Chapter 5 Rough Justice

With the big burnrayer in her arms, Quant encountered no opposition on her way to the lift tube. In fact, what R-lys seen turned and ran in the other direction.

Her mind only half acknowledged it. She thought only of Theelian, wishing, hoping and praying he was still alive after hearing Salara’s report on the flooding lower levels.

I owe him my life. I won’t let him die, she thought, grateful he was not on the lowest level of the complex. The short ride in the lift to the third level took less than a minute, but it seemed eons and the round metal cylinder was like a prison.

The lift doors opened onto a level that was flooding. The incoming surge of murky bay water made her gasp in surprise, her heart pounding, as the water settled around her waist and she stepped cautiously into the corridor.

Here, no klaxon alarms sounded. It was as quiet as death and the familiar brackish rank of the seawater was all she could scent. Bodies of drowned R-lys floated by. She put her burnrayer between her teeth and swam down the corridor keeping her head well above water, pushing bodies out of the way.

Sudden vibrations lapped against her skin. Something else was moving around in the water with her. Something alive.

She got her feet under her and took the burnrayer in her arms. She looked down the wide metal corridor behind her, half filled with brown water.

She saw an R-ly body jerked under the water by a wide, grey-white maw lined with rows of triangular-shaped teeth that put hers to shame. A tremor of fear rattled down her spine.

The crad are inside! I hope there’s enough meat floating around to keep them too busy to bother with me. Theelian’s room is just a little further. How much time do I have left?

Putting the rayer back between her jaws, she cut through the water with lashes of her tail and kicks of her webbed feet to swim around the corner and down the hall with barely a ripple. The water kept rising.  

It was up to her chest when she found Theelian’s door. It was locked and the control panel, now underwater, didn’t work. She spit out the rayer and gathered it high up in her arms.

“Theelian!” she called, hoping he heard her. “It’s Quant! Get away from the door!”

Backing away to the middle of the corridor, she turned her burnrayer up to full power, aimed at the door, and pulled back the slide bar. The white-hot beam ate away the door from ceiling to waterline, gobs of molten metal spitting crackling pops as they hit the water and sank in tiny billows of steam.

She surged forward in an explosion of water, weapon in one hand as she leapt over the half door, gripping the edge to assist her ascent.

Cascades of brown water sloshed in with her as she splashed down inside the cell. Near the back wall, she saw a mass of white cloth floating.

“Oh no! Theelian!” she cried as she hurried over to the bundle.

Theelian was face up, floating on the water. He smiled at her.

“I’m fine, Quant, but I cannot swim.”

She was so relieved she almost hugged him. Instead, she picked up him with a careful hand and put him on her back.

“Hold on tight and don’t let go, no matter what!” she told him and waited until he laced his fingers around the thickness of her lower neck. With a chuckling sound, the rising bay water lapped over the rim of the melted door.

“What’s happening?” Theelian asked, his calm voice close to her ear as she sloshed back towards the ruined door.

“Aura Zy-Kaar and Salara came. I think we’ve been saved,” Quant said as she heaved herself over the door with one hand and held the rayer above the water with the other. “But we must get out quickly.’

Conscious she carried an air-breather on her back, Quant half walked, half swam back down the corridor towards the lift, Theelian clinging to her back as he floated along in her wake.

She prayed the lift would still work.

R-ly bodies pin-wheeled in slow circles around them. It seemed there were less than there had been before. She turned the corner. The lift was straight ahead.

Theelian’s skinny arms locked around her neck with strength surprising for one so frail. She felt him suddenly shivering.

“Quant, something is coming to attack us—some kind of animal. Behind us–” Theelian whispered.

At the thought of a 20-foot monster bearing down on her, a galvanizing bolt of primal fear shot through Quant. Her webbed feet touched bottom and she stood. The water was up to her armpits now.

With a great slosh of muddy water, she spun around, aiming the nozzle of the burnrayer down the corridor, pulling on the slide bar at the same time, covering everything in white fire.

The water erupted into boiling geysers, and billowing clouds of steam blanketed her world in white.

Blind fear kept her hand on the slide bar as she fired repeatedly.  

She suddenly heard Theelian groaning in her ear as though he were in pain. “You got it—stop—please stop,” he whispered.

Not thinking to question the accuracy of his words, she let the depleted weapon drop with a splash in the now hot water around her.

“Take a deep breath and hold it! We’re going under the water,” she warned Theelian and then dove head first into the water.

Under water, she put her hands to her sides and swam the last part of the flooded corridor, her wide tail and powerful back legs propelling her swiftly, her senses alert to detect any crad she hadn’t already cooked, her translucent, third eyelids granting her murky vision of a sort.

They reached the lift and broke the surface of the water. She heard Theelian suck in air with a loud gasp.

Inside the lift, Quant touched the control pad button for the glydderdeck. She heard machinery grind, but they didn’t move.

Flick it! Water has gotten to the controls!

She looked around, her mind searching for a way out.

