Tonya R. Moore's Blog: Tonya R. Moore, page 19

The “Pay it Forward” Chain

Near the bottom of my homepage are banners presenting options to readers who like my work and want to show some support or appreciation.

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If you read it and love it…

The first option is to become a patron via Patreon. The second is to help support my caffeine habit via Ko-fi.

The third is pretty old-fashioned but a definite favorite of mine. Simply Pay it Forward!

If something I wrote made you feel god, inspired, or tickled and you can’t or don’t want to shell out your hard-earned dollars, simply do something nice to make someone else feel good too.

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Do something nice for someone. Anyone.

Now please don’t get me wrong. I do not think there is a single thing wrong with creators looking to their audience for support. You guys are our life-blood and let’s face it…

Times are tough and writers need roofs over our heads and food in our bellies, just like anyone else.
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The struggle is real.

That’s why I provided the option of giving monetary support if you can and want to do so, but if can’t or would much rather show your support in some other way, that would be super sweet too.

If you read my stories or blog, like what you read, decide to Pay it Forward, and feel like sharing, please tell me all about it in the comments section.
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If you come here and read a story or blog post the inspires, entertains, or just flat-out makes you feel good, then any one of these three things that you choose to do makes me feel good too.

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Do it today!

If you’re a fellow writer or blogger, I suggest including a link to your latest bit of good news or best blog post.

Owning Your Craft

For the past several years, there’s been all this hubbub floating around out there. The internet is saturated with self-labeled experts shilling a myriad of conflicting theories of all the DOs and DON’Ts of what it takes to be or become a successful author.

I remember being seriously incensed a few years ago when some writing advice-giver actually tweeted that if you happen to be a writer promoting your work and you don’t have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, it’s a sure sign that you’re just not trying hard enough.

“You’re just not trying hard enough!”

That kind of attitude was merely evidence of an alarming, growing trend. Even today, there seems to be no short supply of soothsayers proclaiming that you should write, write, write till you’ve either churned out some semblance of a book or your fingers fall off. If that story seems to be taking its sweet time congealing, then by god–you’d better choke that baby out or burnout trying.

To add insult to injury, that particular tweeter hadn’t managed
to gain even have half of that strongly suggested following.

You also really ought to spend endless hours whoring it out like crazy, lest you get left behind in the dust of this supposed digital gold rush.

Oh, please. Gimme a break!

Of course, it is true that productivity and ingenuity both
fuel success. A strong web presence is certainly essential to a writer’s
success in this technologically obsessed age. To be quite honest, there’s
nothing fundamentally indefensible about writing solely for the sake of pocketing
a few dollars either.

The economy being what it is–these days, we’re all doing
what we can. I guess.

Let me ask you this, though:

Has writing ever been a craft that could be forced, rushed or faked?
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A truly good story happens in its own time.

Whether that time happens to be one hour or a thousand days
will vary from one writer to the next and from one story to the next. Make no mistake, Dear Writer. By no means do I suggest that
you be lackadaisical in your efforts.

Just remember this one thing:

Writers are always working and growing, whether we’re scribbling or not. Whether we’re aware of it, or not.
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So, let’s come back to our senses and maybe not stress out
over it so much, lest you sell both yourself and your craft short.

Yes, the world can be a harsh environment for a fertile mind.

Even so, you can still afford to spare a moment to pause, take a step back and look. Look where you started and look where you are now.

“You’ve come a long way, Writer!”

Be proud of the distance you’ve traveled and how much you’ve accomplished, so far.

Just think, there’s a lot more where that came from.

Slumfairy: The Undead Head

Severed heads weren’t commonplace, even in one of the crime-ridden
shantytowns that sprawled along the rims of Hegira’s surface canals.

Winny frowned, her gut churning when Bex plunked the bagged, dripping thing down on her counter. Just as Winny got to wondering whether her human foster-sister had finally gone far enough ’round the bend to forget that a headhunter’s job wasn’t supposed to be taken quite so literally, there was a choked oomph, which suggested that something was, impossibly enough, still alive in there.

Since Bex’s Lloran sibling was
clearly the only living being who’d dare threaten and, in fact, could
slap her silly, Winny didn’t hesitate to make her displeasure with the
grisly gift known.

“Got a death wish, do you?”

Bex was
hardly intimidated. She was blue, not a natural blue. Her skin had been
dyed in a pattern of planet-side ocean waves, decades ago when skin
re-pigmentation was all the rage among Llorans who fostered human
children. She was rough and wiry, armed to the teeth. The red fur collar
and tail of her jacket didn’t do much to soften that sharp countenance.

Her voice was gravely, a souvenir from when a Merchant guild metal-head had tried to crush her windpipe when she was twelve.

“Problem?”

“There’s
a bleeding head leaking into my breakfast.” Winny’s charcoal palm came
slamming down, the embedded blue-gold intricate pattern adorning her
skin glinted. “Yes, there’s a fraggin’ problem! Plus, you boarded the
Koros tower to catch a bounty?”

“Yea-why not?”

“… in the middle of a hostile takeover.”

“Attempted hostile take-over,” Bex qualified “I had to shoot a few
Guild metal-heads too, so it’s not like I was taking sides.”

That wasn’t much of a qualification. The Merchant Guild’s hired guns were famously violent and stupid, hence the metal-head nickname.

Bex had been nursing a lifelong hatred for both Koros and the Merchant Guild, the two major factions vying for control of their shared domain. The hunter’s parents had been murdered right in front of her during a forced relocation by some trigger happy metal-head, back when she stood just knee-high.

Indifferent to the turmoil raging within, the legendary ship, Hegira, tumbled endlessly through the void. The massive ship was a great ghost dreamed up by ancients obsessed with chasing the stars. Their kind had mostly died out long ago. Their legacy was a wonder. It was old and it was dark. Its fount overflowed with mythologies.

The aged behemoth spun a magical web of mysteries across galaxies. It dipped its toes into slipstreams and toyed with wormholes like a child playing jump-rope. It collected intelligent beings like rare jewels and made its bones a haven for endangered creatures and conquerors alike.

Yes. Hegira was a wonder, but you couldn’t exactly call it paradise.

Winny palmed her face in dismay as Bex recounted her shenanigans aboard the Koros tower.

“You were party to a trans-provincial incident?”

“I wasn’t!” The hunter spluttered. “Not really.”

A beady-eyed monstrosity wriggled partially out of the opening in the sack Bex had dropped onto the table. Its visage was dark-green like the moss from the Molokai woodsea, mottled with yellow and orange spots.

“Oh yeh-yeh, she was!” It chortled maliciously. “I know!” it crowed. I was there.”

Episode 1 – The Undead Head

Severed heads weren’t commonplace, even in one of the crime-ridden
shantytowns that sprawled along the rims of Hegira’s surface canals.

Winny frowned, her gut churning when Bex plunked the bagged, dripping thing down on her counter. Just as Winny got to wondering whether her human foster-sister had finally gone far enough ’round the bend to forget that a headhunter’s job wasn’t supposed to be taken quite so literally, there was a choked oomph, which suggested that something was, impossibly enough, still alive in there.

