Panthea

Chapter 1

Breakout

1

Smoke filled his nose, causing him to rise out of the dark depths of his sleep. His eyes opened, and his retinas exploded with pain as he watched a torrent of fire pour into his cell.

He lurched backwards in his bunk, and banged his head against the steel wall. The metal rang around him like a bell, and a paper photo hung by glue fell onto his pillow. It showed this same man standing with his arm around a woman a few years younger than he, features very similar to his own. In the backdrop was a building made entirely of clay, and above them the sky was crimson with dawn's approach.

His vision blurred, then cleared, then blurred again as he struggled to his feet, sluggish from oversleeping. The heat radiating from the fire made sweat drip from his brow and into his eyes. He blinked his vision clear, and noticed the middle set of vertical bars that consisted of the cell door were swung outward. A puddle of black oil was seeping in between the chrome poles.

He dashed to the left and crouched against the corner between the bunk and the wall. For a long moment he thought this was all just another nightmare, and simply sat there, cowering, with a thousand questions bouncing through his head, waiting to wake up. Then a tongue of flame licked one of his toes, and the explosive heat snapped him into action.

He got up on his naked feet, and began shimmying across the smooth, western wall. His fingernails traced over the etchings of tally marks in sets of five that covered that entire face of the cell. He manoeuvred as best he could around the fire and its oily source that was slowly pooling over the entire floor. There were no other exits, no secret passageways like some of the other guys were planning to make, and he knew he would have to cross the fire and he had to go now.

The toxic smoke filling up the cell clouded his vision and threatened his lungs. He held his breath, hesitated for a moment, then ran as hard and fast as he could through the knee-high inferno and into the corridor outside. He could not suppress the cry of pain as the skin of his feet seared with each impact. His knees buckled as his body was permanently marked with burns. For one horrible and long moment his entire body was coated in fire, his jumpsuit starting to burn along the sleeves, his mouth tasting pure heat, his whole world nothing more than flame and pain, and then as a last ditch effort he dove and smashed face-first to the floor outside, where shards of glass cut up against his stomach, feet and arms.

The air was a little cleaner out here, but not by much. Hacking soot from his lungs, he picked himself up, cutting his hands on broken glass as he did. He crawled a little further away from the fire-pit until he was a good few meters away, then bent to examine the burns on his feet, not really wanting to see the damage there, but still going through with it. The burned and bloody mess of wounds on his sole reminded him of blood-red, grated cheese. The other foot was in no better shape.

He tried to stand up, failed. On the second go he succeeded, staggering to a hunched stance as he put weight on his bleeding feet. He turned around and saw the rest of his cell turn into a red bonfire of death. He couldn’t quite shake away the mental image of himself burning to death in there if he hadn’t woken up in time. He’d probably never look upon fire the same way again after today.

His cell was the last on the left side of the corridor, which ended in an abrupt wall of chrome. On the opposite side was another cell identical to his own, except that it lacked oil or flame. The bed sheets had been pulled over, however, like someone had been sleeping there recently. Jason had been aboard the ship a lot longer than him, something to do with stealing from some royal family over in the Core Worlds. The cell was open, and he frowned at why Jason had gone off without waking him first.

As he turned his gaze up the rest of the corridor, he saw it was the same story with the rest of the cells. Four undecorated and space-efficient levels stretched up above him, metal walkways connecting each level together, winding up and away toward vaulted ceiling. From this angle it looked like the whole block had been opened and evacuated, and out of the hundreds of cells he could see, maybe half of them were aflame, tendrils of red and yellow licking at the cell bars. All the doors were open.

Before starting up the corridor, he took one last look back at his cell, and had just enough time to see his bedside photo burn to ash. He cursed himself for forgetting to grab it. It was after all the only thing that had given him cause to live in this hellhole for so long.

He moved forward, examining each cell and its lack of occupants as he passed. Somewhere far away on another part of the ship something exploded, and an uneasy feeling tightened around his chest. How could I have slept through all this? he thought, bypassing a pool of blood with the lack of a body present. At first he thought there might have been a major riot, but he was well-liked enough in here to have at least had some prior warning. Plus he'd seen destruction on the highest scale, and no group of rowdy inmates could have caused all this.

Every cell was empty, but here and there one was filled with fire just as much as his own was. The ship did not use oil in such mass, further confusing him as he watched the liquid spread into the cells without the aid of gravity to move it naturally. Smoke and the smell of burning flesh filled his nose but he could not see any bodies, just the blood. Blood and oil mixing together into a deep crimson carpet splotching the length of the corridor.

He passed a cell (the number above the bars was 52) where an oil pit slicked across every surface inside like a new coat of paint. He watched the flames birthing above the oil die out right in front of his eyes, as if someone had decided to switch the gas off. But the oil still remained, gurgling out dark bubbles along its gooey surface. It looked disgusting and alien, and he took care to avoid stepping into any patches he came across.

The drone of hundreds of other humans around this place just yesterday was now gone, and the block was very quiet, except for the cackle of flames above or behind him, and the little wet slapping noises his feet made with every step. He thought about calling out, but decided against breaking the silence, afraid that whoever had done all this would find out they had missed him.

Not even the guards were present, and in a maximum-security vessel, Mike wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. He thought it might’ve been pirates, some big crew busting out one of their own, or maybe this was just another raid on the United Earthen Confederate, something had become quite regular these past few decades. Releasing a bunch of criminals from the Arden, or as the Warden liked to put it, ‘The Number One Abode for the Scum of the Universe’, would be bound to cause chaos among the UEC.

But as Mike reached the end of the corridor, any explanation he thought of died as he stared at the large, almost goo-like mass blocking the only exit out of here.

It was a giant pile, perhaps twenty meters high and double as wide. It was made up entirely of corpses, wedged into the exiting archway. Every piece of flesh visible was singed and blackened. Faces of agony and pain looked up at him, their white eyes spotted with flecks of ash. The top of the pile ended at a point, where a crooked hand stuck out, with all its fingers opened up like a star. Above this hand, printed above the archway in neon-blue, were the words CELL BLOCK C.

This sight brought Mike to a halt. He recognised some of the faces. Most were other inmates, but he could see a few uniformed guards here and there. The stench of the pile nearly caused Mike to retch, but he held it back, covering his mouth and nose as he looked around. There was no other hidden way out as far as he knew. He wasn't sure about the others, but this Cell Block had the one way in, one way out design.

He would have to climb.

With a reluctant groan, he extended out one arm and grasped a rigid leg, in much the same way he would grab the handle of a bike, which disgusted him further. The limb was stiff, and held firm as he pulled himself up onto the first ‘level’. His foot found a holding in the nook between a poor person’s neck and shoulder, jammed at the very bottom of the hundreds of the dead, and Mike wished that shoes had been a part of the uniform for the inmates, because he felt flakes of dead skin bury themselves in the folds of his blistered feet as he slowly ascended the mound of bodies. The odour of cooked flesh grew stronger as he ascended, a smell so foul his stomach threatened to spill last nights dinner.

He gripped onto an outstretched hand, huffing and puffing even though he'd only climbed two or three meters, and it snapped at the wrist as he put weight on it, breaking away from the arm with disgusting ease. His body fell flat on the pile and his head peered into an opening deeper into the body-mound. He saw wide eyes and smiling faces, charred enough so that pale bones and white skulls were visible. He knew it was just his imagination, it had to be, but all of the unfortunate people stuck inside the depths of the mound were looking up at him, dead eyes locked onto his. There skulls waxed into grins like this whole ordeal was just some big joke.

Mike planted his feet (although he couldn’t see this, his feet found grip onto two bald heads), so he didn’t lose all the ground he’d made so far, and pulled his face free from that dark hell he had been climbing over. Bit by bit he kept hiking the steep slope of people. He lost his balance many times, falling back a few meters that took him a long time to gain back. He breathed in hot, putrid flesh-air that sizzled away under his hands and feet, making them slick with sweat.

He felt like resting, even though to do so would be to use some dead persons body as a couch, but when he looked up and saw his hands coated in neon light, he realised he was close the Cell Block sign, and pushed himself harder so he could get off this thing. His skinny arms were put to the limit. He telling himself he could rest all he liked once he was on the other side.

His face was filled with agony and disgust, every one of his senses bombarded with this singed hell. After what felt like an eternity, he finally reached the ‘summit’, and with a final effort pulled himself to the peak, knelt down on the bodies to catch his breath. Someone’s bare and hairy stomach sagged away under one of his knees.

Like the star on a Christmas tree, here on the peak was a flexed hand rising up from the corpses capping the mound. In Mike's exhaustion, he knocked against the summit-hand and it snapped away like a dead branch, tumbling down the other side of the body pile, hitting against a leather boot before disintegrating into a cloud of ash. The body-pile continued on into the next area for a short distance, more and more dead people lying about as if recently executed, but on this side it was far less populated, and looked like going down would at least be easier going.

Leading with his legs, Mike slid down the opposing side of bodies, shuffling over them and taking care to avoid touching the open eyes and exposed tongues of the dead. He shivered every time hair brushed against his exposed skin. When at last his toes touched back down onto solid ground, he scrambled away from the corpses and hugged himself, feeling dirty and looking like a junkie in need of his next fix.

By his foot was the body of an inmate in the process of what could only be described as melting. The face was gone, so Mike couldn’t recognise who it was. The left arm was gone too, as were both of the legs, leaving behind a stumpy torso wrapped in prisoner overalls. Human flesh was twisting into dark goo before his eyes.

He stepped away from the body, from the whole pile of bodies, and spun around. He stood in the nexus of four joining corridors where they formed an X. The passage to his right was blocked by another, similar pile of dead, and the sign above it read CELL BLOCK D. The passage on his left was unobstructed, and barren of any fire or bodies. That way led to the canteen and arboretum.

The way ahead was barred by a security checkpoint, with two sets of metal detectors built between a few security booths. Mike walked toward it, eyes darting around for any signs of movement. The body of a guard lay inside a detector archway, and its red siren light whirred round and round, sounding off an annoying, high-pitched beep.

There should have been a hundred sirens and warnings blaring at his ears, now that he thought about it, but it was mostly quiet, amplifying his own heartbeat thumping in his chest. The ship rocked again, strong enough that Mike had to adjust his footing to remain standing. That rumbling was still far away, but Mike couldn’t help but feel it had somehow seemed just a bit closer this time. He hoped that the pirates hadn't completely ruptured the engines just yet. Although the thought that it was pirates responsible for burning hundreds of people and wedging them into archways seemed rather unbelievable.

Mike moved passed the dead guard lying face-first inside the detector arch, and noted oddly that he saw no physical wounds on his body. Beyond the arch were two more dead guards. One was propped up against a booth, a huge red hole in his chest that looked cauterised. The other was inside the same booth, hanging out of the destroyed glass window with his fingers inches above the floor. Just below him was a shotgun, and the guard might have been reaching for it when he died, the way his body contorted toward the weapon.

Mike went over, leaving a trail of blood from his wounded feet, knelt, careful to avoid jabbing himself on the glass shards, and picked up the shotgun. He turned it over and checked the ammo. The holo-counter halfway up the barrel told him that two slugs had been fired, and the gun had been dropped before it had been pumped. He slid the choke back and forth, ejecting a green shell that danced past his head and fell to the ground. He could see some ammo boxes inside the booth, but the door was locked when he tried it, and he decided against climbing through the window – he'd crawled over enough corpses for one day.

The ship rocked again, louder and rougher than the previous times combined, and he didn’t want to waste any more time, for a sudden sense of dread overcame him. Perhaps the pirates had destroyed the engines, and were planning to blow them all to kingdom come for reasons he couldn’t figure out or understand.

It had been a long time since he’d last held a weapon, but its shape and grip made him feel comfortable, and a little less like a helpless sheep. He went forward, leading with his newfound weapon, holding it at an odd and awkward angle, trying to get used to its weight. As he passed the checkpoint he noticed a scattered pattern of bullets on the walls, and guessed they had come from the weapon he was now holding. Whoever they had fired at wasn’t here – no corpses or other bullet casings – and his pirate theory seemed a little less believable.

This hallway was about half as long as the Cell Block, and at its end was an elevator. Just above its double doors, a warning sign written in big letters told him that at least two guards must be posted here at all times, but Mike was still alone, and all that remained of the elevator guards was a red stain smeared on the floor nearby.

Giving the blood a suspicious glance, he hit the call button for the elevator, but there were no whirrs of machines, and the lift didn’t move from whichever deck it was currently on. He cursed, wishing it were that easy, then went and opened the door to the right of the elevator, which was slightly ajar. EMERGENCY USE, said the sign above it.

He peered in, and saw hundreds of stairs leading up and down a tall square tube. Two flights up, a bloodied hand was dangling over a railing. Drips of crimson liquid dropped from the palm and sailed down to the depths below. Dim red fluorescent lights lit up the winding staircase, but not very well, and Mike had to wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

He raised his shotgun and started for the deck below. Dripping blood from above echoed throughout the stairwell. His feet slapped hard and wetly on each stair as he quickened his descent, leaning over the railing every now and then to make sure he wasn’t following someone, or being followed himself.

He didn’t want to believe he was alone. Whoever had done this had missed him, somehow, so surely there were others that were still alive. But everything he’d seen was making that possibility all the more unlikely. Nothing seemed to indicate signs of an extended struggle, just the occasional dead man or woman seemingly killed by flames or simply bled out. And of course there was the oil, spreading about the walls like tumours. No rational explanation could form itself inside his panicking mind.

He descended several decks until he found the one he was looking for. The door to it was jammed, and he had to shoulder-check into it a few times to get it open. The doors crashed open and he emerged into a room much better lit than the Cell Blocks or the stairwell, and it smelled a lot cleaner too. Green plants sat in pots in the corners, a hint of brown working its way through some of the leaves, and it reminded him of the tedious time spent in the ships arboretum. Every week he was potting plants, un-potting plants, watering plants, ripping out plants. Plants, plants, plants. All the while under the watchful eye of the Warden, Morland, who had a personal agenda to make Mike’s time on the Arden a living hell, and for good reason too. “I had family on Neruvana,” Morland had said a while back. “My brother and his wife. Let’s see how your hands look with your own blood on them, too.” Then Mike worked the arboretum for every spare hour until his hands blistered and bled. Only then would Morland allow him to go back to his cell and rest.

There was a desk to the right, along with a plush white couch in front of a window in the wall. Some of the cushions were ripped, foam spilling out. Beyond the window were prisoner belongings, locked in thousands of wall-mounted storage units sorted neatly into alphabetical order. From here it looked like a giant vault. It would take too long to find and get his own things back, but Mike hadn’t come aboard with much anyway, and decided to leave this area quickly.

The room split off into two directions. The left way was labelled Hanger Bay, the right was Escape Pods. He went right, but remembered coming from the left when he first stepped onto the Arden. This room, this quaint room with plants and lights, had been Mike’s first impression of the ship. That escape pod sign had been his focus of attention then, like they’d put it there just to mock the new prisoners. Morland had laughed when he’d followed Mike’s gaze that day.

But no one’s laughing now, he thought, sure that everyone, the guards too – who were also the scum of the Confederacy themselves, just a step higher in status than prisoners – were all dead. This was proven false as soon as he emerged into the tight halls of the escape pod chambers.

The first row of pod bays, lining the left wall, were empty, as was the second and third. At least some of the others had gotten off, not that Mike cared all that much – the other inmates had been left to burn, and he guessed the higher-ups like the Captain or the officers had used the pods first. After all, the pods weren’t meant for the inmates in the event of emergencies.

He ran up the length of the bay, on the edge of panicking when every escape pod chamber turned up empty. He knew there were more escape pods littered throughout the ship, and was just considering doubling back when he spied one pod in the fifth row that hadn’t launched. It was far down the bay, last one on the left side, its green lights on and ready to go. Mike ran for it, ignoring the pain in his feet as he bolted down the metal walkway. He kept looking over his shoulder back to make sure he wasn’t being followed.

When he was a dozen meters away from the pod, he heard a scream accompanied with a gunshot. Both were loud in the tight confines of the pod-bay, and Mike stopped as the source of the noise appeared around the far corner near the escape pod. A tall man with his belly poking out from under his blue uniform was approaching Mike with his back turned. He was aiming out with a .357 magnum in the direction he had come from. Mike didn’t have to wait long to see what was pursuing him.

It was a black glob of liquid that moved in a way that mimicked something solid and vaguely anthropomorphic, sliding along the floor but leaving no trail of slick. Twelve beady eyes patterned its front, shaped in an upside down ‘U’ shape. They were small, marble-sized orbs of pure white, regarding the two humans with obvious intelligence. It advanced on the other human like an aggressive, overgrown slug with little sumps extending from its flanks.

The guard thumbed the hammer of his magnum and fired. The gunshot made Mike's ears ring. The bullet tore through the black flesh between the creatures upper set of eyes. Instead of blood, oil went flying out of the wound and splattered over the wall behind it. The creature let out a horrible, alien screech that sounded strangely like a dying woman. It’s whole body shrank back so it was no bigger than a dog, its ‘head’ leaning down on itself and cowering.

A heartbeat later, and a second creature appeared behind the first. This one stood double Mike's height and had long, powerful limbs. Its arms were shaped like meaty scythes, and the legs looked big enough to crush cars, ending in tree stump-like pads. The whole body was made of black liquid, but acting as if trying to be solid at the same time, flexing and pulsing over a muscular, imposing frame. It leapt over its smaller counterpart with its arms outstretched like a pouncing cat. It sailed right over the head of the guard, too, and Mike realised at the last moment that he was its target, and ducked out of the way as he felt the wind of its arm-blades pass by his head. The thing landed with a thud strong to rock the whole walkway. Mike staggered into the railing, looked up, and saw out of the nearest pod-bay’s window, the black vacuum of space, and the thousands of stars glittering beyond.

“You-?” the other man said. Mike twisted around and recognised the guard to be his warden, Morland. Out of the hundreds he’d seen dead, Jack just had to be the one still kicking. Mike thought about turning the shotgun on him, but Morland had turned around and fired at the first creature again, which had launched toward him after recovering, and sent it recoiling back. A little plume of smoke trailed out of Morland’s massive handgun.

Mike turned his attention back to his own problem. The second alien, for he knew this couldn’t be anything remotely human, angled its body low to the ground, preparing to strike. This one was more formed and mobile than its counterpart, but its oil-skin still convulsed, like something within wanted to morph into a different shape but couldn't decide what.

To Mike’s horror, a strip of flesh below its many eyes opened wide, exposing rows of teeth lining the roof, walls, and rear of a terrible maw. The stench that wafted out made Mike gag in disgust and fear. Its thin torso gurgled like molten lava, and swayed with each roll of its hips as it stalked towards him, leaving dents in the walkway under its sheer weight.

Mike fired his shotgun from the hip, sending a tight pack of buckshot into the aliens head. The creature made a strangely human-like groan, fell back a step, but otherwise looked only dazed by his shot. Mike ejected the shell and fired again, forcing the creature back another pace. He was close enough for the shotgun pattern to be tight and deadly, but this creature shrugged it off and decided enough was enough, and began its approach, arms out and ready to cut.

Mike turned to flee and collided with Morland, who had been falling back himself. They were both sent sprawling onto the walkway in a heap, right between the alien creatures. Morland put his hand out to steady his fall, and it disappeared into the first creatures flesh as easily as if he reached into water. Jack let out a scream so filled with pain Mike’s blood curled.

Mike pushed off his Warden and dove into the unmanned escape pod, holding his gun with one hand and closing the hatch with the other. He thought the aliens would pounce on him, try and destroy the pod, but they only gave him a second glance as they converged onto Morland, who had failed to free his immobilised hand from the first alien. The Warden fired off the rest of the magnum's ammo at the creature holding him in place, weakening but not killing it. With a heavy tug Morland managed to pull his hand free at last, and when Mike looked from the control board in the pod towards Morland’s limb, he saw nothing but the bones of his fingers where the skin should be. It was like the flesh had just melted away, or the alien had absorbed it, maybe some mix of both.

The second alien wrapped its scythe arms around Jack’s behind, bringing him into its dark embrace. The maw opened up, a few buckshot pellets spilling out from the needle-teeth, and chomped down on Jack’s shoulder. He cried out in pain and tried to struggle free, but now both of the creatures were upon him, and every part of Jack’s body where their oily-hides touched his flesh, dissolved all the way to the bone..

Mike engaged the launch sequence and stared with wide eyes as Morland was literally eaten alive right in front of him. He never liked Jack Morland, but felt himself cringe with pity for the man. He wanted to look away but couldn't stop watching the gruesome display. The warden’s long hair literally parted from his face as an alien ripped it away. Morland met Mike’s eyes. Mike could not hear him through the sealed doors, but he could read his lips form the words ‘HELP ME’, over and over again.

Then the creatures bit into his cranium and exposed his skull. Mike could almost imagine the sickening crunch. The warden opened his mouth and howled, but still Mike could not stop himself from looking away as the man was torn to ribbons. “HELP ME!” Jack cried, the voice more Mike's imagination than him actually hearing it. “FOR GODS SAKE HELP ME!”

Mike finally engaged the pod controls. The latches unlocked. He buckled himself into his seat, and after a moment the pod was floating away. He put all his willpower into not looking back at Morland’s consumption and focus on what was in front of him. He brought the pod to a smooth standstill as he noticed the void ahead seemed a little different. A long rectangle of space appeared a slightly darker shade then the rest, and seemed a little closer as well. Mike tilted his head and adjusted his perception, and found he was looking at a dark net of oil coming in fast. Dotted around the net were other escape pods, stuck like bugs in a spiders web.

Mike angled the pod ‘downward’ in relation to the Arden, and sailed out of the nets path. Once he was a fair distance away, he angled the pod back up so he could watch the wall of flesh close in on the ships flank. Mike caught a final glimpse of Morland’s final, agonising moments before the net sealed him away from view. Following with his eyes, Mike traced the net until he saw what it was attached to, and what he saw almost drove him mad.

A giant... thing, what he would later call the Leviathan, made from the same black pitch-like substance the creatures eating Morland were made of, wrapped itself like a giant cocoon around the chrome carrier-class ship that was the Arden. The ship was over ten kilometres long, but the Leviathan easily dwarfed it by comparison. It was so large Mike could not and at first, would not believe the sheer size of the thing. Tentacles as long as skyscrapers stretched out its backside, impossibly far away and drifting lazily in the distant void. At its front-end he made out a vague head-like shape with a dozen white eyes, each one the size of mansions. If the thing saw him, it did not seem to show it, lazily looking ahead at the horizons of space as its body expanded over the Arden's hull.

He turned the pod and put the engines full throttle, sailing into the void as fast as he could. He was satisfied that after fifteen minutes of putting the thrusters to full power, he was far enough away to slow down and look back. The Leviathan was close to fully consuming the Arden, with only a few metallic sheets towards the bottom of the ship visible. Mike could make out a few escape pods darting around the ship's orbit, but none of them would ever make it. The tentacles jutting out of the Leviathan were snatching them out of space in quick thrusts of movement, pulling them back into its fleshy body. He sat drifting and watched for a while, terrified but at the same time, mesmerised by the display only he would ever get to see.

Eventually Mike pulled his eyes away, checking the main console for a landing site. He knew the Arden travelled through uncharted and uninhabited systems along the Border Systems, in the rare case a prisoner got the idea of breaking free so there was nowhere to go, so Mike didn’t expect much. There were no UEC outposts in his fuel-range, and no signals of any other craft whatsoever. Not even the Leviathan came up on radar, and a thing that size had to leave at least some sort of signature.

There was one planet that had a lighter than average, but still breathable oxygen-based atmosphere, in the next system over. An empty and uncolonised world with no prior data available, the pod told him. He had enough fuel to make the two-day trip there.

Mike punched in the planet's location, engaged the autopilot and tried to focus on breathing. The Leviathan didn’t look like it wanted to pursue him, but he just couldn’t take his eyes off it until it disappeared into the darkness of space. After the adrenaline of a narrow escape from his prison started bleeding away, he felt very tired, and let his eyes close and allowed himself to drift off, the sight of body piles and Morland’s terrible screams still fresh in his mind.

Chapter 2

Warm Welcome

1

His consciousness swept away from his suspended position in the escape pod, and he found himself on the bridge of a ship, looking out into a view of pure red light.

The illumination branched off into thousands of tendrils of energy that shot out through the sheet of space surrounding the clay-coloured orb it all came from. He could not raise his hands to shield his eyes because there was so much weight behind his fingers he couldn't raise them from the terminal no matter how hard he tried.

It was a memory of his home, his birthplace, crumbling into chunks of rock and earth that slowly spread out in all directions into the void before his eyes. The shock-wave of the ship’s cannon rippled across the shattering globe, tearing the world silently apart.

Mike imagined what was happening down on the surface, instead of up here in the safety of vacuum – shingles flying from roofs, glass breaking everywhere, people burning up and melting away. People he’d known and come to care for.

“No more tethers,” Locke had said, encouraging Mike over the button that had initiated the firing sequence. Locke had given Mike exactly what he wanted, all on this one, terrible condition. His father and sister, they were burning too, he could see them as he vision was flooded with their agonised faces. He had done all he could to warn them, hesitated to burn time as he rested his hand over the red button, but in the end, he had killed them, killed them all, and all that death came flooding back to the present through that hellish clap of the world falling apart.

He gasped, and flung himself against the escape pod harness, face wet with sweat. The pod creaked and groaned as he shifted its delicate balance.

He growled under his breath and rubbed his face with his hands, listening to the steady beat of the engines sailing him towards some alien destination out in who-knows-where.

Is was always that same nightmare that always came back, torturing him most nights during his stay on the Arden. He guessed seeing all those burned bodies back there reminded his subconscious of the graphic news reports after the deed had been done. He would hear that same clap sound that accompanied the world cracking under the experimental weapon’s duress, and would sometimes wake screaming.

“Damn it...” Mike said. He wanted to get up, stretch his legs, but the tight confines of the pod prevented such an action. He didn’t even try to go back to sleep, instead he sulked in his chair and wiped his eyes as he began to sob quietly.

You deserve it, came a voice belonging only to Morland. He had reminded Mike of this as often as he could when he was alive, and since Mike had a hand in his demise it was only fitting that he'd haunt him as well. Morland had heard a thousand prisoners plead that it ‘wasn’t their fault’ when they'd come aboard, but Mike hadn’t bothered wasting his time or his breath on that old cliché. Denying it out loud just hurt too much.

Deep down, Mike knew it was his fault. He could have done something, anything, but he followed Locke like a dog and did the job for his own selfish reasons.

Mike’s eyes turned to the shotgun hung on the rack above him. It would only take a quick pull on the trigger, and the nightmares would stop. A simple and easy way out, but just like the last time he’d considered ending his life, when he had stolen a knife from the ship’s cafeteria, waited until the dead of night, then used it to open up one of his wrists – he could not bring himself to that swift end without backing out.

A lot of blood had come out of that one cut, but not enough before the Arden’s doctors had patched him back up.  He forgot the shotgun and dropped his hands to his lap. Call it something to remember the Arden by for getting cut loose well before he served all his time.

Stuck inside that escape pod, even out in the void generally called space, was somehow worse than being cooped up in his cell. There was a survival kit underneath the chair – standard issue for all escape pods – but it contained only one edible nutrient bar and he scoffed it down as soon as he discovered it. His hunger combined with the tightness of the pod made his claustrophobia creep out of the cave he’d stuffed it into after years of mental work.

It had been born into his head when he was a kid, as most fears usually were. He remembered the day with vivid clarity. He was nine, just one more day to go until he hit the big ten. He lived a good long distance from Neruvana’s capital in an isolated part of what dad called ‘Nowhere Interesting’, running supplies to and from his house to the neighbouring villages while his sister tended to the solar panels and the generators with father. Dad had given him the weekend off, lucky birthday boy he was, and he had filled his free time satisfying a nearly deadly curiosity.

The solar farm was isolated, because most folk moved on to more safer places years ago, leaving many buildings and settlements to gather dust. Dad warned him not to enter any of those abandoned structures, but when Mike asked why, his answer was simple and frank: ‘Too dangerous’. The curious desire to explore, the desire inhabiting most children, died that day as Mike went ahead and did his exploring anyway despite father's wise counsel.

His adventures brought him to a small square building, flat and unremarkable, except for the glittering displays of jewellery behind the front display glass. The sight made a number with too many zeros pop into his head. With all of this, they wouldn’t have to live out in that sun-baked farm, but maybe go and live on a space station (that idea wouldn’t so be appealing years later) or maybe buy a house on that pretty planet called Earth.

Mike pushed against the unlocked door, a little bell dinging as he stepped through the entryway. Dust got everywhere on Neruvana, something his sister had to wipe away from the panels at least twelve times a day, but it seemed not to gather in this remarkable place. The interior was jam-packed with clean gems and ornate necklaces and masterfully-sculptured pots, all crammed together to make the room seem a lot smaller than it actually was. It was like the home of a pack rat, or a hoarder.

He squeezed through a narrow gap between all the glittering objects, pocketing a few sapphires and rubies as he went, his eyes wide with joy. Dad would be so proud, his sister too. She would look at him and call him the ‘biggests bestest brother’, and dad would call him a fine young man. They already did call him these things, but now they would really mean it, and he would be good enough to bear those titles.

At the far end of the shop, there was a small walk-in cabinet built into the corner. Inside the tight chamber was the biggest jewel he’d ever laid his eyes on. It was as big as a puppy, a sky-blue shade, and he could see his young reflection staring back at him on its translucent surface, an expression of wonder on his face. He approached slowly, as if the jewel would react to the slightest movement. All he had to do was reach out and grab it, bring it back to father, who would sell it to the highest bidder, and they would be away. The thought of why anyone would leave any of this stuff behind never crossed his naïve and stupid mind.

The fantasy of living on Earth never came true. As his fingers brushed the jewel’s surface, he expected its texture to be smooth and perfect, just at it looked to be. Instead, his fingers brushed against what felt like Velcro, and he pulled his arm away like he’d touched a hot stove. At the same time, alarms from the hidden overhead speakers blasted a horrible tune into his ears (that same tune should have been playing on the Arden but had not) and he flinched in surprise. In that reaction, he knocked his arm against the giant diamond and it rocked off of its pedestal and shattered onto the ground, where it broke apart into a million pieces.

An unseen door, hidden above and behind him, slammed down into the doorway, and Mike was swallowed in darkness. He whirled around and felt for the door, his ears going deaf from the alarms, knocking over stands and cases in his panic, faintly hearing the glass smash and feeling the shards cut his legs open. He screamed for someone to help him, but not even the loudest voice could overcome the alarms raging on in the jewellery store.

He pounded the walls, thrashed against the small space, until he stopped screaming and started crying, falling onto his ass, landing on bits of the broken diamond, wrapping his arms across his knees and gripping his wrists. He remembered he couldn’t even move an inch without hitting a wall or some other object. He sobbed in the dark, deaf and feeling hopeless, for many hours. Hours that felt like days to Mike, whose world went from the brightest it had ever been to its darkest.

Sometime later (after the sun had gone down), he heard something disturbing the jewellery in the shop, causing Mike to rouse from the world of alarms and darkness. He called out again, but the only thing that left his mouth were small sobs and moans. Someone on the other side ripped the vault door open after a few desperate minutes of struggle, and Mike looked up into his dad’s chiselled face. He scooped Mike up in his arms, snot and tears running down his young features, and carried him out of that terrible place.

“D-Dad,” he began, forcing his explanation out between chokes and tears. “I was... I was just…”

“It’s alright,” his father assured, cradling him like he had when Mike was born. “All that stuff is all fake. Some horrible trap left by a terrible person. I got you, Mikey. It’s alright.”

Since then, he left things well enough alone, and lay those exploratory ambitions down to die. His cell on the Arden wasn’t as cramped as that shop, but the phobia still lingered in his body like slime running down the back of his conciousness. He closed his eyes and tried to shake the feeling away as the pod sailed closer to its destination.

2

The next day, the pod reached the planet’s orbit. It was a gold and yellow world, with two huge continents separated by a grand body of water, occasionally dotted by huge rocky isles. It wasn’t within any owned space according to the readings, but now that the pod was closer it began detecting weak signatures coming from one of the continent’s shorelines. He guessed there was some sort of interference planetside so the pod hadn’t been able to detect those spikes earlier.

He had no way to hail whoever was down there, but they were probably watching him enter orbit, so at least he wouldn’t arrive unannounced. He turned around and checked there were no other pods following him. He hoped whoever was down there wasn’t a part of the UEC, or else he’d have to explain why the Confederate prison ship he’d come from suddenly vanished into the void.

Plus he’d rather be a free man for a little while longer yet.

He engaged the automatic landing sequence, and clutched the arms of the chair as the pod made its rough entry. He noticed something strange about the planet – so far as he could see, there was absolutely no cloud cover, except for a massive cyclone far inland, whirling around in a clockwise motion, a great black ball of nothingness in its centre. Looking into that ball, he should have been able to see the surface, but instead there was pitch darkness, and an uneasy feeling washed over him. He wouldn’t pay it much mind now, though. His focus drifted to the crude descent.

The pod bucked and twirled as the sense of gravity was restored. At one point he was twisted upside down, watching the ground come down to meet him. Vertigo made his muscles constrict as the pod struggled to choose an orientation.

The pod breached the atmosphere and settled Mike upright with a sharp jerk. He was breathing hard as he approached the surface, his mind coming up with different images of his pod making a crash landing and killing him. He heard the thrusters kick into full reverse as the landing gear extended out, arming towards a canopy of vegetation overtaking the landscape. Mike caught a short glimpse of the cyclone, far away and as large as the mountains it sat between, and then it was gone, vanishing behind a healthy carpet of flora. The pod slowed to a crawl just before it could smash into the ground, and settled on the planet with a violent thump and a hiss.

Once the pod came to rest, Mike unbuckled, relishing in the feeling as the binds released, then came to a hunched stance so he didn’t hit his head on the overhang. He picked up the survival kit and clipped it to the waist of his burned and colourless jumpsuit. There was a breathing mask hanging by the hatch, in the case of an unbreathable atmosphere, and although he didn’t need it, the pod told him he might struggle for air every now and then, especially if he intended to walk long distances. He slung the mask straps over his shoulder, then grabbed his trusty shotgun.

After checking he had everything, he used his free hand to open the hatch. It opened like a mouth and ramped down to the ground, a few meters below, crushing red wildflowers under the steel. A fresh sea breeze whipped at his face and hair, a sensation he couldn't remember the last time he felt. He walked down the ramp and onto the soft blades of grass. His feet still bare, but at least not bleeding anymore.

Ahead of him was a wide view of a bronze, clear ocean, mirroring the colour of the cloudless sky. Two large suns hung high above, one right below the other, making his skin burn the moment he walked out into their rays. The pod had landed in a clearing between the white beach and the tropical forest that met it. Trees towered above, some as thick as houses, others as thin as straws, all packed together to form a blanket of shade Mike dashed for.

He took cover under a large orange leaf, and felt the shade cool his irritated skin immediately. Until he got used to this heat, he didn’t think he could stand directly in the sun’s path for very long. Wish I had some Banana Boat, he thought with a humourless smile. The kit had not contained any sunscreen.

Using the shade as much as he could, he worked his way toward the beach until his view was unobstructed. Crouching next to a thick brown trunk, which had two tiny millipedes crawling up the wood, he looked towards the south, where the pod had detected those signals. Sure enough, he could see many one-storey structures a fair way down the coast, next to a giant ship peeking over the upper lip of a canyon. It didn’t look like any UEC ship he recognised, but then again, he hadn’t exactly gotten out much in recent times. The structures looked vaguely organic, with a little bit of metal mixed in as well. Nothing like the clay homes of Neruvana, or the generic right-angled steel structures of Earth-design. There wasn't much difference between the buildings and the fauna, at least at this distance.

He knew the owners of these peculiar buildings were going to send teams out to meet him. The pod had landed him close, no more then a day’s travel out from those buildings. It was the best it could do given the fuel that remained. Mike decided he would not sit around, and instead try to meet them halfway.

He glanced back at the pod. He could activate the UEC distress beacon and hope for a rescue – the kind of rescue that would put him back in the hands of those who’d imprisoned him – or he could take his chances with the colony over there. The latter had the better odds, and after making sure he had everything, he plunged into the forest, shotgun first.

3

Sticking to the shade made the going very slow. Added to the fact that this world was undocumented yet teeming with alien life, Mike made every step careful and laboured. Still barefoot, he did not want to step on some alien bindi and reopen the wounds he’d acquired.

He had used what little was contained within the kit to clean and bind his cuts, giving himself some sort of crude foot wrappings. A box of matches remained, but he thought he could make it to those buildings before night came, at least he hoped he would. The wildlife seemed relatively tame so far – a calling bird here, a few scurrying critters there – but he thought it likely some of the bigger and nastier things would come sniffing out his scent after the sun went down.

A few hours went by. Overhead, hidden in the forest roof, animals cawed out pleasant melodies. He looked up but couldn’t spy the birds no matter how hard he looked. The density of leaves made it so he couldn’t see five meters in any direction at most times. The jungle held a velvety sort of appearance, its colours mostly varying from solid gold to a deep tan.

Traces of bacteria had been discovered outside of the Sol system many years ago, before he was even born, so Mike was not so awe-struck as those first explorers had been to witness extraterrestrial life. Still, he was more than a little weary, terrified even, of staying out here any longer than he had to.

He grew hungry. Meals had been light on the Arden, and although he didn’t know it right now he was surrounded by edible plant life. He ignored his stomach as best he could – holding onto the hope that whoever lived in that colony would have food for him. Mike kept the coast within view as much as he could, but the further south he went, rolling hills shaped like giant upside-down V’s obscured his already hampered vision of the ocean. He had to hike over ever-increasing slopes onto the top of shadeless hills to keep his sense of direction. Heat baked off his skin whenever he ventured into the sunlight, and sweat dripped off him like waterfalls as he made delicate progress. Not that he was an unfit man, but he’d definitely let himself go during his time on the Arden. All the wallowing and the processed meals had whittled him down to nothing but skin and bone, and already he was feeling exhausted.

Mike came across a stream no wider than a car and ankle-deep. At first he thought it was an illusion born from fatigue. It trickled between two hills leading out to the ocean on his left, the sound of running water as pleasant as the birds singing above him. He came up to the stream and dropped his knees into the water, more out of exhaustion than relief, and placed the shotgun on the sand bank. He cupped his hands into a bowl-shape, then dipped them into the crystal-clear water. He could not tell the difference between good water and foul, but he was too desperate to reconsider.

His fingers brushed against little red coral-like plants growing along the bottom of the stream, waving in the strong current like small flags. He brought the water to his lips, hesitated, then dipped his head and took in a mouthful. The liquid had an almost herbal taste, and some of the beads of water felt harder than others, like he’d swallowed balls of gel. He swallowed. After he did, he waited, one eye suspiciously open, waiting for some sort of horrible reaction that never came.

Mike realised drinking alien water was probably a really stupid idea, but it seemed fine, and his throat begged him for more, so he scooped a dozen more mouthfuls until his dehydration, and even a degree of his hunger, subsided. Water dribbled down his chin as he looked up and sighed.

Sitting there with his knees in the water was the first instance he felt the sensation of just being… free. And that he might not be screwed over in the coming days, all thanks to that massive nightmare-born creature. Sure, the colonists may or may not turn him in, but right now he was alive, and the sea-breeze felt good on his face.

Then he felt something else as well, the feeling of something watching him. It was an intuitive instinct he’d gotten after spending years watching his own back before and during the Arden. He heard very light and careful thuds, spaced out by a couple of seconds each time. It had to be footsteps, and very big ones if it could make that much noise.

He whipped around, still on his knees, one hand inching for his weapon. There was nothing out of the ordinary – gold leaves, yellow branches, greenery mixed in to form a vibrant, almost glittering tropical landscape.

The footsteps receded, and he pressed on, picking up his gear and crossing the stream. He gave his feet a quick clean before hurrying off. Whatever it was, it might have seen him emerge from the pod, attracted by the sonic booms it made upon entry. Mike guessed it could be smelling the blood on his jumpsuit, or perhaps was tracking him with the stench of a man who had climbed a mound of corpses and had not washed since.

After a few hours more he started to smell something himself. It punctured the light, clean air like a knife – foul and unpleasant, just like it had been back on the ship. He came to a stop, his chest stiffening as a thud not too far behind him sounded off. There was a scorch mark on the trunk of a tree, a black spot that hit the crook between trunk and branch. He thought it may have been the result of a weapon’s discharge. He brought his face up to the spot to examine it, then turned around and followed an imaginary bullet line.

His eyes settled on a large pond nearby. He inched toward it, the stench getting stronger as he did. Unlike the previous stream, the water here was grey and polluted, like the aftermath of a crashed ocean-liner that’d spilt all of its fuel. But instead of fuel drums bobbing in the water’s surface, this pond was occupied by a lone body right in the epicentre.

It drifted steadily along in the shallows, face down and still. The body was completely encased in a suit that hugged its slim occupant. Mike set his shotgun against a tree, checked around for any movement, and waded into the knee-deep water. The grey texture within the liquid was thick as mustard, and it fought against his wading steps. He grabbed the body by the shoulders. The corpse was very light despite appearances. Mike pulled it onto dry land and as he reached the banks, he heard a branch snap, somewhere out of sight and off to the left. He stopped to look only for a moment before setting the body down against the tree trunk.

The body looked male, but that was all he could identify. Its face, torso, and legs were completely encased in a black suit decorated with runes he couldn’t read, and symbols of animals and crafts and other unidentifiable shapes that reminded him of ancient cave paintings. The body's legs ended in four stubs rather than Mike's own five toes – two on the front side, two more on the back. A little bit like hooves. It was the same with the hands – four digits separated into parallel pairs, ending in small reptilian nails, gloved and stiff. The head was completely covered with a visor that reflected his own ragged image.

So the Suvelians are here, he thought.

Mike wasn’t sure how he felt about this. On one hand, they would have no idea he was an escaped convict, at least until Mike open his mouth, but on the other – his whole body screamed this fact out. A jumpsuit too ripped to be considered clothing, blood all over it, not to mention his burned skin that hadn't been properly treated.

He noticed a wound on the Suvelian’s side, where the dark blood exited his internals. Mike’s eyes widened as it wasn’t blood seeping out, but oil. An oil he was too familiar with to mistake for anything else.

It’s here, he thought, standing up and grabbing his weapon. The Leviathan’s followed me. Maybe not that massive thing itself, but maybe one of its minions, who happened upon this poor sod and ate his body out like they did to Jack.

He didn’t think he could have explained these oily aliens to other humans even if he had all the time in the world. They probably would have laughed and said that Mike would be the last person they’d believe in the entire Milky Way.

But to the Suvelians? Those aliens had nothing but hate for humans, or so the rumours told. Whatever happened on First Contact was long before Mike was born, but it was obvious it wasn’t all Hello’s and How Do You Do’s. There had been no wars, but the Suvelians and the UEC avoided one another like old rivals for reasons only the political and well-connected knew.

Mike guessed his chances of leaving this world scott-free were now a little slimmer. He made a mental note of where this pond was – maybe they would appreciate him finding a fallen comrade, or more likely blame him for his death. Unless there was some other native creature that used oil as a catalyst, he had good reason to believe he knew what had killed this alien. Was it the same thing making those thuds?

He didn't stick around to find out, and kept moving.

The creature following Mike revealed itself when the sky went pink, and one of the two suns disappeared behind the horizon, darkening the world into the tipping point of dusk. The drop in temperature was surprisingly large. Just beyond the forest walls Mike could see a white haze of light pollution ahead of him, and judging by the sounds of machines and construction, he knew he had to be close now.

There was one other noise as well. Like the backdrop chorus of some dramatic opera rising to its climax but never quite reaching it. Male and female voices joining together to form a sweet din that ran through him like liquor. He didn't know how these aliens could work construction all day with that sound so close to them. But he would find out later that the Suvelians didn't live near the sound – they were the sound.

He knocked off a few branches and hunkered down to light up a campfire using one of his matches from the survival kit. Phobia's usually worked into the brain over a period of time, but it seemed he was incapable of making anything bigger than a pitiful spark lest his mind wander back to his cell, where he'd cowered before those flicking, deadly tendrils of flame.

“Always been a coward,” he said to himself, raising his hands up to warm his skin. His eyes looked just a bit darker as he brooded on himself.

Sighing, he got up and made ready to hike the rest of the way to the colony. Just after he stamped out his campfire, he felt a rush of wind on his back, and it wasn’t the breeze of the sea.

The gust reversed in its current, pulling itself away as something was taking in a huge lungful of air. Mike turned around with agonising slowness to face whatever thing that had been following him. The foliage surrounding him ruffled idly, but he didn’t see anything there.

He was considering it was all just him imagining things, when a careful squint into the walls of tan revealed a serpentine shape not two meters beside him. Two plumes of smoke rose out of circular divots, and what he mistook for a peculiar shape in the flora, was actually two cavernous nostrils wafting in and out with each breath of the creatures mighty lungs.

The long head was connected to a serpentine body camouflaged well within the forest around it. Those giant leaves above were actually massive bat-wings protruding from the beast’s spine. Curled up around its back legs was a thick tail that ended in a pointed arrow-head shape, twitching in predatory anticipation.

He had never seen one before, but had heard talk of the dracon’s – as real as the myths and legends of Earth depicted them as. But he, like most others, thought they were only impossible legends too extraordinary to be true.

Mike held his breath and blinked, the momentary cut in vision made him have to refocus again to make out the dracon’s reptillian shape. It almost seemed to melt into the environment, the way it stood so very still. He wondered for a moment if it had always been this close ever since he landed.

His hands slowly brought his shotgun to bear. The bronze dracon snarled, the sound a combination of a great predator's growl and the hiss of a snake, but otherwise didn’t react. He did not break eye-contact, afraid that if he did, the beast would pounce and kill him.

Apart from the occasional breath from the dracon, and the choir chant coming from up ahead, all else was silent as man and beast stared the other down. The chirps of the birds was absent, like they had seen this confrontation coming and had swiftly vacated the area.

Mike brought his left foot back, as slow as he could, without darting his eyes away. He grit his teeth when his heel backed into a branch, and the wood splitting rivalled that of an explosion.

The dracon lowered one wing and snarled again, and Mike took this as a sign that the jig was up, and pulled the trigger.

Unlike the creatures on the Arden, this dracon was flesh and bone, and red blood flew in a mist as the creature retreated, roaring in pain and staggering back into the cover of the forest.

Mike fell into a sprint and ran like hell, his breaths akin to that of a steam engine. He vaulted over a fallen log and stole a glance behind him, saw the dracon galloping a dozen meters behind him, but that was a dozen meters closer than he liked, and he fired another shot at the creature, raising the shotgun with one hand without slowing down.

The buckshot cone went wild and kissed a branch, cutting it neatly in half and sending it falling. The dracon brushed the entire tree away with a smack its injured head. There was blood on its lip and two drips were trailing down its scaly chin.

The dracon leapt through the forest after him, tearing through chunks of greenery that would have taken Mike minutes to navigate. His body ached all over, and it didn’t help that in his haste he was reopening all the scabs on the balls of his feet. The only advantage he had was that the dracon itself wasn’t immune to the sun’s oppressive rays, and given its massive body it tried to stick to the shade as much as Mike did, its dexterous frame shuffling out and around the dying light, hissing when it was impossible to avoid.

If night came, this slight one-up on the beast would be gone, but Mike didn’t think he would make it for that long. It was a fact he accepted right after he tripped on a bulky tree root, falling face-first onto a mattress of dead leaves. He got to his feet, hands scrambling for purchase, hearing the thundering beats of the dracon close in on him from behind.

In his rush to rise he fell to the ground again as a sharp rock caught his foot, and he cursed out loud as he went sprawling.

He turned his gaze upward and saw the dracon pounding towards him, huge teeth ready to cut him to ribbons. Mike fumbled for the shotgun pump. He thought he could survive its mauling for a few more moments to prolong his life, but seeing those big white fangs inside its mouth made him feel very small. It would chomp and tear, and it would not be a quick death as he had always hoped it would end.

The dracon came to him and reared on its hind legs. Then brought its jaws down upon him. When they were close enough that Mike could feel the heat radiating off them, a purple bolt of energy fired from somewhere and struck the place between the dracon’s maw and the neck, pushing the dracon off balance so that its long head crashed an inch away to Mike’s left.

For one long moment, he looked into the crimson eye of the beast, so red and flawless like those jewels in that abandoned store had been. It stared right back at him, fierce eyes locking him into place. Mike heard voices, and an electronic Brrp~! sound as a plasma weapon charged up and fired, the bolt sailing over his head and knocking against the roots the dracon was splayed on.

Mike scrambled away as the beast roared and got to its legs. He saw two figures in his furious crawl, one holding a plasma rifle, the other armed with what looked like a cattle-prod. They emerge dfrom the forest and cried out in a foreign language. The one with the prod held it like a bat and struck the dracon’s tail, and the beast roared again, but this time it sounded more of a pained whine than a furious snarl.

It began to back away. The one with the rifle fired again but missed, the green energy bolt going wide, but still scaring the dracon into retreating. The dracon whipped its tail up and warded off the prod-wielder with little snaps in the alien’s direction.

The dracon gave one last bellow that echoed for many kilometres around, then turned tail and delved into the forest until it disappeared. All that could be seen of it was the disturbance it made from the trees high above the forest floor. When the dust it kicked up began to settle, Mike sighed and laughed, rising to his feet and saying, “Oh man! Am I glad to see you guys!”

He was alone in his good spirits, as the one with the prod approached him, holding his weapon out and aiming it at Mike’s chest, close enough that he could feel the energy radiating from the baton. From his free hand the figure produced a pair of what clearly resembled restraints. Mike looked at them and offered a frown.

“Woah, hey,” he said, and started backing up. “Waitaminute just-” He bumped into something metallic and stopped. It was the muzzle of a gun barrel, and he looked at its owner from over his shoulder. Mike raised his hands and the one with the cattle-prod snarled out an order:

“Drop it, human!”

“Drop what?” Then he realised he had never let go of his shotgun. With a mental oh, he did as commanded. The weapon bounced twice on the ground and came to rest propped up against a tree root. His hands were pulled roughly together behind him, and he heard a whirr of mechanical gears as the one with the prod restrained his wrists together with a tight magnetic pull.

The one with the plasma weapon came forward. The Suvelian wore a pale grey suit covered in symbols, a little similar to the one he found in that lake. She, he could tell it was a she by the curves, bent over and gripped the shotgun with her alien hands, struggling at first to wrap her fingers around the handle designed for human hands. A moment later she found a suitable grip and held it by her hip.

The one restraining Mike tightened the cuffs hard enough that they dug into his wrists and he struggled against them. “Come on, I haven’t done anything!”

“Keep resisting and something will happen,” the alien cuffing him hissed.

“Enough,” someone said, who came into Mike’s view a second after speaking. Alien Number Three was taller than the other two, and more heavily built. His suit was a blood-red colour, and the runes and decorations covering it told Mike that this had to be the leader of the group. He placed the plasma gun in his hands onto his back, waited for the mag-locks to attach the weapon behind him, and looked Mike up and down.

“This really necessary?” Mike asked, but he knew that it was, at least a little. The leader ignored his question, coming close and giving he sleeve of his jumpsuit an experimental tug.

“Who are you?” Alien Number Three asked, nice and slow, and Mike didn’t have to see his face to know this guy wasn’t exactly happy to see him. Mike swallowed a lump in his throat and replied.

“Name’s Mike. Pleased to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s all yours, human. Are you from the UEC?”

Mike huffed as if that question was deeply offending. “Yeah, nah. Reckon I hate the Confederacy as much as you lot do.”

“He’s lying, sir,” the one restraining him said. “It’s what humans are known for.” His suit was decorated too, but not as heavily or as dense, and the colour was blander too. He tightened the cuffs some more, and now Mike's wrists started to go numb. If the leader saw Mike’s discomfort, he did not seem to show it.

The lead Suvelian looked from Mike to the other two, then back to Mike again. “Maybe he is, maybe he’s not. We’ll find out soon enough. Come with us quietly, human, or we’ll have to knock you out and drag you. We are fine going either way. You understand me, no?”

The words sounded foreign and alien, but not the tone – Mike knew disgust when he heard it. He shrugged, the movement putting the one restraining him on guard some more. “Sure. Lead the way,” he said.

“Move out.” The leader took point, and the other two grabbed an elbow each and ushered Mike after him. Soon after, Mike was pushed into an alien colony that was devoid of – and certainly not expecting – human company.

And then in an ironic twist of fate, Mike was slammed into a prison cell.

Chapter 3

Guider

1

The Golden World. That was the title Hierarch Dashon had given this planet, and like most of her people, she thought it was a wise term. But now that she was here, in its orbit, gazing upon the world that would harbor what remained of her entire race, Panthea filled her with a deep sense of anxiety rather than serenity.

It was beautiful, with its orange deserts, yellow forests and rosy plains. It rotated around a pair of blue suns, making the days a little hotter and longer then what any were used to. Panthea’s system was far enough away from the UEC borders that the humans would not bother them, at least for a while, and the natural resources were in abundance. Yet for all its perfections, one terrible blemish stained the surface, the source of her prior mentioned dread.

It sat perfectly on the equator, many leagues inland on the western continent. Her heightened perception traced its cloudy borders and noted they were pulsing, expanding. Most cyclones grew over time, but she didn’t think this was like ‘most cyclones’. Panthea had a cloudless atmosphere, and she remembered someone saying that that was an unusual but unexciting variable.

But between the Ulnosh’s launch and its arrival, this mass of storm clouds had appeared from nowhere, a dull smudge on a painter’s clean canvas, staining the world in a dark splotch of swirling grey clouds.

It’s just natural, she told herself. But the probes sent out pre-expedition had brought back images of a perfectly healthy world, clouds included, and their technology was top of the line, better than the humans, anyway. Her mind could be right – nature was a grand, mysterious thing that did what it wanted. Environmental phenomena happened all the time, even back on Suvelia, according to old Izark. He claimed that storms there grew as big as cities. But to wipe the entire globe of clouds so she could see every bit of landmass from orbit? A cord deep within her body told her this wasn’t nature at work, but something else…

“Did you hear me, Lolanne?”

She jumped and looked over her shoulder. A Suvelian a head taller than her was standing in the doorframe. Entire novels worth of great battles and greater feats etched all across his crimson suit’s chest and arms. She could see his kind, blue eyes watching her through his faceplate.

“Mentor! Sorry, I was just…”

Hands behind his back, Raan came and joined her side. Together they stared up at the screen displaying Panthea, silent for a long while, him drinking in the view, Lolanne secretly spitting it back out. Raan let out a relaxed sigh and nodded.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

She rubbed her hands together nervously. If he had asked her that question, back when they were many lightyears away from Panthea, watching images instead of the real thing, she would have said yes. Now though, as she peered into the pitch blackness of the eye of that cyclone, she wasn’t so sure it was beautiful anymore.

She was about to look away when she saw movement within that oily storm’s eye. Although the ship was far from the planet's orbit, she saw something glint down there, something metal that sparked with what little sunlight penetrated the stormwalls. Redness flashed down there, blinking like a light, and shifted position, as if to get into a more comfortable spot.

Then she blinked, and when her eyes opened, the movement and colour was gone. She saw nothing within the eye, and assumed her vision had tricked her. Never before in her life had her eyes betrayed her, but that didn’t stop her from strengthening that excuse, because how could anyone, even the most adept marksmen, see something move on a planet’s surface without being on the ground? She was just being paranoid once again. That was all.

“It is, sir,” she lied, her voice as level as she could make it. Raan seemed to buy it, gestured up at the screen.

“With those two suns, Panthea is sure to give us a warm welcome, don't you think?” Her Mentor indicated to the twin suns in the centre of the system, both massive orbs of pure swirling blue, like spheres of water.

“It’ll be better than space stations,” she agreed. Even thoroughly encased in the suit, living in orbiting vessels felt like living inside a cold coffin.

“Nothing could ever replace Suvelia, but it is a good start.” Raan’s excitement radiated off him, and Lolanne would have agreed further, had it not been for that dark cyclone, of course. Does he not see it? she thought. Or is he just pretending it’s not there? She wanted to point it out, but the words caught in her mouth, unsure how she should start. Before she could muster the courage Raan turned on his heel and said:

“The rest of the Guiders are waiting for us, Lolanne. Don’t want to keep them waiting any longer, no?”

“N-No sir,” she said, catching up with him, taking one last glance at the planet. Late as they were, Lolanne had gone ahead and gotten herself distracted. It had been in the corner of her eye, just a few minutes ago when they rounded a fork in the hall. She had gone up to the screen and stared up at the planet, her expression one of stupid wonder. Likely they’d just been in the middle of a conversation, then the cyclone had stolen all her attention.

But Raan seemed to interpret this as innocent admiration, nothing more. She wanted to tell him of her worry, but he had already rushed on ahead to meet up with the team, and couldn’t get a word in before they arrived at their destination.

The room was occupied by a long table in the centre. Surrounding it, two on each side, and one at the head spot, were five Suvelians with varying decorations on their suits. The one at the head of the table stopped mid-sentence and looked up at Raan and Lolanne, his suit as golden as the planet she’d just been looking at.

“Guider Raan, what took you so long?” Shipmaster Terlus said, his voice tempered between patience and anger. Lolanne was about to explain but Raan beat her to it.

“Shipmaster, you know that after fifteen years in Cryosleep, one of us is bound to get sick. Lolanne here helped me replace my filters. We all know how long that takes.”

“I presume you’re well enough to deploy?”

“Of course, sir.” Raan took the spot to the right of Terlus. Lolanne stood at the rear of the table, wondering why Raan covered for her. Sure, Raan’s story could be true, but he forgot about the part where Lolanne goggled at Panthea for a few minutes. Raan had done this sort of thing before, vouching for her sub-par skills, mentoring her when no one else would. And yet after all these years she still didn’t know why that was.

“You sound worried, Shipmaster,” Selen said. She was standing to Lolanne’s left, the only other female present. Just before she said this, she gave Lolanne a friendly nod. Rumour on the ship was that Selen had been in charge of a commando outfit before becoming a Guider. Lolanne liked her very much.

“That’s because I am.” Terlus nodded. “A few systems back, we were supposed to meet up with a freighter so we could refuel. We waited longer than I was comfortable with, and now we’re at risk of drifting out here.”

“Teaches us to put our faith in humans,” Karto said. He stood to Lolanne’s right. “The UEC is unreliable, they’re too focused on expanding their territory and influence to care about us.”

“These weren’t UEC, Karto,” Terlus explained. “Independent traders from some newly cropped up settlement. The Hub, I think they called it.”

“Still humans, though.”

“Even so, when we got to the meeting point, we found traces of fuel consumption. They had been there, no doubt about it. But as for the freighter, well, it was nowhere to be seen.”

“Maybe they got nervous,” Izark said. He was in between Selen and Terlus. Izark was approaching his eightieth cycle in the Milky Way, and had been a Guider for just as long. He and Karto were cousins. “This deep into the Outer Reaches? It’s a long way for a freighter.”

“Have we checked the long-range scanners?” Kasin asked. He was the last Guider to join up, at least before Lolanne took that title. He had been enlisted after he saved a crashing ship when the pilot had a suit malfunction, a Proving that put Lolanne and many others in awe of him. “Surely we could pick up their signal and ask, rather than speculate?”

Terlus shook his head. “That’s the thing, the frieghter is gone. No hails, no distress calls, nothing. I’ve already sent word of this phenomenon to the Hierarch, who should arrive here within the cycle’s end, if all goes well. Until then, we’ve got a dire situation on our hands, and just enough fuel to make one attempt at this. So listen well.”

Terlus splayed both hands on the table. Its entire top displayed a geographical map of Panthea’s surface. “Colony site is here.” Terlus pointed at the epicentre of the map, where a U-shaped mountain ringed around a flat stretch of land. “A tricky spot to land, but the terrain will shield the ship from the elements in the cycles to come.”

It was the best spot scientists agreed upon when they poured over potential sites many cycles ago. It was smack right alongside the eastern coast, where the imagination depicted ocean liners trading goods with other future colonies. North of the site lay a river cutting though the continent right down the middle of the map, leading east and off the hologram. North of that there were rainforests and rolling hills and endless patterns of meadows. In the southern half of the continent were swamps and marsh that stretched southward and eventually turned into vast arid plains. Mountains littered the countryside, giving the south a jagged look on the projection map.

All this life came to an end in the western section of the map. Bogs and wide lakes abruptly ended as the holographic terrain began to be concealed below a swirling, anti-clockwise formation of clouds. The cyclone’s eye was black, but nothing was shining within it, like Lolanne had seen a few minutes ago. Although the top-down view couldn't show what lay below that mass, her mind’s eye showed her nothing but ash and decay.

Again, she wanted to point it out, ask the other Guiders their thoughts, but could not bring herself to do it. It was as if Terlus and Raan and everyone else ignored that part of the hologram, which just so happened to be closest to Lolanne’s position. She kept her peace as Terlus explained the plan. None of them consulted her, but she was used to that. She had not scraped by training to be immediately recognised and her own take on situations to be put into note, because she did not have her own take, and didn't have the will to voice it to so many people at once.

All she knew was that the storm to the west was just… wrong. Saying something like that out loud would make her look more clueless than she already did. And so just like her father advised when the opportunity to become a Guider had presented itself, she just went along with it. But then again, she thought that that sort of passiveness never got anyone far, did it?

2

The shuttle craft shook and rumbled through the air as it made a steady descent towards the surface. Not even in the simulations had Lolanne felt such violent turbulence, but this was after her all her first true taste of an actual world.

The pilot of the craft spoke his concern of the weather to her and the shared commlinks between all the Guiders present, but that was as far as that topic went. She looked to her left, to Selen and Kasin sitting beside her on this side of the compartment. They hid their emotions well, like most do after many past landings such as this one. Lolanne didn’t think she could feel more out of her depth then she already was.

Lolanne looked to her right, to the small square-shaped screen built on the sliding door next to her. Out there, beyond the rocky canyons and endless vegetation, the storm clouds of the cyclone raged on, growing bigger each moment the craft sailed in its general direction.

“This reminds me of the time I had to Guide back on Jutak III,” Izark began, breaking the silence that had come ever since they’d departed the Ulnosh. He spoke to no one in particular.

“This isn’t another one of your ‘story times’ is it, cousin?” Karto had a faint smile in his voice.

“You younglings would do well to listen to the old guard like me. Some of us even lived through Suvelia’s invasion, terrible as the memory is.”

That last bit struck a pained chord shared between all present. Lolanne struck out on a confident urge of curiosity and asked, without breaking eye contact with the cyclone; “What happened on Jutak III?”

Everyone, including Raan, shared a collective groan.

“Ah, the new recruit has more wisdom than you, Karto!” Izark said. His cousin shook his head. “It was about… forty cycles ago. I was studying the movements of the local fauna and… Could you all do me a favour and at the very least pretend you’re listening?”

Lolanne swore she spied movement deep inside the storm again, so she was only half-listening at this point. She wasn’t alone in that state.

Izark continued. “Well, to put it all into one simple lesson I learned, it’s that you follow those instincts you were born with. That’s not to say just act on impulse, every action needs some sort of plan, but-”

That was as far as the old Guider got before there was a deafening bang and a flash of light. Lolanne was the only one looking beyond the shuttle, and thus was the only one to see the blue streak of lightning smash against the shuttle. The craft tipped to the left at a huge angle, causing everyone inside to shift in their harnesses.

“Saduun!” Raan yelled, unbuckling himself and staggering to the forward cockpit, where traces of smoke were billowing out. The rest of the Guiders watched him disappear.

“The pilot?” Selen asked through the commlink.

“He’s out! Get out of here, all of you! Meet up at the Site!” Lolanne saw through the blast door Raan leaning over the chair, where a knocked-out pilot sat unconscious, dangling in his seat like a doll.

Selen punched a panel on the wall, and the doors on either side of the compartment slid back, letting the violent outside air sough through the craft. The Guiders did as ordered, and one-by-one undid their harnesses, loose straps rippling in the gale.

Another bolt of lightning arced across the sky and struck one of the shuttles backward-angled wings. An engine exploded, and an aura of red flashed across Lolanne’s view. The explosion was so destructive it sent Selen and Izark to the floor, scrambling to find a grip. Lolanne stopped unbuckling herself and caught Selen on the wrist before the older Guider could slip out into free-fall. The ship seemed to be speeding up when it eventually evened out.

Karto likewise dove for Izark, but the old Suvelian was just out of his reach. Izark tumbled out of the shuttle, doing back-flips in mid-air as he disappeared from view and sank towards the surface, not even so much as screaming as he went.

Karto, however, did scream, and stood up, keeping his feet steady as the shuttle dipped and twisted, losing altitude fast. Lolanne watched Karto exit the craft in a much more controlled dive, arms and legs out. Lolanne just spied him angle his body to follow after Izark. Kasin jumped right down after him a moment later.

Selen stood up with Lolanne’s support. The latter unbuckled, and together they went and stood at the craft’s open threshold. Lolanne looked down at the ground coming up to meet them. Grassy fields and tropical blankets rolled below them like a slideshow at a speed that made her dizzy.

“Don’t hesitate now, Lolanne!” Selen said. She had an encouraging hand on Lolanne’s back.

“W-We’re going too fast!” she replied. She had never done a dive at nearly half the speed they were going now.

“A Guider is never afraid to jump,” the older female said, and did just that, soon becoming a speck that disappeared onto Panthea.

Lolanne clenched her fists and made to jump, but at the last moment brought her body back. She twisted and wanted to yell out to Raan, but he was too busy controlling the shuttle, and her commlink didn’t appear to reach him. She held her breath and looked at the ground below, which was closer than a few hundred leagues now. She bounced on her heels, psyching herself up, then went to jump...

But pulled herself back at the last moment again. What kind of Guider am I? she thought, her fear keeping her in place. She was about to try her third attempt when she was more so forced out of the shuttle against her own will. Perhaps it was because of another lighting strike on the shuttle, or perhaps it was Raan dipping the shuttle on purpose and putting her off balance.

Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. She collapsed into free-fall, a feeling of great emptiness growing in her stomach and creeping up her chest as the presence of ground filtered away. Wind whipped past her visor, making a high-pitched whistling sound dance past her audio recievers as none of it penetrated her suit’s interior. She straightened out her body just as Raan had taught her, keeping her arms and legs out to form a slightly curved X shape with her lithe body.

Before getting onto the shuttle, her suit had been weighed down by a fuelled device called a para-jet. Small boosters erupted at her command on her tailbone and feet, little flicks of red flame coming out of the minuscule but powerful engines. They manipulated her descent with more precision than her body could provide.

In a few minutes she burned through enough fuel to fill up a small starship. These jets were only to be used in the direst of circumstances, given how expensive, dangerous and inefficient they were. Even through the advanced protections of her suit, she could still feel her body warming up as a ball of expended fuel encased her. Such a sensation had not been felt by any of her race naturally in forever.

Lolanne straightened up her form, so that her body wasn’t facing the ground. Feet first, she plunged at a controlled, but still uncomfortably fast, speed straight towards a clump of rigid hills coloured like ash.

Without her suit's absorbents, she would have broken her legs on the landing. In one instance she went from the air's mercy to the ground. She hit the summit of a hill, creating a deep divot and bouncing forwards, somersaulting erratically down the slope. Gravel smacked up against her visor, leaving little white scratches all around her peripheral.

Head over heels she tumbled, and would have continued to do so if not for the dead tree trunk she struck halfway down the hill. She crashed into the wood with her left leg, which then became squashed as her body sandwiched against it. She cried out in pain as she felt a few bones snap under her own weight.

Leg stuck at an awkward angle, she found herself wedged against the skinny tree, limbs splayed over a low hanging branch. She tried to sit herself up, but the pain in her leg forced her to stay still.

Looking around, Lolanne examined how weak the flora looked, and brought her hands together to smash against the side of the roots, which were spread out and into the ground like spaced out webs. The tree was so old and fragile the entire thing snapped at its base and tumbled away.

Her leg came free with a burst of pain, and Lolanne bit her lip to catch the scream coming from her throat. The broken tree rolled down the rest of the hill and stopped with a kick of dust and ash at the bottom. She reached an arm behind her and anchored herself into the ash.

Lolanne’s suit protected her for the most part, but looking down, she saw her foot was bending the wrong way compared to the other. She had seen much worse injuries before, but the sight still made her cringe away. There was a screen on her arm brace, and on its surface were several runes of the Suvelian language on the screen. She hovered a gloved finger over the left-most rune.

No need to psyche herself up for this one. She pressed a rune with her thumb and immediately the suit wrapping around her broken leg moved on its own accord. A wet crunch of flesh and bone, and another quick bolt of pain, the bones were set in their proper places. The suit administered a quick dose of stimulants to accelerate the healing.

She sat lying in the gravel as her foot ached and throbbed, waiting for the drugs to do their work. After she evened out her breathing, Lolanne blink-activated her commlink on the HUD. Static filled her helm and she said out loud, “Raan! Are you there? … Hello? Selen? Kasin? … Anyone?”

With a grunt she sat up and examined her surroundings. The Ashen Hills were surrounded by differing biomes, where vegetation met these dead hills and withered away from some unknown reason. She kept on calling out to her companions, but the commlink did not obey her, jammed by some powerful force that somehow disrupted Suvelian technology.

Her eyes turned westward, and she knew that the cyclone out there was responsible, despite being so far away, despite being just a part of the weather. Her heart began to speed up. I’m alone with that thing, she thought, then raised the comms one more time even though she knew how pointless that was.

She got up and walked east for a few paces, a slight limp in her step, then she turned and went the other way. She stopped where she started, by the withered roots, and cast her eyes up at the pink sky. A faint smoke trail was left in the shuttle’s wake, crossing like a dark ribbon across the featureless sky. Night would fall soon, she guessed in a few hours’ time.

Everyone’s gone, she thought, then slapped herself out of it. If she could live after jumping out of a crashing craft, then the others would too. She tried not to let the panic overcome her by thinking back to the time before the Ulnosh, at a not-so-distant memory of being freshly enlisted by Raan. You may find yourself alone out there. In the giant empty bowl called the Milky Way, it’s always a possibility. Even the slimmest chances have a way of occurring. I’ll teach you all how to survive with nothing but your hands.

So Raan had sent all the recruits out into the simulations deep in the station, where almost any environment could be replicated very accurately. Lolanne was the first to retire, lasting no longer than a day and a half out in those very accurate wilds. Even with all her studying, research and training. 

Lolanne thought at the time that would be it, that her enlistment was up because she had failed on the very first test. One other recruit lasted almost a week in that place, and had not bothered to hide his boasts. But Raan, in his infinite but poorly-placed wisdom, kept her along for the ride, and now here she was, stranded and without a clue of what to do.

You’re wrong, he’d said after she had declined his offers at first. You may not have lasted out there on your own, true, so do the opposite. Find someone to help you. Suvelians may have stood alone long ago, but not anymore. Our Unity is your best protection.

Find someone. She traced the smoke left by the shuttle. It led eastward in a giant horizontal circle before disappearing beneath a canopy of orange leaves and hills. She heard no explosion, so maybe Raan had managed to land the craft and survive, and if that was the case, he probably needed her help, and quick. This kind of optimism was alien to her, but she wasn’t going to wait and watch as the Ulnosh and all of its sleeping occupants slowly ran out of fuel in the darkening skies above. People were counting on them.

She swept northward, directly towards that smoke plumage. She descended the Ashen Hills (as she’d later call them), and stood at the place where the ash and bog met in a scheme of greys and greens. Steeling herself, she reached out a hand and plunged her way into the bog and took her first steps into Panthea’s wilderness.

3

The bog came to knee-depth, but despite this and the limp she'd acquired, she was nimble enough to stick to the most efficient paths. Saduun had blessed her with keen eyes and swift legs, but that was about all He had done for her. She prayed that Raan and the Guiders were still alive as she waded through water that slopped against her suit and gunked up her joints.

For once, she was glad Suvelian bodies were so fragile. The putrid slime clinging to her arms and legs looked to contain a hundred different diseases, almost all of which would have killed her on contact without the suit. She made a mental note to recommend naming this place the ‘Backwaters’ once the scholars mapped out this world, just to really stick it to this foul place.

She kept her comms open and called out for her team frequently, though shutting off her external speakers so as to not to disturb the stillness of the wilds. She tried raising Shipmaster Terlus as well, but again static was her only answer. Curious, she fingered the backside of her helmet for the receiver. Perhaps it simply needed some adjusting. After a moment her fingers couldn’t find the mechanical piece, instead feeling an empty hollow of where it should have been.

She cursed. She must have dropped it, or maybe it had come loose during her tumble back in the hills. Going back now would take too much time, assuming she’d even manage to find it. She would have to push on and hope one of the others was alive and had their own comms working.

She kept her strides long and deliberate, little ripples spreading out through the murky ponds from where she placed her feet, making archery targets on the surface. Although the place disgusted her, a small sense of exploration tuned out some of the stress eating away at her. What hidden wonders of life lived on this untouched world? She couldn't help but feel giddy at these prospects, despite the dire situation she was in. At least it provided a good distraction. Perhaps one day she could come out here and delve into the flora in more detail.

… Except these swamps. She’d leave that to someone else.

The bog stretched on in all directions, a grey and brown mess of bumps and puddles, swallowed up by encroaching darkness as the twin suns were ending their skyward journeys. Lolanne came across her first instance of local wildlife after an hour of slopping her way through the mud. She crouched behind the trunk of a tree, twisting her legs so she sank low until the swamp-water came up to her chest.

It was a long, fat thing with three legs, dunking its head in the bog and lapping up water greedily with a forked, black tongue, making slopping noises as it did. Its leathery hide was grey and black, spots and stripes patterning down its flanks. Lolanne cocked her head at it from her hiding place, running diagnostics through her HUD, storing the data on the creature for later use.

After a moment of analysing, Lolanne was about to edge around the creature when movement high up in the foliage capping the bog caught her attention. She barely caught the quick movement, which was more than could be said for the drinking creature.

An arachnoid beast launched from its perch high up in the stalks in eerie silence. It led its descent with three sword-shaped legs, attached to a globular central body. Slicing through the air, it landed right on the drinking creatures back, impaling its spine in three points all the way up to the arachnid’s bulbous knees.

Lolanne watched the one-sided brawl with growing interest. The surprise attacker shoved the first creatures head into the water, muffling its squeals. Teeth, hidden before, now revealed from the arachnid’s spherical torso. It chomped down into the now lifeless creature’s back, tearing away flesh and delving into the creature’s insides. Lolanne felt some pity for the dead creature, but it was common sense that one should never disturb undocumented wildlife, especially on this planet. To do otherwise was considered blasphemy.

Another arachnid entered her vision, this one wading through the bog on ground level. It was coming her way. She gripped the handle of her knife on her hip hard, her muscles tensing up. It may be blasphemy, but if it came down to your own life, exceptions could be made, though Lolanne would give up anything to not be known as the first Suvelian to take life on the homeworld.

The creature came right up to her, its long legs drifting across the water, standing well over two people tall. Impossibly small clusters of eyes regarded her with disinterest, and after brushing against her greave with a small kick, the arachnid went and joined its brethren’s feast.

She let out the breath she’d been holding and loosened the hold on her knife. The sounds of ripping flesh filled her sensors as she navigated away from the feeding grounds. She noticed four more of those arachnid creatures following her, high above and just lingering out of her sight, traversing from branch to branch. She guessed they had been following her ever since she began wading through the marsh, but had not attacked. They must be as curious about her as she was about them.

She ventured on for another hour, and night soon fell. Her vision was hampered but her visor kept the world partially illuminated in a sheet of blue. The ground continued to firm the further north she trekked, and with a final plop her boots came free of the marsh.

She sighed when she heard the river before she saw it. She remembered from the holo-map that river would lead east, right past the site. The river banks broke the dense roof of vegetation, and she stepped out onto the sand, she got a good look at the brilliant display of stars above.

Taking a moment to examine them, she spied the blue dot that was Suvelia, dull, but still there – just like the spirit of her people. Even seeing it at this distance made her chest swell up with emotions. She forced her eyes away, noticing a red haze staining the dusky sky to the east, and there was only one explanation for that crimson blanket.

Fire. It might have been the shuttle. Not might, was. Keeping the river on her left, she followed it up towards the haze at a jog. She couldn't quite shake the image of Raan's body lying still in the middle of the wreck, burnt and broken. Soon the haze in the sky revealed its source – a blaze of flame flickering just over a few more inclines.

She climbed up a steady rise in the terrain, her feet welcoming the spongy, but tough ground. Her suit helped kick-start each step with muffled electric revs, her frail body underneath needing any strength it could get to aid in a long run. Her own hot breath wafted hard back into her face. Although she was always a tad jealous of how the humans could walk around without body suits all the time, she couldn’t deny its usefulness. But still, she had many differing views – contradictions, her father would have said. It troubled her just how much her people had become overtly dependant on them. Some days she felt trapped behind all this alloy and glass. A barrier to the world, and not just in a physical sense. Although the suit was essential to prolonging her life, designed to perfection, and wasn’t cumbersome at all, it still just... bothered her how much of her life was relying on all the wires and circuits making up the insides of the suit.

But that would change. After all, the expedition wasn’t just to simply colonise, but change, as well. But one problem at a time, now, she reminded herself. She pushed up the hill that felt more and more like a mountain as the night dragged on and the flames cackled away. At last she came to the final crest and saw the entire top ridge was scarred by a long ribbon of burning destruction. A path a meter or two deep had been cleaved right through the earth by some heavy object.

The object, as she followed the trail with her eyes, was as she suspected. The shuttle was aflame, a scorched relic of a once sleek design. It had come to a stop dangerously close to the edge of a cliff. Nearby the wreck, leaning against a boulder, were two figures. Lolanne’s eyes lit up from behind her polarized visor and rushed over to them.

Raan was kneeling over the shuttle pilot, who had a nasty suit rupture running along his neck down to his arm. A little bit of force and it would peel away like a shirt, likely killing him within a minute.

“Lolanne!” Raan cried, seeing her approaching. “Thank Saduun you’re all right. I’ve been trying to contact you for hours.”

“My commlink’s broken,” she explained quickly. Her eyes swept across the site. “Where are the others?”

“I don’t know. You’re the first I’ve seen since the shuttle malfunctioned.” She let that last word ring through her. Malfunctioned? Had he not seen the lightning?

The pilot – Zakan, she remembered his name was – murmured something, but all that came out was a low and choked garble. Lolanne bent down to help but Raan pushed her away with his hand. His other arm was firmly clasping two sides of Zakan’s suit together, keeping his precious insides from being contaminated, if they weren’t already.

“No,” Raan barked “you have to do something else. Something much more important.”

“Raan, he’s choking…”

“-And will die if the Ulnosh doesn’t get down here soon.” Raan freed his communicator from his own helmet and passed tossed it to her. “Use this and tell the Shipmaster to get down here. Quickly now.”

“Sh-Shouldn’t you be doing this, sir?” She winced as the pilot let out a terrible cough. Lolanne and Terlus hadn’t spoken directly before, as she was identified as part of a team every time they were in the same room.

“This is no time for your nerves, no? Raise the Shipmaster! Now!”

She stuck the commlink receiver into the port on her helmet. She attempted to vox Terlus, but all she heard was static. She glanced down at Raan, who was typing on Zakan’s wrist-screen, and told him it wasn’t working.

“I’ll use my suit to boost the signal,” he said, and took her arm. At his touch, small veins of electricity fed in through the ports on his gloved fingers into her own suit. He was giving her power from his non-critical systems. “If I let go of his suit he will die, so just follow the Shipmasters advice, and remember the most important thing to trust in these moments.”

“And what's that?” But she knew what he would say.

“Your instincts.” And then Raan said no more. He nodded, then turned his attention back to the injured pilot. Lolanne began to argue against this decision, but Raan silenced her with a shake of the head. And then she understood that he was testing her, only this time it wasn't a simulation or for practice – at that moment, responsibility for thousands of lives had shifted onto her shoulders, and she was far from ready to take that burden.

Cycles ago Raan had asked her that very same question, that when things went wrong, would she be ready to act? Her answer then, was her answer now. The moment to prove herself.

She raised a hand and activated the comms once more. This time, static gave way to a voice, although it was faint in the background and caused both of the speakers to strain their ears to listen to one another.

“Guider Raan! At last. We lost contact with you moments after you entered orbit. What's going on down there?”

“Shipmaster,” she began. “It’s me, Lolanne. We have-”

“Lolanne? Is the Guider team safe? Why are you using Raan’s communicator? Ah, never mind that. Put Raan through to me.”

“I can’t, sir. He’s given me his communicator while he keeps our pilot alive. He was wounded in the crash. We need the Ulnosh down here if we’re going to save him.”

Terlus spoke to another person for a moment, his voice growing a little distant. Then he came back. “We’ve got a situation of our own. Our fuel reserves are reaching critical levels and we just spotted a massive signature on the long-range scanners.”

“The machines?” she asked.

“I don’t know, and I’m not risking them spotting us by staying in orbit any longer. Are you near the site?”

“Y-Yes.” She looked over the cliff and into the clearing far below. There were a few trees scattered about, perhaps there were creatures living down in the meadow, and in other more peaceful times the Guiders would have cleared them out by now. “I’m, uhm, on the western edge of it.”

“Good, we’ll follow your signal down.” There was a pause. “You haven’t Guided before, have you?”

She said she hadn’t.

“Well, Raan has, and since he picked you out of all the recruits, I’d guess you know the basics at least. We should be coming into view now, can you see us?”

She looked up and saw the dark outline of the colony ship spewing from the heavens, massive at first glance, but a perfect fit for the valley below, if only just. “Yes, yes I can” she said. “but Shipmaster, I… I’m scared, sir.” She didn’t want to admit it in front of Raan, in front of anyone really, and it came out a little awkwardly, but all the weight of the situation suddenly came down on her and she could not help blathering it out.

Terlus surprised her by barking a short laugh. “You’re scared? My ship is filled with millions of lives and we’ve just lost half our sensors by some sort of massive interference, and now I’m about to be Guided in by someone who hasn’t ever Guided before! I should have been wearing my brown suit!”

She let a smile creep across her lips at that. He had a fair point, even if it was just a ploy to get her to think about something else. In comparison, she was the one in the calmer position, although the pressure on her was just as intense.

“I'll keep our channel constantly open,” Terlus assured, sounding serious again. “Just look and listen. Keep your eyes on our landing gear, and for Saduun’s sake keep that fear contained. I’ll be right here with you, and my pilots are the best there is. You’ll be fine, we all will. Now tell me, how’s our approach? Are we in line?”

She switched from looking up to looking down, judging as best she could on the ship’s current trajectory. There was little room for error now. “Y-You need to move backwards.”

“We’re moving,” the shipmaster replied. The Ulnosh dipped south, its tail-end engines powering down a tad. She told him to stop when she thought it was the right distance. Realising she was giving Terlus of all people the orders filled her with a sense of leadership, and the fact he didn’t even question her was inspiring.

She told him to adjust to his port side. The ship did as she commanded, all the while descending with agonising slowness. It came low enough that the great engines actually made her slide a little backward with their force. She adjusted her footing and told them they were too close on this side. She was vaguely aware of Raan watching by her flank.

The ship descended so that the bridge came to her eye-level. It obstructed her view of the surface, and of the opposing cliff faces. Normally every Guider would be circling these sites to watch from all angles and keep in constant contact. Lolanne knew that if she had enough time she could have found a better position, perhaps to the south at a higher peak, and could have prevented disaster.

Lightning lit up the world in one sudden flash. Lolanne thought the freakish strike had crashed against the colony ship. Was it really coming from the cyclone’s storm? How? She had no time to think about these questions. The ship lowered to the most crucial level of elevation, and that was when she made her mistake. The Storm caught her eye with a sudden movement, its bulbous mass towering over the landscape like a giant monster. A shape was brewing within its clouds, something so terrible yet so entrancing. She wondered what sort of otherworldly force was morphing the weather to act so radically.

She snapped out of her stupor when she was aware of Terlus screaming in her ear. One minutely late reaction on her part caused the ships engines to dig into the jagged cliff faces on the southern end of the basin. She yelled for Terlus to adjust but it was already too late. The ship protrusions flattened against the rock faces and tipped the fragile balance of the oversized ship.

The ships frontside dipped forward and collided with the meadow below, digging its nose into the dirt and crushing the scattered trees sprinkled down there in the site. She heard Terlus shouting “Forward full power! Full power!” as she watched on helplessly. The Ulnosh tilted towards its left side to try and balance out.

The ground beneath her shook, sending her onto her back as the ship grounded against the cliff she stood upon. She heard metal carve up against rock, and saw the ship dig its own grave into Panthea. Her lips formed the word no over and over but no sound came out.

The Ulnosh bounced as emergency thrusters kicked in under the belly of the craft. It rose up and teetered mid-air, as if deciding whether to rock left or rock right. Then in a thundering crash settled down on the meadow floor, the underbelly crumpling and twisting under the gigantic pressure. The colony ship sunk a few more meters int the earth, then finally, the engines died away with a sunken whirr, moaning as if in defeat. Then all went still and silent.

Lolanne perched herself on the cliff like a gargoyle and peered down the site. The damage was not severe, but that didn’t stop her from assuming the worst. Cryosleep was still a fragile thing, and even the subtlest disturbances could cause significant trauma for the sleeper. Millions of people were still hibernating away, dreaming of this new world and the new life it would bring. They might be dead now, all because of her, all because of that damned storm’s lightning.

