CHAPTER 1

 

Kalaire

 

Year 15,769 BCE

Planet Ezketuan
148 Light-Years from Home

​

Kalaire massaged her temples, reciting in her head the unquestionable truth. Imszoranians never fail. She’d been raised on that dogma. On the belief that failure wasn’t just unacceptable, it was impossible. Any unexpected outcome called for embracing optimism and couldn’t be fathomed as a loss, but a gain.

​

Always a gain.

​

She leaned back, exhaling as she reviewed the data on her holographic display. Another a null result. It could only be viewed as one less hypothesis to test, moving her closer to a cure for the Mind Rift.

​

“SID,” she said, barely able to muster up the energy to speak. “Log the results. We’ll move on to the next one.”

​

“Logged,” said SID, the system AI.

​

Fighting a yawn, she pulled a tray of specimen cups toward her, determination serving as the only fuel she had left. For the third night in a row, restlessness drove her out of bed, her head cluttered with ideas that just couldn’t wait for morning. The pattern had progressed, increasing until one night a week became two. Sustainable for a time. So, she pushed it to three, believing she could manage. After all, embracing optimism dictated she drag herself back into the lab countless nights, even though each one of those nights ended with a sunrise and every hypothesis she’d tested was exhausted.

​

“What am I missing?” she muttered, sifting through the data from the last analysis, stubbornly refusing to let it go.

​

The condition they called the Batasurna Mind Rift wasn’t a disease. Her race had long since eradicated any form of disease, along with the possibility of it. She sometimes wondered if the Mind Rift was a curse cast on them by the dioses as a way to prove themselves worthy of their natural-born abilities. But even curses had antidotes, she’d convinced herself.

​

Whatever it was, it would some day be a triviality. One solid year of work behind her gave her confidence that the data would soon reveal the elusive solution. It had to. Because the ache in her gut only grew stronger every time she saw someone going through the Mind Rift. Every time she witnessed the decay of a lucid mind and the fraying of reality that followed.

​

The bleak mental vision summoned a pensive sigh. Sitting alone in a quiet lab should have brought her clarity, but the lack of sleep had finally caught up with her. Silence punctuated her mind like an erratic pulsar, spinning up a swirl of betraying thoughts that threatened to upend her, asserting that false hope had beguiled her resolve.

​

She couldn’t let that happen.

​

One more, then bed, she thought, instantly losing her train of thought the moment her eyes centered on the display panel. She stared, unfocused on the data.

​

Her eyes needed something else to land on. To help her regroup. To let her mind become still, allowing the swirl of negativity to settle like sediment at the bottom of an ocean. She raised her arms to stretch, surveying the lab as if expecting to find some invisible lab tech at a distant station churning through data and hoarding all the answers for himself.

​

As always, the room was empty, except for the rows of worktables and analysis stations scattered throughout the vast space, each equipped with instruments connected to the galaxy’s foremost research and analysis system. An uninspired person might’ve been disconcerted that a system like that, in all its powerful glory, hadn’t yet discovered the solution.

​

To Kalaire, that kind of thinking would only hinder the search for truth.

​

“SID,” she said, unscrewing a lid on a specimen cup, “run a heavy metal screening on the next sample. Look for elevations in toxic compounds before passing the sample onto the next screening.”

​

As she swiped her finger through the air, sliding to the next display panel, an alert popped up on the display. The facility alarm blared. She tensed, her eyes flicking to the exit.

​

LOCKDOWN.

​

Red warning lights flashed through the lab, glowing off workstation consoles and equipment. The automated system blasted an emergency message on repeat. “Attention. Facility breach. South entrance.”

​

“What?” she muttered, opening a channel on her workstation console. “SID, what’s going on?”

​

“Facility breach. South Entrance,” SID repeated.

​

She lacked the patience to tolerate SID’s literal account. The AI system could at least embody a truer version of his name, Simulated Intelligent Design.

​

“Yes, I heard that. Who?” she asked.

​

“Field Medic Larmarrak Henthrond.”

​

She stared through the floating panel, her mind blank. “He’s one of us. How’s this a breach?”

​

“Henthrond has been identified as a Batasurna mate in the early stages of the Mind Rift.” SID’s emotionless response contradicted the severity of the words.

​

Her head jerked back. “What? Where’s security?”

​

“Already on the way.”

​

One of us? The notion needed to ferment for a moment. From her peripheral vision, the lab’s black steel walls closed in, swelling with each red pulse of the emergency lights. “SID, turn off the alarm in here. I can’t think,” she said, her reflexive response slow to kick in.

​

The siren from the corridor continued to wail, the muted discord filtering into the void of the lab. She set her sights on the security panel. “Bring up views of the South Entrance corridor.” The display split into four views, each showing a different angle of an empty hall. “How far did he make it inside?”

​

“Almost to the habitat wing. He is currently being restrained.”

​

“Show me.”

​

The display switched to a view of five security officers, two of them binding an unconscious male flat on the floor. She watched as they lifted the male onto a hover gurney and steered him down the hallway.

​

Henthrond, she thought. A young Imszoranian male who’d been eager to join the expedition team bound for Ezketuan to study Batasurna, an ancient sacred soul bond between two people that had appeared as far back as twenty of her home planet’s years, or universal years, as the Spiral’s inhabitants called them.

​

In the beginning, little was known about Batasurna. As memories resurfaced between the reconnected mates over time, society came to understand it as a union of souls, or a balancing of energy, that was created while in physical form, transcending across lifetimes. At first, the bonds were peaceful, but something shifted, causing unimaginable violence in a mate after their partner died.

​

The flashing panel by the exit flicked off, and a follow-up automated message sounded through the lab. “Attention. Station lockdown has been lifted.”

​

“Kalaire,” boomed her boss’s voice over comms, his curt tone incongruous to his typical repose.

​

She flinched, bracing against the desk. “Go ahead.”

​

“Meet me at the Security Main Office.”

​

Already on her feet, she straightened her fitted blue uniform, silently collecting herself. “On my way.”

​

Ganix, the mission director responsible for all seven science facilities on the planet, designated the largest site, Eru 1—which studied mates sent from planet Erupea—as mission headquarters. Kalaire served under him as mission team director, running operations at the Eru 1 facility. This meant that when things went awry, she’d be held accountable.

​

The security office was usually a good five-minute walk from her lab, however at her current pace, she’d make it in record time. Even though the morning shift wouldn’t begin for another four hours, the unexpected ruckus had roused people from their beds and into the halls, and the chatter was loud.

​

Swift steps gained momentum down the corridor, her mind reeling the entire way as the thud of her footfalls pounded in her eardrums regardless of her soft-soled shoes. The jaunt left little time to appraise the situation. She couldn’t help but wonder how she’d missed a Batasurna match, although it wasn’t the right time to chastise herself for being so caught up in her trials that she could have passed over something obvious. Still, it didn’t stop her from filing through everything before she faced the situation head-on.

​

As she reached the entrance of the main security office, the door swept open, and her eyes went straight to Ganix, his tall stature leaning against the front of a tidy ergo-desk, legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded over.

​

“I know you’re angry,” she said, charging in. Her comment contradicted the reserve in his visage.

​

“Chief, can you give us a minute?” Ganix asked, his innocuous question stifled by his clenched jaw, revealing her assertion was truer than he let on.

​

Kalaire always thought the personality of the room matched its owner, Security Chief Vanraul Berano. Plain and uninteresting. The office, scarce of any adornments that might suggest a minuscule amount of charm, had a gray loveseat butted up to one wall and a holo-photos collection of antique weapons displayed on the other. Enough to declare occupancy. Not enough to draw anyone’s interest.

​

She glanced at Berano, his dull ash brown hair uncharacteristically tousled.

​

“What happened to you?” she asked, her eyes assessing the fresh scratches down his face.

​

“What do you think?” Berano’s glare lingered on Kalaire, a mix of contempt and arrogance burning in his cold, dark eyes. She could never shake the feeling that his eyes brimmed with hints of untold secrets. He sauntered past her, close enough to use his tall, muscular frame to loom over her as he walked by.

​

Drascker, she thought, as Berano slipped out of view. With the sound of the door swooshing closed behind her, she swallowed hard.

