“Hmm, nah, we’ll make it. But between the two of us, if you had to jettison one, who would you send out?”
“Cyrus!”
Her forceful response shut Cyrus up, and he sat up and faced Celeste.
“I’m sorry, sis.”
She nodded once and her head bowed completely. Cyrus could no longer see her face. He stood up and went over to her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry. Are you OK?”
She sighed but didn’t look up. Cyrus waited patiently for her to collect herself.
“We already lost seven people. I don’t need any reminders of that. Or the people we lost on the other ships. Or on Monda. Or Dad.”
She looked back at Cyrus, who expected to see tears sliding down her cheeks. She didn’t have any, but her cracking voice hinted at their arrival.
“I still feel them, Cyrus. It’s like they are still here. I still feel their presence, as dumb as that sounds. I wonder why I have to resort to gut, strange feelings rather than being able to hug them, or play with them, or laugh with them. This evacuation, we should never have needed it. Right?”
It was a rhetorical question, for Cyrus knew how strongly Celeste felt about it. He had chalked it up to her youthful pacifism. The way the magicologists had intensified the attacks in the last few months, Cyrus knew Celeste wouldn’t feel the way she did if she’d seen how bad things had gotten.
“Dad always told us peace would come. That he just had to meet with the head of the magicologists, and he would allow them to have their own land. Then, all of a sudden, he comes back, tells us the end is at hand, and we leave as our planet dies. How am I supposed to react when you make jokes about people dying? Especially you, the only person I love who is left? Because I know we will go someday. Both of us. But I’ve had too much recently for me to be OK with imagining even just one more.”
Cyrus enveloped Celeste in a tight hug, who sniffled and accepted his hug.
“Look, no matter how bad things get between Crystil and I, I’m not going anywhere, OK? I have too many adventures planned on Anatolus. I have to find some sandcrawlers.”
Celeste laughed between tears.
“Besides, in all seriousness, we’ve gotten plenty of training. We know how to defend ourselves, and we have so many weapons on this ship I feel like I could take out anything that planet throws at us.”
He smirked when he saw her rubbing her arms, trying to calm herself down.
They quickly became silent at the sound of heavy, approaching boots. Celeste straightened up and patted her clothes down.
“Be nice, OK? I worry half the time that she’s lost it. You’d feel the same way if you lost your wife like she lost her husband. Cut her some slack.”
Cyrus knew Celeste was right. It was why he fell in line with Crystil, even if he resented her.
“It’ll get better, I’m sure,” Celeste said.
“That’s just your optimism overplaying here.”
“It’s my gut feeling playing here,” she responded as she heard the footsteps stop just outside the door.
A single, hard, precise knock came. Cyrus gulped and put his hands behind his back.
“Come on in, Crystil,” he said, with a hint of warmth.
The door opened, and Crystil filled the doorway. With her tall, slender frame, her assertive eyes, her dominating presence, and her controlled speech, she always commanded every room. Cyrus suspected she did the same on Monda, save for when she was with his father.
Honestly, she’d be awesome if she could just talk to us like a human and not a cold, militant officer.
“We’re to begin today’s VR training in approximately five minutes. The topic today is hunting in the cold, and in dangerous weather. Are you ready?”
“I’ll have to think about it,” Cyrus said with a smile, but the fierce eyes of Crystil and an elbow from Celeste focused him. “I’ve thought about it, yes, I’m ready.”
“Good,” Crystil said without emotion. She looked at Celeste, and for a moment, her body posture seemed to relax. “I will see you in the VR room shortly.”
Cyrus definitely noticed a less rigid body as she left. He turned to Celeste, but she said nothing, walking out and toward her room to prepare.
3
Crystil walked up to a sealed black door with a small screen to the right side, about six feet off the ground. The screen would read her fingerprints, blood flow and body to confirm her identity. Inside, a giant arena about two hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide—by far the largest room in Omega One—awaited. The room looked like an empty white hall, save for ten small lockers in the back. But those lockers contained suits and helmets which would warp them to virtual worlds in which they could practice any skill, from kaido to hunting to mountain climbing.