Since Bex’s Lloran sibling was
clearly the only living being who’d dare threaten and, in fact, could
slap her silly, Winny didn’t hesitate to make her displeasure with the
grisly gift known.

“Got a death wish, do you?”

Bex was
hardly intimidated. She was blue, not a natural blue. Her skin had been
dyed in a pattern of planet-side ocean waves, decades ago when skin
re-pigmentation was all the rage among Llorans who fostered human
children. She was rough and wiry, armed to the teeth. The red fur collar
and tail of her jacket didn’t do much to soften that sharp countenance.

Her voice was gravely, a souvenir from when a Merchant guild metal-head had tried to crush her windpipe when she was twelve.

“Problem?”

“There’s
a bleeding head leaking into my breakfast.” Winny’s charcoal palm came
slamming down, the embedded blue-gold intricate pattern adorning her
skin glinted. “Yes, there’s a fraggin’ problem! Plus, you boarded the
Koros tower to catch a bounty?”

“Yea-why not?”

“… in the middle of a hostile takeover.”

“Attempted hostile take-over,” Bex qualified “I had to shoot a few
Guild metal-heads too, so it’s not like I was taking sides.”

That wasn’t much of a qualification. The Merchant Guild’s hired guns were famously violent and stupid, hence the metal-head nickname.

Bex had been nursing a lifelong hatred for both Koros and the Merchant Guild, the two major factions vying for control of their shared domain. The hunter’s parents had been murdered right in front of her during a forced relocation by some trigger happy metal-head, back when she stood just knee-high.

Indifferent to the turmoil raging within, the legendary ship, Hegira, tumbled endlessly through the void. The massive ship was a great ghost dreamed up by ancients obsessed with chasing the stars. Their kind had mostly died out long ago. Their legacy was a wonder. It was old and it was dark. Its fount overflowed with mythologies.

The aged behemoth spun a magical web of mysteries across galaxies. It dipped its toes into slipstreams and toyed with wormholes like a child playing jump-rope. It collected intelligent beings like rare jewels and made its bones a haven for endangered creatures and conquerors alike.

Yes. Hegira was a wonder, but you couldn’t exactly call it paradise.

Winny palmed her face in dismay as Bex recounted her shenanigans aboard the Koros tower.

“You were party to a trans-provincial incident?”

“I wasn’t!” The hunter spluttered. “Not really.”

A beady-eyed monstrosity wriggled partially out of the opening in the sack Bex had dropped onto the table. Its visage was dark-green like the moss from the Molokai woodsea, mottled with yellow and orange spots.

“Oh yeh-yeh, she was!” It chortled maliciously. “I know!” it crowed. I was there.”

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Metropol Arat

Sunlight rained down from the skylight of Tsanza’s domicile. Laila curled up into the fetal position as she slept like the dead in his bed. The covers had fallen away, revealing the deep indigo of her naked, scarified back. She shifted in her sleep. The tiny jewels embedded below her right eye glittered in the light that flooded the bed. The thin bracelet that she wore on one hand began to vibrate. She groaned. Still bogged down by sleepiness, she tap-tapped on the bracelet and rolled over.

Not alone.

It suddenly registered. Her heart stuttered. Her eyes went wide. She shot up into a sitting position, fully awake in an instant. Tsanza’s room had been invaded by four black-uniformed goons. They stood, backs to the doorway, weapons aimed at Laila. A strange woman led this pack. She’d come to roost on the chair at the foot of Tsanza’s bed. She was sitting there watching Laila with bright, curious eyes.

“No,” the woman said. “Don’t get up on my account.”

She was dark, like the earthy kind of spice that bites. She wore boots that went all the way up to her thighs, a short skirt, and a diagonally slanted top. Her outfit was complete with a cowled leathery cloak. She was human. Middle aged. The wolven insignia on her chest was identical to the one on the goon squad’s lapels. Recognition came belatedly. That was the insignia of Metropol Arat’s military police. This woman was an officer of rank.

“Pretty sure I haven’t broken any laws.” Laila drawled, dragging the covers up around her torso.

The woman leaned forward. “Shall I explain to you how little guilt or innocence matters to us?”

Laila sucked in a deep breath, heart still hammering out a disconcerted beat. Nearly a month on Tilaat Amat, and the she’d gone to great lengths to keep a low profile. Ever since she left Hegira, she’d been careful not to make too many waves anywhere she goes. Her mission depended on it. Her very life depended on it. She knew that she hadn’t been careless. There was no fathomable reason for the capital’s authorities to seek her out, much less come barging in like this.

Her eyes darted to the empty chair directly across from the bed. Her guns were still in their holster, slung over the back of the chair. How fast, she wondered, could she get to them? Could she make it across the room before these weapon-toting jokers drilled her full of holes? She bit down on her lower lip, considering.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” the boss of the goon squad said quietly. “You’d be dead in three seconds. Starchaser or not.”

“You seem to have me at a disadvantage.” Laila managed after a moment of unnerved silence. Hell. This was no good. Why did this woman know what she was?

“I do, don’t I?” The officer smiled. Her eyes were black ice. Her predatory gaze sent a shiver down Laila’s spine.

“I’m Daz Nestor,” she said. “I’m an acquaintance of your foster brother’s.”

Laila’s gut lurched. Even here, she realized. He could reach her, even here.

Brother was head of the Merchant Guild, a faction vying for control of Hegira. He was controlling, a tyrant and obsessed with Laila’s potential as a candidate to replace Hegira’s current pilot, Sesili. Like a dark star, he’d always been there to eclipse every ounce of Laila’s being. Worlds apart, he’d managed to track her down. It dawned on her that the real reason this Daz Nestor was there before in that moment, was to remind her that Brother could always reach her anywhere, anytime. A sickening feeling welled up into the young starchaser’s gut.

“He asked me to look out for you. Make sure you stay on task.” Daz Nestor bared her pearly whites again. “I’m sure you know what that means.”

Laila scowled. “I haven’t done anything to warrant any concern.”

“And we intend to keep things that way.”

“Why now?” Laila challenged, even though she already knew the answer. “I’ve been on Tilaat Amat for weeks.”

“You’re right,” answered Daz Nestor. “We could have picked you up at any time.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Why rush?” Daz Nestor asked. She didn’t say it but the implication was clear. They’d been watching Laila. To see what she would do. Laila was sure she’d been careful but as she sat there, she tried to think back on whether any of her actions over the past few weeks could have betrayed her.

“Hegira has entered the heliopause.” Daz Nestor informed her. “It won’t be too long now.”

Laila eyed her captor sagely. “What kind of deal do you have with Brother? What’s in this for you?”

“Oh, you know.” Daz Nestor murmured. “This and that.”

“Well,” Laila said. “I already sent him a message letting him know I completed my mission on Bentokal. I’m just waiting for Hegira to get here.”

“And your little gunsmith friend?”