She looked up at the top of the metal capsule and pulled a handrayer from her carryvest pocket, aiming it at the ceiling. Standing in the lift’s threshold, she fired a purple blast at the ceiling in a circular pattern, disintegrating the metal to leave a large jagged hole big enough for her to fit through. She dropped the rayer and leapt up, her covered claws screeching against metal as she chinned herself up through the hole and out onto the top of the capsule.

They were in a dark shaft six feet wide that stretched high over their heads. She heard the chucking, bubbling sound of swiftly rising water. Between the two power conduits, she found the recessed metal rungs bolted to wall.

The bay water was wetting the bottom of her feet when she put her weight on the first rung and started to climb.

It seemed as though an eternity had already passed and paradoxically, time had held its breath.

How much, she thought, how much time do I have left?

                  *                                      *                                            *                            *

Salara, Ahnya, and Zy-Kaar waited on the glydderdeck.

Above them, grey smoke billowed along the high ceiling, escaping from the complex like a grey river, the emergency lights appearing as cool blue stars through the gloom.

Around them, the skyglydders burned orange flames, lending a flickering light to the gore of exploded body parts. The smell of burnt rubber, cooked flesh and blood cloyed the air.

They waited on the edge of the glydderdeck  where the air was fresher and the sound of the waves were not quite blotted out by the buzz of alarms from deeper inside the complex. Some R-lys had escaped, but many more were dead or dying.

“Seven Vooking Moons, where are they?” Zy-Kaar said yet again as she paced among the debris of machines and bodies.

“Less than 30 haf-krons remain,” Salara said as she glanced down at her wrist-kronos. Ahnya watched them both with anxious eyes, hugging her arms around herself.

“You two get in the glydder,” Zy-Kaar said and waved in the direction of a fire-scarred but whole craft, her gaze never leaving the big doors that led into the complex.

“Commander, you are coming?” Salara said, a touch of anxiety in her tones. Zy-Kaar turned her head and pinned her with a hard, green gaze.

“Go!”  she said, her voice stern and her eyes allowing no debate.

For two heartbeats, the green and yellow gazes locked, then Salara turned away to look at Ahnya, beckoning her to follow.

With many backward looks, Ahnya obeyed. She climbed into the back seat as Salara took the pilot’s seat and activated the craft. Salara’s gaze was on Zy-Kaar. Ahnya’s gaze was on the distant complex doors, fright and anxiety making her breath catch in her throat and her hands bunched fists on the skyglydder’s window.

Once out of sight, Zy-Kaar instantly forgot about Salara’s worried gaze and kept her attention on the doors, willing Quant and Theelian to appear.

“Come on, you dumb Isaarian,” Zy-Kaar muttered. She knew they had passed the 30 haf-kron minimum margin of safety needed to get clear of the explosion.

“Commander, we cannot wait any longer!” Salara called from the open door of the skyglydder.

Zy-Kaar peered down the mouth of the complex.

“AURA!” Salara roared out and Zy-Kaar took heed of the anger heard in the shouted reprimand.

She knew the assassin was not above administering a chemical knockout drug on her and then hustling her away.

“Flick it,” Zy-Kaar cursed and ran to the skyglydder. “Move over,” she told the assassin and jumped into the pilot’s seat, pulling shut the door. Slowly, she propelled the skyglydder out and upward, her gaze still searching below.

“Commander, there are less than 10 haf-krons until the blast,” Salara warned, her voice terse.

Zy-Kaar scowled.

“I know, I know! Alright, we’re going!” and the glydderdeck became a point of light beneath them.

“WAIT! I SEE HER!” Ahnya cried, pointing to the ground.

               *                                      *                                       *                          *

Before she even saw the glydderdeck, Quant smelled smoke, hot metal, charred flesh, the coppery scent of spilled blood and beneath all that, the tang of fresh ocean air.

Quant ran toward the entrance of the complex, leaping over bodies and dodging still-alive R-lys who were dazed with shock and smoke inhalation. Theelian clung to her back, flopping like a rag in the breeze. She ran out onto the lip of the glydderdeck.

She saw heaped, charred R-ly bodies, pools of brown blood, smoking skyglydders and pieces of what had once been whole R-lys plastered to the walls and dripping from the ceiling, but no Grenians. She looked up and saw a skyglydder’s blue and orange lights moving up and away. She started to wave her arms and yell.

*********************************************************

“Eight haf-krons,” Salara ticked off, her calm gone and her voice taunt with tension.

“I can’t leave them!” Zy-Kaar said.

She was piloting an industrial skyglydder with a hoist lift installed. She stabbed the control touchscreen, releasing the cable that fell from an opening hatch in the bottom of the skyglydder, a bright red light blinked rapidly, marking its end.

I hope she realizes what I’m doing and catches the cable the first time. I won’t be able to make a second pass, Zy-Kaar thought, turning the craft in a screaming dive towards the tiny, leaping figure on the lip of the glydderdeck.

*****************************************************************

Quant saw the skyglydder turn and start its dive and the blinking red light trailing after it. She knew what she had to do.

There wasn’t even time for a brief prayer to her forgotten gods as she kept her eyes on the fast approaching craft. The skyglydder flashed very low over her head and the red light rushed toward her.

She leapt.