The environments provided Crystil a satisfying place, if not a happy one. She felt purposeful teaching Cyrus and Celeste and feeling like she was back on the battlefield. But she did not feel joy and wondered if she would ever get that exhilarating, almost stupefying feeling again. She did feel accomplishment and a sense that if she, Cyrus and Celeste could continue to learn, they could rebuild on Anatolus. They could hunt, build homes, survive the elements, and start from square one.
Maybe, if that happened, joy would come to her again.
It’s almost insane to think it. Beats actual insanity, though. Unless we’ve already slipped to that point.
Beeping from the screen signaled the computer had accepted Crystil’s bio-identification.
“Welcome, Crystil Bradford,” Cortanus said. “You are authorized to enter the virtual training facility.”
She walked into the empty cavern slowly, always in awe of the abilities of the room.
“Cortanus, go ahead and prepare the ‘Winter Hunting’ simulation. Wait for me to get hooked up to run the simulation, as I’ll be waiting on Celeste and Cyrus.”
“Understood,” the voice echoed in the chamber.
Crystil paced in the room, waiting for the siblings. She did not have much patience, as waiting meant her mind would wander to dangerous memories. Even the beautiful memories with Dyson struck a terribly painful chord, serving as a reminder of what she could never have back.
Like the time he proposed to me. He took me to the Garden of Narshia. As perfect a day as you could ever ask for. A slight breeze came by as he got on one knee, my hair blowing in the gusting wind. He said it made me as beautiful and fierce as he’d ever seen. I said yes, overwhelmed—as if I’d ever feel that. He kissed me. Said he’d never…
“Cyrus!” she yelled. “Celeste! Do not make me wait any longer!”
The sound of their running pushed out any remaining memories from coming. But she did finish the one playing in her head.
… leave me. Dyson. That’s my fault.
Celeste came first at a full sprint. She stood at attention, panting. Cyrus followed at a jog and stood next to Celeste with his hands on his hips. Crystil looked at both them angrily.
“You knew the time we had to be here. Why were you not here at that time?”
“I—” Cyrus began, but Crystil’s eyes silenced him. He had figured out no answer was his best answer—which was still not a good enough answer. Celeste, easily the smarter of the two, if not the one with the most survival potential, never spoke.
“If I say come down at fourteen hundred hours, I don’t mean show up two minutes after.”
Cyrus gulped. Crystil had no visible reaction, but she wanted Cyrus to feel scared. She did not take a psychopathic pleasure out of it, but Cyrus needed to know fear.
“Whatever your excuse is, it’s not good enough. Our sole mission, while we are still on this ship, is to learn every survival technique we can. Everything else is secondary. That includes recreational learning, reminiscing, conversation, and thinking.”
She took a second to pause, wanting to process her own advice.
“Now, equip yourselves. I will help you if you need anything. Otherwise, I wi
ll equip myself once you are in.”
The two trudged to the lockers, Celeste faster than Cyrus. Neither spoke a word as they equipped their suits and helmet. Watching them, Crystil could sense the frustration in Cyrus and the fear in Celeste.
The former she knew would give her headaches. Cyrus had so much potential. He was a strong human specimen, with chiseled shoulders and cut legs, at about six foot three inches tall, taller than Crystil, who was six foot… and, though she’d never admit it, Cyrus had a handsome, slender face, stunningly deep blue eyes, a thin beard which he always kept well-groomed, and a military haircut up top. But he also had the rebellious streak that would’ve gotten him killed in combat. If he didn’t curtail himself, Crystil knew he was as much a danger to them as to enemies. She constantly cut him down, treating him even more coldly than usual so he could hone his skills in a less bombastic method.
