Authors: Jade Allen
“See?” Araimeer said, and Allie looked up to see
that his eyes were a striking yellow-gold—and curiously moving, as though the
pigment were alive. “We look a little less human now.”
Viseer stood up and helped Allie to her feet, and
she tried not to stare too hard at his eyes, which were orange-red, like
campfire. His expression was grim, but he seemed a lot more willing to be
friendly with her now that he didn’t have to hide part of himself from her.
“More dangerous, too. So let us handle the jellyfish when it comes.”
Allie laughed, and she was shocked to find that
her voice sounded different to her ears—stronger, rougher. “Why would I try to
jump in?” she felt curiosity well up inside her, but it was squashed when she
saw something moving toward the dome. She gasped. “The jelly fish!”
The two men turned and ran toward the largest hole
in the ship, watching the mutant jellyfish swim toward them, its fang-filled
mouth gaping wide open. Allie felt oddly without fear, and she wondered if it
had anything to do with the electricity surging through her veins.
“Do you see it?” Viseer was asking.
Araimeer nodded. “Yeah, right below its mouth.
It’s glowing so bright I can see it right through the skin.”
“Think the dome is strong enough to kill it?”
“Probably just stun it,” Araimeer answered. It was
one hundred feet away now, and they both sank into crouched positions, readying
their bodies for the fight. “It’ll thrash a little bit. Then just phase out,
stab through its back—“
Allie’s eyes zeroed in on the jellyfish and the
small spot of gold where the artifact had been embedded in its body, just below
its mouth. She felt compelled to drift forward toward the two men, standing
just behind their crouched forms and gazing at the monster as it came closer.
“Okay,” Viseer said, grim determination threading
his voice. “Ten seconds. It’s almost as big as this damn ship. Maybe we can—“
Viseer’s voice was cut short as a low note filled
the dome, like a huge gong had been struck. Allie felt her hands rise into the
air, but she wasn’t moving them—
what’s moving them?
The low note
intensified, vibrating every cell and fiber in her body, and the air thickened
and started to heat up until it wasn’t breathable any longer. The two aliens
turned to Allie, their eyes and mouths wide open with shock.
“Her eyes,” Araimeer said, his voice soft with awe
and fear. “Her eyes are glowing.”
Allie felt something shift inside her, like a
heavy switch being thrown, and there was a violent
pop
ping sound; there
was a long, guttural scream, and Viseer and Araimeer turned forward in time to
see a chunk of golden material burst forward from the mutant’s mouth when it
was mere feet away from the dome. It hung suspended in the air for a moment,
and Allie could see the vibrations of the note shaking the stone clean of
jellyfish’s innards—then it sailed through the barrier to land right in Allie’s
hands.
As soon as her hands closed around the stone, the
humming stopped and the air returned to normal—but the scene outside the dome
was far less peaceful. Allie collapsed to her knees and fell to her side as the
huge creature exploded, sending clear, slimy liquid and a viscous slew of
organs raining over the dome. Viseer and Araimeer crowded around Allie again,
murmuring in hushed, panicked tones as they piled a robe underneath her head.
All she could hear was the steady sound of their voices; none of the words were
clearly audible at all.
It took a few minutes for her hearing to return,
but when it did, Viseer and Araimeer were considerably calmer.
“Okay, her eyes are opening.”
She looked up to see Viseer and Araimeer peering
straight down at her, the sky above them littered with starfish organs.
Araimeer smiled beatifically, but Viseer looked upset.
“Why did you do that? We told you to stay back!”
Araimeer shot a withering look at Viseer. “Viseer,
she obviously didn’t do it on purpose. She had no idea what was going on,
couldn’t you tell?”
Allie tried to sit up, and the two men each helped
her with a hand on her lower back. “What happened?”
Viseer laughed abruptly. “
You
happened. I
knew you weren’t just human.”
And icy wave of fear washed over Allie. “What?”
