Skylar Mars and the Crystal Claw

by Drew Seren

  “And the Mother of All Drakes greatly appreciates that,” Filzbalm said, sounding like the leader of the Solar Drakes had just spoken to him. He did things like that from time to time, and it made Skylar wonder if she was somehow linked to Filzbalm even over the vast distances of space. There was so much about the Solar Drakes they didn’t know, or at least, wasn’t available on the public networks, or even the dark web. Del had been trying to find out more information for months with only minimal success, and if Del couldn’t find it, it was either well-hidden, or wasn’t out there.

  Chillarni frowned. “I understand. We try to keep closemouthed over what we’re finding here. Your mother said she’d told you a little about how we’re discovering more and more evidence of pre-Pantherian society here. If there are things like this on other worlds with humanoid inhabitants, it could blow the lid off the ancient theory we all evolved on our own planets, no matter how much like humans we are.”

  “Right,” Felonia said, coming through the door. “Kids, I just got a message from Aniu. He’ll meet us just outside of Glacier City. The entire town isn’t destroyed—there are survivors and they need us.”

  “Hey, before you go,” Chillarni interrupted as she picked up something off the desk, “how do you want me to categorize this?” She held up a huge blue crystal that was nearly as long and thick as her forearm. The end of it looked like it had been carved to resemble a cat’s paw with the claws extended. The paw motif was also carved into the central pad, where the digits connected. There was something about it that looked like the glyphs on the wall.

  “Oh, so that survived the blast last night?” Felonia walked over and took it from her. “It’s so delicate, it shouldn’t have.”

  “I’m surprised the building is still standing.” Chillarni ran her fingers over the hologram still projecting from the desk. “This telekinetic blast radius is one of the largest ever seen. I wouldn’t doubt that the mover who did this is off our scale.”

  Felonia seemed to study the crystal for a moment before handing it back to Chillarni. “Go ahead and put it in the trunks with the other artifacts we’ve unearthed the past month. Keeping them all together is probably a good idea. Also, since the blast did some damage to the building, if you could take everything to the house, I’d appreciate that.”

  “Sure.” Chillarni put the crystal back on the desk. “I’ll run some drones down the new shafts and see if I can get some mapping done. Since the blast came from the dig site, maybe we can find something useful.”

  “I hope so,” Felonia said as she gestured for Skylar, Solaria, and Filzbalm to follow her out the door that lead to the parking area. “We need to have something to tell the officials when they realize where the blast originated. I’m really surprised they haven’t come knocking on our door already.”

  “Me too. They’re most likely too busy with Glacier City.”

  Felonia opened the door. “You’re probably right. I’ll stay in touch. I’m routing communications through the main system at the space port, so unless something happens there, we should be fine.”

  “I hope nothing happens,” Solaria muttered as they stepped through the door her mother was holding open.

  “Me too,” Skylar agreed. He didn’t want to end up cut off from the universe, even if he was with Solaria and her family. There weren’t many species in the galaxy that could go toe-to-toe with Pantherians, but something they’d released from the ice had managed to take out one of their cities. That was going to be a major problem. Skylar didn’t want to come face-to-face with whatever that thing was.

  13

  Glacier City

  A COLUMN of smoke rose up from the horizon as Felonia drove the hover car across the sheer ice plain. The wind had whipped up great piles of snow.

  “You’ve got to be careful,” Solaria said as they continued. “It’s easy to get stuck in one of the snow drifts if you aren’t paying attention to what you’re doing. Since they’re constantly moving in the wind, there’s no way to map them.”

  Skylar said. “With any luck, I won’t get caught out here without either one of your folks or Phil driving.” He knew how to pilot a hover car—his mother had been teaching him right before the attack on Hummassa. He just didn’t have a lot of experience doing it, let alone in a frozen, constantly changing environment.

  Felonia said. “She’s giving good advice—you don’t know when you might be alone, or one of us might be injured. If you aren’t careful out here you could get stuck and freeze to death, even with an envirosuit on. Their passive power systems only last so long.”

