Renegade ch 4: The World Disintegrates

“Wasn’t that kiss supposed to bring us luck?” Tyko Sep leaned against the tunnel’s metallic wall, closed eyes nearly hidden beneath the dark explosion of his bangs. Faint, distorted versions of him lounged in every surface, each one’s tan jacket coated in a wet mix of indigo and celadon.

Navaria Twi’s gaze flicked away from the macabre sight—the green was the blood of their opponents, the blue Sep’s own. There was a lot more of the blue.

The wall’s scalloped edges pressed into Twi’s back as she peered around a corner. “Those who hold their breath waiting for luck suffocate.”

“We’re a form of luck.” Sep’s voice matched the breeze, just as soft and bitter. “We are myths and nightmares protecting those that don’t believe we exist.”

Twi turned to him, and Sep’s eyelids rose, revealing slits of cobalt. She saw his anguish and terror, though he hoped she didn’t. She saw that wish also. “Would you rather live in ignorance?”

“No, but—” He tried to shake his head, and his breath hitched, clenched jaw biting off the word. Indigo trailed down his neck, bubbling at the air’s touch.

Twi had used all their bandages to wrap his claw-raked shoulders and lathered salve on any wounds left exposed, but the atmosphere here on Kelis would not allow Knalcal blood to clot. He panted, sweat beading on dusky skin several shades paler than usual.

He noticed her sightline and wiped his neck with a sleeve. “If no one knows what we do or believes in us, who will care when we’re gone?”

Me, she wanted to say, and aren’t I enough? If you die, my heart will shatter, and I will never find all the pieces.

The words could not pass through her lips. Sep would laugh and tell her a real Knalcal wouldn’t be so sentimental.

“We have to keep moving,” she said instead, but as she rounded the corner, murky rays of daylight within view at the end of the tunnel, Sep did not follow.

He lay on the ground not far from the bloodstained portion of wall. “I can’t. Just go.”

Twi knelt, hesitant hand reaching toward him. He grabbed it, grip so tight she feared their palms would meld together.

“Much as I want to witness you trample those overgrown bugs, you won’t win. One life for another.” His voice cracked. “Run. Now.” But he didn’t let go, narrow, azure eyes glued to her, fogged with pain but brighter than the sun here on this distant world.

Why did she always have to have an excuse to touch him—to spar or to address a wound, never simply to see if the obsidian scales that cut across his nose felt like a normal Knalcal’s? Never just because she loved him.

“You’re coming with me.” She hauled him to his feet, and he bit back a cry, every movement an explosion of pain.

Twi knew why he asked she leave him. Her Talent showed her that, same as the hurt she saw as tangible fog. He didn’t want her seeing him so broken. Yet, if she deserted him, she would break, too.

His knees could not hold him, and she strung his arm over her shoulders. His broken ribs shifted against her side, and he hissed in her ear. He wouldn’t scream; Knalcals didn’t scream. But he grew heavier, limbs slack as consciousness retreated.

“You can’t carry me.” His voice was spun sugar—blurry, weightless, and fragile. “Promise me you’ll make it out of here alive.” His head fell against her neck, hair stiffer and coarser than the black satin it resembled.

She couldn’t carry him. The chrome walls reverberated with the clamor of their pursuers closing in. Her hobbled steps toward the exit were too small, too infrequent, and too jerky. Sep’s pain formed a thick miasma blinding her.

“I’ll hide you. I’ll lead them away and return with help.”

“Promise me,” he persisted, “and run like the world disintegrates behind you.”

I will not promise to let you die.

Again, the words failed to escape. She turned to him, lips pressing to his.

Sep’s breath caught, half gasp, half wheeze, a grin whispering words against her mouth. “This is the first time you’ve kissed me.”

“My kisses are lucky, you said, and we need that luck.” Forehead against his, she brushed his bangs off his face. Blood bubbled from the ravine sliced through her first nail to her third knuckle, but she couldn’t feel it. The air’s constant sting had left her hands numb.

