Chapter 20: N’lln Outskirts, Neek

If you’re going to be with an eld, then use your position. Learn about your abilities. Temper your reactions. In this, you can’t make mistakes. You must be perfect. You must be the example the Eld, and all the Ardulans, use for what a flare can be.

—Communication from Advisor Corccinth to Emn, first month of Squinth 1_16

 

JANUARY 27TH, 2061 CE

 

“There are still live trees here,” Miketh said as Emn stopped the land skiff in a small clearing. It was predawn, but the stars and the ships above were obscured by the thick smoke trapped in the atmosphere. Closer to the ground, Emn could see well into the forest, especially with the track lighting on. It was pretty, despite the haze, but the view didn’t settle the fluttering in Emn’s chest, nor the tightness in her stomach. Maybe it was a good thing she couldn’t see into the morning sky. That meant she couldn’t see the ships—the pods, the skiffs, the…the Risalian cutters. It meant she could pretend, for a few extra, precious seconds, that she wasn’t about to walk back into a nightmare.

“Are we looking for something?” Miketh asked as she looked skyward through the viewscreen. “Can’t see a thing with all the smoke.”

Emn shook her head. “Visibility doesn’t much matter. The ship coming for us has been given coordinates.”

Miketh gave her a sharp look. “Ship?”

Emn shrugged and kicked at the floor. “Eld Atalant’s orders.”

Miketh shifted uncomfortably, but did not respond. Emn continued to stare at the forest. This patch of untouched old-growth andal was covered in thick moss. The trees were spaced widely apart, and the ground plants did not look scorched. Atalant’s family’s land, perhaps? That…should have been comforting, but it wasn’t.

“I understand the often convoluted logic of a Mind Talent as much as anyone, but wouldn’t it be better to use the remains of the burned andal?” Miketh prodded. “All I see out here are living trees.”

“We won’t be here for long,” Emn responded.

“But what about—” Miketh frowned and turned to look out the viewscreen.

“I’ll be using the cellulose from the downed trees, I promise. We just… This is a good spot for right now. Lots of cover. Put your faith in the Eld. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”

Miketh sighed. “More than a cursory discussion of this plan of Eld Atalant’s would help with that.”

Emn gave her a half smile and tapped a series of commands into the computer, preparing the encrypted message for the Ttynn Atalant had given her before they parted ways.

“We’re almost ready. Just have to wait now while I send this message. I don’t think it will be too long, not with Yorden coordinating with the Risalians.”

Miketh folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “That still doesn’t tell me very much.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Emn ran a hand through her short hair and leaned against the bulkhead. She briefly considered sending a message to Atalant while they waited, but decided against it. Atalant had enough beings talking to her right now. Besides, they’d already spoken about this step. Emn had to deal with her past as much as Atalant did, whether that meant listening to the Risalians and telling them to fuck off or maybe working with them. Emn just had to keep reminding herself that she wouldn’t be facing them alone. Miketh was coming with her and Yorden was on the Ttynn, which would be stationed right next to the Kelm. Help would be close, if she needed it, and the Kelm still had cellulosic components.

Miketh cleared her throat.

“Anxious?” Emn asked, trying to infuse some humor into her tone.

Miketh snorted. “Terrified, if we’re being honest. I wish you’d just tell me what is going on.”

More amused by Miketh’s persistence than anything else, Emn smiled. “I will, in a minute. Let me finish the message first, and then we will have time to talk.” She traced her hand across the console and mentally queried the computer, ensuring her message had gone through. Miketh leaned against the console at the same moment and saw the text before Emn had a chance to clear it from the screen.

We’re at the agreed-upon coordinates and ready for Mmnnuggl pickup.

Miketh spun on her heels and grabbed Emn’s hands. “What are you doing?” she demanded as her fingernails dug into Emn’s skin. “Mmnnuggls? I thought we were talking about Risalians! Do you know what those spheres are capable of?”

Emn didn’t pull away. There wasn’t anything Miketh could do at this point. Everything was in motion, as much as she didn’t want it to be. Risalians. Andal help her, why had she agreed to this?