  “Right.” Skylar shuddered. “I’ll remember that.”

  “If that happened, I might be able to find a way to share the warmth from my ring with you,” Filzbalm added. “We really don’t want to die out here.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “That’s looking really bad.” Solaria pointed to the rising smoke, growing darker with each second they flew toward the destroyed city.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Felonia said.

  “Hummassa looked like this after the Boarisk attack,” Skylar said. “Or at least Cordnisar, the city where I lived, did. It was horrible.”

  “Any kind of attack is horrible,” Felonia said. “We have to be strong and see what we can do to save the survivors.” Her com beeped and she tapped it to answer.

  A hologram of Aniu hovered above her wrist. “We’re on the south side of the city. Phil managed to get hold of the Intergal Rescue team a couple of systems over. They’ll be here shortly. They were close to their stargate. More are coming soon. We’ve got the initial tents set up.”

  “Right,” Felonia said, and turned the wheel. For a second the hologram stretched across the hover car, then went back to normal as her hand returned to a flat position.

  “Over there.” Solaria pointed toward something Skylar couldn’t see.

  “I’ve got you,” Felonia said. “We’ll be there shortly.”

  “See you soon.” Aniu’s image looked grim, then vanished.

  “With the local coms down, some of the scanners might not be getting good readings,” Felonia said. “So we’re going to be relying more on our own minds and our observational skills than technology. Skylar, don’t push yourself too hard. Solaria said you’re a little behind most kids your age as far as using your psychic gifts.”

  He glared at Solaria, but kept his tone level. “I’ve learned a lot.”

  “Well, this’ll be a major learning experience for you. A bit like what you were doing last night with Phil, but this time we know there are dead, and we also know there are survivors. The goal is finding the survivors and getting them to medical help.” Felonia drove the hover car to the small cluster of tents and vehicles that sat on the ice flats just beyond the first of the shattered buildings.

  Before she had the hover car stopped, Aniu came out of the closest tent. He rushed up and gave her a big hug as soon as she got out of the vehicle. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I wish you all didn’t have to be here for it.”

  She hugged him back. “I’m sure all the people who didn’t survive would wish we didn’t have to be here too.” She released him. “Now, let’s get busy.”

  Skylar got out of the hover car, and Filzbalm snuggled deeper in the hood of his coat. The wind felt like it was worse than it had been at the dig site. It made the bit of exposed skin on Skylar’s hands and nose instantly cold. He shivered.

  “Catch.” Solaria threw something at him.

  He barely managed to get his hand up in time to snatch the gloves and face mask she’d tossed.

  “We always carry spares. They’ll work with your thermal suit to help keep you warm.” She took out a knit mask like the one she’d thrown him and rolled it down over her face, even covering her ears with the thin fabric. It was the first time he’d ever seen her with anything, other than an envirosuit, on over her head. It looked like a gray blob on her shoulders. “The winds here are horrible.” />
  “Yes, they are.” Her mother waved them all toward the tent her father had appeared from.

  As they walked, Skylar put on the mask Solaria had given him, then pulled the gloves over his hands. The change was almost instantaneous. There wasn’t a lot of warmth in the small tent—that tent reminded him of the ones Intergal Rescue had used on Hummassa. But there, the wind hadn’t been so bad and whipped things around so dramatically.

  Aniu handed Solaria a holomap. “We’re trying to mark the areas we’ve already been through, but we have to keep coming back to basecamp to synchronize the holomaps. With the com network down, we can’t rely on the maps to stay up-to-date.” He paused and smiled at them. “I also want to make sure the three of you are okay from time to time. If you don’t check in every two standard hours, either I or your mother—” he stared at Solaria for a moment before continuing “—will come looking for you, starting at your last known location.”