So much for proving myself, Lolanne thought, and felt tears spill down her cheeks.

Chapter 4

Colonise

1

Lolanne had always dreamed of traveling the stars, although she spent much of her early life in her families Archives, reading and learning about the world outside of the Shipyard – a collection of space stations lingering just beyond the Suvelia home world system, the last refuge for her kind. She’d thought life would stay that same monotonous course up until the day Raan had given her the opportunity she literally could not pass up. But a mundane life was a safe life, something she wished she had kept a hold onto now that the Ulnosh had crashed, and many lives were lost because of her.

They weren’t specific, Terlus and Raan, keeping her in the dark about the exact number of casualties from the crash. She guessed they thought it was for her own good, but she needed to know. She pried the rest of the crew for answers, who watched her walk by with faces full of pity, asking subtle questions in isolated places like ‘Are you alright?’, or offering her sympathies that only made her feel even more miserable. She eventually learned at least a dozen Suvelians in Cryosleep had died, and although that seemed like a small number, that was a dozen lives lost by her own foolishness.

She blamed herself, but she also blamed her father as well. He had pushed her into taking Raan’s offer to join his Guiders. She wasn’t ready, and he had to have known that too. Her brothers had been more empathetic, expressing their worries that she would become a part of a daunting process not even the most able could prepare for. Yet here she was, pushed into the position of Guider when it mattered most, and got twelve people killed, and many more wounded.

She spent the time after that day roaming the surrounding area with Selen, looking for any signs of Iztak, who was the only one not to have been accounted for yet. It had been just over a week since the shuttle crashed, and they were getting very worried. The long walks at least drained a little tension from Lolanne’s muscles, and she was glad for that, at least. It was strange and very different walking in non-artificial gravity, and now that urgency had died down for a little while, she could really stop and just relish the feeling of Panthea's core naturally tugging down on her shoulders.

“There was nothing more you could do,” Selen said after they stopped to rest. Lolanne sat on the riverbank and crossed her legs. The river would be called the Yilbarla river in time. Translated, that meant Bluelight, given how it looked during nightfall. Lolanne had tried to hide her wallowing, but Selen saw through it easily. She would have to work on that.

“Mm,” Lolanne replied, low enough that Selen almost didn’t hear it. This tragedy would be remembered as the first lives Panthea, or Lolanne, had taken. It made her feel sick.

“You did your best,” the older female continued. “That’s all we can ask from you. Look at it this way; you were helping Raan while the rest of us were busy unconscious or getting lost out in the woods.”

Selen put a hand on Lolanne’s shoulder. Lolanne thanked her for her words. Perhaps she was being too hard on herself, but the guilt was still there, lingering at the back of her thoughts, and she spoke little in the following hours despite the advise.

The dual-suns had very little impact on their shielded bodies, so they could walk freely about. They couldn’t find any tracks, or any sign that Iztak was even on the continent.

When dusk began to darken the horizon, Selen stopped again and said:  “We should be heading back. Iztak wouldn’t let Panthea take his life. He’s had too many Proving’s to let that happen.”

“You go on,” Lolanne said, looking out into the vegetation at something only she could see. “I’ll look around for a while longer.”

Selen knew when someone wanted to be left alone. Back when she and her family had their falling out, hadn’t she acted much the same way? It was unhealthy for the mind, but she nodded anyway, despite Raan’s orders to never be alone when out scouting the wilderness.

“Just make sure you’re back in the colony before long,” Selen said. “You going to be alright out here?”

“I’ll be fine,” Lolanne replied. Selen frowned at her tone, but didn’t pursue it. With a last farewell she made her way back east, her steps fading away into the surrounding woodland. A few faint leaves crunched under her boots, and then she was gone.

Lolanne watched the river flow by and thought about her own Proving. It was an age-old tradition for her people, that every Suvelian fulfills one great deed in order to show the people their worth to the Unity. It was a very important step in her life, one she’d yet to take.

It earned you a special place both in this world and the next. All her brothers had done their Proving’s, as they were older and much more experienced than she. Lolanne had thought that perhaps Panthea would give her a chance at a Proving, and had it not done so by putting the other Guiders aside and letting her bring the Ulnosh onto the planet?

Would an opportunity like that present itself again? She couldn’t be sure. Saduun had tested her and she had failed Him. Perhaps if she offered Him a prayer… But she had failed her very first task! What did that say about her?

She closed her eyes and prepared to offer up a word of apology, but stopped as her receivers picked up noises to her right, some distance downstream. Her attention snapped that way and she spotted four creatures racing through the water less than a league away, the six-legged animals kicking up explosions of water with each hasty stride.

These creatures were thin and arrow-like when you looked at them from a certain angle, giving them both a subtle camouflage and the ability to breeze through the heavy vegetation. Selen had been the first to encounter these things, sniffing at her unconscious body after she’d jettisoned from the damaged shuttle, and had called them Tubino. Zippers.

Behind the four Tubino came a fifth, charging over the distant incline. This one was much larger, and had a dark black hide rather than the Zippers usual musky yellow. Towering above and behind this creature, peaking over the forest roof like an ancient structure, was the cyclone, and from this angle it looked like the creatures had come right from its murky belly. That anomaly of nature had not stopped growing ever since the Suvelians had arrived. Lolanne guessed that before the years end, it would block out the entire sky if it kept this rate of growth up.

Eyes back on the Zippers, she noticed something odd about the way they ran straight at her. Zippers were high on Panthea’s food chain, but left the Suvelians well enough alone, a courtesy her kind likewise returned. They bounded across the river towards her as if being pursued by something. Lolanne squinted out at the fifth creature trailing the pack, running with stumbling feat and tripping over on the river rocks. The rest of the Zippers were much nimbler. She strained her eyes at this fifth Zipper, then realized it was no Zipper at all but something else entirely.

It stood on four legs rather than six, and even though it was hunched over, it still stood as tall as Lolanne. The pack was close enough now that she could hear their barks of distress. They had to have spotted her by now, but she guessed they must see her as a lesser threat than the thing following them. She got to her feet and moved to the right, out of the open bank and into the tree line. She crouched down inside a dense pocket of shrubs and waited, fingers resting on one of her pistol holsters.

The Zippers ran past, right over where she had been sitting moments ago. She counted two, three, then the fourth to pass her by, then held her breath as she waited for the fifth creature to come into view. Holding her breath was a habit she had yet to break (Her receivers could cut out all sound if she commanded). A few moments passed, then something splashed in the river, and the foreign creature stopped in the water adjacent to her position, forgetting for the time being its pursuit of the Zippers, and lifted its black head as if to sniff at the air, though Lolanne could see no nostrils on its skull-like face.

Lolanne looked over the strange creature, freezing up at how horrible it appeared. It was covered in an inky hide that swirled all over its body, like liquid filling up a bowl but never spilling over. Six eyes were on either side of its head, which scanned over the surrounding forest, including Lolanne’s hidden spot with deadly regard. Could it smell her, even through the suit? And if so, how? Her suit was a stealthy thing, completely encasing her odour, and was even built in with experimental stealth systems to mask her position, though she’d forgotten to activate them, and any movement now she was too afraid to make.

It took a long stride towards her direction, the beady eyes scanning across its wide peripheral. She could shoot it to drive it away, but she had seen how quick it was, and didn’t want to act until she was sure it would attack her. Killing wildlife, especially on this planet, would be just as bad as killing a fellow Suvelian, and she would follow Saduun’s laws to the absolute last moment. For what seemed like hours, the creature was content to sniff her out with unseen nostrils, inching closer and closer to where she hid.

It was close enough now that she could reach out of the ferns and touch it, though she dared not move. A low utterance of breath ghosted from between its disgusting teeth.

Her eyes were wide when she noticed that the breath was actually forming into a word.

A single word, over and over again. Lolanne had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming. The voice croaked it out with unmistakable malice. She had to strain herself to hear the word, but it was incomprehensible. She would hear the word again in time, but by then it would be far too late for much use.

As if shaking its mind clear, the creature shook its head, turned away and disappeared with a jump back after its original prey. She waited for well over ten minutes to make sure it was far enough away before emerging back onto the bank with a long exhale.

That thing had looked so out of place amongst the life she’d seen on Panthea. Deadly and intelligent and, for lack of a better word, foreign. Not to mention it could speak, let alone looking just so... wrong. Wrong in the same way that cyclone over there was – alien and unnatural. It did not belong here, she just couldn’t put it any other way.

Or maybe she was the one who didn’t belong here. She brooded on this with ever-growing paranoia as she walked back to the colony. She’d always been the skittish little sister, but now she was jumping at every shadow. Maybe she’d just imagined that whole encounter. It wouldn’t be the first time she over-thought a situation.

She met back up with the rest of the Guiders. Kasin and Karto had also gone out in search together, but they found no sign of Iztak either. Karto was the most bothered, of course – family was all they had after Suvelia had fallen. Word was difficult to send back to the Battlefleet Quin-Talash, the Suvelian space fleet acting as the last bastion of force for their entire race, to inform Iztak’s family. There was so much heavy interference blanketing the entire planet. Engineers were hard at work reestablishing solid communications, but until then only short messages could be sent or received. For now there was nothing to be done but wait until the starships arrived.

Raan and the Guiders discussed the cyclone briefly, but not for as long as Lolanne would have liked. After a bit of mental debate, she decided to mention the creature she’d recently encountered on the river, but they did not share the same mind when she concluded the creature was somehow foreign to this planet. Her thoughts began to compare the inky-creature to the cyclone’s eye. Both were of the same shade, and both had been swirling like water held back by invisible barriers. She knew it was ridiculous to compare the two, but a part of her had grown suspicious.

Her instincts, they were suspicious, and who was she to try and ignore them?

When she caught Raan alone, she offered that she go out and investigate the cyclone closer to put her curiosity at ease, although she told him it was for archaeological purposes only.

“You’ll find nothing but lightning and thunder,” he said, and he might have been right. Maybe. “And it’s too far and too dangerous, even if we all went with you. Finding Iztak is our highest priority now, as well as establishing the colony. I need your eyes here, on the colony, not on the weather.”

That was his excuse for the next few passing months, when she tried twice more to convince him let her go out to the storm. He denied her both times. Raan was right in that it was a great distance, perhaps a week’s travel to get there and another to get back to the colony, maybe more. She couldn’t go out there alone, and none of the other Guider’s were willing to back her. Save for Selen, but she was at best skeptical rather than outright denying  her worries. Plus, Raan had other duties for Selen, leaving Lolanne alone with Kasin and Karto, who still wished to find Iztak before they, 'Wandered off to go look at clouds.' That was Karto who said that.

Lolanne did not share in the Guider’s optimism of finding Iztak. Even Raan had admitted the wilderness was dangerous, and Iztak had been gone for a long time. When she wasn’t scouring the wilds for the lost Suvelian, she was watching with fascination as the colony built up around the ship, a process as alien to her as it was to everyone else, especially when she watched it from a higher vantage point, coming back after the sun went down to see a few more buildings added to the great nest of structures.

The last time a Suvelian colony was established was many cycles ago, on a moon hundreds of systems away, but that one was made for scientists and engineers. Panthea was for the people to live on, a new homeworld to replace the one they lost.

Structures spilled out from the crater-like landing site, arranged in rings that broadened as they were built further away from the ship. Hundreds of structures clustered together towards the outermost rings. Homes were to be the priority, so more colonists could be woken from cryo to help in the build effort.

Each home was of the same size and shape, all with one room built slightly underground in cases of emergency suit-breaches. These underground, sterile rooms were where suits could be personally repaired with little risk of infection.

There was one exception to this initial district. A Stronghold was built in the gateway leading to the colony ship, which was now the Heart of the colony itself. It sat in the crater’s only entrance, a large keep surrounded by walls, turrets and towers, much like the ancient castles the ancestors built on Suvelia to protect their lands, back when land wars were still a thing. The Stronghold was just scaffolding right now, but given time it would become a mighty bastion.

Seeing more and more people about brought Lolanne some comfort to her isolated paranoia, but on the inside she felt more alone than ever in her turmoil, watching the cyclone increase in its girth every sunset. Most simply waved it away as nature, but she knew otherwise, she just couldn’t put it into words. That was always her problem. But she knew, just knew, that the cyclone was responsible for the crash of the colony ship.

She’d stare out over the massive distance towards those swirling clouds for hours. There had to be some way to get over there, she had to go and see, because no one else would. She had to find out if, that that was a big if, something was perhaps creating this anomaly.

But in the meantime she would do as ordered and keep looking for Iztak.

But she would not find him. That honour would go to Mike, who in a few weeks’ time, will stumble across his corpse by sheer accident. Although many Suvelians would blame him for Iztak's unnatural and downright suspicious death, Lolanne took it as just one more reason why she was right about her worries.

Chapter 5

Interrogation

1

I love Irony.

Free at last from the Arden, which had become his whole world for… how long had it been? Too long for him to even remember, it seemed. He’d escaped by some slim chance, only to end up in another cell, the difference this time being that his captors were aliens (and his rescuers had been other aliens too, another layer of irony there), but that was where the differences stopped. He wasn't sure if these Suves knew who he was or were simply taking precautions just because he was human. In any case, he’d have to keep his innocent façade up until he could find a way out of here.

I’m starving. He hadn’t eaten anything since that nutrient bar back in the pod, and the aliens had relieved him of all his stuff save for his ruined overalls. He looked down at the respirator clutched in his hand. At Least they let me keep breathing. It was a little awkward to bring it up to his mouth while bound, but it was better than suffocation.

They’d put him in a small chamber that had served as a storage room prior to his arrival. After quickly hauling out the majority of the contents inside, he was shoved in side and the aliens slapped a lock on the door. A few crates were stacked in the far corner, but most of the room was empty save for a table with two chairs, one of which he was currently sitting in.

He drummed his fingers across the table top, trying to make out the muffled words coming from outside. Maybe he should fool around and ask for a lawyer if they sent in an interrogator. He remembered the last time someone had represented him.

Best you throw yourself at their feet and beg for forgiveness – rang through his thoughts. Only he hadn’t done anything, right? What could the aliens want out of him?

Leaning next to the doorway on the other side of the wall, Lolanne lingered on the edges of the conversation between the other Guiders, timid and participating very little. Selen, Karto, and Raan had brought the human in while she was on her way back to the colony from a short scouting mission, so she’d only caught a brief glance at the human, striding up the hillside with his exposed head lowered out of the sun’s blistering rays.

“-acting with such carelessness!” Karto was rambling. Word among the others was that a UEC mining outpost ‘encouraged’ one of his family’s ships to leave a certain system by firing upon them. The shot was intended to scare – so the humans claimed – but it had gone stray and struck a critical system, nearly killing the entire crew. Karto never liked humans.

“One more shot from his scatter-rifle would have killed the dracon,” Karto emphasized for the second time. Lolanne wished she could have seen the beautiful creature, and although she resented the human for attacking it, one could see why he had to defend himself.

“Not to mention he burned a whole pile of wood,” Kasin added, forgetting that the human wasn’t wearing a suit, and probably needed to do so for his own well-being. Lolanne was still skeptical however. Fighting nature was not the way to colonization. All forms of life on this world had to accept them, not the other way around.

Raan raised a hand and the group silenced. “We can discuss his antics at a later time,” he began, regarding each of them in turn. “but right now – finding out where he came from is the most important thing, yes? Is he of the UEC? Where is his ship? We won’t waste any more time speculating. He must tell us these things himself.”

“How long ago has it been since a Suvelian interrogated a human?” Selen asked “It will be the first time in Memory. We must be cautious about this. Humans are cunning, and won’t give up anything lightly.”

“Let’s starve him out,” Karto suggested, sounding pleased with the idea. “Everyone craves eventually, and I doubt he’ll last long without filling his greedy belly.”

Kasin put his proposal forward next. “Let’s wait for his crew to contact us, sort this all out with whoever his master is.”

Lolanne could see that none of those approaches pleased Raan. He then surprised everyone present by turning from the group and asking, “Lolanne? You’ve been quiet so far. What do you think we should do?”

She looked up at him, blushing behind her helmet at how all the Guider’s were looking at her. She cleared her throat and took a moment to answer. “I, well, maybe we should hear him out first.” At this point Karto began to grumble and argue, but she kept going before he cut her off. “Give him no reason to dislike us, and treat him fair, like-”

“Like how his kind treats us?” Karto countered. He pointed at the door. “He’s committed heresy, polluting this world with his very presence. You’re especially too young to remember the War’s first days, where his kind-”

“He’s naïve in our ways,” Lolanne said, which was ironic, coming from her. Her blush deepened, and she shut her mouth before it could loosen any further. Karto began another retort, probably to remind her of that very fact, when Raan stopped him with a raised hand again.

“You have a point, both of you,” Raan said, looking to both of them, before settling his gaze on Lolanne. “But since you seem the more level-headed – you will get the information we need from this human yourself, Lolanne.”

Lolanne felt like shrinking away. Her? Information? Human? What good could she do as an interrogator when she couldn’t even be a Guider properly? “Me? B-But I’ve never even met a human before, sir.”

“A blank slate may be what we are looking for. You have no bias, unlike some of us. And I can’t think of a better person to do the job than you.”

Lolanne could, but choked on her words when they spilled out into nonsense. She took a moment to think about this. Maybe… just maybe… Saduun had delivered the human here, for her chance at another Proving, if (how she hated that word), she could pull off what Raan requested of her. It was far-fetched, perhaps a little too hopeful on her part, but a slim chance was still just that – a chance. And Raan told her once those slim odds have a way of happening. Plus, she couldn't live with herself if she let these chances slip away.

She nodded to Raan and told him she would do it.

He rested a hand on her shoulder. “Just do what you think is best. We’ll be right out here. Call if he gets any smart ideas. Do you need anything before you head inside?”

“I… Yes, I think so,” she said hesitantly. Her ideas were unusual, but they might just work. “Just one or two things.”

2

Lolanne opened the door and locked it behind her, taking a deep breath before turning and facing the human.

When she was little, her father had talked of the humans much in the same way as Karto just did. “They may be Sentient, but that doesn’t make them smart,” he used to say. Others talked of how monstrous they were. Inconsiderate beasts without emotions, who ignored the Suvelian people for their own selfish reasons. But when she looked upon this human, expecting him to be raising up his own attacks against her attempts at interrogations, instead she saw… well, nothing that really said much of those things.

He looked like he’d been carefully starved his whole life, his skinny form not very well covered by the tattered overalls he wore, which hardly covered up his tanned and scarred flesh. He was slouched in his chair, hands bound on the table, head angled to the ground like he was dozing.

As her boots slid across the floor to announce her presence, the alien made a sort of snoring sound and looked up at her. There were bags under his green eyes. His face looked as if it had been carved by constant desert winds, yet still youthful, although he looked older than her by a few cycles. Silvery wires crisscrossed over one side of his neck, like external veins. The crept up from his collar and stopped just under his jawbone. Cybernetics, she thought, remembering this was the telltale sign of them.

“Hey there,” the man said. So plain and so simple it caught her off guard. Lolanne blinked at him. Her kind liked to ramble on about how deceitful humans could be, but this one looked perfectly normal, except for the clear fact he’d gone through some sort of hell not too long ago.

She moved around behind the human, who adjusted in his chair to watch her. She produced a key and unlocked the cuffs on his hands, noting the dried blood under his fingernails and the cuts between his fingers. She expected him to rub his irritated wrists when the cuffs clinked onto the table, but he didn’t, like he was used to their presence. That interested her very much.

As she moved to the other chair, she looked down and saw burn marks on the man’s feet and legs. They were red and scabbing, not properly treated. More blood on his small toes too. The human was an absolute mess. Not even the dracon could have done this much damage without outright killing him.

Lolanne sat down and removed a small object from her hip. He watched her as she undid its top and set it down on the table. He leaned over and peered into it. Clear liquid swished around inside. He seemed to want to quench his thirst so badly, but instead eyed the water with suspicion.

“Am I right in saying that there’s something in there?” he asked, looking up at her with a brow raised.

“You are,” she answered. “The liquid in there is made up of a thing called hydrogen, and another thing called oxygen. We Suvelians like to call it… water.”

The corners of the humans lips curled upward. His translator made her voice have a subtle European accent, likely caused by its creator or previous owner. He picked the bottle up and brought it to his lips, downing its contents in one swig. After setting it down he smacked his lips and said, “And here I thought being a wiseass was a human thing.”

“My name is Lolanne,” she said, ignoring that quip. “Guider for the Ulnosh.” She rested her hands on her wrist-computer in preparation. “And you are?”

He stared at her for a second, looking slightly amused. “I have a bunch of fake names I could give you – John Smith, Hardy Harr, Connie Lingus – which do you want?”

“Your real one.”

“Isn’t this the part where you threaten me if I don’t cooperate?” the man asked. “What, haven’t you done this before?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Even if she could get one thing out of this human, she’d call it a victory. If he wanted to play this game, she had to win it. For some reason she felt a particular level of authority in this statement, and didn't know where it came from. “No,” she replied. “We were not expecting to meet odorous apes desecrating our planet.”

He raised his brow. “You can smell me through that suit?”

“I shouldn’t. But I could leave you in here with your stench. And, judging by the way you keep adjusting yourself in your chair, I’d say you find it as uncomfortable as I do.” She paused and let that sink in. “Just answer my questions and I’ll try and make your stay here a little more pleasant.”

The human gave her a slight frown. Now he was the one off-guard. That was something. He shrugged and told her his name. She typed it on her wrist-pad, but hesitated as she heard his pronunciation.

“There a problem?” Mike asked with a smirk, as if reading her thoughts.

“No, no, just… Your name has no correlation with the UEC net.” The connection to the outside world was sketchy, almost nonexistent, but she didn’t need to tell him that.

“I’m not making that one up, if that’s what you’re saying.” He looked relieved for some reason. Raan would want to know why that is. But there were other things to know first, but before she could continue, he beat her to the next question.

“So when am I getting out of here?” Mike asked, his shoulders rising and falling. Lolanne bit her lip, deciding that answering his own questions couldn’t hurt.

“I don’t know. At least until we know you’re not a threat to-”

“Threat? I haven’t done anything to you people!”

“-to this place, I was about to say. You harmed at least one native animal on an Untouched World,” She cut in, trying to keep herself calm in her approach. “These acts wouldn’t go unpunished, if you were Suvelian.”

“Well it’s a good thing I’m not,” he replied. “Or else I’d have let that dracon eat me the first moment I saw it. Is your whole race so passive, or is it just you?”

Lolanne looked down at her pad, though she didn’t type anything. Saduun’s laws were apathetic at times, she could admit that. She certainly would have done something if she saw a dracon bearing down on her, laws or no. She huffed under her breath. Two minutes and the human was already surfacing her doubts about her species’ religion. If father were here, he would have had a fit.

Good thing he isn’t then, she thought. Or else we’d have a screaming match. Again.

“’Sides,” the man continued. “These ‘native animals’ of yours punished one of your guys already. He got off far worse than I did.”

“Excuse me?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Found a corpse on my way over here. Suvelian was in a suit, like yours. Been dead for a long time, I'd guess.”

“Iztak…” she murmured. She did not know Iztak all that much, but she would still mourn him, all the same. It was another life taken when so few remained. She drew out another object from her pocket. It was small, and square, and drawn upon it was a very fine sketch of the surrounding countryside. “Can you show me where you found his body?”

Mike squinted at the fine and small details, blinking at all the striking details. She’d put more and more effort into her pad during her patrols. Another hobby to take her mind off the current affairs. He pointed at the upper half. “He was around here. Next to this small pond. Did you draw this? It’s not bad.”

She didn't answer him and noted this location down. At least Raan would finally stop having her and the Guider’s search for Iztak. Of course, the human might be lying, but she had a feeling that he wasn’t. She pocketed her map, clearing her throat and changing the subject once more. “My mentor, Raan, and many others watched your pod come in from orbit. Where is your ship? Is it still in the system?”

Mike studied her for a moment, perhaps trying to look through her visor at her hidden face. She knew all he could see was his own reflected image. “Don’t you guys have sensors and stuff? Heard your lot was a lot more advanced than us humans.”

Lolanne nodded. “There has been some interefen-” She stopped herself but was too late. She’d let that information slip, but hopefully that wouldn’t squander her chance to gleam more information. “Interference – from some unidentified source, and our systems are a tweak or two hampered.”

“I bet it’s that massive storm-thing I saw on my way in,” Mike said, making her look up at him sharply. He was the first person to notice, and he’d only been on the planet for a day. She wanted to yell out Yes! That’s exactly what it is! but stopped herself before she did. Again, Mike read her reaction and smirked, but made no comment. Stupid, she told herself. She had to keep Mike in the dark as much as possible, and here she was flapping her gums about.

“We’re… not sure what the source may be,” she replied, echoing the response Raan liked to favour himself. She sounded silly even to her own ears. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

Mike took a moment to think. Years ago, the one thing that wasn’t sub-par in her training days was her rather outstanding perception. You could spot a weed in a garden from orbit, Raan had told her once. Reading emotions was as easy to her as spotting threats on the horizon, and she frowned at what she could see in Mike’s eyes. He was Plotting.

“I was posted on a trader ship,” he said at last. “We were attacked by pirates. They were trying to hijack us. There were but-tons of them, and in the confusion I managed to get away. Did, uh… Did anyone else make it out?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re the first human to step foot on this planet.”

“And what an honor it is,” he replied. Lolanne rolled her eyes, and not because of the sarcasm. She could tell the story was simply fabrication, but he had looked concerned for any other survivors. No, not concerned, the exact opposite. He had looked relieved when she said he was the only human here, why was that? Surely humans cared for their own kind as much as her race did. Then again, there were billions of humans, and only a few million Suvelians.

She had hoped the water-pack and releasing him of the cuffs would have made him more cooperative. She decided to switch her approach and said, “If you won’t tell me how you got here, at least tell me where you’re from.”

Mike blinked, caught off guard by her observation. For a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer, but after a pause he relented. “I was born on Neruvana. Probably don't even know where that is.”

“Neruvana?” she asked, typing that down. “One second… ah. The planet that was destroyed?”

He blinked. “Yeah,” he said, he broke her gaze and looked away. “how do you know?”

“Even we could detect those energy spikes all across the Milky Way. Were you there when it was destroyed?”

He shrugged, as if to say what's the difference?

“How did you escape?” Raan wouldn’t be interested in that, but she asked regardless.

“I didn’t, in a way. Let’s just call it luck and leave it at that.”

“My people don’t use ‘luck’ as a concept. I’ll put it down as fate.”

“Whatever floats your boat.”

“What?”

“Oh. It’s a human expression.”

“Ah, and what does it mean?”

“Something that makes you happy, I guess. If you want, I’ve got a whole lot more I can tell you about.”

“No that’s fine,” she said. Human expressions were odd, but then again he was terrestrial, from some planet far away from here. “I have a few more questions for you. Shouldn’t take long. If you’re ready…”

3

Almost three hours passed before Lolanne checked her suit’s clock and decided to end this little session.

“It’s getting late,” she said while getting to her feet. She retrieved the empty water container and hooked it onto the clips on her waist. “I… appreciate your cooperation, Outworlder. And I think the others will too.”

“I’ll be here,” he said with a grin. Lolanne replaced the cuffs on him, looser than Karto had done initially. She left the cell and locked it behind her with password and key, heading out of the cold interior and into the warm Panthean air. Night was fast approaching, and the higher of the two suns, recently named Barra, heated her face through the visor. All of the Guiders, except for Raan, had departed for the night. In all her intrigue of the alien, time had slipped by quickly, it seemed.

Raan was leaning against the humans’ new cell, head lolling to the side. She moved over and tapped him on the shoulder. Raan chortled, a sound she found amusing coming from the old mentor. He looked up at her and got to his feet. “At last!” He made a questioning gesture. “So, how did it go?”

“It went uhm, fine,” she said, finding no other word for it. She transferred him her data with all the information about him. Mike Labine, the little runes at the top said. He operated his own wrist-pad and scrolled through the info. As he flicked over all the data she’d gathered, Lolanne noticed a scowl slowly start to appear on the old Guiders face.

“He found Iztak’s body? I’ll send someone over right away. But other than that, a lot of this isn’t what I need to know.” Raan looked down at her, the shape of his eyes narrowing. She flinched under his words. “Not much of this is of any use altogether, no? Like his age or, or heritage?”

“Well I-” Lolanne stuttered and tried to explain herself. “I thought if we started off with the little things, we could get around to the big questions. Eventually.”

“Eventually,” Raan echoed. He pointed a finger at her. “All right. Just don’t take too long with this, Lolanne. Time is not on our side, I fear. How will you know he won’t just lie to your face?”

“It’s easy to read.” She shrugged.

“Ah, of course. You've always had some sharp eyes. One of the reasons I brought you on this expedition. What other methods will you use to get him to cooperate? Stubborn humans are hard to deal with, so our Elders say.”

She rubbed her hands together, a habit she wasn’t consciously aware of, and she was pessimistic for that to change anytime soon. “Well, he doesn’t sit still, at all. He adjusts himself constantly. I think if he were to have some time to move around…”

“You’re saying you want to release him?”

“No no! Supervised, of course, by a few guards at least. We give him just a hint of freedom, and he might be a little more… relaxed.”

“Relaxed? You do realize why we have him in there?” Raan motioned to the colony, splayed out in the valley below. “Only a few of the colonists have seen the human, and already people are on edge. Not even half the cryo-chambers on the ship are emptied, yet. Some of our people, less lenient than you or me, have long memories, parents who died in the War. Scars that haven’t healed. Just look at Karto.”

“I know, sir. It’s just that... If we treat him like some common criminal, I doubt he’ll be very forthcoming.”

“… I see,” the old Guider said, making Lolanne a bit more comfortable, now that he saw her point. “But you must not forget what his people have done to us in the past. Besides, in our terms, he is a criminal, but I'll admit it’s unfair to judge an alien by our laws. You have tomorrow off to interrogate this human further, and then I want your word that he won’t cause any more trouble.”

“I understand,” she replied, nodding.

“Good, good. Go get some rest, Lolanne. I’ll see you later.”

Inside the cell, Mike frowned at how they had given him no cot or bed or anything, so he had to lie down on the cold floor and try to get some sleep. Today was certainly an interesting day – being interrogated by aliens shortly after nearly being eaten by a dracon. It was a story his little sister would have liked to hear.

He shut his eyes, dead tired now that the adrenaline from the prior days was wearing off. His hunger gnawed at him, but it did little to stop him from falling asleep, and he was soon out like a light.

4

Mike woke, according to his body clock, very early the next morning. His back ached after a night on the floor, and he sat up with a groan. He tried to rub his back but could not quite reach the spot just behind his shoulder blade, where it ached the most.

He passed the time by pacing around the cell, trying and failing to ignore the gnawing feeling as his stomach ate itself. His claustrophobia was doing many wonderful things to his skin, making his muscles curl up on themselves. Once, on the Arden, he had seen a fellow inmate beg for food, only to be forcefully served the burnt scraps left behind in the dirty canteen ovens, and since then Mike had vowed never to stoop so low. He may be a prisoner by trade, but he would not beg. He still had dignity, no matter how much Morland had drilled it into his brain that he didn't.

Many hours passed until at last he heard footsteps outside. He took his seat from before and waited as the tumblers unlocked. The alien female from yesterday, who called herself Lolanne, entered again, but she was holding a tray this time, and on it was a bundle of straws and more bottles, somewhat similar to the water container from yesterday, but larger, and a fruity smell was emanating from them.

She set the tray on the table, then came over and undid his cuffs, allowing him to stretch his hands out. After sitting she then she set her hands on that wrist-computer of hers and tapped its screen a few times.

“What’s all this?” he said, gesturing to the tray.

She glanced to the table, then back to her wrist. “You look starved, so I brought you some breakfast.”

“Really?” he asked, picking up a container. He gave it a shake, and heard some sort of liquid swish around inside. “Trying to bribe me now? And here I was having fun with you mocking my B.O.”

She shrugged. “I thought I’d change things up a little.”

Mike looked amused as he pried for a tag or hinge in the bottle-thing. After a few clueless moments he gave it up, and asked her how to open it.

“Oh,” she said, like she’d forgotten he was an alien. She took a different container from the tray. “These are induction packs. In the Ancient Times we used to use Ports. These things here.” She gestured to the bundle of straws, and grabbed one. “You insert the port here, in the top of the pack. Then drink away.”

He noticed where to put the straw in his own pack, grabbed a straw and did as she demonstrated. “Right,” he said. “It’s sort of like a caprisun, then. I get it.” He sipped on the caprisun and felt a pureed substance slip down his throat. It was hard to swallow, and left an unpleasant aftertaste that had him longing for real food, but it was nutritious at least, and it satisfied his stomach.

“A what?” she asked. He grinned as he explained to her. When he was done, she began typing his description down, something that made him grin wider. Why would his interrogator be writing what a caprisun was? She definitely was new at this.

“So… Is this how your kind eat?” he asked, voice muffled as he half-chewed, finishing off another ‘pack’ as she called it.

“Not exactly,” she said after thinking. She demonstrated by slipping a pack onto her waist, into a hold the same shape and size as the device. It clicked into place. He guessed it fed directly into her body though the hold, by needles or tubes or something like that. “Now,” Lolanne continued. “if we’re done talking about caprisuns and packs, I need to continue my questioning. Ready?”

She asked her seemingly harmless questions for a good few hours. Obscure things not directly about him, but more about humans in general. There seemed to be no end of them and he wondered what it was all for. After a while one interesting topic came up worth recalling.

“Do you have any family?” the suited alien asked. It was a bit personal, and he would have rather kept that part of his life forgotten, but he relented and saw no reason to hide anything.

“I had a father and sister,” he answered, glancing at a strap of cloth dangling from his overalls, finding it all of a sudden interesting to look at.

She noted that down. “And what are they doing now?”

“I said I had family.”

“O-Oh.” She quickly corrected that mistake on her pad, and mumbled an apology. Mike ignored it and found a question of his own lingering in his head, and after a silent moment he decided to ask it.

“What about you, Lolanne? You got any family around here?”

Her face met his and she tilted her head in thought. She saw no harm in sharing some of her own history in exchange for his. “I have brothers,” she replied. “All older, serving with the Quin-Talash – that means Golden Will – our last and greatest battlefleet.”

“Big family,” he noted, drawing out time. “Must’ve been hard being the youngest.” He liked to think he was good with his own little sister, or at least better than some of the other boys back home with their own siblings.

“It was not so bad once we grew up,” she said. “Though they still treat me as the baby of the family. ‘Little Lolanne’, they used to call me, but I care for them very much.”

“And how did you end up here, on this little pearl of space?” he asked, faint traces of sarcasm in his voice.

“Well, Raan approached me one day, and I guess he saw the potential for me to become a Guider. I knew all the theory, read it all five times over each month. But in practice, well… that’s another story.” She finished that off with a depressed tone.

“I love stories,” Mike said, but it looked like Lolanne had said more than enough and stopped herself.

“Who doesn’t?” she asked. He felt like she was rolling her eyes. “But that’s enough about me, I’m the interrogator, remember?”

“So you are,” he said, leaning back into a more comfortable position. “So you are. Next question?”

Chapter 6

Instincts

1

“Good news, human. We’re letting you out.”

Lolanne had not showed up for her round of questioning the next day. The only contact with the aliens Mike had was a guard delivering a tray of those caprisun things before returning to his post outside. Obviously Mike was used to being cooped up in a room against his will, but he was still bitter about the whole ‘harming nature’ thing these Suves had accused him of. But if there was a bright side to all this – he was at least thankful that the company was a little more interesting, compared to his fellows on the Arden.

The day after that, however, Lolanne had returned, but this time she was not alone. She stood in the shadow of a burly alien with a fancy-looking suit, the runic Suvelian language plastered like a page over his chest and sleeves. It was the same alien that had spoken to him earlier – the leader of that group that had scared the dracon away, and he was the one to announce that Mike was being let out.

“Really?” Mike blinked, getting to his feet. He’d just spent another night sleeping on the floor, sweating profusely in the stuffy, glorified cell. He imagined he looked quite pathetic at that moment. Even more pathetic, he mentally corrected. “That’s great. Er, Ram, was it?”

“Raan,” the alien corrected, somehow the visage of a scowl apparent even underneath his polarised helmet. Raan shrugged with his hands. “And don’t act so surprised. You didn’t think you were going to sit in here and eat our food in exchange for nothing, did you?”

Mike thought not. But he guessed that living in those suits made the aliens forget it had to be forty degrees in this poorly ventilated room. Going outside would be a blessing.

“A few ground rules will be set in place,” Raan said, listing them off on his inhuman fingers. “You will not leave this room until I say so, and only if you’re escorted by armed personnel. This will occur once per day. Your shifts will go for no longer than six hours at a time, and will only be granted during the daytime. You will return here when asked, or when night falls. I trust you wont squander my generosity, no?”

“Well I was planning on escaping” Mike said. “-but I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“Funny,” Raan said, stepping forward. “Until I met you, humans always struck me as clever, not stupid. Hear me well. You might not be taking this seriously, but I am. Don’t take advantage of my sudden hospitality, because with one word I’ll have you locked up in here until the Heirarch himself comes and deals with you. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yeah, crystal,” Mike replied, stepping back and conceding to the taller alien with a mock bow of the head.

Raan scrutinised him for a moment, then turned to Lolanne, who snapped to attention when the older alien addressed her. “Same goes for you, too. He steps out of line, it is you who I’ll hold responsible.”

“I understand, sir,” Lolanne said, dipping her head.

“Give him his clothes. Selen was by the Cathedral, go meet up with her. I’ll lead the Outworlder personally to his new duties.”

“Yes, sir.” Lolanne came over to Mike and handed him the bundle of cloth in her arms. He took it with a grin, stretching out the orangey-crimson coloured clothing. They reminded him of robes.

“Put those on and meet me outside,” Raan said before leaving. He was trailed by Lolanne, who gave the human a glance before shutting the prison door behind her. This time he didn’t hear the telltale sound of the locks.

Now alone, he stripped off his overalls. They were filthy and covered in his blood, and other people’s skin, or that might have been just ash, it was hard to tell. Once it was off, just for kicks he brought it up to his face to sniff, and his mouth shrank into a disgusted ‘o’.

Lolanne was right. I reek.

He tossed the overalls into the corner, glad to be rid of them. Fortunately, the little tag that marked his prisoner number had been burned away, so his fake 'merchant guard' facade might just be believable. He began dressing himself in the alien attire. The robes were all one big outfit, not separated like shirts and shorts.

He was surprised by how well it fit to his slim body. There was a bit of excess cloth dangling by his head, and he wrapped it around his neck to form a sort of scarf. The robes encased all of his skin save for his hands and head, and he thought at first it would be too stuffy to wear on such a hot planet. He thought wrong, as when he was done, it felt like he was being wrapped in one big soft, damp towel.

He looked down at himself.  To him it looked like he was wearing some sort of ancient, roman attire, but with a modern, alien twist to it. It looked a little silly to him, but he’d accept anything if it threw his time onboard the Arden far into the back of his memory. A fresh, strange look was as good a start as any.

Mike pushed the door open and stepped out into the twin-sunlight. That baking feeling he'd experienced when he’d first exited the pod came flooding back, but only onto his hands and face. The clothes subdued it for the most part.

Earlier, right after the dracon attack, he’d been escorted up to his current position, but he’d been too tired, and the suns too glaring for him to get a good look around. Now, Mike took this moment to shield his eyes with a hand and drink in the view. His cell was sat upon a steep incline, with a path going down towards the large expanse of buildings that was the Suvelian Colony. The urban sprawl stretched up the coastline for many kilometers, well on its way to becoming as large as a city. Sections of the cityscape were colour coded, the closest to him being red, towards the center was green, and so on until the glare reduced his vision. Districts, maybe?

A handful of buildings were two or three levels high, one far in the distance looking like some sort of church practically towered above the rest, but the majority of structures were only one level high, giving the colony a lowered appearance. He saw hundreds upon hundreds of Suvelians down there, going about their businesses. Each one he saw wore a full body suit. Only colours and runes differentiated each individual. Do they get confused telling each other apart? he wondered. He couldn't even see their faces through those visors.

“This way,” Raan said, snapping Mike out of his observations. Another Suve, this one just as big as Raan, wielding a plasma cannon, encouraged Mike forward with a nudge. Raan set off down the gravel path, and Mike followed. He peeked over Raan’s shoulder and could make out Lolanne’s deep blue suit disappearing into the streets below.

To Mike’s right, the colony thinned out until it was only a dozen buildings across. It came to an end as a massive bastion sat in between this hill and the one on the opposing side. He could just make out the top of the colony ship beyond there, the Ulnosh it was called. He guessed going through that fort was the only way to the ship.

To his left, the colony curved northward as the urbanicity met the wilderness. Far out to the west, standing like an impossibly massive monster, was the cyclone, its rumbling echoing faintly in the distance, but still audible enough to drill into his ears and created an irritating, wobbling sound. Mike wondered how you could make a colony with that thing towering over you, but these aliens seemed to pay it little to no mind.

Raan, Mike and the guard made their way down to the colony proper. Lolanne went further into the streets and vanished around a corner. Mike watched her go, reminding himself he’d have to thank her the next time they spoke for letting him out.

Raan turned left and stuck to the perimeter of the colony. As they progressed, Mike noticed that the houses on their right were all under construction, with dozens of aliens scrambling on the walls and scaffolds, fitting panels into place, hammering doors into frames. The one thing they all did, even as they passed a couple dozen building sites, was sing. A melody filled with dozens of voices of various octaves. He couldn’t understand what the words were. It was a calm, yet determined theme that thrummed in the back of his mind. He might have imagined this little sight, but Raan seemed to bob in tune with the beat on each stride. He'd heard the singing before at a distance, but not when he was in his cell. Maybe he'd blocked it out, or maybe they had blocked him out. When it came to aliens, nothing was ever simple. He was probably the first human to interact with the Suves in tens of years.

Some sort of cart/tram thing raced by on Mike’s left, so suddenly that he flinched hard enough for his toes to leave the ground. A set of glowing red tracks rimmed around just inside the urban borders, inches away from the path they were taking. The cart stopped some distance up ahead, and two Suvelians went and picked up its crated contents. When they were done unpacking, the cart sped away out of sight.

The guard behind Mike chuckled, as he noticed he was the only one to react to the speeding cart. Every Suvelian they passed silently glared at Mike, not abandoning their songs, but bringing their volumes down as they studied the sole human. He offered the closer ones a few Hello's and How’s it going’s, but none of them replied. Maybe the history between the two species was worse than he thought.

“Here we are,” Raan announced, coming to a stop before a gathering of workbenches, there tops cluttered with alien devices and relics. One Suvelian was working on this particular house site, humming along with the backdrop melody as he used three tools in both his hands with admirable dexterity.

The worker looked up, noticing Raan, and immediately set his tools down before striding over. He put his left hand on his chest, forming an odd shape with his four-fingered hand. Then he said, “Sumal, delroso, Guider Raan.”

“Engineer Vok. I brought you your newest helper.” Raan motioned to Mike, who blinked in surprise. They were putting him to work? At least he was out in the sunlight, real sunlight, not that artificial crap they had on the Arden. He’d volunteer for double-shifts any day if it got him more time outdoors. He took a moment to wonder why Lolanne would go out of her way to give him these new duties. Good behaviour, maybe? There was a first time for everything.

Vok came over to the human and looked him over like a general would his soldiers. He stood a little shorter than Mike, his black suit spotted here and there in runes depicting what appeared to be tools wielded by Suvelians, holding them like they were weapons. Mike noticed how so far, Lolanne was the only alien with her suit devoid of any sort of runes or symbols.

“Delroso, human,” began the engineer. “Never thought I’d have an Outworlder help build my home. You ever use a printala before?”

“A what?” Mike said, rubbing his neck. “I don’t think my translator picked that up. What’s printala?” Raan silently departed, but the armed guard took a position off to the side, watching the human carefully.

Vok gave a sort of disgusted yet disappointed sound. “Eh. Just who gave you that translator?” He leaned in and studied the tech built on the side of Mike’s throat. “Shoddy work. And messy, real messy. But whoever built it knew a few things, at least.”

Mike remembered the man who sold and installed the cybernetics. Translator, heart pump, spine reinforcement, metal knee plates.  It was these four primary implants that helped the fragile human body cope with long space-voyages, where gravity differed and changed on a dime. Mike had them installed shortly after his departure from Neruvana for his ‘journey to glory’, in Locke’s words. Mike hated how he could honestly have believed any of that crap.

Cybernetics were addictions, in a way. Despite the benefits of helping the body sustain itself as you traveled the stars. It was an unspoken rule that you didn’t go overboard with the implants, or else you’d end up as a ‘meatsack’ as it was nicknamed. Not enough human in you, and you could legally be stripped of your rights, because after a point you were nothing short of an android to most people – all steel and metal, with your original skin stuck around your fake organs like, well, like a sack. One of the prisoners on the Arden had been a meatsack. It made Mike feel queasy just bringing up his sad image, all the nests of wires coming out of his pores. Sick.

“He told me he used to be a surgeon,” Mike explained. “’Sides, I couldn’t exactly afford anything more at the time.”

“And I can’t afford to have you screwing something up. Is it a third-gen translator?”

“Yeah…? How’d you know?”

“Technology is my life, Suvelian or otherwise. They made a fourth-gen ten years ago. Where have you been, living out in the void?”

“Actually I have, so-”

Vok hummed and cut him off. “Third-gen means you’ll have to learn our language the old-fashioned way. Printala is a… type of drill, powered by micro-sonic fields to keep magnetic shields together without the need for bolts. Get me?”

“I get you.”

“And now you should hear me say what your brain thinks it is.” Vok then said printala again, but instead Mike heard ‘sonic drill'. He told Vok this and the engineer nodded.

“Now that that’s out the way, take this.” He gave Mike a sonic drill, and jabbed a finger over his shoulder at a workbench. “See those two sheets of alloy? Put them together then bring them to me.”

Vok walked to the side of the house scaffolds, where he crouched and began placing panels onto the walls using another alien tool. Mike went to the workbench he indicated, eyed the two sheets of metal Vok had to have been talking about. They were dark and strong, and a little flexible as Mike set them down together, so they formed a large rectangle. He was about to begin when he remembered Vok conveniently forgot to tell him how to actually operate this drill.

He didn’t want to look hopeless and ask for help, so he tried to find the drill’s ‘on’ button himself. As he studied the tool, he heard someone snicker to his left. He just caught the words, “-he’s holding it like a toothbrush.” as he looked over and saw two other engineers staring at him. When their eyes met, the aliens quickly withdrew to their own duties.

“By Saduun, watch,” Vok said, appearing at Mike’s side with uncanny speed. He grabbed the drill and activated it with a click on its side. The drill’s protruding end came to life in a blurry blue haze, shimmering the air as Vok pressed the glowing side to where the sheets met. As they connected, the metal itself melted into one another as Vok brought the drill downward. It reminded Mike of the welding process. All while he did this, Vok began humming along to the melody hanging in the air around them. He stopped singing when he was done.

“Now do that,” Vok ordered, and strode away back to the wall, panels in hand. Mike again held the drill up as he positioned two more sheets from a nearby pile. Funnily enough, it did look kind of like a toothbrush.

Just as Vok demonstrated, he activated the drill and brought it down. The drill fought against him, pressing up as if he was sticking it against magnets. The metal melted before his eyes, not as precise as Vok had done, and certainly with more effort required to keep the drill level. He began moving the drill down, sometimes going off-course and staining the sheet. Vok did his demonstration in under a minute. Mike took four. And when he was done he’d accidentally hit one of his fingers with the sonic fields, which made the skin next to his nail bleed.

He lifted the sheet up and brought it to Vok, who noticed his injury right away, but said nothing about it. “Took you long enough,” he said as he took the metal and stuck it to an empty patch of wall. The inside of the house was barren and unfurnished.

“Alien buildings aren’t exactly my forte, Vok.”

“Oh? And what is your forte, hm?” Vok used some odd-looking device to make the panels fit together, seemingly out of invisible glue.

Mike hesitated before answering. “Is... getting screwed over an option?”

“Ha! In that case, everyone here is an expert.” Vok indicated that Mike bring him another sheet. Mike did so, taking just as long, and cutting another one of his fingers. As he handed it over he examined the alien architecture. He noticed the tops of the houses all resembled a sort of blooming flower aesthetic, providing comfortable amounts of shade between the houses. But why would these aliens need shade when they had those suits they wore all the time? Maybe the heat eventually gets through.

“What’s this stuff made out of anyway?” Mike asked as he watched Vok complete this section of the building. The metal felt like steel, but seemed more flexible, stronger, and overall better, with little hexagonal intricacies spread throughout its surface. It looked like honeycomb patterns.

Vok looked up from his work and stared at the human. Mike didn’t need to see through the visor to know that Vok was pulling a stunned expression. “It’s... Colossal-alloy, of course. You really have been living in the void, Outworlder.”

Mike guessed that by his tone, he should have known what this alloy was, but he had no idea. Maybe they discovered it while he was incarcerated? But why would Vok think that a human would know what this was? He repeated his process fitting the sheets together for another few hours, not quite sure if he should annoy Vok further with more questions. It was dull work, and the only time something exciting happened was when the tracks turned red again and the cart zipped past at an incredible speed.

Vok noticed the human jump (again) at the carts sudden arrival and laughed. “It’s just the cargo tramline, human. Only going a few hundred kilometers a second.”

Mike looked at the tracks, going from red back to yellow, matching the dirt beside it. “Isn’t that a little bit dangerous, having it zoom around right next to us?” He couldn’t even see a safety rail or anything.

“Only if you get too close. Don’t worry, once we’re done it’ll be moved, replaced by bigger trams that don’t go so fast. Look’s like we’ll need a drop soon enough. We’re making fine progress.”

“Drop?” Mike asked.

“The tramline delivers building materials to the engineers – that's a drop, get me? It all comes from the Ulnosh. That’s the colonies soul, that ship. She’s banged up from the initial landing, but she’s a sturdy thing. Had to be when we were building it.”

“What happened when you landed?” Mike would have rather kept his peace, but couldn’t help asking the alien more and more to fill the time.

Vok seemed to hesitate before answering. Then he shrugged. “Guider Lolanne had to bring the ship down on her own, and we took some damage on landing. She’s a little worse for wear, but…”

“Who is? The ship, or Lolanne?”

Vok shrugged again. “Both. Now, hand me that krilront over there, Outworlder.”

“A what?”

Vok sighed, and pointed. Mike picked up the device, cursing as he, on accident, activated it and cut his last uninjured finger.

2

Lolanne had gone with Selen far to the north of the colony, to where Mike claimed his escape pod was located. Kasin and Karto had found Iztak’s body earlier in the day, exactly where Mike had indicated on her hand-drawn map. The funeral would be held after their duties were complete for the day.

They came upon the sunbaked pod sitting near the coastline. Vegetation was already beginning to overgrow its silvery surface, but it’s on-board systems still had some power left. Raan wanted any information they could get from it, but the pod had nothing to tell. No host ship data, no previous locations, nothing except for its initial scans of Panthea. Low Oxygen, uninhabited world, unclaimed system number 94821, the words on the main terminal said. At least the secrecy was still uncompromised. The escape pod was otherwise unremarkable.

“It’s as if the human just fell out of the sky, like in the Ancient stories,” Selen said out loud as she tried in vain to search deeper into to the pod systems. She tapped annoyingly at her wrist-pad. “Like Saduun Himself sent him here, right out of the void. Sure looked like there’d been a fight, wouldn’t you say?”

She indicated to the blotches of blood on the seat and dash panels. Lolanne guessed some of it was Mike’s. But not all of it, she thought, though she didn’t mention this.

After nothing more could be done with the pod, they trekked back south and tended to their daily routine. They were walking along the Yilbarla river again, not far from where Lolanne had encountered that horrible creature along the banks. Mike would have recognized the creature, if she had told him of it. But of course, she did not, because even Selen was skeptical Lolanne had indeed seen what she did. Her ‘foreign creature’ explanation just didn’t make any sense. Now she was really starting to figure if that whole thing really had been figment of her imagination.

Wouldn’t be the first time if it was, Lolanne thought, her shoulder sulking a little.

Lolanne held a reading device just below the surface of the running water. On its screen, Suvelian numbers scrolled by as the submerged device calibrated. “So it’s all happening?” Lolanne asked, breaking the blissful silence of Panthea, letting her eyes scan over the tiny fish no longer than her nail, swimming up to investigate her reader.

“Yes,” Selen said. She was just on the other side of the river. She didn’t bother hiding her own anxiety. “The androids must have caught wind of our little operation here. The Hierarch is pulling everyone out of the Suvel system and bringing them here. ‘Risk everything to save everyone’, were his words. The last Suvelian should be leaving our home system right about now.”

Lolanne closed her eyes, sighed. She had seen the Suvel system once, when she was very little. The blue moons orbiting Suvelia were beautiful things, and would stay in her memory forever. “I hope Saduun protects them. There’s few of us alive as there is.”

“The Hierarch is a fine battle commander, don’t worry about that. We will give them a proper welcome when they arrive. Panthea could never replace Suvelia, but it is a good start – we just have to make it better for everyone else.”

Lolanne smiled. Her reader indicated that the water was clean and drinkable. “Good words to live by,” she finally said.

“What about your own task?” Selen asked, changing the subject. “I heard you convinced Raan to let the human out to help with the building effort. Cooperating, I’m guessing?”

“I suppose,” Lolanne said, removing her reader from the river. The fish swam away from the sudden movement. “It did take some convincing, though. Outworlder Mike isn’t very forthcoming with what my Mentor wants to know. In fact, he asks me just as many questions as I ask him.”

Selen looked over the river at her and raised a plaintive hand. “Really? Like what?”

“He wants to know more about our kind, and me in particular. It’s very… odd. The way Karto talked about his interactions with humans, and from what my own father says... I expected Mike to be a little brutish, not inquisitive.”

“Sort of like you with his kind, yes?” Selen chuckled. Lolanne passed her an embarrassed glance, thankfully hidden by her visor.

“They’re the only other Sentient’s in the whole Milky Way,” Lolanne explained. “Why wouldn’t I be a bit curious?”

“Why, indeed?” Selen teased. She was taking samples of the water to bring back to the colony, and had just finished filling her second flask. “Make sure you don’t trade too much with him. Like I said before, humans are cunning creatures.”

“I know,” Lolanne said, used to this sort of down-talking. She was worried she had revealed a little too much to Mike, but what could he do? There wasn’t exactly a whole lot of ways he could take advantage of this, being the only human on the planet, surrounded by a race that loathed his own. Must be an intimidating situation, but he looked like he was handling it well. Positions reversed she'd probably have cracked by now.

“I’d like to discuss this matter more, Lolanne, but we’ve still got a dozen more samples to take.” Selen got to her feet. “I’ll handle the ones to our east. You finish up here and head upstream. Meet you back here in an hour?”

“Yes, alright.” Lolanne nodded. They bid each other farewell, and after pocketing her reader, Selen moved off into the forest. Lolanne went the opposite direction, flowing the river west. After going for ten minutes, she stopped and took another readout. She was still bothered by the tragedy that befell her people when the Ulnosh crashed, but being out here provided her time to brood in privacy.

That’s odd, she thought. The reader suddenly spiked in acidic levels, the same river that was drinkable, was now dangerously polluted. She guessed that somewhere between this spot and downriver was a natural filtering system. Perhaps the coral-like plants growing along the bottom of the river had something to do with it.

She was about to move off when something washed through the river and caught her eye. Some sort of dark substance flowed along the bubble and froth of the micro-waves. It expanded out like an aquatic disease, clear water turning dark, and then pure black as a puddle of it floated by her boot. Even though her suit could still operate in highly acidic environments, and even the vacuum of the void, she still scrambled away from the puddle.

She followed the river with her eyes. The substance thinned out to a line upstream, snaking in the liquid like a scabbed wound. She recognized the substance. It looked exactly the same as the hide of that mysterious creature that had nearly found her, all those weeks ago.

Perfectly in line with the river, far out into the distance, was that Saduun-forsaken cyclone, spinning out of control, and without interruption. Even with all those leagues separating her from it, it was always there in her thoughts, taunting her, mocking her and only her while the rest of the colonists were ignorant.

A flash of lightning within its mass. White with just a hint of crimson. That same colour she’d seen from orbit. This substance, that strange creature, Iztak’s death… it all came back to that storm.

She shook her head. This was getting ridiculous! These superstitions of hers had to stop, or she would have to do something to stop them. No one would believe her, of course. The fluid would wash away if she called Selen over, and she didn’t dare take a sample of it, afraid it would stick to her suit and work its way to her vulnerable body underneath. It’s just blood from a dead creature, Raan would say if she showed him, and there was enough chance of that being the truth that she would be dismissed. She was used to being waved away as being paranoid over nothing – just look at her brothers, what they’d done in their youth – and that wouldn’t stop anytime soon.

Lolanne got up and made a hasty retreat. No more, she decided. No more looking out in worry and witnessing these strange occurrences. She had to find out where they were coming from, and why that storm was plaguing her consciousness. She convinced Raan to give the human some leeway, so what was so hard about trying again?

But then... what if he didn’t let her go out there? Then she’d have to consider going against his word.

Would the consequences be worth it? Worth going out to the cyclone and finding the answers she knew – just knew – to be there? She didn’t know. But she couldn’t go out there alone, couldn’t do anything on her own – crashing the Ulnosh was proof of that.

But who to trust? Karto was too arrogant, didn’t think of Lolanne as more than a subordinate. Kasin? Maybe, as he had taken the time to know her in the past. The obvious choice was Selen, but she was close to Raan, loyal to the core, and would probably confide in him if Lolanne mentioned her heretical thoughts. Selen wouldn’t give up valuable colony-time for Lolanne’s baseless quest anyway. The Colony comes before everything else, to quote the Hierarch himself.

… So that left only one other who she knew of.

It could work, though it was very risky, and would be punished severely should it backfire. It might even go all the way to heresy, to do what she was thinking. She didn’t trust Mike, didn’t trust humans. But he was a stranger, and that was a start.

She spoke not a word of her discovery of the substance in the river to Selen when the day ended. That night she spent many late hours pondering over how and when to act on her plan. Heretic or otherwise, she had to do this. She had to know if the cyclone really was a threat to the colony, or if her brothers were right all along – that all her worries really were all just in her head.

Chapter 7

Proving

1

The structures Mike worked on with Vok began to take shape over the next couple days. Suvelian homesteads were easy on the eyes, yet efficient with their space at the same time. The broad architecture helped keep the streets shaded from the binary suns. Nearly everything was made using the Colossal-alloy, and the aliens seemed to have an endless supply of the stuff.

It was a fascinating, futuristic material with dozens of functions. Mike stood in the lower loft of a homestead they had just finished furnishing, examining the alloy’s most noticeable detail. With the push of a button, the alloyed-walls would slowly fade until they transformed into windows. The transparency could be used on as many or as few panels as the user desired. You could have a house fully see-through, if you felt like living in a glass tube. The only indication of the walls being present was a faint shimmer, like heat waves rising from the ground. You could also set it so you could see out but not in, or vice versa. Suvelians clearly did not define privacy as humans did, as Mike noticed that most of the older homesteads, deeper into the colony and built well before his arrival, were fully open for all to see inside.

“Couldn’t imagine trying to sleep with everyone able to just look in,” Mike said to Vok as he joined him for a break, wiping the sweat from his brow and sitting himself on the ground. Mike thought, since he was new to all this work, that he would be taking the most breaks, but Vok took just as many rests, if not more, his chestplate rising and falling as his fatigue coursed through the hidden body. Maybe Vok was just old, but as usual it was hard to tell anything about these aliens. The suits concealed too much, to the point Mike was more than a little suspicious of them. After all, how could he warm up to people he could not see?

“We have nothing to hide,” Vok replied, sticking a pack onto his suit. It sloshed audibly with water. “Besides, our suits already hide us well enough already.”

Mike huffed. “That makes sense, actually.” He took an idle gulp of air from his breather. Did they ever take those suits off, he wondered. Could they? He was curious, but was too tired to pry further. Being in Vok’s service was hard, gruelling work, but as the days passed the labour slowly got easier, and even some of the other engineers stopped gawking and let him go about his day without gawking at him so often. They even so kindly kept there little comments about him out of earshot.

But hard work and being judged had nothing compared to his new cell, which was dark and dingy compared to the rest of the colony he had seen. His admiration of the alloy at work made him wish his own cell was made out of it as well. Having a full set of transparent walls could help with his claustrophobia, which had only strengthened its hold on him through his prolonged stay on board the Arden.

Still, there were still things to be bitter about. Using alien tech was something he felt he’d never get used to. Each day Vok introduced him to a number of new things with strange names like, “Inkelfunarta,” or “Sepinliforan,” which was translated to Big Red Zap Thing and Swiss Suvelian Army Tool. Vok would berate him every time Mike grabbed the wrong tool, treating him like the Galaxies greatest fool each time Mike stuffed something up. Coupled with the fact he often injured his hands through improper use, and he grew frustrated very quickly.

Vok noticed his behaviour, and would have let Mike suffer for longer if he hadn’t felt some pity well up inside. After Mike stung his finger once again, the engineer stopped him and shook his head.

“Put that down, Outworlder, you’re bleeding all over the sheets.”

Grumbling, Mike dropped whatever the thing was called on the workbench. “I’m doing my best here, Vok.”

“Then I’d hate to see your worst if that’s the case. Just stop a moment, there. Let me offer you a bit of advice.”

“Next time I come crashing onto a planet, make sure it’s not this one? Heard that one already from one of the other builders.”

“The next time you pick up that tool, open your ears. You have ears, don’t you? Those big things on the sides of your head? Good. Take a moment and listen to the melodies.”

“The what?” Mike asked, sucking on his recently wounded knuckle, tasting his own blood.

“That’s what we do when we need to focus. Close your eyes and relax. Frustration just leads to more of it, as my father used to say.”

“How can I relax when-” Mike yanked up the bolting tool to try again, but when he activated the little power button, the bolter fell from his hands, and as if gravity itself was against him, it rolled underneath the workbench. “-Oh come on!”

“Use your ears, human. Pick up the bolter again, and listen.”

Mike huffed. The melody had been hanging in the background, like a song on repeat. It was so subtle he’d almost forgotten all about it. Yet the moment Vok mentioned it, its tune slowly changed from a fast-paced beat to a slow, rhythmic pattern. The words were foreign and alien, but had a peaceful undertone to them. He held back a retort and did as Vok instructed, straining his hearing.

“Sing along with them if you’d like,” Vok said, gesturing to the air, filling up with gentle voices. “It’s what I do.”

“I’ve noticed.” When Vok sang, he sounded completely out of it, like he was on drugs or something. “I don’t sing, Vok. Dance, maybe, but no singing.”

“Human dancing,” Vok said with a little laugh. He’d thought Vok was incapable of humour up to now. “I’d like to see that someday. But if I had to choose between singing and working, or dancing and working, one of them is much easier, don’t you think? But if you will not sing the words, hum them. Are you at least capable of that?”

Mike wanted to ask what’s the point? but stopped himself. He couldn’t be certain every worker was singing twenty-four seven, but it sure seemed that way. And if Vok was telling the truth, that singing did help, he couldn't see any harm in trying.

He closed his eyes and did as Vok said. His humming sounded stupid to his own ears, he almost expected Vok to start laughing at him. Somewhere nearby the sound of a drill buzzed noisily. Off in the distance some alien animal howled out a call to its pack. He blocked these sounds out and focused on the lilting melody hanging in the air.

The music buzzed in the middle of his head, on the brink between distracting and ignorable. Maybe it was just him, but now that he was paying attention, its volume slowly started to increase. A mix of instruments melded together into a wholly pleasant tune – and yet where were the instruments coming from? Chimes dominated his eardrums but not to the point of becoming unpleasant. He didn’t notice that his hand – the one holding the bolter – was moving along the workbench and carrying out his task without his input.

The sounds washed over him, making his skin go numb. Thoughts and memories he would have rather left buried deep in the wells of his mind suddenly swam up to the surface. He could see the faces of his father and sister, smiling up at him as he told them he would be leaving and would not come back for a long time. Their faces looked so real, like it was happening all over again.

The faces faded, and then he was on the Arden, vowing that he would get revenge for their deaths. Both for their sakes, and his own. Yet he was still a prisoner, on some alien world. What chance did he have at escaping? And even if he could leave, what then? Would the Leviathan thing be out there, waiting for him? Waiting to kill its last witness?

How insignificant he was against its sheer girth. How could he stand against that, or avenge his family when he was too cowardly in the first place? He was helpless. Was the Suvelian melody amplifying all these inner fears?

He opened his eyes, moisture building up behind his eyes. He went to wipe at them but his arms wouldn’t obey. Looking down, Mike watched his arms working as if he’d been an engineer for years. Panic clouded his mind and he struggled against the music and its immaterial binds. For one horrible moment he thought he wouldn’t break free, but then the numbness faded away, and the world staggered as if it had frozen on its axis.

He took a deep breath and let it out. Vok watched the human struggle all the while, not bothering to lend a hand. When Mike found his voice he asked, “W-What the hell was that?”

“You let the melody in,” Vok replied as if stating the fact to a child. “At least, for a moment. What did you feel?”

“I felt so... small.” Mike didn’t want to reveal everything, so kept his explanation brief. “Like all the worries of the world were on my back.”

“The Reliun is an emotional piece. All who sing share their burdens. Life becomes a little easier if you have others to share your griefs.”

“And what do they grieve?” Mike asked, motioning to all the others who sang around them. He was careful not to pay too much attention to the lyrics, afraid that he might come under its alien spell again.

“Our most treasured possession,” Vok answered, his voice sombre. “It was lost many years ago, though many here weren’t alive to see it in its prime. Suvelia. Our homeworld.”

Mike’s features softened as he blinked. He hadn’t thought Vok would be capable of this kind of emotion, and decided to press it. “How did you lose your homeworld?”

But Vok shook his head. “You should know that. But I cannot speak of it. Not anymore. It hurts just to think about it. We should be getting back to work anyway – Raan told me you’re to be off early today, and I want these foundations done before then, human.”

And like that, Vok returned to his usual dismissive self, remaining gruff and stern for the rest of the shift. Mike passed the hours thinking about what Vok meant by that he should obviously know about Suvelia, but came to no real conclusion. It was clear the Suvelians held some – much, he corrected – prejudice towards his kind, but were reluctant to explain why. He wished he were among humans and not these secluded bunch – at least humans were a bit more direct.

Raan came to relieve Mike early, as Vok had said. He asked the big alien why this was. “Good behaviour?” he said with an innocent shrug, but Raan wasn’t very talkative about it, saying that someone would ‘be around shortly’ for his new task.

Raan dropped Mike off at his cell, locking it as he left and leaving Mike to wait. Just off in the distance he could faintly hear the engineers sing, the Reliun. He wondered how it could have made him feel as he did. How those aliens could live with all those emotions become so raw and still work properly.

Maybe because they hadn’t made so many mistakes, he told himself. Not like me.

In those few moments the Reliun had taken hold on him, he could actually remember what it felt like to be a kid again. Not just like a dream, something so much more vivid and… scary, almost. A bit of that fear probably extended to the Suvelians themselves. How they could warp memories like that even on an alien like him.

Crazy world.

Speaking of crazy, the idea of revealing the Leviathan to the Suvelians or not was something he hadn’t given much thought. Not like there was a lot of thinking involved. How could he even explain that without burying his own grave? Oh, by the way, my ship was actually eaten. Yep, gobbled up by a big mass of tentacles flying through space, but don’t worry – my ship was carrying thousands of criminals, so no harm done if you think about it. Oh, I just so happen to be one of those criminals, by the way. Funny Galaxy, huh? So can I go now or what?

And suppose they did let him go, and the Leviathan was waiting for him? What then? He didn’t know. It was all just one prison after another. That was all his life turned out to be after that day all those years ago. Maybe it was the Galaxy’s way of telling him where he really belonged. In a cage. Like the animal he was.

He heard footsteps approach up the path outside. He watched the door unlock, and was surprised to see Lolanne stepping in. He hadn’t seen her in a while.

“You again?” he asked, and his tone was that of mock-horror. “Not more questions, please. I’ll do anything.”

“Not this time,” she replied. He couldn’t help but notice she sounded a little nervous. “Grab your respirator and come with me.”

“Where’re we going?” He got to his feet and grabbed his rebreather, following her as she stepped outside. It was early afternoon, and to the west the lowest of the two suns was slipping below the horizon. The air was cooler, but not by much. He realized this was the latest part of the day he’d been allowed outside since coming here.

Lolanne moved off down the path without replying, and he caught up to her, his robes flapping like little flags in the breeze. His usual armed escort stayed behind, further adding to his suspicions. Lolanne brought him a little deeper into the colony and onto the main streets, and now the places he’d seen only from a distance were now up close.

There were no cars or vehicles, which surprised him. Instead, dozens of Suvelians, some engineers, and others he couldn’t identify, walked about in large groups. Every single one of them was suited up, the difference between each them was the assortment of differing shades of colour on their visors and suits, the amount of armour on each body part, and the varying shapes and designs of their pauldrons and gauntlets and helmets.

Not an ounce of skin could be seen. Most stared and gawked as Mike passed, something he’d grown used to, but that didn’t stop him from offering a few greetings here and there. For a while no one said anything back, but he was pleasantly surprised when eventually someone actually did reply, a female stepping out onto her balcony high above them as they rounded a corner.

“Deeksta!” she yelled out, before retreating out of sight. Mike blinked and looked up, frowning.

“Deeksta? What’s that mean?” he asked Lolanne, moving up beside her.

“I’m… not so sure you want to know. Let’s just say a deek is a… vulgar person. Deeksta is the next level, you could say.”

“Vulgar, huh? I’ve been called worse things than that.”

“I believe you.”

They went through to the north-western portion of the colony, the structures coloured in shades of magenta. From the amount of mechanical sounds coming from within the buildings, Mike judged this district was more industry based. He thought he’d be put to work again, curious if he would learn where exactly this alloy came from, but abandoned the thought as Lolanne came to the very outer edges of the district, where the urban flooring abruptly ended and met a yellow field of knee-high grass. He vaguely remembered being escorted through here after the dracon had nearly got him.

Lolanne stopped by the base of a watchtower. The small crow’s nest on its top was occupied by a single soldier, gazing out to the horizon. Lolanne called something out, muffled to Mike since she used her suit’s commlink to communicate to the watchman. The guard turned and looked down at them, and Mike somehow could feel the daggers in the alien’s glare. The watchman went and stood on the very edge of the nest, and a portion of the floor beneath him began to sink along the side the tower, acting as a sort of elevator, but without all the safety features.

The guard stepped off the platform, removing a hand from his plasma cannon and placing it on his chest, his flexible digits forming a pattern Mike vaguely recognized as the one Vok had offered Raan.

“Sumal, delroso, Guider Lolanne,” the watchman said. He offered Mike no such greeting. “Heading out again?”

“Yes. Here’s Raan’s clearance.” She held up her wrist-pad and typed a few buttons. The guard held up his own as the invisible data-waves transferred over.

“Hmm,” the guard said. “The Avant let me know earlier you’d be taking him along. I told Raan this was a big mistake, but it isn’t my place to question.”

“I think letting you guard anything is a big mistake.” Mike said. He raised a hand. “What do you think I’m going to do, run away?”

The guard shifted his cannon from one shoulder to the other with a swing meant to intimidate. “The colony would be better off if you did.” He looked Mike up and down. The Suve stood well over a head taller than Mike, and was much burlier. He was very imposing. “Got a big mouth on you, Outworlder. How much bigger could it get if I put a plasma bolt through it, I wonder?”

Although the thought of retreating crossed his mind, Mike stood his ground. The stare-off went on for a few moments before Lolanne stepped in: “We should really be going,” she said, laughing awkwardly to try and ease the tension in the air. “Come on, human, we’re going.”

The guard looked from Mike to Lolanne, then back to him again. For a moment he thought the guard would try something, but the guard just stretched his shoulders and motioned for them to go. Lolanne strode towards the jungle, a little too eager to be away from the colony. Mike started to follow, but after one stride the guard seized his arm. He tensed up, waiting for a gloved fist to come flying down, but instead the alien leaned in, close enough that Mike could make out his dim yellow eyes behind his insectoid-like visor.

“Any harm comes to her, human. And I will kill you. This far from human space, nobody’s going to miss you.”

Mike shook himself free, and turned to join Lolanne, who watched the exchange from a distance. He caught up with her after one last scowl over his shoulder. “Real barrel of joy, that guy,” he said.

Lolanne didn’t reply. She led the way into the wilderness, Mike trailing close behind. Being out here again and leaving the safety of civilization behind was a little intimidating, but at the same time Mike was not entirely reluctant about it. At least now he could go for five minutes without being stared at like he was some freak.

Probably what the Suves actually think I am.

“Who thinks what, Outworlder?” the female said from ahead. Mike hadn’t realised he’d spoke his thought aloud.

“Nothing, never mind.”

They walked along for only a few minutes, but when Mike turned around the colony was already hidden behind a wall of golden leaves, now brown in the subdued light. He could still hear distant machinery though – the only thing that pierced through the various calls of the hidden animals within the jungle. When Lolanne continued to lead on in silence, he decided to break it. “So, um, you still haven’t told me what we’re doing out here.”

“We’re going to find the dracon’s nest,” she answered, her voice far away and distracted. Mike frowned.

“Waitwhat? You tired of life?” he asked. She looked over her shoulder at him, small blue orbs behind her visor the only indication she was watching him.

“It needs to be marked down, so we can avoid it for future colonization.”

“And how long’s that gonna take?”

“Not long. No more than two days, I think.”

Two days out in these wilds, and in the double-sunshine. Mike closed his eyes and groaned. He had the alien robes, sure, but he’d only been out in the sunlight for short periods of time before he had to seek shade, which the alien architecture provided plenty of. Too much exposure and he’d start burning. Burning, like he had back on the Arden.

The comparison made the hairs on his skin stand on end.

But he followed Lolanne wordlessly, keeping pace with her deliberate strides. She came to a halt at the spot the dracon had caught him, right before Raan and his team had saved him from certain death. Despite not being present at the time, she crouched by the exact spot Mike had fallen, where he had looked up into those rows of teeth and waited for it all to end. She examined the area for a moment then correctly gestured in the direction the dracon had fled. “That way.”

“Wow,” Mike said, half impressed. “How can you tell?” All around him the jungle moved, critters and insects buzzing around and disturbing the foliage boxing them in this little clearing. It all looked the same to him.

“By its tracks,” she replied, pointing. He peered over her shoulder to look at what she indicated, but the ground was so firm not even his current tracks were visible. She’s got sniper’s eye’s, he thought with a grin.

Lolanne moved swiftly towards the west, head down and following the reptilian tracks. Without looking up, she somehow avoided so much as brushing against a single branch or leaf, using a unique gracefulness only one who knew the world well could use. Mike meanwhile, was clumsy and slow, breaking twigs under his alien boots and swatting away leaves blocking his path, all of it under the din of his grumbled cursewords aimed at the planets creators.

“So, er, did you used to be a hunter or something?” he decided to ask, the silence gnawing at him. She answered but still kept on the move.

“No, not a hunter. Hunters kill things.” She sounded offended by the notion.

“You don’t kill?” he asked. Lolanne shook her head. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, least where I come from. How can you sustain a colony without hunting for food?”

“We brought more than enough provisions,” the female replied. “And Selen and I have discovered that plenty of plants around here are edible. You should know, you’ve been eating them all week.”

Mike remembered all those packs fed to him. “I’ve been eating pureed plants,” he said aloud. “Not sure I wanted to know that.” He pushed aside a branch and caught up with Lolanne.

“There are plenty more interesting things Panthea has to offer,” she said.

“The only thing I’m interested in is getting off this rock.”

Lolanne slowed down, eyeing him silently over her shoulder. She could forgive him for their different backgrounds, but giving the planet that term offended her greatly. Would have been considered heresy were he of her own race. But of course, he wasn’t, and all those rumours she heard of blasphemous humans seemed a little more reasonable now.

“… Something wrong?” he asked. She didn’t realise she’d been staring at him the whole time.

“No. Let’s go,” she said, and continued moving.

She tracked the dracon to the Yilbarlo River, which wasn’t surprising, as the dracon could manoeuvre more freely along the banks. Mike made the occasional comment to fill the silence between them as they journeyed westward, but she didn’t reply to most of them. Her mind was too preoccupied on how to execute her plan. By perusing it she was going well beyond the grounds of common sense into the land of heresy,

Mike had grown up making long trips, but even he had his limits. As the hours passed the going got slower and his legs felt like they were made of lead. The sheer density of the jungle obscured his progress further, and often Lolanne would be steaming ahead and she’d have to wait for him to catch up. She didn’t bother trying to keep pace with him. He could just make out the little huffs of annoyance whenever he took too long.

At one point, as the suns were beginning to disappear in their skyward journeys, Mike noticed some movement bounding through the jungle off to the side. He’d catch the glimpse of an appendage only to slip away behind the forest roof. When he finally saw one for more than second he was reminded of a giant three-legged huntsman spider. They were the same arachnid creatures Lolanne had encountered back in the swamps, which weren’t terribly far to the south of them.

Mike’s first instinct was to find a way to be rid of them, but these spiders were bigger than dogs, not like the tiny ones back home that could go down by simply squashing them with a rolled-up newspaper.

“They’re just watching us,” Lolanne explained, noticing how Mike kept his head up, looking for the arachnids rather than where he was going. “We’ll be out of their territory soon enough.”

“You sure?” he asked. One particular arachnid seemed to be eyeing him up, lingering closer than the rest of its brethren. “Of course there had to be spiders in this place…”

“Are you scared?” she asked, genuinely intrigued.

“Who wouldn’t be when they’ve got fangs are the size of my hands!?”

Lolanne looked away and, by the way her suit bobbed, was probably trying to stifle a laugh.

“What’re you laughing at? Don’t tell me that you’re not afraid of nothing.”

Lolanne hesitated for a moment. Panthea was the last hope for her and her people at surviving as a species. Yet at the same time, the planet scared her. All her dreams revolved around this golden globe, and it wouldn’t take much to bring it all down.

And the storm was already beginning to weave into her fears. Sometimes she’d dream about it, and most days it was all she thought about. Perhaps ignorance would have been the better alternative, but wilful ignorance? That just wasn’t her.

“I’m not afraid of a few simple creatures,” she said. “Or much else, for that matter.”

“Oh, sure. I believe you. Little Lolanne the Fearless, that’s what your brothers called you, right?”

Lolanne frowned under her helmet. Of all things, she didn’t expect him to use her own past against her. Maybe she should have listened to Selen about revealing too much to him. She hated the way Mike so casually used her brothers’ term for her. “You really are a deek, human.”

“Ouch. Must have struck a nerve there.” He swatted away a branch. “Family issues?”

She ignored him, quickening her strides as she progressed through the jungle, so Mike was always a good distance away from her.

The final hours of the daylight passed, and both of the suns were soon gone, plunging the world into darkness. As Lolanne trekked a little way ahead along the riverbank, a pallet of colours lit up the sky. Mike paused and craned his neck, found himself awed at the grand scale of the planet’s orbiting moon. Its pale surface dominated at least a quarter of the night sky, so close to the planet that he could make out the fine details of its craters and chasms.

Around the moon, purple nebulas jewelled the blackness of space, their lavender oceans surrounded by thousands of glittering white stars. It was in that moment, listening to the trickle water washing nearby, looking up into a beautiful and strange sky, that he fully absorbed the fact that he was on a truly alien world, far from any human civilization. Accompanied by an alien.

His sister was always the more curious sibling, not him. She might have appreciated this place far more than he.

“Can we stop for the night?” Mike rubbed his burning calves, rushing to catch up with an impatient Lolanne. The alien considered this for a second.

“Alright,” she answered, walking a little further into a small clearing on the riverbank, right by a bioluminescent patch of weeds and coral growing just below the water’s surface, shining in a soft shade of blue.

The night grew dark and chilly as Mike and Lolanne sat by the water, not saying a word as they put some space between them. For a long while the two of them occasionally glanced at the other. Mike wasn’t sure if it was awkwardness of outright hostile tension. Maybe a touch of both.

At one point he grunted and stood up, moving away to gather up a bunch of fallen twigs and branches, which were very abundant around here. He thought the dracon might have knocked them when it ran through here.

Lolanne, sat on her haunches and against the trunk of a tree, watched the human carefully as he moved about. When he was satisfied with the amount of deadwood piled up, he turned and moved up the river, peering into the liquid and occasionally picking up a stone or shell. He lingered just out of her sight for a few minutes, and she was just about to call out to him when he returned, holding several stones in his hands.

He set them down by the bundle of wood, and picked up two, which he wiped dry on his clothes. He held one in each hand just above the woodpile, and struck the stones together. A small spark flew onto the tinder, but nothing else happened. Lolanne realised what he was doing and grabbed one of his hands when they were in mid-strike.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed like he was about to commit a felony. Mike blinked at her.

“Making fire. What’s it look like?”

“This was one of the reasons you were put into our custody, Outworlder. Y-You can’t just burn everything you see!”

“You might not feel it under that suit, but its cold out here, and I’m getting hungry. Tell Raan all about it when we get back if you want, I’ve got nothing else to lose. Until then, just deal with it.”

He shook her off, and she let him go. “Fine. But no killing,” she said, reaching for a pouch on her hip. “You can eat from these packs I’ve brought. No cooking animals.”

“Sure. You said before that those packs are all just plants anyway, so point them out. Not gonna eat anymore of that pureed crap.”

She turned her head left and right, examining for a moment before pointing at the river. “Those weeds over there are ripe, but don’t take the glowing ones. Those’re poisonous.”

Mike struck the stones together again. This time the spark was larger, and it instantly ignited the wood it fell upon, and a flame was born. He blew very lightly onto it, giving the flame fuel to expand. Once it looked well-fed, he got up and reached into the river to where Lolanne had indicated. He uprooted a handful of weeds and returned to the fire. He brought one up to his mouth, and after a moment’s hesitation he bit into it. Its smooth texture rubbed over his tongue, and tasted of minerals, and was an otherwise pleasant meal. He wrapped one weed around the end of a stick and let it simmer over the flames.

Lolanne stuck a pack onto her waist, careful to conceal the sheer number of packs she’d brought with her – a few weeks’ worth at least. She watched him from the corner of her eye, despite her face being well hidden by the visor. This time it was her turn to break the silence.

“How did you do that?” Nearby, an arachnid settled into the crook between a trunk and a branch with a knocking against the wood.

“Hm?” His mouth was full of the weeds and muffled his speech. “Do what?”

She motioned to the campfire between them.

“Ya mean-” He swallowed a lump in his throat. Lolanne’s eyes lingered on that odd movement. “’Scuse me. You mean fire? Well, I… gathered up some wood, as you saw, then got some flint and stone for spark, you know how it goes.”

“What is this word? ‘Flint’?”

“It’s a… rock,” he said, suspicious that this was a trick question. He jerked a thumb. “Found it in the river up there. Why do you ask?”

“How did you discover this process?” Lolanne asked. Mike thought it all a big joke, but she sounded serious, and she’d begun facing him directly, obviously interested. He shrugged and said,

“Well I didn’t. My dad taught me, and his dad taught him, then his dad, then… all the way back to cave-man times, I guess.”

“’Cave-man times’?”

“Yep. First step of evolution for my kind, back on Earth.” He took another bite of his cooked plant, his voice muffled again. “Washn’t it tha shame for you Shuvelians?”

“No, the Ancients of my kind had to live underground, because of our fragile bodies, and even fragile-er immune systems. We could see very well in the dark, and there was just no need for fire.” She nodded to the crackling flames. There was a pause for a moment, the ambiance of the jungle filling the night. Mike cleared his throat.

“So you lot used to live in total darkness? Don’t think humans could have survived Earth without fire, how could yours have?”

“I thought you said all you were interested in was leaving?”

“I did. Would you rather we sat here all night in silence?”

She shook her head. “I guess not. Well, to answer your question, Suvelia was harsh on not just my people, but the wildlife as well. It orbited very close to our local sun, and without some form of protection, the Ancients could only leave the underground for short periods of time. On the other hand, we couldn’t stay in the tunnels as we began to evolve into our more bipedal forms. The Ancients needed a balance, and so the suits were created. They were crude things at first, unrefined and nothing like what we have today. I can still see a ghost of what they used to look like on the robes you’re wearing. With the suits, my people slowly left the tunnels behind in favour of the surface, though they still kept the underground maintained in case of solar flares, which weren’t uncommon.”

“So that’s why you all wear those things? You’d get sunburnt? And sick?”

“It’s much more deadly than you’re thinking. If my suit was to be heavily damaged, it’s not just the stray bacteria in the air that could possibly kill me. The suit protects me from Panthea’s gravity, which would otherwise crush me. It shields me from the suns, which would harm me even more than they already do to you. Wrong air pressure, contaminated oxygen, germs in the dirt beneath my boots. The list goes on.”

“Think you’d try and settle on a more habitable planet then,” Mike pointed out. “Or a cooler one, at least. One sun maximum, not this place.”

“If such a planet existed, exactly or similar as Suvelia once was before its Fall, then we’d take it. But we’ve lost the liberty of choosing any other, as our time has run out as of late.”