**********************************************************************

So fast did they fall, Ahnya feared they were going to plunge into the bay. She closed her eyes and gave a little scream, and then felt the craft tilt up and level out. She opened her eyes. They were fifty feet over the water and skimming away from the island.        

Not being the superb flying machines to which Zy-Kaar was accustomed, the old industrial vehicle bucked and swerved crazily. She heard the Isaarian scream as she pulled the skyglydder out of its dive with a wrenching jolt, the sudden pressure plastering them back against sparsely padded seat cushions.

“Is she on it?” Zy-Kaar shouted, ignoring the alien’s scream. “Is she there?”

“I can’t see!” Ahnya wailed from the back seat.

Another muttered curse escaped Zy-Kaar as she pushed the speed up to maximum output, pressed back into their seats once again as they shot away from Crad Island.

“Can you see her yet?” Zy-Kaar called to Ahnya, keeping her gaze toward the lights of Inid, fifty landlengths distant.

“One haf-kron to detonation,” Salara said in a soft voice.

“Mauk-Quant?” Ahnya whispered, her heart feeling as though someone had punched her in the chest.

Salara kept her eyes on the controlpanel monitor that gave her a backwards view of Crad Island, alert for any signs of escaping skyglydders.

She saw the top of the island burst up into the sky on a geyser of blue flame. She heard the thunder of the explosion and the night turned into a strange, blue-tinted day.

“There it goes,” she told the others. “We’re only three landlengths away. Be prepared for the shock wave. There’s no way we can out-fly it in this. It will reach us in about seven haf-krons. Activate seat restraints,” she told the onboard computer. The seat belts zipped out and clamped securely around their bodies.

Ahnya hardly noticed as she stared behind her through the clear bubbletop at the inferno that had once been Crad Island.

“That bomb must have touched off something else to make that kind of an explosion,” Zy-Kaar said to no one in particular as she sat locked in her seat.

“No one could have lived through that,” Ahnya whispered.

“Here comes the shockwave,” Salara said, her hands braced on the armrests of her seat.

One… two… now! Zy-Kaar counted off to herself and braced.

The shockwave slammed into them, throwing them forward against the restraints that cut painfully into their flesh, wrenching a long scream from Ahnya as the skyglydder pitched from side to side, the multicolored light of the horizon tilting around them as Zy-Kaar fought to keep the machine from crashing into the sea. Distantly, she heard the thin wail of Ahnya’s screams.

Then the shock wave rolled past them and traveled on.

“Everyone all right?” Zy-Kaar asked when she’d gotten the skyglydder under control again. Salara nodded. Zy-Kaar glanced around at Ahnya and found her staring behind at the blasted island.

Salara spoke to Zy-Kaar in Grenian, aware of Ahnya’s listening ears.

“If Quant was on the cable, the shockwave could have knocked her off.”

“Always a cheerful word, eh Salara?” Zy-Kaar sarcasmed. She slowed the skyglydder down and made directly for Inid City. “Here, take over the controls,” she told Salara as she cracked opened pilot’s door.

Sea wind whipped through the compartment like a cyclone.

“Aura, what are you doing?” Salara cried, grabbing Zy-Kaar’s wrist.

“Take it easy! You’re so jumpy! How did you ever get to be an assassin? I just want to take a look under,” Zy-Kaar said, giving her a backward glance accompanied by an amused smile as she pushed the door open wide.

Gripping the armrest, Zy-Kaar hung off the side of her door.

The wind whipped stray hairs into her eyes and she shook her head to clear it away as Salara flew the skyglydder with one hand on the controls and the other hand on Zy-Kaar’s wrist in a death grip that was close to being painful.

“I can’t see the red light! It must have blown off,” Zy-Kaar called back into the compartment.

Space it! I’ve lost Theelian! Now what am I going to do?

She was about to pull herself back inside the skyglydder when she saw a flash of red that disappeared again. She pulled herself back inside, slamming the door closed. Her cheeks were flushed and her green eyes excited.

“I saw her! She’s there!” Zy-Kaar cried and looked around at a shocked-looking Ahnya. “You—whoever you are—move over and pull off the backrest of your seat! I’m hauling her up!” she said to Ahnya, now seeing dawning relief in her pale gold eyes.

Quickly, Ahnya pulled away the backrest cushions, exposing the metal strips of the seat’s framework that separated the back of the skyglydder, a storage area about six feet wide. As she did so, sudden wind blasted around the small compartment with cyclonic force. She pulled the metal chairbacks forward to lay flush on the cushions, leaned over and peered down through a four foot wide square opening onto black water seen streaking by. She saw the red light flicker and hide and the silver glow of certain Isaarian eyes.

“I SEE HER!” she screamed out.

Zy-Kaar hit the controls and the cable began to rewind.

*****************************************************************

Catching the metal cable, Quant gripped both hands around its 5-inch diameter and it reeled through her palms, whipping across the burnt area she hadn’t known she had, dragging a sudden scream of pain from her.

“Hold on, Mauk-Quant,” Theelian’s voice whispered in her ear.