​

“How’d this happen?” Ganix asked, his voice restored to a calm and familiar tone. Rarely rattled, he was the rock of the expedition—one thing she appreciated about him. While he often allowed a casual atmosphere in the facility, everybody knew who the boss was when he walked into a room.

​

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Yet, anyway. But I’m on it. I’ll have the answer to you before sunrise.”

​

He ran his hand over his sable brown hair, not a strand out of place despite the time of night. “Larmarrak could have killed someone. In fact, he may already have. I need you to call everyone in from the field.”

​

“Of course. Right away.” Her fingernails dug into her palms, her grip tightening to strangle the unease. She’d convinced herself she had been thorough and attentive to her staff. Missing something like this threw her into disarray, causing both her words and thoughts to stumble over each other.

​

“Kalaire,” he said, his baritone timbre lightening up a notch. “This can’t happen. Why wasn’t their Batasurna bond discovered? We have psychologists for this. And protocols.”

​

The tension holding her body hostage should have eased in response to his subdued tone—an attempt that could be passed off as a comforting gesture from a man of steel—but she couldn’t stop beating herself up over the situation. “I’ll be checking with the psychologist first thing to find out. It should have been caught. Do we know what happened to his mate?”

​

He shrugged, passive enough, yet the stiffness in his shoulders spoke a different language. “Not yet. We don’t know who she is. Or was, rather.”

​

Was.

​

That was a direct blow to her heart. Someone died on Kalaire’s watch. Someone she probably knew. She nodded, gulping down the bile burning her throat.

​

“Understood. Is Larmarrak still lucid?”

​

Ganix relaxed his arms, resting his palms on the edge of the desk behind him. “Barely.”

​

“I want to talk to him.”

​

He jerked his chin up. “Let’s see if we still can.”

​

She spun around, heading out ahead of him. In the hallway, Berano casually leaned against the wall as if he were already bored.

​

“We want to see him,” she said, her confident posture unaligned with her emotions.

​

“M’all right. He’s in Cell 2,” Berano drawled. “Don’t think you’re going to get much out of him though.”

​

“We’ll see,” she said, willing her voice to stay steady.

​

Berano kicked off the wall and moseyed past her, his face pulled tight. She tipped her chin up, locking her eyes with his, refusing to let him think he intimidated her. Even if it were true at times.

​

As they neared the brig, disjointed grunts and incoherent shouts echoed from inside. Berano stopped at the cell block door and touched his index finger against the DNA reader. Without acknowledging her or Ganix, he walked in ahead of them, disregarding the proper decorum to respect his superiors.

​

Her blood boiled, but dealing with Berano’s transgressions would have to wait. Other than the two guards standing across from the occupied cell, the block was empty.

​

Six cells made up the small brig, three on either side, each one only wide enough for a bed and a bio-receptacle. At the time of construction, it seemed sufficient, yet several times every cell had been full, and the overflow moved to the brig of their interstellar science ship, the zoomdo-lab.

​

As they entered the room, Larmarrak flew into a rage. He gripped the steel bars, pushing and pulling himself against them, his body writhing. With an echoing roar, he threw a double-fisted punch between the bars, his attempt to break through thwarted by the energy shield. Squealing, he yanked his arms back, his teeth clenched as he gurgled.

​

Berano dismissed the guards, then made himself comfortable against the wall at the opposite end.

​

Face distorted, Larmarrak staggered back. His pained expression made Kalaire’s stomach twist. Given his advanced state, communicating with him would be a challenge. She hoped to connect with him through telepatia, a thought exchange method intrinsic to her race, to understand what happened. Her mind reached out to him, unsure whether he’d receive the request. Both his wrists were bound by chacks, an energy device that not only restricted his movement but blocked any form of energy manipulation, including telepatia.

​

Careful not to jar him, she gently brushed against his mind, and for a brief second, he revealed to her the breaking of the Batasurna bond.

​

It had snapped.

​

Hard.

​

The flash of agony he revealed almost brought her to her knees. An unbearable yearning mixed with grief and rage. No matter how many times she’d seen a Batasurna mate going through the Mind Rift, she still couldn’t prepare herself for it.

​

The young Imszoranian’s mind teetered at the brink of chaos. Thoughts knotted together to form one indecipherable tangle of frayed ends. He shot her a glare, instantly clamping down on the connection, though he’d let loose a tinge of shame shading the break. His eyes captured her, already beginning to change, as they did when Mind Rift set in. They became empty, as if the eyes were the first thing to be stolen from a life.

​

She wanted so badly to help him. To take the pain away. To find a drascking cure.

​

Their mission focused on understanding the fracturing of lucidity, leading to insanity in Batasurna mates. The cause was thought to be an imbalance of energy in the body, however methods of how to treat it were in dispute. Lack of progress stemmed from a source of contention among the scientists. Some scientists believed that studying the affected survivor was the only way to find a cure, while other scientists believed that studying the affected survivor violated their code of ethics.

​

Torture, they called it.

​

Kalaire argued for a middle ground. No one wanted to find a cure more than her, but she also couldn’t stand to see them suffering. She imagined it like a soul being twisted inside their body and then torn apart, one irrational thought at a time.

​

The result? Predators. Vicious, indiscriminate killers.

​

In the end, Ganix made the final call and decided that keeping a surviving mate awake couldn’t be a viable option. Unlike the other races living among the planets in their home star system, the Spiral, only Imszoranians could manipulate energy with their minds. Energy harnessing, they called it. And for reasons yet unknown, a surviving Batasurna mate’s ability to wield energy as a weapon from their fingertips had grown stronger than the average Imszoranian. Ganix considered it too much of a risk.

​

“Henthrond,” she said softly. “Larmarrak Henthrond.”

​

She remembered him as a gentle field medic with endearing qualities and a quirky personality, cracking jokes to distract patients. Once, while out in the field collecting samples, she’d broken her ankle, and he told her to look at the ground sometimes instead of wandering aimlessly. On the way back to the zoomdoer hovercraft to complete a healing cycle on her injury, she leaned on him while walking and laughed at her admission that she’d been daydreaming after all.

​

Now, Kalaire looked at him through the bars of his cell, wondering if he was still inside his body somewhere or if something otherworldly had taken him hostage.

​

His empty eyes grew into black globes, his grunts falling silent except for a low hum from between his tightly pressed lips. She wondered if he had gone still after recognizing her. Gripping the bars tighter, drool pinched out of the corners of his mouth and streamed down his chin. Purple circles had formed under his eyes, and dark blood vessels spider-webbed across his skin.

​

“Who was your mate?” she asked, her voice unassuming.

​

His eyes flicked to Berano. An unnatural screech pierced her eardrums. She flinched, taking half a step back.

​

Larmarrak stuttered, as if the last remaining bits of his rational side were trying to force their way to the surface. “T-t-t-ddddd.”

​

“Tadessi?” Kalaire asked.

​

His eyes narrowed on Kalaire, baring his teeth at her like an animal ready to shred her apart for merely speaking his mate’s name. Tadessi Minradda, a microbiologist Kalaire had worked alongside many times.

​

“What happened to her, Larmarrak?” she asked.

​

He threw his head back with a blood-curdling scream, wrenching on the bars, his head shaking from front to back and cheek muscles twitching.

​

“Larmarrak,” said Kalaire, pulling for his attention. “What happened to her?”

​

“We’re never going to know,” Berano sneered. “All we definitively know is she’s dead.”

​

He wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t have to be so callous about it.

​

Larmarrak’s body started to convulse. His grip on the bars released, and he staggered backward, his head lolling across his shoulders until his eyes locked on the black steel wall. He lunged at it and slammed his forehead into it with an awful bang, the wall ringing like the clang of a pipe. Rivers of blood gushed down his face.

​

“Stop him,” she said, turning to Berano. “He’s going to kill himself.”

​

“He’ll be better off,” said Berano.

​

She raised her voice. A rarity. “That’s an order!”

​

Unfazed, Berano lackadaisically pulled the chacks control device from his pocket and pecked at the mini-screen. Larmarrak fell to his knees, his grunts softening as his eyelids turned heavy. Leaning forward, he landed on his palms, then slumped to the floor with a thud.