“What about him?” Laila’s eyes shifted to the empty space on the bed beside her. That side of the bed had long grown cold. Tsanza was either being held at gunpoint down below or he’d left early to go to his workshop. Laila hoped for the latter.

“No lingering attachments that might cause you to change your mind?” Daz Nestor asked. “We wouldn’t want that would we?”

“I assure you, there are none.” Even Lila herself didn’t buy those words.

How much did this woman really know about her relationship with Tsanza? Laila wasn’t even certain where they stood. Tsanza was just supposed to be Laila’s contact in Metropol Arat. The whole thing had been arranged ahead of time by Sesili. Laila and Tsanza had met. Sparks had flown. For Laila, that was enough but right then, she wanted to throttle Daz Nestor for even bringing him up.

“So, you wouldn’t mind if I ordered my men to take care of him here and now?”

Laila’s gaze hardened.

Daz Nestor laughed. “That was a joke, of course. Even I don’t have license to execute citizens without reason but believe me, if I need to, I can find one. Remember that.”

“Are we done here?” Laila asked. “You’ve made your point and you now know where I stand. Was there anything else?”

“No.” Daz Nestor stood. “Nothing else. For now. I just wanted to meet you in person. You brother has such high hopes for you, after all.” Her broad smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

They turned to leave. At the doorway, Daz Nestor stopped and turns briefly. “Rejoice, Laila,” she urged. “Your brother’s most important dream is about to come true. It won’t be long now, until Hegira falls into our hands.”

Laila stared after her wordlessly. She curled her trembling fingers into tight fists. Closed her eyes. This was what she got for letting her guard down. This is what she got. She swallowed hard. She swallowed it down, all of her desperation and frustration swelling up and threatening to overflow. This was hardly the time to lose it, hardly the time to be weak.

Still trembling, Laila shoved the covers aside and stood there frowning at the empty doorway. She remembered tossing her clothes somewhere in that general direction last night before tumbling into bed. Where were they now?

“Tsanza?” She called out. “Tsanza!”

No answer came.

Her nearly knee-high boots had been left by the bed. Laila sat back down and hauled them on. At the center of the room was a metal staircase that lead down to the living area of Tsanza’s dwelling. Laila slipped down the staircase, wearing nothing but her underwear and boots.

There was a table crammed into the living small space, leaving barely enough room to squeeze by to the galley. Her clothes were on the table, folded up neatly. A note had been left on top of her clothes with one word. Shop.

Relieved, Laila chuckled. So, Tsanza missed out on Daz Nestor’s little visit. Thank the stars.

She dressed quickly before going to the galley and snatching some fruit from a bowl.

“Teeva!” She called up to the bedroom. “Come eat!”

A bird-like thing swooped down from the ceiling. It was blue, leathery, and smooth all over with beady eyes and wings like a stingray.

“And where were you while I was in trouble just now?” Laila demanded scowling up at the teruun.

Teeva ignored the accusing query.

More fruit? Came the drowsy complaint, spearing into Laila’s mind. Worms are better.

“Fine,” Laila mumbled, mouth full of the tart succulence. “I’ll get you some worms later.”

The metal door leading outside was unlocked and creaked open with a shove. Good thing. At least, Daz Nestor’s goons hadn’t seen the need to break it down. Laila wasn’t sure how she would have been able to explain that to Tsanza. She stepped into the harsh morning light. Although the sun was burning bright and hot, it had recently rained. The streets were slick with wetness and Laila could still hear the sound of gutter water rushing through drainpipes underfoot. The air of sun-baked Metropol Arat, a small city squatting on the western continent of Tilaat Amat, was stained with the scent of petrichor, mechanic’s oil, and spice.

Laila liked Metropol Arat. The city was a melting pot of alien species, all jostling for space and surviving side by side. It reminded her of Hegira. It reminded her of home.

Laila ran through busy streets paved with bricks of petrified wood. Unlike Tsanza’s house, the inner-city buildings were tall, shaped liked knives slicing through the bottoms of the clouds. Laila had chosen to stick to ground level, mingling with the dregs of Tilaat Amat society. That sort of living suited her just fine. Music wound its way through the alleyways, a strangely beautiful but agitating melody that made Laila want to clamp her hands over her ears to keep from hearing any more. Instead of taking the low road suffused with the stench of refuse mingled with the smell of burning meat, she ducked into the into the canopied marketplace.

The pungent scents of spices and incense clouded the air. She almost bumped into a pair of veiled Toskans carrying baskets laden with bioluminescent herbs on their heads. They flitted through the crowds like gray ghosts, hawking their wares, faces never shown. As she ran, Laila caught a glimpse of a dusky, four-armed Malaui, who sat guarding brass pots filled with writhing water serpents, an expensive delicacy. Laila made a mental note. Worms for Teeva.

She passed a stall offering pelts of every skinnable species imaginable and one with caged, live specimens for food and other unspeakable purposes. Laila waved briefly to the Idran weapons and spaceship parts dealer that she did business with two days earlier. Idrans were a fearsome lot with big teeth, red eyes, and horns. They stood two feet taller than the average human adult and had a tendency to growl at the slightest provocation. Still, they were sticklers when it came to doing honest business, and an Idran could always be trusted to deliver quality product at a fair price.

The starchaser navigated through the crush of bodies, instinctively avoiding two human males wearing the uniform of Metropol Arat’s military police. She didn’t stop running until she caught sight of Tsanza’s workshop.

Skin like red ochre, eyes deep green, and hair twisted into long black locks, Tsanza was like a rare animal. Although he blended in with with racial mix that made up the populace of Metropol Arat, Tsanza was like no other on the entire planet of Tilaat Amat. The moment she’d laid eyes on him, Laila had him pegged for exactly what he was. It was his differentness that made him stand out, a differentness that had nothing to do with the color of his skin or the strange clothes he wore. Tsanza had that air about him, the air of one who didn’t belong planet-side. The air of a starchaser. He and Laila, they were wildly different but in that singular respect, they were the same.

He was there in the workshop, repairing an old-looking sidearm. He glanced up as Laila entered the workshop.

Tsanza stood a head taller than Laila, which at first made her self-conscious about her slightly diminutive stature. While working, Tsanza wore a simple gray shirt and dark utility pants. Whenever he was out of the workshop, he wore one of those woven ponchos that were so common among the denizens of Tilaat Amat. In the shop, he sat at his worktable, squinting at a tiny part from the gun he was repairing. His manner was somber. Half the time, Laila could only hazard a guess at what he was thinking.

“You missed a bit of a party.” She announced. “The military police paid me a little visit. An officer named Daz Nestor. Corrupt, power starved. You know the type?”

His head came up again, he seemed on the verge of saying something but in the end he just nodded and went back to working on the old gun. Laila was used to his little mannerisms so she didn’t think much of his reaction.

“It’s almost here,” she murmured. “Hegira.”