“We’re far enough from any homes or cities, and the Heaven Guard are all occupied. A small Nugel pod will be here shortly to pick us up.” Emn kept her voice as even as possible, even though her mind screamed for her to turn around and go back to the temple, find some other way to help in the attack. “It’s Eld Atalant’s plan, Miketh. I have to be with the Risalians when everything happens. There can be no suspicion.”

Miketh’s eyebrows knitted together, but she dropped Emn’s hands. “This part of the plan could have been clarified further, especially since you and Eld Atalant both know Eld Ekimet would not have approved. Eld Atalant didn’t… She didn’t trade you, did she?” Her tone was thick with confusion. “Trade us?”

The console chirped. Emn quickly confirmed the pod’s identifier and then lowered the ship’s ramp and stepped down into the damp forest.

“Hey!” Miketh called, running down the ramp after her. “Kill switch operator or sacrifice? I deserve to know.”

Emn looked up into the night sky. There was a lingering smoke cloud just above the canopy of the forest, making the descending black sphere seem more ominous. Air pushed against Emn’s face and tossed her short hair about as the pod began its landing sequence.

“Your job hasn’t changed. The location has. Atalant didn’t have time to argue the specifics with the other elds. Just come with me and let me do the talking. I still have to pull the andal—I just have to do it remotely. For right now, we’re Nugel prisoners.”

The dark pod landed and slowly split in two, revealing a green interior. From the seam, a clumsily constructed stairway tumbled down. Emn grabbed Miketh by her sash and pulled her up the stairs and into the pod. Mercifully, Miketh stayed quiet.

The usual lime lighting in the pod interior was fainter than normal, but the ceilings were just as low. Watch your head, Emn advised right before Miketh tried to stand to full height and banged her head against the ceiling.

Titha dung! Miketh swore across their link. I hate Mmnnuggl ships. Nothing about them is intuitive.

Not for a biped, anyway. Since there was no one to greet them and the stairway had already retracted, Emn led Miketh through the curving corridor towards a wedge of bright-green light. The metal was cool under Emn’s bare feet. She tried not to think about the last time she’d been on a Mmnnuggl pod. At least she didn’t have to fly this one.

The pod shuddered once, and Emn caught the telltale sounds of the engine engaging. The rush of pressure from the artificial gravity drive came next. Emn’s ears popped, and she looked back to see Miketh stretching her jaw. The ascension sequence had almost finished. In another few moments, they’d be in space. There’s cellulose on the Risalian ship, Emn repeated to herself as they walked. Risalians burn easily. I’m not a captive. I’m not their captive. Ran is dead.

They rounded the corner to a wide, brightly lit room. Inside, two spheres, both lilac, rolled in tight circles on the floor. Emn stepped into the room and sat down with her back against the wall, trying to ignore how coarse the floor felt through her flight suit. Miketh remained in the doorway, staring at the spheres with a perplexed expression, until Emn tugged her down.

“We are in your custody,” Emn said once Miketh had settled. The Mmnnuggls stopped their movements, rose, and stacked on top of one another.

“The Conqueror commands even the strongest of Ardulans,” the sphere with the red-tipped ears said.

“The Risalians will remove the threat!” the other said in a jubilant tone. “Ardulans will threaten the Mmnnuggl species no longer!”

“You think we’re a threat to you?” Miketh started to stand, but Emn pulled her back down. There was no cellulose on this ship. If the Mmnnuggls changed their minds about the Risalian delivery, Emn and Miketh would be trapped.

It’s all right, Miketh, she sent, trying to soothe. Try to play along. We’re prisoners, remember? Do not make them think otherwise.

Prisoners can still be outraged, Miketh argued. She sat back down, but continued to speak. “You trapped Ekimet and me on Ggllot and held us ransom. You had every intention of killing us. You slaughtered hundreds of Ardulans only two weeks ago. We are not a threat. You, conversely, are paranoid and idiotic.”