“It’s too late for luck now, even if you did believe in it.” Watery, unfocused gaze darting away from hers, he caught her hand, grip weaker than his broken, breathless voice. “Rifo and I used to argue over whether your blood should be blue or red.”

“Because I’m not a real Knalcal.”

“Tell him I’m sorry.”

“You have a myriad of reasons to apologize to Rifo, but dying here is not one of them. Don’t give up.” Desperation squeezed the plea, sharpening its edges and pitching it high. The emotion coated her skin like tepid, sticky ilk, and she hated it. This was not how a proper Knalcal acted.

Sep breathed words: “You have to…you have…to…”

Twi’s steps froze, waiting for him to end that sentence. The pause stretched into ugly dread. She held him tighter, displaced bones shifting, but he didn’t move. Dread grew thicker, the dull, lumpy shell of a geode concealing her rationale.

She bent, pulled Sep onto her back, and ran. Her thighs burned as she forced them faster, further, feet slipping in metallic gravel. Sep was not dead. Her Talents offered evidence of that: His pain still clogged the air, fresh and unfading. His life-signature pulsed, faint and slow like an echo bouncing off distant mountains. If Twi were fast enough, strong enough, good enough, she could save him.

The ground crumbled, and giant insects erupted from all directions, pincered mouths open and dripping brown sludge, skeletal claws cloaked in the stench of meat rotting in the sun. Their hisses filled her head, drowning out her battle cry. Her feet stabbed empty air, light at the tunnel’s exit replaced by rock and dirt—

She awoke with a silent scream, tears glossing her vision and breaths short, shuddering bursts.

“I couldn’t wake ya.”

Twi flinched. Safety-straps tight across her body prevented her from leaping to her feet. She sat in a narrow pilot’s chair, steering staves on either side of her knees and touchscreen controls arrayed around her.

“It was...vivid this time.” She sat up straighter, brushing blue-black plaits behind her shoulder as she stuffed her helplessness and resentment back into their cage.

“If ya don’t like how a nightmare ends, change it.”

“I can’t change what happened in reality, Lanox, and no amount of dream-altering will bring Sep back.”

“It’s not yer fault, Twi.” Pity slathered Lanox’s tone, slightly evening out her lilt. Though they sat back to back and Twi couldn’t see her teammate’s face, she knew the expression that accompanied that phrase: lowered brows over liquid aqua eyes and scrunched lips twisted to the right.

“I know it’s not my fault,” Twi repeated as she had every time someone had told her she wasn’t to blame.

“Ya say it, but ya don’t believe it, and that’s why it haunts ya. Ya did everything ya could, and the leaders denied yer request to return for him because there was nothing to go back for. Sep’s not there waiting for us. He’s not suffering. He didn’t survive longer than three seconds after ya got separated.”

Again, words Twi had heard a million times, but they found no roots in her splintered heart.

Lanox went on. “Sep was like a big brother to me, too. I miss him. But I’m glad not to have lost both of ya that day.”

But that was exactly it.

I returned home. Sep didn’t. How can I pretend that’s okay?

Patience. I am the last one who hasn’t given up on him, the last one searching. When I let go, then he is truly lost.

Twi’s right hand swiped a screen, and spiraled text scrolled beneath her tapping fingers. A straight, silver scar traced a line from the knuckle of her third finger to her first, a divot bisecting her nail. Amazing what three months could heal. And what it couldn’t.

That reminder would only toss her back into the nightmare. She focused on the text and its monotonous details, the computer’s unembellished report of how long she had slept—longer than she would have liked—and how little had transpired in that time—also disappointing.

Was this extended patrol along the ill-reputed fringes of the Zakernii Nebula meant as punishment for her boisterous insistence on returning to Kelis? Again and again, the leaders had told her they would not risk others to save someone already dead.

“Then don’t risk others. I’ll go. Just me.”