Dismissing the agony of her burn, Quant gripped the lifeline, the tendons of her hands bulging as all of her metal-tipped claws dug into the braided fibers and locked in, stopping its slide through her hands.

The snap of the cable jerking her off her feet, threatened to dislocate both her arms from their sockets.

She would have screamed again but for the sudden choking by Theelian’s arms around her neck, throttling anything more than an expelled hiss of air.

The skyglydder gained speed and altitude, she and Theelian flapping behind like a flag in a windstorm.

Her arms were one length of agony from shoulders to claw tips, but she held on as the island fell away behind them.

A flash of electric-blue light glowed around her and then a loud explosion throbbed against the delicate tissues of her inner ears, fast becoming muffled, her AI aural implants shutting down to protect her hearing. She swiveled her head around and watched Crad Island erupt into a volcano of black rock and blue flames.

Goodbye Bayron, you stinking little turd! I would have loved to rip your head off! Zy-Kaar was right; you are a liar! I don’t believe you ever had E’gli—oh no! Vook me! The shockwave, she thought, feeling the prickly pressure against her skin that left her eardrums throbbing.

 The strange pressure broke against her like a punch in the stomach and she saw the skyglydder above rolling and dancing like a leaf in a hurricane. Any moment she expected the cable or her arms to snap, or be flicked upwards and bodily smashed against the bottom of the skyglydder as she clung to the flailing rope, snarling silently in fear and pain, Theelian’s arms tight around her neck. She closed her eyes and saw E’gli’s face etched on her inner eyelids as the seconds seemed to stretch into hours.

Her ears popped. It was over.

Through the roaring in her ears, she heard the thin whine of machinery and looked up. She saw a lighted square and Ahnya’s face looking down at her.

First, Quant’s head emerged, stinking of seawater, her silver eyes half-closed, then a pair of pale, ropy arms clutched about her neck so tightly it paled the red of her throat to pink.

Salara turned her chair around 180 degrees and sprang forward. She reached down past Quant’s head and pulled a mass of wet, dripping cloth up and through the hatch.

Quant coughed as she attempted to breathe again, her burnt hand slung over the edge of the hatch, the rest of her still swinging in the air.

“Is Theelian all right?” Zy-Kaar yelled over the roar of wind whistling inside the craft, keeping her eyes ahead and on course as she slowed the skyglydder’s speed.

Salara had no time to answer. After putting Theelian on the floor in safety, she glanced at Ahnya who stared at Theelian as though she’d never seen one before, and then the assassin helped haul all of Quant’s long bulk inside the skyglydder.

“They’re in,” she informed Zy-Kaar, who touched the controlscreen and closed the hatch. The wind receded and stopped.

Gasping in air, Quant half sat, half lay on the floor in a gathering pool of water, her bulk taking up the rest of the back. Her arm muscles felt like jelly and her seared palm blazed with pain.

The compartment’s smells filled her nostrils: the moldy clove scent of Theelian, the leafy green scent of the Grenians, shot through with their separate accent scents of cinnamon and carnations intermingling with the scent of Ahnya’s nutty-almond.

The combined scents intermingling with the muck of smoke, blood and bay water was making her feeling uncomfortably close to vomiting.

Back in her seat, Salara addressed Theelian who half sat, half lay in a gathering pool of dirty, brown water.

“1175, are you injured?”

“No, not me—Quant…” he said, his voice softer than usual.

“Theelian is unharmed, Commander,” Salara said in aside to Zy-Kaar.

Theelian was sopping wet and his formerly pristine white garment tinted muddy brown. His white, iris-less eyes went to Ahnya.

“Vell-Ahnya—“ he began.

“You’re not Raah! I saw the white parts and I thought—I thought you were RAAH!” Ahnya cried out, looking from him to Quant.

“Quant, my-my brother—?” Ahnya looked into Quant’s face.

“I’m sorry, Ahnya.”

Quant’s voice was garbled and she coughed to clear it. “I couldn’t find him—there was no time—“

Ahnya trembled as though caught in an icy wind.

“No! No! You promised meee!” she screamed, her pale eyes wild.

“Salara, what the vook is going on back there?” Zy-Kaar demanded, pinning her subordinate with a quick glare.

Everything hurt on Quant, her palm, both arms and her throat—if she had known Theelian had such strength in those thin, ropey arms she would have been less tempted to taunt him in the beginning—but nothing hurt her more than seeing the expression on Ahnya’s face, bleak and almost crazed with grief.

“Ahnya! I’m so sorry! I wish I could have saved him! I’m sorry!” Quant said, leaning forward to comfort her.

“No, Ahnya, don’t! Quant, watch out!” Theelian shouted.

Quant froze.

She saw Ahnya’s eyeballs roll up into their sockets and her jaws began to slowly open. Quant flinched away and pressed herself against the far door away from the smaller Isaarian.

“Ahnya! No! SALARA!” Quant yelled.

Salara spun her chair around and launched herself forward, two fists leading the way.

Quick as a striking cobra, her two fists struck Ahnya on the jaw, the jackhammer impact bouncing the Isaarian’s head off the back of the seat.

Quant recognized the blow.

