“A lost Corsair,” Saturn mused.
She regarded Nix once again, though his eyes still avoided hers.
“There’s more,” she said, noticing a twitch above his left eye. “Spill it.”
Nix closed his eyes and cursed under his breath.
“Two of the Corsairs were deemed more powerful than the rest. The Garuda’s host ship was unified with the king of all beasts and its power is incredible. The stories of the other Corsair that survived depicted a ship of similar power, wandering the system for decades. It’s nearly untraceable, it was said.”
“You don’t think...”
Nix nodded.
“The Kasha. Traders call it a ghost story, but it’s real. There are those who don’t even believe the beasts existed, those too young to remember The Long War. Those same merchants say the Kasha never existed...”
Saturn’s brow furrowed and she folded one arm over the other across her chest.
“How were the two Corsairs more powerful than the others?”
Nix smiled and replied, “The rest of the Corsairs were created using the life forces of legendary beasts. The Kasha wasn’t, as we just witnessed.”
“The golden Aether.”
“The Garuda and The Kasha are truly unique. It stands to reason they’re the two that survived.”
“But The Garuda didn’t have Liam’s life force at the time, shouldn’t The Kasha have been even more powerful?”
Nix shook his head.
“The Kasha was a magnificent beast, but even with that brave Dinari’s soul, the Corsair couldn’t hold an orb to the Garuda.”
Saturn paced the dirt surrounding the platform at the base of the obelisk. Something still bothered her, tearing away at her insides.
She wiped the remnants of tears from around her eyes, avoiding her respirator, and said, “We came here for a reason.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Nix said, stony-faced.
“Why would Death Wish come to this place?”
Nix looked to the ground at his feet.
“After what we’ve seen I can think of only one reason.”
Saturn stopped her pacing and regarded his solemn face.
Nix continued, “He must have been looking for The Kasha.”
21
“Ju-Long?” Saturn said, pressing the sole button on her earpiece.
“Ow,” a voice said back, partially corrupted by static. “What is it?”
“You okay?” Saturn asked, confused.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ju-Long replied, nonchalant as always, “What’d you find?”
Saturn shook her head and moved to a position a little farther from the crater’s edge where she could vaguely see the ship in the distance through haze.
“It’s a long story. Go ahead and prep the ship for takeoff, we’ll rendezvous shortly.”
“Roger, out.”
Saturn’s earpiece projected static momentarily before it squelched itself. She gazed back at the towering monolith while she brushed moon dust off her pants. While Nix took his time climbing the steep wall she found herself eyeing the ruins of broken stone buildings and miniature obelisks scattered around, containing what Saturn expected to be other historical records of lesser importance.
“I’ll be glad to take this mask off,” Nix said to her as he reached the top.
Saturn let herself smile under her respirator mask and continued walking toward their ship.
“I’ll be glad to be off this rock,” she said, adding, “This place creeps me out.”
A few pebbles tumbled from the dilapidated rooftop of a nearby stone building.
“What was that?” Saturn asked, stopping abruptly.
“These buildings are crumbling, it’s probably nothing.”
“Right,” she said, unconvinced.
They continued down the ragged path, Saturn continually searching for anything out of place. Though, she admitted to herself, it would be hard to discern if anything were given the level of obliteration.
•
Ju-Long rubbed his forehead, squinting his eyes in pain.
“Again?” Astrid asked, entering the cockpit.
“Quiet,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Is it installed then?”
“Yeah, up and running,” Ju-Long said while hoisting himself out of the maintenance tunnel which ran beneath the cockpit’s metal flooring.
“I suppose we should test it.”
“No time, Saturn and Nix will be back any minute and we’re leaving.”
“After all that you don’t even want to turn it on? Why should they have all the fun?”
Ju-Long pulled the metal grate back over the maintenance tunnel and dropped it into place.
“Guess it couldn’t hurt,” he replied.
Astrid smiled and took a seat in the pilot’s chair. Ju-Long plopped down in the co-pilot’s seat and began initializing the sensor array’s startup sequence.
Ju-Long flipped three switches in order and said, “You better prep us for takeoff anyway, we’ll need full power for this to work properly.”
Astrid fired up the main engines, the gentle whirring growing more and more powerful beneath their feet until the roar carried into the cockpit through the bulkheads. Ju-Long finished the sensors’ startup sequence and waited expectantly for his console to reveal the fruits of his labors.
A holographic image of the Ansaran system appeared, casting its usual orange light over their faces. Ju-Long used his hand to manipulate the image. He zoomed in on Narra’s second moon until he could see The Garuda flashing its familiar yellow indicator.
“It doesn’t look any different,” Astrid said, disappointed, “Are you sure you hooked it up properly?”
Ju-Long pointed to two figures outlined in blue approaching the ship. They couldn’t have been more than a hundred meters away and closing.
“Detail’s better,” Ju-Long observed.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Astrid pointed to two more, much larger shapes imbued with a violet color, their hulking forms closing in on Nix and Saturn’s position.
“Are those ships?”
“If they are, the shape’s all wrong. Never seen anything like them. Zoom in some more.”
Ju-Long inserted his balled up hand into the hologram and spread his fingers.