The Mmnnuggl with the red ears chittered angrily, while the other landed back on the floor and began to rock back and forth. Emn put a hand on Miketh’s shoulder. Now isn’t the time for anger. Save it for later.

For when I have to shoot you? Not a good idea.

There was a sudden rolling sensation, and then the engines cut off.

“Stand!” the Mmnnuggls commanded in unison.

Emn stood, nodding at Miketh to do the same.

No commands followed, but they weren’t needed. Emn could already hear the distinctive shuffling gait of Risalian claws picking across the jagged pod floor. Stay calm, she told herself as her heart pounded. You’re not a little girl. Ran is dead. You killed hir. The old Markin are dead. There is cellulose on the Risalian ship. You don’t have to be afraid.

The footsteps got louder. Closer. Emn’s heart raced.

A markin stepped into the room. Hir blue tunic fit loosely over hir standard Risalian musculature. Hir hair was bound in a bun atop hir head. Emn unconsciously took a step back and landed on Miketh’s foot.

Is your terror part of the plan? Miketh asked. It’s very convincing.

“I am Markin Pihn. Come. Now.” The markin snapped hir fingers and looked at Emn expectantly. When she didn’t immediately come forward, xe tilted hir head, looked questioningly at Emn, and grabbed her by the arm.

“Now!” Xe wrenched her forward, straining her shoulder. Emn stumbled as Pihn pulled her from the room. Miketh’s confusion leaked into Emn’s mind, and she tried to assuage her. Just have to play along, she said, both for Miketh’s benefit and her own. It has to be convincing.

It’s working, Miketh said dryly as she followed them into the pod’s hallway and down the boarding ramp. Emn squinted in the brighter lighting of the Risalian cutter’s docking bay.

Are you always this scared of Risalians? Miketh sent.

I’m not fond of the ones in blue or yellow. Emn tripped on the transition from the boarding ramp to the ground, but Pihn’s grip kept her from smashing her face into the floor. Another Risalian might have let her fall, she reminded herself. Pihn was here to help. Pihn was working with Yorden. Pihn was not Ran.

Of course, it didn’t feel like help when the lilac Mmnnuggls bobbed into the open slit of their ship, watching, and Pihn tossed her to the porous metal floor. It didn’t feel like help when Pihn swept Miketh’s legs out from under her and she landed on top of Emn in a surprised heap. It didn’t feel like help when Pihn thanked the Mmnnuggls, handed them a bag of what looked like sapphires, and promised to send Emn over once the battle subsided.

A little warning that we were going to be tossed around would have been helpful. Miketh pushed herself up and offered a hand to Emn. Emn stayed down until the Mmnnuggls turned back inside their pod, brought the ramp back up, and the ship closed. Only after the pod left the docking bay did Emn take Miketh’s hand and move to her knees.

“Can we stand yet?” Miketh whispered in Emn’s ear.

“I don’t know.” Emn looked around the hangar. A Risalian honor guard of some twenty seconds and thirds lined the walls, looking stiff and childish in their wrinkled tunics. Some fidgeted, and one near Emn yawned.

Markin Pihn left the console xe had moved to, knelt down, and offered her a hand up. “My apologies, Emn. Miketh.” Emn stood without taking hir hand. She felt Miketh’s presence in her mind turn to a question, but did not acknowledge her. “Captain Yorden is standing by over an encrypted line if you would like to speak with him?”

“I’m fine,” Emn said curtly. “We don’t have time. Atalant and the Guard are in their ships and waiting.” She took a more critical look around. “This space will work for my needs, unless you had another in mind?”

“Anywhere you like is fine,” Pihn responded. Emn caught the slight blush of purple on hir skin. She had a sudden, very irrational desire to punch Pihn in the neck. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t accomplish anything.

It would be counterproductive for the time being, Miketh said. Emn hadn’t realized she was broadcasting. Might be cathartic later. Let me know if you want help.

Emn snorted and gently pushed Miketh from her mind. To calm herself, she reached back to the place where Atalant’s consciousness resided and nudged the area. Set, Atalant? she asked. I’m onboard the Kelm. I will need several minutes to gather a sufficient mass of cellulose and another minute to break the flotsam into appropriate pieces. I don’t know if I’ll be able to talk to you while I’m coordinating everything so…five minutes to start?