And they sent her here to the middle of nowhere to do nothing. Did they think anything would be resolved by letting her wallow alone in her thoughts?

I’m not alone. Lanox is here as she always has been, and I’m worrying her.

Lanox’s frustration and pity felt like worms slithering across Twi’s skin. She should change the subject, find something to draw a genuine smile on Lanox’s face, but instead Twi’s eyes fell back to the line marring her hand. The nebula’s colors flashed in the reflective scar.

She had a ship. Did she have enough fuel to get from here to Kelis? Would Lanox try to stop her if she asked the navi-aide for a route to that forbidden world?

I could make it within a few days. If the path was straight.

But no Alliance-developed ship could withstand the intense radiation of the nebulae. Even alien oha could not protect their occupants for long within the colorful clouds.

Around Alliance Space, nebulae were an ocean, beautiful but claiming all that fell into their clutches. The worlds of the Alliance nestled within a bubble in this ocean, an island with many lakes and rivers to be avoided. Every route was circuitous and winding.

The Zakernii Nebula was the largest and most dense of these deadly fogs, named for the giant star believed to be at its heart. It separated the twin planets Tala and Knalz from their own suns, and right now, it stood between Twi and the planet Kelis, luminous crimson, amber, viridian, cyan, and violet mesmerizing in a slowly swirling waltz.

“Twi, are ya listening? Twi!”

“My ears are faithful messengers.”

“Then make a noise of acknowledgement every once in a while.” Lanox huffed. “I said I’ve been watching this blip on radar, but far range sensors say there’s nothing there. It could just be a false echo—”

“Or it’s a stealth ship like an oha. Give the coordinates to the navi-aide.” Twi grasped the steering staves.

“Don’t get yer hopes up,” Lanox warned as they zoomed toward the speck on the screen. “This random blip could be nothing.”

Twi whispered, “Or this unknown vessel could be everything.”

***

“Unknown vessel, please state yer business and identify yerself.” The voice in his ear awoke Xlack.

Confusion reigned in his sleep-clouded mind, empowered by the clammy scent of Vlokem. The stench surrounded him, incongruous with either where he usually awoke or the gossamer starscape filling his view.

Memory slapped him—a summons to Aylata Tower, a dispatch to Alliance Space, plotting a course, deploying helmet and gloves.

Xlack’s half-closed eyes flew open. Four humongous ships encircled his Oha, their curved hulls resembling crescent moons.

Thanks, autopilot, for depositing me idle and vulnerable just beyond the cloud.

The voice repeated itself, this time without the ‘please.’

“Yeah, yeah. To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Rala Centra, commanding Nypet of the Tala flagship Araqut Nemul. Identify yerself,” ordered the transmission-distorted voice.

Xlack hesitated. His surname was a link to a line of exceptional ancestors leading all the way back to the first Ravida.

Explaining why she called her son after an ancient Magni word for tempest, the mother of the first Ekymé had said, “His eyes reflect a storm on the horizon, a fragile, pale gray pierced by lightning of chrysolite.” Now, the name was a beacon, heavy and bright. The eyes of the empire watched those who carried it, expecting greatness.

Here it would be different. When last Aylata had interfered with these worlds, Ekymé the Great had still been a hidden, unknown child. The name would mean nothing to these foreigners.

Xlack wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“I think I’d rather remain anonymous.”

“Anonymity is unacceptable. Name yerself and accept visual contact or prepare to be towed.”

Xlack tapped the navi-aid, searching for an escape route. “Let’s just end this conversation here, and we can pretend we never saw each other.”

The Oha rocked, encased in a swath of light, and a rising hum made his ears itch.

He tugged at the steering staves, splayed fingers white-knuckled over the buttons arrayed on their inner side. The Oha roared, and spectral mist pooled around the engines on its wings.

With a pair of thuds, two more beams latched around his ship, holding him in place from three angles. The Oha bucked at their opposing pulls like a beast trying to throw him off, and Xlack was glad for his safety straps and empty stomach.

