Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) (18 page)

“Oh, I have surely seen better days, friend.” Branwen was taken by surprise by how rough and wet her voice sounded. She smirked to herself; if she looked half as bad as she felt or sounded, no wonder everyone was so concerned. Merlo was going to have a fit about all of this, whenever she got back. “I am glad to see help arrive, however.”

The Kepo made a mild whining sound, lowering his ears a bit. “You don’t seem so shiny, Captain. Not so shiny at all. The Portside Authority is
mah’yo
,
mah’yo
sorry for this dark, dark thing. Normally, things here, dey’s not so bad.” He gestured behind himself at the two men lying still behind him, still being examined by his soldiers, if “soldier” was indeed the proper word for them. “Is okay now, Captain? Did you get it all under control?” With an odd, high pitched whistle and a gesture, the leader summoned another Kepo over, this one with the distinctive chest fluff and comparatively delicate features that marked her as a female of the species. She gave Branwen a critical look over, then began to unpack a med kit with practiced ease.

“It is now, but I do have an…” She paused to emit a single, wet cough. “Issue you could help me with.” The Kepo nodded briskly, bobbing his head as if eager to be of assistance. “There were two more upstairs, and one is still there, trapped inside our med bay. I believe he is unharmed, and I do not know how well he might be armed, and thusly would appreciate it if you would remove him.” With an abrupt nod that clipped the end of Branwen’s statement, he made a churring, yipping sound, speaking a few words in the fast-paced pidgin they commonly used and sending a pair of his fellows trekking carefully upstairs.

“Now Captain, could you ‘splain it to me what has happened while Mi’aka here tends to your hurts?” He seemed to be eyeing Branwen’s wounds with no small amount of concern, or perhaps he simply didn’t like the sight of blood, either. She’d heard that rumor about the Kepo, and idly wondered if it held true. Behind him, Zimi seemed to be having similar issues, hovering about, wringing her hands and looking both worried and as if she might snatch the medkit from the female Kepo’s hands and apply it herself at any moment.

“My ship’s medic is right behind you; no offense intended, but I think she would prefer to treat me. It is, after all, what I hired her for.” She tried to smile up at Zimi, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on the girl’s somber mood. How bad off
did
she look? She watched as the Kepo medic politely made room for Zimi, though she pointedly kept her attention on the quality of Zimi’s work and the severity of Branwen’s injuries as Zimi began to reveal them. “As for the events that set this into motion, I did not see them.”

Zimi flinched a bit as the conversation was directed toward her, but took a deep breath and began to speak, even as her deft hands worked on moving aside Branwen’s now-bloody clothing to get at her damaged flesh. “Well, I had been outside for I guess about an hour, tryin’ to find us some work, an’ I’d just come back from meetin’ somebody that said they needed some hydroponic plants transferred to Altair, when these guys just came up from outta nowhere…”

Branwen didn’t intend to, but found her attention drifting away from the conversation. It was just getting harder and harder to focus; she found herself reliving her mistakes during the fight, then starting to slip even further backwards in time, dwelling on the fight on Pireida and then going even further back in time. Unbidden, her mind opened up the wounds of mistakes long past even as she absently moved her body to allow Zimi to tend her physical injuries.

“Den what happened, Captain Hawke?” It took her a moment to realize the Kepo leader was speaking to her, even though he was staring straight at her. He chittered softly, an expression crossing his fuzzy face that Branwen couldn’t decipher at the moment. Branwen finally noticed the stirring of an ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach, and realized her instincts were trying to warn her of something, but it seemed vague and distant.

“Well, once I saw they were on board and what they were up to, I waited until they separated, then killed them.” Both Kepo flinched slightly in their near-animal manner at what she figured was the bluntness of her statement, but she didn’t really have the energy to couch her own cultural realities in a more positive light for them. In fact—

“Cap'n, this don’t look so good,” Zimi stated, having been working the graze in Branwen’s side. Branwen barely noticed Zimi’s eyes widen; she felt suddenly very hot, and she realized she’d been sitting there and sweating profusely, her face flushed red. “Hey, look at this—” Zimi leaned over, trying to show the Kepo field doctor something on a length of stained bandage, but she cut off, startled, as Branwen abruptly stood.