Atalant’s voice, when it responded, was distant. Emn caught the echoes of the andal and the other elds in the periphery. Five minutes, she confirmed. We will play the recording now. Be safe, Emn. Don’t take on more than you can handle up there.

Emn cut their connection without responding. There wasn’t time, and there was nothing to say that hadn’t already been said. They’d stolen a few moments together right before Emn and Miketh had departed, precious moments they’d had far too few of. This time, Atalant had been the one desperate to find the places that made Emn squirm. Atalant’s hands under her shirt, cupping her breasts. Atalant’s mouth on hers, insistent and demanding. Emn telling Atalant that she loved her, that they would see each other again. That, after all of this—the exiles and the battles and whole planets going to war—nothing would keep them apart.

Emn really hoped that was true.

“The message is about to start,” she said to Pihn. “Miketh, would you come with me?” Miketh nodded, and the two walked to the nearest console. It took Emn a moment to reorient herself to the Risalian technology, but after a few taps, she was able to open the comm. She set the receiver to the Neek open broadcast signal that could be seen by any of the orbital fleets and turned the volume up as high as it could go.

Get ready, she told Miketh. Emn spared only a moment to nod at Pihn. Xe handed Emn a fistful of andal segments, which she shoved into her mouth.

What, specifically, do you want me to do if you start tearing this ship apart?

Get in contact with Atalant. If that doesn’t work, shoot me.

Miketh took a step back and nodded, her mouth a grim line. The prerecorded message began a heartbeat later. On the interface screen, and across all the interface screens in the hangar, an image of Ekimet and Atalant appeared. They were standing on a balcony of wood, set against the night sky. Interior lighting spilled from the left, leaving the elds partially in shadow. Their golden robes were uniform, perfectly fitted, and their sashes were tied with ceremonial knots around the buckles. Atalant was the taller of the two, and even though Emn knew that they’d staged this, she couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her back.

“Do you know what it is to be Ardulan?” the transmission asked in Emn’s voice. The recorded Emn walked in front of the elds in her short, blue dress, the markings across her skin vibrant in the half-light. Miketh joined her, also wearing a dress short enough to show off the markings on her calf.

Outside of the recording, Emn began to chew on the andal, making sure to time everything just right. The soft, seasoned wood burst sap across her tongue and down her throat. The cellulose broke down almost immediately, giving her enough energy to reach the Neek planet. Enough energy to draw out the polymer from the ship with ease, if she wanted. She could feel it throughout the cutter. It pulsed with life, in time with the andal’s consciousness. And just behind her harvested energy was the lingering pain of the burned andal, tugging at Emn’s mind and begging her for help.

“Do you know what it is to be of Ardulum?” The High Priest of Neek came next, his golden robes changed to crimson, and stood between the holographic Emn and Miketh.

Emn let her mind sweep the planet. There was so little living forest left that she decided to settle on the closest burn. Some trees still flamed an internal ghostly purple, but mostly, there was only silence. She gathered the twigs and broken stems, the dead roots and crowns that lay too mutely on the charred ground. She gathered them all, hectares upon hectares. From the bodies, she pulled the cellulose in its long crystalline strands, leaving crumbling bones of hemicellulose and lignin behind. The crystallites themselves she gathered in widely spaced clumps, careful to keep the individual strands separate. She didn’t need all the energy all at once. It needed to flow slowly and evenly, and the process had to be automated properly. Emn mapped the path with her mind as she pushed at the cellulose chains to link end to end. Once she was able to take her mind from that task, she took the chains and braided them tightly together, first manually, and then, with a push from the digested andal, she sent the command across the planet.

This was the easy part. The beautiful part, she noted as the crystalline chains formed. She’d done as much as a first don, even caged with her mother on Captain Ran’s cutter. Emn had been bred for this.

“Do you even understand what they do?” Nicholas’s voice held a touch more sarcasm than it should have, but the holographic Atalant smiled as the Journey youth moved to stand next to Emn.