Curled in a protective pocket, Rell clung to Xlack’s leg, nails dug in like curved needles.

With a howl, the engine on the right wing caught fire, flames brief-lived but bold and brilliant. Smoke sullied the luminous mist of trapped thrust, and lightning flickered in the cloud, threatening a worse explosion if he didn’t stop.

Xlack released the staves. “Now I feel so welcome.”

“If there is a reason ya should feel welcome, ya have yet to share it with me,” Centra reasoned. Xlack found her lilt hard to follow. “Now would be a good time, before the lassos pull yer vessel apart.”

That’s how these people do things? They spot someone lost and just decide, “Oh, I think we should shred them”?

He had to get out of here, make them let go. With his fingers stretched over the control panels on either side of him, Xlack aimed at the closest ship and fired a rapid volley. Bolts launched from the Oha’s wings like a rain of slender comets and shattered in sparks against the larger vessel’s bubble-like shields.

“Cease fire—”

Xlack deactivated the receiver, not listening and not abating his barrage.

A jagged electric stream shot from the flagship and struck the Oha. Screens arrayed around Xlack faded to darkness, polished surfaces reflecting the thick scribbles of lightning that crawled across the hull.

He punched the dashboard, realized that wasn’t very productive, and flipped the com on in time to catch, “Just cooperate, and things will go a lot smoother. Who are ya?”

“I’m the person who’s probably the most annoyed at you right now. If I’m not, I’d like to meet that guy. I’m sure he has a good story.”

“In yer situation, I advise ya to at least attempt to act like a mature and reasonable individual. If ya don’t… Hold on.”

Another ship slipped out of the distance. It possessed the same arrowhead shape as Xlack’s transport, a cylindrical engine rested on either wing, and luminous thrusters left a visible wake. A tail split into four thin slices and angled up from the body like a fan, cradling a smaller pair of engines.

It was undeniably another Oha. Had someone followed him?

This newcomer came to a stop just above Xlack, protective like a mother bird, and its reception appeared much warmer. That likely had some connection with it not having fired at the larger ships.

Of course, Xlack wasn’t privileged with even a muted line in on their conversation. They could have yelled insults at one another or awkwardly heralded silence. They could have pleasantly chatted about the weather. Whichever the case, they took their time. Xlack felt like pulling his hair out.

Finally, Centra’s voice returned. “Ya are released under the authority of the Adjuvants. Board the Araqut Nemul and repair yer engine.”

As if he had a choice. Their leash was already reeling him in. The newcomer coasted alongside him as a hangar in the largest vessel’s underside engulfed him.

They set his ship on its belly, land legs still tucked away in the hull. Facing him but keeping its distance like a distrustful animal, the other Oha alighted on the opposite side of the hangar.

At Xlack’s command, his helmet retreated into his collar, gloves similarly folding into his undersleeves. As soon as the Oha’s clear canopy swung out of his way, he hopped out. Aside from the two Oha, everything gleamed pure white, playing with deceitful shadows of zigzagging walkways above. It smelled as stark as it looked.

Curiosity spurred him, but he forced it to hide behind a façade of confidence. With only a cursory glance around, he got to work on his damaged engine.

***

“That looks like a real piece of work.” Already unbuckled, Lanox stood, ready to hop out of the oha.

Twi placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Where are you going so fast?”

“To say ‘hi.’ It’s called being polite, Twi.”

“I don’t recognize his signature.”

“But he’s not Aberrant either.” Lanox pulled off her helmet. “He’s got black Adapt clothes and a black oha. Aberrant wouldn’t dare fly that color. Remember, they say it represents the empty space that swallowed their precious ‘true relatives.’”

She was right, of course. Twi’s stare slimmed, cutting across the distance to analyze the stranger. His outfit was rendered in black and dull silver. A tiny chrome swirl pierced his collar, and burst rectangles had been sketched on his right thigh. Snug undersleeves hooked over his thumbs, the strings meant to lace the jacket from elbow to wrist left loose at impracticality’s suggestion.