​

A young man in his prime. A good medic. A solid future. Now only a shell of him remained.

​

There was a time when Kalaire dreamed of finding her own eternal mate, though not everyone was guaranteed to have one. After the Mind Rift appeared and the massacre on Space Station 3 took the lives of too many, she prayed to be one of the lucky ones who had never bonded in a past lifetime.

​

Kalaire glanced at Ganix, standing to her side, his arms crossed as he brooded at Larmarrak crumpled up in a heap.

​

“I’ll see if we can find her body and determine how she died,” she said, the ache in her chest somehow deeper than the scowl on his face. It had to have affected him too, though she’d be the first to argue he’d never admit it. Ganix was solid. He had to be.

​

The whole situation felt like a gut punch. Not only had she lost two of her own scientists, but she’d hoped no more Batasurna pairings would show up. To her dismay, the arrival of fully loaded passenger ships transported from the Spiral every month supported evidence that the pairings were only increasing.

​

Ganix gave her the side-eye. “You’ll have to work fast.” His stance suggested there was something behind the urgency in his voice.

​

“What’s going on?” she asked.

​

“Let’s go to my office and talk,” he said, waving her toward the exit.

​

***

​

The door to Ganix’s office had barely shut behind her before he started to speak. “We’re being recalled.” He rounded the other side of his desk and sank into the dark plum upholstered chair.

​

The comment nearly swept her off her feet. She anchored them in place between two plush gray armchairs facing his desk. “Recalled?”

​

He frowned, the grooves between his brows pronounced as he gestured for her to sit. “I found out a few hours ago and was going to have a meeting about it in the morning.”

​

She balanced on the edge of the cushion, her body rigid as she tried to process his words. “Why? Is it because of the war?”

​

“That’s just it. There was no why. The order came over the emergency alert system through SID directly to me. Text only.”

​

None of it made sense. They’d never received orders through the emergency alert system. “Who issued it?” she asked.

​

“Empress Azkeena herself.”

​

Her eyes bulged. “Azkeena? Since when does she involve herself in menial tasks like that?”

​

“Good question.”

​

“Did you try to contact the mission command center at the Royal Science Headquarters?” She knew the question was ridiculous. Ganix never missed a beat, but that didn’t stop her from asking anyway.

​

“Yes. The orders are authentic.”

​

She eased out a long, unsettled breath. “I don’t get it. We are making progress here. The biology department just discovered an amino acid that could be a key in figuring out what’s wrong.”

​

“Do you really believe that?” he asked, discounting the claim with a question. Ganix wasn’t exactly the pessimistic type. His propensities leaned heavily toward pragmatism, which was why she had so much respect for him. If he doubted the study, there was good reason to agree with him.

​

“Well…” She twisted her lips. “No, I guess I—I don’t know.”

​

“Cleansing would fix any amino acid deficiency.”

​

She couldn’t argue with that. Like most Imszoranians, Kalaire used a cleansing stall every day to remove impurities both internally and externally from her body. While the Imszoranians could do it naturally, most opted for the stall to preserve their energy. Not to mention, the final cycle left a refreshing scent on the skin that natural energy cleansing couldn’t do.

​

Halfheartedly, she still tried to make an argument for it, realizing the effort might be fruitless. “If the person is cleansing, yes.”

​

“It’s another dead end.” His chair swiveled to the side, his expression pensive. A rare reveal for him. “You know, this recall might have something to do with the war. It’s six months in, and it’s been tough on them. It seems to have escalated to a level that has set Azkeena off. There was an odd remark in the orders. It appears she’s cutting ties with the other planets.”

​

Kalaire stiffened. “Cutting ties?”

​

“Yes. As in, no contact allowed. We’re to go directly home to Imsz-Ordena.”

​

Her mind reeled at the directive. The Imszoranians had spent decades fostering friendships and trade agreements with the other seven planets in the Spiral system. In fact, Empress Azkeena herself had claimed that some of her proudest accomplishments were the laboring efforts to support those diplomatic affairs.

​

Despite the immense progress, dissenting voices expressed disdain for Azkeena, especially in her handling of the Batasurna epidemic. Yet, the empress had never faltered in the face of the criticism.

​

“What about the ones who are with us?” she asked, still stunned. “We have people from all eight planets on this expedition.”

​

Sighing, he leaned back and scrubbed his face as if to rub away fatigue. “I guess I’ll have to figure that out.”

​

Kalaire couldn’t imagine how they could even accomplish a no-contact order. Imszoranians had weaved into the other societies so intricately that a recall would be a logistical nightmare. Not to mention, there were interracial marriage unions with children. It lacked all common sense. Unusual for the empress.

​

Azkeena had been a staunch advocate of diplomacy among all eight planets. She’d worked on the trade accords for two universal years to make life as balanced and fair as possible. To now sever ties?

​

“Why not leave them here? I’ll stay behind too.”

​

He shook his head. “No one is staying. The entire expedition team is being recalled. All seven facilities on the planet.”

​

She blinked. “When?”

​

“As soon as possible.”

​

Closing her eyes, she slouched into her chair. “What about the settlers? We can’t just leave them.”

​

“They don’t even know we’re here. They won’t miss us.”

​

Some did. She sat up straight, hope reemerging. “What about the control group? They know we’re here.”

​

“We’ll thank them for volunteering and release them to the settlements.”

​

“Ganix,” she pleaded. “We need to find a cure. Someone has to stay. This is madness.”

​

“Maybe the empress thinks a u-year here is enough time, and since we haven’t solved it, she’s calling us home. Whatever the reason, when orders come from the empress, there’s nothing we can do.”

​

Though she could sense the tiniest hint of frustration building in him, she couldn’t let it go. “But they’re still sending mates here every month.”

​

“We don’t know if the shipments will continue,” he argued.

​

Her eyes roamed the room, noting an L-shaped desk, seating area, and table along the wall where they held most of their meetings. Ganix occupied the most spacious and functional office in the facility.

​

Matte black walls constructed of the Imszoranian indestructible betierekoa steel made the room close in, and claustrophobia struck Kalaire. Just behind Ganix, a gold filigree-bordered screen mimicked a window to the outside world that offset the gloomy dark interior. The fancy frame didn’t match anything else in the room, but Ganix had always asserted that it brightened up the space, or at least it added character to the otherwise utilitarian design.

​

She studied the display showing a scene from outside the underground facility of large-leafed oak trees bordering a field of yellow blooms, the lush grass swaying. The imagery brought with it a memory of the fresh spring scent of those blooms. Her favorite.

​

None of it was comforting.

​

“And what about him?” she asked, waving her hand through the air. “What about Larmarrak? And the others?”

​

“What about him? He goes into stasis like everyone else. When we find a cure, we’ll take them out.”

​

The inexorable decision pressured her sense of morality. “So just leave them here? In stasis? With no one here?”

​

Of course, Kalaire couldn’t blame Ganix. He was being forced into an impossible situation, null of choices. Still, she’d never niggled him enough to conjure up the exasperation on his face. Unfortunately, the circumstances called for it.

​

“No mates are allowed to leave,” he said. “And none of us are allowed to stay. The Batasurna settlements don’t know we’re here.” He recited the options out loud, as though trying to convince himself. “The only choice is to leave them here in stasis. We’ll report it to command before we leave.”

​

As one of her closest friends, she knew Ganix well enough to know he wouldn’t acquiesce, but her persistence couldn’t be dissuaded. “What about the rontillum miners? Are they staying?”

​

“I don’t know. They have a different directive. I imagine they will stay.”

​

“And what if there’s another issue with an insane mate?”

​

“The miners will just shoot them. They don’t care.”

​

Her shoulders slumped.

​

“I know,” he said, his voice conveying more empathy than she suspected he meant to reveal. “We have no choice. Prepare yourself and your team for a u-year in stasis. We’re going home. I just hope the war is over by the time we get there.”

​

​

 

CHAPTER 2

​

Luken

​

Two Days Later

Planet Erupea

The Spiral System

​

Luken shook out the braided gray rug he kept outside the entrance of his log home, the old planks of the stoop groaning under his worn boots, and tossed the thick mat back in front of the door. He stretched, rubbing his back to appease its complaints from another day guarding the fields. The lure of a steaming hot bath and a cup of strong drink promised to take off the edge.