Araimeer pointed to the glow in her hands. “Allie,
you’re not supposed to do that. You’re not supposed to be able to take all of
our energy and hold it in you. It’s supposed to pass through you, almost like
gas.”
“Pass through me?” She repeated, looking down at
her naked body. “So…what’s going on? Why am I like this?”
Viseer shrugged. “You’re a conduit. I thought you
might be when we picked you up. I didn’t want to believe it, but you’re clearly
not dying from the electricity we poured into you, and you didn’t even pass
out.”
“You suspected she was a conduit?” Araimeer asked,
his cheeks reddening as he spoke. “And you didn’t mention it to me?”
“The way you were mooning over her, I assumed
you’d figured it out,” Viseer said, frowning. “Why else would we both be so
drawn to her? Why else would the transpo-spheres pick her up? We were
scavenging for parts that we could use for the transporter as well as conduits.
She got picked up, so she must be a conduit. Just a bigger, more fleshy conduit
than we’re used to.”
Araimeer and Viseer glared at each other, and
Allie wondered if they were about to fight. Then she cleared her throat,
bringing their attention back to her. “Sorry, but what’s a conduit?”
Araimeer looked at her sheepishly. “It means you
can handle large amounts of energy in much the same way we can. It’s rare for
someone outside our species to be able to do it.”
“Other members of your species are like this?”
Viseer and Araimeer exchanged another look, and something stirred in her mind.
“Wait…
all
of you aren’t electric gods? Can some of you do other stuff?”
Araimeer looked surprised. “Well, yeah, somebody’s
gotta be average, so not everyone has abilities. And some of us have other
elements we can control—fire, minerals, water. Water would have been real
handy.”
“But maybe not as handy as you. You summoned the
stone,” Viseer said. “You’re stronger than we thought. I never thought we’d
find a human this strong.”
“I never thought we’d find a human so calm,”
Araimeer said, looking at Allie closely. “How do you feel? Your color is
returning, and your eyes are back to normal.”
Allie took a deep breath, wondering how to answer
the question. She felt better than she’d felt in years, but she didn’t want to
admit what this meant for her. The entire ship probably knew about the attack
by now, and would be sending submarines down to look for the wreckage. When her
body wasn’t found, she would be presumed dead.
Poor Collin,
she thought.
Then:
Poor Carter.
Then something stirred in her mind. “You said you
guys are travelers?”
Viseer look startled. “Yes, but you didn’t answer
our—“
“And I’m a conduit. So I’m stronger than other
humans?”
Araimeer smiled. “Yes, but—“
“Okay.” Allie said. “What if I tag along with you
guys?”
Viseer shook his head at once. “Absolutely not.
It’s too dangerous. Do you even know the first thing about space? What about
your health? What about your ship?”
“Her ship thinks she’s dead,” Araimeer reminded Viseer
gently. The other alien fell silent, looking embarrassed. “And it’s our fault
in the first place. You wanted to play with that jellyfish, and I let you.
You’re fascination with Earth creatures finally got us in trouble, and it
nearly cost us a human life. What would the council say?”
Viseer’s cheeks blushed a brilliant red. “Fine,”
he spat. “She can stay with us. For a while!” he added, as Araimeer and Allie
cheered. “A trial run. In the meantime, we can think about contacting someone
on your ship at some point, doing damage control if it’s an option. Now we have
to get back to base, though. Is that okay with you, Allie?”
“That’s fine,” Allie responded gleefully. She and
Araimeer grinned at each other while Viseer grumbled to himself and began to
slip the lightening stone into it a soft pouch before stowing deep in the
transporter’s engine. Her heart was pounding, and not from fear, but from the
dizzying excitement of finding a new adventure at last. Araimeer slipped his
cloak back on pulled out a fresh one for Allie; it fit her snugly, almost like
it had been made for her in advance.