The group then turned to face the elds. The Neek and Ardulans took a knee and bowed their heads. Nicholas stepped to the side and saluted crisply.

Bonds formed. Energy released. Emn held the energy at bay as she double-checked the automation process. She pushed farther into the charred forest, monitoring the stripping cellulose and the binding of the polymer chains. Still simple. Still manageable. Skill, and nothing more. Forests of charred trees and smoking canopies crushed to dust in her wake.

“We do not ask for your worship. Those are the voices of the past,” Ekimet spoke in a whisper. “To seek the understanding of Ardulum is a noble path, but it is not for all beings. We understand our actions are confusing. Only the Eld can understand the andal.”

Trees cracked and broke apart into a brown powder, leaving curls of bark amongst the trillium and sedge. Energy swarmed, and Emn bundled it in sectioned rows. She was no child on a Risalian cutter any longer. Here, she collected and held a planet’s energy, focused and controlled, as her flare Talents allowed. Emn felt stretched, mentally and physically, but not uncomfortably so. She was trained. She was ready. She was Ardulan.

With her attention no longer needed for the bonding and with the energy continuing to flow, Emn turned her mind skyward to the ring of debris that orbited Neek. She mapped it—every piece—and earmarked the weakest points. She brought the pieces together, focusing on the ones that were intact enough and still had cellulose in their cores. When everything was mapped, outlined, and placed, Emn brought the accumulated energy up through the atmosphere of Neek and dangled it near the flotsam. She wasn’t the conduit—she would not channel it through herself—but the very act of holding the energy together strained her mind and threatened to consume her internal reserves. She waited for the message to end.

“We will not, however,” Ekimet continued, “allow harm to come to those who are of Ardulum, who choose to worship Ardulum.”

Atalant stepped forward. The shadow left her face, and she purposefully brushed some loose hair behind her ear with one hand, displaying all eight fingers. “Leave.” Her command was loud, likely blaring into the ships that had turned the volume up to hear the soft voice of Ekimet. “Leave, and you will not be harmed. Stay, and you will be killed. There will be no other warnings.”

The transmission terminated. Emn counted in her head, slowly, for a full minute—just enough time to ensure Atalant and the Heaven Guard were in place. When it was over, she took a deep breath, grabbed Miketh’s hand for physical support, and released the energy.

It burst forward at the broken ships in targeted pulses. Emn couldn’t see it, not through the hangar windows, but she could feel the effects in her mind. The energy hit the sections of biometal and broke them apart. She couldn’t relax, not as much as she wanted to, but it was a relief, at least, to push instead of hold. Careful not to let the chain reaction catch onto the flotsam—she needed to keep the metal strong—Emn chased each broken piece and hit it again. And again. Hundreds of pieces became thousands, and with another push, Emn sent the biometal out of Neek’s orbit and spiraling into the awaiting fleet. It streaked past the windows of the hangar bay, and Miketh’s grip on Emn’s hand tightened as, just behind the cloud of debris, a magenta acorn-shaped ship and fourteen settees appeared in blaring crimson.

Blood vessels began to rupture, and maroon dripped from Emn’s ears. She needed to pull back, wanted to pull back, but could not. There could be no breaks and relief in a miracle. Emn sent another round of waves, the chunks of biometal fracturing even more. After one final pulse, Emn paused to assess. The debris continued floating outward, and so Emn directed it back towards the fleet—surrounding the ships—before drawing some of the flotsam towards the planet.

For the first time, Emn said a small, silent prayer to the living andal of Ardulum. Then, she dropped Miketh’s hand and waited for Atalant’s next move. Emn’s automation continued on the planet below—pulling cellulose and linking chains together. Forming bonds. The accumulated energy grew as it rolled across the decimated forests. Emn drew the energy to her. She felt the heat flush her skin and watched Miketh’s surprise as the other woman shielded her eyes. More energy flowed to her, although Emn was careful to monitor its source. Still, she waited patiently, the acorn ship now out of sight.

Be safe, Atalant.