleeding on the floor in front of them, and I quickly stepped in before Grod sensed their dampened spirits and lashed out at them.
“Of course!” I said lightly, stepping forward and grabbing the bottle of elixir that had rolled off the table and toward his foot. “But let’s get away from the traitor. We shall celebrate in style, not like savages.”
Grod nodded, his face mirthful, and I let out a slow, deep breath as my brother led the way out of the room and into the banquet hall of the palace, where the celebration could begin in earnest.
***
“Pax, my dear brother. I have something I need to ask of you!”
I cringed. Grod was severely intoxicated and stumbled toward me, steadying himself by gripping onto my shoulder.
“You can barely stand. Ask me in the morning, when you are sober.”
Grod laughed heartily and shook his head.
“No, no,” Grod said. “There is nothing wrong with my state of mind. I can assure you I can think quite clearly.”
I sighed, reluctant to start a fight with my obstinate brother. Especially while he was clearly drunk.
“What is it that you want from me, Grod?”
“Doyan!” Grod declared, his voice loud and pompous. “Doyan Grod! That is my title, dear brother, and you will respect me by using it in front of my men!”
I glanced around the banquet hall, which had thinned significantly since night had fallen. A few men were just as drunk as Grod; probably friends of the slaughtered man who were mourning in silence. They were staggering around the room, their faces aimless and lost, while others leaned against the walls and sprawled out with their heads and hands on the tables, sleeping deeply. The men had no idea what they were talking about, or whether or not I had referred to my brother by his official title. But I nodded.
“Of course, Doyan. Dershalga.”
“You men and your petty apologies,” Grod laughed sharply. “What was I saying?”
I sighed. “You wanted to ask something of me.”
“Oh! Right! Of course. Pax, I have to tell you, of all the men fighting for the cause, it’s absolutely crucial to have a man of your caliber on the field. You were raised by father, after all. You know exactly what to do. And that, dear brother, is why…”
Grod trailed off for a moment, taking a deep drink from a bottle he pulled off of the table beside me.
“That is why,” Grod continued, “I want you to do something for me, please.”
“Do what?” I asked, my patience waning. There was nothing worse than talking to my brother when he was intoxicated. He was so full of himself sober that it was even more unbearable when he was drunk. And he went on and on and on…
“I need you to do a solo mission. Stealth! To check out exactly what we’re going to be up against. We want to strike Zone 70. That will really hit them where it hurts. But we can’t do it without intel!”
“We can talk about this in the morning,” I said, as patiently as I could. What Grod was asking of me was absurd. Zone 70 was Earth’s largest military base. All of the most powerful and intelligent human minds had collaborated to make the place impenetrable. It was practically a suicide mission.
“You must go to Earth,” Grod insisted. “You’re the only one who can do this without being killed. I have the utmost confidence in you and respect you to no end. I am needed here, or I would do it myself.”
I sighed, pursing my lips tightly.
“I will consider your request and get back to you about it in the morning.”
As soon as the words had left my lips, I knew that they had been the wrong ones. Grod’s face began to darken in rage, and a look of sheer malice contorted his features.
“You will consider it now, or be considered a traitor to the cause!” Grod declared, pumping his fist in the air. He dropped the bottle to the floor as he reached for his weapon, fumbling with his belt as he did so. I raised my hands and backed away.
“All right, dear brother. I will do as you request and make a trip to Earth. I see the sense in your words. We will do whatever it takes to control the Earth.”
“That’s right,” Grod grumbled, still grappling with his weapon. But the rage had left his face, and his hands gradually slowed their attempt to pull the weapon from its holster. “You leave tomorrow, in the morning. Understood?”
I nodded, my chest tight with a combination of rage and anxiety. Heading to Zone 70 could easily become a death sentence. And I was nearly out of my medication. The humans had provided the Verians with temporary relief from the symptoms of their diseases, but I still found myself suffering acutely when I was not able to get the proper dosage of the medicine in time. If Grod was going to have me leave tomorrow, I would run out by the time the ship reached Earth. It was outrageous.
And yet, the matter was closed. I would have to try to talk to Grod about it when the morning came. Even being second-in-command, I wasn’t allowed to refill my medication until it was gone. Resources on Helna were so scarce that it was a miracle that I could even get my hands on it at all. Everybody was just trying to survive these days, just long enough to see to the victory over Earth.
There, the doctors would have access to plentiful resources; enough to manufacture vaccinations by the bucket should they choose to. And I would never have to worry about the crippling weakness creeping over me and making me an easy target to my enemies again.
“Good!” Grod shouted, his face much lighter now that he had gotten his way. “Now that that is settled, come. We have much to discuss.”
***
The next morning, Grod refused to see me.
“He drank quite a bit last night,” Grod’s security guard confided in me. “He needs to sleep it off.”
My jaw set in agitation and I sighed. I knew I would get my head bitten off if I approached my brother while he was sleeping. Grod’s orders had been clear enough. Go to Earth. Spy on Zone 70. Come back when I knew how many soldiers were being trained and how.