Araimeer turned to her and put one arm around her
shoulder while Viseer finished packing up their surroundings. “So, you never
did tell us how you feel now. How do you feel?”
Allie looked at the old wooden ship above them,
with its dome of light protecting it from the crushing waters around them.
Viseer flipped a switch on the transporter; after a moment, a beam of light
flickered on and a shimmering doorway appeared out of thin air just behind
it—she could see shifting dunes made of vibrantly colored sand, rounded
matte-finished buildings in pastel shades, and disc-like vehicles zipping
around in midair. Viseer had called it their base—was it their home planet?
Whatever it was, it meant they were ready to report back, and Allie would need
to be on her toes while she learned all she could on their next adventure.
I’ll
call Carter, tell him I’m alive and I’m doing my own thing for a while. It’s
going to be hard, but he’ll understand,
she decided as she gazed at the
teleporter; then she laughed, imagining herself bursting out of his dorm room
closet to deliver the news instead.
She raised her eyes to Araimeer’, taking his hand
in hers as they followed Viseer toward the teleporter’s doorway. “I’ve never
felt so alive.”
THE END
“Jenna, how close are you to a 100% success rate?”
Jenna looked up from her nutrient smoothie and
paused, pretending to think through her battle scores as if she didn’t already
know them by heart. Her best friend was sitting across from her at the gleaming
silver table, his gravely voice booming over the constant hum of humans and
aliens chattering in the background. “Six percent away,” she said causally, and
Victor whistled, impressed.
“I’m only at eighty-five,” he said, scratching his
tattooed chin thoughtfully. “I think it has something to do with my reaction
time—I keep trying to train it and it never gets any better. I thought Luna
would be a better place to practice, since we have other species here to help
us train, but Lizzie warned me that neutral territory isn’t always indicative
of a neutral atmosphere.” His thick fingers moved over the thorns inked on his
cleft chin frantically, a nervous tic the big man couldn’t shake. No one but
Jenna ever called him on it because they respected him too much.
Jenna was surprised he was showing his nerves at
all. In the years she’d known him, he’d been the one to shove his fears down
deeper than anyone else. Most people assumed he had no flaws; A-Level warriors
like him loved to strut around as though they were gods among men, but Victor
was caring, not cocky. His straight spine was strictly for show, a pillar of
discipline and patience that set the bar for nearly every warrior there, even
some of the older ones. Jenna was the most technically skilled, but she’d seen
Victor walk out of a burning ship carrying two people and then resuscitate them
both. Jenna didn’t have that kind of nerve or boldness; she preferred to be
sure of her success, and that meant she relied on machines.
“My light cannon seized up during the last
skirmish on Mars II,” she mentioned, brushing a stray onyx curl away from her
face. “Almost got fried by some piece of Yazulian trash, but then my cannon
unfroze and I shot a double-pulse at him. Knocked his bot out of the sky in
under a second. I love our new fighting pods, they’re so much faster.” She
smiled, remembering the fierce sense of satisfaction that shot through her
muscles as she watched the Yazulian’s spherical black pod start to smoke and
fall toward the soil, sending up an orange mushroom cloud of debris as he
slammed into the ground. No one died during the skirmish, human or otherwise,
but they’d destroyed every weapon the rebels were attempting to carry past the
peace border. It seemed like no matter how many of the Yazulians they got to
join the struggle for peace, half as many rebels violently rose up to squash
the attempt. After a hundred years, the war’s front had been pushed back past
Earth, Yazul, and even Luna, Earth’s moon; Yazul’s forces were finally
diminished enough to contain the fighting and start working toward a tangible,
significant peace. Truthfully, Jenna loved her job; ever since she’d been a
little girl, she dreamed of defending her planet from the humanoid beasts that
tried so hard to claim Earth for themselves. She kept hearing that peace would
be achieved in the next five years, but she wasn’t ready for peace. She was
still getting her taste of war.