​

Before heading inside, he inspected the hand-peeled logs of his home, admiring the ingenuity of his people—unmatched, he decided—and ran his hand over the plaque affixed to the door.

​

Belatz Farms.

​

He would miss this place like his lungs would miss air. Leaving it, in fact, might kill him. Visions of his home being demolished along with the entire town filled his head, and he balled his fists, his cheeks red hot.

​

Had the elders of his community not petitioned for a waiver to be exempt from speaking the Imszoranian language Buesqar, the official language of the Spiral, attention never would have been drawn to his people, the Igarleak, a tightknit farming community. The waiver was granted, but the Imszoranian government had inadvertently discovered their rontillum-rich land. After decades of disputes, the Imszoranians coerced a deal, all to make the indestructible black steel they proudly called betierekoa.

​

Luken fought hard against moving his community to a neighboring valley, but the Imszoranian Royal Court gave little credence to a group of Erupea farmers who lived autonomously from society and excluded the use of tech from their lives. Only his patrol, which served as unofficial law enforcement to protect the farmlands, was allowed any tech.

​

“Mm,” he grumbled, lips twitching. He set his sights on the fields that stretched far into the distance, fading out of view. Ever since the announcement at town hall that they had two u-years…not local years as defined by Erupea’s path around its sun. No. U-years meant universal, though not universal in the slightest. It was the time it took the Imszoranian planet, Imsz-Ordena, to circle its own sun.

​

He snarled at the thought. At least in local years it equated to three. Three years given to relocate their entire lives. Generations among families. Since then, he made it a point every evening not to take for granted the opportunity to commit everything to memory. Every building, every crack in stone, every tree and vine-covered trellis. The gray fields of thick, jagged leaves of the sorgortu crops blanketing the vast land and their sour scent when ripe for harvest. The ingenuity of skilled craftsmanship of the homes and the mastery of the hand-carved furniture—old and worn, yet still as sturdy as the day it was made.

​

No new home could replace any of it, even if stuffed with the old things he would take with him. The heart of the Kolorea Valley bled into the crops, providing them with the nourishment to thrive with hundreds of years of cherished memories. He was blessed with memories that belonged to the land, even if none of those memories came with the colors his eyes refused to see.

​

His sight tracked up the wall of the towering mountains nestling the valley to where the largest and brightest sun of all eight planets, Electra, hung low on the horizon. The sweet fragrance of yiwessi flowers floated along the breeze from a nearby farm, and he breathed it in deeply. He roiled it would soon disappear, demolished by modern machines and trampled into nothingness, all for the glory of mining.

​

Sighing, he turned to go inside when he caught sight of his brother, Dunixi, riding an okribu down the dirt road toward the house, the animal’s long legs kicking up dust clouds in its wake. Luken stepped off the stoop to pet the animal’s square head after it came to a stop.

​

“We got a transmission at the shack from Kauldi,” said Dunixi, urgency blaring in his tone. “He said the empress is sending in her troops to clear out the city.”

​

Dunixi shared the same light hair color as Luken, though he lacked the natural waves Luken inherited from their mother. On a normal day, the hue of Dunixi’s hair would almost match the shade of the bright yellow sun, but the unusual stark contrast against the dark red aura hugging his body deepened Luken’s concern.

​

Luken stilled, attention fixed on his brother. “Why?”

​

“The war maybe. Kauldi says it’s escalated. It’s getting bad, brother. He’s asked us to come immediately.”

​

The okribu nuzzled Luken’s shoulder, prodding for more caresses. “To do what?”

​

“To fight!”

​

Luken stepped back from the okribu, wiping his hands down his shirt. “How many men do they have?”

​

“A decent amount but adding more wouldn’t hurt. Could make a difference. Luken, it’s our brother. They are going to take him. Possibly kill him and his Batasurna mate.”

​

“I am not hesitating,” said Luken, his voice resolute. “I’m calculating how many men we can take and what supplies we’ll need. We will not let the Imszoranians take our brother. They’ll have to kill me first.”

​

“And me.”

​

Pride welled in Luken at the bravery of his brother, three local years younger than him, yet every bit as fierce in a fight. Luken squinted up at Dunixi, the glare from the resting sun in his eyes. “When are the troops expected to arrive?”

​

“Kauldi said they left Imsz-Ordena two days ago.”

​

The growing urgency in Dunixi’s voice resonated inside Luken like a siren. “Then we have three days. Gather your things. We leave at dawn.”

​

Dunixi frowned. “Dawn?”

​

“The city is too close to sky wanderer territory. If we leave now, we’d be a lucky sky wanderer’s dinner.”

​

Dunixi’s jittery hands fisted the reins of the okribu as he narrowed his eyes over the fields. The aura haze around him darkened to black. Luken couldn’t tell if it meant anxiety or disapproval. Either way, as warden of the Igarleak’s unofficial patrol, Luken’s orders were decree.

​

“Don’t worry, Dune,” said Luken, the tone of his voice spilling confidence into his words. “The day they come to us for a fight will be a day remembered as the Day of Red.”

​

Dunixi nodded his approval. “Let the blood spill, then. The fight will be glorious.”

​

“As will our victory.”

​

***

​

The journey with twenty good men to the underground city, Luz Debajo, dragged on even though they’d been traveling at an unprecedented speed. Luken had never been one to push his community to adopt technology, but he wished they at least owned a kraxshing air vessel. Instead of taking hours of travel, they would have arrived in minutes.

​

With the monsoon season ending, the forest danced with fresh growth. Sutsua people from outside his community often praised the colors. He could only imagine how beautiful they were. Monumental succucula trees had blue leaves, so he’d been told, and were large enough to wrap around his body like a blanket. They loomed over the fronds of ferns like they’d been tasked as protectors. Blossoms scattered across the forest floor everywhere, and mushrooms as large as his head were especially ripe this time of year. He looked at the forest while he rode, envisioning the colors to be breathtaking.

​

He glanced down at the q-band fit snug around his forearm, wondering if he should try reaching his younger brother in the underground city. The Imszoranian device could access data rapidly regardless of distance, making communications instant during a patrol. The community elders allowed the patrol to use those devices, and he was thankful, even if it was decommissioned tech.

​

Because of paranoia, only decommissioned, unclassified Imszoranian tech was permitted on any planet, regardless of social or political standing. The Imszoranians were stingy like that. He couldn’t fault them for it, really. Had he been the inventor of the greatest tech in the galaxy, even he wouldn’t give his allies trade secrets that could be used against him, especially in times of war.

​

The war.

​

His lips pursed. Mm.

​

An interplanetary war consuming the Spiral, and for what? He knew full well. Empress Azkeena hunted the Batasurna mates. Called for their death. They scattered, hiding in underground cities to protect themselves until an explosion of rebellion turned seven planets against one—Imsz-Ordena, home of the all-mighty Imszoranians.

​

Gods, dioses, they’d believed themselves. Their empress, the Queen of the Gods, they called her. He wondered what they thought of themselves now, after six months of war and no victory. Part of him couldn’t deny that the Imszoranians had to be holding back. They could end the war if they wanted to. Yet they hadn’t. Why was the question.

​

Luken turned his head up at the sky, his bones shifting with each step the okribu took through the uneven field, the animal’s hooves clipping rocks and sinking into shallow holes. The hardest part of the journey would be the slowest, sandwiched inside a steep and narrow canyon skirting the base of an active volcano called Fire Mountain. The area was known as sky wanderer territory, encouraging travelers to take longer routes, but the less-traveled trail proved to be decent so far.

​

He hadn’t seen a sky wanderer in years. Rumors still floated around about the occasional spotting of the reclusive creatures, their wingspans twice that of a two-person air transport. Not much made Luken’s blood pressure rise, but the fierce sky wanderers ranked high on the list.

​

Luken ran through the rest of the trip in his mind. Beyond the field, a trail led upward toward a pass. At the bottom on the other side, they’d enter the canyon, then hit the river, following it south until they reached the hidden entrance of the city. He’d only been there a handful of times. Visitors were strictly prohibited, and once asylum was granted, there was no going back. Only a small number of people knew the location, and since he’d helped provide supplies during construction, Luken was one of the lucky few.