“Tā mā de,” Ju-Long cursed in Mandarin, eyes quivering at the sight.
•
“What’s that?” Saturn asked, pointing into the distance.
Nix swiveled his head to the right, examining the outline of ruined buildings in the growing mist. He’d seen it too. Something really was out there, he thought. Nix’s mind reeled. The sensors hadn’t picked up any lifeforms on their descent. The second moon was supposed to be as dead and lifeless as the ship graveyards on Coressa Prime. It was, nevertheless, undeniable. Something was out there.
“Whatever it is, it’s not good.”
Saturn never had a chance to respond. A deafening roar rang out amongst the ruins and cut deep into Nix’s chest until his very bones shook with the force. He spun around and saw another flash of something black moving between the dilapidated structures. He and Saturn stood back-to-back, watching anxiously for signs of movement.
Almost a minute passed; nothing.
“How far to the ship?” Saturn asked through her mask.
“Maybe a hundred meters,” Nix replied.
Saturn’s cool voice was beginning to quake, “Was that what I think it was?”
Nix strained his eyes, searching the rubble meticulously. Though he believed he knew the answer, that didn’t make it any easier to say.
“Almost certainly,” Nix yielded.
“Got a plan?”
Nix found Saturn’s hand, squeezed, and said, “On the count of three, then?”
“I never was any good at waiting.”
Nix nodded to himself and said, “Three!”
22
The shattered stone made for a poor path. S
aturn almost slipped a number of times as the shards crumbled and slid beneath her sturdy boots. Still, she and Nix ran up the slight gradient as fast as their lungs would allow. Being stifled by a respirator was unfortunate, Saturn reflected as she ran. Her lungs burned as they grasped for molecules of filtered air.
Her head was on the swivel, checking her left and then her right. With every blink of the eye she could swear there was movement between the decrepit structures. The shapes she saw were as shadows disrupted by a flickering flame in the wind: there one second and gone the next.
Ahead of them, a two-story stone building exploded into their path. Dust billowed out, masking the culprit from view. Saturn and Nix skidded to a halt, not bothering to wait for the powder to clear before finding an alternate route through a worn archway off to their left.
“Keep moving,” Nix said between heavy breaths, his pace quickening as he pointed in the direction of the ship, “This way.”
Saturn followed, instinctively grabbing her weapon in mid-stride. She gripped the leather-wrapped handle of the Ansaran laser pistol tight. A flash of black off to her left startled her and she fired a blast as she ran. The laser cut through a support beam of a nearby building, which was the final blow needed for it to crumble unceremoniously to the ground. She looked ahead once more and saw The Garuda over the top of the rubble. Saturn almost let herself smile. They were close and she could feel it.
A stone the size of Saturn’s fist careened toward her from the side, catching her on her shoulder with enough force to throw her a few meters through the air before landing amongst the pulverized ruins.
“Saturn!” Nix called, stopping and pulling his weapon, unsure in which direction he should be pointing.
Saturn felt a shard of rock poking into her back. Her shoulder was on fire with the pain and most of the exposed skin on her arms and legs were torn up by the sharp fragments. Her eyes went in and out of focus and she had just enough wherewithal to wonder if she had a concussion. Her respirator hung by a thread of stretchy fabric from one ear. She fought to keep the seal intact with her left hand pressed down on the device. She closed her eyes.
“Saturn, don’t move!” Nix’s subdued voice called out.
Saturn’s eyes opened and she squinted to focus. A black blob took up most of her field of view. Her heart sank. Within herself, a dark thought corrupted the rest of the thousand fragments running rampant through her mind. This was it, she thought. Perhaps the darkest thought was that she wanted to die, to be with Liam once again. But, if there was an afterlife, was he even there?
Hot, dank breath engulfed her, rhythmically breathing in her scent. Saturn’s eyes finally focused and she wished they hadn’t. No holographic depiction could have done it justice. The size, maybe, but not the awful smell that protruded its body or the rumble as it growled from deep within its core. Its eyes alone were so massive they seemed an impossible sight.
“Get away from her!” Nix yelled.
The beast snapped its eyes toward the Dinari, cocking its head to the side when it saw his drawn weapon. Saturn saw its eyes twitch to the right momentarily and she felt her adrenaline pump harder throughout her veins. She allowed herself to briefly take her eyes off the beast.
“Behind you,” Saturn screamed.
Nix turned and fired his weapon. The beam missed high and to the left. He didn’t get a second chance. A paw the size of his torso swatted him to one side, barreling into a stone wall and sending a crack up through the rock. The Dinari dropped his weapon and collapsed onto his knees. A second black shape approached his still body.
“No,” Saturn found herself whispering under her breath.
The massive beast hovering over Saturn returned its attention to her. It sniffed the blood trickling from her arm, even wetting its nose with the stream of red. It licked the blood from the tip of its nose and smacked its chops. The beast stepped back and began to circle. It reached out with a paw and brushed Saturn’s leg with a single claw.
Was it toying with her? Saturn thought back to the holographic recording. The Kasha had acted much like a cat would have. If given the chance, a cat would play with its prey until it stopped moving. Eventually it would lose interest and save it for a snack later on, or if it was hungry, simply eat it right then. Judging by the lack of food options on the desolate moon, she was going to go with the latter.