It was one of Salara’s ‘Isaarian-killer’ moves. The smaller Grenian had applied and perfected it well against Quant in the countless practice battles of their youth.

It was a blow that paralyzed the muscles that allowed an Isaarian to un-hinge their lower jaw and Ahnya’s opening mouth clamped shut with a spit-flying snap!

“What is going on back there?” Zy-Kaar demanded, her voice angry. 

Quant scooted across the seat to Ahnya and scooped her up in protective arms, her eyes meeting Salara’s grim gaze.

“It’s nothing, Commander. I prevented a suicide, that’s all,” Salara said in her calm voice, turning her chair sideways enough to take in Zy-Kaar and Theelian seated on the floor behind the commander’s chair.

“She was going to bite Quant,” Theelian added, softly.

“What? That’s committing suicide? I thought they were friends?” Zy-Kaar asked, her voice doubtful. Salara shook her head.

“Quant’s blood is poison, Commander. Biting her is a death sentence,” Salara said.

“The child is mad with grief over the death of her brother,” Theelian said.

“Her blood is poison? You are just now telling me this?” Zy-Kaar said to Salara, a mixture of surprise and anger in her tones.

Quant stopped listening, contempt filling her. Ahnya was insane with despair over the death of her brother but Zy-Kaar’s concern was only for her own hide.

“Vooking typical,” she muttered in Isaarian, her voice too soft to be heard. “Ahnya?” Quant said softly.

Holding the little Isaarian was like holding a doll. She flopped limply in Quant’s arms, the side of her pale jaw now a livid red knot from Salara’s blow, her eyes glassy and empty.

She was in shock, whether from Salara’s blow or the grief, Quant didn’t know. The little Isaarian needed medical attention. Quant laid her back against the cushions and Ahnya folded up into a fetal ball. Quant sighed.

“Seven Spinning Moons, we did it! 1175, am I glad to see you!” Zy-Kaar cried, glancing back.

“I can say the same to you, Commander. I am very happy to see you.”

“A job well done,” Salara said to Quant with a rare smile and the Isaarian’s curiosity got the better of her.

“Salara, I didn’t think anybody was coming after us! How did you track us down to Crad Island? What kind of explosives did you use back there anyway? The island went up like—like–!”

“Like a pentalithium bomb?” the assassin suggested. “The security double was wired with a standard homing signal—even without its head,” she added, nodding to Quant’s professionalism, “—but you couldn’t have known that, Quant. Sorry. Security measures.”

Quant’s disgust rushed back in. “Of course, ‘security measures’, she said with only the slightest sneer. “What you are saying is because of ‘security measures’, I didn’t know I had a way of contacting—anyone?”

The cat-yellow eyes regarded her coolly.

“You know what the job calls for, Quant. You knew for ten staryears. Why did you think this job would be any different?”

Not waiting for an answer, the assassin continued.

“We’ve been tracking you since we arrived on Isaar, but I’m not sure about the explosion. The mechanical double was wired with a standard GXM ignition block and I added enough pliable kendynite explosive to collapse the inside of the complex but I think the blast touched off something else. I thought I saw some high security warnings on that level—?”

She looked a question at Quant.

“Yeah, that level was where they kept their weapons arsenal stored,” Quant admitted in a growl. “At least, I wish I had known about the explosives inside the double!”

Another voice, thick with annoyance and thinly veiled anger crackled out.

“Little good the information would have done you. You were so set on keeping Bayron safe and snug. You incompetent traitor! That explains why you weren’t locked up but it doesn’t explain why you were ready to kill me to keep that-that parasite alive! I want answers and I want them right now!” Zy-Kaar said, turning her chair around to scowl at Quant, while Salara jumped to get the piloting controls.

This is not what I need to hear right now, Quant thought, her lips sliding back from her teeth as she returned Zy-Kaar’s fiery glare.

The air of the compartment was suddenly thick with the sudden cinnamon tang of anger pheromones pouring off the Grenian competing with the smells of flesh-charred smoke, blood, and brackish bay water.

“Commander,” Theelian said quickly, sitting up at her feet, almost placing himself between the two females. “You must allow me to explain before you accuse Quant.” 

Quant saw green fire flash from Zy-Kaar’s narrowed eyes and two spots of bright copper color stood out on her cheekbones.

“’Accuse’ her? I’ll have her shot!” the BloodNoble gritted through clenched teeth, her hands griping the armrests of the chair she looked ready to spring from.

“It was my fault,” Theelian said. “I talked her into being Bayron’s bodyguard to save her and myself.”

Theelian got to his feet, his head touching the top of the roof and blocking Quant’s view of Zy-Kaar.

“Commander, I found Mauk-Quant in a bare room, almost dead from dehydration and still I had to convince her to serve Bayron. She did not want to do it, but I made her agree. I took it upon myself to tell Bayron she would obey him. We later found out that Bayron had captured her lover, Vo-E’gli and Bayron threatened to kill him if, for any reason, Mauk-Quant did not protect him,” he explained, his voice grave and with more emotion he had ever expressed, Quant realized, her anger falling off a little in awe of this little alien defending her to Aura Zy-Kaar as though he were a BloodNoble himself.