​

At the trailhead, he slowed to glance back at his men before the incline when the comms channel on his q-band chirped. After stuffing in his earpiece, he accepted the incoming hail.

​

Static popped in his ear, and he flinched at the sound. Above the hiss, he recognized the unmistakable sizzling sound of tronizer fire, the Imszoranian hand-device that wielded energy as a weapon. Wounds from this device were gruesome. Death, instant if it was set at maximum setting.

​

“Kauldi?” The connection dropped in and out. “Kauldi!”

​

Sounds of screams, interlaced with a cacophony of fighting, and weapons fire flared between clips of static.

​

The troops…were there.

​

“Faster!” Luken shouted back.

​

His okribu took off. The thunderous sound of hooves thudded behind him, and his grip on the reins tightened until his stubby nails dug into his palms.

​

I’m coming, little brother.

​

The group rode in silence, their okribus reaching their limits. Luken left the channel open. Every so often, he’d speak into comms, hoping someone would hear. Or say something. But the closer he got, the quieter the channel became. Until only faint static filled his ear.

​

Then…silence.

​

A stabbing pain jabbed his chest, yet he didn’t slow. Didn’t let up. He couldn’t. Protecting his people was what he was made for. If he couldn’t do that, what was his purpose in life?

​

The remaining hour of the ride wore on, tension building in his body. He had no words for it. Nothing to compare. Had he stopped breathing, it wouldn’t have been as terrible as riding the arduous journey from silence into a preconceived pandemonium.

​

The okribu sprinted the last section of the trail, running parallel between the river and the mountain until it leveled off. As they skidded to a stop where he remembered the entrance to be, he racked his brain to find the landmark used as a symbol to identify the hidden door. 

 

Twin trees, rising from the same trunk, splitting knee-high.

​

“There,” he said, jumping off the okribu. Behind vines draped over the access panel to the hidden entrance, he slid aside a slab of rock used to cover the mini security panel and tapped the screen to open a comm channel for the gate guards.

​

Nothing.

​

He poked it again, harder the second time.

​

Nothing.

​

On the screen, he switched to the security access panel and placed his finger on the DNA reader, praying that Kauldi had planned ahead enough to add Luken to the access manifest. The door, camouflaged with stone, clicked, opening outward. He yanked it open, weapon drawn, and breached the wall of darkness at the mouth of the entrance. His men followed close behind, traveling the narrow corridor made of the Imszoranian steel until they reached the bulkhead doors into the city. Another DNA scan and they were inside the vestibule.

​

Luken came to a halt, his eyes snagging on the bodies of two males slumped against the wall and a female lying flat down on the floor, each with charred holes in their bodies. His nose twitched at the acrid stench of burned flesh pervading the air.

​

Tronizer blast.

​

“We’ll collect bodies later,” Luken said, his poise strong for the benefit of his men. “First, we sweep. Neutralize all threats. Split up into four groups, five in each.”

​

They jogged the rest of the tunnel, checking pulses as they moved, until the passage opened to an impressive balcony overlooking a section of the city. Luken stepped behind a carved limestone column and peered at the buildings lining the promenade along the water channel. At one time, the streets bustled with residents. Now, they were riddled with bodies.

​

Everywhere.

​

Time slowed as Luken absorbed the scene before him.

​

The moment, surreal. Bodies, scattered. Blood spilled from blunt force trauma. Flesh burned from energy weapons. So many dead. The city itself seemed to have died with them, surrendering to the stillness in a quiet homage to its once beating heart. Its people. Luz Debajo’s heart bled with a blending of both cultures in the most magnificent way. The architectural elegance of his race, the Sutusa—engraved scrolls, pointed arches, flying buttresses—manifested using the brute strength of Imszoranian steel. On any other day, he’d marvel at what they’d built in the span of only eight local years.

​

He shut his eyes, his hands trembling, and opened them on the brave men who’d volunteered to join him, all gaping at the grisly scene.

​

Dunixi’s icy gaze froze on him. “If we’d left last night, we could have been here.”

​

Luken considered a steely reply, but he couldn’t argue his brother was wrong. “They weren’t supposed to be here yet,” he said, setting his mind on recovery mode. “Let’s do a sweep.” He picked his four men, and they moved to the curved stone staircase. “Everyone stay on comms.”

​

His gut wrenched while his mind anticipated what his eyes didn’t want to see. At the corner of a building on a path leading to the promenade, he shouldered the wall, stealing a look down the walkway before moving to the next stopping point.

​

Crying met his ears. Whimpering.

​

A child.

​

His eyes swept his surroundings but came up empty.

​

Narrowing in on the sound, he focused on the shadows behind him. The frame of a small girl sat hunched up, her face buried in arms wrapped around her legs. Sniffling, she lifted her head, her short strands of black hair matted against her wet cheeks. When their eyes met, she let out a scream.

​

Creeping over to the child, he put a finger to his lips and sat on his haunches in front of her. “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered. “We are here to help.”

​

Her shoulders bobbed as sobs jerked from her lips, her big brown eyes and plump round face tugging at his heart. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old. He could only imagine what she’d seen. It gutted him. He offered his hand for her to touch. She stared at it, hesitating at first. Then, she slowly accepted his hand with hers.

​

“What’s your name?” he asked.

​

“Idoya.”

​

“Hi, Idoya. My name is Luken. One of my friends is going to stay with you until we can find a safe spot for you to go. Sound good?”

​

She puckered her lips, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her gaze floated behind him to his men, then back to him, tentatively giving him a nod.

​

“Good,” he said. He signaled one of his men over to them and then stood, speaking softly. “We need a safe zone for survivors. You’re in charge.”

​

“Got it.”

​

Luken looked down at her and smiled. “You’ll be safe with my friend.”

​

He clapped the man’s shoulder, then returned to his group. From his vantage point, the end of the walkway reached the middle portion of the promenade, the open walking mall along the channel spanning from his left to his right.

​

On the far side, the walkway connected to a bridge that crossed the canal into the habitat section of the city. He’d first have to pass through the central market. Squaring his shoulders, he led his group to the corner of the next building, his eyes sweeping the expanse of the walking mall.

​

Movement caught his eye. A female, her back propped up against the scrolled balustrade bordering the canal, her leg flexing as if her body were fighting pain.

​

“Cover me.”

​

“We got you,” said one of his men.

​

He scurried over to her and knelt. “We’re here to help,” he whispered, pulling a healing wand from his pocket and flipping it on to run a scan. “Are any troops left?”

​

She struggled to shake her head, her droopy eyes slanted up at him.

​

Dunixi blurted over comms, “Luken.”

​

“Go ahead.”

​

“We’ve got survivors near the lake. Probably thirty.”

​

“Good, work with Izan and the other teams to find a safe zone. We’ll meet up there.”

​

“Understood.”

​

Luken read the grim findings of the scan. The small healing wand wasn’t designed to repair the kind of trauma showing on the screen: collapsed lung, charred intestines, ruptured spleen, seared kidney. He was surprised she still managed to breathe.

​

“Help,” she wheezed.

​

He couldn’t tell her she wouldn’t make it, regardless of his efforts. In the few hours since the attack, she’d been slowly dying. Suffering.

​

The middle-aged woman gagged, her full cheeks billowing and short hair sticking to her sweaty brow. He wondered whose wife she was. Or whose mother. She belonged to someone, that much he reckoned. She didn’t deserve to die like this.

​

The shade of her aura darkened to black, blending in with the betierekoa steel buildings that rose high above the canal behind her. He’d often felt blessed to see aura color around a body, even though the rest of the world moved in shades of gray through his eyes. But there were times when he preferred not to see auras at all.

​

Reaching down, he picked up her hand to comfort her, knowing she’d come upon the end. “I won’t leave,” he said, gently squeezing.

​

Gurgles choked off her air as her eyes rounded and narrowed. Luken was no doctor, but there was no mistaking that blood was filling up her lungs. She gasped hard, her eyes begging for the breath her lungs starved for. He squeezed her hand and lowered his head, closing his eyes. Dioses, give her a safe journey to the Beyond.