  Solaria sighed and Skylar was pretty sure she’d rolled her eyes, even though the mask hid her expressions. “I was born here, Dad. I know the drill for a snow-blind situation. I’ll keep Skylar close so he doesn’t get lost, although I’m sure Filzbalm will let me know if there’s anything wrong.”

  “She’s right.” Filzbalm shifted slightly in Skylar’s hood, spreading the warmth against Skylar’s neck out farther.

  “Okay.” Aniu popped up his holomap. There was the vague delineation of streets and neighborhoods, but it looked like everything else had been wiped out, blown apart and fallen over like a model city in a windstorm. “I want the two of…sorry, three of you—” he glanced at Skylar’s hood, as if he’d momentarily forgotten about Filzbalm “—to start over here. Do a house by house search like you did last night with Phil. If you find anyone, see if you can get to them without moving anything. If you can’t, try your coms. We’re hoping routing them through the spaceport network will continue to be stable. If for some reason you can’t get through on the coms, then let the person know help is on the way and come back to camp. Phil says there’re going to be several movers coming in with the Intergal ships. They’ll be able to help us get to people.” He looked at Solaria again. “I don’t want you to overtax yourself, young lady. If you think it’s too big to move, it probably is.”

  She nodded. “I understand.” Her tone was quiet and a little dangerous. Solaria didn’t like being told what she could and couldn’t do. It was one of the things Skylar had learned early on about her.

  Felonia gave her a quick hug. “We’re going to be working near your zone, so we can get to you quickly.”

  Watching such exchanges still made Skylar miss his mother. He turned away as Phil came up, with a large Pantherian over his shoulder. “You kids be careful out there,” he said without stopping as he carried the man to a cot and laid him down. “This is some of the worst destruction I’ve seen in thirty years with Intergal. If we didn’t need the help, we wouldn’t have called you two in.”

  “I like being helpful,” Skylar said as he watched Phil get the man settled.

  Phil straightened and looked at Skylar. “You’re a fairly remarkable kid, Skylar, even if you don’t look like much at first glance. I guess that’s one of the reasons you and Filzbalm get to explore the galaxy.”

  “Come on, Skylar.” Solaria tapped him on the shoulder. “We’ve got people to find.”

  “Be careful,” Phil repeated as he bent back over the man he’d brought in. “Some of the buildings are ready to fall with the next strong wind.”

  “We will, Uncle Phil.” Solaria waved and headed out the door. Skylar hurried after her.

  “We’ll be fine,” Solaria muttered as they started out away from the tents, heading around the edge of the ruined city.

  “I know.” Skylar hurried along with her, which was a bit of work since she was stalking across the frozen ground fairly quickly. “But at least you still have your family.”

  “And thanks to Uncle Phil, we’re kinda your family too.” She stopped and looked at him. Her eyes were the only part of her face visible in the gray woven mask. “Uncle Phil thinks you’re important. But you’re also a lot cooler than most of the other kids at school. Mom wouldn’t let just anyone come home with me.”

  Skylar had figured they’d issued the invite simply because they didn’t want him to be alone. Combined with Aunt Blizza’s ramblings, he was beginning to wonder what was going on and what people were expecting out of him. He didn’t like the idea that he was special. Sure, he had psychic powers he’d never suspected, but they were treating him like something more and that made him nervous.

  Solaria turned down the start of one of the streets. “This is the edge of our sector. Wake Filzbalm up and see if he can help with the scanning. It might make this go faster if we don’t have to go into every building looking for people.”

  Filzbalm yawned. “I can help. I’m not asleep.” His mental voice was loud enough Skylar was fairly sure he wasn’t going to have to relay the thought to Solaria. “But we might want to check each building even if none of us can get a reading of life. There are some heavy shields that are still intact.”

  “Shields?” Solaria frowned and then looked at her holomap. She shook her head. “Okay, so we ended up in Psy-town.”

  “What?” Skylar asked, looking at the buildings that appeared to be made of ice rather than the traditional wood or brick buildings he was used to.