Hegira. It was a word that filled Laila both with bubbles of elation and nervous knots. The ship of wonder. The wandering world of beauty and horror. Hegira was heaven and hell wrapped in metal, hurtling through the universe at a billions of parsecs per second. Hegira was a behemoth, a massive monster of a ship. The only home Laila had ever known. Home to Winny, Bex, and Sumida, the three people Laila loved most in the ‘verse. It was home to Brother, the man she feared most in the ‘verse.

“I need to use the comms,” she told Tsanza, who nodded, pointing in the direction of the console.

Laila keyed in two messages. One to Sesily. The other to Brother. Laila’s mind shifted to Sumida. She’d told Sumida to leave Hegira, to run. Had Sumida listened? Sumida was tougher than anyone realized but she was also more stubborn than anyone else knew. She might have stayed on Hegira, out of pure spite. In that case she would already be dead. There’s no way Brother would let Laila’s rival live. Laila’s heart clenched at that thought. Laila loved Sumida, lived in awe of Sumida. She didn’t want Sumida to be dead.

She sent her messages, a short and seemingly meaningless burst of chatter that would be picked up by anyone scanning for transmissions from Tilaat Amat. Only Sesili and Dornvold would have any idea what it the message meant for them actually said. In her message to Brother, Laila included just enough information to keep him from being suspicious. Laila knew what would happen if Brother found out that she was actually reporting back to Sesili and Dornvold. He didn’t expect Laila to have the guts to do anything other than what he told her to do. Absolute obedience was what he expected.

Laila was dancing, dancing on the sharp edge of a knife. She knew it. She was used to doing that.

Bolen’s Beloved

Basket’s Lodge was a small trinket shop on the outer edge of Cluster Nine, a crowded supply station somewhere in the middle of the Triptic System. The squat, gray building was flanked by a gun repair shop and a mechanical parts broker and for all intents and purposes didn’t seem to do much business at all. There was a small display stand setup on the outside.

“For you,” said the shopkeeper, a mutated human with pointy elf ears, holding up a small, ornate mirror for the raggedy urchin who happened to come out of the gun repair shop nearby.

Clad in a tatty mini dress, tights, and scuffed boots, Sumida stopped in her tracks. The gun hanging from the belt loosely strung around her waist bounced against her hip as she turned.

“It’s a lovely trinket,” she told the shopkeeper. “But I don’t need it.”

She spied her traveling companion, a Bolen with buggy, doe-eyes and steely skin named Klang weaving his way through the crowd some distance away. Sumida liked Klang. He was a timid sort with a generally nervous disposition, which was out of character for a Bolen. He was quite unlike the vicious and predatory Bolen that Sumida had read about in books. Klang was gentle but stalwart and had saved Sumida and Bex’s lives more times than they could count. He was heading for the warehouses in the opposite direction from their ship. Curious, Sumida followed. When Klang ducked into a warehouse, she frowned. What exactly was he up to? She was some distance away, so it took some time to catch up.

Sumida smelled the blood before she even opened the warehouse door. At first, her brain couldn’t even process what she was looking at. In the dim light, she could at first, only make out a bunch of dark shapes on the ground. Then her eyes adjusted. She gasped in horror. She was looking at ruined bodies. Bodies torn to pieces. Blood of various hues splattered everywhere. Sumida’s gut lurched. There was brain matter. There were scattered limbs. There was spilled guts. They were mercenaries, she could tell from what was left of their clothing and the bent and broken weapons strewn about the messy floor. Their weapons had been rendered useless by whatever had set upon them with viciousness Sumida couldn’t even imagine. There was a flutter of movement. Sumida stood there, frozen to the spot. Klang towered over the broken bodies. Klang was four armed, quadruple jointed, and deceptively delicate but all Sumida could see at the moment was a killing machine. A perfect killing machine. One mercenary was still alive. His weak, agonized moans reached Sumida. The blood-splattered, alien beast that brought his foot down and stomped the life out of that mercenary was a monster, not her soft-spoken friend.

Sumida drew in a sharp breath. Instinct said that if he saw her right then, he’d kill her too. She closed her eyes and backed out of the warehouse but not quickly enough. There was a rush of wind. In an instant, the overpowering scent of blood intensified. Sumida couldn’t move. Couldn’t run. Couldn’t scream.

Icy fingers gripped her shoulders so tightly she wanted to cry out from the pain but she was too scared to make a sound.

“You saw, didn’t you?” Came the deadly whisper.

“I d-didn’t see anything!” She stammered.

Klang’s grip on her shoulders tightened. “Don’t lie.” His voice was hollow and cold.

“Alright! I saw,” she cried. “Please don’t kill me,” she whimpered.

For what seems like an eternity, they stood there. Sumida could only wait to see what he would do. Seconds ticked by. She swallowed hard and prayed to whatever gods were listening out there in the cold vastness of space.

He let go abruptly and retreated into the dark.

Sumida stumbled backwards and out into the light. She fell on her butt, scrambled to her feet.

She didn’t know this violent creature! This was not a Klang she knew. Not the Klang she traveled with. Laughed with. Traded stories with.

She ran. She ran all the way back to their ship. She didn’t stop until she was inside the ship and in the presence of Klang’s beloved human friend, Bex. Bex was blue. Bex was strong. Was she strong enough to stop a murderous Klang?

Bex was seated at the ship’s controls, prepping the vessel for their departure from Cluster Nine.

“What’s with you?” Bex asked.

Sumida didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She just stood there, near tears and gasping for breath, her heart thundering in her chest.

“Sumida?”

“Do you think it’s weird?” Sumida asked, breathless. “Do you think it’s weird that no one has come after us in weeks?”

Bex shrugged. “Now that you mention it, sure. But isn’t that a good thing?”

“Bex,” Sumida drew in a deep breath and steadied herself. “Something is seriously wrong—”

“What?” Bex laughed. “You so used to being chased, you don’t know how to deal with peace and quiet anymore?”

“No, it’s just…” Sumida sighed. “Never mind.”

She couldn’t tell Bex about Klang, about what she’d seen. That was another thing that instinct told her. If Sumida told Bex about what Klang was doing, he’d probably kill her. Klang didn’t care about Sumida, couldn’t care less about the fate of Hegira. Klang only cared for Bex. To Klang, Bex was the only thing in the ‘verse that mattered. Everything that he did was for Bex’s sake.

Klang came back to the ship, cleaned up and serene. Who’d have guess he’d just butchered a warehouse full of mercenaries?

“Klang, what took you so long?” Bex demanded.

“Sorry,” He murmured. “Things got a bit tricky with the information broker.” His glance shifted to Sumida, who stared at him, saying nothing. “It took a while to persuade the old bat.”

“Did she give you the coordinates?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Of course.”

He tossed a small tablet to Bex. She caught it easily and immediately went to the ship’s controls. “Get ready,” she called back to Sumida and Klang. “Time to head out.”