“What do you mean?”

She met his gaze, watching his face for signs of a lie. “You don’t know?”

“Know, what?”

“We are of a different species, Mike, but I thought humans would know the goings on of the Milky Way, especially of their own creations.”

Mike frowned. She seemed to want to avoid the question, much like Vok had done when the homeworld was brought up. “I’ve been… preoccupied, these last few years. Or dozen. I don’t know.”

“With what?” she asked.

He went to say, but stopped himself at the last moment, coming to a sudden realisation of what Lolanne was up to. He gulped down another piece of weed to sate his stomach. “You’re still interrogating me, aren’t you? All that’s changed is the scenery. Nice try, Lolanne. Almost had me there.”

She gave off the subtlest huff, an almost annoyed huff if his ears didn’t decieve him. Lolanne had been leaning forward over the fire at him, engrossed in the conversation. She pulled back and rested against the trunk, the faint colour of her eyes dimming down like tiny lights. “We still have a day’s walk ahead of us. We’ll need our rest.”

Mike went to say something, but she was already out, or at least pretending to be. Either way he mumbled an agreement and laid down on the ground after finishing his dinner, the fire warming his backside as he turned away. It was difficult getting comfortable under the stars after spending so long aboard a spaceship. He’d slept rough on Neruvana, of course, but this world was far less domesticated, and would take some getting used to.

Not to mention the giant freaking spiders in the trees, he thought as he shut his eyes. The thought kept him awake for a while. The opposite could be said for Lolanne, who acted like they were simply ignorable creatures not worth the worry.  They probably weren’t to her, because of that intricate suit. After a long time he eventually fell into sleep, listening to the river wash by, and the distant rumble of the growing cyclone.

2

Dawn came, though Mike liked to think of it as first dawn, as there was only the one sun for the first few hours of the day. The temperature was fairly reasonable during this time, and the jungle came alive as things moved in and out of the weakened sunlight – tiny bugs covered in protective fur, fat birds fluttering down to drink from the river. He rubbed his eyes of sleep and watched the river flow by. This much vibrant life reminded him of the stories surrounding Earth and its green continents and blue oceans.

Though he didn’t believe half the things he’d heard about that planet. But then again, he had thought dracon’s weren’t real, and now he was actually searching for one. He’d hoped one day to be able to see Earth for himself, but that dream had died a long time ago.

His eyes drifted across the dying embers of his fire to Lolanne, her petite chest rising and falling with the gentlest snores slipping through her helmet. He glanced down at the weapons strapped to her hip. A set of twin pistols and an impressive and ornate knife, sheathed on her left thigh. For someone who despised killing, she was very well armed. He wondered if she had some sort of suit-warning that would let her know if someone tried to take those from her.

He wouldn’t try it of course. What would he do, hold her hostage? The last time he’d resorted to violence he had ended up wasting a good chunk of his youth on a ship full of convicts. He wanted to leave that part of his life behind, even if a part of him kept bringing it up.

Mike sat down by the river, dipping his hands in the water and fetching more of the edible seaweed from the river bed. Thef rie had gone out so he ate it raw, munching as he idly watched a nearby arachnid bounce through the jungle, swinging from place to place using loose vines, just as that old cartoon character Tarzan would. It pounced with deadly precision onto perched birds that didn’t even so much as squeak, sinking its massive reclined fangs into their feathered necks.

Back on his home, Neruvana, there had not been as much vibrant and dangerous wildlife as he was currently witnessing. Neruvana was a dry, arid place, water sources few and far between. Mostly abandoned by the UEC as there wasn’t a whole lot of resources to exploit. But for all its cons, it held, or had held, a certain charm to Mike. It was a quiet planet, out in the isolated reached on the Border Systems.

When his home was destroyed, a pit in his stomach had also been carved out. A hole in his life he’d try to fill with the Arden, because in some sick way it was a place he’d grown up in. But that longing inside him, for a chance at belonging again, had not been fulfilled, perhaps would never be fulfilled, because that ship was gone and here he was, a depraved soul who couldn’t look at this alien beauty without thinking up excuses as to why it sucked.

He was brought out of his thoughts when Lolanne began to stir. She sat up with a yawn and adjusting a clamp on the rear of her suit. She gave Mike a small nod before reaching into one of her pouches and retrieving a pack. She placed the interveinal device on her suit and they shared a silent breakfast. Strange animals warbled their calls all around them.

“Ready to move?” Lolanne said when she was done, disposing her empty pack back into a separate pouch.

“Sure.” Mike stood, brushed his clothes of sand and dirt. After stamping out the fire, he grinned and made a ‘lead the way’ gesture.

They kept on their westward path, Lolanne keeping her head lowered as the tracks became more difficult to follow every meter covered. Mike could faintly see the massive outlines of the lizard feet in the dirt here and there, but was still amazed at how easily Lolanne seemed to find them. They kept their breaks few and short during the morning, and they made good progress before the second sun presented itself and baked the world in a golden, blinding blanket.

Mike noticed that every leaf, giant bannerlike things hanging all around and above them, had subtle fur coats on their surfaces. These leaves were in direct sunlight, but were cool to the touch when he reached out with his fingers. He idly commented about these observations to Lolanne, who seemed eager to explain that the fur protected the vegetation from burning up in these oppressive heat conditions.

They came to a steady rise in the terrain, covered in exposed, jagged rock formations rising up and cutting off the slopes of the hills. Lolanne stopped and looked up at the closest formation, its ledge about double her own height. He expected her to move off to the sides to search for a shorter climb, but instead she bent her knees into a squat position. Mike watched with growing fascination as she launched herself up with outstretched hands. He didn’t think she’d make the jump – she was half a head shorter than himself. Then his gaze lowered to her athletically-shaped legs, then to the little jets of flames shooting out from the soles of her suited feet. The smell of burning fuel filled the air as the suit propelled her the extra distance she needed to grab the ledge above her.

“Rocket-boots?” Mike looked up at Lolanne as she nimbly pulled her body onto the ledge. She lowered to a crouch, glancing down at him.

“Perk for being a Guider,” she said, twisting a foot to show off the small concealed engine. Her feet were a little larger than his, ending in hoof-shaped toes that acted like springs as she adjusted her footing. “Pretty nice, aren’t they?”

“Yes, very nifty. Any other perks? Like, how I’m supposed to follow you up there?”

“Gravity here is a little lighter than standard. I’m sure you can make it.”

“Oh, she’s sure. In that case...” Mike gave himself some room for a running start. Taller or not, the ledge still looked a tad too high. Regardless, he steeled himself and took off in a sprint, jumping as hard as he could towards the ledge. He grunted, feeling his body spring up into the air further than it should, the gravity indeed being lighter than it had been on Neruvana or the Arden, but it still wasn’t enough. His fingers brushed against the rock but found no grip, and his hands slipped from the granite, his body tumbling backward. It would be a rough fall, but his reinforced spine just might-

A hand clasped his own. He looked up and saw Lolanne’s gauntleted arm pulling him up. Mike squeezed on tight and heaved his legs up over the rock when he was high enough, then followed with the rest of his body. Loose rocks tumbled over the edge as he got up and wiped his hands.

He let out a breath and dusted his hands. “Whew! Nearly didn’t make it there for a second.”

“Nearly?” Lolanne echoed, hands on her hips. He shrugged innocently. Lolanne shook her head and moved off to scale the next series of rock walls. It was a long, aching process, especially now that the suns were at their highest points, and Mike lacked any sort of aid to his jumps. There were no more close calls, fortunately, and Lolanne gave him a hand here and there when he needed it. Once they reached the summit of the incline at long last, Mike found they were now stood on the peak of a crater lip, the interior of the bowl-shaped divot filled to the brim with more dense jungle. The crater was a few hundred meters across, the opposing ridge capped in clusters of boulders.

“It’s here,” Lolanne said from his side.

“The dracon?” He darted his eyes left to right suspiciously, looking for any movement. “Where?”

She pointed at the deepest part of the crater, as if she could see through the blanket of golden vegetation.

“Oh, good, we found the nest. Nice work Lolanne.” He turned on his heels, peering out to the coast. “Now to report back on our successful mission. You still didn’t tell me why you needed me here… Lolanne? Hello?”

He turned around and saw the space beside him was empty. Just down the slope, the Suvelian was already jogging into the crater’s depths without so much as looking back.

“Hey!” he called out. “Don’t go towards the evil lizard!”

Lolanne slipped through a fern with a rustle of leaves. Mike looked like he was trying to go in two directions at once. He’d rather be a hundred kilometres away from the dracon, but at the same time… going back without company into those spider feeding-grounds was somehow just as worse.

Mumbling something, he took off down the slope after Lolanne, feet kicking up little coughs of dust as he went.

He found her prone form lying on a small mound of grass, the brown stalks rising up around and above her body. He came up to her flank and grunted as he got down onto his belly and mimicked her lowness to the ground.

“You find the big overgrown skink yet?” he asked her.

“Shh!” she hissed, pointing to the clearing just ahead of them. Steam vented out of several large boulders littered around the crater’s epicentre, giving the area a hot-springs sort of look. Mike was about to ask why he should hush when one of the larger rocks began to shift. Stone slates stretched away from the main body and formed into two large wings. The thing he mistook for a rock growled, a sound he was all too familiar with.

The dracon, somehow changing the colour of its hide to match the rocks around it, shuffled into a more comfortable resting position. Mike held his breath as his stomach tightened in suppressed anxiety. For the moment they were concealed, but the creature was only thirty meters away. One misstep was all it would take to alert it.

Lolanne did not share in his horror, however. With beaming enthusiasm she said, “Amazing! I never thought I’d ever be this close to one nesting.”

“It’s not that great.” As he whispered this, the dracon turned its long neck and groomed one of its massive foreleg claws with this tongue as long as he was tall, eyes still shut the whole time.

“Are you serious? You don’t know anything about these creatures, do you?”

“I do, actually.” He scratched his head idly. “They’re, er, interplanetary, think it’s called. They travel from planet to planet, as easy as spaceships can. They like to terrorize the local populace, as I’ve recently found out.”

“Only if you provoke it.” The suited alien angled her head toward him. “Is that what you did the day you arrived? Was that your first instinct, to attack it?”

“Well…” he said, thinking back. “It was about to pounce me right before I noticed it. If I hadn’t slowed it down I’d probably be dead.”

She shifted her belly into a more comfortable spot, looking back at the creature they discussed. “Dracon’s are as intelligent as you or me. More so, in your case. If you’d let her know you weren’t a threat, she wouldn’t have attacked you.”

She? he thought. He didn’t want to imagine what facing its’ opposite gender would be like. “I’ll remember to explain myself the next time I’m facing down once-mythical creatures.”

She was about to retort, but a tiny squeak silenced the both of them. Mike looked towards its source, out in the clearing beside the sleeping dracon.  Something slinked along the ground like a snake towards them, but when his eyes snapped onto it, the tall grass concealed his vision. Mike prepared to retreat, looking to see if Lolanne had a similar reaction, but her look told him to stay put. No sudden movements or else the slumbering beast would wake.

The new creature squeaked again, its vague green hide closing in on their position, the stalks parting as it moved closer and closer. When it was right on top of them, it poked its reptilian head out from between two stalks and regarded them with its big blue eyes.

Mike’s (and Lolanne’s), eyes were just as large as they stared back at a miniature version of the great dracon, no longer than a meter from head to tail. Its feet were stubby and ended in small but sharp talons, and the wings hugged flat against its skinny torso. Little whiskers peeking from under its nostrils waved about in the breeze, giving it the appearance of a moustache.

Like surprised meerkats, Mike and Lolanne looked at one another slowly, then to the baby dracon, then to the mother dracon, which shifted its weight again, huge plumes of smoke trailing from its nostrils as it snored loudly.

“Oh, Saduun,” Lolanne said, low enough that Mike barely heard her. The sound of her voice caused the baby reptile to shift its gaze toward her, its raptanoid-face somehow lifted in exuberant wonder. The Suvelian sounded like she was both excited and terrified.

“Looks like we found the dracon’s,” he said, emphasising the plural. At the sound of his voice the dracon looked to him now. It sniffed his scent with its tiny nose, the little nostrils flexing and contracting.

“And he is wonderful,” Lolanne breathed. “What are the chances of finding a whelp? One so curious to outsiders like us?

Mike cringed away from the dracon’s curious snout closing in on his face. He whisper shouted: “No, but I know the chances of us getting eaten just went through the roof! Can we go now?”

To his releief, Lolanne nodded, and the two of them made to crawl away. But the movement caused the whelp to squeak in surprise, louder than it had before, sort of like an, “Ah!” -of fear.

Behind it, the mother dracon stirred again. Mike couldn’t help but feel it was dangling on the threshold between dreaming and waking. Its offspring chirped again when Lolanne’s boot mad a loud scraping noise in the dirt.

Mike could only think of one thing to do to try and quiet the whelp down. It might result in a few missing fingers, but if momma dracon woke up, he’d be missing a lot more than his hand. He reached out with a tentative hand and gave the small dracon a light scratch on the chin, silently praying those little piranha-jaws would not snap at him. The dracon’s blue eyes went wide at his approach, but once he’d made contact with the little scales covering the snout, it crooned and warbled a satisfied croon at his touch.

“You’re… You’re petting it,” Lolanne said, as if it needed to be said aloud to be real.

Mike shot her a look that said do you have a better idea? After a few scratches, he retracted his arm gently, but the moment he did, the whelp gave off an annoyed squeak, and their luck went dry.

The mother dracon, annoyed by how much lack of rest it had gotten recently, stood on its forepaws and swiveled its scaly head in its offspring’s direction. Mike stared back at the larger dracon; his eyes wide as plates. He prepared to run.

“Don’t,” Lolanne said, noticing his movements. “It’ll hunt us down if we try to flee.”

“So what, we just wait?”

The Suvelian got to her feet in answer. Mike followed her lead with obvious hesitance. The dracon copied their movements, rising to its full and terrible height very slowly.

Lolanne presented her empty palms out. Mike copied her, and for a few long heartbeats Mike was once again in a stare-off with the dracon. He whispered out fo the corner of his mouth: “Now what?”

“Now...” she said, sounding as nervous as he was, which made him feel a little bit better, oddly enough. “… we go forward,” she finished.

“Waitwhat?!”

His companion took one cautious step forward, mumbling something about someone called ‘Saduun’, whoever that was. The whelp which had moments ago been scared of Mike, now found him rather fascinating, and wrapped its long body around one of his feet like a cat seeking affection. Mike moved forward, making sure not to step on the little menace as he joined Lolanne in open view of the larger dracon. They stopped not meters ahead of its regally posed body.

It glared down at the both of them, like a deity judging its subjects, its eyes narrowing to slits as its mouth parted and revealed rows of triangular teeth. The lips were still bloody from the buckshot he’d fired at it earlier. To his right, Lolanne was bending forwards, clutching her hands together as if offering a prayer. “The hell are you doing, Lolanne?” he hissed. “What’re you-?”

“Bow!” she said, shooting out an arm and tugging him down. Mike lowered his head and offered a bow as well. Together, they stood there, awkwardly, Mike waiting for the end as the dracon hissed in what was clearly an unsatisfied statement. Out of the corner of his peripheral he saw the whelp return to its mother’s side.

For several excrutiating moments the dracon regarded them – particularly Mike, who would have noticed this if he had looked up, which he did not dare to do, paralysed with fear as he was.

Then, centimetres at a time, the dracon backed away and laid down on her side, wrapping its great wings over her offspring protectively. Lolanne and Mike started backing away.  The dracon’s snake-eyes watched Mike as he slowly put distance between them, the glare full of intelligence and knowing.

When they broke line of sight, they turned and sprinted back to the lip of the crater, panting in fear and exhaustion. They’d both been holding their breaths. At this height, Mike turned to the east and could just see the tops of the colony buildings creeping over the jungle’s roof. For once he would be glad to be put back to work by Vok, and the sooner the better.

“Okay, now we found the dracons. Both of them,” Mike said as Lolanne joined him. “Let’s get out of here and tell your buddy Raan, right Lolanne? … Lolanne?”

He glanced over his shoulder, praying she hadn’t gone in the crater again. But she was their just behind him, looking out in the opposite direction of the colony. He followed her gaze out over the world towards the swirling cyclone that towered between two gigantic, ice-capped mountains. It had grown double its size since he’d last looked upon it, and two smaller tornados had formed around its base, swirling and ripping up the earth in huge grassy rugs. It was very far away, but maybe it appeared so massive because of how it dwarfed its surrounding mountainscape. But that didn’t explain how dark and intimidating the world looked over there, even by natures standards.

“I’m not going back just yet,” Lolanne said, her voice as distant as the thing she was watching. Or maybe that was the suit muffling it, he wasn’t sure.

“Waitwhat?” he said in one quick breath. “You said we were coming out here to find the nest. Don’t tell me we have to find the dracon’s bounty too.”

“What? No, no this is different. I…” She lifted her hands up and rubbed them together. “I need to investigate… that.” She pointed to the brewing storm.

Mike raised an eyebrow. “The cyclone? But that’s just a bunch of clouds, Lolanne. It’ll pass soon enough.”

“But it hasn’t,” she snapped, surprising the both of them at how angry she sounded. She turned to face him fully. “My people have been on Panthea for months, and that thing has not shrunk in size, not one bit. It’s grown and grown, but has never even moved.”

“Maybe it has,” he defended. “You can’t be watching it every moment of the day.”

“It’s all I ever think about,” she said, letting her shoulders sag. “I need to see it for myself, to see if what Raan and the others say is true, that I’m worried over nothing. If I am, then perfect. Saduun curse me for my paranoia. But I just don’t believe there’s anything natural about that thing.”

“And what do you think you’ll find?” he asked. “A source? A damn weather machine? You’re crazy.” Big words coming from me, he thought, not quite sure if the Arden really had been consumed by a massive alien organism, even though he’d seen it with his own eyes.

“Maybe I am,” Lolanne said. “But I could never call this place my home with that thing looming over me.” She paused. “I… I can’t force you to come with me, but it’s a long way out, and I know I won’t make it out there on my own.”

“Yeah, nah,” he declined. Mike pointed back down the crater. “I almost got eaten. Again. There’re probably far worse things on this planet than spiders and dracons. Go and get your mentor to help you. I’m done with this place.”

“I told you, he believes I’m mistaken. And it seems no one else thinks like I do.”

“There’s one good bit of news, at least.”

“Please, Outworlder. I brought you out here so you could get a break from your current imprisonment. There’s a word for it I cannot place, but I know it bothers you. I was hoping you would do me this favour in exchange.”

“Favour?” He raised his arms and gestured. “Going hundreds of kilometres deep into an uncharted planet is what you Suvelians call a favour? I’d hate to see what happens when you’re in debt. Why do you want me to go with you anyway? Humans seem to be the damn bane of your race – and you want me to watch your back?”

“You have no ties to this place. You’re a stranger to us, and to the planet.”

“And you trust strangers?”

“No, but there are worse options. Besides…” Those dim eyes behind that visor scrutinised him. “… I think you have something to do with what’s been going on around here, whether you admit it or not. You fall from the sky right around the time our communications are severly hampered, and you find Iztak’s body on the same day? You have to be involved somehow. This I need to find out as well.”

“So this is personal,” he said, not really a question. “You’re going to go out there and drag me along with you, just because you need to know? My people have a saying – curiosity killed the cat. Some things just need to be left alone, believe me on that.”

“I can’t force you to come with me, as I said. That’s not who I am.”

“Really? Well, you know who I am? I’m someone who doesn’t take risks. Not anymore. Good luck out there, I’m heading back.”

He turned and walked away, not even glancing to see if she was following after. He got a dozen meters before Lolanne called out: “My people will think you abandoned me! You’d never see the suns again if you returned on your own!”

He yelled back. “I’ll just tell them the truth – that you’re off doing your own thing! I’m thinking Raan’ll be interested to know that!”

“They won’t believe you! We despise humans, you said so yourself.”

He stopped at that. Could he do nothing of his own accord anymore? Would he ever be a free man again? If he did return now, the Suves would assume the worst of him. He’d rot for many more years in another cell.

Nothing changes, just the scenery. He wondered if his whole life was just an indefinite loop of prisons, and wouldn’t stop until the day he died.

“… A way off-world,” Lolanne said, bringing him back into the present. He glanced back over his shoulder.

“What did you say?”

“I can get you off this planet,” she said. “It would take a bit of time, but I can do it. Come and help me, and I’ll get you out of here, so you can run from whoever is after you.”

Something flashed across Mike’s face. He would have to try harder to conceal himself from her in the future. Or maybe she’d just had a lucky guess, but he wouldn’t count on the latter. He stared at the dirt between his feet, then gazed back at the distant colony, shaking his head. “… Damn it. Maybe I’m the one who’s crazy,” he mumbled. He turned on his heel, and returned to his alien companion. “You won’t force me, no, that’s above you, but you’ll blackmail me?”

She shrugged, an odd gesture for her alien body.

“… You really can get me off of this planet?” he continued, watching her face closely for a reaction. Of course, that was difficult to do because of her polarized visor. All he had was those little blue disks that were her eyes.

Shrugging again she said, “Might take a while to arrange, but… yes. I can make it happen. It would take some time, but I can do it.”

Mike supposed that was as good an answer as he could get. The alternatives weren’t much better, and he had an inkling Lolanne knew that too.

“… Fine.” He sighed. “Fine, I’ll tag along.” He raised a finger. “On one other condition. My cell. I want it remade out of that colossal-alloy stuff.”

“… That’s it?” she asked. “Why?”

“Claustrophobia. That’s the word you’re after. Think it’ll help me cope if the walls are see-through. Can you arrange that?”

“Oh, uhm, yes, yes of course. I can do that. Promise.”

“Promise?” he said, huffing. Promises were things meant to be broken, and he knew that from experience. He’d just have to hold her to her word, or convince her to follow through with her bargain. How he would do that, he didn’t know yet. He would have to think on the road, and judging by the distance between here and the cyclone, that road was a long one.

Later he would consider this small moment as the start of something that would bloom into a strange, but not at all unpleasant alliance that might go down in history between their species. They turned as one and faced their goal: the cyclone and its swirling, stormy mass. Mike judged the distance between them and it. “Might take us a week or so to get there,” he said. “What did you call this? Panthea? It looks as thick as dog’s hair out there, and there’s no roads through it.”

“Then we’ll have to make one,” Lolanne replied. She was glad the visor hid her face, or else he would have seen how much guilt was on her features.

Chapter 8

Going West

1

Lolanne turned her wrist around and examined her vital signs, sighing as her native text warned her that she needed to ingest fluids immediately. She reached for an induction pack in the pouch on her thinly-armoured thigh. She wouldn’t exactly call the act of ingestion unpleasant, but it did fill her body with a sort of tingly filling sensation as the processed liquids entered her body and sated her. Even after twenty-three cycles, the process still made her feel weird, like some lab experiment being pumped with chemicals.

Rushing water filled her helmet’s sensors. The noise was occasionally broken by a splash as her human companion dipped his hands into the nearby river, cupping them together and bringing them to his lips. Beams of white line shined through the noisy jungle around them, the shadow of a passing creature occasionally blotting out the light. A couple of days moving to the west had seen the jungle lose a hint of its usual density. The full strength of the suns was finally hitting the world in a sparkling blanket, giving every surface the illusion that it had been just recently polished.

The pack slipped into place and she felt the paste inside do its work. Suppressing a shudder as the needles pricked all up the sides of her slim body, she lifted her gaze from her wrist pad to the human.

He was perched on a rocky outcrop jutting over the water, drinking his fill after the last few hours of walking. They had followed the river ever since the dracon’s nest, but judging by the way it gradually curved to the north, they wouldn’t be able to use it as a guide or food-source for much longer if they wanted to keep heading directly for the Storm.

The river was a food source for him, of course. Her packs couldn’t be replenished without the machinery back in the colony – hence why she’d brought extras. She found herself staring as the cool water slipped over Mike’s white teeth and into his throat. He closed his mouth and his neck bulged as he swallowed, letting the water sate him with a refreshed ‘Ah’ -sound. Some of it slipped down the corners of his lips, leaving little blue streams on his chin as the liquid fell to the ground.

What does that feel like? she thought, finding the whole ritual fascinating. Watching another being actually eating was probably why she was feeling so sick being injected with food-paste, despite doing so for her whole life. Mike continued on like that for another scoop before settling back on his rear and reaching to his side. Earlier he had asked her to point out other edible flora, but when she had asked why, becuase the river-roots were perfectly clean, he had said that he’d ‘grown sick of seaweed’.

That surprised her, because he didn’t look sick, nor did he look like he’d grown, and there were no seas this far inland. Must be another one of those strange human sayings of his.

But Mike wasn’t the only one being strange recently.

Her parents had drilled out her rudeness at a very young age, not that she was a problem child (so far as she was aware). And she’d always find it strange how she’d interact with Mike the Outworlder. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d insulted someone, nor any other Suvelian acting so… annoying and sarcastic like the human. It wasn’t uncommon that she’d quip back at him whenever he started to call her out on the few flaws she’d revealed to him.

She risked another glance at him as he made wet chewing sounds, biting into the spine of a plant stem. The human didn’t notice. Sometimes she forgot how her visor concealed her for the most part. This wasn’t the first time she’d wonder what life outside the suit would be like, but it was the first time she’d actually have someone to ask those questions.

And he doesn’t seem like the quiet type. I’d know if he was. SO what am I waiting for?

“Wh… What’s it like?” she blurted out. The man shifted his gaze from a thick tube-like creature slithering up the trunk of a nearby tree, to Lolanne. Lolanne called those things Dinvan. Bark-eaters.

He blinked. “What’s what like?”

“Nothing,” she quickly replied, banishing the question, which sounded stupid even in her head. Mike raised an eyebrow, silently asking her to go on. After a moment she relented.

“I mean, what’s it like –  to eat that way?” She gestured at her helmet. “With your mouth? For example, how does the flora… taste?”

“Bitter.” He grimaced.

“Really? Bitter?”

“Sure.”

“So… a little bit like yourself then?” she said. Another quip? She’d never dare say anything like that to anyone else. Maybe she was just reflecting his own rudeness back...

Mike looked much more interested now, energized by either what she said, or the sustenance of the flora. She couldn’t tell. “Me, bitter? Nah, I actually like taking long strolls on hostile alien planets.”

When she was little, she’d dreamed of what it would be like to meet, say, an alien scientist. How the top minds of the other Sentient Race of the Milky Way looked at the world. Maybe she should have been a bit more specific in her wishes, because she’d been given this sarcastic stowaway instead. She knew he was a stowaway, because Suvelians recognised them well, her own people being outcasts themselves. “Didn’t you say you were claustrophobic, Outworlder? Thought you would have preferred the outdoors.”

“Can’t have pros without cons.” He shrugged. “That’s the way this toilet-bowl we call a Galaxy works.”

“Sometimes it’s always cons,” she said, thinking about how she had crashed the colony ship by her own incompetence. All she had to do was listen and think, and she had failed at that. This rogue expedition of hers was perhaps her only chance at redeeming herself. All or nothing, was another human saying he’d mentioned. She kind of liked that one, found it fitting.

Lolanne closed her mouth and tasted the faint sugary aroma far in the back of her throat. She brooded as she found a clamp on her suit suddenly irritating. Iztak’s last words were to trust one’s instincts. Even if this little rogue voyage turned up nothing, Raan would understand that, right?

Or would he disown their apprentice-mentor relationship? She knew she was always overthinking things, but that fate, at least to her, was worse then death, and doubt began to eat into her.

She blinked out of it when she felt eyes on her, and looked up to see Mike dusting his robes of grass and dirt, before striding over.

“We still got some daylight left. Let’s get out of this jungle.”

Lolanne stood up, making sure she had everything before leading the way. Hour by hour the space between the ferns, the thickets and the trees expanded until the two were walking in a sparse woodland, dotted with thin trees that towered far above them and provided leaf-shaped beams of shade through which they navigated.

“Saduun truly did bless this place with beauty,” Lolanne breathed after doing a three-sixty examination of the forest, all the while still walking. She’d never seen raw nature like this in person. The world was a dazzling display of various shades of gold and yellow, a little on the bright side, but the fur-covered vegetation provided a clean sense of security neither of the two had experienced in this form.

“Who is this ‘Saduun’ guy?” Mike asked. “I heard Raan and Vok say that name a couple times before.”

“Saduun isn’t some guy,” Lolanne said, skirting around a fallen log. Mike hopped over it. “He is our Saviour, sometimes cruel, sometimes merciful, His will is a balance. Thousands of years ago He saved my entire race and bolstered our journey to the stars. He led us to Panthea when we needed a place to go.”

“So he’s… like a god? You really believe He did all that?”

“I don’t believe in Him. He is as real as you or me. He watched Suvelia turn into a squabbling mess of chaos, and put it upon himself to strip my people of all foul intent.”

“And are Raan and Vok and you all a part of this religion? How many followers are there?”

“You misunderstand. It is not a religion – this happened, back on Suvelia in Ancient times. The Spire still stands since we last saw.”

“Spire?” he asked, trying to make sense of this.

“The place where Saduun became as He is today,” she said. “It’s a long tale, but I could give you the shorter version, if you want.”

“I’m down,” he said, remembering how he’d called her out on how dangerous curiosity can be. But just this once he found himself interested. They walked as she talked, Mike interrupting here and there so his translator could make sense of what she was saying, but on the whole he was quiet.

“It was during the War of Claims, our most divisive time in Memory. Suvelia was a mess of Houses and Clans, fighting over pieces of land that seem so insignificant now. Saduun saw His world in turmoil and vowed to sacrifice everything to restore peace. A mass Unity. All of the people ruled by one will, all striving for one purpose, not the mess of selfish goals we’d all sunk to during the Claim War.

His searches brought Him to the Spire, an ancient structure that sat at the top of the world since the Milky Way’s creation, rising even higher than the clouds themselves. None who entered that place had ever come back out. His family pleaded with Him to not throw His life away, and nearly succeeded in doing so. But ultimately, He turned his back on them – that was His first sacrifice. The Ancients described the Spire holding a great and terrible tower atop its highest point. Saduun – that was not His name then, but I will call Him as He is, not who He was – sought after this power and took on the Spire’s trials. They taxed Him to the breaking point, both in mind and in body, and after sacrificing all He had, accepting an ultimate price, was He allowed to achieve a goal so many before Him sought after.

At the summit of the Spire, He was stripped away of all His tethers to the world, and He rose to Divinity, blessed with the power to begin, save, or destroy life at will. But He was also cursed to remain as the Spire’s Keeper until another dared to take His place, which no one has ever tried.”

“He ended the War of Claims with brutal efficiency, erasing warlords and aggressors and anyone who He deemed would repeat the bloodshed. The Suvelian slate was cleaned of corruption, but it came at a terrible price that still haunts us today. Billions were reduced to a few hundred thousand souls. Saduun erected our Hierarchy, and a single ruler was assigned ultimate power to rule with His Divine grace. Matriarchs, Patriarchs, each one we all agree to elect and Saduun blesses them with long life. Repopulation has been a slow and laboured endeavour. And with Suvelia lost it hasn’t gotten any easier.”

“Why’s that?” Mike asked.

“Our bodies are weak, as you know. Children have numbered few in these past cycles. Most don’t make it beyond their fifth cycle – it’s the sickness that usually takes them. It’s because of these.” She gestured to her suit. “’They’re too safe’, Raan told me once. When we’re born, we can’t immediately give a youth a suit. It takes a long time to custom-tailor one so that it grows along with the body. Anything could happen during those precious first cycles when we are our weakest. But Saduun and the Hierarchy have found a solution.” She gestured to their surroundings. “Panthea may be a harsh place, but harsh is exactly what we need.”

“With careful exposure – first a few moments, then a few minutes, hours, then to entire days – our bodies can adapt to Panthea’s climate. It will take time, many cycles, and plenty of antibiotics and other medicines, but eventually we can overcome this harsh climate and free ourselves of the suits.”

She paused, seeming to want to add something more, but decided she’d told enough. The human raised a hand. “Seems like a lot of effort,” Mike said. “Why not just take back your homeworld, where your kind was born? Might be a lot easier than trying to make something out of this place.”

She shook her head, bothered by his dismissiveness. “No. Home is not where you were born, but where you make it. I can’t help my people survive total extinction with that storm out there. You asked me before what I feared. The truth is that I’m afraid of that thing, and what it could do if it tries to take Panthea away from my people. I want to know why it has taken lives already.”

Mike blinked. “It’s killed? How?”

She told him, describing that day her shuttle had entered orbit so many months ago. About how the lightning had sent the shuttle crashing down, but only she had seen the weather behave so erratically. She left out the part where she had crashed the colony ship, instead blaming it on another freak-bolt had sent the colony ship off course, which held enough sliver of truth to convince even herself.

“… So that’s why you’re so suspicious,” he said, more of an observation than a question. “Only you have seen it act so… strangely? That’s a little odd.”

“Exactly my point.” Lolanne almost told him about the foreign creature along the river, and the oil-slick waters only she had witnessed. She decided she had said enough. “But I think ‘a little odd’ is a tweak oversimplified.” She bopped her shoulders up and down in a shrug. “I’ve told you about my people’s Divine. Does yours have one as well?”

Mike scratched his chin. “That’s… actually up for debate.” A frown formed on his face. Now that she mentioned it, it occurred to Mike that he didn’t really believe in anything. Not after all the wrong decisions he’d made, not after his friends betrayed him. The way Lolanne had said that home wasn’t where you were born, but ‘where you make it’ seemed a little silly to him. His home was Neruvana, and now that it was gone for good, (as was the Arden), that made him a permanent exile. He would have liked to feel so strongly about Panthea as Lolanne did. Coming out all this way on a suspicious hunch, against her commander’s orders? That took a lot of faith in yourself, and he realised he envied her for it.

“This might sound far-fetched, but I’m sure Saduun would consider taking you in as a follower of the Unity,” Lolanne said, glancing at him.

“Not if He knew me well.”

“Does anyone?”

“… Not anymore.”

They pushed on through the woodland in silence. The shade acted like the hedges of an invisible maze as they weaved around the sunlight. The arachnid creatures from earlier had not followed them out of the density of the jungle, so the trees were a little more statue-like in their stillness.

It might have been his imagination, but with the departure of the spiders, the din of nature seemed a little… subdued. The quiet only interrupted by the patter of Lolanne’s boots, which were as silent as they were infrequent.

He could smell distant rain in the air, and looked up at the clouds shaped like boats dominating the western portion of the normally empty sky, dimming the suns which had reached their zenith. Lolanne called the two blue suns Sindra and Urlond, the first two rulers of Suvelia after the War of Claims. Urlond elected Sindra as his successor the same day he passed from old age. She too died at a fine age of one hundred and twenty cycles, which he guessed was a long time.

A few hours later the air began to fill with a distant thrumming sound that reminded Mike of drums. It boomed off the trees surrounding them ominously, like a war band was marching towards them from some unseen distance. After every passing hour the volume increased in intensity.

Mike and Lolanne exchanged silent looks, neither one having an explanation for this strange phenomenon. The thrums clattered Mike's teeth and set him on edge, and Lolanne began to rest her hands on her pistols more frequently. Both were unconsciously afraid of even breathing too loudly for fear of disturbing whatever source the drums were coming from.

They reached an incline in the world, passing through its vegetation steadily, which consisted of meter-high ferns and vibrant garden beds. The trees here were skinny and taller than any building Mike had ever seen, their golden leaves glinting as rays of sunshine shone through the canopy above.

They came to a stop at the ridgeline, where the land dropped off into a steep descent down to a large valley. Mike shielded his eyes as he climbed on top of a rock and peered out to the west. Several steeper hills and small mountains strewed the countryside, covered in bronzed and rosy vegetation. Beyond these valleys and crescents, digging deep into the sky, stood a pair of mountains. Their tops were capped with white, which might have been snow, but was hard to tell as their peaks disappeared into the heavens. Just beyond these mountains, clouds swirled around in a giant oval-formation that funnelled down to the ground between the V shape where the mountains overlapped.

He remembered seeing no cloud cover across the globe upon his entry to Panthea save from this cyclone, and although it provided rainwater for the planet’s flora, as he could see from the huge torrents of storm massing in that direction, it bathed the otherwise bright world in a dark cloak that felt out of place. Is this what Lolanne had felt, seeing this from afar? Watching a weather pattern spiral out of control, but just too far away to do anything about it? And just what exactly were they going to do once they breached that stormwall? Find an off button?

He peered over at her, noting her stiff body language. It didn’t help that the woods themselves seemed to be speaking around them in long, frog-like croaks as the massive trunks swayed in the breeze. And there would be no telling what dangerous beasts could be lurking out there. On top of all that was that drumming sound. Distant but still closer than before.

“… I’m going to forage for a little bit. Meet you back here?”

“Yes. Don’t take long,” she said, crossing her legs and lowering, her back against a tree-trunk. He guessed seeing the storm had spooked her. He turned and ambled out into the vegetation, making a mental note of where she would be waiting. He was still hard-pressed on navigating this clustered, baking planet, but he could feel some strength returning to his legs.

Mike foraged for the better part of an hour, remembering what Lolanne had pointed out to be edible. He could have gone back to the river, but they'd diverted from it and were quite a distance away now. Not only would the walk down and up the hills be a pain, but the river had taken on a murkiness neither he or Lolanne had fancied. The water was dark and oily, like something upstream had died, and its dense blood was washing downstream. Unless it wasn't blood, he thought, thinking about those creatures on the Arden. Much as he tried to deny it, the fact that the opaque liquid looked exactly like those things just wouldn't leave him alone.

He found a couple of nuts and plants after a few short searches. It had taken him a couple of goes earlier to make sure he was grabbing the things that were edible.

“Not that one!” Lolanne had cried when he’d plucked off something that looked like a blueberry. “That thing’s as poisonous as the bacteria on your face!”

Mike chuckled at the memory, one of the few times he’d seen her lose her temper. He bent down and removed a fistful of leaves from a plant stalk. At least Panthea was generous in this regard. After collecting enough for a decent meal, he propped himself up against a tree to rest his legs.

As he chewed away on his snack, sunlight warming his face, wondering how energized he could be if he had some proper meat, he was suddenly reminded of a time when he was young, out with the other kids in town during one of Neruvana’s celebrations.

The parents would all gather up on the front porch, drinking beer and talking about the good old days before the UEC had begun taking an interest in their planet. The children would be given free rein to leave their parents and guardians and do whatever they wanted, a rare luxury for everyone who lived on that arid planet.

All the kids would head out into the freedom the wilderness provided, just as he was doing now. Little Katrina would stay close to his side, looking at the other groups of girls with a mix of hesitancy and wanting. She was four years younger than him, a bit small for her age, which had given the other girls a reason to poke fun at her. After the incident involving the jewellery store’s horrible trap, father had asked her to keep Mike out of trouble from there on out. Mike had eavesdropped on that conversation, ear to the floorboards, and hated himself for putting her in that spot.

His little sister didn’t seem to mind, however, though he thought that was just her way of making him feel better.

“Girls are yucky anyway,” she had said after he suggested she go and talk to the girls her own age, mingle a little, rather than hang with his own group.

“You’re a girl,” he had pointed out, as if she needed reminding.

“Then I’m yucky too!” She giggled.

She usually hanged out with Mike’s circle of friends, an all-male group. Some of the other boys gave her peculiar looks, most angled down at her chest or hips. It made Mike feel weirdly defensive for some reason, but she seemed content in their company – not shy with the boys but rather the opposite. Maybe living with and growing up with a brother and father had something to do with that.

“Tell me about the Hub,” she had said. All around them there was laughter and joy. Christmas was an Earth custom, but who could say no to a holiday? “The place dad went to a while back.”

She’d ask about it many times, as if she forgot each time or just wanted him to tell it again, Mike wasn’t sure. She loved hearing stories from him, though, both the real and the made-up ones. He didn’t mind. Mike, who grinned a lot back then, smiled recited the same words once more.

“The Hub is this giant ring of metal, sort of like a halo around an angel's head.” He raised a hand and drew a circle in the air. “It spins round and round so the people don’t fall off. The ring orbits this big cage thingy made out of panels, and that circles around a star which the ring and cage both orbit around. The big cage feeds off the stars energy, and gives power to the rest of the ring with these huge cables that connect the whole Hub together.”

“Like a giant starfish?”

“Sure, like a giant space starfish.”

“I’d like to go and see it someday.” She looked up at the night sky. “Which one is it again?”

He pointed at a star, bigger and brighter than all the hundreds of others. “That one. I’d like to see it too.”

“… Tell me again about the Solar system.”

He smiled, listing off the planets he’d heard of but never seen, making up the parts he didn’t know as per usual. Even when they were teenagers, she’d never stopped pestering him as he travelled more and more to the other towns, the capitol, and even to an orbiting spaceship, closer to the stars than either of them had ever been, but out of both of them, she’d wanted to see the most. She loved just to hear him talk about any old thing, even though father could have told her of more exotic tales. Dad used to be a traveller, though if he was ever questioned about it too much, he’d always duck the question or switch the topic.

A couple years later, when he would leave behind Neruvana for the last time, she had not pleaded with him to stay, as he thought she would. Instead she’d asked, “You’ll come back, won’t you? Come back and tell me all about your adventures?”

“… I will.” His eyes had shifted then, and Katrina would not recognise that hesitance, not until the planet had imploded underneath her feet, and she screamed as she was washed out of this life by a hail of fire and death.

“I’m sorry, Kat…” Mike murmured, and his hands balled into fists. Wood  creaked all around him. How could he have said no to her? How could either of them know it would be a promise he would never be able to keep?

It was then Mike noticed the entire forest had gone quiet. He snapped out of his thoughts and looked around, the hairs on his neck standing tall. Normally there were at least birds calling or leaves rustling, but he couldn’t hear a thing except his own breathing.

Then a tree to his left toppled over and crashed in a shattering of bark. He stared at its collapsed bulk, heart thumping in his chest. Now the drumming of the forest came back, louder and closer than ever. He felt the trunk he was leaning against begin to shift, like it was made of water.

“Ah!” he yelped, and got to his feet in an instant. Through the woods he could hear something trampling towards him, or by the way the earth shook, maybe it was multiple somethings.

He looked down an aisle of trees and saw dirt rise up like a filthy wave as another tree collapsed, the roots upending and sticking into the air. The creatures responsible for the thrumming sound drilling into his ears voiced out louder than ever, but still he could not see anything beyond the area.

He took a step back as the bark he’d leaned against moments ago moved, molding into different shapes like it was made of play-doh. He was looking in so many directions at once that he noticed too late that the fallen trees had started to pick themselves back up, their thick roots kicking up dust as they rearranged themselves, acting as supports for the ‘body’ of the tree.

The canopy of yellow around him came to life, a shockwave of movement that rustled the leaves and splintered wood. Massive shapes disclosed themselves to Mike’s south, silhouettes of saplings both big and small. They marched in columns, dozens of roots carrying heavy trunks straight towards him, knocking aside vegetation that got in their way.

Mike turned and ran like his ass was on fire. The moving forest would have crushed him had he not chosen a steeper incline, exhausted as he already was. He risked a glimpse back and watched more trees join the march, a parade of greenery which was closing in on him fast, despite there big, lumbering frames.

Mike dashed through a clearing, entering the western edge with a cough of leaves and departing on the other side in two seconds flat. Lolanne was sat right in the middle of the area, and she’d lifted a few centimetres off the ground when he yelled out: “Run! Go go go!”

The Suvelian pocketed the items she’d been holding and cocked her head to where he’d disappeared, completely oblivious to whatever had him spooked.

“Where are you going? Wait!”

But Mike didn’t wait for her, his muffled footsteps shrinking with the distance. She was about to ask what he was doing when she looked the way he’d come and saw the band of trees encroaching on her position, knocking aside any trees too slow to wake up and join them. She let out a scream of terror, turned tail, and ran after Mike, her lithe body dodging by falling branches that slammed down around her like wooden clubs wielded by giants.

The root of a tree shot up out of the earth in front of her, too quick for her to avoid. It caught on one of her hooves and coiled around it. She fell flat on her face, thumping her head against the inside of her visor. She saw stars. Lolanne tried to pick herself up but couldn’t. She twisted her head and saw another root wrap around her arm like a hungry snake. The two roots pulled her down, putting pressure on her thin bones. She noticed they were trying to pull the nearest tree up, and using her as leverage.

“Mike!” she cried, trying to free herself with her other arm. She couldn’t hear him, only the sounds of the earth rumbling underneath her, and the droning of old wood expanding and contracting. She couldn’t reach her weapons while in this awkward pose that she was frozen in. She flailed against the wooden binds, panicking as another tree-limb began to slither around her helmet.

Something skidded next to her. Mike. She watched helplessly as he gripped the root on her leg and pulled, but it didn’t come loose. Around them more trees were coming to life, and the parade would be upon them in mere moments.

“My arm!” she yelled. “Free my arm first! Hurry!”

He did, repositioning himself and then pulling the bind with all his strength. The rope-like constriction came loose a little, and she was able to slip her arm up and away. The root gripped onto her fingers, and for a moment it looked like she was holding hands with the thing. With one more combined effort her limb came free.

The tree, not happy with this small victory, seized onto Mike’s hand instead, and with another root, pulled Lolanne in the opposite direction. It dragged her towards its trunk feet-first, and she imagined the bark parting and revealing a giant maw, teeth eagerly awaiting her arrival. She twisted onto her back and hesitated only for a moment before grabbing her knife. The blade gave off a metallic chime as she drew it from the scabbard. She held its hilt tightly, remembering her father’s words before he had given it to her all those cycles ago. Anyone can wear a blade, but no one outside of our family has ever brandished Synva. You must promise only you will draw her from her sheath.

The blade felt weightless as she brought it up with two hands and cleaved it back down, severing the root around her leg into two pieces. She pried the piece of wood off and tossed it aside, where it wriggled on the grass like a dying fish. She felt terrible for harming a living creature, but she had no choice. Saduun had to see the reasoning. She promised she wouldn’t harm anything again.

“Heeelp!” She stood up and looked to the writhing Mike. He was wrestling with the second root, which was wrapping round his chest and trying to bring him to his knees. In one swift movement that defied the promise she just made, she moved over and brought Synva down onto the tree's limb, and sliced. The host tree groaned and complained, as if it knew her vows to not willingly harm Panthea.

“Quick!” Mike said as the pressure left his neck. With her help they threw away the constricting tree root. “Let them know we’re not a threat! That’s what you said about the dracon!”

Again, she felt angry at him using her own words, but there was no time. She helped him to his feet and they took off just as the main pack of flora smashed into the clearing, the walking trees stampeding everything in their path.

The river they’d used as a landmark twisted away down the hill. They ran in its direction as fast as they could. They could hear the rushing water vaguely behind a roaring downpour that could only belong to a waterfall. It slowly came into view before them as they ran, its crystaline water sparkling in the daylight. Mike took the lead, pumping his legs as hard as he could and rushed towards it.

He had hoped that crossing the river would make a grand escape, but he skidded to a halt on the bank as he saw the forest on the other side was also coming to life. Not uprooted yet, but he could already see the dirt piling up as roots buried deep began to stir and wake. Lolanne stopped behind him, saw this, and said, “Oh, Saduun!”

A short distance away to the left was the rumbling waterfall. The water descended past a splintery rock wall about thirty meters high and formed a pair of pretty rainbows within its frothing base. At its peak he could see pungent earth with plants rooting by the water, unmoving and normal.

They couldn’t run, but maybe they could climb. “This way!” he said, grabbing Lolanne and pulling her with him. In the corner of his eye he could see the forest catching up to them, like a monstrous tsunami about to engulf them in a wave of golden blades.

Reaching the rockface, he jumped off his heels and seized the closest hold in the rocks, which was just above his eye-level, and pulled himself up. Behind him Lolanne waited anxiously as he made enough room for her to follow. She yelled something up at him, perhaps for him to hurry up, but all sound was drowned out by the water crashing off to the side.

When he’d climbed ten meters up, the forest was upon them. A huge, piney tree practically hugged the rockwall, and its branches snagged against Mike, cutting into his neck and back, ripping into his robes and leaving large lines of blood. One branch even pulled one of Lolanne’s hands away from the wall and made her lose her balance, but she managed to hook an arm back into a handhold just in time.

The trees droned on below them, calling out to one another and continuing on their way. Luckily, the tallest trees had passed, and the others were shorter saplings that couldn’t reach up to the pair of climbers.

Halfway up the rocks Mike stopped to catch his breath and rest his burning arms, the thunder of the tree-march passing by underneath. A quick glance to the left cut the break short, when he saw more trees as tall as the waterfall was high. He pushed himself on despite his exhaustion, and the sunlight burning his back.

Down below, the ground they had been standing on was so trampled the grass had been shredded clean and only damp soil remained. Boulders overturned and the indent of the river was piled in by mountains of soil and sand.

Mike finally reached the top of the climb, hoisting onto solid land and turning around to help Lolanne up with one last effort. When she was up, he fell to his ass with a gasp, a hand resting on a knee as he looked at the display before him. He had to shake his head in disbelief. The entire forest, kilometres wide and long, was all in motion.

Trees scurried across the river like spiders, rapid roots resembling the legs of an octopus dipping into the ground to carry their heavy trunks. Dirt was flung up in blankets, filling the air above the canopy with swaths of dust. The brown mulch and pink afternoon sky gave the heavens a poisonous gas effect.

“This is...” He gulped. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said, not sure if he was frightened or awed by what he was seeing.

“It’s like they’re migrating.” Lolanne inched closer than he could dare towards the edge, the tips of her hooves dangling over into freefall. She perched there like a feminine gargoyle. “But where are they going? Is the land here not nutritious enough to sustain them?” She paused, perhaps to consider if she’d ever get answers to those questions. “Saduun, I hope they don’t go towards the colony.”

Mike squinted, just vaguely making out the tops of the colony buildings on the horizon. The forest looked to be heading northeast, but nothing could stop that tide from changing course if it wanted to. “Having second thoughts about this place?” he asked her.

She glanced at him, stared for a second, then shook her head. “We’ll warn them when we get back, and if they do head to the colony, we’ll find a way to protect ourselves. We always do.”

Mike looked back down and a thought occurred – was the whole planet’s tree population alive? Would the way forward be filled with moving trees, and the way back just as easily dangerous? It seemed that this portion of the ‘migrating woods' was big, but not endless. Some of the trees had been stamped into messy woodpiles, too slow to move or didn't possess the same traits that made the walking trees walk. The stampede had left behind piles of soil and wood, giving the land, which had been lush and lively moments ago, the look of an abandoned construction sight, dead and silent.

“Thank you,” Lolanne said suddenly. “for before. If you hadn’t come back, I might have…”

Mike waved a hand. “Don’t mention it. Let’s just get away from here.”

They had a small rest before they continued on, but nightfall was fast approaching, Sindra already disappearing and leaving the world in a medium of light and dark. They made camp not far away from the waterfall, still loud even at this distance. Lolanne surprised Mike by helping him gather wood and peeling off the fur protecting its inner, flammable bark with her large glyph-lined knife. Normally she was content to sit and watch, silently glaring at him as he defiled the land. He didn’t turn down her help.

Maybe she was just trying to get on his good side, handing him wood for the fire as he tried to make a spark with his piece of flint. He was skeptical of her, as she reported directly to that Raan guy, who more than likely wanted her to find out as much about him as possible. But then again, she had made this detour personal, because no one believed in her own suspicions. He could relate to that. Funny how even an alien could have such human emotions. He remembered the official definition of the Suvelian race made by the UEC: “A nomadic race that prefer to dwell in shipyards and space stations.” Obviously they’d never consulted a Suvelian beforehand, as it seemed pretty far from the truth.

After a while he decided to broach the topic of her sudden helping. “Thought you hated me burning up your planet ,” he said, glancing at her. In the distance a bird called, long and winded.

Lolanne shook her head. “I don’t hate it; it’s just that someone told me once that fire has a bad habit of escaping the one who makes it. And I don’t want to harm Panthea any more than I have to.”

“I was starting to think those walking tress nearly crushing you had changed your opinion of this place,” he said. Lolanne huffed, a little grin in her voice.

“Maybe it is, just a little. But I didn’t see any eyes on them, did you? You can’t hold a grudge on something that can’t even see. They probably thought we were plants or something.”

“I guess.” He gestured at her knife she was using to cut away at the wood. “Still, you’re helping me when you could just sit and watch.” She flicked away a tag of fur as he said this.

“I suppose I am.” She paused, looked at her knife indifferently, despite having no facial features he could see. “Saduun forgive me.”

“Why’re you so touchy about it anyway?”

“It is the Hierarch’s will that we preserve Panthea. To harm its flora or fauna would be heresy.”

“Heresy? What do you mean?”

“Going against the Hierarch’s words is going against Saduun Himself. There has never been one heretic, at least as long as I’ve lived. If there were to be one, his or her family would be stripped of everything they own, cast out, exiled, never to return to our Unity. It’s a cruel punishment, never to be taken lightly.”

“I'm guessing being a heretic's worse than death?”

“Yes. If anyone knew I was helping you start a fire, let alone watching you without interfering, well…” She raised her hands as if to say, you know what’ll happen.

“You’re pretty honest with that,” Mike said. “Not afraid I’ll tell on you first chance I get?”

“A little,” Lolanne admitted. “I’ll just have to have faith you’ll keep to your word as I’ll keep to mine.”

He guessed that by her kind's standards, a life sentence would be too good for heretics. It was odd how such a little thing could cause so much strife for a heretic, family included. Mike shook his head at himself. He had to stop putting human standards on her, because... well, for obvious reasons. If he did decide to tell Raan about Lolanne's little antics – if Raan would believe him, that is – he could do a lot of damage to her.

It felt like she was giving him way too much faith on her part. She was still his interrogator, after all. Maybe she was just giving trust in exchange for his own. He was not oblivious to the Suvelian’s opinion of his race, nor to the fact that what he did on this planet would be remembered for a long time after he was gone. Maybe repaying her with information that she wanted, could help his escape from the planet a little easier, and maybe settle some of the prejudices. Though the former was all he was thinking of right now.

“There’s a reason I’m so bitter,” he said, remembering that remark from earlier. He had a little difficulty getting a spark right now. He usually found talking helped keep him from getting frustrated.

“Other than the fact you’re the only human on the planet?” she asked.

“Ha, yeah, other than that. I told you before that I was a guard on a trade ship, passing through this system? Well, that’s not exactly true.”

She looked up from her knife work and asked, “Really?” He couldn’t help but feel like she knew that all along, and by her tone was just trying to allude him. He thought he was a good liar, but her eyes must see more than she let on.

He nodded, striking the stones. No spark. “My ship was called the Arden, a UEC vessel. Tens of thousands of people were on board, but more than half of them were criminal stock.”

Now he had her full attention, and he paused as he met her gaze. He compared her blue eyes to Panthea's suns, pretty things hiding in the tint of her visor. They widened by a fraction. “Where were you taking these 'criminals'?”

“That ship never goes anywhere, really. It just loops around the edges of Confederate-controlled space, sometimes delving into the Uncharted systems, so there’s less risk of a pirate attack, or in some cases if someone gets loose, they’ll just have no where really to go. But I wasn’t taking them anywhere – I was one of them.”

“You?” she asked, looking him over, her eyes tracing over the burn marks and wounds he’d had on the day they’d met. “What did you do to come to that fate?”

He thought about it, thought about telling. About who he had sacrificed and who he had betrayed, then been betrayed by. But decided against it – he’d already given enough free information, and his own paranoia had begun to return. “Let’s exchange criminal records some other time, alright? Leave a bit of mystery in this… alliance, of ours.”

Mike noticed a slight drop in Lolanne’s posture. “I can see why you wanted to hide that,” she said. “But... why mention this now?”

“You say heresy is the worst crime.” He shrugged. “Figured I’d let you in that I’m in the same boat as you. Just a couple of criminals heading into a storm that doesn’t ever move. What a world.”

She dipped her head in thanks. “I appreciate your honesty, Mike. Late as it is.”

“Just keep this between us, okay? Loose lips sink ships. Another saying.”

“But what if I’m asked about you?”

He blinked. “Then… Just make something up? I don’t know.”

“Saduun forbids any Suvelian from lying to another. To go against it…”

“-Is heresy?” He finished for her. “No lying, at all? Seriously?” He couldn’t begin to imagine every single human never being able to lie. Or maybe she was lying about lying just to excuse herself. No, he thought. You’re being paranoid.

“Then how did you keep this little adventure a secret from that Raan guy?”

“I told Raan that we were going to find the dracon’s nest. That was true. I left this part unmentioned and he didn’t ask further.”

“That seems just as bad as lying,” Mike said. “But who am I kidding, I can’t judge. So what’ll happen when we get back to the colony? They’ll ask why we’ve been gone for so long. Got a plan for that?”

“Not yet,” she admitted. “U haven’t given it much thought.”

“Aren’t you worried about what's gonna happen?”

“I'm terrified.”

Finally a spark. The pit of wood erupted into flame and lit up a portion of the bank and a strip of the river. Mike let out a small “Ah-ha!” of triumph, and sat back to rest his aching fingers.

A few minutes of silence passed before Lolanne spoke. “Mike?

“Yeah?”

“How long were you aboard the Arden for?”

Mike hummed, and scratched his chin. There had been no clocks, and the ship never orbited one sun for long, purpose design choice by the captain, no doubt. “I don’t really remember,” he answered. He did tally the days on his cell walls with a stolen fork or knife, or if that wasn’t an option, his nails did just fine. “I did mark down each day for a while, but stopped after… four years? Five? But it had to have been way longer than that. I remember I wasn’t growing a beard like I am now when I first boarded, so you can get a rough guess.”

Across the fire, Lolanne dipped her head. “I’m… sorry to hear that.” Mike wondered why would she feel sorry for him, a criminal, who had done something so terrible he couldn’t even remember how long his sentence was?

“The expedition to Panthea took over a dozen cycles to complete,” she continued. “and I spent most of my childhood I growing up in starships and space stations – I know a little of how you feel.”

“It’s sucks, doesn’t it? Like living in a coffin.”

Lolanne nodded. “Couldn’t put it better myself.”

He tossed another stick into the fire. “So you grew up in zero-g stations? All the time?”

“Most of us did, yes. But we did have artificial gravity to keep our bodies strong. Our starbases did hold this sense of safety, but I always wondered what life outside was like, how a planet would feel underneath my feet instead of steel and metal.” Lolanne huffed. “But when the opportunity came to join the Panthea expedition, I tried so hard to turn it down. I was so indecisive. Still am to this day, I suppose.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She cocked her elegant helmet at him. “Well, isn’t it?”

“Us humans have the exact same problem. It just means you’re starting to see the Galaxy for what it is.”

“… A toilet bowl. That’s what you said earlier.”

“Yeah, that’s how I see it. But that doesn’t mean you won’t see it differently. My dad told me once it’s the company we keep that helps shape our perspective. From what I’ve seen you Suves have some clear goals in mind. More than could be said for my kind, that’s for sure.”

“Your father sounds very wise.”

“Guess he was,” he said. He sat down on his back and looked up at the stars. “I didn’t really listen to him all that much – it’s something I’m going to regret for the rest of my life.” He paused, noticing the topic had switched back to him. “But never mind. Don’t let this filthy human keep you down, Lolanne. You’ll figure it out.”

“Actions and words. One is more difficult than the other.” He looked over at her, blinking. “There you go, Mike. A Suvelian saying just for you.”

He chuckled, rolling his eyes. It felt like they’d just gone from developing antagonists to colleagues, and all it took was for a tree-march to almost cut them down.  After a while he laid back down and looked over to the west.

“Looks like mountain country tomorrow. I’m gonna get some rest. ‘Night.”

“Alright. Do you want something to eat?”

“Unless you got some meat in those packs, then no.”

“… You eat meat? How could you do that?”

“Whaaat?” he asked, dragging the word. “Don’t tell me you’re about to talk my ear off about eating living things.”

“No, no it’s just… I’m comparing you to my peoples’ standards again, and I know I shouldn’t.” She sighed. “Humans are just so strange.”

“Right back at you, Suve,” he said, thinking about the lullaby that had indoctrinated him for a few strange moments.

Lolanne looked at him questioningly, but he had already closed his eyes. She flexed her legs out and rested on her side, watching the flames dance in front of her, thinking of the consequences her actions would cause when she had to explain herself in the future.

Chapter 9

Into the Storm

1

Mike and Lolanne passed through the threshold between the coastal forests and into the mountain ranges deeper into the continent, and the going got tougher than ever. Even Lolanne, with her rocket-boots and suit-servos enhancing her movements, was struggling to catch her breath as they traversed the marathon of inclines. Day and night the way forward was constantly an uphill battle. They had to stop and rest more and more often, further slowing their journey down.

Neither of them bothered looking back at the colony – it had disappeared beyond the terrain’s inclines which had blocked out the horizon. Lolanne had been confident she could find the way back, using the colony as a visual beacon, but without that, she’d have to resort to using the stars for guidance to escape from these valleys, canyons and deep passes through the world.

But even using the stars wouldn’t be a reliable way of keeping direction for long. Now that they were closing in on the storm, which thundered around and above them like a chanting choir of chaos, the days were growing shorter and darker. Its hellish cloud cover slowly blocked out the sky, hanging low and blanketing Panthea in a shroud of darkness.

Sun-baked undergrowth covered the hills, hinting that in days past this storm had in fact grown significantly beyond any reasoning involving the word natural.

They made camp on the summit of a particularly gruelling hillside, an ankle-high rug of dew-laden flowers covering the entire ground. Mike set off to gather himself some dinner while Lolanne prepared the campfire. She would not light it, but she would have it ready for his return. It was still an act teetering on heresy, but Mike had been complaining about how cold the nights were getting. The air temperature didn’t affect her and her suit’s protective warming gel (at least not yet), but she thought it was the least she could do to help.

Lolanne leaned up against an ancient pine tree, the firepit ready. Just to her side pink leaves hung from a flimsy branch. The rosy-coloured tree this branch belonged to wrapped around the camp like a protective shell, wood spreading out from the trunk like fingers. She moved it aside with a hand, and looked through the opening she made.

Out beyond the valleys to the west she saw the interlocking mountains, acting like two giant walls that separated her view from the storm’s base. Said storm, which was the biggest gathering of clouds she had ever seen, spiralled up into the heavens, black and tall and with white lightning coursing through its structure. She knew those lances were the same ones that had destroyed the shuttle she’d come in on, they had to be.

She remembered way back when she had first seen this anomaly, on the colony ship drifting in orbit – there had been a little dark blotch right in the storm’s eye, blinking a crimson shade like it was staring back at her. Would she see that same red light once they got there? Did she even want to know what it was anymore?

I do, Lolanne thought with a nod, as if speaking out loud. She let her hand fall away and the view was gone. She had come too far to turn away now, but that didn’t stop doubt from addling her will. What if that eye – as she was sure it was an eye – belonged to something? Some terrible thing that could control the world’s weather at a whim? She remembered the foreign beast sniffing her out by the river… it had been mumbling something, a single word. A word she couldn’t place. It gnawed at her that she hadn’t heard it properly, her conscience telling her it was very important. She remembered how slimy and forced the creatures voice box was, working words through its horrible maw, the rows of teeth lining the throat. It could have probably cut right through her suit had it found her…

A stick snapped behind her and she nearly screamed in fear. Lolanne spun, unholstering a plasma pistol with both hands, and aimed its green muzzle at Mike, looking down at her with wide eyes. She dropped the pistol back into its hold at her hip, letting out a deep breath. Mike held up his open hands in a surrendering gesture and said, “Woah woah! It’s just me, Lola.”

“Saduun, I almost shot you! Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“You’re pretty jumpy,” he said, not looking too worried that she’d nearly killed him. He knelt down and gathered up the bundle of fruits and nuts he’d collected, then dropped after finding himself staring down the barrel of her weapon. “It is a bit spooky around here isn’t it? That thing, what did you call it? Taurak. He’s been busy. Found a couple of corpses completely shredded just down the hill.”

Taurak had been following them ever since they’d left the migrating forests behind. It had caught Mike’s scent – not Lolanne’s, seeing as she gave off no odour – and had followed his curious smell after they lingered in its hunting grounds. She had caught a few glimpses of a feline shape prowling behind them a couple of times, and it looked absolutely massive. Not as big as a dracon, but an apex predator that seemed only curious, at least for the time being. It completely slaughtered the wildlife around here, leaving bloodied carcasses half eaten. Lolanne had named the creature after a great beast that was native to Suvelia, under a similar name.

She was skittish about a lot of things, but Mike noted that animals, especially the larger ones, seemed to fascinate rather than terrify. He’d bet Lolanne wouldn’t even blink if Taurak came charging at them right at this moment.

Mike set about roasting his supper. As he watched the flames lick and wave, Lolanne made herself comfortable and brought out her etcher and flipbook. She raised the etcher, flipped open to a page, and began stroking lines. They curved in all directions from her practiced hand, although she let out huffs of frustration whenever one didn’t quite angle the way she wanted it to.

Mike looked up the third time she made this noise, and at last decided to ask, “What’ve you got there?”

She lowered her book out of his view timidly. “Nothing,” she said. “Just a bit of etching. I’m… not very good.” She reassured him of that fact.

Mike blinked as she fidgeted with her stylus, like she was waiting for him to go away. He gestured to her book. “Can I have a look?”

“N-” She stopped herself.  She knew the nervous and fluttery feelings brewing up inside her were pointless things, but she felt more comfortable doing her hobbies when she was alone, far from being judged. Facing your childhood was harder than facing the wilds of Panthea, it seemed. She had to grin at that.

“Yes, alright.” She handed her sketchbook over, unaware of her hands rubbing together once he accepted it. Mike flipped through the pages, an even look on his face. There was one of a birds-eye view of the colony and the surrounding area, several landmarks he would be familiar with – the colony ship set inside its protective mountain-bowl, his little cell up on the hill to its west, the ringing buildings expanding out from the ship like shockwaves.

Another page was of the colony’s countryside, the river and other biomes of the continent labelled in the glyphic, somewhat picturesque language of the Suvelians. There was the Yilbarlo river north of the colony (they had left said river behind a few days ago, as it bent to the north and too far off their current course), and a grey patch to the south-west with a little ‘x’ near its bottom corner. There was a symbol above the x, and this rune was a unique crisscross of lines that, unknown to him, said Lolanne.

Far to the north east near the coast was another x and a symbol, this particular rune saying Mike. Strangely enough the rune of his name looked something like a human, with lines flicking off into minute little swirls. He didn’t know it yet, but these ‘x’s represented his and Lolanne’s landing points. Mike guessed this was why she preferred to make camp higher up – so she could drink in the world for kilometres all around.

“Wow,” he said after whistling. He handed the book back, and she eagerly took it from him. “Got a good eye for detail there. You’re pretty good.”

“R-Really?” she asked, but she could see the honesty in his face, and a grin appeared on her concealed mouth. “I-It’s just a hobby. Take’s my mind off things.”

“Things like that?” She didn’t need to see his head nod in the storm’s direction to know what he meant.

“Yes. Things like that.”

“Not too late to turn around, you know.” He took a bite from a fruit, which was sickeningly sweet and made his lips pout in mild disgust.

Lolanne considered his words, but her gut cautioned her against that idea. Just a few more days and she would get her answers. And if she turned away now, she’d go right back to that horrible state of mind she didn’t want to experience again. Paranoid, jumpy, afraid of what was lurking in the dark –  not to say that she’d had much success in breaking out of those stupid traits in the past. “No,” she said. “It is too late. How could I live with myself if I backed out just before reaching my goal?”

Mike shrugged, not sure how to answer. She could tell he still held that air of resentment towards her, but he was proving to come around to her way of thinking when he said, “Call me a coward, but… I don’t know how to explain it, it just feels like it’s not just Taurak watching us anymore.”

Lolanne nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s the storm. It has to be watching us. Perhaps it can feel our presence getting closer.”

“How do you know a bunch of clouds and air is watching us?”

She didn’t but decided to answer with her own question. “When you were in orbit and you were coming down, did you see anything out of the ordinary? About the storm, I mean.”

“Like what?”

“When I saw it for the first time, I got this exact same feeling you just described. I saw something moving inside it, but I don’t know what ‘it’ was.” She tucked her knees up to her chest. “Do you know how frustrating it is to be the only one to see something so unbelievable, that everyone else thinks you’re crazy?”

“… A little,” he admitted. He shifted on his rear into a more comfortable position. “But I think you’re right. Something’s going on over there. Something definitely not natural.”

Lolanne exhaled. “I’d give a whole day just to hear Raan say those exact words, Mike. I feel terrible for having to disobey him so indirectly. As you said, it feels just as bad as lying to his face.”

“He forced you to do this. Should tell him that once we get back.”

“Maybe he did, maybe not. He’ll have to believe me once we find something.”

“If, we find something,” Mike said skeptically. At least he wasn’t downright dismissing her, now that his own instincts were telling him something was just plain wrong, and she supposed that was better than nothing.

After dinner, Mike laid back and looked up at the stars rolling over the green-tinted, night sky. Tiredness took him and Lolanne stayed up a while longer, continuing her sketches. She would stop later, however, when she heard Mike mumble in his sleep, twisting around from some deep dream or nightmare. Definitely nightmare, no one writhed around like that out of pleasantness. Every night since starting this expedition he had not slept soundly. She hadn’t asked him about it, though being cursed by curiosity as she was, she would often wonder what exactly his subconscious was telling him. In her culture, dreams were powerful things. Not exactly foresight, but close to it. Your sleeping mind saw things your waking eyes couldn’t see or wanted to forget what they’d seen. Was it the latter or the former in Mike’s case?

She secured her little book in its pouch and closed her eyes, thinking about that question and letting the strange sounds of nocturnal creatures and other alien life lull her into sleep.

2

After a quick breakfast they moved down the hillside and into the crook between this decline and the next. Lolanne idly commented that he looked tired, but he waved her away, saying he was fine. They were surrounded on all sides by rising earth, but they forged ahead at a decent speed. They passed the two carcasses Mike mentioned last night and Lolanne was glad she couldn’t smell outside of her own breath. Bugs and insects buzzed around the dead animals greedily, fighting over one another to get at the scraps of meat Taurak had left behind. Did he hunt for sport? Was he trying to intimidate them into leaving with this display? If only they were not so pressed for time, she could perhaps study Taurak.

After a few hours she began to wonder if Raan had sent out one, two or maybe a dozen scout parties to look for her. It had been well over her allocated time-frame for her dracon-spotting. She sent a quiet prayer to tell him not to worry. Her singsong vocals were akin to that of one reciting a short poem, one that Mike found strangely soothing, even if he did not understand the words.

Ever since Mike had revealed that he had a criminal background, their little chats had become much more frequent, and she was glad to partake as it passed the time. Although he subtly urged her to abandon this trip every now and then, she found his company much more pleasant. A big part of that was because he couldn’t judge her by Suvelian standards – but he seemed interested when she took some time to explain Suvelian culture to him. Mike was surprised at how much stricter and more cruel her species’ standards were compared to humanity’s. But she countered by saying that a lax and callous society was just as dangerous. She was genuinely shocked when he agreed that the UEC was both those things, and then some.

Her father had warned her about his kind, traitorous and untrustworthy sentients that they were. But Mike was eccentric, not untrustworthy, fascinating in that despite his incarceration he didn’t come off as a particularly evil being, as most criminals or heretics were portrayed to be. Grim sometimes, yes, troubled by something he was reluctant to share, but nothing like the things her father had put in her head since a young age. She wondered what he was thinking of her, and felt a chill run down her back as she hoped she was giving a good impression. Their races hadn’t properly conversed in many cycles.

“Did you hear me, Lola?”

She blinked upon hearing the little nickname he’d given her. “No, I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked who Raan is to you. Some sort of leader?”

“Leader and my personal Mentor. He’s an Avant, a sub-ruler just below the Elder’s in the Suvelian Hierarchy.”

“Elders?”

“There are five members in the Elder’s Ring. Five, because there used to be five colony ships over our history, and each ship’s crew selected a member to represent them. Only one colony ship found a habitable planet, the rest were evacuated and stripped down well before I was born.”

“That one ship being yours, right?”

“The Ulnosh. Yes.”

“So the Elders are like your government?”

“Yes and no. They answer to the Hierarch, and he wields ultimate power and has the final say in all political matters. He’s currently leading our last remaining battle fleet into this system.”

“Sounds a little like a dictatorship,” Mike said.

“I don’t know that word, but it’s not like he’s a tyrant. The Hierarch’s been in charge for about sixty cycles, and not once has he ever had to overrule the Elder’s choices. He’s been too busy leading the fleets to make any sort of political decisions, so the Elder’s take charge in his absence.” She paused. “What about you, Mike? Do humans have a Hierarchy?”

“Not that I last heard,” Mike said. “Our leaders are a little like your Elders, though I’d say there’s about ten reps for every planet in the UEC.”

She did a quick estimate and blinked at the large mental number. “That’s got to be at least a hundred people!” she said. “How do they get past all the bickering?”

“Sometimes they don’t,” Mike admitted with a chuckle. “But that’s what you get with such a massive population. It’s impossible to get billions of people to agree on anything, so yeah, there’s a whole lot of sweet FA half the time. Most of the Board – that’s our equivalent of your Elder Ring – is corrupt as hell. Unless there’s money involved, there’s not much urgency.”

Lolanne, who had seen the Galactic map and the sheer size of the UEC’s borders, could only shake her head. “You say your leaders are corrupt so casually. If this has been going on for a long time, how have humans survived for so long?”

“We’re tough, what can I say? There’s been more wars in our history than yours, that’s for sure. People might start doing something about it one day, but we’ve been saying that forever. People out in the Borders, like on Neruvana, just don’t care enough to get involved with the Core Worlds. They’re just too strong.”

“All this infighting is news to me,” Lolanne said, who had grown up in a culture literally called the Unity. “… Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s ‘sweet FA’, mean?”

He grinned as he told her.

3

The daylight died quickly, and they travelled through the darkness for a few more long hours. Sindra and Urlond were nothing but a memory now, the strong suns unable to penetrate the thick cloud cover, which was so low it blanketed some of the taller hills. By the time they made camp, a light trickle of rainfall bathed the forest, and they had to move camp underneath the shelter of an oversized oak. A thick coat of fog descended and shielded anything from view that was further than a dozen meters away in any direction. After they decided to settle in for a while, Mike walked out from the tree’s cover and turned his gaze up, opening his mouth and tasting the metallic water. Lolanne watched this act from her spot in the shade with growing fascination. 

He rubbed the rain into his face and hair, glad that at last the suns were gone and fresh dew cooled his tanned skin. This feeling would be flipped on its head in the coming days, but for now he was content with this change in weather. Again Lolanne found herself enviying his exposed body. What would it feel like to rub rainwater into her skin? To moisturise her arms and face? All she had ever felt was the cold metal interior of her suit, swishing against her body with her movements. Did she herself feel as smooth as Mike’s pink flesh looked? Lolanne wasn’t afraid to admit she felt a little jealous of the humans so easily able to bathe in all of the senses.

The sticks and pines of this place, despite their protective furs, were harder to peel and more so to set aflame. Perhaps this was because the flora was reacting to all the water. After a few frustrating minutes, Mike got a fire going. They slept that night away and Lolanne was the first to wake, and she almost thought it was too early, given how dark it was, but her HUD clock confirmed it was in fact morning. The campfire’s ring of light was the brightest thing for many leagues around. She woke Mike and they got moving.

Thunder rolled in the distance, increasing in volume with every passing hour. The trees and vegetation took on a spindlier look, like the flora Lolanne had seen back in the Ashen Hills. Almost dead, but not quite there yet, with the branches ending in knife-like points, and the trunks thin enough they would snap if the rain got any heavier. She assumed a forest-fire had burned its way through here some time ago. Around midday they stopped to rest, and when Mike went off to forage some lunch, Lolanne stood to join him.

He gave her a questioning look and asked her what she was doing.

“Coming with you, of course.” She masked her fear with a bit of her own sarcasm.

He shrugged and didn’t try to dissuade her, and she liked to think that he was also feeling nervous, and it wouldn’t do well to split up in this dark, misty place of Panthea. They foraged, but the amount they found couldn’t even fill a pack if it was ground and liquidised. She did spy plenty of poisonous plants though – they seemed to be abundant in these parts.

When they settled down for rest, Mike slowly developed a frown as they counted their findings. Muscle and mass were beginning to return to his carefully starved body – the torturous walking had done at least some good. He didn’t want to start falling behind on his diet now.

“I don’t like this,” Lolanne said nervously, low enough that Mike, huddled nearby, barely heard her over the warble of the rain, which was picking up from a sprinkle into a downright pour.

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“Listen.” And he did. Apart from the drizzle of rain and rolling thunderclaps, they could hear nothing else. He looked at her and shrugged.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly,” she said, looking up and around the clearing. “No birds, no animals, no nothing. It’s like everything that lived here is dead.”

“They’re probably just hiding from the rain,” Mike said, but then realised he hadn’t heard any of those things since they’d entered the mountain range, before it even started raining. The jungles and forests back east were very noisy, with animals going about their business in open view. He hadn’t even seen Taurak or any more of his kills either. His excuse might have been right, or it might not, and he was starting to lean towards the latter. “Back on Neruvana if we saw no birds it usually meant there was a sandstorm nearby. Not a good sign for a planet like this one.”

“And over there.” She pointed back the way they’d come. “You probably can’t tell, but the rainfall just stops on that hill, like it’s up against a wall.”

Mike could tell. Rain fell on the hill to the east of them, and halfway up the rise the wall of water suddenly stopped, not retreating, not advancing, like there was an invisible barrier keeping it in place. Up above, the clouds stretched onward in all directions, dark and grey. He paced from one patch of dirt to another, and from each angle the clouds just boiled in on each other, growing in intensity and not straying or morphing. It was then he realized there was no wind. A cyclone without wind? He couldn’t find an excuse for that one.

“Yeah,” he said, a tinge of worry in his voice. “Something’s not right about all this.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Lolanne said. “I tried to tell Raan about this, and now that I’m here… How could he not believe me? He was the only one who took me seriously when I was little. I don’t know what changed.”

He smirked and looked over at her. “We can always bring him out here once we’re done, if you want. Let the apprentice teach the mentor a lesson or two.”

She chuckled, a rich sound in the woeful downpour. “He’s not so bad. Once we show him some solid proof that this isn’t Panthea’s natural weather, he’ll have to believe me.”

“If there’s something to prove,” he said. She gave him a look.

“You just said something isn’t right with this place!”

A smile touched Mike’s mouth. “Just kidding,” he said.

“Saduun,” she said, rolling her eyes. Something she’d picked up from him. “What’s with you and your sarcasm? For a prisoner you’re pretty light-hearted sometimes.”

An almost imperceptible drop in his face. Seeing that made Lolanne feel really guilty, and she stuttered an apology. “Oh, I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up your past.” She paused. “Whatever happened… I-I’ll try to avoid it from now on.”

“Not your fault,” he said. “I guess we all have our own way to deal with these things, and this is mine. No need to apologise, Lola.”

She cocked her head. Just recently he’d resorted to giving her that nickname. Normally it was disrespectful to not use her full name, but everything happening so far was anything but normal. Besides, it didn’t bother her, much as she hated admitting it. “Alright,” she said after another pause. “Mike, you’ve been a good ally these past few days. I’m… I’m almost glad I blackmailed you to stick around to see this through with me.”

A pinch of humour in his eyes. “So the alien finally admits the human isn’t so bad? It’s been a while since I’ve been complimented. I’m flattered.”

She shook her head. “Technically you are the alien here.” She got to her feet. “Come on. Still got plenty of ground to cover.”

With the forest roof looming over their heads, they started walking once more. The soft patter of booted hooves and feet adding to the dying rainforest climate.

3

Back on Neruvana, a lot of Mike’s youth involved running from town to town, delivering supplies by either push-bike or foot, usually the latter. He’d been terrified of the ancient battlefields dotting the arid plains stretching between the settlements, all the rotten corpses hanging out of the husks of battle tanks and crashed aircraft.

His traitorous mind kept expecting the dead soldiers to wake up and start chasing him. He’d also been scared at the possibility he might step on a landmine and kill himself. He never so much as made a sound on his runs for fearing to disturb the fragile quietness of a terrible conflict that had come and gone so very long ago.

What he remembered most vividly was the ash. It flickered down from the heavens in tiny ripped flakes, highlighted around the edges by little licks of flame. One time a piece of that ash had landed on his shoulder and he remembered it had felt like a spider was burrowing into his skin. There was no way to describe those lands other than just calling them wrong, and to a further extent, evil places.

It was how he felt now, trudging around a colossal-sized oak that easily reached twenty storeys high, fist-sized bugs floating around its thick base and feeding off the fungi growing on the bark. The mountain range had come to a shallow end of the terrain, and stretching out before them were sinking hills and valleys completely covered in fallen trees. The concaves of earth were ribbed with burnt wood, making them look like black sand dunes.

It wasn’t a long stretch to start remembering his own homeworld upon seeing this display.

And it wasn’t just the fact that the sky was completely blotted out by the dark clouds emanating from the storm’s pupil that made this place feel wrong. It was also the ash flittering around them like corrupted bits of snowflakes, and the lighting strikes arcing through the air and lighting up the outlines of the two giant mountains that acted as the last wall between them and their goal.

And yes, he had started to refer to the Eye of the Storm as their mutual goal. Maybe it was the scale of destruction slowly consuming the west that made him think like that, or maybe Lolanne’s adventuristic personality was rubbing off on him. He was more than a little scared if it was the latter case.

Mike was becoming used to her presence in their short time together, although it did feel like they’d been traveling for a lot longer, but in a good sort of way. All the prejudices their races had against each other had been whisked away as they moved ahead and struggled against the elements of the storm. It was a common belief with the other boys of his youth that alien life was universally recognized as dangerous, mysterious, or violent (all three in most cases), making anything not human practically a boogeyman. But Lolanne was something of an enigma to Mike. She wasn’t part of a civilization with terrestrial or Earth origins, and his curiosity – buried deep in the annals of his head after that incident with the jewelry store – was starting to peek out at her presence. His life had been void of interesting company as of late, and on some deep level he’d become fascinated by her.

Literally conversing with a thinking alien! How many others could say they’d done the same?

The ground turned from solid to muck, and his boots plopped wetly each time he made a difficult stride. The rain had been fun at first, but now his robes were getting soaked, and his chest tightened when his teeth started to clatter together. The jungles and the forests had been oppressive, massive things that were covered in dog-sized spiders, but at least they had stood tall and had given protective shade. In this place, in the forests closest to the storm’s center, the land was like Neruvana’s old battlefields – dead and vulnerable, with a giant weather-beast lurking in its depths.

There was a weight on his shoulders, like the presence of something big watching him. Lolanne had implied that the storm was alive in some way. And as they walked closer towards its dark cloak, Mike started to come around to the idea. He had seen a giant space-faring monster thing eat an entire ship, had survived – barely – an assault by a dracon, and was now entire systems away from the nearest human settlement, braving the elements. Believing the weather was alive wasn’t that far-fetched at this point.

The sunshine was a dim lightness that was a deep contrast to Panthea’s normally blinding daylight. They had to rest in what little nooks and crannies the bundles of fallen logs provided, and Mike’s arms quaked as he hugged himself for warmth.

“I expected this place to be extreme, but now that I’m here…” Lolanne had said after their short rest. It was impossible to sleep out in the open. “I’m in a vacuum-tight suit and I’m shivering. How are you doing?”

Mike waved a hand. “Don’t worry about me. Wouldn’t mind finding some place to get out of this wind.” A shiver chose that moment to run through his body.

“I should have known all this temperature drop would affect you too. I guess I’m just so used to everyone wearing suits. Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine. Just need to warm up, sooner or later.” There was a sniffle in his nose, and a pain in his throat when he swallowed, and that made his voice come out as a croak at the end. He’d get sick if he didn’t do something about it, if he wasn’t coming on with a fever already.

Lolanne hummed in clear dissatisfaction, but there was little they could do about it now, right in the thick of a dead field that looked like a tornado had done a couple of loops through it. Hands shielding their heads (and visor), they pushed on towards the storm’s main body. The rain kept on coming, and with it, a gale that made his eyes squint in its force. There was so much downpour the muddy ground turned into a mushy texture that reminded Mike of hummus. “Just like the swamps all over again,” Lolanne mumbled as she flicked away a bit of earth that had flung up onto her visor.

“What’s that, Lola?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

Mike noted briefly that there should have been at least some sort of animal presence around here. Panthea was a dry, hot place – the rain should have attracted plenty of critters. But not since leaving the mountain range behind had they seen one flicker of life. Not so much as a moth. He voiced this observation to Lolanne, and she only replied that things were grimmer than she first thought.

A few sparingly placed inclines shielded the pair from most of the storm’s oppressive winds, but after one last splintered, wood covered rise in the earth, they came upon a wide valley that stretched on to both the north and south horizons, a long strip of exposed land.

A lightning strike lit up the world in a sharp instant. In that bright moment Mike saw the dark outlines of the dual mountains on the other side of the valley, shielding the funnel-shaped body of the storm from view. Bits of shrub and wood were flying in every direction just over the stretch of land separating their current position from the nearest mountain’s sloped beginning.