​

The last gurgle left her lips, leaving behind a spectral silence. He reached up to close her eyelids and took a moment to pray for her before getting up.

​

Kraxshing Imszoranians!

​

Fury shot through him, exploding like a violent eruption in his chest. He shook his head, shifting his weight from side to side, trying to shake it off. He couldn’t let himself be rattled. To be this angry. Even if the woman deserved someone to be angry on her behalf.

​

And he was.

​

Deciding he’d have to save the mourning for another time, accompanying it with a cup of strong drink to soothe the sting, he turned his attention back to his mission to find his younger brother, Kauldi. “Dune,” said Luken, “we’re heading across the bridge.”

​

“Dioses be with you.”

​

“And you, brother.”

​

He scanned the area for the young girl, catching sight of her at the corner of a building with his friend, her hand securely enveloped by a hand much larger than hers.

​

“Clear?” asked Luken.

​

“All clear,” said one of his men.

​

He waved his team toward him and took a step forward when a thunderous noise resounded overhead. They craned their necks up to the dome covering the city—at least twenty stories high, he guessed—molded of the black steel as a reinforced container to keep the limestone from collapsing. Spaced along the ceiling were huge globes of semillosite stone fitted inside granite casings that emitted natural light throughout the city.

​

More thunder rumbled, growing in intensity the second time.

​

“What was that?” Luken asked, his gaze darting everywhere.

​

“No idea,” said one of his men standing near the girl.

​

The rumble came again. Vibrations under his feet traveled up his calves.

​

“Dune,” he said over comms. “Do you guys feel that?”

​

“What is it?” Dunixi asked, his words rushed.

​

The vibration intensified, shaking the ground. Luken scuttled back and grabbed onto the railing. “Earthquake?” he bellowed into comms. “Are you in a steel part of the city?”

​

“Yes, we’re good here,” said Dunixi.

​

“Everyone,” Luken roared over the booming resonance. “Make sure you’re inside the steel section of the city. The rock may not hold against this.”

​

Along the canal, the walkway shook and bowed. A bulge swelled up under Luken’s feet and nearly vaulted him over the balustrade and into the canal. He clamped his arms around the railing as his body bucked up and down. Steel buildings swayed. Smaller stone buildings cracked and crumbled, their columns sliding off cornerstones and crashing onto artisan cobblestone walkways.

​

The girl, Idoya, screamed, running toward him. Cobble-sized bricks broke from their mortar and popped up, tripping her. She yelped, falling on her hands and knees.

​

“Get the girl!” Luken ordered.

​

She scrambled to her feet and made a mad dash to Luken. He swooped her up, the bricks under his feet buckling, and he staggered into the balustrade.

​

The ground warped, yet the steel buildings didn’t flex. They swayed and shifted, and some, near the outskirts of the city, crashed into the city perimeter’s fortified barrier.

​

“Hold on to me!” he yelled to Idoya. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her high-pitched squeals piercing his ears.

​

Massive booms, like the sound of bombs hitting earth, rang through the city, echoing off the metal walls, assaulting his eardrums.

​

Hold on or cover your ears!

​

He held on, one hand on the railing, the other holding the girl. He held on until his arms ached. Until his back wrenched and twisted. Until his legs turned to rubber. Booms louder than anything he’d ever heard bombarded him in rapid-fire spurts, vibrating through his whole body. Waves sloshed against the retaining wall of the canal, cresting higher. A surge of water crashed over him, drenching him and the girl. The unrelenting wall of water outlasted his breath, and his lungs burned for air.

​

Losing his hold on the rail, he rode the water down the promenade, his legs scraping on crumbled rocks, until he latched on again, wrapping his arm and legs around it to anchor himself, holding the girl tight. She’d stopped screaming, her hold on him tightening around his neck with her face buried in his shoulder.

​

He begged the dioses for her safety, unsure he could manage it on his own. A wall of water hit his face, stinging his cheek, and then receded enough to leave him a pocket of air. He sucked it in, bracing himself for another crashing wave to slam into him with more force, but the next wave only sloshed up to the top of the canal wall. He wrapped his arm tighter around the railing, anticipating another beating. Whatever shook the city had eased, at least for the moment, and he let go of the bottom rung and dropped onto the walkway, rocks digging into his back. The girl whimpered, her body shaking.

​

“Everyone alive?” Luken called over comms.

​

Seconds later, his team responded, all accounted for. With a slight sigh of relief, he loosened his hold on the girl.

​

“No!” she squealed, gripping tighter around his neck.

​

“I have to put you down,” he said, easing reassurance into his tone while gently prying her arms from around his neck. He motioned to his man to come get her.

​

“I’m going outside,” he said on comms.

​

“Luken, are you crazy?” his brother shrieked.

​

“It sounded like bombs. The kraxshers bombed us!” He set off into a jog, racing back up the stairway toward the exit, but instead of turning north where they’d entered, he took a different corridor, heading to the main exit on the west side.

​

“I’m coming,” he heard Dunixi say.

​

Luken launched into a sprint down the tunnel, careful to avoid the sprawling legs and arms of the numerous bodies along the way. The needlessness of it boiled in his chest. Who did the Imszoranians think they were to swoop in and take whatever they wanted as if the universe belonged to them? It emboldened him, urging him by the minute to join Erupea’s armed forces. His father staunchly opposed it, arguing they had enough to fight for at home. Luken countered the argument by pointing out that Erupea was home.

​

He tapped his q-band. “SID, do you have at atmospheric reading outside the compound?”

​

“Exterior sensors are down. However—”

​

He had no patience for superfluous details. “Never mind. I’ll risk it.” With adrenaline shooting through him, he stuck his finger into the DNA reader and shoved the door open. It wasn’t the scene he was expecting from a shock bomb, the Imszoranian weapon of mass destruction. Had they dropped one of those, the surrounding area would have been cleaned out like a broom had swept through it. Not a tree would be in sight for miles. The only good thing about a shock bomb was the relatively small radius and no residual radiation.

​

If that can be considered good, Luken thought.

​

He couldn’t come to terms with what he was looking at. If not a shock bomb, then what? A strong acrid stench stung his nostrils, interlaced with smoke, and he pinched his nose to choke off the smell as his eyes raked over the area surrounding the entrance.

​

Fallen trees.

​

Torn branches.

​

Uprooted bushes.

​

A breeze blanketed his face, bringing with it a blend of odors he didn’t recognize. Some soft, some sharp to the nostrils. It anchored his feet while spinning up his mind, thinking of the destruction beneath those clouds of smoke in the distance. Whatever held him in place stripped him of any hope that much of the capital city of Erupea remained.

​

As if sensing his despondence, a gust of wind forced him backward, calling for him to wake up. He threw his arms out for balance, and vibrations from the shaking ground rippled up his legs. Clouds above him churned like being stirred up by an imaginary whisk. A gust struck him again, pushing him another step back and whooshing past his ears, the powerful current loud enough to drown out the rumble of earth beneath him.

​

The faint sound of a yelling voice knifed through the howling wind. He turned his head to Dunixi, his mouth moving but shouts muffled. Engulfed by the current. Grasping Luken’s arm, Dunixi pulled him backward. The ground moaned over the ruptured pressure of wind in his ears, then fractured.

​

Trees dropped from sight. The land crumbled, the sound of the crash below whomping Luken’s eardrums. The impact shook the earth under their feet, knocking both men onto their backs. Luken hid his face from the flying debris. Bits of bark, gravel, and dirt soared high into the sky then settled as the air went still.

​

Luken wiped dirt from his face, clamoring to his feet, and squinted through the dust.

​

“I don’t think this is from a bomb,” said Dunixi.

​

The roar of rushing water hit Luken’s ears. Unlike the quiet river that snaked through the canyon south of Fire Mountain, the water sounded distant, yet louder. Angrier. He swiveled around in the direction of the river, squinting through a heap of broken trees and branches. “Where’s the river?” he asked, his voice hollow.

​

As his eyes tracked the river west, daylight broke through the trees, brighter than the thick forest would normally allow. He sprinted toward the light, blinking to let his eyes adjust to a wide-open space.

​

A drop-off.