Sumida and Klang got into their seats and strapped in. Sumida never once took her eyes off Klang. He in turn, regarded her serenely. That look used to reassure Sumida. Now it just made her skin crawl. She’d never be able to look at Klang the same again. He was a threat, a ticking time bomb. Sumida had no idea what he’d do next. What would he do to her the next time they were alone together? That singular thought sent a shudder down her spine.

The ship shook as the engine started up.

Sumida wondered if Laila was faring any better than she was at the moment. Unlike Sumida, who set off on her journey across the stars with Bex and Klang, Laila had set out alone. Laila had always been fighting alone. Scarred and scared but beautiful and brave. This time, Sumida would do something for Laila. The most important thing yet. Sumida steeled herself. She couldn’t afford to let Klang get in the way of her objective.

“It never happened,” she said lowly.

“Say again?” Klang turned slightly in his seat.

“I didn’t see anything,” she said, resolute.

Klang nodded. Sumida nodded. Good. They had an agreement. Sumida released a shaky breath. She had no doubt that Klang would keep killing to protect Bex. In any case, his actions played in Sumida’s favor too, whether he was doing it for her sake or not. Whether was doing it for Hegira’s sake or not.

The ship buckled.

“We have company!” Bex announced.

“How many?” Sumida asked.

“Six. Maybe seven.” Bex cursed furiously. “Now they’re firing at us!”

Sumida and Klang sprang into action. Klang took the forward gun controls. Sumida took the rear.

The ship shuddered, and metal screamed as Bex punched it, pulling off an evasive maneuver. “We need those guns now!”

The targeting system’s monitor flickered. Sumida locked on. She fired. She missed.

Klang was having better luck. He delivered a sweeping barrage that took out two of their pursuers.

“Get ready for hyper jump!” Bex announced.

A deep growl rose up from the belly of the ship.

Sumida fired again. She hit her target this time. “Yes!”

Whooomph!

Something bored through the hull and clattered to the ground. They all stared down at it dumbly for a few seconds.

“Torpedo!” Sumida cried, backing away from the wildly spinning thing.

“Looks like a dud.” Klang said.

“Somebody plug that hole!” Bex growled.

Klang grabbed a patch kit and hurried toward the spot where a hole had been ripped in the hull by the torpedo. It was a small hole, inches in diameter but they were losing air, and fast.

“Sumida!” Bex yelled. “We’ve got more incoming! Keep them off our asses until we jump.”

Sumida ran to the gun turrets. She set up another wide, sweeping barrage of shots and fired. And fired again.

“Klang, how’s that hole looking?”

“All patched up.”

“Good, we jump in—”

The spaceship banked. Sumida and Klang both went flying. The hyper drive ignited while they were still mid-air. Time slowed to a crawl. There was a light, a blinding blue light. It washed over the entire ship. A sort of white noise filled the pregnant silence. There was a sound, the eerie rattling song of a stellar body. The pair remained afloat, as if suspended in liquid. The light dimmed. The noise faded. Time fast-forwarded. Gravity returned. The sudden shift sent Sumida and Klang flying. Sumida slammed into a console and crashed to the ground with a yelp. Klang smashed into the hull, he too crumbled to the ground. They both lay there, unmoving.

Bex, still strapped into her seat, jabbed at the console, desperately trying to get the ship back under control.

“Anyone back there still alive?” She called out to the pair behind her.

Sumida was the first to respond. She whimpered, then groans. “Fraggin’ stars, that hurt!”

Blood dripped from her nose and a gash in the side of her head. She struggled to get into a sitting position.

“Klang,” Sumida called out. “Are you—”

“I’ll live.” Klang muttered, sitting up. “I think I broke one of my arms.”

Bex wiggled out of her harness and rushed over to where they kept the first aid supplies.

She patched up Sumida first. Cleaned the wound, then used a gel to cover the wound. The gel congealed and sealed the gash.

Klang sat and meekly bore the pain as Bex probed and tugged on his broken arm.

“It’s only dislocated,” she declared and before he could react she twisted hard and popped the joint back into place.

Klang screeched then curled up into a whimpering ball. It would take some time for the pain to subside.

Sumida gathered the bloody bandages and limped over to the back of the ship and dumps them down into the trash chute.

“Please,” she turned to Bex. “Tell me we’re, at least, near the place we need to go.”

“Not just near,” Bex answered with a triumphant grin. “We’re here.”

Starchaser – Part 2

Laila came upon the grand divide, where a deep valley separated the habited zone from the forbidden Wilds. A flimsy suspension bridge hung between the two plateaus. The rickety bridge swayed under Laila’s feet as she ran. Way down below, frothy rapids threaded through the lush valley between the two mountains. The heavy air of Bentokal sliced into her lungs like razors. The shrill cries of one alarm after another nipped at her heels. She kept running full tilt across the divide. She ran until she saw nothing but red. She didn’t even realize that the alarms had stopped. She plunged into mist, blood roaring in her head. She reached the other side, setting foot into the savage Wild.

At first, there was only a deathly silence. Then, like some dark greeting, out of the thick of the brush rose a creature, the likes of which she’d never seen. The beast was six-legged, covered in bristly black fur with a triad of eyes the color of molten sulfur. The predator’s stare burned with intelligence and hostility across the distance between them. Laila’s trembling hand went for her weapon before she even knew it. The beast snarled, double edged tongue and fangs glistening in the poor light. The muscles of its back bunched. The creature launched itself at her. Her weapon was out of its holster and she as firing blindly before any conscious thought to fight or flee even registered. The wounded animal stopped in its tracks, a hair’s breadth out of reach. It tumbled to the ground. At least one of Laila’s shots had popped the vicious bugger dead center of the third eye and split the skull wide open, steamy brain matter leaking out.

Gone weak in the knees, Laila crumbled. She sat there on the ground trembling and sobbed. Once she managed to get herself under control, she wiped away her snot and tears and activated the device embedded in her palm.

“Show me Sesili’s map,” she commanded hoarsely.

The holographic image produced was a rough map of the Wilds, with an indicator pointing at the target deep within the thick of the Wild, as her sick luck would have it. To make matters worse, the map wasn’t even necessarily accurate. Sesili, who was barely hanging on to this mortal plane, had warned her about that. The map was centuries old, a relic from the time of a man named Karl Methos, who was the first human known to bond with teruun.

According to Sesili, Methos had started an entire philosophical movement, based on two questions:

What makes teruun soar high up into the heavens and seek out the stars? What makes them dive deep down into the sea?

Sesili said it was important that Laila remember those words, but Laila didn’t understand how it was relevant to her mission.

What did it matter? Teruun wasn’t her reason for being here.

Sufficiently calmed–the shaking had finally stopped–Laila was on the move again. Hyper vigilant, this time, she kept her gun at the ready, just in case the corpse behind her had some living company.

The gathering hall was in an uproar. Just as the bonding ceremony was about to begin, Brood Master Kush, the Var half of the Var/Teruun Principality raised the first alarm.

“A child is missing!” Kush roared. “Sound the alarms! Ground all star-bound vessels! Search every inch of this mountain!”