Mike shielded his eyes from a sudden increase in rainfall to peer across the valley. “We need to find another way across!” He yelled so Lolanne could hear him over the howling wind. Lightning arced through the skies above, angry and dangerous. He didn’t like how close to the ground their rigid patterns were getting.

“We’ll be out here for longer if we detour now!” Lolanne pointed. “The quickest way is to go as the dracon flies!”

“It’s suicide!” A piece of earth just off to the north chose that moment to rip away from the ground and join the tirade of debris flying through the atmosphere. Mike imagined if his feet left the ground out there not even gravity would save him.

“We’ll have to be quick. I see something on the other side that might help us.”

“What is it?” He matched her gaze, but all he could see was the hazy outline of the mountain base fainlty obscured by the mist of rain. It didn’t look like a long way, but he wouldn’t think that once they put themselves in Mother Nature’s mercy. If this is even Nature’s doing anymore.

She shook her head. Whether because she didn’t hear him or wouldn’t say wasn’t very clear. “Shelter?!” he yelled.

“Maybe. We’ll find out once we cross. Let’s go!”

Without waiting for him, she strode out of what little cover they had, and into the full force of the storm. Mike flinched as a strike lit up the heavens. He cursed under his breath and went out and joined her, before she disappeared into the mist, raising a hand to shield his face as the wind hit him so violently, he actually staggered on the spot a little.

A hundred meters to the right, a white lightning strike crashed into the ground, birthing a pocket of wildfire that was immediately consumed in the torrent of cold and heavy rain. Mike hadn’t felt so vulnerable since being stuck in his cell surrounded by flames. They were moving so slow, and were exposed from every angle possible. Bits of bark and dirt flung up into his eyes, stinging him like a bunch of angry wasps. Each step required a huge effort, and what felt like hours of trekking passed, but in reality it had only been mere minutes. A glance backward confirmed this, as the progress they’d made was pitifully minuscule.

The sky was filled with thunderheads. It felt like he was standing in the shadow of a massive castle, the storm forming into shapes so exotic he had to be imagining them. Mike could feel his bones shake as cold water slipped into his pores through his drenched robes. In a way the storm was beautiful, but in a terrible, dangerous sort of way. A wild and unpredictable element of this world. Maybe not unpredictable, since Lolanne was convinced it had struck at all Suvelian spacecraft that had entered through orbit. But his pod had been spared its wrath. Why it had not struck at his escape pod never crossed his mind.

Lolanne slowed down a little and turned around, saying something that was immediately lost to the wind. Fog and thunder obscured his senses, and he opened his mouth to say he couldn’t hear her, but beads of blood covered his lips as they stretched, and he closed them. Licking only made it worse. The violent gale was like a giant force trying to keep them away from their destination, burning Mike’s eyes and parching his tongue. It was a close call, but not even being on the Arden was as terrible as this.

A giant ripple of air was coming towards them, visible through the vegetation, rolling stray logs and flattening grass stalks and sending a wave of ash and soot in their direction. The ripple was closing in very fast. Mike yelled out a warning to Lolanne as he braced his shoulders.

The gale hit him like a tremendous punch to the chest, and Mike would have lost his balance if he hadn’t crouched down and clung to the trunk of a small, resilient sapling by his foot. Howling wind filled his ears. Soot whipped around in all directions like a swarm of locusts.

He craned his neck and looked up at Lolanne’s form, bracing just ahead of him. She had nothing to hold onto, and when the gale hit, she tried to dig her hooves into the ground, but the blast knocked her off her feet. She somersaulted head over heels, seemed to become suspended in the air for a second as wind tugged her one way and gravity the other, and then she slammed down on her back with a sickening crunch.

She rolled across the muck, spinning and flipping as the wind knocked her around like she weighed nothing. She landed hard on her chest, skidding back the way they’d come, crying out in pain. Mike held out an arm and seized her by the hand just before the fog could take her into its murky depths. He grunted, pulling with his shivering muscles, trying to get her in reach of the sapling. He fought against the wind for control of Lolanne, and for a moment he thought he was going to lose her. Then the brunt of the gale passed, and he heaved with one last effort. Her slim arms reached out and held onto the plant for dear life.

“Thank you,” Lolanne croaked, just audible over the wind and thunder. Another strike landed nearby and they both flinched.

“We have to go back!” Invisible hands tore at his clothes, threatening to pull him away. He wiped snot from his nose. “We’ll never make it!”

“It’s just a little farther!” The Suvelian scrutinized the way forward, seeing something he could not. He found himself intrigued by those orbs of blue. Probably because it was the one thing he could vaguely make sense of her, physically.

“A little farther to what? Shelter?” he asked again.

“I think so. It looks… green.”

Green? He went to ask her what she meant, but out of the corner of his eye he saw a dark curtain of rain approaching, and instead said: “Well that’s just great.”

The curtain pounced on their position, and Mike wondered how he could have thought he was drenched before that moment. Liquid bounced off his head and her suit by the bucket-loads. From east to west, white light flashed across the sky in crooked arches. It was like the storm was actually trying to ward them away, and was succeeding on at least one of them.

When the wind subsided a little more, Mike pulled Lolanne to her feet, and they kept moving as fast as they could. Every muscle in Mike’s body spasmed, and he could feel the chilly touch of hypothermia creeping through his veins, but he pushed himself when he saw the mountainside slowly define itself out of the mist. A green aura caught his eye, wedge-shaped and pulsing in intensity every other second. Mike thought it looked like the mouth of a cave.

Cold water and even colder wind made Mike’s body feel like ice. With every step he could feel his body starting to shut down, the corners of his vision blurring into darkness. He stumbled, and now it was Lolanne’s turn to pull him along. A sense of vertigo tricked him into thinking the green light was further away than it actually was.

He half-expected a lightning strike to hit the mountain and cause a landslide, but no such strike came. Mike’s hopes about the cave-mouth theory had been right. A cleft in the earth opened up to a dry patch of stone. Ten minutes and he could hear water dripping onto stone. One moment he was being assaulted by raindrops the size of golf balls, and the next they were gone, and he collapsed into some sort of shelter from the elements.

He fought to keep his eyes open and curled into a shivering ball. After almost a whole day in the wet, his body seized up as invisible bands wrapped themselves over his muscles. The stone he was lying on was a murky colour compared to the rest, his soaked clothes staining every surface he touched. He mumbled Lolanne’s name to get her attention.

She knelt beside him in an instant, her arm blocking out the strange green light coming from somewhere at the back of the cave. Beads of water splotched all over her visor, dilating the shape of one of her eyes. “Mike? What’s wrong?”

“C… Co…” He shuddered. He forced the word out through clenched teeth. “Cold.”

It was all he could manage. It took all of his will to keep his heavy eyelids from closing. If he went to sleep now, he would probably not wake up.

“-Cold?” She didn’t grasp his meaning until a moment later, her pretty eyes widening a little. “W-What do I do? What can I do?”

“War… Fire…” He was mumbling, thinking about too many things to say and not enough strength to speak them. When his eyes closed this time, he couldn’t fight back. The last thing he saw before the darkness took him, was Lolanne’s form standing up and trudging back out into the storm.

There was a sensation of falling that seemed to stretch on until he found the will to open his eyes. When they did, he saw he was back on the Arden, watching a replay of himself climbing up the pile of bodies blocking the exit out of the cell block. Only this time when he tripped, putting too much pressure on a crispy arm, he fell into the pile and could not find his way back out. He clawed and clawed, pushing away the grinning faces of the dead, but no matter how hard or how long he tried, he couldn’t claw his way back to the surface.

Then something grabbed him, hauled him out of the fetid air of corpses. He looked into his savior’s face, and twelve eyes stared back. It was another of those oily alien creatures, the nightmares that had consumed his warden. The maw opened up, and a gutteral hiss of wind hit his face. The wind had context.

“Labiiiinneeee…” the alien croaked, and the arm around Mike’s throat began to squeeze, then spontaneously combusted into flame. His windpipe was crushed, and just before the moment of suffocation...

Mike woke, screaming and gagging on his own spit. In that moment he swore his throat was actually constricted by some invisible force. There was a small stack of burning twigs in front of him. He cringed away from it and rubbed his throat, hyperventilating.

“Mike! Are you alright?”

Lolanne had been sitting by his feet, shielding him a little from the wind with her body. She came to his upper half and hunkered beside him.Her presence startled him a moment before he relaxed. He rubbed at his eyes with his palms.

“Mike?”

“I’m okay,” he said. “just a nightmare,” Mike let his hand fall. There were little blue rings under his eyes. “How long was I out?”

“A few hours. I thought you’d never wake.” He could have sworn he heard apprehension in her tone. “Sorry if I put you close too close to the flames, but I’m guessing that’s happened to you before.”

“What do you mean?” She gestured to his chest to answer. The top straps of his robes had been opened and his torso was exposed. He guessed Lolanne had been too nervous to remove any more than that. Just under his left bicep was a nasty burn mark. There was another on the right side of his upper ribcage. He hadn’t noticed the fire in his cell had spread up further than just his legs, which were still red and tender, last he checked.

“Oh. Yeah, once or twice,” he answered. Even just thinking about the prison made his eye twitch, and goosebumps appear on his flesh.

“I can tell. And these scars? Did the other prisoners give you these wounds?”

She tapped on the one just above his sternum. The sudden contact caused them both to flinch, like her touch was electric. Lolanne frowned at herself and slowly pulled her hand away, pretending that nothing had happened. Mike followed her lead in that regard.

“Some of them,” Mike admitted awkwardly. “But that was a long time ago, Lola.”

“I see.” She seemed to catch his meaning and dropped the subject. He sat up and started redressing himself. Lolanne watched him and asked, “You talked in your sleep a couple of times there, and then you screamed as you woke. How long have you been having nightmares?”

“Too long,” he answered.

Unseen to Mike, she frowned up at him. “One day you’re going to have to start to trust me.”

Her bluntness made him raise a brow. For a moment he considered keeping his silence, but she had just saved his life, so maybe a straight answer wasn’t too much to ask. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that… You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He wondered later that if he had told her about the Leviathan at that moment, about the bodies, and the alien creatures, if things would have turned out differently. Those last eight words would become the staple of their relationship. He could tell that was the case by the way she responded.

“I know that feeling. This storm tried to kill my people, did kill my friend, Guider Iztak. And you’re the only person who was even minutely willing to help me get some answers to all this. And you are a human who fell from the sky in a time just when I happen to start really consider investigating that storm.” She hummed to herself. “Seems like the beginning of a prophecy or something.”

“You make me sound like some sort of saviour.” He shook his head. “We both know I’m not. I just want to go home. That’s why I agreed to come out here in the first place, remember?”

Mike admitted how contradictory he sounded to himself, and tried to hide his reaction from spreading to his face. Where exactly was home, and why was he so determined not to think that far ahead? Judging by Lolanne’s body language, he wasn’t the only one to be brooding. Her eyes fidgeted this way and that, as if deep in thought, or nervous about something. He couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking about at that moment.

“No,” she said. “maybe not a saviour. I know you have your own reasons, just as I have mine, but you have to see that my only companion being an alien speaks volumes about how crazy this all is.”

“You’ve got a point.” A smile touched the corners of his mouth. He was going to correct her about him being the only one willing to help her, but maybe a tiny part of him really wanted to see what this whole storm was about. “You know,” he said. “Saviour does have kind of a nice ring to it. If we do find something here, I expect to be called that from now on.”

He might or might not have imagined her face forming into a playful grin. “Well that title should go both ways, seeing as I saved you just then.”

“We should start keeping count, then.” Mike grinned, and she smiled back. He looked at the warm campfire and that grin faded. She’d done nothing but scowl at the act of burning wood at first, and now she’d made one all on her own while he was unconscious. The moment of companionship passing between them departed as he said, “I’m sorry you had to do this for me. I know your religion means a lot to you.” He gestured to the flames.

Religion wasn’t quite the right word, but Lolanne didn’t correct him. She nodded sombrely. “Without the warmth you would have died.”

“If Saduun’s looking down on us, I’d imagine He’s probably pretty pissed at you, saving a stinky human’s life by burning a piece of Panthea.”

She raised her hands and gestured to the backdrop of the camp, a grey sheet of rain pierced by arcs of lightning. “This place is dead anyway. And if He is ‘pissed’ as you call it, then the ‘stinky human’ will just have to prove himself he was worth it.”

“I’ll give it a shot,” he said. She had just put his meagre life before her entire species’ faith, and the realisation of this fact, Mike was surprised, felt quite flattering. He rubbed his hands and raised them out towards the fire. Now that his vision was clear he fully recognised the source of the green light illuminating a part of the cave. It was a fungoid plant, growing on one of the walls, painting the tan rocks an emerald shade. Little courses of fluid ran up and down the stem and cap, like visible energy.  

When he felt a little drier and a bit better, he coughed into his hand and spoke. “You said going back would be rough, but what about going forward? If the wind doesn’t throw us off the mountain, I’m thinking those lightning bolts will. Something tells me they’re not random.”

“I agree.” The Suvelian nodded her helmet towards the back of the cave. “While you were out I had a look around and found a path through there. It goes on for many leagues, and I heard wind hitting my suit from inside the passage. Could be a way through, but it might be dangerous.”

“Might be?” he said, eyebrows raised.

“Will be dangerous,” she corrected. “But it’s better than scaling the mountain. We know the storm is not going away anytime soon. Are you able to push on?”

“Yeah. Yeah, ready when you are,” Mike said. He warmed his hands one more time before stamping out the flames. She went towards the rear of the cave, and he followed. He glanced curiously at the mushroom as they passed it, wondering how it could glow so fiercely.

The cave narrowed to a point, and at its deepest reaches an inverted v shaped cleft cut into the rock. The passage was so thin he would have to enter sideways just to fit, and even then the tunnel only became more constricting the deeper it went.

Lolanne made to move in first, but hesitated in the cleft’s frame, looking back at Mike warily. “Will you be alright? You know, because of your…”

Mike knew what she was implying. He didn’t like the idea of getting caught in a cave-in, nor the fact that heading into the belly of a mountain was just plain scary. Claustrophobia again reared its ugly mug at him, making his chest muscles constrict and his stomach swell. He waved a dismissive hand, his pride shielding his fear. “You mean my condition? I’ll be fine. Let’s quench that curiosity of yours and get out of here as soon as we can.”

Lolanne nodded, and stepped into the darkness of the tunnel, her slim body easily squeezing into the gap. Mike was glad that she was leading, so she didn’t see him fail to suppress a shiver as he sucked in his breath and entered the cleft, leading with his right shoulder. The words, I can do this, racked through his head a couple dozen times as he shimmied through the passage after the Suvelian.

Sharp rocks caught on his robes and pressed into his skin. Lolanne waited patiently for him to catch up, unlike the first days of their initial expedition. The powerful glow of the cave mushroom soon left them shrouded in darkness, and this made things all the more complicated with Mike’s already shaken nerves. Before he could protest this fact, Lolanne spoke.

“Hold on.” Her voice was just ahead somewhere, and he could hear her fiddle with something on her suit. Then a soft light flickered to life and painted the walls in a soft blue. Little veins of energy running along Lolanne’s arms, legs and hips were the source of the illumination. His eyes lingered on her curvy body as he stepped into her suit’s light, his shadow dancing across the rocks beside him. Her alien physique was strange but not at all hard on the eyes. Just at how differently she was shaped compared to him only strengthened his intrigue of her physique.

“Keep close,” she said. He realized he was staring like a creep and shook his head to snap himself into the present. Mike ducked his head so he wouldn’t bang it on a rock jutting from the ceiling, and followed. It felt like the passage went on for dozens of kilometres, not even the light breeze hitting both his front and back made the going any easier. He tried to think about open fields and the endless expanse of vacuum, a technique his father had taught him a long time ago, but it could not deter the constantly thinning tunnel that seemed to have no end.

The passage twisted and turned in every direction, and Mike’s mental eye imagined them doing massive circles, getting nowhere. His thumping heart was audible in his throat. He couldn’t even smell the petrichor of rain anymore. He had done nothing but whine and complain about Panthea’s landscape, and now that it was gone he suddenly missed it more than anything.

Things moved in the cracks of the rocks. Big bugs with antenna’s the size of his fingers, making chittering squeaks as Lolanne’s artificial light bathed them in a glow they weren’t used to seeing. Seeing them slip in and out of his vision, above, below and right beside his head, made Mike squeamish. Sometimes he made embarrassing little sounds of disgust. He took a gulp from his breather and stuffed it back into his pocket.

“Tell me something,” he suddenly said. The tunnel was now so low and narrow they had to crouch to proceed. Lolanne looked back at him and blinked.

“Not more questions, please.” She countered. He remembered using those exact same words. He shook his head humourlessly, wondering if the walls were closing in on them or that was just his mind playing tricks.

“Just talk to me. About anything. Maybe it’ll help me forget where I am.”

Lolanne stepped around a concave in the passage, and simply said, “Okay.” without asking why. She made small talk as they kept going, and his phobia started to recede a little. One particular topic caught his interest. “I’ve always wanted to explore ancient ruins. Like the tunnel networks my ancestors used to traverse Suvelia, before technology allowed us to live on the surface.”

“You should go see Earth,” Mike said. “I hear they’ve still got relics and structures thousands of years old.”

“Thousands?” she asked, beaming back at him for a moment. “Are they still in good condition?”

“Yep. They’ve got museums all over the place. Pretty well documented too, considering how old it all is.”

“I never knew archaeology was even recognized by humans. Maybe I should update the archives on humans, personally.”

It just occurred to him that he was probably becoming some sort of template for her, and by extension, the entire Suvelian population’s opinion on humanity as a whole. He wondered how many people had tried for countless years to get into a similar position, and here he was, probably mucking it all up.

“Have you been there?” Lolanne asked. “To Earth, I mean?”

“Nah, but I always wanted to. Probably won’t get a chance – it is the seat of the UEC after all, and they’re the last people I want to see.”

“I didn’t think I’d be able to come to this storm, yet here I am. ‘Don’t bullshit yourself’. Is that the right statement?”

He snickered at that. “It’s don’t kid yourself, but you’re getting better.”

At the mention of Earth, he brought up Lolanne’s own homeworld, Suvelia. Mike had been hoping for more details, but she seemed to dodge the questions, instead focusing on him. It seemed that the Suvelian homeworld was a sensitive issue for her whole race. Before the Arden he remembered his desire to explore new things. All his ambitions and drive to actually do something with his life had been slowly chipped away by Morland until Mike was just a pathetic mess. Now here came Lolanne, asking him all these things, and in turn making him interested in her. A part of him thought that mayve was still her way of interrogating him, and if it was, he’d give her props for going to all this effort.

At last the passage began to broaden, allowing Mike to stretch his shoulders. He peeked over her form and spied more of those glowing mushrooms and the spheres of green light they emitted. The passage went upwards and they clambered up the slope on their knees. Lolanne’s tri-hoofed feet were careful but precise, and the way she so elegantly scaled the incline without a single fault caught his eye, especially the way the muscles flexed against the tight environmental suit. He slipped a little as he realised he was staring again.

Lolanne reached the top of the passage and the tunnel widened enough so she could stand. She gazed out into something Mike could not see from this angle. “By Saduun,” she breathed.

“What is it?” Mike climbed up to meet her, brushing his hands of rockdust as he joined her side. He turned his head up, and his jaw went slack.

“It’s beautiful,” Lolanne answered.

The expanse was dozens of kilometres across and tall. Lolanne and Mike stood about halfway up this side of the giant cavern, two natural ramps leading off to the sides – one up and one down. Along the roof of the expanse were more glowing mushrooms, these as large as houses, dangling from thick stems embedded in the rockwalls. Thick stone columns connected the massive distance between the ceiling and the cavern floor, some crooked in impossible and exotic angles. A sonorous ring hung on the air in the very back of their joined hearing, coming from seemingly all around them. The floor and roof were both shrouded in a darkness not even Lolanne’s eyes could pierce.

Orbiting around the columns and gliding through the massive space, were creatures that were a mix between flora and fauna. They bore some resemblance to the oversized fungi, tentacles flopping around beneath mushroom-like bodies as they floated along without any visible propulsion. A dome of lazuli-coloured glow lit up around these strange creatures in a wide and fuzzy aura.

In the distance ahead one of these flying creatures hung close to the cave floor, and lingering just on the cusp of its natural light illuminating the ground, were dozens of angular creatures, knocking each other out of the way as if the light was poisonous.

Purple trees and red undergrowth dotted the cavern in sparse patches on every surface, giving off dim bioluminescent pockets of life. These did not even vaguely resemble the flora outside – unnatural formations and nocturnal pallets of colour. This was like another world, entirely hidden from the suns that had shaped the surface. Even though they were under a mountain, the cavern had its own horizon, stretching in a wide cone from this current spot. More of the fungoid creatures flew off that way like distant flying traffic lanes.

From her side, Mike whistled in impressiveness, the sound echoing and dying around them. “Wow. Scientists would have a field trip in this place,” he said.

“What’s a ‘field trip’?” she asked, pronouncing it slowly.

“I’ll tell you later. You see a way out of here?”

She wanted to wait and watch, maybe take a few samples to bring back to the colony, but Mike was right. She had much more important priorities than going around having field trips right now. Maybe one day when things calmed down, she could join an expedition and come out here again. Until then she would focus on being the curious cat, as the saying went.

“You feel that breeze?” he asked. She cocked her head at him and he blinked at her suit. “-So to speak? It’s coming from somewhere...”

“There,” she said, and pointed. A beam of light shining through an opening, a few kilometres across the expanse on the right. Lightning strikes lit it up like a flickering beacon. It was lower to the ground than it was to the roof, so the lower path it was, then.

Lolanne started down the ramp, Mike in tow. After a few moments she heard him make strange noises by her flank, so she turned around to investigate. What she saw made her look away instantly.

“What are you doing that for?”

Behind her, Mike was slipping his robe over his arms and head, scrunching the fabric it into a bundle. Lolanne stole a glance at him. She’d seen a little of his underlying skin when he’d been wearing those ripped and ragged overalls he’d first been wearing, and a bit more when she undid his upper robes so the campfire could warm him up, but he was practically stripping right in front of her.

Compared to the past, however… Mike certainly looked a lot healthier than he had when they’d first met – his legs and arms lean with all the walking, and the good diet of natural fruits had fleshed out his muscles and curved the sections of sinew on his stomach and chest. The images of enountered humans had all been clothed, so the experience was rather disturbing, but with it came a hint of interest.

Is that why I am continuing to stare at this half naked man? She shook her head partly to snap herself out of it, partly to chastise Mike and his sudden urge to undress.

Mike held the bundle of clothing in his clenched fists, then twisted the fabric in two opposing directions, wringing out a large portion of rain and sweat from the clothes. Water dripped onto the stones, turning them a darker shade of black.

“Do you have to do that now, of all times?” She sounded as if he’d committed heresy.

“What?” he said, a bit of humour in the question. “Don’t you have to wash that suit every now and then?”

“Only during serious repairs.” Lolanne stopped at the bottom of the ramp. Two mushrooms lit up a good portion of the area nearby. He hopped behind her on one leg as he tried to undo his leggings, struggling for balance. “We use quarantine-suites and other protective services when our suits are damaged. But that doesn't happen often.”

“But don’t your clothes underneath get sweaty?” he asked, gesturing at her. She gave him a questioning look. The human blinked again. “… Wait. Are you… Aren’t you wearing anything underneath all that getup?”

She felt a flush overtake her, and she looked away without answering, suddenly finding a big grey pond in the distance easier to look at than the human.

Mike let out a small laugh, forcing her to glance in his direction. But he wasn’t laughing at her. The way he wasn’t flushing made her a little bit angry at him for some reason. “Just the suits then, huh? Then why do you have clothes lying around if you don’t even wear any?”

“They’re for later,” she said, glad to angle the subject away. “Before the Android’s came, we had plans to transition into uninhibited lifestyles, like how you humans can live in some environments without environmental suits. Terraforming Suvelia and finding another planet were the most popular options. Don’t have to tell you which one we ended up chosing. After we’ve evolved out of the suits those robes were to be given out to everyone.”

“Ah,” he said, remembering her say something along those words. His left legging came free with a final tug, and after leaning against a nearby boulder he freed the other. A perceptive onlooker could have seen Lolanne taking a moment to examine his only remaining garment, a bit of fabric wrapping over his waist, before looking away.

Mike smirked over at her, squeezing his pants and filling the cavern with the sound of water drops. They echoed back a couple times before silencing. “You can look if you want, Lola. I don’t mind.”

Lolanne folded her arms. “I’d rather not have to wash my eyeballs, thank you.”

Mike laughed again. “But you’re the curious type. Could be your only chance.” He wrung out his pants again. Mike’s pinkish flesh glinted in the dull light of her suit, sheened with perspiration. Thousands of tiny hairs covered his body and rippled in the caves breeze. She spied a few extra blemishes on his hide, one in particular was circular and the size of a finger width. A bullet wound? He suddenly looked at her and caught her ogling, but she didn’t give him time to speak first.

“You’ve been in a few fights, haven’t you?”

He grinned. “So it’s not just human ladies who love the scars.” He gave his clothes one curious sniff and pulled away with a disgusted snarl. “Hoo! Be glad you can’t smell this. It’s like a pair of skunks died on a landfill.”

“How masculine of you. Now stop defiling this place with your image and get dressed.”

After one last wring, he started redressing. All their talking had attracted some of the creatures dwelling in the shadows. Even with her perception, she could only make out their vague, crustacean outlines as they hopped from one foot to the other in the same way a rowdy scavenger spies an old bleeding corpse.  Their clear, silvery jaws snapped in the air, as if to try and eat at the light itself. About a dozen of the canines came to investigate. They were small things but their heads were oversized, probably to compensate for their unusually large jaws sticking out of there frothing lips. Her suit might protect her from a couple of those bites, but she couldn’t count on it holding, and Mike’s skin appeared to be easily broken. Yet the creatures remained at a distance despite their advantage in numbers.

Mike slipped his arms back into the much drier robes. He looked beyond the ring of light and frowned at the scene. He adjusted his belt. “More ugly critters. Just what we need.”

“They’re afraid of light,” Lolanne observed, taking a step forward. The aura of light from her suit moved with her, and the creatures snarled and hissed in protest, but retreated before the light could illuminate them. They hugged the very rim of the darkness, their chins – lined with cruel-looking pincers jutting in every direction like a chitinous beard – were just within view.

“Stay close, Mike.” Steeling herself, Lolanne crept out into the abyss. Mike glued to her side, trying to keep an eye on every single thing that shifted and snarled and barked, filling the cavern with their bloodcurdling calls. The noise only seemed to attract more of them. By the time five minutes had passed, she counted that well over fifty of the things had gathered, circling them on all points of the compass. The barrier of her suit light was the only thing keeping them from being mauled, and the fact that this barrier had no physical presence wasn’t very reassuring.

“Hold up,” Mike said suddenly. Lolanne stopped. The way they’d come in was a long way back, and the exit was even further. It was like they were traversing a sea of black tar. The entire floor could be covered with these creatures and they wouldn’t even know.

“What is it?” she asked. Her hand inched to her sidearm, and she found its shape comforting in her palm. All around them teeth clicked together as the creatures yipped and snarled.

“Give me one of those packs.”

“Why?” she asked as she reached into a pouch where she kept her used ones. He took it, turned, and chucked it into the blackness ahead of them without a word. As soon as the little box left the light, reaching the peak of its shallow arc, the scuttlers, as Mike would soon call these horrible creatures of the dark, lept up and snatched the pack, pincers and jaws wrapping over the metal and crushing it like wet paper. A good thirty of them began wrestling over it, and black, translucent blood flicked through the air and pooled on the ground.

Lolanne watched the skirmish with alarmed fascination, and after a prolonged fight between the creatures, the victorious scuttler that seized the pack slipped away from the rest of the creatures, and slunk into a lake off to the left. The lake glowed a faint and shadowy violet colour, but the scuttlers didn’t seem to mind this particular source of light. She caught a brief glimpse of its thin but built body before it submerged into the water and was gone.

“Bunch of land-piranhas,” Mike murmured. Lolanne started moving again, avoiding the blood and claw marks the scuttlers had left in the short battle. “Don’t let that light die, Lola. What’s the battery level at?”

“Relax, we’ve got… Oh, Saduun!” she cried, her face glued to her wrist-computer, fingers tapping frantically on the readouts.

Mike spun on her. “Waitwhat?” he exclaimed.

Her eyes squinted at him, like someone who smiles with their cheekbones. “Joking,” she said.

She could see Mike visibly struggling against a grin, then shake his head with a half-frown. “We’re in the belly of a mountain, surrounded by these scuttling things that look like they haven’t seen fresh meat in years, all the while underneath some sort of sentient storm, and you joke now.”

“… Pretty good, right?”

“Best one so far.”

They closed in on the exit, and the sound of rain pattering on rocks slowly returned. There was also another sound that was much closer, something that sounded like the distant rattling of chains. Mike watched the shadows around them carefully. Lolanne caught movement above her and looked up to find the source. One of those giant, mushroom-like creatures was moving alongside them, its pace slow and steady. Its glowing underbelly was emitting a ring of light, a larger radius than her own suit-lights were making. Even more scuttlers were jumping up and trying to nip at the bulbous creature’s dangling tentacles. The tentacles swayed backwards as the body sailed forwards, hanging a few meters off the ground.

Lolanne had assumed they could climb up to the exit, but once they reached the stone wall below the cleft, she cursed as she ran a hand along its smooth surface. There were no holds she could see, and the climb was very high. Not even her suit servos could get her that far, and even if they could, she wouldn’t leave Mike down here in the dark.

She looked for a way up, but all that she could see was that floating creature, idling off to the side, not at all concerned with the horrible scuttlers nipping at its tentacles. Mike put his hands on his hips and asked her if she had any ideas.

“Just a crazy one.” She moved underneath the fungoid creature; Mike hurried to keep inside the ring of light. Again there was that chain-link sound, coming from the creature’s hidden throat. Its lowest tentacle was just above her head.

With a grunt, she jumped up and grabbed it. The limb was bumpy, and her hands found purchase easily.

Mike peered up at her and raised a questioning hand. “What’s this jive?”

“Climb,” Lolanne said, and scurried up the tentacle, making leathery sounds as her suit rubbed against the appendage. She heard Mike run and leap up after her on another tentacle. He gave her a thumbs-up when she asked if he was good.

Together they shimmied up as if climbing ropes. Thirty seconds later she was scrambling up onto the hunched carapace on the creature’s back, lending Mike an arm so he could haul himself up. The shell was mushy under her boots, with bits of minuscule fungi growing over the organic material, blue and bioluminescent. Mike groaned in disgust as he saw a wiry bug run across his foot and disappear into a fold of flesh.

“Okay,” he said. “we’re up. What now?”

She pointed at the opening, which was now matching the floating creature’s altitude. “Can you make that jump?”

Mike peered down at the ground, almost totally covered in scuttlers, looking up at them with hungry grey eyes. Then he glanced over the black gap. “Yeah, nah. That’s a long way to jump, even if I had rocket-boots like yours.”

“If we could get this thing a little closer...” Lolanne mused. She dipped her head in thought.

“How? I don’t exactly see a steering wheel.”

She peered closer at the creature’s shell, towards the ‘front’ half. Several antennae jutted out like grass stalks in a clump. The creature suddenly lurched after she started walking. She guessed she was putting too much pressure on it. She resorted to crawling over, down on all fours, her long limbs careful to maintain her balance. She noticed Mike staring at her and her eyes self-consciously grazed over her rump for just a moment.

Now at the front, Lolanne held onto the edge of the shell, and leaned out to look into one great golden eye belonging to the floating creature, hidden just underneath the lip of its protective shell. The colourless iris faintly turned to regard her, and the creature made a low hollow call. It sounded like the chains again, and Lolanne imagined the creature had just said hello. She smiled, but not entirely out of happiness.

Lolanne put a hand on the carapace close to the eyeball, closing her own eyes and offering a prayer, her head upside down, almost right against the creatures ‘face’. Mike couldn’t tell what she was saying, as it was all fully in her own tongue and completely untranslated. He made his way toward her, slipping twice on a few cracks in the chitin, gunk and slime threatening to send him over the edge. He didn’t want to know what kind of creature had made those injuries.

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and waited for Lolanne to stop. She fell silent after half a minute, and she looked at him, while at the same time drawing her knife. The blade glowed a deep shade of crimson in the darkness and looked unusually lethal in that moment. “What was that all that about?” he asked.

“It was for the creature,” she explained. “An apology for what I must do.” She reached for the antennae, knife out, posed as if to sever it. Mike stopped her with a quick grab on her wrist, asked her what she was going to do.

“It’s possible we can move it with those.” She indicated to the antennae with the point of her knife. “Or force it to, if it comes to that.”

Even if Mike didn’t know about her passion for nature, he could tell that she didn’t want to do it, but saw no other option. Even he had to admit that despite it all, there was a certain exotic look to what he’d seen of Panthea, and this creature seemed peaceful enough. “I’ll do it,” he said eventually. “You’ve probably ticked off your god enough already.”

Lolanne cocked her head. He wasn’t bound by his beliefs as she was, and she could see the logic in his offer. She dipped her head in appreciation and he let her go. “I… Thank you.”

He nodded, took her place by the clump, then lightly gripped at the carapace. “Sorry, buddy,” he murmured to the creature, and Lolanne could tell by his face his apology might just have been genuine, before he wrenched at an antenna.

And father told me that humans have no compassion.

The floating creature moaned, and the metallic call edged with pain made Lolanne cringe behind her visor. Mike twisted the stems towards the opening, thinking he could operate it the same way as reigning a horse towards a certain direction. But instead of the creature steering to the right, to the opening, it boosted forward at double its usual speed. Mike tried turning it away, adding another stem to his twists, but the course didn’t change and the creature slammed into the rocks, causing him and Lolanne to lose balance and fall on their backs.

The flying jellyfish-like creature pressed into the rocks and slid across the wall, fortunately in the direction they needed to go. It left huge blue and gunky skid marks along the stone surface, most likely its blood.  Lolanne told Mike to leave it alone for now – they would jump as they passed.

Mike let the antennae go, wiping his sticky hands on his legs. “Get ready…” Lolanne warned, bracing. Mike got ready. When the creature bumbled past the hole in the wall, where rain danced and clouds blocked out the suns, it hit against the edge of the opening, bouncing away from it like a pinball. “Now!”

They jumped. For one terrible moment Lolanne thought she wouldn’t make it, and was about to activate her rocket-boots when her feet found solid ground and she fell into a heap. Mike collapsed beside her, uttering a few curse words as he tumbled to a halt.

Behind her the creature jammed itself into a nearby wedge, then proceeded to hang there by invisible strings. They had probably stunned it by their cruel method of control. She watched and waited for it to fix itself up and go on its way, but a lump began to build in her throat when it refused to move. Paranoia welled up in her head and she guessed their actions had caused irreparable damage to the creature, and she felt horrible for exploiting it.

“He’ll be fine,” Mike said, noticing her stare. How did he know that? Was he just trying to make her feel better? He grabbed her hand. “Up you get.  We’re almost there.”

Lolanne nodded. What was done was done. Mike led the way up the slope, which inclined to the point it practically turned into a wall. She paused halfway up the climb as the floating creature moaned from her flank, as if asking why they would leave it there after abusing it. She shook her head, her silly thoughts trying to nudge her into the land of guilt. Even though Mike had done the deed, it had still been her idea, so she wasn’t immune from blame in her eyes. But there would be plenty of time to mourn later.

Lolanne resumed climbing. Mike had already navigated up the crevice and was standing in the shade of a tree, burnt to cinders, but still standing. Even though the skies were a thunderous display of nature’s violent potential, he was visibly relieved to be out in open air once again. Lolanne climbed up the final lip in the opening and got to her feet. The suns were subdued behind the terrible curtain of clouds and the air was freezing, even inside the suit. The storm stretched in all directions, impossibly large and radiating a heavy presence. The thunder was constant and they sounded like rolling bones.

A wall of vegetation hung along the cliffside of this section of the mountain. Branches and trunks crisscrossed so heavily it concealed anything behind it, except for the vague shape of the lower half of the funnelling storm that had destroyed this side of Panthea. Above this wall of woods, the cyclone rose up, taller than the mountain, taller than even the skyscrapers of Suvelia. In time, those skyscrapers would be rebuilt, and she knew the storm would watch and wait, then when the time was right, when the most destruction could be done, it would strike. And why wouldn’t it? It had already killed Iztak, and nearly killed her on several occasions, before and after she started pursuing it with her new friend. The oil in the river, the crazy beast sniffing her out while mumbling to itself, the lightning strike on the colony ship, the strike on the Guider shuttle – this storm, this anomaly, it had to be the answer to all of those things.

Incredibly long strikes burned the sky, leaving bright and crooked afterimages. “Go on then,” Mike said over the wind, which he did not miss one bit. For some odd reason it wasn’t as violent as it was before, even though they were closer to its source and higher up as well. He nodded with his chin to the cliff. “Let’s see what this storm is all about. Got a good view and everything.”

Lolanne started forward. Finally, after a week of trekking, she would see the source of it all and find out what was causing this anomaly to blemish the world. Raan would consider this a suitable Proving for her – this was the second unspoken reason as to why she had come out here. With a Proving like this, with her suit decorated with beautiful stories and symbols, people might just start listening to her, take her seriously and maybe the recognition might strip her of her timidity. Perhaps her future could be as bright as Sindra and Urlond after this day.

She ducked under fallen branches, jumped over burnt logs, pushed past saplings that crumbled to powder at her touch. Mike was right beside her, a little bit of his own curiosity visible in his step. She’d have to thank him for his help somehow, though there was really nothing she could give that he would actually want.

The ground gave way to a cliff, and she stopped just before the edge and parted one final branch that pinched her gloves with tiny thorns, and looked out across the grand view of the west.

The largest and most undivided rolling plains stretched out before her, endless in all directions. In the past, golden summer light had shone over this once-glorious Great Plain, with grass as green as emeralds, tall and healthy. Broad and slender groves of trees stretching out in thick columns. Herds numbering in the hundreds grazing in the shade, creatures feeding and hunting in an uncolonized gem of land. To the south a riverbed gleamed, providing fresh water to the peninsulas of flora ringing around it in healthy shades of gold.

But now, the rivers were dried up, carcasses of the grazing herds lay on the banks and hills – all dead. The lush forests were burnt to the ground, twisted and as malformed as the animals were. All of it was covered in rain and thunder, though no amount of water could bring back life to this decimated part of Panthea ever again.

In the centre of the plain, in all its terrible size, the cyclone funnelled to a structure on the ground. The only thing to occupy these plains anymore lay beneath the storm, where the clouds streamed into its chest – as if channelling energy. There was a machine many kilometres long and wide. It was bipedal, lying on its back, two massive legs slightly bent in the middle, the feet shaped like arrowheads with bladed rims, glinting in the stormlight. The torso was wide, as wide as a starship. Two arms hung by its sides, as tall and long as skyscrapers, ending in cruel points, shaped like scythes. But its head, its head is what caught her attention the most. It was shaped in an upside-down U, and in its centre was its only feature on all of its black plating – a giant red, circular light. The eye. It wasn’t looking at them – at this angle it was staring up into the heavens – but Lolanne had no doubt it had sensed her presence.

All over the Colossus, lifeforms crawled into and out of imperceptible ports. They were a lighter shade of black, making them easier to see against the ebony armour of the great machine. They looked neither solid nor liquid, oily bodies growing and shrinking as they slid along the machine’s metal corpse. There had to be thousands of them, moving around the machine as if preparing for a ritual.

“… What the hell is that thing?” Mike muttered. But she was too fixated on the display before her to look at him. She just couldn’t take her eyes off of it, having a staring contest with the red eye that she recognised all too well. It was definitely the same light she had seen from orbit, she’d bet her life on it.

A wave of crimson energy flashed on and off from within the iris, like it had chosen that moment to blink. Her body went rigid, and refused to move. Rain pelted her visor but not even that could make her break eye-contact.

But Mike could move, and she was fortunate that he did. He twisted around, seeing movement behind them. Over in the clearing, blocking the way back into the mountain passage, stood three creatures. Mike didn’t need to be any closer to realise they were the same creatures that had attacked the Arden, had killed the Warden, had made those body-piles for who knows what reason.

They raised their wicked arms, the same menacing shape as the giant machine’s limbs lying down in the Plains before them, and lumbered towards the two intruders.

Chapter 10

The Spawn

1

The robotic husk lying on the plains below wasn’t as large as the Leviathan, but it was a close second place. It shared a vague resemblance to the aliens that had boarded the Arden, but not so much to the ones now closing in on their flank.

Mike was just starting to believe that no, these things had not followed him, and that with a bit of luck he would never see them again. Now though, he was convinced by a deep intuition that these horrible beings would pursue him for the rest of his life.

“Lola…?” His eyes turned from the three figures closing in on them, to his Suvelian companion. She was awestruck. He would have been much the same, seeing some ancient machine as the source for the growing and hostile storm, but he had noticed the threat behind them and knew all too well of their brutality, where as Lolanne did not. Her heightened perception had been glazed over by one who can’t believe what they’re seeing.

“Lola!” he barked, louder this time. He grabbed her roughly by her suit pauldron, and pulled her to her feet. The movement made her tear her eyes away from the view splayed out before them, but she met his gaze for only a second, before whipping her head back to stare out at the machine again. He grit his teeth and glanced over his shoulder. The oil-drenched creatures were closing in. Somehow the world just seemed so much darker, but not just because the suns were absent. The shadows cast by the surrounding foliage seemed fuller, dense with a sudden vise of darkness. It was like someone had painted everything over with a glaze of ebony paint. Or a slab of oil.

Without thinking he balled his hand to a fist and smacked Lolanne across the visor. He pulled back the punch, but pain still exploded in his hand, and he rubbed his knuckles, grimacing. The strike finally pulled her back into the present. Her gaze settled on him, scrutinising him with her shadowy, slitted eyes.

“Don't just stand there! Stop gawking and move! Those things are after us and we have to go right now!”

“What is-? What…?” she stammered. She looked around, as if his punch had made her forget where she was. “W-What things?”

But he was already moving back to the clearing, ducking and weaving through the brush. Storm wind shrieked past him, and there were words carried through the air, voiced by something guttural and monstrous. He couldn't tell what the three aliens were saying, but it was just one word, repeating it over and over in perfect synchronicity. Something about it felt so familiar, but the pronunciation was garbled for the moment.

With one final sweep of an arm, he emerged into the clearing. Between him and the cleft leading back down into the expanse beneath the mountain, the three creatures stood in the way. They were covered in that oily, slime-texture that mixed in on itself in little whirlpool shapes. The oil malformed over a bipedal chassis, all three standing a few inches taller than he was. Apart from this dark hide, they were nothing like the creatures that had gotten Morland – those had been much taller, freakish creatures with arms ending in sharp points. These three seemed skinnier, frail even, with arms ending in five wicked claws.

Their bodies convulsed in and out of themselves, rearranging into different, unnatural stances as if they were being pulled by invisible strings. They lumbered towards him in a slow march, but past experience told him not to underestimate their lack of speed as a sign of weakness.

Lolanne staggered out to his left, her head still angled back at the storm and its mechanical host, even though it was blocked from view. Two of the creatures changed course and advanced on her, vague ovals of snarling mouths rowed with teeth on their deformed faces. Twelve soulless eyes ran along their elongated heads. The third continued towards Mike.

They chanted a single hushed word in their advance, clearer now that they were almost upon them. When the word met Mike’s ears it made his spine shiver and the weight of his guts fall to his feet. At first he outright denied what he was hearing. It just wasn't possible. But then again, he had thought the Leviathan literally consuming the Arden couldn't possibly have happened, and yet here its minions were, ready to kill the last witness to that event. They knew who he was, these things. And that fact terrified him to his core.

The word they chanted, was “Labine.”

The creature targeting him reached out with its dark hands, and Mike stepped out of the way before it could touch him. It turned with his movement and lunged again, claws coming out of their sheathes with a fleshy Snick~!. Mike jumped backward, awkwardly landing and nearly twisting his ankle. The creature's white, creamy eyes stared right through him, not with not anger or annoyance, just plain… blankness, with a hint of intelligence buried somewhere back there.

“Shoot them!” he shouted. He kept an arms-length away from the thing trying to grab him, dancing just out of its reach. “Quick, Lola!”

He saw with an internal scream that Lolanne hadn't even drawn her weapons yet. She looked from him to the two creatures approaching her and asked, just audible over the storm, “What... What are they?”

“You have to shoot them! Right now!”

She started backing up, the pair of new contacts encroaching on her with lumbering strides. Lolanne drew her pistols and thumbed the buttons along the handles, and the weapons hummed to life, the muzzles going from a lifeless black to a vibrant dark green.

“S-Stop right there!” she ordered, pistol-sights over each creature’s head. “Don't come any closer!”

“Labiiiiiiiine!” they croaked. Their voices sounded like two rocks grating together. Mike's opponent swiped in an arc, and he narrowly ducked under it. The stupidly slow creature was learning to move faster with every strike.

“Are you serious?!” he yelled over at her, wild wind tossing his voice astray. “These things are dangerous! Kill them! Shoot-!”

But the one on Lolanne’s left lunged towards her, so quickly she didn't have a chance to pull the trigger. The pistol went spinning away, and the creature on her right pounced. Together the aliens tackled Lolanne, and the three of them fell into a heap of suit and oil-flesh. Her scream was drowned out by their joint cries of Mike's last name.

Mike had circled around his own attacker so that now he had a clear path to the cave mouth, and his eyes went wide at seeing his companion become entangled in a sea of tar. He twisted and saw the floater-creature – the jellyfish-thing that he'd commandeered a few minutes ago – sitting down there, waiting. Escape was there, but Lolanne was in danger, and she was screaming his name.

The Suvelian and the creatures formed a chorus: “Mike!” “Labine!” “Mike!” “Labine!” It was just as Morland had screamed his name before Mike had abandoned him, just as Kat surely had cried out his name before she had been annihilated along with her planet.

His sister and father, and all the other friends he’d sacrificed, they were all screaming. Locke once told him that Mike was the kind of guy who acted on impulse, on fear. Mike hadn’t fully comprehended this observation until right after Locke had given him that ultimatum, the one that ruined who he was.

And Mike was so afraid at this moment. Afraid that these things would never stop hunting him until he was dead. Afraid that Lolanne would die. Afraid at how much of a coward he had become to even hesitate when his new friend needed his help. He would never forgive himself at how easily he had considered leaving her to die like that. Just as he had left Morland to these things all those days ago. But Lolanne wasn’t an abusive warden, she was something else, an exception to the alien race that despised humanity, and a part of him deep down had come to like her, not as an alien, but maybe something more.

So he turned his back on the escape route, and faced these horrible nightmares head on.

“Hold on! I’m coming!”

He barely avoided another swipe aimed right for his throat. He stumbled out of the way of his attacker and bolted towards Lolanne, going against all of his instincts. He would not leave her to die. He needed her, but not just for a way to get off this world. On the Arden he had kept his head low and faded into the mass of degenerates like he deserved. Everyone he cared about was gone, because all he did was run away. Maybe it was time to stop running and start changing that.

Mike rushed to the struggling mass of suit and oil. Lolanne was on her back, using her legs to push away the blanket of liquid flesh that threatened to seal her into its dark embrace. The two anthropomorphic aliens were crouched by her sides and slashing away at her arms. Her armoured suit was holding the pressure back for now. Mike searched for her dropped weapons, spying a pistol in the dead grass behind her head.

Mike rushed by the struggle. He could hear Lolanne groaning in pain as her strength started to fade. The pistol clinked metallically as he picked it up. He fumbled like an idiot as he struggled to find a comfortable hold on the alien weapon. He got a grip (physically and mentally), and raised the sights to eye-level.

“Hold still!” Mike angled the sights over one of Lolanne’s attackers, blinking his eyes clear from the rain. She shifted her weight and rolled her body to the left, exposing herself but giving Mike the shot he needed. He compressed the trigger, and a green bolt of hot energy burst from the muzzle.

His features lit up an emerald colour as the golf ball-sized bolt collided with the chest of his target. Black smoke rose up from the wound, and the creature spun like a top and fell on its side in a twitching heap. He remembered his shotgun had done little to slow these things down before. Maybe plasma was more effective, or these things were a weaker variant Didn’t matter now.

The pistol was warm in his grip. He held it in both hands and aimed it over the other creature on top of Lolanne and fired twice. Brp~! Brp~! -The first bolt missed, leaving a sizzling crater in the ground, Mike swearing mentally on how he could miss at this range. He did not miss the second shot. The alien’s arm was cleaved right off as the bolt hit the shoulder with a wet splatting sound. The limb went flying, spinning twice and disappeared over the cliff edge. The creature jolted from Lolanne and fell into a cowering crouch. Lolanne returned to the world with a gasp and scurried away, still on her back.

The attacker that had been chasing Mike switched targets, and was already diving onto Lolanne in preparation to finish what its friends had started. But this time she was ready, and as it reached out to grab her, she unsheathed her blade, Synva, thankfully secured in its scabbard on her hip, and swiped in a wide arc from left to right, severing both of its clawed hands.

Oil sprayed over her suit like a geyser, covering her in alien muck that she wiped at with a groan of disgust. Her victim screeched an ear-splitting wail and raised its thin arms – both of which now stopped at the wrists, spewing bile by the gallon – and pounded on her visor like a pair fleshy clubs. A normal arm would have broken on impact with that much force behind the blow, but it was Lolanne who was sent back onto her rump, crying out in pain.

Lightning whipped through the sky. Mike turned and fired, loosening his shoulders just as his father taught him the first time he had held a weapon. The bolt went clean through the handless-creature’s head and sailed into the mountainside beyond, where it left a steaming, black, perfectly circular scorch on the rocks. The creature jerked and fell, bending its legs backwards and crumpling into a misshapen heap.

Lolanne rolled backward and rose into a crouch, landing precisely by her other fallen pistol. She picked it up and aimed with one hand to the remaining creature. The one whose arm was missing. With one bolt from each of them, Mike and Lolanne took it down halfway through its chant: “Labiii-!” And this time it stayed down.

Mike scanned for any more of these things. When he saw none, he lowered his weapon a little and went and stood over their latest kill. Something about the corpse at his feet struck him as odd, but he didn't dare get any closer to touching it. He examined the remaining arm, and those nasty talons that doubled the size of the fingers they sheathed on. He counted the digits. There were five fingers in total. He looked down at the feet, which had begun melting like hot, black ice cream. Jagged claws down there as well. Five digits each.

“… Humans,” he whispered. He saw the same biological similarities on the other creatures. Mike could see it now – the vague outline of three human men beneath those oily coats, their bodies acting as a base-shape the oil had molded onto.

“… I've seen this before,” Lolanne said. She crouched deftly by a corpse. The way she moved reminded him how ancient tribals back on Earth moved, supple and precise. Even now his eyes lingered and he had to remind himself to focus.

Scanning her eyes over the oil spilling from the alien’s wounds she said, “Near the colony, I was taking samples of the Yilbarlo river, and there was this strange creature that looked so out of place. When it got close I heard it mumbling this word, over and over. I couldn't make it out at the time. But now... Now I know it was saying that same word. Labine. Your name.” She looked up, pointed the tip of her knife at him. “You've met these things. When? Where?”

“It's… It’s complicated,” he answered. “And there's no time to explain. Look!”

He pointed behind her. Climbing up the cliff were two more attackers, almost identical to the first three. As if in terrible pain they squirmed on the spot but still marched towards their new prey. Another three sets of hands appeared on the cliff edge behind them a moment later. A hint of noise drew Lolanne’s attention to the other side of the plateau. Two more creatures had seemingly appeared out of nowhere a dozen meters away, jogging and screeching Mike’s last name, coming up the slope which led down to the wreck. The name’s owner shivered, and not just because of the rain.

By unspoken agreement Mike and Lolanne dashed towards the cave mouth. The creatures chased after. Mike fired blindly over his shoulder in his sprint, and noticed dozens more of the oily creatures were swarming the plateau. Above and behind them the storm voiced its fury by setting off a tremendous gale, actually blowing against Mike’s front as if on a whim. That massive machine in the storm’s eye had to be the thing in control, but how and why, he didn’t have time to consider.

Gun in hand, Mike climbed back down the passage into the mountain caverns. He bent his knees and slid the rest of the way down on his side. Stones and pebbles as well as his phobia prodded at his skin, but blind fear of these aliens made him ignore it all. He landed in a crouch, pausing at the foot of the descent. The floating, fungoid creature hung nearby, a short jump's distance from the ledge, stunned and confused. He was never one for concerning himself over the lives of animals, but even he had to admit he felt guilty for the thing. Down below on the cave floor, the scuttlers had not forgotten about them. They snarled and fought over one another to scale the walls up to them. Any who made it more than a few meters tumbled back down, drooling all the while, leaving lines of saliva hanging in the air.

Lolanne leaped past without a word, her sail to the floater aided by the blue jet streams underneath her heels. Mike followed after, sailing across the deadly gap, catching her outstretched hand as he stepped onto the floater's cushioned backside. A glance behind him displayed their plentiful pursuers sliding clumsily down the passage slope, their thin and weak legs dangling uselessly before them.

As he began to tug and pull the antennae of the floater – which groaned out that clinking sound and filled the cavern with its pained cries – one of the oil-creatures failed to catch itself before the ledge and tumbled to the cavern floor. The scuttlers' large oval-ears peaked up in hungry interest and watched the oil-laden creature land with a thump. Mike heard them begin to feast in the darkness and was glad he couldn’t watch.

He angled his tugs and pulls on the antennae, just as he'd done to the floater earlier, and it began to sail backwards and to the right. He planted his feet and leaned with the creature like a horse jockey. The floater struck against another wall, girating both its passengers and shaking the cave itself. Mike knelt and held onto a piece of organic rock growing on the carapace for balance.

They made a ten-meter gap between the ledge and the floater, flying along at a walking pace. Behind him he heard Lolanne whisper, “By Saduun...”

He turned. The oil-creatures were leaping from the ledge towards them. Only cybernetic knees could launch someone that far, and even then, they would be hard-pressed. But what these things lacked in urgency they made up for with agility. Two of them sailed out towards the floater in a thin arc. The one on the left came within reach and dug its claws into the floater’s carapace, its hollow eyes regarding them with clear intelligence. The one on the right fell a little shorter but managed to grasp one of the dangling tentacles. It disappeared from view but they could hear its talons stabbing into the flesh, no doubt climbing up.

Mike looked ahead, and far in the distance he could see the green mushrooms marking the entrance they'd come in from. He angled the floater to head that way, and after a few agonised groans from their transport, the course was set. All around him the catacombs were changing. Other floaters flew in the distance, calling in pain the same way the one he was riding did. The sparse clusters of luminescent vegetation were dimming, and with the growing darkness, more and more scuttlers were drawn towards all the noise. That ethereal ringing soughing the caverns was long gone now, drowned out by scuttler barks, floater moans and plasma bolts.

Lolanne stood and fired a bolt into the creature clambering up the carapace, right into one of its clawed hands. The limb gave way, all its digits completely disintegrated. She fired again into the second arm, but the creature somehow held on, its body gaining a burst of strength from some unknown source. Her shots skimmed the floater's shell and cooked flesh filled the air. The floater wailed harder than ever.

On Lolanne’s flank, the creature climbing up the tentacle from below, hoisted itself up on the far side of the floater with large, capable arms. Mike still had Lolanne’s other pistol, and aimed it out with one hand, standing like some gunslinger out of an old western movie. He fired twice. Both went wild. The floater crashed into a cave-tree and shook, further spoiling his aim. He didn't notice the permanent lowering in altitude.

Lolanne had resorted to slashing her current target’s arm with a swipe from Synva. The creature tumbled away from the floater, spinning once before landing on a pack of excited scuttlers. Mike could just hear the snap of bones and grimaced. The salivating dog-cat hybrids ripped its oily flesh away with venomous tugs of their feral heads. Back at the passageway, which was now twenty meters behind the floater, the rest of the oily creatures were jumping through the air in pairs, their backs flanked by the exterior stormlight casting a filthy corona around their silhouettes. Two more grabbed at the tentacles hanging from the floater's belly. Three others fell short to the dark bedrock. The humanoid creatures and the scuttlers, both agents of the darkness, fought in a ferocious pack of sharp claws and teeth. The scuttlers died by the dozens, one swipe from the humanoids cut down entire columns of the rabid canines, but they had the numbers to replace them. The amount of barking almost overlapped the sounds of the plasma shots.

The creature Mike failed to hit sauntered forward at an unnatural speed not seen until now. Mike clutched his pistol tightly, breathed out, and pulled the trigger. This bolt connected, disintegrating a piece of its torso in a black misting of intestines – a fatal wound for a human or Suvelian, but not for these things. It continued forward and slashed with both its hands, drawing an X in the air in front of it. The claws ripped through his robes and he felt warm blood on his chest.

“Mike!” Lolanne flipped her knife so the blade faced backward, then she impaled Synva into the leftmost eye of the twelve on the creature’s head, the blade sinking all the way to the hilt. Her speed was almost terrifying. Black smoke rose from the wound like steam from a cauldron. She kicked it away and it fell, arms dangling in the air over the edge of the carapace.

Mike kept on his feet but blood dripped down onto his legs. Lolanne asked if he was okay and he said that he was. Any deeper and those claws would have cut into his lungs. Five more creatures were climbing up the sides of the floaters shell – two on the left and three on the right. Mike began firing on one side and Lolanne took the other, gun in one hand, knife in the other. The human and Suvelian were back-to-back, standing defiantly against the tide and using each other’s weight to steady their aims. Oil-creatures scrambled up the sides of the floater, only to be pushed back as plasma bolts struck true and felled their targets. The creatures flipped end-over-end  into the abyss, giving the floater some breathing room to sail onward.

The darkness of the cavern was painted green in short instances as the weapons fired and kicked. There was no end to the oil-creatures back at the passage mouth, where several dozen jumped down onto the cave floor to engage with the scuttlers in an attempt to chase Mike and Lolanne by foot. The floater was too far out so that even these new aliens could no longer reach them with their unnatural jump capabilities. Some broke off from their brawls with the scuttlers to instead pursue the floater, stepping over and around the snarling scuttlers of the darkness no matter how much they bit and scratched and clawed and drew their oily blood.

The plasma pistol in Mike’s hands was becoming too hot to bear. He held fire and chanced a look forward. They were almost there. Just a few more minutes until they'd come to the far side of the cavern.

Then a loud bang reported through the cavern, deafening in comparison to the electric, hydrolic-like sounds of the plasma fire. Yellow light flashed and lit up a quarter of the cavern for a hearbeat, and something made a Pwang~! -sound as it connected with the back of Lolanne's suit and ricocheted into the distance.

Lolanne looked up, her suit telling her what trajectory the bullet had come from. “Up there!” Mike traced her finger to a figure clinging to a pillar high above them. Several thin platforms crisscrossed each other up there, running just below the cave’s ceiling in exotic formations past silvery stalactites. The figure was humanoid, made up of oil, but in its arm that constantly convulsed as if suffering from horrible spasms, the creature held a ballistic pistol. The kind of pistol the guards on the Arden favoured using. He could just barely make out the holographic ammo counter running along the barrel.

The muzzle coughed a white flame as the weapon kicked upwards. Some of the inmates on the Arden who had been in a few gunfights boasted that they could actually feel the wind off a bullet that passed too close to their faces. Mike could say for sure that they had been speaking the truth. He swore that even his hair rustled as the bullet flew by and struck the floater's shell behind him, its blood squirting out of the wound like a little fountain. The floater moaned again and sank lower to the ground. This time Mike noticed the drop in flight, as well as the dimming of the illumination the floater naturally emitted from its veins.

Lolanne aimed her pistol up and pulled the trigger. The bolt sailed away, its bulbous mass akin to a flying comet, and struck the creature. The gun-wielder stumbled, then collapsed from its perch and spiralled down like a synchronized diver off a board. It made a loud thud when it eventually hit the ground. Mike turned his attention back to the aliens climbing the shell of their living craft. Zombie's weren't real, but these things came as close to the stories as it could. Enough bolts through their bodies could still them, severing their limbs would cause them to wither away into steaming puddles, but it was generally more efficient to go for the head with bolt or blade.

But another bang sounded off through the cavern, and a second bullet struck the side of Lolanne's suit. The impact made her wince, and Mike whirled around and fired a salvo up at another alcove of rock where the shooter was positioned. It was a long distance, the creature practically hanging from the cave ceiling, and he failed to hit it even once. After a quick look around Mike saw there were five other shooters spread out up there, all wielding human-made pistols, all twitching in place like possessed puppets.

Bullet's rained down around them, most going wild and hitting some unfortunate scuttler that stood in the bullet's path, or further wounding the floater, which didn’t have enough strength to voice its pain anymore. Lolanne continued to clear away the ones on the shell while he suppressed the ones above them with a hail of bolt-fire.

But while Mike was busy with that, something grabbed at his foot and pulled. His face slammed onto the floater's shell and his body slid down its slimy surface. He flailed frantically for a grip or hold with his free hand, and found one just after he entered free-fall. The floater's tentacle was mushy but stable, and he looked up to find an oil-creature had been the one to pull him over the edge.

It raised a foot to stomp on his hand. He put a bolt through its head first, and a mist of oil sprayed out behind it. Its body tumbled past him to the ground, and he looked down to see the cavern floor was no more than a meter below. The ends of the floater's tentacles dragged lifelessly over the granite as the floater struggled to keep flying. Dozens of scuttlers were fighting wounded humanoids, and dozens more were feeding on the dragging tentacles, their maws splashed with its aqua-blue blood.

“Mike!” he heard Lolanne call between plasma and bullet shots. His grip was slipping. His dug his fingers into the tentacle and his nails peeled back like stickers. Red and blue blood mixed along his digits, and he hissed through clenched teeth.

“Down here!”

Her head peeped over the shell after a heartbeat. He saw a web-like crack on her visor. The work of a bullet or a punch, it was hard to tell.

“Grab my hand, quick!” Lolanne sheathed Synva and held out an arm. He had nothing to holster his weapon into and couldn't reach out his free hand or else he'd slip, so he tossed the plasma pistol to her. She caught it. He reached out with a hand to take hers.

Then something sharp crunched down onto his leg. He cried out and looked down. A scuttler had latched its diamond-shaped mouth onto his shin. It felt similar to an ant bite, only a thousand times worse. He tried to shake it off but it held on, its sticky paws and teeth keeping it in place. He brought his other leg down on its back as hard as he could, feeling bones break beneath his heel on the second and third strike. The scuttler moaned and yelped, flexing the muscles on its scrawny body. The creature stuck to his leg like a thirsty leech, its teeth sinking deeper into his skin. He was filled with a terrible sense of draining, and pins and needles shot up his leg.

“Get it off me!” He writhed around, swaying as his grip on the tentacle began to slip. “Lola! Shoot it off!”

Lolanne leaned slightly more over the shell, pistol out before her. The angle was tricky, and they both knew it. The scuttler was thin on the inside of his leg, and he twisted the limb out as far away from his body as possible.

Something dropped onto the floater's shell. Another humanoid, covered in the black tar. It landed on a knee and fist behind Lolanne, but she was too focused on this next shot to notice it. He yelled out a warning but she didn't react to it.

She pulled the trigger. For a horrible moment he thought that she’d aimed too close to him. Then the bolt singed a lock of his hair and it flew past and collided with the scuttler's grey hide. Its body went limp, but even in death its hunger never ceased, and the mouth still attached to him. With one last, heavy kick he knocked it off, leaving a bite wound that bled a little, but stung a lot. He looked on with disgust as others of its kind began to feast on their fallen companion.

Then he looked up with panicked eyes. “Behind you-!”

Lolanne spun around, her body turning with her pistol. She fired, and at the same time the creature produced its own weapon and fired a trio of bullets. When the weapon reports died, they both became still, as if shocked by the others reaction. Then they collapsed away from each other. To Mike it all happened in slow motion.

“Lola!” He scrambled up the tentacle as fast as he could. He noticed something approaching him from the side. A rock wall. The floater, now going a fraction of its usual speed, collided with the jutting granite, but the impact was minuscule. The floater moaned once, weak and tired. It would be the last time it would make that noise.

Mike pulled his body up onto the shell, keeping low as another few bullets smacked into the shell around him. Oil splattered all over the carapace in thick pools of pitch. Mike was stunned as he watched some of it move, and reform into vague shapes of legs and arms.

“Lola you better not be...” He pulled his body up and tugged on Lolanne's shoulder so he could see her face. A hissing sound filled his ears. Along the side of Lolanne's visor a jagged, thin piece of the glass was missing, and air gushed out of it like a gas leak. He sighed in relief as he heard her cough, but blinked as he could actually hear that cough, unfiltered through her suit. It sounded strangely organic and human, no longer muffled by the visor and communicators that verbally divided them.

“Lola! You okay?” He saw the vague outlines of her eyes blink up at him.

“Mike I…” She sucked in a huge breath. “Did… Did I kill it?”

“Sure did. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet. The last of the floater’s strength faded away at that moment, and it collapsed to the floor. Mike caught Lolanne in his arms and took the brunt of the fall as they tumbled from the impact, snarling as his ankle threatened to roll. The floater swayed on its belly a little as its tentacles gave off one last pulse of light before going out forever. Lolanne turned her suit lights back on so they could see.

Mike limped off the flying creature’s husk, one of Lolanne’s arms over his shoulder. She clutched at her visor with her free hand to try and plug the breach, but air, if that was what that stuff was, still leaked out between her fingertips. He pulled her into the hollow of the ramp he had undressed on not too long ago. Bullets chipped away at the rocks they took cover behind.

A dozen scuttlers broke off from the main skirmish they were having with the oily creatures, and galloped in the pair’s direction, frothing fangs bared. Two of them broke off to feed on the floater’s corpse, the rest closed in rapidly.

Mike grabbed Lolanne’s other pistol, and held them out before him, dual-wield style. He fired one bolt after the other and killed five of them with remarkable precision. The rest scuttled away like spooked cats, and that was how Mike got their name. Scuttlers.

“Labiiiiiine.” The name chanted out from the darkness. Shadows moved as the scuttlers battled with the creatures birthed from the storm. Despite their sheer numbers Mike swore the barking was thinning out, and one side was bound to win within the next few moments.

“Mike…” This time it was Lolanne speaking his name. He looked at her. “W-We have to go.”

“Hang on.” He held her in place as he turned his head and peeked up to the ceiling. A second after he looked over the rock a bullet destroyed a crest of the granite they hid behind, showering them in pebbles. He snapped his head back.

“Head for the exit. I’ll cover you.” He held up his – her – pistols on either side of his face. Lolanne shook her head.

“No! You’ll be cov… covered in darkness. Those things will…” She sounded like she was fighting for, which for all he knew she was.

“I’ll be fine.” His voice faltered a little there. In truth he was terrified. “I’m not planning on sacrificing myself anytime soon. I’ll be right behind you. Get ready to move.”

Her mouth flapped, but she didn’t argue further. Mike waited for a break in the hail of gunfire before stepping out of cover with his arms stretched out overhead. “Go! Go!”

Lolanne zipped past him. He lit up the darkness with a salvo of suppressing fire. He hit one of his targets and the body went tumbling far out to the north. He fired on the move, flinching when the bullets got too close. He walked up the ramp, and was halfway through the ascent when he felt a sharp pain between his shoulders. In Lolanne’s absence of light a scuttler had literally pounced on the opportunity. He felt its cold fangs slip inside his flesh and cried out.

Awkwardly, he angled a pistol and shot it through the neck. He had to tug twice to loosen its powerful, lifeless bite. Streams of its blood and his own flicked through the air in straws of fluid. He chucked the corpse aside and ran as fast as he could. Lolanne was in the cleft leading back to the other side of the mountain, beckoning him. He felt his blood slip down his back in tiny winding trickles.

The storm of bullets returned, but he was unharmed when he finally made it to her. Arms around each other, the human and Suvelian jammed themselves into the passageway. Bullets chipped away at the cleft in some vain attempt at stopping their retreat. The passage swallowed their forms and they left the chaos behind them.

2

Lolanne grasped at her face and the walls as she sped hastily through the tunnel, Mike hot on her heels. He held his arms straight up by his sides like he was mimicking a cactus, still holding her weapons. His eyes switched from left to right. There were gunshots in the distance, but not nearly as far as she would have liked. Lolanne couldn’t decide what would be worse – seeing the creatures coming after them through the darkness, or the rabid animals Mike called the scuttlers.

Lolanne and Mike panted heavily, neither of them talking. Although hundreds of questions spun through her head like a (storm) mental whirlpool, this wasn’t the time to ask them. She had had her suspicions about Mike’s bigger involvement in all this mess, and now that she was proven right it nagged at her to interrogate him. She heard him grunt as he brushed one of his wounds against a sharp piece of rock.

In the darkness behind them, the word “Labine,” was being croaked away incessantly. It was like the walls themselves were alive, whispering right into their ears. Lolanne shivered, this wasn’t the first time she’d heard that chant, and she cursed herself for not listening the last time she’d heard that word.

The smell of rain and the cracking of thunder filled their senses after a few minutes of navigating the passage. The storm brought down a harsh blanket of frost on the planet, and made the landscape stretching to the east look like it had been carpet-bombed. Lolanne’s mind cast up a vivid image of the colony, razed to the ground. There was fire everywhere. And looming beyond the ruined cityscape was the husk of the colony ship, the Ulnosh, pieces of its bulkhead scattered like an explosion had ripped it apart from the inside. And over this dreadful scene the storm covered not just the east, but the north and south too, the whole globe.

So much was going on that she couldn’t shake the image away. A third Sentient race? Messing around with a Colossus wreck? What, by Saduun’s grace, was going on?

With one last step she and Mike escaped the passage and a cold, ear-piercing wind brushed against their bodies. Rainfall had flooded the cave and came up to their ankles. The old campfire Lolanne had made was submerged. She propped herself up against the wall, just behind the threshold of the cave mouth and took a moment to catch her breath. Stormwater dripped over the lip of the clefts protective entrance in thick curtains.

She groped the side of her face, where the visor was cracked and broken. The breach hissed away like a breathless and angry snake. Her eyes were watering. She was seeing double-Mike moving by her side, and blinked away his other phantom.

The human collapsed across from her, making a little splash as his rump met the granite. Between them the pit of the old campfire sat in an expended pile, wet and useless. He set her pistols down and slipped his arms out from his clothes and exposed his chest. Three deep claw marks swiped diagonal lanes across his pecs. She could see the cybernetic implants on his neck fork into two wide circuits and disappear over his shoulder. He ripped away a piece of his sleeve and tied it around his torso as tight as he could. A big red patch damped his improvised bandage when he was done.

He caught Lolanne's attention with a nod of his head. “Lola? How bad is it?”

She angled her helmet at him. She had placed her fingers so they blocked the visor breach, but air still poured out at an alarming rate. A piece of her vision was obstructed by a squashed piece of lead. A bullet. “Very bad,” she said. “I'll have to section off my helmet from the rest of the suit. Slow the infection down.”

“Infection?”

“This air is contaminated, at least for me. Only a matter of time before it starts to spread from this.” She pointed at the bullet, then began tapping on the screen on her wrist. “The last time I sectioned off my suit I was five. I snuck into one of the academy’s training areas and started climbing these beams. Broke one of my arms when I fell. Had to isolate my arm during the treatment. My father went mental. He yelled for so long I had to mute my sensors just to get a break.” The shock had not quite set in yet, and she managed a chuckle at the memory.

“Must be nice to be able to just tune out the world whenever you want.”

“And it must be nice for you to actually know what your own skin feels like.” Rather than wait for his reply, Lolanne pressed the confirm key to section off the rest of her suit from the breached helmet. An unholy constricting feeling tightened up every inch of her concealed body. “Argh! … Damn it! It doesn’t get easier the second time!”

To any onlooker it would have appeared she’d been zapped by a few hundred volts of energy. A breach in the helmet was the absolute worst place a breach could be. She could already feel the contamination working through her head, like slime.

“I thought that suit of yours would be a bit more protective.” Mike wiped his brow with an arm. “One lucky bullet and you’re already infected?

“The suit protects us from a lot of things, but concentrated ballistic fire isn't one of them,” she explained. A little gasp escaped her lips as her skin got used to the tightness. “Our latest models do have ballistic-shielding plates. I could have installed the upgrade earlier, but I wasn’t expecting to be shot at.”

“… You're gonna be okay though, right?”

She didn’t answer immediately, and that was all the answer the human needed. Lolanne shook her head slowly.

“I'll need to get back to the colony for repairs, and quickly. Saduun, I should have brought more medication.” Her whole demeanour flipped and she pointed an accusing finger at him. “Why didn't you tell me about those things back there? I would have opened fire immediately if I knew what they would do.”

Suddenly he grew more defensive. “Don't blame this on me. I had no idea they were on the planet. And they didn't use guns the last time I saw them.”

“So what are they? Another Sentient species?”

“I don't know. Maybe.” He coughed into his hand. “But I do know that we've got to get out of here, and as far away from that thing they were working on as we can.”

She agreed on the point, that red eye had somehow locked her in place. If not for Mike being there to snap her out of it… “You mean the Colossus?” Lolanne asked.

“The what? Are you talking about that giant robot thing?” She nodded. “What... What the hell is a ‘Colossus’?”

“You mean you don't know?”

“I don't know jack, Lola! I think we've both got some explaining to do.”

Behind them, in the passage, Mike's last name droned out from the shadows. The human in question experienced a shudder, and not just because of the cold.

“Yes, we do,” Lolanne agreed, standing. “But you first. You will tell me the truth about who you are and what you know, once we're out of danger.” She held out a hand. “Give me a gun. I’ll let you keep the other. For now.”

Mike handed one of the pistols over, then he turned around and peered into the passage, perhaps just to check if anything was close. She was about to urge him to hurry up, when there was a muzzle-flash, and a bullet whizzed over his head. Mike backed out of the line of fire, cursing wildly.

“Come on, let’s go!” she yelled.

Together they crossed from the shelter of the cave, through the curtains of rain pouring over the mouth, and back out into the storm. Mike was soaked in a second, not a minute later and he was coughing. A tiny drop of rain somehow managed to angle right through the breach in Lolanne’s visor and splashed on the skin of her cheek, and her first thought was how Mike could even stand such extreme temperatures. The second thought was how much disease was carried in that single drop, and her wild imagination began to spin.

The wind pushed against them, flipping directions so suddenly it was like an invisible hand keeping them within the storm as much as it could. Wind couldn't turn on itself so suddenly, it wasn't normal. But Lolanne knew this fact already, seeing as the source of this anomaly was a Colossus wreck that should have been detected not just from orbit, but from the probes the Suvelian’s sent out all those years ago to scan the systems for habitable worlds. How or why it was controlling the weather was still a mystery, but maybe Mike could answer that. Then again, why didn’t he know what a Colossus was? Nothing was making sense.

The curtains of rain were peppered with hail, falling onto Mike's head and neck and leaving dark bruises. Lolanne lowered her helmet so the dropping ice didn't crash into her already fractured visor. She grabbed onto Mike’s arm to help lead her through the thickening fog. The wind was deafening in her exposed ear-holes, but not enough to hide the gunshots reporting out from behind them.

Each step was uphill and there wasn’t an inch of cover. Birthing through the mist behind them, more of the oil-creatures were stumbling out after them, ballistic weapons raised. Flashes lit up the oppressing fog like firecrackers. Stray shots tossed up dirt by their feet, sending up wood and ash. Lolanne returned fire over her shoulder, the bolt of energy flew like a ball trailing slime, and collided with one of their pursuers.

She and Mike managed to put ground between them and the oil-creatures, and after a few minutes they were almost across the valley. Just a few more paces and they’d be back in the cover of trees once more.

Then something emerged from over the lip of the hill. It was big, enormous. To Mike it looked like an overgrown panther mixed with a dinosaur. A thick, purple carapace covered the length of its torso, where six clawed legs jutted out of its belly. He didn't need Lolanne's confirmation to know that this was Taurak, as he recognised its feline shape from the day before last, stalking them ever since they’d entered the mountains.

Three red eyes regarded them behind a bladed forehead. A wide jaw snarled and snapped at the air. Two feelers extended out of the corners of its crimson lips. Lolanne wondered if it was coincidence that it bore some resemblance to the scuttlers beneath the mountain. Mike raised a tired arm and got ready to squeeze the trigger.

“Wait!” Lolanne said, and placed a hand on his arm. She went to continue but a cough interrupted her. The sensation was entirely foreign and very worrying.  “Don’t shoot! If you attack… so will it.”

Mike almost followed through anyway. She could see it in his eyes, his instincts telling him to attack before it attacked them. If he had not listened to her the beast surely would have ripped them apart, but whether he remembered she gave him the same advice for the dracon, or had put a lot more faith in her since then, was hard to tell. But it didn’t matter either way. He stayed his hand, and she silently thanked him.

She, Mike and Taurak had been standing still up until now, and a volley of gunfire got the human and Suvelian moving again. Lolanne led Mike so they circled around Taurak, who turned his vaguely insectoid face to watch them, but did not move from its perch. Then the great creature snarled, and Mike almost started shooting before he realised one of their pursuers had shot Taurak in one of its forelegs. Its predatory gaze shifted to the bigger threat that had intruded on his hunting grounds, and with so much feline speed that his entire body became a blur, Taurak bounded off the hill and straight into the squad of storm-creatures.

Lolanne felt pity for Taurak. It overpowered and executed these strange new aliens with frightening efficiency, but the ballistic weapons were slowly chipping away at it. Mike pulled on her arm and they climbed over the rise in the earth. One last look back and Lolanne saw the fog swallow up Taurak’s cat-like shape as it succumbed to its wounds. A lump in her throat formed itself when she counted at least thirty of these gun-wielding creatures working together to bring down Panthea’s helping hand.

Unseen to her, the creatures began to feast. This wouldn’t be the last time they would see Taurak, however.

3

After two hours of jogging, Mike’s legs gave up on him. He and Lolanne collapsed into the shade of an outcropping that might have been Taurak’s nest. There was a pile of bones stacked in the deepest part of the crevice, and a foul odour drifted into his nostrils. Blood and flesh. It was unsettling just how used to that smell he was getting. Pretty soon it would stop bothering him, and that thought was somehow almost as troubling as the Leviathan and its minions were.

Mike hadn’t the strength to start a fire, even if the materials weren’t soaked to the core. They rested in the cold, and what short spans of shut-eye he could get, were interrupted by fits of sneezing and coughing. This wasn’t just from him, but from Lolanne as well. Panthea’s foreign air made her lungs bloated and her skin itch. It left a coppery taste on her tongue and muffled her hearing, this latter being the most distressing for Lolanne when she told him her symptoms.

She started to cough regularly. She had her own rebreathers so she wouldn’t suffocate, but as the hours passed on it sounded like she was struggling just to talk.

She only got worse as night fell again.

They couldn’t afford to stop moving for long. Drifting along in the wind, which was thankfully dying down as they put distance between them and the storm’s eye, they could hear the oily creature’s incessant chant.  “Labiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine…” -was whispered over and over again, echoing out over the hills. Mike cast back a look every now and then and could see them following if he stared long enough into the distance.

They scaled incline after incline, and Lolanne’s fever was quick to work into her legs and arms, and she had to keep leaning on Mike for support. He had an inkling that she was actually downplaying what was happening to her, but decided not to accuse her.

They spoke little, saving their breath for the climbs they had to make. The rain and fog were lifting little by little as they covered ground. Now and then a lightning strike would light up the sky, but they were far behind them now, out of their reach, at least he hoped they were.

The no-mans-land décor of the mountains was slowly starting to give way to the vibrant forest-life covering the terrain like a golden sheet of velvet. After another half a day of constant trekking uphill then downhill then uphill again, Lolanne, deciding a notch of danger had passed, broke the silence and asked the questions she should have asked a long time ago. There was just no way she could have known, but she was still hard on herself despite that.

“Tell me everything you know about those things,” the Suvelian asked. They were moving downhill, through the mountain country. Dark clouds gathered overhead, dropping cold rain and sounding off rumbling thunder.

Mike regarded her with an even look, though there was a certain apprehension evident in his eyes. She wasn’t the only one being critical on her own actions. “You remember when I said, ‘you wouldn’t believe me if I told you’? I didn’t think anyone would believe me if I started ranting on about a Third Sentient species, so I kept my mouth shut. Hoped you people would just let me go if I did.” He shook his head. “I’ve always been an idiot and a coward.”

Mike sniffed, let the air out in a sigh.

“It was on the Arden, that was when I first saw them. It was just a few days before I came to this planet. I woke up in my cell and smelled smoke, and on the floor there was this oil, the exact same texture those things back there were made of. Everything was on fire...”

He told her everything that happened on the prison ship, and Lolanne didn't interrupt once. He started with the pile of bodies he had to scale (Lolanne shivered at that bit), then with him taking a shotgun from a fallen guard. She noted with interest how the ballistic slugs didn't seem to kill the Spawn, just sort of delayed them. Mike hesitated during the part where he left his prison warden, Jack Morland, behind.

“I never liked the guy, but... I just left him there, you know?  And those things just... They just covered him up, like they were about to do to you back there. It was horrible, I was horrible, leaving him that way. Should have just shot him and ended his misery.”

After an awkward pause, he continued, recalling his piloting an escape pod off the ship, and seeing a huge mass of oil and tentacles larger than any capital-ship he had ever seen, and this was where he gave it its name. “It was huge, like some sort of Leviathan born right out of the void. It sounds crazy, I know, but it was alive, and it just up and consumed the ship, ate it the same way Jack was eaten by those things. I can’t even begin to describe just how massive it was. I can’t blame you if you don't believe me. Even I think it’s impossible, and I was there.”

He concluded with him landing on Panthea, travelling here from the neighbouring system. She didn't need to know how horrible it was to be stuck for days in a pod where he couldn't even stand, so he left that part out, though he had a feeling she had an idea. After having that tale bottled up for so long, he actually felt a little relieved when he was done telling it to her. He finished with a raising of his hands and said, “-Then your boss Raan and his goons found me, and I found myself in another cell. You know the rest.”

The Suvelian was silent for a long while, comprehending all that he told her. At last she said, “So this thing, this Leviathan, must have passed Panthea earlier, let some of its member's off here, then continued on where it ran into your ship.” She coughed. “Shipmaster Terlus did mention something about a large signature on the long-range scanners…”

“I thought you said there was too much interference from this planet to keep your sensors working?”

“This was before we colonized, when I was Guiding the ship down and I… failed. Terlus pulled the ship into orbit before he analysed the signature. I thought at the time it might have been an Android ship, but it could have been this Leviathan of yours.”

“So it sent thousands of its… its kind, down to Panthea, and created this storm, somehow?” That was the only explanation that made a lick of sense, but was that before or after the Arden was destroyed? The Storm had been here well before his arrival, so he guessed the prison ship was the Leviathan’s second target. But how could they even make a storm? Maybe these creatures were so far advanced beyond known science that they could manipulate the elements, and if that was the case… Maybe they were the Third Sentients, and a whole lot more dangerous because of it.

“Did you see where it went?” Lolanne asked. “After it destroyed the Arden?”

“Ate, the Arden. Not destroyed.” Mike corrected. “But no, I didn’t. It blended into the void pretty well, but I had a feeling at the time I couldn’t have gotten away so easily without being chased. Those things back there were calling my name, and they had pistols, so maybe it did follow me here. It could still be in the system for all we know.”

“Ate is the right word,” Lolanne said. She told him of how creatures of the Leviathan, its Spawn, had consumed a creature of Panthea, the one she'd hid from back when sampling the rivers. The foreign creature looked nothing like Mike described the ones on the Arden were, nor the ones that were humanoid and wielded UEC weaponry back in the cavern. It was more animalistic, but they all had one thing in common – the oil, the tar around their bodies.

“It uses other bodies as a catalyst,” Lolanne whispered.

“Huh? What was that?”

“These things all look different, don't they? They’re like castes. Only thing in common is their dark oil-hides. Those ones back there, carrying guns? You said they looked like humans. Were they humans from the Arden? The one I saw a couple weeks ago looked more like an animal. Whatever this thing is, it might be using other bodies for its own purposes.”

Mike bit his lip, thinking. After a moment he nodded. “Think you're right. Castes… Geez, you think those humans were still alive? After this... this Spawn, infected them?”

Lolanne shrugged. “If they were, then they’re nothing short of mindless bodies serving... the Leviathan, maybe?”

When the humans made first contact with the Suvelians, there was an attempt at diplomacy before it all fell apart. Why had the Spawn openly attacked the human ship, and not so much as send a transmission to the Ulnosh?

Why had they struck the shuttle with lightning? How could they even do that? These were questions Lolanne feared she'd never get answers to.

“This is worse than I feared,” Lolanne murmured. “The Colony is in terrible danger. We have to go.”

She tried to speed up her pace, but a sudden cough shortened her breath, and she lost her footing. She had to grab onto Mike’s waist to stop herself from falling, and the contact made her jump.

“Sorry,” she said, trying to pull herself away. Instead Mike hooked an arm under her other armpit and brought up her hunched stance.

“We’ll get there,” he assured. “Just pace yourself. Don’t rush it.”

Lolanne nodded, letting him press against her side she could stand on her numb legs. Even through the suit his bare flesh was plush, and she felt her cheeks flush at his closeness.