​

The river had plummeted and disappeared from view a hundred feet downstream. Beyond the splintered and tangled trees was a cliff that had never existed before. The flat land had cracked and collapsed, giving birth to a massive waterfall spilling over the side.

​

Picking up strength, the wind roared in Luken’s face. He grasped a thick branch next to him for balance as he squinted across the expanse, thinking he’d just walked up to the edge of the world. A world he didn’t recognize anymore. It wasn’t Erupea. It couldn’t be. His mind begged his eyes for mercy, unable to process the scene.

​

Dunixi appeared at his side, his hands on his head, angst contorting his face. “How? Just…how?”

​

Jaw ajar, Luken shook his head. “I have no idea.”

​

“What am I looking at?”

​

Luken’s throat closed, his lips trembling as he stared out across the new world. “Annihilation.”

​

An unfamiliar valley stretched out as far as he could see. Land was ripped apart. Avalanches exposed mountains opening up like their hearts had been carved out. Dust eddies formed in the distance, growing into fierce tornadoes across the landscape. Smoke billowed over the freshly formed valley. Trees and boulders flew through the air. Broken frames of buildings and homes twirled across the sky over the valley. Surreal.

​

A gale shoved them backward. Dunixi screamed in his ear, but either Luken had blocked him out or the howling wind swallowed the words. Luken motioned for Dunixi to go back inside. A wall of rain slammed in, pounding them before they reached the door. Each enlarged drop seared Luken’s skin as if he’d been set on fire. He stumbled forward, willing his body to korrineth, and his skin complied, thickening and shifting in color.

​

Behind him, Dunixi crumpled to one knee, the rain pelting down on him like nails pinning him to the ground. Luken stepped back to grab his brother’s arm and yanked him forward. With Dunixi’s arm over his shoulders, Luken dragged him inside and eased him onto the floor. Then he swung back around to the entrance and pulled the bulky door closed, huffing as he leaned his back against it.

​

Dunixi writhed on the floor, his skin beginning to bubble with blisters. From what, Luken didn’t know. The rain? Was that possible? He dropped to the balls of his feet, inspecting his younger brother’s arms.

​

“What the kraxsh was that?” Dunixi croaked.

​

Luken fell back onto the floor to catch his breath. “Which part?”

​

***

​

6 Months Post-Collapse

​

Luken snaked up a trail at the base of Fire Mountain, Dunixi on his heels. The mountain had been calm since the collapse, half of it blown into the sky, but it lured the sky wanderers from their hiding spots. Luken sometimes considered changing the mountain’s name to Fireless Mountain because it no longer bled rivers of fire or clawed flames in the sky. The old name persisted, however, perhaps to honor it in the way a tombstone symbolizes honoring a dead soldier.

​

He’d buried plenty of soldiers from the attack. It had taken days to clear Luz Debajo of bodies. Had they possessed the ability, Luken would have opted to head home right away. With the air barely breathable for months, they’d been confined inside, relying on scavenging for food carried in by recent asylum seekers.

​

No tech had worked since the collapse, so food materializers were useless. When the food stores dwindled, he and the other able-bodied men began to venture out. Haze choked out so much oxygen that walking a single kimeter left their lungs as starved as their bellies. They were hopeful for a successful hunt to satisfy their needs but soon realized that if the cataclysm hadn’t killed the animals, the haze did.

​

Four months in, the air had finally cleared enough for Luken and his brother to return to their valley, hoping to reunite with family and praying the crops had survived. As they crested the hill overlooking what was once their beloved home, the view was unimaginable. Broken homes were swept off their stone foundations, piled atop one another, and fields were littered with shattered furniture and household remains. The personal items hit the hardest. Shoes scattered in the dirt. Clothing snagged on splintered wood and tree roots.

​

Toys.

​

They came upon a collapsed house, and Luken pulled debris away from what looked like a child’s room. Under a slab of roof, a pair of tiny legs stuck out, decayed to the bone. The image burned in his mind, but that wasn’t enough to prepare him for what came next. He and his brother clawed their way through the mess of ruins until they reached their homestead. A good portion of it was missing and the rest caved in. Underneath the rubble told the story of the final moments in the lives of both their younger sisters. Their father was never found. Or their mother. Half of the town’s population had vanished, the bodies probably stolen by the wind.

​

Were it not for the Imszoranians, Luken’s family would still be alive. The planet would still be living. Like a bonded soul dying from heartbreak over the loss of their Batasurna mate, Erupea had suffered the same fate over losing its people. Just one more reason to despise the Imszoranian empress. His hatred for her seeped into his heart, infecting his blood and coloring his veins black and diseased, rotting him from the inside out.

​

Bile rose in his throat at the memory of home. For sanity’s sake, he pushed the thoughts aside. There was no time for that. He had to focus on his hunt with Dunixi. Luken tightened the knot of his mask, his breathing stifled by both the noxious air and the cloth covering half his face. He hooked a turn on the trail, clutching a spear in one hand, when a shuffling rasp of dry bushes at the curve captured his attention. Curious, he crouched for a better view, toward a quiet croon carrying through the branches, and crawled through dense underbrush with visions of dinner on his mind. There, a young sky wanderer had perched itself next to its dead mother, singing to her.

​

From old tales, he recognized them to be members of the merenua clan, the stripe down their forehead to the tip of their beak a defining feature. Of the three different clans, the merenua were known to be the smallest and the most reclusive. This one was too young to survive without its mother. Luken calculated options, considering the situation thoughtfully.

​

“We could take it closer to their den,” said Luken.

​

“Once they scent us on it, they’ll kill it,” said Dunixi.

​

The youngling cooed, flapping a wing.

​

“Look,” said Dunixi, pointing. “It’s wounded.”

​

Luken approached the creature. The youngling stood only half Luken’s height, its beak etched by battle in the shape of a half-moon and its bloody wing ripped half off.

​

“We should kill it,” said Dunixi. “Keep the claws and take the meat. Young meat is tender.”

​

“It’s a youngling,” said Luken. “It has hardly any meat.”

​

“You’d be doing a favor to kill it. It’s in pain. And it’s dead either way.”

​

Luken sighed, inspecting the youngling. The mature sky wanderers were ugly creatures with feathers the shade of the gloomy sky, scaled leathery necks and breast plates, three sets of serrated teeth set inside their snout beaks, peaked triangle heads with oversized round eyes, and padded feet with long retractable claws the length of his hand. But Luken found the furry younglings to be rather cute. “We should help it.”

​

“They eat us. If we do not kill it, it will grow to hunt us, just as the others,” Dunixi argued. “None of them would give you a chance were you wounded.”

​

“We have eaten them too. And they do not harm our children.”

​

“Perhaps for the same reason, because there isn’t much meat.”

​

“There may not be many of the merenua left. I’ll repair the wing.”

​

Dunixi huffed, placing his fists on his hips. “You will waste our hunting time repairing a beast for which we have come out to hunt! You have lost your mind!”

​

“We do not kill younglings.”

​

“Then just let it die.”

​

“It would be cruel to let it suffer.” Luken fished bindings from his pack and crouched, reaching out his hand to the baby creature. He inched closer as the eyes of the creature studied him. Luken surged forward, grabbing the snout with both hands and wrapped one arm around it while the other bound the beaked snout. The youngling halfheartedly thrashed as though it had barely enough energy to eek out a squawk.

​

Luken pulled out a thumb-sized pouch from his pocket and broke open a thick leaf of the sorgortu plant. While sky wanderers had many bird-like features, they also had many predatory features, one being a snout covered by a long beak for pecking. He applied a liberal amount of gel to the nostrils and wrangled the little beast away from its mother to lay it on its good wing.

​

Inspecting the torn wing, he caressed the neck of the youngling, now languid and docile. Movement from his brother drew his attention, and Luken smiled as he watched his brother ready a mend kit with healing paste.

​

“It is a waste to use this on a sky wanderer,” said Dunixi with a knitted brow.

​

“Yet still you help me.”

​

“It will probably never fly again. It’s too wounded. You only prolong its certain death.”

​

“Perhaps.” Luken threaded a bone needle with sinew and began the arduous job of stitching the wing to the body. “Paste,” he said, stretching his hand toward his brother.