Quant felt rather than saw the tension leave Zy-Kaar as her clenching fingers released the padded armrests and lay lightly in the grooves her hard grip had left.

 “So that was the reason for that little drama in Bayron’s room,” Zy-Kaar said, her voice softly meditative. She shrugged, making the humps of her wings bob up and down. “It’s just as I said then—Bayron lied,” she said, louder.

“About what?” Quant growled, stretching her neck past Theelian’s large pale head to look at Zy-Kaar

“Everything and anything,” Zy-Kaar snapped, their gazes meeting like crossed swords.

Theelian half-turned and laid a small damp hand on Quant’s arm.

“Quant—“ he said, giving her stiffly-held arm a squeeze. Quant lowered her gaze, trying to swallow her anger.

“I didn’t have much of a choice. I believed him and I had no way to check. Once, I asked him for proof he had E’gli and he asked if I wanted to see his hand or his foot! I’m sorry I let him get away, but try to understand–! What if it had happened to your lover?”

Zy-Kaar gave her a frosty smile.

“It did happen. I went and got her back.”

That tore it for Quant.

She pulled on Theelian’s arm and sat him down on the seat next to her and out of the way so quickly, he had no time to resist or protest.

“The Great Aura Zy-Kaar! You’ll pardon me if we lesser beings aren’t up to your god-like standards!” Quant jeered, her head jutting forward in Isaarian belligerence and warning, all attempts at self-control lost.

The complacent smile left Zy-Kaar’s face as her black eyebrows drew together over her nose and her hands became balled fists on the arms of her chair, but she did not draw back from Quant’s aggressive intrusion into her personal space.

“You really think you’re amusing, don’t you? Because of your stupid, inept bungling, one of the most vicious, cold and savage enemies I have escaped me! Don’t go around telling anyone you were Zy-Kaar trained. You’ll shame the entire Elite,” Zy-Kaar said coldly,  her entire face flushed copper with her anger.

“Commander—“ Salara began, giving Zy-Kaar a sidelong glance.

“No, I don’t tell anyone. It’s something I’m trying to live down!” Quant shot back, her one arm holding a struggling Theelian down on his seat, not listening to his spluttered words of caution to her and Zy-Kaar and for releasing him now please, Quant.

“’Live down’?” Zy-Kaar shot back. “You’re delusional. If it wasn’t for the Elite, you’d be just another factory worker or some sleazy pleasureunit like your playmate there!” She jerked her chin at Ahnya, the scorn drenching.

“You leave Ahnya out of this!” Quant demanded, her jaws starting to tingle with the biting urge.

“We gave you a home, a skill, a profession–!” Zy-Kaar looked at her subordinate’s profile, taking in Salara’s frown as she glanced at her.

“Salara, I can’t believe you got this-this idiot for such a delicate job! No wonder she couldn’t hack it on her own.”

“Commander—“ Salara began.

Quant’s head jerked back as though Zy-Kaar’s words had been a slap.

“THAT DOES IT!” she roared.

Salara turned her seat around to her, holding her hands up to placate.

“Quant, don’t say another word, PLEASE.”

She turned to face Zy-Kaar and Quant saw her cover Zy-Kaar’s fists and swing Zy-Kaar’s chair away from Quant.

“Aura, please calm down and try to understand. Quant’s worried sick about her lover. She just escaped death by haf-krons. She’s upset, in shock and doesn’t realize what she’s saying. She was in over her head with minimum information. I don’t know if I could have done any better under the same circumstances.”

The assassin’s voice was calm and her suddenly golden gaze held Zy-Kaar’s own.

 Quant saw the tension leave Zy-Kaar’s body. Silent now, Theelian no longer struggled under her hold and she lifted her arm from him. He stayed where he was and she heard him sigh long and deep.

“I doubt if you would have been foolish enough to be taken in by R-ly lies,” Zy-Kaar said, casting her eyes away from Salara’s and turning fully forward to resume piloting the craft.

The assassin unhanded her, sitting back in her chair.

“I think Bayron was killed in the blast,” Salara said, her voice softer, almost consoling.

“I wanted to be sure!” Zy-Kaar growled.

There was an uneasy silence in the skyglydder for a few minutes, then Quant spoke.

“We are going to Inid, aren’t we?”

“Yes.” Salara answered. “The Commander wants to leave Isaar as soon as possible, so we’ll be going to the spacepatch first. I hope that’s all right, Quant.”

“I don’t think the matter is up for discussion—“      

“You got that right,” Zy-Kaar’s muttered interjection, meant to be heard.

“—but it’s fine.” Quant finished heavily, glaring at the back of the Blood Noble’s head. “The sooner Theelian is off Isaar, the better I’ll feel. In fact, the sooner the great Commander Zy-Kaar is off Isaar, the better I’ll feel! Theelian, keep your wits about you if you’re going to play with her!”

Quant saw the back of the Grenian’s head jerk and her wing humps twitched spasmodically.

“Isaarian, you are pushing it! How would you like to swim back to Inid?”  Zy-Kaar snapped in a convincing snarl.