“I’m gonna go do some research,” Victor said
suddenly. He picked up his lunch tray and rose from the table. “Luna’s library
is way better than Earth’s. Wanna come with?”
Something in his tone made Jenna look up, and she
noticed his tattooed fingers were tapping against the tray like they were
keeping time in a tempo only he could hear. His eyes were darting from side to
side as though he were trying not to look at something in the wide cafeteria,
and Jenna turned to try to find out what had made him so antsy.
Her gray eyes scanned the rows of tables, split by
species for the most part, but she didn’t see anything out of sorts. Toward the
middle of the cafeteria, the more peaceful humans mingled with the friendlier
Yazulians, creating fifteen or twenty tables of mixed company. The cafeteria’s
eighty-five humans in their varied tones—from soft white to deep chestnut
brown—looked dull compared to the Yazulians, whose skin came in every
imaginable shade, but who all shone softly like they held some secret flame
inside. Nothing out of the ordinary struck her eye, still, so she gave up the
search.
Jenna started to ask Victor what was wrong—and
tease him for his jumpiness— when her gaze was pulled toward the center of the
room.
A Yazulian was standing motionless near a table of
humans who were trying hard to avoid catching him in their line of sight. He
had shining copper skin like a brushed penny, and his bulging arms were crossed
with boxy black letters that Jenna knew were prayers and incantations in a
lilting language she’d never been able to fully grasp, even though it had been
taught to her in the years since her enlistment. His face was astoundingly
symmetrical and smooth, unmarred by burns and cuts, meaning he was likely a
younger warrior. His short-sleeved shirt had gleaming square gems in deep
purple at the shoulders; she knew they were power sources, but couldn’t recall
exactly what weapon they powered. It wasn’t on him, she reminded herself, so it
didn’t matter anyway. The Yazulian was looking directly at their table—more
accurately, directly at
her
; Jenna felt a river of tension start
trickling into her stomach as she realized it was the Yazulian from the
skirmish earlier that day on Mars II. As soon as she thought it, the warrior
smiled.
“You go ahead,” Jenna said to Victor, keeping her eyes
on the Yazulian. “I’ll catch up later. Besides, I’m sure Lizzie’s missing you.”
She kept her voice light at the mention of her old commander, but she felt a
ghostly tug of pain at her heart as she spoke.
It’s been six months,
she
thought.
Move on.
Victor seemed to notice too, and he hesitated,
sadness etched into his features. “Jenna—”
“Go.” She tried to smile, hoping it was warm
enough to make up for her lingering bitterness. Victor was still her best
friend, and he deserved happiness. What did Lizzie used to say?
The heart
wants what the heart wants.
Victor was strong, but Jenna could be forceful,
too. He turned on his heel and marched away, shooting her one last glance as
the doors opened for him and he disappeared out onto Luna’s surface. She pushed
her emotions down and turned her eyes forward, her nerves brittle and her blood
roaring in her head.
The Yazulian started to move toward her as if he’d
been given a cue. Jenna hadn’t known he’d been waiting for Victor to leave, but
she could see it in his eyes as he approached the table. He was wearing casual
clothes, a slim black top and pants made of a strengthened hybrid material that
protected his skin from the elements. Fear rose to the surface of her mind, but
anger soon followed, creating a toxic cocktail of emotions that colored all her
panicked thoughts as she watched the alien approach. Maybe it was being
reminded of her unrequited love, but she was itching for a tussle.
This is
it; one of these fuckers want revenge, and I’m gonna let him have one swing
before I take him out. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to wail on someone.
The Yazulian stopped in front of her table and
planted his hands on his hips. Up close, he looked less threatening, but that
put her even more on edge. He was a head shorter than she was, and his pupils
were dark brown and flecked with a luminous golden tone, close to the shade of
his own skin. His nametag had his name and rank in blocky Yazulian script, and
underneath it was its English translation:
Leo 17.