The latter listened well, did everything asked of her, and played the part of peacemaker well. But Celeste had to learn to control her fear. Celeste would never get rid of her fear—Crystil had her own paralyzing fears—but until she learned to handle it, and use it to push her forward, she could be nothing more than a diplomat. Crystil had sympathy for the younger sibling, but sympathy didn’t fire a gun faster.
Between the two Orthrans, Crystil didn’t have much hope.
Once Cortanus confirmed both Cyrus and Celeste had hooked up to the virtual world, Crystil headed to her equipment and put on the full-body suit with sensors that rubbed on her skin and a helmet that made her claustrophobic. However, once she clicked the helmet shut against her suit, after closing her eyes, she found herself in a thick blizzard and the tight space gone. A giant mountain rose behind her. To her right stood Cyrus and Celeste, thick in wintry clothing, so densely covered she could only tell them apart by their height. The two of them walked over to her. They looked at the snow, roughly two feet deep, and the gray sky. If Anatolus is worse than this…
“Welcome to the ‘Winter Hunting’ simulation,” Cortanus said. “Before we begin, let’s review the fundamental facts. One, do your best to remove any sign of your presence. Dust your footprints as you go along. Do not drop anything which may have your stench on it. Do not remove anything from the environment, such as a stick or piece of food that would be out of place on the ground. Stay low. Avoid making excessive movements or sounds. Hunt stationary targets, not ones on the move. Communicate on how you will hunt. Hunting in a group is a collaborative, synergistic single act, not three separate acts. Should you come across a pack of animals, hunt one animal at a time. Take only what you need. This means pursue the minimum-sized target you need, to decrease its chances of escape. Hunting game larger than you need wastes ammo and animals which will rot in your presence. Do you have any questions?”
Crystil already knew everything Cortanus said and waited to see what Cyrus and Celeste did. Neither of them said anything, though Crystil wondered if they actually understood or just didn’t want to ask their questions. This was their first simulation with guns, and Crystil had deep suspicions about their skill level. At least if they shoot me, we all wake up in the VR room.
“Good luck.”
The three ambled, dusting their prints behind them, moving at a glacial pace. The terrain around them did not change for several minutes.
“I’m bored,” Cyrus said. “Hunting sucks.”
Crystil turned with angry eyes and put a hand on her lips. Though Cyrus said nothing more, his angst bothered Crystil, who knew it made him more likely to do something stupid.
Finally, barely visible in the fog, a group of gigantes congregated. With thick tusks, copious amounts of fur and plenty of satisfying fatty meat to humans, they made for the perfect prey. One gigante could feed the three of them for at least two days. Crystil motioned to the other two to crouch. She eyed through her scope the slowest creature. The gigantes moved as a herd, and though they never paused, the slowest one could still be taken down in desperate times.
She found, in the back, a younger gigante. She reached for her gun, lined the creature up, and—
A gunshot rang out.
Suddenly, the roar of angry, confused, and panicking gigantes filled the air, and a stampede broke out. The herd ran away from the three humans, preventing the food from coming their way. Celeste had not even pulled her gun out. Crystil could barely control her rage at Cyrus as she slammed her gun to the ground.
“Cortanus,” she yelled. She dropped her voice to a deliberate, incredibly angry tone. “End. The. Simulation.”
The sky went black, and the helmet unlocked from her suit. She popped it off and tossed it to the side. When she saw Cyrus, struggling to remove his suit, she walked over and punched him in the gut. She threw his helmet off, and he staggered to the ground, groaning.
“Do you understand what just happened, Cyrus? Do you not realize that if that was a real situation, we would go without food and have to find that herd all over again?”
He moaned, holding his side with his eyes shut and his teeth gritted.
“What’s your excuse, Cyrus? I want an answer this time. I don’t want silence.”
In her peripheral vision, she saw Celeste watching with her hand over her mouth. But even Celeste knew not to interfere.
“Cyrus!”
“I was… going for the largest one… thought we’d get more that way.”
Crystil’s fists clenched, but she withheld from hitting him again.