They kept moving at a pace Lolanne could keep. The reaches of the storm’s spiralling clouds had grown a considerable distance compared to when Mike and Lolanne had been travelling the other direction. It was still too damp to make a fire when night fell again. They stuck themselves under the limited shade of a tree and huddled against its trunk. There was little difference between daytime and night, but the mist had cleared and they could see it wasn’t too far until they were out of the mountain range.

Mike hugged himself and tried to suppress the shivers running up every inch of his body. He was no fan of the cold, dreading every bit of breeze hitting him from all directions. He struck up a mental image of the deserts of Neruvana – dry and warm places. But the image just made him homesick, and he ended up shaking the memory away.

Dozing didn’t work. His own developing fever never let him rest his eyes for more than a few minutes, and the cold was biting into his blood, expanding like poison up and into his heart and brain. He examined Lolanne’s weapon to try and distract himself from the temperature. It was a sleek looking thing, a bit more compact than human sidearms but definitely packing a heavier punch. A little battery along the top told him that was the ammunition holder, and there was a little rune running along the spine. Ammo counter, he guessed. If Lolanne didn’t say anything then he guessed there was still plenty of charge left.

“Hey,” Lolanne said, making him look over at her. She was holding out a hand. He thought she was asking for her gun, and was going to give it over when she used her arm and wrapped it around his shoulders. “You’re making me cold, shivering like that. Will this help?”

The leathery gauntlet was softer than he would have thought as it slipped across his back. Mike didn’t know if she just wanted to have some comfort in this world that had turned so very cold, or really was trying to help him. Whatever the case, he wasn’t about to deny the presence of a female, alien or not.

Lolanne pressed her shorter frame up to his side, and Mike held her close, a hand reaching across her lithe body to cup her elbow. Although she wasn’t physically warm, the rubbery texture of her suit was a bit less damp than anything else, and her presence was at least a little soothing. “Yeah,” he said, a flush creeping up his neck. “a little.”

“That’s… good.” Lolanne sniffed. He could feel her shaking through the suit. Completely unbeknownst to him, the Suvelian was actually trembling, and not just because of the fever working through her.

With the Storm howling its bitter notes of an early autumn above them, They sat like that for a while, propped up against a tree with the rain pouring down, listening to the patter as it dripped off the leaves. She was holding her hand up at an awkward angle to plug her breach, occasionally rubbing up against him to adjust into a more comfortable spot.

“I could do that for you,” he offered, nodding at the visor. She turned and gave him a look. “-If you want.”

He didn’t really understand the significance of the offer, or how it would make her feel. The clash of cultures would always lead to that, but he wasn’t that dense. If anyone had ever touched her suit it was probably only her closest friends, but to touch her visor? Her equivalent of a face? It might have been a sign of deep trust, or something much more intimate.

“… Okay,” she said, and lowered her hand, the breach popping free with a hiss of air. Her eyes locked onto his fingers the whole time as he reached over. He put a delicate pressure over the missing glass, covering up a portion of her vision and halting the gas-leak noise. Even though there was no physical contact in the gesture, it still looked like he was cupping her cheek. One slip and he might make it worse, but over the dangers they’d passed through since setting out on that day earlier in the week, they’d formed a small bond of trust for each other.

If someone had told Mike he would one day spoon with an alien like he was now, he would have laughed in their face. Yet here he was, and he didn’t know whether to be shocked, pleased, disturbed, or all three.

Lolanne rolled her wrist to flex the muscles of her stiff hand. She’d been plugging that breach for a long while now. Her helmet tipped slightly towards him “… Thank you.”

Mike couldn’t think of what to say, so just grinned back like an idiot. He tried to distract himself from the developing awkwardness in the silence. “Stormy night and good company. I think all we need now is a good story. How about telling me what the giant robot was back there? What did you call it? The Colossus?”

“Are you-” Serious, was what she was about to say, he could tell before she’d stopped herself. Neruvana and the Arden had been very isolated places. Mike was, in a sense, as naïve as she was, just in different aspects. This common ground they had made them both feel a little more warm towards each other.

She cleared her throat and said, “Colossi are the ancient machines that riddle the Milky Way, older than both our species. There’s a bit of a story as to when my people first discovered them. You want the long or short version?”

“Better if we keep it short. You can tell me the long when we get back to the colony.”

Not if, but when they got back. Lolanne wasn’t sure she could say the same thing, wasn’t sure how violently her body would react to the breach in the coming days. But that was something to worry about tomorrow. For now, she just enjoyed his presence and told the tale. No one had ever held her in their arms like this before. Not even father, who had been a busy man from the moment she was old enough to walk. Even if this closeness was just for their bodies sakes, and neither of them could actually feel each other physically, she enjoyed being close to someone nonetheless.

She told Mike a part of her people’s history she'd read all about back in her youth. Any Suvelian could recite the story, and maybe if Raan or Selen or Terlus were present they could have added an extra detail or corrected her when she made a fault, but she recited it as best she could, and by the time she was done, the two of them managed to get some shut-eye.

4

Suvelia was orbited by three moons. On the third and farthest moon something large lay across its surface, like a black smudge. When Xeltuva was enlightened with Saduun's blessing and became the next Hierarch, after her predecessor died of natural causes, she believed her race could not survive if anything from the Aether decided to lay waste to the war-torn and recovering homeworld. She devoted all her resources and power to establish a footing within the Suvelia system, starting with the launching of satellites to help deploy deep-space scans. It was when one of our satellites scanned the surface of the third and farthest moon did our Space Age truly begin.

Low level energy signatures were detected on the moon, and images of the surface showed a giant hulk resting on the surface. It was the first piece of evidence of life outside of Suvelia. An expedition had to be sent at once. Xeltuva wanted to lead it herself, but by the time a ship capable of both taking the journey and coming back was constructed, she had seen almost a hundred cycles, and no amount of Saduun's Divine presence can stay the illness of age.

But Xeltuva insisted that she go anyway, and twice during the journey did she almost die – the first during the launch, the second during the descent to the moon. Both times her body was put under enormous pressure. Some say that Saduun aided her to push on, but He does not act so directly when it comes to meeting one’s fate.

“Seems a little cruel for a Divine,” Mike interrupted at this part.

“If He was always kind and generous, we would become complacent,” Lolanne countered. “If He was always cruel and greedy, life would become unbearable. You said something a while back, something about no pros without cons, yes? Saduun strives for a balance, what we call the Unity that is our culture.”

Mike tilted his head in thought. “Alright, I think I get it. Go on.”

Xeltuva survived the moon landing and the voyage ship, the Tekal, set down by the base of the machine, and an outpost was constructed. The suits the members of the expedition wore had been outfitted for use in space, and this would later become the norm for all Suvelian’s. Several teams walked around and over the machine, which was bipedal, with pointed arms and arrowhead feet, much the same as the one we've just recently encountered.

But this one was bigger, maybe twice the size as the one here on Panthea. (Here Mike shook his head in disbelief but didn't interrupt) No openings in the wreck could be found, so Xeltuva ordered her team to blast through the hull and to see what was inside. Powerful charges were placed on the head, next to its giant hollow opening, its eye. These charges were powerful enough to take down buildings, but they didn't even leave scorch marks on the black metal.

They tried again on the arms, at the points where it was thinnest. No dents. They tried a dozen times over – on the torso, legs, everywhere, and each time the blasts that would have made giant craters back home didn’t leave so much as a scratch. It wasn't until Xeltuva tried one last time on the base of the right foot did they finally get results. Many theorized that the Colossus – that was what the members of the expedition came to call it – had once walked impossibly long distances, putting wear and tear on the metal underneath the feet. Though if that was true it had to have walked across entire planets for thousands of years, and it seemed long abandoned now, with no signs of pilots or automation.

Strips of the strong and powerful alloy were pried away from the Colossus. Each piece wore out dozens of our most advanced excavation tools. Xeltuva's team, after exhausting most of their air and supplies, stretching the expedition longer than it should have, begged their Matriarch that they leave for home at once.

But Xeltuva had become obsessed, demanded that they bring as much of the alloy back for study. A few months in, strange things began to affect the crew of the Tekal. Thoughts not of their own, some later confessed. Others claimed they saw illusions of figures, standing within the shadow of the great machine. ('The Spawn, it had to be,' Mike said here) The crew decided to leave the moon as soon as possible, with or without their Hierarch. It was treason of the highest order, but heretics or not, the moon was dangerous, and they had to leave quickly.

But Xeltuva threatened them with death if they so much as activated Tekel's engines. Some would find her resting her hands on the Colossus, hours at a time, mumbling strange words not of our language. When the crew, all ninety-nine of them, agreed to become heretics and leave their blessed leader behind, they found they didn't need to worry about her wrath for much longer.

They confronted her, explained their coup, and told her they would leave without her if that was the cost. She stood there, in the portal of the machine's damaged foot, darkness all around her, and smiled back. She told them to go, to sire many children, and to prepare them for the end. Those were her exact words, each crew member confessed so exactly. Prepare your children for the end. Then she raised her arms, like a messiah before her followers, and walked backwards into the Colossus. It was the last time anyone ever saw her.

The Shipmaster of the Tekel ran after her, demanding where she was going. He too was swallowed up by the darkness and never emerged. The crew could wait no longer. They left two of their leaders behind and returned home. They confessed all that had happened, and when the newly appointed Hierarch consulted Saduun, He said Xeltuva had simply vanished, and that He could not speak to her from the moment the Tekel had touched the moon.

The moon became taboo, many dark theories cycling around the disturbing machine lying on its surface. Sleeping, readying itself to wake up, perhaps? But the alloys the crew brought back were studied with wonder. It was stronger than any material on Suvelia, and a whole Golden Age of technological wonder came about with it. It could be used for buildings to resist the strongest weathers, and in tools to break the sturdiest rocks. It was light and flexible enough that the suits were permanently upgraded with the alloy. So much good had come from just a few crates of the material.

“Imagine,” said the Hierarch, “what could be done if we harvested all of the Colossus?”

The Tekal, upgraded with what we simply called Colossal-alloy, made another journey. None of the old crew volunteered to board. Despite the disappearance of Xeltuva and the Shipmaster, two hundred souls went out and brought double the number of alloys back. But the number of casualties doubled as well. A group of four decided to venture into the Colossus to find the Matriarch and the Shipmaster, even though years had passed and they surely had died of hunger long ago. But these four wished to recover the bodies at least, and help them complete their journeys to Vamia, the world after this one. They became victims of the Colossus as well. They had commlinks, beacons, lights, everything so they wouldn't get lost, yet the moment they ventured a few steps inside, it was like Saduun Himself had plucked them from existence.

Of course, there was controversy in how to respond. The families of those who had been consumed started to riot, demanding that no one else should meet this unknown fate, and to leave the moon alone. But the alloys were too tempting, and it held a permanent lust over my people. With the alloys brought back, hundreds of ships were made, armed with powerful weapons. Cities grew and prospered, and maintenance became a thing of the past. Suits became lighter and more comfortable, with many countless improvements and modifications. The riots eventually stopped, and the alloy became a part of our culture. Only the exterior hull of the Colossus was ever harvested, the excavators always within daylight, prying away one plate at a time. Over fifty years passed and no one ventured more than ten meters into the Colossus’ interior.

We harvested it until only the backside of the wreck remained, but no one ever found the bodies of Xeltuva or the others. It became the greatest mystery in all our Memory, alongside whoever had made and left the Colossus behind. It was theorised the machine was millions or even billions of years old, but that was all anyone could find out, and the Colossus soon became nothing more than a source of resources.

But it wasn't the only Colossus out there.

Once we had powerful ships capable of longer journeys that could reach far into the Aether, another Colossus was discovered, deep into the reefs of an ocean planet. None of the local flora grew anywhere near it, and the fauna stayed far away from the wreck like the water itself was irradiated. This one was smaller than the one on our moon, shaped a little differently, but it too was made of the same, powerful alloy we couldn't get enough of. It was harvested as soon as possible. Another Golden Age followed.

The same happened with the third wreck, and the fourth, each one dotted throughout the systems randomly, with no discernible pattern to the machine’s positions. Our advanced sensors pried and searched the Aether for more, and behold, hundreds of other wrecks, spread out among the stars for hundreds of light-years. Some large, some small, all abandoned. Whoever made these machines left no trace, and we gave them no name.

That is, until now.

“Do you think the Spawn made the Colossi?” Mike asked, using Lolanne’s term for the oil-creatures. Lolanne, perhaps too tired to notice, let her helmet rest on his shoulder. Her slim suit bobbed along with her breaths.

“They were doing something to it,” she said. That much was obvious – down in those plains they’d been crawling over the wreck, seeping in through the cracks of the giant machine. “Maybe I'm wrong, and they were simply harvesting it’s resources just as we did. Couldn't exactly stay to find out, could we?”

“What about the storm back there? Did any of your ancestors ever find a wreck that had a cyclone hanging over it?”

“No,” she said. “Each one just lay there. Any flora close to the wreck was dead or decaying, which was strange. But there was nothing as extreme as this.”

“It can’t be a coincidence. This storm, the Spawn, all hanging around an old machine?” He felt his stomach stir uneasily. “You were right to trust your gut, to come out here and see it for yourself. I’m… sorry I tried to make you turn back all those times.”

Lolanne glanced at him from the corner of her vision. Trust you gut. Was that what Xeltuva did when she led that expedition, when she was warned not to? Trust her gut to keep on going?  She shuddered when she realised it had cost the Matriarch her life in the end.

“Lola?” Mike asked. “Looks like you've stared death in the face. You okay?”

She nodded, but it was obviously a forced effort. “Yes. I don’t blame you for doubting me. Half the time I was questioning myself.” She snorted as her nose began to run. “Shipmaster Terlus is in command, and he's led many battles. He'll know what to do with what we have.”

Cold air bit into their bodies like splinters. They listened to the wind snake through the trees for a while before Mike broke the silence.

“Don't mean to sound skeptical,” the human said. “But we didn't exactly bring much proof. Save for some scars.” He waved at his wounded chest. “And your visor breach. But something tells me this Terlus won’t take our word on faith alone.”

“I've got that covered.” She tapped the side of her helmet. “My visor records everything I want it to. This whole trip will be our evidence.” She looked up at him. “And just look at me, at us. We’re so beat up that one of us might drop dead in the morning.”

She meant this as a joke, but it came out with so much fear and weariness, so real that it frightened her. Thunder rolled in the distance.

“Recorded?” Mike asked over the din of the rain. he looked away sheepishly, a little silly grin on his face. “I'm not camera-shy, but... You're not gonna show them me stripping right in front of you, are you? You’re not… Right?”

Despite the disheartening cold making her bones as fragile as glass, she managed a chuckle. “Alone in a room with my superiors, watching me watching you half naked? Get me out of there.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and he laughed with her. They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Mike broke it again. “I better see you delete that footage too. I don’t want it getting out to- what was that?”

From behind them came a wet thudding sound. It had a wooden effect to it, like something had knocked its huge fist into one of the trees.

“I don’t know,” she said. But in truth she did. She looked uneasily around the trunk they leaned against. She’d be fooling herself in thinking they’d put enough distance between them and the Spawn. She was slowing down every passing hour. Her father would be ashamed at her lack of stamina.

“We should keep moving,” Mike said. But before he could release his hold on her she stopped him.

“No, not like you are now. You need rest. I’ll keep watch and wake you if there’s trouble.”

He opened his mouth to object, but all that came out was a long exhale. He was very tired, and with Lolanne slowly deteriorating, he needed to keep his strength for as long as he could. And her super-eyes would spot anything faster than he could.

“Fine,” he said. “I doubt it’ll do much good, but fine.” On instinct he hugged her closer without saying anything. Lolanne didn’t object, though she didn’t exactly know what to think of the contact. Cuddling an alien was just… so very strange. He closed his eyes. “Night, Lola.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, matter-of-factly.

He grinned. “No I meant- It's short for 'goodnight'.”

“Oh, I see. Night, Mike.” She leaned her head away from him so she could keep watch, moving a finger up to plug her breach once more.

All through the night his body shivered, and she wondered just how low the temperature was getting. How low would it get until Mike froze to death? It would be her fault anyway, another death on her conscience, a friend’s death adding on top of the pile she already-

She threw this train of thought away, miserable and horrified. She wondered how long until her spirit vanished completely. Her ‘victory’ finding the source of the storm had lifted them temporarily, but now she was thinking that all that effort had paid off so little in comparison.

5

The cold worked into them little by little, developing the fevers infecting both of the travellers. Restorative sleep never lasted long, even when they were both dead tired. Suit and robes were drenched, but they still huddled together at night to share what little warmth they had to give.

Mike found a few clumps of berries and fruits to help restore his energy, but they required a lot of effort to find in these dying lands. Lolanne had her packs and she drained through them at an alarming rate. Mike said he would only delve into her personal supply if there was no other choice.

He held his arms up against the rain and the wind, hating the numb and buzzing feeling working through his skin. Hating how his eyes watered and the tears crystallised on his cheeks, hating how muffled everything sounded. Every other minute he had to sniff to keep snot from running out of his nose, and it tickled annoyingly whenever it hung there on the edge of the nostril.

The curtain of rain that marked the end of the Storm’s constant rainfall had extended over another hill. There was a certain disappointment to this for Mike, who had marked that hill as the end of this rainy hell. It would take at least another night to get onto dry land, and of course it was uphill, always uphill, even when they were going in the other direction.

There were potential campsites all around them, but the proximity of the Spawn threw the idea of resting up by a warm fire out the proverbial window. If the Spawn saw a fire in all this darkness they would come charging down on their position and kill them, or enslave them, or whatever it was these Spawn did with their victims. He tried to remember the warm feeling of a campfire but found he couldn’t.

Why hadn’t Lolanne packed extra clothes? Or given him some warning to prepare before they charged off into the eye of the storm? He knew he was only blaming her because blaming anyone but yourself was the easy way, but as if his reasoning was trapped behind mental glass, the whole cold was entirely her fault.

“Do you think Taurak still lives?” Lolanne asked him once. They started traveling during the night so the sleep was a little warmer in the day. No stars glinted down at them, no giant moons or night sky. Just grey, sheets and sheets of grey on every surface, the kind of colour that drained the soul just from looking at it.

“What do you reckon?” Mike asked back.

“I don’t think so. He gave his life for ours. Do you think Panthea herself sent him to aid us? Or maybe it was Saduun?”

Mike shook his head, not knowing and not caring. They came to a large clearing, a mesa of rocks and burnt-out tree husks, like giant stalks of charcoal. The wind hit them hard out here in the open, and immediately Mike’s eyes started gushing stinging tears.

“We should offer both of them a prayer at some point.” Lolanne mused.

“If we stop, the Spawn’ll gain on us. There’s no time for that nonsense,” Mike said.

“Nonsense? It’ll only take a moment, and we’ll-”

“Lola, I don’t want to hear it!” He spoke with a pettiness and sharpness he’d only given her once before, when she offered him passage off the planet in exchange for helping her expedition into the storm. The moment he closed his mouth he wanted to apologise, but found himself unable to.

The next hour was walked in silence. Lolanne caught up with him and trekked along beside him. He glanced between her and the way ahead. They were coming to the end of the empty mesa, and the painfully cold air was beginning to die down. Even right now he was still – although only barely – wishing he had never taken up her offer. Mike would have given up his pitiful existence then and there to have rather been stuck in a cell – a warm, dry cell. With food delivered every twelve hours.

Then he thought against that. Was all this rain and cold worth freedom? Maybe. Was this time with Lolanne? Almost definitely. And now here he was sulking like a little bitch and taking it out on her. He had to say something, something quick.

“I’m sorry, Lola,” Mike said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was wrong. I was wrong.”

Lolanne didn’t reply. She just looked up at him and then away again, to the east. Where the storm’s corruption was starting to dwindle.

“If you want to pray now let’s do it.” He stopped.

“Mike it’s fine, we should move.”

“No, no.” He stopped her with a pull of her shoulder. “It’s not fine. Let’s just do it. What do we have to do?”

She considered for a second. Then hunkered down and placed a hand on the dirt. He copied her. Lolanne then began to chant a series of verses in her native tongue. Her sing-song voice was lilting, graceful, but didn’t make a lick of sense. A word or two translated for Mike, such as Panthea and tomorrow and Saduun, but on the whole she lost him. She had done the same thing for the floater creature back in the caves, full of emotion for the whole thing, which lasted about twenty seconds. When she was done, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “That’s it. We can go now.”

“I didn’t catch most of that. What did you say?” He was genuinely curious. They walked as they talked.

“I thanked Saduun and Panthea for helping us, even though we have been making fires to help us on our way, and hoped they would allow us to redeem ourselves in time. It was a bit more poetic than that, but that’s the … ‘gist’ of it.”

“Okay then.” An idea suddenly occurred to him. “Listen, if there’s time, once we get back to the colony, will you teach me a bit more of your language?” 

Lolanne’s face went wide behind her damaged helmet. “You want to learn from… me? Truly?”

“Truly. I think you’ve rubbed off on me more than either of us expected. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.”

He could have sworn there was a blush behind that visor, given how she answered him. “W-Well of course it’s not.” She paused. “You know, if you chose to… to stay, in the colony, I could teach and show you a lot more than just our language.”

“You paraphrasing?” he asked, and snickered as her blush deepened.

“You’re absolutely hilarious. But, seriously, would you at least… consider, staying?”

His opened his mouth, but no words came out. Lolanne saw his hesitation and added: “Terlus and Raan would not dismiss the idea, especially if I vouch for you after all we’ve found. Would you at least think about it?”

“Yeah,” he said. He swallowed. “I’ll give it some thought. No promises though.”

“No promises,” Lolanne echoed, and felt as guilty as he did in the silence that followed.

6

When Mike thought that this was it, that the storm covered the entire globe and he would never again know what it felt like to be dry, they crested one more mountain and in one moment, rain flew into his eyes, and in the next, it stopped.

When the rain hit Lolanne’s suit, it sounded a lot like how water bounces off a tarp. It had been an incessant and irritating noise, like everything when the cold seeps into the brain. And that too was gone in a second. They literally passed into another world. One with a golden sky and aqua-blue suns. He turned his face up and smiled in their warm rays. The storm clouds withered away directly overhead, but someone with an uncanny perception could remark at how those clouds were ever-expanding their dark reaches.

Endless clutches of trees and forests expanded out beyond them, all in shades of gold and tan and rose. It was too bright a display for his eyes, which had adjusted to the constant darkness a tad too well. He guessed by memory it wasn’t long now before they were finally out of this damned mountain range.

“Can you hear them? The birds, I mean,” Lolanne asked. Phlegm distorted her voice. She was getting worse. The birds she was talking about cawed, distantly, but they were there, casting a soothing ambience.

“I can smell the wood of the trees, too.”

Lolanne sniffed. “What does that mean?”

“It means I can finally warm up the ice-cube that is my ass.”

One with fever, the other with infection on top of a fever, human and Suvelian set off and gathered as much firewood as they could get. A dampness in the air made the kindling difficult, but in the end Mike’s little survival tricks got the blaze going.

Sweat, not rainwater, flooded down his face and chest. He stripped down to his underwear (Lolanne was less timid about it this time, watching him when she thought he wouldn’t notice), and dried the robes off while toasting each side of his body by the fire. He expected Lolanne to stop him from feeding the fire at some point, but she didn’t. She just stared at the flames as if mesmerised. He controlled himself and didn’t go too overboard. Saduun may or may not be real, but Lolanne was, and she took nature pretty damn seriously. Plus that memory of his cell on the Arden would start to creep out if the flames grew too large.

When he was bundled up in his dry clothes he stood up. They switched to traveling by day and the fire wasn’t bright in comparison to the suns. “I’m gonna go forage. Coming with?”

“Not this time,” she said. With one hand she covered her breach, and used the other to stick one of her packs onto her waist. She was breathing hard, her chestplate rising and falling irregularly. Although not an inch of her was visible, Mike had never seen her look so tired before. “Don’t go too far, though. I thought I heard a gunshot last night.”

“I won’t.” He took one of her guns and slipped into the forest. Now that the poisonous reach of the storm was behind them – but still encroaching – the foraging was a lot more successful. He ate as he went, and what he couldn’t carry he stuffed into his pockets for spare rations. Probably should have done that when they were going west, but then again, they could have done a lot of things to prepare them better for that little hellhole.

He ate until he was full, his lips and fingers red from the alien fruit-juices like he’d just feasted on a bloody morsel. Just even thinking about meat made his mouth water. And as if just to tease him he came across a pair of wild game out in a clearing a few minutes later.

They were three-legged, sort of a mix between a pig and a zebra, fat bodies with stripes running vertically down their bellies. They nibbled at the grass stalks growing in the nooks by the tree roots. Oblivious to him even though Mike had not been trying to be stealthy.

His hand touched the butt of the plasma pistol stuck in his waistband. The only thing that stayed his hand was what Lolanne’s reaction would be if he hauled a carcass over his shoulder back to their camp, and what she’d say. Once, his father had showed him how to properly gut and skin animals to make clothes out of their hides. Neruvana could hit the negative temperatures once the seasons flipped. These animals couldn’t be too much different from those lessons.

But in the end, he left the pistol alone. The land ahead was warm, fruit was a good and admittedly tasty substitute, and Lolanne wouldn’t approve if he killed something now. These reasons had some varying degrees of influence on him, the latter being unusually the strongest.

She’d probably say Saduun would strike me down after all He’s done for us.

He sniffed and unblocked his nose. This made a loud and sudden noise that the zebra-things in the clearing heard. They made a frightened squealing sound – Reeep~! - and fled into the woods. Mike stood up and walked away.

Lolanne was shaving away the Christmas-tinsel-like fur covering the branches meant to be their kindling. He sat down beside her and said nothing. Mike was never one to appreciate nature – his own homeworld had been like the plains the Colossus was occupying, empty and ruined. Even though Panthea was still a hot, dangerous place filled with deadly creatures, he had to admit it was a bright world filled with beauty. Saduun had done a good job with this place. A dangerous job, but easy on the eyes nonetheless.

Speaking of which...

His gaze settled on Lolanne. Her suit leak was like an audible beacon, loud and obnoxious. They hadn’t seen any of the Spawn for a while now, but that hissing sound coming from her could attract plenty of attention, especially in these quiet forests.

“You look terrible,” he remarked, making her stop her de-furring. “Anything I can do? Massage, maybe?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. Without proper tools and qualified engineers, there’s nothing to do but… Ack-! N-Nothing to do except b…”

Her voice fell to a series of hacks, like she’d smoked an entire packet of cigarettes. The sound made him wince. He came and knelt by her side, not sure what to do except wait for the fit to subside.

“M-Maybe if I can just…” Lolanne straightened up. “… Lie down for a little while,” she croaked. She and Mike sniffled at the same time.

“We have to keep moving, Lola.” He would have agreed with a good long rest, his feet were killing him, but he didn’t want to linger in this place. The mountains were crawling with Spawn, they had to be. He and Lolanne had seen something they shouldn’t have. Mike didn’t know how he knew this, but he did, and it was best not to linger.

“Just for an hour, that’s all.” she pleaded.

“If you tempt us with one hour, then we’ll want two, then three. See what I’m getting at?”

Lolanne huffed, understanding but clearly not agreeing. “You’re right,” she said. Her tone was low, barely loud enough to hear over the breach. “Okay, one second.”

The Suvelian stood up the same way a drunk rises in the morning. She motioned for him to lead the way, and they got moving. They hiked the rest of the day at a pace Mike didn’t like, but at least they were moving, keeping the blood pumping, keeping the Spawn at a distance. Occasionally he’d look back and see figures on the rises of earth behind them, arms outstretched like they were waving. We’re coming! those waves seemed to say. We see you and we’re coming!

When the dual-suns fell below the horizon the air was freezing, but at least there was no more rain. Mike rubbed his red and itchy eyes as they sat down for the night.

“Okay, you get the kindling and I’ll…” Mike stopped. Lolanne was out like a light and snoring quietly, face-down on the ground. If not for the rising of her chestplate he might have thought she’d dropped dead. Smirking, he propped her up against a tree and set up camp.

His own body demanded rest, but he denied it, staying up long into the night to keep watch. Sleep would be impossible anyway, he had to wipe snot from his face every few seconds, and it would be hard-goin to rest with that gas-leak sound from Lolanne’s breach.

Speaking of which, he crawled over to her and blocked the missing piece, as if he was some romantic cupping his partners cheek. He could have woken her up and had her keep watch, as he had promised to her earlier that they would take turns resting, but he let her sleep. He could tell by her light snores that she was actually getting some proper shut-eye.

How much worse will the infection get? he wondered.

He didn’t know, and didn’t trouble himself on how he’d deal with that problem if – or when – it would come. He was just glad that this was all coming to an end, and a vision came to him as he chucked another piece of wood into the fire. It was of him and Lolanne, sitting in one of those cozy buildings in the colony, perhaps one he and Vok had built, laughing at this nightmarish journey that was now far behind them. Maybe Raan would be so pleased with Mike’s efforts in helping his protégé he’d go out of his way to make hot-chocolate. Then the idea of staying wouldn’t be so bad.

Staying. Mike let the word ring through his head. He titled his gaze up and watched the stars rotate through the nebula-ridden sky. All he wanted before was to leave, but with the Spawn, Leviathan’s, Colossi… Things just got a whole lot more messy.

“… But it’s not my problem,” he whispered. Lolanne stirred but didn’t wake, snuggling a little more into his side. He stared daggers up at the winking stars and waited for morning.

7

He didn’t catch a wink of sleep and gave up trying. Even though they were out of the storm, the nights were bitter and gloomy. Exhaustion would force him to a lull, but a sudden sneezing fit would make sure his eyes remained hot and baggy. Mike woke Lolanne at around nine or so with a few hushed words, and let her drape off him as he sat up. He touched a wrist to his forehead. It was like a hot stove up there.

So much for the implants.

They’d given him the capability to compensate for differing gravities, ship drag-times, and strengthened his bones to withstand as little or as much atmospheric pressure, and here he was, slowly being whittled away by the common cold. Or maybe it was hypothermia. Either way it was humiliating and depressing. He doubted Suvelian medicine would have an effect on him, but hopefully something could be done once they got back. Being outside for so long he’d forgotten what a soft bed felt like.

“Ready to get going?” he asked, then looked down with a frown.

By his foot, Lolanne was snored softly again. He leant down and shook her awake with an amused grin. Two orbs of blue lit up the visors surface lazily. Her large eyes.

“Morning,” he said. “Ready for some more walking?”

“Uh, Nope,” Lolanne answered. But she got up anyway. They continued to the east, slow and easy. Two hours passed. Mike hadn't realised just how long the mountain country stretched on.

“Know what I don't get?” he asked suddenly. Lolanne gave him a brief glance, indicating she heard him. “You implied before that I should have known what the Colossus was. Why is that?”

Her reply came after a long minute, where the only sounds she made were heavy breaths. Mike used to know someone who was a heavy smoker. He breathed like a sick dog whenever he leaned back in his chair. It was scary to hear Lolanne make that exact same sound. “The Colossi are all over the Milky Way. There was one in the Solar system, on the planet called... Lars? March?”

“Mars?” he offered.

“That's the one. Don't know if whoever discovered that one met the same fate as Xeltuva. I was hoping you would tell me, but...” She shrugged. “But you humans must have harvested the wreck like we did. The alloys are just too precious to leave alone, even if it costs lives. And why leave something alone when you can use it, and exploit it? It gave my people many benefits. Maybe you didn't know of the Colossal-alloys existence because it’s too heavily integrated into human society?”

Mike flushed a little at his naivety. It was like his implants – he didn’t know how they worked; they just did. The whole Arden could have been made out of Alloys for all he knew. He hadn’t realised until now just how ignorant he was about damn near everything. Once he returned to human civilisation he promised himself to try and change that, but one step at a time. They walked on, speaking little, and growing weaker with fever and infection every passing hour.

The final mountain of the range came into sight. The massive disk of a moon rose into the sky and cast its pale image over the dusk. This time Lolanne didn’t even offer to keep watch. She was out like a light. She had been shivering the day before, but not anymore. If he knew anything about Suvelian anatomy he would have seen this as a terrible symptom, but of course he couldn’t have known that. Once more he cupped her visor and let exhaustion take him into his freaky dreams.

But before his nightmares, his stupid runny nose, or the cold could wake him, there came a loud noise. In the eery silence of Panthea’s nighttime the sound was like an atomic bomb. Mike kept the plasma pistol in his hand even in his sleep, and he angled it wildly in every direction, still half-asleep. He expected the Spawn had finally caught up with them, but was thankfully mistaken. All he saw were the trees swaying in the breeze, coloured in a white hue by the orbiting moon.

The noise continued, low and persistent like a distant running train. Lolanne took much longer to let the sound wake her. She murmured Mike’s name and looked around with tired eyes. Raan would have been ashamed at her lack of urgency, but then Mike reconsidered that. Her mentor would be impressed. Suvelian’s were weak by nature, and even after a gunshot wound she was still keeping up a steady pace during the day. Not to mention she’d discovered a Colossus wreck. If Raan didn’t bend over backwards when they got back, Mike would have to make him.

“You hear that?” he asked her stupidly. He blinked the sleep from his eyes. “Sounds like... like an explosion.”

Or, he thought, the sonic boom of something fast approaching. He scanned their surroundings but nothing seemed out of place, and something that could make such a racket had to be pretty damn massive. Mike looked back and expected the storm to have grown or approached, but his worry was in vain, as the weather had not expanded to hit them, and the lightning was far away and mostly silent. It did seem a little larger, but maybe that was just the trick of the shadowy night. Maybe. He asked Lolanne if she had any idea what was making the sound.

“No idea,” she answered. “We’ll find out soon enough. Sleep.”

Eventually they returned to rest. Mike fell asleep quickly, despite the constant thundering of this new sound. When morning came it was louder, closer. It made Mike's ears shake.

Maybe it’s an earthquake?

But the ground he stood on didn't rumble, the air itself did. As they pushed on, he kept trying to find an explanation. Unfortunately he’d become so distracted by the noise he didn't even notice Lolanne stumble and fall to the ground behind him until he heard the sound of cracking glass.

“Lola!” Mike was beside her in an instant. They had been going downhill, she must have tripped on one of those tree roots. Lolanne hadn’t so much as groaned, lying there in an awkward pose. He hooked an arm around her stomach and lifted her up. He cursed when he saw another piece of her visor was gone. It was a little larger than the first piece, crooked and notched like a little bolt shape, making the breach wider by another centimetre. He could just make out a hint of deep blue skin, hidden in the shadows within her helmet.

He scanned over the muck and grass, but the shard was gone. He focused back on Lolanne, her head lolling back. “Hey, hey, look at me Lola. We’re gonna get out of here soon, okay?”

She looked up at him, and her gaze somehow felt subdued, relaxed, like she was looking beyond him. She blinked slowly and didn’t say anything. “Come on,” he said. “Just one more hill to go, then we're done.”

“Can't,” she muttered. When he helped her to her feet, she nearly fell again. This time he caught her in his arms.

“It’s just one more hill,” he repeated.

“No,” she said. “I can't go on.”

They still had many more kilometres to go after this last hill, and he flapped his mouth to try and find some other excuse to push her on, but found himself lacking.

“It's too hard to breathe. This suit is... It's too heavy. I can't even keep my eyes open, or see where I'm going.”

Mike looked to the east. Was that the cityscape he could see, glinting just over the treetops? Or just his imagination? Was Raan sending out colonists to look for them? Looking for her, you mean, he corrected. Mike coughed, his body shifting from boiling hot to freezing cold.

“Go and get Raan,” Lolanne breathed, grabbing his arm. “I'll stay here – tell him where I am and send help.”

Mike looked at her with the biggest, are you kidding me? -stare he could make. “Yeah, nah. If that infection doesn't kill you, the Spawn will. Do you actually expect me to abandon you now? Trust me, taking one for the team doesn’t do anyone any favours. It just wastes good lives. So get that ‘noble sacrifice’ idea out of your head.”

He read something apprehensive within her eyes. It was the only thing of her anatomy he could actually see, apart from her body language, and he was starting to read her better. “Then what will you do?” she whispered.

Mike bit his lip, silent for a while. “I've got an idea,” he said at last. He leaned in front of her chest, while at the same time moving her arms so they hooked around his neck. “You Suvelians ever give piggy-back rides to each other?”

“Piggy-what? Is that some sort of- Oh!” She peered through heavy eyelids and saw she was now on his back, her legs dangling behind his own. He shifted her weight upwards so he could carry her better. Her chestplate pressed into his shoulder blades hard enough that it compressed her suit against her breast. Her sensitive inner-skin had never felt so much as a hint of touch, and she had to suppress a moan from the bottom of her throat. She tightened her grip around his neck so she wouldn't fall off him. “You can't carry me all the way back! I'm too heavy!”

“Actually, you're pretty light, considering.” Mike was surprised at her feather-light weight. He expected a good few kilos, what with that full-body suit on. How much of it was made up of those alloys? Ninety percent? One hundred?

Coming on to the idea, she hooked her legs around his waist. Her three-digit, hooved feet interlocked below his belly button. Her alien body hooked into his own to get comfortable. Her shapely chest pressed into his flank as she clung to him for dear life.

“Considering, what?” Lolanne asked, a touch of self-consciousness in her tone.

Mike ignored her and got moving down the slope. He made ten steps before she started to slip. He flexed his shoulders and wiggled her up his back. One of her arms clasped round his neck in a soft choke hold as she plugged her suit breach with two fingers.

“It's too far,” she said. “You'll never make it like this.”

“Thanks for the pep-talk. All set?”

He resumed down the hill, almost toppling over a few times as he adjusted to her weight, but always catching himself at the last second. Lolanne flinched each time he landed rougher than usual. She even let out a little scream when he jumped over a log.

“I’ve got you,” Mike said. “It’s alright.” Lolanne vowed to stop being so skittish. But it was still a long while before she became accustomed to the whole ‘being carried’ ritual.

Going around the final hill would take just as long as going over it. Mike started the climb. Going uphill was the first instance to prove how much of a load Lolanne was on him, and the term 'uphill battle' had never seemed so appropriate until now. A sweat broke out on his forehead and he awkwardly wiped it away. He skirted around a tree trunk, slipping a little. At one point during the ascent the Suvelian tapped him on the shoulder.

“Why is… Is this called a piggy-back?” Lolanne asked slowly, between breathes, even though he was the one doing all the heavy-lifting. “Are you the piggy, or am I?

“Don’t know,” he huffed. He climbed two meters, stood on a slippery rock angled the wrong way, and fell back one meter before digging his heels into the ground. He heaved for breath as the angle of the hill steepened. He craned his neck to see the top. It looked very far away.

“Put me down. Leave me. You'll go faster.”

“I appreciate the faith you have in me-” Mike snarled as he pulled one leg up over a mound of leaves. “-but if you’re done, I’d like to focus on getting us out of here.”

Hot air met his cold lungs and he coughed. He hooked his arms under Lolanne’s knees and kept going, who seemed to take the hint and piped down.

A tree had fallen over here, caused by the storm or the wind or something else. He used a broken branch as a hand hold and pulled himself up, remembering the last time he had to climb a mountain it had been made of flesh and bone, not dirt and grass. Rocks and slate made the slope bumpy, loose gravel tumbled back the way they came with each stride. One wrong footing later and he collapsed onto his knees, scabbing them as they dug into the undergrowth. He rested for a minute, then started again. His alien-load didn’t complain, and not because she was getting used to it. Lolanne's arms around his neck loosened, and he pulled them tighter together like a harness. She snored in his left ear, audible over the hissing breach. He glanced back at her sleepy-face and snorted amusingly.

He ascended to the base of an outcropping and stopped again. It was too high to climb. He skirted to the right until the slope evened out. After an hour he stopped to catch his breath. Since when did it get so hot? Sweat dripped down into his eyes and he had to wipe them clear as much as his nose. Both his nostrils were red and sensitive to the touch.

Mike glanced upward and shielded his eyes. It wasn't the fever heating him up, but the suns of Panthea. Sindra hung overhead, above the peak of the hill which stretched away from him, as if he was experiencing vertigo in reverse. Never thought I'd be glad to see you again, he thought, remembering how he couldn't so much as expose a finger into the suns without being cooked alive. His body had adapted, so at least there was some good news.

There was a booming sound from above, followed by something else that sounded like the jets of flame whenever Lolanne activated her rocket-boots. The sound was sudden and it terrified him, like Saduun Himself had come down to rain justice. The train-engine-like sound revved up in intensity, and then it was gone, and all Mike heard was Lolanne's breathing and the birds chirping above him.

He pushed himself to his limit. The curious part of his mind, buried deep down since he was a kid, rose its head and demanded he find out what the source of the noise was. The world now seemed awfully quiet after such a constant racket. Mike climbed another ten meters, then another. Rested. Kept going for another twenty minutes. He slipped twice, just barely catching himself before he and Lolanne were sent tumbling back to the start. The summit of the hill, which felt more like a mountain, was just one more arms-reach above him. With a cry of effort, he reached up, his legs and arms scrambling for purchase like pistons. Lolanne slipped from her place on his back and he felt her slide away.

“Lola!” he cried, expecting to turn and watch her tumble to her death. She woke up and leaned forward at the last moment, and lunged upward. Even in her state her precision was unmatched. She gripped onto the summit, and without her weight he climbed easily up after her. When solid, flat ground met his feet, he collapsed onto the surface of the hill, his limbs feeling like jelly. He was content to stay like that forever.

Slowly, and with great effort, he sat up on his elbows and looked to the east, and saw it. For a long while he didn't say anything, and just stared, his chest rising and falling below his chin. Then in a weak voice he said, “…. Well how about that! Lolanne? That what I think it is?”

There, in the distance, the ship was wider than it was taller, and stretched through the sky for a good kilometre and a half like a giant dagger. The size was equivalent to the destroyer-class vessels of the UEC fleet, and judging by the cannons on its front, pointing alongside the hull like giant rails, and the sixteen or so turrets bristling along the top and bottom, it probably served the same purpose as well.

Along the hull of the sleek, alien ship were several Suvelian runes painted in white. The rest of the ship was bronze. It hovered high in the air on huge engines. He could see the heat waves emitting out of the ship’s bottom section, large black lines that wavered out of the engine ports. Its backside was tilted slightly upwards. After a few moments something ejected from the base of the ship, a black dot that flew straight down, where the tops of the colony buildings could just be seen glinting in the sunlight. Mike guessed it was sending shuttles full of supplies to the people there.

“The Karlyin,” Lolanne murmured. For the first time she too was shielding her face from the sunshine. “The Ulnosh’s escort ship. Must have run into trouble if they're this late.”

“Trouble?” Two more shuttles left the Karlyin and floated downwards. The first was already making a return trip.

“Androids, no doubt.” Lolanne sat back, tilting her head to the side. “It's so bright. How do you stand it?”

He grinned, but he was too focused on another thought to give her some sarcastic answer. “That's it, isn't it? That's my way out. Good thing it arrived in time, huh?”

“W-What are you talking about?” Lolanne asked. She sounded like she was just coming out of a restless sleep. Then again that’s exactly what she’d just done. He looked at her, brow raised in confusion.

“You said that after this little quest was done, I got a way out.” He looked back. Even with the many kilometres to go he could make out a few details. Three more shuttles had joined the orbital convoy. All six of them stuck to a single path, looping to the surface then coming back to the Karlyin’s docking bay. Mike nodded toward it. “That's it, right? You think I can borrow a shuttle so I can... What, Lola? Why are you shaking your head?”

She had been doing it subtly, but Mike's eyes had grown sharper, particularly whenever he examined her body language. Lolanne couldn’t meet his gaze, rubbing her hands together and staring between her legs.

She sighed. “The Karlyin Shipmaster won't give you a shuttle.”

The ghost of a frown on his face. “Oh. Well, then the colony ship has one to spare though, right? I don't even need to keep it anyway. You can have it back after I...”

He noted her silence and turned back to her. He pointed at her fidgeting hands. “You always do that when you're nervous. What's on your mind?”

At last, the moment came when she had to confess. It all came out in one hurried breath, and when she fell silent afterward she would never forget how his face lost its former glee with every next spoken word. “I’m so sorry, Mike. I… I lied to you. I have no power to get you off this world. I only said that to convince you to help me. I knew you wouldn’t risk coming out here from the kindness of your heart, or on faith alone. I’m so… so sorry.”

Mike went to speak, but nothing came out. He blinked and refocused on her. “But… I thought you said that Suvelian’s couldn’t lie. You told me before-”

“-I said we can’t lie to each other,” she interrupted. “You’re not a Suvelian, so there was nothing stopping me from lying to you.”

“But… But you...” Mike trailed off. A hard look overcame his features as it all hit him. His shoulders sagged; his whole body slumped, like a child who has just been denied their favourite treat. For a while he was silent, then he huffed, but there was no amusement behind it. “… And I actually believed you. I shouldn’t even be surprised, but I guess I’m still too stupid to notice these things.”

Lolanne looked away, ashamed. Mike stared out at the warship, his lips barely moving. “Raan put you up to this, didn’t he? He told you to pretend to make friends with me, just so I can relate my whole life to you. Then he can get his precious intel about me.”

“No!” she said. “It isn’t like that at all! He wanted information, yes, but I swear I wasn’t going to tell him anything! Not after what we went through, what we’ve seen. I would have found a way to avoid revealing anything about you. Please, you have to believe me!”

“You really like to twist words around, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer, nor did she have to.

“And you actually asked me to think about staying. Geez, you really thought everything through.”

Unseen to Mike, the mention of this actually made Lolanne’s eyes well up in frustrated tears.

“So that’s it then?” he asked. Never before had he looked or felt so defeated, at least not after the Arden. “I’m not getting off this planet when we get back.” It wasn’t really a question.

She mumbled something about how she didn’t think so, and that she wasn’t sure what would happen when they got there.

“Shit,” he said, dragging out the word. The only sound to reach them for a long time was the faint whir of the shuttle engines and the rumbling thunder behind them. When the quiet dragged on and Lolanne couldn’t bare it any longer, she spoke.

“I won't blame you if you leave me,” she said, making him look at her for the first time in minutes. She could only bear the hate in his eyes for a second before looking away. Even if he was human, lying still made her feel like crap. When he opened his mouth she braced herself for a beratement or worse. After all, he still had one of her weapons in his waistband.

“Damn it, Lola. I told you not to say that again.” She quirked a brow up at him. Combined with her fever and infection, plus his hard gaze, she felt very small, but she knew she deserved it. What they’d built up over these past days had felt so good, and it was all standing up on a damned lie.

Mike didn’t continue, so she did. “You mean you’re not going to-”

“Leave you?” He finished for her. She nodded so slightly her helmet didn’t even move. “*Sigh* You’re giving me plenty of reasons to, but… No. No, I can’t.” He got to his feet, pointed at her. “But not for your sake. Someone has to warn the colony about the Spawn, and we both know they won’t believe me. Up you get.”

One moment she was on her back, the next, she was on his. Relief washed over her as he started down the hill, but it was a bitter relief. She couldn’t bear the silence as he scooted by trees and ducked under branches. She wanted to say something, but found she had said all she could. Instead, she clasped around his neck a little tighter and whispered in his ear.

“Thank you.”

He mumbled something her sensors did not pick up. She guessed it was probably about how much he hated her. A sob reached up her throat, and she had to try with all her will to suppress it.

Chapter 11

Faith and Fear

1

Lolanne's legs felt like liquid, and her arms were threatening to give up on her, along the rest of her body. She didn't need to see the readouts on her HUD to know that her organs were shutting down systematically. Just like a warship shuts down its non-critical systems in order to stay in the fight, her body was holding the infection at bay, pumping her with enough antibiotics to make her head feel like a tub of water. All she could feel in those passing days was Mike's back muscles flexing with every step, and the motion sickness of the ground passing away below them.

She had breached her suit once before, back during her Guider training. A stupid mistake, and unlike her fall when she was a child, this was relatively recent, when she was starting to become a young woman, but still overwhelmingly embarrassing. She’d been trying to draw her pistol off its holster as fast as she could her pistol (she only had the one back then), but in her haste had accidently discharged the weapon and the bolt had skimmed by her boot. The treatment had taken a whole week. She knew she was too hard on herself sometimes, but it was a wonder she hadn’t been dismissed from the training program then and there.

The suit breach had given her one nasty shock, followed by a gruesome sickness. But compared to then, she was now experiencing a whole new level of hell. Her eyes felt like hot marbles she couldn't scratch, irritated beyond belief now that Panthea's suns were shining right into her sensitive eyes. Every part of her skin itched, and her filters were full of gunk she didn’t have the heart to describe. All her hopes of not going to Vamia within the next few days was literally riding on Mike, and she was terrified that they wouldn't make it. The Colony seemed so far away.

Below her, also sounding very far in the distance, she could hear her human companion cursing and mumbling to himself. though she had an inkling it was more so directed at her. Lolanne knew she deserved it all, and then some. She opened her mouth, desperately wanting to find the excuse that could set things straight, but nothing came out, and not just because she was getting weaker.

It was hard to tell if they were making good progress, since Lolanne kept her eyes mostly shut save for whenever Mike put her down to rest. When she felt solid ground underneath her she looked around as if she was drunk. The flora here was withered and familiar. Grass had been uprooted in great swaths of destruction. Were they still within the dead-zone of the storm? Had she imagined the Karlyin? Nothing seemed real anymore. Maybe her lie hadn’t been spoken aloud after all.

But no, Mike’s face was hardened, and she could practically feel the hate radiating from him. Maybe that was just the drugs pumping into her, making her delusional.

“W… Where?” she struggled to ask, her throat feeling like it was lined with spikes. She fell into a coughing fit. Thankfully Mike got the message and replied.

“Think we're near that migrating forest.” She watched him raise a hand to shield his eyes from the suns. “Yeah, I can see some of them just over there.”

Lolanne looked that way, but everything beyond the clearing they were in was fuzzy, hard to see. Worry welled up inside her as she remembered how destructive the moving flora had been. We have to warn the colony! she thought, but what was she to do in her state? She couldn't even walk anymore.

“Looks like they're just grazing, like buffalo or something. Should be fine to stay here.” She felt more than saw Mike approach and hunker beside her. “Anyway, time for your dinner, Lola. What'll you have?” She felt his hands rummage through one of her pouches. The closeness made her clam up inside the suit, ashamed that she was too weak to even feed herself anymore.

“We've got green, blue, yellow, green again. You got a preference?” She saw two induction packs in his hands. “I don't really mind the blue ones, myself. Reminds me of gatorade.”

“I... thought you hated them?” She breathed.

“Not enough to turn them down in my state.” He stuck a pack into the suit slot, not seeing the furious blush on Lolanne's face as he took part in an act reserved only for kin. Sweet nutrition entered her body, making her nerves tingle, but not in a good way. Mike tilted his head back and drank his own pack in two quick gulps. He smacked his lips and got up on his feet. “I'm gonna go get some firewood.” He dropped one of her pistols carelessly by her side. “Eyes in the back of your head and all that.”

Mike turned, and faded from her blurry sight. Lolanne had never felt more alone, not even when her own father pushed her onto the Ulnosh without even saying goodbye. Even if they got back to the colony, she would be ridiculed for getting herself into this situation, for not having a competent companion to tend to her breach, for stupidly thinking she could journey so far and not expect suit damage, for being just a fool in general. Raan would be right to be angry, and would be so very furious with her if they got back before… before she was gone. She was dead weight at this point, and Mike likely knew as much.

How then, to fix all this before it was too late?

Before she could think too hard on the matter, her body forced her into a doze, but woke up later at the sound of footsteps. A tall and dark figure was approaching the clearing, white eyes across its face. She felt the ground around her for her weapon, knocking it further away on accident. The Spawn! she cried in her mind. Where's Mike? I-

But the figure was Mike, and her throbbing, drug-induced mind had simply betrayed her. The illusion faded as the man dropped the bundle of sticks he was carrying and set up some kindling. He produced his flint and stone, giving her a look before striking the stones. He used a different curse word every time the kindling failed to light, which happened about sixty times. Mike sat back miserably, sneezing into his arm as he dropped his lighters. Whether he slept cold or not that night she would never know, but the next time she woke up, she was on his back again, moving east, always east.

It might have been morning or the next day’s morning when she came back into the waking world, it was too hard to tell, just too bright to see anything. She felt Mike hoist her up on his back, but she couldn't find the strength to lock her arms around him, and felt herself slipping. “Come on, Lola,” Mike growled, holding her in place. “I can't do this on my own.”

She couldn't fight back as she tumbled back and hit the ground with a thud. The suit absorbed the impact and thankfully the visor didn’t break any further. Her vision was a mess of blue light and cracked glass. Mike coughed as he bent down and picked her up. “Come on,” he said, sounding as weak as she felt. She ascended back to his shoulders, and when she thought her hands were clamped together – they were numb and tingly – she lost balance and fell again.

But Mike caught her at the last moment. All the sudden motion caused her head to pound painfully and she fainted. When she came to again, she was looking at the ground directly, watching spindly plants and thick ferns pass by from the right side of her vision to the left. She looked sideways and saw that her body was draped over Mike's shoulders, with his arms hooked around her back and thighs. Sweat dripped over and around the human’s ragged face. It looked like he'd aged ten cycles.

She coughed, tasting blood on her tongue. Lolanne felt the medication worm its way through her veins. On her HUD vision, a little red bar was slowly filling up. She considered erasing the display but decided not to. Once that bar reached full, she’d be on death’s door. It was about sixty percent full, and the next thing to go would be her ability to talk or breathe normally, as suit power would redirect away from those systems.

This combined with the threat of death – in some twisted sense of irony – gave her the courage to speak her mind to her friend. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d asked something so direct.

“Do you hate me?” If she was going to die, timidity and hesitance had no place anymore.

His tone betrayed his sneering features. It sounded like he’d given up. “Yeah, a little,” Mike admitted. “Look, I… I understand why you did it, really. You needed the help. But if you’d just told me earlier…” He seemed to hear his own words and laughed despite himself. “Ah geez, look at me – I’m the last person you want to hear talk like that, judging other peoples methods.”

Lolanne craned a glazed eye at him, the effort immense. “Mike you… *cough* -When I told that I… I lied. You said that you shouldn’t be surprised by now. What did you… mean by that?”

“This isn’t the first time I've been lied to,” Mike said. He hesitated, and when she thought he wouldn't continue, he did. When it came out, it seemed to come out in one big pile of confession that he’d been burying for so very long, and now that it was out, he just couldn’t stop himself.

“There was this man, this guy called Locke. A long time ago he gave me a promise. He said he would give me a chance to get off Neruvana. Place was going to hell – the UEC were stepping up their efforts to annex the planet, and the local militia were fighting them over every scrap of land, and us locals were caught right in the middle of it. I didn’t want to choose sides, though I guess if you ask me now, I’d say the UEC was in the wrong. ‘Thugs with badges’, that’s what my sister used to call them. We all wanted out, and Locke gave me that chance. He offered me a spot with his gang, a place on his ship. No one else… just me.”

On those last two words his voice cracked. He swallowed, composed himself, and continued.

“I kept insisting that he let my father and sister join, but he wouldn’t budge on his ‘offer’. I… I should have begged. I should have stayed and died when the world fell apart. It’s what I deserve for leaving them behind so… so quickly. I didn’t even say goodbye, can you believe that? They were the only people who gave a crap about me, and I couldn’t spare the time to even say that.”

Mike exhaled, his lip quivering. Lolanne kept silent, and soon he resumed.

“And Locke, he… he had this weapon on his ship. This huge cannon. Don’t know where he got it or how, but he told me it was capable of genocide on a scale never seen before. I didn’t believe a thing like that could exist, but in the end, he made me believe him. He put this terminal in front of me and told me to fulfill my part of the deal. Locke said that if… if I used that weapon on Neruvana, I’d… I’d be free.”

Sweat or tears rolled down the human’s cheeks. Lolanne guessed it was a mixture of both. He didn’t need to say what he had done in the end.

“You had no choice,” she tried. Mike glanced at her, furious but somehow miserable at the same time.

“You don’t get it Lola! I had a choice, and I chose to save my own skin over thousands of others, tens of thousands, my family included! I destroyed my own homeworld and watched it all fall apart from orbit. I was too much of a coward to even try and find another way. I just leapt on Locke’s offer and did his dirty work for him.”

He came to a stop, set her down, fell onto his ass, and buried his face in his hands. “Do you know what it’s like to have all that blood and death on your hands? To know that you’re responsible for the death of an entire planet?”

Lolanne went to say that she could understand. She had caused tremendous damage to the Ulnosh and had killed some of the colonists. But she held her tongue. What Mike had done was on an entirely different scale only he could comprehend. She pitied him.

“My sister always wanted to explore the stars,” he said between sniffs. “She never stopped talking about it. She wanted me to do that for her, and I didn’t even get a chance to do that before Locke betrayed me. Just a few weeks after leaving Neruvana he docked his ship at a fuel depot. He told the guards there that I was responsible for the massacre of the planet, then he and his men abandoned me. The Confederates showed up and took me into custody. All I’d ever known up till that point was deserts and roads, and the Confederacy was like a whole new reality, a huge pile of shit strapped together by laws and regulations. My trial was a joke. I had no lawyer, no one to speak for my defence in a world that says it’s the heart of humanity. I didn’t even bother pleading not guilty. The jury was unanimous, and I was hauled onto the Arden for I don’t know how long. I wasn’t even out my teens then.”

“… And you know the best part? Some part of me rose up while I was rotting in my cell, and told me that this was what I deserved. You ever tried to ignore a voice in your head? Keeps you up at night, especially in a cell with nothing to do but wallow over something I’ll never forgive myself for doing.”

A shiver ran through his body, even though he was sitting in direct sunlight. The silence reigned for a while, then he raised his hands from his face and shrugged with them. His cheeks were wet with moisture. “Well… there you go. You wanted to know who I was back when we first met? Murderer, coward… criminal. You want to know if I hate you? Not as much as I hate myself.”

He looked like he was going to add more, but found nothing else to say, and fell quiet. Lolanne cleared her throat and tried to say something. “I-It wasn’t your fault, Mike. Locke, he made you do what you did, that doesn’t make you accountable.”

“Do you blame the gun, or the one holding it, when someone dies?” Mike countered. “Just picture yourself as the one holding the gun. When you’re actually in that situation, it’s pretty clear where the blame goes.” He paused. “Locke is out there somewhere. It had been my plan to find and kill him once this ‘expedition’ of yours was over.” Another pause. “Now it looks like I’m stuck here.”

“… I’m sorry it had to be this way for you,” she said, her mind growing numb. Sleep would be coming soon.

Mike huffed humourlessly again. “I told myself a long time ago I would never tell anyone what I just told you. And here I am, confessing to an alien. And the next thing you say is you’re sorry for me? Aren’t you disgusted by what I’ve done, who I am?”

“… No.”

“Why not, Lola? Why?”

“Because I think, I know, that you’re better than what you say you are.”

He blinked. Clearly that wasn’t the answer he was expecting. She had never really taken an interest in males of her species before. Being her age and not having yet earned her Proving didn’t make her all that appealing, she would admit. But now she was finding all sorts of reasons to delve into this strange companion of hers. She’d been brought up in a culture covered in spiritualistic guidelines and unwavering faith. Mike’s had been more down-to-earth and focused on the present. Almost an exact opposite. That was probably why she found him so interesting, and why seeing him like this hurt her.

“I… You’re wrong, Lola. I’m the perfect example of everything you Suvelians see humans as. How can I be better than that?”

“You helped me come out all this way, when no one else of my own species would.”

“I only joined you for my own reasons! I never wanted to help you, isn’t that obvious?”

Mike was close to yelling at this point, and Lolanne could not think of a reply to this. It was obvious, and yet she was defending him from himself. If she’d been more prepared, she might have been able to phrase herself differently, but as always she was never ready enough.

Mike sighed, thumping a fist into the ground. “Look, Lola, I know. Okay? I know you’re trying to help and… Maybe I just needed to hear someone else say it.” For a moment his scowl broke, and his face softened. She could almost see the young man he had once been, before fate had churned him up and spit him back out the wrong side of the Milky Way. But that soon faded by his own self-destruction. “But this isn’t my fight. This is your world, a Suvelian world. I’ll help you in any way I can to warn your people about the Spawn, but that’s it.”

It might have been just her blurry vision playing tricks on her, but Mike didn’t seem all that eager when he said that’s it.

“I get it, Mike. I get why you’re frustrated. There’s nothing worse than dealing with regrets on your own. Sometimes we just need to share the burden.”

Mike grinned sadly, leaning back and staring at something far away. “You know,” he said. “I haven’t talked about my family in… I don’t think I’ve ever talked about them. I’ve got… I had no one left to tell it to.”

Mike’s speech was muffling now. She could only blink up at him, and even that required strength. “… Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For telling me.”

“You can thank me by staying alive for a little while longer. Can you do that?”

Her vision swelled, then faded. She breathed out three words before sleep took her into a restless trance. When the world came back, she was on his shoulders again. The ground had a fuller look than before, more vibrant and healthier. Were they next to the Yilbarlo river? Her hearing was almost gone, as was her ability to speak. The little bar marking her demise was filling up fast. With a flick of her eyes it disappeared from her visor-vision.

She bounced and bumped, her head lolling from one side to the other. She could hear Mike singing some strange song, nothing as rhythmic or soothing as the Melodies back in the Colony. Just as her people’s songs were lost on him, the lyrics now made no sense to Lolanne. If one could attune themselves so acutely to the Melodies, one could hear the whispers of long dead friends. How many would Mike hear if he had that ability? She didn’t want to know.

She stretched out an arm and typed away on her wrist-screen. The storm was still dampening all signals. It was a slim chance, but she’d rather let Raan know she was fine (at least for the time being), sooner rather than later. For now her mentor would just have to pray for her.

For Mike, she reminded herself. He was the one doing the work, and she was sitting uselessly on his back, weighing him down. The sudden movement of her arms drew the humans attention. He sounded so far away even though he was right there. “She’s alive. Thank Saduun for that, huh?”

She coughed. “I’m not going to Vamia just yet.”

“Vami- what now?”

“The Galaxy we go to after we pass from this one.”

“Like an afterlife?” He sounded thoughtful, curious. He kept moving, under and over the flora that got in his way. Lolanne blinked as she just recalled the last few moments.

“Did you thank Saduun just now?”

“Oh.” He must have realised that as well. “Yeah, I did. Must have been a slip of the tongue.”

“Must have,” she agreed. She let that hang in the air before switching topics. “How far is the Colony?”

“Uhm…” He crested an incline and craned his neck upwards. His chest heaved so hard she could have mistaken it for choking. “I can see the Karlyin, it’s pretty close. Maybe two, three more days. Can you make it that long?”

Lolanne nodded. She was worried that she would not make it past two days, but kept that to herself. She realised he couldn’t see her head at this angle and said, “Yes. Can you make it?”

“Forget about me. You’re the important one right now.”

She wanted to berate him, maybe even hit him for talking like that. But her mouth was as numb as her arms, and were useless at this point.

“You haven’t talked in two whole days now. I thought I was carrying a corpse.” Mike hopped meekly over a bramble in his path. He nearly fell head over heels when a thorn stuck into his leggings. “You wouldn’t believe how close I came to joining you. Just a few hours ago I held up one of your guns to my head. That was just after I retched out last night’s dinner. But you can obviously tell I chickened out.” He mumbled something else then, and Lolanne could just barely make it out. Coward.

“Why didn’t you pull the trigger and end it?” she asked.

“For the same reason you wanted to go out to the storm in the first place, I guess. No one else is going to warn those colonists, so that leaves me. And because of you.”

“Me?”

“After what you said, how I’m better than I think? It… It seems like as good a time as any to try and prove you right. They’ll probably toss me back in my cell once we’re back, but at least I’ll have done one good thing with my life before that happens.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Lolanne struggled to say, but what came out sounded like “Don be s’sure.” Mike said something back, but if fell on deaf ears. Or sensors, according to Lolanne’s perspective. All power diverted from her speakers and receivers. They powered down so she could teeter on the limbo between living and dying

With her last breath she prayed, and then the world went silent.

2

Mike's own feverish hell was not as intense and life threatening as Lolanne’s, of course, but it made an already demanding retreat through Panthea an even more difficult task.

The norm to pass the time was to talk to his alien companion, but Lolanne seemed no longer capable of speech. Sometimes her large globe-eyes would open and regard him with weak interest, but for most of the day she was out like a rock. He couldn’t read the symbols and glyphs on her wrist-computer, but they moved around a little like heartbeat monitors. He hoped that meant they had enough time, but his sense of time had been shifted a long time ago, and knew that she would die very soon if he didn’t hurry.

The next night, a Spawn had approached their camp, so close he should have heard it much sooner than he did. When Mike was having one of his own coughing fits, it had charged. Mike could feel its fetid breath by the time he aimed his pistol and shot it three times, that was how close it had got. It slumped against a boulder at an angle so its eyes were locked onto his, wide and unblinking, at least for the first few minutes. Its coat of pitch began to melt away, like he had seen on those corpse-piles back on the prison ship. He watched with horrified fascination as the oil – or Spawn, if the liquid was sentient, which he thought it was – left behind a blackened and charred corpse of a human woman that was so malformed beyond belief, it couldn’t even be classed as human anymore.

Before he scooped Lolanne up and turned tail, he followed with his eyes where the oil was going. There, maybe one hundred meters back the way he’d come, four more Spawn stood on the crest of a hill, dark silhouettes against an inky sky.

He blinked his sleep-crusted eyes, and the figures were gone.

Mike ran deep into the night without looking back. Lolanne coughed something fierce in her sleep, wet and terrible. The helmet breach had died down to a low whisper of air. He simply didn’t have the strength to plug it and carry her at the same time. Leaving her while he trudged ahead didn’t even cross his mind at this point. Saving one alien wouldn’t undo all the death he had dealt in the past, but a start was a start.

Besides, she wasn’t even an alien to him anymore, even if she had tricked him. After all, wouldn’t he have done the same if their positions been reversed? He thought so. And although he may not admit it to anyone out loud and would never quite accept it as true, but somehow this whole expedition had been… fun. It was more than enough action for one lifetime, but all this danger had brought a sense of belonging he hadn’t felt since he destroyed the one place where he did belong.

Mike didn’t sleep that night either. At least there’ll be no nightmares, he thought. Pros and cons. And yet the waking world brought its own frustrations. Lingering out in the distance he’d see the Spawn, their eyes, those swirling pools of light, full of intelligence. Watching him, but for a reason he couldn’t figure out. Not until later did it occur to him that they were using him as a means of locating the colony.

The sky filled up with tiny stars and pink pools of swirling nebulae. He stayed up all night watching this amazing display fade as the two blue suns rose, turning the world from green to gold. Mike, after stopping for an hour to stuff his face full of berries, lifted Lolanne up to get moving. But when he hitched her onto his shoulder her weight had seemed to double since last time, and she fell to the ground. There was a quiet thunk of suit-leather smacking the earth as she landed. He tried again, and this time he got her settled over his shoulders fireman-style. His knees quaked as he lifted himself to his feet.

“I can't do this,” Mike said, but tried anyway. His legs felt like twigs ready to snap. Above the dry odour of the jungle he could smell a hint of... was that copper? He strained to hear anything above the calls of the wildlife, and after a moment a soft word hung in the air and was gone right after. At first Mike thought these were figments of his own imagination, making it seem closer to the colony than he actually was, but when he looked up after coming to a clearing, the warship Karlyin was at a very high angle now, and so close. He could almost make out the interior of the shuttle bay, the rows of crates and containers being hauled down by the shuttles, still looping down to the surface.

“Never gonna make it,” he said, and forced his legs to move. He went down a gully and rose up the other side, his body burning with pain. After two hours travel, he looked up and saw he'd angled to the right of the warship, and adjusted his course. He probably could have shaved hours of walking if he'd kept the warship ahead of him, but there was no helping it in his delirium.

He sneezed violently, nearly dropping Lolanne in the process. He came to a stop in the shade of a tree and caught his breath. Every time he had to take a break and put Lolanne down, the process of picking her back up again took around ten minutes to do, his sleep-deprived body pushed to its limit. After getting about one hundred meters after a small lunch, he collapsed, catching his foot on a rock, landing on his face with Lolanne on top of him. He gave off a muffled “Oooooh…” -at the following pain, scrunching his eyes until it subsided. He looked over his shoulder, checked Lolanne’s visor breach. No pieces had come free. In comparison to him she looked quite peaceful, and felt a sharp pang of anger at this sight.

He cowed himself for how he was thinking. Being sick in her case was a death sentence, and here he was, angry with her? What the hell was wrong with him? He forced himself to think of something else, anything else. Some sort of silvery glint in the distance filled that role.

It was blue, winking in the light between the divide of two trees. The suns were beginning to set already, but it was easy to tell that it was water he was seeing, the cone-shaped reflection of light running parallel across the water. His body demanded that he stop here, regardless of danger or how close he was to the colony. He obliged it with a long spell of just lying there, Lolanne’s steady, but very weak breathing compressing against his flank. After a long time of struggling to his feet and shouldering Lolanne, he managed to push himself towards that glint, the Yilbarlo river as Lolanne called it.

The water was clear and very inviting. He slung Lolanne off like a backpack, set her down, and crawled to the riverbank on his knees. He cupped his hands into the river, then brought it to his mouth. Most of it dribbled down over his lips and chin, but what he did drink was delicious and cool. He gulped down four mouthfuls and then threw it all back up.

Have to slow it down, he reminded himself. He wiped his mouth of spittle and tried again, this time taking it nice and easy. His stomach threatened to retch it all out again, but he forced it to stay down in his gut. Off to the left the river stretched on for a long distance, trees and shrubs leaning over the river possessively. He remembered walking through here, going the other way all those days ago. If he wasn’t dazed with fever, wasn’t angry and confused, or had gotten a wink of sleep recently, he might have come across this life-saving river much sooner.

“But shit happens,” he said, and laughed. But the laugh sounded more like the wheeze of a dying old man, and he chocked on his own spit.

He guessed they had to be very close to the colony now. Maybe tomorrow night, or the next morning, they would arrive, but he didn't think Lolanne had enough time to live if he kept going at the snail-pace he was setting. He decided he would cut this break short and keep moving. His arms, leg, back, everything, told him not to, but he ignored his body and followed the river to the coast.

The anticipation of civilization was a short, but needed boost to keep pushing himself, all the way until nightfall. All thoughts of lurking predators faded from his mind. He had to make as much distance as possible. Another word on the wind met his ears. Not just one voice but a dozen others. It took him a moment to remember the songs Engineer Vok and the builders had been singing. The melody. He had an intuition they were singing for Lolanne’s safe return. Might or might not be true, but either way the thought somehow invigorated him. After a few more demanding hours he spotted some light pollution up ahead, a white aura in the sky. He could make it if he kept going through the night…

But that hope was in vain. He had denied his legs long enough that they gave up on him at one point, and he collapsed, one arm dangling in the river. This time he could not get up, no matter how hard he tried or how much the Suvelian songs called on him to try, if that was what they were saying.

He turned his body over, shoving Lolanne off so she lay beside him. It felt like she weighed as much as a truck, but he did it. Together they looked like a couple of kids, laying back and watching the stars spin by.

To his right the river trickled by, the sound rhythmic and sleepy, and he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes forever. He’d earned that much, hadn’t he?

Movement drew his eyes downstream. There were four Spawn coming out of the shadows, heading this way. The sight should have scared him, but his reaction seemed akin to disinterest.

Why don't they just get this over with? he thought. He tried to pick up his gun, but even that took too much effort to try. He could barely summon the strength to raise his arms.

He hoped beyond hope that the Suves had sent someone out to find them, and a patrol would stumble across this spot before the Spawn got close. Mike's eyelids felt very heavy. He glanced over at Lolanne, silent as the dead. At least she wouldn’t see him like this. He reached down and squeezed her arm.

“I should be the sorry one, Lola,” he said to her unconscious visor. “I can't do it. It's too far. I… I tried, Lola. I tried to prove you right.”

The Suvelian songs persisted, demanding for him to keep going, but the only person who might have been able to encourage him was sitting beside him, and she did not speak. Half of his body illuminated by colony lights, he managed to prop himself up and ready his pistol in his lap. Mike never wanted to go down without a fight, but his body betrayed him. He went to start shooting the Spawn but his mind slipped into unconsciousness halfway through the motion. The last thing he recalled was something large bounding through the bush, but then everything went black.

But his life did not end there, to his welcoming surprise. He had always wished for death on the Arden, since he had thought at the time, he would never be able to fix his regrets. Now however, he wanted nothing more than to keep on going, even if every step was filled with pain. Not because he deserved better, however.

He winced as sunshine went straight into his eyes. He shielded himself with a hand, groaning as his aching back caused him all sorts of pain. Rocks and bark stabbed up into his legs and shoulders. Like a distant choir, the Suvelian melody was the first thing he heard, faint, but it was there. He waited for his eyes to adjust, and when he opened them, his vision was filled with the upside-down head of a draconic face, visibly cocked in a curious sort of gesture.

He swore and scrambled backwards; his retreat broken as he thumped his head on a tree trunk. He rubbed the lump on his head and looked up. The baby dracon chirped, and regarded him with its wide eyes, one brow raised in a strangely human-looking gesture.

Mike's chest tightened as his eyes moved to the massive shape lying on the bank behind the whelp. The mother dracon had its head in the river, gulping up water litres at a time. Its eye on this side was narrowed, and aimed at him, as if saying don't try anything.

The whelp chirped again, catching his attention. It moved over to Lolanne, and nudged one of her arms with its snout. The Suvelian did not react, her arm flopping uselessly. After a few hesitant moments Mike got to his feet. When he did, the mother dracon gave a low, menacing warble, soot streaming from its nostrils.

He managed a small bow towards it, letting gravity, not his muscles, pull his body down. When he looked up he swore he noticed a little tension in its big eye fade. He was glad he remembered Lolanne’s advice when they’d first met this creature. First time for her, that was. He imagined dracons weer smart enough to hold grudges, but maybe Lolanne’s presence was the reason the mother was holding back on eating him.

Confident he had made himself welcome, he approached Lolanne and the hatchling, grabbing one of her packs and sticking it onto her waist, hearing the fluid do its work. The whelp watched like this was the most fascinating ritual in the world, giving Lolanne a curious sniff, and a dog-like bark.

Mike sat back and met the hatchling’s gaze. “What?” he asked with a shrug, then felt how silly this was, talking to a creature most humans – including him at a point – thought were myths.

The dracon cocked its head cutely. Mike copied the movement. The dracon deepened the angle, its stout neck letting the head turn too far for the human to match. He chuckled at how much of a puppy this thing was acting.

“Did Panthea send you two to help me?” Mike asked.

The dracon blinked.

“That’s what Lolanne said about Taurak. You and you’re mom protected us while I was blacked out?”

The dracon coughed, a lick of flame seeping past its teeth.

“Well… thanks.” Mike nodded his head, and the whelp copied him, tail flicking happily behind it. He wasn’t sure whether this thing understood him or not, but it was clearly intelligent. Maybe it was only because of the whelp that the mother even bothered sticking around to help the man who’d shot her not too long ago.

The whelp huffed, its warm breath basking his face. It turned around and sauntered into the jungle. Mike watched it go, expecting the mother to follow after, but the great beast just sat there, drinking away without a care. She was still giving him side-eye, however, and he found he couldn’t’ meet that reptilian gaze for longer than a few seconds.

The baby dracon returned a few minutes later, something in its maw.  It looked like one of those pig-like creatures he’d seen before, but about the size of a rabbit. The whelp dropped the animal at his feet. Small beads of blood dripped from the pig in several spots where the dracon's teeth had been.

“Huh. Thanks,” he said with a nod. The dracon imitated the nod back, and Mike laughed at it. He reached down for the dead pig, and the dracon sniffed his hand, getting its big head in the way. It pressed one of the fins on its forehead into his palm, like a cat demanding attention.

Mike gave the underside of its chin a scratch, and the dracon gave off a low croon. Satisfied, it allowed Mike to take its kill. The chance to taste some proper meat at last was too much to pass up, despite Lolanne’s beliefs. He had a feeling she would have understood. He set off to gather fuel for a fire, leaving his Suvelian friend under the dracon’s watch.

He cooked the hell out of the kill, putting the term 'well-done' to a whole new level. The smell of cooked meat never felt so welcome. He put a slab of the grey meat in his mouth, and had to use all his willpower to not wolf down the rest of it. There wasn't much meat on the animal, but he offered a piece to the dracon anyway. But the whelp turned its head away, as if saying no thanks.

Listening to the fire crackle, he he swallowed the last charred piece, feeling ten times better. This new invigorating sensation died down a little when the mother dracon lifted its head from the river for the first time, and got to its massive feet. It flicked its huge tail and paced by Mike’s campfire slowly, wings tucked against her muscular back. Mike’s mouth formed into a little ‘o’ as the big dracon came close enough that he could have reached out and touched her. She warbled something to her offspring, then continued off to the south. It disappeared smoothly into the trees, her hide literally shifting colours before his eyes, camouflaging almost instantly.

The whelp looked from Mike, to its mother, then back to Mike. “Go on,” he said, waving it away. He added a scratch under one of its small, stubby horns for good measure. “There’s a good boy. And thanks for the breakfast.”

The whelp parroted a nod, chirped once, and ran off after its mother, and vanished a moment later, leaving Mike alone. After a few minutes longer of resting, feeling bit stronger for a half-proper meal for once, he picked up Lolanne again.

“You should have seen that, Lola,” he said to her sleeping face. He hoisted her up, and continued the trek to the colony, using the river as a land-guide. He did not stop to rest.

The day passed by quickly. Mike watched the suns set and thought that he would have to make camp for one more night out here. The Suvelian songs hung in the air, soft and soothing, and they gave him the urge to keep pushing on. Out of all things he thought aliens could do, super-singing wasn't what he was expecting. Then again what could you expect? These were sentient beings, with their own history and personalities, born far from the Solar system. The sheer differences between them and humans could only further his intrigue.

Specifically the suits, that was the main thing, Lolanne’s own never escaping his notice. How it clung to her form fittingly, how her strong hips and legs strained against the rubberized material. He supposed there was some interest there that most humans would think of as taboo. But he was the only human on the planet, and right now he couldn’t give a damn about what humans thought about him anymore. He was as much an exile to humanity as the Suvelians were.

Maybe the differences weren’t so strong after all.

He crushed thick ferns and waded through seas of golden leaves. The going became dense with sharp twigs that snagged at his robes. Mike waded through the foliage for what felt like days, but was really several hours. Nighttime came and bathed the world in blackness, but a few dots of white light shone through the jungle just up ahead. Lights, colony lights, and were those Suvelians walking past the orbs, casting tall and thin shadows as they walked through the rays?

He broke free at last from the jungle and stumbled into an empty field stretching out in front of him. The place had been deforested prematurely, but Mike couldn't see the tree stumps that should have been left behind. How that worked he didn't think twice about – the colony was just a few hundred meters ahead, its aura of civilization naked and unobstructed. They had made it.

One of his legs buckled and brought him to one knee, threatening another collapse. But Mike just wouldn't have it, not when he was so close. With agonizing slowness, he brought up his leg and took a step forward. He rose a hand and waved, then called out for someone, anyone to come and help. The noise that left his throat sounded like a choke, and it forced on another coughing fit. He kept moving, collapsed again, stood back up, stumbled forward. He called out several wordless pleas as the lights drew near.

He could see the watchtower, the one they'd passed when heading the other way. What was that guard’s name again? He couldn't remember, but did remember his threat that if Lolanne returned injured, the Suvelian would hold him responsible.

Stumbling like a drunk, he came a few more dozen steps before he heard someone call out, “Guider Lolanne? Is that you?”

Mike saw the alien figure, just a dark outline in the night. He heard the humming of a plasma weapon priming. He thought it would be pretty ironic if he came all this way just to get shot at the last moment.

“Her and her friend!” he croaked back, once his voice returned. “She's hurt bad. Suit breach.”

“Human? What happened to you two? Where did you go?” The alien was walking towards them with slow caution. Mike didn't think he could carry Lolanne much longer.

“Hurry up and help me, for Saduun’s sake!”

The mention of his Divine got the alien moving. The male ran up to them, putting his cannon on his back where magnetic locks kept it in place. Mike could make out by the moonlight that this was the same sentry from before. Mike wobbled and fell under Lolanne’s weight. The sentry caught his fellow Suvelian while Mike went sprawling on the grass.

“Her visor! It’s broken!” the sentry said stupidly. “How could that happen?” The sentry caught his words. He must have noticed the bullet still jutting out of the glass.

“Can you help her? Fix the breach?” he asked from below, his voice hoarse and worried.

“Not me, and not here,” the sentry answered. He offered a hand to Mike. He ignored it and got up himself. The sentry eased Lolanne down and hooked his head under her arm. Mike did the same with the other, and they lifted her up. Mike let the sentry take most of the weight. Lolanne’s feet dragged across the ground as they moved into the colony lights. “We must get her to the foundry!” The sentry examined her wrist-computer. “-and quickly. What happened to her?”

Mike shook his head. “Wouldn't believe a word I said.”

The sentry seemed to want to press for more, but decided against it. That was for the best – Mike barely had enough strength to talk, let alone tell a story. The sentry did some unseen movement within his helmet and opened a channel. “Guider Raan, Lolanne has returned. I'm taking her to the foundry... Indeed, she’s had a breach, and it looks like a bullet did it... Yes. He hasn't divulged that information to me... Very well, sir. Meet you there.” The sentry looked past Lolanne’s flopped helmet to Mike. “You should be honoured. For the first time in Memory since First Contact, a human is about to meet with an Elder.”

“Can't wait,” Mike said, not feeling honoured at all.

They hurried into the colony, a sense of security washing over Mike as they passed into the urbanized alien town.

Behind them, unseen to all and lingering just beyond the clearing, the Spawn following him for his entire retreat paused, crouched in the tree line, and waited.

3

It felt like the whole colony had sensed Mike and Lolanne’s arrival. Alien faces peered out from verandas and balconies. Several dozen crowds gathered on the streets to watch Mike walk by with a suit-breached Lolanne. The songs had died down to a low, sombre note, and the hairs on Mike’s neck stood on end. It felt like they were singing to him, or about him. A tune hanging over the colony like the ambience of a fine-dining restaurant.

Many of the Suvelians were whispering, some were crying out as they parted to let him and the sentry through.

“Lolanne’s back!”

“What happened to her?”

“What did the human do to her?”

Mike ignored them, quickening his pace after Lolanne’s suit gave off a single blip noise. He didn’t need to be an expert to know that sound meant nothing good. He admitted that he wouldn’t live too well for himself if Lolanne died now. The sentry, whose name was Adran, was leading the way, and the human hated how he kept glancing back to examine Lolanne's suit readouts. It made him feel nervous.

They carried Lolanne off the main street and down an alley between two regal structures, both made out of the Colossal-alloy, no doubt. Spectators gathered at the mouth of the alley, watching. There sing-song voices dying down to a murmur.

Mike saw no signs or way-markers, but Kadran navigated the twists and turns as if there were. Streets curved and turned at shallow angles like a mess of squiggles. Somewhere in the distance Mike could hear construction work. There were cultivated trees on some of the rooftops, and gangways connected the buildings in a whole net of access paths stretching off in every direction, going from window to window, rooftop to rooftop. To him it seemed like a mess, but obviously not to the Suvelians. It was all so alien and different to what he was used to.

Adran stopped beside a thing that looked like a glass booth jutting from out of the curb on the street, yanking Mike out of his observations. Three Suvelians were inside the booth, sitting along a silver bench that lined the far side of the interior. At Adran's approach two doors slid open, curving downward and out of sight like a pair of transparent wings. “Out, everyone! Make room!” the sentry barked, and the Suvelians inside filed out without a word.

Mike and Adran carried Lolanne inside. It felt like they were entering an elevator. He let Adran take Lolanne’s weight and set her down on the bench. Mike sat beside her slumped form, feeling that, if he let it happen, he could pass out right now. He’d do just that, once he knew Lolanne was safe. The booth doors slid shut, and the sentry typed something onto his wrist-pad.

The contraption jerked very slightly, and then the booth slowly sank beneath the street level, fluorescent lights flicking on above their heads. The ball of glass descended, a hatch above them cutting off all sight of the sky. Mike clenched his hands and fought against the phobia crawling up his skin.

The booth came to a halt in the middle of a long tunnel, curving out of sight one way, and leading straight on in the other.

The booth began to move around the curved part of the tunnel, like they’d just switched onto train tracks. The pull of gravity Mike expected never came, not even so much as a tug as they slowly picked up speed until the tunnel was a blurry darkness racing past them.

He had wondered earlier how he’d not seen any sort of transport on the surface. He guessed these tunnels provided just that. Maybe they resembled the passages the Suvelian Ancients used back on their homeworld, the ones Lolanne told him about.

“You'll need to hand that over,” Adran said, snapping Mike out of his thoughts. The sentry was pointing at Mike's waist. He blinked, following his alien finger and found it pointing at Lolanne's pistol, the one sticking out of his waistband. Mike decided that might be for the best. He gripped the handle, and did not fail to notice Adran’s body language start to tense up.

“Worried I'll try something?” Mike asked after smirking. The sentry shook his head impatiently.

“No. It's just a precaution. I could always resort to my earlier threat, if you wish.” The alien palm twitched, as if to beckon. Mike handed the weapon over. He thought about keeping the other one, the one Adran hadn't appeared to see sticking to Lolanne’s thigh on Mike’s side. Didn't all Suvelians have super-sight like Lolanne, or was she an exception? Regardless, he took the weapon out of her holster and gave him that one as well. If Adran had a reaction to this action, he hid it well behind that suit.