His eyes flickered to
her name tag and read
Jenna A. Horizon
on the silver rectangle.
“A-Level,” he said, and his voice snaked across
her skin and made her shiver; it sounded like something she heard in all those
examples of cheesy radio dramas from Earth’s early twentieth century: pompous,
velvety and dark, seductively sinister but utterly commanding. It was the voice
of a villain or an anti-hero you were inexplicably drawn to. She hated it.
“Yeah, I’m A-Level. What’s it to you?” Jenna shot
back. “You’re a level 17. Want to keep stating the obvious?”
The Yazulian smiled, and his teeth were too white.
“Sure, why not? You’re eating a shake. Everyone else has solid food of some
kind.”
“And?” Jenna spat, curling her hands into fists.
“You’re about to be eating my boot if you don’t cut the crap. Or maybe crapping
my boot if you’re not careful.”
“I guess you need less food if you’re not doing
real
fighting,” he continued, rolling his eyes up toward the ceiling as he pretended
to think. He stroked his chin and screwed up his face in mock concentration in
an uncanny impersonation of what Victor had done moments earlier. “Pushing a
joy stick around isn’t nearly as taxing as, say, saving your old Commander’s
life.”
Jenna stood up, and a sharp silence fell over
their part of the room. “Excuse me? You fight in a pod, too. I don’t see you
out there working up a sweat. Oh, wait!” Jenna gasped theatrically. “
Your
kind does that every time you try to think. No wonder we’re crushing you.”
More heads were turning their way. The Yazulian’s
slim nostrils flared, and a pale Yazulian in the far corner rose and started
inching toward them. Jenna thought about going for her laser pistol and
remembered it was on the ship—no weapons were allowed on neutral ground. She
didn’t understand why he was reacting this way when she was only being
defensive because he attacked her first.
“I suppose I should forgive you for that,” he said
finally, but his voice shook with barely contained rage. “You guys put such a
high premium on your status, evolutionarily. I guess it’s hard knowing you’re
not as special as you thought, or as strong. And you’ve learned that so very
often during the war…on the field and off. I can’t imagine feeling so weak.”
“Stop,” Jenna warned, her heart racing. “You don’t
know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” The Yazulian took a step forward.
“Everyone knows what happened after that fire, Horizon.”
“Don’t!” The word came out a screech.
“How upset did you have to be about that woman
choosing your best friend over you for you to switch brigades? After all those
years of that incredibly attentive…” the Yazulian’s smile widened as he paused,
“…
service
?”
The pale Yazulian was ten feet away from Leo 17,
but Jenna was already raising her fist back behind her head to strike. Rage
unfurled inside her and her vision narrowed down to a point as she launched her
fist toward his mouth. There was a resounding
crunch
as her punch
landed, and the dizzying high of victory lifted her spirits and pulled her mind
away from her bloodied knuckles. Leo 17 crumpled to the floor, clutching his
bleeding mouth and grunting in pain and rage. The pale Yazulian was trying to
pull him away, but Leo put all of his energy into trying to retaliate,
straining toward her without gaining any ground thanks to his friend’s hands.
Jenna stood just out of reach, smiling and examining her aching hand as though
it didn’t hurt at all. She locked eyes with him and felt another surge of
bitter satisfaction.
“How’s
that
for weak, asshole?”
The pale Yazulian squealed in terror and turned to
run, and the humans and Yazulians around him quickly followed. Jenna frowned.
“It wasn’t
that
bad, guys,” she said,
moving to step over Leo 17’s hunched body. “Well, I could’ve chosen a better
insult, I guess—”
A white-hot pain buckled every muscle in her body,
and her breath stopped in her throat. She went crashing to the ground in slow
motion, and finally registered the motion behind her. Two figures in gray masks
held up long, silvery batons, both crackling with the energy they’d just used
to incapacitate her. As Jenna’s vision faded away and she slipped out of
consciousness, she thought she saw the Yazulian smile.