From this distance, there was no way Lanox could tell if the fabric was actually Magni Adapt, yet no one with access to it would wear anything else on a space venture, and Lanox had a penchant for assumption.

“Go find out where he’s from,” Twi said with a nod, “but be careful.”

***

“My name’s Lanox. What’s yers?”

Xlack turned as a young woman came to a stop on her toes, hand extended.

The first Emperor of Napix, Drin Nar, and his brother, Vozin, had fought their final battle above Knalz. The legend told few details regarding the Knalcals’ appearance and mentioned Tala even less. Xlack hadn’t expected them to look too strange—they had also intermarried with the Magni. Yet, with her lanky humanoid shape, he could have mistaken Lanox for a common pedestrian on the streets of Kizmet if not for the slits along either side of her nose. They flared slightly as she breathed.

She was just alien enough to give him pause. Her life-signature whispered her Magni heritage, swift and alacritous. She rode in an Oha and wore Adapt, both of Magni origin and privilege. Should he treat her as a Sereh like his mother or Topeca, then? Address her with the title Lady?

No, she was not a Sereh.

Xlack swiveled back to his engine. “I’d rather not tell you my name.”

“That’s rude, ya know. Oh well, can I call ya Anonymous?”

“If you want.”

As Lanox climbed over the side of the Oha, Rell scrambled under the seat, and Xlack held in a chuckle. The beastling probably thought the platinum curls piled atop her head were a monster.

“Where’s yer amaraq?”

“My what?”

She leaned over the seatback and rummaged through storage compartments, booted feet in the air. “Then are ya a sutae?”

“Your insistence on not making any sense isn’t helping me fix this engine.”

“Wow, ya are cranky. Well, if ya aren’t a sutae, and ya don’t have an amaraq, then how…” She jumped down, hand held before her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I…” Sympathy welled in her bright eyes. Her skin glowed, but not like a light-emitting Zalerit’s. Trillions of tiny mirrors hid in her pores. A little distracting.

Xlack shook his head. “You should be sorry, climbing all over my Oha like a nosy lyoko.”

“A what?”

A twist of the tool in his right hand melded the exposed ends of two wires. “You heard me.”

“But I didn’t understand ya.”

He grimaced at the next scorched bolt to be loosened. Would anyone notice if he used his Kinetics on it, and more importantly, how would they would react?

“I know it’s hard for ya to feel anything but anger at the world right now, but I’m trying to help ya.” She looked ridiculous draped sideways over the seatback, but honesty pervaded her steady stare, and her vivid eyes filled with innocence.

As Xlack’s focus slid back to the engine, she added, “I’ll ignore whatever ya just termed me, and we’ll take ya and yer ship to Tala.” A gentle hand landed on his shoulder. “Ya aren’t alone, Anonymous.”

“Please take your hand off me.”

She gestured toward the Oha’s cockpit. “Get in the ship, and we’ll make sure ya land safely on Tala.”

Was this a shortcut to mission accomplished or a trap? Xlack couldn’t tell. Lanox didn’t look like she had a pinch of deception in her.

He closed and sealed the singed engine panel, deciding a full repair would take more than he had on hand. Oha were adaptive and resilient, though. Even in its current state, the engine could carry him a little further.

“Alright, Lanox. I’ll follow you to Tala,” he accepted and hopped back in the Oha.

“See ya on land!” she hollered, running toward her own ship as Xlack closed the cockpit, analytical gaze following her. Lanox’s smile overflowed into her stride as her thigh-high, netted boots skipped across the white floor. Her vest and asymmetrically draped shirt flounced with each step, and she radiated a liveliness to compete with any daystar.

He flipped on the transmitter. “Lanox says you’ll make sure I land safely on Tala. Is this true?”

“I’m not a liar,” Lanox radioed back.