Branwen felt the need to move, like suddenly there was something she needed to do, but she didn’t know where she was supposed to be going. Not that it mattered, anyway; she immediately wobbled as a swell of vertigo washed over her, and the
Destiny
rolled and bucked beneath her like a ship at sea. Voices both Kepo and human frantically called out to her as she came crashing down, but she could no longer decipher their words, only their alarm.

7.3
- Merlo

Merlo wandered back toward the
Destiny
as the sun began to set over the distant dunes and red cliffs that made up the backdrop of The Bazaar's horizon. The Bazaar was unlike any city she’d visited before, with densely crowded streets populated by people from worlds all across the clusters.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t saying much overall, since all of these worlds were highly deviant from what she expected of a planet. But still, this one in particular was even more different. There were Kepo of varying appearances everywhere, of course, chittering to one another, loudly and happily hawking a multitude of various wares, or occasionally simply dancing or singing in groups. From what she had observed on her trip through the city today, the Kepo seemed a very happy people in general, and even most of the non-Kepo that made a home or a living here appeared quite cheerful and at ease.

Merlo wished that the planet made her that happy; it was hot here, and even with her suit’s ability to regulate her body temperature, she still wasn’t comfortable. She shifted the position of the small metal box she was carrying under her arm, which was apparently an extra payment, negotiated for getting the shipment there well ahead of schedule.

She wiped a mild yet uncomfortable layer of sweat from the fair skin of her forehead. The yellow-orange of the Kepo system’s single, average star peered relentlessly down at Merlo through the clear, nearly cloudless atmosphere as if keeping a watchful eye on her. Due to the relatively slow rotation of The Bazaar, she knew that the planet had a pretty long day-night cycle, and it could really heat up towards the end of said cycle, which was rapidly approaching.

So she kept walking and waited for either nightfall or her arrival at the
Destiny
to relieve the dry, persistent heat. She almost decided to put her full helmet up so that her face would stop sweating, but she figured the extra attention it would draw wasn’t ultimately worth the additional comfort.

She had well intended to be back by now, but the Kepo to whom she’d delivered their cargo had been the talkative type, to put it mildly. He had thanked her for the efficient delivery incessantly in the weird half-language the Kepo folk seemed to favor and when she’d absently commented about this being her first time on the planet, he’d insisted on giving her a quick tour of the local area.

He’d shown off the varied architecture of the mostly horizontal expanse of this particular city, which contained buildings of almost every style from almost every world, or so he’d claimed. She wasn’t so sure about that. Numerous points of interest competed with a staggering multitude of shops, while in the distance, clustered complexes of “mud-brick” Kepo homes climbed the face of red, rocky cliffs looming over the city. She’d observed that, in what she’d learned today was true Kepo tradition, most buildings were adorned with bright colors or especially reflective materials.

Merlo chuckled to herself. Though she’d felt annoyed at the time, looking back, seeing all of the sights here had actually been pretty nice. She
had
tried repeatedly to excuse herself and make her way back to the ship over the last couple of hours, but hadn’t wanted to offend someone who could become a pretty valuable employer. In the end, as much as she preferred the feel of a ship under her feet, seeing the sights of a planet’s surface—one that wasn’t horrifyingly bug infested or whose natives weren’t trying to kill her Captain—made for an interesting evening. She was looking forward to having a story to tell Branwen, for once, instead of it being the other way around.