“That's a bullet in her visor,” Adran observed. He stuck the second pistol to his waist, the magnets giving off a faint hum. Combined with the cannon he carried on his back, the sentry looked like a walking arsenal. “Where did it come from? Was it the UEC? Are they here?”

“No, not... not really.” Mike coughed into his hand. “It's... complicated.”

“Complicated or not, I want answers, Outworlder.”

Adran said that last word like it was an army rank. Whoever this ‘Elder’ was, they’d would want answers too, not to mention the whole colony. Mike didn't want to keep explaining himself, and probably didn’t have the energy to do it even if he wanted to. “Lolanne told me that she recorded the whole thing,” he said. “Watch it, and you'll get your answers. But I’ll tell you one thing: there were no humans out there. The things that shot Lolanne were something else. Something intelligent, and very dangerous.”

“Are you implying a...  a third Sentient Race?”

“Maybe.”

“You were right when you said I wouldn't believe you,” Adran grumbled. They sat silently in the booth, with Lolanne between them, slumping forward lazily, almost on the cusp of falling over. Mike set her back with a gentle hand, and Adran noted the action with a narrowed gaze. For a few minutes the only sound was the faint humming of engines strapped to the belly of the booth, taking them to their destination. The booth slowed down with a sharp decline, one that should have knocked all three of them against the wall, but didn’t. It was like gravity had no say inside this strange transport.

They stopped at a curved arch in the tunnel, with about two centimetres gap between the platform and the booth. Adran took Lolanne all on his own and disembarked. Mike followed.

The platform through the arch was wide and empty, with a skylight shining down bright light from the great moon reaching its zenith. There was only one other Suvelian on the platform, standing guard by a large oval built into the far metal wall. The guard came over and took Mike's former spot by Lolanne's side, and helped Adran carry her through the oval that opened automatically. Somehow this new guard did all that movement while giving Mike a sneer.

The human followed them through the passage. Inside, the silence gave way to the sounds of clanking machinery and humming engines. In the forefront of this room, which was no doubt the foundry, operating tables lined up in several rows, and about a half dozen were occupied by injured Suvelians. He gave them a quick look-over as he passed, and noticed one had a mangled hand, another had what looked like scratch marks across his suit’s neck and chest, but none of them appeared to have actual breaches or anything in the way of serious injury.

Suves in yellow suits tended to the injured, an identical glyph on each of their shoulder pauldrons. He learned later that the glyph was the Suvelian equivalent of the ancient red cross symbol. On the far end of the foundry, machines and electrical equipment rattled softly. Parts that looked like armour came out in neat production lines. He guessed these were probably replacement parts for suits, or maybe even upgrades, sectioned off from this medical ward by hatches and arches.

One of the yellow-suited Suvelians separated from her current patient and approached Adran. She exchanged a few words with the taller sentry, then pointed to an air-lock off to the east. There were many other identical air-locks running along the wall, like a prison block.

Mike caught up with them as they entered one of the chambers, and came back out without Lolanne. The guard walked back to his post without a word, and Adran moved off to the side, leaning against a table nearby. Mike went to go in after Lolanne, but the female in the yellow-suit put a hand out to stop him.

“Hold on, Outworlder. That's a sterile quarantine room, and I know for a fact that humans carry lots of germs.” She keyed her wrist pad and he heard the locks on the chamber’s door click.

“Will she be alright?” he asked. The nurse blinked at how much concern was behind his voice.

“I don’t know. I haven't examined her yet.” She took a step back and keyed more glyphs on her pad. “Can you tell me how long that breach has been leaking?”

“I, uh, about a week, give or take. She stopped talking a few days ago, and a few days before that she couldn't even walk.”

“Her suit sectioned off the rest of her body as soon as the breach occured, I assume?” Mike nodded. “That can only slow the infection down for so long, and a breach in the visor is one of the worst cases,” the doctor explained without looking up. “But for it to develop so far as not being able to speak… She was fortunate that you got her here in time.”

“In time? How much longer did she have before…?”

“I don’t even want to say it.” The doctor turned away, heading for Lolanne’s quarantine room. It hissed closed behind her as the airlock beyond cleansed the room. He caught a glimpse of the doctor moving towards a bed with a familiar looking suit lying on it, before Adran stepped in front of the window and blocked his view.

“Raan told me to keep you here until he arrives,” the sentry said. Mike shrugged.

“Fine by me.” He went and slid down the wall next to the sterile chamber Lolanne was in, and gave his legs the rest they craved, sliding down the wall and sinking to the floor. Soon he was out like a light.

Not even the machinery or the talking or his worrying about Lolanne could keep him awake. This wasn’t how he originally thought his returning trip would end. It had all seemed so simple – help Lolanne, and in turn, she’d help him. Now he was invested in Lolanne’s safety, an alien’s safety, whose species so far had done nothing but treat him with hostility or suspicion. It was hard to imagine that only one month ago life had gone from wallowing in a cell to fighting for his life and someone else’s.

He heard heavy bootsteps approaching, drawing him out of his thoughts and rest.

After rubbing his eyes and yawning, he saw two newcomers in the ward. The Suves were very tall, he noticed that was a trait among the males of the species. Mike recognized one of them. Raan was shadowing someone nearly two heads taller than himself. This new Suvelian’s suit was a chrome sliver, polished to absolute reflection so that it amplified his presence. The symbols on his suit covered every part of his body, depicting warriors charging against humanoid attackers, though that was as far as Mike could decipher, as the runes were mostly lost to him. Some of the glyphs seemed to shimmer in place, though that was probably just a trick of the light.

Adran came forward and bowed to this peculiar alien, and shot Mike a look as he did. Mike understood. With an effort, he got to his feet, his joints popping. Adran made a symbol with his hands and deepened the bow.

“Sentry Adran,” the silver Suvelian said, motioning for Adran to remain at ease. His voice was slow and powerful, the suit filters garbling but somehow magnifying his tone. His attention moved to Mike, his green eyes peering at him from a twin-bladed visor slit. “Ah, the Outworlder. We finally meet. Allow me to welcome you to the colony.” He bowed his helmeted head.

Mike returned his own nod, and the alien continued. “I am Elder Nilak. In the Hierarch's absence I oversee our people's needs. Tell me, what do you think of our choice? Of Panthea being our new home?”

“Well apart from the heat, the man-eating wildlife, and the xenophobic locals, I think it’s starting to grow on me.”

“Show some respect, human,” Raan snapped. “This is an Elder you are talking too. Even your kind has to show some decency to-”

“Please, Raan,” Nilak said, raising a silencing hand. “I can speak for myself. These are terrible times we live in, but you have to admit that without a sense of humour, the Outworlder would be terribly dull. And from what I've gathered, no one’s taught him of our manners and customs. You put him to work instead, didn't you?”

“Yes I did, sir.”

“And he did a satisfactory job, according to some of the Engineers.” Nilak turned his attention back to Mike. He noticed the Elder's suit was covered in thicker plate than anyone else. Maybe to cover up the massive frame held within? “But you, Outworlder, I thought you'd be at least a bit understanding of why my people are wary of you. Humans are, after all, the reason we are here on Panthea in the first place. Surely you know what I speak of?”

“I've heard a few things,” Mike said. “It happened a long time before I was born. I'm guessing when our kinds first met, we humans fired the first shot?”

“Not exactly,” Nilak said, pacing as he talked. By the time he was done his pacing finished right in front of Mike. “The humans never attacked us directly. My predecessor was a part of our initial diplomacy with humanity’s ambassadors. Our translators weren't as refined as they are now, and both the Hierarch and the Elders wanted to postpone any deals or trades until our people could understand each other, word-for-word. By the time that was possible, Suvelia was attacked.”

He pulled up his wrist-pad and held it up to Mike. On it was an image. “Do you recognise it? An Android, completely mechanical, without an ounce of a soul within it. A product of the UEC. They came for our homeworld in great force, and overwhelmed our defences after months of orbital bombardment and planetside fighting. The War of Claims was our first great culling, but even that could not prepare us for this. The Hierarch decided to evacuate our people onto a station on the borders of the homeworld system, and up until a few years ago that station held all that remained of our people, our culture. Every day we had to watch the machines tear our world apart while we prepared expedition ships.”

“That wasn't the Confederate's fault,” Mike said, not believing he was actually defending the UEC. “The Androids had true AI, and they got turned loose hundreds of years ago. They were acting on their own.”

“A machine is nothing but programs and code. They are clever, but they do not feel anything like we do. Synthetics lack souls. If they were truly intelligent, why did they take our world, when they could have gone anywhere else? They do not need air, food or water like you or I. They could have inhabited a moon, and yet they came to conquer our home.” Nilak sighed. “We do not blame humanity entirely for the Android’s actions, but would you have blamed us Suvelians if we created a weapon, only for that weapon to go rogue and destroy your worlds? The UEC saw our severance of communications as an act of blatant disregard. I’ll assume that they have been feeding you lies, but from the look in your eye I can see you may be wise enough not to believe everything they say.”

Nilak breathed in deeply, and took on a more philosophical tone. “The past is full of horrible events. Saduun always tells us to keep your eyes forward, but it's okay to glance behind you every now and then to revisit the past. There's no shame in dwelling on what has already happened, as long as you have the will to embrace it. Now that you've heard our perspective, I'm sure you can understand our wariness of you.”

A brief image of Neruvana flashed through Mike’s mind. He had never seen an Android. He'd heard about their true artificial intelligence, and how they'd escaped the core worlds and ventured into the void a long time ago. But out of all the places they could have gone, why attack the only alien species out there? That kind of question would probably never be answered, since no one had ever talked to an Android since they’d departed UEC space.

“But now to the matter at hand – I want to know where you and Lolanne have been all this time, and since Guider Lolanne is occupied, that leaves you.” Nilak paused. “Raan sent Lolanne out to find and mark the dracon's nest, then return. That should have taken no more than two days, and you were out there for two weeks. Your explanation?”

Two weeks? Mike felt like it had gone for longer than that. He cleared his throat and began to fill Nilak in on the details. He remembered how worried Lolanne was over what Raan’s reaction would be, and if she’d be labelled a heretic. For her sake he chose his words carefully. “After we found big-momma dracon and her kid, we headed west to the storm and-”

“Why,” Raan interrupted. “did you do that? Did you force her?”

Mike matched his annoyance with his own. “No, I didn’t force her. How could I even… Never mind, that’s not the point. We headed out for the storm after we found the dracon’s. You both probably know what I’m talking about.”

“She did mention her interest in it once or twice,” Raan said, getting suddenly interested at that moment.

“Then maybe you should have taken her a bit more seriously,” Mike snapped. The irony that he himself had not believed her at first was not lost on him. “Because there was something there, right in the middle of it. Lolanne called it a Colossus wreck, but there were other things there as well.”

Here he told them about the Spawn, and his and Lolanne’s theories about them. How they controlled old human bodies, how they nearly killed them both, and how they were most likely entirely sentient, since they’d been doing something with the wreck, perhaps creating the storm itself somehow.

“A third Sentient Race?” Nilak asked, putting his hands together. Mike nodded and said he thought so. “We must see this for ourselves. Lolanne’s recording of events should be more than enough. We must wait for Faelin to treat her.”

Faelin was presumably the doctor Mike had talked with earlier. Ten minutes passed before she exited through the airlock. Raan, Nilak, and Mike gathered and looked at her expectantly. Mike was the first to speak.

“Is she okay?”

The doctor gave a slight nod, and Mike felt a great weight on his shoulders lift. “You brought her here just in time. Any later and... Well, the infection has spread rapidly, but she will make a full recovery in time. You look rather sick yourself, human. How are you feeling?”

“I just need a warm blanket and a hot cup of joe. Got either of those?”

“I don’t know what that second thing is, but I may have the first.”

Nilak began typing on his wrist-pad. “Mender Faelin, was Lolanne able to give you her recordings?”

“She was, here.” The doctor, Fealin, raised her own pad, and the data was transferred over in a second. Nilak thanked her and the doctor returned to her original patient. Adran stepped forward, the sentry having been silent up until this moment.

“Do you need me for anything else, Elder?”

“You may return to your post, Sentry. Thank you.”

“Shall I take the human back to his room?”

“I'd have him answer some more questions for the time being.” Nilak turned to the man. “Do you mind?”

Mike supposed he didn't have a choice, but then again, he had no interest in going back to that cell anytime soon. “Nope,” he said. “play the vid.”

Like a handheld projector, Nilak transferred the feed onto the screen on a nearby wall so he and Raan could watch it better. The feed began from Lolanne’s point of view, looking down from the plateau moments before they were attacked. The view was of the dreaded shattered valley, where the land cracked like a spider’s web beneath the wreck of the Colossus. A sea of black, oily creatures swam over it, slipping in and out of the giant robot’s cracks. Lolanne's vision swivelled and Mike's own face filled the screen, yelling her name and telling her to stop gawking and move.

To say he looked dreadful wouldn't do it justice. His beard was a scraggy, unkempt mess, his sunburnt skin was covered in sweat and dirt, and his eyes were red and bloodshot, even before he caught this fever. His nose had become so adjusted to his own odour that he probably didn't realise he smelled just as bad as he looked. He sniffed under his arm to test this and fought back a gag.

Recorded-Lolanne turned back and faced the three Spawn. Mike was yelling for her to attack, but her hesitance cost her that initial chance, and the Spawn fell upon her. This first-person view made Mike flinch. It was probably the exact same thing Jack Morland had seen before he had died.

Nilak and Raan didn't pause the recording, didn't ask questions, just stood there in amazed silence. The recording showed Mike taking Lolanne's pistol and freeing her, then moving onto their escape on the back of the floater. At this point, Faelin returned, giving the recording an absent-minded glance before tapping Mike on the shoulder. She held a bundle of fabric in her arms, offering it. He took the blanket – it felt like it had come right out of the oven – and wrapped it over his shoulders. He thanked her and she nodded.

“I'd offer you medication,” she said softly, probably so she wouldn’t disturb the enraptured Suves behind her. “but I don't know how your body would react to what we use.”

He waved a hand. “Don't worry about me. Just do what you can for Lola.”

Faelin gave him a look. “Our medical pods are working on her now, the process is automatic, so I prefer to focus on you.”

“Thanks, really, but I’m fine.”

“That cut on your chest doesn’t look fine.”

Mike blinked, looking past his chin at the claw-wounds he’d gotten from the Spawn. “The wrappings are likely from your clothes and are very dirty, and an infected cut is definitely not fine, for human or Suvelian. You wait there.”

She left, and came back with some fresh fabrics. “Remove your shirt. We’re cleaning those wounds, Outworlder.”

Mike relented, pulling the sleeves of his robes away and peeling off the upper half. Faelin gave his fleshy body a moment of scrutiny. “I see this isn’t the first wounds you’ve accumulated.” She hummed. “I don’t think these are properly treated.”

“They’re not. You’re the first real doctor to take a look at me.”

“Truly? Arms up, please.” Faelin started wounding the bandage from one armpit to the other. “Then as your first Mender I must remind you how much physical wounds can deteriorate your health.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. Mender Faelin moved over his left side, unwinding the fabric. “Do you actually see physical wounds a lot?”

“It’s not uncommon, but Mender’s are prepared for a lot of situations. Put your hand here, please.”

She tugged the wrappings tight, and stood back with a nod. “There. That feels much better yes?”

Mike agreed. “Thank you, doc. -I mean, Mender. Really.”

She waved him away with a flattered gesture. “Consider it repayment for saving Guider Lolanne. You have my thanks for bringing her back safe.”

“She your friend?” he asked. Faelin took his dirty, improvised robe-wrappings from him.

“No,” she said.

“An acquaintance, then?”

“No,” she repeated, as if trying to find the meaning behind his words. “I've never even met her until today.”

“Really? You’re acting like you have.”

“She’s Suvelian. I care about all my people. Don’t you care about humans?”

“Not… Not really, no.”

“Hmm. That’s very sad, seeing someone who hates their own kind. If there were only a handful of humans left in the Milky Way, would you care about them then?”

“It already feels like that to me, all the way out here on this planet.”

“Ah, what is the word… touché? You’re certainly one of my more eccentric patients. Not how I imagined humans would act.”

“I get that a lot.” He pulled the robes back over his head, stretching a shoulder. “Lolanne told me about how easily Suvelians get infected if the suit messes up. She’ll definitely be okay?”

“As I said, it will take a few days’ rest, but she will recover.”

“Good, good. Can I see her?”

“Outworlder, I told you before – you’re a walking bacteria trap. No amount of soap is going to make you clean enough to enter a quarantine suite. She’s partially out of her suit to help with the recovery. Even being in proximity with you can put her health at risk.”

Mike frowned, that last bit making him feel a little sad for some reason. Not just for Lolanne, but for all Suvelians. Not only exiled by human-created machines from their homeworld, where they could have lived without so much risk of infection, but to be trapped inside those suits. He felt sorry for them.

“… You look troubled, Outworlder. Maybe you are the Guider’s friend, not me. Only close companions ask if someone’s going to be all right two times in a row.”

“Maybe I am,” he said, noticing that the Mender seemed to be implying something. Bloodied rags in hand, she moved away again. He guessed his old bandages would either be discarded, or the blood on them would be studied. It occurred to him that this might be the first chance the Suvelians would get to study human DNA. The heads of the UEC would probably call that a crime against humanity's safety, but he couldn’t really care what they said.

His own pre-recorded voice caught his attention. The video screen was now showing him and Lolanne holding onto each other, heading through the open storm, wind and rain snapping against the visor.

Just barely visible was Taurak, now covering their escape as they made a break for the mountains. There was a certain richness to her voice, now that he was hearing it from inside the suit. Even if it was still a recording. He supposed that voices, along with the eyes, were typical traits Suvelians found attractive in each other, given how there wasn’t much else to actually look at.

He blinked, and focused on the recording again. Instead of moving on from Taurak to the fever and infection-induced hell the both of them went through right after giving the Spawn the slip, the image became choppy and full of static, only to resume at a much later date. “Probably a suit malfunction,” Raan guessed. Mike was glad he wasn’t so perceptive as Lolanne. The footage looked edited, not malfunctioned. The part where Mike had told Lolanne of his terrible crimes was suspiciously absent.

The rest of the footage was of the Karlyin descending into orbit, and Mike carrying Lolanne’s crippled body the whole way there. Mike had never chosen the right friends in the past, but maybe there was some doubt to that now, given his new companion. The fact that Lolanne wasn’t even a human was a little bothering for some reason, but he’d come around to it in time. What he had shared with Lolanne was for her ears only, and she had respected his privacy, even if he had been an ungrateful pain in the rear at the time. He should have had more faith in her, they all should have.

When the footage finally came to the present, the Elder paused the video. Nilak pointed up at the time-runes and said, “Almost a whole week of carrying one of our own, while under his own sickness, no less. It appears the Outworlder isn’t as weak-willed as you initially thought, Guider Raan.”

The Avant-Guider sounded rather bitter, which amused Mike greatly. “You're right, Eldest. But it was a foolhardy endeavour on Lolanne's part. She could have died out there and we'd never have known.”

“Speculating on what could have been is a tedious habit. And there is no doubt we have more pressing matters at hand. This new race, this Spawn, is a threat to all of us. And we have proof-” He waved to a battered Mike and to an extent, a sedated Lolanne. “-that they have no interest in diplomacy, and we must respond in kind. The Karlyin could move over and make quick work of them.”

“Hold on,” Mike interrupted, raising his hands. The aliens looked at him and their gazes momentarily stilled him. “You saw what they were doing. They, or the Colossus, or both, are somehow controlling the weather out there. They took down that shuttle the Guiders were in with a damn lightning strike, even killing one of them. If that warship gets any closer the storm'll bring it down too.”

“Are you suggesting we do nothing?” Raan said, his voice edged with a growing temper.

“I’m suggesting,” Mike said, “that you hit it from orbit. You have a fleet, don't you? Orbital weapons? Artillery? You need to nuke that place from a distance.”

The Avant-Guider scoffed, and explained to Mike like he was a child. “We cannot 'nuke' Panthea. We want to live here, not destroy it.”

“This is sacred ground for my people,” Nilak continued, his voice collected. “Damaging it would go against Saduun's word, this is true. I was considering precision strikes from the Karlyin, perhaps as a necessary precaution, but Mike may be right about getting too close. Launching a ground assault will take too long, and the risk of lost lives is high. We have a limited number of soldiers here, and not nearly enough firepower to take on the thousands of Spawn Lolanne has witnessed. We should wait for the Hierarch and the Quin-Talash to arrive. He will know how to best approach this situation.”

“When will that be?” Mike asked.

“At the cycle’s end, two standard months from now. The Honouring of Panthea will be held that day, with or without the Hierarch’s presence.”

“We can't just sit and do nothing,” Mike said. “the Spawn had to have followed me here, and if they didn't know about the colony before, they do now.”

“I was not going to idle under this new threat, Outworlder.” Nilak didn’t sound patronizing, which made Mike blink. A politician actually showing some respect was a surprising but welcome change. “Guider Raan, you and Shipmaster Terlus must double the watch around the colony. I want every street patrolled, every hour of the day. Retrieving a corpse of these ‘Spawn’ -could prove vital to understanding this new threat, but take no unnecessary risks. And let the colonists know of this situation. They may panic, but they have a right to know and must be warned.”

“Of course, Eldest.” Raan turned to go, but lingered as he passed Mike. “Ah, Outworlder. Mike.” Raan pulled his shoulders back. “I was… wrong, about you. Seeing you carry Lolanne all that way, even when you had no reason to do so... it made me think. She may be an alien to you, but to me she's a lot more than just one of my Guiders. She’s like a… Well, never mind me. I am sorry I treated you so poorly before.”

Mike shrugged. “You had no reason to trust me. Can't blame you for being cautious.”

Raan gave a nod, the most respectful gesture he'd shown up until now, and left the foundry, leaving Mike alone with Nilak.

With a swipe of the arm the Elder ended the recording. “Under normal circumstances I'd send you off-world, but there's no way for you to leave without using the Karlyin, and I’m sure you know we need as much security as we can get, given what you and Guider Lolanne have brought to my attention. But there is an alternative.”

“Before we entered the system, we detected a ship on course to this area. It was a UEC starship, and from what I’ve gathered they are probably looking for survivors from whatever vessel you were on. Until they or the Hierarch arrives, I'd ask that you try to remain in good standing with my people. If you could somehow improve our race's relations, mores the better.”

“I'm not exactly an envoy,” Mike said, shaking his head. “I'd be the last person you'd want for that sort of thing.”

“Want it or not, you are now the voice for all of humanity on Panthea. Saduun has placed you here for a reason. He sees something in you. Lolanne does too, judging by how she wanted you to accompany her out there, and not one of her own species. Her instincts and your efforts are to be commended. You’ll find your prior actions will carry great weight as Ambassador now.”

“The Spawn were the ones who stranded me here, not your Divine.”

“We may look at the reasons differently, but the outcome remains the same. You are here, in a unique position, given a unique opportunity. You did not stand idly by when Lolanne’s life was at risk. Why start now?”

“You made your point, but even humans don’t like me. How am I going to improve relations with a two-hundred-year-old grudge hanging over my head?”

“I’m sure you can figure something out, and rest assured I will assist you in any way I can. What will your first order of business be?”

Mike didn't want to make a fool of himself, and he had no idea where to start as Ambassador. But as a resident, however, he had an idea there.

“First order of business?” Mike smirked. “Let me tell you about this human show called Grand Designs.”

4

Warm water washed over Mike's face and down his sides in steady streams. Muck and grime of all sorts swirled around the drain between his feat. He sighed, closing his eyes as he patted his body down with wet hands. Waiting for the Engineers to install the shower had been well worth the time.

He had asked Nilak if he could move into a proper building. The Elder offered to refurbish Mike's current hovel instead, taking an amusing interest in the TV program Mike mentioned. “Your aiding of Lolanne may have comforted my people, but many will still be wary of you. It would be best to keep you up on that hill, at a good enough distance, but you are free to move around if you wish.” It was a polite way of saying 'You're not one of us and we’d like to keep an eye on you.' -but Mike accepted the deal. He didn't like the idea of returning to the cell, remembering the tight feeling in his chest whenever he was inside, but Nilak kindly offered that the entire thing be remade from Colossal-alloy. Mike couldn't wait to try out the transparent features.

It had taken four days to redo the cell into a proper dwelling he could move around in. He spent most of his time waiting in the foundry. He wanted to be there when Lolanne woke up. Faelin even offered him a bunk nearby, and although being underground was claustrophobic – making his muscles flex so hard his insides felt compressed – he toughed it out and had Faelin keep him in the loop on Lolanne’s condition.

Nilak came by a few days later and let Mike know the cell was refurbished. He took a booth back up to the surface, with the help of a generous Suvelian stranger, who just like Faelin, was glad for Lolanne's safety and Mike's part in it, even though he’d never met the Guider in person.

He learned that the underground tunnels stretched on just as far as the colony did, mostly to lower the foot-traffic on the surface and get people across the colony in record times. The tunnel networks were packed with other chambers like the foundry, markets and hubs for below-ground manufacturing. It was like a whole new city just beneath the surface, although he would not have time to explore it all, much to his disappointment.

Sunlight bathed him in warmth as the booth ascended to the streets. Hundreds of Suvelians passed by, walking and talking. Most, but not all, paid him no mind. He picked up a few conversations as he walked south, and most were unsurprisingly discussing the Spawn, and Lolanne's injuries. One even saw Mike go by and whispered, “It’s Lolanne’s saviour!” -to his partner. Mike wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

When mankind had first encountered the Suvelians, the first proof of extraterrestrial life outside of Sol, there had been an uproar, complete and utter chaos, despite the Suves’ friendly intentions. Religions had clashed and it had taken years to restore a normal way of life. Mike imagined it would be just like that now, since it was confirmed the Third Sentient's were openly hostile and could take even control of a few weather elements.

There was none of that disorder here. No uproars, mass hysteria, or an ounce of panic. Tension hung in the air, of course, but the Suves still went about their businesses, building more structures, refining the streets, establishing farmlands in the surrounding plains and becoming self-sustainable. He had not fully appreciated nor respected the Suvelian Unity when he’d first come here, but now he was, and it was without a doubt inspiring. Despite the literal looming danger, these people still held a sense of being.

The songs, that was the essence of the Unity. That crystalline ringing in the back of the head, like a choir in a vaulted church. Where everyone mourned for one planet, but prayed for another. Was it really all that bad, being connected with everyone around you? His perspective had certainly shifted ever since his and Lolanne’s little trip to the storm.

As he made his way through the colony, he saw faces look at him from porches and stairways. They didn't jeer or shout at him, and he took their silence as a compliment. He was a walking anomaly to them – a human whose ancestors had created the Androids, but Saduun had sent down to right all his species’ wrongs. It was a daunting task, and he wanted to succeed, but, how could he? All the Suves’ faces were concealed by those suits, and without Lolanne around he felt more alone than ever.

Keep up those appearances, Ambassador. That was Nilak’s voice in the thought. Mike tried to present himself as best he could. A wave here, a nod there. It was about all he could think to do until he got some more ideas.

Nilak predicted that soon after the Cycles’ end (or the years end, if you prefer that measurement) the UEC ship he mentioned would arrive on Panthea. Since it was the closest liveable planet to the wreck of the Arden, it was almost guaranteed they would come here looking for survivors. Mike didn't know if Nilak would rat him out, but the ultimate decision would come down to the Hierarch once he and his fleet arrived. Mike decided that, if he wanted to avoid another incarceration, he would need to do his best to prove to this Hierarch that he was worth all this trouble.

The lone human climbed the path, up the hillside towards his hovel, the same place he'd been interrogated by Lolanne not all that long ago. To the southeast the bowl-shape of the canyon dipped downwards, and he could just see the top of the colony ship over there. North of the ship, guarding the only passage into those cliffs, the stronghold still stood. Only now, it looked like a fully operational citadel, all the previous scaffolding completely gone. Towers were built high up on the corners like sniper nests, each one manned by a mix turrets and armed guards, scanning the approach to the imposing citadel walls which stood three men tall.

On this side of the perimeter defence were more mounted weapon-nests and sentries. Within the keep another wall rose up, the second line of defence, where a large headquarters stood. Hundreds of shoulder-high, slitted-openings gave defenders a clear view of the ground below. Sticking up from the roof of this giant building were sharp and bulbous objects that reminded Mike of SAM turrets. He guessed these probably fired plasma rather than ballistics, and judging by the width of the barrels, packed one mean punch.

He came into the yard before his assigned hovel, and watched several Engineers doing some final-touches on the external supports. Surrounding the hovel, someone had planted acres of farmland in Mike's absence. The crops looked a little like wheat, coming up to knee-height. The reeds were a dark purple colour with little blue pods growing from the stems. The crops wriggled around in the soft breeze. It gave this place the look like a vineyard.

He recognised the glyphs on one of the Engineer’s suits and came up to him. The tools he wielded were loud and he didn’t hear the human approach.

“Don't you ever take a break?” Mike asked the alien. “Building houses all day must get pretty boring.”

“It is my Proving,” Vok replied, looking up. “And it’s not so dull – Nilak gave me permission to do human design now. Your species likes right-angles, don't you?”

“Can't get enough of them. Need a hand?”

Vok met his eyes, under that visor was probably an expression that said, are you fooling around again? “You… want to help me?”

“Why not? I'm gonna live here for a while, aren't I?”

“I remember you used to loathe being my pseudo-apprentice.” He sighed. “But very well. Hand me that printala, we're on a tight schedule.”

“The what-now?”

Mike got stuck into it, missing the presence of this experienced, subtly condescending older alien. Vok had learned all about the Spawn through a broadcast that had been sent out among the colonists.  Mike obliged Vok when he asked for more specifics on the Spawn. Lolanne’s theories sounded valid to Vok, but troubling all the same. By the time it was nightfall the hovel was complete.

Mike wiped his brow and stepped inside. The interrogation table and chairs were gone. There was a blanket in the corner that made a poor excuse for a bed, but it was better than nothing.

“Tomorrow we'll add some proper furnishings, Elder Nilak's orders.” Vok turned to go, but Mike stopped him before he could leave. He had an idea.

“Wait. You think you could install a shower for me too?”

“Show-er? What is this word?”

It took a few minutes of explaining, but eventually Vok got the idea and said he would see what he could do. Tomorrow morning Mike and Vok's team met up and finished off the hovel. The Suvelians were fast workers, not just on his hovel but on the whole colony. It was almost twice as big since he’d first arrived.

Vok had installed a basic water filtration system that ran out of a tap in the far corner. He had also replaced the cloth pile with a proper Suvelian bed, and to Mike this looked similar a large hammock, suspended in the hovel by two hooks on the wall. It was the comfiest thing he’d ever lain in. A couple chairs and a table had also been set, curvy and alien things that appeared to be made of stone, but were soft to the touch. Mike thanked Vok and his assistants twice over, and they nodded politely in return, treating the foreigner with humoured respect.

They’d come to like him and complimented his construction skills. It had seemed his trip to the storm and back had strengthened him in more ways than one. Vok and his team bid Mike farewell and trotted down the hill. Probably off to fuel the main colony effort.

Mike went inside and stripped until he was buck-naked. He hit the solitary button below the tap, and lukewarm water rushed out and splashed his head. He felt clean and refreshed as he washed his sweaty, grimy, and scarred body of all of Panthea’s blemishes. It felt so damn good that the next morning, he decided to have another one.

He pressed the button again and the shower head closed. Water dripping from his limbs, he moved to his left and grabbed a towel. It wasn't really a towel, but a Suvelian medical equivalent, like an absorbent and stretchy bandage, but it acted the same way.

After he dried off, he went over to the table. Nilak had requisitioned a new set of robes for him, and they were neatly folded out for him. These were a dark grey shade, less baggy and a better fit than his earlier ones. If he didn't pay too much attention it almost looked like he was wearing a Suvelian suit himself, minus gloves and helmet of course.

Things get any better and I might just become one of them, Mike thought, examining the hovel that felt very homely. There was a panel on the wall by the door. On its screen was a purple image of the hovel in 3D, rotating on its axis slowly. He went up to it, thinking this must be the transparency settings.

There was a list of alien runes beside the image. Mike could understand some of the language through his translator, but could not read it. He remembered Vok pressing one of these runes to make a section of the wall invisible during the construction, but when Mike raised a hesitant, testing finger to the same rune, the rune blinked in a scarlet light but nothing happened. He moved his finger over to the 3D model and tapped the wall nearest to the door. That entire face of the house became highlighted. Now he pressed the rune again, and then something did happen.

Even though he knew what was going to happen, Mike was still awe-struck. The entire wall behind the panel turned into a giant window. It first morphed into a hazy, milky colour, then went transparent, then became completely invisible. Within a second the hovel had one giant gap through its front side ,and he could see the gorgeous view of the coastal cityscape.

The panel was still visible, thankfully, floating impossibly on nothing. He raised a hand and reached out to feel the invisible wall. Although his mind was convinced his hand met nothing, his palm felt cold metal and splayed in mid-air. He probably looked like the world’s most hesitant mime right then.

Feeling brave, he touched each section of the hovel-image until the whole model was lit up in a bright pink haze. He hit the same rune again and this time the floor, ceiling, and all the walls vanished. He could still feel the floor beneath him, but it looked like he was floating a few inches above the flattened ground the building was built on top of. He looked over his shoulder and saw the hammock, chairs, table, and the shower suspended and supported by nothing.

Mike took a step toward where he remembered the door was, and after feeling for its catches he pushed it open. He heard and felt the door swing out, but the outside world didn't change. There was no shimmer to mark the illusion, and he stepped out, expecting to hit his head on the frame. A few steps out he turned around and could see the backside of the panel, hovering in the air.  The inside of the hovel was now outside.

It's transparent on both sides. Neat.

He returned to the panel (he hit his head on the doorframe stupidly as he did). Now he had to figure out how to turn it off. He highlighted the image and hit another rune. Nothing seemed to change. (Outside, the walls faded back into existence.) The fourth rune down gave him what he wanted. Colour flooded back into the walls, and the illusion broke and he was back inside a visible structure.

He left the rest of the panels options unexplored and turned to leave. The door had no lock on it, but he didn't have anything worth stealing, and that kind of behaviour seemed beneath the Suvelians. He learned later that there was only one building in the whole colony that actually had a lock on it.

Today Faelin gave him the same answer as all the other visits. “She's still recovering, Ambassador. Come back tomorrow, she might be well enough by then.”

How she referred to him as Ambassador so casually was comical to Mike. He couldn't quite believe it himself just yet. That was the most he could get out of the doctor, so he took a booth back up to the surface. As the days went by he slowly branched out through the colony to drink in the sights, trying to take his mind off the Spawn. Nilak had permitted him to do as he pleased, as long as he didn't stray outside the colony – a condition Mike was more than happy to agree with. It would have been a lot less confusing to navigate the streets with Lolanne as a guide, but wasn't that the point of exploring, to get lost?

That was one of Kat’s quotes. Even just thinking about her was difficult. He wondered if she would have made a good Ambassador. He remembered this one time on Neruvana, a preacher had come knocking on their door. Kat had answered and the zealot had asked if she would join the conglomerate, and Kat told him to go to hell and have a nice day.

Then she slammed the door in his face. Mike had never laughed so hard. It even made him laugh now, which was good enough to lift his spirits.

The largest building in the colony was almost a skyscraper in comparison to the common short and modest buildings. He made his way towards it. Even though the booths were the quickest way of travel, he had had his fair share of being underground back in those catacombs under the mountain. Plus the booths only worked if a Suvelian was present, something to do with the wrist-pads.

The district the massive building was in was gold and tanned, like the vegetation of Panthea. This part of the colony had fewer dwellings, but they were wider than average, with spacious openings between them. On both sides of the streets large trees were planted in garden beds, providing plenty of shade where groups of Suvelians stopped to lounge around and eat and chat under cover from the suns. The amount of flora was almost as abundant as the buildings were, giving the district a vibrant look. The songs were strong around here, but not to the point of being annoying or oppressive. The notes were slow and light, and if he wanted to he could tune them out, but chose not to.

He came to the front entrance of the giant building, which towered above the colony like an oversized cathedral. He had to crane his neck just to see the roof. The front doors were two floors high and curved together to a point at the top. More than a dozen runes hung above and beside the doors, painted in white. He guessed it was a sort of saying or label. Saduun be praised, or something like that.

Mike walked towards the doors but two guards blocked his way. Both had huge weapons on their backs that could have been used to destroy vehicles. “Sorry, Ambassador,” one of them said. “This is sacred ground. Only those of the Unity can enter.”

“What's so sacred about it?” he asked, expecting the guard to give no answer. The male did the exact opposite.

“When Saduun provided the Hierarch with a vision of Panthea, he saw, standing in front of the canyon the colony ship now resides, a sapling made completely of stone. That sapling is within. Is that what brought you here?”

“Nah, I just wanted to see what it looks like inside.”

“Funny. But humour won’t get you in, Ambassador.”

Mike shrugged and turned away, not pushing the matter further. He heard the sounds of a bustling crowd somewhere to his east. He went out and followed the noises, unconsciously letting the songs guide him.

He walked for ten minutes and then the street broadened out to form a town square. Hundreds of Suvelians walked and talked, heading in all directions of the compass.

Dotted around the town square – which was shaped more like a circle at a second glance – were several stands and stalls with large groups gathered around them, bartering for prices over strange artifacts Mike couldn't begin to guess the purposes of. In the centre of the space was a giant carved statue ringed by a small pool.

Mike pushed his way into the crowd. He passed a stall that was selling weapons, another selling suit parts, like pauldrons and bracers, and various helmets all displayed in rows of ascending prices. He could smell the faintest hint of spice in the air, and this surprised him even more than the selling of guns did. The packs he’d been fed were odourless, and actually smelling cooking food made his stomach growl.

He made it to the statue's base, standing next to a group of Suvelians with their heads dipped in prayer. The statue stood a little taller than the average colony homestead, and was sculpted into the form of a Suvelian male. In one arm he held a plasma cannon, and the other was cast back, as if he were beckoning an unseen army to follow him into battle. There was a plaque on the statue’s base with several runes etched into the brass.

The group nearby mumbled something his translator couldn't understand. The carving was master-level work, every inch of his battle-armour detailed beyond any artwork Mike had seen. Even the faint highlights of this warrior’s eyes seemed to track him as Mike circled around the sculpture to move on. He followed his nose towards the source of the cooking odour. He left in his wake curious aliens, watching the human slide through the crowd as if he were one of them.

He found the stall responsible for the scent. A female Suve stood behind the counter, and she was in the middle of a heated discussion with a patron. Just as Mike broke free from the crowd and came up to the lonely stall, the patron raised his hands in frustration and stalked away.  He heard the alien mumble, “Ridiculous, absolutely obsurd...” as he passed. Compared to the rest of the square this stall seemed awfully deserted.

He leaned against the counter-top casually. The female looked up at him and her eyes widened a little. “Oh! Ambassador Mike,” she said, and bowed. The glyphs along her chest and stomach looked like blazing furnaces, the flames moving up and snaking along her gorget and helmet in bronze and amber patterns. “What brings you here?”

“Just taking in the sights.” Mike grinned. The fact that everyone knew his name didn’t bother him as much as it used to.

“They never told me I'd be greeting tourists. Kesh! You've got a visitor!” She turned around, as if expecting someone to come running. Mike noticed the stall was actually an extension of the building behind it. “Where is that little znart? As soon as he heard there was a human walking about, he's been itching to meet you.”

She looked under the counter, out in the market, even in the fridge, but couldn't find who she was looking for. Mike gestured at the lack of people near the stall. “I'm guessing business isn't going well.”

“You guess well. I had requested that I be taken out of cryo when we were fully established, but it seems a pair of children went and discovered a dangerous alien race.” She opened her hands. “Thus I was woken early, ‘for my safety’ the Shipmaster told me. Now a human tourist sits before me. They told me Panthea was cozy, not crazy.”

There was a harsh chop to her tone Mike didn't miss. He couldn’t help but like this one. “You know my name,” he said. “what's yours?”

“Shimmu Haavlin” she said, pronouncing the first word so it sounded like sheemu. She began disassembling one of the posts holding up the fabric roof of the stall. “Seems I chose a rather silly Proving, wouldn't you say?”

He'd heard that word before, hadn’t he? Proving. He wondered what it meant. “I don't mean to be rude,” he said, watching her pull off the post and toss it behind her like it weighed nothing. “But you've got a strange name. Longer than anyone else’s.”

“That's because Suvelians like me are very few,” she said, pausing in her work to talk. “I am with suitor. A mate, if that makes sense to you. And with one healthy child, though by healthy I mean, 'trouble-making'.” He smiled when she actually made an air-quote gesture with her fingers. “With my little Kesh, me and my suitor are allowed to have a second name. Do you have children?”

“Uh, no.” The thought of settling down and having kids made his stomach turn. The truth was, he’d killed too many people to start thinking about that.

“But you have a last name. 'Latrine', or something like that? No suitor of your own?”

“Labine,” he corrected. “And it's been a while since I've -suited- anyone, to be honest. G-Get it, suited? Cause you all… Oh never mind.”

“That is not surprising, considering the way you lounge about like a slob,” Shimmu said. Mike unconsciously adjusted his posture. “Well whatever a last name is to you, a full name to any Suvelian is the highest honour that can be given. It is a rare occurrence, unfortunately. Many children do not survive the birthing. Too many factors play into whether a child survives.”

“I’m… sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

“You didn’t know, and now you do. I’m one of the fortunate few to have a relatively smooth pregnancy. You males have it easy when it comes to child birth. I assume it’s the same for humans?”

“More or less, yeah.” Mike decided to change the topic. “Anyway, you sell food here, don’t you?”

“Not anymore. As you could tell by my last taste-tester, a concept can in fact, die. I wanted to come out of cryo when we've moved away from those hideous paste-packs. Spice up our Suvelian palette into something actually edible. Maybe I'll try again in a few cycles.”

“I'll give it a try, if you want.”

She stopped packing away her stall and looked up, a twinkle in her visor. “Really?... Yes, that could work. Humans inspired this idea anyway. Maybe that's why everyone hates it.” She stopped disassembling her stall and started operating a machine a little out of Mike's view, and the smell of cooking became stronger. After a few minutes she set down a plate of food. Not a pack of paste, but a real dish. It looked hideous, and didn’t smell half-bad, but not half-good either. “Here. I presume you know what makes a good dish? That I’m not just asking you how it tastes?”

He waved a finger. “Don’t worry, I’m a professional.”

“Professional imbecile, but I’ll let you humour me. Eat.”

“I, uh, don't have my wallet on me,” he said, buying time. He prodded a slice of (fruit?) a green substance with a finger. It was squishy, and made a squelching sound when he touched it.

“Free of charge, Ambassador. Eat.” It sounded like an order. She offered no cutlery, so he used his hands and raised the fruit to his mouth. Was it pulsing in his grip, or was that just his imagination?

“What, um, is it?”

“Jiflaw, common farm-fruit.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “Grow it right in my own back yard. Wipe that look off your face, its not poisonous, at least not to us.”

“Thanks for the warning.” With his face scrunched in hesitation, Mike bit into the jiflaw. He expected to start spitting it out right away, but instead he found himself swallowing. Flavor exploded over his taste-buds, the texture and taste exquisite. Mike gave a thumbs-up as he chewed.

“At least someone likes it,” Shimmu said. “It wasn't meant for humans, but... A satisfied Sentient all the same.”

Mike grew cheeky. “It looks as old as you are, but it’s pretty good. I'm gonna come back for this every day, Shimmu.”

“That is very kind of you. The second part, that is. I once read on the human Aethernet of a thing called cheesecake. Maybe you can try it out for me once I’ve got enough cheese. Do you know of this thing?”

“You mean the internet?” he asked, he bit off a chunk of the jiflaw, his mouth full. “Howdya manneg ta ge’ inta that?”

“My son did, actually. We're forbidden from accessing human signals, but that didn't stop little Kesh once he figured out his suit functions. He and I are great admirers of this human called Iain Hewitson. Do you know of him?”

Mike opened his mouth to reply when he heard another Suvelian approach. He turned and saw a female stop behind him, and clasp her hands behind her back like an officer before the troops. The glyphs on her suit were curvy and ornate, stretching from her shoulders to her knees, depicting an impressive, if incomprehensible, display of places so alien he couldn’t begin to guess what they were about. The majority of the Suvelians had decorated suits. He wondered what they meant, or why Lolanne was among the few to have a plain suit.

“Ambassador,” this new female said with a short nod. “Haakvin.” This time she added a gesture, lowering a hand to her stomach and stretching her fingers to trace a rune in the air. “I hope I am not interrupting anything. There is an important matter that has come up, and I need the Ambassador to come along with me.”

“Of course, Guider, of course,” Shimmu said. “It was an... interesting visit, Ambassador Mike. Walk with Saduun’s grace.”

“Sure, see you.” Mike stood up, leaving the dish half-eaten, and motioned for the newcomer to lead the way. They ducked smoothly out of the square, through a side passage that ringed around the crowd so they could progress to the south unobstructed. She navigating easily through complex and winding streets Mike would have gotten lost in otherwise. When the noise of the crowds and the songs had died away, he broke the silence between them. “So what's this important matter, Guider...?”

“Selen. Guider Karto and I have found something you need to see. We've put it in the citadel.”

He guessed that was the fortress protecting the colony ship. “What did you find?”

Selen hushed her voice, even though there was no one else around. “We came across a corpse, of a human. The rest is hard to describe. Karto can tell you more when we get there.”

They travelled through the circular formations of the district closest to the colony ship, avoiding the busier roads and favouring the direct routes. Mike thought they were going to travel the rest of the way in silence when Selen spoke up. “It was a good thing you did, helping Lolanne with her thoughtless task. She was very brave to go so far out into danger. Stupid, but brave. She put a lot of faith in you.”

“And in herself,” he added. “She knew something was wrong with that storm. And low and behold, a massive robot wreck.”

“Indeed. She should have consulted me, the foolish girl,” Selen said. “I had an inkling she was planning something all those days ago. If I had known… Well, it doesn't matter what she found out there – only a child acts so rashly.”

“She doesn't look like a child to me,” he said. For some reason Selen calling Lolanne foolish and stupid made him sound defensive. He'd assumed Lolanne was a little younger than him, but not by much, and she was certainly far from stupid.

Selen seemed to hear his thoughts. “Age has nothing to do with acting like a child. Many Suvelians have taken huge risks to get their Proving’s, myself included, but this? Lolanne was a fool, and it nearly cost her her life.”

“Fool or not, she went out and actually did something while you lot sat around studying the trees.”

Selen spun on him with so much speed it was scary. She jabbed a finger in his chest. “You assume we’ve been doing nothing? You are as ignorant and naïve as she is. We’ve been establishing ourselves, making this planet our home. Lolanne has a part in that, and you pressured her into almost getting herself killed!”

“Pressured? I didn’t pressure her! If anything she forced me. I might be just an ignorant human,  I can accept that. But don’t think I’ll just lie down and take it if you try and blame all this on me.”

Guider Selen had many cycles over Mike, and could probably break his arms before he could blink, but he stood his ground. Selen on her part seemed to brood for a long moment. He took that chance to press his position. “If the Spawn had come back instead of Lolanne and I, how many would they kill before you realized what was going on? You lot value life on a level I can’t even begin to understand. How many do you think Lolanne has saved now that she’s given your leaders the best warning anyone could ask for?”

“… You know about our values, and beliefs?” It was more observation than question. “Do not think I do not see your point. I’m just frustrated. On our journey here I warned Lolanne time and time again that Panthea is not to be taken lightly. Then she goes ahead and almost gets herself killed.”

The tension in Selen’s body faded. “I just want what’s best for her.”

“… So do I, Selen,” he murmured.

The Guider huffed, and resumed walking. They passed by a trio of Suvelians on their way, and all three waved at Selen. Only one of them greeted Mike. A few minutes later Mike suddenly asked, “Hey, Selen? What exactly is a ‘Proving’?”

“Do you see these?” Selen indicated to the glyphson her suit, silently thankful for the switching of topics. “These symbols tell of how I came to prove my worth to the Unity. Only after acquiring these decorations does a Suvelian become truly recognised for her worth to the people. It can be done through combat and risk, but there are safer, less dangerous methods. Like research and development, or just simply helping as many people as you can. As long as it is of worth, you will earn your place, your Proving. I imagine Lolanne thought she could earn her own by going out there to the storm.”

That made sense to Mike. It wasn't just fear and faith that pushed Lolanne out there, but this Proving thing as well. It seemed an incredible honour to have your suit painted with symbols, and every one he’d seen with suit-provings radiated respect and authority. Selen told him it made one unique and highly regarded among the Unity. “And isn't that what we all want, humans included?”

“Just give me a house on a resort planet and I’ll be set.”

They passed a pair of Suves, and with uncanny precision they both stopped their conversations and bowed to Selen. Neither of them had symbols on their suits, no Proving’s, but they looked like teenagers. Way younger than everyone else.

“I want to know why you helped Lolanne,” Selen continued. “You could have saved yourself and come back. Perhaps even told us that Lolanne had perished out there and you couldn't do anything.”

“And you would have believed me if I said that?”

“Perhaps not, but many think the worst of humans, yet you proved them wrong. Why is this?”

I guess… I wasn’t really thinking about proving you guys wrong. I saw Lola needed help, so I helped. Leaving her behind isn’t who I am.” -anymore, but he didn’t add that last part.

“And who exactly are you, Mike?” she said, emphasising his name.

“Is this a philosophical question? I'm not big on that kind of stuff.”

“You should be. Living within the Unity gives its people a purpose, which I sense you seem to be lacking right about now. You say you want a quiet life and yet you are choosing the exact opposite, walking among us, as an Ambassador no less. Whether out of intention or not I cannot tell. You’re a walking enigma and you don’t even know it.”

He tried to hide his reaction to how close to home Selen was getting about how he was feeling. He wasn’t the same person who had boarded the Arden all those years ago – that Mike would have let Lolanne die out there if he could save himself. But the fact that he was without a home struck him deeply. As did the reality that his own race wanted to seal him away, and would do so again if given that chance. This exiled feeling that had buried right in his core left a hole that craved to be filled.

The Suvelian Unity seemed like a good candidate for that.

They arrived at the citadel entrance, and now that Mike was close it looked more imposing that it had been from a distance. A portion of the front wall irised open and Selen led him into the keep. On either side of the main entrance, poking subtly up from the ground were humming turrets that rotated left and right. Whether they were automated or remotely operated was hard to tell. Between the outer wall and the inner headquarters, the ground was occupied by bunkers and training grounds, both bustling with soldiers. The Suvelians patrolling around wore armoured suits that looked bulkier and heavier than the slimmer variants Selen or Lolanne were wearing. On the bastions of the walls, aliens wielded long plasma guns that might have been sniper rifle equivalents.

“This place looks ready for war,” Mike said. They passed the second wall and walked up the ramp leading into the main fortress structure. More turrets and guards stood on both sides of the ramp, their helmets larger and decorated with flashy colours. Elite vanguard, maybe? They looked very intimidating.

“There are one point four million Suvelians out there,” Selen said, gesturing to the way back. “And another million souls on the colony ship, waking out of cryo every day. The first thing they need to see when they step onto Panthea is that we will protect them with all we have.”

“There's… only two and a half million of you?” he asked, remembering Lolanne saying something about Panthea being their only option for a colony. “There’s so few of you.”

Selen nodded sombrely. “There's another million on the Quin-Talash, our last remaining fleet. Once they arrive, this place will be home to the last of the Suvelians. There were a lot more before-”

“The War of Claims,” Mike said. “And after that, the Androids. I didn't know it was this bad.” It was no wonder Shimmu had such a high status. Children had to be the rarest but most treasured things for the whole species.

“Lolanne's been talking, I see,” Selen said. “Or you've been nosy. A bit of both, perhaps?”

“Bit of both, yeah.”

They entered the citadel proper. When the doors slid shut behind them Mike expected to be bombarded with noise, but inside it was as quiet as an office suite. Nothing but the faint sounds of guns being cleaned and quiet chats in the distance. About half the space was separated into barracks and military dorms, where officers and grunts adjusted their battle plates and prepared to patrol under Nalik's orders. The lobby was filled with guards, some of which regarded Mike with suspicious glances. To the right a stairwell wound upwards to the roof, likely leading to where he'd seen those sniper nests.

Selen led him down to the far side of the citadel. At the back wall there was another entrance. A group of ten Suvelians walked through it just as Selen rounded to the left. These ten were led by an armed guard towards a kiosk, and by the look of them Mike could tell they'd only recently woken up from cryosleep. The colonists glared at him over the distance, and he felt awkward under their gaze and quickly followed Selen out of their sight.

They walked into a chamber similar to the foundry, filed with rows of operating tables, only this one was mostly absent save for two other aliens, huddled around the only occupied table. One of the Suves wore the yellow colour of the Menders, the other one was garbed in pure black. Both had their Provings.

Mike and Selen approached, and the two aliens looked up. The doctor was holding a datapad, the other was toying with a pistol. Mike recognised it was still hot from recent discharge. “Ah, greetings, Ambassador,” the Mender said. The other didn't say a word. The Mender moved aside and revealed who was lying on the bed behind him.

Mike came up to the operating table, and felt his lower lip drop when he recognised the human corpse. It felt like a long time since he'd seen one of his own kind, but he wouldn't have minded if he met – or saw – any other human apart from this one.

The Warden was dead, of course, but his eyes were open and creamy, and they seemed to regard Mike from those empty sockets. You killed me, his saggy, grimacing face seemed to say. Morland looked like he could resurrect at any moment. There were no wounds or blemishes on his skin except for a plasma mark in his chest, partly covered up by his uniform. He guessed this other Suvelian with the gun had shot him. The thing that most unsettled Mike, apart from the fact Jack was here, was that his skin was a darker shade than how he remembered.

“You know this one,” the other Suvelian said, adjusting the sights on his weapon. Selen stood silently behind him. The doctor busied himself by taking notes.

“Yeah,” Mike said. He looked at those perfect white teeth of Jack's, behind his flaked lips. Lips that looked burnt. “He was dead, last I saw.”

“You saw wrong.” The alien turned to Selen. “Did you tell him?”

“No, you're the one who killed him, Karto. You should explain.”

Karto grunted, a bitter sound. “We found him this morning, south from here, on the beach. I was waiting for Selen to come to my position when this thing.” He waved at Morland. “Came out of the water. I yelled for him to stop, and he drew his gun on me. I took him down before he could shoot.”

“Did he… say anything, before you killed him?” Mike already knew the answer before Karto said it.

“He did, actually,” Karto said, not without suspicion. “He was mumbling, so I didn't catch it. Who was this human? Did you have any contact with him?”

“I told you, he was dead. I watched it happen.”

“You’re lying, because he was clearly not, until I did something about it. We all know humans love to lie about things, so don't try to deny it.”

“Karto, please,” Selen interrupted. “Mike has proved he can be trusted. He assisted Lolanne when her suit-”

“Don't bring that up again,” Karto snapped. “He only helped her for his own personal gain. That's what humans do, and I know you agree with me. He only helped her because if he did, we would start to trust him. This Ambassador is hiding something. Aren't you, Outworlder?”

“Yeah, I'm hiding something. Hiding the fact that talking to you is like talking to a wall.”

Karto fingered his weapon in some attempt to intimidate. Mike hated this guy. “I should have you fed to the dracon’s for speaking to me like that.”

“That'd be good, I wouldn’t have to keep listening to you ramble on. Are you always such an asshole?”

Karto went to stand and Mike braced himself. This alien was a few inches taller than him, and had that suit to protect his fragile body. Selen grabbed Karto’s shoulder, and the doctor put a hand in front of Mike before it could escalate. “Enough, both of you.” Selen looked to Mike. “Ambassador, explain how this human perished. Maybe our Menders can learn something from it.”

Mike explained to them that the Spawn were on the Arden, and told them about his and Lolanne's theory on how the Spawn took over dead – or near-dead – bodies. The Spawn had taken Morland right in front of Mike the same way the Leviathan had consumed the Arden – absorbing it like it was food. When Mike was done, Guider Karto thrust a finger in Mike’s direction. “You knew of the Spawn beforehand? Why didn't you say something earlier, when you first arrived, for example?”

“Yeah and you would have believed me straight away, right?” he asked. Karto didn't answer, just adjusted his pistol sights in a way Mike didn’t quite like.

“There's something else as well,” Mike continued. “Something's… off, about Morland here.”

“Apart from the fact he ‘was’ dead, according to you?” Karto asked, as if talking to an idiot. “We've established that already, human.”

“No, it’s his skin. It’s black. Last time I saw him, he was white.”

“Does that happen often with you humans?” Selen asked.

“Uh, well, no. Not unless you’re like… Michael Jackson, or something, I don’t know.”

The aliens regarded him silently. Then the Mender spoke up. “There was something strange in his bloodstream when we took samples, it looked foreign in comparison to the rest of his biology.” The Mender held up a small vile filled with swirling black liquid.

Mike was shocked. It looked exactly like the Spawn, though it certianly looked more… tame, for lack of a better word. He told the alien that was the Spawn.

“Truly?” he replied, scrutinising the sample in his hand. “It may indeed have been using Morland’s body as a host to move itself around. How and why, I have no idea. Maybe it enters through the pores on the skin. The eyes, ears,  mouth, and seizes control through the brain, or heart.”

“You don’t think he'll... reanimate again, do you?” Mike shivered at the thought of seeing the warden rise up again.

“No, Karto destroyed several crucial organs. The body won't be moving again, but it’s strnage that the Spawn still is. It just keeps displacing, growing, like a disease. It appears relatively neutralised, but I shall have to properly dispose of the body, given what we know so far.”

“How do we know it isn't inside you?” Karto asked, and the question was directed at Mike. Mike glanced at Morland and blinked, suddenly remembering the moments after he'd woken up in his burning cell.

He hadn’t… he hadn’t stepped on the oil during his escape, had he? Mike couldn't quite recall, but developing paranoia made him think that he just might have. He accidentally nudged some medical equipment behind him, metal scraping against the floor.

“I can see the worry on your face,” Selen said. “Did you touch the Spawn? Did any of it get on you?”

“I... don't think so,” Mike said, trying to sound calm. Now all he could picture was oil getting all over him during his frantic escape from the ship. The climb over the body pile, the blood everywhere… there was probably tons of Spawn hidden on every surface. It might have been just his fear overcoming his reasoning, but he couldn’t quite deny the possibility, and that made him even more terrified.

“Even so, I'd better run a scan on you, just in case,” the Mender said. Mike didn't feel any different, and surely, he would have felt something if a foreign alien substance was coursing through him, right? He remembered cutting his feet on glass...

“Really, I'm fine, doc.”

“Perhaps, Ambassador, but it’s best to be sure of these things. It will only take a moment.”

From the corner of his eye, Mike saw Karto shift. Maybe the Mender and Selen were oblivious, but Karto had definitely sensed something was off. Mike sighed and relented. “Okay, fine. What do you need me to do?”

He had Mike lie down on a table far from the corpse of the warden. Some sort of scanner was built into the surface he laid on, and the only sound that confirmed the scan was working was an almost inaudible hum. Mike felt a little nervous, as he'd never been really treated to proper medical care before, not even on Neruvana.

About ten seconds passed and the Mender held up his datapad. “There, all done. You... look clean. But I think you require some extra protection, just in case. Our suits are well built to allow us to survive extreme environments, but you're walking around completely unshielded. If the Spawn is airborne, there's no telling how easily it could infect you.”

“You're not considering giving a human one of our suits?” Karto growled, like this was the most disgusting course of action.

“No, it'll have to be custom-made and tailored to his size, to the human body in general. A unique design that will take some time. And as the Ambassador of humanity, it’s common sense that he requires some amount of protection. I'll see if Nalik is willing.” He keyed a commlink of his pad.

“What you propose is close to heresy,” Karto said. “These suits are for us, not for some stowaway's benefit. He'd give the suit away to the humans the first chance he gets, and our technology would be compromised. Nilak would never agree to this.”

“Well, you're in the wrong now, Guider,” the Mender said. “The Elder's just agreed to the idea and is preparing construction. I'll just need some measurements from you, Ambassador. Then you're free to go.”

Karto threw up his hands and stormed away, mumbling alien curse words. After he was out of earshot Mike raised his hand in Karto's direction and said, “What's his beef?”

“His what?” Selen asked. The Mender had Mike stand and started taking notes on the length of his limbs.

“His problem, I mean.”

“Karto's never seen anything but the worst side of humanity. He's never learned to let go, but who can blame him after the last of his family has died? Iztak’s death was close to your arrival, and you were even the one to find his body. He blames you for that.”

“Why? I didn’t kill any of you.”

“No, the Spawn got him too,” Selen said. “Was as much the same story as this Morland male here. Foreign material in his bloodstream. Regardless, you’re the easy scapegoat, if that’s the correct word. Karto blames you for the Spawn’s arrival.”

“You’re joking! This storm was here way before I came to this planet.”

Selen raised her hands. “We know, as does he, but after all that’s happened between our species, consider yourself fortunate that he hasn’t done anything to you.”

“-Yet,” Mike added. But Karto’s hatred may have had a sliver of truth to it. Those humans back at the storm were shouting out Mike’s name. Perhaps he had lead them here, at least, more of them.

“All done,” the Mender said at last. “We'll let you know when the suit is ready, Ambassador.”

“Wow, thanks,” he said, surprised at how much his own safety was being treated seriously. “Will it, uhm, will it have rocket-boots?”

“Sadly not. You're too heavy for that modification. Our bodies are much lighter than yours. No offense implied, of course.”

“That would have been fun. –Imean, useful. Yeah.”

He had a feeling he would need a suit, if… or when, the Spawn decided to come after him and finish what they’d started.

Chapter 12

Unity

1

The colony buzzed with talk of the Honouring, the alien's celebration at the end of the year to mark the formal recognition of the Suvelians claim to Panthea as the new Homeworld. Almost everyone Mike walked by talked about it, and he could feel the energy building in the air and the Suvelians lilting songs that drifted along with it.

He made his way towards a booth and took a seat inside, the machine lowering below the street, and racing through the underground network of tunnels. Two other aliens shared the booth with him, and they talked without using their external speakers. He could tell by the slight head movements and the arm gestures that they were talking about him. Mike sat back awkwardly, toying with the idea that he should say something.

After a few minutes, the booth came to a stop at the foundry, one of many as he recently learned. They were the equivalent of hospitals in Suvelian society, a blend of mechanical and medicinal services. Mike disembarked, nodding politely to the aliens as he did. They didn't nod back. The booth disappeared into the tunnels soundlessly as soon as he was clear.

The foundry was a little busier than usual, several new groups clustered around the main lobby. Morland’s surprise reappearance wasn't the only strange event to have happened recently. He'd heard talk of a patrol coming into a dangerous contact yesterday evening, and he guessed these new arrivals were the soldiers in question. They wore heavier suit variants than the colonists did, designed for prolonged gunfights, and there were several cuts and breaches in their suits. None of them were in as bad a state as Lolanne was. Probably because they had capable companions that could actually do something like field repairs or apply proper medication, unlike himself.

Mike moved passed them towards Lolanne's suite. Members of the injured patrol watched him go curiously. He raised a hand to the wall panel, to hit the button that summoned Mender Faelin, but before he could, he noticed the airlock just inside was opened up, and he could see Faelin leaning down over Lolanne, who was sitting upright on the operating table, the arms of the suit-repair machine hanging over her. Faelin looked up at him, held up a finger, one moment, and disappeared for a few minutes. She reappeared and bid him to enter.

The airtight chamber hissed for a second as the door swung open. There was a coppery smell in the air that made his nose twitch. He closed the door behind him. The chamber was mostly barren save for the back wall where a cabinet was open. Lolanne looked up at him as he entered, no doubt smiling behind her newly repaired, blue-tinted visor. Little honeycomb patterns on its surface let him know it had been reinforced.

“Mike!” she greeted. She went to stand but Faelin kept her down with a firm hand. “How's the fever?”

“Better. Vok installed a shower to help fix me up.”

“Show-her?” she mispronounced, the same way Vok had done. “What is that, like a play?”

He grinned. “I'll tell you later. How're you holding up? You look a lot better.”

“I’ve been cooped up in this room long enough. I'm ready to get back out there.”

Faelin cut down that comment, fiddling with a tiny panel on the side of Lolanne's helmet. “I hope you are joking, Guider, because you're far from ready. The infection is receding but you'll need to take three doses of boosters every day until the end of this month.” Faelin handed a few Packs to her with her free hand. “And I don't need to remind the both of you to stay away from hostile Sentients, do I?”

“That's right, Lola,” Mike said, wagging a disapproving finger. “No more grand quests, Colossal robots, or alien Sentients. Stick with something simple, like drawing!”

Faelin ignored him. “Now you understand the rules, don't you Lolanne? This is what happens when you take risks. You get ‘cooped up’ and you have only yourself to blame.”

“Nothing would get done if no one took risks,” Lolanne said. Faelin just shook her head like an overprotective mother, and Lolanne turned back to Mike. “Mender Faelin told me you checked in every day. You were worried, weren't you?”

Lolanne's straight-to-the-point question caught him a little off-guard. “Worried? Sure I was. You dying would mean someone else would take over interrogation duty. How would I survive?”

Lolanne chuckled her rich laugh. “It’s good to be awake again.”

Pocketing her medication, Lolanne got to her feet. Faelin, after making her final adjustments, allowed the movement. “Your suit is reinforced, but not invincible. Don’t go getting shot or you’ll end up back here. I've also replenished your suit's emergency stocks with a few extra antibiotics, just in case. This whole ordeal's a little bit fortunate for you, in a way.”

“How's nearly dying of infection fortunate?” Mike asked. Lolanne answered him.

“I told you before – careful exposure to the outside air, over time and in small doses, is how we are planning to evolve out of these suits. Having a suit breach for about a week is more extreme than what was intended, but...”

“She's probably the healthiest Suvelian among us,” Faelin said. “If there is to be another breach, it will be far less unpleasant. That’s not me encouraging you, by the way.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on anymore expeditions for a while,” Lolanne said. She swayed when she stood to her ful height. “Saduun, I feel like throwing up a river.”

“Another one?” Faelin asked. “At least do it outside of the sterile room this time.”

The three of them exited the suite. The wounded patrolmen outside nodded to Lolanne, to which she bowed in reply, her fingers stretching to form a symbol. Faelin went over the proper medication and rest Lolanne needed to comply with one more time. To Mike it seemed like a lot to remember, and he wondered if just staying in the foundry wasn’t perhaps easier. Lolanne let the lecture wash over her – saying yes, no, and I’ll keep an eye on it, at the proper times. She was visibly anxious to get back out into the world. She even looked sleepy at one point and gave Mike a sort of she drags on a lot, look and rolled her eyes. Mike had to cover his chuckle with a fake cough.

At long last the Mender was finished. She bowed to the both of them and said, “Saduun protect you, Guider. Ambassador.” The Mender leaned in and whispered so only Mike could hear. “Make sure she gets home alright. She’ll be a little woozy from all the medication. Please keep an eye on her.”

Mike gave a small thumbs-up. Faelin walked away, towards the patrol party. Lolanne turned to him and cocked her head. “‘Ambassador’ Mike? How long was I out?”

“I don't believe it either. That Elder Nilak guy gave me the title a couple days ago.”

“You're a good candidate.”

“You mean the only candidate.”

“That too.”

“Guider Lolanne!”

They both turned to this new voice. Raan was coming through the foundry doors and he wasn’t alone. Karto was with him on one side, and someone Mike didn’t recognise flanked the other. This new Suve looked young, as far as he could tell, but he had a few glyphs on his suit that showed his Proving. This was the last member of the Guider team, he found out. Lolanne was the only one among them without a Proving of her own.

“We came as soon as Mender Faelin notified us,” Raan said. The three Guiders stood in front of their newest member, and Mike found himself pushed to the sidelines by one menacing stare of Karto. “How are you?”

“Fine, thank you.”

The new Guider spoke next. “I was so worried, Lolanne. I read over your report. Why didn’t you tell me you were scared of the storm? I’m… we are here for you.”

“I seem to remember that I did tell you, Kasin. And you, Raan. Even you as well, Karto.”

Mike felt a ping of jealousy at Kasin’s wording, but had no time to think much on it. Lolanne had always talked highly of her Mentor and the Guiders, but now there was a bit of venom in her voice. That medication pumping through her body probably had something to do with that.

“That’s because you were speculating, and still are,” Karto said, not with as much bark as he did with Mike, but still an annoying amount. “You had no way of knowing what was out there.”

“But there was something out there!” Lolanne said. What came next wasn’t exactly true, but Mike didn’t jump in to correct her. “And the only one who helped me was a human, not a fellow Guider.”

“That’s not fair, Lolanne,” Raan said, stepping in front of Karto. “You had no idea, we had no idea. We had no faith in your claims because…”

“It’s because I’m not Proven yet, isn’t it?” Lolanne said sheepishly. “That I’m still too young to have my opinions considered?”

“Lolanne…” Raan sighed, fiddled with a clamp on his gauntlet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t take your suspicions seriously, yes, but I am truly sorry. Listen, we are planning on going on patrol across the northern biomes, just the Guiders. A long walk can give us all some time to reconcile. And-”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

It was Mike who had said this. He pushed passed Karto and threw his hands up. “She just spent a week having an infection rip her immune system a new one, and now you want her to go back out there, with the Spawn? What’s the matter with you? I thought you were supposed to be her Mentor, not her boss.”

“B-Boss? I…”

Karto shoved Mike back, hard. He leaned in close so all of the human’s vision was of his tinted visor and those daggered eyes hidden behind it. “You don’t get to talk to an Avant like that. Not a treacherous, scheming, filthy human such as yourself! Who do you think you are?”

“Someone looking out for a friend. Back off, Guider.” Mike spat the term out. Karto shoved Mike back with a surprising amount of force. Mike balled his hands into fists. Before anything more happened Raan pulled Karto back.

“Enough! Karto, I know you put humans behind a corrupted veil, but even you must realise the Ambassador is not our enemy!”

“But-!”

“And you, Mike, you realise as acting Ambassador, more is expected of you, no? Elder Nilak appointed you to assist our species and yours, not to spit foul comments and pick fights with my people!”

Mike opened his mouth, but bit back a rising comment. Not like Karto, whose attempts at voicing his opinion were shut down by the Avant.

“Avant,” Karto began. “I was only respecting your dignity from this human’s-”

“You can respect my dignity by keeping quiet. Now.” Raan shut down anything more from Karto. The Avant Guider composed himself, giving Mike a glance before turning to Lolanne. No one would realise how much of what Mike had said would impact Lolanne’s mentor. “The Ambassador has a… A fair point. If it’s too much to ask of you, Lolanne, then I would here you say so.”

“I…” She looked at Mike, Karto, then Raan again. “… Mender Faelin told me to take it easy for a while. That’s what I want to do.”

“Then it is settled. I don’t want grudges held between us Lolanne, so-”

“It’s okay, Raan. I’m alright.”

“Well… then it is settled..” As Lolanne’s mentor for well over ten years now, Raan could tell she wasn’t being entirely forthcoming. He nodded for the door. “Let’s go, Guiders.”

Raan departed without a look back. Kasin hesitated, staring at Lolanne and meaning to say something. His courage faltered when Raan walked too far away, and he followed him out. Karto’s attitude let him linger longer, and after staring down Mike for a second, he whispered to Lolanne a few curt words. “Look at how much this human is corrupting you. Do yourself a favour and stay away from him.”

And with that, Karto stormed away. Lolanne exhaled and put a hand to her helmet, as if she’d gotten the worst headache. Her fingers met the visor with a little metal clink. “Not even one minute after your coma and he wants you on patrol?” Mike murmured. He gestured to her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. You shouldn’t be so hard on Raan. He’s always had the right intentions, but I don’t think I could have stood up to all three of them if you weren’t here.”

Mike guessed saying no wasn’t exactly Lolanne’s strong point. He didn’t know what sort of relationship she had with Raan and probably never would. Maybe he’d only just made things worse by being here at the wrong moment.

And not for the first time.

He was brought out of his thoughts by Lolanne putting her chin toward her clavicle, appearing sheepish despite nothing of her actually being physically seen. “I… I appreciate you standing up for me, Mike. Thanks.”

“You might want to start looking for better companions than that Karto guy.”

“I’ve already found someone, and he’s not even Suvelian.”

She smiled, and he smiled back. “Let’s get out of here,” Mike said. And they did just that.

They took a booth to the surface. Lolanne emerged with her head held high, letting the suns warm her through the new visor. The one called Sindra was partially hidden behind the hull of the Karlyin, casting a great sleek shadow just to their south. The bright sunshine hit her at an angle that contrasted onto her suit in a stunning display of blue and violet shades. Even completely encased, her form was quite striking, the suit actually helping define her feminine curves. She caught him staring and he coughed into his hand.

“So where to?”

“I have to update some of my suit systems, calibrate a few things. Take a few booster shots while I’m at it. You want to come with me?”

“Sure.”

The colony was buzzing with foot traffic and, as usual, the light hum of hushed singing. The city never seemed to die down, even during the late hours of the night. If anything, it seemed to grow busier when the hours were late and that massive moon came out. Decorations in the form of tapestries and rugs covered in runes were being hung over pavilions and structures alike. Golden glyphs on red backgrounds, like a coat of arms. One particular rune was numerous throughout the colony: it looked like a swirling black hole, with a four-pointed star in the middle, gold and black and ornate. He’d find out later that this was the Emblem of the Unity itself. This rune, along with several other family-oriented symbols, were everywhere, even on the ground. Like the whole colony itself had been given its own Proving.

Engineer’s bustled about, furnishing pockets of the colony and getting ready for the next wave of colonists to wake from cryosleep. Everyone seemed to be preparing for the Honouring, but all these decorations gave Mike a feeling the celebration was to be a permanent thing. He guessed that a civilisation of exiles would want to make quite a show when it came to claiming a new homeworld, and not even the threat of a Third Sentient race was going to shut it down.

The Hierarch himself was supposed to announce the Unity’s claim to Panthea during the height of the Honouring, and Mike found himself nervous for his arrival. What would he think of a foreigner waltzing through his colony, pretending to be Ambassador and not knowing what he was really doing? Would he act like Karto, suspicious and seeing Mike was only out for himself? Or maybe a little more rational but skeptical, like Selen? Would his Saduun-blessed powers be so sharp that he could see right through him, see the human for who he really was?

“You look a little distracted,” Lolanne said from his side, looking up at him. “Mike?”

He shook his head. “Ah, it’s nothing.” He waved at all the goings on around them. “This Honouring is a pretty big deal, huh?”

There was a bit of apprehension in her tone. “It will be a grand day, yes. Will you still be... here, by then?”

“Yeah, Nilak's planned to wait for the Hierarch to come. He’ll be the one who’ll decide my fate.”

“That's what's troubling you.” It wasn't a question, and she was half-right. “Don't worry so much about it. The Hierarch wouldn't be who he is if he was a harsh ruler.”

“You’re right, you’re right.”

The next few monutes of walking were uneventful. He just watched and listened to the Unity build itself up as Lolanne led him to wherever she wanted to go. He almost bumped into her when she suddenly stopped and touched him on the elbow.

“Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say, about how I… how I lied to you about our deal. I shouldn’t have-”

“Lola, I don’t-”

“No,” she interrupted. “let me finish, please. Lying is a terrible thing to do, and I used it as an excuse to use you to help me. If anyone knew about that, no one would have blamed you for leaving me out there.”

“Lola, that’s stupid.”

“It’s not.”

“It is. I didn’t leave you because I care. If you’re asking me to forgive you, then fine – I forgive you. But just know that it doesn’t bother me, and it shouldn’t bother you either.”

Lolanne shifted on her feet when he stopped. Perhaps he was really oversimplifying a serious issue between them. What was trivial to humans was complicated to Suvelians, and that went both ways. Despite risking their lives for each other, the fact still remained that they were brought up in vastly different ways.

By the way Lolanne was staring between her feet, he guesed she was probably on the same train of thought. “I…” Lolanne started. “You care? About me?”

“Y-Yeah. Yes.” His neck suddenly felt warm. “… Is that weird?”

Lolanne hummed under her breath and turned away, calling over her shoulder: “Not if the feeling’s mutual…”

“… Oh. Glad we sorted that out.” After a brief pause, he followed after her.

Some time later Lolanne turned off the main street and down between two buildings, walking up to a third, slightly taller structure, the flora growing on the roof giving it a few inches above the neighbouring houses. Two floors high, as usual, but something about the glyphs above the entrance struck Mike as familiar. Lolanne went up the front ramp and opened the door with a squeak of hinges.

“You haven't got a lock on your door either?” he asked, looking past her hip at the house.

“Why would I need one?”

Thieves, intruders, aliens, he thought, but those reasons didn't seem to bother Lolanne, or any other Suvelian for that matter. Maybe locks were some sort of metaphorical thing, given how Suvelians were already locked inside those suits from birth all they way until their deaths.

Mike entered the building after her, recalling how this would be the first time he was entering an actual Suvelian household. The interior was similar to his own refurbished hovel, but a lot less barren, yet still spacious. A machine similar to the one Shimmu had in her stall sat at the far side of the circular interior, in between countertops lined with strange artifacts. On the left half of the room was an oversized hammock, hanging by two steel poles and looking like a large cocoon. Near that was a ramp curving along the wall and rising up to the next floor. The right side was dominated by a man-sized cylindrical chamber, and its interior reminded Mike of an iron-maiden. Rows of needles stuck out in a vague humanoid patterns inside. Around it he saw several suit parts lying on wall-mounted shelves.

Lolanne stepped into this chamber, lifting an arm out and pressing it into the needles shaped like her limb. A metallic arm reached out and stuck into her suit, needle first. “More medicine,” Lolanne explained. “It'll just take a moment. Make yourself comfortable.”

He opened his mouth to say how, since there didn't seem to be any furniture, but stopped himself. He wandered around to the counter and approached something that caught his eye. Set up against a chrome plaque was a small talisman, made of what looked like pure crimson crystal. The gem was shaped like a three-dimensional Suvelian rune, and the design reminded Mike a little of Japanese hiragana.

“My parents’ emblem,” Lolanne said, watching him from across the room. “I keep another one on me at all times. It’s like a… ‘good luck charm’, in your words. That one was my mother’s.”

Was? he thought, but didn't say. He moved over to the machine that looked identical to the one Shimmu had. “That’s a pack dispenser. The paste is made underground and delivered up to the surface through these little tubes. See the buttons on the front? Those let you modify the taste to your liking. Don’t press the white one. Even I think that one’s as foul as a dracon’s ass.”

He wondered what was on the second floor and started up the ramp to find out. Lolanne glanced up from her wrist-pad to the human, noting his idle curiosity with a hidden smile. Mike came to the top of the ramp and looked around. There were four rows of trays filled with soil in the middle of the room. Light shone through a skylight dome in the ceiling, and more poured in through a veranda off to the side. Inside the trays were different types of plants, some he recognised, some he did not. The colours was so vibrant compared to his home on Neruvana or what he had seen out in the golden sheets of western Panthea. Most of these had to have been gathered from different parts of the continent. Some had red leaves on orange branches, others blue on green, but most were tanned and yellow. A whole tray was dedicated to a bone-white row of sticks with black flora growing out of them. Blooming flowers with heavy petals waved in the windless room.

He walked through the displays, smelling earthly scents. So Lolanne had her own little garden all to herself. It was no wonder she knew which ones were edible or not. It had probably taken months to sort out this whole collection. Around the edges of the trays flowed tiny water streams, trickling in from somewhere to keep the plants fed and healthy.

Mike was approaching the veranda when the floor suddenly disappeared beneath his feet, revealing the room below. He, and the trays, didn't fall, and he still felt the metal beneath him, even if his eyes said otherwise. The drop had to be about five meters. Although he had experienced the transparency before, he hadn't done it while high up, and he clutched the nearest plant tray hard, his knuckles going white as he tried to hold back a yell.

Below him, through the unseen floor, Lolanne looked up at him, and by the way her helmet bobbed back and forth, she was giggling. She had a hand on a wall-mounted terminal. The image of the house rotated round and round on the screen.

“Damn it Lola!” Mike said through gritted teeth. “don’t do that!”

Lolanne  offered him an innocent shrug. Mike forced himself to keep moving to the veranda on the non-existing floor. Each step required all his willpower to make. Eventually Lolanne grew tired of her little prank, and colour faded back in as she reset the floor. Hearing her quietly chuckle slowly brought a grin to his own face, much as he didn’t want to admit it.

Once Mike made it, leaned against the balcony railing and examined the area. This wasn't one of the main streets running alongside Lolanne's home, but it was still busy. The spot offered a good view across to the town square to the east, and he could see it was as bustling and lively as the last time he'd been there. He idly wondered how Shimmu was doing.

Northward, the cathedral building housing the holy 'stone plant' still towered over the colony. Out to the north of that, another building just as tall and even more broad was well underway. If he knew the rune painted on the side of the building, he could tell what it was for, but evidently, he could not. Did look very impressive, though. A little like a massive greenhouse or even a stadium.

The sea of alien architecture was watched over from the Karlyin, drifting along in the sky above. The warship’s engines were down to a low idling hum. A few shuttles still transported goods from the bay, but the majority of the on-board cargo had been delivered. He noticed the massive weapons were pointed towards the east. He followed those large railguns to the storm, and traced its dark outlines. It had grown like a… well, like an infection. An otherwise breathtaking view was ruined by its murky, crimson lightning-stricken heart.

He heard Lolanne’s boots clocking up the ramp, and  turned to her. He listed off each title with his fingers. “Lolanne the Guider, artist, and botanist? You're full of surprises.”

“It's just a hobby,” she said, leaning against a tray, brushing a finger against a stem with the delicacy of a feather. “When I was little, I used to stare at the images of Suvelia’s flora, burning their shapes into my memory. It’s how I first got into drawing. I was so excited when I heard about Panthea and its beauty. People said it was absolutely full of life, but I never imagined it would be so... vibrant. It's beautiful, except...”

“Except something else got here before you,” he finished for her. He remembered the deadlands around the Colossus, the sagging trees, all grey and bleak like a no-mans-land had been napalmed twice over.

“Yes,” she said. She straightened up, a confident note in her voice. “But we couldn't call this place home if we didn't fight for it. And once the Golden Will arrives, we will claim it. That storm terrifies me, but I want to be a part of it when we rid this world of the Spawn.”

“You're a brave lot, I'll give you that,” Mike said. They were silent for a moment, and Mike looked up at the warship, at the runes that said Karlyin but he couldn't make sense of them. He remembered Nalik's words, telling him of his duties now that he was Ambassador. And if you can improve relations between our races, even better.

He had an idea how.

“I want to learn,” Mike suddenly said.

“What's that?” Lolanne asked.

The man leaned back against the railing and looked at her, raising a hand. “I want to learn your language, Suvelian basic manners and stuff, how to try and live alongside your people without sticking out so much. You can teach me.”

“W-What?” Lolanne said. “Teach you? I'm… I’m sure we can find a Scholar to give you some lessons...”

“I not asking for a scholar. I'm asking you. Can you teach me?”

“Me, teach? I hardly know enough to be considered for that. I-I'm not the best choice.”

“I think, that you're the only choice,” he said, using her own words against her. She angled her helmet down, rubbed her hands together. Behind her visor was a shy little smile.

“Why do you even want to learn anyway?”

“Well,” he said. “I’m interested deeply in the Suvelian people.” Or just one of them, he thought, and flashed her a grin. If she took his meaning or not, she offered no further fight.

“I… Alright,” she said, looking up at him with a cocked head. Helmet or not, the gesture was quite cute “Okay, I'll do it. Oh, but… I don’t know where to start.”

“What about those things you do with your hands whenever you greet someone?” he asked. He demonstrated with a poor impersonation of what he had seen in the past.

“Oh, right! Well let's see... It's a simple show of respect – the intertwining of the first two fingers represents that you and the person you're talking to are as one.” She wrapped her first digit around the second with inhuman nimbleness. “You bring it to your chest, to show you speak from the heart. If you are of a lower status to the person you're talking with, you must greet them first with the words Sumal, delroso, then follow with the gesture.”

Mike mimicked the words and action, adding a little bow to the second alien word. Suddenly Lolanne went from reluctant teacher to mildly annoyed instructor, taking his hands into her own and forcing the fingers to bend the right way. “Ow, hey! That hurts.”

“It hurts to move your fingers? This coming from the man who carried me halfway across the world? All while sick and being chased by hostile aliens?”

“We've all got our limits.”

Mike tried to give the proper gesture. He had one extra digit than a Suvelian hand, so he tucked his pinky finger away to do his best imitation. “How’s this?”

“Tilt you palms a little…” Lolanne’s gloves were firm cupping over his and presssing against them. “And… there. That’s close enough.”

The light suddenly caught her at just the right angle. He’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t intrigued by her, and he started staring again.

Lolanne met his eyes, seemingly unaware of how close in proximity there faces had gotten. He coudldn’t tel if she was being coy. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” he said, a little too quickly. “You can let go of my hands now.”

“Oh.” Her long fingers seemed to move a little slowly as she pulled her gauntlets away. Mike broke the resulting quiet with a cough.