“I was speaking to your pilot.”

“The pilot can hear you.” Another girl.

Xlack blinked away his surprise. Sereh never drove. The task was considered beneath them.

They aren’t Sereh, though.

As the other Oha lifted into the air, he cleared his throat. “My right engine is damaged, so if you could lead easy, I’d appreciate it.”

A cord shot from below her split tail wing, dug through the nose of Xlack’s Oha, and wormed itself into the administrative systems. His screens flickered, commands and double-checks scrolling faster than he could read. With a bone-rattling roar, his transport rose.

“Hey, I didn’t say I couldn’t fly!”

“The injured and slow get picked off,” the pilot responded as the two Oha glided through open hangar doors. “This is my way of ensuring your safety.”

“Is there any way you could do that without turning me into a trailer?” He stabbed in disconnect codes, but all his buttons were useless.

“Be mindful of words. A trailer gets in the way, but an appendage can be useful.”

“There’s got to be a third choice that doesn’t involve my ship being attached to yours.”

“Can you define that third choice?”

There had to be one. Xlack was just too frustrated to think of it. He drummed his fingers on the dashboard, waiting for inspiration, but none came. This worthless, odorous Oha had transformed into a prison. Had he been kidnapped, and by two girls even?

“I don’t like just sitting here.” He scanned the panorama of distant stars and wispy nebulae, glaring as if these wonders of the universe had betrayed him. “It makes me feel useless.”

No response came from the other Oha.

He flopped back against the seat, arms crossed. “Hello! I’m talking to you.”

More beats of silence.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Maybe I don’t wish to tell it to you. There is a sense of security in anonymity, isn’t there?”

“Go ahead, be stubborn while I rot of boredom.” Xlack glared at his own reflection in the windshield, right eye a slender line. His uncle often told him his uneven stare was not befitting of a Mind Aylata, that it lacked any intimidating aesthetic.

Xlack tried to adjust it.

“Maybe you should consider the emotions of others around you,” the anonymous pilot advised. “You’re not the only person in the universe.”

“Right, like you’re taking my feelings into consideration.”

“How do you feel, then?”

She swerved. Xlack’s ship flung to the right and fishtailed before jerking back in line. Inside, where the inertial dampeners had somehow gotten turned off, he and Rell were thrown against the sides in quick succession, eliciting a series of disgruntled snorts from the beastling.

“I feel like cargo,” Xlack snapped. “Very annoyed cargo.”

“Odd. Cargo’s usually much quieter.”

“Fine, I like silence better anyway.”

“You’re the one who started the conversation.”

Xlack tsked. He was done with this stupid dialogue.

Sitting on his lap as far from the offending walls as possible, Rell stared up at him, and two growing orbs hovered in the beastling’s onyx eyes.

Xlack looked up, and the sight stole the few words he had managed to scrape together. Two planets loomed just beyond the Oha’s clear canopy, caught in an eternal dance. Tala’s embrace with Knalz was far from shy as they spun opposite each other. A faint halo of shared gases churned with their movement as, around them, tiny dots of steady traffic swerved and crossed paths on beat, like the inners of a clock.

The space scene gave way to thickening clouds, then a rocky landscape. Anxiety blazed as they skimmed karsts and ravine walls. He had barely met these people, and already he had discovered a horrifying truth. They knew how to torture him.

He didn’t even notice the cave until the mouth of it rushed past, stealing all daylight. Only her lead lights fought back the darkness, and from his view, the body of her Oha blocked most of what they revealed.

He could escape. It wouldn’t be hard now that they were within Tala’s atmosphere. Even if the computer wouldn’t let him open the cockpit, his Ier could cut through it. Then he and Rell could jump to freedom, ridding themselves of Lanox and her irksome pilot.

Yet, his Ier remained sheathed, the cockpit closed. Curiosity pinned him in his seat, wanting to see where they would lead him.

Contiuned in Chapter 5: Seven Questions

Thank you for reading!