The brood master wore long robes that touched the ground. His torso was encased within the shell of a giant gastropod. With an ostentatious spire and intricate whorls that gathered at the at the back of the neck, pointing upward and out. Despite Kush’s rising panic, the group of young teruun gathered to choose partners, not to mention the teruun half of the Principality, calmly floated about mid-air watching the scene before them unfold with bright, curious eyes.

Amidst the flurry of activity that followed, the alarms at the boundary between the Wilds and the habitable zone had sounded. In his flat, sharp-edged voice, Kush ordered the remaining guards to see to the breach of security at the perimeter. The vrath who all this time, had sat in a corner eating quietly, noted that the only candidate missing from the large hall was his fleet-footed friend of the morning races. He put two and two together, and promptly opted to add to the chaos by lobbing what was left of his meal at a particularly violent looking, blue fellow two tables over. A full-scale brawl erupted. With half of the candidates fighting and the other half fleeing to avoid the carnage, the crowd bottle-necked at the main exit. The remaining guards who had been dispatched to secure the boundary were now either occupied trying to quell the fight or simply stuck inside, unable to push their way through the throng. The small riot was eventually brought under control.

The bonding ceremony was put on hold, while the search for the missing teruun child carried on into the evening. This was a highly unusual situation and Brood Master Kush was beside himself with worry. Younglings never usually strayed far from their broods and the possibility that one had either gone astray or come to some harm while under his care was unbearable.

Guards had scoured the perimeter of the habitable zone, but it was apparent that whoever had breached the boundary had already crossed over into the Wild.

The surly brood master had called off the search and declared, “Whoever crossed that bridge will die. It will serve them right!”

He had far more important things to be concerned about and was callously content with that verdict until one of the attendants from the medical complex was ushered into his quarters. The medic who had seen to Laila that morning handed over a data tablet with a recording of their strange interview.

“I believe the disappearance of the teruun child might be connected to this candidate,” the medic said. “I’ve checked the logs. This candidate was missing from the gathering hall.”

Kush wasn’t listening. He was too busy staring at the image on the tablet. Those unusual eyes and the pattern of the jewels under her eye were a tell-tale sign. It could be hard to tell sometimes. Their appearances varied, depending on ship of origin, but there was no doubt in his mind as to the identity of the being in the recording. Frowning down at the recording, he dismissed the medic with an impatient wave.

He waved the data tablet at his teruun partner, who was idly floating about the room. “You knew about this didn’t you?”

The adult teruun glided over to where he stood.

Kush. His partner’s thoughts speared into his mind. You worry too much.

“Why are you not concerned?!” He screeched. “It’s a starchaser! There is a starchaser on this planet right now.”

Then, something even more troubling struck him. The starchaser had breached the boundary. She was surely going to die. Kush stared at the portrait of the legendary Karl Methos on the wall and groaned. Under his care, a being of legend was going to die.

Laila finally reached the place pinpointed on the map. Her arms and legs, even the back of her neck and face were all scratchy and bloody from fighting her way through the thick underbrush. It seemed even the plants here wanted to take a bite out of her. They weren’t the only ones. Some kind of creature had been stalking her for a while now, flitting about in the brush just beyond her field of vision. Now that she’d reached her destination, it seemed to be keeping its distance for some reason.

A large clearing stretched out before her. The earth here was dry and cracked. At the center of this barren space was a massive tree with lush canopy, thick limbs, and fat, serpentine roots boring down into the ground. It flourished beautifully, sucking the life out of everything around it. Laila stepped onto the desiccated earth and it trembled under her feet. Every inch of her body tingled. She immediately became light-headed. Yet undaunted, she drew closer to the tree’s enormous roots. The starchaser pressed her palm against the bark. It was warm to the touch, like flesh. It shuddered as if something alive was moving under its skin. Something moved inside Laila. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was something darker.

She suddenly knew then. She knew exactly what she needed to do. The next thing she knew, she was on her knees, desperately clawing at the ground at the base of the tree. She dug until her fingers started to bleed. She dug until the dry, ungiving soil gave way to soft, wet earth. A clear, viscous liquid bubbled up, then steadily began to flow. Laila’s bones ached. There was a buzzing sound in her head. She couldn’t think clearly anymore, couldn’t move away. The thick liquid pooled around her. The opening in the ground widened, became a gushing maw.

Out with the fluid came a handful of what looked like eggs. They were gray, speckled with red. Laila plucked one out of the fluid. The shell was soft. The life within pulsating with warmth. She moved mechanically, couldn’t seem to stop herself. She brought the strange egg to her mouth. She swallowed it whole, then she chose and swallowed another. They slid slowly down, lit a fire in her belly. Laila whimpered, doubling over in agony. She coughed. Blood and spittle spewed from her mouth. She fell sideways, in a pain-stricken stupor, the gushing liquid fanning out around her and sinking back down into the greedy earth.

By the time the pain finally subsided, the strange water had seeped back down into the earth. The rest of the eggs that had washed up were scattered about already dying, wrinkly and glistening in the declining sunlight. Night was about to fall. Laila groaned, struggling to move. She didn’t want to be wandering about the Wilds in the dark. First, she needed to get away from this dead zone. If she didn’t, she was going to die. That was the reason the beasts in the wild avoided this area. They knew it too. They were afraid of it too.

She’d come this far. She’d even gotten what she came to find. There was no way in the stars she could just lie here and let this monstrous tree and what lived in its roots suck the life right out of her. It took monumental effort yet crawling on all fours was all she could manage. It felt like it was taking forever but she finally collapsed just beyond the clearing. She lay there outside the tree’s sphere of influence, fighting to catch her breath. She felt sick to her stomach, right down into her marrow. She managed a chuckle. She sobered an instant later. She still needed to make it out of the Wilds alive.

A twig snapped somewhere behind her. Laila was up like a shot and fumbling for her weapon, adrenaline shooting straight to her head. She fought off the wave of dizziness, spun unsteadily, scanning her surroundings.

“Fraggin’ stars,” she muttered. “Will this day get any worse?”

They were out there, those beastly, wolven things. She couldn’t see or hear them, but she knew they were there. Laila was out of her element again, and scared. Her grip tightened on her gun.

She was not so different from the beasts in the wild. The predators were only doing what predators do. For not being strong enough or fast enough to survive this encounter, Laila would only have herself to blame.

Or, so Brother would say. How many times had he beaten her mercilessly, while driving that very point home?

“I’m not prey,” she declared under-breath. “I’m not prey.”

Locked in their awkward dance, hunter and hunted sneaked about the darkening woods.

Out of the corner of her eye, Laila saw a flash of molten sulfur and the white of sharp, sharp teeth. She took off at a dead run, propelled by the thunder of clawed hooves behind her and the chilling howls of her pursuers. The next thing she knew; she’d already been outflanked. She stumbled, rolled sideways as she fell, barely avoiding the beast’s nasty claws. She yelped in pain as her hand collided with the tendril of a vicious stinging plant. Her gun flew out of her hand, far out of reach. She had a backup, but it was in her backpack and she was out of time. Three of the snarling beasts advanced.