“Stand up, Cyrus,” she ordered.
He did, slowly. He grimaced even when fully standing.
“What did Cortanus say, Cyrus? What did it say about going for the minimal amount that we needed?”
“I know what it said, but—”
“So you know better than hundreds of programmers who designed this ship and the intelligence on it, programmers advised by hunters, soldiers, and every other class of human on Monda who had experience on this?”
He bit his lip and looked at her. She saw eyes that wanted desperately to be right.
“Let me make one thing clear, Cyrus. If you want to break the rules, you have to follow them first. You have to follow them until they become second nature to you. Once you’ve done that, in very inconsequential situations, you can find places to bend them. But you are so far away from that, you won’t get there in your lifetime.”
She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him close.
“You listen to my orders. I am the commander of this ship. It is my job to get the two of you safely to Anatolus and to help you rebuild from there. If you take on this flippant attitude, Cyrus, you don’t just hurt yourself. You hurt us. You hurt me. You put your sister in danger.”
When his eyes flickered with fear, she knew she’d found it. The go-to point whenever he didn’t listen. The trigger that made him trepidatious.
She released him and stepped back. She turned to Celeste.
“I apologize that we were not able to finish the simulation. You did a good job of keeping your tracks clear, and of not creating too many abnormalities in the environment. We will review the simulation further later today.”
She nodded to Celeste and gave an authoritative stare to Cyrus, who coughed once. She left without another word, heading straight for the cockpit.
She felt she’d gone overboard with Cyrus. Hitting him crossed the already-thin line of trust. But between the emotions of what happened from what seemed like a few days ago, his arrogance, and the fear their future would end poorly, she’d lost control. She struggled to find the balance between taking responsibility and blaming him for failing to follow basic instructions.
Is he insane? He does realize what he’s doing, right? Is he that stubborn? Or stupid? Or am I missing something?
Maybe… maybe he’s got a point.
If he does, the notes from Cortanus will turn it up. In the meantime, there’s no chance I’m ever letting him go outside the rules of the simulation. No chance. No exceptions.
When she arrived in the cockpit, s
he angrily propped her legs up and leaned back, letting out a long sigh.
“Cortanus, tell me something good. Please. Anything to get my mind off the disaster we just had.”
“Actually, I do have wonderful news.”
She took her feet off the dashboard. As she looked out, she could see the star which Anatolus supposedly orbited. Cortanus produced a holographic image, displaying the star up close.
And a planet.
“I can confirm the existence of Anatolus, and that it is habitable for humans.”
4
Celeste pursed her lips together and breathed slowly as she watched her wounded brother. Still leaning over, looking like Crystil had stabbed him with a knife, Cyrus grimaced as he tried to face his sister.
“Ow,” he said as he kept his hand on his left side. “OK, rule number one of Omega One. Don’t get in a fight with the commander. She’ll kill you with a single punch.”
Celeste did not react, fearful that Crystil might return and harangue them with further—even if she walked out distraught.
Cyrus coughed more.
“Come on, let’s go eat. Or at least I’ll watch and talk to you while you eat and I wish I had gotten my helmet off before getting a brick to my side.”
Celeste nodded and whirled around, leading a slow-walking Cyrus to the spacious, green-painted mess hall. She took out two packages of food, threw them in the microwave for two minutes, and took them to the one table left in the hall, situated just by the entrance. Crystil had propped up the rest on the opposite wall to give them space. She put one of the meals in front of Cyrus, who sat in silence. She wouldn’t dare say it, but maybe a sucker punch wasn’t the worst thing if it briefly muted her brother.
She poked at her eggs, eating about half of the food while Cyrus kept groaning and swearing as he ate. She hadn’t had much of an appetite since leaving Monda.
When Cyrus groaned exaggeratedly, Celeste had to speak up.
“Must’ve really hurt, huh?”
Cyrus’ eyes went wide with acknowledgment as he finished a bite.
Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1) Page 2