The Kasha smacked Saturn’s bloodied leg once more, harder than before. The beast popped back, waiting for her to move. Its focus kept switching between Saturn’s leg and her face as though it was trying to understand its prey.
Saturn bit her lip to distract herself from the pain of her many wounds. Out of her peripheral vision, she caught a glimpse of her weapon, a meter off to her right. She returned her gaze to the beast and waited. The Kasha pawed at her leg once more and Saturn used the momentum from its thrust to roll over onto her belly. With her left hand she reached the laser pistol and brought it up toward her tormentor, letting the seal of her mask slacken as she did. A sickening crunch and a spurt of blood made Saturn’s grip on the weapon loosen and finally slip away. One of the beast’s claws was lodged in her right thigh, blood bubbling up and out of the wound, steadily streaming down either side of her leg. Saturn’s stomach turned and screamed out in terror.
23
“I didn’t press anything, I swear,” Astrid said, hands raised up defensively.
Ju-Long leaned over the console and looked out over the forsaken moon. Red energy coursed through the conduits overhead, bombarding their stunned faces in its vermilion glow. Ju-Long had seen a lot of things in his time which had made him question his place among the stars. The massive Kraven, a fiery apparition of a deceased legendary beast, the naked body of an Ansaran woman, and now this.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Ju-Long asked, still not okay with the idea of something apart from a pilot or computer system maneuvering a ship, but looking past that fact given the incredible sight before him.
“I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“Look, there’s Nix. And Saturn.”
Astrid tried to regain control of the ship by forcing her arm through the control loop and grabbing the handle beyond. The console sparked, causing her to yelp and remove her arm, sucking on her singed digits like a frightened child.
“Maybe we can get weapons?” Ju-Long mused, attempting to lower one of the laser cannons.
It was no use, he thought. They were locked out of every system. Ju-Long’s screen went black. Seconds later, bright blue-white text scrolled down the screen, tumbling across the screen and swirling through several patterns and languages before landing on Earth Common.
Sit tight, the letters read simply.
Ju-Long pointed at the screen, then over to an awestruck Astrid, and finally back to the screen.
“Was that you? You’d tell me if it was you, right? This really isn’t the time for games, Astrid.”
“It wasn’t me,” Astrid said softly, fear gripping her voice.
“Okay. It wasn’t you and it wasn’t me. There’s really only one logical explanation.”
After a moment of silence, Astrid asked, “And?”
“We’re nuts.”
•
Nix scooted backward, dragging gravel and fragments of stone with him, his robes draping over his frame in tatters. His back hit something flat and firm and he closed his eyes tight, jaw clenched with anticipation. There was nowhere to go. This was the end.
Through the roar of one of the beasts, Nix heard the faintest of whispers. It was a sound he knew well. His jaw still clenched, he cracked his eyelids just enough to confirm. Dust swelled out from beneath the ship, causing the beasts to turn and face the headwind with a grumble. Nix felt his heart jump and then regain some semblance of a pounding rhythm.
The Garuda drew closer and hovered only meters off the ground, its compliment of weapons displayed in, at the same time, one of the fiercest and loveliest sights Nix had ever witnessed. A red glow protrud
ed out from the ship, transmuting the dust and mist like blood mixing with water. Its wings were spread and the organic tissue within the struts were coursing with a crimson energy.
The Kasha which hovered over Nix stepped back, its large eyes never leaving The Garuda. The other beast left Saturn and joined its relative. The Kashas approached the ship until they were close enough to it to reach out and claw at it if they wished. Nix watched with interest, still feeling as though his heart might beat through his chest.
The slightly larger of the two beasts planted its front legs in the gravel and crouched submissively, its ears slightly flattened and tail curling beneath its body. The second Kasha quickly followed suit. Nix looked on in awe. Could the Kashas sense the Garuda within? The Garuda truly was the king of all beasts. Or queen, as it were.
A roar electrified the air once more, not so deep or guttural as that of the Kasha, but haunting nevertheless. The sound made him jump where he lay. He balled his fists and closed his eyes. There was no mistake. He’d heard that noise before.
“Liam,” Nix said to himself, body tingling with the remnants of adrenaline.
The Kashas averted their eyes and flattened their ears even more. Slowly, they edged away from the ship. Nix watched as their muscular frames swayed from side to side, the walk of a cowed predator. Together they slunk away and disappeared into the growing mist.
Nix felt himself release a long, pent up breath and squinted to make out Saturn across the way. She’d propped herself up against a wall, bloodied and pale, clutching her right leg and gasping for air.
“Saturn!” Nix called, scrambling over to her.
Her wounds were even more gruesome up close, with a large hole penetrating her thigh. Nix ripped an already torn piece of his thick robe and began stuffing it in the wound and applying pressure. Saturn was too woozy to scream. Instead, tears spilled down her cheeks and her chocolate brown eyes drifted up toward The Garuda losing their vitality with every passing second.
The Lost Corsair (The Corsair Uprising Space Opera Series Book 4) Page 9