Laila wanted to run but her legs wouldn’t obey. She’d seen this sort of thing happen before. Brother’s minions hunted down dissidents in this fashion. She knew what was coming next. Her eyes squeezed shut. Dread pooled into her already churning gut. A helpless sound squeaked out of her.

A bright light cut a swath into the darkening woods. The air hummed with crackles of electricity. A luminous body came to rest in the air above Laila. It hovered there, emitting waves of electric light and a high-pitched wail that send the creatures of the wild crashing about and howling in pain as they fled.

RUN!

The sharp command speared into Laila’s mind.

When she still didn’t move, the little teruun’s thoughts boomed in Laila’s head again.

Starchaser!

Spurred into action again, Laila sprang to her feet and she ran. She didn’t think about where she was going. She simply followed where the little beastie flew. She didn’t think twice about it until she found herself skating to a sudden stop. The little twit had led her right to the edge of an outcropping rock. Below it was a dead drop into the dark heart of the valley.

“What kind of lame joke is this?!” She yelled hoarsely.

She spun about, intending to go back the way she’d come, dangers of the Wilds be damned, but little teruun darted around to block her. Its body swayed from side to side. It regarded her with bright, curious eyes. Laila instinctively reached for her weapon, but it wasn’t there.

She frowned at the young teruun. “What are you playing at?”

Bargain.

Came the steely answer.

“What?” Laila blinked.

You give life. Your life.

“Are you out of your mind?” Laila’s tone became deadly. “Why should I agree to die because you–“

Live. Not die. Came the hasty qualifier. You see? You live, I live. You die, I die.

“You mean the bonding ceremony?” Laila’s hackles went down. “But you know, don’t you? I didn’t come here to bond with teruun.”

Bargain.

It demanded again, with a stubborn edge this time.

A ghost of a smile crept across Laila’s face. “If you want to bargain, you have to offer something in return. What can you possibly give me that I don’t already have?”

You. The teruun chimed. I give you courage.

The little monster launched itself at Laila, sent her tumbling right over the edge. Laila screamed as she fell. Her scream was cut short as her body slammed into something cool and supple. She was on some sort of firm surface. Disoriented, she managed to sit up. Whatever had cushioned her fall was moving. She could feel the cold wind on her face. A slight tremor went through the surface of her dubious carriage and that’s when she realized that it was alive. It was a massive, adult teruun. The small teruun came to rest on the big one’s back beside Laila.

You see? Came the smug declaration. Courage.

As they glided silently through the dark, all the tension suddenly went out of Laila. The starchaser crumpled and she fell for the first time in years, into a deep slumber, while being carried out of the forbidden Wilds.

Starchaser – Part 1

“You see? That thing got scared and crawled out of your head.”

Laila’s eyes sought out the source of those cryptic words. She was in a cold, cavernous place far removed from the warmth of the room in which she’d been about to bed down to sleep. A strange metallic scent clung to the air. She tasted salt on the tip of her tongue. Glowing blue and red moss crept along the ground. Pointy stalagmites poked their heads up around her.

She heard trickling water, nearby but it wasn’t close enough that she could see. In the distance was the rumble that she’d come to recognize as massive waves crashing against jagged cliffs.

“Are you listening?”

It came from above. That voice. That voice!? A sick feeling rolled into Laila’s gut. That voice was her own. Unmistakably. However inconceivably.

Her eyes zeroed in on the source. A dark body stood rooted to the slick stone ceiling, defying the gravity of planet Bentokal. For the first few moments, Laila could only stare dumbly at the figure. Her eyes traced the sharp contours of the indigo face, the tiny jewels embedded below the right eye, the scar below the cleft of her chin. Inky dots nestled in the silver sclera of red-rimmed eyes. Even her boots were still muddy from Laila’s foray to the boundaries of the habited zone.

Everything was the same. Everything!

Laila became unhinged, somehow staring up at her own body but the thing inside that body wasn’t her. The person frowning down at her, arms akimbo wasn’t her. That thing, whatever it was. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her!

Panic set in.

“Nnnh?!”

The sound that came out of her wasn’t words. She couldn’t make her mouth move the way it should. The breath hissed out of her. Her heart was beating so fast it fluttered and made a humming, almost musical sound.

The thing that was but was not Laila spoke again. “Use your head, stupid. Your head!”

She tried to move but her arms and legs wouldn’t obey. It was as if they weren’t even there. Then, she saw reflected in those angry black irises, dorsal wings and the sleek body of a birdlike creature with a blunt, lizard-like head. This body was blue, sleek and wet. A creature that was not Laila. This creature was teruun, a prized denizen of the planet Bentokal. Coveted possessions across the universe. Here was Laila, trapped inside its body, not knowing how she’d gotten that way.

The body-thief nodded, tongue darting out, flicking at the lips then clicking against the teeth. It bared those pearly whites at Laila.

“I know why you’re here,” It drawled in a mockingly sing-song voice. The stolen countenance hardened. “Silver starchaser.”

Had it zeroed in on Laila’s reason for coming to Bentokal, that she was here now for Hegira’s sake, for Hegira’s future pilot’s sake?

“Yes,” there was another knowing little smile. “What’s a pitiful creature to do? Laila. The sad one. The mad one. The one who will never be chosen.”

Laila knew. She knew that she would never be chosen to be Hegira’s pilot. Hegira, prized jewel of the galaxies, was once all Laila knew. The only home that she had ever known. Yet, she would never be chosen. She knew she would never be chosen.

Laila knew she wasn’t the golden progeny of the starchasers. Sumida was. Sumida was everything Laila wasn’t. Sumida was graceful, smart and devoid of scars. Both had been bred and raised for the same purpose but while Sumida had been treated kindly, Laila had not.

Sure, Laila had her Lloran fosters. They’d treated her kindly enough and Bex and Winny loved Laila with all their might but it hadn’t been enough to fill the void left by Brother’s cruelty. It could never have been nearly enough.

Sumida must’ve had fosters too. Fosters who loved her with all their might. But she didn’t have a Brother. She didn’t have Brother to torture, to chew her up, spit her out and leave her with nothing but a broken body and her battered pride.

Sumida knew this. Yet, Sumida loved Laila unconditionally, loved her scars and all. Though Laila was barely civilized, living almost purely on instinct. Though she was like a wild and wounded animal. Though she may as well be a beast clinging to the cracks in some forgotten cavern. But who was this thieving piece of alien vermin to decide?

“You think about it all wrong,” The body thief’s tongue darted out and back in. “You see? Teruun are partners, not thieves.”

GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

“No shouting!” Her silent retort was met with a violent shudder, “sad little girl.”

What did that even matter? Laila was still struggling to grab hold of calmness, to make sense of her predicament. This was all wrong, so very, very wrong.

“Right!” The thing in Laila’s body chortled. “Wrong is right. It’s all upside down, yeah?”