“Everyone, please!” Salara begged, looking from one to the other, her frown more sad than angry.

 Zy-Kaar doesn’t care who loses as long as she wins, Quant thought. Flick it! This is my last job. I’m giving up on being an assassin. I’d rather work in a factory for five credits a day! E’gli will be so happy! I can’t wait to tell him!

                              *                                      *                                       *

Over the bay of Inid, the clouds were stained blue in the darkness of the night, and the eyes of the curious were turned toward the place where Crad Island had been.

They stood in a closed circle under a pool of overhead light. Around them was darkness and the dim shadows of other gigantic spaceglydders. Zy-Kaar’s nearby Starwind loomed, smaller but still massive and sleek, the matte sheen of her gunmetal grey hull outlined at the edge of the light’s illumination.

During the very quiet, rest-of–the-ride back to Inid, a field dressing had been applied to Quant’s burnt palm and the antiseptic, anesthetic and healing effects of the foam Salara squirted into her palm had done much to take Quant’s mood from rage to silent sullenness. Vell-Ahnya was still curled up inside the skyglydder, oblivious to everything.

“I’ll go ahead and start the engines,” Zy-Kaar told Salara.

Before she left, she looked Quant in the eye. They stood nearly equal in height, Quant only half a head taller. The humidity of the night played with the loose strands of black curls that danced, wisp-like in the bay-driven breeze and the BloodNoble swiped the hair from her face with an easy hand.

“I understand you did the best you could have. I hope my sacrifice has gained you your lover. I really mean that, Quant.”

Quant’s eyes narrowed as she searched the golden face for sarcasm or jest, but the emerald gaze of the Grenian was so sincere and compassionate, Quant felt her sulkiness leave along with the last of her tension.

Relaxation spread through her shoulders and neck as the green gaze of the BloodNoble met hers as equals, as one warrior to another.

Suddenly, Quant felt like a bad-mannered, sulky child before such unexpected acceptance and her simmering anger also left her.

“I–seem to remember you risked your life to come back and rescue me before Crad Island blew up. Thank you.”

Zy-Kaar dropped her crossed arms, almost smiling as she nodded her head once. She parked one hand at her hip and waved the other hand at her comrade.

“Salara said you were a great assassin; maybe even better than she.”

Quant gaped at Salara.

The Grenian’s face was calm and unreadable as ever, the steady, cat-yellow gaze never wavering or warming. Expressionless.

“She said that?” Quant said, doubt in her tones.

Again, the tall BloodNoble almost smiled, but seemed to resist the urge. Instead, both black eyebrows rose up high on her forehead and the green eyes twinkled.

“Yes, she did and I consider that very high praise from her,” Zy-Kaar said, glancing at the impassive assassin who neither avowed or denied Zy-Kaar’s words.

Quant felt at a loss for words. I didn’t know Salara thought so well of me. Quant was silent. This Salara was not who Quant thought she was.

Zy-Kaar turned away from Quant and addressed her subordinate.

Salara, we really must be going. Theelian, I’ll see you on board. Please hurry. I don’t trust this place. Goodbye, Mauk-Quant,” Zy-Kaar said, rousing Quant from distraction.

“Good journey, Commander,” Quant said quietly, surprised she no longer hated this alien.

She had worked for the Zy-Kaars for most of her life and she’d never thought Aura Zy-Kaar was anything other than a spoiled, super-wealthy parasite living off blood-money and power.

This Zy-Kaar was a warrior, almost as much of an assassin as herself, and like the Elite, she hadn’t left her team behind even though it had risked her life.

I’ve been all wrong about her, Quant realized.

Zy-Kaar turned away, stepped through the shadows and disappeared in the spaceship’s airlock cylinder, the door dilating closed behind her.

Theelian spoke up.

“The Commander does care about what you are going through, Quant. She just finds it hard to speak of it. I see our leave-taking must be short. I am very grateful that you came for me tonight. Very grateful. Thank you,” Theelian said as he looked up at Quant with iris-less pearlescent eyes and his tiny mouth curled up in a smile.

She felt her tail quiver.

“You saved my life once. I wanted to show you how good it felt,” she joked trying to control the emotions that roiled inside her.

She felt sad and frightened. She wondered why Theelian’s leaving should make her throat feel so closed-up and dry, and put it down to his life-clutching clasp around her throat, probably?

“I know how you feel, Quant. There is no need to speak of it,” he said and she knew he did know.

She nodded and came closer to put a gentle hand on his shoulder and breathe in his familiar, moldy-cloves scent.

“I hope I can call you my friend. You’ve got my friendship, for what it’s worth,” she said in low tones, managing to get the words out.

Theelian’s smile broadened as he put his hand over hers. His little hand was dry and warm and it tingled slightly.

“It is worth very much to me, Quant. Nothing you could have said would have pleased me more than your gift of friendship. It makes me very happy. Thank you.” The pearlescent gaze shimmered and deepened and she stared into them with an almost hypnotic fascination.  “Please remember,” the quiet voice continued, “that terrible things do happen and that anything can be survived.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

“They are merely words for when you may need them. Keep them for me. Good journey, my brave Mauk-Quant.”