  “Glacier City and some of the other larger cities on Pantheria have special sections of town for psychics,” Solaria explained as she continued walking toward the first dwelling. “The non-psis think it keeps them safer from us. Helps prevent minor telekinetic bursts from hurting them, or restrains the nightmares of strong readers so they don’t impact their sleep. Mom and Dad never said much about it, but since attending Stars’ End, I realize it’s just a way for scared people to feel safer.”

  Skylar knew his own mother had been terrified of psychics, and he’d had to overcome that fear to learn to accept his own gifts. At school, the teachers and other students made it sound like most planets accepted their psychic population. This made it sound like, at least on Pantheria, psychics were feared.

  “You bipeds fear a lot of things,” Filzbalm said, softer than when he’d been loud enough for Solaria to hear. “If you let fear control you, you can never really prosper as a species.”

  Solaria stopped at the first house. When Skylar thought about the spaceport and how so much of it had been designed to look like it was part of the environment, he wondered if that was what they had been trying in Glacier City as well—to make their city look like something built of ice and snow, and now that it was crumbling, it looked like crushed ice.

  “I don’t feel anything,” she said, but continued to stare at the building.

  Skylar carefully lowered his personal shields and reached out with his mind. It didn’t feel like there was anything, or anyone there. “Me neither.”

  “I agree,” Filzbalm announced loudly. “And there are no shields in place around this dwelling. I believe we are safe continuing on.”

  Solaria turned and walked across the lane. “Then let’s keep moving. We don’t want to stay out past dark. A storm could come up. It’s spring—storms can brew quickly and hit hard.”

  “Okay. I’m following you.” Skylar figured it was probably for the best to just follow along and do anything Solaria suggested. She was the native and the more experienced psychic.

  “Good.” She walked up the three steps to the door. Neither the steps or the door seemed overly damaged, but the windows were all broken out, and the roof was sagging. Solaria sighed. “I think there’s a shield here.”

  “You’re right,” Filzbalm said before Skylar could comment.

  There was a feeling of emptiness in the structure. But that was slightly different from the feeling of not having anyone there. It was like there was a void between him and the next building. Skylar had never stopped to wonder what Professor Aduncus’ shielded workroom mus
t feel like from the outside. He just knew what it felt like from the inside. Sometimes he needed to slow down in his constantly hectic life and notice more so he was better prepared for the things he ran across.

  “Alright, so we go inside.” Solaria pushed against the door. It didn’t open. She pulled her arm back, and something tingled along Skylar’s senses right before she slammed her fist into the door. It shook slightly, then creaked open.

  “Movers gotta move,” she said lightly as she pushed the door open. “Hello?” She called with both her voice and her mind.

  They waited on the threshold for almost a minute, listening for a response. An uneasy silence filled the air around them.

  “Okay.” Solaria stepped into the battered home. “Let’s see who we can find.”

  Without a word, Skylar followed her in. An easy, peaceful feeling existed in the house. The shield was still in place, but Skylar felt like it was probably just an empathic shield. There was too much physical damage for it to have been a field to keep a mover’s powers contained. The shelves and bookcases were tossed around and lay on the floor, their contents broken and scattered.

  Solaria hissed and stepped back from the first room she’d looked into. “We don’t need to go in there.” She hurried to the next room. “I don’t think there’s anyone here.”

  Skylar paused and looked into the room. A leg with orange and black fur stretched out from under large chunks of icy ceiling pieces. It was too still to be alive. Skylar turned and hurried after Solaria. He’d seen enough death in the past year—he didn’t want to dwell on any more.

  SKYLAR’S FEET were sore. He pulled his glove down slightly so he could see his com. Based on the time, they’d been searching Psy-town for three hours. The cold had permeated the place and him. Although Filzbalm kept assuring him he was warm enough, Skylar wasn’t sure he was ever going to be warm enough again. He and Solaria hadn’t encountered anyone alive. They were marking the houses where they found bodies on the holomap, so once Intergal Rescue had accounted for all the living, they could go back and take care of the dead.