While Laila regarded it, nonplussed, the body thief seemed to be waiting expectantly for something. A few more moments passed. Laila knew the body thief was waiting for something, but what? She had no clue.

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!

The body thief merely opened its mouth. The ear-splitting sound that came out made the walls of the cavern quake. In the next instant, Laila was back in the warmth of the domicile and back inside her own body. Her knees buckled, and she crumpled to the ground.

On the space where the wall met the ground, a dark-bodied millipede was coiled up into a circle. The attendant who’d introduced it to Laila’s body when she first came to this world had called it a cirq. Forefinger and thumb pinched together, she picked it up and set it gently into to palm of her other hand. She brought it up to her right ear, wondering how to go about coaxing the trembling thing back inside.

“Go on. Get back inside,” she urged in a low voice. “Do it!”

The millipede’s head probed at the opening of her ear canal, and then it pushed its head inside. It writhed and wriggled until it was completely burrowed inside.

Wracked by the pain of having her body invaded again, Laila was still shuddering and sweating for a while after it was done. She sat, back against the wall of hewn stone, head bowed between her knees as she fought off wave after wave of nausea. It would be a while before that water-logged, unsteady feeling would dissipate.

The domicile was a massive habitat built into the right incline of the cleft between two massive hills. Rooms had been carved into the stone. Knotted rope ladders led to the plateau above. The Bentokal Principality’s headquarters sprawled out from the center of the plateau just shy of the edges overhanging the domicile.

Laila dragged her boots on and donned a clean jacket over her tunic. She peeled open the vines that served as a door and ducked out of her room, just in time to catch sight of the occupant from six rooms below hastening up the rope-ladder next to the one she was about to climb.

The vrath was a vicious looking thing with big, buggy orbs for eyes, and leathery skin that sagged at the jawline and flapped about as the creature moved. From the mouth grew curly tentacles coated with slime. The vrath had two pairs of arms and legs twice as long as Laila’s, which made it twice as fast. In a flash, it was right beside her.

It was enough to make any self-respecting traveler quake in her boots. This primeval fear was unwarranted, the vrath were insect-eaters, after all. Though Laila knew this, she yelped and clambered up her rope-ladder with the Vrath hot on her heels.

They finished the arduous climb at breakneck speed. Laila felt like her lungs were about to burst but she didn’t stop. She was too stubborn for that. They reached the top at almost the same time. The vrath was over the edge a fraction of a second before Laila. This was their twelfth impromptu half chase-half race and Laila’s eleventh loss.

She sank down on all fours, struggling to catch her breath. The Vrath stood off to the side, waiting for her to recover. She waved him off breathlessly.

“No. You,” She coughed, tasted bile. Yuck. “You go on ahead.”

The Vrath’s head tilted. “You no eat?”

She smiled appreciatively at his use of human-speak for her benefit. “I’ve got to do something first.”

Smiling at a vrath was a risky thing. It was said that they interpreted the baring of teeth as aggression. Laila and done it without thinking but it was just as well. It was always better to know exactly where she stood. Curiously enough though, he reciprocated, snotty tentacles curling back to give a view of two thick and sharp-looking front teeth.

Laila grinned. “I like you!”

“You,” the vrath returned. “I like you.”

He made a rumbling sound in his belly that Laila chose to interpret as a laugh, then he was off in a flash, scampering away in the general direction of the gathering hall.

Laila headed for the medical section, hoping they would answer her questions without asking too many about her. Her first obstacle was the robotic attendant at the entrance of the dome-shaped building. Laila noted apprehensively how it morphed into the general shape of a troll-like being in front of her.

Now that Laila approached, it took on a generally human shape and asked.

“Genus?”

“Er,” Taken aback, Laila offered. “Human.”

She wasn’t technically lying. Some starchasers had been human once. Hell, they’d probably all started out that way.

The attendant didn’t seem to care one whit about her prevarication.

“Place your claw here,” it instructed.

“Hand,” Laila corrected.

The attendant blinked, nonplussed.

“It’s a hand,” Laila explained further. “I just thought you might like to know. For future…”

The attendant’s droll silence suggested that it couldn’t care less.

“All right then,” Laila swallowed gamely and placed her palm on the scanner.

She nervously chewed on her lower lip. What if they found any irregularities? Sesili, Hegira’s current pilot, had been desperately adamant about this one thing. The Principality was not to learn that a starchaser was on Bentokal. No one could know who she was or why she was here.

The attendant looked at the readings and pointed to the left. “You’re assigned to Medical Unit Six,” then promptly began to shape-shift for the benefit of the next patient.

Laila considered herself dismissed.

Medical Unit Six was a sterile facility, seemingly designed for humanoid body types. The attendant who approached Laila had pink skin and inky blue hair that flowed from the center of her head and down her back. At least, Laila thought it was female. It was otherwise impossible to tell; not to mention, she didn’t recognize the species.

She sat down as instructed and waited with some trepidation while the attendant read the scan that had been taken earlier. It didn’t seem there was any need to be nervous, though.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about,” the attendant said after a while.

“Right,” Laila nodded. “I’m here about my implant.”

“Implant?”

“The cirq,” she hastily specified, referring to the millipede that had crawled out of her head. “Are they known to behave strangely?”

“Define strangely.” The attendant leaned forward, more interested now.

Laila felt a bit stupid asking now but she plunged ahead. “Like speaking to me in dreams or leaving my body while I’m asleep?”

She left it at that. She had to be careful with her questions. She didn’t want to go as far as suggesting that something other than the cirq—namely, teruun had bonded with her before the initiation ceremony. Something told her that was probably another kind of taboo.

The attendant seemed truly confounded. “That is strange. Cirq don’t communicate, they are simply parasites that facilitate communication between you and teruun. As for leaving your body without a reason, this just doesn’t happen.”

“I know what happened to me,” Laila returned anxiously. “This cirq is weird.”

The attendant came over and coaxed the millipede out. She gently laid it on a transparent platform and ran a scan. When she was done, she brought it back to Laila.

“I could find nothing wrong.” Pale pink eyes, brimming with frosty censure bored into Laila’s. “Perhaps the one who is weird, is you.”

Going to Medical Unit Six had been a mistake, after all. Realizing her blunder, Laila clammed up and promptly made herself scarce, hoping that she hadn’t stirred up enough suspicion to warrant the attention of the Principality. The starchaser went back to the domicile. She clambered down the rope to her room, grabbed her gear and climbed back up into the courtyard. The yard was deserted, everyone else likely gathered inside the domed eating area for the morning meal. This was her chance to slip away unnoticed. She needed to do it now. There was no time to hesitate. There was no time to be scared.

Entering areas outside the designated hospitable zone was forbidden, yet this was exactly what Laila needed to do. She’d arrived on Mount Brul three days prior to her encounter with the body thief, under the guise of seeking a teruun partner, but her true purpose lay elsewhere. Laila was on Bentokal to commit a theft, so preposterous that even the principality hadn’t seen fit to safeguard against it. She would enter the forbidden wilds and steal the rarest of snails, a pale snail.