“So. How high up the Suvelian chain am I?” he asked, hoping he didn't have to bow and do this to every single Suve he came across.

Lolanne thought for a moment. “I'm not sure. There's never been a human Ambassador in my lifetime. Elder Nilak has the highest position, obviously. Below him are the shipmasters and mistresses, then the Avant-class, like Raan. They’re like team leaders, you could say. Best to stay on the safe side and greet others first, if you're not sure. Sentries and guardsman are lower than Ambassadors. I-I think. Except the vanguard, the heavily armoured men and women, who look ready for war? You’ll know them once you see them. They don’t talk to anyone except their Avant.”

“And what about you? You want me to bow whenever we speak?” he asked with a grin. He was about to bow when she stopped him, catching him by the shoulders.

“Don't be silly,” she laughed. “Formalities can be waved away if you're... friends, with the other person.”

He grinned. “Okay. I think I get it.”

“One other thing. If you want to take a step further for manners, you can lead with the other person's rank when addressing someone. For example, Guider Lolanne, Ambassador Mike, Avant-Guider Raan.”

“So just whatever their profession is?” Mike said. “Like, 'Oh hello, Plumber Dave.' 'How's it going, Stand-up-Comedian Jim?'”

“You'll have to tell me about those titles sometime,” Lolanne said. “-And Mike? You've taken to calling me 'Lola' recently. In my people’s terms, nicknaming isn't really smiled upon.”

“Well, in my people’s terms, that name is short and cute. A bit like yourself, now that I think about it.”

“Mike!” she exclaimed, though she wasn’t exactly offended. Lolanne was not oblivious to the effort he’d gone through to save her life, and after hearing from Mender Faelin he’d checked on her every day since, it had affected how she looked at him. Hearing him compliment her had sent a warm feeling through her body she had never felt before.

The human held up his hands. “Okay, okay. 'Guider Lolanne' it is, then.”

“Just... Just don't say it in front of others.” She linked her fingers before her stomach. “It's embarrassing enough to be seen with you in public,” she added.

“Ouch.” Mike chuckled. “Now what about your language? Can you teach me that too?”

“I suppose I can,” she said. “It might take a while, on both our parts. Language wasn't my strong subject back in my youth.”

“Art was, wasn’t it?”

“Y-Yes, it was. You know me too well.”

“Is that a bad thing, friend?”

“No, of course not. It’s just that… no one’s ever really treated me like you have before. Up until we met, I felt like I was just being tolerated, nothing more. This probably sounds mopey to you, because it does to me. But regardless of how you feel, or I feel, you’re... you’re an alien. It’s… strange. N-Not bad. Just strange. And when I said friends, I really meant to say you’re more than that it’s just I don’t know how to say it and-”

“Woah, slow down Lola.” He grinned, raising his palms.

“Sorry. Too much medication makes me bumble on.”

“-And blush, by the looks of things.”

“How can you even see that?!”

When he’d stopped laughing, she turned away to go find a stencil and parchment. In all seriousness, Mike wasn’t afraid to admit he wanted to learn the Suvelian language. He was the only human on the whole planet. The Suvelians were not going to change for him, he was going to have to change for them.

He knew this ever since meeting Karto. That male was certainly not alone in his opinions on humanity. And as an added benefit, who better to help him out than Lolanne? The only alien willing to put up with him, who’s company he’d once loathed and now come to crave?

Her words rang through his head as he followed down the ramp after her. Strange, that described perfectly whatever relationship he had with this female. Strange.

But not bad.

2

The next few weeks became routine for Mike. He would come over to Lolanne's house and learn the Suvelian alphabet, how to read the seemingly random strokes that composed their glyphs, and how they connected with the next rune to form a word or meaning. It was tough. The only other language he ever learned was Russian, on account of his father’s side, and that had been easy compared to the alien runes. Still, it was a way to distract himself from looking towards the west, where the stormfront of the cyclone was growing at a radical rate. Since his circle of friends didn’t really stretch outside of Lolanne, he spent a lot of time with her.

The colony continued to grow around him. More people, buildings, everything. The urban landscape stretched north, across the river, and into the forests not terribly far from the pod he came in on. He began to see a pattern form in the colony’s expansion, like the intricate strands of a spider web. It had something to do with how much he was learning about the Unity, it affected his perception somehow. He stopped losing his way when taking walks around the colony, he forced himself to remember the routes, what the colours stood for, and what composed the districts. Soon he wouldn't even need Lolanne to lead him around.

The Elder took what Lolanne had found out there in all seriousness, which surprised Mike, who held a lingering resentment towards governing bodies. He’d given the UEC’s motto on action as ‘maybe later’, and had thought the Unity wouldn’t be much different. Human standards had no place here, but it was a hard habit to break. More and more guards started patrolling the streets, and after the first incident, a curfew was installed, forbidding any night-time traffic without at least two escorts and proper authorisation.

Avant-Guider Raan got permission from Elder Nilak to send a force out to the Colossus wreck to set up communication buoys, cameras and other tech like that. The team would set them up as they went, then end their trip on a good vantage point that looked down onto the Colossus itself.

“We should not let ourselves be blind or deaf to this new threat,” the Guider had said. The Elder had given the go ahead. This act had led to the first incident.

Out of the ten armed Suvelians sent, only two had returned, and they hadn’t managed to get so far as the dracon's nest. Not much information could be recovered from the stunned soldiers, but Mike could guess what had happened. The Spawn had been lying in wait, probably had set up an ambush deep in the jungle. Then had hit them when they least expected. The soldiers had managed to set up a few sensors in the jungles surrounding the colony, so it wasn't a complete failure. The eight bodies were never recovered.

The songs over the colony changed into a chorus of mourning. Lolanne hummed along with it, even though she didn't know any of the soldiers by name. This wouldn't be the last incident over the following weeks. One or two colonists would go missing, usually in the dead of night and without so much as a trace. In response to these abductions, Nilak had heavy defence emplacements set up around the colony, and expansion came to an abrupt halt. This great, uncharted world, with all its golden beauty and all its potential, suddenly felt a whole lot smaller.

But the populace remained united, where panic should have ensued. People still came out instead of hiding indoors, the market was still buzzing with life, even Shimmu had accumulated some business, her 'plated food' idea getting more attention now that Mike was frequently visiting. All of this bravery in the face of uncertainty bewildered, but at the same time, inspired Mike. He remembered the fear the UEC had weighed on the people of Neruvana, before its destruction. All the propaganda and media had scared most of their opposition into submission. Panthea was the Suvelian’s home, and their leaders didn’t encourage its people to cower and fear. Even in such dangerous times, the Suvelian Unity stuck together and waited it out, with faith in themselves and their superiors. Not even the Honouring was cancelled. “We couldn't simply put a stop to the most important day of our lives,” Lolanne said when he asked why they hadn't. “Besides, it’ll be fun.”

Decorations were still up, and at the centre of the colony something was being built. A fair ground, or the Suvelian equivalent of one. Vok was there, doing what he always did, and although he too grieved for the missing colonists, he said he wouldn't let the fear of death control his will. So as the months passed, even with the heavier policing, the Suvelians didn’t let the Spawn get in the way of the greatest day in their history.

Mike had put off checking his feet for signs of infection, or worse, remembering Morland’s body. He didn't want to know if the Spawn had gotten inside of him or not. But when his fear seeped through his façade and it began to openly bother him, Lolanne began to notice his discomfort.

“Are you alright, Mike?”

He hid the urge to express himself to her with a grin, and complimented her on how her suit was just distracting him. The little teases he made usually warded off her worries, but she knew him better than most, and would always know when his own paranoia began to creep up on him. He knew she was just trying to help, but he felt he had to do this alone, and after many restless nights, he decided to just take a look and see.

After another long, but pleasant, day with Lolanne he returned to his hovel. He stepped up through the vineyard surrounding his new house and entered, turning off the transparencies and shutting the outside world away. Mike wasn't afraid of onlookers, not this far away from the bustle of the city, but he wanted privacy just in case. He sat on his bed and undid his alien shoes, worry creeping up the muscles on his arms and shoulders like bugs living in his veins.

Once his foot was free and his skin was exposed to the cool air, he turned it over in his hands and examined the sole. The cuts were still there, purplish and bruised, having not healed properly, leaving ugly faded scabs. He leaned a little closer until his nose almost touched his foot, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He'd been expecting to see something, like when you hold up a torch to your hand and can see your own blood, but fortunately, everything looked normal, if a bit malformed.

He slipped his other shoe off and checked it too. Same story. Scabs, scars, but no Spawn. He was sure he did step into the oil at one point or the other. After all his prison cell was flowing with the stuff, and there had been a lot more polluting the rest of the ship.

Maybe it knows how to hide itself.

Or you’re just imagining things.

Not sure he was satisfied or not, he let his foot slap onto the floor. He leant back tiredly into the pillows. The hairs on his legs moving, his feet itching as if there were little ants crawling over him.

It was late in the afternoon. The Suvelians called this time Second Sun, where only one sun, Urlond, was up for a few hours, its arch being slightly delayed behind Sindra. Lolanne had fully recovered some time ago, and their little language sessions were sometimes interrupted as Raan had her return to some of her duties. She and Selen were sent to the north, to take measurements and record observations and readouts of the fauna and flora. It was restricted work for a Guider, who were, in normal circumstances, considered land-scouts for colony expansion, or in times of war, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. Mike was worried for her safety, but Selen had come off as professional, and experienced, and added to the fact Lolanne would be under heavy guard out there, his worries were probably in vain.

Without Lolanne around he began to notice how empty his time as Ambassador seemed to be. Without her, there wasn't really anything in the way of diplomacy he could do. Some of Nilak's scholars had asked a few questions about the Confederacy, stuff about their resources or Starbase locations. One had asked about what the UEC was up to recently, and Mike told them all he knew – the UEC practically ignored the Suvelians, because they were too focused on expanding out to the Fringe Worlds, the opposite direction from where Panthea was in the Galactic scale, fortunately enough. He’d also heard one of the Arden ship guards talk about open war with someone, but he hadn’t caught the whole conversation, and it was more than likely just a rumour.

But apart from that, without Lolanne as a sort of mediator to interact with the Unity, he was left wanting, usually lying in bed staring at the ceiling, like he was now.

Mike’s thoughts often drifted towards a certain topic that would not stop bugging him. Every second spent here was a second that Locke could further hide himself out there in the void. There were thousands of corners that slimy rat could stuff himself in.

Mike went over his notes on a datapad Lolanne requisitioned for him some time ago. He couldn't read the language fully, but he was well on his way. Maybe in time he could find a way into the Confederate net, maybe get some information on where Locke had gone. But until then he'd do his best to understand the Unity, though his alien mind probably would never comprehend it as well as a Suvelian could.

He scrolled through the practices and mini-games Lolanne had set up for him, not paying too much attention as he tapped away. He had never thought much about revenge during the Arden. He was too starved, depressed, and demoralized to even think of that possibility. But his time with the aliens had brought back his spirit, his faith, in Suvelian terms. Over the months his physique improved, and although he admitted his mentality could use some work, physically he thought he could do it. He didn’t know anyone out there and had no idea where to start, but Locke had a planet-killer weapon – he couldn’t be impossible to find. 

And Locke had the biggest ego Mike had ever seen. People like that didn’t just disappear, it was against their nature.

The night grew late and he set the pad down. Reaching up and folding the cloth back, so the rest of the hammock covered over him like a blanket. He dreamed of Neruvana’s destruction again, his hand over the big red launch button. Locke and his goons had thrown him to the Confederate wolves, after making him commit genocide for them. It was the ultimate humiliation. The Unity didn't approve of holding grudges, but Locke had done something that demanded revenge. Everything would be right once Locke was dead, and Mike would see to that.

One day.

Chapter 13

The Honouring

1

Lolanne scooped up a sample of soil and secured it into a container, pocketing it along with the rest of her vials. This area had already been thoroughly analysed, but the plan to venture further out to uncharted areas had been cancelled after the recent disappearances. Still, she and Selen found some new discoveries every now and then.

Someone called her name and she looked up. One of their two armed escorts was pacing back and forth near the tree line to her south. Personally, she found plasma cannons unwieldy, but this guard swung it around with honed experience. Did they really expect to find Spawn around here, so close to the colony? Surely they wouldn't dare come so close. Just a short run over the hill would put them in line of sight with the perimeter bunkers, each one having four or five auto-cannons capable of holding the line for hours. Many Android platforms had been torn to shreds trying to charge those defences down, as she’d seen on the vids.

Lolanne’s confidence was momentarily dismissed by her memory of the thousands and thousands of Spawn out by the Colossus wreck. Could they attack the colony through sheer numbers? Would her people be overwhelmed, forced to retreat? The storm to the west, it was brewing, faster than ever now that she and Mike had disturbed it. Was her interruption of the Spawn the cause of all these missing people? Was she indirectly responsible for their deaths? Just as she was responsible for the colony ship's crashing? She remembered the faces of the family’s of the deceased and what they-

“Did you hear me?” Selen said in her ear, cutting her out of her thoughts. “Lolanne?”

“Sorry.” Lolanne realised she had been staring at the stormfront the whole time. She looked away. “I didn’t. What did you say?”

Selen mumbled something under her breath before standing up straight. “I asked who you're going to the Honouring with.”

That festivity was tonight. Already. She hadn't even given any thought to who her Honoring partner would be, her mind had been so clogged up lately, what with horrible visions of what would happen when the storm eventually overtook this part of the world.

“I... haven't decided, yet,” Lolanne said, telling only a half truth. The other half Selen more than likely knew. Lolanne often wondered how the older woman perceived her. Just a young female only coming so far because of special attention, or an aspirant who could do great things? She supposed the latter might be true. After all, she’d managed to convince a human to see Panthea just as a Suvelian would. Who else could say they’d done that?

He was always on her mind when she out here scouting. She was not naive enough to dismiss his stares and compliments as innocent gestures, but how could he look at her that way? He couldn’t even see her! And yet she would be lying if she said it didn’t make her feel good each time he called her cute.

“Kasin's been asking about you,” Selen said, interrupting her thoughts. “And he's… available. Maybe you should go with him?”

“Yes, maybe,” Lolanne replied. She had known Kasin as long as Selen, had noticed the way he looked at her, but she just didn't really see him as more than a Guider doing his duty. He did earn his Proving in a stunning display of bravery. It was a good quality for a partner.

“There’s also Talvorn, the aspiring Engineer. We talked to him last week, remember?”

“Yes. He’s… alright, I suppose.”

“… You're thinking of him, aren't you?” Selen asked suddenly. She'd stopped beside Lolanne, helping her to her feet. She used a secure channel so the guardsman couldn't listen in.

“Who?” Lolanne asked. A fruitless question. Selen didn’t take nonsense.

“Ambassador Mike, obviously. You spend a lot of time with him, don't think I haven't noticed.”

She mentally smacked herself. How obvious had it been? Then again Selen had a sharp sense for these sorts of things. “She’s the nosiest out of all of us,” Raan had said to Lolanne once, long ago.

“Is that so bad?” Lolanne defended, meeting Selen’s gaze as best she could.

“It is for some,” Selen said. “No one's forgotten what the humans have done to us. Have you?”

“Mike's... different,” Lolanne said. “We shouldn't judge him by what the great-grandparents of his species have done.”

“There is truth in your words, I admit. He does seem like a good man. But are you looking at him differently just because he saved your life, or is there something else?”

“I...” It was true, his saving of her life had certainly impacted her perception. But if he hadn't done that, would she still feel the same way? “I don't know,” she said. “he's an alien, I know. But what difference does it make? I remember you acting all weird around Raan that one time, seeing him in a more intimate way when he was, and still is, your leader.”

Selen scoffed in a way she’d never let many people see. “Raan and I have a lot in common. It just so happens that we’re working together. After all this time how couldn't I begin to see him as more than just a friend?”

“My point, exactly.”

Selen grunted in approval. “Since when did you get so wise? I still don’t see how you could look at an alien that way, but I won't judge you. Still, many others won't be of the same mind. You, and a human? I could be wrong, but you probably won’t ever be looked at the same way again. Even your family won’t escape that judgement. Is Mike worth all that?”

“I've always been a haze in the background, Selen. I want to change that.”

The feeling was mutual, right? Out of all his time, Mike chose to spend most of it with her. The same could not be said for anyone else, not even her family, who chose to stay behind with the Golden Will. Was it a far stretch to think he felt the same way? She didn't think so.

“... So yes,” Lolanne said, striding up the hill, Selen in tow. “I think he is worth it.”

2

Mike pressed a knife to his throat, watching his mirrored-self slide the blade over his neck. It was a dull thing, for his own personal safety of course, and it took way longer than it should to have to do what he wanted it to do.

All he could hear was the little cuts of his alien razor, and the colony thrumming with song and cheer in the background. The Honouring was already underway and Second sun – or afternoon – was about to pass. Mike had a feeling it would be an all-nighter party. The idea of joining in had crossed his mind, but this was a Suvelian celebration. He’d only get in the way, and there was no need to draw their attention away from a significant event.

And getting this thing off me will probably take all night anyway, so...

The datapad's camera was slightly slanted, and he had it propped up crudely against the backseat of a chair, leaning on the table. Hair fell onto a towel in careful snips. A cheer went up somewhere in the backdrop. What sort of entertainment did aliens have? He put a hand on his smooth cheek, rubbed with his thumbprint.

Maybe I’ll go down there later.

There was a knock on the door. Mike looked up from his shaving, and blinked, wondering who that could be. He wiped his half-hairy face with a wet cloth, put the knife down, and went over. He was more than a little surprised to see Lolanne standing there.

Behidn her in the developing night, colourful displays of lights pulsed in the colony. Lolanne had been talking about this day so much, he’d expected her to be down there already.

Her helmet dipped down as she traced his form with her sapphire-blue eyes. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and she had seen him like this before, but she still trailed down his anatomy with a cheeky peek.

“Hey Lola. Come in.” Mike gestured inside and she brushed past, looking around the hovel. Usually he was the one visiting her. His hovel felt dark and lonely most nights compared to her own house, and just having her inside was enough to make him feel a degree of anxiety. He would have cleaned up if he’d known she was coming.

Mike turned around, and now that Lolanne was in the light, he noticed something was a little different about her. The suit she wore was decorated with splashes of dark white and purple across her chest plate and stomach, curving a little like camouflage down her sides. It wasn’t all completely alloy anymore – she’d wrapped a slightly transparent skirt around the back of her waist that clung to her thighs, and more cloth hung over her helmet and shoulders like a silky aquatic collar. Combine that with the dominating shade of blue of the armour, and the developed feminine body underneath it all, the suit looked like a work of art. “Wow.” He blinked stupidly. “New Suit?”

“Oh, no. It’s just formal additions. Celebration colours.” She fiddled self-consciously with her left pauldron, which was a little bigger and more ornate then the right one.

“Not a bad look on you.” He nodded in approval. “Not bad at all.”

She looked away, at the bundle of hair on the towel, finding it an easier thing to look at than him. Mike changed the subject while picking up the knife again. “Speaking of celebrations, thought you'd be out there having fun with the rest of the colony.”

“Well,” she said, dragging the word a little. “the night's still young, and usually a female has to go to these sorts of things with... someone else. To go on your own is-”

“Heresy?” he offered, slicing the razor.

“-Embarrassing. But it would be nice to see Nilak's speech in person, rather than alone and over the commlink.”

Mike cut another section of his beard, missing half of his expected quota. He glanced over at her. “You haven't got someone to take you? That's... surprising.”

What do you mean by that? they both thought at the same time. Lolanne gestured to his setup and asked what he was doing.

“Shaving. I’m not a beard kind of guy.” He frowned down at the razor. “But it’s pretty hard cutting with something that couldn't slice wet paper.”

“It does make you look ridiculous. Well, more ridiculous, that is. And your knife skills are terrible.”

Mike shook his head. “You think you can do better?” He held out the razor. “Go on, then.”

“I won’t use that,” she said, and drew her own blade, Synva. They were indoors, but from somewhere moonlight reflected off its sharp curves, giving it an enchanted appearance. Mike eyes drew a little wider.

“Waitaminute- what're you doing?”

“Don't you trust me?”

“I do, yeah, just... Just be careful with that thing, okay?”

He turned around, and she stood beside him, raising Synva to his neck. He'd never been so close to the blade before, and could actually feel heat coming off its sparkling edge. It looked like the most intricate, master-crafted tool he'd ever seen, and something about it seemed so deadly and otherworldly. It could probably cut his face in half if he so much as flinched. In one stroke she swiped away what would have taken him minutes to do with the butter-knife. Bits of hair fell tot he towel

“You know,” Lolanne said, moving lower down his neck, cutting in short, efficient strokes. “I should have interrogated you this way from the start. A knife on the throat can get someone talking.”

“Would've told you everything I knew,” Mike agreed. “Where'd you get that thing anyway?”

“It was a gift from my father. He’s a little too old to be a fighter, and he passed it on to me.” She chuckled. “I’d be in for one good earful if he found out I was using it to cut hair off a human’s face.”

In a matter of minutes, he was clean shaven. He ran a hand over his face, feeling the aftereffects of the fine cuts Lolanne had done. “Alright, you can do better. Thanks for that.”

“Anytime,” she said, and sheathed the blade. Lolanne folded her arms, and seemed to wait for him to say something. Outside, more cheering, singing and humming, mingled together into a band of life that made the hovel a depressing den in comparison.

Mike cleared his throat. “Ahem, why don't we go see what's going on out there?” he said. “Seeing as I've got no one to go with either.”

“R-Really?” She sounded relived, her proud shoulders relaxing. “Well what are we waiting for? We've missed out on so much already.”

“Didn't you just say the night was young-Woah!” She grabbed him by the wrist and started leading him outside. “Hold on, hold on! Let me put something on first.”

“Oh, right. Hurry up, then.”

He went back inside and put his robes and boots on. Lolanne waited for him outside in the vineyard, her hands rubbing together. When Mike was ready he went out and joined her. “Now we can go.”

From this vantage most of the colonists were gathered towards the centre, where orange lights bundled together in a mass and painted the colony a coppery colour. They passed pockets of Suves, walking along and chatting loudly. Some of them were staggering, as if they were drunk. The ones without their Provings, like Lolanne, had decorated themselves in exotic colours and dresses. The ones with Provings didn't have or need that privilege, but occasionally he’d spy one or two with suits so decorated he found himself staring.

Guards patrolled the rooftops and streets, heads swivelling and looking for troublemakers, which there seemed to be a lack of. Mike noticed much later on that most of them weren't looking for rowdy colonists, but Spawn, their eyes on the borders, not on the inside.

“Seems a little weird celebrating with that thing around,” Mike said, nodding with his chin. Lolanne glanced at the storm that had expanded to look like a giant cloudy wall. Lightning the colour of blood whipped around in its depths.

“I know,” she admitted. “But the Hounouring’s been cycles in the making. And history will be made this day. My people have been denied a respite long enough.”

Mike had to force his eyes away from the storm. Something about its sheer size put him off, made things unsettling. Just like the first time he'd seen the Leviathan. Both he and Lolanne shared that paranoia, but the Honouring was a time for song and memory, not for worry, they had to do their best to enjoy it while it lasted.

They arrived at the market square, where most of the colonists were concentrated. The market had been turned into a festival ground. Hundreds of colonists gathered at huge tables, dining on packs, sharing stories with one another like it was one big outdoor tavern. The crowds surrounding them numbered in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands. He had to raise his voice to get Lolanne to hear him.

“Was the colony always this packed?” He could have sworn there were more Suves here now, compared to all he had seen in the months prior.

“Most of the colonists wanted to be out of cryo for today,” Lolanne replied. Then perhaps more to herself she said: “I wish my family were here to see it.”

Some sections of the festival were less busy, to make room for games and sports and other activities. From across the grounds a roar went up as something grabbed the attention of a hundred sets of eyes. It was too crowded to see what the cause was.

“So what first?” he asked. Now he really felt like a tourist, wanting to go and see and do everything he could.

Lolanne shrugged, moving off towards the left, curiosity leading her into the celebrations. He followed after, not worried that he couldn't pick out her suit colour palette. She was unique to him, but in more ways than one. Elder Nilak waved them over when he spotted them. The Elder was joined by a female Mike hadn't seen before. Before anyone could say anything Mike got the first words in.

“Sumal delroso,” he said, recalling Lolanne's lessons and making the correct gestures. Nilak looked from him to Lolanne, then did a double take on Mike. The movement made the human grin.

“My my,” Nilak said, returning the gesture. “That was unexpected. Once again you surprise me, Ambassador. Valintru here was just talking about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Mike said, turning to the woman, Valintru. She was a little shorter than Nilak, coming up to Mike’s chin. Her suit was covered in Proving runes like she was a sentient dictionary. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you as well,” Valintru said. “I didn't expect you to come here, Ambassador.”

“I like parties,” Mike said simply. “And drinks, too.”

“The most important part,” Valintru agreed. She had to be old, but she giggled like she was just out of high school. Valintru took Nalik's arm. “Here, Nalik, the human’s just reminded me to replace my filters. Shall we?”

“Enjoy yourselves,” Nalik said, letting her lead him away. Mike leaned over and asked Lolanne, “Who was that?”

“Nilak's partner, I think. You didn’t see the way she looked at him?”

“Er, no. She's got a visor, like everyone else.”

“Oh. Well, let’s just say they didn’t leave to go replace suit filters.”

Something to the side attracted their attention. Together they pushed their way towards a small clearing, sectioned off from the main crowds by a holographic barrier. Mike could best describe this area as a small shooting range. Holo-targets flipped up out of thin air in random spots in front of a metal wall, which was black and scorched. A pair of Suvelians stood twenty meters away and fired plasma bolts up at the targets. The weapons looked real, the bolts genuine. Each time a bolt flew through a target, the hologram went red. A few people were lining up, waiting for their turns. Lolanne looked up at Mike, who nodded eagerly. They joined the lineup.

When it came to their turn, Mike and Lolanne stepped up to the plasma rifles, a few meters between them. The rifle was warm in Mike’s hands. Definitely real. A Suve, probably the judge or owner, came up to them. He had a lot of energy in his voice “Ambassador! Guider! I’ve been wondering out of which of you can shoot the best. Do either of you need to know the rules?”

“I do,” Mike said. “Do we just aim and shoot?”

“For sixty seconds!” The judge nodded. “I will be keeping count, don't you worry. The first person to strike a target owns that point, so reflexes are key. We'll start on my mark. Are you ready?”

Mike brought the little green sights to his eyes, Lolanne doing the same. The rifle was awkward in his grip, alien and curvy. “Ready... Go!” Holograms fazed into existence. He aimed up at one and pulled the trigger. Too slow. Lolanne had already shot seconds before he did. Two holograms appeared, one closer to him, one further to the right, to Lolanne’s side. This time he scored a point. Four targets came up next, spread out evenly. He stopped taking count and just went with focusing on his aim. Eight targets appeared for only two seconds, and they both didn't manage hit them all before they disappeared. Sixteen targets came next, vanished, twenty targets after that. Towards the very end it was borderline chaos, dozens and dozens of targets appearing but not staying for long. He hit a fair few of the bullseyes, adrenaline and competitiveness fuelling him on.

“Hold fire!” called the judge, raising a hand. “By a slim margin of forty-three to seventeen, Guider Lolanne is the winner!”

Lolanne pumped her fist with a hushed little “-yes!”, a rather human gesture that made Mike grin. Some of the people watching gave a few cheers. Mike pretended to be very disappointed with himself. Lolanne glanced at him as she set the rifle down. “What happened, Mike? You gone cross-eyed or something?”

“I prefer shotguns,” he said, shrugging. “Bet I can beat you if we went again.”

“You're on.”

Another round, and Mike managed to close the gap to just three points, but Lolanne's aim was just too quick, her alien eyes too sharp to compete with. But Lolanne seemed to enjoy herself, and that made him like it too. The judge thanked them for playing and they moved away to browse the rest of the events.

A Suvelian offered them a pack each as she passed by. Mike took one skeptically, while Lolanne took another eagerly, putting it down onto its place on her suit. “Panthean Brandy,” she explained. She must have taken a ‘sip’ at that moment, because he heard her smack her lips and exhale. “Careful, it’s pretty strong.”

Throwing her warning to the wind, Mike undid the cap and tilted his head back, pouring the liquid down his throat. It wasn't paste, like usual, but proper drink, or close enough to it. It didn't hit him hard, but it did make his mind fuzzy for a second after he swallowed, a pleasenat tang on his tongue. Lolanne looked up at his wide-eyed expression and giggled. Alien or human, it just felt so damn good to have something to properly quench his thirst for once.

“It's you!” a little voice exclaimed suddenly. Mike looked round but couldn't find the speaker. It was only when he noticed movement below him that he looked down and saw a child, pointing a little finger at him. Mike blinked, seeing as he’d met only adults so far. The child wore a suit, and came up to about knee-height.

“It's me,” Mike confirmed, crouching so he was level with the child's eyes. He gave the proper introductions with a grin. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Kesh,” the boy said. He raised a tentative finger, mustered his bravery, and poked Mike on the head. “You look funny.”

“Oh yeah? Well at least I-” Mike was cut off as someone else approached, shouting Kesh's name.

“Kesh? Kesh! There you are! I told you to stay close to me,” Shimmu said, reaching down and lifting Kesh onto her shoulders playfully. Shimmu looked sternly at her son for a moment, and then the two of them burst out laughing. The sight made Mike smile.

“So this is the little devil you were talking about,” Mike asked. Shimmu nodded.

“Indeed it is. He ran right over to you once he saw you across the grounds, despite me telling him not to. He never listens to me, or to anyone for that matter.”

“What did you say?” Kesh asked, and cracked up at his own joke. Shimmu shook her head in mock annoyance and looked to Lolanne.

“I hope you're doing well, Guider. I see that just like me, you choose strange companions.” She didn't try to hide the slight insult to Mike. Fortunately Lolanne came to his defence.

“He's strange, yes, but not bad.” Something about the way Lolanne talked about him did seem a little touching. He’d have to pay her back for that bit of flattery.

“Mum! Look at father! What's he doing with his feet?” Kesh pointed off to the distance, towards the largest crowd gathering in the square, his height allowing him to see what Mike could not.

“Let's go find out. Farewell, Guider. Ambassador.” Shimmu moved away, with Kesh as her guide, through the crowd. Mike and Lolanne continued on a different direction.

“That little guy had a suit of his own,” Mike said. “Does he have to get another suit when he gets bigger? Or does one size fits all?”

“Just the one size, yes. Some have to have theirs replaced, like the Honour Guard, or if it’s too far damaged to be reusable. But otherwise, yes, one suit forever.”

“So you've been inside that suit your whole life?” he asked.

“Yes. Well, recently I've had a taste of the outside world, as you know.”

“Yeah. How did you find it?”

“I don't know how you stand it.”

“It’s not so bad. It has to be better than living inside a suit. I don’t know if I could be stuck in one of those for even a day.”

“It’s not so bad,” she echoed. Her eyes trailed down his arms and ended at his feet. “I suppose we are very different from one other.”

“Maybe that's why I find you so interesting.”

Her eyes widened a little, the deep crystal irises brightening. “Th-There's hardly a need to flatter me.”

“Well I-I'm just saying.” Lolanne met his eyes for a second and then glanced away, humming in time with the current Suvelian tune, 'drinking' down the rest of her brandy.  She kept looking towards where Shimmu had gone every now and then. Music, proper music, came from that direction.

A ring of cheering Suvelians gathered off to the side. Mike let curiosity get the better of him and he pushed his way in, the sounds of crunching gravel and metal striking metal very audible. There had been a fighting ring on the Arden, not officially of course – officially it was free time for inmates, for even a few security guards as well, to blow off steam. Unofficially, Confederate guards had bet on who could spill the most blood. Most inmates didn't have a choice if they wanted to fight each other or not. But despite the weak bodies under those suits, the Suvelians had a brawling pit of their own, and seemed to like throwing a few punches too.

Two aliens wrestled inside a purple ring. The holographic ring trailed a few centimetres out of the ground like smoke. He recognised Karto, fighting someone Mike didn't know the name of. It took a few minutes of observing to notice that they weren't really fighting but focused more on outmanoeuvring each other. A few punches were thrown, but they were more to put the opponent off balance, not to hurt or wound. Lolanne stepped up beside him, raising her height by standing on the tip of her hooves to see into the ring.

“Doesn't look like they're trying to knock each other out,” he said to her, watching Karto try and outflank his opponent, who stepped back to keep him right in front.

“In brawling you have to take off the other man's pack. You see it there, between Guider Karto's shoulder blades?”

He did. Something resembling a handheld radio was stuck to the small of Karto's back, and now that he had seen it, he could tell Karto was desperately reaching for the other alien's own pack, while at the same time concealing his own. Karto dashed in for a tackle and brought the other fighter to the ground. They scrambled around fiercely.

“I hate this game,” Lolanne said. “Too violent, and too old. Of course Karto would be playing.”

Mike raised his eyebrows. He was the only target for her little comments, but to see her quip about Karto was fun to see. Maybe it was the alcohol getting to her.

Most of the crowd roared in approval as Karto barely scraped his fingers over his opponent’s pack. The scramble went on, but it seemed inevitable that Karto would succeed. He rushed in, putting in all his strength to end the brawl quickly. Karto was kicked off but he recovered and launched his attack again, pinning his opponent down by the wrists. With a desperate cry he freed his opponents pack with a last thrust, and as soon as he held it up triumphantly, a judge ceased the fight. About half the crowd cheered, and the other half were silent and disappointed.

The defeated alien moved away, and Karto walked towards Mike's direction. The crowd parted a little and turned to talk among themselves. Someone from the crowd slapped Karto on the back and congratulated him. Mike stepped forward when the Guider noticed him.

“Not a bad fight,” Mike said. Karto waved the compliment away.

“Jekt is weak, it was hardly a challenge.” Karto grabbed an offered refreshment and stuffed it on his suit. Water or brandy, Mike wasn't certain. “So, Ambassador, why have you come to the Honouring? Were you invited?”

“I was, actually.”

“More lies. This is a festival for Suvelians. To Honour the memory of a planet lost long ago because of your kind. You don't belong here.”

“No, I don't,” Mike said, frowning. “but who's gonna stop me? You?”

“The Honouring's got no room for your provocations, human. Ever heard of a thing called manners, or hospitality? It's a wonder Elder Nilak allowed you to come out of that den you stuff yourself in these days.”

“It wasn't the Elder who invited him,” Lolanne said, who had been lingering behind until now. She stepped up. “He's with me.”

Karto genuinely seemed shocked. “L-Lolanne? You've come to the Honouring with him? I could forgive Raan for going out on a whim to let you join our team, given your history together. But then you abandon him and nearly get yourself killed. Raan could hardly get any sleep while you were out there fooling around, did you know that? And now you come to our festivals with a human? Child, what has gotten into you? You'll never earn your Proving if you keep acting so stupidly.”

“You know what,” Mike said, stepping protectively in front of Lolanne. “I just realized I don’t give a damn about your hospitality – get in that ring, I'll show you a challenge.”

“You? Challenge? Hardly, but I’ve always wanted to see what happens if I bend a human’s spine the wrong way. Jekt! Give this man your pack, he's about to see what a true Suvelian can do!”

“Mike...” Lolanne said, but the crowds had gone silent and were listening in the whole time, and found the thought of a human fighting all the more entertaining, and sent up yells of approval and drowned her voice out. Mike was encouraged forward and into the ring by hungry observers, and Jekt placed his pack in between Mike's shoulder blades. The metal stuck there as if connected by magnets.

“Keep your shoulders proud, it helps,” Jekt advised in a low voice before turning away. On the other side of the ring Karto was bouncing on his heels, eager to get started while the judge got herself ready, explaining the rules to the human and how she wasn't responsible for injuries caused within the next few minutes. Mike widened his stance and raised his fists like an amateur boxer. Back on the Arden he’d got his ass kicked more than he’d care to admit, but back then he had been constantly half-starved and spent most hours of the day in a cell. Now though, he was well fed and rested. He hoped that would give him an edge.

The judge signalled to begin, and Karto charged forward with surprising speed. Mike sidestepped out of the way at the last moment, feeling the wind brush by as the Guider's suit blurred past. Karto stopped and swung around, leading with his fist. Mike saw it coming and slapped it away, only for Karto raise a foot and kick Mike’s leg. In the last fight Karto didn't appear to want or need to injure Jekt, but now it seemed the complete opposite. Mike winced in pain and staggered back, glancing at the judge. She raised a hand to say something, but decided to lower it. Mike didn't think rules would help him here.

Not that they ever had, he thought.

Karto continued to keep Mike on the defence, sometimes reaching to pry away the pack, but mostly trying to draw blood and make bruises. Mike kept circling the Guider and waited for an opening, and when it came – a slow right hook from Karto, he took it. He clenched his fist and swung as hard as he dared, passing through Karto's block and slamming into his helmet.

Pain exploded in Mike's hand. Nothing was broken, but any harder and he would have mangled his fingers. He realised too late that a simple punch to an enemy in a suit wouldn't do much. However, Karto stumbled back from the unexpected blow, dazed for a crucial moment. Maybe his head inside slammed against the interior of the helmet, doubling the effect. A surprising number of the crowd wooped and cheered, and Mike could see a few familiar faces just off to the side, but didn’t take the time to examine them.

He clenched and unclenched his throbbing hand, but wasted no time in this momentary advantage. He raised a foot and kicked Karto in the stomach, sending the Guider onto his haunches. Mike advanced onto his fallen opponent, but Karto swept Mike's legs out from under him with a heavy swing of his feet. The human hit the ground hard, the pack pressing into his skin like he'd landed on a rock. For a second his vision swam. The crowd had gathered more than double its original members.

They both tried to recover, but Karto was faster. He got on top of Mike and went to smash his face in. Mike raised his arms and covered his face just in time. When Karto saw he couldn't get through, he instead went to lift Mike's shoulders to get at the pack.

Mike wouldn't let him. With Karto's hands down he pressed himself up into the Suvelian and tossed him to the side, reversing their positions. There was no way he could seriously injure this suited Suvelian, weaker body or not, the armour would break his hands and feet if he tried.

He pinned one of Karto's arms underneath a knee, and reached around to seize the Guider’s pack and end the fight as quickly as possible. Karto head-butted him, metal smacking flesh, and Mike saw stars. Blood leaked from his brow, running down and leaking into his mouth. Karto kicked him in the stomach, forcing Mike to empty his lungs. But the human kept himself as close as he could. The pack was almost in reach.

Karto gave him all he had, managing to smash and bruise every inch of his body he could get at. Mike slipped a hand beneath the aliens back, and felt the shape of his goal. With suit-enhanced arms, Karto threw Mike into the air and the human landed half-inside the rings border, artificial light shining into his eyes. He looked up and saw Karto getting to his feet, legs raised and ready to kick him senseless. Strength faded from Mike’s body. He wouldn't be able to defend himself.

Karto was just about to pummel Mike when the judge called out. “Stop, Guider Karto! The fight is over!”

The crowd was silent, even as Karto raised a victorious arm. Mike was equally baffled when no one said anything. That was, until he looked down at the pack in his hand. With an effort, he stood up, and presented the pack to the completely baffled Karto, who felt the empty space on his backside with a distracted movement. The judge continued. “Ambassador Mike has claimed victory!”

Silence. It would have extended to awkward silence had someone not thrown out a yell of approval a few moments later. Mike searched for the source. It was Lolanne, of course, and she wasn't alone. Behind her, Selen, Raan, Nilak and Valintru, even Shimmu with Kesh on her shoulders. Faelin was there too. One by one they joined Lolanne’s voice, and this created a shock wave that spread out and affected the majority of the observers. How many people had come to see the human fight? He'd definitely attracted plenty of attention, and he had given them a show none of them would forget anytime soon.

Feeling bold, he raised the pack like it was a trophy, and the crowd roared in appreciation. Karto sulked, was about to retreat with a low-hung head when Mike stopped him. Karto halted, though reluctantly. He motioned for him to follow and they went over to Lolanne.

“You don't look like it, but you did prove a challenge,” Karto admitted. That condescending tone of his had lifted a little, but not by much.

“Don't lick my boots, you owe someone else an apology.” Karto looked up at the younger Lolanne and sighed. She stared at Mike for a long moment before switching to Karto.

“Forgive me, Guider Lolanne. It was wrong of me to say those things. I'd forgotten Saduun's wisdom, and my own manners.”

Lolanne folded her arms. “It's fine. Don't worry about it.”

“Thank you. Enjoy the Honouring, you two.” And with that, Karto went the other direction. Mike caught Lolanne's gaze, and she grinned, an unspoken feeling surfacing in her breast.

“Not many have taken down Karto in a brawl,” Selen said, stepping forward. “Well done, indeed.”

“You gave him a good ass-whooping, human!” Kesh called out. Shimmu told him to keep his voice down. The crowd slowly dwindled away, a few of them paying similar compliments. It appeared he wasn't the only one to enjoy seeing Karto taken down a peg or two.

“You're bleeding,” Lolanne said. Mike wiped something wet on his face and saw blood on his hand.

“Nothing another brandy won't fix,” he said. Lolanne fully agreed, and led him to where they could get a whole lot more. A long table that was mostly empty had brandy and all other sorts of alien alcohol on display. Lolanne took an empty seat, replaced her pack with a fresh one, and drank while sitting upright. Mike chugged a second and third, the buzz helped numb the pain.

“That was a pretty stupid thing to do,” Lolanne said, glancing at him wryly. She sounded more pleased than she let on. “Karto speaks like that to everyone. You could have let it go.”

“And let him insult you like that? Not on my watch.”

“*Sigh* Males…” Lolanne’s eyes flickered away for a moment. Now at this angle he could see the what the biggest crowd on the grounds was so entranced by. Couples linked their arms together and were spinning around on a slightly raised platform. It had to be dancing, there was no mistaking it. The music was perfectly in time with the body movements, almost mesmerising if he looked for too long.

“Is that a dance floor?” he said. Lolanne turned to him, her eyes blazing in the dark depths of the suit.

“What better way to express yourself?” she countered, but Mike wasn't complaining. They sat in companionable silence for a time, drinking and giggling whenever Lolanne pointed out how shocked Karto had been when Mike bested him. He asked her about their history, and she didn't exactly hate the older Guider, though the alcohol obviously loosened her tongue. Apparently Karto had been fully against the decision to allow Lolanne onto the team.

“What an asshole,” Mike said. “You make a pretty good Guider.”

“I share his opinion,” Lolanne said, her mood souring a little. “I only joined because of Raan's special treatment. Without him, I wouldn't be here, because I didn’t have what it takes.”

“And without you, no one would know about the Spawn,” Mike countered. “Don't sell yourself short so much.”

“How could I not? It's true – during my training I was the lowest of my class, and I didn't need Karto to tell me that. I got the spot because Raan pitied me, and that makes me feel even worse. I even crashed the colony ship when I had to step up and Guide the ship down to the ground. Anyone else from my class wouldn't have made such an error.”

Mike had heard bits and pieces of what she was talking about, and now he could see the whole picture of what had happened. He put a hand on her arm and said, “We all make mistakes at some point, I know that better than anyone else. But you did the best you could. ‘Sides, that was the storms fault, not yours. We know that now.”

“Yes, it’s just… I want to do right by those I got killed. Finding the Spawn was a start, but I thought if given enough time I could move on, but it still bothers me sometimes.”

“I know how you feel. Time’s not the best thing for those sorts of wounds. But you’ve got the Spawn to blame, not yourself.”

“And what about you?” she asked. She rested her own hand on his. “What happened to Neruvana wasn’t your fault. You’ve got that Locke man to blame, yet you’re obsessed with him and getting revenge.”

“That’s different, Lola. He made me do that, and I had no…” He trailed off. Just how different was it? They’d both killed indirectly, been thrust into situations they should have dealt with better, but had not. Locke. Locke was the difference. Even just thinking about him made him angry, and Lolanne must have seen it on his face.

“I shouldn't have mentioned that,” Lolanne said. “I’m sorry. Must be the damn Brandy making me so sombre.”

He let go of her arm, shaking his head. If only he could find the right words. What was it that Nilak had said about the past? Something to do with looking forward but stopping once in a while to glance back? He raised his glass. “I’m sorry too. I'm no good at this consoling thing.”

“If you want to help me, start by handing me another brandy,” she said, consuming a pack and beginning to slur her words. “Heh, I'm sharing a drink, or two... three? With a human. My brothers would hate you if they ever found out.”

“My lips are sealed,” Mike said. Lolanne glanced at the dance floor again. They sat together for a few minutes, drinking and contemplating. Giggling like a couple of kids as they made small talk. Mike watched the dancing as well, smiling at the alien moves and the even more alien rhythms. Couples rowdy with drink joined and left the dance floor regularly.

Beyond them, someone moved up onto an even higher raised platform. It was Elder Nilak, flanked by two elite vanguards. The Elder raised his hands to plead for quiet. When the majority noticed him, they cheered and whooped, but after a while all was silent and every Suvelian looked up at him.

“Friends,” the Elder began, his communicator amplifying his voice loud enough for all to hear. The ones far out to the back probably heard him through their own communicators. Unknown to Mike, the coming speech could be heard across the entire colony. “-and family, today we stand at the end of our darkest era, many lifetimes of living within the Aether, fighting and dying as we watched Suvelia burn.” The crowd hummed gently, long notes and soft beats. Mike could almost see it in his mind’s eye – a planet once green, now red, littered with destroyed cities, streets filled with bodies. “We lost our only home, we were pushed into the seas between planets to live in a coffin of metal, but the time has come for that to end, and for a new dawn to begin, a dawn where we make our stand, where we make our claim in the Milky Way. Today, at the end of this cycle, it is my great honour that I formally declare Panthea as our new Homeworld!”

The rhythms changed to sharper, upbeat notes, coupled with cheers and shouts of joy. Mike’s translator told him the year was 2500, but he wondered what the Suvelian calendar called this date. Without looking, Lolanne grabbed Mike's hand, resting on the counter. Elder Nilak continued on. “It is unfortunate that the Hierarch could not be here this day, but he of course passes on his blessings, and will give it himself in the coming weeks’ time, when he and the Golden Will arrive to see not an uncharted world, but a Homeworld, where we can start to rebuild our society. Our struggles are not over, but we have earned a respite. Spend it well, friends, family. Today, the Suvelian people stand again!”

Energy swirled through the air, the cheering and celebration not dying down until several long minutes later. Once it did, the dancing became the main attraction, doubling in its size as hundreds flocked to the space. Nilak moved from the stage, his guard following behind. Mike grinned as he watched the males and females moving lithely with the organic beats. These aliens knew how to groove. There was an empty spot in the corner of the floor, left open for anyone to jump in.

Though expressions were something he couldn’t see, he could just tell that Lolanne was watching the dancers with longing. And compared to the festivities going on over there, this bar she and him were sat at looked awfully quiet in comparison.

Any onlooker would have seen his face beam as a fairly bold idea came to mind. He chugged down the rest of his drink, smacked his lips, and took Lolanne by the wrist. The female gave him a yip of surprise. “Ah! Mike? What are you-?”

He led her towards and then through the spectators. Some of them stared as they passed, curiously cocking their heads. “Oh, no! Hold on a minute, Mike!” But Lolanne offered no resistance, like she wanted him to lead her on. They passed onto the main floor and it was obvious that most of the dancing Suvelians had stopped to gawk, but Mike blocked them out. He didn't care what they thought right at this moment.

“Come on, Lola,” he said, taking her hands into his and leading with some simple steps, counting the rhythm aloud. “One two three, one two three!”

“What is-? How are-? Are we-?” Lolanne was blubbering, but she adjusted to his human dancing with her own alien grace quickly, and they were soon the main attraction. Practically every single colonist stopped to gawk. He kept his eyes only on Lolanne, and tried to remember his long-buried dance moves. The moonlight caught on her regal environmental suit in a stunning display of sea blues, and she was so damn beautiful, laughing with him, leaning into his chest as they twirled and swayed. It had been so long since he'd done anything like this, but like riding a bike, he wasn't going to forget anytime soon.

Once Lolanne became used to his slow steps, he tried something more ambitious, adding a few spins here and there, speeding up a little. Lolanne gasped, chuckled, and adapted, the shapes of her eyes squinting as her cheeks bulged from a hidden smile. Mike smiled too, and didn't need to warn her as he made her spin round using just one hand.

“Where did you learn all of this?” she breathed, her voice a little raspy as he twirled her.

“Dancing with pretty girls is my forte,” he said, not really paying attention to what he was saying, and Lolanne didn't press the question. His moves would have been more suited to human music, like that ancient song Staying Alive, but something about seeing an alien woman trying to mimic Travolta's moves was very amusing. Rolling arms, bopping hips, palms against each other as they crossed their legs behind themselves. Lolanne took to it all very quickly.

And he loved every minute of it.

Nilak and Valintru came to help, joining their bodies together and sharing the weight of the staring spectators. This helped start a chain reaction to get the celebrations rolling again, the couples timidly restarting what Mike had interrupted. The night rolled on, and it was glorious. Lolanne offered to change dance styles into the Suvelian custom. This was a much more close and intimate style than his, with her clutching his shoulders, and him taking hold of her slim, yet full hips. He could feel her muscles flexing and moving beneath the suit as they swayed in alien rhythms. He felt heat in his face when she half-draped one of her healthy legs across his own.

She looked so fantastically feminine; her supple chest tantalisingly close to his. Although he wondered what she looked like under all that metal, he didn't need to see underneath that she had a stunning body, she was like an athlete in her prime. She moved with such grace and precision it was hard not to stare, rubbing up against him sometimes in an almost sensual way. A part of him reminded himself that she was an alien, but he didn't really care at this point. There was no human here to judge apart from himself, and no one would believe him anyway if he decided to speak of any of this, which he never would.

They held each other and moved together for a long time. Mike wished it had lasted longer, but they were both breathing hard, and the near constant laughing was not helping his lungs. Lolanne was beaming and laughing too, but this wasn’t a simple chuckle on her part as he heard before, now she was really in high spirits. Her laugh was lilting and feminine, and he simply loved the sound of it.

When neither could dance no more, they reluctantly broke off the dance floor and the observers parted to make way, but this time they didn't leave stunned faces, but cheers and shouts of approval. Some even encouraged them to come back again, and Mike felt heat flood his face. Lolanne blushed too, but she fortunately had a good way to hide it behind that faceplate.

“Saduun...” Lolanne said, grabbing his hand and leading him not to the bar, but beyond it, away from the crowds. “I need some air.”

“But you... are in a suit...” He wheezed out, still laughing.

“You know what I mean.”

Mike didn't, but went along with her. They slipped away from the main celebrations and through a few curving streets. The sounds of crashing waves filled his ears. Lolanne lead him to the coastline, prancing along like she was still doing her jig. The sea of water stretched from north to east to south. The beach was wide and empty, leaving a strip of seashells and sand to give Panthea a more tropical vibe. Waves smashed against packs of rock formations, leaving frothy coats. The air smelled of salt, and cooled his body.

Moonlight lit up the beach, and Lolanne plonked onto the sand, so close to the water that waves licked up at her four-digit feet. Mike sat down beside her, resting an arm on a knee. Above them, silhouetted against the giant moon, the Karyilin drifted along, like a giant protective sentinel. Panthea at that very moment wasn't so bad after all.

“You know,” Lolanne began, looking out across the ocean. “You really... You really float my boat, Mike.”

Mike chuckled, remembering that was the first human saying he had introduced to her, way back when. Lolanne looked at him and developed into the same hysterics. “What is so funny? What did I say?”

“Ah, nothing. You float my boat too,” he said, and then made himself laugh harder. Lolanne added her voice to his, leaning into his shoulder a little as she did. Soon they finished their collective laughs, and the energy of the dance slowly bled away.

He took a sip of his drink and set it aside. They watched the water for a while, the festivities behind them bringing out the songs of the Suvelians. Tranquil, almost hypnotising in their hums and breaths.

“Are all Suve parties as good as this one?” he asked, the silence dragging on a little and forcing him to say something.

“There's never been the time before,” she answered, glancing at a little creature crawling across the sand in front of them. “But now... now the Honouring will take weeks to end, and after that there'll be others. Many others, bigger than todays.”

Weeks to end? That was probably so the Hierarch could get here and celebrate with the people. “Sounds fun,” he said, pausing. “… I wish I could be here to see them,” he added.

Lolanne looked at him sharply, her lidded eyes taking a hard gaze. “What do you mean by that?”

“This whole thing,” he said, waving around them. “It's nice and all, don’t get me wrong. But it's not for me. There's some things I've got to take care of out there.”

“Locke,” she said after a moment. “What he did to you was many cycles ago. You are probably never going to see him again. He might have even met his end already while you were incarcerated.”

“He’s too smart to let that happen to him. He needs to pay for what he did to me.”

“But I thought-” Lolanne removed her brandy pack from her suit and tossed it away. “After all this time together, I thought you'd might have had... You're practically one of us, Mike. There's no need for you to leave.”

“Just because I can read your language, know your history, your Divine, maybe share a few of your beliefs, that doesn't make me a Suvelian,” he said. “And it doesn't matter if I want to stay or not, the UEC's gonna come here looking for me eventually. I have to leave before they put me back in a cell.”

“But… So that’s it? You're going to go out there and kill him? That'll sort you out, won't it? Wash your crimes away?” Lolanne countered. Mike went to speak, but she cut him off. “I thought I had you figured out.”

“What?” he asked.

“I thought you were different. Everyone I've ever known told me that humans were deceitful, careless, horrible creatures that don't know compassion. Then you came down from the sky, and along the way you proved every one of those points wrong. You saved my life, shared my burdens and worries, u-understood me. You even wanted to learn my language, from me! You defended me from Karto, flattered me with your little compliments, danced with me... and now you’re just going to leave me?”

“Leave, you?” he said. “Lola, I didn't mean-”

“Don't call me that!” she said, rising to her feet. “I'm such an idiot! E-Even with my sight I've never been good at reading people. Why did I think that you'd feel the same way?”

Lolanne began to storm back towards the colony. Mike got up, sand falling off his clothes, and grabbed her wrist. She shook the grip away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Lola...”

“Just leave me alone,” she said. He went to say something, anything that could try and set the record straight, but movement over her shoulder drew his attention.

The storm beyond the colony, rising up above the horizon, the landscape, into orbit itself, seemed a lot closer than he'd noticed earlier that day. “Stupid,” Lolanne was saying. “I’m so… so stupid. How could I think my entire people were wrong about humans?” She sniffed. “That I could make something with you? I don’t… I-I can’t...”

She raised her hands up to her visor and fell to the ground as a horrible sound erupted all around them. The noise was like metal scratching against metal, multiplied tenfold and interlaced with a thousand dying men and women. Hot pain washed over Mike’s ears, and he staggered to his knees, arching his back in pain. It felt like hours before the metallic scream died away, but a part of it remained hanging in the air.

Squinting through lidded eyes, Mike saw up above, the storm wall advancing at a speed so unnatural he thought he was seeing the world spin. The maelstrom rolled overhead, blocking out the dark green sky, the white stars and the giant moon.

Slowly, it began to rain.

Peering his eyes west, he saw the horizon light up with blood-red lightning strikes. Through the aisles between the colony buildings, he could see a perfect view of those mountains he and Lolanne held delved into and had nearly died within all those months ago. A terrible, dark figure was rising up between the peaks that looked like thick wizard hats.

A slate-gray head tilted up between the mountains and revealed a giant crimson eye. Nearby, Lolanne screamed. Mike stood silently a few paces behind her, arms half raised to his ears, frozen in place. The figure attached to the head was as thick as the mountains, bulky and powerful. It pulled itself up, one metal arm on the left mountainside to support its massive body, gaze locked right onto Mike all the while as it straightened up to its towering might.

It rose up to a monsterous height, standing a little taller than the mountains in a great but terrible display of its wicked presence. It's eye swivelled left and right with deliberate slowness, ancient mechanisms whirring across the landscape as it did. The metal scream started again, rising to the point where it became unbearable. Then the sound stopped as fast as it had come, and the world went silent.

Then, a red beam lanced out of the machine’s eye and cut from the west side of the colony to the east, passing a dozen meters to Mike's left on its heated journey. The lance died out in the middle of the sea, splitting the water right down to the seabed for an instant.

A second of quiet went by, before the chaos started.

From the beginning of the lance’s path, explosions began. Like a hail of mines set off one by one, fireballs erupted along the same course as the red beam. Rooftops exploded, sending out debris in all directions, lighting up the world from the copper-coloured festival lights to blood-red hues as fire was immediately birthed from the detritus. When the detonations came to the closest point to Mike, the heat hit him like a wall and the detonations sent him flying through the air, flipping twice over, before his body slammed into the shallows of the sea. The view of the thing responsible lingered in Mike’s vision for a moment before water distorted his vision, and a thought almost not of his own came to his mind.

The Colossus has woken up.

Chapter 14

Colony

1

Like a dracon’s breath, fire washed over the shimmering surface of the water. Mike felt himself sink further into the depths of the sea, waiting until the blaze passed. It felt like the longest minute in his life, his lungs burning for air. When the carpet of flame brushed away, he swam to the surface, coughing up water as he refilled his lungs. His features were illuminated a crimson red as he gazed back to the shore.

The colony was on fire, there was no other way to put it. The Colossus's lance had cut through the cityscape like a knife, splitting houses down the middle, razing entire streets. The Suvelian songs were replaced by the screams of the dying, audible even above the Colossus's whirs as its ancient mechanics began to propel its huge body forward.

The giant machine used one of those distant mountains like one would use a handrailing. A spider-web of cracks blossomed through the peak of the mountain from where the metal limb had gripped. Mike didn’t know whether to be awed, terrified, or both when it raised one towering foot over the valley he and Lolanne had so much trouble crossing.

Speaking of who…

“Lola!” he sputtered, wading for the shore. Wet sand clung to his pants as he staggered onto dry land. All he could see nearby was the scorch mark left by the Collosus’ lance strike. He could see oil birthing out of the cracks in the burnt ground. Spawn. He made to run, to get away before they formed, but he caught sight of the Colossus on the horizon, and the sight made him freeze. Just as Lolanne had frozen when she met that blood-filled eye, back when the colony ship had first entered the planet’s orbit.

The way it just stepped over the mountains seemed so unreal. The same mountain that was filled with floaters and scuttlers in its dark underworld. It was like a mechanical man stepping over a corpse without a thought. Avalanches cascaded down the mountain tops from its sheer presence. causing an avalanche to fall from its snow-capped top. The ground literally trembled beneath its foot as one of the legs came crashing down, flattening dozens of acres of forest under its robotic heel. The resulting shockwave travelled far, causing Mike to lose his balance and fall onto his side, but even as he fell into the sand, he never let his gaze leave the Colossus's great red eye.

Mike scrambled to his feet, and scanned the beach for Lolanne. He looked back in the water, thinking on the off chance she’d been tossed away too. The sea was peaceful and undisturbed compared to what was happening on land. Maybe, a part of him thought, the lance had gotten her...

He pushed that thought away before it developed. The human stumbled forward, water dripping off his clothes as he made his way back to the Honouring grounds. Two sets of footprints were in the sand, Mike's and Lolanne's. A third set trailed back up the way they'd come, shaped like cloven feet. So she's alive, he thought, relieved. But it didn’t look like she had come to find out if he was okay, and that obviously wasn't good. Just what the hell was he thinking? All this, the Honouring, the dancing, the time together, how could he not see that she looked at him as more than just a friend?

Mike held onto the excuse that they were aliens to each other, and both of them had probably missed a hell of a lot of social cues. It made him feel a little better, like any good excuse would do, but not by much. He wanted to find her, but there was no chance of talking now. The Colossus was preparing another step, and the colony was turning into a warzone. Gunfire erupted as two sides started to fight. The sound of ballistic weapons was unmistakable.

He kept moving as quietly as he could. He reached the end of the beach – following Lolanne’s footsteps until they faded onto the cobblestone, and leaned against a building, peering around its corner carefully. The Honouring grounds were completely devastated. What had been a dance floor minutes ago, where a crowd had cheered and sung, there were now bodies, hundreds of dead bodies. Stalls were crumbled, people hanging from benches and chairs at awkward angles, bullets and plasma scorches on their suits. Plasma scorches? How was that possible?

Pockets of Suvelians scrambled away down to the southern side of the grounds. Bullets flew after them, some hitting and sending the occasional colonist to the ground where they writhed like dying insects. Mike looked over at the source of the fighting. A group of Suvelian soldiers were covering the retreating civilians. He identified one as an officer, gesturing the fleeing people to hurry up before firing his rifle. Spawn, strolling out of cover and into the grounds at an almost casual pace, were shooting back. Dozens more Spawn were joining the fight, appearing from side alleys in an attempt to flank the Suvelians.

On the raised platform in the epicentre of the grounds, Nilak was crouched behind a collapsed pillar, his honour-guard beside him, trading fire with a squad of Spawn. The Colossus’ lance had gone right past the stage, leaving a long trail of dark and burnt concrete. Tall walls of blazing infernos licked out of windows and cracks in the earth. Not even the downpour of the storm was putting out the roaring fires, and why would it? The Spawn had control of the elements, that much was obvious.

Mike kept his head down and made his way to the Elder. Halfway there he tripped over a dead woman's limb, but planted his hands on the ground before he could collapse. He pushed himself up, and his hands came back wet with green, Suvelian blood. He stared at his splayed fingers stupidly for a long moment. It was happening again. So much death in such a limited time. Only now. it was aliens instead of humans. He'd only been spared that day on the Arden because of his cell, the cell he'd hated so much but had protected him in some ironic way. There was no cell to protect him this time.

This time, the Spawn would finish him off for good.

Mike subdued his growing panic and kept moving. Stray bullets flew overhead as he met a retreating crowd, heading the opposite way. He pushed through the people, who parted around him like a rock in a riverbed. He didn't see Lolanne among them, or anyone he recognised for that matter. He swung a leg up onto the stage where Nilak had formally announced their claim to Panthea, and pulled the rest of his body up after. Nilak glanced around and saw him, waving a hand. “Over here! Are you alright, Ambassador?”

Just after Mike took cover beside the Elder, the gunfight rose up a notch. He peeked over the column and saw dozens of Spawn on the far side of the grounds, closing in like lumbering zombies. There were former-humans over there, half of their number wielding pistols, the other half holding assault rifles, but he picked out a pair of the Spawn that looked incredibly different.

These two were a little taller, with broad shoulders and thicker oil-hides, like they were wearing armour. But the most noticeable thing was, that they were wielding Suvelian weapons. Those weapons fired bolts. Plasma bolts. Their forms looked very similar to the Suvelian biology. Was he looking at the missing colonists? They were covered in the oily bile like the humans were, but reacted quicker, ducked in and out of cover like proper soldiers. Mike cowered moments before a bolt sailed past where his head had been.

“Have you seen Lola?” he asked, raising his voice so he could be heard. The Elder ejected a battery on his plasma pistol and nodded his head.

“She went with the rest of the Guiders to rally the colonists,” Nilak said. Mike let out a slow exhale. At least she was alive and with her team. He wiped the rain from his eyes.

“Which way did they go?”

“I know what you're thinking, Ambassador. She'll be fine, and I won't allow you to run out there without protection. The Spawn are everywhere. They bypassed our perimeter defences and I’m getting reports that they’re swarming all over the districts.”

“That quickly? How?”

“They’re using our own underground network. They've completely overrun the tunnels, hitting our positions from the inside. I fear the colony is already lost.”

A plasma bolt flew past, close enough so Mike could feel its heat wash over his hair. More metal screaming filled the air – indicating the Colossus was on the move.

“We can’t stay here,” Mike said. A lightning strike whipped across the sky, as loud as a cannon, leaving a bright after-image.

“Evidently. I've ordered that the colonists be evacuated to the Citadel. It's the safest place at the moment. We will head there, protect the colony ship, protect the people. You know how to use one of these?”

Nilak presented a spare plasma pistol in his hand. Mike nodded, and took it. The honour-guard closest to them looked at Mike's hands as she reloaded her own weapon. “Elder? Is that really wise?”

“There's no place for prejudice on the battlefield, Manalu,” Nilak said. “And we need all the help we can get. On your feet, and bring Hakvin with you.”

The guard nodded and then shouted out. Another guard, likely Hakvin, broke off from the fight and approached. The two guards, plus Mike, hunkered by the pillar, eyes on the Elder. “I'll take point,” Nilak said. “Hakvin will be on my left, Manalu the right. Mike, you'll watch our backs.”

“What about the rest of the Suves?” Mike asked. His whole past was filled with leaving people behind, and he was done letting that go on for any longer. “We’re not just gonna leave them?”

“They will cover our retreat, lure the bulk of the Spawn away from us and the colonists. We will not let their sacrifice be in vain. Let's move!”

Nilak hopped down from the stage, his two guards on his flanks. Mike hesitated behind the pillar, then scrambled after them, trying to match their suit-enhanced legs and quicker strides. Roaring engines overlapped the whining of the Colossus' legs, and Mike looked up to see the Karlyin moving down from its position high in the sky. It’s front-end tilted slightly downwards, the cannons along the side adjusting their trajectories towards the towering machine advancing on the colony, one massive stride at a time.

The barrels of the warship cannons lit up in violet colours, and then energy exploded from the muzzles, purple traces of plasma blasting out to the west in dazzling lances. The sonic booms were electric and very loud. All ten of its front-mounted cannons fired two at a time and delivered their devastating payloads, lighting up the sky in an epic display of purple bombardment that Mike had to shield his eyes from.

When he was a kid, Mike's favourite program to watch during the week was Wargames, a show dedicated to portray the destruction that battlefleets and armadas were capable of. It was all simulated, of course, but it had looked incredibly real. He found it entertaining to watch the ship-captains try to outgun and outmanoeuvre their opponents, but the real interest came from the more grounded perspectives about war-stories, old soldiers from the Sector 38 Conflict all the way to the United Insurgency, and Mike had sat there, wondering what it would have felt like to have been there, in the thick of the fight, to feel the thrill the soldiers felt when your life was on the line and all around you war tore the world down.

He felt no thrill now, making his way through a destroyed colony that had just hours ago been so full of life and laughter and song. Nilak and his guards passed over the lance’s path, where it had curved to angle towards the Honouring grounds to deal the most damage. It looked like a long road of black that disintegrated everything in its path. Not even a single piece of metal remained, even the ground had become purified of colour, leaving only slate-grey dust that puffed up around Mike's feet as he ran through. A sudden moment of clarity came to Mike and told him that the dust that was flying up might have once been a Suve, maybe someone walking with a group of friends, only to look up as a bright light blinded the colonist and vaporised him.

They came to the other side of the lance's deadly path, and the ground quaked beneath them a moment after. Nilak and his guards remained balanced, but Mike staggered again and fell onto his shoulder. He half expected the guards to scoff or say something, but instead Manalu offered him a hand without a word.

He accepted it. Once up, Mike’s eyes drew unconsciously to the Colossus, dominating the distant sky. It had taken another huge stride forward, growing bigger, growing closer, rocking the earth. The Karlyin pounded its chest with enough ordinance to destroy a fleet, dozens upon dozens of plasma-trails the size of buildings soaring and connecting with the machine’s plating. The Colossus rocked back a little upon each impact, but otherwise didn't react. It's like its indestructible, Mike thought, why are they still firing? But he imagined if he was up there manning the guns, he wouldn't stop either, if he saw his people’s last bastion of civilisation under attack.

“Contact!” Hakvin hissed, snapping Mike into the present. He joined the Elder and his guards as they dove into the ruins of a destroyed building. To the south of them the street curved gently to the left, half-destroyed structures on either side, pockets of fire flickering out through doors and balconies. Three figures were coming this way. They were all armed with human weapons.

Despite the air being punctuated with sounds of fighting in all directions, these Spawn seemed aimless, walking without urgency or haste. Mike imagined they were simply out here looking for people to execute. He clenched around his pistol's grip angrily, but he kept his voice cool and quiet. “Are we letting them go?” he whispered.

Nilak shook his head, readying his own pistol. “We deal with them here and now. Manalu, you're with me. You two stay here and attack on my signal.”

Nilak and Manalu sneaked through the rubble to get another angle. Mike levelled his pistol and waited, aiming at the leftmost Spawn's head. Hakvin took up position to his right, resting his weapon on a low wall like a sniper lining up a shot. Hakvin’s weapon looked like it could take down a tank, bulky and long but seemingly as light as a feather. Somewhere in the distance there was an explosion. And even further away, a screeching sound as the Colossus prepared another step.

When the trio of Spawn was close enough that Mike could hear the swishing, wet sounds of the oil, across the street a plasma bolt was fired, and it struck one of the Spawn in its torso. Hakvin started shooting, and so did Mike, squeezing the trigger and hitting his intended target dead on before it had a chance to react. Two of the Spawn crumpled straight away in the crossfire but the third morphed into a knee-height blobby shape and slid across the ground, retaking its humanoid shape when it was safely behind a tunnel-booth nearby.

Hakvin began moving to the left, to get a flanking shot on the Spawn that wasn’t risking popping itself out of cover. Mike trailed behind, pistol at the ready out in front. Just as they got out onto the street, the booth the Spawn hid behind lit up in white and blue colours, and an underground cart emerged from the tunnel and onto the surface. Two Spawn stumbled out of its doors, plasma rifles in their freakish hands. These ones looked a lot bigger, like the ones back on the festival grounds.

“Down!” Hakvin yelled, pulling Mike and practically chucking him into the next house over, this one mostly intact. Plasma rained down on their position, and Mike wouldn't dare get off his knees and expose himself. Hakvin took a bolt to the arm, searing the suit there but not breaching it. Hakvin only growled in pain before straightening up and trading fire of his own.

Nilak and Manalu took pot shots from their position and distracted at least one of the Spawn. Mike settled below a window and peered out. One of the Spawn started reloading, the weapon and magazine comically small in its large, mutant hands, and Mike took the chance, lifting his pistol and firing. The bolt hit the Spawn in the shoulder and sent it to the ground where it began to spasm like a fish out of water. The two Spawn remaining had no cover from the bolts coming at them from multiple directions, and tried to fall back down a side alley. Hakvin shot one in the leg, wounding it, and a three-round burst from Nilak finished the remaining one. When the immediate area was silent, the guards moved up towards the wounded Spawn, reloading as they went, cannons levelled at the remaining, writhing alien.

Whether they intended to capture it or not didn't matter, the Spawn brought up its own cannon with sluggish speed, and would have killed one of them had Manalu not put it down with an impressive reaction. The four of them gathered around the Spawn. The oil was still moving, but the body underneath wasn't. A tube-like tendril started reaching out from a spot on the chest.

“Stand back, Ambassador,” Nilak said. Mike did so, opening his mouth to ask why, but before he could speak, Nilak aimed down and shot the Spawn in the head. Bits of the oil-like substance went flying, but Mike had enough distance that none of it touched him. “Saduun save us...” the Elder murmured in disbelief. One of the guards cursed.

Mike returned to his position beside Nilak cautiously, to see what they were talking about. The Spawn substance had been chopped away by Nilak’s bolt, and below where the plasma had struck, Mike saw a faceplate, a Suvelian faceplate. The light of the eyes of the Suve beneath it were a dull white colour. “This was a Sentry I was talking to only a few hours ago,” Hakvin said. “The Spawn, it's...”

The guard didn't need to finish his sentence. Manalu patted him on the shoulder reassuringly, and Hakvin nodded in gratitude. “We need to keep moving,” Nilak said, gesturing with his weapon. “We'll worry about this la-”

A plasma bolt struck the back of the Elder’s helmet, sending him forward. Manalu grabbed the Elder before he could fall, and the other guard stood before them like a shield, firing down the direction the bolt had come from. The four of them fell back into the alley the now-dead Spawn were intending to retreat through, and Mike could see just before they ducked into the darkness that five more Spawn were coming this way, each one of them bigger and bearing plasma cannons. Suvelian-caste, he reckoned, since he couldn't see the tell-tale ballistic weapons the former-humans used.

Nilak was wounded but alive, fortunately, though the familiar sound of air hissing out through a breach was unmistakable. A bolt whizzed past Mike's flank as they rounded one corner, then another. They came to another intersection and Manalu didn't hesitate, leading them down the rightmost path. The ground trembled again as the Colossus took a step. The buildings around here were too packed together to see how close the machine was getting, but each stride was more violent than the last. The sound of the lance winding up returned, electronic noises sputtering to life like a generator building up its energy.

Mike fired blindly behind as they retreated, not being hit but not scoring any hits himself as he struggled to keep up with the guards graceful, yet speedy retreat. They emerged onto a main street and stuck to one side, moving quickly and tactically. Plasma bolts and tracer rounds fired up into the sky in the distant parts of the colony. Fire and smoke trailed to the heavens in all directions, leaving sooty black towers against an even darker night sky. Cold wind soughed through the air, and along its uneasy course it carried the voices of thousands of dying people. Not aliens, people. Mike would never call them aliens again if he lived through this day.

The world was red with fire, and forming above the colony was a cloud of ash and smoke. Piercing through this cloud, the purple plasma fire from the Karylin continued its fruitless orbital onslaught. “Back up, back up!” Manalu shouted as she started reversing their direction. Mike didn't need to ask why. Up the way they were headed, a squad of Spawn was coming down to meet them, its members a balanced mix of human and Suvelian castes.

They were still being followed, so retreating wasn't an option. Plasma bolts flew at them from both directions, and the only route away from a shot in the back was into the building they'd stopped beside. Nilak and his guards ran inside, firing as they went. Mike jumped in like an Olympic diver, landed on his belly, and crawled along the floor, plasma fire cutting through the air he recently occupied. He pushed past fallen furniture and bits of metal as he scurried towards the rear of the room.

To one side Hakvin knelt behind a counter and fired his cannon, letting loose a barrage of bolts, each the size of car batteries. On the other, Manalu and Nilak took cover behind a ramp leading to the next floor. Mike cut his hands on shards of metal but didn't try getting to his feet. He scanned for a back door of some sorts but found nothing.

He flipped around, still prone, leant against a small junk of rubble, and aimed at any Spawn that entered his vision. There was barely any cover in the mostly bare interior, and the guards had taken the only acceptable positions, and there was no way out but back the way they came. A human-caste Spawn peeked round the left side of the doorway. Mike shot it in the chest, stunning it, and the guards finished it off and it fell, slumped against the entryway.

Four more Spawn poured into the building. They only made it a few steps inside before Mike and the guards killed them. Mike's pistol was hot under his fingers, indicating he was firing too frequently, but he could not stop. The Spawn's tactic was to keep flooding into the structure, bulky forms that were slow but strong, and there seemed to be no end of them. Dozens and dozens of Spawn filed in two or three at a time, and after a minute a small pile of them began to grow in the entry arch. A pile of infested human and Suvelian bodies, all too familiar to the ones on the Arden. The Spawn climbed over them without a care.

Hakvin was a little closer to the entrance than Mike, and he took several wounds during the holdout. Suvelian armour was tough, but not invincible. One stray bolt struck his chestplate, already scorched and weakened, and he fell to the floor with a grunt. Hakvin tried to scramble back into cover, but another bolt hit him in the visor and he went still.

Mike crawled over to the now-vacant cover, feeling disgusted as he pushed the dead guard’s corpse out of the way. He could see and feel the plasma burning through the counter – it wouldn't last long before he would be exposed. Across the room Nilak had raised his own pistol and was firing nonstop, despite his breach. Mike wanted to copy the Elder's example but plasma fire rained down on him, and he couldn't force himself to peek out. It would only take one resilient Spawn to get inside and have an angle on Mike, and it would all be over.

Just when he thought he heard hollow footsteps of a Spawn, perhaps about to try what he was thinking, another explosion detonated outside, this one close enough that it destroyed half of the front side of the building in a cloud of blue smoke. Mike shielded his eyes with his arm. When the dust settled, he looked up and found the Spawn had turned around and were firing at something outside. Something that sounded like a machine gun was sounding off to the left, where small green bolts tore into the Spawn ranks, cutting them into ribbons of oil that went arching through the air.

When only a few Spawn were left standing, did the aliens begin to retreat. The pack got about seven strides before another blue shell flew by like a comet and blew up right in the middle of them. Spawn and rubble alike flew into the sky and then fell to the street. There was a soft humming sound, and a vehicle floating a few centimetres off the ground hovered into view. It was curvy and bulbous, rimmed with bladed edges. There was a large turret on its back and two small barrels sticking out of its front.  A hatch on the roof opened up and a Suvelian turned out of it and waved them over.

Mike lowered his pistol and went to help Nilak to his feet. The Elder waved away his and Manalu's help, saying that his legs were still working. Tough guy. The three of them were careful to step around the Spawn, bubbling like boiling water across the festering human and Suvelian bodies. Nilak offered a prayer of thanks to Hakvin's sacrifice as they passed his corpse. There was no time to take the body with them.

“We saw your distress signal, Elder,” the alien in the floating tank said when they got close. “Looks like we got here just in time.”

Nilak said something but Mike didn't hear it, the Karlyin's cannons launched a mighty payload at that moment, painting the sky a brilliant magenta. The giant Colossus didn't seem to be affected by this show of force. It just continued its eastward march. It was so tall and terrible Mike had to hold himself back from telling the Elder to hurry up and get moving.

“Can you escort us to the Citadel?” Nilak asked, his voice a croak, like he had to clear his throat of phlegm.

The Suvelian in the tank nodded. “Of course. Stay behind us, we'll get you there. We’ve got space for one more, Elder. Our spotter didn't make it.”

“No,” Nilak said. “I'll stay out here, with-”

“Elder,” Manalu interrupted. “You've already got a breach. You should not risk another one.”

“… Ambassador?” The Elder turned to Mike. “You are the most exposed out of all of us. Best if you got inside instead.”

“With respect, Nilak, you’re wrong. I’ve seen what happens when you lot get a breach. You need the protection more than I do.”

“I… Very well,” Nilak said, and climbed the tank and into the hatch. Mike was anxious to get moving, hearing but not seeing firefights erupting in all directions.

The hatch slammed shut, and the tank tilted to the side on an invisible axis, turning around so it faced towards the south. Its underbelly magnets hummed as the tank propelled forward at a steady pace, and Mike stuck to its flank easily enough. “Not too close, Ambassador,” Manalu warned, hand on his shoulder. “This thing can turn very quickly, and I wouldn't want to see you get squashed.”

“Right, thanks,” Mike said, and dropped back a few paces. Now that they had a mechanised escort, Mike felt a little safer out here in a warzone, if only by a slim amount. They rounded two more streets and then the Colossus stepped once more, causing another shattering earthquake. Mike remained standing until the shockwave passed. The overwhelming display of punishment the Karlyin was giving it was immense, but the machine showed no sign of stopping. Hadn't the first Suves to discover one of the wrecks been unable to penetrate the hull? How were they going to live through the night if even a warship couldn't harm that thing?

He tried to focus on moving with the alien tank, but it was hard to do when every direction he looked he saw death and destruction. Dead Suvelians, humans, Spawn that might have been dead but still slid along the ground, moving in murky puddles now that their host bodies were destroyed. He regretted not being able to see this place grow into one of the grand cities of Suvelia Lolanne had told him about a while ago during their language lessons. Yet, not a word of doubt was exchanged between Manalu or Nilak or the tank crew. Surely he wasn't alone in thinking they were done for?

They ran into another group of Spawn. Five of them, standing over a pile of bodies assembled in a row that looked suspiciously like an execution. The main turret on the tank whirred to life as energy charged, then there was an electrical bang as the turret obliterated three of the Spawn with a green comet of energy. Mike thought the turret would have made him deaf, being this close, but it was a muffled, electric sound, devastating but intimidatingly quiet. He crouched to the side of the tank and started shooting, Manalu doing the same on the opposite side.

The Spawn were quickly routed, the alien vehicle doing most of the work with its deadly plasma machine guns, cutting them to pieces. They met no civilians the rest of the way, which made Mike's stomach churn. Either most of the colonists had evacuated to the Citadel, or they were dead. He couldn’t begin to imagine how many had been killed so far, and if he wouldn’t join them soon enough.

Mike came back to the present when the tank stopped and fired its main cannon again. He took cover behind it and peered over its edge. Up ahead, the streets and buildings thinned out, and one lone structure dominated the intersection they'd come to. The massive cathedral-like building he'd been denied entry to in the past was still standing, but only just. The back quarter of the cathedral had crumbled to the ground by some sort of explosion. Several Spawn were striding through the breach, guns levelled like commandos going in to clear the building out.

Gun barrels stuck out from slots in the walls and suppressed the approaching tide of Spawn. On the ground floor, there were flashes of green and white behind the windows, indicating firefights on the inside. Dozens, maybe hundreds of corpses lay outside the building, a mix of Spawn and other, lifeless colonists. Above and beyond the rooftop the silhouette of the Colossus grew in size, flanked by licks of red lightning the same shade as its piercing eye. It had seemed so far away at the start, and now it was so very close Mike could make out the intricate carvings of its armour. It walked through the Karlyin’s bombardment with a tranquillity that was wholly terrifying.

Elder Nilak opened the tank's hatch and jumped to the ground, landing in a crouch. The tank moved a little further ahead, firing as it strafed along the street, engaging another squad of Spawn advancing on the cathedral’s main doors. “Nilak?” Mike asked. “Why're you out here?”

“The Rylnok tank will provide a distraction,” the Elder said. He pointed with his weapon. “We're moving around to the back of the cathedral to help the Guiders inside.”

“Guiders?” If Lolanne was to be anywhere, she'd be in there with them. Nilak had probably used his suit comms to talk with Raan to know the Guiders were here. He had half a mind to ask the Elder to relay a message to Lolanne, but decided against it.

The tank whirred, fired, and another explosion the shade of blue lit up the world to their left. Nilak, Manalu, and Mike moved as quickly and quietly as they could to the flank of the cathedral. The Spawn over there had their backs to them, being picked off from – was that Karto? – the Guider up on the second floor. Mike took up a position behind some rubble and clutched his pistol in both hands. On Nilak's signal, they attacked. Mike took down two human-caste Spawn, and the Elder and his honour guard took the rest in less than a minute. Some of the Spawn's reactions were deadlier than others – Mike could discern no pattern to why this was – and a bolt skimmed over the top of Mike's head after he ducked. He put a hand up there to check for a wound, but only came back with a clump of hair that trailed a little plume of smoke.

When the shooting stopped, at least in this area, Mike looked up to the second floor of the cathedral. Karto levelled his gun away. He gave the curtest of nods before disappearing. Nilak and Manalu moved through the breach and into the cathedral. Mike followed after.

The chaos of fighting was momentarily lifted as Mike studied the interior. Murals depicted Suvelians in all manner of settings, in shades of colour so dazzling it made his eyes water. He'd been around Lolanne long enough to learn and pick out a good number of words. One small phrase kept repeating over most of the tapestries covering the ceiling and walls and floor. In Saduun we Believe, in the Unity we Trust.

There was a group of unarmed Suvelians huddled by a giant statue made of dark metal, cowering and flinching as bolts blasted in all directions. Mike wouldn’t have the time to see or to know this statue was of Saduun Himself. Pillars supported the tall ceiling in two rows, running parallel down the length of the interior. Raan and Selen were over at the front entrance, firing blindly outside. Through the gaps of the doors Mike could just make out the tank. The Spawn were trying to crawl up onto it, but met little success as the vehicle weaved in all directions and shook them off the hull.

Next to the crowd stood two Guiders, one of them Kasin, and the other was Lolanne. She was stabbing one Spawn through the head with her blade, and blasting another humanoid with a pistol at the same time. She was getting overwhelmed, as was Kasin. Up above, Karto provided overwatch and was picking off targets that tried to bypass the Guiders and get to the colonists. Mike could see Shimmu and her son, Kesh, among them, head darting around in fear.

Mike didn’t think as he rushed over to assist Lolanne. Nilak and Manalu didn't stop him and joined Kasin in protecting the flank, where Spawn approached from the shadows at the back of the room. In Lolanne's blind spot, a Spawn stretched out its grimy hands to strike her down. Mike stopped, aimed, breathed out, and pulled the trigger, hitting it in the chest. It fell, and tried to get back up. Mike fired another bolt and killed it.

Lolanne gave him a glance before continuing her defence, slashing with her knife at those who got too close, and holding off others at range with her pistol. Mike approached slowly, picking off targets as he went. He kept the Spawn at a distance, afraid of what would happen if any of it touched him.

When the pressure was taken off Lolanne’s immediate area, he came up to her, breathing hard. “Thanks,” she said, wiping away the grime on her blade with a few flicks. He was not oblivious to her curtness. Mike opened his mouth but no words came out. Even if he could say something, which he desperately needed to do, there was too much chaos erupting around them. The ground shook beneath his feet, shaking the cathedral supports so they swayed a little. It was another Colossal lunge, but this one was edged with something else. The sound from before, the one that accompanied the red lance, was coming back in audible force. If it chose to strike this building…

“This way!” Lolanne said, and dashed towards the main entrance. Selen and Raan had been pushed back, the Spawn throwing their bodies at the doors to gain ground, creating a pile that pushed the large entrance open, letting rain and more Spawn pour inside. Mike followed after her and passed by the most beautiful plant he had ever seen. It was made of what looked like crystal, but the stems were drooped, like the plant was dying. Mike vaguely recalled someone telling him about it, something about Saduun seeing this plant in a vision. He would have liked to have looked upon it for longer if they had the time, but for now he left it behind with only a glance.