She followed the HUD display on the convenient, amber-colored visor her suit manifested for her, tracing a path through the winding marketplace towards her ship, and after a few more minutes, the shiny, distinctive plating of the
Destiny Abounds
came back into view. Immediately, Merlo’s steps began to quicken, lengthening into a ground-devouring jog, her intuition calling to her from deep inside, telling her that something was amiss. The
Destiny’s
ramp was still down, but two Kepo stood a somber vigil outside of it, each wearing an expression she took to be an uneasy one. They, unlike ninety percent of the Kepo she had seen around, each also carried some kind of weapon, a bulky, chrome, rifle-like object peeking out from a holster on their backs, and were wearing some rather flashy blue vests.

Being pretty sharp lookouts, they saw spotted her bee-lining toward the open mouth of the ship and raised a dual set of dark-furred hands to indicate she needed to stop. They seemed rather surprised when she didn’t even slow a beat, dashing right past them and into the belly of the ship before they could decide how to react.

Barely giving her eyes a moment to recover from the sudden lack of sunlight, she rushed forward, barely skidding to a halt in front of a surprising scene: bodies, fortunately not those of her shipmates, strewn bloodily about the cargo hold, with more being carried down the stairs by other blue-vested Kepo. Another Kepo with a bit of distinctive lighter fluff on his shoulders stood in her path, pointing one of the blocky energy weapons directly at her. Yet another wearing a white sash and carrying a medical kit knelt next to Zimi, where they both tended Captain Branwen, sprawled limply near the steps with her heavy coat removed and rolled up to support her head.

Merlo could smell the sickly sweet, metallic odor of blood from where she stood, and could see way too much of it on the Captain for her comfort. “Zimi? What in the ‘verse happened? Is Branwen okay?!”

“Oh, Merlo... There was a fight, an’ she got poisoned,” Zimi’s voice was mournful, yet distracted by her obvious efforts. “I’m afraid it ain’t lookin’ too good.” The Kepo officer in front of her lowered his weapon and stood aside, allowing Merlo to approach closer, though she knew there was little she could do if all the apparent fighting was already over.

Absently shifting her box again, both of Merlo’s hands clenched into livid, white-knuckled fists; why did she always have to feel
so
damned useless? Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a very distraught looking Mr. Leonard peering from a covert position at the top of the stairs.

“But how in the ‘verse did it
happen
?” Merlo felt her anger spiking, feelings of rage and helplessness rising to a fevered pitch inside her. She frantically wanted to
do
something, but there was nothing for her to do, and nowhere appropriate to vent her frustrations. She clenched her teeth and did her best to stay calm. Her anger would not help the Captain any more than her untimely absence had.

“Jiraxan thugs, dey often carry the knives and poisons,” the alert Kepo with the gun said in a quiet voice from beside her. “Sometimes, it happens, dey comes in on a ship, try to hijack another vessel, or rob somebody. Happens pretty much every major port once in a while but the ones on Altair Prime.” To Merlo’s surprise, he made a quiet, agitated snarl, and kicked the nearest corpse, that of a large man covered with vicious, bleeding wounds and cauterized gashes.

Merlo startled slightly when the “corpse” groaned distantly and stirred, as it seemed that individual wasn’t so dead after all. Glancing him over, she could easily tell that the more grievous of his wounds had to have been caused by the Captain’s “Skyblade,” as she sometimes called it. She felt a momentary surge of pride in her Captain’s efforts, but that feeling was soon unseated by the return of the distant rage and helpless bleakness of the situation. Once again, she found her hands clenching tightly of their own accord.

7. 4
- Branwen

Branwen drifted again in that deep, dark, starless sea. Absently, she felt a distant, burning sensation, but it was very far away, almost as if it belonged to someone else entirely. This time, unlike the last, she felt as if she were slowly sinking into this obsidian void, with that far-off burning slowly becoming ever further away.

Bodiless, she waited there, and, bit by bit, visions seemed to coalesce out of the inky, swirling pitch. She saw, in her mind’s eye, a woman; platinum blond hair cropped messily short, a black, tight fitting tunic and dark, dyed leather leggings clinging to her shapely figure. Her skin was fair, though not quite the light complexion of those from the far northern Realms, like Tor Valis, and her eyes were crystalline ice.