​

Grunting, Dunixi slammed the cup into Luken’s hand. After smearing the remedy along the wound to seal it, Luken pressed wigsumi leaves into the wound to prevent infection and act as a pain reliever.

​

“Now what?” asked his brother.

​

“I suppose we’ve done all we can,” said Luken.

​

“If it does live, it’s going to be the ugliest of the flock. That beak will always be deformed.”

​

“You are the ugliest of our flock, yet you still somehow manage to attract females. I am hopeful for this young one.”

​

“Now, you will die,” said Dunixi, a grin forming across his handsome face.

​

“Try me, brother,” said Luken.

​

As they left the small creature, he couldn’t help but wonder if they really had done all they could. What’s more, he asked himself, why did he care? Part of him hoped that the gesture of goodwill might reflect on their packs, resulting in mercy from being hunted. Yet he realized his people, in many ways, had been just as relentless in their will to survive, becoming as savage as the sky wanderers in search of food.

​

Empty-handed from the day’s hunt, they were halfway back to the underground when a low squeak and shuffle from behind them triggered their reflexes. Both men pivoted, spears at the ready.

​

“It has followed us,” said Dunixi with a frown.

​

Luken rubbed his chin, thinking. “I am aware.”

​

“Perhaps it thinks you to be its mother now. Soon it will attempt to suck your teats for nourishment.” Dunixi waled a laugh, punching Luken’s shoulder.

​

The creature waddled forward, letting out baby squeaks and squawks with each step.

​

“You know if you take it back with us, it will be tonight’s stew,” said Dunixi.

​

“I am aware of that too.” Luken dug his teeth into his bottom lip. “You go back. I’ll take it as close to the merenua den as I can without being eaten myself.”

​

“Would they not kill it anyway? It has our scent on it.”

​

“I don’t know. But they can communicate with each other. Perhaps they will spare the life of this one.”

​

Dunixi groaned, his head rolling back. “You cannot go alone. I’ll go with you, but you owe me.”

​

“What will I owe you then?”

​

“I’ll think on it.”

​

Luken sidestepped around the youngling and patted its head as he began to make his way back up the mountain. “Come, little Moon Beak. Let’s get you home.”

​

***

​

7 Months Post-Collapse

​

The caravan of more than four hundred survivors from Luz Debajo had stopped for the night on their journey south. Hoping for relief efforts to be established with plentiful food and supplies, they had decided as a group early on that once the air cleared enough for travel, they would head to the capital city, Argiaren Hiria. After gathering only the bare essentials, they set out on the three-day trek, hearts heavy and stomachs empty.

​

With darkness converging on the dense fog that now called Erupea home, they staked a clearing for camp on the second day, and Luken gathered a hunting party in search of a fresh kill for the evening meal.

​

“I want to go,” said Idoya, tugging at the hem of Luken’s shirt. Ever since he’d saved her during the collapse, the girl had become his shadow, never letting him out of her sight. He couldn’t blame her, after losing both her parents and being responsible for her 6-year-old sister, Catalana. It was too much to bear for a 9-year-old, and she found security in him.

​

“You know you can’t go on hunts,” said Luken, crouching down on his haunches to talk to her.

​

“You said you’d teach me.”

​

“And one day, when you are this tall,” he raised his hand far above her head, “I will teach you.”

​

“That will be forever in days. Maybe years!”

​

“Perhaps. But you will be prepared, and you will master it. Even better than me.”

​

“Promise?”

​

“Promise,” he nodded, mussing up the hair atop her head with his hand.

​

He hated leaving her behind, seeing her bottom lip puckered and big sad eyes staring at him as he walked away. He’d always imagined that by the age of thirty he’d be married with a family of his own. After the collapse, he thanked the dioses that at the age of thirty-two, he hadn’t. There wasn’t anything left on Erupea for a young child. Still, his heart bled for Idoya as if she were his own.

​

Luken and his hunting party crested a hill, slashing their way through thick underbrush. Spotting a pond through the skeletal trees, he veered toward the water, anticipating animals might be bedded down nearby. The area surrounding the pond resembled a massacre, as if some giant being had stomped its way through the forest, whacking away at trees as it went. Trees with thin trunks had toppled over and lay on beds of debris as though they had found their final resting place. Others stood shamefully naked without their leafy branches to don them.

​

Constant chatter from the men behind him edged his nerves, and it was no surprise Dunixi was the main culprit of the noise. How any of them ever managed to haul in dinner from a hunting trip he didn’t know. “Dune! Shh!” he hissed, angling his head just enough to get a glimpse of his brother coming up on his rear.

​

Dunixi clapped him on the back. “Relax. Your belly will soon thank you, and your eyes will rest easy from it.”

​

Luken grunted, shrugging Dunixi’s hand off. “Not if you don’t shut up.”

​

At one time, the land they walked on had been a rainforest nature preserve with ample room for an abundance of wildlife, including derzishk, a massive creature that could feed half a dozen of his people for days and provide soft pelts for battling the coldest nights. The preserve stretched through the upper valley of the capital city to far north of Fire Mountain and was one of the largest rainforests on any of the eight planets in the Spiral system.

​

He wondered what the other planets would think of Erupea now. Moreover, he wondered if they had suffered the same fate.

​

“There,” his brother whispered.

​

Luken’s eyes followed the direction of Dunixi’s finger, pointing at a thicket of bushes edging the animal trail along the shore of the pond. The branches shook too violently to be a zokowari, a creature that trailed derzishk herds. Even if it were a pack of the small animals.

​

Low light and a murky haze hovering over the pond obstructed the view of whatever stirred there, but Luken didn’t think it could be derzishk. They were almost twice the size of an okribu, and he hadn’t seen a single okribu since the collapse.

​

Luken stopped, raising a hand to the group, and squinted into the darkness.

​

Dunixi peeked over his shoulder. “What is—”

​

“Shh!” hissed Luken, swearing he’d heard a growl. He was about to signal for them to double back when motion under the branches caught his attention. Two furry arms, or what looked to be arms, crept out from the shadows. Long, clawed fingers walked the ground toward them like a warning. The outline of a head appeared behind those arms, the face barely visible inside the shadows.

​

The group of men stepped back.

​

“No sudden movements,” Luken whispered.

​

“What is it?” Dunixi muttered.

​

Luken studied it. “I…don’t know.”

​

The structure of the face had similar features to his, with the eyes and nose the same shape and size. Even its rounded ears resembled that of a Sutsua. Fangs hung from the familiar-shaped mouth like daggers. From behind, its pronged tail swayed back and forth.

​

The thing growled, a rumbling from a bottomless cavern within its chest, lingering like a vibration on a long breath. Dim light revealed its eyes, and Luken stepped back again. They weren’t like the eyes of any animal he’d ever seen. A depth showed in them far beyond that of a typical animal.

​

The animal lurched out of the bush, its body awkwardly running on four legs, the front two shorter than the back. Luken hadn’t time to shift his skin before it reached him and swiped its claw down his forearm. Blood dripped from the gaping gash, splattering on his face as he yanked his blade from its sheath and drove it into the side of the animal. It yelped, swatting at the group of five men, each of them swinging blades. In a surprising move, it stood up on its hind legs, towering over the men at almost one and a half times their height.

​

The men korrinethed. With a sudden move, its arm swept across their bodies, forcing them into a pile of dead branches. Twigs dug into Luken’s side, the pain dulled by the thickness of his skin. He fought his way back up, branches snapping between his fingers and his boots sliding on muddy rocks. The creature dove for them again and sunk its teeth into the thigh of one of Luken’s men and dragged him back onto the trail. Luken lunged at it, driving his blade into its side with a wildness. The others did the same until the animal’s maw slackened and its body slumped over.

​

Panting, Luken watched it, his blade ready in his grip, while two men carried their friend up the trail.

​

“How bad is the injury?” Luken called back.

​

“He’s fine, but whatever that is can break through our skin,” said Dunixi.

​

Luken inched closer, wiping the smattering of blood off his face with the back of his hand. “I think it’s dead.”

​

Dunixi stepped up beside him, blood smeared across his cheek. “Have you ever seen those before?”

​

“No,” said Luken, his heart still racing. “Never.”