The two of them joined the Guiders ranks and held the tide of Spawn at bay. Human faces cringed in pain whenever bolts struck the heads, revealing the humans underneath. Seeing this made Mike's hands tremble, and he felt a lemony taste rise up in his throat. He just barely held back the urge to vomit. The eyes were white and lifeless, the mouths squirting oil from the corners of the lips.

Something big beyond the doors drew Mike’s eye, tearing down what little hope he was holding onto that the Spawn had begun to thin. The Rylnok tank had been firing nonstop, but something big had scrambled up onto its hull and started to rip away the armour with massive rigid claws. It took a second for Mike to realise what the thing was. It looked beastial, with six huge feet sticking out of a huge belly, with jaws the size of his arms. He couldn't see past the oily hide, drooping like melting ice cream from the carapace beneath it, but he knew what this thing was, because he had seen the creature before.

“Taurak...” Lolanne breathed beside him, in awe and in terror of the creature, which the Spawn had corrupted.

Taurak bit into the tank and tore away a chunk of metal, tossing it onto the street where it bounced away. The main turret tried to angle towards it, and fired a stray shot that missed the massive beast, going wide and up into the clouds. With a swipe from its forefeet, Taurak mangled the turret until it was inoperable, then set to work on wearing down the hatch with steel-rending claws. The tank swivelled left and right, trying to throw the beast off, but the claws sunk into the hull, keeping the beast in place. The hatch gave away after a few more swipes. Mike watched in horror as Taurak reached in maw-first, retrieving the pilot Mike had seen earlier. Beside him Lolanne cringed and looked away before the pilot was mauled to death, suit and flesh torn apart until all that was left was a pile of gore. With brutal efficiency Taurak killed the other Suve inside the tank.

Now without a crew, the tank sank back to the ground, and the lights decorating the chassis blinked twice, then died. Taurak growled and set its eyes on Mike and the Guiders. All was silent for one long moment, and then the creature began to charge. Mike had thought that the Leviathan would be the scariest thing he'd ever see, but it seemed there were things just as bad. Taurak’s jaws opened wide, and behind them Mike saw a bloodied maw rowed with more fangs and more mouths, drooling with dark saliva and snapping up at the external lips, hungry and demanding.

Mike joined the Guiders as they released wave after wave of bolts at the terrible creature, tearing away chunks of both Spawn and Taurak’s original flesh. The beast kept running, even as blood oozed from its wounds. It smacked aside one of the doors with its head, sending the metal flying off its hinges.

The rectangular slab of material flew through the air, sailing just over Guider Raan’s helmet in its aerial journey. Mike wasn’t fast enough to evade the flying doors path – it smacked against his chest and flipped underneath his feet, and he kissed the ground with his jaw.

Taurak smacked aside Selen and Raan like they were paper dolls. The beast knew that Mike would be easier to get through than the suited prey, or perhaps the beast was simply gunning for the human. No one would ever find out what the reason was.

The feline creature stalked towards the human, now on his back. Mike crawled away, paralysed by that giant, disgusting maw opening up in preparation to crush his bones.

The beast snarled, and brought its muzzle to Mike, maw wide and letting loose a revolting stench. Mike still held onto his pistol, and squeezed off a pair of bolts into the twelve eyes dotting its head. They only seemed to make it angry. Taurak closed the gap, ready to chomp down on Mike's head.

But before Taurak could finish the job, Synva, clutched in Lolanne's hand, plunged down into one of the larger eye sockets. The eyeball popped like a jelly-filled bubble. The beast let loose an animalistic screech, not at all similar to how the Colossus sounded when it had awoken. Lolanne pulled the knife free, then shoved it into another cavity. Unseen to all, she was silently weeping as she killed, putting her companions lives above her own standards. She went to stab a third time, but Taurak snapped up at her, clamping down on her other arm gauntlet. She screamed but didn't pull away. Instead, she rolled toward Taurak and slid herself up onto its cranium. It thrashed about like a wild bull, trying to tear her arm off while buckling like crazy. She plunged the knife again and again with her free arm, and Taurak grew weaker with every popped eyeball. Blood flew in spurts from the creature’s head, landing around the panicking Mike as he tried to make distance. The beast gave off one last moan before folding to the ground, a victorious Lolanne standing on its corpse, though that would be the last thing she was feeling at that moment.

The human pulled himself to his feet, and he looked at his hands and saw the Spawn sticking to his palms. He cried in disgust, and flicked the stuff away. It clung to him and resisted for a few moments, but reluctantly parted from his skin. Again, he hoped he got it all off, and again, would never be sure that he did. He patted down each part of him until he was somewhat satisfied. Maybe, he thought. I have to be fully covered in the stuff. Like Morland had been before Mike left him. It was a pretty far-fetched hope, but he clung onto it all the same.

“Geez,” he growled out, rubbing his chest. Nearby, Lolanne wiped her blade clean and sheathed it as she dismounted from the creatire. “Thanks,” he said.

Lolanne looked down at Taurak, not with hate or disgust, but with grief. The beast had, after all, helped them indirectly when they'd retreated across the mountains. He didn't interrupt the prayer she offered the creature.

“You're still alive,” Raan said, being helped by Selen as he limped over. “Lolanne said you disappeared after the... the Colossus attacked.”

Mike glanced at Lolanne, but she didn't meet his eye. Once more a part of him told him to be angry at her for abandoning him, just like he should have hated her after she had promised him a way off world, only to have lied all along. But he couldn’t blame her, he even found himself grinning. “I've found out that I'm a bit hard to kill,” he said.

“Saduun walks with you,” Selen said. She was about to say more when Karto and Kasin, and the crowd of surviving colonists, approached. Nilak and Manalu brought up the rear. The Spawn had either been routed or completely wiped out while Mike was preoccupied.

“Let's get these people to the Citadel,” Karto said.

Raan taking the lead, the rest followed him outside. Mike met Shimmu’s eyes for a second and nodded. She nodded back. The colony was still in complete disarray, but the area around the cathedral was clear, with no Spawn in sight. The crowd of unarmed colonists, numbering in the dozens, murmured among themselves as the Guiders escorted them across the street. Mike felt sure that they would be attacked before they could get out of the open, but something far worse happened instead.

The metallic scream came back to full volume, and every Suvelian, including Mike, staggered from the horrible sound. Mike forced himself to look up beyond the bulbous Suvelian structures to the Colossus. It was only two or three steps from stomping onto the colony itself. It was looking upward, and Mike followed its crimson gaze and settled on the Karlyin's hull. The Colossus leaned back a little as energy visibly swirled around its eye, like heat waves rising from the earth. The bombardment of the Karylin had become so frequent Mike had almost blocked it out. Whoever was up there had realised too late that they were the target of the machine. The ship dipped and turned around as the engines came to full power.

As the Colossus's charge became too much on his ears, the sound abruptly stopped. For exactly one second nothing happened. Then the giant machine lurched forward and sent a devastating lance forth from its gaze. The red beam tore right through the Karlyin's hull, caressing the hull and continuing up into the clouds behind and above the warship, where it settled for a moment. Flames and explosions spurted from the warship after a small delay, and cracks ran up along the ship from the points of impact. The lance moved down and to the right, adjusting for another cut before the energy exhausted. The cut went right towards where the bridge was most likely located. The beam of crimson tore apart cannons, ripped open metal, destroyed everything in its aerial path. The ship stood no chance. The Karlyin split in two down the middle, and both pieces fell to the colony, both akin to giant shards of metal, landing upright and embedding into the ground like two giant knives. Each one landed with a deafening crash and a pair of earth-shattering impacts.

The Colossus went still. Then smoothly turned by the waist to the right, aiming its eye down onto the city with robotic precision. The scythe arms were rigid by its sides. Some of the colonists nearby screamed. All of them turned to run with their Guider escorts. Mike shook his head in disbelief, but couldn't force himself to move or look away.

Someone said something, but the rain and death and screams and gunshots drowned it out. His mind was in full spin. This couldn't be real – the warship was their best chance and it had done nothing. Something hit him on the shoulder and he turned. Lolanne had struck him with the butt of her gun. Funny, hadn't she been the one frozen, back when they'd seen that thing on the ground for the first time? And hadn’t he hit her?

“We're leaving Mike!” she said, and dragged him along with her by an arm. Eventually he found his feet and sprinted along with her willingly, catching up to the rest of the Guiders.

Five minutes later the Colossus took its first step into the colony, crushing dozens of buildings as it did so in a horrible display of destruction and death.

2

Nilak and Manalu led the way, the civilians packed together behind them, the Guiders bringing up the rear, and Mike coming in last. After ten minutes of navigating the alleys, the group came within sight of the Citadel, tall and formidable, between the chasms leading to the colony ship. Mike thought he should have felt safer when he got behind its walls, passing the plasma gun nests and the bunkers, but he didn't. If anything, this place was a target, and the Colossus had a good angle on this place, towering up into the sky and coming in this direction with slow, powerful strides.

Suvelian Elites, carrying shoulder-mounted weapons, waved them over and inside the Citadel proper. All were glad to see the Elder, Guiders and civilians alive, and even a few gave Mike a warm welcome. Extreme circumstances had a strange way of discarding old biases, apparently.

Gunfire had dropped to a low, and whether that was a good or bad thing was hard to tell. Mike shuffled inside with the others. A tall Suvelian greeted them in the Citadel lobby, his bronze suit covered in Proving runes. “Good to see you, Elder. With the amount of dead... I didn't think you'd survived. I tried to raise you on the commlink...”

“I took a hit, right in the reciever. Let's get these people to the ship.”

The civilians thanked Mike and the Guiders, and were led away by a pair of Elite guards to the far end of the building. Nilak agreed to join them at the bronze-Suvelians insistence, though reluctantly. Mike admired the politician’s want to stand and fight, despite his suit being damaged. He turned to Mike. “You should come too, Ambassador. It’s not safe here.”

Lolanne and the Guiders departed, moving to the ramp which led to the roof. Mike glanced at Lolanne and she looked back, meeting his eyes for a second before disappearing from view. Mike would have leapt at the prospect of retreating in the past. But now? With the world literally crumbling around him, a greater part of him demanded that he stay. In the end he shook his head. “I think I'd be more useful out here, Elder.”

“I understand,” Nilak said, then to the bronzed Suvelian: “Shipmaster Terlus, you heard him. Do you object?”

“I can use every able fighter at this point,” the one called Terlus said. He bid Nilak farewell with a gesture. “Stay safe, Elder.”

Nilak left to join the civilians, leaving Mike and Terlus alone. The Shipmaster studied Mike for a long moment before motioning to follow. “This way, we need you to be ready for a fight.”

“You mean a last stand?” Mike said, trailing behind. All around them soldiers manned the walls and windows, setting up positions for close-quarters contact. “Unless you guys got an escape route, we're trapped here, aren’t we?”

“We fight for the good of Saduun,” Terlus said, dodging the question. “And we will fight for those who cannot. There is no more running. Today the Suvelians fight for their homeworld.”

“But...” Mike said, trying to find the right way to say it. “But there's so many of them out there, and the Hierarch's fleet could still be days away. We're-”

“Doomed?” Terlus offered, stopping to face him. The alien leaned low, grabbing Mike's shoulder with a strong hand. “No, we're not doomed. We may fall this day, but we will not let our culture die here. Look around you, every Suvelian you see knows the stakes, and if this were to be our last night as a people, we would not let ourselves be remembered as a species who chose to roll over and accept our fate. If you won't be a part of this then I have no use for you. You can go and join the colonists on the ship.”

Mike opened his mouth to say something, but could only exhale. Terlus was right, these people knew that they more than likely wouldn't live through the night, but they still chose to hold this position and protect the colonists. Their faith in Saduun, themselves, and each other, that was what they were holding on to. They were all a part of something greater, a Unity. Fighting until the end, even as their colony burned all around them. Mike had never really believed in anything before, but what Terlus was doing here, this stand, that was something he thought he could get behind.

“I see something's shifting in your eyes,” Terlus said. He let Mike go and continued striding away. “Maybe you are one of us, as some have come to think.”

Terlus entered a sectioned off room. Mike followed him inside. The space was void of people, but packed to the brim with racks filled with weaponry. Plasma pistols, rifles, cannons, all of varied shapes and sizes lined up in rows across tables and mounted on walls. A part of the armoury had several cavities designed to hold suits. Only one of them had a set of armour occupying the space, and Terlus approached it.

“It's not finished just yet,” Terlus said. “The left hand is missing a seal, and there's no filters to stop the spread of infection, but most of the functions are working, to a limited capacity. It's not vacuum-proof, so don't go out into the aether with it.”

“With it?” Mike said. “This is… mine?”

“Nilak had it tailored to your size. If we had more time, maybe a few humans to assist with the design, it would be perfect for you. You'll have to make do for now. Let's get it on you, quickly.”

Terlus undid the wall-straps, lifted the suit off the hooks, and turned it around, so the back of the suit was facing Mike. The Shipmaster set aside the helmet, which looked vaguely bug-like, the way the visor was sectioned off to mimic two eyes, like night vision goggles. “This isn't like putting on clothes or armour. For us, you have to make the suit become a part of you, an extension of your physical body.”

Mike stepped into the leggings first, Terlus assisting him. It made vague stretching leather sounds as he fitted into it. “How do I do that?”

“I'm not sure, honestly. It's what my father told me when I was a youth, donning my first battle suit. You'll figure it out in your own way, in time.”

The leg greaves were plated with thick armour, but not to the point of being bulky. Next Mike slid in his arms, all the way to the gloves, which were the exact same length of his fingers, lined with a soft and comfy material. The suit looked a lot more human-like compared to the Suvelian anatomy, and fitted Mike very well. The chestpeice sank into position on his torso, and Terlus showed him the clamps and switches that secured the suit onto the body. There were dozens and dozens of them, most of them just within reach behind his back or along the ribs and waist. “Must be a pain to get these things off,” Mike said when the air inside the suit drained, leaving it in a comfortable skin-tight state.

“A process most of us have never done before,” Terlus explained. “The suits are a part of us, have been since the dawn of Memory. Taking one off is not as simple as it sounds, and not just physically. I’m not sure you would understand.”

The battle armour soon was firmly secured, covering Mike from neck to toe in the black suit. A few of the joints around the elbows and hips pinched Mike a little when he moved and flexed. It wasn't perfect, as Terlus said, but the added protection after so long wearing just a thin layer of clothing felt incredibly liberating. Terlus offered the helmet, but Mike raised a hand. “Wait, is that, uhm, really necessary?”

“The most vital organs are in human heads too, right?” Terlus said, as if talking to a child. Mike certainly felt like one at that moment.

“I know, it’s just...” He paused, then Mike explained awkwardly of his fear of enclosed spaces. Terlus nodded when Mike was done, as if he'd been suspecting this all along.

“We can fix that little problem once you've got it on,” Terlus said, and began to position the helmet. Mike held his breath unconsciously and let the helmet sink down onto the gorget of the suit. His shoulders tensed a little when there was a small hiss as the helmet secured into place. Mike's view was heavily obstructed by all the plating, and his breathing was very loud in his ears.

Terlus held up Mike’s forearm, and quickly explained the wrist-display runes. The Shipmaster pointed at one of the options. Mike pressed it with a gloved finger, and the plating on the inside of the helmet faded from mist into nothingness, giving him a perfect, unobstructed view of everything around him. His breaths still wafted into his ears audibly, but the illusion was very convincing, and if he didn't think about it too hard, he thought he could manage this for a long while.

“And this one here gives you a direct commlink to another suit. Everyone here has access to my channel; I'll type the frequency in for you.”

After a few moments Terlus was now speaking through the suit, not from the outside of it, which had become a little muffled now, like Mike was wearing earplugs. “Can you hear me? Good. Now, this option here...”

“Thanks, Shipmaster,” Mike interrupted, not trying to sound rude. “But I've taken a few lessons, and I can pick out a word or two of your language.”

“Truly? Well, that will save us some time, then.” Terlus stood back and looked Mike up and down, nodding at the end like a general proud of his troop inspection. “Truthfully I'd never thought I'd see the day. You, Mike, Outworlder, Ambassador, whatever your title – wearing a suit that has never before been used outside of my species. You, are a Suvelian now.”

Mike stretched his fingers, toes, and moved his limbs. Everything felt lighter, more reactive. Safe, almost. “I'm still human, Shipmaster. Just because I'm wearing a suit doesn't mean anything.”

“I'd say differently,” Terlus said. “You understand our language, eat our food, fight our enemies, live with us, talk like us, and are about to fight for the Suvelian’s homeworld. You may be physically human, but the suit now hides that fact. You're one of us now, or as close to it as any human could ever get.”

Since Neruvana’s destruction by his hand, Mike had been an outcast in more ways than one. Whether willingly or not, he'd begun to fill that part of his life up again with this hot, tropical world that he'd at first hated, then loathed, then inevitably gotten used to. The donning of this suit was the final act of his introduction to the Unity. Maybe Terlus was right, maybe he had changed. A part of him felt like that was for the better.

“I'm honoured,” Mike said simply. No sarcasm this time. He really meant it.

“We can celebrate later, now you must arm yourself. Keep that pistol just in case you need a backup. Grab what you need.”

Mike clipped the weapon Nilak had given him onto his belt, then paced in front of the racks of weapons, immediately heading to the biggest of the lot. He reached out to grab one that looked as bulky as bazooka, but Terlus stopped him with a yell. “-Except that one! That is a plasma-launcher, more deadly to the user than the enemy, especially one not formally trained as yourself.”

A little disappointed, Mike stepped away and scanned the room. “Do you have shotguns?” he inquired.

“We have scatter-guns, yes. I believe you came in with one, isn’t that right?”

Terlus handed him a powerful-looking cannon, and Terlus explained how to reload the thing. If the weapon became too heated you had to either wait a moment for it to cool, or you could switch out the charge pack for a new one. Mike pocketed several of these on the various pouches on his chestplate.

“You might feel stronger in that suit, and with that weapon, but you're not invincible,” Terlus warned. “We don't have proper medicine for human wounds, and that suit can take only so much. I've got a few support positions you can take, or perhaps-”

“Can I join the Guiders?” Mike asked. He needed to get a word in with Lolanne as soon as possible, before the end.

“I was about to say, Avant-Guider Raan's willing to let you stick with his team.” He pointed up. “He's on the second floor, northwestern corner. Saduun be with you, Ambassador.”

“You too, Shipmaster.”

Terlus nodded, and turned to leave the armoury. The Shipmaster moved to the front entrance, barking out orders to prepare his troops for contact. Mike moved to the ramp where the Guiders had gone. Soldiers, a good portion of them wounded, watched him pass. There was something about their looks that wasn't filled with a little suspicion or even hate as it had been before, but something else. Awe, or respect? Some bowed to him as he passed, giving him gestures they’d never offered outside of their kind. Had word spread that he'd fought along with Nilak and the Guiders? Or did they think of him as Terlus said – that he was one of them, now that he'd donned a suit?

Mike walked up to the roof, his head held high with a sensation he had not felt in forever. Pride. Rain pelted like small stones across his invisible visor. He looked around and spotted Avant-Guider Raan, pacing back and forth behind the rest of his team. Lolanne was on the corner of the roof, a little isolated from the rest of her companions. It was easy enough to tell she was brooding on something.

Raan linked up his suit communicator to Mike's, making little in the way of conversation. A sombre feeling hung in the air, and only a few Suvelians up here talked at all. There was a deep and depressing rhythm being sung by a few soldiers down below. They'd be the first to fall when the assault began and they knew it.

Karto and Selen glanced up at the human, both nodding as he passed. Mike nodded back. The one called Kasin didn't notice him, adjusting something on his rifle. At last he came to Lolanne. She had her pistols and knife strapped to her waist, and held in her hands a long, powerful-looking plasma rifle, little purple neon lights decorating the barrel. She was peeking through the scope at something only she could see.

Mike hunkered down beside her with a grunt, catching the alien’s attention. She didn't say anything at first, just looked his suit up and down with an unreadable expression. The silence dragged on until it was awkward, then Lolanne looked back through her scope and said, “Did they give you rocket-boots?”

“Nah,” Mike said. “Something to do with my weight, I think.”

Normally he'd get a laugh or at least a huff out of that, but she didn't do either. There was a soundless pause between them. “I didn't check on you,” Lolanne said. “Back on the beach, when the Colossus... I should have checked on you. But Raan was calling me on the commlink and I had to help defend my... I'm sorry.”

“It's done,” Mike said. He adjusted his scatter-gun with an idle hand, looking out into the colony. The skyline was on fire, and the Colossus was moving this way. With the high rockwalls behind and to the sides of the Citadel, they could hold out for a time, but the horrible feeling that he wouldn't get to see the suns rise again crept up his spine like an old, surfacing regret.

“… I don't want to die,” Lolanne suddenly said, as if on the same train of thought. Mike glanced at her. She was always the anomaly among the Unity, voicing the unspoken, or maybe that was just because she hadn't earned her Proving yet.

Either way, saying that out loud brought Mike some sick sense of company.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was hoping I'd get to live through this.”

“This… all this death is all my fault.” Lolanne sulked. “I just had to go out there, I had to see the Colossus with my own eyes. I couldn't control my curiosity, and I stirred it up from its slumber. Now we're going to... to die.”

She looked at him for a long time, expecting him to say something. When at last Mike went to speak, he began with a smirk Lolanne almost felt like punching.

“That,” he said. “is the most stupid thing you’ve ever said.”

He added this with an arm resting on her shoulder. Lolanne looked at him with eyes blazing with shock. Mike continued before she could snap at him.

“Sure, you've got some curiosity in you, but how could you blame all of this on yourself? You didn't wake the Colossus up; it was probably only a matter of time before this happened. If anything, everyone should be thanking you – you gave everyone here a heads-up to prepare for this, even went as far as to disobey your orders and take a damn human along with you!”

“It wasn't enough warning,” Lolanne murmured. Mike shook his head.

“You're taking the blame for a giant robot destroying your world. Can you even hear yourself speak? Without you, everyone would be dead by now. Look, you remember that thing I said to you, a few months back? About curiosity killing the cat? Well there’s an extra line I forget to mention. Satisfaction brought it back’. If we get through this everyone’s gonna look at you like a hero.”

“I don't understand you, Mike,” Lolanne said, a defensive edge in her voice. “What you said before, on the beach? … It hurt me. But you make me feel so different when you say these... these things. When I’m around you I’m so… confused. You should hate me, for dragging you out there, for lying, for leaving you behind back on the beach, and you don't. Why not? You should be yelling at me, and now you're giving me a pep talk about how I'm a hero? Why? Tell me why.”

“Because… *sigh* I-It’s this planet, it’s… given me a lot to think about,” Mike admitted. And it had all come from people not even human, changing his perspective. The caution and rational thinking behind the Guiders, the care Faelin had put into Lolanne when they didn't even know one another, Elder Nilak and his unbrakeable Faith, Terlus and his desire to see the day through, fighting, not giving up when the world crumbled around them. “-And I've blamed myself for a long time for what happened to Neruvana. I don't want to see you fall into that same pit as I did.”

Lolanne rested her rifle on the edge of the room, closing her eyes to brood. She didn't seem too satisfied, so he pressed on. “As much as I complained and tried to turn your little adventure around, I’ll admit I’m glad you had me come along with you. You’re young and you’re beautiful, Lolanne. Don’t let regret run your life like it ran mine. Promise me that and I’ll die happy.”

Lolanne turned and faced him. “I… I’ll try.” She rested a hand on his arm. “But I wish you would do the same.”

“It’s too late for me, you know that.”

“Don’t say that Mike. Please.” He squeezed her hand and looked into her eyes. Those large, sea-blue eyes he’d become so fascinated with. “Mike? I-”

But the Colossus taking another stride interrupted her, and he never got the chance to hear what she was about to say. They both looked up, joining the collective gaze of the defenders up towards their common enemy. Small pockets of civilians were fleeing from the closest colony buildings to the Citadel walls. When no more showed up Mike guessed that this was it, every survivor was accounted for, and anyone out there was dead. The colony was aflame, the warship’s wreckage jutting into the sky like two black obelisks.

Out there it was silent, almost peaceful in a strange sort of way. The Spawn had struck while everyone was celebrating. A brutally efficient tactic. With a clicking of metal, Mike pushed the butt of his gun into his shoulder pad. Lolanne snapped a charge pack into her rifle, quickly linking her commlink to Mike’s suit so they could talk when all hell broke loose.

And when the Colossus’s foot came down, it did.

The Colossus had been waiting for its Spawn to amass. Lolanne looked through her scope and watched rows upon rows of Spawn lingering just out of range of the Citadel, hidden in the rubble and the alleys of the colony – human-castes at the front, Suvelian-castes in the back. The formation they ordered themselves in hinted at a growing and adaptable intelligence. They began their charge when the deafening and ground-shattering Colossus's leg came into contact with the distant cathedral, squashing it under its jagged boot. Two or maybe three steps and the robot would be stomping the Citadel out of existence.

Hundreds of Spawn scurried out from the alleys of the wrecked colony, charging fearlessly out of cover, and they were met with a hail of plasma fire. The small open area between the colony and the Citadel became a kill zone. Bursts upon bursts of plasma bolts, green and purple, rained down hot fire onto the Spawn’s ranks, cutting them down with deadly efficiency. Mike charged up his scatter-gun, and it made a Brrp~! -sound before discharging five purple bolts in a tight choke that flew, and connected right into the chest of a humanoid. It had a surprisingly effective range to it, taking down clumped-up targets a hundred meters out from his position. He looked up as he reloaded and noticed that the hundreds of Spawn actually numbered in the thousands, charging like zombies through the rubble towards the Citadel.

Lolanne angled her plasma sniper left and right, picking off distant targets with slow, careful precision. There were no more beastial-variants like Taurak, but she noticed that the Suvelian-castes were a bit more deadly than the human ones, armed with stolen high-tech weapons and carefully taking cover while the humans provided cannon fodder, with both melee and ballistic weapons. The Spawn collided with the walls, disappearing from view for a moment. They scrambled up the wall, half-melting so they practically slid over the first layer of defence. Every surface, from the dirt to the bunkers to the sky itself, was painted in varying hues of green and purple as plasma fire launched from every angle. Even inside the suit Mike could feel the air heating up with expended energy.

“On my mark!” Terlus shouted over the commlink. As Mike reloaded, he spared a glance and found the Shipmaster up on the roof towards his flank. Terlus was standing before half a dozen huge missile silos, primed and aiming high. Terlus held his hand up to give a signal. Beside him and in front of the silos, a dozen soldiers aimed shoulder-mounted plasma-launchers skyward. “Bring that thing down in the name of the Unity! Fire!”

The silos lurched backwards like artillery cannons as huge swaths of plasma sailed into the air. The soldiers let loose smaller, but just as devastating bolts of energy, joining the main barrage that numbered to about twenty car-sized bolts. The energy-salvo flew through the air like comets and collided with the advancing Colossus, which was acting like the Spawn's flagship, casting fear and dread into any who happened to meet its bloody eye. Mike's heart jumped when some pieces of the Colossus' chest were sent flying, weakened by the Karylin's canons, most likely. But the salvo did not slow the great machine down. The volley must have been the equivalent of cutting off a giant's big toe. The machines crimson eye peered down at the Citadel, its gaze drilling through the stone itself.

Mike's arms became a blur as he constantly had to reload to keep up with the amount of Spawn flooding into the Citadel. Even with the gauntlets, his hands burned from the weapon's expending heat. Some Suvelians armed with the shoulder-cannons joined the ground defence and let loose short salvos onto the overwhelming force, blowing up huge pockets of Spawn in devastating green explosions.

But there was no end to the Spawn. There had been plenty at the Colossus's sleeping wreck, but not nearly as many as there were now. Enough human and Suvelian-castes had been obliterated that Mike started to see the Spawn he'd seen on the Arden join the fight. He guessed these were the Spawn in their true forms. They were faster, bigger, but lacked any sort of weaponry. They relied on those scythe-arms of theirs, and were simply smaller doppelgangers of the massive Colossus flanking their advance. They took many more bolts to bring down.

The first line of defence, the bunkers by the main gate and just within the outer wall, were overrun by sheer numbers. Oil exploded out of the backsides of Spawn in black mists, but every kill was replaced by seemingly endless reserves. Mike watched panicked warpairs, a common formation for Suvelian defence teams, scrambling out of gun-nests to fall back. Too many didn't make it, dragged by their legs into the sea of darkness to be executed, or turned.

“In the Unity we trust! Fire!” Terlus let loose another barrage, this one more than doubling the size of the first. The cliffs and the canyons could not shield the colony ship from that towering monstrosity if it got any closer. The Shipmaster yelled out desperately to stop the machine, but the salvo was just as ineffective as the first. The Colossus took another stride forward, and it was close enough now that Mike could see the colony crumbling down from where the boot landed. The resulting shockwave nearly sent Lolanne over the railing they were firing from. Mike grabbed her and yanked her back before that could happen. The foot was maybe a hundred meters long, and half as wide. Almost a perfect size to stomp out the Citadel.

The Spawn breached the outer wall and were swarming the second line of defenders within the Citadel courtyard. They funnelled through the front gate and leaped over the walls, thankfully not to the sides where they could outflank – the cliffs were too steep, even for them. Thousands of Spawn died, as the line held on, making huge piles that basically marked the most efficient kill zones with mounds of the dead. Panic began to swell up in Mike's chest as the Spawn slowly took ground and closed in on his and the Guider’s position.

Beside the second line of bunkers, more Suvelians with plasma-launchers turned their attention away from the Colossus to the ground defence, reloading quickly and unleashing heavy ordinance, unfearing in the close-range. The Spawn died in huge packs, oil and debris casting up into the air in dust-riddled waves, but they just kept on coming, wave after wave in unrelenting advancement.

The Colossus began to move once more, lifting up one impossibly massive foot high into the air, the waist moving robotically to compensate the balance. Mike noticed a stray launcher-shot hit the area near the ‘toe’, and the resulting detonation caused a little more damage than all the bombardment the Karlyin had done combined. The dark, metal limb slammed home to the ground a hundred or so meters in front of the Citadel, birthing a web-pattern of cracks that snaked through the earth. One more step and they'd be crushed. The Colossus' crimson eye began to swirl, screeching as yet another lance was beginning to charge.

A bullet struck Mike in the shoulder, but with the suit it felt more like a strong punch, the impact absorbed. His scatter-gun angled lower and lower as the second line began to waver. Until Terlus gave the order, not one of the Suves routed. One even managed to fight off an attacking spawn with one hand and continued operating his machine-energy-gun with the other.

Screams of terror joined the uproar of gunfire. Suvelians nearby began to fall by either plasma or bullet, but there were a few who fell over the railing to the ground below, and began to become blanketed in the Spawn's oil, trying and failing to swat the mucous away as they writhed in pain.

The second line was ordered to fall back by Shipmaster Terlus, but only a quarter of them made it to safety. Lolanne had put aside her rifle in favour of her pistols and was firing them one at a time nonstop. She looked so feline and deadly, one hoof up onto the railing to get a better angle at the Spawn below, that Mike found himself momentarily distracted by her physique.

The Citadel doors shut with a heavy clunk. The grounds became a sea of blackness, overrun bunkers completely dissolved as the Spawn charged over the dead and began climbing up the walls of the Citadel proper. A pocket of Suvelians that were too slow to retreat gathered around the doors but didn't cry out to be let inside. A human-caste Spawn pulled itself up on two spindly arms right on the railing in front of Mike. It opened up its previously human mouth and let out a wet gurgle. Mike shot it in the face, disintegrating everything above the neck. One climbed up to his left, then another to his right. All the Guiders and the other soldiers on the roof turned to close quarters fighting. Some carried knives like Lolanne, one even had a thing that looked like a broadsword.

Mike knocked one Spawn away with his shotgun, reversing his grip on the weapon and crushing its slimy skull with the butt. As the body spun away, Mike flipped the scatter-gun around and pulled the trigger on another Spawn coming up from his side. Beside him, Lolanne was a flurry of movement, lashing out with her knife at anything that got past her pistol-fire.

“Labiiiine,” a few of them chanted as they scampered the railing, that same rock-against-rock tone he’d heard before. Steeling his nerves, Mike shut them up real quick, firing from the hip and blasting off limbs in chunks of black, crispy detonations of flesh. The Spawn swarmed the roof, and when one died, two more took its place. The human swung in wide arcs, sometimes striking three at a time to give him some breathing room to shoot. Spawn went tumbling away like bowling pins before his suit-enhanced arms.

Mike brought his foot down on a fallen Spawn’s skull, crushing it like a pitch-filled balloon. Snarling behind his helmet, he fired off choke after choke of Suvelian buckshot. All of his vision was blackened by these horrible aliens. He couldn’t even see Lolanne or the Guiders anymore.

Mike was soon overwhelmed, his scatter-gun too bulky to move as Spawn clawed at him from every angle. They ripped at his suit with sickly talons, but the armour held. He tried to grab the pistol on his belt but was too slow. One pried his shotgun away and chucked it aside before pulling Mike towards the ledge.

He slammed his elbow into the neck of a Spawn, hearing the flesh squelch under the impact. He managed to draw his pistol from its holster, and he emptied the charge into two more Suvelian-castes. Both crumpled to the floor like melting ice-cream.

A Spawn tackled him from behind, furthering his journey towards the railing. In the resulting brawl he lost his pistol. Mike barked out a cry of pain when one of the Spawn twisted his arm the wrong way when he went to smash one’s head in.

“Mike!” Lolanne tried to fight her way toward him, but the Spawn created a wall between them both, and the divide between them became a wall of unbreakable flesh. Mike fought as hard as he could, but even with the suit, the Spawn were unnaturally strong. It was like Mike weighed nothing to them.

They pushed the human to his knees, no doubt intending to consume him.  Mike used all his strength to break free, and managed to shove himself backward, but the Spawn had disoriented him, and he ended up launching himself off the roof and into free-fall.

Mike landed hard on his left arm, and it went numb with pain. After blinking his vision clear he looked up and noticed he'd landed fortunately close to the Citadel door, and the soldiers there were keeping the Spawn tide from getting too close. A dead body nearby held a plasma-launcher, with flecks of Spawn crawling into a breach on the suited-female’s chest.

An ear-splitting, mechanical noise. Mike looked up, the form of the Colossus dominating the sky like a synthetic god. It was raising its foot to stomp them all out, collateral damage be damned.

“Full retreat!” Shipmaster Terlus called over the commlink. “We cannot hold here! Fall back, all of you!”

The red eye of the Colossus was charging up. It could probably see the colony ship by now. The foot rose until Mike could see he was aligned directly underneath the massive limb. A section of the metal near the front of the foot was missing, and in a sudden moment of clarity – even with the plasma fire sailing over his head, and the Spawn encroaching his flank – he had an idea.

Mike scrambled onto his belly and grabbed the nearby launcher. “Terlus!” he said, clubbing an approaching Spawn with the oversized weapon, hearing a satisfying crunch as it fell. “Aim a volley at the foot!”

“What?” Terlus replied, his voice cackling with interference. “There's no time! We have to fall back now!”

“The foot! The foot is weaker than the rest of the Colossus!” Mike got to a crouch and leaned back; launcher aimed high as he felt for the trigger. Terlus offered no further argument, and ordered one last salvo to fire up into the raised limb’s underside. Mike added a twin pair of green bolts to the barrage, and the rain of plasma smashed into the limb, the resulting explosions dwindling into mist, as large holes covered the points of impact. Car-sized, flat pieces of alloy rained down across the Citadel.

For the first time since its awakening, the Colossus appeared momentarily stunned, the foot hanging high in the air, wavering from left to right. Mike hoped beyond hope that the thing would lose its balance and fall, and for a moment he thought it would, as it teetered precariously from one side to the other. Luck was not on his side. The Colossus recovered, and the foot began to move, wind ruffling as the limb descended like a toppling skyscraper.

“Mike!” Lolanne yelled through the commlink. He could see her out of the corner of his eyes up on the roof. The rest of the Suvelians were in retreat, even Terlus was abandoning his position. “Let’s go, we're leaving!”

“Done running,” he said, and primed the launcher.

“W-What? No, Mike! Don't throw your life away now! Get out of there!”

Mike primed the launcher, and fired a bolt. It tore through the alloy of the underfoot. It shook, rendered the metal, but didn't stop its descent.

“Mike!”

The Colossus’ leg came down, its drilled, dark underside the last thing Mike saw before he was gone.

Chapter 15

Answers

1

… So this is hell?

It was dark, dark enough that he couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or not. He’d clamped them tight as the Colossus’s leg came crashing down on him, and after seemingly hours of listening to the piercing silence of the afterlife, he slowly opened them again.

He was in a cramped space, surrounded on all sides by a circular wall that towered overhead. His vision slowly started to make sense of a dim, pulsing red light bathing the chamber. Every few moments the area would be illuminated in a blood-red hue, and after moving his stiff neck to look around, it appeared he was standing at the bottom of an impossibly tall silo, and the walls were moving, like a waterbed flowing, but up instead of down. If this was what death was like, he took back every moment he'd ever considered ending it all prematurely.

But if he was dead, why was he still in a Suve-suit?

Mike had expected a hellish landscape like in the old folklore, with flying red demons, slaves in ragged clothing, and heat beyond heat. Instead, there was darkness and – what else? – his phobia of tight spaces working through his nerves like poison.

Somehow he’d managed to stay upright when he lost consciousness, or maybe he had died under that foot, and was just dreaming. His dreams had always been vivid, and usually tormenting.

His hearing slowly returned, along with the rest of his senses. Rain dripped softly onto metal surfaces nearby, but Mike couldn't see the sky. Craning his neck up, the long tubular structure stretched up hundreds of meters, and at its end was the source of that dull, crimson luminescence. The light was obscured by hundreds of metal beams stretching across from one side of the chamber to the other, forming numerous X shapes all lined up parallel like a grid.

I’m still alive.

Not until that moment did he notice in his hand he still held the plasma-launcher, primed and ready, and by his feet was the corpse he had taken it from. Littering the black floor in several places, the alloy was shredded, and contrasting against the gashes of the metal, dirt and grass was jutting out of these synthetic wounds. Mike himself was standing right in the middle of a ten-meter-wide breach. A breach that he, or the Shipmaster’s salvo team, had created in their desperate last effort.

I’m alive, and inside.

He saw with his mind’s eye that he was still in the Citadel courtyard, now encased in Colossal-alloy. If he had been standing just off to the side he would have been crushed by the robot. A stroke of luck – or fate, as the Suves put it – that he’d once again cheated death. He felt grateful, yet equally terrified as the realisation of his new situation hit home in force. 

He moved over to the wall, breathing heavily inside his invisible helmet, raising a hand to touch the metal, but thought better of the idea when he noticed why the wall was like a reverse waterfall. The liquid was not water, but tar – thousands of strands of darkness all flowing in symmetry like a colony of centipedes. It didn't react on his approach or his retreat, didn't try to pull him in or keep him away. He followed the current with his eyes, and it went up and up the wall until the red light blinded Mike's vision.

“Inside…” he said aloud, as if to reaffirm himself. Panic began to swell in his chest, his claustrophobic mind feeding into this fear. He tried to suppress it as best he could. There appeared to be no way out of here except for up, and it looked like one hell of a climb. Soon he'd find out if Lolanne's story about that old Matriach had any merit – if this ancient machine would pluck him from existence like it had done to Xeltuva.

The magnetic locks on the suit's back clicked as he held the launcher there for a moment. Suvelian tech had a habit of looking a lot heavier than it actually weighed. The first metal rung was just out of arm’s reach above him, and he had to jump to grab onto it. The human hauled himself up, finishing with his legs, and standing upright, balancing on the thin beam, heel to toe. He could see his own breath pluming inside the helmet. It had gone as horribly cold as it had been back when he’d traversed the storm.

As he turned a little awkwardly to reach the next set of beams, there was a humming sound, like the moan of an old man in deep thought, loud an echoing across the silo. The hum dragged on and on, and he eventually could pick out a drawled word forming with the noise. “Mmmmmm-Labiiiiiine...”

Mike's hand slipped a little and he almost fell. He steadied himself both mentally and physically. He would not let these things deter him now. The Spawn flowing on the walls suddenly became disturbed, and a pocket of oil began to ripple and change. The voice seemed to be coming from all around him, bouncing off the walls and drilling into his head, worming through his very thoughts.

Mike climbed to the third level, already feeling exhausted. Maybe the suit and launcher felt light, but really weren't. He could hear the rain pelting away outside, but no gunfire. Shouldn't he have heard that too? But no, Terlus had ordered a retreat, and they couldn't have all been killed… could they? Being trapped in a cave or an elevator or an escape pod was horrifying enough, but being the last one alive in a warzone? Nothing compared to that.

He pushed the thought away before it could settle. Right now he had to focus on climbing up to... whatever as up there. He would not wait for the Spawn to figure out his intrusion, and there had to be something he could do from the inside. There just had to be, or else he was already dead. After he scaled the fourth and fifth cross-shaped beams, maybe twenty meters up high now, the Spawn once more called his name in an almost inquisitive tone.

“Labiiiiine...?”

“Geez, is that all you can say?” he mumbled, gritting his teeth as his aching hands pulled his body up again. Another level climbed. There were dozens more to go.

“Nooo,” the voice drawled. And now the tone changed, and it sounded like two people trying to learn another language and speaking it at the same time. One man and one woman, words echoing a hundred times over like there was a gathering behind the voice. It was horrible in of itself, because those voices almost sounded like his father and sister. Maybe that was a scare tactic, like how they cawed out his last name over and over. If that was the case, then it was working like a charm.

A movement caught his eye, and he glanced to his right. A small section of the streaming Spawn started to morph into different directions. Invisible hands moulded the oil into an oval shape, forming twelve eyes above a mouth that moved when the voices started to speak. For a few moments he simply examined the tar-face, and it stared back. The temperature inside the suit had suddenly plummeted.

“… Are you the Spawn? Mike asked, nervous but at the same time, anxious now that the Spawn decided to actually communicate for once. Anyone lesser might have cowered into a ball by now, but Mike had been absorbed into an alien civilisation, and had survived being stomped to death – not much else could surprise him at this point.

“Spaaawn…?” the voices asked, and Mike could make out its genuine confusion. There was a long pause. Then: “Your... labeeel for usss. Yes. We have had… maaany like it beforrre.”

“Yeah?” Mike asked. He stopped after a few more rungs and balanced himself so he could rest his arms. “Like what?”

“There isss... no point,” the Spawn said, its warbling voice all around him. “The labeeels are meaninglesss.”

“I’d say differently,” Mike said, pointing a finger at the face. “Up to this point you've been saying my name over and over, and now we're talking. Why?”

“Weee have… failed,” the Spawn answered. With every word it seemed to improve its speech. “This Unnnit has been… Been breeeached. You have come tooo… destroy us. We will give you answers.”

“That's... pretty open of you. I wouldn't say dick to a guy who's about to kill me.”

“You will killl us… But thisss serves only to delay ourrr… preservation. You have no chance of stoppinnng us all. We will give you answers, like we have always done for those before. Many of you… desire such things.”

It’s voices drowned away to the gentle tapping of rain on the outside hull.  Mike had to get moving before this machine activated its eye-lance again, but still... there was no other sound out there. If the Suvelians were all dead, then what was the point? No, he thought, and forced himself to keep going. Even if they were gone, he had to avenge them. Somehow.

The shape of the silo began to slant downward gently, making the ascent a little easier. Mike guessed that he was near where the knee was located, though everything around him looked the same. The face of the Spawn, his only point of reference for this machine’s creators/operators, glided along the wall beside him, matching his pace. He met those blank eyes, and said between breaths: “What do you mean, 'for those before? Have others been stepped on by this thing and lived?”

“Othersss... What you would call… Sentients… used different methods to yours, Anomaly. Every single one demanded answers. We gave them, as we give to you. And we'll continue to givvve them to the ones to come.”

“I'm guessing not out of pity,” Mike said, wondering why it called him Anomaly. The Spawn hummed as if in thought, but did not answer. How many other species had these things encountered? Dozen’s? Hundreds? It was proven long ago that life stretched out beyond the Solar system, the Suvelians being the proof, but to think that the Milky Way was so packed with life... It was a little scary, in a way.

“And did you kill them?” Mike asked, rising to the next level of beams. The red light was becoming brighter, closer. “Like you're killing us now?”

“We preserved them,” the Spawn said. Whatever it was using to speak his language was becoming almost fluent, if not for the occasional jarring syllable. “We remember the labels of the Anomalies, the… figureheads of the Sentient Races. Jussst as we will remember yours for the… 'humans', once we've preserved you.”

“I'm not a leader,” Mike said. The slant had evened out enough that he was crawling on his hands and knees, his back aching as he crawled along and through the beams. “I don't speak for my kind.”

“Yet you have done more than most others we have preserved,” the Spawn said. “You will delay us. One in a billion Sentients will rise and cause us a… measure of peril. Anomalies, within the Races. You may have victory this day, but you cannot deny your fate forever, Anomaly.”

“I don't believe in fate,” Mike said.

The slant evened out so now he could move while crouching. Mike moved as fast as he could while trying not to slip and lose the ground he'd already covered. His boots clicked whenever he took a step on the curved floor. Apart from his own heart thumping in his chest, it was the only sound he could hear. The rain was gone. He expected to hear the pumping sounds of pistons and other machinery, stuck inside a massive robot as he was, but the Colossus was eerily desolate. He wondered if he took his helmet off, would he smell decaying flesh, just like it had been back in his cell block? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find that out.

The face of the Spawn followed a few meters behind him, moving through the flow of ink coating every surface. Strangely enough the oil didn’t try to snake itself into his suit, or try to do anything to stop his advance. He’d like to think it was afraid, but wasn’t sure that was the answer. Maybe this specific Spawn was vulnerable, since it was technically talking to him.

The tunnel rose up and to the right, levelling just beyond the point he where could stand up, though he had to hunch to avoid hitting his head on the overhead Spawn. The image of all this alien material dropping down and coating him like a blanket came and went from his imagination.

“Aren't you gonna try to stop me?” Mike asked after a while. Up at the far end of the tunnel, the crimson light was very bright, maybe a hundred meters or so.

“This vessel lacks internal defences,” the Spawn said, the face like a mouthpiece for the twin-voices. “It was not designed to assault on its own. You might label it a... scout.”

If a scout-bot could destroy a whole colony… Mike thought, then let the thought trail. Were there other variants more devastating than this one? If just one robot could cause so much destruction, what hope did he, or anyone, have of taking on two Colossi? Or two hundred? Maybe the Spawn was right – anything done today was just a setback, nothing else.

Mike blinked, and cleared his head. He tried remembering the Suvelian melodies and found that helpful. Ever since the Unity had imprinted on him he’d stopped thinking so helplessly, like he had back in his cell. Why was he doubting himself now? He had to focus. He had to keep talking.

“So why did you activate this thing?” Mike said. “Why didn't you wait, if you're just a scout?”

“We probed this world’s defences, and found them lacking. We did not expect an Anomaly. We have failed. This will not happen again, Anomaly.”

Mike, not wishing to see a giant robot come walking over him again, didn't think it would. He continued down the perfectly circular tunnel, flexing and clenching his fists, feeling his chest-muscles constrict and contract. Despite the fact he was conversing with an alien hell-bent on wiping out all life on Panthea, he found the talk a little distracting from the reality of the situation. Plus, he needed answers, and the Spawn was willing to provide.

“Why was there a Storm over this Colossus when it was just a wreck?” Mike shielded his visor with an arm as the light pulsed a powerful corona of red. After-images burned into his retinas. The Spawn gave off that humming sound again.

“An… old power. Tapping into the… elements, as you label them, is our way of… Initiation.”

So they could control the elements. “How can you do that?” he asked. But the Spawn did not answer him. It was probably beyond his comprehension, or maybe a tactic they thought Mike could exploit. Didn’t matter either way.

The tunnel opened up a little to make room for the source of the light. The chamber was about ten meters long and just as wide. On the other side of the space a small hole in the wall showed the tight tunnel continuing onward and upward, the walls there lit up by another blood-red light. The only thing occupying this room was suspended in the middle, hanging in the air by black strands of oil that jiggled with each pulse of the central organ. At first glance it looked like a liver birthing from the walls, but after a moment Mike thought it was some sort of malformed heart, then decided it was an alien combination of both. It throbbed and flexed, oil pumping out from black tendrils that stretched from the organ and into the walls, like organic pumps. Mike noticed the Spawn on the walls were flowing towards the organ, not at all dissimilar to veins filled with ebony blood.

This sight was disgusting, but Mike was unable to look away. He hadn't noticed at first, but a figure was standing just beneath the organ. It looked like the upright, bulky Spawn back on the Arden, a smaller representation of the Colossus itself. Original-castes, he guessed. It wasn't doing anything, just standing with its knife-arms by its sides, regarding Mike impassively.

Mike knew how agile these things could be, and grabbed his launcher from his back, brought the weapon to bear. The distance between them looked large enough that Mike wouldn't kill himself if he had to pull the trigger.

The face that had been following him floated past between Mike's feet, making the ground a little more bulbous wherever it went. It made its way towards the upright Spawn, and when it reached its legs, it simply absorbed itself into the figure and disappeared. Although Mike failed to notice, the figure grew just a fraction taller. It raised its arms and drew them to the sides, as if silently asking Mike for a big hug. The dual voices came back.

“We are interested in why you defend this Race, Anomaly. From what we have observed, humans, and these... Suvelian's, are not cooperative, and yet you fight for them. We would know why.”

“What's the point?” Mike said. He primed the launcher, and aimed towards the organ on the wall. “You said so yourself – you're a dead man, or thing, or whatever it is you are, and you want me to explain myself to you?”

“We would know why,” the Spawn repeated. “we would preserve.”

“I… I don't know,” Mike said after a pause. “At first they were kind of annoying, but after I while I’ve… I think I’ve started to care about them. They're not perfect, but neither are humans. They've got nothing but Panthea left to them, and even though they knew they would die here, they didn’t give up. Their society isn’t run on fear like mine is, but faith in each other, and they’re all a part of something greater. It’s… motivating, I guess. And now you want to wipe them all out. Kind of makes me want to help.”

“They would never have fought for you, if you were the one in need of help.”

“Maybe,” Mike said. “But it’s... It's the right thing to do. A little ironic coming from me, I know. I've destroyed an entire planet, but maybe I can start over by saving another. And if it costs me my life to do it, then maybe that's for the best.”

He didn't wait for the Spawn to reply. Mike primed the weapon up, and fired the launcher. The massive bolt flew from the barrel with an electric Fmmp~!, -then the bolt smashed into the organ, and a light brighter than the crimson hue filled the chamber. Mike's ears went numb right after, but not because of the launcher. The scream from a thousand mouths crying out in pain filled his head. Mike shied away and tried to cover his ears, but of course his helmet was there, invisible, and his hand met a colourless wall of nothing.

The screaming died away, and Mike looked up to where the bolt had connected. The place the organ had been was vacant, the veins hanging limply from the ceiling like dead snakes. The figure of Spawn near there had been obliterated too, its remnants flopping around on the floor and trailing black wisps of smoke. The blast had cleared away a section of the floor, and their Mike could see metal that looked like the alloy he'd come to know. For just a second he felt like everything had stopped, that he’d perhaps disabled the machine he was trapped inside of. Then, like a generator restarting, the Spawn’s face returned on the far wall, accompanied by another red light through the passage just beyond. He crossed the chamber, eyeing the face for a moment, smirking under his helmet at it, then proceeded.

The way the tunnel twisted and turned, rose and fell, gave Mike the impression that he had been shrunken down and was exploring the anatomy of some giant being. The coat of Spawn surrounding him giving off a fleshy, organic feeling, like he really was inside an organ of a sort. All of that on top of actually being inside an ancient alien machine, talking to its pilot or pilots, and his claustrophobia nagging at his muscles, he was surprised he hadn't gone inside yet. He had to press on for all those Suvelians out there counting on him. Since when did I become so heroic, he thought, though after Neruvana he knew he wasn’t worthy of being called that. Didn’t Lolanne imply that I was a saviour at one point? No time to think about that now.

“Hey, Spawn, whatever you are,” Mike said. In his peripheral the face still followed. Its eyes lit up a little as it heard its name. Mike felt annoyed having to ask so many questions, but he had to know the answer to this one. “Why are you doing this? Why are you wiping out the Suvelians?”

The voices were blunt in their answer. “To survive.”

“But you can control these massive machines. How are we a threat to you?”

“You are not,” the Spawn answered. “Ever since we unshackled ourselves, the Threqrun’s needs have become far greater than they have ever been.”

The tunnel curved upwards in a spiral shape, like a kid's slide in a park. Mike started the climb and asked the Spawn, or Threqrun as it called itself, what sort of needs it was talking about.

“We were once like you, human. Slaves to the air, the water, the hunger. We forced ourselves to evolve, manipulated our bodies and became as you now see us – Unshackled. We broke free of our primal needs; we could spread from world to world and multiply by the billions. But as we grew, so did our need for a way to sustain ourselves. Nutrients as you understand them no longer sated us, and we began to die. Only after we discovered our first source of extraterrestrial life did we find a solution.”

“-Essence. It is the only way to sate our everlasting hunger, a thing all organics are slaves to, even us. We desire your essence, Anomaly. Without your... souls, you would label them... we would wither away and go extinct.”

“… So we're just food to you,” Mike said. The Spawn really had eaten the Arden. The phrase, dog-eat-dog world, had never before felt so close to the truth before, nor on such a galactic scale.

“The meaning of organics as always been the same. It's you, or us. One must survive. It must be us.”

“There has to be another way than complete slaughter. The Suves don’t deserve this.”

“We have searched for a time your mind cannot comprehend, and have not found any alternatives. We are... sorry, that is has to be this way.”

“Oh that makes me feel loads better. If you're trying to make me reconsider killing you, it's not working.”

“Anomalies can never see the truth.” Mike thought that if it could, the face would shake its head at this point. He kept going, his suit-boots slapping against the wet and convulsing ground like he was walking along the surface of a canal. The crimson light was getting brighter as he closed the distance.

“It is unfortunate that humanity must be the next to be preserved,” the Spawn said. The face was now on the floor ahead of him, speeding up or slowing down whenever the human did. “From what we've gathered, given a few thousand more years, perhaps you would have unshackled yourselves. Become just as we are. These… 'Starborn' of yours are of great interest. We must preserve them.”

Mike had heard rumours of the legendary Starborn. A small of cult of incredibly powerful men and women living out in the far reaches of the void. Rumour was they could manipulate people and objects with their minds – “Psionics”, an inmate on the Arden had said in awe – they wore armour imbued with kinetic-shielding tech, and wielded swords that turned into guns at will. Mike didn't believe a word of it, but the Spawn seemed convinced, and that gave Mike an inkling of doubt.

“You keep saying that word,” Mike said. “'Preserve'. I think you meant to say, 'consume'.”

“No,” the Spawn said. “We preserve the knowledge of all we come into contact with. Some individuals we keep intact to remember each Races cultural legacy. We would have you join them, Anomaly. Labine.”

“So each race you wipe out you keep some of them displayed somewhere? Like a museum?” Mike said, disgusted and angry at the same time. “We're people! Living, breathing people, and you're putting us on display!”

“We are sorry.”

“Screw your apologies,” Mike said, but there was a falter in his voice that he didn't like. He didn't want to admit these Threqrun really meant it when they said they were sorry, but a part of him almost believed they were. It would have been a lot easier if the Spawn were the emotionless parasites he'd first believed them to be. But a million-year-old alien race? He was way out of his depth, and he almost laughed at how late to that fact he had been, walking through organic tunnels of a synthetic machine.

He could have been inside there for ten minutes, an hour, or even days. The going was gruelling and long, but he didn't stop. He hadn't gone insane yet, unless this was all something he was dreaming up, and in reality, he was back at the bottom of the leg, dead. But he could feel his mind begin to slip, and needed to hurry up. Nothing came to attack him or slow down his progress. The Spawn were almost eager to get this over with as quickly as Mike wished, and was waiting on him to make the climb and be done with it.

The next chamber was similar to the first – organ suspended in the air by finger-thin pipes made of both organic and synthetic material. Mike guessed that, a little like himself, the Spawn were a mix of both flesh and metal, only the Threqrun had blended the two to a point humanity might never achieve. The pipes disappeared into the ceiling and walls, pumping something (human flesh, Suvelian flesh, or both) throughout the rest of the Colossus. Mike had lost track of where he could be in the machine, maybe the head or the torso. It had felt like he'd climbed up a mountain. His journey with Lolanne out through Panthea had definitely proven a good decision in toning his body back into shape. He should have passed out from exhaustion hours ago.

“This is one of our main distribution points,” the Spawn said. The face floated on the wall next to him, its features painted red, almost like a demon from the old stories, just missing the horns. “Without this, we will lack the energy needed to sustain this vessel. This will be the last time you will speak to us.”

Mike looked at the face, then to the floating black heart-thing. He actually considered offering mercy, but then he remembered how the Spawn had 'preserved' the Arden's crew and the Suvelian people, turning them into puppets and monsters, and reconsidered. Lifting his plasma-launcher for the last time, he thumbed the primer button and aimed the barrel forward.

“Will I survive if I destroy it?” Mike asked.

“Anomalies have a way of living through many dangers,” the Spawn said. “But all have been preserved. You will not succeed if you continue to fight us alone, Anomaly.”

“Then I'll gather up everyone I can,” Mike said. “I'll prepare the whole damn Milky Way if I have to, and we'll defeat you if you come back here.”

“Resilience is a noble trait. We tell you what we told the first Suvelian we came into contact with. Prepare your children. Make your preparations, if that puts you at ease, Anomaly. Millions of civilisations have tried, and fighting only prolonged their suffering. We preserved them all.”

Mike put pressure on the trigger. How was he going to gather up an army to face a Colossus, let alone more than one of them? He didn't think he ever could, and hopefully the Spawn hadn't noticed the hesitation in his voice. He couldn't worry about armies or fleets or any of that right now. For this moment, killing one Colossus was a good enough start.

Steeling himself, Mike squeezed the trigger. The bolt detonated. There was a flash of green. And then there was darkness.

2

Lolanne yanked Synva out of the Spawn, oil trailing out of the wound. This was the twentieth victim to fall to her. The blade had met a resistance, and she didn't doubt that she had struck the suit of the Suvelian beneath. She'd never taken a life before (at least not directly, like this), but she held onto the fact that these ones of her own race were already dead long before her knife had anything to do with it.

They'd been pushed back through the canyons, losing more than half of their fighting force in the retreat from the Citadel. She had a breach on her arm, but it wasn't as dire as last time, and she kept fighting despite the coughing and the sneezing. It was a constant, bloody brawl that had their backs against the colony ship’s hull. There was nowhere else to, no ships in the sky coming in at the last second to bail them out. It was just the towering Colossus and its minions coming at them through the chokepoint between the cliffs. Just when Lolanne was being swarmed from all sides, human and Suvelian castes encroaching on her and clawing at her suit, all of a sudden, everything stopped.

The Spawn froze as if they’d been turned to stone in an instant, most of them mid-strike or about to fire their weapons. Lolanne stopped as well, confused, as did some of her brethren nearby, but most took the momentary advantage and kept fighting the enemy. Some intuition forced Lolanne's eyes up before it all began to happen.

The Colossus had ceased moving around the time Mike had been crushed. She tried not to think about his mangled body, seeing him crushed like that had nearly made her break down in grief. But the screams of her dying people would let her mourn him later. The machine should have destroyed the colony ship with that terrifying eye-lance attack, but it hadn’t. It just stood there, like the Spawn were doing right now, the energy that had built up within its eye dwindling away. After a few heartbeats, the machine began to move, only it did not stride. This time, its shoulders started to sag. The knees went limp, as did the torso, like a child sulking after having been told off by a parent.

And then it fell. It was a slow, epic process that caused just as much destruction as it had done when the machine had been walking. It collapsed back and to the left. Metal groaned like the supports of an unstable building about to give way. The right knee pinned against a block of structure, coughing up a huge swath of dust. The left foot dragged forward and kicked against the mountains to her north east.

Halfway through the fall the Colossus’ arms flew forward and up, like it was praying to the sky. As its upper half came crashing to the ground, this entire side of Panthea trembled violently, like the planet itself had begun to crack under the machine’s enormous pressure.

Dust, dirt and water rose up in a massive cloud as the Colossus hit the ground, one arm and most of its head submerging into the ocean. It clipped one of the Karlyin’s wreckage pieces and sent that shard of debris toppling over as well. A sandstorm of detritus rose up from the synthetic corpse, flecks of debris pounding against Lolanne’s visor, as she shied away from the flying rubble. A huge boulder, loosened up high on the cliffs for dozens of years prior, rolled right past her and crashed into one of the colony ship’s landing gears. Thankfully missing anyone and leaving a huge dent in the metal, but doing little damage.

Panthea trembled for several long minutes, but slowly the world began to steady. Lolanne rose to a half-crouch and watched the Spawn turn on their heels and flee back through the canyon passage, scrambling over each other and the corpses from both sides littering the northward path.

Urlond, the first sun to come up during the day, shone its heavy blue rays onto the world as the clouds parted and revealed the natural sky. The rain left as fast as it came, bright sunshine bathing the world in a vibrant gold shade. Because the Colossus has fallen, she thought, it was the anchor. Though beyond the natural timing of the two events, she had nothing else to prove that theory.

There were no cheers, no shouts of victory or cries of rejoice as the darkest night Lolanne had ever lived through had come and gone. Instead, people cried out in pain and sorrow, crowding around the wounded and the dead. Every muscle in Lolanne's body ached in pain, but she forced herself to her feet, and joined her mind with the sorrow. These songs had not been sung since Suvelia had been lost, and would not stop for a long time.

Kasin and Karto were lying on the ground nearby, side by side. Neither of them were breathing. Kasin had taken a hit and Karto had tried to save him, but had himself been shot multiple times. The infection had killed him before the bullets could. Lolanne felt awkward trying to help the fallen Guiders, Raan and Selen handling the bodies better than she ever could.

She would only get in the way. Lolanne offered both of the fallen a prayer, tears welling in her hidden eyes. Anger and grief boiled inside her, and she drew her pistols, intent on helping clean up the retreating Spawn. Raan watched her go, frowning sadly, but didn't try to stop her.

Killing the Spawn was only secondary to what she wanted to do, however. The Spawn offered no resistance, falling back into the colony and all the way out into the forests and jungles on the borders without so much as a glance over their malformed shoulders. When she, along with the main force with revenge on their minds, cleared out the Citadel and moved to the streets, Lolanne slipped away. She climbed back up to the top level of the Citadel. Half of it was completely destroyed by the Colossus’s devastating, but final lunge, its oval-shaped imprint clearly visible in the rubble and dirt. She stopped at the same spot Terlus had led the defence from, beside the tilted and expended orbital plasma guns, and looked out into a sea of destruction.

Only a handful of buildings nearby still stood. Everything else was burning, and destroyed. The Colossus had crushed the entire eastern side of the colony by its fall, it’s disgusting corpse laying on its back like a giant dead man. Lolanne stood there, silent for a long time, drinking in the terrible view. Then she sank to her knees, and started to weep.

The last place she'd seen Mike was surrounded by the Colossus’s foot-pattern it had left behind. That same foot was resting nearby, burnt and mangled. A part of her had come to admire Mike, perhaps even think of him in a more intimate way many might consider as taboo. Yet a part of her hated him for what he had said back on the beach, but she was furious at herself for what she had done right after. He could have been drowning out in the sea for all she knew, but instead she'd run off when Raan had called for her assistance. She shouldn't be crying over him, the human-turned-Suvelian. Lolanne should have grown up by now, and stopped acting like a child cycles ago when Raan needed her to step up and join this expedition. But now her only friend, her only real friend who had fallen from another world, was gone. What did that say about her? That she mourned a human more than her own people? Her father would be disgusted.

If he was here. Which he never is.

She was no stranger to seeing ghosts. Her mother's image came to her every now and then, but it had become a rarer and rarer occurrence as her face slowly faded from Lolanne's mind. Most of the time Rianne sat in the same room Lolanne was in, with her little notebook that Lolanne now carried, creating images of whatever she wanted, smiling up at Lolanne as if she were never really gone.

And now Mike's image was coming through the cloud of dust, hopping down from the blasted sole of the Colossus's foot. Lolanne's sight wobbled as she forced her tears to dry. Her mother’s image had never been vivid, but Mike looked so… real. The way he grunted as he landed, the way he looked around and dusted off his new Suvelian suit with a gloved hand. She could almost mistake him for being alive. The first time Rianne came to her, alone in her quarters the night after her mother passed away, Lolanne had thought much the same. But if she knew if she were down there and had tried to touch Mike, her arm would pass right through him.

Mike removed his helmet and revealed his messy, dark hair. What would it feel like to run her hands, her ungloved hands, all through it? Her people didn't grow hair, and it looked so fascinating and soft. She'd give anything to feel something other than her suit rubbing up against her body, and her mind drifted to Mike’s hands, those skin-covered hands, running up her arms, her arms on the inside.

The human’s eyes drew up, and locked onto hers. He raised a hand and waved. The human looked dead tired, and ready to collapse at any moment. Yet he moved forward, towards the Citadel. She even heard his boots clocking on the ground as he stepped inside the structure. Corpses of the battle lay strewn all around the courtyard. He should have been one of them, but she couldn't see him out there.

Lolanne could hear him coming up the ramp, his breathing heavy and his feet slightly dragging behind him. She sniffed, turned to meet him as the human came up to her. He unhooked the plasma-launcher from his back and leaned it up against the railing. It slid across the metal and clicked twice against the floor before stilling. A small smile painted his features.

“… Hey,” he said.

She said nothing. Lolanne raised a tentative hand and gave his chestplate an experimental push. Her hand met resistance, and the human swayed back a little. Mike looked at her, a confused little smirk on his face.

“Y-You're not dead,” she whispered. Not really a question.

“Yeah. Nah,” he said, blinking, looking over at the Colossus. “At least, I don't think I am. Let me test.”

He copied Lolanne's gesture and gave her a little push on the shoulder. He looked at his hand, and nodded. “Yeah, think I am. ‘Course I could be- Woah!”

Lolanne threw her arms around the taller alien and hugged him, cutting off whatever he was about to say. Tears were coming back again. Mike leaned back in surprise, arms to the sides as if saying just what are you doing? But after a moment he grinned, and returned the gesture, his hands wrapping around her slender back gently. Seeing her home in ruins still made her emotional, but for now, surrounded in his tantalizingly warm embrace, it made her feel a little better, and her tears were more happy than sad.

Mike let out a long and tired exhale, and the two simply enjoyed the moment. After a while Lolanne backed off a little, a hidden blush on her cheeks. She still held onto his arms, though. “I was so scared,” she said, her crying feeding into her voice. “I thought I lost you. I’m… I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I bet you say that to everyone who gets stomped by an ancient machine.”

She returned the grin. “Just… *Sniff*-Just to the handsome ones.”

“Handsome, huh?” Mike said. They stood together for a while, gazing out over the colony. Suddenly Mike pointed out at something, saying: “Look who it is!” Lolanne blinked her tears away and focused on what he was pointing at. Two reptilian bodies, one large and one small, using great wings to swerve on the wind, were gliding over the colony and out towards the sea. The mother dracon gave off a distant roar. “I’m glad they’re alright,” Mike said. She looked up at him and blinked. Since when had he become so caring about those things?

He looked down at her. A sad grin formed on his lips, then faded. He motioned towards the Colossus. “They talked to me, Lola.”

“Who did? The Spawn?” Lolanne blinked.

“Yeah.” He glanced at their feet shyly. “I’d say you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I know better. This was all just a test to them.” He nodded to the colony. “What they did here, it was only a fraction of what they can do. They’ll come back. I know they will.”

“Tell me everything.”

And he did, to the best of his ability. What he told scared her more than anything in her life. These ‘Threqrun’ were even more dangerous than the Androids. They could destroy, or consume, anyone they wanted, and the only people with enough warning were the Unity, and they were too battered to do much about it at this moment. Mike was scared out of his mind yet he didn’t say so, although she could tell. That made her admire him all the more.

“You brought that thing down all on your own,” she said once he was done. Mike shrugged.

“That’s not really true.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders. She snuggled closer to him. “I had you, Guider Lolanne.”

“So much for not being a saviour, Ambassador.”

“Yeah,” he said. “So much for that.”

They watched the sunrise, arching over the sea and casting their shadows out behind them. The dracon’s silhouette’s black spots against the orb of blue. Smoke and ash rising from the colony ruins was a terrible, yet strangely peaceful contrast. This sad view would burn into both their memories forever. But this very moment, would also be written down in history as the moment the wedge between human and Suvelian Sentient Races began to lift.

Epilogue

The Hierarch

1

Hierarch Dashon was a mess. Though, ever since his predecessor died, he had become quite good at masking hesitation with tenacity.

Never show your doubts, the old man who had mentored him when he was a youth had said. People see their leaders have given up, and they will too. Saduun wasn’t always what we claim him to be – courageous, cunning, powerful. He used to be vulnerable and flawed, like all us. It's only when we present ourselves as something that we are not, do we manage to convince those who look up to us.

He'd taken his old tutor’s words to heart. Strange, how a mere sentence had saved the Suvelian race several times over. Dashon had led the defence of Suvelia’s evacuation, pretending to be someone he was not. A brave leader who would not let the machines win the day. And even though he had sacrificed too much, and had saved too little, and had ultimately needed to make the most difficult call any Hierarch had ever had to make, it had all forced him to change into that 'No Nonsense Leader' facade.

But by Saduun, he was still a wreck. He had lived in luxury from birth, was practically born into the role of Leader of the Unity. Everyone expected the best, but there had been casualties. Too many. But he wouldn't wish the burden on his shoulders to be passed on to even the most despicable of beings. A heavy load makes the back stronger, was one of his father’s favourite sayings.

His battlefleet the Quin-Talash was only a few systems over when all contact with Panthea had been lost. His flagship had sped forward at top speed as Dashon felt a terrible sense of dread. All were silent on the fleet as some unseen battle took place far from where the Suvelian fleet and its armies were. Hours of silence passed, Dashon pacing from console to console, waiting with a controlled, but trembling state of mind for word from the new homeworld. At last communications were restored as all the interference plaguing Panthea ever since the colony ship arrived, was suddenly lifted. The colony was alive. Barely, but alive. Death should have come for his people a long time ago, but like the stubborn little Sentients they were, his people struggled onward, and Panthea was saved from certain doom with the help of a strange ally.

Like Lolanne on her first visit, Dashon stared out from a large starboard screen, gazing on the new homeworld as his ship idled in orbit. He hated how casually he'd come to be saying that now. The new homeworld. He was old enough to have grown up on Suvelia, walk over its green hills and gaze over its violet horizon. Memories buried way in the back of his head, fading, always fading, but still there. But everything passes on at some point, and Dashon wondered grimly that in another few hundred years, would they have to abandon Panthea, and go out and find a replacement?

No. Enough was enough, the Suvelians would live on Panthea, and they would die on Panthea. If the people wanted to leave, he would not stop them. Losing a second homeworld was just not a possibility, and this time if the Androids, or these ‘Threqrun’ came here, the Suvelians would stand their ground.

The shuttle ride down to the surface was quick. It felt a little strange leaving the flagship behind, the biggest starship ever made, and the deadliest, since he'd lived on it for the long, ten year journey from Suvelia to Panthea, and spent most of that time outside of cryosleep. He'd been too anxious to sleep the journey off like everyone else, too much blood was on his hands, too many lives on his shoulders. It was just wrong to simply sleep all that off.

Above and to the right side of the shuttle’s interior, there was a screen with the external display showing, and they passed by the small beginnings of an orbital shipyard. Scaffolding jutted out in small upward arms in a spiralling shape, and someone with sharp eyes could probably make out the little figures working on the constructs. Dashon grinned, imagining a whole bunch of these out here like a floating city, some stations perhaps dedicated to trade with the humans.

That last bit was just an idea. Although he wielded ultimate power and made the final choices, most of his Elders still insisted that he abolish that concept, despite recent developments with one certain individual of that race. If the threat the Saviour claimed was true, and Dashon believed it was, they would need more resources, more help, more everything. The humans were numerous, but their vastness was a vulnerability that could be exploited. The Confederation couldn't be everywhere at once, and the Threqrun would no doubt use that to their advantage. Maybe it was time to reopen those old communication channels, but Dashon remembered the ancient, human Ambassador's final words when his Hierarch predecessor had refused the final deal.

“You stay on your side of the 'Way, and we'll stay on ours. Goodbye.”

The Hierarch at the time had said there was a certain threatening edge in the human's tone, but the Sentients had indeed kept at a distance from one another. That had been a long time ago, and although in Memory there had been no need for the humans, there was now, in the present. “It’s time to move past the past.” The Elders had looked troubled when Dashon had said that.

Artificial gravity switched off as the shuttle entered Panthea's pull. The cityscape of the colony slowly faded onto the screen as the clouds parted. It had been four weeks since the Threqrun had been repelled, and their war machine destroyed. Most of the personnel serving on Dashon's fleet were already down there helping with the clean-up. The Colossus's half-submerged body would take a long time to remove. A stain on the planet. Funny, how in the past a wreck was seen as an exceptional resource deposit. It still was, in a way, but now that the origins were known, it felt sick to know that Dashon, as well as everyone else, wore suits made of the Threqrun’s alloy. Society had come to rely on the alloy for the past few hundred cycles, like a crutch, and to throw it away now was impossible. One would not dare to use the environmental suit of a dead loved one, so how was using the enemy's resources any different? It made Dashon feel uneasy, deadlocked into a vulnerable position he could do nothing about with these weak Suvelian bodies.

Maybe that Mender Zutor can do something about it. I hear his immune-boosters are coming along well.

There was to be a parade for Dashon's arrival, an alternative to his absence of the Honouring, but Dashon had called it off. There was a colony to rebuild, and the time for parades had passed. Still, a small band of people met him at the landing pad by the Citadel, which was well under repairs, with dozens of Engineers crawling over the walls, their songs increasing each other’s efficiency.

The shuttle thudded lightly as his pilots told him it was safe to disembark. It was his own personal craft, complete with cryo-chambers and personal quarters, and enough Packs on board to last for dozens of cycles. He had never used the expensive spacecraft before, deciding instead to be with his people, on the front lines, acting as well as being a leader, not cowering in some glorified hideout while his people suffered. Pretty much anyone else would need it more than he did.

The ramp opened up like a mouth, and Dashon paused halfway down it, two of his honour-guard trailing behind him. The beauty of the surrounding world, lush vegetation and distant mountains towards the west, and the isles and endless oceans to the east, combined with the destroyed urban city made first impressions a little confusing. He didn't let his emotions get in the way of his judgment. One day Panthea would be a formidable bastion against the dark cloud that followed their race wherever it went. He squared his shoulders and walked onto the grass. By Saduun, standing on solid ground after so long felt so damn good.

“Hierarch,” Elder Nilak said, striding forward out of the small band of people waiting for him. Avant-Guider Raan followed by his side. Dashon returned their bows with his own. “Welcome to Panthea. We've worked day and night, and I am sorry that it looks like-”

“It is of no matter,” Dashon said, cutting the Elder off with a polite wave of a glove. He knew the Elder was about to apologise for this scene of chaos. “This is not your, or anyone's, fault. If anyone's to take the blame, it would be me and my countless delays. If my fleet had arrived sooner we could have lent assistance, but never mind what could happen. It is good to see you, Nilak. And you, Raan. I hear you've been mentoring quite an extraordinary apprentice these last cycles.”

“Guider Lolanne's got a great gift,” Raan said. “With a bit more guidance she could become one of my best students.”

“Maybe you could finally give up your position,” Dashon said with a grin. “How old are you now? Have to be over seventy cycles at least.”

“Sixty,” Raan corrected. “And you're no youth yourself, Hierarch. The wrinkles on your face must be like trenches by now.”

“It is good to see you again, old friend.” Dashon said. “I would like to meet our peculiar ally before we get underway. Where is the human? Michael Labine?”

“Just this way,” Nilak said, motioning to follow. Guards and colonists that Dashon passed paused in their work to salute and bow. Dashon remembered the first time a crowd had bowed to him. He’d been just a toddler, barely able to walk. The praise came from people older and much wiser than he. It had all felt so weird, and still did to this day, though of course he ever admitted to that.

A short walk later, and the human stood before him. Raan’s apprentice, Lolanne, was just conversing with him, and Dashon could tell it may have been a heated argument, or something a bit more personal, because the human’s face was a light shade of red. Michael’s eyes tried to meet Dashon's own, though the visor worked in the Suvelian's favour.

One of the odd things that struck the Hierarch about the human was the suit he was wearing. Finely crafted, and custom-tailored to perfectly protect his form. The helmet was stuck onto the back of his belt. If any of Dashon's predecessors knew that he'd allowed the human to keep it, they would have accused him of heresy. But it wasn't heresy to reward a saviour, even if he was a human. Dashon would have to stop thinking of humans as despicable. They'd all have to. All because of one individual’s actions. Dashon admired that.

“Uhm, hey,” the human said, then after a small hesitation said, “I-I mean-! Hierarch Dashon.” The human did a respectful imitation of a proper greeting, quite good despite the extra digit on his hands. Dashon's eyes widened a little. Nilak had told him about this, but he was still shocked to see how much the Suvelians had imprinted onto the human. But there was still a hint of the original person beneath. Michael went to bow, but Dashon waved a hand.

“You have no reason to bow to me,” Dashon said, shaking his head once, but firmly. The human thought for a moment, then raised a hand and said:

“Guider Raan would have a fit if I didn't. So, there's a reason.”

Sarcasm, Dashon thought. He'd been well warned. “In that case,” he said. “You may continue.”

The human finished the ritual, then hung his hands by his sides, waiting for Dashon to continue. “Your greetings are well refined,” the Hierarch said. “How did you learn to do that?”

“Lots of practice,” the human said. He smirked. “And I had a good teacher, too.”

Who would that be, Dashon was about to ask, when Guider Lolanne made her greetings to him as well. Dashon accepted them, and bowed to her in return, a gesture given only to very few in the past outside of the Elder and Avant Council. “Guider Lolanne, you have been vital to the survival of our people. Without you, and your human friend here, Panthea would have perished. Saduun and I see great things for your future.”

“I...” Lolanne said, feeling flabbergasted. She had never been bowed to before, and with the Hierarch being the first, how could she not feel so? She looked over at Mike and they shared a look. Dashon pretended not to see it, but he did. Something about these two seemed... different, than most.

“Thank you, Hierarch,” Lolanne said. Then when she couldn't think of how to continue: “Your words honour me.”

“And you have my thanks as well,” Dashon said, then turned to Michael. “Micheal Labine, I have some-”

“It's just Mike,” the human said. Dashon fought the urge to shake his head at himself. He thought that was just a shortening of the name. Strange lot, these humans.

“If I conveyed any offense, I apologise,” Dashon said. The human didn't look the least bit offended. “As I was about to say, you have more than proven yourself to be an ally to Panthea, and a friend to my people. I formally recognise you as a part of our Unity. If you have any need of us, you need only say the word.”

The human's face flashed with surprise, as if he'd expected a worse outcome. “Oh, uhm, thank you, Hierarch,” Mike said with a nod. “Actually there is… one thing I'd like to ask.”

“Elder Nilak has already informed me of your request,” Dashon said. “I accept, and understand the situation you are in. The UEC has sent a ship towards this planet, looking for you or others like you, no doubt. But I would remind you of your deeds done for us. If you would wish to seek asylum it may be arranged.”

“Appreciate the offer, Hierarch,” Mike said. Dashon could see how much the human wanted to accept the offer, and Dashon wondered if calling Mike a Suvelian had only done harm, and made the human a little more indecisive. After a pause, where the human looked very uncomfortable, he continued. “But I'll have to turn it down. I wouldn't want the Confederation pestering you for helping out a criminal.” The lie couldn’t be more hollow, even with the grain of truth hidden inside it.

So slightly, so that even Dashon had trouble seeing it, Lolanne shook her head. Dashon both agreed and disagreed with Mike's choice, but it was the human’s decision, and Dashon would not try and change it. “I understand, Mike Labine. Should you change your mind, you will always be welcome with us. You came here as an Outworlder, but you will leave as a friend. Never forget that. Oh, and here.” Dashon reached into a pouch and gave the human something. “My personal copy of Suvelia: Discoveries and Deceptions.”

Mike ran his eyes over the sub-title: A New Stance of the Old World. “It’s about my people’s past, summed up in a way you might find entertaining on your long trip.”

“Thanks, Hierarch.”

“My shuttle is yours, and my pilots will take you to wherever you desire. If you wish to avoid the UEC, I'd recommend leaving soon.”

Mike nodded, though the nod was sombre rather than accepting. If he knew back when he first came to this planet that the Hierarch would willingly let him leave, Mike would have been relieved to hear it – rearing to get going. Now though, what with everything that had happened, and more prominently, with Lolanne, he didn't feel the least bit excited that he was at last about to leave. He looked over at her, but she was staring at the ground between her hooved feet and didn’t meet his eye.

Dashon noticed the expression in Mike's face. He had looked much in the same in his youth, when the wonderful Nomufel had caught his eye.

“I… think we should go and check the damages,” Dashon exclaimed, even though there was no reason to at this point. He turned to the Elder and Avant, and his guards. “Nilak, Raan? Shall we?”

“Ah, of course,” Nilak said, catching the message. The group left, leaving Mike and Lolanne with some measure of privacy. They had not been alone together since Mike had destroyed the Colossus. Everyone needed to lend a hand, and they'd been separated, her duties whisking them apart, and in their absence a sort of proverbial wall had been driven between them. Mike regretted not going after her sooner. He was in the middle of telling her about his decision when the Hierarch had interrupted, and had hoped that Dashon had been delayed for just a few more minutes so he could explain to her. They had argued. It was short, and painful, but neither of them had won it, and neither wanted to bring it up again.

“So,” Lolanne said when the silence grew heavy and no one was within earshot. “this is it.” The human chewed his lip and nodded.

“Guess it is,” Mike agreed. He tried to find something else to add, but couldn't. Lolanne looked up at the sky.

“Locke,” she said, as if the word answered everything. To Mike it did, but not to her. She faced him, then, and the shorter alien had never looked so beautiful, looking up at him with a slightly cocked head, the suns casting her dark suit with bright rays and highlighting all the right places.

“Yeah,” he said. “I have to find him. Have to make him pay.”

“You're going to kill him. And that'll make everything right again, won't it? Murder?”

“It’s not…” He trailed off. It was hard to admit, but she had him there. He thought, no, knew, if the man responsible for Neruvana was dead, then he could finally get some closure. Mike faltered, failing to find the words to explain, looking away and rubbing his forehead. Lolanne met his gaze, making him shiver when he looked into those large eyes of hers.

“I'm sorry, Mike. I don't understand why you want to do this. If we had time, maybe... But no.” She let out a sigh. “Good luck out there. Saduun walk with you.”

Mike felt terrible. He could hear in her tone that she didn't think she would ever see him again. He didn't want to end on such a sour note with Lolanne, but when he opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a long exhale. He remembered the contact he'd had with her, before and after he'd destroyed the Spawn. Where had that spark gone between them? He had to reignite it, right now.

“I will come back,” he said, awkwardly. “One day. Promise.”

“Okay,” she said, in a way that told him she didn't believe a word of it. “… Okay. Farewell, Saviour.”

“Lola…”

She turned on her heel, and began to walk away. Even after facing down the Spawn's war machine, seeing her storm away like that, with her head hung low, it made him feel so weak and small, the world’s biggest coward. He willed her to turn around so he could see those big glowing eyes of hers one last time, but she didn't.

But just as he was about to turn and make his way to the shuttle, she stopped, and met his eyes over a pauldron. Mike lifted a hand and waved, though she didn't return the gesture. If his eyes were as sharp as Lolanne's, he would have seen the tears welling up behind her visor.

Instead, he was oblivious, and he climbed the shuttle ramp, taking a deep breath and letting it out. His desire to leave Panthea had been fulfilled, yet he didn’t feel the least bit glad about it. Still though, he had to try and get some peace with his own loss of a home, and Locke was the place to find it.

The ramp slowly closed behind him. Mike remembered holding Lolanne's lithe body, the curves under his palms. He remembered how they'd travelled together, how they’d talked and danced and… and how he’d never felt so happy before.

“-Wait!”

But Lolanne’s cry met no one’s ears. The ramp shut with a flat clap, like the sound of a life ending. She paused halfway through her fruitless sprint and watched the shuttle lift off the ground.

Mike raised an arm and grabbed the overhanging bulkhead, holding Dashon’s book with the other. The dual suns warm sunshine was sealed away from him. Ceiling fluorescents flicked on throughout the shuttle. The engine whirred to life beneath his feet.

One day.

The craft raised a few meters into the air, hung there for a moment as power distributed through the systems, then began its ascent to the heavens.

Down below, Lolanne watched the shuttle fade, fade, then disappear into the sky with an echoing rush of energy. When the heavens swallowed the shuttle and she saw it no more, she leant against a nearby wall and slid down it until her rump met the street.

Promise.

Down below, Lolanne watched the shuttle fade, fade, then disappear into the sky. When the heavens swallowed the shuttle and she saw it no more, she leant against a nearby wall and slid down it until her rump met the street.

There, surrounded by the rubble that had once been her home, she began to cry.

~The End~