The ship was already prepared for launch by the time I arrived at the loading dock, and my eyes scoured the area for Rence, a man who, most people knew, dealt in under-the-table matters. I had never needed to go under the table for anything. I had come from a powerful political family, and all of my needs had been easily met. So when I approached Rence, asking to speak privately with him, the man was clearly nervous.
“What can I help you with, Commander?” Rence asked, doing his best to keep his voice light. Clearly, it was a challenge, and I decided to get right to the point.
“I was wondering if you knew of a way I might be able to get some more Vari-X. I’m nearly out, and there is no way I can re-stock on Earth. I’m set to leave in just a few hours. Can you help me?”
Rence’s face fell. “That’s a really fucked up situation. Didn’t you tell the Doyan about it?”
“No…he isn’t taking any visitors at the moment,” I said bitterly. “That’s why I thought I would ask you.”
“Freg, that’s a tough one,” Rence said, running his hands through his silver hair. He wore it short, to show that he was a mechanic and not a warrior, and then his eyes lit up. “I can help you a little bit, but out of my own stash. The Vari-X is almost impossible to get my hands on these days. And it’s run by government organizations, so if I tried to stick my nose in that, it would be the end of the line for me. I need this job.”
“Your own stash?” I asked, frowning.
Rence nodded, digging into his pocket and pulling out three slender vials, full of the liquid that had been prepared for injection.
“I have another refill coming up soon. I can handle the weakness for a few days. You though? Being on Earth? I don’t think you can. Take them.”
I shook my head and backed away. “No, I couldn’t possibly do that. Thank you anyway.”
“Don’t be a krocha, Commander. Please, take them. They will keep you safe until your return.”
; I sighed heavily and allowed Rence to hand me the vials. I opened one and sniffed it deeply. It was the real thing, all right. No mistaking it.
“I owe you for this, Rence,” I said quietly. “I give you my word, you won’t regret this.”
“Hey, I’m just doing what I can for the cause. I bet you could hit everybody on the docks up for their Vari-X and you’d leave with more than you know what to do with.”
I smiled tightly. Though my brother would be prone to do such a thing, just to prove that he could, I wasn’t like that.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said as cheerfully as I could muster. “On behalf of the Verian people, I give you my thanks.”
I gave Rence a respectful nod and headed to the ship, where I was quickly ushered inside and given a brief inventory of what I would be leaving Helna with and what I was expected to bring back once I arrived on Earth. Any trip to Earth for any reason always doubled as a resource mission, and this time, I was instructed to find and return to Helna with three pounds of quartz, a special mineral that was crucial in the production of Vari-X. The planet Helna had once produced a similar specimen, but over the years the stores were depleted and eventually emptied.
I couldn’t imagine the splendor and beauty that the ancient texts once spoke of in relation to my planet. I had grown to know and love the mysterious foliage of the Earth and its beautiful, breath-taking landscapes. Helna was barren and dry, its climate a virtual desert as, little by little, all life upon it began to die. Soon, if we didn’t escape to Earth, the atmosphere would become so toxic that no life could possibly be sustained.
It was fortunate that Verians and Pelins were the only sentient life left on the planet because it would have taken a tremendous effort to re-establish the animal life from Helna on Earth. It would have been messy; but in truth, the only animals that had ever existed on Helna were the Troppolai, and they had long ago been relocated to the home planet of the Pelin race, where they were treated with reverence and taken care of as though the beasts were sacred.
“Thirty-seven hours until entering the Milky Way Galaxy,” my ship reported. I sighed and leaned back in my chair as the mechanics at the loading dock nodded their go ahead at me. I fired up the engines, and the rumble of the ship jolted me into awareness. Whether I liked it or not, I had a job to do. And I was going to do it to the best of my ability.
I was Second-in-Command Pax Curad, after all. Raised by the Doyan who had changed it all, my father, Kelron Curad-Yoltaz. I was descended from the proud lineage of the mighty Yoltaz clan: men who reformed the government of Helna and had paved the way to victory, fighting insurgents and providing our people with the technology and strategy they needed to succeed.
And now, just like my fathers before me, I was going to do the unthinkable. I was going to gain the intel that my people needed so that they could win their place on Earth, so that the beauty and restorative peace of the Earth would be our own. Failure was not an option, and whether I had my hands on enough Vari-X to last the duration of the trip or not, I would return to Helna victorious. Nothing would stand in my way of conquering Earth. And no matter what happened, no matter what the personal cost, I would provide my planet with whatever was necessary to win the war against the humans once and for all.
Chapter 2
Dr. Ali Monroe (Head of Z70 Geology Department)
“You’re kidding me, right?” I sighed, glancing at my watch. “I’m supposed to be back by 9pm to get my rations.”
I had just begun to take my lab coat off when Dr. Cranston had appeared in the doorway with another demand. He seemed especially fond of picking on me for some reason; probably because I was recognized by Zone 70 as one of the most intelligent people at the base. He was the kind of man who would get painfully jealous over that sort of thing. Especially since I was a woman.
“You agreed to flexible hours when you signed up for the force,” Dr. Cranston said, his face stone. “You signed a contract stating you would be on call to serve your world. Are you telling me that this is going to be too hard for you to do?”
“No,” I sighed, hanging my head. “I would just really like to get my hands on a new bar of soap.”