Theelian took her hand from his shoulder, pressed it briefly to the soft warm side of his face, before he released her and turned to go.

“Good journey, Theelian. Thank you for—everything,” she said, raising her voice slightly as she watched him walk toward the Starwind and enter the airlock. Gone.

She and Salara stood alone on the deserted spacepatch. A breeze was blowing in from the sea. It carried the smell of rain and charred flesh.

Quant lifted a hand to rub her grainy-feeling eyes and saw her burnt palm filled and protected with pale white substance that duplicated her own flesh. She was bone-tired.

“Quant, can you give me a quick oral report now? Any intel?” Salara asked, her voice very quiet.

There in a patch of cold, overhead light, Quant gave her report. At its end, she wrapped it up. “They knew about me being ex-Elite, so you know what that means.”

Salara nodded.

“Yes, we’ve long suspected there was a spy active in the Company, but to have access to such privileged information as Elite records is not anticipated, and alarming. However, it does shorten the list of possible suspects. The Commander will not be pleased by this news. I’m sorry, Quant, but it isn’t safe for you in Inid City any more. It’s probably best if you disappeared and went elsewhere. Are you sure you won’t come back to Grenya with us?”

“Flick it, Salara, are you unbalanced? I can’t leave E’gli like that.”

Salara’s cat-yellow eyes shifted away, then looked back again.

“You’re right, of course.” She took something out of a hidden pocket and held it out to Quant. In the middle of her hand was a pink triangular-shaped credit voucher. “Here’s the other half of your payment, plus a 25,000 bonus,” she said.

Quant had forgotten about the money. She was more tired than she thought. “I messed up pretty badly, letting Bayron run. Zy-Kaar will think I don’t deserve the rest of my fee, much less a bonus.” 

Salara’s immobile face suddenly shifted into a slight frown. She was displeased.

“The Commander has nothing to say about it. You are my agent. Your job was to bring us Theelian alive and you did that. The money is yours.”

Quant took the voucher and put it in a vest pocket.

“Send me a full coded report on this?” Salara asked.

“You’re kidding? All the codes I know are staryears out of date,” Quant said with uncertain surprise.

Salara shrugged and the tiny wings bobbed on her back. Amusement touched the corners of her mouth.

“It doesn’t matter; the codes are so old, they’re new, and the channels are always secure.”

Quant nodded. “Yes. I’ll let you know how things turn out.”

 “I know the Commander is impatient. I must go. I hope we meet again, Quant. Good journey.”

She held out her hand. Quant paused only momentarily as she clasped the up-raised, smaller hand with her un-burnt hand, returning the brief pressure of skin to skin contact.

 “Good journey, Salara,” she said and meant it.

**********************************************************

Epilogue

Quant lands the big industrial skyglydder on the glydderpatch besides Vo-E’gli’s modest home. The streets are empty and all the surrounding houses, identical, concrete and beehive-shaped, are dark.

From here, Crad Island is a faint, blue glow on the eastern clouds. It is an hour or so until dawn. The rain she had scented earlier falls now in a shower of coolness. The battered old skyglydder she and E’gli own, sits on the glydderpatch next to her. Their house is dark. Quant turns to Ahnya who is bent over in the back seat.

“Ahnya, we’re at my house. I’m going inside. Stay here until I make sure everything is safe. Ahnya?”

Ahnya is silent. Quant can see her trembling body huddling on the seat. Quant sighs.

Poor thing. She’s torn up about her brother’s death.

“Just—stay here, Ahnya. I’ll be right back.”

Quant opens the door and slips out of the skyglydder. The rain feels wonderful on her skin, washing away the salty bay water residue.  

From a vest pocket, she takes a rayer in her un-injured hand and creeps noiselessly down the side of the house to the rear door. She taps in the lock code sequence and the door slides silently open.

A smell slaps her in the face, a rank, putrid smell.

No—, she thinks as she follows the smell through the house, careless now as she hurries.

 She stops at the bedroom door and presses the control panel for entry. The door opens; a concentrated version of the fetid stink rushes out at her. Her stomach churns and roils.

 Noooo–

Her rayer dangles from her limp hand and falls to the floor. She reaches inside the door and fumbles for the light control. The room springs into sudden white light. Her dazzled eyes squint against the glare as she stumbles forward. She sees the outline of their bed and stops, swaying slightly before it. Her vision clears and she looks down.

E’gli is in the waterbed.

He is lying in water that is black and clotted with blood, his body bloated twice its normal size with decay. From his empty eye sockets, hundreds of thready red worms wave and wriggle as they feast. Scavanger bugs cover his outstretched arms floating on the thick water, eating dead flesh and planting eggs behind them. His tipped-back head is nearly severed through at the neck where a jagged, gaping hole sprouts more scavanger bug baby worms, gorging on what’s left of his ripped-out throat.

He has been dead for a long time. A very, long time.

Quant closes her eyes and tilts her head back. Her stiff lips peel back from her shark’s teeth and her slender purple tongue extends to its limits.

“NOOOOO!”

Her scream pours out of her throat and floats away. 

The End

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