“We have soap at the lab,” Dr. Cranston said dismissively. “You can talk to one of the women down there and help yourself to it if need be.”
“What about food?” I demanded. “I’m almost out!”
“You can eat on base. Now get out to Sector 3. We have to gather up the quartz. We know the Verians are beginning to covet it. I need you to get me an approximation of how much is left in the sector so we will know just how many men to send out there to empty the mines and bring them back to Zone 70. The electricians are eager to get their hands on it anyway.”
“All right,” I sighed, shrugging my lab coat back on.
The idea of being stuck in my little apartment without food or basic hygiene supplies was less than appealing, but there was nothing I could do about it. Especially not when Dr. Cranston was hell-bent on making my life miserable.
I had already spoken to the other scientists on the base who were outraged by the trivial errands that Cranston constantly had me running. My mind was needed at the lab. But because Dr. Cranston was in charge of the entire science department, he made the call about what it was that I worked on and when it was that I worked on it. I was certain that he had chosen to send me out that day on purpose, knowing that the people born in Zone 26, like I had been, were to collect their rations that evening.
And now, instead of making sure I had my needs met for the next grueling three-week period, I was going to be stuck taking inventory on a quartz mine that hadn’t been tended to in the past six months. I could have been on the job, working with the conductive metals that the Verian ships had left strewn about Earth in order to continue work on the super-weapon that was ultimately going to turn the war in favor of Earth.
Instead, I was being ordered to evaluate the amount of quartz, one of Earth’s most abundant minerals, so that Dr. Cranston could send a team of his lapdogs to mine it out and take it back to the lab for the electricians to play with.
The injustice of it all nearly made me want to scream. Cranston clearly didn’t give a damn about the progress of the war on humans. In fact, it was obvious that he was doing everything in his power to provide me with jobs that would interfere with my work and sabotage any progress I was able to make on the design of the superweapon. But why? Did he want credit for my work? Or did he simply resent my place at Zone 70, believing, just as so many others had believed in the stone ages, that the Academy of Sciences was a place reserved for men and men only?
“What a sleazebag,” I muttered to myself, walking to the huge garage where all of Zone 70’s transportation vehicles, from ships to cars to Earth’s very first thuse, were located.
“Let me guess,” Geri Peters asked, overhearing me. “Cranston has you doing something ridiculous again?”
“Yep. And this time, it’s interfering with getting my rations.”
“He’s probably just bitter that you won’t give him the time of day,” Geri said, his brown eyes sparkling. “You have no idea what the guys around here say about you.”
“And I don’t want to know!” I exclaimed. “It has nothing to do with my job or my ability to do my job.”
Geri laughed to himself and shrugged. “Well, maybe it does. Guys like Cranston are pretty hateful when it comes to the women they can’t have.”
“Oh my god, Geri, drop it please.”
Geri grinned again. “Well, just so you know, anyway. What are you going to be taking out today?”
“Think I’d be able to try the thuse?” I asked, my disposition brightening. If I couldn’t get my rations, at the very least, I could try the exciting new technology that had been acquired from the wreckage of a Verian ship and repaired by the capable mechanics of Zone 70.
“Not on your life, I’m afraid,” Geri said. “Tony and the stooges took it out for a joy run about twenty minutes
ago.”
“Of course,” I sighed. “Just give me the truck then.”
Geri nodded and walked behind the counter of the check-in area. He rummaged around for a few moments before presenting me with the keys to the beat up old truck that I had been forced to use for the past three pointless missions.
“Take care out there. I heard the soldiers talking about a Code Yellow.”
“You mean there’s a ship nearby?” I asked, furrowing my brow. That was bad news. Most of the time, the Verians knew better than to come near Zone 70. The last time they had, they’d lost all of their soldiers. In fact, that was how we had gotten our hands on the thuse.
“Well, Yellow means that there might be. We can’t say for sure until we see it on the radar.”
“All right,” I said, taking the keys from Geri. “I’ll be careful.”
I could feel his eyes on me as I made my way toward the truck. I settled inside, sighing deeply to myself. Sometimes it felt so hard to be stuck in my life. My family had been slaughtered during the war, and I had worked my entire life to use my mind so I could find some way to avenge them. But Cranston would never allow it.
With a determined, resigned sigh, I turned the engine of the truck and took off. If I was going to be forced to do this, I might as well do it right. After all, the safety of the Earth was at stake. And I refused to lose anyone else to the Verians as long as I lived.
***
As aggravating as it was to be stuck out in Sector 3 instead of being where I was supposed to be to get my rations, I couldn’t help but feel optimistic when I stepped outside and breathed in the fresh air of the forest surrounding the quartz mine.
I got to work, hopeful that if I was fast enough about it, maybe I could take the truck to my zone and pick up my rations. Still, it was unlikely. It was about two hours away, and I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be stuck at the mine.
“Freg!”
I was startled by the deep sound of a man’s voice echoing at me from within the mine, and I stepped forward, cautious and confused. There was something about it that drew me forward despite myself. I knew the man was speaking the native Verian tongue, but somehow that didn’t matter. He sounded like he was in trouble.
